50 environmental & EJ groups urge NRC to indefinitely extend Holtec CISF DEIS public comment period till after pandemic emergency, add meetings across country

A coalition of 50 environmental and environmental justice groups has written the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) regarding Holtec International's proposed Consolidated Interim Storage Facility (CISF) for irradiated nuclear fuel targeting New Mexico. See the letter, here.

The coalition urges NRC to:

indefinitely extend, for the duration of the national COVID-19 pandemic emergency, the ongoing public comment period for the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) for the Holtec CISF planned for development in Lea County, New Mexico. At the formal termination of the national emergency as declared by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC), we request that the public comment period be extended for a period of 199 days. We further request that when in-person hearings again become possible that the NRC conduct plenary-style public hearings in 5 already- proposed cities in New Mexico as well as in each of 18 other cities listed later in this letter.

The 199-day public comment period (as opposed to NRC's current 60-day public comment period, set to end on May 22, 2020), and 23 public comment meetings in a dozen states, would match the U.S. Department of Energy's public comment proceeding at the DEIS phase of the proposed Yucca Mountain, Nevada permanent repository scheme, targeted at Western Shoshone Indian lands.

The environmental coalition letter comes five days after the entire New Mexico U.S. congressional delegation wrote NRC, also urging public comment meetings across the Land of Enchantment be delayed until after the pandemic emergency ends, and the public comment period be held open until after the in-person meetings are held.

Of the 50 groups on the NGO letter, 7 are from NM: Alliance for Environmental Strategies (AFES); Citizen Action New Mexico; Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety; Indigenous Rights Center; Multi-Cultural Alliance for Safe Energy; Nuclear Issues Study Group (NISG); and Sierra Club Rio Grande Chapter.

Of these, AFES, NISG, and Sierra Club officially intervened against Holtec's CISF.

Terry Lodge, an attorney based in Toledo, Ohio, represents seven grassroots environmental groups nationwide (including NISG), which have officially intervened in the NRC Atomic Safety and Licensing Board proceedings in opposition to the Holtec CISF.

Regarding the coalition letter to NRC, Lodge said: "The NRC's official position, that tens of thousands of extremely dangerous radioactive waste shipments are not even worth discussing in a scientific and public manner, is a dramatic red flag. There is zero justification to rush this ill-considered cash cow to licensing. The NRC must not be allowed to take advantage of the pandemic to ramrod a decision in the shadows."

Beyond Nuclear is also an official intervenor in the NRC ASLB proceedings, opposed to Holtec's CISF.

Update on May 1, 2020 by admin

On May 1st, NRC essentially told us to go jump in a lake. Our 50 group NGO letter of March 25 to NRC, above, combined with the united NM US congressional delegation letter of March 20, did force NRC to give us 60 more days for public comment.

So that's a 120-day public comment period altogether. Instead of a May 22nd deadline, we now face a July 22nd deadline.

But NRC rejected most of our requests. We had called for 199 days for public comment. We had called for two-dozen public comment meetings in a dozen states, including outside of NM on transport routes. We had called for the countdown clock to not even start till after the pandemic. We had called for in-person public meetings after the pandemic, so they'd be safe.

See NRC's email to coalition legal counsel Terry Lodge, below, as well as a link to the NRC's letter.

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: NMSS_DSFM_Admin Resource <NMSS_DSFM_Admin.Resource@nrc.gov>
Date: Mon, May 4, 2020 at 11:28 AM
Subject: SUBJECT: Letter to T. Lodge from A. Kock, USNRC re: Docket ID NRC-2018-0052, Holtec International HI–STORE CISF (Request for DEIS public omment [sic, comment] period extension and additional public meetings)

SUBJECT: Letter to T. Lodge from A. Kock, NRC re: Docket ID NRC-2018-0052, Holtec International HI–STORE CISF (Request for DEIS public comment period extension and additional public meetings)

Dear Mr. Lodge, et. al.,

Attached [linked here] for your information is the US NRC’s response to your letter dated March 25, 2020.

Regards,

Staff of the US NRC

NM's U.S. congressional delegation urges NRC to postpone Holtec CISF DEIS meetings, extend public comment deadline

See the letter, signed by NM's two U.S. Senators and three U.S. Representatives (all Democrats), addressed to U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) chairman Kristine Svinicki.

The letter calls on NRC to postpone a series of public meetings, scheduled for southern NM in mid-April, and northern NM in early May, re: the NRC staff's Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) on the Holtec International/Eddy-Lea Energy Alliance scheme for an irradiated nuclear fuel consolidated interim storage facility (CISF). It also calls for the 60-day public comment period to be extended.

Update on March 21, 2020 by admin

The AP has reported on this story.

The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) Opens Comment Period on the Draft EIS for the Holtec HI-STORE Consolidated Interim Storage Facility Application (Federal Register Notice)

See the 488-page DEIS posted online here.

---------------------------------------------------------

From: NMSS_DSFM_Admin Resource <NMSS_DSFM_Admin.Resource@nrc.gov>

 SUBJECT: The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) Opens Comment Period on the Draft EIS for the Holtec HI-STORE Consolidated Interim Storage Facility Application

Date: March 20, 2020 at 10:43:48 CDT

The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) Opens Comment Period on the Draft EIS for the Holtec HI-STORE Consolidated Interim Storage Facility Application

 

Federal Register Notices have been issued noticing the availability of the NRC’s draft Environmental Impact Statement for the Holtec Hi-Store Consolidated Interim Storage Facility application and initiating the public comment period.  

 

The US Environmental Protection Agency notice can be accessed at: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2020/03/20/2020-05882/environmental-impact-statements-notice-of-availability

 

The NRC’s notice can be accessed at: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2020/03/20/2020-05690/holtec-international-hi-store-consolidated-interim-storage-facility-project

 

You may submit comments by any of the following methods: 

 

• Federal Rulemaking Web Site:  Go to https://www.regulations.gov/ and search for Docket ID NRC-2018-0052.  Address questions about NRC docket IDs to Jennifer Borges; telephone:  301-287-9127; e-mail:  Jennifer.Borges@nrc.gov. 
• Mail comments to:  Office of Administration, Mail Stop: TWFN-7-A60M, ATTN: Program Management, Announcements and Editing Staff, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001.
• E-mail comments to:  Holtec-CISFEIS@nrc.gov.

 

The NRC cautions you not to include identifying or contact information that you do not want to be publicly disclosed in your comment submission.  The NRC posts all comment submissions athttps://www.regulations.gov and enters all comment submissions into ADAMS, the NRC’s document filing system.

[Also see the Federal Register Notice posted here.]

[See NRC's docket regarding this DEIS publication in the Federal Register here.]

Update on March 20, 2020 by admin

The Sand Paper has reported on this.

Interim Storage / NRC Issues Draft Environmental Impact Statement For Holtec Facility In New Mexico

As reported by NucNet.

NRC DEIS for Holtec CISF, NM is out; demand more public comment meetings & deadline extension!

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has published the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) for the Holtec International/Eddy-Lea Energy Alliance irradiated nuclear fuel consolidated interim storage facility (CISF) in New Mexico. See the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) press release, linked here. And see the 488-page NRC DEIS linked here. It is entitled NUREG-2237 DFC, "Environmental Impact Statement for the (sic) Holtec International's License Application for a Consolidated Interim Storage Facility for Spent Nuclear Fuel and High Level Waste." The executive summary is 40 pages long; it is linked here.

NRC has granted only 60 days for public comment, as compared to the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) 199 days for the proposed Yucca Mountain, Nevada dump-site -- targeted at Western Shoshone land -- at the same DEIS stage in 1999 to 2000. But Holtec's CISF proposal is actually 2.5 times larger than Yucca, 173,600 metric tons of irradiated nuclear fuel versus 70,000 MT. Thus, Holtec's transport volume, risks, and impacts will be 2.5 times worse than Yucca's! (See Yucca-bound routes and volumes, here.) Despite this, NRC has yet again given very short shrift to transport, complicit with Holtec in keeping routes largely secret. Remarkably, NRC seems to have provided even less information than Holtec did in its 2018 Environmental Report. Holtec provided a single transport route map (see image, above left; see a legible version, posted online here), accounting for only four (three at San Onofre, CA; one at Maine Yankee) of the around 119 atomic reactor origin points for shipments. What about the other 115?! Outrageously, Holtec and NRC are trying to keep the public in the dark about the CISF scheme's large transport impacts, including on Environmental Justice!

In addition, NRC has scheduled only five public comment meetings, exclusively in New Mexico (April 14, Roswell; April 15, Hobbs; April 16, Carlsbad; Albuquerque, May 5; Gallup, May 6). But DOE held 24 public comment meetings, not just in Nevada, but in a dozen more states along transport routes nationwide, during Yucca's DEIS stage. Truth be told, Holtec's CISF transport risks will impact most states in the Lower 48, just like Yucca would, only the information is being kept secret, an unacceptable violation of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA; see a coalition letter, sent by attorney Terry Lodge on behalf of a coalition of more than 50 groups, including Beyond Nuclear, to the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ), in defense of NEPA, opposing the Trump administration's proposed gutting; Lodge also serves as legal counsel for Don't Waste Michigan, et al., a seven-group coalition opposed to Holtec's CISF)!  

 

Please contact your U.S. Representative, and both your U.S. Senators. Urge them to demand that NRC hold a public comment meeting in your congressional district/state. Also urge that they demand NRC extend the public comment period to 199 days. You can phone your Congress Members' D.C. offices via the U.S. Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121.

 

Re: NRC's DEIS, Beyond Nuclear will write sample comments you can use to submit your own, ASAP. Learn more about the environmental injustice of the proposed CISFs (including Interim Storage Partners' at Waste Control Specialists in west Texas, just 39 miles from Holtec's in NM) at our Centralized Storage website section. (The publication of NRC's DEIS for the ISP/WCS CISF can be expected in about six weeks, as well.)