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Centralized Storage

With the scientifically unsound proposed Yucca Mountain radioactive waste dump now canceled, the danger of "interim" storage threatens. This means that radioactive waste could be "temporarily" parked in open air lots, vulnerable to accident and attack, while a new repository site is sought.

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Entries by admin (702)

Tuesday
Sep222020

Beyond Nuclear's 31st set of comments, re: Docket ID NRC-2018-0052, NRC's Holtec/ELEA CISF DEIS

As submitted via <holtec-cisfeis@nrc.gov>

Dear Holtec-CISFEIS Resource and NRC Staff, 

This is Beyond Nuclear's 31st set of public comments in this proceeding.

I submit these comments on behalf of our members and supporters, not only in New Mexico, near the targeted Holtec/ELEA Laguna Gatuna site, but across New Mexico, and the rest of the country, along road, rail, and waterway routes that would be used for high risk, highly radioactive waste shipments to Holtec's CISF, as well as to Yucca Mountain, Nevada, on Western Shoshone land -- illegally and improperly assumed by Holtec, as well as NRC, to someday become a permanent disposal repository.

Due especially to the numerous problems I have experienced submitting public comments via this <holtec-cisfeis@nrc.gov> email address, please acknowledge receipt of these comments, and please provide me with confirmation of their proper placement in the official public record for this proceeding.

This set of comments is in regards to process elements of the public comment proceeding, but also substance elements of the DEIS, and related documentation. As mentioned at the very end of my 29th set of comments, this 31st set picks up where the 29th set left off. (To be clear, the 30th set of comments submitted by Beyond Nuclear was submitted on behalf of 113 organizations, comprising the coalition's public comment letter.)

Returning to the June 23rd slideshow's Slide 8, re: "NEPA – National Environmental Policy Act...Disclosure of environmental impacts," I am left wondering how many times, in how many different ways, NRC violated NEPA in its DEIS? As mentioned in my previously submitted comments, as well as by others undoubtedly, NRC essentially did not do a transportation risk analysis; it failed to consider the very large ("EXTRA LARGE," as Sue Schuurman of NISG put it in her previous verbal comments) impacts associated with the high risk that the Holtec CISF, rather than being "interim" or "temporary," would actually become, by default, a de facto permanent, surface storage, parking lot dump; NRC's DEIS EJ analysis itself violates EJ; etc.

Re: "ASLB issues findings," as I previously commented, ASLB terminated the licensing proceeding so abruptly (in May 2019), slamming the door in the public's face, that the filing of new contentions based on material, new information contained in the DEIS itself (not published till March 2020), placed an inappropriately heavy burden intervenors. In the case of Beyond Nuclear and Don't Waste MI et al., the NRC Commissioners' unanimous agreement with the ASLB that Beyond Nuclear had no contentions worthy of hearing on the merits, and that Don't Waste MI et al. not only had no contentions worthy of hearing, but also that Don't Waste MI et al. had no legal standing in the licensing, clearly revealed ASLB's and the NRC Commissioners' bias in favor of Holtec's scheme and the CISF concept in general, but also attempted to gut intervenors' options for legal recourse, based on the content of the NRC Staff DEIS. And as commented previously, NRC Staff has also clearly demonstrated its bias in favor of the Holtec scheme, and CISFs in general, on multiple occasions.

June 23rd's Slide #9 mentions "quality assurance." our 6th set of comments, reproduced directly below, addressed Holtec's flagrant, widespread, safety-significant QA violations, which NRC has done little to nothing about, even though having been notified two decades ago by whistle-blowers:

Beyond Nuclear public comments #6, re: NRC's Holtec/ELEA CISF DEIS, Docket ID NRC-2018-0052 -- re: Shirani and Landsman whistle-blowing about Holtec's quality assurance (QA) violations; Holtec engagement in bribery, lying about it, and resultant criminal investigation

Submitted via: <holtec-cisfeis@nrc.gov>

Dear NRC Staff,

Whistleblowers -- namely Oscar Shirani at Commonwealth Edison/Exelon, and Dr. Ross Landsman at NRC -- first revealed widespread quality assurance violations by Holtec in the design and fabrication of its containers in the early 2000s.

Here is a summary of Shirani and Landsman's allegations, contained within brackets below, which I wrote on July 22, 2004 (as posted online here: <https://web.archive.org/web/20160130044911/http://www.nirs.org/radwaste/atreactorstorage/shiranialleg04.htm>:

[Summary of Oscar Shirani’s Allegations of Quality Assurance Violations Against Holtec Storage/Transport Casks

Holtec storage/transport casks are the first dual purpose container for irradiated nuclear fuel certified by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). According to Holtec International's website ( http://www.holtecinternational.com), Holtec casks are already deployed at 33 U.S. nuclear power plants. Up to 4,000 rail-sized Holtec storage/transport casks would also be used at the proposed Private Fuel Storage interim storage facility in Utah. Given the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) recent decision to use “mostly rail” transport to the proposed Yucca Mountain repository, Holtec casks could very well become among the most used shipping containers for highly radioactive waste.

Exelon, the largest nuclear utility in U.S., uses Holtec casks for irradiated fuel storage at its reactor sites. In 1999 and 2000, Oscar Shirani, as a lead quality assurance (QA) auditor for Exelon, identified numerous “major design and fabrication issues” during a QA inspection of Holtec International (the cask designer), Omni Fabrication, and U.S. Tool & Die (the subcontractors responsible for manufacturing the casks). In fact, he identified a “major breakdown” in the QA program itself. The problems were so severe that Shirani sought a Stop Work Order against the manufacturer of the casks until the problems were addressed. Instead, he was run out of Exelon. According to Shirani, these design and manufacturing flaws mean that the structural integrity of the Holtec casks is indeterminate and unreliable, especially under heat-related stress such as during a severe transportation accident.

Although NRC has dismissed Shirani’s concerns, NRC Region III ( Chicago office) dry cask inspector Ross Landsman refused to sign and approve the NRC’s resolution of Shirani’s concerns, concluding that this same kind of thinking led to NASA’s Space Shuttle disasters.[1] He stated in September 2003, “Holtec, as far as I’m concerned, has a non-effective QA program, and U.S. Tool & Die has no QA program whatsoever.”[2] Landsman added that NRC’s Nuclear Reactor Regulation division did a poor follow-up on the significant issues identified, and pre-maturely closed them.

Shirani alleges that all existing Holtec casks, some of which are already loaded with highly radioactive waste, as well as the casks under construction now, still flagrantly violate engineering codes (such as those of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers [ASME] and American National Standards Institute [ANSI]), as well as NRC regulations. He concludes that the Holtec casks are “nothing but garbage cans” if they are not made in accordance with government specifications.[3]

Specific examples of the QA violations and related problems alleged by Shirani include:

  • Welding problems, such improper “fast cooling” of hot cask welds and metal using fans and air conditioning equipment, which are in violation of ASME and ANSI codes and risk tearing and cracking of the unevenly cooling welds and metal, in order to meet production goals. Welds on the casks were also performed by unqualified welders. Even NRC has acknowledged that “weld quality records are not in agreement with the code requirements.”[4]
  • Inadequate controls on the quality of materials used in the manufacturing process, risking brittleness and weakness in the casks.
  • Holtec’s failure to report holes in neutron shielding material (neutrons are especially hazardous emissions from highly radioactive waste).
  • US Tool & Die’s failure to use coupon (a small physical sample of metal) testing, and Post Weld Heat Treatment on a regular basis, as required by ASME code and in violation of the codes that were part of the license agreement with NRC.
  • Holtec and U.S. Tool & Die quality control inspectors’ bypass of hundreds of non-conforming conditions, departures from the original design during cask manufacture. The departures from the original design amount to design changes that require revised analysis to guarantee that manufactured casks actually live up to the structural integrity of the original design. The fact that this revised analysis was never done is in violation of ASME and ANSI codes, and thus NRC regulations, and means the actual manufactured casks' structural integrity is questionable, according to Shirani.
  • Holtec’s consent to allow U.S. Tool & Die to make design decisions and changes, despite the fact that U.S. Tool & Die does not have design control capability under its QA program.
  • Failure to conduct a “root cause investigation” of Holtec’s QA program, even though root causes are the main reason for repeated deficiencies.
  • Exelon’s obstruction of Shirani from performing any follow-up of the audit to confirm that problems had been solved, despite knowing that the fabrication issues identified would have a detrimental impact on the design.
  • Exelon’s falsified quality-assurance documents and the misleading of the NRC investigation, stating that Shirani’s allegations of QA violations were resolved when in fact they were not.
  • Lack of understanding in the NRC of the design control process and Holtec's QA program, relating to flaws in welding, design, manufacturing, and materials procurement control. NRC lacks a corrective action mechanism for repeated findings. Shirani alleges his audit findings embarrassed NRC because it had also audited the Holtec casks just a few months previously but found no problems whatsoever.

Shirani concludes that these numerous design and manufacturing flaws call into question the structural integrity of the Holtec casks, especially under heat-related stress such as during severe transportation accidents. He also warns that his eight-day audit showed him only a snap shot of problems, and that there could in fact be additional ones yet to be identified.

[1] Elizabeth Brackett, "Nuclear Controversy," " Chicago Tonight," WTTW Channel 11 Television, Chicago, Illinois, January 29, 2004.

[2] J.A. Savage, "Whistleblower Alleges PG&E Proposed Dry Casks Slipshod," California Energy Circuit, Vol. 1, No. 1, Berkeley, California, September 5, 2003.

[3]Ibid.

[4] April 2002 NRC review panel memo, cited in J.A. Savage, "Whistleblower Alleges PG&E Proposed Dry Casks Slipshod," California Energy Circuit, Vol. 1, No. 1, Berkeley, California, September 5, 2003.

* This summary was prepared by Kevin Kamps, Nuclear Waste Specialist at Nuclear Information and Resource Service in Washington, D.C. July 22, 2004.]

Neither Holtec nor NRC have rectified this problem much, or at all, since. Thus, Shirani questioned the integrity of Holtec containers sitting still, going zero miles per hour, let alone 60 miles per hour, or faster, down the railroad tracks, subject to the extreme forces of severe accidents. Dr. Landsman compared NRC's decision making to that of NASA's, which led to Space Shuttles hitting the ground.

Holtec CEO Krishna Singh also attempted to bribe Shirani and Landsman into silence. Shirani told me that Singh told him that he could name his own salary, into the many hundreds of thousands of dollars per year, to come and join Holtec. But of course he would have to shut up about the Holtec QA violations. Both Landsman and Shirani refused and rejected Singh's bribe offer, and continued to blow the whistle.

Singh was separately implicated in a $55,000 bribe made to a Tennessee Valley Authority Browns Ferry nuclear power plant official in Alabama, made in order to secure a contract there.

When asked on a tax break application form, under oath, by a State of NJ agency, Krishna Singh answered that Holtec had never been banned nor barred from doing business with a federal agency or state government. This was a lie. Holtec had been banned and barred from doing business with TVA, after the bribery scandal at Browns Ferry. Singh's falsehood on the tax break application form was uncovered by ProPublic and WNYC in May 2019. It has led to a major scandal in New Jersey (Holtec's home base), with ongoing investigations. Singh's lie secured a $260 million tax break for Holtec, which was used to build a brand new, major manufacturing plant in Camden, NJ, which bears Singh's name. Should a company like Holtec, and a CEO like Krishna Singh, be entrusted with 173,600 metric tons of highly radioactive irradiated nuclear fuel? The rogue behaviors they have exhibited would make that a resounding NO!

Relatedly, on June 25, 2020, Colin A. Young with the Statehouse News Service reported at WBUR (the Boston, MA NPR radio station), an article entitled "Report: Company Decommissioning Pilgrim Nuclear Plant Under Criminal Investigation." 

The article is posted online here: <https://www.wbur.org/earthwhile/2020/06/25/plymouth-nuclear-plant-decommissioning-company-criminal-investigation>

The article reports:

[Holtec International, a subsidiary of which owns and is decommissioning the inactive nuclear plant in Plymouth, is under criminal investigation, Politico New Jersey reported based on a legal brief filed by the New Jersey Economic Development Authority.

According to the report, New Jersey-based Holtec International sued the NJ EDA in March over the payment of $26 million of a $260 million New Jersey tax incentive, which the agency held up because Holtec allegedy gave a false answer on its 2014 tax credit application.

"Holtec's misrepresentations — which include its failure to disclose a prior government debarment by the Tennessee Valley Authority (the 'TVA') for bribing an official of that agency — first came to light during an investigation conducted by the Governor's Task Force on the Economic Development Authority's Tax Incentive Program, and they are now the subject of an ongoing criminal investigation," the brief read, according to Politico.]

Again, should NRC rubber-stamp a license for Holtec's CISF, when the company is under "an ongoing criminal investigation" in its home state of New Jersey? The answer is NO! Obviously, Holtec cannot be trusted.

Slide #9 also mentions "Hazards from...transportation." As mentioned above and in previous sets of Beyond Nuclear's submitted comments, NRC has effectively excluded a transportation risk analysis from its DEIS, a violation of NEPA. If NRC tries to claim, as it does, that such transportation risk analysis will be carried out during the Safety Analysis Report/Safety Evaluation Report finalization phase, this is bogus. As mentioned previously, the ASLB abruptly terminated the licensing proceeding on May 7, 2019. The NRC Commissioners largely backed up the ASLB's rulings, most relevantly in regards to Don't Waste MI et al.'s transport safety risk-related contentions. Thus, ASLB and the NRC Commissioners (with the full backing of the NRC Staff) have put impossible burdens on the back of Don't Waste MI, et al., in its efforts to have NRC do its job, and address transport safety risks. NRC has thumbed its nose at federal laws, such as NEPA, the AEA, and the APA, in such regards, attempting to make a mockery of them, to Holtec's benefit, at the expense of public safety, health, and environmental protection.

June 23rd's Slide #10 highlights additional NRC failures. As mentioned, NRC Staff's "Transportation" and "Environmental Justice" analyses (more appropriately, lack thereof), for example, are so bad (or even non-existent), so as to constitute a violation of NEPA's long established, legally mandated requirements.

Ironically, the map NRC includes in Slide #13 makes our EJ point. It shows that not only the proposed Holtec/ELEA CISF in the future, but the long established and operational WIPP, LES, and WCS facilities, as well as proposed future facilities as International Isotopes and LWA (as well as the ISP CISF targeted at WCS), mean that southeastern NM has long suffered under a heavy burden of nuclear, radioactive and toxic pollution. This is in addition to very intense fossil fuel pollution in the co-located Permian Basin. The population in certain areas of this region is majority or near-majority BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color), specifically many majority Hispanic/LatinX communities, the Mescalero Apache Reservation, etc. This is a classic textbook example of environmental injustice, but NRC has willfully blinded itself to this, and is attempting to obscure such facts to hide them from the impacted communities and the general public as well.

Re: Slide #15, it was confirmed by NEI's spokesman during his public comment that the photo shows a scene from San Onofre. This is most ironic. The Holtec ISFSI at San Onofre experienced a near-drop of a fully loaded, 50 ton canister in August of 2018. The only way the public found out about the incident was thanks to a courageous whistle-blower, who was then punished by being fired. Such drop risks will exist, 10,000-fold, at a fully developed Holtec CISF. Yet NRC has not adequately addressed, or addressed at all, such drop risks, in its DEIS.

In addition, at San Onofre, as documented by local watch-dogs, Holtec containers have been significantly gouged and scratched on their exterior surfaces during their insertion in the storage pits, due to the poor design of the Holtec UMAX system, handling errors, etc. Such gouges and scratches have introduced accelerated corrosion pathway scenarios on the San Onofre Holtec irradiated nuclear fuel canisters. This begs the question, has similar gouging and scratching occured on Holtec canisters at other UMAX sites, like at the Callaway nuclear power plant in MO, or at the proto-UMAX design at Humboldt Bay, CA?

Combined with the QA violations cited above, these accelerated canister degradation pathways due to the gouging and scratching could prove to be a significant safety, environmental, and health risk for workers and the public, at the Holtec CISF site in NM. And yet, NRC has given these risks little to no attention in the DEIS, certainly not the required NEPA "hard look."

On Slide #17, it states:

"• EIS evaluates potentially impacts of up to 20 PHASES" (emphasis added)

Potentially should, of course, be potential. This may seem nit-picky to point out. But it is one example of something to be found not only in the slideshow, but throughout the DEIS itself and related documents -- a sloppiness on NRC's part, that is entirely inappropriate in its review of the license application for the single largest high-level radioactive waste dump on the planet, where the risks could not be larger.

Slide #17 also states:

"Note that the safety review evaluates Phase 1 storage facility and any other facilities that are important to safety (i.e. transfer building components)"

This is entirely wrongheaded. The safety review should of course evaluate the project filled out to all 20 phases, as the site at completion of Phase 20 will have significantly larger safety and security risks than it had at Phase 1 -- although Phase 1's safety and security risks will already be very high, in and of themselves.

No DTS (Dry Transfer System) required by NRC before the CISF goes operational compounds the safety, security, environmental and health risks significantly, even though NRC will not acknowledge this. It is most ironic, because NRC's Continued Storage of Spent Nuclear Fuel GEIS and Rule relies largely on NRC's assumption that DTSs will assure safety, security, health and environmental protection at away-from-reactor ISFSIs, such as this Holtec CISF. But now that the rubber meets the road, and Holtec has applied to construct and operate a CISF, it is not voluntarily going to build a DTS, and NRC is not requiring it.

But such a DTS needs to be in place from the very beginning of operations, for there is a chance that the very first shipment to arrive on-site could prove problematic. In fact, as with toasters and atomic reactors, the break-in phase risks are significantly elevated, due to bugs in the systems, structures, and components of both transport and storage technologies, vehicles, and infrastructure, operator inexperience, human errors, etc.

NRC not requiring a DTS at Holtec's CISF from the very beginning makes a mockery of NRC's Continued Storage safety assurances -- the rug has been pulled out from under them. NRC's "nuclear waste confidence" has yet again been proven to be false. It is nothing more than a nuclear waste confidence game, run by con men (and women).

 

Re: Slide 19's claims:

"• Comments – 6,665 pieces of comment correspondence– Approximately 3,900 unique comments"

there is something wrong with NRC's figures. Opponents to Holtec's CISF generated on the order of 30,000 to 35,000 public comments opposed to Holtec's CISF during the environmental scoping public comment period in 2018. Either NRC has applied some clever tricks to discount the number of public comments actually filed in opposition to Holtec's CISF, or else there is something seriously wrong with NRC's systems for acceptance of public comment.

My experience in this very DEIS public comment period itself deepens my concern about the latter possibility. As NRC Staff is fully aware, I had significant problems myself submitting comments via the email address holtec-cisfeis@nrc.gov.

These problems took days to work out.

NRC staff tried telling me such problems were unique to me. Actually, I've heard from others that they experienced the same difficulties with the email address.

I didn't even try to use the regulations.gov option during this DEIS public comment period. Why not? Because when I tried to use regulations.gov during the environmental scoping period, it didn't work about half the time. As I've told NRC staff, I don't have that kind of time to waste on their dysfunctional systems -- which they then tried to blame on other government agencies, and did not take responsibility for themselves. So much for "the buck stops here" -- Truman must be rolling in his grave! NRC gave the regulations.gov site as an official public comment submission option. It was outrageous that NRC then attempted to shirk any responsibility for that site not working properly, all the time!

And sure enough, I learned from colleagues that regulations.gov did not work on multiple occasions during this DEIS public comment period.

And of course, the USPS mails are significantly slowed right now.

All of this added up is quite outrageous.

Finally, I protest the holding of this 180-day public comment period during a deadly, highly infectious pandemic emergency. 25 US Senate Democrats, as well as 14 Democratic US House committee chairs, wrote OMB in early April, calling for such public comment periods as this one to be suspended until the pandemic was over. Altogether, hundreds of environmental groups called on NRC for the same. All these calls fell on deaf ears. This public comment proceeding has been an outrage.

Sincerely,

Kevin Kamps

Tuesday
Sep222020

Beyond Nuclear's 30th set of public comments, set of comments, re: Docket ID NRC-2018-0052, re: NRC's Holtec/ELEA CISF DEIS

Dear Holtec-CISFEIS Resource and NRC Staff, 

This is Beyond Nuclear's 30th set of public comments in this proceeding.

I submit these comments on behalf of a coalition of 113 environmental, environmental justice, and public interest organizations, with combined memberships and supporters comprising millions of individuals nationwide.

Due especially to the numerous problems I have experienced submitting public comments via this <holtec-cisfeis@nrc.gov> email address, please acknowledge receipt of these comments, and please provide me with confirmation of their proper placement in the official public record for this proceeding.

The organizational coalition sign-on comment letter is posted online, here.

Tuesday
Sep222020

Beyond Nuclear's 29th set of public comments, re: Docket ID NRC-2018-0052, re: NRC's Holtec/ELEA CISF DEIS

Submitted via: <holtec-cisfeis@nrc.gov>

Dear Holtec-CISFEIS Resource and NRC Staff, 

This is Beyond Nuclear's 29th set of public comments in this proceeding.

I submit these comments on behalf of our members and supporters, not only in New Mexico, near the targeted Holtec/ELEA Laguna Gatuna site, but across New Mexico, and the rest of the country, along road, rail, and waterway routes that would be used for high risk, highly radioactive waste shipments to Holtec's CISF, as well as to Yucca Mountain, Nevada, on Western Shoshone land -- illegally and improperly assumed by Holtec, as well as NRC, to someday become a permanent disposal repository.

Due especially to the numerous problems I have experienced submitting public comments via this <holtec-cisfeis@nrc.gov> email address, please acknowledge receipt of these comments, and please provide me with confirmation of their proper placement in the official public record for this proceeding.

This set of comments is in regards to process elements of the public comment proceeding, but also substance elements of the DEIS, and related documentation. As mentioned at the very end of my 28th set of comments, this 29th set picks up where the previous set left off.

Re: Slide #24, there is an example of NRC's slideshow getting worse over time, instead of better, negative regress instead of positive progress. In the slideshow on June 23rd, the relevant lines read:

"Evaluate if any minority or low-income population would be disproportionately and adversely affected".

But on the corresponding Slide #26 in the slideshow used in the late August/early September meetings, the language had been garbled:

"Evaluated if any minority or low-income populations would be disproportionately high and adversely by -".

This introduced error made the line unintelligible gibberish.

I brought this up during my verbal comments in one of the last meetings to be held, and I think it was during the slideshow presentation on the very last call-in session that NRC staff at least pointed out/mentioned the error in need of correction out loud. But once again, I must ask, how can such a sloppy error be made in the first place, about a subject as important as Environmental Justice? I assert it is a reflection of NRC's merely "going through the motions" of an EJ analysis, but not really caring very much about it at all. Such check the box behavior when it comes to EJ is an outrage in the year 2020!

The substance of NRC's EJ errors is much more serious than its mere surface reflection, as shown by sloppy gibberish in the slideshow, however.

As I have commented previously:

Re: Environmental justice: Holtec is targeting southeastern NM, where many of the surrounding communities in the area are majority Hispanic/LatinX. The Mescalero Apache Indian Reservation (itself previously targeted for a CISF!) is not far away. While a lot of money has been made in the Permian Basin from fossil fuel and nuclear industries, that wealth is not equitably distributed nor shared with the local population. Thus, there are very significant environmental justice issues of low income and/or BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color -- especially LatinX!) communities in southeastern NM being targeted for this dump. As shown by this remarkable map by Deborah Reade of Santa Fe, NM, southeastern NM, and the rest of the state, bears a tremendous pollution burden from these fossil fuel (concentrated in the Permian Basin, in NM's southeastern corner) and nuclear (throughout NM, but with a particular concentration of significant polluting facilities in/near the southeastern corner) and other hazardous industries. (See the map posted online here: <http://static1.1.sqspcdn.com/static/f/356082/28292760/1588368272923/2020-ThreatsMap_11x17-v2.pdf?token=h%2BfTTqMcgIvh9a%2BkGv96kUkMzXU%3D>)

The cynical trickery employed in Holtec's Environmental Report and NRC's DEIS, in order to find no EJ impact, is to only compare southeastern NM (and only out to a radius of 50 miles from the Holtec CISF site), with the rest of the State of NM. But of course, comparing s.e. NM near Holtec to the COUNTRY as a whole, would show a much greater concentration of Hispanics/LatinX and Native American/Indigenous residents, than is typical of the rest of the COUNTRY as a whole. NRC's 50-miles out from Holtec's CISF radius focus, and then only in comparison to the rest of the State of NM, blinds it to the bigger picture of the COUNTRY as a whole. Combined with the fact that NM as a whole ranks towards the very bottom of all 50 states on many socio-economic indicators, NRC's willful blindness (and attempt to blind the public along the very same lines) to the EJ impacts of the Holtec CISF proposal is an outrage. Rather than engaging in NEPA's "hard look" legal-binding requirements when it comes to EJ, NRC instead engages in willful blindness itself, and forced blindness on the unsuspecting public. NRC's own behavior is an EJ violation, as is Holtec's CISF proposal to begin with!

This is further underscored by the experience of Alliance for Environmental Strategies in the NRC ASLB licensing proceeding. AFES is a largely Hispanic/LatinX EJ group in s.e. NM. It intervened against the Holtec CISF, raising EJ contentions. Incredibly, the ASLB and NRC never even clearly acknowledged or recognized AFES's legal standing to bring such contentions. But both ASLB and NRC rejected AFES's EJ contentions outright. Such ASLB and NRC behavior is, in itself, an EJ violation! NRC Staff, vis-a-vis its DEIS, and the NRC's ASLB and Commissioners in regards to their related licensing proceeding rulings, should all be ashamed of these regards, in these regards. NRC's mandate is to protect public health, safety, and the environment. Instead, NRC itself engages in perpetrating environmental injustice, environmental racism, and radioactive racism, while doing all it can to obscure its own misbehavior, and cover for Holtec's similar or even identical misbehavior.

Another, more legitimate approach to an EJ analysis in the DEIS, would be for NRC Staff to compare the demographics of New Mexico to the demographics of New England. After all, predominantly White (that is, non-BIPOC) New England also happens to have a disproportionately large quantity of highly radioactive irradiated nuclear fuel, due to the relatively large number of atomic reactors, concentrated in such a relatively small section of the U.S.
Compounding the environmental justice of rushing New England's highly radioactive wastes to New Mexico is the fact that New England also happens to have a disproportionately large number of permanently shutdown atomic reactors, namely: Maine Yankee; Vermont Yankee; Pilgrim, MA; Yankee Rowe, MA; Connecticut Yankee; and Millstone Unit 1, CT. These permanently shutdown reactors will be towards the front of the line for exporting irradiated nuclear fuel to NM. In fact, the supposedly fully decommissioned reactors, such as Yankee Rowe, Maine Yankee, and Connecticut Yankee, are at the very front of the line. So this environmental injustice is most immediate, if and when NRC rubber-stamps Holtec's license application, and the CISF is constructed and opened for its environmentally unjust "business."
Re: Slide #27 in the June 23rd version of the slideshow, the Reader's Guide (confusingly entitled differently -- Overview -- in the actual document itself) is offered as something helpful for commenters and the public. But instead, the Reader's Guide/Overview contains erroneous information of the highest relevant to this CISF scheme, in terms of preferred alternatives, erroneous information that actually contradicts the content of the DEIS itself.
As spelled out in our 8th set of comments, previously submitted (as posted online at <http://archive.beyondnuclear.org/centralized-storage/2020/6/27/beyond-nuclear-public-comment-8-re-nrcs-holtecelea-cisf-deis.html>):

Beyond Nuclear public comment #8, re: NRC's Holtec/ELEA CISF DEIS, Docket ID NRC-2018-0052 -- re: the license for Private Fuel Storage, LLC, CISF -- targeted at Skull Valley Goshutes Indian Reservation in Utah -- is not terminated, contradicting NRC Staff assertions to the contrary

Submitted via: <holtec-cisfeis@nrc.gov>

Dear NRC Staff,

A colleague has spotted a significant error in the Overview attached to both the Holtec and the ISP/WCS NRC DEIS documents (ISP/WCS is a second CISF, targeted at west Texas, just 39 miles from Holtec's CISF in NM, according to Holtec's CEO, Krishna Singh):

[see: <http://www.beyondnuclear.org/centralized-storage/2020/5/4/nrc-overview-of-the-draft-environmental-impact-statement-for.html>]

Don Hancock of Southwest Research and Information Center (SRIC) in Albuquerque, NM has pointed out:

"The Overview (like the Holtec one) again repeats the factual error that PFS's [Private Fuel Storage, LLC] license is terminated (page 4)."

Here is the false statement, as printed in NRC's Overview:

"The NRC previously licensed one other away-from-reactor dry cask spent fuel storage facility, called Private Fuel Storage (NUREG-1714); however, that facility was never built and the license was subsequently terminated." (emphasis added) 

This is not true. The license was not subsequently terminated.

Thus, NRC's CISF DEIS Overviews, re: both the Holtec/ELEA and the ISP/WCS CISFs, are inaccurate as to NRC's own licensing decisions.

NRC made the same mistake in its Holtec/ELEA NM CISF DEIS summary/overview, first published on March 10, 2020, as it also has done in its ISP/WCS TX CISF DEIS summary/overview.

And the DEIS documents themselves do not state that the PFS license is terminated. So in that sense, the summaries/overviews contradict the DEIS documents, as well.

Significantly, if Holtec International/Eddy-Lea Energy Alliance, Interim Storage Partners/Waste Control Specialists, and the nuclear power utilities, were serious about these CISFs being entirely private, then why not use the license already rubber-stamped by NRC at PFS more than a decade ago? Why seek new CISF licenses at Holtec/ELEA in NM, and at ISP/WCS in TX? Because the actual goal is to transfer title/ownership, and liability, onto the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) -- that is, federal taxpayers. Which is illegal, a violation of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982, as Amended. This illegality is at the heart of Beyond Nuclear's lawsuit against both CISFs. Don't Waste MI et al. (a seven-group national grassroots environmental coalition), Sierra Club, and Fasken Oil and Ranch, have also challenged this violation of the NWPA represented by these CISF schemes, and NRC's complicity in them, in violation of federal laws like the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982, as Amended, and the Administrative Procedure Act.

Not that Beyond Nuclear and our environmental and environmental justice allies think the PFS CISF targeting the Skull Valley Goshutes was or is a good idea. Quite the opposite. It was and is a dangerously bad idea, and an outrageous violation of environmental justice. Learn more about the environmental movement's successful resistance to the PFS CISF, a victory won in close solidarity and collaboration with Native American partners, including Skull Valley Goshute dump opponents Margene Bullcreek and Sammy Blackbear, Indigenous Environmental Network, Honor the Earth, and others, posted online at this link: <http://archives.nirs.us/radwaste/scullvalley/skullvalley.htm>.

The following documentation shows that the PFS license was never terminated, as NRC Staff have falsely stated in their CISF DEIS Overviews:

PFS / NRC - Withdrawal Of License Termination Request.

Document Title: Withdrawal of Termination Request of NRC licence SNM-2513 for Private Fuel Storage, LLC.
Document Type: Letter
Document Date: 09/12/2014

Document Title: Letter To R. M. Palmberg re: Withdrawal Of License Termination Request.
Document Type: Letter
Document Date: 09/18/2014
Such glaring NRC Staff errors must be corrected in the Holtec/ELEA, as well as the ISP/WCS, CISF DEIS documentation packages, including the erroneous Overviews.
Better yet, both DEIS public comment proceedings should be restarted over again from the very beginning, given such significant NRC missteps/mistakes.
Further comments on the NRC slideshow(s) will continue in my future set(s) of comments.
Tuesday
Sep222020

NM SLO public comments to NRC re: Holtec CISF DEIS

See the comments, posted online here.

Attachments include letters from Concho and EOG, oil and gas companies confirming the New Mexico State Lands Office (SLO) allegation, that Holtec's claims of site control, and particularly subsurface control, are indeed false.

So why then has NRC swallowed Holtec's lies, hook, line, and sinker? Why has NRC parroted Holtec's lies in the DEIS?!

Tuesday
Sep222020

Beyond Nuclear's 28th set of comments, re: Docket ID NRC-2018-0052, re: NRC's Holtec/ELEA CISF DEIS

Submitted via: <holtec-cisfeis@nrc.gov>

Dear Holtec-CISFEIS Resource and NRC Staff, 

This is Beyond Nuclear's 28th set of public comments in this proceeding.

I submit these comments on behalf of our members and supporters, not only in New Mexico, near the targeted Holtec/ELEA Laguna Gatuna site, but across New Mexico, and the rest of the country, along road, rail, and waterway routes that would be used for high risk, highly radioactive waste shipments to Holtec's CISF, as well as to Yucca Mountain, Nevada, on Western Shoshone land -- illegally and improperly assumed by Holtec, as well as NRC, to someday become a permanent disposal repository.

Due especially to the numerous problems I have experienced submitting public comments via this <holtec-cisfeis@nrc.gov> email address, please acknowledge receipt of these comments, and please provide me with confirmation of their proper placement in the official public record for this proceeding.

This set of comments is in regards to process elements of the public comment proceeding, but also substance elements of the DEIS, and related documentation.

The first NRC call-in session was on June 23rd. The second NRC call-in session was on July 9th. Both times, I struggled for some time, inputting requested information, trying to get the NRC's WebEx webinar to work for me, all in vain. It never did. I finally gave up in frustration, and no longer even tried. I can only imagine how many others had the same problems as I did.

When struggling with NRC's WebEx system, specifically the NRC ICAM Authentication Gateway component, I continually got "Incorrect User ID or Password" error messages. I tried various combinations of the information that had been provided by the NRC in the announcements of the June 23 and July 9 meetings, to try to get past this hurdle, this locked gate, but never could figure it out, or else it simply was not working properly. Why is NRC's access to a public meeting online webinar so complicated, so much so that I could never figure it out? Or was it simply malfunctioning? I heard from numerous others that they encountered the same or similar frustrations.

As it turned out, the only thing the WebEx webinar really offered viewers was capability to see the slides of the NRC slideshow, as NRC staff advanced them during the meetings. Since so many people were having difficulty getting the WebEx to work on their computers, a work around was devised, by us, not by NRC. We got a hold of the NRC slideshow in PDF format, and simply shared it amongst our networks. That way, callers-in could advance the slides themselves, as NRC staffers made their presentations, following the audio by phone, as we were forced to do anyway.

It is very frustrating that the concerned public has to devise work arounds, when the NRC -- an agency which some years has had a billion dollar annual budget or more, and several thousands of well paid staffers -- cannot provide a webinar system that is user-friendly for members of the public. Most members of the public who have participated in these proceedings do so in a volunteer capacity. Most to all are U.S. taxpayers, by definition. Some 10% of NRC's massive annual budget is provided through federal taxpayer appropriations from Congress. The other 90% of NRC's massive annual budget comes from nuclear licensee user fees, the vast majority of those from commercial nuclear power plants. Many members of the public who have participated in these proceedings are also ratepayers, and if some of their electricity comes from nuclear generated electricity, then they are nuclear power electricity ratepayers, whose money, at least in part, ultimately contributes to NRC's massive annual budget. My point is, NRC must do better at its public participation proceedings, especially considering the relatively massive amounts of money -- almost all of it ultimately provided by U.S. taxpayers and nuclear power electricity ratepayers -- that the agency has to work with.

The first call-in verbal comment session was held on June 23rd. This was perhaps the most infamous one of all, because it was so very poorly run and executed.

That meeting went 5 hours and 15 minutes long. The single greatest problem was the very long delays between commenters -- sometimes as much as four to five minutes of dead silence, as NRC tried to get their system to work. NRC reported there were 400+ people on that call-in. By Beyond Nuclear's count, commenters that day were 35 opposed to Holtec's CISF, and 24 in favor, for a grand total that day of 59 commenters. NRC announced at one point that there were 80 people on the phone who wished to speak. If that was true, then 20+ people who wished to speak, were never able to. And judging by the count of commenters who were able to speak, the majority of those not able to speak would have been opposed to the Holtec CISF scheme. In fact, I personally have spoken to a number of people who waited the entire 5 hours and 15 minutes, wanting and intending to submit verbal comments (speak out against the Holtec CISF scheme), only to have NRC adjourn the meeting, without ever having called on them to speak.

That first meeting required pre-registration, a requirement that was then done away with for the next five meetings (all of which were simply call-in, then first come, first served, apparently). So those 20+ people who wished to speak, but were never allowed to, of the apparently 80 people that had pre-registered as required, may have been but the tip of the iceberg of opponents to the Holtec CISF, who wished to express their opposition in public comment form. It is hard to believe that some 320+ people in attendance on June 23rd simply wished to listen in, without themselves making public comments, the vast majority likely opposed to Holtec's CISF scheme.

This assertion is bolstered by our count of the anti-Holtec CISF commenters versus pro-Holtec CISF commenters:

By Beyond Nuclear's count, here is the break down from the public comment meetings --

Meeting Date..........Opponents to Dump..........Proponents in Favor of the Dump

June 23, 2020.........35..................................24

July 9, 2020............34..................................7

August 20, 2020......15..................................0

August 25, 2020......18..................................8

August 26, 2020......17..................................2

September 2, 2020...25.................................2

Grand Total.............134................................43

So, on June 23rd, only 59 of 80 who had pre-registered actually got their chance to make verbal comments. I assert that means that likely as many as HUNDREDS of commenters opposed to the dump, who wanted to make comments, did not get to speak that day.

The domination of each and every 2020 call-in session by opponents to Holtec's CISF mirrored the breakdown of the 2018 public comment meetings (all of which were in-person, save one which was mostly call-in, the one held at NRC HQ at which just one member of the public attended in-person, because NRC did little to no public outreach to even alert people of the opportunity to attend in-person), held as part of the environmental scoping phase.

As reported on May 24, 2018 by Beyond Nuclear on our website:

In Gallup, opponents outnumbered supporters by a count of 36 to 1; in ABQ, it was 63 to 6. Thus far, after a half-dozen public comment meetings, opponents have outnumbered supporters, 233 to 53, a nearly five-to-one ratio!

Thus, the trend continues in 2020, just as it did in 2018, that opponents to Holtec's CISF greatly outnumber proponents.

Adding up the grand totals of comments "at the microphone" during verbal comment sessions (whether in-person or by phone call-in/webinar, as in 2018, or via phone call-in exclusively in 2020), here is the grand total for both environmental scoping phase in 2018, and DEIS phase in 2020: 367 opposed to Holtec's CISF; 96 in favor of. Remarkably and tellingly, opponents of the CISF even outnumbered proponents in Holtec/ELEA's "company towns" of Carlsbad and Hobbs, at the in-person 2018 public comment meetings held there.

Therefore, the inability to actually make comments at meetings is unacceptable -- the vast majority of those comments, not allowed to be made, would likely have added to the opposition commentary, even significantly so. Ample opportunity for opponents to Holtec's CISF must be provided by NRC, and the June 23rd meeting did not do this.

I would point out that at the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission's comparable public participation sessions, the CNSC actually schedules a precise time slot in advance for each and every single commenter, in which their comments will be heard and recorded. That way, many hundreds of commenters do not have to wait through the entire hours-long or days-long proceedings, hoping (and fearing) they might be called next. (Fearing in the sense that if they happen to be away -- such as to get a drink, or use the restroom -- they might just miss their chance, even though they may have been waiting for hours already!) This way, commenters know when to show up to make their comments, and don't have to spend many long hours waiting, if they don't want to. Of course, they can listen to all comments, if they so choose, but they are not forced to, lest they risk missing their name being called to make their own comments.

But as mentioned above, NRC then abandoned pre-registration, and simply turned to a call-in, first come, first served approach for the next five meetings (actually making the change after the pre-registration requirement for the second meeting, on July 9th, had already been initially announced, increasing the confusion for members of the public who had followed NRC's instructions, only to have them thrown out the window at show time). Apparently, those who did pre-register for the second meeting, simply had their pre-registration cancelled. They, like everyone else, simply had to abide by the newly announced first come, first served policy.

I would now like to comment on the NRC's slideshow, presented during the June 23rd call-in/webinar. (NRC's slideshow seems to have changed/evolved -- or, in certain aspects, devolved, as will be discussed below -- over the course of the call-in sessions, so the slide numbers and descriptions below, refer to the June 23rd slideshow, as posted online here <https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML2017/ML20175A106.pdf>, unless indicated otherwise.

Re: Slide #2, why are all the documents associated with the NRC DEIS -- not just the most basic summaries and introductory materials, such as general proceeding announcements -- also translated into Spanish? After all, Holtec is targeting an area of New Mexico where many communities are majority Hispanic/LatinX, and where a significant percentage of that population are Spanish speakers. Why isn't the entire DEIS translated into Spanish, then? It's the least NRC could do, given the environmental injustice represented by the Holtec CISF scheme, threatening Hispanic/LatinX southeastern NM.

Along the same lines, although a few basic documents were announced by NRC staff to have been translated into Navajo/Diné, as well, this begs the question, why not Tewa Pueblo? The Hopi have actively claimed land connections to Holtec's Laguna Gatuna site. Why not Mescalero Apache -- their reservation is not far from Holtec's targeted Laguna Gatuna site -- in fact, the Mescalero Apache Reservation was itself targeted for a CISF in the past, first by DOE's Nuclear Waste Negotiator, and then later by Private Fuel Storage, LLC, a consortium of nuclear power utility companies. Those attempts to dump on Mescalero Apache were blocked by efforts led by tribal members Rufina Marie Laws, Joe Geronimo, and others.

By the way, the CISF targeting Mescalero Apache, was led by Xcel Energy/Northern States Power. So any comments made by Xcel Energy, such as were made in Hobbs during the environmental scoping stage, should keep this in mind. Xcel/NSP is not a neutral party. They are very biased in favor of CISFs. Why? Because Xcel/NSP itself owns atomic reactors, as at Monticello and Prairie Island in MN. Xcel/NSP would love to offload the title and liability for the forever deadly irradiated nuclear fuel it has generated -- and made a filthy profit off of generating -- onto the DOE, that is, the American taxpaying public.

But besides only the most basic of documents being translated into Navajo/Diné, why hasn't the entire DEIS, and all related documentation, been translated into Navajo/Diné, Tewa Pueblo, Mescalero Apache, and other Native American languages (such as Comanche) of tribal nations that have connections to the land at or near the Laguna Gatuna site? Making this need all the more compelling is that in many, to most, to all, of these tribal cultures, the elders are held in very deep esteem by the entire community. It is an increased likelihood that some of these elders, whose wisdom is looked to by the entire tribal community for guidance, only speak their Native language. Why are these Native elders, and other Native community members who speak only their Native language, being denied access to the DEIS and all related, relevant related documents?

NRC's attitude -- that as little as a single, short letter, sent to the tribal council of various Native nations with land connections at or near the Laguna Gatuna site, is sufficient, is actually woefully insufficient. Meaningful government-to-government relations are what is required, honoring tribal nations' sovereignty, as well as treaty rights, but NRC has failed in this regard in a very substantial way.

Re: Slide #7, it reads, in part:

The NRC's Review Process...[is] Not to promote Holtec's proposal or the Consolidated Interim Storage Facility (CISF) concept.

Is the public really supposed to believe this? In previous public comments, I have told the story of Anthony Hsia, acting director of NRC's Division of Spent Fuel Management, at a Spent Fuel Project Office RegCon, who adjourned a two-day Regulatory Conference in Rockville, MD (held at the Hilton Washington D.C./Rockville Hotel) re: CISFs, by leading a pep rally-like cheer that "Together, we can get it [it meaning licensing, constructing, and operating CISFs] done!" NRC is supposed to be a safety regulator, not a policy developer or advocate, so Mr. Hsia's behavior was alarmingly inappropriate, in fact a frightening surface level symptom manifestation, of even deeper-rooted violations of NRC's legal mandate that are clearly going on.

NRC staff's bias in favor of the Holtec CISF was made clear by its advocacy in favor of Holtec's scheme and rationale, made to the ASLB in the licensing proceeding -- the NRC staff sometimes being "to the right" (more passionate and aggressive in its advocacy for the CISF's licensing) than the applicant itself!

ASLB's -- NRC's supposedly quasi-independent, quasi-judicial administrative law licensing authority -- own bias in favor of the Holtec CISF scheme was made clear, by its rapid fire, short order rejection of either the legal standing, or the merits of proposed legal and technical contentions for a hearing, or both, of every single intervenor opposed to the proposal. Scores of contentions were filed, all rapidly rejected by the ASLB in cursory fashion. Perhaps the most bitter rejections of all were vis-a-vis Alliance for Environmental Strategies' (AFES) contentions, and legal standing. AFES is a predominantly LatinX/Hispanic environmental justice (EJ) group in southeastern NM, opposed to Holtec's CISF. Not only did the ASLB reject the merits of AFES's EJ contentions -- summarily ruling them unworthy of a hearing -- the ASLB went so far as to not even acknowledge AFES's legal standing in the proceeding. Thus, not only is NRC staff's EJ analysis and conclusions in the DEIS bogus, but the ASLB's behavior was itself an EJ violation.

Certain ASLB judges' bias toward parties intervening against Holtec's CISF was so blatant, that it manifested in visibly scoffing in disapproval at intervenors' good faith legal and technical arguments.

ASLB's rush to terminate the licensing proceeding on May 7, 2019 -- less than four months after the oral argument pre-hearings held in Albuquerque -- resembled a shocking slamming of the door in the face of intervening parties. In fact, the ASLB's rush to terminate the licensing proceeding, was so very rushed, even the biased-in-favor-of-Holtec-and-CISF's NRC Commissioners, for their part, felt compelled to remand certain aspects of the proceeding back to the ASLB, to reconsider (which, in its bias, the ASLB then rejected all over again, in short order).

For one thing, how could the ASLB terminate the licensing proceeding, more than 10 months before the NRC DEIS was even published? This put the burden to re-open the licensing proceeding on intervenors, if and when they formulated new contentions based on new material information contained in the newly published NRC DEIS. This burdening of intervenors was unfair and unjust. Why didn't the ASLB just leave the licensing proceeding open, until DEIS-related contention-filing deadlines had passed?

The NRC Commissioners, for their part, demonstrated equally biased attitudes, in favor of Holtec's CISF application, and opposed to intervenors' arguments against the dump's licensing. For example, on April 23, 2020, the NRC Commissioners unanimously sided with the ASLB's rulings, entirely rejecting the legal standing and contentions of AFES, entirely rejecting the legal standing and contentions of Don't Waste Michigan, et al. (a nationwide grassroots environmental coalition comprised of 7 groups), and rejecting the contentions of Beyond Nuclear (although, like the ASLB, acknowledging its legal standing).

Although the NRC Commissioners remanded a very small number of contentions made by Fasken Oil and Ranch, Ltd./Permian Basin Land & Royalty Owners, and the Sierra Club, to the ASLB for reconsideration or further consideration, the ASLB then made short shrift of those remands, as mentioned above.

The NRC's (Staff's, ASLB's, and Commissioners') utter bias in favor of Holtec's proposal, and the CISF concept writ large, could not be made much more clear than all of this. Thus, NRC's slide was dishonest. To invoke the Parkland High School mass shooting survivors' slogan, "we call B.S.!"

Re: Slide #8, re: "NRC Accepts LA [License Application]," I would like to point out that NRC accepted Holtec's LA, and announced the commencement of the licensing proceeding, in the Federal Register, on July 16, 2018. July 16 just so happens to be a day of nuclear infamy in New Mexico, twice over. July 16, 1945 saw the explosion of the Trinity nuclear weapon test blast, in the Tularosa Basin. As Bob Alvarez and Kitty Tucker wrote in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists in the lead up to this year's 75th annual commemoration of that radiological catastrophe for the Tularosa Basin, and beyond, the first Downwinders of the Atomic Age to die, the first fatalities of nuclear weapons, were not just Japanese residents in/near Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but New Mexican babies. Tucker and Alvarez carefully documented the statistically significant increase in infant mortality downwind of the Trinity blast in New Mexico, as should have been expected when so much hazardous radioactivity was purposefully unleashed into the environment. The suffering of the Tularosa Downwinders -- unacknowledged, and uncompensated, as with health care assistance -- continues today, 75 years later, a national shame.

As Ian Zabarte of Native Community Action Council has pointed out, the killing caused by Trinity was also done in absolute secrecy, by the Manhattan Project and U.S. military. The secrecy was then continued by the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, and even the U.S. Department of Energy. The secrecy makes the killing even more reprehensible.

But July 16th also marks the annual commemoration of the Church Rock, NM uranium mill tailings dam breach and spill into the Puerco River, used by Navajo/Diné shepherds as their sole source of drinking water and irrigation water for their sheep flocks. This very large-scale discharge of hazardous radioactive substances into the surface environment -- one of the single worst in U.S. history -- is to this day little known. Little to no cleanup was ever done. No compensation nor health care was ever offered.

These nuclear tragedies and catastrophes are remembered, and commemorated annually, still in New Mexico -- in large part, because the suffering continues, unabated. For NRC to choose consciously/on purpose, or more likely to choose unconsciously/ignorantly/"accidentally", to announce the commencement of the monstrously environmentally unjust/environmentally racist/radioactively racist Holtec CISF licensing proceeding on July 16, 2018 -- of any single day on the calendar -- is a clear reflection of NRC's shameful, ghoulish tone deafness, if nothing else.

Re: Slide #23, there was a cartoonish/oversimplified transport route map depicted. By cartoonish, I refer to the three straight-as-an-arrow lines, showing inbound import routes for irradiated nuclear fuel, to the Holtec CISF site, from three different parts of the U.S. Also shown is a straight-arrow-line to the highly controversial, in fact cancelled and not-going-to-happen, Yucca Mountain permanent repository in Nevada. What's cartoonish about it is, actual road and rail routes, not to mention barge shipment routes, can actually be quite circuitous. They are certainly not straight-as-an-arrow. And of course, there are 129 extant, and 2 under construction, commercial atomic reactor sites in the U.S. Those three inbound routes do not account for the sprawling spider web of routes that would actually be used by heavy-haul trucks, barges, and trains, to haul highly radioactive irradiated nuclear fuel, from 131 discrete atomic reactor sites in the U.S., to the Holtec CISF, located between Lagunas Gatuna and Plata in southeastern NM.

What's ironic is, there is no such transport route map -- not even a cartoonish, oversimplified one -- in the DEIS itself. In Holtec's own Environmental Report, as part of its CISF license application, there is but one single transport route map, woefully inadequate as it is: Figure 4.9.1: TRANSPORTATION ROUTES FOR SNF [SPENT NUCLEAR FUEL], found on Page 4-40 in Rev. (Revision) 0. But at least Holtec did include a single transport route map, woefully inadequate as it was (it only accounted for transport routes inbound to the CISF from 4 atomic reactors in the U.S., 1 at Maine Yankee, and 3 at San Onofre, CA; there are 129 existing atomic reactor sites in the U.S., and 2 more under construction, for a total of 131; what about the other 127 atomic reactor sites?!). NRC did not include even that much visual information, such as a route map!

Compare this to the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) performance, such as with the Feb. 2002 Final EIS for the Yucca Mountain repository, as well as its 2008 Final Supplemental EIS for the Yucca Mountain repository. The Feb. 2002 FEIS provided extensive transport routing and shipment number data, including detailed maps for all atomic-reactor-to-Yucca-dump routes. In fact, the material got its own appendix in the document, Appendix J, Transportation. The routing maps included not only road and rail routes, but also barge shipment routes on waterways. There is no comparable coverage in NRC's Holtec CISF DEIS. Such information is simply entirely missing.

Compare NRC's performance to DOE's 2008 document mentioned above. DOE's 2008 document was comprehensive enough to allow the State of Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects to publish the following route maps and shipment number information, making it even more user-friendly for the general public:

2017 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

These documents are posted online here: <http://www.state.nv.us/nucwaste/trans.htm>
Again, by contrast, NRC's 2020 Holtec CISF DEIS contains no such detailed information, whatsoever.
Where is NRC's "hard look," as required by long established court ruling precedent under NEPA (the National Environmental Policy Act)?! NRC's DEIS performance is so lacking, in such respects, that it represents a violation of NEPA.
In short, a single, cartoonish, decorative-display-purposes-only transport route map on NRC's introductory slideshow is illegally insufficient under NEPA. Instead of a "hard look," this amounts to "hardly a look," under NEPA.
Re: Slide #24, the statement "No threatened and endangered species not identified" is a confusing double negative. NRC likely meant to write "No threatened and endangered species were identified," or "Threatened and endangered species were not identified." Aside from the sloppy, unintentional bad grammar/gibberish, NRC's point is also wrong. What about the Dunes Sagebrush Lizard? Dunes Sagebrush Lizard habitat is clearly visible to the naked eye in multiple directions in the nearby distance, when one stands in the heart of Holtec's targeted Laguna Gatuna site. What about the Lesser Prairie Chicken? A commenter at the Carlsbad, NM in-person public comment meeting in May 2018, an oil and gas field worker, laughed in disbelief at NRC's conclusion even during the earlier environmental scoping phase, that no Lesser Prairie Chickens or their habitat had been identified at Holtec's targeted site. He asked, why then, when he's working the oil and gas fields nearby Holtec's targeted site, does he and his co-workers have to observe such careful and strict work rules, such as time of day and time of year constraints on work activities, in order to protect the Lesser Prairie Chicken population in the area?! Thus, NRC's DEIS, just like the ASLB and NRC Commissioners' rulings in the Holtec CISF licensing proceeding, are complicit in the violation of the Endangered Species Act.
This commentary will be continued in my follow on set of comments.