Court Issues NRC Another Rebuke on Spent Fuel Policies

Court Issues NRC Another Rebuke on Spent Fuel Policies

by Nuclear Street News Team

A court ruling Friday will force the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to reevaluate the environmental impact of storing spent fuel at nuclear plants around the country in the absence of a waste repository at Yucca Mountain or one like it.
The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals challenged 2010 agency rule changes on spent fuel, including one that upped allowable storage time at plants from 30 years to 60 years after their licenses expire. The unanimous decision ruled that the NRC’s environmental analysis of the rule change was insufficient and ordered the agency to conduct another one.

“This is a game changer,” said Geoff Fettus, who argued before the court in March. He is a senior project attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council, which is among the environmental groups that joined four Northeastern states and the Prairie Island Indian tribe in bringing the suit. “This forces the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to take a hard look at the environmental consequences of producing highly radioactive nuclear waste without a long-term disposal solution. The court found: 'The Commission apparently has no long-term plan other than hoping for a geologic repository,’” he said in an NRDC release Friday.

For decades, spent fuel has accumulated at commercial reactors as plant operators awaited completion of the long-delayed Yucca Mountain waste repository in Nevada. That program was de-funded in 2010, and a comparable repository project has not been selected. While the NRC assumed that the repository would be available “when necessary,” the court said that the agency had not evaluated the effects of a potential government failure to built a permanent storage facility, in which case dry casks at nuclear plants would effectively function as permanent storage.

Federal court rules against Nuclear Regulatory Commission

by Lee Gliddon

By: Regan Carstensen, The Republican Eagle

The United States Court of Appeals unanimously rejected Friday a decision by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to store radioactive waste at nuclear power plants for 60 years after they close.
According to a previous version of the Waste Confidence Decision, waste would be stored at the plants for 30 years after closing. But an amendment made by the NRC in December of 2010 doubled the time period.
“Basically what the NRC did is they sort of went in and waved their regulatory wand,” said Philip Mahowald, general counsel to the Prairie Island Indian Community.
Upset with the decision, the states of New York, Connecticut and Vermont filed for an appeal in February last year. The state of New Jersey and the Prairie Island Indian Community filed for appeal soon after, as did several environmental groups.
Their main contention was the health and safety hazards that would come about if long-term storage of nuclear waste would be located at local sites.
“When there’s a major federal action, a federal agency is required to take a look at the potential environmental impacts,” Mahowald explained. “Here they just amended the rule without taking a good hard look and doing a full environmental impact study.”
“Had the federal government had its way today, more than 4,350 tons of radioactive nuclear waste would have been automatically approved for long-term storage along the Mississippi River until at least 2094 — with no comprehensive environmental impact study, despite Prairie Island’s dry casks being located on our ancestral homeland 600 yards from our homes and along a recognized floodplain,” Prairie Island Tribal Council President Johnny Johnson said.
With the Court of Appeals decision vacating the most recently amended regulation to the Waste Confidence Decision, the NRC now has to do a more comprehensive review of on-site storage.

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