Andy Imboden
Chief, Communications Branch, Waste Confidence Directorate
The NRC’s
Waste Confidence Directorate has issued its
scoping summary report
– based on the 1,700 comments we received on the question of what
issues we’ll consider in the environmental review of the agency’s policy
on long-term spent fuel storage. As you can imagine, there was
tremendous public interest in this report.
The
Generic Environmental Impact Statement (GEIS) and a related regulation
will be the NRC’s response to last year’s U.S. Appeals Court ruling.
That ruling directed the agency to analyze the environmental effects of
never having a permanent repository for the nation’s spent nuclear fuel,
as well as further analyses of spent fuel pool leaks and fires.
The
scoping report does what its name implies – it defines the scope of the
environmental review. The report lists comments and subject areas that
will be covered in the GEIS (“in scope”) and explains why other subjects
– such as defense waste, reprocessing facilities, and site-specific
safety concerns – will not (“out of scope”).
This
report also describes how the upcoming GEIS will be structured. We
anticipate publishing the draft GEIS in September, with a series of
public meetings across the country to present the draft and receive
public comments.
During
the scoping process, Waste Confidence Directorate staff reviewed some
700 comment submissions with 1,700 individual comments. Staff grouped
and responded to the comments according to common concerns and issues.
All comments, regardless of who submitted them or how they were
submitted, received equal consideration. In addition to the summary
report, the NRC has compiled and listed all 1,700 comments in a
separate comment document
.
The
NRC is sending a copy of the scoping summary report to each person and
organization who participated in the scoping process. The Waste
Confidence Directorate holds monthly public teleconferences to discuss
the status of the Waste Confidence GEIS and rulemaking.
There
will be more opportunities for the public to participate and comment on
waste confidence as the process goes on. The draft GEIS and proposed
rule are scheduled to be issued later this year, and the NRC is planning
to conduct regional public meetings to discuss these documents. Stay
tuned for more details!
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