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Important Dates
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June 10-13:
June 10-14:
June 11:
July 12:
State Regional Groups (SRG) Staff Quarterly Conference Call - 10 AM*
August 4-9:
August 15:
Transportation Core Group Pre-Meeting Conference Call - 11 AM*
August 19-22:
August 21-22:
Transportation Core Group Meeting - Washington, DC
September 9-13:
*All times are CST
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Join Our List
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COMMITTEE HAPPENINGS
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The Midwestern Radioactive Materials Transportation Committee (MRMTC) will have its Spring 2019 Meeting on June 11 in Arlington, Virginia, in conjunction with the NTSF 2019 Annual Meeting. Please visit the meeting's
web page for a final agenda and preliminary attendance list.
In December 2018, the Midwestern Radioactive Materials Transportation Committee (MRMTC), along with other State Regional Groups (SRGs) and the Tribal Radioactive Materials Transportation Committee (TRMTC), sent a letter to the Department of Energy (DOE) regarding the National Transportation Stakeholders Forum (NTSF) ad hoc working group's input to the revision of DOE Order 460.2A,
Departmental Materials Transportation and Packaging Management
. DOE has a long history of working with state and Tribal stakeholders when developing radioactive materials transportation protocols and requirements. This partnership began in the 1990s with the development of the safety program for transuranic (TRU) waste shipments to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP), and continued through the development and multiple revisions of DOE Manual 460.2-1A,
Radioactive Material Transportation Practices Manual
,
the "Manual
."
Late last year, it came to the attention of committee members that DOE was launching an Integrated Project Team to revise the Manual from scratch. This team is made up of staff from the Office of Environmental Management, the Office of Nuclear Energy, the Office of Science, etc.; but no members of the SRGs or TRMTC. It is this development that prompted the SRGs and TRMTC to send the the December 2018 letter, imploring DOE to incorporate the NTSF's ad hoc working group's 2016 suggested revisions and requesting the opportunity to review an advance copy of the Integrated Project Team's draft.
Last month, Joanne Lorence of DOE's Office of Packaging and Transportation responded to the letter. Part of the response reads, "Additionally, the revision team is considering state and tribal input, which was developed during a previous revision effort in the 2014-2016 timeframe, including state and tribal input from the Transportation Practices
ad hoc
working group's Compilation of Comments and Resolutions file (April 2016)." The response goes on to say, "DOE also plans to coordinate with, and provide an opportunity for review and comment to, the Tribal Radioactive Materials Transportation Committee, and each of the appropriate State Regional Group committees." You can find both the December 2018 letter, and the May 2019 response, on MRMTC's Committee Correspondence web page.
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| Nikki Weber will be starting a new career this Summer |
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In other committee news, Nikki Weber announced her resignation from the Nebraska Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), and by default, the MRMTC. Nikki has worked for NEMA for almost 15 years, ever since she finished college. She will be moving on the private sector, saying "I will be a Leadership Coach working with organizations on goal achievement, empowerment and positive encouragement all while building their capacity and encouraging growth." We greatly appreciate all the work Nikki has done with the MRMTC and the Decommissioning Guidance for States and Regional Outreach Work Groups and we wish her the best of luck in the future. Thanks, Nikki!
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NATIONAL TRANSPORTATION STAKEHOLDERS FORUM
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Final preparations are being made for the NTSF 2019 Annual Meeting taking place in Arlington, Virginia, next week on June 10-13. The NTSF Planning Committee and this year's host, TRMTC, are hard at work every day making sure the meeting goes off without a hitch. For those who have not attended an NTSF meeting in the past, or are not familiar with the organization, a "Newcomers Orientation 2019" webinar was held last week. Speakers for the webinar were Demitrous Blount of DOE, Rob Burnside of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, and Ron Johnson of the Prairie Island Indian Community. If you missed the Newcomers Orientation webinar live, you can find the slides and recording for this and all NTSF webinars on the NTSF wiki site. The webinar will be complemented by a Newcomers Orientation Breakfast on Wednesday, June 12 at the NTSF 2019 Annual Meeting.
We look forward to seeing everyone in Arlington next week!
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| FOCUS THIS MONTH |
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Kelly Horn, Illinois, leads the conversation for the state stakeholders |
Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) Transportation Tabletop Exercise
In late May, members of the MRMTC participated in and observed the NEI Transportation Tabletop Exercise at Prairie Island Nuclear Power Plant in Welch, Minnesota. NEI, the policy and advocacy organization of the nuclear technologies industry, hosted this first-of-its-kind tabletop exercise as a way to talk through the steps required to ship spent fuel from a shutdown site to a hypothetical storage facility. States and Tribes were invited to participate and observe, which provided an opportunity to network with industry and start thinking ahead to future private shipments. The exercise was based on the hypothetical, tri-modal transportation of spent nuclear fuel by a private licensee from a power plant in the upper Midwest to a private interim storage facility in southeastern New Mexico. The scenario had the spent fuel brought by heavy-haul truck to a barge slip, then barged to a railhead and traveling the rest of the way by rail.
The nuclear technology and transportation industries used this opportunity to showcase their impressive track record of safe and efficient radioactive materials transportation in the United States and around the world. Tribes and states used this opportunity to explain their needs and expectations of licensee shipments, which are based on regulations, policies, and the best practices developed over many years working with DOE to plan for shipments. They also discussed how, while technically similar to shipments of other radioactive materials, spent nuclear fuel shipments are accompanied with much greater political and public scrutiny. State representatives and MRMTC members, like Kelly Horn of Illinois and Kevin Leuer of Minnesota, stressed the importance of early and often communication between the nuclear industry and states, Tribes, and local governments.
The NEI Transportation Tabletop Exercise started a greatly needed conversation that NEI hopes to continue with possible future tabletop exercises. NEI also encouraged feedback from participants and observers on how to improve these possible future exercises and what other lines of communication can be opened. The conversation will continue in the very near term with two sessions at next week's meeting of the NTSF. On Wednesday, Kelly Horn will lead a session on the lessons learned from the tabletop exercise. On Thursday, Chip Cameron will lead a session entitled "Preparing for Future Shipments: Options for Tribes and States."
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NUCLEAR NEWS
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Nuclear Power Plant Closings and No New Plants Coming
The last remaining nuclear reactor at south-central Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island (TMI) will shut down before the end of September. Much like the experience of nuclear power plants in other states across the country, Three Mile Island has struggled to compete with electricity provided by cheaper alternatives like natural gas and renewable energy. Unlike the experience of nuclear power plants in states like Illinois, Connecticut, and New Jersey, Exelon (TMI's owner) was unable to convince the Pennsylvania legislature to subsidize some of its operations. The argument that nuclear effectively and efficiently produces carbon-free electricity while employing thousands of employees was not enough to overcome Pennsylvania's legislature and natural gas industry. With no signs of a subsidy coming, Exelon announced the permanent shut down on May 8.
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Pilgrim Nuclear Power Plant
Photo Courtesy of the Boston Globe
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Additionally, Entergy's Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Plymouth, Massachusetts, shut down for the final time last Friday. Announced in 2015, the company also cited financial hardships and competition from other energy sources. The plant operated for 47 years on Cape Cod. With its closure, Connecticut's Millstone and New Hampshire's Seabrook are the only remaining nuclear power plants in New England. More than 50 Pilgrim employees will continue working with Entergy at other locations. The NRC is reviewing the company's proposal to sell its license to a private company who will do the decommissioning.
Meanwhile, Minnesota's SF 1692 energy omnibus bill, which would have lifted the state's ban on new nuclear power plants, failed to pass this Spring session. The bill seemed on track for easy passage in the Republican-controlled Senate, which argued that nuclear is the most reliable form of carbon-free energy. The Democratic-controlled House, however, did not support the bill, arguing that nuclear energy is too expensive to produce and that the uncertain future of spent nuclear fuel puts the state at risk.
In Other Legislative News...
United States Congressmen Jerry McNerney (D-CA) and John Shimkus (R-IL) introduced
H.R. 2699 on May 14, otherwise known as the
Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act of 2019. This legislation seeks to advance both the interim storage and permanent disposal of the nation's nuclear waste. It directs DOE to move forward with one or more consolidated interim storage facilities while determining if Yucca Mountain is the best site to be licensed and constructed for a permanent repository. Aware of Nevada's disapproval of how previous attempts to move forward with the Yucca Mountain site have progressed, this legislation seeks to engage Nevada, local stakeholders, and affected Tribes with the federal government. It also hopes to change the way current interim storage facilities are financed, in which ratepayers are usually footing the bill. H.R. 2699 is very similar to
H.R. 3053 of 2018, which easily passed the House but died in the Senate.
Look to the North for Inspiration
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Spent Nuclear Fuel at the Bruce Power Plant Photo Courtesy of Nick Vyfschaft / Global News
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North of the border, Canada is also working on a solution to its 57,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel. The Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO), created in 2002, proposed and received governmental support in 2007 to establish one deep geological repository (DGR) for all of Canada's spent fuel. Unlike America's search for a DGR, Canada is seeking to inform the public and find a "willing host" community for their DGR.
More than 20 communities expressed interest, and that original 20 has been narrowed down to five. In northern Ontario, there are Ignace, Manitouwadge, and Hornepayne. In southwestern Ontario, there are Huron-Kinloss and South Bruce. Both the billion-year-old granite in the Canadian Shield of northern Ontario and the 300-million-year-old sedimentary limestone of southwestern Ontario are ideally stable geologic formations. While there are opponents to Canada's proposed DGR, most people in the host communities are reassured in large part by representative from the NWMO who often carry out town hall meetings and informational sessions. Additionally, the NWMO is seeking to engage and consult First Nation communities near the proposed sites. This is a big change from many decades ago, when nuclear plants like Bruce Power were built on First Nation land without their consultation.
Global News has very in-depth and accessible coverage of Canada's search for a DGR.
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Thank you for reading. Watch for the next edition to come out on
July 3, 2019
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Missed a newsletter? Past issues are
archived
on the committee's webpage.
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Please do not reproduce or create new content from this material without the prior express written permission of CSG Midwest.
This material is based upon work supported by the Department of Energy under Award Numbers DE-NE0008604, DE-EM0004869, and DE-EM0005168.
This report was prepared as an account of work sponsored by an agency of the United States Government. Neither the United States Government nor any agency thereof, nor any of their employees, makes any warranty, express or implied, or assumes any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information, apparatus, product, or process disclosed, or represents that its use would not infringe privately owned rights. Reference herein to any specific commercial product, process, or service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise does not necessarily constitute or imply its endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by the United States Government or any agency thereof. The views and opinions of authors expressed herein do not necessarily state or reflect those of the United States Government or any agency thereof.
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