Utah Department of Environmental Quality Initial Concerns with Draft Environmental Impact Statement For The Private Fuel Storage High Level Nuclear Waste Storage Facility On The Skull Valley Goshute Indian Reservation, Utah
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Agency (NRC), in conjunction with the U.S. Bureau
of Land Management (BLM), the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), and the U.S.
Surface Transportation Board (STB), published a Draft Environmental Impact Statement
(DEIS) for the proposed transportation and storage of high level nuclear waste.
Private Fuel Storage L.L.C. (PFS) has proposed to build and operate a commercial,
centralized, away-from-reactor, high level nuclear waste storage facility on
the Skull Valley Band of Goshute Indian Reservation, Utah. PFS requested a license
from the NRC to construct and operate the nuclear storage facility. PFS also
requested a right-of-way on public lands from BLM to build and operate a rail
spur to transport nuclear waste through Skull Valley or to build and operate
a transfer facility. The BIA must approve the lease agreement between PFS and
the Skull Valley Band of Goshutes. The STB must approve any rail alignment in
Skull Valley. The proposed facility location is in a seismically active area
and near a military bombing range - the Utah Test and Training Range.
High Level Nuclear Waste. Commercial high level nuclear waste is generated
from nuclear power reactors. In the United States, there are currently 104 commercial
nuclear reactors located in 31 states. The bulk of commercial high level nuclear
waste is generated east of Colorado where 92 percent of the reactors are located.
Amount of Waste. PFS plans to store up to 40,000 metric tons of uranium
(MTUs) of high level nuclear waste. The storage of this volume of waste in one
location is unprecedented and is approximately the equivalent volume of all
commercial high level nuclear waste currently in the United States. PFS plans
to store the waste in up to 4,000 concrete storage casks on concrete storage
pads. In contrast, today there are 436 dry storage units storing commercial
high level nuclear waste in the entire United States. Moreover, 12 of the 13
dry cask storage facilities contain between 0 and 44 storage units or casks.
Transportation and Storage Casks. At the reactor sites, high level nuclear
waste will be placed in steel canisters either directly in spent fuel pools
or using a dry transfer system. Once the spent fuel is loaded into the canisters,
the canisters are then filled with helium and welded shut. PFS plans to transport
the canisters in steel transportation casks. These transportation casks typically
weigh 150 tons. Once the transportation casks arrive at the storage facility,
the canisters will be lifted from the transportation casks into transfer casks
to shield radiation during transfer. The canisters will then be placed in concrete
storage casks. The storage casks will be stored outside on concrete pads.
Away-from-Reactor Storage. There are 11 private and two U.S. Department
of Energy (DOE) dry cask storage sites which store commercial high level nuclear
waste. Unlike PPS' away-from-reactor storage proposal, 12 dry cask storage sites
are located within 3,300 feet of the nuclear power plant. The other dry cask
storage facility is located on a DOE reservation in Idaho.
Transportation of Waste. PFS plans to transport up to four casks of
high level nuclear waste per week by rail across the country to Rowley Junction
or Low, Tooele County, Utah. If a new rail spur is constructed on BLM land,
the spent nuclear fuel shipment will move by rail down the western side of Skull
Valley to the storage facility. If the Intermodal Transfer Facility is built,
the casks will be transfered to heavy haul trucks for transport along Skull
Valley Road to the PFS storage facility on the Skull Valley Goshute Indian Reservation.
PFS plans to build either a 34-mile rail spur in Skull Valley on public lands
or a transfer facility at Rowley Junction, also on public lands. These lands
are managed by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. The rail spur will pass near
a proposed wilderness area in the Cedar Mountains. If the canister is damaged
or is contaminated, PFS plans to refuse the shipment and send the damaged or
contaminated canister back across country to the originating power plant without
first addressing the problem.
Transportation Routes. The high level nuclear waste will enter Utah
near Evanston, Wyoming, Grand Junction, Colorado, or southern Utah. Waste from
the east may enter Utah near Evanston, then travel across prime watershed areas
in Weber Canyon, through Davis County and Salt Lake City, then west to Skull
Valley. Other waste from the east will enter Utah near Grand Junction, Colorado,
then pass Green River and Price, and cross the watersheds in Price and Spanish
Fork canyons, to Springville. From Springville the waste will likely travel
north along the Wasatch Front through Utah and Salt Lake counties, then to Tooele
County. Waste from Southern California will enter Utah near Uvada, then travel
north through Delta to Lynndyl. From Lynndyl the waste may be routed through
Nephi, then up through Utah and Salt Lake counties or directly to Tooele Valley
past the chemical weapons incinerator to Skull Valley.
Initial Draft Environmental Impact Concerns. The following problems
are either not addressed or not adequately resolved in the DEIS. This list represents
a partial summary. Additional issues and more detailed discussions of problems
will be identified in the final written comments in response to the DEIS.
- The BLM and BIA must consider the environmental risks if storage is not
temporary. There is no way to ensure that the nuclear waste will ever
be removed from the site. The proposed permanent repository at Yucca Mountain,
Nevada, is still undergoing extensive testing to determine whether the site
is suitable for geologic disposal of high level nuclear waste. If construction
of the Yucca Mountain site is not feasible, then the contentious repository
siting process will start over again, and the PFS site could become a defacto
permanent storage site.
If Yucca Mountain is built, there is still no certainty if or when all the
high level nuclear waste stored at Skull Valley will be removed to Yucca Mountain.
Current federal law limits Yucca Mountain's capacity for commercial high level
nuclear waste to 63,000 MTUs. However, DOE projects that more than 105,000
MTUs of commercial spent fuel will be generated. Thus, under current law over
40,000 MTUs (the amount potentially stored in Skull Valley) will not have
a disposal place.
Furthermore, the DEIS explicitly states that a nuclear power plant, operating
under a Part 50 license, may be decommissioned (permanently shut-down and
remove the reactors and use the power plant land for other activities), if
the spent fuel is stored at an away-from-reactor site. In that case, it would
be impossible to return the waste fuel to the utility's power plant when the
PFS lease or license in Skull Valley expires. Therefore, the NRC, BIA, STB
and BLM must consider the environmental impacts if the nuclear waste remains
on sight beyond the 40-year license or 50-year lease term or is never removed.
- There is no need for an away-from-reactor storage facility. The DEIS
states that some reactor sites are running out of existing storage capacity
for high level nuclear waste. Contrary to the discussion provided in the DEIS,
a US General Accounting Office (GAO) report clearly identifies adequate existing
storage for spent nuclear fuel. That report should be included in the discussion
in the DEIS, and the findings utilized or specifically refuted with facts.
The failure to consider the GAO findings represents a serious oversight in
terms of credible information and cost/benefit analysis. In the limited case
where space is not available and cannot be secured, the utility could build
its own dry cask storage at the reactor site or contract with the US Department
of Energy to manage waste fuel.
- There is no need for the enormous storage volume of 40,000 MTUs.
There are approximately 40,000 MTUs of commercial high level nuclear waste
in the entire country. There is no need to concentrate such a large volume
of spent fuel in one location, on a small Indian reservation in Utah. Moreover,
PFS has not demonstrated a need or market for such a large facility. PFS has
no track record of being able to transport, handle, or manage - both practically
and financially - such a vast quantity of spent nuclear fuel. The environmental
and human health impacts will be greatly reduced if smaller quantities of
spent fuel are transported and stored.
- Benefits to reactor companies and reactor communities should not outweigh
the costs to Utah communities. The DEIS states major benefits of building
the PFS facility include ensuring ongoing nuclear power and potentially reducing
nuclear waste storage costs for specific reactor companies. Utah generates
an excess of electricity, which it exports. Thus Utahns do not require or
rely on the supply of nuclear power. Thus, Utahns will not benefit from ongoing
nuclear power or the reduction in nuclear power costs. However, if the facility
is operated Utahns will 1) bear the risks of transporting an enormous volume
of nuclear waste throughout the State, 2) bear risks associated with storage
as neighboring communities, 3) bear negative economic impacts, 4) lose use
of public lands and enjoyment of wildlife in Skull Valley, and 5) bear the
costs of training emergency responders and medical personnel.
- Impacts to military training, military readiness, and Utah's economy
must be assessed. The storage facility and proposed rail spur in Skull
Valley are located under a military operating area and next to the Utah Test
and Training Range and Dugway Proving Ground. Numerous military flights, military
exercises and weapons tests are conducted in the military operating area over
the proposed storage facility and rail spur. Hill Air Force Base considers
the use of the military operating area essential to training. The UTTR-Dugway
Proving Ground is the largest overland military training land mass in the
U.S. The Air Force, in part, credits its success during Desert Storm and its
overall military readiness to its ability to train at the UTTR. Because of
potential liability, the military would curtail its training in the military
operating area which would result in a loss of military readiness. Impacts
to military training would create adverse socioeconomic impacts to Hill Air
Force Base, the surrounding community, the Utah Test and Training Range, and
the Utah economy.
- The DEIS failed to consider the infrastructure costs to communities
along the transportation routes. Unlike federal shipments, private shipments
of spent fuel do not require any funding for assessment of emergency response
needs, local emergency response training, equipment for radioactive incidents,
or additional training for medical personnel.
- Economic impact must be evaluated. The economic impact from real
and perceived risks must be evaluated. Utah may suffer economically from the
stigma, as such large volumes of high level nuclear waste will be transported
through the State and along the Wasatch Front and be stored close by.
- Benefits to the Skull Valley Band of Goshute Indians must be disclosed.
In weighing the costs and benefits, the DEIS claims substantial benefits will
be derived by the Skull Valley Band. The right-of-way on public lands and
the lease approval are major federal actions. In order to determine the appropriateness
of the federal decisions, as well as the full cost and benefit, the terms
of the lease payments to the Skull Valley Band must be publicly disclosed.
- BIA cannot approve the lease because lease requirements for liability
insurance do not ensure PFS will be held liable for all environmental and
human health impacts. Absent gross neglect or willful misconduct, the
lease agreement limits PFS' liability to only a commercially reasonable amount
of liability insurance regardless of the actual amount of damage. The BIA
will fail to meet its trust responsibility if it approves this flawed lease.
Furthermore, there is no evaluation of the BIA, US Department of the Interior,
or federal government responsibility if the flawed lease results in excess
liability, cost, or damage to the Tribe, its lands, or adjacent state trust,
private, or federal lands.
- Unnecessary handling and transportation of spent fuel creates the risk
of accidents. The probability of an accident increases the more the spent
nuclear fuel is handled or the farther it is transported. Thus, the probability
of an accident increases if the spent nuclear fuel is needlessly shipped to
Skull Valley. PFS proposes to ship up to 200 casks - 2,000 MTUs - of spent
nuclear fuel to Utah each year. PFS may ship up to four casks per week. By
contrast, from 1964 to 1994, there were only 345 commercial shipments of spent
fuel throughout the United States. Also, the average quantity of commercial
spent fuel that has been shipped per year is 75 MTUs. The spent nuclear fuel
destined for Skull Valley will travel across the country from as far away
as Maine. Such large volumes of spent nuclear fuel have not previously been
moved in the United States.
- The DEIS does not address PFS financial responsibility and liability
to ensure impacts to the environment and human health will be minimized.
The DEIS often references that PFS plans on operating under a "start clean,
stay clean" philosophy. The philosophy is wonderful if it's practical. However,
PFS is a limited liability company with no assets of its own. As a limited
liability company, each member utility company that forms PFS will not be
individually liable, nor will its assets be individually at risk. If PFS does
not have adequate financial resources to safely operate, the DEIS evaluation
is meaningless.
NRC has not required PFS to submit detailed financial information. Prior to
license issuance, NRC will not require PFS to demonstrate that it will
likely be able to obtain sufficient funds to build, operate, and close the
proposed facility. Instead, NRC will allow PFS to build the storage facility
upon a showing that PFS has sufficient commitments, rather than actual funds
in hand, to fund construction. In addition, NRC will allow PFS to operate
if it has contract commitments, not funds, to cover costs of storing the volume
of waste covered by PFS contracts.
Because NRC is deferring any financial evaluation, the BLM, BIA, and STB will
make decisions before a financial analysis is completed. Without an adequate
financial analysis the environmental impacts cannot be assessed.
- NRC has a poor record of evaluating a licensee's financial reliability.
NRC failed to ensure that a private company had adequate funds to cleanup
the Atlas tailings contamination near the Colorado River. Atlas declared bankruptcy
and, therefore, was not ultimately responsible for the necessary cleanup.
- Transportation routes were not defined or assessed. Other than a
rail route from Maine Yankee, the DEIS failed to identify specific transportation
routes. Moreover, the DEIS failed to analyze specific risks to communities
along the transportation route. Spent fuel may be transported through heavily
populated areas across the Wasatch Front, including Davis, Salt Lake, and
Utah counties. Depending upon the circumstance, spent fuel may be stopped
in various rail yards, including downtown Salt Lake City. The State estimates
that a "maximum reasonably foreseeable" transportation accident, as described
by the Department of Energy, in Salt Lake City would result in 114 latent
cancer fatalities and cost $313 billion to clean up.
- PFS transportation requirements are less vigorous than radioactive waste
shipments under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act or Waste Isolation Pilot Project.
As the shipments to the PFS site will be private, PFS is not required to meet
the same standards as DOE shipments (e.g., financial support for local and
state governments to address infrastructure, emergency response, law enforcement,
state input to route selection).
Private shipments are not required to ship waste by dedicated service where
only spent fuel is allowed to be carried on a train. All past U.S. commercial
shipments of spent fuel were conducted as dedicated service rather than as
mixed freight. Although PFS has indicated it plans to ship spent fuel by dedicated
service, there are no NRC or U.S. Department of Transportation regulations
that require PFS to do so. If the spent fuel is not shipped by dedicated service,
spent fuel casks may be delayed in various rail yards across the country (including
Ogden and Salt Lake) awaiting a connection to Rowley Junction. NRC should
require PFS to ship spent fuel by dedicated service.
- The PFS facility is incompatible with surrounding military activities.
The PFS facility will be located east of the Utah Test and Training Range
(UTTR) property and underneath the UTTR airspace designated as a military
operating area. The activities approved in the airspace over the PFS storage
facility include air-to-air training, low-altitude training, cruise-missile
testing, and major military exercises. The main use of the Skull Valley airspace
is to allow low- and medium-altitude entries of F-16s into the UTTR from Hill
Air Force Base. The risk of aircraft crashes, including military aircraft,
into the storage facility has not been adequately evaluated.
Additionally, the military tests large footprint weapons, including cruise
missiles, on the UTTR. Cruise-missile testing may last up to five hours, as
the cruise missile follows a preplanned flight path through the UTTR airspace.
Three cruise missiles have crashed since December 1997, including two outside
of military property under the military operating area airspace. The State
of Utah has raised concerns with the potential of cruise-missile crashes into
the storage facility.
- Dry cask technology is not infallible. The proposed canisters and
casks have not been subject to any actual tests. Moreover, some casks in use
today have had numerous problems, such as hairline fractures during manufacturing,
an explosion due to a chemical reaction during loading of the casks, and cask-weld
failures. Contrary to nuclear industry supporters, the casks are definitely
not infallible.
- The consequences of sabotage must be determined. Rather than evaluate
consequences, NRC simply states that sabotage accidents would not be "unacceptably
large." In order to assess impacts, the potential consequences of sabotage
or terrorism while the spent fuel is in transportation and storage must be
determined. Consequences may be significant because new armor-piercing weapons
are currently available that may easily penetrate the transportation casks.
- Increased wildfires in Skull Valley have not been evaluated. Currently,
there is no rail line in Skull Valley, and thus no risk of train-caused wildfires.
The increased potential for wildfires due to the new rail spur in Skull Valley
or the storage facility has received only marginal attention before the NRC.
Increases in wildfires, the availability of firefighting resources, and subsequent
impacts have not been fully evaluated.
- Earthquake and seismic evaluation excluded from DEIS. Earthquake,
ground motion, soil stability concerns, surface rupturing, and other major
geologic and seismic considerations are not addressed in the DEIS, but instead
according to the NRC are addressed only in the NRC's Safety Evaluation Report
(SER). This is unacceptable and represents a significant flaw in the DEIS,
both technically and procedurally. NRC staff, despite objections from the
State and significant evidence of geologic and seismic problems, is considering
exempting the proposed facility from certain existing NRC seismic regulation.
Were that to occur, the SER would also be devoid of critical seismic and geologic
evaluations and requirements. Furthermore, if the DEIS is finalized before
hearings on this issue before the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board, the final
EIS decision will be technically and procedurally premature. Additionally,
because the general public is excluded from participation in hearings before
the Licensing Board, the public will be unable to fairly and completely respond
to these critical decisions, contrary to the requirements of the National
Environmental Policy Act and federal administrative procedures.
Furthermore, the geologic and seismic concerns affect more than the storage
site. Those concerns are critical in the construction and operations of the
rail spur and the Intermodal Transfer Facility (ITF) as well as the use and
construction of Skull Valley Road for the transport of casks. The DEIS is
flawed and incomplete due to the failure to evaluate risks, consider the design
and costs of construction, and the costs and benefits of geologic and seismic
hazards including impacts of disruption to east-west transportation along
the northern portion of Skull Valley.
- Scope of BIA federal action too narrowly defined. The BIA has so
narrowly defined the scope of its review in the DEIS that it has failed to
meet its trust responsibilities.
- DEIS ignores requirements of current BLM Resource Management Plan (RMP).
The current BLM Pony Express RMP specifically requires that "public lands
will not be made available for inappropriate uses such as storage or use of
hazardous materials (munitions, fuel, chemicals, etc) and live artillery firing."
The DEIS includes no specific justification or evaluation to support changing
that prohibition. However, the rail spur cannot be constructed and operated
under that restriction.
- Regulations and consultations ignored. The DEIS has misstated some
relevant and applicable state and federal regulations governing the proposed
actions and failed to list and describe other significant regulations, reviews
and permits required for facilities and operations on and off the Reservation.
- Reclamation of rail spur. DEIS fails to commit to decommission or
reclaim the rail spur right of way. If the facility is not temporary, the
rail spur and the ITF also cannot be temporary. Yet, the DEIS fails to evaluate
impacts of a permanent rail line or ITF.
- Rail line encourages, not prevents fire spread. It is ironic that
the rail spur is touted as a control measure for inhibiting the spread of
wildfires. In fact, the risks of fires started by the trains in Skull Valley
will be greater than the rail spur's potential use as a firebreak.
- Consideration of RS2477 Roads. The DEIS fails to consider impacts
to RS2477 roads to the facility and along the rail spur route.
- Failure to consult Department of Defense. The Department of Defense
and specifically the US Army and US Air Force and their installations have
a clear interest in, impact on, and consequence from the proposed facility
and transportation corridor. Yet, those agencies were never contacted regarding
the proposed facility and the DEIS. The omission is grounds in and of itself
for rejecting the DEIS. Any evaluation conducted after the initial release
of the DEIS must be made available in draft for public comment prior to final
action.
- The PFS facility is unique and thus existing evaluations of risk are
not applicable. Because the proposed facility is unique, impacts from
the PFS facility or transportation must be specifically evaluated.
- PFS will be the only private away-from-reactor, dry cask storage facility
in the United States.
- The assessment of joint and severable liability is critical because
the nuclear waste stored will be owned by a number of different utilities.
- Long-term, dry cask technology is unproven because it has only been
in existence for approximately 14 years. PFS proposes to keep high level
nuclear waste in dry storage casks out in the open in Skull Valley for
up to 40 years. Furthermore, there is a real potential that the casks
may be on-site for longer than 40 years if Yucca Mountain is not built
or will not accept all the waste stored at Skull Valley.
- The large 4,000 storage cask capacity facility is unprecedented. Today
in the entire country there are 436 dry storage units. Moreover, 12 of
the 13 dry cask storage sites store between 0 and 44 storage units or
casks.
- Transportation of the volume of spent fuel proposed by PFS is unprecedented
and unproven.
CONTACT
For additional information, contact Connie
Nakahara, Director, High Level Nuclear Waste Storage Opposition, located
within the Utah Department of Environmental Quality, at (801) 366-0523, or
visit our web site at www.deq.utah.gov
