CURIE
to-date news, document sharing and version control, and other resources” (NTSF 2020b). During the webinar, potential users learned about the “registration process, the document creation process, the general site layout, the private group structure, as well as the advanced search capabilities” (ibid.). It is unknown whether the webinar prompted any state or tribal participants to register to become CURIE users. The Transportation Core Group continued to use CURIE to hold meeting-related information through the August 2017 meeting (the last one prior to a two-year gap). In 2018, CSG Midwest learned that “a management decision”had been made to“discontinue the public side of CURIE and make DOE public documents available through the OSTI.gov site and/or the NE DOE site” (Bickford 2018). DOE-NE management did not make this announcement to the state and tribal partners; instead, the fate of CURIE was revealed when a staff user tried to log in and saw this message on the main page: “The CURIE website is no longer available, except for the Interactive Map feature” (CURIE 2020a). When DOE-NE decided to hold a Transportation Core Group meeting in 2019, CURIE was once again opened to the members of the Transportation Core Group to locate meeting-related information. With the exception of the Transportation Core Group members, however, access to the site by state and tribal users is restricted. Despite this restriction, “industry, vendor, Federal, and laboratory partners” are able to access the site as a resource for providing “usable, collaborative document and data access” (CURIE 2020b).
In 2013, at the second meeting of the Transportation Core Group, DOE-NE provided a demonstration to the attendees of the new “Centralized Used Fuel Resource for Information Exchange,”or “CURIE.”The website served as a repository for information on the NFST Planning Project. As described on an NTSF webinar later that same year, the NFST Planning Project had developed the site to support its mission by providing“a centralized location for documents, used nuclear fuel data, public outreach presentations and information, calendar of events, and related news.”One of the handouts provided for the webinar was a user manual and site-content overview prepared by Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) staff, who described CURIE as an“external website designed to facilitate collaboration and information sharing among used fuel stakeholders and interested parties with respect to used fuel storage, transportation, and disposal” (White and Jarrell 2013, p. 3). After being approved to access the site, users could find information related to the NFST Planning Project, including the agenda, action items, and other materials for each of the Transportation Core Group meetings. 6 They could also upload files for sharing; join communities, as needed; and search for other publicly available documents. There was even talk of using CURIE as a replacement for the NTSF wiki site. In 2013, DOE-NE hosted an NTSF webinar on“Web-Based Information Resources for DOE's Transportation Stakeholders.” Featured on the agenda was a demonstration that “showed potential users the benefits of the CURIE website, including: up-
6 CSG Midwest created and maintains a separate wiki site for the SRGs to use for this purpose. This interregional engagement wiki is limited to approved users, most of whom are state and Tribal personnel.
STATE AND TRIBAL TRANSPORTATION CONSULTATION WORKING GROUP One major activity of the Transportation Core Group was the establishment in 2014 of a small working group to develop a paper defining the terms that would apply to the partnership between DOE-NE, states, and Tribes in transportation planning. The impetus for such a clear statement “arose from the shared recognition in 2013 on the part of the states, Tribes, and DOE staff that their interactions had not fully achieved their mutual goals” (STTC WG 2015, p. 1). The State and Tribal Transportation Consultation Working Group (STTCWG) consisted of two representatives of each of the three partners: Tribes: Richard Arnold (Consolidated Group of Tribes and Organiza- tions) and Heather Westra (Prairie Island Indian Community) States: Ken Niles (Oregon) and Lisa Janairo (CSG Midwest) DOE: Erica Bickford (DOE-NE) and Elizabeth Helvey (North Wind) For two years, the working group painstakingly researched past work on consultation, cooperation, and public engagement; discussed the priorities of the three partners; and wrote and
revised the paper for the benefit of DOE-NE, the states, and the Tribes. The members shared their evolving work at meetings of the Transportation Core Group, at SRG and TRMTC meetings, and during a breakout session at the 2015 NTSF Annual Meeting in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The working group solicited and received comments from the Transportation Core Group members, the NTSF breakout session participants, and the states and Tribes through a formal request for input that went out to the SRGs and TRMTC. The authors incorporated many of these comments into their final draft of the paper. “Consultation and Cooperation: A Model Process for Engaging States and Tribes in Spent Nuclear Fuel and High-Level Radioactive Waste Transportation Planning” is one of the highlights of the work completed in connection with the federal waste management program in 2010-2020. The paper did an excellent job articulating a genuinely shared vision of what it means to have consultation and cooperation in the long-term planning of radioactive waste shipments. The paper drew heavily from the “States’ Expectations” as well as the tribal counterpart document “Expectations for Consultation and Cooperation with Tribes Developing and Operating a Transportation System for Spent Fuel and High-Level Radioactive
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