development of state and local emergency response plans, and shipment operations management (WIEB et al. 2008, pp. 2-6). In a later paper on the project, the staff proposed three full pages of questions as examples of how states and OCRWM could use a system such as the one envisioned in theWIEB IRRIS pilot. The questions included concepts ranging from evaluating“best practice choices” (like the impact of dedicated trains or an“oldest fuel first” policy on incident-free accident risk) to identifying emergency response training needs (e.g., “what is the current emergency response capability along route X in my state?”) (Williams et al. 2009, pp. 9-12). Although theWIEB project showed a great deal of promise, OCRWM’s decision to discontinue funding for the regional cooperative agreements preventedWIEB from going beyond Phase I of the pilot program. The states are still in need of a system for analyzing shipment information to help them determine the potential impacts they will experience as a result of large-scale movement of spent fuel and high-level waste. It is unclear how much progress OCRWM made in the development of its own internal model or whether this specific model would be useful to the states in the future. The work done by WIEB holds more promise in that it was conducted fairly recently with a system that is still available. For the West to resume this project, however, would require a significant investment of funding — unlikely given the elimination of the Yucca Mountain program. Furthermore, by the time the states or the regions have both a pressing need and sufficient funding to pick up this work in the future, IRRIS may no longer be the most suitable platform given the rate of technological advances. FEDERAL REGULATION OF TRANSPORTATION The NWPA, as amended, carves out a small role for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) in regulating repository shipments, but the Midwest has consistently advocated for greater NRC oversight. The NWPA stipulates that all shipments to a federal repository be made in NRC-certified packages and in accordance with NRC regulations on the advance notification of state and local governments. OCRWM is not required to comply with other NRC regulations on spent fuel and high-level waste shipments, but has indicated that the program will do so voluntarily. DOE orders commit departmental elements to following all relevant Department of Transportation (DOT) regulations, but the orders do not address NRC regulations. The Midwestern states feel it is important for OCRWM to comply with NRC regulations pertaining to other shipment activities, including route approval. In its 1994 draft document “The Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management Transportation Plan: Developing the Transportation System,”OCRWM briefly described the roles of the NRC and DOT in regulating the transportation of spent fuel and high-level waste. DOT is primarily responsible for establishing standards to ensure that radioactive materials are transported safely in the United States. DOT has general highway routing regulations for shipments of radioactive materials to make routing requirements
to evaluate and plan to mitigate the impact of shipments on their jurisdictions. Recognizing a definite unmet need on the part of the states, WIEB took up the ambitious task of trying to establish the type of planning tool described above — a tool that would merge the functions of TRAGIS and RADTRAN while adding significantly more information through the application of GIS technology. In 2008, WIEB launched a pilot study to test the “web-based geospatial portal” called IRRIS (developed by GeoSystems) as a means of “assessing route conditions along potential alternate nuclear waste shipment routes and for assessing state-local emergency response capabilities and needs.” According to the pilot study proposal, the goal of such a tool would be to provide data that are “detailed, ‘featured,’ updatable, and packaged for effective use by state and local agencies for emergency response planning, assessing emergency response training and equipment needs, and evaluating routing options” (WIEB 2008, p. 1). WIEB completed the first phase of the pilot in June 2008. In its Phase I report, WIEB identified 11 possible uses for “detailed, ‘featured’ information”on potential routes, among them route assessment,
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