from commercial reprocessing of spent fuel. The Yucca Mountain Final EIS estimated that there would be an inventory of 22,280 canisters of high-level waste by the time Yucca Mountain shipments began; under DOE’s proposed action, 8,315 canisters would be shipped to the national repository for disposal (DOE 2002, p. J-20). The Transportation Institutional Plan identified several issues with regard to shipments of high-level waste, the first of which was the “transportation requirements for defense waste.”OCRWM stated that shipments would be carried out “in full compliance with Federal regulations and procedures established by OCRWM” (ibid., p. A-14). This statement implies that defense waste shipments will be subjected to the same requirements as shipments of commercial waste carried out under the NWPA. The “National Security Classification”of defense waste shipments was another issue raised in the Transportation Institutional Plan . According to the document, high-level waste shipments “will not be classified as needing special protection for national security purposes, and will comply with all applicable DOT transportation requirements” (ibid.). The plan further stated that, according to OCRWM transportation planning documents, “it is assumed that defense waste would be shipped directly from DOE facilities to a repository” (ibid.). The Transportation Institutional Plan identified emergency response as another issue to be addressed. Prior to the commencement of shipments to a repository, OCRWM, other federal agencies, states, tribes, and local governments will review existing emergency response capabilities for dealing with potential transportation incidents. According to OCRWM, “current discussions between the OCRWM, the Office of Defense Programs, the FEMA, and other Federal agencies have not identified any unique aspects of defense waste transportation that would require the development of a separate emergency-response program for defense waste shipments”(ibid.). Finally, the Transportation Institutional Plan identified liability coverage for shipments of defense waste as an issue that must be addressed prior to the commencement of shipments. Defense waste shipments to an NWPA-authorized repository would be covered by “1) carrier insurance for general traffic accidents, and 2) the government indemnity provisions of the Price-Anderson Act for serious transportation accidents involving a release of radioactive materials” (ibid.). The pre-decisional draft of OCRWM’s “National Transportation Plan” listed the destination for defense waste as a “resolved transportation issue”because “[t]he 1982 NWPA left it up to the President to determine whether civilian and defense-related wastes should be emplaced in the same repository. On April 30, 1985, the President issued a decision that they should be, with each party paying its proportional share of the full costs” (DOE 2007a, p. 9). The draft document also stated that, according to a 1986 Memorandum of Understanding with the Office of Defense Programs, defense waste would be transported in NRC-certified casks. Later, amendments to the NWPA required that all shipments to Yucca Mountain be made using NRC-certified packages (ibid., p.8). The pre-decisional draft of the “National Transportation Plan” identified March 2009 as the target date for awarding the contract to design and certify transportation casks for shipping high-level waste (ibid., p. 51).
In its letter, CVSA expressed concern that Section 7 would“pre- empt the Level VI inspection program that all states have uniformly participated in for the past 20 years” (Campbell 2006, p. 2). The Western governors objected that Section 7 would“effectively eliminate the states’ ability to take reasonable measures to ensure the safety and confidence of our citizens, such as carrier and shipment inspections, routing restrictions in high-risk areas…, and shipment escorts” (Napolitano 2006, p. 2). The governors pointed out that “[r]epository shipments on this sale cannot be made in a vacuum under DOE self-regulation,”but instead must “be made safely as part of our existing transportation system and regulatory framework” (ibid.). S. 2589 was never passed, however the language of Section 7 surfaced again in 2007 in a bill that Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman sent to then Vice President Cheney and Speaker Nancy Pelosi, urging their support (Bodman 2007). Fortunately for the states, that bill did not get picked up for consideration by the Congress. OCRWM’s two attempts to pass legislation preempting state regulation succeeded only in seriously eroding the trust and confidence that it had spent 20 years developing through regional cooperative agreements with groups like CSG Midwest andWIEB. These actions occurred just three years before the programwas terminated, therefore the OCRWM staff had little time to repair the damage that had been done. It remains to be seen whether the continuing relationship between the states and other DOE shipping programs (principally EM andWIPP) will be able to strengthen the ties that OCRWM cut with its action to preempt state laws. TRANSPORTATION OF HIGH-LEVEL WASTE OCRWM put a lot of work into figuring out how it would transport spent fuel, but very little work has been done on high-level waste. There is little mention of planning specific to high-level waste in OCRWM documents after the 1986 Transportation Institutional Plan , which identified several key issues related to transporting defense high-level waste. The Yucca Mountain Final EIS mentions the number of projected shipments of high-level waste, but the assumption seems to be that high-level waste would be shipped like spent fuel. OCRWM and its transportation stakeholders have not delved into the details of whether that would work and, if not, how else to do it. These details should be included in key OCRWM transportation documents, such as the “National Transportation Plan.” OCRWM’s 1986 Transportation Institutional Plan discussed the department’s policy for shipping defense high-level waste to a repository. OCRWM defines defense high-level waste as “the highly- radioactive waste that results from reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel that contains a combination of transuranic waste and fission products in concentrations as to require permanent isolation” (DOE 1986c, p. A-12). Inventories of defense high-level waste currently exist at the Savannah River Site, Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory, and the Hanford Reservation. A fourth site —West Valley in NewYork — stores high-level waste generated
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