Nuclear Waste Showdown Looms for N.J., Nation

Jul 18 - Record, The; Bergen County, N.J.

LAST MONTH four northeastern states, including New Jersey, won an important federal appeals court decision on storage of waste from nuclear power plants.

The decision struck down a rule issued last year by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The rule would allow plants to store radioactive waste onsite for up to 60 years after the plants shut down permanently. The waste is mostly spent fuel rods, stacked in pools of water or in dry casks.

The rule amended an earlier version permitting storage for 30 years after shutdown. A three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit held unanimously that the commission had failed to evaluate the risks of storage adequately.

The court said onsite storage had been "optimistically labeled" as temporary but had stretched on for decades. Enough, the judges said. The extension to 60 years constituted a major federal action that required either an environmental impact statement or a finding of no significant environmental risk. Neither had been provided.

Environmental risks

Further, the judges held, the commission should have considered the environmental risks if a permanent federal disposal site is not created. No site is currently in prospect or even under consideration.

Two of the judges had been appointed by Republican presidents, including the chief judge of the circuit court, David Sentelle, who wrote the decision. The third judge was appointed by a Democratic president.

The decision was hailed as a victory by Bob Martin, commissioner of the state Department of Environmental Protection. Similar declarations were doubtless issued in New York, Vermont and Connecticut, which had joined in the appeal.

What's needed now, Martin said, is for the federal government to stop delaying. The time has come for it to develop a plan for permanent storage of radioactive waste. He's right, but it is easier said than done. The obstacle is more political than scientific or technical.

The issue is one of direct concern to New Jersey. There are four nuclear reactors in service in the state. Three are owned and operated by Public Service Electric and Gas on or near a site called Artificial Island, fronting Delaware Bay in Lower Alloways Township in Salem County. The three are Salem 1, Salem 2 and Hope Creek.

Public Service is already running out of storage capacity in indoor pools. The company has begun storing waste outdoors in dry casks. Just last year the NRC granted approval for the reactors to operate for an additional 20 years after their current 40-year operating licenses expire.

With these extensions, Salem l can now operate through 2036, Salem 2 through 2040 and Hope Creek through April 2046. The NRC's 60- year rule would apply to waste stored onsite at the three plants after they close.

The fourth reactor, on the opposite, eastern side of the state, is Oyster Creek, in Lacey Township, Ocean County. Within sight of the Garden State Parkway, it began operations in 1969, the first commercial nuclear power plant in the country.

It is now owned by the Exelon Corp., under an agreement with the state DEP. This document, signed in December 2010, calls for the plant to close by the end of 2019, which would be 10 years earlier than its NRC license currently permits.

However, the agreement would permit storage of waste onsite until the federal government accepts it for permanent storage at a geologically appropriate location.

Reason for delay

The need is obvious. So what's the holdup?

Twenty-five years ago, Congress decided that the Department of Energy should build a nuclear waste repository in the Nevada desert, deep under a volcanic ridge called Yucca Mountain, if the regulatory commission determined the site to be suitable.

After years of study costing billions of dollars, President George W. Bush and Congress signed off on the project in 2002. But the commission delayed approval. And a new Senate majority leader, Democrat Harry Reid of Nevada, dug in his heels and sought to block the project any way he could.

Obama promised to kill project

In 2008, Barack Obama, running for the presidency and seeking Nevada support, promised Reid that he would kill it. Then, with the support of the new president, the commission, now chaired by a former Reid aide, stopped evaluating the Yucca plan. The Energy Department said it would spend no more money on it.

The issue gained urgency last year with the meltdown of the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant in Japan. The plant was storing spent fuel rods in pools much like those used by American plants.

The president appointed a commission to study the matter. In January it suggested a "consent-based" alternative, in which federal officials would identify areas with suitable geology and offer financial incentives to states and localities to accept the waste. To work, the incentives would have to be generous, very generous.

No action has been taken on the proposal.

Originally published by James Ahearn is a former managing editor of The Record..