Nuclear waste storage creates headaches for all

Jan 10 - Post-Bulletin (Rochester, MN)

 

When Ron Johnson looks east, the twin towers of the Prairie Island nuclear plant dominate the skyline. It's a constant reminder of a looming threat to his people.

The president of the Prairie Island Indian Community's Tribal Council travels the country on a weekly basis in hopes of educating himself and advocating for action from the federal government on a national repository for spent nuclear fuel.

The Nuclear Waste Act of 1982 has collected about $30 billion for the creation of such a site. The law required that nuclear waste stored on site with nuclear reactors be moved to a central location by 1998. However, that hasn't happened, and critics say the government has been violating federal law for the past 17 years by storing nuclear waste at Prairie Island.

There are 38 casks of nuclear waste stored at Prairie Island, and the number is expected to grow.

Officials from Red Wing and Xcel Energy , which operates the 41-year-old nuclear power plant in Red Wing , say nuclear waste storage has become a highly partisan issue since March 2009 , when the Obama Administration ordered the Yucca Mountain storage facility in Nevada be decommissioned.

Nuclear fission generates vast amounts of energy but also creates extremely hazardous waste that is harmful to living organisms and the environment if not properly handled. The United States is projected to have 104,000 metric tons of such waste by 2035. Yucca Mountain was previously selected as the national repository because it was isolated in the desert, away from most humans with limited water impacts.

"We're hoping with the Republicans taking over that they will take care of this because (Senate Majority Leader) Harry Reid (DFL-Nevada) is no longer blocking it," Red Wing City Council member Peggy Rehder said.

In 2014, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued a decision called the Continued Storage of Spent Nuclear Fuel Rule. The NRC determined that on-site storage is safe and permissible for up to hundreds of years. This fall, the Prairie Island Indian Community joined a lawsuit filed by attorneys general from New York , Connecticut and Vermont claiming the NRC's decision is illegal. A ruling could be years away.

"We talk about our next seven generations here," Johnson said, noting hundreds of his people live 600 yards from Red Wing's nuclear facility. "Is it our children's children's responsibility to take care of something (like this)? Is it our job to kick the can down the road and let it sit for another 100 years?

"If an accident were to happen here -- and I've been to Fukushima (in Japan ) -- Prairie Island wouldn't exist as a nation."

Officials from Red Wing and Xcel Energy share many of the tribe's concerns. The three groups helped form the Nuclear Waste Coalition in 1994, and frequently travel together to Washington, D.C. , to advocate for action after decades of frustration.

"We were frustrated with Yucca Mountain when it was on the table," said Kevin Davison , Xcel Energy's Site Vice President of the Prairie Island nuclear plant. "We were even more frustrated when it was taken off the table. I can understand why our communities are not happy and we share that with them."

Extended operating period

Xcel Energy serves about 1.6 million customers across five states, with 20 percent of that power generated by the Red Wing nuclear plant. After a five-year permitting process that cost $30 million , the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission recently approved the facility's request to operate for another 20 years.

In order to keep operating safely and efficiently, Prairie Island has planned $1 billion in operating upgrades and security improvements. About $400 million of that work has been completed.

The city of Red Wing plans to take advantage of the facility's corresponding increase in property taxes and has planned millions of dollars worth of capital improvement projects in 2015, including significant work downtown.

The extended operating period is expected to result in a total of 98 units of dry cask storage being stored on site, up from the existing 38. Xcel officials say that they've budgeted nearly $6 million per cask -- which represents an increase of 734 percent from the NRC's initial cost estimate made 25 years ago -- and have plans in place to safely manage the spent fuel for 60 years after the plant shuts down in 2034, according to Terry Pickens , Xcel's director of nuclear regulatory policy.

Whether that's considered sufficient remains to be seen.

The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission is reviewing the nuclear plant's triennial decommissioning docket. Xcel has proposed collecting $14 million per year to cover the 60-year decommissioning period. However, on-site storage for 200 years would require $42.3 million annually, according to Xcel's 1,312-page filing with the PUC on Dec. 1 .

Checkered past

While the NRC continues to express confidence that a national repository will be available by 2093 -- when Xcel's funds to manage on-site storage would be depleted -- critics abound. They point to the federal government already being 17 years out of compliance under current law.

The Indian community's legal counsel takes that one step further in his critique, referencing the checkered past of U.S.-Native American relations as reason for skepticism.

"Considering that just 209 years ago in 1805 the Dakota ceded the first tracts of land in what would become the State of Minnesota , and that 152 years ago in 1862 in the aftermath of the Dakota Conflict, 38 Dakota warriors were hanged in Mankato (in) the single largest mass execution in U.S. history, while other Dakota men, women and children were rounded up and forcibly removed and exiled from their homelands throughout the state, how can the NRC make any kind of promise about what will happen in 100 years, 200 years, or indefinitely?" said Phil Mahowald , Prairie Island Indian Community's general legal counsel.

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