July 17, 1996

Mr. William Knoll
Department of the Navy
Code NAVSEA 08U
2531 Jefferson Davis Highway
Arlington, VA 22242-5160

Dear Mr. Knoll:

Enclosed are the comments of the Western Interstate Energy Board's High-Level radioactive Waste Committee on the Navy's Draft Environmental Impact Statement for a Container System for the Management of Naval Spent Nuclear Fuel.

The Committee appreciates the opportunity to provide input during the Navy's process of developing its spent fuel container system. However, the Committee regrets that the limited time which the Navy allotted for comment on the Draft EIS did not allow for further, more in-depth analysis.

The Committee wishes to stress that the scope of the Draft EIS is very limited. This document therefore can only be used to potentially satisfy NEPA requirements for the shipment of naval spent fuel and special case waste. It cannot be used to support decisions on the transportation of other types of wastes under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act (NWPA). Nor can this document be used to satisfy NEPA requirements for the shipment of naval spent fuel and special case waste to any other location outside of Yucca Mountain, or from any other origin outside of the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory.

The Draft EIS clearly needs to provide more analysis and information to support a variety of its assumptions. In its present form, the document does not adequately address western stakeholder concerns with regard to ensuring the safe and uneventful transportation of naval nuclear waste.

Sincerely,

[signed]
Daniel Nix, Co-Chair
High-Level Radioactive Waste Committee

[signed]
Richard Moore, Co-Chair
High-Level Radioactive Waste Committee

cc:
Richard A. Guida, Associate Director for Regulatory Affairs, Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program, Department of the Navy
Daniel Dreyfus, Director, Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management

The following comments of the High-Level Radioactive Waste Committee of the Western Interstate Energy Board are focused solely on the transportation aspects of the Draft EIS. The Committee consists of representatives of the states of Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah and Washington.

Inapplicability of the EIS to Non-Navy Shipments Under the NWPA

The scope of the Draft EIS is very limited (shipments of Navy fuel and special case waste by rail from INEL to Yucca Mountain). As a result, the EIS cannot satisfy NEPA requirements for shipment of Navy waste to other locations or to support decisions on the transportation of other types of wastes under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act (NWPA). The Committee recognizes the budget shortfalls at DOE which caused the narrowing of the scope of the EIS. However, it is unfortunate, and probably wasteful of government resources in the long-run, to piecemeal the analysis of shipping containers that may be used in shipping campaigns to a repository or interim storage site under the NWPA.

Inconsistency Between the Transportation Mode Assumptions in the Draft EIS and Potential Access to a Yucca Mountain Repository and Interim Storage Facility Near Yucca Mountain

All the alternatives examined in the Draft EIS assume rail shipments from INEL to Yucca Mountain. However, at present there is no rail access to Yucca Mountain. Pending legislation to amend the Nuclear Waste Policy Act proposes to use heavy haul trucks to transport rail casks from a transfer station at Caliente, Nevada. However, based on national security concerns the Air Force has objected to the proposed route from Caliente to Yucca Mountain.

Furthermore, the Draft EIS notes that the ultimate modal decision will be made by DOE (pages S-6, 3-12). DOE may decide not to ship Navy fuel by train. In such an event the Draft EIS will have failed to be of sufficient scope to cover the shipment decision.

To rectify this shortcoming, the final EIS should examine rail, rail/heavy haul truck, and legal-weight truck shipments to Yucca Mountain.

No Evaluation of General Commerce Versus Dedicated Train Shipment

The Draft EIS assumes shipments from INEL to Yucca Mountain will use "commonly scheduled trains." In several places in the Draft EIS (e.g., page 3-7) it is stated that shipment by "commonly scheduled trains...is an extension of the proven safe, historical practices used to transport naval spent fuel from shipyards to INEL since 1957." It is the Committee's understanding that naval spent fuel has also been shipped by special trains that carried only spent fuel and which followed special operating procedures.

The Committee believes that dedicated trains employing special measures offer an increased margin of safety compared with general commerce trains. The final EIS should evaluate the use of dedicated trains employing various special precautions (e.g., controlling the time of day of travel) which may not be available on general commerce trains.

The National Environmental Policy Act requires the examination of all reasonable alternatives and the Committee believes that the use of dedicated trains is a very reasonable alternative, and possibly the preferred alternative, and therefore must be evaluated in the final EIS.

Risk Assessment May Be Inappropriately Based on an Extrapolation of the Findings of Modal Study to the Six Alternative Casks in the Draft EIS

The models and analysis used in the Draft EIS relies heavily on the findings of the NRC-sponsored Modal Study. The Modal Study, however, has limitations, including the use of a generic cask for determining the potential releases from accidents. It is not clear that the types of casks being evaluated in the Draft EIS would perform under accident conditions in the same manner as the generic cask in the Modal Study. Therefore, it is not clear that the consequences of severe accidents are accurately portrayed in the Draft EIS.

The Draft EIS includes a section on "Analysis of Uncertainties" in Appendix B (Detailed Evaluation of the Radiological and Nonradiological Risks Associated with Transportation of Naval Spent Nuclear Fuel). The Appendix notes that: "An extensive discussion of uncertainty analysis related to this Environmental Impact Statement can be found in Volume 1, Appendix D, Attachment F, Section F.1.5 of the Programmatic SNF and INEL EIS (DOE 1995)." Unfortunately, this Attachment does not discuss any of the uncertainties involved in extrapolating the findings of the Modal Study to the six alternative casks being evaluated in the Draft EIS. Other factors, such as the increasing train speeds on western railroads, may also need to be incorporated into any review of the applicability of the findings of the Modal Study to the risk factors reported in the Draft EIS.

See Nuclear Waste Shipping Container Response to Severe Accident Conditions: A Brief Critique of the Modal Study, December 1990, Nevada Nuclear Waste Project Office.

Draft EIS Shipping Schedule May Not Be Realistic

Tables B.3 and B.4 present yearly shipping schedules. The text accompanying the tables states that the numbers are "...consistent with the expectation that naval fuel will be among the earliest placed in the centralized interim storage site or geologic repository." The Committee notes that pending legislation would generally place naval fuel low in priority for acceptance at an interim storage facility.

Other Comments

1. The Draft EIS provides little information about the character of Navy fuel (other than that it is rugged). The lack of information on the fuel makes it difficult to evaluate the validity of the analysis in the Draft EIS.

2. The Draft EIS does not evaluate the impacts from transporting spent fuel/special case waste in transportable storage casks following an extended period of storage (e.g., 20 years). In addition, there is some confusion surrounding the statement in the Draft EIS that: "Likewise, decay heat calculations have been made which demonstrate that no fission product releases will occur from naval spent nuclear fuel inside a container even assuming about 3 years of cooling after reactor operation." (page 2-4) The analysis of fission product releases should cover a period substantially longer than three years.

3. The comparison of radiological exposure from each of the cask alternatives may be skewed in the Draft EIS by the use of actual radiation levels for the M-140 cask and maximum allowable radiation levels for all other alternatives. Thus the relative risk associated with use of the M-140 may be understated when compared to the alternative casks.

4. The Committee is interested in understanding the sources of data supporting the statement that "...transportation accident rates in general commerce are higher per truck mile than per rail mile." (page 3-11)

5. The Draft EIS appropriately notes that: "The analysis in this EIS covers transportation from INEL to the Yucca Mountain location as a representative or notional destination. This EIS does not make presumptions concerning the Yucca Mountain site's suitability for a geological repository or designation for use as a centralized interim storage site." The identification of three rail shipping routes may be adequate for bounding rail routing options in this EIS, but it is clearly not adequate to support shipments.