[Senate Hearing 110-1222]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 110-1222
SAFETY AND SECURITY OF
SPENT NUCLEAR FUEL TRANSPORTATION
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
COMMITTEE ON COMMERCE,
SCIENCE, AND TRANSPORTATION
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
SEPTEMBER 24, 2008
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Commerce, Science, and
Transportation
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SENATE COMMITTEE ON COMMERCE, SCIENCE, AND TRANSPORTATION
ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
DANIEL K. INOUYE, Hawaii, Chairman
JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER IV, West KAY BAILEY HUTCHISON, Texas,
Virginia Ranking
JOHN F. KERRY, Massachusetts TED STEVENS, Alaska
BYRON L. DORGAN, North Dakota JOHN McCAIN, Arizona
BARBARA BOXER, California OLYMPIA J. SNOWE, Maine
BILL NELSON, Florida GORDON H. SMITH, Oregon
MARIA CANTWELL, Washington JOHN ENSIGN, Nevada
FRANK R. LAUTENBERG, New Jersey JOHN E. SUNUNU, New Hampshire
MARK PRYOR, Arkansas JIM DeMINT, South Carolina
THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware DAVID VITTER, Louisiana
CLAIRE McCASKILL, Missouri JOHN THUNE, South Dakota
AMY KLOBUCHAR, Minnesota ROGER F. WICKER, Mississippi
Margaret L. Cummisky, Democratic Staff Director and Chief Counsel
Lila Harper Helms, Democratic Deputy Staff Director and Policy Director
Christine D. Kurth, Republican Staff Director and General Counsel
Paul Nagle, Republican Chief Counsel
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on September 24, 2008............................... 1
Statement of Senator Carper...................................... 26
Statement of Senator Ensign...................................... 2
Prepared statement........................................... 3
Statement of Senator Inouye...................................... 1
Statement of Senator Thune....................................... 86
Witnesses
Ballard, Ph.D., James David, Associate Professor, Department of
Sociology, California State University, Northridge (CSUN);
Director, CSUN Intelligence Community Center Academic
Excellence (IC-CAE); Consultant, Nuclear Waste Project Office,
State of Nevada................................................ 53
Prepared statement........................................... 55
Crowley, Ph.D., Kevin D., Senior Board Director, Nuclear and
Radiation Studies Board, National Research Council, The
National Academies............................................. 46
Prepared statement........................................... 48
Hamberger, Edward R., President and CEO, Association of American
Railroads...................................................... 77
Prepared statement........................................... 78
Pritchard, Edward W., Director, Office of Safety Assurance and
Compliance, Federal Railroad Administration, U.S. Department of
Transportation................................................. 16
Reid, Hon. Harry, U.S. Senator from Nevada....................... 4
Prepared statement........................................... 6
Schubert, Sandra, Director, Environmental Working Group.......... 29
Prepared statement of Kenneth A. Cook, President,
Environmental Working Group................................ 32
Sproat III, Hon. Edward F., Director, Office of Civilian
Radioactive Waste Management, U.S. Department of Energy........ 8
Prepared statement........................................... 10
Weber, Michael, Director, Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards,
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission............................. 11
Prepared statement........................................... 13
Willke, Dr. Theodore ``Ted'', Associate Administrator, Hazardous
Materials Safety, Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety
Administration, U.S. Department of Transportation.............. 18
Written Statement of Ted Willke, Associate Administrator for
Hazardous Materials Safety, Pipeline and Hazardous
Materials Safety Administration, and Edward Pritchard,
Director, Office of Safety Assurance and Compliance,
Federal Railroad Administration, U.S. Department of
Transportation............................................. 19
Appendix
Response to written questions submitted to Kevin Crowley by:
Hon. Daniel K. Inouye........................................ 105
Hon. Harry Reid.............................................. 105
Response to written questions submitted to Edward R. Hamberger
by:
Hon. Daniel K. Inouye....................................... 108
Hon. Harry Reid.............................................. 108
Response to written questions submitted by Hon. Daniel K. Inouye
to:
Dr. James David Ballard...................................... 107
Ken Cook..................................................... 104
Response to written questions submitted to Edward Pritchard by:
Hon. Daniel K. Inouye........................................ 100
Hon. Harry Reid.............................................. 100
Response to written questions submitted by Hon. Harry Reid to Ted
Willke......................................................... 102
Response to written questions submitted to Hon. Edward F. Sproat
III by:
Hon. Barbara Boxer........................................... 91
Hon. Daniel K. Inouye........................................ 91
Hon. Harry Reid.............................................. 93
Response to written questions submitted to Michael Weber by:
Hon. Barbara Boxer........................................... 96
Hon. Daniel K. Inouye........................................ 95
Hon. Harry Reid.............................................. 97
SAFETY AND SECURITY OF
SPENT NUCLEAR FUEL TRANSPORTATION
----------
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 2008
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation,
Washington, DC.
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:03 p.m., in
room SR-253, Russell Senate Office Building, Hon. Daniel K.
Inouye, Chairman of the Committee, presiding.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. DANIEL K. INOUYE,
U.S. SENATOR FROM HAWAII
The Chairman. Accomplishing the safe and secure
transportation of nuclear waste is one of the more complex
challenges facing our government. Spent nuclear fuel is the
byproduct of the nuclear power industry that supplies electric
energy to millions across the country and also is created by
our armed forces. This fuel retains its radioactive qualities
for thousands of years and is currently stored at 77 commercial
and government sites across the country.
We are not here to discuss the merits of the Department of
Energy's selection of Yucca Mountain, Nevada as a site for a
permanent underground geological repository to store nuclear
waste or its current license application. Rather, we must
ensure that all shipments of spent nuclear fuel and high-level
waste are held to the highest safety and security standards.
Today nuclear waste is transported by rail, truck, and
barge, all of which are under the jurisdiction of this
Committee, and the risks of transporting nuclear waste must be
fully understood and evaluated and a system of transportation
must be designed to fully address these risks.
In this hearing, we will examine the current regulatory
regime for nuclear waste transportation and hear from
researchers and a representative of the rail industry in order
to more fully understand the challenges of transporting nuclear
waste. It is this Committee's obligation to evaluate these
challenges and to ensure that spent nuclear fuel and high-level
radioactive waste is transported in ways that minimize the
safety and security risks to the general public.
With that, may I first welcome the delegation from Nevada,
but I will call upon Senator Ensign. Afterwards he will come up
here. Senator Ensign?
STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN ENSIGN,
U.S. SENATOR FROM NEVADA
Senator Ensign. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much for
holding this hearing. As you know, the Nevada delegation has
been unified as Nevadans, as most Nevadans are in opposition to
the Yucca Mountain project, and part of that project is the
whole idea of transporting nuclear waste. I realize that that
is what this hearing is about today, but we also need to
educate Americans what this means--where is this nuclear waste
going to be transported, and what are the parameters in
studying how safe this nuclear waste is to transport.
But we also have to look at the costs associated. I
remember a few years ago, Senator Reid and I saying when the
cost estimates, about 5 years ago, for Yucca Mountain were
about the mid-$50 million range, and Senator Reid and I
testified that the cost is going to go at least to $100
billion, and probably north of $100 billion would be the cost
of Yucca Mountain. People kind of said, no, that is not right.
Those are way over estimate. Well, now the most recent cost
estimate for Yucca Mountain is $96 billion.
What a lot of people do not realize, especially those who
want to get the nuclear waste out of their state, which then
leads to the transportation, is Yucca Mountain, the way it is
currently being constructed, will only handle the nuclear waste
that has been produced by this country up to this point. It
does not handle any nuclear waste that this country will be
producing into the future.
And so I think that while we are studying transportation
issues and talking about the transportation issues, we should
also look at whether we need to transport it at this point. We
need to look at other technologies that other countries are
doing, like France, and the amount and how they transport their
waste, but also what they do with their waste. Basically they
recycle their waste, and they have a lot smaller volume.
But we also have to tell the American people, who have
nuclear powerplants in their state that think that they are
getting rid of all of their nuclear waste, that that in fact is
not the case. I remember when Spence Abraham was the Secretary
of Energy and he came and he was talking about--this was right
after 9/11--and the safety, that we need one repository. So we
bring all the nuclear waste to one repository.
Well, the fact is that when you have a spent nuclear fuel
rod, it needs to cool for several years in cooling pools before
you can actually transport it, before you could take it to a
repository, if that is, indeed, what you wanted to do. So there
is going to be nuclear waste or partially spent nuclear fuel
rods all over the country.
Those are just some of the issues I believe that are
important to talk to the American people and to be honest with
the American people. Is this a policy that we should continue?
I do not believe it is. I believe that we should catch up with
the rest of the world on some of the modern recycling
technologies, and in doing so, we can address the
transportation issues. But we should be honest with the
American people what the transportation issues are, where those
transportation routes are and be honest with them and look at
other countries and what they have done with it.
But we also, in light of that, need to look at whether or
not Yucca Mountain is the place that we want to take very
valuable fuel, whether we want to look at onsite dry cask
storage, which is good for 100 to 200 years, which, by the way,
would obviate the need for transporting nuclear waste, and then
we should look at the recycling efforts as well.
So I have a formal statement and would ask that that be
made part of the record.
But, Mr. Chairman, I appreciate you holding this hearing
today and listening to two concerned Nevadans who happen to
represent a lot of other Nevadans on this important issue to
our state.
[The prepared statement of Senator Ensign follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. John Ensign, U.S. Senator from Nevada
Mr. Chairman, I would like to thank you for the opportunity to
testify today on behalf of the people of Nevada.
Mr. Chairman, I would like to be clear: Yucca Mountain is not an
issue that affects just the residents of Nevada--it is an issue that
affects every American. I am here today to explain that the plan to
store spent nuclear fuel at Yucca Mountain is not a solution. The
storage of spent nuclear fuel at Yucca Mountain is a plan plagued by
unrealistic assumptions about cost, poor transportation and waste
management planning, and insufficient scientific testing to ensure the
safety of our communities. I believe that we can do better.
I have bad news for those of you with working nuclear reactors in
your states who think that the opening of Yucca will rid your state of
nuclear waste--you're wrong. You see, even if it were possible to
immediately and magically remove all of the existing spent fuel from
commercial nuclear power plant locations, there would still continue to
be spent fuel stored at each and every operating reactor in the
country. That's because nuclear waste is highly radioactive and
thermally hot and must be kept at the reactor sites in water-filled
cooling pools for at least 5 years. The only way spent fuel storage can
be eliminated from a reactor location is to shut down the reactor. And
that isn't an option.
Mr. Chairman, let's also consider the long-range cost of Yucca
Mountain. The most recent estimates of the cost of Yucca Mountain are
nearing $100 billion--and I am pretty certain it will go higher. What
do we get for our money? The same problem we have today. We will have
65,000 metric tons of commercial nuclear waste by the time Yucca
Mountain is scheduled to open. We produce 2,000 metric tons of nuclear
waste a year. The DOE plans to transport 3,000 metric tons a year. Just
do the math. We won't get rid of the nuclear waste backlog for nearly a
century and Yucca Mountain will be filled long before then.
And under the Department of Energy's plan, there is no requirement
for the oldest and most thermally cool, spent fuel to be shipped first.
Without this sort of requirement, nuclear facilities will have the
incentive to ship out more recently spent fuel that is hotter and more
dangerous to transport. Unfortunately, this is just another hole in
DOE's plan for Yucca Mountain.
And Mr. Chairman, the NRC hasn't even conducted full-scale physical
tests on actual spent fuel casks. I wouldn't put my children in a car
that hadn't been crash tested, but I'm supposed to put them on a
highway next to a truck with casks of nuclear waste that haven't been
adequately tested. In fact, experts from the National Research Council
have examined this issue and strongly endorse the use of full-scale
testing to determine how packages will respond to real-world
conditions.
These casks are going to be traveling by homes, schools, and
churches. And at this time we can't be sure they will survive real-
world conditions. For example, the casks have not been tested in fully
engulfing long-duration fires. The testing is for 30 minutes at 1475
degrees Fahrenheit. The temperature in the Baltimore tunnel fire
reached 1500 degrees Fahrenheit, and the fire burned for hours.
It doesn't seem to me that the proponents of the Yucca Mountain
have done enough to prove that the plan is safe, and the entire Nevada
delegation has concerns. To address this, the Nevada Congressional
delegation will be sending a letter to the Surface Transportation Board
outlining our concerns regarding the construction and operation of a
rail line from eastern Nevada to the proposed nuclear waste repository
at Yucca Mountain.
So if Yucca Mountain isn't the answer, what is?
Mr. Chairman, we should keep that waste right where it is, safely
stored for the time being. The Federal Government should offer to take
title and liability to the waste stored on site, just as it did in
Pennsylvania under the PECO settlement. The NRC has stated fuel can be
stored safely on site for at least 100 years in dry cask storage. That
leaves plenty of time to continue to develop new technologies at our
National Labs to recycle the waste without producing weapons-grade
plutonium as a byproduct.
I believe that we need to do what this country does best: innovate
and lead the world in cutting edge technologies. Unfortunately, with
Yucca Mountain, we have been way behind the curve on how we manage our
spent nuclear fuel. For instance, the French store their spent fuel
byproducts in above-ground repositories--this model seems to make more
sense for a country as large as ours. It seems to me that we should be
using $100 billion in Yucca funding to develop new recycling
technologies and make a dent in the challenge of managing spent fuel.
And managing spent nuclear fuel is a serious challenge we face. As
a legislator, like all of you, I need to be fully informed about the
effects of legislation on my constituents before I vote. I know that
Yucca Mountain will be bad for both the people of Nevada and the United
States. It comes down to this: you are being asked to risk the health
and safety of your constituents for a scheme that will leave this
country looking for another nuclear waste storage site 24 years after
Yucca Mountain opens. It's just not worth it.
The Chairman. I thank you very much, Senator, and your
statement will be made part of the record. If you will join me.
Now it is my pleasure to present a most distinguished
American, the Leader of the Democratic majority in the U.S.
Senate, the Honorable Harry Reid.
STATEMENT OF HON. HARRY REID,
U.S. SENATOR FROM NEVADA
Senator Reid. Mr. Chairman, thank you very, very much. I
very much appreciate you chairing this meeting. Your service to
the country is well known and being Chairman of this most
important Committee is also part of your legacy.
Senator Ensign and I are speaking for Nevadans, but we are
also speaking for people all over this country. And there will
be testimony today by those on Panel II that will talk about
the dangers to the American people outside Nevada of
transporting the most poisonous substance known to man.
We have not looked at this for some time, the issue of
nuclear waste. I have said and I believe without any question
that Yucca Mountain is dead. The money being spent on it is a
big waste of taxpayers' dollars.
Now, this is a busy week, but this hearing is necessary
because the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has just docketed the
Department of Energy's application to be in construction at
Yucca Mountain.
Like its application, the Department of Energy's nuclear
waste shipping plans are grossly--grossly--incomplete. Yet, the
Department wants to spend over $3 billion to start building a
300-mile radioactive railway through Nevada. They want to do
this before they even have permission to build the dump.
Anything to divert attention from the dump is what they are
involved in.
It amazes me and people who have watched this Yucca
Mountain project since the early 1980s how long the Department
of Energy has pushed this Yucca project with having no
transportation plan in place. They have not made public its
proposed shipping routes. They have not finalized the national
transportation plan. Their draft transportation plan is barely
a crude sketch of the comprehensive planning that should
actually be done for a massive nuclear waste shipping program.
Equally shocking is that the transportation of aging
disposal casks the Department of Energy plans to use have not
been designed yet. The Department says that 90 percent of the
nuclear waste will be shipped using these transportation
storage canisters, but they have absolutely no reason to
believe that this is true. There is no guarantee that nuclear
utilities are actually willing to pay for these canisters,
especially those that already use dry cask storage to securely
store their waste.
Not from here is the Calvert Hills nuclear generating
facility. They have for years stored the stuff onsite, saving
millions and millions of dollars, and certainly it is safe.
After 9/11, the thought of shipping this poisonous
substance on highways and railways across the country is at the
very least very scary. But these untested, yet-to-be-designed
canisters are part of the foundation of the Yucca plan. The key
defense against a transportation disaster--one of the
Department of Energy's primary barriers against radioactive
leakage from the nuclear waste dump. But that is not important
to the Department now because the Nuclear Regulatory Commission
has made the decision that the Department of Energy's license
application for Yucca was complete.
In order to get all the nation's nuclear waste at Yucca,
the Energy Department is proposing between 3,000 and 11,000
rail shipments and as many as 10,000 truck shipments twice a
week for the next 24 years. Trains loaded with this substance
would traverse the country traveling to Nevada. Some of the
distances would be as much as 3,000 miles. Many of these
shipments would go right by the world's destination resort, Las
Vegas, the Strip. Trains would pass within a half mile of
hundreds of thousands of visitors on any given day to Las Vegas
that hosts tens of thousands of workers.
Texas could host up to 308 nuclear waste shipments alone.
All these shipments would go through Arizona communities just
from Texas, collecting even more waste perhaps even in Arizona.
The Department of Energy and nuclear industry lobbyists
will tell you that the risk of accident is low. What they do
not tell you is the risk is a relative risk. Let us say it is
98 percent successful, even 99 percent. That means there would
be 5,000 botched surgeries each year. 99 percent gets us to
200,000 wrong drug prescriptions each year. 99 percent gets us
to 20,000 lost pieces of mail each hour. The point is simple.
More nuclear waste on the road will certainly involve more
accidents. Accidents will happen. It is only a question of
where and when. It will put the lives of millions of Americans
at risk. So I would ask the Department not to be throwing
around the 99 percent number because that is not valid in light
of what could happen with that 1 percent.
One of the things I fear is that the Department of Energy
is not going for 100 percent success. They are not even trying
to eliminate the risk. One of the most glaring examples is
their refusal to consider shipping the oldest, less radioactive
nuclear waste first, a basic measure that could reduce
radiological hazards by 85 percent.
The Members of the Committee should ask the Department of
Energy and Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Academy of
Sciences about this issue. Both the Academy and the Government
Accountability Office told the Energy Department that they
should ship older nuclear waste first. The state of Nevada,
which understands the risks, has urged the Department to
consider shipping the oldest first. But the Department of
Energy has made up its mind. The answer is no. It is not
logical, but the answer is no.
The nuclear power industry wants to get rid of its more
expensive and most radioactive waste first. The question is why
has the Department of Energy not even considered shipping the
oldest first. They do not mention it in their environmental
analysis for transporting waste to Yucca. They do not consider
it in their draft national transportation plan. It is
unfortunate that the Department of Energy once again is
refusing to let logic get in the way of building its waste dump
at Yucca.
We all know that nuclear waste cannot be stored at Yucca
safely, but it can be stored safely for a very long time in
secure dry cask storage containers. If allowing nuclear waste
to cool for 50 to 100 years improves the safety of shipping in
the future, the Department should be seriously considering
onsite storage, which they are not, even though scientists say
it is the way to go. I say a majority of the scientists.
Storing waste at nuclear reactors not in the earthquake-
prone Yucca Mountain would give us the time needed to develop
secure, scientifically sound, long-term solutions for nuclear
waste. Senator Ensign and I have been saying this from the
beginning.
As Senator Ensign said, Yucca's price tag is now
approaching $100 billion. This is $49 billion more than the
Department of Energy's 2001 estimate. The cost of Yucca
increases at a rate of $7 billion a year. The annual payments
to the nuclear waste fund are only a fraction of how much
Yucca's cost is increasing. The $22 billion nuclear waste fund
will never ever come close to covering the price of Yucca. The
taxpayer will be on the limb for that.
Terrible risks of transporting nuclear waste is yet another
reason that this project is going to be stopped. That is why I
appreciate very much the Appropriations Committee cutting back
the money this year. It will be cut back at least $70 million
from last year.
Mr. Chairman, let me finally say that there has been a lot
of cheerleading recently because this matter has been sent to
the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Their information they sent
is incomplete. They have nothing dealing with transportation.
This is a hoax and it will never happen. Yucca Mountain will
never come to be.
Could I be excused, Mr. Chairman?
[The prepared statement of Senator Reid follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Harry Reid, U.S. Senator from Nevada
I want to thank Chairman Inouye, Senator Hutchison, and the Members
of the Committee for scheduling this important hearing. It has been a
long time since the Senate has looked closely at plans to ship nuclear
waste to Nevada.
This is a very busy week. But this hearing is necessary now because
the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has just docketed the Department of
Energy's application to begin construction at Yucca Mountain.
Like its application, the Department of Energy's nuclear waste
shipping plans are grossly incomplete. Yet, the Department really wants
to spend over $3 billion to start building a 300-mile radioactive
railway through Nevada. They want to do this before they even have
permission to build the dump.
It amazes me how long the Department of Energy has pushed the Yucca
project without having a real transportation plan in place. The
Department has not made public its proposed shipping routes, and they
still haven't finalized their National Transportation Plan. Their draft
transportation plan is barely a crude sketch of the comprehensive
planning that should actually be done for a massive nuclear waste
shipping campaign.
Equally shocking is that the Transportation Aging and Disposal
casks the Department of Energy plans to use have not even been designed
yet. The Department says that 90 percent of nuclear waste will be
shipped using these transportation-storage canisters, but they have
absolutely no reason to believe that this is true. There is no
guarantee that nuclear utilities are actually willing to pay for these
canisters, especially those that already use dry cask storage to
securely store their waste.
Yet these untested, yet-to-be designed canisters are part of the
foundation of the Yucca plan. They're the key defense against a
transportation disaster, and they're one of the Department of Energy's
primary barriers against radioactive leakage from the nuclear waste
dump. But that's not important to the Department now, because the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission has made the unexplainable decision that
the Department of Energy's license application for Yucca was complete.
In order to get all of the nation's nuclear waste to Yucca, the
Energy Department is proposing between 3,000 and 11,000 rail shipments,
and as many as 10,000 truck shipments through Nevada. Twice a week for
the next 24 years, trains loaded with the most dangerous substance
known to man would traverse the country to Nevada.
Some of these shipments would go right by the Las Vegas Strip.
Radioactive trains would pass within one-half mile of 95,000 residents
and 34 hotels that employ and host 40,000 workers and visitors. Texas
could host up to 300 nuclear waste shipments. All of these shipments
will go through Arizona communities too, collecting even more waste at
the Palo Verde nuclear plant.
The Department of Energy and nuclear industry lobbyists will tell
you that the risk of an accident is low.
What they don't tell you is that risk is relative--99 percent
success gets us 5,000 botched surgeries each week. 99 percent gets us
200,000 wrong drug prescriptions each year. 99 percent gets us 20,000
lost pieces of mail each hour. My point is simple--more nuclear waste
on the road will involve more accidents that will put the lives of
millions of Americans at risk. I don't want to see what 99 percent gets
us when nuclear waste is involved.
What I fear most is that the Department of Energy is not going for
100 percent success. They are not even trying to eliminate all the
risk. One of the most glaring examples is their refusal to consider
shipping the oldest, less radioactive nuclear waste first--a very basic
measure that could reduce radiological hazards by 85 percent or more.
I urge the Members of the Committee to ask the Department of
Energy, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and the Academy of Sciences
about this issue. Both the Academy and the Government Accountability
Office have told the Energy Department they should ship older nuclear
waste first. The state of Nevada--which understands the terrible
risks--has urged the Department to consider shipping the oldest waste
first.
But the Department of Energy made up its mind. The answer was no.
No, because the nuclear power industry wants to get rid of its more
expensive and most radioactive waste first.
My question is why hasn't the Department of Energy even considered
shipping the oldest waste first? They don't mention it in their
environmental analyses for transporting waste to Yucca and they don't
consider it in their draft National Transportation Plan.
It's unfortunate that the Energy Department once again is refusing
to let logic get in the way of building its nuclear waste dump at Yucca
Mountain.
We all know that nuclear waste cannot be stored at nuclear reactors
for eternity. But it can be safely stored for a very long time in
secure dry storage casks. If allowing nuclear waste to cool for 50 to
100 years improves the safety of shipping it in the future, the
Department of Energy should be seriously considering on-site dry cask
storage.
Storing waste at nuclear reactors, not in the earthquake-prone
Yucca Mountain, would give us the time needed to develop secure,
scientifically sound long-term solutions for nuclear waste. Senator
Ensign and I have been saying this all along.
Yucca's price tag is now $96 billion, almost $49 billion MORE than
the Department of Energy's 2001 estimate. As the cost of Yucca
increases at a rate of $7 billion a year, the annual payments to the
Nuclear Waste Fund are only a fraction of how much Yucca's cost is
increasing. The $22 billion Nuclear Waste Fund will never come close to
covering the price of Yucca.
The terrible risks of transporting nuclear waste is yet another
reason that we need to stop the government from hemorrhaging any more
money on this failed project. It's time to keep Americans safe by
keeping nuclear waste where it is.
Again, thank you Mr. Chairman, Senator Hutchison and Members of the
Committee for this opportunity.
The Chairman. And I thank you very much for your testimony,
sir.
Now may I call the first panel, which consists of the
following: the Director of the Office of Civilian Radioactive
Waste Management, U.S. Department of Energy, the Honorable
Edward Sproat; the Director of the Office of Nuclear Material
Safety and Safeguards, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Mr.
Michael Weber; the Director of the Office of Safety Assurance
and Compliance, Federal Railroad Administration, U.S.
Department of Transportation, Mr. Ed Pritchard; and the
Associate Administrator for Hazardous Material Safety of the
U.S. Department of Transportation, Mr. Ted Willke.
Gentlemen, welcome, and may I begin with Director Sproat?
STATEMENT OF HON. EDWARD F. SPROAT III, DIRECTOR,
OFFICE OF CIVILIAN RADIOACTIVE WASTE MANAGEMENT, U.S.
DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY
Mr. Sproat. Well, good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, and thank
you very much for the invitation to appear and represent the
Department in front of the Committee to talk about the
transportation of spent nuclear fuel.
I ask that my formal testimony be entered into the record.
The Chairman. Your statement will be made part of the
record.
Mr. Sproat. Thank you very much.
I am going to keep my verbal comments very brief because we
have a number of folks to speak this afternoon.
First of all, I would like to say that, obviously, there is
a lot of misinformation about this whole issue of
transportation of spent nuclear fuel and high-level waste. And
I hope that in my comments I try and help the Committee
understand some of those misconceptions and try and straighten
out some of the information.
First of all, the concept of--as you pointed out in your
opening statement, the transportation of spent nuclear fuel and
high-level waste in this country is not something new. We have
been shipping that hazardous material across the country by
both rail and truck for over 40 years. And to be specific, just
in the U.S. alone in the last 40 years, there have been over
3,000 shipments of spent nuclear fuel and over 6,000 shipments
of transuranic waste by truck to the Waste Isolation Pilot
Project in New Mexico since it opened. So there is a huge
experience base in this country on how to transport radioactive
materials safely and effectively. And in all those shipments,
there has never once been any release of any radioactivity in
the public environment.
There have been accidents, but none of those accidents have
ever resulted in any releases because of the very robust
containers and the very robust regulations that the Department
of Transportation and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission places
on that transportation. And I will let the representatives of
those organizations talk a little bit more about that in their
presentations.
For Yucca Mountain, which obviously is one of the issues at
the heart of this discussion in this hearing, I just want to
make a comparison that compared to the 3,000 spent nuclear fuel
shipments made so far in this country, at its peak of operation
at Yucca, we are expecting that approximately 320 rail cars,
which is two to three trains per week of shipments, will go
from other places in the country to Yucca, and over 25 years,
it would be 320 rail cars, or about two to three trains per
week is what the total number of shipments would be to Yucca
via rail and approximately 90 truck shipments per year. That
compares to the existing transportation today in the U.S. of
all hazardous materials of approximately 1 million rail cars of
shipments in this country of hazardous materials, as classified
by the Department of Transportation. So when you take a look at
the total environment of hazardous waste transport in this
country, radioactive materials is a very, very small
percentage, and Yucca Mountain would be an even smaller
percentage of that. So that is just to give you some kind of a
context relative to the other hazardous material transportation
this country already does and already accepts on a daily basis.
Dr. Crowley will talk later this afternoon about the
National Academy of Sciences study which really addressed this
whole issue, I think, very, very well. And it concluded that
the risks to the public from shipping spent nuclear fuel are
orders of magnitude less than the risks associated with a
number of other hazardous materials like chlorine and like some
of the other gases and chemicals that are shipped across the
country, whose risks we routinely accept. And so I think the
National Academy study, when you hear from Dr. Crowley, will
put this in a little more perspective in terms of comparative
risks of nuclear material shipment versus other hazardous waste
shipment.
We at the Department of Energy have been working since 1992
with states, county, tribal, and local governments in what we
call our Transportation External Coordination Working Group to
start to work together with these various entities about the
transportation issues associated with Yucca Mountain, both by
rail and by truck. We have a very good working relationship
with them, and we are committed to continuing that working
relationship with them. We know that any successful
transportation campaign in the future will require a very
strong working relationship with those local communities.
So in summary, as we have the opportunity to talk about
this a little bit more this afternoon, I would like to leave
the Committee with the sense that, number one, this has been
going on for a long time, the transportation of spent nuclear
fuel and high-level radioactive waste.
The risks, as assessed by the National Academy of Sciences,
are significantly lower than the risks associated with the
existing transportation of hazardous materials in the U.S.
There are significantly more shipments of hazardous
materials in the U.S. than nuclear materials, and we believe we
have a very strong and successful regime of regulation, both
from the NRC and the Department of Transportation, which DOE is
committed to adhering to as we go forward with the Yucca
Mountain transportation campaign.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Sproat follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Edward F. Sproat III, Director, Office of
Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, U.S. Department of Energy
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee, I am Edward F. Sproat
III, Director of the Department of Energy's (DOE) Office of Civilian
Radioactive Waste Management (OCRWM). I appreciate the invitation to
appear before the Committee to discuss the safety and security of
transporting spent nuclear fuel.
Since the early 1960s, more than 3,000 shipments of spent nuclear
fuel have been conducted safely and securely in the United States,
having traveled more than 1.7 million miles. There has never been a
spent nuclear fuel transportation accident that has resulted in any
release of radioactive material harmful to the public or the
environment. The use of robust casks certified by the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission (NRC), and strict regulatory standards for every
aspect of logistics, including material characterization, packaging,
loading, marking, equipment inspections, routing, training, security,
and shipment monitoring, have all contributed to this outstanding
safety record.
In 2006, the National Academy of Sciences published a study on the
safety of spent nuclear fuel shipments titled: Going the Distance? The
Safe Transport of Spent Nuclear Fuel and High-Level Radioactive Waste
in the United States. In that report, the Academy concluded that from a
technical viewpoint, these shipments present ``. . . a low-
radiological-risk activity with manageable safety, health and
environmental consequences when conducted in strict adherence with
existing regulations.'' The plans to ship spent nuclear fuel to the
Yucca Mountain repository in the 2020 time-frame are building on this
successful experience base.
Roles and Relationships
The Department of Transportation (DOT) and the NRC have established
safety and security regulations for transport of spent nuclear fuel.
DOE has committed to meet or exceed these regulations for shipments to
Yucca Mountain. The Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982, as amended (NWPA)
explicitly requires the Department to ship spent nuclear fuel and high-
level radioactive waste to a repository in transportation casks
certified by the NRC. Under the NWPA, the Department must also comply
with NRC notification requirements prior to conducting such shipments.
In addition, the NWPA requires the Department to provide states and
tribes technical assistance and funds for training local public safety
officials in safe routine transportation and emergency response
procedures. The Department has selected mostly rail as the preferred
mode of transport both nationally and in the state of Nevada for
shipments to Yucca Mountain. The Department also has made the policy
decision to use dedicated trains as the usual mode of rail service to
enhance operational efficiency.
As the planning process for the Yucca Mountain transportation
system evolves, we are continually looking for opportunities to further
enhance the safety and security of these shipments. Post 9/11, the NRC
has also imposed additional security measures for its licensees
transporting spent nuclear fuel and other materials, many of which were
measures DOE had put in place for its shipments years before. We are
and will continue to coordinate our planning closely with NRC, DOT, and
the Department of Homeland Security.
Once routes and shipment schedules are established, advance
notification will be provided to individuals that have appropriate
security clearance in each Governor's office in compliance with NRC
regulations. All shipments will be accompanied by armed escorts and
will be continuously monitored and tracked via satellite. We anticipate
that most rail shipments will be conducted on dedicated trains, meaning
no other materials will be transported on the same train, allowing for
greater operational control of such shipments. Highway and rail
shipments will be thoroughly inspected in accordance with standards of
the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance or the Federal Railroad
Administration, as appropriate, prior to departing from their points of
origin.
Challenges and Issues
In their report on the safety of spent nuclear fuel shipments
referenced above, the National Academy of Sciences addressed the
relative risks of these shipments compared to other hazardous materials
commonly transported in this country. Their findings demonstrate that
each spent nuclear fuel shipment is thousands of times less risky than
shipments of other commonly transported hazardous materials. This level
of safety is the direct result of the stringent regulatory standards
and robust packages used for such shipments.\1\
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\1\ National Research Council of the National Academies, Going the
Distance? The Safe Transport of Spent Nuclear Fuel and High-Level
Radioactive Waste in the United States (Washington, D.C.: The National
Academies Press, 2006), pp. 174-182.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In addition to the lower risks for each shipment of spent nuclear
fuel, there are far fewer of these shipments per year than shipments of
other hazardous materials. In 2006, American railroads transported
hazardous materials 111 billion ton-miles in over 1,000,000 rail cars.
Of this total, less than 0.025 percent were spent nuclear fuel
shipments.
The National Academy of Sciences, the transportation industry, the
state of Nevada, and a broad spectrum of other stakeholders advocated
strongly for a transportation system based on mostly rail shipments.
Over the life of the repository, fewer than 3,000 trains can transport
the same amount of spent nuclear fuel that would require more than
48,000 truck shipments. In addition, the use of Transportation, Aging,
and Disposal canisters, which weigh up to 180 tons in their
transportation configuration, requires the use of rail transport.
A significant fleet of transportation casks has to be developed to
support shipments to Yucca Mountain. That process has started with
funding for the design and certification of the Transportation, Aging
and Disposal canisters and their transportation overpacks. Funding to
support development of a fleet of approximately 150 transport casks
that meet the stringent safety requirements of the NRC is needed as
part of the transportation system. In addition, the Department needs to
develop a fleet of rail cars with the best available safety technology.
These rail cars will meet the new requirements established by the
Association of American Railroads. The Department is collaborating with
the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program on development of the next
generation of security escort rail cars designed to this new standard.
Current Status and Steps Moving Forward
In a 2004 Record of Decision, the Department selected mostly rail
as its mode of transport, both nationally and in the state of Nevada.
In June 2008, the Department completed the ``Final Environmental Impact
Statement for a Rail Alignment for the Construction and Operation of a
Railroad in Nevada to a Geologic Repository at Yucca Mountain, Nye
County, Nevada'' (Rail Alignment EIS). The Rail Alignment EIS analyzes
the environmental impacts associated with a range of potential
alignments for constructing and operating a railroad in Nevada to Yucca
Mountain. There was considerable public involvement in the development
of the EIS and a Record of Decision is anticipated this fall.
As we move forward the Department will continue its ongoing
collaborations with States, Tribes and stakeholders as we fulfill our
commitment to establish a safe and secure transportation system for
shipments to Yucca Mountain. I appreciate the Committee's interest on
this important aspect of the Department's Yucca Mountain Program.
The Chairman. I thank you very much, sir.
Our next witness is Director Weber.
STATEMENT OF MICHAEL WEBER, DIRECTOR
NUCLEAR MATERIAL SAFETY AND SAFEGUARDS
U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Mr. Weber. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman and Senator Ensign.
It is my pleasure to appear before you today to represent the
staff of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission concerning the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission's role in ensuring the safety and
the security of potential transportation of spent fuel,
including the potential transport of that spent fuel to the
proposed repository at Yucca Mountain.
As you know, the NRC staff has accepted for technical
licensing review the application from the Department of Energy
to construct a geologic repository for high-level waste at
Yucca Mountain.
Spent nuclear fuel can be safely and securely transported.
This conclusion is based on over 35 years of experience with
spent fuel transportation both here in the United States and
around the world. It is also based on the application of a
comprehensive regulatory framework and effective oversight by
the NRC working in partnership with other agencies such as the
Department of Transportation.
Within the United States, there have been over 1,500
commercial shipments of spent fuel since 1979. All of these
shipments have occurred without a single package failure or a
radiological release, thus protecting workers and members of
the public that live and work along the shipment routes.
The safety and security of spent nuclear fuel shipments are
guided by a comprehensive regulatory framework. NRC's primary
role is in the review and certification of transportation
package designs. NRC would maintain this role for spent fuel
transport to the proposed repository. Spent fuel is required to
be shipped in extremely robust transportation packages that are
designed and fabricated to withstand both normal transportation
and hypothetical accident conditions.
Now, rather than become complacent with the existing safety
record, the NRC continually examines the transportation program
to ensure that our standards provide a high level of safety and
security. The Commission published transportation risk studies
in 1977, 1987, and again in 2000. These studies indicate that
the risk of shipping spent nuclear fuel is very low. We are
currently reexamining the spent nuclear fuel transportation
risks that are likely to be encountered in potential shipments
to the proposed repository.
In 2002, the NRC cosponsored an independent safety
assessment of spent fuel transport by the National Academy of
Sciences entitled Going the Distance. The NRC takes this
study's recommendations very seriously and has addressed them
in the program.
NAS recommended that full-scale testing of transport
packages be used as part of an integrated approach along with
technical analysis, computer simulation, scale-model, and
package component testing. The study's recommendations are
consistent with NRC's plans to perform a full-scale
demonstration test involving realistic rail transport and fire
scenarios.
NAS recommended that the NRC undertake additional analyses
of transportation accidents involving long-duration, fully
engulfing fires. The NRC has completed two such studies on the
performance of representative spent fuel packages in severe
rail and highway tunnel fires since the NAS made its
recommendations and these studies confirmed that the spent
nuclear fuel packages would not be expected to release any
radioactive materials during the fire even under severe
accident conditions.
More studies are underway and will be completed next year
in 2009.
Finally, the NAS recommended an independent examination of
the security of spent fuel and high-level waste transportation.
In light of the elevated threat that followed the terrorist
attacks on September 11, 2001, the NRC conducted security
assessments of transportation which were completed after the
publication of the NAS report. These assessments evaluated
transportation package designs against a variety of credible
land-based and air threats. The results of the security
assessments demonstrate that the current requirements, combined
with security enhancements put in place after September 11,
provide adequate safety and security.
In late 2009, the NRC intends to issue a proposed rule for
public comment that would revise the requirements for secure
transport of spent nuclear fuel, including additional security
measures found necessary.
In addition, we believe that security measures for future
shipments must defend against the threat that exists at the
time of that shipment and take advantage of enhancements in
technology which are constantly evolving. If the Yucca Mountain
repository is approved, any shipments of spent fuel to this
site would not begin until 2020 at the earliest based on
current DOE estimates. Therefore, it may be more appropriate to
conduct such an independent examination closer to the time of
the actual shipments.
Although the NRC is responsible for overseeing the security
of commercial spent fuel shipments to an interim storage
facility, the Department would be responsible for implementing
and overseeing the security of Yucca Mountain shipments because
the Department plans to take title to the commercial spent fuel
at the nuclear reactor sites. Therefore, any comprehensive
security assessment would require participation of both the
Department and the NRC, as well as the resources necessary to
support such a study.
In conclusion, spent fuel can be safely and securely
transported, including potential transportation under the
existing regulatory framework. This conclusion is supported by
the outstanding safety and security record for spent fuel
shipments and numerous safety and security assessments
conducted by the NRC and others such as the National Academy.
Nevertheless, NRC staff remains committed in continually
examining our transportation program to ensure safety and
security are achieved and that the program remains effective in
protecting people and the environment.
I want to thank you for the opportunity to testify before
you today, and I look forward to answering any questions that
you may have.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Weber follows:]
Prepared Statement of Michael Weber, Director, Nuclear Material Safety
and Safeguards, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Introduction
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee, I am honored to appear
before you today to testify on behalf of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory
Commission (NRC) staff concerning the NRC's role in ensuring the safety
and security of the potential transportation of spent nuclear fuel,
including the potential transport to the proposed geological repository
at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. As you know, the NRC staff has accepted for
technical review the application from the Department of Energy (DOE) to
construct a geologic repository for high-level waste at this site.
Spent nuclear fuel can be safely and securely transported,
including from its current location at operating and decommissioned
nuclear power plants to a permanent geologic repository. This
conclusion is based on over 35 years of experience with spent nuclear
fuel transportation both here in the U.S. and around the world. It is
also based on the application of a comprehensive regulatory framework
and effective oversight by the NRC, the U.S. Department of
Transportation (DOT), the Department of Energy (DOE), States, and
Tribal governments. Within the U.S., there have been over 1,500
commercial shipments of spent fuel from nuclear power reactors since
1979. All of these shipments have occurred without a single package
failure or radiological release. This means that there have been no
radiological releases or injuries to workers or the public who live and
work along these shipment routes. It is our understanding that the
transportation safety record also extends to the approximately 30,000
international spent fuel shipments made primarily by Japanese and
European companies engaged in the reprocessing of spent fuel.
Regulatory Framework
The safety and security of spent nuclear fuel shipments are guided
by a comprehensive regulatory framework that includes the NRC, DOE,
DOT, the States, and Tribal governments. This regulatory framework is
informed and closely aligned with the International Atomic Energy
Agency (IAEA) Transportation Safety Standard to ensure international
alignment of transportation package performance standards and
requirements. The NRC's primary role in ensuring the safety and
security of spent nuclear fuel and high-level waste shipments is the
review and certification of the package designs that are to be used for
shipment. NRC would maintain this role for the proposed high-level
waste repository. Spent fuel is required to be shipped in extremely
robust transportation packages that are designed and fabricated to
withstand normal transportation and hypothetical accident conditions.
The certification process requires a comprehensive technical review by
the NRC staff of the package's expected performance under hypothetical
accident conditions. The specific conditions have been derived from and
are intended to envelope the impact forces and thermal environments
experienced in severe, ``real world'' accidents. To be certified by the
NRC, a vendor must demonstrate that a transportation package design
will prevent the release of radioactive material and the loss of
radiation shielding when subjected to the hypothetical accident
conditions.
For commercial shipments of spent nuclear fuel by NRC licensees,
the NRC also approves the Quality Assurance (QA) programs that apply to
the design, fabrication, use and maintenance of transportation packages
and requires that shipments comply with NRC regulations for the
physical security of spent fuel in transit (10 CFR Part 73). NRC's QA
and security regulations do not apply to DOE's shipments to the
proposed high-level waste repository.
In general, DOT regulates the transport of all hazardous materials,
including spent nuclear fuel, and has established regulations for
shippers and carriers regarding radiological controls, hazard
communication, training, emergency response, and criteria to determine
preferred routes for hazardous material shipment. The states and tribal
governments bear primary responsibility for responding to accidents and
incidents within their jurisdictions and in many cases the states have
enacted additional requirements for carrier inspections and escorts.
For potential shipments to the proposed high-level waste repository at
Yucca Mountain, the DOE would be responsible for ensuring the security
of the shipments, because DOE plans to take title to commercial spent
fuel at nuclear reactor sites. Congress has also directed DOE to abide
by NRC requirements for providing advance notifications of shipments to
State and local governments.
NRC's Efforts to Maintain Safety and Security of Spent Nuclear Fuel
Transportation
Rather than be complacent with existing safety performance of
transportation packages, the NRC continually examines the
transportation program to ensure that our standards provide a high
level of safety and security. The Commission published transportation
risk studies in 1977, 1987, and 2000. These studies indicate that the
risk of shipping spent nuclear fuel is very low. To supplement previous
efforts, we are currently re-examining spent nuclear fuel
transportation risks to account for the spent nuclear fuel, shipping
cask and shipment characteristics likely to be encountered in potential
shipments to the proposed geologic repository.
In 2002, the NRC co-sponsored an independent safety assessment by
the National Academy of Science's (NAS's) Board on Radioactive Waste
Management of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) and high-level waste (HLW)
transportation, entitled Going the Distance which was published in
February 2006. The NRC takes this study's recommendations very
seriously and addressed them in our program.
The principal finding of the NAS study was:
The Committee could identify no fundamental technical barriers
to the safe transport of SNF and HLW in the United States.
Transport by highway (for small-quantity shipments), and by
rail (for large-quantity shipments) is, from a technical
viewpoint, a low-radiological-risk activity, with manageable
safety, health, and environmental consequences, when conducted
with strict adherence to existing regulations.
The NAS study recommended that full-scale testing continue to be
used as part of an integrated approach, along with technical analysis,
computer simulation, scale-model, and package component testing
programs, to confirm that transportation packages perform acceptably
under both regulatory and credible conditions that exceed regulatory
requirements. The study also concluded that ``deliberate full-scale
testing of packages to destruction through the application of forces
that substantially exceed credible accident conditions would be
marginally informative and is not justified given the considerable cost
for package acquisitions that such testing would require.'' The study's
recommendations are consistent with NRC's current plans in the Package
Performance Study (PPS) to perform a demonstration test involving a
realistic rail impact and fire scenarios. We believe that the NAS study
also supports NRC's decision not to test a full-scale transportation
package to destruction in the PPS. Work on the PPS has been deferred by
the NRC and DOE until the final transportation cask designs, including
the transport, aging, and disposal (TAD) canisters, are deployed. We
are currently working with international counterparts in Japan and
Germany to learn from their full-scale and model testing to prepare for
full-scale testing in the U.S.
NAS recommended that NRC undertake additional analyses of
transportation accidents involving very long-duration, fully engulfing
fires to determine whether there is a need for regulatory change or
additional operational controls during spent nuclear fuel shipments.
The NRC has completed two studies on the performance of representative
spent nuclear fuel packages in severe rail and highway tunnel fires:
``Spent Fuel Transportation Package Response to the Baltimore Tunnel
Fire Scenario,'' NUREG/CR-6886 (published December 2006), and ``Spent
Fuel Transportation Package Response to the Caldecott Tunnel Fire
Scenario,'' NUREG/CR-6894 (published February 2007). These studies
confirmed that the spent nuclear fuel packages would not be expected to
release any radioactive material from the spent fuel, even under these
severe accident conditions.
Through this work, the NRC identified an additional operating
control for rail shipments that could be implemented to prevent or
mitigate the consequences of long-duration fires: to prohibit a train
carrying flammable gases or liquids from being in a tunnel at the same
time as a train carrying spent nuclear fuel. Because the NRC does not
have regulatory authority over rail carriers, we requested in March
2006, that the Association of American Railroads (AAR) consider
revising AAR Circular No. OT-55, Recommended Railroad Operating
Practices For Transportation of Hazardous Materials. As a result, the
AAR did issue a revision in July 2006 (AAR Circular No. OT-55, Revision
I) which states ``. . . when a train carrying SNF or HLW meets another
train carrying loaded tank cars of flammable gas, flammable liquids or
combustible liquids in a single bore double track tunnel, one train
shall stop outside the tunnel until the other train is completely
through the tunnel.''
Finally, the NAS study also recommended that, ``. . . an
independent examination of the security of spent fuel and high-level
waste transportation should be carried out prior to the commencement of
large-quantity shipments to a Federal repository or to interim
storage.'' In light of the elevated threat that the U.S. experienced
following the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, the NRC issued
safeguards advisories and orders to enhance transportation security of
spent nuclear fuel and other large quantities of radioactive material.
The NRC issued these security enhancements in coordination with DOT,
the Department of Homeland Security, State agencies, and other Federal
agencies. The NRC security assessments of transportation, which were
completed after the publication of the NAS report, evaluated a number
of representative transportation package designs against a variety of
credible land-based threats and a deliberate plane crash. The results
of these security assessments, which we have shared with DOT, DOE, and
other organizations that have a ``need to know,'' demonstrate that the
current requirements, combined with the security enhancements put in
place after September 11th, provide adequate protection of public
health and safety, and the environment, and common defense and
security. These safeguards advisories and orders are only an interim
solution and will not be relied on indefinitely. In late 2009, the NRC
intends to issue a proposed rule for public comment that would revise
the requirements for secure transport of spent nuclear fuel. The
proposed rule would include additional measures to address the current
threat environment.
In addition, we believe that the security measures for future
shipments must defend against the threat that exists at the time of
shipment and take advantage of enhancements in technology, such as
shipment tracking and monitoring techniques, which are constantly
evolving. If the Yucca Mountain repository is approved, any shipments
of spent nuclear fuel to this site would not begin until 2020 at the
earliest, based on current DOE estimates. Therefore, it may be more
appropriate to conduct an independent examination of shipment security
closer to the time of actual shipments, if needed.
While the NRC is responsible for overseeing the security
requirements for commercial shipments to an interim storage facility,
DOE would be responsible for implementing and overseeing the security
requirements for Yucca Mountain shipments. Therefore, a comprehensive
independent security assessment that encompasses both potential
shipments to Yucca Mountain or to an interim storage site would require
the participation of both NRC and DOE as well as resources to support
such a study.
In an effort to further inform our program, the NRC is also
examining two recent transportation accidents involving severe highway
fires. One is the MacArthur Maze (Interstate I-880) accident in
Oakland, California that occurred on April 29, 2007, in which a
gasoline tanker truck with a capacity of 32,500 liters (8,600 gallons)
of gasoline crashed and overturned on an interstate highway. The
resulting fire was intense enough to cause the collapse of a highway
overpass located above the overturned tanker truck. The second accident
being studied occurred on October 12, 2007, within the southbound
``truck only'' bypass tunnel at the I-5/14 interchange in northern Los
Angeles County (Newhall Pass). In this accident, multiple commercial
trucks were involved in a severe fire occurring in a short, well-
ventilated tunnel. We expect the results of these studies to be
published in early 2009.
Summary
In conclusion, spent nuclear fuel can be safely and securely
transported from its current location at operating and decommissioned
nuclear power plants, including potentially to a permanent geologic
repository, under the existing regulatory framework. This conclusion is
supported by the outstanding safety record for spent nuclear fuel
shipments to date and numerous safety and security assessments
conducted by the NRC, the NAS, and other agencies. Nevertheless, the
NRC staff is committed to continually examining our transportation
safety and security program to ensure that it remains effective in
protecting people and the environment.
Thank you for the opportunity to discuss NRC's transportation
safety and security program for spent nuclear fuel. I look forward to
answering any questions you may have.
The Chairman. I thank you very much, Director Weber.
And now may I call upon Director Pritchard?
STATEMENT OF EDWARD W. PRITCHARD, DIRECTOR,
OFFICE OF SAFETY ASSURANCE AND COMPLIANCE,
FEDERAL RAILROAD ADMINISTRATION,
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION
Mr. Pritchard. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman and Senator
Ensign and Members of the Committee. Thank you for the
opportunity to appear today on behalf of the Secretary of
Transportation, Mary Peters, and the Administrator of the
Federal Railroad Administration, Joseph Boardman. I am Edward
Pritchard, Director of FRA's Office of Safety Assurance and
Compliance.
Part of FRA's role in protecting the American public from
the risk inherent in rail transportation includes promoting the
safe and secure transportation of spent nuclear fuel. With the
Department of Energy's decision that 80 percent or more of the
nuclear materials to be stored at Yucca Mountain should be
transported there by rail, it is important to consider the
safety and security of these new shipments during rail
transportation. FRA's role is important in this regard and we
are up to the challenge.
FRA has been hard at work to assure the safe transportation
of radioactive materials since the formation of the U.S.
Department of Transportation. We formalized our program for
these shipments in the late 1980s and we are taking steps to
ensure the continued safety of such shipments as they move
through the Nation's rail transportation system. We do this in
two main ways, giving technical assistance to other agencies
and carrying out our comprehensive safety enforcement and
rulemaking program.
First, we provide technical expertise and assistance to
other agencies. We actively work with our partner agencies,
including the Department of Energy, the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission, and the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety
Administration, and the Transportation Security Administration.
Our cooperative efforts with DOE include all rail-related
aspects before the plan moves to Yucca Mountain. This
cooperation includes vigorously participating in their external
stakeholder working groups and contributing technical and
operational expertise regarding the rail operating environment,
mechanical equipment requirements, and track construction and
maintenance.
I am proud to say that the same degree of coordination
exists throughout the various modal administrations within the
DOT, as well as with the NRC and TSA, in regard to issues,
concerns involving the security of rail movements and routing,
package integrity and securement in the rail operating
environment. These relationships are strong, and together our
work is progressing to ensure that any shipment of spent
nuclear fuel transported to the Yucca Mountain repository by
rail is conducted in a way that assures not only the safety and
security of these tasks with transporting the shipment, but
also the safety and security of the American public as a whole.
Second, FRA provides technical and regulatory oversight to
ensure that the rolling equipment and railroad infrastructure
used for the movements are safe. FRA's efforts are focused on
ensuring the rail cars that will move the casks of spent
nuclear fuel are the safest possible and utilize the most
advanced technology. We have developed and instituted a
comprehensive safety enforcement program that ensures that the
tracks and other rail infrastructures conform with the
extensive body of Federal railroad safety regulations.
We are working with our sister agency, PHMSA, to implement
PHMSA's new routing regulations that require rail carriers to
analyze potential routes for transporting these shipments and
to select the most safe and secure routes.
But these efforts are not the only ways in which FRA works
to advance rail safety. FRA and the administration are strong
supporters of positive train control technology, are active
advocates for the continued development of positive train
control, and we share the desire of the National Transportation
Safety Board and Congress to see that the positive train
control becomes a reality on more railroads.
I appreciate the opportunity to discuss FRA's program to
assure the safe and secure transportation of spent nuclear fuel
by rail. Thank you. I will be pleased to answer any questions
you may have.
The Chairman. Thank you very much, Director Pritchard.
And may now I call upon Associate Administrator, Mr.
Willke?
STATEMENT OF DR. THEODORE ``TED'' WILLKE, ASSOCIATE
ADMINISTRATOR, HAZARDOUS MATERIALS SAFETY,
PIPELINE AND HAZARDOUS MATERIALS SAFETY
ADMINISTRATION, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION
Dr. Willke. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman and Senator
Ensign. I am Ted Willke, Associate Administrator for Hazardous
Materials Safety, Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety
Administration, PHMSA, the U.S. Department of Transportation.
Thank you for the opportunity to appear today to briefly
discuss PHMSA's role in the safe and secure transportation of
spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste to the
proposed geological repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada.
For some 50 years, some 1,500 domestic shipments of spent
nuclear fuel have been transported within the United States
with a solid safety record. It is our firm belief that this
fuel can be safely and securely transported from its current
location at operating and decommissioned nuclear power reactors
to a permanent repository. Our confidence is based on the
application of a comprehensive regulatory framework that
includes DOT, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Department
of Energy, the Department of Homeland Security, and State and
tribal governments. We have a commitment to continually
reexamine the transportation program to ensure that the current
level of safety and security is maintained.
Under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982, the Department
of Energy has primary responsibility to plan for and arrange
the transportation for spent nuclear fuel to a geological
repository. The act requires all transportation to be conducted
in accordance with the transportation regulations issued by DOT
in transport casks approved by the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission.
Within the Department of Transportation, several agencies
are involved in regulating the transportation of spent nuclear
fuel. PHMSA maintains a national program designed to protect
life, property, and the environment from risks inherent in the
transportation of hazardous materials in commerce, including
spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste. To carry
out this role, PHMSA identifies and evaluates safety risks,
develops and enforces standards for transporting hazardous
materials, educates shippers and carriers, investigates
transport and packaging incidents and failures, conducts
research, and awards grants to improve emergency response to
incidents.
PHMSA's regulations, issued under the Federal hazardous
materials transportation safety laws, establish commodity-
specific standards for the classification, packaging, marking,
labeling, and documentation of hazardous material shipments by
rail, highway, vessel, and air. PHMSA's hazardous regulations
also prescribe standards for the loading and unloading of
transport conveyances, training of transportation employees,
and the security of hazardous materials in transportation.
While PHMSA is proud of its contributions to the safe
transportation of spent nuclear fuel, the true strength of this
program lies in the shared responsibility and cooperation
between our Federal, State, and local partners. Within the
Department of Transportation, responsibility for enforcement of
the hazardous material regulations is shared with the Federal
Railroad Administration and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety
Administration. We also share enforcement responsibilities with
the United States Coast Guard and State law enforcement
officials. For all radioactive shipments, particularly spent
nuclear fuel, PHMSA works closely with the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission to ensure consistent and uniform packaging and
transport regulations.
Because our State partners have the primary responsibility
for responding to accidents and incidents within their
jurisdiction, PHMSA will continue to support effective training
to prepare first responders for a possible transportation
accident or incident involving spent nuclear fuel through their
jurisdictions and that will include financial assistance to
states and localities for emergency response, planning and
training. PHMSA will continue to coordinate with local
responders and ensure that they receive the advance shipment
notifications and general hazard communications they need to
respond to transport incidents.
As planning for the repository progresses, PHMSA will
continue to work with the Congress, the nuclear industry, the
transport community, and appropriate Federal, State, tribal
governments, and local agencies to review and improve existing
safety standards, promote the development of risk-reducing
technologies, strengthen the preparation of emergency
responders and otherwise enhance the system of safety controls
for spent nuclear fuel transportation. With continued
vigilance, PHMSA is committed to maintaining the strong record
of safety and security.
I appreciate the opportunity to discuss PHMSA's
transportation safety and security program. I would be pleased
to answer any questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Pritchard and Dr. Willke
follow:]
Written Statement of Ted Willke, Associate Administrator, Hazardous
Materials Safety, Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety
Administration; and Edward Pritchard, Director, Office of Safety
Assurance and Compliance, Federal Railroad Administration,
U.S. Department of Transportation
Introduction
Chairman Inouye, Ranking Member Hutchison, and Members of the
Committee, we want to thank you for the opportunity to appear today on
behalf of the Department of Transportation (DOT). We are pleased to
discuss DOT's role in the safe and secure transportation of spent
nuclear fuel (SNF) and high-level radioactive waste (HLRW) to the
proposed geological repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada.
The Safety Record
SNF and HLRW have been transported within the United States for
more than 50 years, with a solid record of safety and security. More
than 1,500 shipments of commercial SNF from nuclear power reactors have
moved by road and rail without a single incident resulting in an
injury, death, or release of the material from the packaging. Likewise,
numerous military shipments of SNF; thousands of non-commercial spent
fuel and HLRW shipments by the Department of Energy (DOE); and
approximately 30,000 international shipments of SNF have occurred
without serious incident.
Regulatory Roles
Under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982, DOE has primary
responsibility to plan for and arrange the transportation of SNF to a
geological repository. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is
responsible for licensing the geological repository and whatever
interim facilities may be needed. Transportation will be conducted, in
accordance with hazardous materials transport regulations issued by
DOT, in transport casks approved by the NRC. States will bear primary
responsibility for responding to accidents and incidents within their
jurisdictions and in many cases have enacted additional requirements
for carrier inspections and escorts. DOE, DOT, and the Federal
Emergency Management Agency have provided grants, courses, and course
materials for emergency responder training and preparedness related to
this transportation. Because DOE plans to take title to the SNF at
nuclear reactor sites, that department will be responsible for ensuring
the security of the shipments.
DOT Role in Promoting Transportation Safety
Within DOT, several agencies are involved in overseeing the
transportation of SNF. The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety
Administration (PHMSA) administers a national program designed to
protect life, property, and the environment from risks inherent in the
transportation of hazardous materials, including SNF, in intrastate and
interstate commerce. To these ends, PHMSA identifies and evaluates
safety risks; develops and enforces standards for transporting
hazardous materials; educates shippers and carriers; investigates
transport and packaging incidents and failures; conducts research; and
awards grants to improve emergency response to incidents. PHMSA
regulations, issued under the Federal hazardous materials
transportation safety laws (49 U.S.C. ch. 51), establish commodity-
specific standards for the classification, packaging, marking,
labeling, and documentation of hazardous materials shipments by rail,
highway, vessel, and air. PHMSA's Hazardous Materials Regulations (HMR)
also prescribe standards for the loading and unloading of transport
conveyances; training of transportation employees; and security of
hazardous materials in transportation.
PHMSA shares responsibility for enforcement of the HMR with the
Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), the Federal Motor Carrier Safety
Administration (FMCSA), the United States Coast Guard, the Federal
Aviation Administration, and state law enforcement officials.
For shipments of SNF, PHMSA also works closely with the NRC.
PHMSA's regulations incorporate rigorous packaging standards that are
developed and overseen by the NRC. Pursuant to a 1979 Memorandum of
Understanding, with PHMSA, the NRC has lead regulatory responsibility
for the review and certification of the shipping casks used to
transport SNF. These casks are performance-tested to assure they can
survive ``hypothetical'' accident scenarios. The tests, which include
impact, puncture, thermal and immersion testing, also assure that the
casks provide excellent radiation protection to transportation workers
who load, unload, or carry SNF and to any member of the general public
who may come into proximity with a shipment of nuclear material during
its movement in transportation. Because the time that it takes to move
a shipment from origin to destination directly affects radiation
exposure, the NRC requires that shipments of SNF be planned to avoid
intermediate stops to the extent practicable. PHMSA's regulations also
prohibit unnecessary delay in the transportation of hazardous
materials.
FRA enforces the HMR applicable to rail shipments as part of a
national safety program covering all aspects of railroad operations.
FRA regulations issued under the Federal railroad safety laws (49
U.S.C. ch. 201-213) govern the design, maintenance, and inspection of
track, equipment, signals, and train control systems and prescribe
standards for employee qualifications, training, and operating
practices. FRA also advises PHMSA on rulemakings involving the rail
transportation of hazardous material and enforces the HMR in the rail
mode. Railroads are required to conduct their own inspections to ensure
that these safety standards are being met. Approximately 500 Federal
and State safety inspectors monitor the railroad companies' own
inspection forces to verify compliance with applicable Federal safety
standards. FRA and State inspectors accomplish this task by conducting
routine inspections and programmed focused inspections of railroad
properties and comparing their findings to a railroad's own inspection
records, as well as conducting compliance investigations. Thus, while
primary responsibility for inspecting the railroad property and
operations rests with the railroads themselves, FRA's inspection
strategy is to ensure the integrity and effectiveness of the railroads'
own inspection programs in complying with applicable Federal safety
regulations and standards. In the case of SNF shipments, as set forth
in the following section, FRA and rail carriers have taken a number of
actions to further strengthen safety and security controls.
Although rail will be the primary mode of transportation for SNF
shipments to the repository, some motor carrier movements also will be
necessary. In addition to the HMR, these movements will in accordance
with FMCSA regulations governing vehicle condition, driver safety, and
security. Under FMCSA's regulations, a motor carrier transporting SNF
must hold a safety permit issued by FMCSA, and a pre-trip inspection of
the shipment must be performed by an authorized State or Federal law
enforcement official. In addition, states may designate preferred
routes for highway shipments of SNF, in accordance with FMCSA's
regulations. Preferred routes are interstate highways and alternate
routes designated by a State routing agency. An interstate bypass or
beltway around a city, when available, must be used rather than an
interstate route through a city. Under these regulations, a State or
locality may not designate (or restrict the use of) routes that
``export'' transportation risks to a neighboring jurisdiction or
unnecessarily delay the transportation of hazardous materials.
Emergency Response
Effective response to a transportation accident or incident
involving SNF is enhanced through Federal requirements and resources,
including financial assistance to states and localities for emergency
response planning and training. DOE maintains regional emergency
management field offices that can dispatch qualified response teams to
an incident involving nuclear material, but first responders are
primarily local fire departments and law enforcement agencies. (In the
event of a radiation emergency, emergency response is typically handled
by the appropriate state radiation control agency and first responders
are trained to stay clear and call the state radiation control
officer.) PHMSA's hazard communication requirements (shipping papers,
package marking and labeling, and vehicle placarding) inform these
responders of the hazards involved. For shipments of SNF, coordination
with local responders is also enhanced by the NRC's physical protection
requirements that provide for advance notification to the State
Governor (or his representative) of each shipment to or through the
state and advance arrangements with local law enforcement agencies for
response to an emergency or a call by escorts for assistance. Local
emergency response capabilities are strengthened by PHMSA's planning
and training grants to States, who in turn pass at least 75 percent of
the grants through to local communities.
Rail Transportation of Radioactive Materials
With regard to rail transportation of SNF and HLRW in particular,
FRA conducts inspections to verify that shipments are properly prepared
for rail transportation and in compliance with all applicable
provisions of the HMR. FRA also helps to ensure that the track, signal
systems, grade crossings, bridges, and rail vehicles used for these
shipments are in safe condition and that responsible railroad employees
involved in these movements are trained, briefed, and properly
performing their jobs. In these activities, FRA works very closely with
the railroads, their employees, and the affected communities.
Ultimately, the safe movement of SNF and HLRW depends on the
application of sound safety regulations, policies, and procedures. This
requires extensive planning and coordination among Federal agencies,
State and local governments, and commercial transportation companies.
Since the mid-1980s, FRA has implemented a basic focused inspection
policy for all known rail shipments of SNF and HLRW. In 1998, with the
advent of a significant potential for increased SNF and HLRW by rail,
FRA recognized the need to enhance the existing policy to ensure that
the railroad industry's outstanding safety record for nuclear material
shipments could continue unabated. This updated policy, the Safety
Compliance Oversight Plan for Rail Transportation of High-Level
Radioactive Waste and Spent Nuclear Fuel, known as SCOP, set forth an
enhanced FRA policy to address the safety of rail shipments of SNF and
HLRW. FRA applies this enhanced policy to ensure the safety of all
known rail shipments of SNF and HLRW. The SCOP is a ``living document''
periodically requiring modification and update as needed based on new
regulations, technologies, and procedures.
The development of the SCOP involved a coordinated effort among
FRA, DOE, the Association of American Railroads (AAR), railroad labor
organizations, and representatives of affected states and Native
American groups, and FRA acknowledges the invaluable contribution of
each of them. Key elements of the SCOP include the following: (1)
coordinated planning for selecting the most appropriate and viable
routes, (2) ensuring appropriate training of railroad employees and
emergency responders, and (3) enhancing and focusing FRA's safety
inspections and monitoring activities on all facets of the rail
shipments of SNF and HLRW.
Under current route-selection requirements, FRA works with DOE,
utility companies, or other shippers, and the involved railroad
companies in planning and selecting the routes, emphasizing the
selection of the highest classes of track. (Under FRA's regulations,
each higher class of track has a greater permissible operating speed
and more stringent safety standards.) Additional requirements for
selecting the safest and most secure routes for transporting SNF and
other high-hazards materials were also adopted in PHMSA's interim final
rule, ``Enhancing Rail Transportation Safety and Security for Hazardous
Materials Shipments,'' published on April 16, 2008. Under these
requirements, a rail carrier must analyze the routes over which these
materials may be transported and, based on that analysis, select the
safest and most secure route to be used. The Transportation Security
Administration (TSA) is also engaged in a rulemaking that includes
proposals to enhance the security of rail shipments of certain
hazardous materials, including SNF, by requiring carriers to designate
a security coordinator, report security concerns to TSA, establish a
chain of custody for shipments, and advise TSA of the location and
other specific information regarding shipments within 1 hour of a
request from TSA.
FRA also coordinates with Operation Lifesaver, Inc., a private
safety organization, to increase grade crossing safety awareness and
education in communities along routes. FRA works with appropriate
agencies of the Department of Homeland Security, the NRC, and DOT's
Office of Intelligence and Security in identifying security issues and
measures. FRA assists with coordination among the shipper, Federal and
local law enforcement representatives, and intelligence communities on
security matters. Finally, FRA reviews the security and emergency
response plans of the shipper and the rail carrier to ensure that they
adequately address the transportation security risks and the actions to
be taken along the route in the unlikely event of an accident or
incident.
Another important element of the SCOP is training. It is FRA's
policy to assist DOE and other shippers in the development of emergency
response training and safety briefings and to monitor the rail carrier
and the shipper to verify that requisite training and briefings have
been performed. FRA also conducts reviews to ensure that train crews
who operate the trains in which nuclear materials are transported are
properly certified, trained, and experienced in running over the
routes. Finally, FRA checks to see that these crews have received
specific training concerning the nature of the shipments.
Federal regulations for shipment of nuclear material by rail are
augmented by a series of safety and security protocols and special
operating restrictions that have been agreed upon by DOE and the
railroads. These protocols and operating restrictions, AAR Circular OT-
55-I, Recommended Railroad Operating Practices for Transportation of
Hazardous Materials and AAR Standard S-2043, Performance Specification
for Trains Used to Carry High-Level Radioactive Material, for example,
have evolved over the years and are often tailored to the particular
needs of these types of shipments. Under these protocols, a train
carrying SNF or HLRW would typically include the cask cars, at least
two buffer cars, and an escort car. One buffer car is before and one is
after the cask cars; the buffer cars are required by regulation and not
only provide separation from the occupied locomotive and from the
escort car but also act as a cushion against direct impacts on the cask
cars in the event of a collision. The escort car would be staffed with
appropriate nuclear safety and security personnel. Special operating
restrictions have included limitations on the maximum speed of trains
carrying nuclear materials, requirements to stop opposing trains on
adjacent tracks when they meet a train carrying nuclear materials, and
requirements that cars carrying nuclear material be switched only with
an attached locomotive rather than allowing them to roll to a stop on
their own during switching.
Another convention involving the shipment of SNF and HLRW by rail
concerns the use of dedicated trains. Until the mid-1970s, most rail
shipments of these radioactive materials were handled in regular
service trains that carried a wide variety of other freight in addition
to radioactive materials. However, in 1974, the railroad industry
adopted a strong position that radioactive materials shipments should
move in dedicated trains that transport only the radioactive material.
Under a congressional mandate, FRA engaged the services of the John A.
Volpe National Transportation Systems Center to conduct a thorough
study of the safety implications surrounding the transportation of SNF
and HLRW in dedicated trains versus regular service trains. In
September 2005, FRA transmitted its March 2005 report containing the
study's results to the Congress, ``Use of Dedicated Trains for
Transportation of High-Level Radioactive Waste and Spent Nuclear
Fuel.'' The report concluded that dedicated train service offers the
lowest accident probability and can reduce radiation exposure in the
event of an accident by mitigating the consequences and simplifying
wreck clearance. The report also stated that additional research is
needed to fully assess the costs and risks of transporting SNF. The
Department is conducting additional research to assess conditions for
the transportation of SNF and expects to issue a responsive notice of
proposed rulemaking in Fiscal Year 2009.
The security of rail shipments of radioactive materials has long
been a priority even before the tragic events of September 11. Some of
the protocols described above contain stringent security measures to
protect against terrorist threats, including the accompaniment of these
shipments by armed security forces, direct liaison with State and local
law enforcement and first responders, and requirements to protect the
cars when sitting in rail yards or sidings.
Conclusion
Through its comprehensive safety programs, and key partnerships
with other Federal, State, and local authorities, DOT is prepared for
the additional shipments of high-level radioactive materials associated
with the opening of a proposed new geological repository for SNF. As
planning for the repository progresses, DOT will continue to work with
the Congress, the nuclear industry, the transport community, and
appropriate Federal, State, and local agencies to review and improve
existing safety standards; promote the development of new risk-reducing
technologies; strengthen the preparation of emergency responders; and
otherwise enhance the system of safety controls for SNF and HLRW
transportation. With continued vigilance, DOT is committed to
maintaining the strong record of safety and security established over
the last 50 years.
We appreciate the opportunity to discuss DOT's transportation
safety and security program for SNF. Thank you. We would be pleased to
answer any questions you may have.
The Chairman. I thank you very much, Secretary Willke.
Circumstances require my absence here. I have another
assignment, and the chair will be relinquished to Senator
Ensign. But before I go, I would like to thank all of you for
participating in this hearing.
I would like to just note something. I know that all of you
have testified that the transport of hazardous material,
especially spent fuel, is safe under the present technology.
But yet, you have noted that there have been accidents but no
leakage. And one of the witnesses compared spent fuel with
chlorine. But I recall that chlorine is poisonous, but I do not
think it lasts for a thousand years. On the other hand, spent
radioactive fuel as a dangerous element in that would live for
thousands of years. And if you can get into an accident, some
day it may leak. So I just want to make that notation.
Mr. Chairman?
Senator Ensign [presiding]. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just
have a few questions for the panel.
Mr. Sproat, if you could answer the question on
transportation timing. When is the earliest that DOE could--not
when you expect when they will but when is the earliest that
you actually could start shipping waste to Yucca Mountain?
Mr. Sproat. Senator, in order for us to be able to accept
the nuclear waste and begin shipment, we would need a license
from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to receive and possess
that nuclear fuel whether it is at Yucca Mountain or some other
interim storage site. The earliest, if everything went right
and the funding was not an issue, which we both know is an
issue with Yucca, that could be would be 2020. How long the
licensing proceeding is going to last, what the outcome of the
licensing proceeding is going to be remains to be seen, but the
earliest would be 2020. So really it is 12 years in the future.
Senator Ensign. You could not ship it earlier?
Mr. Sproat. No, Senator, we cannot because we need that
license to receive and possess, to be able to take it. And not
only the license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, but by
the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, the repository needs to have a
license to operate in order for us to accept the fuel and take
title to it by the Nuclear Waste Policy Act.
Senator Ensign. I thought that DOE was going to accept
title to the waste beforehand while it was still at the sites.
Mr. Sproat. As of right now, we are not able to do that.
Senator Ensign. Does there have to be a change in the law
for you to do that?
Mr. Sproat. Yes, sir.
Senator Ensign. It was mentioned 9/11, and Mr. Weber, I
think you were the one who kind of mentioned 9/11. That day
when we were watching those buildings go down and a lot of
engineers around the country were watching those buildings go
down and certainly people who had designed those buildings
never--you know, they thought about earthquakes. They thought
about a lot of things, but when people were watching those
things, very few people I think understood that those buildings
could actually collapse.
Have those types of extreme circumstances--you know, the
fire was much more intense where it melted the metal. Have
those kind of extreme circumstances been taken into account?
For instance, you mentioned air attacks. Have those kind of
really extreme circumstances, however unlikely, still possible,
been taken into account studying the potential casks and being
able to transport these containers?
Mr. Weber. Yes, sir, they have. 9/11--that night I spent in
our emergency operations center. So I watched the replay of the
video over and over and over again.
But it is important to point out that security is not
something that we discovered after 9/11. We have been putting
these packages through their paces well before 9/11. When NRC
was created, safeguards and security was a big deal with the
American public, and that is why my office, in part, was
created. So well before 9/11, we have been conducting
destructive experiments. We have been doing computer
simulations. We have been doing modeling.
Senator Ensign. Have you done actually--instead of just
computer modeling, have you done actual to where you have
gotten the temperatures up for potential--what we just talked
about, a plane crash coming in, jet fuel burning, train crashes
where you can have some different types of fuels burning at
extreme temperatures for long periods of time? Have you
actually done that not just with computer models, but with
life-sized models of what the transportation containers would
be?
Mr. Weber. Not for the spent fuel containers, the packages
that are currently being planned for use. We have done it for
other type B packages and it has been tested overseas by other
countries. Germany, for example, has done full-scale testing.
One of our standard tests that the packages have to
withstand a test involving a pool of aviation fuel that is
burned for a prolonged period of time, and the package has to
withstand that kind of extreme test in order to meet our
requirements.
Senator Ensign. If you could give me just a documentation
on what those temperatures reach, the type of materials, and
how long they were required to do that for the record, I would
very much appreciate that.
Mr. Weber. If I could, Senator, this requirement that is in
our regulations is for 1475 degrees Fahrenheit for at least 30
minutes. That is our standard fire test that the package has to
withstand.
Now, since then we have been proactive----
Senator Ensign. I was going go to say some of these fires
are going to last a lot longer than 30 minutes.
Mr. Weber. Oh, yes. And since then we have been proactive
in reaching out around the country, as we see additional
extreme accidents not involving radioactive material, but we
use those incidents to understand the physics, the mechanics,
what actually occurs because our objective is to reconfirm the
safety of the transportation packages.
Senator Ensign. You mentioned Germany. Has Germany done
those--you said they have done those studies. Have theirs just
been for 30-minute fires? You said they have done full-scale.
Can you get the information on what Germany's studies have
shown so that we can see the parameters?
Mr. Weber. Certainly.
Senator Ensign. OK. I appreciate that and we will do that
for the record as well.
[The information referred to is retained in Committee
files.]
Senator Ensign. Mr. Willke, if you could answer, how
prepared are states today to deal with the thousands of rail
and truck shipments of nuclear waste? How prepared are the
states today? And what additional steps must be taken to make
sure that their first responders, their emergency responders,
are prepared to deal with a potential accident involving a
radioactive release?
Dr. Willke. Senator, that is a difficult question because
of the 1.2 million fire fighters in this country who do the
primary response to accidents for hazardous materials, about
800,000 are volunteers, and many of these folks will go through
their entire career without ever seeing a hazardous material
accident.
We do our best to provide training for emergency
responders, to fire fighters. We provide grants to states and
tribal governments to allow for community planning for
hazardous material accidents and to do training of their local
fire fighters. We also work with every fire service
organization, national organization, to provide training for
fire fighters. We work closely with our multiple partners.
But it is also true it is very difficult to plan for the
full range of hazardous material incidents that could occur,
and we are lucky that we have not seen an incident that
required that kind of response in the transportation of spent
nuclear fuel.
Senator Ensign. As part of the transportation to a
facility, are we requiring states to have certain types--at
least certain teams trained to be able to respond? And if so,
where is that training?
Dr. Willke. I cannot speak for the training that might be
required.
Senator Ensign. I guess, should it be? In your opinion,
should it be required?
Dr. Willke. There should be planning for hazardous
materials incidents. We believe that all fire fighters should
receive that kind of training. We are doing everything that we
can to get----
Senator Ensign. Should it be specific to nuclear materials?
Dr. Willke. To the extent that materials are flowing
through those communities, yes, Senator, I believe that there
should be training.
Mr. Sproat. Senator, if I can just add.
Senator Ensign. Yes.
Mr. Sproat. Under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, there is a
section called 180(c) which requires the Federal Government to
provide grants to State, local, county governments and first
responders, including Indian tribes, specifically to provide
the training for responding to radiological accidents during
the transportation campaign.
Senator Ensign. Do you know when that is going to happen?
Mr. Sproat. Well, as a matter of fact, we just recently put
out--yes, we are about revise and put out a Federal Register
notice on the process for applying for the 180(c) grants. And
we have laid out a schedule of when that is to start based on
the 2020 start of shipment date, and that training would start
a minimum of, I believe, 6 years--5 years prior to the start of
the first shipment. So that is in our overall game plan, but we
are talking about----
Senator Ensign. Is there going to be some kind of
certification process? In other words, OK, you provide a grant,
you provide some training, how do we know that they are
adequately trained? Is there some kind of a measuring process?
I think that most police forces, most fire fighters are trained
to meet a certain standard and they are certified at the end of
it. Is there going to be a certification process that, yes,
this fire fighter has been certified, this first responder has
been certified to be able to respond to a potential nuclear
accident like this?
Mr. Sproat. I am not sure whether or not there will be a--
--
Senator Ensign. Can you get that answer for me for the
record?
Mr. Sproat. Can I take that question for the record,
please?
[The information referred to follows:]
The local emergency response employer is the entity that will
determine the appropriate level of training for their local responders
and will determine the certifying process. While the Department of
Energy will provide funding for training, State and Tribal governments
will have flexibility to decide those activities for which they will
request financial assistance under Section 180(c) of the Nuclear Waste
Policy Act.
Senator Ensign. Please do.
I want to ask my colleague if he has any questions for this
panel.
STATEMENT OF HON. THOMAS R. CARPER,
U.S. SENATOR FROM DELAWARE
Senator Carper. Thank you, sir. Is it Mr. Chairman?
Senator Ensign. It is right now.
[Laughter.]
Senator Carper. I know you are Mr. Chairman in one regard.
I was not sure if you had taken over fiefdoms or not.
Senator Ensign. You can have that other Mr. Chairman job if
you want it.
[Laughter.]
Senator Carper. I think the people in your caucus would
think it is strange for me to become their Chairman. Well, I am
a bipartisan guy, but that is probably stretching it a little
bit.
To our panel, thank you for joining us today. I just have
one or two short questions, if I could.
The safe transportation of spent nuclear fuel depends on
the interaction between a number of folks, but particularly the
three agencies that we have here today, DOE, and the Department
of Transportation, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. You
may have already discussed this before I got here, but just
give me an idea how your agencies are interacting with one
another.
Mr. Sproat. If I can take a first cut at that, Senator, the
relationship between the Department of Energy and DOT and NRC
in the transportation realm--essentially the Department of
Transportation has responsibility for setting the regulations
for the safe transport on the rails and highways of hazardous
waste. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has the responsibility
to set the regulations for the containers, the radioactive
material containers, that we will use, design, certify, and buy
to ship spent nuclear fuel and radioactive waste. So in that
sense, they are our regulators in terms of setting the
regulations that we have to meet for rail shipments, truck
shipments, and the NRC sets the regulations that we need to
meet for the containers in which we will ship the radioactive
materials. That is probably a very quick, simple answer.
Senator Carper. OK, thanks.
Mr. Weber. I would add on NRC's behalf that certainly we
are in a regulator mode with the Department of Energy now that
we have accepted the Yucca Mountain license application. So it
is an arm's length relationship, but I think it is a
constructive relationship and we will see, as we enter into the
licensing review and begin sending our requests for additional
information to the Department of Energy as part of our
licensing review.
With respect to our co-regulators, the Department of
Transportation, I have never seen such close coordination
between an agency and a Department. When my staff have
questions, they are frequently on the phone with the Department
of Transportation staff. These people represent the United
States of America on international standards committees. They
are respected around the world for their expertise in
transportation safety and security. So I cannot describe for
you how positive the relationship is between the agencies.
Dr. Willke. Mr. Chairman, PHMSA and the Department of
Transportation work very, very closely with other agencies.
PHMSA sets the packaging standards for shipments of all
hazardous materials. In this case, we depend upon the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission to set the design standards and the
performance qualifications for those shipping containers.
We also work within the Department of Transportation. While
we set the rules within PHMSA for all hazardous material
transportation, enforcement responsibilities are shared with
the Federal Railroad Administration, the Federal Motor Carrier
Safety Administration, the United States Coast Guard, and the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
We have a national program to ensure the protection from
all hazardous materials. We also coordinate internationally. We
work closely with the International Atomic Energy Agency on the
establishment of standards across the world.
Senator Carper. Mr. Pritchard, I am not sure what the deal
is, if you are just to be here for looks or if you respond to
questions or what. But I noticed they skipped right over you. I
do not know if you are offended by that.
Mr. Pritchard. Well, we are joined at the hip, sir. We are
both with the Department of Transportation and just to show you
the cooperativeness that we have together.
Senator Carper. When he spoke, I could barely see your lips
move.
[Laughter.]
Senator Carper. It was pretty impressive.
That was a pretty positive response, but are there any ways
that you all think the cooperation could be facilitated or
enhanced?
Mr. Pritchard. I think I will answer that, sir. No. We are
really joined at the hip, all three of us, and we continue to
work very close together.
Mr. Sproat. I would say, Senator, as a proof of that, one
of the points I tried to make in my oral testimony was that we,
the country, have had over 3,000 successful spent nuclear fuel
shipments already in the last 40 years with no release of
radioactive material. And I think that demonstrated safety
record we have is a testament to the regulatory structure that
these agencies have put together and the way that the
Department of Energy and the private transportation sector
works with them and within those regulatory structures to
assure the safety of the transportation of hazardous waste--
hazardous materials on the roadways and railways.
Senator Carper. Anybody else? Is it Mr. Willke? Are you
trying to say Willke or Willke?
Dr. Willke. Willke.
Senator Carper. Mr. Willke, do you want to add anything to
this?
Dr. Willke. We have very close cooperation. We work weekly,
daily, monthly in coordination with all of the various
agencies, including the Transportation Security Administration
on security issues.
Senator Carper. Do you all work on weekends?
Mr. Pritchard. Yes, sir.
Mr. Sproat. Yes, we do.
Senator Carper. I was just checking.
Can I have one more minute, Mr. Chairman?
Is it Mr. Sproat?
Mr. Sproat. Yes.
Senator Carper. Would you take your name tag in front of
you and raise it and turn it around so the audience can see it
just for a second? You see, it says, H-o-n. Sproat. Right?
Mr. Sproat. Yes.
Senator Carper. I had a phone call. You know, we are
supposed to have these do-not-call kinds of things. We are on
this Do Not Call List. But I was at home one night not long
ago, and the phone rings. And I looked at the number. We have
caller ID, and I looked at the number and did not recognize it.
It was out of state, and I thought, well, maybe I should just
ignore it, but I went ahead and answered it. And the person at
the other end of the phone said, I am calling Mr. Carper. I
said this is Mr. Carper. And they said, Hon? Like H-o-n.
[Laughter.]
Senator Carper. They were calling from some organization, a
good charity that we had supported before. They said, Hon, we
are calling to thank you for your support. And we were just
calling. It is the end of the year. We are doing our annual
fund drive and wanted to ask you to help more. They said, this
is Hon, isn't it? And I waited for a moment and I said, this is
Hon.
[Laughter.]
Senator Carper. Anyway, it became clear that they were
interested in more money. This person gave their pitch, and I
said, Hon have no money.
[Laughter.]
Senator Carper. Not to be deterred, they came right back,
same pitch, even harder. I said, Hon have no money. Not to be
deterred, one more time, the third time, they came back to me
again with their request. And I said, Hon have no money. Call
Hon. Castle.
[Laughter.]
Senator Carper. Congressman Mike Castle. I said, Hon.
Castle have much money.
[Laughter.]
Senator Carper. I gave them his number and said good night.
[Laughter.]
Senator Carper. Hon. Sproat, welcome. To all of you, thank
you.
Senator Ensign. Thank you for that story. I am not sure
what it has to do with transporting nuclear waste, but I liked
the story.
[Laughter.]
Senator Ensign. I want to thank the witnesses of this
panel. We have to get going to the next panel. So I want to
thank all these witnesses and call the next panel.
Sandra Schubert will testify for the Environmental Working
Group, to substitute in for Ken Cook. I understand he is sick.
Dr. Kevin Crowley, Senior Board Member, Nuclear and Radiation
Studies Board, National Academy of Sciences. Dr. James D.
Ballard, Associate Professor, Department of Sociology,
California State University, Northridge. And Mr. Ed Hamberger,
President, Association of American Railroads.
Since we have no Hons on the panel, we will start with Ms.
Schubert and just go right down the line. And all of your full
testimonies will be made part of the record.
STATEMENT OF SANDRA SCHUBERT, DIRECTOR, ENVIRONMENTAL WORKING
GROUP
Ms. Schubert. Thank you, Chairman Ensign, for the
opportunity to testify today on the safety and security of
nuclear waste transportation. As you mentioned, Ken Cook, the
President of the Environmental Working Group had been asked to
testify. He is very sick today and has laryngitis, so he asked
me to express his regrets and step in for him.
My name is Sandra Schubert. I am the Director of Government
Affairs for EWG, which is a nonprofit research organization
that uses the power of information to protect public health and
the environment. We have offices in Washington, D.C.; Oakland,
California; and Ames, Iowa.
Since 2002, EWG has produced analyses to help educate the
public about the implications of transporting radioactive waste
from nuclear powerplants around the United States to Yucca
Mountain, should the proposed waste repository there become
operational or nuclear plants continue to be relicensed or
expand and to inform Congress, as it debates energy and climate
change legislation.
Today we would like to make three points.
First, the American public's fundamental right to
understand the full implications of shipping thousands of tons
of extremely deadly hazardous nuclear waste across this country
should be central to the Government's process for licensing
Yucca Mountain, for operating any other repository for this
material, and for all decisions to relicense existing nuclear
reactors or build new ones. The Federal Government has not
respected that right to know.
It makes no sense to generate more nuclear waste when we
have not figured out what to do with the tens of thousands of
tons already on hand. Our Government has ignored that common
sense precaution.
The Government is rushing to approve the license
application for Yucca Mountain before rudimentary, life and
death questions have been resolved about transportation,
storage, and a truly protective radiation public safety
standard. We should not burden our children and their children
with unacceptable risks.
I would like to start with one vivid illustration that we
prepared that reflects Ranking Member Hutchison's home state of
Texas. And it reflects clearly our point on right to know.
There is a map on page 3 of the testimony. We have it
reproduced up here. We have a smaller map up here of Dallas,
Texas, but what you will see on the map, page 3, is the
official nuclear waste transportation map buried in the
Department of Energy's Environmental Impact Statement.
As you will notice, this is more cartoon than cartography.
This illustration depicts only one major city in Texas, the
capital, Austin, as well as facilities from which lethal
radioactive waste could be shipped and a few highway
designations and unnamed rail lines. Unlike on the map we have
up here and which is reproduced in the testimony, you will not
find Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, or any other major Texas
cities on the map. However, DOE's prospective routes for
shipping nuclear waste go through or near every one of these
cities or suburbs or around them and countless other
communities in Texas.
If folks did somehow find their way to the EIS and the
proper appendix, they would not find any helpful details about
how the potential routes might wind their way through towns and
cities or their communities. For instance, Texans probably do
not realize that 2.336 million Texans live within 1 mile of
DOE's proposed Yucca Mountain routes or that there are more
than 599 schools and 76 hospitals within a mile of those very
same routes or that everyone agrees that there will be
accidents if nuclear waste is transported as proposed.
And, I would like to shift my statement here a little bit
to cite a report that talks about nuclear waste shipment
accidents around the United States over the last 40 years.
According to the CRS and others, there have been 72
reported incidents involving radioactive waste shipments. This
contradicts Mr. Sproat's figures where he asserted no
radioactive waste accidents have occurred. According to them,
in four cases, radioactive contamination has gone beyond the
vehicle. In four cases, it stayed within the vehicle. In 13
incidents, there was absolutely no release, and in 49
incidents, actual surface contamination of radiation that
required cleanup. Now, mind you, this was 9,000 shipments over
40 years versus a possible 2,700 per year truck shipments to
Yucca Mountain under DOE's scenario. So those are the accidents
we see over 40 years under a much lighter travel load on our
roadways.
What would a crash mean for a city like Houston? A
moderately serious crash that would crack the casks and cause
cesium leaks but not puncture or penetrate the cask could
expose tens of thousands of people to radiation, dangerous
levels, in less than 10 minutes. Contamination plumes would
range from 300 to 750 chest X-rays equivalence and would extend
up to 1 mile from the wreck. Closer in, people would be exposed
to the equivalent of thousands of chest X-rays in the first
hour after the accident. Based on Government data and models,
we estimate that in Houston 525 people would ultimately suffer
and die from latent cancers associated with this exposure. In
addition, the economic costs would be enormous with the cleanup
costs alone are estimated to range from $10 billion to $150
billion, depending on the accident. And this is just one
scenario.
As you will notice on the charts we have put up, we tried
to focus on transportation routes in major cities for members
of the Commerce Committee. We can also provide, if you guys are
interested, estimates of the risk for death for many of these
cities, not all of them, but many of them.
Prior to recent license extensions, DOE has estimated that
it would take about 10,000 rail shipments or 50,000 truck
shipments of nuclear waste through our communities to fill
Yucca Mountain's capacity. Yet, if all reactors receive 10- to
20-year license extensions, DOE's estimate of the total amount
of waste generated in the U.S. would go up significantly,
meaning additional nuclear waste shipments through our
neighborhoods. If rail were the primary means of transporting
the waste, which DOE is leaning toward, the 10-year license
extension scenario would require more than 22,000 cross-country
shipments, or about 580 per year.
Now, maybe constituents, knowing all of this, would still
decide that it makes sense to put radioactive waste on their
highways or they would make the decision knowing that there
would still be much radioactive waste left onsite, as Senator
Ensign pointed out. Or maybe residents of your states would
conclude that reactors in the states or reactors in states
surrounding you that might be shipping the waste through your
state should operate for an additional 20 more years. Or maybe
they would approve of new reactors and new license extensions.
Or maybe if they really understood the ramifications of these
decisions, they would not.
Our point is that the people of every state have the right
to know and fully understand the implications for them of the
transportation of nuclear waste in their communities, of the
Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository, the construction of
new reactors before licenses go forward, the permits are
granted, or the plans are approved. Decisions made hundreds of
miles away will have profound implications for the shipment of
high-level, deadly nuclear waste through neighborhoods for
decades to come.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Cook follows:]
Prepared Statement of Kenneth A. Cook, President,
Environmental Working Group
Chairman Inouye, Ranking Member Hutchison, distinguished Members of
the Committee: Thank you for the opportunity to testify today on
crucial issues surrounding the safety and security of the
transportation of lethal, long-lived nuclear waste across the United
States. My name is Kenneth Cook and I am President of Environmental
Working Group (EWG), a non-profit environmental research and advocacy
organization that uses the power of information to protect public
health and the environment. EWG has offices in Washington, D.C.;
Oakland, California; and Ames, Iowa.
Since 2002, EWG has produced analyses to help educate the public
about the implications of transporting deadly radioactive wastes from
nuclear power plants around the United States to Yucca Mountain, should
the proposed nuclear waste repository there become operational.
Today I want to emphasize three points:
1. The American public's fundamental right to understand the
full implications of shipping thousands of tons of extremely
hazardous nuclear waste across this country should be central
to the government's process for licensing Yucca Mountain, for
operating any other repository for this material, and for all
decisions to relicense existing reactors or build new ones. The
Federal Government has not respected that right to know.
2. It makes no sense to generate tons more nuclear waste when
we have not figured out what to do with the tens of thousands
of tons already on hand. Our government has ignored that common
sense precaution.
3. The government is rushing to approve the license application
for Yucca Mountain before rudimentary, life and death questions
have been resolved about transportation, storage, and a truly
protective radiation safety standard. We should not burden our
children and their children with unacceptable risks.
Let me start with a vivid illustration of my first point.
Right to Know Ignored
Government's Nuclear Waste Route Maps
Texas
EWG Nuclear Waste Route Map
Houston, Texas
Chairman Inouye, you are lucky, nuclear waste transportation is not
an issue in Hawaii. However it is for nearly every other state and its
citizens. Let's take a look at this map depicting Ranking Member
Hutchison's home state of Texas.
This map of Texas is the official transportation map, buried in
Appendix J of the Department of Energy's (DOE) Environmental Impact
Statement (EIS) for the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste
repository.\1\ It is a nuclear waste transportation route map for
Texas. More cartoon than cartography, this illustration depicts only
one major city in your state--the capitol, Austin. It also shows the
location of facilities from which lethal radioactive waste would be
shipped to Yucca Mountain if it is ever made operational, along with a
few highway designations and some unnamed rail lines.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The maps reproduced herein appear identical to those used in
the Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement for a Geologic
Repository for the Disposal of Spent Nuclear Fuel and High-Level
Radioactive Waste at Yucca Mountain, Nye County, Nevada Volume I Impact
Analyses, Chapters 1 through 13, U.S. Department of Energy, Office of
Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, DOE/EIS-0250F-S1D, October 2007,
Section G-11.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
You will not find Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, Amarillo, Houston,
or any other major Texas cities on this map of nuclear waste routes to
Yucca Mountain. But the Department of Energy's prospective routes for
shipping deadly nuclear reactor waste go through or near every one of
those cities, or the suburbs around them, and countless other
communities in Texas.
If Ranking Member Hutchison's constituents did somehow find their
way to Appendix J of the EIS for Yucca Mountain, they would not find
any telling details about how the potential highway or rail routes
might wend their way through the towns and cities and communities of
their state.
The people of Texas probably do not realize that 2,336,290 Texans
live within a mile of those routes, or that there are more than 599
schools and 76 hospitals within a mile of those routes.
A nuclear transportation accident is not unlikely or unheard of.
From January through June 2008, there were 1,203 train accidents.
Thirteen, or 1.08 percent, of these resulted in the release of a
hazardous material and the evacuation of 3,959 people. Nearly 34
percent of these were attributable to human error, more than 13.5
percent to equipment defects. Notably, these numbers do not include
train-highway collisions.\2\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ Federal Transportation Safety Board, Federal Railroad
Administration, Office of Safety Analysis, ``1.01--Accident/Incident
Overview,'' January to June, 2008.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Everyone agrees that there will be accidents if nuclear waste is
transported by train and truck through 45 states for 38 years to the
repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. DOE predicts that there will be
about 100 accidents over the life of the project. The state of Nevada
predicts about 400 accidents during the same time period.
What would a crash mean for a city like Houston, TX? A moderately
serious crash that would crack the cask and cause cesium leaks, but not
puncture or penetrate the cask, could expose tens of thousands of
people to dangerous levels of radiation. EPA's acceptable dose of
radiation is 15 millirem, equal to about 1.5 chest x-rays per year. In
less than 10 minutes, contamination plumes ranging from 300 to 750
chest x-rays would extend up to 1 mile from the wreck. Closer in,
people would be exposed to the equivalent of thousands of chest x-rays
in the first hour after the accident. Based on government data and
models, we estimate that in Houston 525 people would ultimately suffer
and die from latent cancers associated with this exposure. In addition,
the economic costs would be enormous, with the cleanup costs alone
estimated to range from $10 to $150 billion.\3\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\3\ Wiles, Richard and James R. Cox, Environmental Working Group,
Nuclear Waste Route Maps: What If A Nuclear Waste Accident Scenario in
Houston, TX, June 2002.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Now, maybe, Texas constituents, knowing all that, would still
decide that it makes sense to put lethal radioactive waste on Texas's
highways and rail lines, right near their homes and through their
communities, en route to Yucca Mountain. Maybe Texans would come to
that decision knowing that plenty of waste would still remain to be
dealt with at reactors in the state once Yucca Mountain is filled to
its current statutory limit. Maybe residents of Texas would still
conclude that reactors in the state, or in states to the north and east
that might route waste through your state, should operate for an
additional twenty years, generating more nuclear waste and more
shipments for decades. Maybe the people of Texas would approve of new
reactors being built, creating yet more waste at reactor sites, and on
highways and railways, for generations to come.
Or maybe they would not approve at all if they really knew what
approval meant. Texans and all other citizens have a right to know the
implications of shipping waste to Yucca Mountain, or of expanding
nuclear power and waste production, before decisions are made for them.
Government's Nuclear Waste Route Maps
Missouri
EWG Nuclear Waste Route Map
Kansas City, MO
Government's Nuclear Waste Route Maps
Washington, D.C.
EWG Nuclear Waste Route Map
Washington, D.C.
Government's Nuclear Waste Route Maps
California
EWG Nuclear Waste Route Map
Los Angeles, CA
There is only one operating nuclear power reactor in Missouri, yet
under DOE's nuclear waste transportation plan Missouri would become a
major thoroughfare for the transportation of nuclear waste from around
the country heading to the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump.
EWG estimates that 933,724 people live within 1 mile of the DOE's
proposed routes for the shipment of high-level nuclear waste across
Missouri from out of state; some 2,780,602 people live within 5 miles.
Our geographic information system analysis also finds an estimated 368
schools within 1 mile of the DOE's proposed high-level nuclear waste
transportation routes and 1,004 schools within 5 miles. We also
estimate that 28 hospitals are within 1 mile and 55 hospitals are
within 5 miles.
Again, localized, community-specific information of this sort might
or might not affect the opinions of Missourians regarding the shipment
through their cities and their communities of nuclear waste from other
states. The only way we will know if this information is important is
if we entrust it to the people of Missouri before decisions that affect
them are made.
There are many examples of how government is violating people's
right to know how the transportation of nuclear waste will affect them.
The Department of Energy and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission have
not:
Implemented the safety recommendations of the National
Academies of Sciences February 2006 report Going the Distance?
The Safe Transport of Spent Nuclear Fuel and High-Level
Radioactive Waste in the United States;
Addressed the security threats posed by the transportation
of spent nuclear fuel; or
Planned for full scale physical testing of spent fuel
transportation casks to determine basic safety issues, such as
crash failure thresholds.
We have seen the damage that terrorists, natural disasters and
failing infrastructure can wreak. Imagine the catastrophic nature of
those events if nuclear waste were involved. We must address the
public's questions about the safety and security of nuclear waste and
its transportation through our neighborhoods.
People in every state have a right to know and fully understand the
implications for them of the transportation of nuclear waste in their
communities, the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository, and the
construction of new reactors before the licenses go forward, the
permits are granted, or the plans approved. Decisions made hundreds of
miles away will have profound implications for the shipment of high-
level, deadly nuclear waste through their neighborhoods for decades to
come.
Nuclear Relicensing and Increased Transportation Risks
A little-noticed surge in relicensing of nuclear reactors will put
thousands of metric tons of high-level nuclear waste on our railways
and roadways. The relicensing through 2007 alone will add about 16,500
metric tons to the Nation's inventory of spent nuclear fuel, increasing
transportation of radioactive waste through our neighborhoods and
prolonging storage problems through the middle of the century at
reactor sites across the country, effectively transforming over a dozen
power plants into long term nuclear waste dumps.
Yet, nuclear power plant licenses are being extended, largely in
response to the congressional approval to move forward on the proposed
nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, and the administration
and Congressional leaders' push for a nuclear ``renaissance,'' and
these licenses are being extended for longer than DOE has ever
predicted in any of their analyses of Yucca's overall capacity.
An EWG Action Fund analysis of relicensing of nuclear facilities
found that the 48 reactors at 26 nuclear power plants relicensed from
2000 to 2007 (see attached table) would generate a projected 16,500
metric tons of high-level nuclear waste over the 20-year period of
their license extensions. Eighteen more reactors at 13 power plants
with license extensions pending (no application to date has been
denied) would add another 6,000 metric tons of waste to this, for a
total of 22,500 additional metric tons of nuclear waste traveling
through our communities.
Prior to recent license extensions, DOE estimated that it would
take about 10,000 rail shipments or 50,000 truck shipments of nuclear
waste to fill the nuclear power industry's share of Yucca Mountain, or
about 90 percent of its federally limited capacity of 70,000 metric
tons. Relicensing through September 2004 alone has added about 5,700
more truck shipments, or 1,050 rail shipments to that total. It would
require a formal expansion of the Yucca repository to dump this nuclear
waste in Nevada.
Further, if all reactors receive 20-year as opposed to 10-year
extensions, DOE's estimate of the total amount of waste generated in
the U.S. would increase to approximately 135,000 metric tons.
Those 20,000 metric tons would mean even more cross-country
shipments of nuclear waste than are projected for DOE's worst-case
scenario. In that worst-case scenario, based on 10-year license
extensions, transporting our Nation's nuclear waste mostly by truck
would require about 108,900 shipments over 38 years, or about 2,870 per
year. If rail were the primary means of transporting the waste, the 10-
year license extension scenario would require more than 22,000 cross-
country shipments, or about 580 per year.\4\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\4\ Halstead, Robert, Transportation Advisor, Nevada Agency for
Nuclear Projects, Testimony Before U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and
Natural Resources, May 22, 2002 (hereafter Halstead 2002).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The rail transport scenario does not include barge and heavy haul
truck shipments from 24 nuclear reactors that lack rail access.
Thousands of such shipments would be required. This analysis also does
not include the proposed Nevada rail extension, the Caliente Corridor,
which would be the largest rail project in decades. In addition, DOE's
analysis does not include the heavy haul truck shipments required
within Nevada if there is no rail spur to connect to Yucca Mountain.
Ten to nineteen thousand additional shipments would be required.\5\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\5\ Halstead 2002.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
This result of the government's push to license the proposed Yucca
Mountain nuclear waste dump and its subsidization of the nuclear
industry while ignoring the public health, environmental and economic
costs of these activities virtually guarantees that:
Nuclear power plants would be transformed into long-term
nuclear waste dumps. The recent surge in reactor relicensing
ensures that hundreds of metric tons of extremely hazardous,
high-level nuclear waste would remain in place at reactors
around the country, as more waste is produced long after the
proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump would be full.
The proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump would have to
be expanded or a second repository opened to accommodate the
additional waste. By law, Yucca Mountain is limited to 70,000
metric tons of nuclear waste, which is almost equal to the
amount of nuclear waste that will be stored on-site at reactors
around the country in 2010, well before any repository could be
opened.
If rail were the primary means of transporting the waste,
the security and health risks inherent in these shipments are
enormous, and preparedness is minimal.
The public would be unaware of, and unprepared for, the
implications of policy decisions regarding nuclear power and
nuclear waste and its transportation through its neighborhoods.
People of every state have a right to know and fully understand the
implications for them of shipping nuclear waste to the Yucca Mountain
nuclear waste repository before shipping begins or the license for the
facility goes forward. And they have the same right to know what
expansion of nuclear waste generation will mean for transportation
through their state if reactors around the country are relicensed for
10 to 20 additional years of operation, or new reactors are
constructed. They may or may not know that decisions made hundreds of
miles away will have profound implications for the shipment of high-
level, deadly nuclear waste through their neighborhoods for decades to
come.
Concluding Observations
I think we are all aware that the U.S. nuclear industry would not
split an atom without a subsidy. They never have, and they never will.
Nuclear energy companies never hesitate to lean on American
taxpayers for money to conduct nuclear research, for indemnification in
the event of horrific nuclear accidents, for money to clean up
industry's lethal waste and cost overruns, or for the collateral of the
public's purse--loan guarantees--something the companies are seeking
today to coax investors out of their sober reluctance to put money into
new nuclear reactors.
But the ultimate subsidy for the nuclear industry may well be our
government's scandalous failure to fully inform our own people about
the potential consequence of the transportation of nuclear waste
through their communities until it is too late for the people to do
anything about it but accept the risk, the expense, or the unthinkable.
I thank you, Chairman Inouye, Ranking Member Hutchison, and Members
of the Committee for this opportunity to testify, and I look forward to
answering any questions or providing additional information at the
pleasure of the Committee.
Nuclear Plants Where Reactor Licenses Have Been Extended
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Additional Waste
Number of Projected Waste During 20-year
Plant State Reactors Per Year 1996-2011 Relicense Period
(Metric Tons) (Metric Tons)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Browns Ferry AL 3 68 1,365
Joseph M. Farley AL 2 33 663
Arkansas Nuclear One AR 2 29 583
Millstone CT 2 47 936
St. Lucie FL 2 26 524
Turkey Point FL 2 29 573
Edwin I. Hatch GA 2 43 865
Dresden IL 2 37 738
Quad Cities IL 2 29 580
Calvert Cliffs MD 2 31 626
D.C. Cook MI 2 41 820
Pallisades MI 1 15 309
Monticello MN 1 18 350
McGuire NC 2 45 906
Brunswick NC 2 28 560
Fort Calhoun NE 1 10 196
Ginna NY 1 11 225
Nine Mile Point NY 2 39 519
Peach Bottom PA 2 40 806
Catawba SC 2 43 854
H.B. Robinson SC 1 15 299
Oconee SC 3 48 959
Summer SC 1 19 376
North Anna VA 2 38 766
Surry VA 2 33 668
Point Beach WI 2 22 434
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total 48 838 16,498
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
U.S. Department of Energy (DOE Yucca EIS Table A-7). 2002. Final Environmental Impact Statement for a Geologic
Repository for the Disposal of Spent Nuclear Fuel and High-Level Radioactive Waste at Yucca Mountain, Nye
County, Nevada, Appendix A, Table A-7. February 2002.
Nuclear Plants With Reactor License Extensions Pending
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Additional Waste
Number of Projected Waste During 20-year
Plant State Reactors Per Year 1996-2011 Relicense Period
(Metric Tons) (Metric Tons)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Vogtle GA 2 47 931
Wolf Creek KS 1 25 505
Pilgrim MA 1 13 251
Prairie Island MN 2 22 435
Harris NC 1 16 315
Oyster Creek NJ 1 20 406
James A. FitzPatrick NY 1 19 384
Indian Point NY 2 30 608
Susquehanna PA 2 41 810
Beaver Valley PA 2 36 726
Three Mile Island PA 1 15 295
Vermont Yankee VT 1 14 278
Kewaunee Power Station WI 1 11 211
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total 18 308 6,155
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
U.S. Department of Energy (DOE Yucca EIS Table A-7). 2002. Final Environmental Impact Statement for a Geologic
Repository for the Disposal of Spent Nuclear Fuel and High-Level Radioactive Waste at Yucca Mountain, Nye
County, Nevada, Appendix A, Table A-7. February 2002.
I wish to thank colleagues at the Environmental Working Group for
the research and analysis underlying my testimony today: Richard Wiles,
Sandra Schubert, Sean Gray, and Chris Campbell; and former colleagues
John Coequyt, Jon Balivieso, and Tim Greenleaf. We are also grateful
for technical assistance provided over the years by experts at the
Nuclear Information And Resource Service and in particular by Kevin
Kamps, now on the staff of Beyond Nuclear. EWG is responsible for the
contents of this testimony.
Senator Ensign. Thank you.
Dr. Crowley?
STATEMENT OF KEVIN D. CROWLEY, Ph.D., SENIOR BOARD
DIRECTOR, NUCLEAR AND RADIATION STUDIES BOARD,
NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL, THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES
Dr. Crowley. Good afternoon, Chairman Ensign and Senator
Thune. My name is Kevin Crowley. I am the Director of the
National Research Council's Nuclear and Radiation Studies
Board, and I also directed two National Research Council
studies that are directly relevant to the subject of this
hearing. I would like to talk a little bit about some of the
principal findings and recommendations from those. The reports
were entitled ``Going the Distance? The Safe Transport of Spent
Nuclear Fuel and High-Level Radioactive Waste in the United
States'' and ``Safety and Security of Commercial Spent Nuclear
Fuel Storage.''
I will focus my oral summary on the key findings that
relate to transportation safety, transportation security, and
Yucca Mountain challenges.
With respect to key transportation safety challenges, the
Committee that authored the Going the Distance report found
that it could identify no fundamental technical barriers to the
safe transport of spent fuel and high-level waste in the United
States. From a technical standpoint, transport is a low
radiological risk activity with manageable safety, health, and
environmental consequences when conducted in strict adherence
to existing regulations.
The packages that are used to transport spent fuel play a
crucial role in transportation safety by providing a robust
barrier to the release of radiation and radioactive material.
The Going the Distance report noted that current international
standards and U.S. regulations are adequate to ensure
containment effectiveness of transport packages even in severe
accidents.
However, there may be extreme accident conditions involving
very long duration fires that could compromise package
containment. The report recommended that the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission undertake additional analyses of such accident
conditions and implement operational controls and restrictions
as necessary to reduce the chances that such conditions might
be encountered during transport.
With respect to key transportation security challenges, the
National Research Council study on Safety and Security of
Commercial Spent Nuclear Fuel Storage examined the consequences
of sabotage and terrorist attacks on spent fuel in storage at
civilian nuclear plants. This work is relevant to spent fuel
transport security because some storage packages can also be
used for transportation. The unclassified report from the study
notes that all storage package designs are vulnerable to some
types of terrorist attacks for which releases of radioactive
material would be possible, although the magnitudes of such
releases are predicted to be small. However, it is important to
recognize that storage packages at fixed sites, such as nuclear
plants, are easier to protect from certain kinds of terrorist
attacks than spent fuel packages in transport on the Nation's
highways and railways.
The Going the Distance report recommended that ``an
independent examination of the security of spent fuel and high-
level waste transportation should be carried out prior to the
commencement of large-quantity shipments to a Federal
repository or to interim storage. This examination should
provide an integrated evaluation of the threat environment, the
response of packages to credible malevolent acts, and
operational security requirements for protecting spent fuel and
high-level waste while in transport.''
I have a longer write-up in my written testimony about the
Yucca Mountain challenges. Let me close by just highlighting a
few findings and recommendations from my longer testimony.
The Going the Distance report strongly endorsed DOE's
decisions to ship spent fuel and high-level waste to a Federal
repository by mostly rail using dedicated trains. The report
recommended that DOE fully implement these decisions before
commencing large-quantity shipments to the repository.
The report also recommended that DOE should identify and
make public its suite of preferred highway and rail routes for
transporting spent fuel and high-level waste to a Federal
repository as soon as practicable to support State, tribal, and
local planning.
DOE should negotiate with commercial spent fuel owners to
ship older fuel first to a Federal repository or to interim
storage. Should these negotiations prove to be ineffective,
Congress should consider legislative remedies.
DOE should initiate transport to the Federal repository
through a pilot program involving relatively short,
logistically simple movements of older fuel from closed
reactors to demonstrate its ability to carry out its
responsibilities in a safe and operationally effective manner.
And finally, the Secretary of Energy and the U.S. Congress
should examine options for changing the organizational
structure of DOE's program for transporting spent fuel and
high-level waste to a Federal repository to increase its
chances for success.
I will stop there. I will be happy to elaborate on any of
my comments during the Q&A. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Crowley follows:]
Prepared Statement of Kevin D. Crowley, Ph.D., Senior Board Director,
Nuclear and Radiation Studies Board, National Research Council,
The National Academies
Good afternoon, Chairman Inouye and Members of the Committee. My
name is Kevin Crowley, and I am the Director of the National Research
Council's Nuclear and Radiation Studies Board.\1\ I also directed two
National Research Council studies that are relevant to this hearing on
the safety and security of spent nuclear fuel transportation:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The National Research Council is the operating arm of the
National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, and the
Institute of Medicine of the National Academies, chartered by Congress
in 1863 to advise the government on matters of science and technology.
The Nuclear and Radiation Studies Board is responsible for oversight of
National Research Council studies on safety and security of nuclear
materials and waste.
Going the Distance? The Safe Transport of Spent Nuclear Fuel
and High-Level Radioactive Waste in the United States \2\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ This report is available online at http://www.nap.edu/
catalog.php?record_id=11538.
Safety and Security of Commercial Spent Nuclear Fuel Storage
\3\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\3\ The unclassified report is available online at http://
www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record
_id=11263.
Both of these reports were published in 2006. The latter report, which
has classified and unclassified versions, was the product of a
congressionally mandated study. That study examined the safety and
security of dry storage of spent nuclear fuel at civilian nuclear power
plants. Some of the results of that study have informed my comments on
transportation security.
My testimony is provided in three parts: transportation safety
challenges, transportation security challenges, and the challenges
associated with transportation of spent fuel to the proposed repository
at Yucca Mountain, Nevada.
Transportation Safety Challenges
My comments on the safety \4\ challenges associated with
transporting nuclear waste will focus specifically on the
transportation of spent nuclear fuel generated by civilian nuclear
power plants. Spent fuel is highly radioactive and can cause severe
harm to humans and the environment, if not properly managed.
Immediately after its discharge from a power reactor, for example, the
radiation emitted from a single spent fuel assembly would be lethal to
a nearby unshielded person for exposure periods on the order of
minutes. Spent fuel becomes less radioactive with time, but even after
several years of storage it is still highly radioactive and can cause
both immediate (i.e., radiation sickness and death) and delayed (e.g.,
cancer) effects in exposed populations if not properly managed.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\4\ Safety refers to measures taken to protect spent fuel and high-
level waste during transport operations from failure, damage, human
error, and other inadvertent acts.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
There are at least three factors that promote the safety of spent
fuel transportation in the United States:
Storage before shipping: Civilian spent fuel must be stored
for at least a year before it can be transported, and current
industry practice is to store this fuel for at least 5 years
before transporting it. This provides time for radioactive
decay in the spent fuel, which helps to reduce its hazard.
Transport packages: Spent fuel is transported in packages
(also referred to as shipping casks) that are designed to
shield the radiation that is emitted by the fuel and also to
prevent the release of radioactive material, even in severe
accidents.
Conduct of transport operations: There are strict regulatory
requirements for selection of shipping routes, advance
notification of state authorities before shipments are made,
and for shipping operations.
The National Research Council's Going the Distance report provides
a detailed discussion and analysis of the safety of spent fuel
transportation, focusing on the design and testing of packages used to
transport spent fuel and on the historical record of spent fuel
shipments. Based on this analysis, the expert committee \5\ that
conducted this study found that it
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\5\ Committee on Transportation of Radioactive Waste. Dr. Neal
Lane, a physicist at Rice University and former director of the
National Science Foundation and Presidential science advisor, chaired
this study.
``. . . could identify no fundamental technical barriers to the
safe transport of spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive
waste in the United States. Transport by highway (for small-
quantity shipments \6\) and by rail (for large-quantity
shipments) is, from a technical viewpoint, a low-radiological-
risk activity with manageable safety, health, and environmental
consequences when conducted in strict adherence to existing
regulations. However, there are a number of social and
institutional challenges to the successful initial
implementation of large-quantity shipping programs that will
require expeditious resolution. . . . Moreover, the challenges
of sustained implementation should not be underestimated.''
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\6\ The Going the Distance report identified two general types of
transportation programs, small-quantity shipping programs and large-
quantity shipping programs. The former involve shipment on the order of
tens of metric tons of spent fuel or high-level waste, while the latter
involve shipment on the order of hundreds to thousands of metric tons.
The program to transport spent fuel to the proposed repository at Yucca
Mountain would be an example of a large-quantity shipping program.
I want to emphasize that this finding focused on the technical
aspects of spent fuel and high-level waste transportation--for example,
the design, fabrication, and maintenance of the packages and
conveyances used for transporting spent fuel and the conduct of
transportation operations. This finding is predicated on the assumption
that these technical tasks are being carried out with a high degree of
care and in strict adherence to regulations. The finding also is based
on an assessment of past and present transportation programs and would
apply to future programs only to the extent that they continue to
exercise appropriate care and adherence to applicable regulations.
Continued vigilance by all parties involved in these transportation
programs, including planners, shippers, and regulators, will be
required to ensure that transportation operations in the United States
continue to be conducted in a safe manner, especially if and when the
large-quantity shipping program to Yucca Mountain is initiated.
The packages that are used to transport spent fuel play a crucial
role in transportation safety by providing a robust barrier to the
release of radiation and radioactive material. In fact, the robust
design of these packages helps to minimize the impacts of human error
on transport safety. The committee that conducted the Going the
Distance study found that current international standards and U.S.
regulations are adequate to ensure package containment effectiveness
\7\ during both routine transport and in severe accidents. However, the
study committee noted that recently published work suggests that there
may be a very small number of extreme accident conditions involving
very long duration fires \8\ that could compromise package containment
effectiveness. The study committee recommended that the U.S. Nuclear
Regulatory Commission (USNRC) undertake additional analyses of very
long duration fire scenarios that bound expected real-world accident
conditions. Based on the results of these investigations, the study
committee also recommended that the USNRC implement operational
controls and restrictions on spent fuel and high-level waste shipments
as necessary to reduce the chances that such conditions might be
encountered in service. The study committee further recommended that
transportation planners and managers undertake detailed surveys of
transportation routes to identify and mitigate the potential hazards
that could lead to or exacerbate extreme accidents involving such
fires.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\7\ That is, the ability of a transportation package to contain its
radioactive contents and maintain its radiation shielding effectiveness
during routine use and under severe accident conditions.
\8\ The USNRC requires that packages be designed to maintain
containment effectiveness in a 30-minute fire that is fully engulfing.
A very long duration fire is a fire that burns for much longer periods,
for example, hours to days.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Transportation Security Challenges
Let me now turn to the security \9\ of spent fuel transportation.
Many of the regulatory requirements that are in place to promote the
safety of spent fuel transport also help to promote security. For
example, the robust shipping packages that are used to protect spent
fuel in the event of a severe accident would also help to protect spent
fuel against some types of sabotage and terrorist attacks. There are
additional regulatory requirements that also help to promote security
of spent fuel shipments: for example, the USNRC conducts route
inspections to identify potential security vulnerabilities as part of
its route approval process; it has established requirements for armed
escorts when shipments pass through highly populated regions; and it
has established other requirements for equipment security and
communications. Some of these regulatory requirements were revised
after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and some specific
requirements have not been disclosed to the public to protect national
security.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\9\ Security involves measures taken to protect spent fuel and
high-level waste against sabotage, attacks, and theft while it is in
transport.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
However, transportation security differs from transportation safety
in at least one important respect: safety problems arise from human
error and equipment malfunctions that are amenable to quantitative
analysis, whereas security problems arise from intentional malevolent
acts that generally do not lend themselves to such analysis.
Transportation safety analyses, for example, rely heavily on the
historical record for shipping other types of hazardous materials. This
record allows analysts to identify severe accident scenarios that might
be a concern for spent fuel transport--for example, train collisions or
derailments that expose shipping packages to large impact forces or
severe fires--and also provides analysts with reliable data on the
frequency of occurrence of such accidents. These accident scenario and
accident frequency data can be used to quantitatively model the safety
consequences of severe accidents involving spent fuel.
There is no comparable historical record that can be used to
develop quantitative estimates of sabotage or attack scenarios or their
frequency of occurrence. Instead, analysts must rely on expert
judgments about the threat environment and terrorists' access to
technical means and opportunity for attacking or sabotaging spent fuel
shipments. I should note that this security challenge is not unique to
spent fuel transportation, but is also faced by owners and operators of
other critical infrastructure.
A great deal of work has been carried out in the United States and
in some other countries to understand the potential consequences of
sabotage and terrorist attacks on spent fuel shipments. Most of this
work is classified or otherwise restricted from public release. The
National Research Council study on Safety and Security of Commercial
Spent Nuclear Fuel Storage examined some of the relevant work that has
been carried out by Sandia National Laboratories and others to estimate
the consequences of sabotage or terrorist attacks on spent fuel being
stored at civilian nuclear plants.\10\ This work is relevant to spent
fuel transport security because some of the packages that are used to
store spent fuel at civilian nuclear plants can also be used for
transportation. The study committee's \11\ detailed analyses of the
consequences of various terrorist attack scenarios are classified;
however, the study committee's unclassified report notes that all
storage cask designs are vulnerable to some types of terrorist attacks
for which releases of radioactive material would be possible, although
the magnitudes of such releases are predicted to be small. However, it
is important to recognize that storage casks at fixed sites such as
nuclear plants are in principle easier to protect from certain kinds of
terrorist attacks than spent fuel packages in transport on the Nation's
highways and railways.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\10\ This study examined both wet storage of spent fuel in pools
and dry storage in casks. My comments in this testimony are focused
only on dry storage.
\11\ Committee on Safety and Security of Commercial Spent Nuclear
Fuel Storage. The committee was chaired by Dr. Louis Lanzerotti, a
geophysicist and member of the National Academy of Engineering.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The National Research Council's Going the Distance study was
organized before the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the
United States. It was focused primarily on the safety of spent fuel and
high-level waste transport because this issue was receiving the most
public attention when the study was organized. Once the study was
begun, however, it soon became clear that transportation security had
established itself in the public's consciousness as a top concern along
with transportation safety. The study committee was not able to conduct
an in-depth review of transportation security because of information
access constraints. However, the study committee found that
``malevolent acts against spent fuel and high-level waste shipments are
a major technical and societal concern, especially following the
September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States.'' The study
committee also recommended that
``An independent examination of the security of spent fuel and
high-level waste transportation should be carried out prior to
the commencement of large-quantity shipments to a Federal
repository or to interim storage. This examination should
provide an integrated evaluation of the threat environment, the
response of packages to credible malevolent acts, and
operational security requirements for protecting spent fuel and
high-level waste while in transport. This examination should be
carried out by a technically knowledgeable group that is
independent of the government and free from institutional and
financial conflicts of interest. This group should be given
full access to the necessary classified documents and
Safeguards Information to carry out this task. The findings and
recommendations from this examination should be made available
to the public to the fullest extent possible.''
I want to emphasize that this recommendation was not made because
the study committee had specific knowledge of vulnerabilities of spent
fuel shipments to sabotage or terrorist attacks. Instead, it was
motivated primarily by concerns that were expressed to the study
committee about whether such shipments could be made in a secure
fashion in spite of reassurances from Federal agencies. The study
committee recognized that the Federal agencies were in a difficult
position on this issue because as much as they might like to share
security-related information that might help to inform the public,
there were legitimate national security reasons for not doing so. The
study committee judged that an independent review would help to improve
the technical soundness of the agencies' security programs for spent
fuel transportation and also help to reassure the public that the
agencies' programs were proceeding on a sound technical basis.
Transportation Challenges for Yucca Mountain
The primary challenges for the Yucca Mountain transportation
program arise from at least three factors: the large number of
shipments that are planned; the two-decade-plus-time period over which
the transportation program must be operated in a safe and secure
manner; and the long lead times and large expenditures that will be
required to put the necessary transportation infrastructure in place.
The National Research Council's Going the Distance report noted that
the planned number of rail shipments to a repository at Yucca Mountain
under the Department of Energy's (DOE's) ``mostly rail'' scenario is
approximately 18 times the number of rail shipments that have occurred
in the United States between 1964 and 2004.\12\ In other words,
previous spent fuel transport experience in the United States is small
compared with the numbers of shipments that will be needed to move
spent fuel and high-level waste to a Yucca Mountain repository.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\12\ The Yucca Mountain EIS noted that DOE plans to make up to 9600
rail shipments of spent fuel and high-level waste to the repository.
The Going the Distance study estimates that about 540 rail shipments of
spent fuel were made in the United States between 1964 and 2004. The
actual number of rail shipments to Yucca Mountain would depend on how
DOE conducts its transport operations.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The National Research Council committee that authored the Going the
Distance report provided several findings and recommendations for
improving the Yucca Mountain transportation program; these are
summarized below:
The study committee strongly endorsed DOE's decisions to
ship spent fuel and high-level waste to the Federal repository
by ``mostly rail'' using dedicated trains. This approach would
reduce routine radiological exposures; provide for greater
physical separation from other vehicular traffic and reduced
interactions with people along transportation routes; and
simplify operational logistics. It is also the approach that is
preferred by the public. The study committee recommended that
DOE fully implement this approach by completing construction of
the Nevada rail spur and making other necessary arrangements
before commencing large-quantity shipments to the repository.
The study committee also recommended that DOE examine the
feasibility of further reducing its needs for cross-country
truck shipments \13\ of spent fuel.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\13\ Even under the ``mostly rail'' scenario, DOE estimated in its
Yucca Mountain EIS that about 1100 truck shipments would be made to the
repository.
DOE should identify and make public its suite of preferred
highway and rail routes for transporting spent fuel and high-
level waste to a Federal repository as soon as practicable to
support state, tribal, and local planning, especially for
emergency responder preparedness. DOE should follow the
practices of its foreign research reactor spent fuel transport
program of involving states and tribes in these route
selections.\14\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\14\ The Going the Distance report contains a detailed discussion
of routing regulations for spent fuel shipments.
DOE should negotiate with commercial spent fuel owners to
ship older fuel first to a Federal repository or to Federal
interim storage.\15\ Should these negotiations prove to be
ineffective, Congress should consider legislative remedies.
Within the context of its current contracts with commercial
spent fuel owners, DOE should initiate transport to the Federal
repository through a pilot program involving relatively short,
logistically simple movements of older fuel from closed
reactors to demonstrate its ability to carry out its
responsibilities in a safe and operationally effective manner.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\15\ Shipping older fuel first would help to reduce transportation
worker exposures to radiation from the spent fuel and high-level waste
shipments.
DOE should begin immediately to execute its emergency
responder preparedness responsibilities defined in Section
180(c) of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. The study committee
recommended several approaches for carrying out this
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
recommendation.
DOE, the Department of Homeland Security, Department of
Transportation, and USNRC should promptly complete the job of
developing, applying, and disclosing consistent, reasonable,
and understandable criteria for protecting sensitive
information about spent fuel and high-level waste shipments.
They should also commit to the open sharing of information that
does not require such protection and should facilitate timely
access to such information, for example, by posting it on
readily accessible websites.
DOE should take early and proactive steps to establish
formal mechanisms for gathering high-quality and diverse advice
about social risks \16\ and their management on an ongoing
basis.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\16\ Social risks arise from social processes and human
perceptions. Social processes shape the communities in which people
live by, for example, influencing choices about where to purchase or
rent a home, where to work, and where to send children to school.
Social perceptions can have a strong influence on peoples' behavior,
whether or not such perceptions are an accurate picture of reality.
The Secretary of Energy and the U.S. Congress should examine
options for changing the organizational structure of DOE's
program for transporting spent fuel and high-level waste to a
Federal repository to increase its chances for success. The
following three alternative organizational structures, which
are representative of progressively greater organizational
change, should be examined: (1) a quasi-independent DOE office
reporting directly to upper-level DOE management; (2) a quasi-
government corporation; or (3) a fully private organization
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
operated by the commercial nuclear industry.
The study committee found that successful execution of DOE's
program to transport spent fuel and high-level waste to a Federal
repository will be difficult given the organizational structure in
which it is embedded, despite the high quality of many program staff.
As currently structured, the program has limited flexibility over
commercial spent fuel acceptance order; it also has limited control
over its budget and is subject to the annual Federal appropriations
process, both of which affect the program's ability to plan for,
procure, and construct the needed transportation infrastructure.
Moreover, the current program may have difficulty supporting what
appears to be an expanding future mission to transport commercial spent
nuclear fuel for interim storage or reprocessing. In the study
committee's judgment, changing the organizational structure of this
program would improve its chances for success.
This concludes my testimony to the Committee. Thank you for the
opportunity to testify on these important issues. I would be happy to
elaborate on any of my comments during the question and answer period.
Senator Ensign. Thank you.
Dr. Ballard?
STATEMENT OF JAMES DAVID BALLARD, Ph.D., ASSOCIATE
PROFESSOR, DEPARTMENT OF SOCIOLOGY, CALIFORNIA
STATE UNIVERSITY, NORTHRIDGE (CSUN); DIRECTOR, CSUN
INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY CENTER ACADEMIC
EXCELLENCE (IC-CAE); CONSULTANT, NUCLEAR WASTE
PROJECT OFFICE, STATE OF NEVADA
Dr. Ballard. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I am a professor at California State University,
Northridge. My specialty is terrorism. I am in the Sociology
Department where I run a center funded by the ODNI, which is to
help our students do analysis of just such projects as these. I
have been engaged in this enterprise of looking at Yucca
Mountain security risks for 14 years and have worked with the
State of Nevada over that time.
I thank you very much for allowing me to come here today.
I do have three points that I would like to make, and these
reflect my own personal opinions and not those of any of the
agencies that I may have affiliation with.
First, number one, the Yucca Mountain project as it is
conceived presents a target-rich environment and we should
consider the shelter-in-place option that Senator Reid
discussed earlier. The Yucca Mountain transportation program is
a security risk in and of itself. This is a large-scale Federal
program that will draw attention from a wide variety of
adversaries. Adversaries that may not exist for many of the
other hazardous materials that are transported daily would
possibly be interested in these shipments. Yucca Mountain will
necessitate the movement of large numbers of shipments over an
extended period of time. It allows the adversary to chart the
movement of these shipments in a predictable way. It is
exacerbated by choices that agencies like the DOE makes. For
example, decisions to allow hotter fuel to be shipped may
increase the radiological consequences of an attack. And it
will entail lengthy shipment routes that average over 2,000
miles since many of the shipment origin sites are east of the
Mississippi.
The safety and security program that DOE will need to
engage in for Yucca Mountain must face one fact. The shipments
will provide this target-rich environment, which means we need
to consider the totality of the shipment routes as the battle
space, the attackers as potential adversaries with their choice
of weapons and tactics, the shipments themselves as poorly
defended, high-value, symbolic targets, and the perpetuation of
an attack against these shipments being a highly symbolic
statement by the adversaries.
Spent nuclear fuel is safe where it exists. Placing them in
the transportation corridors increases risk from a variety of
means, accidents, human-initiated events, and so on. And it
would be better to shelter them in place until such time that
we have better options.
Point number two. There are a series of existing issues
that many of the panelists have alluded to and I would like to
summarize for the panel.
First of all, shipping older fuel first is a primary
consideration that we should insist on.
Second, shipments should be mostly rail, but truck
shipments are necessary to complete the task given the physical
limitations of the origin sites and the current physical
limitations of Yucca Mountain.
We need to use dual-purpose casks, dedicated trains.
We need to conduct full-scale cask testing, not just
regulatory testing, but extra-regulatory testing.
We need to engage in a meaningful national level
transportation NEPA process, including the selection of a rail
spur, if that is the decision to go ahead with for Yucca
Mountain.
We need to use the WEIB ``straw man'' routing process.
We need to start the section 180(c) program rulemaking.
We need to allow for State regulatory enhancements both for
the safety but also public perception.
We need to rethink the assumptions about terrorism and
sabotage in light of 9/11.
These issues constitute the most basic foundations for the
development of a preferred transportation system. Since today's
hearing is directly related to the last issue, the balance of
this testimony will deal with that.
So, point three, human-initiated events and systematic risk
assessment looking at these from a different perspective. The
sabotage-related attacks in areas evaluated in NRC and DOE
analyses have changed little over the decades and assume a
single spent fuel shipping cask is attacked at one location by
one group of attackers and typically using one weapon. The
basic analyses also assumed that the attack breaches the cask
and releases a small fraction of the contents. The threat
environment has changed since the start of the Yucca Mountain
debates decades ago. Yet, DOE has failed to adopt an
alternative perspective on the risk of these attacks.
They can engage in a different process to identify those
risks and perhaps bring them into the regulatory framework.
First and foremost, we need to engage in a meta-analysis of the
risk as defined across the world. Second, we need to develop a
systematic, multi-level assessment process for these risks.
That includes existing methodologies like security surveys,
risk management techniques, the design basis threat, but most
importantly, we need to consider the use of adversarial
vulnerability assessments.
One critical omission for all three of the techniques I
just mentioned is to bring the motives, mind set, and
creativity of the adversary into the risk equation. To
accomplish that task, we need to do a mental coordinate
transformation. This means that when assessing the risk for
spent nuclear fuel transportation and the infrastructure to
move that material, it is necessary to think like the
perpetrators, not like security professionals, not like energy
company officials, and not like oversight agencies. AVA is one
proven method that can help accomplish that task.
When we are done with this, using all four of these
techniques, we can create a matrix of potential threats against
these shipments. In my written testimony, there is a mock
matrix that we can refer to.
Take-aways from today, or a conclusion.
Point number one, Yucca Mountain transportation is risky
and will present a target-rich environment for our adversaries.
The shipments are symbolically important and represent a
radiologically significant target. The solution is to shelter
the shipments in place at their sites of origin. As noted by
the NRC, energy industry officials, and others, they are safe
and secure at those facilities. Why expose these wastes to risk
if we do not have to?
Point number two, DOE has systematically neglected to
address the laundry list of concerns brought forth by
stakeholders. These actions increase the likelihood of attacks,
the consequences of those attacks, and the resultant social
dislocations if these attacks succeed. The solution here is to
compel the DOE to engage in a meaningful, national level NEPA
process that addresses these stakeholder concerns and that will
be documented over the decades of Yucca Mountain
transportation.
Last point, DOE, in consultation with stakeholders, should
engage in a systematic assessment of risk using the AVA
process. The solution here is just to do this and will allow
the DOE to avoid the potentially fatal flaw of being reactive
to threats and become more proactive in relationship to human-
initiated events. In the post-9/11 world, almost all Federal
agencies with a significant homeland security role have had to
rethink their assumptions on how best to serve the public
interest. The DOE must likewise abandon the engineering-based
bureaucratic paradigm they hold dear to reconsider how to
identify risk from the perceptions and ideas of the adversary.
In conclusion, Yucca Mountain transport is risky, movement
of radioactive materials potentially dangerous, and failing to
recognize human-initiated events in a post-9/11 world can be
deadly. Alternatives exist, alternatives like shelter-in-place,
truly listening to the stakeholders, and using systematic risk
analysis.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Ballard follows:]
Prepared Statement of James David Ballard, Ph.D., Associate Professor,
Department of Sociology, California State University, Northridge
(CSUN); Director, CSUN Intelligence Community Center Academic
Excellence (IC-CAE); Consultant, Nuclear Waste Project Office, State of
Nevada
Introduction
Mr. Chairman and distinguished Members of the Committee, thank you
for asking me to testify at these hearings. My name is Dr. James David
Ballard and I am currently employed as an Associate Professor of
Sociology at California State University, Northridge (CSUN).\1\ As part
of my academic appointment I am also the campus director for the ODNI
funded Intelligence Community Center for Academic Excellence (IC-CAE)
program.\2\ In an effort toward full disclosure, you should also know
that I have had an on-going relationship as a consultant to the state
of Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects (NANP) since 1995.\3\
Over the last fourteen years I have been privileged to specialize
in studying issues associated with human initiated events, defined as
terrorism, sabotage, etc. that may impact transportation efforts for
the proposed Yucca Mountain shipments of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) and
high level radioactive wastes (HLRW). The statements made today reflect
my own individual opinions and are not necessarily those of any of
these institutions I am associated with, nor do my comments necessarily
reflect the opinions of my co-authors, research teams and/or
colleagues.
The foundations of my testimony arise from fourteen years of study
on the issues surrounding potential terrorist attacks against
shipments. During that time I have been privileged to be part of
several multi-disciplinary teams of researchers that have studied the
risk of terrorism attacks on nuclear waste shipments to the proposed
Yucca Mountain storage facility.\4\ In particular, we as a body of
scholars, study the changing nature of terrorism and the terrorist
tactics that could be employed against radioactive waste shipments. As
part of this on-going effort we have identified a range of risks
associated with transportation of these materials. On two previous
occasions I have testified before the House/Senate on the issues we
discuss today.\5\
I appreciate the opportunity to brief this body on our work
regarding the potential of terrorism attacks against the shipments of
spent nuclear fuel (SNF) and high-level radioactive wastes (HLRW) that
may be sent to the proposed Yucca Mountain facility. I hope the
following discussion will help you and the agencies involved in
regulating the potential shipments to better understand the value of a
social scientific perspective on SNF transportation. I will begin by
discussing an issue that has been neglected in the debates since it was
introduced nearly 10 years ago--the target rich environment that these
shipments represent. Second, I will concentrating on several other
pressing issues not yet addressed in any adequate form by the DOE
relative to the Yucca Mountain project. Following this summary of
neglected issues, this testimony will offer a systematic risk
assessment protocol that can help overcome some of the deficiencies
that the DOE has in their DEIS, EIS and SEIS documents, one critical
basis of their planning efforts to date on Yucca Mountain shipments.
Last, this presentation will suggest several ways that you may wish to
review the transportation planning from an alternative perspective than
that presented by the DOE. These alternatives are a way you may gain
insightful evidence into the terrorism related threats these shipments
face.
Target Rich Environment
The DOE has for decades tried to find a way to manage the terrorism
risks associated with the proposed Yucca Mountain project with little
overall programmatic success. Over that extended time-frame the
expenditures of rate payer and taxpayer funding for this agency and its
efforts have produced some less than stellar social scientific results
with respect to the risks of human initiated events. Make no mistake,
what we take about when discussing the transport of SNF and HLRW
shipments are potentially very dangerous cargos and highly symbolic
targets. They are a danger to the transportation infrastructure, to the
public health and to the long term economic viability of the
location(s) where an accident and/or terrorist attack may transpire.
This is a social fact, no matter the rhetoric used by the industry and/
or DOE to obscure this reality. Listen carefully to what is said and
ask yourselves if it designed to obscure the issues from law makers,
the public and the many stakeholders who are concerned about the
shipment campaign necessary to stock the proposed Yucca repository.
In contrast to the DOE and nuclear industry perspectives, what the
critics say is typically designed to see any Yucca Mountain
transportation program conducted in a manner consistent with NEPA
requirements. That is, the suggestions made by these critics compel the
DOE to follow the spirit and letter of this law when looking at the
transportation planning for this particular large scale Federal
program.
One critical issue typically neglected by the DOE is the
recognition of this shipment campaign as a danger to the public. In
other words, any Yucca Mountain transportation program that becomes
necessary to transport the Nation's stockpiles of highly radioactive
waste is a security risk in and of itself. What DOE seemingly fails to
understand is that this large scale Federal program will draw the
attention of a wide variety of adversaries because of its symbolic
value--briefly it is nuclear, it is Federal and it is controversial.
The choice of a geographic location far distant from the production
sites where SNF and HLRW are generated assists the adversaries since
it:
Necessitates the movement of large numbers of shipments.
Allows for the adversary to chart movement of these
shipments in a predictable way.
Is exacerbated by choices the DOE makes. For example,
decisions that allow for hotter fuel, thus higher potential
harm, to be sent along these predictable corridors.
Will entail lengthy shipment routes that average over 2,000
miles of open, unprotected terrain where an adversary can pick
and choose the attack site.
Collectively these and other avoidable/manageable risks can be
discussed as constituting a target rich environment.\6\ The idea of a
target rich environment is derived from military parlance. In this case
we should consider:
The totality of the shipment routes as the battle space.
The attackers as potential adversaries with their choice of
weapons and tactics.
The shipments themselves as poorly defended, high value,
symbolic targets.
The perpetration of an attack against these shipments being
a highly symbolic statement by the adversaries.
Under this definitional schema the DOE's transportation choices
become increasingly important. This issue alone may suggest that
sheltering the wastes in place,\7\ at their point of origin, may be a
more optimal safety and security strategy since the highly radioactive
wastes will be protected from entering the target rich environmental
battle space. The next section of this testimony reviews ten more
critical issues that should prompt reconsideration by this body when
deliberating the logic of the Yucca Mountain project and its potential
to present a target rich environment to adversaries, both foreign and
domestic.
Pressing Issues
Recently Nevada summarized a top ten list of issues of concern
during a presentation at the foremost nuclear industry conference,
Waste Management 2008.\8\ Since enactment of the NWPAA, and adoption of
Assembly Concurrent Resolution 8 by the Nevada Legislature in 1987,
NANP has consistently made recommendations to DOE regarding
transportation safety and security, including many in this listing. The
top ten measures are summarized below.
1. Ship the Oldest Fuel First. Nevada has recommended that DOE
ship the oldest SNF first. This recommendation is supported by
NAS and GAO since they also recommend shipping older fuel
first. For example, shipping SNF that has been ``aged'' 50
years out of reactor, compared to shipping 5-year-cooled SNF,
could reduce radiological hazards significantly and assist in
lowering the risks of human initiated events.
2. Shipments should be by Rail. Nevada has recommended that DOE
utilize rail as the preferred mode of transportation, while
acknowledging the serious impediments to developing rail access
to Yucca Mountain and from 24 of the 76 shipping sites. Based
on shipping site current capabilities, the share of SNF that
could realistically be shipped by rail may be 65-75 percent,
not the 90 percent projected by DOE. Thus, DOE must first admit
to the realities of the proposed shipment campaign and start
planning for large numbers of truck shipments under the
``mostly rail'' shipment scenario. This would entail a serious
reconsideration of the safety and security requirements
necessary to protect shipments.
3. Use Dual-Purpose Casks. Nevada has recommended that DOE base
its transportation system on use of dual-purpose
(transportable/storage) casks of a standardized design, with a
range of capacities resulting in loaded cask weights of about
125, 100, and 70 tons. In 1995, Nevada endorsed a previous DOE
transportation plan that would have used a multi-purpose
canister (MPC) system for transport and storage. DOE's current
proposal to use the TAD (Transport, Aging and Disposal)
canister system does not fully address this issue. This
operational choice by the DOE may actually complicate and
further constrain the transportation system.
4. Use Dedicated Trains. Nevada has recommended that DOE use
dedicated trains for all rail shipments. Until DOE commits to
only using dedicated trains, DOE routing studies and risk
analyses must evaluate use of both dedicated and general
freight rail shipments. This policy choice by the DOE adds to
the complexity of any analysis, but more importantly without
the commitment of dedicated trains, the safety and security of
shipments may be compromised since securing SNF/HLRW shipments
in general freight poses significant challenges and greatly
increases the risk of terrorism or sabotage during transport.
5. Commit to Meaningful Cask Testing. Nevada has recommended
that DOE and/or NRC conduct a meaningful full scale cask
testing program. DOE or NRC should conduct full-scale
regulatory tests on each cask design (or in cases of similar
designs, test one cask from each representative grouping). DOE
or NRC should also conduct a combination of extra-regulatory,
full-scale testing, scale model testing, component testing, and
computer simulations to determine cask failure thresholds. In
addition, DOE and/or NRC must ensure meaningful stakeholder
participation in all aspects of the cask testing program. Last,
DOE and/or NRC should also couple this testing with new
insights into the potential for human initiated events like
sabotage and terrorism (extra regulatory testing).
Understanding the potential releases from casks that could
result from a human initiated event rests on knowing how these
casks react to a variety of attack conditions.
6. Use a meaningful NEPA process for all transportation
activities. Nevada has recommended that DOE use a credible
National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) process to select a
preferred Yucca Mountain rail access corridor and rail
alignment in Nevada. Likewise the DOE should be compelled to
immediately conduct a national level transportation specific
NEPA document. This seems to be a necessary, sufficient,
logical and warranted step given the consequences of attacks
and the need for states input on such transportation decisions.
As the end point of a national transportation program, the
proposed Nevada rail corridor is critical in the overall
performance of the Yucca planning, so articulation of that plan
prior to consideration of the rail spur makes policy sense. The
safety and security challenges that arise from building an
extensive rail spur into the Yucca facility demand a robust
dialogue on the issues, one that NEPA requires and to date DOE
seems unwilling to offer any realistic approaches to studying.
7. WEIB ``Straw man'' Shipment Routes. Nevada has recommended
that DOE select routes for the national transportation system
using a reasonable transportation methodology developed by
stakeholders. Transportation safety and security require that
DOE first plan what routes will be used so that meaningful
stakeholder input can be focused on the planning. The DOE
should follow a three-step process proposed by the Western
Interstate Energy Board (WIEB):
a. DOE would designate ``straw man'' routes, preferably
in a national level transportation NEPA document.
b. Member states would individually and collectively
evaluate the DOE routes, and then designate preferred
routes on a regional basis.
c. DOE would then formally adopt the routes selected by
WIEB, and designate these routes (allowing exceptions
for use of designated alternative routes in emergency
situations) in DOE contracts with rail and highway
carriers.
8. Start the Section 180(c) process. Nevada has recommended
that DOE implement the transportation planning and emergency
response training program, required under Section 180 (c) of
the NWPAA, through formal rulemaking. Absent rulemaking, the
State of Nevada believes that congressional action might be
needed to implement the program, as was the case with the Waste
Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) DOE-State cooperative
transportation planning program. The connection to safety and
security is especially important here, without systems of well
funded emergency response training the transportation program
is seriously flawed. One of the critical safety and security
issues states would be facing is this program becoming an
unfunded Federal mandate that requires them to provide 50 years
of training, protection and response capabilities for the Yucca
program. In terms of transportation program oversight, response
capabilities and organizational capacity, the proposed Yucca
program would entail three or perhaps four generations of
emergence response professionals, human capital and their
institutional memory, being imbued with relevant experience and
knowledge of the program's operational parameters.
9. Respect State, Local, and Tribal Regulation. Nevada has
recommended that DOE support state regulatory enhancements to
manage transportation risks and address public perceptions of
transportation risks. These would include, but not be limited
to:
a. Port-of-entry inspections and state escorts for DOE
shipments at DOE expense.
b. States, in conjunction with local governments, may
also impose seasonal, day-of-week, and time-of-day
restrictions on DOE to address unique local conditions.
c. Tribal governments may also regulate DOE shipments.
10. Address issues associated with Terrorism and Sabotage.
Nevada has recommended that DOE address acts of sabotage and
terrorism against repository shipments. DOE has acknowledged,
in the Final EIS for Yucca Mountain, the potential
vulnerability of shipments to such attacks. Analyses by Nevada
contractors have concluded that the releases and consequences
could be many times greater than reported by the DOE, resulting
in catastrophic cleanup and recovery costs. NRC has likewise
neglected its mandate as a regulatory body with respect to this
issue. Specifically:
a. DOE needs to systematically address terrorism issues
and risks in development of repository transportation
operational protocols.
b. NRC has yet to respond to the specific terrorism
risks and impacts documented in Nevada's 1999 petition
for rulemaking (Docket PRM 73-10).
Since today's hearing is directly related to the last issue of
concern, the next section of this presentation will offer a methodology
that could be used by the DOE, if it proceeds with the Yucca project,
to assess and mitigate the risks of human initiated events like
terrorism, sabotage, large scale protests and similar risk inducing
events.
Human-Initiated Events and Systematic Risk Assessment
Given stakeholder concerns and the threat of terrorism, this
testimony recommends the development of a comprehensive human initiated
event threat assessment process for the proposed Yucca Mountain
transportation system.\9\ This process could be used by DOE to assess
repository transportation impacts as part of its NEPA requirements, and
in responding to the Western Governors Association (WGA) resolution on
terrorism and sabotage.
The following discussion identifies ways to improve current risk
assessment techniques to meet the challenges of human initiated events,
including terrorism, sabotage, induced or deliberate accidents, and
violent protests. The recommended threat assessment process is
presented as a series of industry standard methods and concludes with
exemplar scenarios. The testimony is based only on open source data to
develop these ideas, concepts and methodologies.\10\
Shipment Vulnerability Debate
For three decades, risk analysts have debated the vulnerability of
spent nuclear fuel shipments to acts of terrorism and sabotage. The
details of the debates are documented in studies prepared for the State
of Nevada in 1998 and 2005.\11\ The sabotage related attack scenarios
evaluated in NRC and DOE analyses have changed little over the decades.
The DOE/NRC analyses assume that a single spent fuel shipping cask is
attacked at one location, by one group of attackers, using one weapon.
The basic analyses assume that the attack breaches the cask and
releases a small fraction of the contents. In general the agency
sponsored analyses differ in estimates of the amount of radioactive
material released, the details of the release and dispersal, the area
contaminated, the population exposed, the resulting human casualties
and the economic impacts.
The first NRC regulations requiring physical protection of spent
fuel shipments were issued in response to a 1977 draft assessment by
Sandia National Laboratories (SNL). That assessment, and a follow-up
study by SNL in 1980, indicated that sabotage of a shipment in an urban
area could cause hundreds to thousands of casualties, and billions of
dollars in economic losses and cleanup costs.\12\ The NRC issued
interim physical protection requirements for spent fuel shipments in
1979, and adopted the current system of regulations (10CFR73.37) by
rulemaking in 1980.
Subsequent studies sponsored by NRC and DOE sharply reduced the
estimated causalities and economic losses from this original scientific
work product. The debate over the consequences of a successful
terrorist attack resumed in 1984, when the NRC, acting on the new
sponsored studies, issued a proposed rule eliminating physical
protection requirements for most spent fuel shipments. The NRC had
concluded that the expected consequences of a successful attack in ``a
heavily populated area such as New York City would be no early
fatalities and less than one (0.4) latent cancer fatality.'' This NRC
proposed rule was opposed by state governments, environmental groups
and some nuclear industry sources. Three years later, the NRC
terminated the proposed rule, without explanation. Throughout the
1990s, however, the NRC continued to downplay attack consequences. At
the same time, public discussion of vulnerability and consequences
temporarily subsided.
The controversy re-emerged nationally in 1995 as the DOE began the
NEPA scoping process for the proposed Yucca Mountain geologic
repository. State governments and other parties urged DOE to more
directly address terrorism and sabotage in the Yucca Mountain
environmental impact statement (EIS). In its role as a stakeholder, the
state of Nevada filed detailed scoping comments on the impacts of
terrorism against repository shipments during 1995, and published
several supporting studies between 1996 and 1998. Based on these
studies, Nevada's Attorney General filed a petition for rulemaking with
the NRC in June 1999. The Nevada petition documented the vulnerability
of shipping casks, and argued that shipments to a national repository
would create greater opportunities for terrorist attacks and sabotage.
The petition, which requested strengthening of the current regulations
and a comprehensive reexamination of radiological sabotage, was
endorsed by the Western Governor's Association (WGA). More than 8 years
later, the NRC has still not officially responded to the Nevada
petition.
DOE acknowledged that shipping casks are vulnerable to terrorist
attack in the 1999 Draft EIS for Yucca Mountain.\13\ In support of the
Draft EIS, DOE sponsored a 1999 SNL study of cask sabotage, which
demonstrated that high-energy devices (HEDs) were ``capable of
penetrating a cask's shield wall, leading to the dispersal of
contaminants to the environment.'' The SNL study also concluded that a
successful attack on a truck cask could release more radioactive
materials than an attack on a rail cask, even though rail casks would
contain, on average, up to six times more SNF than truck casks.\14\
In the 2002 Final EIS for Yucca Mountain, DOE updated its sabotage
analysis, assuming more highly radioactive SNF, a larger respirable
release, and a higher future average population density for U.S.
cities.\15\ In this document the DOE estimated that a successful attack
on a truck cask in an urbanized area under average weather conditions
would result in a population dose of 96,000 person-rem and 48 latent
cancer fatalities. For a successful attack on a large rail cask, DOE
estimated a population dose of 17,000 person-rem and 9 latent cancer
fatalities. In neither case did DOE evaluate any environmental impacts
other than health effects, and ignored the social-economic impacts of a
successful act of sabotage. While the DOE did not specifically estimate
cleanup costs after such an attack, the FEIS states that clean-up costs
following a worst-case transportation accident could reach $10 billion.
Analyses prepared for the state of Nevada by Radioactive Waste
Management Associates (RWMA) calculated that sabotage impacts could be
considerably greater.\16\ RWMA replicated the DOE Final EIS sabotage
consequence analyses, using the RISKIND model for health effects and
the RADTRAN model for economic impacts, the SNL study average and
maximum inventory release fractions, a range of credible values for the
gap inventory of Cs-137 and considered a range of population densities
and weather conditions.
RWMA concluded that an attack on a truck cask using the same common
military demolition device assumed in the DOE analysis could cause 300
to 1,820 latent cancer fatalities, assuming 90 percent penetration of
the cask by a single blast. For the same device used against a large
rail cask, RWMA estimated 46 to 253 latent cancer fatalities, again
assuming 90 percent penetration. The major radiological health impacts
of an attack would be caused by the downwind dispersion of respirable
material (mainly particles with a diameter less than 10 microns) that
could be ejected from the damaged cask. Depending upon the
meteorological conditions present at the time of an attack, the
respirable aerosol of radioactive materials could affect an area of 10
square kilometers (3.9 square miles) or more. RWMA estimated cleanup
costs ranging upward from $668 million for the rail incident, and $6.1
billion for the truck incident, to more than $10 billion. Full
perforation of the truck cask, likely to occur in an attack involving a
state-of-the art anti-tank weapon, could cause as many as 3,000 to
18,000 latent cancer fatalities, and cleanup and recovery costs could
far exceed $10 billion.
In October 2007, DOE published the Draft Supplemental Environmental
Impact Statement for Yucca Mountain (DSEIS) and the Draft Rail
Alignment Environmental Impact Statement (RA DEIS).\17\ Both the DSEIS
and the RA DEIS address the impacts of sabotage against repository
shipments. In both volumes DOE states that it has ``analyzed plausible
threat scenarios, required enhanced security measures to protect
against these threats, and developed emergency planning requirements
that would mitigate potential consequences for certain scenarios. DOE
would continue to modify its approach to ensuring safe and secure
shipments of spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste, as
appropriate, between now and the time of shipments. For the reasons
stated above, DOE believes that under general credible threat
conditions the probability of a sabotage event that would result in a
major radiological release would be low'' (DSEIS, p. 6-22; RA DEIS, p.
4-314, emphasis added).
Acknowledging ``the uncertainty inherent in the assessment of the
likelihood of a sabotage event,'' the DSEIS and RA DEIS evaluated
events in which ``a modern weapon (high energy density device)'' is
used to ``penetrate a spent nuclear fuel cask.'' DOE evaluated the
consequences of events occurring in representative urban, suburban, and
rural areas. Based on new research by Luna (2006) \18\ and on European
studies, the DSEIS assumed that the single weapon attack studied would
result in a smaller release of respirable material than DOE assumed in
the 2002 FEIS. For a sabotage event against a truck cask in an urban
area, the DSEIS reports consequences about half what DOE estimated in
the 2002 FEIS--a population dose of 47,000 person-rem, and 28 latent
cancer fatalities. For an attack on a large rail cask in an urban area,
the DSEIS reports consequences about double what DOE estimated in the
2002 FEIS--a population dose of 32,000 person-rem, and 19 latent cancer
fatalities.
The DSEIS does acknowledge the aforementioned State of Nevada
analyses under the heading ``Transportation Sabotage: An Opposing
Viewpoint.'' Despite this note in the document, and as in earlier DOE
analyses, the DSEIS does not provide specific information on:
The land area contaminated.
Economic losses due to disruption of normal activities.
The cost of cleanup.
As of 2008, the State of Nevada is preparing its own detailed
reassessment of transportation sabotage impacts. To date, Nevada has
submitted comments on the DSEIS sabotage consequence analyses (January
10, 2008). In those comments, Nevada emphasized that the DSEIS
continues to ignore the consequences of a terrorist attack using one or
more weapons that completely perforate the shipping cask, or a
combination of weapons specifically designed to breach, damage, and
disperse the cask contents. Such an attack could result in impacts more
severe than those evaluated by DOE.
The new DOE-sponsored research does not address such impacts. In
fact, the Venturi effect created by full perforation of a shipping cask
would likely negate the reduction in impacts claimed in the Luna (2006)
study. In its key conclusion, DOE asserts that the factors identified
by the State of Nevada ``could affect the chances of success but not
the outcome of the sabotage event.'' \19\ DOE presents no evidence in
the DSEIS, the RA DEIS, or any of the cited references to support that
assertion.
Moreover, the DSEIS ignores evidence, including terrorism studies
funded by DOE, that this agency's activities may be particularly
attractive symbolic targets for sabotage or terrorist attacks. The
DSEIS also ignores past instances in which human errors in cask
fabrication and cask loading actually occurred during NRC-licensed
shipments, and created conditions that could have compromised cask
performance in the event of a sabotage event. Likewise, the DSEIS
ignores Nevada's argument that unique local conditions such as
proximity of the existing mainline railroads to urban location like
downtown Las Vegas and Reno-Sparks must be factored into consequence
assessments, resulting in potential multi-billion dollar cleanup costs
and business disruption impacts.
In summary, all of the consequence assessments so far conducted by
NRC, DOE and the State of Nevada assumed single-phase attack scenarios.
None of these consequence assessments have evaluated the effects of an
attack involving the simple impact-exacerbating tactics identified by
the U.S. Army peer review report more than two decades ago: namely the
combined use of a breaching device and a dispersal device, or use of
multiple breaching devices. None of these consequence assessments have
incorporated insights obtained from the 1998 testing sponsored by
International Fuel Containers, Incorporated, at the U.S. Army Aberdeen
Test Center in which a newer generation weapon, a TOW II warhead, was
used. Most significantly, none of these consequence assessments have
evaluated any of the impact-exacerbating tactics studied by counter-
terrorism experts in the post-9/11 threat environment. Credible hijack
and control scenarios, specialized truck bomb scenarios, and/or
concealed weapons like IED's (improvised roadside devices), coupled
with insider assistance, diversionary attacks, and/or suicide tactics,
could potentially result in radiological consequences far greater than
those previously estimated by NRC, DOE or the State of Nevada.\20\
WGA Resolution
The primary motivation for this suggest analytical format, prior to
publication of the DOE's DSEIS, was the WGA resolution regarding Yucca
Mountain transportation. The WGA represents nineteen Western states and
three territories. The association allows state political leaders to
address critical policy issues in a wide variety of areas. The WGA
organization thus helps state leaders develop strategies to address
complex issues facing western states.\21\ WGA has been actively
involved in nuclear waste transportation planning for two decades. In
2007, WGA renewed and revised a policy resolution (07-2) on the risks
of terrorism and sabotage against repository shipments.\22\ The
original resolution behind this new document had been adopted in 1998.
WGA Resolution 07-2 notes that in the aftermath of the September
11, 2001 terrorist attacks, the altered threat environment calls for
new, more comprehensive terrorism assessment tools. The resolution
calls upon the NRC to ``fully address the consequences of attacks
against all components of the nuclear waste handling and transport
system, to include: attacks against transportation infrastructure, the
theft of a shipment, use of high-energy explosives against a shipment
cask, and direct attacks against a shipment cask using antitank
missiles or other armament that could cause a loss of containment.''
WGA further requests that NRC ``strengthen its efforts to share
information with state and local governments regarding spent fuel
shipment vulnerabilities and consequences, `` recognizing that
``sharing of information must be conducted within the framework of
preventing the release of sensitive or classified information to
individuals without a need to know.''
The WGA resolution notes that DOE has acknowledged the
vulnerability of shipments in the 2002 Final EIS for Yucca Mountain.
The resolution states: ``DOE should continue to address acts of
sabotage and terrorism in its NEPA documents, and should incorporate
terrorism/sabotage risk management and countermeasures in all DOE
transportation plans, protocols, and practices relating to operation of
a repository, interim storage facility, and/or intermodal transfer
facility, including liability for costs and damages resulting from
terrorism/sabotage against nuclear waste shipments. DOE should share
security-related information with state and local governments to the
maximum extent practicable.'' \23\
Comprehensive Threat Assessment
Driven by regulations and the need to protect the public from
catastrophic events, the nuclear industry has a continuous quality
improvement process for security against human-initiated events. The
two recently issued DOE NEPA documents, the Draft Supplemental EIS and
the Draft Rail Alignment EIS, employ only some of the methods used by
the industry to protect fixed assets like reactors, but the not
expressly documented analytical method employed by DOE for the Yucca
Mountain transportation effort does not use state-of-the-art assessment
techniques, nor does the assessment effort meet industry standards for
fixed site security.
The problem with the DOE's approach to the NEPA documents (SEIS's)
is two-fold: How to assess the threat of human-initiated events against
spent fuel shipments to Yucca Mountain nationally, and second, for the
proposed Caliente rail line in Nevada. Once again, human initiated
events refer to the range of malevolent acts that could be perpetrated
on the shipments--including such events as terrorism, sabotage,
deliberate accidents and violent protest movements.\24\ Shipments refer
to the various means that will be used to move SNF and HLRW into the
national transportation system/proposed Caliente rail corridor from
their current storage facilities at commercial nuclear power plants,
DOE weapons production sites, and from other DOE serviced/regulated/
owned source facilities.
This presentation recommends specific and detailed methodologies
that are used in social science and industry that, that taken together,
could constitute a comprehensive threat assessment for the proposed
Yucca Mountain transportation system:
The identification of relevant human-initiated events by use
of Meta analysis.
Development of a systematic multi-level assessment of human-
initiated event risks for the transportation modes, facilities,
corridors, etc.
A resultant matrix of human initiated events and attack
scenario exemplars suitable for DOE study and consideration in
NEPA documentation.
Human-initiated Events
Several large categories of human-initiated events can be
identified across the major components of the transportation system and
relative to the known or expected characteristics of the Yucca Mountain
transportation system. These include terrorism, sabotage, accidents and
protests.\25\ The table below lists these four event categories and
notes how they may apply to the four major transportation components
derived from the DOE ``Transportation Concept of Operations'' and DOE
``Draft National Transportation Plan''.\26\
Figure 1: Human Initiated Event and transportation Activity Matrix
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Origination Transport Transfer Destination
Threat Categories Point Activities Facilities Facilities
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Terrorism Attacks X X X X
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sabotage X X X X
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Deliberate Accidents X X X X
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Violent Protests -- X X --
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Terrorism attacks are defined here as those malevolent actions that
are designed to cause significant symbolic events, a significant
incident that acts as a statement in opposition to the shipments or an
act that directly attacks the transports, casks, facilities for
handling shipment casks or the personnel that are involved in the four
categories of transportation infrastructure noted above. These
terrorism acts will range on a continuum from symbolic events that are
not intended to result in a release of radioactive materials all the
way up to sophisticated full-scale assaults designed to release/
disperse the casks radioactive contents. These attacks may be motivated
by a political/social/religious agenda, attacks prompted by an anti-
Federal government agenda, attacks based on the deliberate creation of
economic dislocations in the energy sector, or attacks that are
inspired by a social issue. These attacks may be perpetrated by foreign
nationals, American citizens, or any combination of the two.
Sabotage is defined herein as those malevolent activities that
could interfere with the safe and secure loading/unloading and
transportation of the nuclear wastes. Examples may include the use of
insider information, employee tampering with casks, large scale labor
problems, and/or deliberate contamination of casks/transports to delay
shipments. Sabotage can also be defined as activities detrimental to
the safe and secure transport of these materials. Sabotage acts will
also exist on a continuum from attacks not intended to damage a cask up
to an act designed to release/disperse the inventory of radionuclides.
The motives for such attacks are considered to be the same as for the
terrorist attacks and acts of sabotage may be perpetrated by the same
range of adversaries.
Deliberate Accidents are defined here as those malevolent human-
initiated events that result in endangerment of the shipments, their
casks, or the overall shipment campaign. These may come from deliberate
acts by an individual or small group interfering with shipment
operations and from negligent acts of those within the transportation
system that can create a potential, minimal or significant release of
the highly radioactive contents. Like terrorism and sabotage, these
acts will also exist on a continuum from attacks not intended to damage
a cask up to an act designed to release the inventory of radionuclides.
The motives are considered to be the same as for the terrorist attacks
and they may be perpetrated by the range of adversaries.
Violent Protests are defined as those potentially malevolent
activities that could interfere with the safe and secure transportation
of the nuclear wastes. These protests may also be used as a rouse to
hide the intentions of malicious actors who seek to commit acts of
terrorism or sabotage by hiding their actions in the larger protest
group. This category is included to recognize the fact that these
shipments will face significant opposition from protesters, based on
the experiences of other shipment campaigns around the world. Such
large scale protests may endanger the shipments and/or public health by
delaying shipments and increasing routine doses to the population.
These acts will also exist on a continuum from collective acts not
intended to damage a cask up to an act designed to release the
inventory of radionuclides. The motives for such attacks are considered
to be the same as for the terrorist attacks and they may be perpetrated
by the same range of adversaries.
Threat Assessment Process
A range of threat assessment procedures should be conducted prior
to commencement of shipments and continued during the shipping
campaign, in a way that measures risk over time, and enables
assessments to be continually updated.\27\ The longitudinal risks may
also need to be assessed because of a rise in energy related terrorism
acts,\28\ and as part of the on-going DOE obligation to operate under
procedures equivalent to the NRC physical protection regulations
(10CFR73.37), although DOE is not necessarily subject to these
particular NRC regulations.
Meta-threat analysis
The analysis-in-depth suggested herein starts with consideration of
a wide range of potential threats and consequences vis-a-vis shipments.
Such a systematic assessment would first involve an exhaustive meta-
analysis of the literature relative to attacks on shipments of
hazardous materials, including SNF and HLRW. This process would need to
account for emerging threats and tactics being employed by terrorists/
adversaries around the globe. It would also include IAEA (2007)
guidance documents on the subject and documentation of threats that
have arisen in the global theater where terrorists/adversaries operate.
This data should then be vetted with outside stakeholders, not just
internal DOE security personnel, to define the various challenges that
the Yucca Mountain transportation effort could face over the five
decade life span of the proposed project. Emerging from this effort
would be a pro-active catalogue of transportation risks and issues that
should inform a NEPA analysis, not just cherry-picked scenarios that
react to the latest criticisms, from Nevada studies, government
analysis and/or those generated by the National Academy of
Sciences.\29\
Vulnerability Assessment Process
Transportation security for a cargo as dangerous as the highly
radioactive SNF and HLW should prompt planners to use the best
available techniques to reduce threats from human-initiated events.
Typically security professionals use four levels of vulnerability
assessment techniques to protect nuclear facilities and other critical
industrial applications.\30\ Each of several techniques has strengths
and weaknesses but with the combined (triangulated) use of all of these
techniques, taken together as a NEPA inspired research strategy, allows
for improvements in security and better defines risks. That is, the use
of more than one of these offers a more robust methodological approach
to the task at hand, all of them allows for a form of defense-in-depth,
a common principle in nuclear security.
These four techniques offer a comprehensive risk identification and
mitigation potential for security (and safety) issues relative to the
proposed Yucca Mountain transportation program. In order to use these
techniques it is first useful to identify where they may apply to the
overall transportation effort. The following chart helps situate these
four techniques relative to the four major components of the
transportation infrastructure.
Figure 2: Transportation analysis-in-depth: Risk reduction strategy
The examination of how these four identification, reduction and
mitigation techniques can be used in the systematic assessment of risk
for the Yucca Mountain project, the analysis-in-depth risk reduction
concept noted above, will require some details on what each technique
will entail in real world practice.
First, it is critical that they should be considered an integrated
system of analysis, albeit one with some level of analytical hierarchy.
The following chart demonstrates their interrelationship and the
preferred hierarchy.
Figure 3: Analysis-In-Depth Concept; Sub-Components
Security Surveys. Security surveys are the first level in this
overall transportation risk assessment schema. These surveys represent
a physical examination of the transportation security arrangements and
typically use a check list approach to the examination of risks. This
allows for the standardization and management of the assessment
process.\31\ These checklists aid security efforts and provides for a
consistent, albeit unimaginative examination of risks.\32\ This form of
security management is typical for any number of industrial
applications and has a long tradition in security. At a minimum this
survey technique needs to be performed at various levels of the
proposed Yucca Mountain transportation effort (for example at
origination sites, for transportation efforts, at in-transit transfer
facilities, and for destination conveyance infrastructures).
The problem with this technique is that it is typically not focused
on the adversaries and does not necessarily encourage thought relative
to new countermeasures as risks change over time. In fact surveys
become reified and represent a binary (good/bad, black/white) approach
to security and risk mitigation. They seem to imply that risks will
somehow emerge from the world and show themselves during such surveys.
Checklists are also fixed lists of observations to be conducted and
typically closed to emerging risks that have heretofore not been known
or overlooked. The list becomes what human assets are fixated on, not
focusing security personnel on the creative protection of the cargoes,
rather making them focus on paperwork. These surveys are often misused,
especially when they come to represent ways to manage people and ensure
compliance to a security regime or regulations.\33\
Security surveys have a place in the overall transportation efforts
but they are not in and of themselves a cure for the risks that
transportation efforts to Yucca Mountain will face. They represent a
tool that should be employed by those involved in the transportation
effort and at all levels of the transportation infrastructure. They are
the first line of defense since they are carried out traditionally by
line staff and management. They also require periodic updates,
monitoring and analysis as to their ability to meet current challenges
and contemporary threats. They represent the first line of a
transportation specific defense-in-depth concept yet to be adopted by
DOE.
Risk Management. The second step in the analysis-in-depth risk
assessment process is to use well understood and common place risk
management techniques. The process of risk management is fairly
straightforward. In the first phase of the risk management process the
analyst begins with identification of the assets in need of protection
and ends with the identification of safeguards and countermeasures.\34\
Thus, the organization using the risk management technique should
basically follow the flow of the following interrelated items:
Figure 4: Risk Management Process
After this largely abstract intellectual task is completed, the
organization then uses an expert opinion process to rank order
priorities and probabilities are assigned to each sub-phase noted
above. Typically this involves predominantly quantitative outcomes and
these outcomes are summarized in tables, charts, and the like.
Thereafter the transportation management team would appropriate, and
field, security resources accordingly. As implied by the chart, the
process begins anew once this final task is completed and in practice
should become a never ending series of assessments designed to improve
the overall robustness of security.
Risk management is not without critics in the nuclear field and
elsewhere. Some argue that the traditional ways of conducting risk
management need to be more quantitative or address more aspects than
are traditionally used in such analysis,\35\ while others note the
political nature of the use of risk management.\36\ A systematic
examination of risk management also reveals some issues of concern.\37\
Once again this technique is typically binary and closed to outside
input. For example, there is rarely outside input on contemporary
threats and vulnerabilities since risk management rests on known
(historic) security issues. This means that risk management is
reactive, not proactive in mitigating risks. This also usually means
that risk management is done without the creative spirit that the
terrorists/adversaries bring to the table. If it is initiated, managed
and used by organization staff in agencies (for example the NRC and
DOE) and represents the collective consensus of these sometimes limited
perspectives.
Risk assessment is rarely the creative expression of alternatives.
Risk management is management of risks by managers and for managers. It
is not done from alternative perspectives (for example the
adversaries). The assignment of probabilities in risk management is
often based on fantasy-like numbers that are created out of thin air to
placate internal constituencies and/or to serve political purposes.
Once these probabilities are codified in tables, charts and the like,
they become real in their consequences as everyone involves start to
believe they are real and act accordingly.\38\ The process itself and
especially the documents that emerge create overconfidence in the
numbers, a false sense of security that is problematic in the face of
real world creativity from adversaries.
Risk management has its place in transportation planning for the
potential Yucca Mountain program and the problems noted here do not
negate its usefulness. As a technique it is not a be all and end all in
risk assessment. The use of quantitative data helps policymakers
believe in a program, but that is a two edged sword.
Design Basis Threat (DBT). The third level of the analysis-in-depth
paradigm is the DBT. In some respects the DBT is a technique not that
unrelated to risk management.\39\ A DBT is a proxy threat, a
hypothetical scenario based on descriptions of the threats found at the
time of its articulation.\40\ The DBT sets the standards for security
personnel by defining the training, weapons and tactics that a
terrorist/adversary group could use to attack nuclear facilities. The
best practices of DBT usage call on its proponents to design security
to face the contemporary threats, recognizing vulnerabilities and to
allocate resources accordingly.\41\ DBTs tend to focus on
infrastructure and physical security hardware, more so than risk
management.\42\
The published DBT details for nuclear power plants serve as an
illustration of this process and its outcomes. The DBT has been used
since the 1970s in the United States and is not a single process. It
has also been used in various ways by different countries as the IAEA
seeks to standardize the process around the globe. First and foremost
it is the basis of physical protection systems (PPS) for fixed sites.
It also serves as the means by which an evaluation of that PPS is
conducted. Since 2000 the IAEA has promoted the DBT and provides (in
conjunction with Sandia National Labs) nine steps for the process of
development, use and maintenance of a DBT system. Besides the basic
facts noted in this paragraph certain scholars \43\ suggest that a DBT
generally includes:
Identification of the roles and responsibilities within and
connected to the organization.
Development of operating assumptions for the usage of the
DBT.
Identify a range of potential generic adversary threats.
Identify a list of threat characteristics.
Identify sources of threat information.
Analyze and organize threat-related information. (Steps one
to six create a threat assessment document).
Develop threat assessment and gain consensus about said.
Create a national level DBT.
Introduce the DBT into the regulatory framework.
The DBT process, and specifically its first six steps, should yield
both motivations for attacks, intentions of the attackers and
characteristics of the attacking force. These are then matrixed across
a range of adversaries (protesters, activists, extremists, criminals
and terrorists). In most cases these are created from assumptions based
on historic data and firmly rooted in a philosophy that insists that
all threats must be ``credible.'' This philosophy is counter intuitive
to 9/11 threat realities and may blind the creators to new/emerging
threats or threats that are evolving as past threats change to meet new
circumstances. Typically the DBT philosophy does promote the
continuation of the status quo.
The NRC and DOE have updated their DBT in the aftermath of the 9/11
attacks, once in 2003 and again in 2004, both times in a process
outside the normative framework for such adjustments. Specific details
are not known for these classified documents but the expectation is
that they will take years to implement a new DBT and that the final
product was diluted as a result of industry concern over costs.
Likewise, the DBT has been criticized since it does not meet the threat
threshold the 9/11 attacks presented.\44\
DBTs have their critics and the criticisms run along similar lines
to those for the risk management techniques.\45\ The DBT is a typically
binary process and closed to outside input, primarily for security
reasons like classification of results. Because of the closing of
discussion for security reasons, there is rarely outside input on
contemporary threats and vulnerabilities. Second, like risk management
the DBT becomes a reactive device. As a proxy attack strategy it is not
proactive in mitigating risks. Similar to risk management the DBT
process is dominated by the organization staff. The DBT represents the
collective consensus of these limited and sometimes self-serving
perspectives. It does not represent a creative expression of
alternatives and rarely addresses emerging threats. Once the DBT is
determined it becomes real in its consequences for the agencies using
this technique. The threat is what the DBT says it is, nothing more or
nothing less. The DBT provides insider organizations, although not the
public and other stakeholders, with a sense of confidence that may be
disproportional to the risks and reality of a changing world. It allows
an existing organization like the DOE to define what the threats are,
and once the DBT is constructed, to maintain a faith in their
assessments, a self fulfilling belief system that can be dangerous when
one is protecting something as potentially dangerous as highly
radioactive wastes.
In some cases critics have argued for a layered approach to DBT
implementation, a strategy that recognizes financial resource
differentials in government's responsible for implementation.\46\ This
criticism is primarily focused on less developed nations where the
resources necessary to protect nuclear assets are not readily
available. In the case of advanced industrial nations the AHARA--as
high as reasonably achievable--principle behind such debate suggests
that these nations should achieve the IAEA's goals of securing
radioactive materials against human-initiated events. These less than
reasonable security debates do not apply to the United States, a
country rich in resources.
Additionally, as noted DBTs are supportive of the status quo. They
seem to say to everyone involved we are doing good, look how hard we
worked to define the threats and our perceptions of the vulnerabilities
we face are excellent. It ignores alternative threats since they are
deemed too improbable or they are not perceived at all--they are deemed
a very subjective ``uncreditable.'' The DBT seems to communicate to one
and all that whatever terrorists/adversaries can do poses a lesser
threat than our proxy measure (DBT), a dangerous oversimplification in
the post-9/11 world of nuclear security.
DBTs also take time to change, they are not assessed systematically
but rather on an as needed basis. The DOE mandated and NRC inspired
changes in implementation for weapons production facilities and
commercial nuclear power plants after the 9/11 terrorist attacks
illustrate this delay--changes in the DBT were revised in 2003, changed
again in 2004 and are still undergoing implementation as of the seventh
anniversary of those attacks with an expected date for completion being
in 2008.\47\ Supporters argue that a change in the DBT is costly but
critics point out so too would be a successful attack.
The DBT is a step forward from past risk assessment practice and
one that allows transportation managers to create a proxy for security
to train against. It is different than security surveys and risk
management, but it is not the single magic bullet to security. Rather
the DBT is one tool in the overall toolbox for risk mitigation. The
fourth technique, adversarial vulnerability assessment, helps with some
of the limitations noted for DBTs.
Adversarial Vulnerability Assessments (AVA). One critical omission
of all three of the techniques detailed above is bringing the motives,
mindset and creativity of the adversary into the risk equation. Those
who would wish to perpetrate a human-initiated event are far more
resourceful than the security surveys, risk management and DBT
techniques seemingly give them credit for. To accomplish the task of
recognizing such creativity Johnson (2005) \48\ advises that it is
necessary to conduct a ``mental coordinate transformation.'' This means
that when assessing risks for critical SNF and HLW transportation
infrastructure it is necessary to think like the perpetrators, not like
security professionals, not like energy company officials, and not like
oversight agency management.
The major barrier faced by security professionals and risk managers
in doing this task is that they are rarely prepared for this mental
transformation. As a result of organizational socialization they
cannot, or will not, use the opportunity to actively look for threats,
to engage in the alternative and/or to think like the terrorist,
saboteur or other perpetrator of human initiated events. They have
difficulty letting the opponent define reality, a reality that is
securely planted in their professional lives by the very industry they
seek to protect--one that for many reasons does not admit gleefully to
risks, threats or terrorism as a potentiality. Altering Johnson's
(2005) \49\ approach for the proposed Yucca Mountain transportation
project would entail the necessary mental transformation for the NEPA
assessment. This is best accomplished by the following steps:
Understand the full scope of the transportation effort. This
includes all aspects, parts, components and variables in the
transportation system. This is difficult since the totality of
the system is enormous and in many cases individuals are asked
to transform their thinking while working on small parts of the
overall picture. Still it is necessary since the parts are
integrated and the risk synergy for the total system far
outweighs the singular transportation component risk level.
Brainstorm in a creative, innovative, and multi-level manner
that allows you to not just identify a threat, but to focus
attention to a range of threats.\50\ Once the totality of the
program is recognized, members of a risk focus group are
gathered to work on the issues, share their insight into the
risks, and to brainstorm on threats facing this transportation
system. These discussions would reveal attack exemplar
scenarios tied to risks, not singular as is the case of a DBT,
but multiple threats and with multiple consequence profiles.
Once attack sceneries are identified, the group starts to
edit these down to essential elements and exemplars that
demonstrate vulnerabilities of the system, not just a single
part of this complex transportation effort. This group would
prioritize potential attacks which represent a range of
possibilities, consequences and potential responses. These
alternatives must be developed, articulated and vetted with a
wide range of constitutes/stakeholders to gain additional
insight and to reduce the problems of group think and
collective risk blindness that sometimes arise in small groups.
The last step is to determine the feasibility of these
attacks by means of a range of attack articulations, analyze
radiological consequences of these alternatives and devise
countermeasures to mitigate these risks.
Several provisos are offered to those considering adopting AVA
methods. First and foremost, let those involved be creative.\51\ In the
case of terrorism threats, the changes in technology, availability of
information and tactical knowledge of adversaries demand that those
involved be allowed freedom to achieve this creative approach to risk
assessment. Historical data, and historically situated risk
perceptions, are less significant in the face of global social
challenges like currently are transpiring, a point often missed by
those who work in formal organizations. AVA risk measurement is
predicated on creativity which must be combined with organizational
experience, technological skills and bureaucratic imagination. All of
these tasks are difficult for many formal organizations to engage in
but the challenges they pose are important to overcome.
Johnson (2005) \52\ advises that creativity is the domain of
individuals, not formal organizations. Good group dynamics can enhance
this individual creative spirit and groups need to be involved to
prioritize and determine feasibility. One of many techniques to help
this creative process is to reverse engineer the attacks in an effort
to solve problems that have yet to arise. This is a particularly cogent
piece of advice given the elongated timeline for the proposed Yucca
Mountain project and points out the need for a systematic longitudinal
analysis paradigm so that data can be gather to inform the processes.
One of the most interesting advisements offered is that the system
conducting this analysis must bring in outsiders and not use the
typical cast of insider characters who have vested interests in the
status quo. The use of the same old energy industry insiders and the
same supporting industrial infrastructure insiders ensures the same old
results. It does not offer a creative analysis of threats. Furthermore
it is necessary to combine these outsiders with creative insiders in
the brainstorming groups and set ground rules for all the contributors.
These ground rules have to allow for all manner of input and treats
each contribution as significant, be it from inside or outside the
typical organizational patterns of thought. Johnson (2005) \53\ offers
some AVA imperatives as guidance. These have been modified to the Yucca
Mountain project and include:
Minimize the conflicts of interest and reduce wishful
thinking on the parts of group members.
To promote creativity in the group processes, the system
must not punish those who creatively deconstruct its
assumptions, bias, and working relationships.
The overall group and its work product need to be assessed
by a second group of outsiders, called assessors. These
assessors should be independent from the Yucca Mountain
project, experienced in finding problems and offering
solutions, and in no small measure represent the public
stakeholders for the project.
All parties involved must discard the binary way of viewing
risks. This means individuals need to be able to work within
the gray areas of life, not the rigid confines of an
engineering perspective or other professional paradigm that
promotes the status quo philosophy.
The group members are tasked with finding vulnerabilities
and risks, which is their primary purpose. As such they should
not be encouraged to find no vulnerabilities or no risks, a
philosophy that is counter-productive to the AVA process.
AVAs are not a pass or fail technique for the group as a
whole and the group participants must be encouraged to reject
this form of thinking. The point is to find vulnerabilities and
risks, not fix them per se. Thus, finding these vulnerabilities
and risks is a good outcome, not a negative outcome of the
group process.
The process must be done before transportation planning is
fixed in policy, done again when plans are finalized but before
transport begins, and done periodically thereafter (for example
bi-annually or annually).
AVAs are a holistic approach to vulnerability identification
and risk mitigation. They should not be done in isolation (for
example for the rail system alone).
The conveners, participants and/or the assessors should not
be restricted as to time, budget or attack possibilities. They
should be allowed to creatively face the social context of
global conditions relative to terrorism, sabotage and other
human initiated events.
The group should be encouraged to never underestimate the
resourcefulness, creativity or commitment of the adversary.
They should remember it is the adversary that defines the
threat, not the protectors.
The group should establish a hierarchy of threats, simplest
to most complex, least severe radiological consequences to most
severe radiological consequences. They need also look at
contingencies that would take a second tier threat and make it
a major radiological event. This is one area where DBTs seem to
fail, they are based on one threat and do not necessarily
account for such upgrades and modifications.
Everyone should assume that adversaries know what security
arrangements are in place, have the creativity to overcome
these and/or will exploit those instances where the system does
not meet its presumed minimum operation levels. Systems fail
and human security systems fail to protect even the most
critical of assets over time.
A range of attacks should be considered by this group:
terrorism, sabotage, probes of the security system, insider/
outsider/insided-outsided threats, social engineering, and the
many other varieties of human initiated events that could
transpire.
The longer a system is in place, the higher its
vulnerability and risk to attack. Vigilance decreases with
familiarity, hence the systematic reevaluation of risks becomes
increasingly important over the lifespan of the program. It is
equally important to note that once an AVA is complete, perhaps
even deemed excellent by all involved, it is not the end
product and cannot stand alone in the face of the ever-changing
security threats faced. Once the AVA is complete it is then
systematically and periodically subject to challenges from the
original group, from new group participants and from new human
initiated events/tactics.
The group should avoid common nuclear industry fallacies.
For example, many believe that all vulnerability will be
discovered and thus all risk mitigated. Likewise they should be
cautioned to avoid mindsets that see compliance as good
security, layers of mediocre security equals good security,
and/or that high-tech security is the answer for all
vulnerabilities and risks.
AVAs are not the final and best answer to the reduction of risk,
just as security surveys, risk management and DBTs do not tell the
whole risk story. They are also not unknown to the nuclear industry.
For example, they have already been used in the nuclear waste field for
low level waste and relative to interim storage.\54\ They also were
advocated as one means to increase security after the terrorist attacks
of September 11, 2001, and for use in critical infrastructure sectors
like the chemical industry.\55\ These techniques have even been around
a sufficient length of time to note development in their
applications.\56\ Regarding their use in environmental policy debates,
as has been the case with Yucca Mountain, Busenberg (1999) \57\ notes
they are effective in reducing policy disputes, a quality lacking in
many suggestions for the proposed Yucca Mountain project. Last, these
have been used in the energy industry for security considerations
relative to oil and gas pipelines, a similar security dilemma to that
posed by transporting nuclear waste across country to Nevada.\58\
The AVA is one tool in the overall risk assessment tool set
necessary to secure the transportation of highly radioactive materials
like SNF and HLW. Used in conjunction with the other three techniques
it allows a different perspective on the problems the system may face,
a valuable perspective not offered at any other time in the lifecycle
of the transportation program.
Step Three--Scenario Exemplars
Analysis-in-depth is a management paradigm and an analytical
imperative necessary to accomplish the formable task of vulnerability
and risk assessment for the complex, decades-long transportation effort
that would be necessary for the proposed Yucca Mountain repository. The
following sections provide a risk matrix and corresponding threat
scenarios that could emerge from an AVA process, if applied. The
details and threats noted therein are gleamed from the literature and
used to represent best practices in risk assessment for the proposed
Yucca Mountain project. They do not directly correspond to the issues
noted above; rather they examine a subset of the overall risk of human-
initiated events for transporting nuclear wastes. The following matrix
shows some of the potential human-initiated events identified for
further study.
Figure 5: Potential Human Initiated Events for Further Study
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Potential Events Origination Transport In-transit Destination
Sites Issues Transfer Facilities
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Labor X X X X
disruptions
with deliberate
tampering of
transports and/
or casks. (SAB)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Deliberate X X
contamination
of transports
and/or casks.
(SAB)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Disabling of X X X
shipment
safeguards.
(SAB)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Actions meant to X X
delay the
shipment
process and
creating
significant
media
attention.
(PRO)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Actions meant to X X
delay transport
and create
increased
routine
radiological
impacts. (PRO)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Actions meant to X X
create a
dislocation of
transport, cask
or
transportation
infrastructure.
(PRO)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Use of X X
geographically
disadvantageous
features along
the
transportation
routes to
impact
shipments.
(ACC)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Exploitation of X X
steep grades,
tunnels, and
bridges to
create accident
conditions
potentially
challenging
cask integrity.
(ACC)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Inducement of X X X X
inadvertent
collisions
involving
toxic,
explosive or
flammable
chemicals.
(ACC)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Use of man- X X X X
portable
missiles to
penetrate the
cask and
disperse the
contents into
the
environment.
(TER)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Use of military X X X X
weapons/tactics
to penetrate
the cask and
disperse the
contents into
the
environment.
(TER)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Use of adjacent X X
transportation
infrastructure
and cargos to
augment an
attack and
increase
consequences.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Capture of the X X
cargo.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Abbreviations: SAB = sabotage, PRO = protests, ACC= accident, TER =
terrorism
The Risk Matrix
Considering the Yucca Mountain transportation options identified by
DOE, five modes of transportation could potentially be used for
repository shipments over the projected 50-year operations period.
These include:
Rail Casks Shipped by Rail.
Rail Casks Shipped by Barge.
Rail Casks Shipped by Heavy Haul Truck.
Truck Casks Shipped by Rail.
Truck Casks Shipped by Legal Limit Truck.
These five transportation modes, traveling to Yucca Mountain from
76 shipping sites in more than 30 states, with an average shipment
distance greater than 2,000 miles, will be subject to many possible
attack strategies over five decades. This approach uses a range of
exemplar human-initiated event strategies as an illustration of the
risks associated with the transportation of these materials. These
include:
Theft of the Cargo.
Transportation Infrastructure Attacks.
Anti-tank and/or Stand-off Weapons Attacks.
Capture of Shipment and use of High-Energy Density (HED)
Weapons.
These exemplars suggest that a range of consequences must be
factored into risk assessment since they present a range of potential
attack outcomes. These outcomes include:
Attacks to Disrupt Shipments (Minimum Radioactive
Dispersal).
Attacks to Disperse the Cask Contents (Moderate Radioactive
Release).
Attacks for Maximum Consequences (Catastrophic Radioactive
Release).
The following chart allows for the analysis of these various
factors simultaneously and has estimates of the consequences listed in
italics as they relate to the scenario analysis that follows.
Figure 6: Risk Matrix
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rail Casks Truck Casks
Rail Casks Rail Casks Shipped by Truck Casks Shipped by
Yucca Mtn. Risk Matrix Shipped by Shipped by Heavy Haul Shipped by Legal Limit
Rail Barge Truck Rail Truck
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Theft of the Disrupt Disrupt Disrupt Disrupt Disrupt
Cargo. Disperse Disperse Disperse Disperse Disperse
Max. Cons. Max. Cons. Max. Cons. Max. Cons. Max. Cons.
Transportation Disrupt Disrupt Disrupt Disrupt Disrupt
Infrastructure Disperse Disperse Disperse Disperse Disperse
Attacks. Max. Cons. Max. Cons. Max. Cons. Max. Cons. Max. Cons.
Anti-tank Disrupt Disrupt Disrupt Disrupt Disrupt
and/or Stand- Disperse Disperse Disperse Disperse Disperse
off Weapons Max. Cons. Max. Cons. Max. Cons. Max. Cons. Max. Cons.
Attacks.
Capture of Disrupt Disrupt Disrupt Disrupt Disrupt
Shipment. Disperse Disperse Disperse Disperse Disperse
Max. Cons. Max. Cons. Max. Cons. Max. Cons. Max. Cons.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Taken together these modes, human initiated event strategies, and
hypothesized consequence outcomes can be conglomerated into a risk
matrix for simplified use by risk managers, security personnel and for
the specific purposes of risk identification, analysis and mitigation.
A radioactive dispersal, whether it is considered minimum, moderate or
catastrophic for the purposes of analysis, depends on many variables,
including the age of the fuel, the burn-up history of that fuel, the
crud inventory in the transport cask, the degradation of the cladding,
the number of assemblies in a given cask, and so forth. However, a
properly constructed assessment process can address these variables,
and recommend appropriate countermeasures and mitigation strategies.
Conclusion
First and foremost, the materials in question, huge quantities of
highly radioactive wastes from nuclear power plants and weapons
production facilities, do not have to be transported across America to
Yucca Mountain. The energy industry has assured the public that power
plants are safe and secure, thus sheltering the wastes in place at
these facilities seems the prudent thing to do. At these secure
facilities they would not be subject to protests, labor unrest,
sabotage or terrorism during transit activities, in short they are
safer where they sit.
Likewise, if the program does move forward, alternatives to DOE
management exist. As the NAS has suggested, DOE could be replaced as
the agency of responsibility for the proposed Yucca Mountain project.
This action would help the creditability of the proposal since many
stakeholders and members of the general public have historic reasons to
distrust this agency and its claims regarding safety and security. This
is another option for you to consider in your oversight role.
If the program does proceed and DOE is left in charge, the
testimony examined the current state of risk assessment for human-
initiated events against SNF and HLW shipments to the proposed
repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. In the process this analysis
identified a variety of potential human initiated event scenarios for
consideration by this agency and its transportation planners. These
represent a range of creditable threats, consequences and for a variety
of transportation components that would be used during a transportation
campaign.
The necessity of this reconsideration is based on the fact that
attack scenarios evaluated in the Draft Supplemental EIS for Yucca
Mountain, and the Draft Nevada Rail Alignment EIS, repeat the methods
used by DOE and NRC over the past three decades. They are not proactive
in response to 9/11 and do not reflect state-of-the-art risk assessment
techniques. The DOE/NRC analyses assumed single-phase attack scenarios
and other limiting assumptions that may artificially constrain the
results. None of these consequence assessments have evaluated impact-
exacerbating tactics, such as combined use of a breaching device and a
dispersal device, or use of multiple breaching devices. None of these
consequence assessments have evaluated the impact-exacerbating tactics
studied by counter-terrorism experts in the post-9/11 environment.
The methodology presented herein advocates use of an analysis-in-
depth method that uses current risk assessment methods, but adds the
well known AVA as an extra layer of protection to offset the change in
the risk environment due to terrorism. The purpose of the AVA technique
is to harness the creatively and ingenuity of people outside the formal
bureaucratic organization that is the DOE and in doing so improve the
risk analysis. Such an approach would respond to the WGA resolution on
transportation terrorism risks.
Ways to Review DOE Efforts
In the post-9/11 world almost all Federal agencies with a
significant homeland security role have had to rethink their
assumptions on how best to serve the public interest. One conclusion
suggested from the alternative scholarship on Yucca Mountain
transportation risks is that the DOE does not get it--they are stuck in
an engineering based bureaucratic paradigm, or if you will, an
organizationally dysfunctional way of thinking. This DOE mindset
prevents this agency from looking outside of their narrowly defined
transportation risk assessment agendas.
In the case of Yucca Mountain, the unwritten ``demand'' for
programmatic progression after years of DOE mismanagement seemingly
overrides a systematic and serious reconsideration of risks for the
transportation of these radioactive materials. This committee should
consider how to compel reform of the DOE's work on Yucca Mountain in
light of the new threat environment. To date a systematic recognition
of this new threat environment is not evidenced by this agencies
continued refusal to acknowledge real and pressing issues with their
planning for shipments to Yucca Mountain.
The DOE is continually revising their transportation concept for
Yucca Mountain and could readily alter their current program to adopt
the recommended risk reduction process. Considering the currently
delayed schedule for the repository and the proposed rail line, it
seems unlikely that shipments to Yucca Mountain could begin earlier
than 2020. There is ample time for another agency or if left in charge,
for the DOE, to systematically address human-initiated events. Revision
of such documents as the various Supplemental EIS's, Transportation
Concept of Operations, National Transportation Plan, national routing
studies, and in its implementation of Section 180c technical and
financial assistance to affected states and Indian tribes would at a
minimum be desirable.
If this testimony could leave this committee with only three points
to consider, they would be:
Point One:
Yucca Mountain transportation is risky and will present a
target rich environment for adversaries. The shipments are
symbolically important and represent a radiological significant
target.
The solution is to shelter the shipments in place at the
sites of waste origin. As noted by the NRC, energy industry and
others, they are safe and secure faculties. Why expose wastes
to risks during transportation if not necessary?
Point Two:
DOE has systematically neglected to address the laundry
lists of concerns brought forth by stakeholders. These
deliberate choices by the DOE increase the likelihood of
attacks, the consequences of those attacks and the resultant
social dislocations if these attacks succeed.
The solution is to compel the DOE its mandate to engage in a
meaningful national level NEPA process for transport. That
process should directly addresses stakeholder concerns that
have been documented over the decades of Yucca Mountain
debates.
Point Three:
DOE, in consultation with stakeholders, should engage in
systematic risk assessment method of analysis. In particular,
it should use the AVA process in conjunction with other methods
to provide a more robust triangulated analysis.
The solution here is to do it and will allow the DOE to
avoid the potentially fatal fault of being reactive to threats
and become more proactive in relationship to human initiated
events.
I wish to thank the Committee for allowing me to offer an
alternative perspective on this important issue. If you have any
questions I will be happy to answer them.
Endnotes
\1\ My training at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas was in
political sociology, deviance, and criminology.
\2\ This educational center is funded by the Office of the Director
of National Intelligence (ODNI) as part of a grant to seven CSU's in
the southern California area. The CSUN IC-CEA assists students who are
considering careers in the intelligence field.
\3\ The term ``human initiated event'' comes from Ballard, J.D.
(2002). ``Asymmetrical Sabotage Tactics: Nuclear Facilities/Materials
and Vulnerability Analysis.'' Publication available at www.numat.at.
\4\ In particular past projects have included Robert J. Halstead,
Fred Dilger, Hank Collins and Marvin Resnikoff. The testimony herein
reflects the authors interactions with, and the decades of work, these
colleagues have contributed to the debates over Yucca Mountain.
Likewise, research teams for the referenced NATO project herein as well
as NUMAT conference work should be recognized.
\5\ See ``Testimony'' before the U.S. Senate, Committee on Energy
and Natural Resources, One-Hundredth Seventh Congress regarding S. J.
Res. 34 Approving the Site at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, for the
Development of a Repository for the Disposal of High-level Radioactive
Waste and Spent Nuclear Fuel, Pursuant to the Nuclear Waste Policy Act
of 1982. May 2002. Available at http://www.yuccamountain.org/leg/
ballard052202.html. See also ``Testimony of James David Ballard.'' U.S.
House of Representatives, Subcommittee on Highways and the House
Subcommittee on Transportation and Infrastructure. April 2002.
Available at http://gopher
.house.gov/transportation/highway/04-25-02/ballard.html.
\6\ Nevada and other scholars have for many years discussed this
idea in a variety of forums and forms. This section briefly summarizes
that body of literature. For more complete details see: Nuclear
Regulatory Commission Documentation for Petition.'' Agency petition for
Rulemaking pursuant to 5 U.S.C. 553 and 10 C.F.R. 2.800-2.804.
Federal Register. September 1999 and Halstead, R.J., F. Dilger and J.D.
Ballard. (2005) ``Planning for an Unpredictable Event: Response to
Terrorist Attack against SNF Shipment.'' Waste Management conference
proceedings. See also ``Testimony'' before the U.S. Senate, Committee
on Energy and Natural Resources, One-Hundredth Seventh Congress
regarding S.J. Res. 34 Approving the Site at Yucca Mountain, Nevada,
for the Development of a Repository for the Disposal of High-level
Radioactive Waste and Spent Nuclear Fuel, Pursuant to the Nuclear Waste
Policy Act of 1982. May 2002. Available at http://
www.yuccamountain.org/leg/ballard052202.html and ``Testimony of James
David Ballard.'' U.S. House of Representatives, Subcommittee on
Highways and the House Subcommittee on Transportation and
Infrastructure. April 2002. Available at http://gopher.house.gov/
transportation/highway/04-25-02/ballard.html for more specifics on
symbolic attacks, target rich environments and associated issues.
\7\ See Ballard, J.D. (2002). ``Shelter-In-Place: The Logic of
High-Level Nuclear Waste Security.'' Agency paper. State of Nevada's
Agency for Nuclear Projects: Carson City, NV. This agency paper was
based on a presentation at Stanford University, January 2002.
\8\ See Halstead, R.J., F. Dilger, J.D. Ballard and H. Collins
(2008). ``State of Nevada Perspective on the U.S. Department of Energy
Yucca Mountain Transportation Program.'' Paper #8154. Waste Management
Conference 2008 proceedings. Publisher: Waste Management, Phoenix, AZ.
\9\ Ballard, J.D., R.J. Halstead, F. Dilger, H. Collins and M.
Resnikoff. (2008). ``Assessing the Vulnerability of Yucca Mountain
Shipments: A Threat Matrix for Human-Initiated Events.'' Paper #8152.
Waste Management 2008 Conference proceedings. Publisher: Waste
Management, Phoenix, AZ.
\10\ The use of open source documents as the basis of this
presentation and as the means to develop this methodology should
demonstrate to the Committee the level of publicly available materials
that potential adversaries can access. Specific attack details and
details on tactics have deliberately been left out of this presentation
in consideration of safety and security.
\11\ See Halstead, R.J. and J.D. Ballard. (1997). ``Nuclear Waste
Transportation Security and Safety Issues: The Risk of Terrorism and
Sabotage against Repository Shipments.'' Prepared for the state of
Nevada, Agency for Nuclear Projects (October 1997; Revised, December
1998). This report can no longer be accessed on the web due to security
concerns, but can be requested in writing from Mr. Joseph Strolin,
Administrator, Agency for Nuclear Projects, Suite 118, 1761 E. College
Parkway, Carson City, NV 89706. Also refer to J.D. Ballard, R.J.
Halstead, F. Dilger, H. Collins, ``Planning for an Unpredictable Event:
Vulnerability and Consequence Reassessment of Attacks on Spent Fuel
Shipments,'' revised version of a paper presented at Waste Management
2005. The revised paper was not included in the proceedings, but it is
available on line at http://www.state.nv.us/nucwaste/trans.htm. Last,
see North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Project #
SST.CLG.978964, ``Terrorism Attacks on Nuclear Power Plants and Nuclear
Materials Transports.'' This large research group was led by Dr.
Friedrich Steinhausler, Institute for International Security, Stanford
University. October 2001 to July 2004. A final report was submitted to
NATO but to date has note been released.
\12\ The NRC and DOE continue to use the singular terminology of
``sabotage'' to designate any incident related to human initiated
events. The use of the term human initiated events herein was
originally coined to help move forward the discussions of risks to a
more encompassing discussion in the post-9/11 threat environment.
\13\ DOE. (1999). ``Draft Environmental Impact Statement for a
Geologic Repository for the Disposal of Spent Nuclear Fuel and High-
Level Radioactive Waste at Yucca Mountain, Nye County, Nevada,'' DOE/
EIS-0250D, U.S. Department of Energy, Washington, DC (July 1999).
\14\ Luna, R. et al., (1999). ``Projected Source Terms for
Potential Sabotage Events Related to Spent Fuel Shipments,'' SAND99-
0963.
\15\ DOE. (2002). ``Final Environmental Impact Statement for a
Geologic Repository for the Disposal of Spent Nuclear Fuel and High-
Level Radioactive Waste at Yucca Mountain, Nye County, Nevada,'' DOE/
EIS-0250. Available on the web at http://www.ymp/gov/documents/feis_a/
index.htm.
\16\ Lamb, M. et al., (2002). ``Potential Consequences of a
Successful Sabotage Attack on a Spent Fuel Shipping Container: An
Analysis of the Yucca Mountain EIS Treatment of Sabotage.'' Prepared by
Radioactive Waste Management Associates for the State of Nevada, Agency
for Nuclear Projects.
\17\ Respectively: DOE. (2007). ``Draft Supplemental Environmental
Impact Statement for a Geologic Repository for the Disposal of Spent
Nuclear Fuel and High-Level Radioactive Waste at Yucca Mountain, Nye
County, Nevada'' DOE/EIS-0250F-S1D and DOE, ``Draft Supplemental
Environmental Impact Statement for a Geologic Repository for the
Disposal of Spent Nuclear Fuel and High-Level Radioactive Waste at
Yucca Mountain, Nye County, Nevada--Nevada Rail Transportation
Corridor,'' DOE/EIS-0250F-S2D and ``Draft Environmental Impact
Statement for a Rail Alignment for the Construction and Operation of a
Railroad in Nevada to a Geologic Repository at Yucca Mountain, Nye
County, Nevada,'' DOE/EIS-0369D.
\18\ Luna, R, (2006). ``Release Fractions from Multi-Element Spent
Fuel Casks Resulting from HEDD Attack,'' Waste Management 2006
conference. Publisher: Waste Management, Phoenix, AZ.
\19\ DOE. (2007). See page 6-21 from ``Draft Supplemental
Environmental Impact Statement for a Geologic Repository for the
Disposal of Spent Nuclear Fuel and High-Level Radioactive Waste at
Yucca Mountain, Nye County, Nevada'' DOE/EIS-0250F-S1D and DOE.
\20\ See Ballard, J.D., R.J. Halstead, F. Dilger, H. Collins.
(2007). ``Yucca Mountain Transportation Security Issues: Overview and
Update.'' Waste Management 2007 conference. Publisher: Waste
Management, Phoenix.
\21\ WGA. ``Making the West the Best: Western Governors'
Association 2007 Annual Report''. Available online at: http://
www.westgov.org/wga/publicat/annrpt07.pdf.
\22\ WGA. ``Western Governors Association Policy Resolution 07-02:
Assessing the Risks of Terrorism and Sabotage against High-Level
Nuclear Waste Shipments to a Geologic Repository or Interim Storage
Facility.''
\23\ WGA. ``Western Governors Association Policy Resolution 07-02:
Assessing the Risks of Terrorism and Sabotage against High-Level
Nuclear Waste Shipments to a Geologic Repository or Interim Storage
Facility.''
\24\ Ballard, J.D. (2002). ``Asymmetrical Sabotage Tactics: Nuclear
Facilities/Materials and Vulnerability Analysis.'' Publication
available at www.numat.at.
\25\ See Ballard, J.D., R.J. Halstead, F. Dilger, H. Collins.
(2007). ``Yucca Mountain Transportation Security Issues: Overview and
Update.'' Waste Management 2007 conference. Publisher: Waste
Management, Phoenix. Also Ballard, J. D. (2002). ``Asymmetrical
Sabotage Tactics: Nuclear Facilities/Materials and Vulnerability
Analysis.'' Publication available at www.numat.at.
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Nevada, Agency for Nuclear Projects (October 1997; Revised, December
1998). Ballard, J.D., R.J. Halstead, F. Dilger, H. Collins and M.
Resnikoff. (2008). ``Assessing the Vulnerability of Yucca Mountain
Shipments: A Threat Matrix for Human-Initiated Events.'' Paper #8152.
Waste Management 2008 Conference proceedings. Publisher: Waste
Management, Phoenix, AZ. J.D. Ballard, R.J. Halstead, F. Dilger, H.
Collins, ``Planning for an Unpredictable Event: Vulnerability and
Consequence Reassessment of Attacks on Spent Fuel Shipments,'' revised
version of a paper presented at Waste Management 2005. Ballard, J.D.
(2002). ``Asymmetrical Sabotage Tactics: Nuclear Facilities/Materials
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CRS. (2007). ``Nuclear Power Plants: Vulnerability to Terrorist
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of Safety Research 35: 244-248 and Johnson, R.G. (2005). ``Unleashing
Your Inner Mother-in-Law: How to do an Adversarial Vulnerability
Assessment,'' Presentation at ASIS annual conference, Orlando, FL.
Download date: July 23, 2007. Available at: http://pearl1.lanl.gov/
external/c-adi/seals/images/AVA.ppt.
\57\ Busenberg, G.J. (1999). ``Collaborative and Adversarial
Analysis in Environmental Policy,'' Policy Sciences 32. Download date:
August 8, 2007. Available on-line at: www.springerlink.com.
\58\ Bettie, J. (2007). ``NRC Takes Two Roads on Terror Review
Issue.'' The Energy Daily, February 27, 2007.
Senator Ensign. Thank you, Dr. Ballard.
Mr. Hamberger?
STATEMENT OF EDWARD R. HAMBERGER, PRESIDENT AND CEO,
ASSOCIATION OF AMERICAN RAILROADS
Mr. Hamberger. Mr. Chairman, Senator Thune, the Association
of American Railroads appreciates the opportunity present our
views on the transportation of spent nuclear fuels.
Before I address that topic, however, on behalf of the
members of the AAR, I want to express deep condolences to the
victims, the families, and friends of those who were hurt and
injured in too many cases, fatally injured in the commuter rail
accident in Chatsworth, California last Friday.
We have been working very closely with this Committee, the
corresponding Committee in the House, to help craft legislation
to address certain areas of rail safety. We are very pleased
that that has reached its final step, and I believe even as we
meet here today, it may be being considered on the House floor.
And I hope that it will pass the Senate before the end of the
week because we believe that it will result in meaningful rail
safety improvement.
The freight industry, rail industry does have an excellent
safety record, in general, in moving hazardous materials,
including spent nuclear fuel in particular. Since my written
testimony and my several appearances before this committee over
the past year go into great detail on our safety record, I will
only note here today that 2007 was the safest year on record in
terms of accident rate per million train miles.
We recognize that special measures are needed to ensure
that the spent fuel is moved without incident. The railroads
believe that the safest possible method of transporting spent
nuclear fuel is in dedicated trains. We are pleased to note
that the Department of Energy now shares that belief and wish
that the Department of the Navy would soon join us both in that
belief.
We believe that dedicated trains offer important safety
advantages.
One, they do not require switching in rail yards as do
trains in general freight service, thus reducing time in
transit and potential for mishandling accidents.
Two, dedicated trains allow the train to be equipped with
electronically controlled pneumatic brakes and premium
suspensions.
Three, spent nuclear fuel cars are extremely heavy, heavier
than any other car in service, thus increasing the potential
for an accident because of the different handling
characteristics.
And finally, spent nuclear fuel dedicated trains can be
moved with greater security. Escorts as required by DOT and the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission would have certainly a less
difficult time monitoring spent nuclear fuel on dedicated
trains than in general freight service.
We are confident that we can transport spent nuclear fuel
extremely safely. However, despite all the precautions taken,
there is clearly some risk in the transport of spent nuclear
fuel. No firm in any industry and certainly not a rail industry
that has an outdoor factory floor of some 140,000 miles in
length can guarantee with complete certainty that no accident
or terrorist attack will occur. Recognizing this, Congress
enacted the Price-Anderson Act which provides limited
protection for companies from an incident involving the release
of nuclear material, including its transport.
More than 25 years ago, the Interstate Commerce Commission
ruled that railroads have a common carrier obligation to
transport shipments of spent nuclear fuel. Partially that
ruling came because of the liability protections offered under
Price-Anderson.
Freight railroads, alone of all modes, also have a common
carrier obligation to transport toxic by inhalation hazardous
and other highly hazardous materials. Chairman Inouye referred
to that earlier. Chlorine is certainly one of those and
anhydrous ammonia the other. Those two represent about 80,000
car loads a year of 100,000 car loads of TIH materials.
However, we do not have any comparable Price-Anderson
protections for this transportation, nor can railroads fully
insure against the multi-billion risks associated with these
shipments. This places the railroads in an untenable position.
I submit that if there is a public interest need for
railroads to be compelled to carry TIH chemicals, just as the
ICC determined there is for spent nuclear fuel, there is a
corresponding public interest for limiting the railroad's
potentially ruinous liability as in the case with Price-
Anderson. This could be achieved if policymakers enacted a
Price-Anderson type solution for TIH shipments, and we would be
pleased to discuss this with members of the Committee.
We thank you for the opportunity to testify, and I, of
course, would be pleased to answer any questions you may have.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Hamberger follows:]
Prepared Statement of Edward R. Hamberger, President and CEO,
Association of American Railroads
The Association of American Railroads (AAR) appreciates this
opportunity to address the transportation of spent nuclear fuel (SNF).
AAR members account for the vast majority of freight railroad mileage,
employees, and traffic in Canada, Mexico, and the United States.
Should meaningful amounts of spent nuclear fuel require
transportation, it is likely that AAR members would be called upon to
handle most of those movements (whether it would be to the Yucca
Mountain repository \1\ or elsewhere), since the Department of Energy
(DOE) has indicated that it prefers rail transportation for the
movement of SNF.\2\ Why? Safety, predominantly. There has never been a
release of radioactive materials in connection with the transportation
of SNF by rail.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The AAR takes no position on whether Yucca Mountain is an
appropriate site for a repository.
\2\ See U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Civilian Radioactive
Waste Management, A Final Environmental Impact Statement for a Geologic
Repository for the Disposal of Spent Nuclear Fuel and High-Level
Radioactive Waste at Yucca Mountain, Nye County, Nevada, J-1, February
2002.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Overview of Freight Rail Safety
First of all, on behalf of the members of the AAR, I offer my deep
condolences to the victims of the recent tragic commuter rail accident
in California and their families. As many of you know, freight
railroads have been working very closely with this Committee and others
in Congress to draft and pass comprehensive legislation that will
address critical areas of rail safety. We are confident that the
legislation will result in meaningful rail safety improvement.
For freight railroads, pursuing safe operations is not an option,
it is an imperative. It makes business sense and it's the right thing
to do. Through massive investments in safety-enhancing infrastructure,
equipment, and technology; extensive employee training; cooperation
with rail labor, suppliers, customers, communities, and the Federal
Railroad Administration (FRA); cutting-edge research and development;
and steadfast commitment to applicable laws and regulations, freight
railroads are at the forefront of advancing safety.
Freight railroads have an excellent and improving safety record,
reflecting the extraor-dinary importance railroads place on the safety
of their employees, their customers, and the communities they serve. As
an official from the FRA noted in testimony to Congress in February
2007, ``The railroads have an outstanding record in moving all goods
safely.''
In fact, 2007 was the safest year ever for railroads, according to
FRA data, and preliminary partial year data for 2008 show continued
improvement. In 2007, the train accident rate was the lowest ever, down
71 percent since 1980. The grade crossing collision rate was the lowest
ever, down 77 percent since 1980. And the employee injury rate was the
second lowest ever, down 80 percent since 1980.
Moreover, according to U.S. Department of Labor data, railroads
today have lower employee injury rates than other modes of
transportation and most other major industry groups, including
agriculture, construction, manufacturing, and private industry as a
whole--even grocery stores. Available data also indicate that U.S.
railroads have employee injury rates well below those of most major
foreign railroads.
Railroads are proud of their safety record, which results from
their recognition of their responsibilities regarding safety and the
enormous resources they devote to its advancement. At the same time,
railroads want rail safety to continue to improve. Railroads are always
willing to work cooperatively with Members of this Committee, other
policymakers, the FRA, rail employees, and others to find practical,
effective ways to make this happen.
Railroads Have an Excellent Hazmat Safety Record
Today, U.S. railroads transport very little spent nuclear fuel. In
2007, there were just 14 originations; in the 5-years from 2003 to
2007, there were only 314. Railroads do, however, haul significant
amounts of other hazardous materials. In fact, each year, 1.7 to 1.8
million carloads of hazardous materials are transported by rail in the
United States. Materials that present a ``toxic inhalation hazard''
(TIH)--i.e., gases or liquids (such as chlorine and anhydrous ammonia)
that are especially hazardous if released--are a subset of hazardous
materials. Railroads transport around 100,000 carloads of TIH each
year. For perspective, DOE projects that there would be, at most,
around 400 carloads of spent nuclear fuel transported annually.
In 2006 (the most recent year for which data are available), 99.996
percent of rail hazmat shipments reached their destination without a
release caused by a train accident. That equates to one accident with a
hazmat release for every 56,000 rail hazmat carloads.
The overall rail hazmat accident rate is down 88 percent since 1980
and down 39 percent since 1990. And although no firm in any industry
can guarantee that it will never suffer an accident, the railroads'
overall safety record should give you and the public confidence in the
rail transport of SNF if the public interest requires its
transportation.
How Can the Safety of SNF Transport be Maximized?
Notwithstanding freight railroads' excellent safety record, they
recognize that public concern over radioactive materials requires that
all parties involved in the transport of SNF take special measures to
ensure safe movement. In particular, the DOE and Department of Defense
(as the shippers of SNF), the Department of Transportation (the
regulator of the safety aspects of hazmat transport), and the railroads
must work together to design the safest possible transportation system
for SNF.
For many years, the rail industry has urged the use of dedicated
trains--i.e., trains with no other freight than SNF, traveling from one
origin to one destination--to transport SNF. In 2005, the DOE issued a
statement that it was DOE policy to use dedicated trains as the usual
mode for its shipments to Yucca Mountain.\3\ The DOE identified
important safety, security, and system cost benefits to the use of
dedicated trains at that time. More recently, the DOE stated, in its
application to the Surface Transportation Board (STB) to construct a
railroad line that would serve the Yucca Mountain repository, that it
intends to use dedicated trains on that line.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\3\ Department of Energy Policy Statement for Use of Dedicated
Trains for Waste Shipments to Yucca Mountain, ilable at p://
www.state.nv.us/nucwaste/news2005/pdf/doe050718rail.pdf.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dedicated trains in fact offer numerous key safety advantages that
would reduce the already very small possibility of an accident
involving SNF transport.
First, SNF cars in dedicated trains would not have to be
``switched'' in and out of trains at rail yards, many of which are
located in or near major metropolitan areas. Switching would be
required if SNF cars were transported in general freight service.
Switching increases the amount of handling a freight car receives. All
else equal, the more a freight car has to be handled, the greater the
risk of an accident.
Second, the weight of SNF cars could increase the potential for an
accident if the cars were hauled in general freight service. The vast
majority of loaded rail cars on the U.S. freight rail network weigh no
more than 286,000 pounds.\4\ SNF cars, though, would weigh
approximately 400,000 pounds. If hauled in general freight service,
these extremely heavy SNF cars could generate high in-train forces,
such as slack action (the force exerted throughout the train as trains
accelerate, decelerate, and operate over undulating and curved terrain)
that could lead to a derailment. Slack action is much easier to control
in a short, dedicated train than in a long, general service train,
especially in trains with extremely heavy cars mixed with other normal-
weight cars.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\4\ A small minority of rail cars in general service weigh up to
315,000 pounds. In extremely rare cases (for example, movements of
power plant generators), railroads will haul much heavier shipments.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Third, premium suspensions can be incorporated in all rail cars in
dedicated trains. Premium suspensions are higher-quality freight car
wheel assemblies. They reduce lateral wheel forces and vertical dynamic
impact forces, which can result in derailments. If SNF were transported
in general freight service, there would be no way of guaranteeing that
the cars transporting other freight would have premium suspensions.
More generally, dedicated trains eliminate the possibility of a
derailment of an unrelated car having as a side effect the derailment
of or damage to a car carrying SNF.
Fourth, dedicated trains are essential if the newest technology
designed to lower the possibility of a derailment is to be used for SNF
shipments. The AAR's Performance Specification for Trains Used to Carry
High Level Radioactive Material, also known as S-2043, calls for
additional safety requirements and technologies, including on-board
defect detection systems, premium suspensions, and electronically-
controlled pneumatic (ECP) brakes. ECP brakes function only when all
cars in a train are equipped with them. In addition to providing
superior braking performance, ECP brakes utilize a communication system
throughout a train that can be used to transmit train health
information to the locomotive crew and security personnel. The train
health information, obtained from the on-board defect detection
systems, would include monitoring for known derailment causes such as
excessive truck hunting; \5\ rocking; \6\ wheel flats; \7\ ride
quality; defective bearings; vertical, lateral and longitudinal
acceleration; and, of course, braking performance.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\5\ Truck hunting is an instability at high speed of a wheel set
(the ``truck'' in railcar terminology) causing it to weave down the
track, usually with the flange of the wheel striking the rail.
\6\ Excessive lateral rocking of cars and locomotives can occur,
usually at low speeds. The speed range at which this phenomenon occurs
is determined by such factors as the wheel base, height of the center
of gravity of each individual car or locomotive, and the spring
dampening associated with each vehicle's suspension system.
\7\ A wheel flat is a flat spot or loss of roundness of the tread
of a railroad wheel.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fifth, dedicated trains minimize the time spent in transportation,
an important factor for security and efficiency.\8\ It would take
longer (possibly significantly longer) to transport SNF from origin to
destination if SNF were transported in mixed-freight trains instead of
dedicated trains, because the switching of rail cars in and out of
trains takes time and because railroads can more readily schedule
dedicated trains to move quickly and smoothly through sensitive areas.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\8\ U.S. Department of Transportation, Identification of Factors
for Selecting Modes and Routes for Shipping High-Level Radioactive
Waste and Spent Nuclear Fuel, p. vi (April 1998).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Finally, dedicated SNF trains can be transported with greater
security. Escorts, which are required by the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission (NRC) for all SNF movements, will be able to monitor SNF
much more easily in dedicated trains than in general freight service.
The FRA has also determined that dedicated trains for the
transportation of SNF would reduce accident risks through avoidance of
yards, reduced derailment potential, and reduced risk of the
involvement of other hazardous materials in an accident.\9\ Similarly,
the National Academy of Sciences has determined that dedicated train
transportation of SNF has operational, safety, security,
communications, and planning advantages over transportation in general
merchandise trains.\10\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\9\ Use of Dedicated Trains for Transportation of High-Level
Radioactive Waste and Spent Nuclear Fuel (March 2005), available at
www.fra.dot.gov/downloads/safety/report_dedicated
_trains.pdf.
\10\ Committee on Transportation of Radioactive Waste, National
Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences, Going the
Distance: The Safe Transport of Spent Nuclear Fuel and High-Level
Radioactive Waste in the United States (2006).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
DOE is planning to build the transportation equipment for the
transportation of SNF to Yucca Mountain in conformance with S-2043. In
addition, the U.S. Navy, which currently ships more SNF than any other
entity, is currently designing and building a new freight car to meet
S-2043. The prototype car is currently being tested at the
Transportation Technology Center, Inc., an AAR-operated rail research
and test facility in Pueblo, Colorado.
The rail industry commends the DOE for recognizing the benefits of
dedicated trains, and commends the U.S. Navy for agreeing to conform
with S-2043. However, despite its 2005 policy statement in favor of the
use of dedicated trains generally and its statement to the STB that it
will use dedicated trains on its own Yucca Mountain line, DOE has not
committed to use dedicated trains for SNF shipments on other rail
lines, including shipments to Yucca Mountain.\11\ The U.S. Navy has not
yet agreed to use dedicated trains for SNF shipments. Railroads
respectfully suggest that policymakers should strongly encourage the
DOE and Navy to do so.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\11\ In the STB rail construction proceeding concerning the Yucca
Mountain line proposed by DOE, it has been suggested that DOE should be
required, as a condition to approval, to use dedicated trains for all
transportation of SNF to the Yucca Mountain line. DOE has opposed that
condition, saying only that it will maintain its policy (cited at
footnote 3 above) to use dedicated trains as the ``usual mode'' for
transportation to Yucca Mountain.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
SNF Liability Protections Offer a Model for TIH Transport
Railroads are confident that they could transport SNF extremely
safely, and they are working hard every day to further enhance the
safety of their operations.\12\ However, as indicated above, no firm in
any industry--and certainly not a rail industry that has an outdoor
``factory floor'' that is more than 140,000 miles long--can guarantee,
with complete certainty, that no accident or terrorist attack will
occur.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\12\ See the AAR's Senate testimony on May 22, 2007 and July 26,
2007 for details on the many ways that railroads are using
technological advances, innovative operating practices, and other means
to enhance rail safety.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Despite all the precautions that might be taken, there is clearly
some risk involved in the use and handling of nuclear fuel. Recognizing
this, in 1957 Congress enacted the Price-Anderson Act. The Price-
Anderson Act limits the liability of a company (including railroads)
from an incident involving the release of nuclear material (including
in transportation). The Act provides for a fund, to which all nuclear
power plant licensees contribute when an incident occurs, to cover any
damages in excess of required insurance levels.
More than 25 years ago, the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC),
the predecessor of today's Surface Transportation Board, held that the
railroads' common carrier obligation requires them to transport
shipments of SNF, whether the railroads want to handle such shipments
or not. The ICC's decision at that time was based, in part, upon the
liability protections that the Price-Anderson Act afforded to the
railroads.
I would be remiss if I did not note that, likewise, because of
their common carrier obligation, freight railroads--alone among all
modes of transportation--must also transport TIH and other highly-
hazardous materials in response to a reasonable request. However, the
railroads do not have any comparable Price-Anderson Act protections for
this transportation.
While TIH materials are a small percentage of total rail traffic--
they constitute only about 0.3 percent of all rail carloads--the
transportation of such materials exposes railroads to significantly
higher costs and potentially ruinous liability due to the
extraordinarily dangerous characteristics of the commodities
themselves. Indeed, an accident involving TIH could cause casualties
orders of magnitude higher than the casualties that would likely result
from an accident involving SNF. Accidents involving TIH on railroads
are extremely rare. However, history demonstrates that railroads could
be subjected to multi-billion dollar claims--even for accidents where
they do nothing wrong.\13\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\13\ For example, a few years ago in New Orleans, a tank car that
railroads did not own containing more than 30,000 gallons of liquid
butadiene began to leak. Vapor from the butadiene tank car rolled out
across a neighborhood until the pilot light of an outdoor gas water
heater ignited it. More than 900 people were evacuated, though no one
was killed or seriously injured. The National Transportation Safety
Board found that the probable cause of the accident was an improper
gasket that a chemical company had installed on the tank car.
Nevertheless, a state court jury entered a punitive damages verdict
against the railroads involved in the amount of $2.8 billion.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Moreover, the revenues that highly-hazardous materials generate do
not come close to covering the potential liability to railroads
associated with this traffic. Nor can railroads fully insure against
the multi-billion dollar risks associated with TIH shipments.\14\ This
places railroads in an untenable situation.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\14\ Although TIH materials account for only 0.3 percent of rail
carloads, the absolute number of carloads--some 100,000 per year--is
250 times higher than the number of expected SNF carloads. The use of
dedicated trains is feasible for a commodity like SNF where very few
carloads are involved, but is not feasible for TIH.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Given these points, I respectfully submit that if there is a public
interest need for railroads to be compelled to carry TIH materials
similar to that requiring them to carry SNF, there is a corresponding
public interest need for the rail industry to be able to take into
account and protect itself against the increased risk and potentially
ruinous liability exposure associated with transporting TIH materials--
just as railroads (and others) are protected to a limited degree from
liabilities associated with SNF.
This can be achieved if policymakers enact a Price-Anderson type
solution. The AAR has a legislative proposal which would effect a
Price-Anderson type solution for TIH transport and would be pleased to
discuss it further with the Committee.
Conclusion
Thank you for the opportunity to testify. Nothing is more important
to railroads than the safety of their employees, their customers, and
the communities they serve. The railroad industry is committed to
working with its employees, Congress, the FRA, its customers, and
others to ensure that rail safety continues to improve.
Senator Ensign. I want to thank the panel and I will ask a
few questions and let Senator Thune ask a few questions. And if
I have other followup, I will continue with that.
I want to follow up on some of the questions that I asked
in the first panel about the accidents and a few of you have
had some comments on that.
First of all, Dr. Crowley, the National Academy of
Sciences, can you address the full-scale models versus what DOE
has been testing and why you think that full-scale models are
important to do?
Dr. Crowley. I would be happy to do that. And it is not
testing full-scale models. It is actually testing the articles
that are used to transport the spent fuel.
There have been many tests carried out on full-scale
articles around the world. They include the regulatory tests.
For example, one of the tests that shipping packages are
required to pass is a drop of 9 meters onto an unyielding
surface, which actually, in terms of the impact forces on the
canisters, is more severe than you are likely to see in any
kind of a collision.
In addition, in the 1970s, Sandia National Laboratory
carried out a number of tests where they crashed casks, full-
scale casks, on trailers and trucks and trains against
unyielding barriers, and they actually crashed a canister on a
trailer with a train. Those canisters are designs that are no
longer used today. So those are not really applicable to
current-day standards.
In addition, in the U.K., the Electricity Generating Board
in the 1980s conducted a test where they put one of their
canisters on a train, on a flat car, turned the flat car on its
side, put it across the track, and crashed a very heavy
locomotive into that canister at about 100 miles an hour.
So those are the kinds of tests that have been carried out.
Let me make one other comment. From an impact point of
view, these packages are very robust, and as I said before, the
regulatory tests that these canisters have to go through are
more rigorous than what you are likely to see in a real-world
accident.
That is not necessarily the case for severe fires. There is
a 30-minute, fully engulfing test that is required as part of
the regulation. As you pointed out earlier, there are certainly
fires that burn for periods on the order of much longer than 30
minutes. In fact, I forget when exactly it was. It was in the
1970s or 1980s in the U.K.. There was a very, very severe
tunnel fire with petrol cars that burned for several days.
Senator Ensign. Did we not have something in Baltimore as
well?
Dr. Crowley. We had a Baltimore fire as well, but that only
burned for a few hours. So this fire was much----
Senator Ensign. It is still longer than 30 minutes.
Dr. Crowley. It is much longer than 30 minutes. That is
right.
As a consequence of that U.K. fire, the U.K. Department of
Transport prohibited the carriage of spent fuel trains with
flammable materials or passing other trains in tunnels.
And I should say for the Baltimore tunnel fire, whether or
not this package is fully engulfed is really important. If you,
for example, just have an end of the package that goes into the
fire, the heat can conduct away. So you really need to put the
entire package in the fire and it needs to be maintained for a
long period of time to see the kind of impact that you might be
concerned about.
Senator Ensign. And that kind of testing has not been done.
Dr. Crowley. To my knowledge, it has not been done.
Senator Ensign. Anybody else want to make any comments on
that?
[No response.]
Senator Ensign. Maybe, Dr. Ballard, you have studied--
obviously, based on what the terrorists did on 9/11, they
looked for weaknesses. I mean, do you not think that they would
look--you said you have to put the mind of a terrorist on, not
the mind of a regulator or a government oversight official. The
mind of a terrorist is going to look for the weaknesses there.
If they are going to try to attack one of these, do you not
think that would be one of the things they would try to
replicate?
Dr. Ballard. Well, across the United States, we will see
lots of geographic locations that would enhance an attack, a
tunnel, a bridge, et cetera. I live in Santa Clarita, and we
recently had a tunnel fire there that was a very significant
incident. It was a series of trucks that on a very rainy day
got together in the tunnel, and they melted the frames of the
trucks. Now, was it a fully engulfing fire? If a cask had been
in that tunnel, what would have happened? The difference
between a rail cask and its robustness and a truck cask and its
robustness--all of those should be tested using full-scale
testing models, and we have not done that, as far as I know, to
date, and I think the testimony today kind of supports that.
Senator Ensign. Ms. Schubert, in your testimony, you have
been able to find these transportation routes. How easy would
it be for a terrorist to kind of get these transportation
routes and be able to set up what they would believe an ideal
place to attack?
Ms. Schubert. It took us just looking at the basic maps and
the EIS and then going in and getting some GIS data and putting
layers on it. So it was not that difficult. It took some time
and a little bit of effort, but these are the DOE maps just
with additional information fleshed out so people have a better
idea of what is going on.
And I think it is important to point out, although we are
talking mostly rail and probably truck, we are also talking
barge transport, which is very slow-moving barges with large
casks on them which are going to be very obvious to anybody who
is looking for something like that.
Senator Ensign. The last question has to do with on-site
storage. You mentioned, Dr. Crowley, that onsite storage is a
pretty proven technology today. The security--obviously, you do
not have to worry about transportation with onsite storage. I
do not know if you have expertise in this field, but are you
familiar with how long is on-site storage or what are the best
guesses for how long on-site dry cask storage would be safe?
Dr. Crowley. Well, actually my organization has also
published on that aspect as well, so I can talk about that.
Senator Ensign. I knew they had. I did not know whether you
were familiar with this.
Dr. Crowley. Yes. I was actually also study director of
that report.
Senator Ensign. OK.
Dr. Crowley. First of all, let me say that whether or not
you store something onsite or you transport it to a repository
is a policy choice.
Senator Ensign. Correct.
Dr. Crowley. We all understand that. This is not a
technical choice. It is a policy choice.
As far as storage onsite, you can in principle----
Senator Ensign. By the way, some people think it is a
technical choice.
Dr. Crowley. It is not a technical choice.
Senator Ensign. My colleagues do not understand that. They
do not understand what you just said. They think it is a policy
choice. They think you cannot store it safely onsite. That is
the reason everybody wants to get it out of their back yards.
Dr. Crowley. Well, let me just make a couple of comments
about that because the answer to your question is not a simple
answer.
From a technical point of view, you can store that stuff
forever onsite. From a technical point of view. What you have
to worry about is loss of institutional control, loss of
institutional will to continue to take care of that material.
If you put it into dry cask storage technology, which is what
you can do after about 5 years, you can maintain that on a
concrete pad. You have got to keep the casks painted, and maybe
after 100 years or so, you might actually have to bring the
fuel out of the cask and replace the cask. You could continue
to do that forever.
However, those----
Senator Ensign. But it probably good for at least 100
years.
Dr. Crowley. That is correct. In fact, we have said that.
However, the nuclear plants will not operate for 100 years,
and so after some period of time, those plants will be gone and
that spent fuel will be stranded at the site. When you have an
operating plant, the owner of the plant has an economic
imperative to take care of that fuel. Once the plant is gone,
that economic imperative is gone.
Senator Ensign. Unless the Federal Government takes title
to that onsite. That is a policy question, not a technical
question.
Dr. Crowley. That would be a policy choice. That is right,
yes.
Senator Ensign. Anybody else want to comment on that?
Dr. Ballard. Senator Ensign, one of the things that we have
talked here today about is that transporting the material
induces or increases the risk. We actually have examples of
this. On February 4th, 1985, there was a threat against a
shipment campaign, and that threat was that they would crash a
plane into a shipment container. That was called in to a
corporate headquarters for the power plant. It is reported in
the NRC's SSEL document. So we have at least an incident of
somebody threatening one of these shipments.
What is not in the SSEL is another significant incident,
and that was in Golden Valley, Minnesota on October 27, 1986,
where a 39-foot section of track was removed ahead of a train
that was carrying SNF. Fortunately, I should say, the shipment
was routed--a different train was routed ahead of it. It
derailed. It was carrying lumber, and so we did not have a
significant incident at that time.
We do think that this is related because right on the wall
near where this track was removed was the slogan: ``Stop rad
waste shipments.'' This incident is not in the NRC's official
SSEL. It is not documented as a potential threat.
So the point here is transporting materials adds new
threats. It brings out new adversaries with that creative
capability of trying to stop whatever they wish to.
Senator Ensign. Thank you.
Senator Thune?
STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN THUNE,
U.S. SENATOR FROM SOUTH DAKOTA
Senator Thune. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you,
panel, for your insights and your input.
I am very interested in the energy issues. I have been
involved with those since arriving here. And I think it is
probably one of the big challenges our country faces. It
strikes me that there are lots of things that we should
probably be doing more of to help address the issue of energy
independence. We get about 19 percent of our power from
nuclear, about 50 percent from coal.
And if you consider the various policy goals that are sort
of laid out as we head into the future, one is increasing the
use of electric hybrid cars, which means we are going to have
additional demand for electricity, which is going to stretch
the supply that we currently have, and it gets into whole other
issues of transmission capability and whatnot. But there is
also the goal of limiting carbon emissions, and that too is
something that nuclear energy could help address, being a clean
fuel.
So I guess the question I have is we have seen in other
parts of the world--France, for example, I am told 80 percent
of their electric power comes from nuclear. Why is it that it
has not taken off more in this country? And I think many of the
issues that are being discussed today are perhaps part of that.
But tell me, if you can, whoever would care to answer this
question who has any experience or knowledge with the issues of
transporting spent fuel in other countries of the world where
nuclear is a much bigger part of the energy supply than it is
here in the United States and have they experienced some of the
same issues and how do they address those.
My number here says 1,500 commercial shipments of spent
fuel since 1979--I guess, Director Weber had testified to
this--without incident. How do you compare the logistical and
technical challenges that we face with these shipments here in
this country with those in other places around the world where
nuclear is a bigger in terms of the power supply?
Dr. Crowley. Well, I will take an initial crack at that. As
part of our Going the Distance study, we actually went to
Europe and we talked to officials who were involved with and
citizens who were concerned about transportation of spent fuel.
As it turns out, in Europe, at least until recently, there
has been a great deal more spent fuel transportation. The
Honorable Edward Sproat talked about 3,000 shipments. There
have been on the order of tens of thousands of shipments in
Europe. And the reason for that is that until recently, fuel
was not stored very long in the spent fuel pools at the
powerplants. Rather, that fuel was sent to be reprocessed both
in the U.K. and in France. And so they have very routine
shipments of fuel. Those routine shipments go through very
large cities. And there are citizens over there who are
concerned about that, but the consensus in those countries
seemed to be that that is OK.
Recently the number of shipments have decreased as the
reprocessing activity has gone down, and now more plants are
storing the fuel on their sites rather than sending it for
reprocessing.
Senator Ensign. Why has the reprocessing activity gone
down?
Dr. Crowley. Well, there have been a number of reasons. In
the U.K., one of the plants, the Thor plant which is used to
reprocess oxide fuel, sprung a leak, and so it has been shut
down.
Germany has encountered a lot of resistance in transporting
spent fuel actually. At one point, they had to call out 30,000
police to protect a spent fuel shipment against protesters. So
they have made a policy decision to store that material at the
powerplant sites, and all of the powerplants have been required
to build storage buildings for that material.
Other countries in Europe have just decided that it is too
expensive to send the fuel for reprocessing, and they have
stopped. Not all countries, but some countries have just
stopped.
Senator Ensign. What is Japan doing now? Did they not just
build a reprocessing plant?
Dr. Crowley. Japan has been sending its spent fuel to
Europe to be reprocessed, but they did just recently build a
reprocessing facility and they will reprocess their fuel
domestically.
Senator Thune. Could you answer the question as to--one of
the issues, of course, with transportation and basically the
whole Yucca Mountain thing of getting rid of nuclear waste as
opposed to storing, all those things we have debated here for a
long time--and Senator Ensign and his colleagues from Nevada
have some strong views about the whole Yucca Mountain issue.
But one of the things that we--I have been working with a
bipartisan group of Senators who are trying to develop a
comprehensive energy policy which includes more incentives for
nuclear power in this country. And one of the things that we
addressed was the Carter era ban on reprocessing spent fuel.
And basically what we called for was a demonstration facility
to develop spent fuel reprocessing.
And I guess my question in that regard is, why is that not
something in this country that we have been more acceptant of?
That is clearly something that in the countries that you just
mentioned they have supported. Why is it that we cannot be
developing more nuclear power in this country instead of
dealing with it and disposing of it at a place like Yucca
Mountain, which is very controversial? And I realize the ban is
very controversial too. But I would be interested in your
thoughts on that, Dr. Crowley, about why that is not something
that would not be now, it seems to me at least, more acceptable
in this country.
Dr. Crowley. Well, as it turns out, when the first
generation of commercial nuclear plants were built in this
country, the concept was to reprocess the spent fuel, and that
is one of the reasons that those plants have such small spent
fuel pools. The idea was to store that fuel in the pools for
just some matter of months and then send it off to be
reprocessed. And there were two or three reprocessing plants
that were built or planned to be built in the country. They ran
into a number of technical problems and none of those plants--
well, one plant in West Valley was operated for a short period
of time, but none of the other plants were operated.
Carter did in, I think it was, 1977, ban reprocessing. On
the other hand, Reagan overturned that ban in the early 1980s,
and yet no reprocessing plants were built. And I think at that
point it was a matter of economics.
Right now the price of uranium is fairly inexpensive, and
if you are an operator of a nuclear plant, it is much cheaper
for you to buy fresh spent fuel and to store that fuel with the
idea that you would eventually send it off to be disposed of
than it is to reprocess that fuel. And I think that is the
reason that you are not seeing a lot of activity for
reprocessing in the United States.
Now, as you know, there has been recent interest in
reprocessing, and I know that one of the French companies has
asserted that, in fact, it is economical to reprocess. But I
have not reviewed that material, and so I do not really have an
opinion on that.
But historically it has been false starts early on and now
economics.
Senator Thune. Well, that is good to know. I did not
realize that economics played that big of a role in that. It
just seems like if that is something that we could open up a
little bit, but if it is, in fact, not going to be economical
for companies to do that--it seems to me that it bears on the
whole issue of transportation too because my assumption is if
you have reprocessing plants different places, it probably
limits the amount of transportation that is necessary to get
everything out to Yucca or someplace for disposal like that. I
would assume those would be all around the country and would
minimize the distance that some of the spent fuel would have to
be transported.
Dr. Crowley. Well, let me make a couple of comments about
that. Right now, as you know, the owners of nuclear power
plants are spending a tenth of a penny per kilowatt hour to get
their fuel disposed of, and it is the Government's
responsibility to dispose of that fuel. So I think from the
perspective of the commercial spent fuel owners, they would
say, hey, we have already paid for this. Why should we pay
twice?
Reprocessing plants are very expensive. Japan spent over
$20 billion on its reprocessing plant. I forget what its
capacity is. Several hundred or a couple of thousand of metric
tons per year. So it would be very expensive to build a lot of
reprocessing plants.
Senator Thune. You do not see then multiple reprocessing
plants.
Dr. Crowley. Certainly not initially, no.
And then also, reprocessing does not eliminate the need for
disposal. You are going to reprocess the fuel. You are going to
recover its useful components, but the waste still has to go
somewhere. You could store it onsite at the reprocessing plant.
Some of the shorter-lived radioactivity would decay away, but
there would be a longer-lived component that would have to be
disposed of eventually.
Senator Ensign. The volume is tremendously less, though. Is
it not?
Dr. Crowley. Not necessarily. It depends on the
reprocessing approach that you use. The current approach, which
is based on PUREX, would not reduce the volume. The Department
of Energy is trying to develop advanced reprocessing
technologies. They claim it would reduce the volume. And the
other thing that that would do for you would be to allow you to
separate out the different kinds of radioactivity. So a lot of
it you could just store for a couple of hundred years to decay.
Senator Ensign. Is that the accelerator technology that
they are talking about?
Dr. Crowley. Well, they are talking about--instead of
PUREX, it is called UREX. It is just an advanced reprocessing
that allows you to take the spent fuel, dissolve it, and
separate out its components.
Now, there is another option when you can take some of the
long-lived components of the fuel, put it into a reactor or an
accelerator, and transmute it to reduce its long-term toxicity.
Senator Ensign. That is more theoretical still. Right?
Dr. Crowley. Exactly. That is not ready for deployment at
this point.
Senator Ensign. Right. That is what I understand.
I want to thank the panel.
Also, just one last comment. Also, it had to do with
weapons-grade plutonium was the reason I think Carter stopped
the reprocessing as well, although it looks like Europe and
Japan have answered that. From what I understand vitrification
takes care of that problem. It makes it unusable to ever have
weapons-grade plutonium.
Dr. Crowley. That is not actually true. What they are doing
is separating out the fission products, and that material has
no use other than to a terrorist who might want to build a
dirty bomb. But the plutonium is actually being separated out
and it is being stored. And that is a real concern. We are not
so concerned when countries like France and the UK and Japan do
that because they are allies, but we would be very concerned if
other countries that were not allies started to do that.
Senator Ensign. In this issue, we are just talking about it
here in this country.
So, listen, it has been a fascinating couple of panels. I
want to thank both panels for your expert testimony, and we
will see where this leads. Hopefully, it will not lead to Yucca
Mountain. Thank you.
[Whereupon, at 3:50 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
Response to Written Question Submitted by Hon. Daniel K. Inouye to
Hon. Edward F. Sproat III
Question. The DOE will have the authority to begin shipments to
Yucca Mountain if the NRC approves the license application for
construction authorization, which could very quickly lead to the large
quantities of nuclear waste being shipped to Yucca Mountain. What steps
has the DOE taken to prepare the public for the increase in these
shipments? Has the DOE been actively addressing public concerns over
these shipments?
Answer. Since passage of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act (NWPA) in
1982, DOE has been working with its stakeholders to identify, address,
and resolve issues of concern related to the transport of spent nuclear
fuel and high-level radioactive waste. DOE has worked with law
enforcement, emergency response, and public safety officials from
potentially impacted States, Tribes, and local governments to
communicate information about spent nuclear fuel transportation. As
specific concerns arc identified, DOE has addressed them through
outreach programs and in discussions at Transportation External
Coordination Working Group conferences. DOE has also maintained
cooperative agreements with State Regional Groups (e.g., the Western
Interstate Energy Board), public safety organizations (e.g., the
Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance), and legislative organizations
(e.g., the National Conference of State Legislatures), all specifically
for the purpose of addressing concerns and helping corridor communities
prepare for the planned shipments. DOE additionally has
responsibilities under Section 180(c) of the NWPA to provide funding
and technical assistance for training to states and tribes and will
make such funding available.
______
Response to Written Questions Submitted by Hon. Barbara Boxer to
Hon. Edward F. Sproat III
Question 1. When will routes and shipment schedules be established?
Will the public have access to the route information? If not, why not?
Answer. The selection of truck routes will be made in accordance
with DOT routing regulations set forth in Title 49 of the Code of
Federal Regulations. The selection of railroad routes will be the
responsibility of the carriers, as specified in Title 49 of the Code of
Federal Regulations. DOE is working with stakeholders to establish
routing criteria and will work in close cooperation with the carriers
to ensure that routes selected will be safe, secure, and efficient.
Authorized officials will be provided specific routes and shipping
schedules as part of the NRC required pre-notifications that will be
made before each shipment. Specific routes and shipping schedules will
not he available to the general public for security reasons.
Question 2. How much of the spent nuclear fuel are you expecting to
be transported over highways rather than rail? Are TAD canisters being
developed that can be transported by tractor trailers?
Answer. DOE estimates about 10 percent of the spent nuclear fuel to
Yucca Mountain will be shipped by truck. The TAD canisters currently
being designed will be shipped to the repository using rail.
Question 3. How will the Department of Energy ensure the security
of shipments to Yucca Mountain?
Answer. The Department is committed to ensuring the security of
shipments to Yucca Mountain and will meet or exceed the level of
security provided by following the current regulations and additional
measures put in place by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the
Department of Transportation (DOT), and the Department of Homeland
Security.
DOE coordinates with these entities to continually assess potential
developments that could affect security. In addition, DOE will work
with Federal, State, Tribal and local law enforcement, as appropriate,
to fulfill our shared responsibilities for spent nuclear fuel
transportation safety.
Question 4. Why has DOE not analyzed which specific rail and truck
routes to Yucca Mountain have the least risk of accident and/or
sabotage and the least risk of environmental, economic, and human
health impacts in the event of accident and/or sabotage?
Answer. Under applicable regulations specific routing selections
cannot be made until nearer to he time of shipments. Nevertheless, in
its NEPA documentation relating to the Yucca Mountain repository, DOE
has analyzed representative routes and has also analyzed the risk of
accidents, transportation sabotage considerations, and consequences of
potential sabotage events.
Question 5. Why shouldn't the analysis of the relative risks of
specific rail routes be done now, prior to licensing, instead of after
licensing? When will DOE complete such an analysis?
Answer. Under applicable DOT regulations, specific trucking and
rail routing decisions cannot be made until nearer the time of
shipments. Under those regulations, specific rail routing decisions
will be made by the rail carriers pursuant to the regulations in effect
at the time of the shipments.
As a general matter, however, the DOT's Pipeline and Hazardous
Materials Safety Administration. in coordination with the Federal
Railroad Administration and the Transportation Security Administration,
has recently issued a final rule revising requirements in the Hazardous
Materials Regulations applicable to the safe and secure transportation
of certain hazardous materials transported in commerce by rail. The
final rule requires rail carriers to compile annual data on these
shipments, use the data to analyze safety and security risks along rail
routes where those materials are transported, assess alternative
routing options, and make routing decisions based on those assessments
to select the safest and most secure practicable route. Under the new
rule, the railroad carriers are developing their processes for
conducting these assessments, on a national scale, taking into account
the many thousands of shipments of toxic gases, explosives, and poisons
that must be handled safely and securely every day. DOE is monitoring
how rail shippers and carriers of such toxic materials are implementing
this new rule. DOE is also working with DOT and the railroads to better
understand how such assessments arc to be conducted, and how spent
nuclear fuel shipments need to be considered in such analyses.
Question 6. Will DOE contractually bind carriers it contracts with
to use those rail routes that DOE has determined to be safest? If not,
why not?
Answer. DOT's new rail routing rules require the carriers to use
the routes the carriers consider safest and most secure, subject to
DOT's review. DOE contract incorporate DOE Directives that require DOE
contractors to follow these and all other applicable DOT regulations
when transporting material on behalf of DOE.
Question 7. When does DOE plan to perform an environmental review
under the National Environmental Policy Act for its National
Transportation Plan and National Operational Plan?
Answer. In 2002, DOE issued its Final Environmental Impact
Statement for a Geologic Repository for the Disposal of Spent Nuclear
Fuel and High-Level Radioactive Waste at Yucca Mountain, Nye County,
Nevada, DOE/EIS-0250F, and in 2008 issued its final Supplemental
Environmental Impact Statement for a Geologic Repository for the
Disposal of Spent Nuclear Fuel and High-Level Radioactive Waste at
Yucca Mountain, Nye County, Nevada--Nevada Rail Transportation
Corridor, DOE/EIS-0250F-S-2 and its final Environmental Impact
Statement for a Rail Alignment for the Construction and Operation of a
Railroad in Nevada to a Geologic Repository at Yucca Mountain, Nye
County, Nevada, DOE/EIS-0369. These documents analyze the potential
impacts associated with the transportation of spent nuclear fuel and
high-level radioactive waste to the Yucca Mountain repository. The
National Transportation Plan and National Operation Plan that will be
developed are planning documents that implement the proposed action
which was already analyzed in these National Environmental Policy Act
(NEPA) documents. DOE would conduct supplemental NEPA review if DOE
makes substantial changes in the proposed action or there are
significant new circumstances or information relevant to environmental
concerns and bearing on the proposed action or its impact.
Question 8. Will DOE require that all nuclear waste shipped by rail
to Yucca Mountain be carried in dedicated trains, or will it allow some
nuclear waste to be shipped in general freight service? Will DOE
analyze and compare the risk between a dedicated train and general
freight service, particularly as to railroad route segments that
present particular challenges to longer trains?
Answer. In July 2005, DOE adopted a policy to use dedicated trains
as its usual mode of rail transportation for shipments of commercial
spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste to the Yucca
Mountain repository. In adopting this policy, however, DOE has
recognized that such materials can be shipped safely regardless of mode
and regardless of type of service due primarily to the stringent
regulations in place and the robust nature of the transport packages
involved. In adopting the policy, DOE has additionally identified the
primary benefit of using dedicated trains to be the significant costs
savings over the lifetime of the Yucca Mountain Program. However, there
may also be circumstances where general freight service would be more
appropriate to promote costs savings, operational flexibility and/or
efficiency for shipments to the Yucca Mountain repository.
______
Response to Written Questions Submitted by Hon. Harry Reid to
Hon. Edward F. Sproat III
Question 1. If the Department of Energy (DOE) is able to maintain
its current schedule for licensing and building the Yucca Mountain
nuclear waste repository, when is the soonest you could begin
transporting nuclear waste? Would the DOE consider shipping nuclear
waste prior to completing construction at Yucca?
Answer. Under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, the Department of
Energy (DOE) could not begin transporting spent nuclear fuel and high-
level radioactive waste to the Yucca Mountain repository until the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) issues a construction authorization
license and a repository license to receive and possess spent nuclear
fuel and high-level radioactive waste for disposal. Under current
planning, the earliest date that DOE anticipates that it would begin
transporting waste to the Yucca Mountain repository is 2020.
Question 2. In 2007, the DOE officially gave Congress draft
legislation that would abolish Department of Transportation (DOT),
Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), Surface Transportation Board, and
state authority over transportation of nuclear waste. Does the DOE
still support this legislation? Will the DOE be able to ship waste if
Congress does not eliminate these other agencies' authorities over
nuclear waste shipments?
Answer. The Department supports the proposed legislation which
would not abolish or otherwise change the existing authority of DOT,
NRC, the Surface Transportation Board, states and other entities over
transportation of nuclear waste by or on behalf of DOE. Rather, Section
7 of the proposed legislation would clarify the manner in which the
Department may exercise its existing authority to regulate the safety
and security of transportation of radioactive materials to Yucca
Mountain. DOE has broad authority under the Atomic Energy Act of 1954,
as amended (AEA), to regulate all aspects of activities involving
radioactive materials that are undertaken by DOE or on its behalf,
including the transportation of radioactive materials. DOE exercises
this authority to regulate certain DOE shipments, such as shipments
undertaken by governmental employees or shipments involving national
security. In most cases where DOE utilizes commercial carriers,
however, DOE does not exercise its AEA authority but rather relies on
regulation of these shipments by DOT, NRC and other entities as
appropriate. With respect to shipments to Yucca Mountain, DOE currently
plans to use commercial carriers regulated by DOT.
As a policy matter and without regard to which agency exercises
regulatory authority, DOE requires shipments by it or on its behalf to
be undertaken in accordance with the requirements and standards that
apply to comparable commercial shipments, except where there is a
determination that national security or another critical interest
requires different action. This policy is set forth in DOE Orders
460.1B, Packaging and Transportation Safety, 460.2A, Departmental
Materials Transportation and Packaging Management, and 470.4A,
Safeguards and Security Program, as well as DOE Manual 460.2-IA,
Radioactive Material Transportation Practices Manual. In implementing
this policy, DOE will cooperate with Federal, State, local and Tribal
entities and utilize existing expertise and resources to the extent
practicable. In all cases, DOE is committed to achieving a level of
protection that meets or exceeds the level of protection associated
with comparable commercial shipments regulated by DOT and NRC.
Question 3. CSX Transportation recently expressed concern that the
DOE could be reversing its plan to use dedicated railcars for shipping
spent nuclear fuel. CSX stated that the DOE is now stressing the need
for ``flexibility'' so they can reserve the option of shipping spent
fuel together with other commercial items. Is the DOE reversing its
position and if so, why does the DOE now think it is safe to transport
commercial and nuclear shipments together?
Answer. In July 2005, DOE adopted a policy to use dedicated trains
as its usual service mode of rail transportation for shipments of
commercial spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste to the
Yucca Mountain repository, and that policy has not changed. In adopting
the policy, DOE has recognized that such materials can be shipped
safely regardless of mode and regardless of type of service due
primarily to the stringent regulations in place and the robust nature
of the transport packages involved. In adopting the policy, DOE has
additionally identified the primary benefit of using dedicated trains
to be the significant costs savings over the lifetime of the Yucca
Mountain Program. However, there may also be circumstances where
general freight service would be more appropriate to promote costs
savings, operational flexibility and/or efficiency for shipments to the
Yucca Mountain repository.
Question 4. The National Academy of Sciences, the Government
Accountability Office and even the state of Nevada have recommended
that the oldest spent nuclear fuel should be shipped first. They claim
that storing nuclear waste at the reactor for 50 years or more before
shipping it can reduce public health risks from radiation by up to 85
percent. The Academy also notes that this will reduce the consequences
of a terrorist attack. So why hasn't the DOE considered shipping older
fuel first in its environmental impact statements (EIS)?
Answer. In developing the impact analyses in its environmental
impact statements. DOE used conservative, ``bounding'' assumptions.
This is a standard risk assessment practice to ensure the actual
impacts likely to occur will be less than--in some cases, much less
than--the calculated estimate of impacts. The age and radioactivity
level of the fuel is one example. In DOE's analyses, the Department has
assumed that every shipment of spent nuclear fuel would have the very
highest level of radioactivity permissible by Federal regulation, every
single time, which in reality is not possible (older fuel already
exists). DOE's analysis showed that, even if every shipment had the
very highest levels permissible, the shipments would still pose a very
low risk. The fuel in any particular shipment, regardless of age, does
not present a safety or security issue so long as the material is
packaged and transported in accordance with the strict regulations that
apply to such shipments.
Question 5. In May, Holtec International--a firm that submitted a
bid to design the transportation canisters for the DOE--said that an
earthquake at Yucca Mountain would send the casks into a ``chaotic
melee of bouncing and rolling juggernauts'' if it were to rely on the
DOE's specifications. The firm said that ``pigs will fly before the
cask will stay put.'' Has the DOE taken any steps to respond to
Holtec's concerns?
Answer. In June 2008, DOE submitted its license application for
authorization to construct the repository, and in September 2008, NRC
docketed and commenced its detailed review of the application. The NRC
will conduct a thorough and rigorous review, pursuant to NRC's
applicable regulations, of DOE's license application and will determine
the adequacy and safety of the repository. The NRC will similarly
conduct a rigorous and thorough review of the applications that will be
submitted for certificates of compliance for the casks used to
transport and age spent nuclear fuel onsite.
Question 6. Why hasn't the DOE requested an independent assessment
of nuclear waste transportation security, as was recommended by the
National Academy of Sciences in their 2006 report?
Answer. DOE agrees with NRC's position that security measures for
future shipments must defend against the threat that exists at the time
of that shipment, and take advantage of enhancements in technology then
available. Since these factors may change over time and shipments to
the Yucca Mountain repository are not expected to begin until 2020 at
the earliest, it would be more appropriate to conduct an independent
security assessment closer to the time of actual shipments. DOE,
nevertheless, is currently a participant in a Multilateral Agreement
with Great Britain, France and Germany to conduct classified laboratory
tests that would accurately measure the impacts of sabotage events on
spent fuel. These tests will inform future security assessments.
Question 7. Has the DOE made public its plan for selecting national
rail and truck routes, as recommended by the National Academy of
Sciences?
Answer. DOE has addressed routing in its National Environmental
Policy Act (NEPA) documentation relating to transportation, both
nationally and in Nevada, of spent nuclear fuel and high-level
radioactive waste to Yucca Mountain. Truck shipments will be shipped in
accordance with DOT regulations, using preferred routes that reduce
time in transit. A preferred route is an Interstate system highway
selected by a State or Tribal routing agency in accordance with
applicable DOT regulations. Under those regulations, substantive
consultation with affected jurisdictions would be required prior to
designating an alternative route to ensure consideration of all impacts
and continuity of designated route.
Rail shipments would be shipped using routes selected by the rail
carriers, which have responsibility for selection of rail routes.
Railroads are privately owned and operated, and shippers and rail
carriers determine routes based on a variety of factors. Route
selection for shipments to Yucca Mountain would involve discussions
between DOE and the chosen rail carriers, with consideration of input
from other stakeholders. While Federal rules do not prescribe specific
routes for spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste
shipments by rail, certain factors must be considered in route
selection.
DOE anticipates that it will identify a preliminary suite of
national routes 5 years prior to shipments in order to identify states
and tribes that will be eligible for technical assistance and funds for
training under Section 180(c) of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. Over the
past several years, the DOE has engaged in discussions with rail
carriers and other stakeholders on issues related to routing.
Question 8. Has the DOE established a social risk advisory group,
as recommended by the National Academy of Sciences?
Answer. As the National Academy of Sciences recommended, DOE has
engaged stakeholders on methods to communicate about transportation
safety, and is currently exploring the formation of an advisory group
chartered under the Federal Advisory Committee Act to provide input on
a range of transportation issues, including the public perception of
risk.
Question 9. What is the DOE's contingency plan for transporting
waste to Yucca Mountain in the event that rail access to Yucca is not
available by the time Yucca is opened? Was this considered in the DOE's
Rail Alignment EIS?
Answer. In order to operate efficiently and meet its obligations
under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, DOE needs to have direct rail
access to the Yucca Mountain repository. The facility will be able to
accept truck shipments of spent nuclear fuel, but rail access will be
required to efficiently ship larger transportation, aging and disposal
(TAD) canisters that are the basis of the repository design. DOE plans
for the railroad to be available before commencement of shipments of
spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste. If the railroad
were not initially available, however, DOE anticipates that it would
consider shipments of spent fuel in small truck casks that are included
in the scenarios analyzed in the Department's NEPA documentation
relating to the Yucca Mountain repository.
Question 10. Out of 72 commercial sites with nuclear waste, 24 of
them do not have railroad access. That means the DOE will have to haul
waste by truck from at least one third of nuclear reactors. Does the
DOE plan to truck the waste to the railroad? Has the DOT approved this
approach, given that they are highly concerned about unnecessary stops
during transport?
Answer. Sites without direct rail access will be serviced by heavy-
haul trucks to transport rail casks to a nearby railhead. If a site
were unable to accommodate a rail cask. a smaller, truck cask would be
used on standard size semi-truck trailers. Intermodal transfers are
common in the transportation industry, and the logistical challenges
are well-understood. At this time, more than 10 years before shipments,
potential site-specific transportation infrastructure issues cannot be
known with any degree of certainty. DOE also evaluated the use of barge
transportation for transporting rail casks to nearby railheads from
generator sites near navigable waterways but not served by railheads.
______
Response to Written Question Submitted by Hon. Daniel K. Inouye to
Michael Weber
Question. The National Academy of Sciences has recommended an
independent examination of the security of spent nuclear fuel and high-
level radioactive waste transportation prior to the commencement of
large-quantity shipments to an interim or final repository. Has the NRC
had difficulties working with the DOE to request this type of
examination? Why hasn't the NRC requested an independent assessment of
nuclear waste transportation security? What is the NRC currently doing
to expand the knowledge base for the secure transportation of nuclear
waste?
Answer. The DOE, the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) and
NRC have a long history of working together cooperatively on
transportation safety and security issues, including their joint
sponsorship of the National Academy of Sciences' (NAS) recent study on
the transportation of spent fuel. The principal finding of the NAS
study was:
The Committee could identify no fundamental technical barriers
to the safe transport of SNF and HLW in the United States.
Transport by highway (for small-quantity shipments), and by
rail (for large-quantity shipments) is, from a technical
viewpoint, a low-radiological-risk activity, with manageable
safety, health, and environmental consequences, when conducted
with strict adherence to existing regulations.
The NRC takes this study's recommendations very seriously and
addressed them in our program, including preparations for full-scale
testing in the U.S. and additional analyses of long-duration, fully
engulfing fires. The NAS study also recommended that, ``. . . an
independent examination of the security of spent fuel and high-level
waste transportation should be carried out prior to the commencement of
large-quantity shipments to a Federal repository or to interim
storage.'' At present, the NRC is not planning to conduct an
independent security assessment with DOE that would cover both
shipments to Yucca Mountain and to an interim storage facility because
NRC security assessments have shown that current security measures and
standards put in place since September 11, 2001, are adequate for the
protection of spent fuel and high level waste transportation even in
the event of increased shipping campaigns. Specifically, in light of
the elevated threat that the U.S. experienced following the terrorist
attacks on September 11, the NRC issued safeguards advisories and
orders to enhance transportation security of spent nuclear fuel and
other large quantities of radioactive material. The NRC issued these
security enhancements in coordination with DOT, the Department of
Homeland Security, State agencies, and other Federal agencies. The NRC
security assessments of transportation, which were completed after the
publication of the NAS report, evaluated a number of representative
transportation package designs against a variety of credible land-based
threats and a deliberate plane crash. The results of these security
assessments, which we have shared with DOT, DOE, and other
organizations that have a ``need to know,'' demonstrate that the
current requirements, combined with the security enhancements put in
place after September 11, provide adequate protection of public health
and safety, and the environment, and common defense and security. These
safeguards advisories and orders are only an interim solution and will
not be relied on indefinitely. In late 2009, the NRC intends to issue a
proposed rule for public comment that would revise the requirements for
secure transport of spent nuclear fuel; the proposed rule would include
additional measures to address the current threat environment.
Physical protection measures for future shipments must match the
threat in place at the time of shipment. In addition, shipment tracking
and monitoring technologies are constantly improving. The NRC would be
responsible for overseeing the security requirements for commercial
shipments to an interim storage facility and DOE would be responsible
for implementing and overseeing the security requirements for Yucca
Mountain shipments. Shipments to Yucca Mountain would not begin, at the
earliest, until 2020, based on current DOE estimates. This estimate is
tentative, given that NRC staff continue to review the DOE license
application to construct and operate the repository. Therefore, it
would be more appropriate to consider whether an independent
examination of shipment security is needed closer to the time of actual
shipments. To expand the knowledge base for the secure transportation
of nuclear waste, the NRC has recently completed, through contract with
Sandia National Laboratories, a number of security assessments on
representative spent fuel transportation package designs. The NRC
believes that these spent fuel transportation package assessments
demonstrate that the stringent safety standards applied to the design
of spent fuel packages provide substantial protection from security
threats. NRC is considering the merits of releasing non-sensitive
summaries of current spent fuel transportation package security
assessments in partial response to the NAS study recommendation.
______
Response to Written Questions Submitted by Hon. Barbara Boxer to
Michael Weber
Question 1. If the Department of Energy is responsible for
shipments of waste to Yucca Mountain, what will be the role the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission?
Answer. Because the Department of Energy (DOE) plans to take
custody of the spent fuel at the licensee's site (i.e., at a nuclear
power plant), the NRC's role in the transportation of spent fuel to a
repository would be limited to certification of the designs for
shipping casks used for transport and, in the event of a transportation
incident, providing technical expertise, if requested. Section 180(a)
of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 prohibits the Secretary of
Energy from transporting spent nuclear fuel or high level waste to a
repository or monitored retrievable storage facility except in packages
certified for such purpose by the NRC. Physical security and
transportation safety for these shipments would be addressed under DOE
and the Department of Transportation's requirements.
Question 2. Is the NRC planning to do an independent security
assessment with DOE that would cover both shipments to Yucca Mountain
and to an interim storage facility?
Answer. At the current time, NRC is not planning to conduct an
independent security assessment with DOE that would cover both
shipments to Yucca Mountain and to an interim storage facility. Current
security measures and standards put in place since September 11, 2001,
are adequate for the protection of spent fuel and high-level waste
transportation even in the event of increased shipping campaigns.
Physical protection measures for future shipments must match the threat
in place at the time of shipment. In addition, shipment tracking and
monitoring technologies are constantly improving. Shipments to Yucca
Mountain could not begin, at the earliest, until 2020, based on current
DOE estimates. This estimate is tentative given that NRC staff continue
to review the DOE license application to construct and operate the
repository. Therefore, it would be more appropriate to consider whether
an independent examination of shipment security is needed closer to the
time of actual shipments.
Question 3. Please explain the NRC's physical protection
requirements for the transportation of spent nuclear fuel as they would
relate to the transport of spent nuclear fuel to Yucca Mountain. What
is the process for advance notification of State Governors prior to a
shipment?
Answer. As DOE plans to take custody of the spent fuel at the NRC
licensee's site, DOE requirements would control the physical security
of spent fuel shipments. NRC's physical protection requirements would
not apply.
However, Section180(b) of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act requires
that the Secretary of Energy abide by the Commission's regulations
regarding advanced notification of State and local governments prior to
transportation of spent fuel or high-level waste to Yucca Mountain.
NRC's advanced notification requirements in 10 CFR 73.37(f) require an
NRC licensee to notify the Governor or Governor's designee at least 4
days prior to a spent fuel shipment within or through a state.
Notifications delivered by mail must be postmarked at least 7 days
prior to shipment.
Question 4. You mention in your testimony that you are examining
the MacArthur Maze accident in Oakland and the I-5/14 interchange
tunnel fire in Northern Los Angeles County as part of your efforts to
improve the security of commercial shipments of spent nuclear fuel.
Will you share a copy of the results when your studies are completed?
Answer. Yes. The MacArthur Maze accident and 1-5/14 interchange
tunnel fire studies are focused on how spent fuel casks would perform
under real world accident conditions involving severe fires. The
studies are not specifically focused on security-related scenarios,
although the studies could be used to inform the assessment of sabotage
or security scenarios involving severe fires. NRC is planning to
publish the draft reports for the MacArthur Maze accident in Oakland
and the 1-5/14 interchange tunnel fire in Northern Los Angeles County
for public comment. We anticipate that the draft reports on both
accidents will be published in mid-calendar year 2009. The NRC's Office
of Congressional Affairs will provide your office a copy of the draft
reports as soon as they are published. The NRC will also notify the
public of the reports' availability and seek public comments by Federal
Register notice and by making the reports available on the NRC's public
website. The final reports will be issued after public comments are
considered. The NRC's Office of Congressional Affairs will provide your
office a copy of the final reports
______
Response to Written Questions Submitted by Hon. Harry Reid to
Michael Weber
Question 1. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has
recorded at least four accidents involving spent nuclear fuel shipments
over the past 30 years. Please tell the Committee about those accidents
and how the NRC responded.
Answer. The NRC is aware of four transportation accidents since
1971 that have involved loaded spent fuel casks in transit. These
accidents are summarized in the table below. When accidents involving
spent fuel shipments occur, State and local governments have the
primary responsibility to respond. Therefore, these accidents were
handled at the State and local level, with assistance from the carriers
and shippers.
Transportation Accidents involving Commercial Spent Fuel Casks (1971-
Present)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mode Date Location Description
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Truck December 8, Tennessee Cask thrown free of
1971 trailer following
head-on collision
with automobile.
Minor cask damage
and no release.
Driver killed.
Truck February 2, Illinois Trailer collapsed
1978 while crossing
railroad tracks. No
cask damage or
release.
Truck December 9, Indiana Trailer separated
1983 from its axles. No
cask damage or
release.
Rail March 24, 1987 Missouri Train-auto collision
at grade crossing.
Train carrying two
casks of Three Mile
Island core debris.
No cask damage or
release.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Question 2. While the risk for a major accident involving a nuclear
waste shipment is not great, it still exists and one major accident
after thousands of successful shipments would mean this entire program
is a failure. How is the NRC prepared to respond to a worst-case
scenario situation, in which there is a major radioactive release on a
railway or a highway?
Answer. The likelihood of highway or rail accident occurring that
results in a major release of radioactive material is extremely low.
This assessment is based on the outstanding safety record of spent fuel
shipments during the past thirty years, numerous transportation
shipment risk assessments completed by both the NRC and other Federal
Agencies, an independent assessment of spent fuel transportation safety
published by the National Academy of Sciences in 2006, and the
technical knowledge gained from the actual physical testing of spent
fuel casks conducted both within the United States and abroad.
In the event that an accident involving a spent fuel shipment
occurs, State and local governments have the primary responsibility to
respond. The NRC is prepared to respond by providing technical
expertise if requested, to support State and local governments in their
response. In an extremely unlikely accident scenario involving a major
release of radioactive material on a railway or a highway, NRC would
support a coordinated Federal response under the Nuclear/Radiological
Incident Annex of the National Response Framework.
In accordance with the Nuclear/Radiological Incident Annex, the
Federal Department or Agency responsible for the material involved in
the accident would coordinate the response of other Federal Departments
and Agencies, including the deployment of specialized equipment and
personnel. The Department of Energy (DOE) is the coordinating agency
for transportation incidents involving DOE materials. Therefore, if DOE
takes custody of spent fuel prior to shipment to Yucca Mountain, DOE
would be the coordinating agency for transportation incidents. In this
case, NRC is prepared to provide technical expertise. For shipments to
sites other than Yucca Mountain, the NRC is prepared to act as the
coordinating agency for transportation incidents that involve the
shipment of radiological material by NRC or Agreement State licensees.
The NRC is also prepared to support the Department of Homeland
Security in those circumstances under which they take a lead role in
coordinating the Federal response under the National Response
Framework.
Question 3. The NRC reports prepared in the late 1970s estimated
that sabotage of a spent fuel shipment in an urban area could cause
hundreds of early fatalities, thousands of latent cancer fatalities and
economic losses in the billions. In 1979, the NRC promulgated
regulations to safeguard shipments from sabotage and terrorism. Has the
NRC reconsidered these regulations or made any significant changes to
them over the past 30 years?
Answer. Yes, the NRC continually evaluates its regulations based on
new information.
With regard to the reports, the NRC published two reports in the
mid-1970s: Calculations of Radiological Consequences from Sabotage of
Shipping Casks for Spent Fuel and High Level Waste, NUREG-0194,
February 1977, and Final Environmental Statement on Transportation of
Radioactive Material by Air and Other Modes, NUREG-0170, December 1977,
that estimated the health effects of a radiological release in a non-
urban area and determined that the estimated risks were not considered
substantive enough to warrant regulatory action. Sandia Laboratories
also issued a study in 1977, Transport of Radionuclides in Urban
Environs: A Working Draft Assessment, SAND 77-1927, suggesting that the
sabotage of spent fuel shipments had the potential for producing
serious radiologic consequences in areas of high population density. In
response to the Sandia study, the NRC issued interim safeguard measures
for spent fuel shipments in an interim rule published on June 15, 1979.
The physical protection requirements were subsequently modified based
on public comments in a final rule dated June 3, 1980.
The Sandia report (SAND 77-1927) contained estimates which were
subject to large uncertainties due to lack of technical data. As a
result, NRC and the Department of Energy sponsored research programs to
yield information about the potential for radiological releases from
sabotage events. The research supported a conclusion that the potential
releases from sabotage events were a tiny percentage of the values
estimated in the Sandia report (e.g., no early fatalities and seven
latent cancer fatalities). The interim safeguard measures were
subsequently modified to reflect the research results and the modified
measures were incorporated into NRC regulations by public rulemaking on
June 8, 1984.
After the attacks of September 11, 2001, the NRC determined that
additional security measures were necessary during the transport of
spent nuclear fuel and that the existing regulations should be enhanced
to further protect spent fuel during transport. The NRC began issuing
orders to licensees shipping spent nuclear fuel in October 2002. Only
those licensees currently shipping or expecting to ship spent fuel in
the near future received the initial order. Since 2002, the staff
issued additional orders to licensees transporting spent fuel when
these licensees indicated their intention to ship, The orders imposing
additional security measures during shipments of spent nuclear fuel are
an interim solution, pending rulemaking, as described below.
The NRC initiated a rulemaking in September 2008 to enhance the in-
transit security requirements of 10 CFR Part 73 consistent with the
security measures imposed by the post-9/11 orders. These measures
include: assuring consistent physical protection along the entire
shipping route; pre-planning and coordination of a shipment with the
states; communications among the transporters, escorts, local law
enforcement agencies, and movement control centers; trustworthiness and
reliability of individuals associated with the shipment; and normal and
contingency procedures and training of individuals associated with the
shipment, The proposed rule is expected to be published in late 2009
for public comment, with the final rule expected to be issued in late
2010-early 2011.
Question 4. Since the attacks against America on September 11,
2001, the NRC has studied the vulnerability of nuclear waste
transportation containers. Why haven't the results of these studies
been made available to the applicable state and local governments? If
states and local governments are going to be involved in the
transportation planning process, shouldn't they have more information
about the risks involved? What can be done to involve state and local
governments in the transportation planning process?
Answer. The Commission understands the importance of this
information in enabling State and local governments to plan for the
safety and security of spent fuel shipments, especially in their
emergency response roles and responsibilities, and intends to ensure
that they have the information they need to exercise these roles and
responsibilities. In late 2006, the NRC began a dialogue with
representatives of State Regional Transportation Groups aimed at
sharing information from the NRC spent fuel transportation package
security assessments with State and local governments to help them
prepare more effectively for their emergency response and law
enforcement responsibilities. This ongoing dialogue includes a
discussion of what information (related to the spent fuel
transportation package security assessments) is needed, how and by whom
such information would be used, and how shared sensitive information
would be protected. These groups include transportation safety task
forces established through the Western States Energy Board, the
Southern States Energy Board, and the Council of State Governments,
Midwestern and Northeast States Divisions. Collectively, the state
regional groups contain state representatives from all of the states
that have potential transportation routes to Yucca Mountain.
Question 5. In 2001, 11 train cars derailed while passing through
the Howard Street Tunnel in Baltimore, Maryland, setting off a fire
that lasted for days and was 1800 degrees Fahrenheit. Could the
Department of Energy's (DOE) proposed multi-use transportation casks
withstand such an accident?
Answer. The NRC staff has extensively evaluated the Baltimore
Tunnel fire of 2001, along with other severe accidents as part of its
efforts to ensure the safety of radioactive material transportation. In
November 2006, NRC released a study that focused on how three
representative spent fuel cask designs would have performed if they
were involved in the Baltimore Tunnel fire (Spent Fuel Transportation
Package Response to the Baltimore Tunnel Fire Scenario, NUREG/CR6886,
Rev.1., November 2006). The cask designs analyzed included the NAC-LWT
truck cask, and the HOLTEC HI-STAR 100 and TN-68 rail casks. The study
concluded that the fire, if it had involved spent fuel casks, would not
have caused a release of radioactive material from the spent fuel for
any of these three cask designs.
The Baltimore Tunnel fire study did not specifically consider DOE's
proposed multi-use transportation casks, as the designs for these casks
are still being finalized and have not yet been submitted to the NRC
for review. Therefore, it would be premature to make a definitive
judgment as to how DOE's proposed multi-use transportation cask designs
would perform. However, we believe that DOE's proposed multi-use
transportation rail cask designs would be similar in size, weight, and
configuration to the rail casks we analyzed in our 2006 Baltimore
Tunnel fire study.
______
Response to Written Question Submitted by Hon. Daniel K. Inouye to
Edward Pritchard
Question. The DOE is advocating for legislation that would give the
DOE authority to preempt the Department of Transportation's (DOT)
regulation of the transportation of nuclear waste. Is this something
you support? Do you think it is necessary to preempt DOT regulations to
facilitate a massive nuclear waste shipping campaign? How would that
affect the safety of such shipments?
Answer. SNF/HLRW has been successfully shipped by rail for the past
50 years. The exemplary safety record associated with these shipments
over this time-frame leads FRA to firmly believe that SNF/HLRW can be
safely and securely transported by rail from its current locations
throughout the country to Yucca Mountain. FRA strongly believes,
however, that the cornerstone of this exemplary safety record is
application of the comprehensive regulatory framework and effective
oversight by DOT and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and that the
true strength of the transportation safety program lies in the shared
responsibility and cooperation among Federal, State, and local
partners. Although in the Nuclear Fuel Management and Disposal Act
submitted to Congress in 2006 DOE proposed to preempt DOT's regulation
of the transportation of radioactive materials in certain
circumstances, FRA understands that DOE is not currently advocating for
such legislation. Given the success of the current Federal regulatory
system governing the transport of SNF/HLRW and the safety-critical
aspects of such transportation, FRA would not support preemption of the
comprehensive Federal regulatory process currently governing the
transport of SNF/HLRW.
______
Response to Written Questions Submitted by Hon. Harry Reid to
Edward Pritchard
Question 1. In comments to the Surface Transportation Board, CSX
recently expressed concern that the Department of Energy (DOE) is
retreating from its commitment to use dedicated train service for
shipping nuclear waste. The DOE apparently hasn't decided whether it
will share its trains or its Nevada rail line with commercial carriers.
Does the Federal Railroad Administration take a position about whether
nuclear waste should be transported in dedicated train service? What
are the risks of putting nuclear waste on the same trains as commercial
freight?
Answer. In response to Congress's mandate in the Hazardous
Materials Transportation Uniform Safety Act of 1990, the Federal
Railroad Administration (FRA) studied the safety of using dedicated
trains for the transportation of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) and high
level radioactive waste (HLRW) as compared to other methods of rail
transportation (i.e., general consist trains transporting benign
freight and/or other hazardous materials or ``key trains'' operating at
maximum authorized speeds of 50 mph). A dedicated train is a train that
consists only of equipment and lading associated with the
transportation of SNF/HLRW. FRA's research concluded that given the
comprehensive regulatory scheme applicable to the transportation of SNF
and HLRW, the risk to employees and the public from such transportation
is low to begin with, but on a comparative basis, use of dedicated
trains would offer several advantages over general consist trains in
the rail operating environment. For example, because by definition
dedicated trains will be routed more directly to a destination, the
trains will have shorter transit times than general consist trains.
This shorter transit time reduces the probability of an SNF/HLRW cask
being involved in a train accident and the potential hazards that can
be associated with frequent yard stops (e.g., increased dwell time and
increased handling and switching of the cars carrying the casks). The
probability of a dedicated train being involved in an accident is
further reduced by the decreased stopping distance of the shorter
consist, as compared to general consist trains. In addition, use of
dedicated trains would reduce the potential radiation exposure in any
accident, as accident clearing can be expedited since the consist would
be shorter than a general consist train, and since there are no other
hazardous materials in the consist, there would be little chance of a
fire that would prolong the response and accident clearing duration.
Use of dedicated trains would also allow more flexibility to avoid
higher-risk locations and to more easily impose operating restrictions
such as lower operating speeds, as well as making it possible to
further enhance the security of shipments of SNF/HLRW.
The risks of transporting SNF/HLRW in a general consist train are
directly opposite to the advantages cited above. For example, a general
consist train will generally be longer than a dedicated train and will
not be routed to its end destination as directly and expeditiously as a
dedicated train. Accordingly, the stopping distance of a general
consist train will generally be longer than a dedicated train, the
transit times will be increased, and a rail car transporting a cask in
a general consist train will be more likely to be subject to additional
handling and dwell time in railroad yards. If other hazardous materials
are present in the train consist, there is an increased risk that in
the event of an accident or incident that results in the breach of a
hazardous materials packaging in the train (e.g., a tank car containing
a hazardous material), that other hazardous material could interact
with or have an impact on the SNF/HLRW.
Given the clear advantages of utilizing dedicated trains as
compared to general consist trains to transport SNF/HLRW by rail, FRA
is currently conducting research to identify the train dynamics
applicable to the configuration of dedicated train consists, as well as
whether any additional specialized operational or mechanical measures
should be implemented to ensure the safety of such operations. Based on
the results of this research, FRA plans to initiate a rulemaking
proceeding amending the Federal railroad safety regulations as
necessary.
In a March 2005 report to Congress titled ``Use of Dedicated Trains
for Transportation of High-Level Radioactive Waste and Spent Nuclear
Fuel,'' FRA examined in further detail the relative safety of rail
shipment alternatives for the transport of SNF and HLRW. A copy of that
report can be accessed at: http://www.fra.dot.gov/downloads/safety/
report_dedicated_trains.pdf.
Question 2. The DOE is not in the railroad business today. Do you
believe that the DOE is prepared to not only build and operate the
largest new rail line since the 1930s, but to launch a nationwide
campaign to make thousands of shipments of nuclear waste?
Answer. Over the past 16 years, FRA has actively coordinated with
the relevant offices of DOE on the infrastructure and planning issues
that will need to be addressed to ensure the safe rail transportation
of SNF/HLRW to Yucca Mountain. Most recently, DOE's Office of Logistics
Management requested FRA's assistance in planning the proposed Nevada
rail line. FRA has and will continue to work with that office, and
other relevant DOE offices, to provide the necessary railroad-specific
expertise and assistance to ensure that transportation of SNF/HLRW to
Yucca Mountain will occur safely and securely. In addition, because as
currently contemplated, SNF/HLRW will be transported to Yucca Mountain
by commercial rail lines under contract to the Department of Energy
(DOE), these operations will be required to comply with the DOT's
comprehensive set of hazardous materials and rail safety regulations
(49 CFR Parts 107, 171-180 and 49 CFR Parts 209-244). FRA will continue
working with the DOE, all interested stakeholders, and when
appropriate, the carriers responsible for transportation of the SNF/
HLRW to Yucca Mountain to ensure that such transportation is conducted
in the safest and most secure manner possible and in compliance with
all applicable regulations.
Spent nuclear fuel shipments are a very minor portion of hazardous
cargo movements by the rail industry. In 2006, all radioactive contents
shipped by rail were only 0.5 percent of the overall hazardous material
transported (AAR data). Spent nuclear fuel is a minor subset of the
radioactive cargo. In this context, the challenge presented by these
shipments is manageable.
______
Response to Written Questions Submitted by Hon. Harry Reid to
Ted Willke
Question 1. How prepared are states today to deal with thousands of
rail and truck shipments of nuclear waste? What additional steps must
be taken to make emergency responders prepared to deal with a potential
accident involving a radioactive release?
Answer. PHMSA recognizes the challenges the emergency response
community faces in dealing with transport accidents involving spent
nuclear fuel. In fact, one of our core goals is reaching out to
emergency responders and hazardous materials stakeholders to ensure the
preparedness and response communities are fully primed to deal with any
type of hazardous material incident. PHMSA is prepared to provide its
technical expertise to its Federal partners, the nuclear industry and
State and local governments to ensure the transportation system remains
safe.
While successful hazardous materials emergency preparedness
programs exist, Congress has recognized additional effort will be
needed when spent nuclear fuel is transported to a geologic repository.
Accordingly, Section 180(c) of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act directs the
Department of Energy (DOE) to provide technical and financial
assistance to states and Indian tribes for training public safety
officials in procedures for safe, routine transportation and emergency
response situations. As transportation planning progresses, PHMSA will
be prepared to work with DOE to apply its experience with existing
emergency preparedness programs in developing a Yucca Mountain
preparedness program. PHMSA also encourages DOE to conduct exercise
programs to test and validate State, Tribal, and local officials'
transportation emergency response plans.
Question 2. Given that Nevada will undergo shipments of nuclear
waste from 43 other states if the Yucca Mountain project moves forward,
why has Nevada received less Hazardous Materials Emergency Preparedness
grant funding than all except for 9 states?
Answer. Hazardous Materials Emergency Preparedness (HMEP) planning
and training grant funds are apportioned by formula. The grant
allocation formula was developed by an interagency workgroup (which is
now the National Response Team's training subcommittee) to distribute
HMEP grants funds fairly and consistently to states, territories, and
Indian tribes for addressing all hazardous material shipments. Spent
nuclear fuel shipments are as very minor portion of the overall
hazardous material shipment workload. To ensure a sufficient minimum
level of planning funds for all grantees, a base amount is divided
equally among all states and territories, and 3 percent of total
planning funds are designated for Indian tribes. The remaining planning
grant funds are apportioned according to the following risk related
factors:
One-fifth of the remaining funds are allocated to states and
territories on the basis of their percentage of total
population, with this measure serving as surrogate for risk to
the general public.
Two-fifths are allocated on the basis of a State's or
Territory's percentage of total hazardous materials truck
miles, a surrogate for highway hazmat risk.
The final two-fifths are allocated on the basis of a State's
or Territory's percentage of SARA 302 chemical facilities, a
surrogate for fixed facility risk.
The base amounts plus the risk-related apportionments comprise the
total training grant allocations to states and territories. As with
planning funds, all but 3 percent of total training funds (the total
training funds designated for Indian tribes) are apportioned on the
basis of these risk-related factors:
One-half on the basis of population.
Three-tenths on the basis of total highway miles.
Two-tenths on the basis of the number of fixed hazardous
materials facilities that are identified by Census Bureau data.
In 2007, $12,800,000 was available for HMEP planning and training
grants. Of this, Nevada received $123,592 using the allocation formula;
an additional $98,130 was awarded to Indian tribes in Nevada. Taking
this into account, Nevada ranked 21st out of 50 states for HMEP grant
awards.
In 2008, $21,300,000 was available for HMEP planning and training
grants. Of this, Nevada received $210,193, and $109,097 was awarded to
Indian tribes in Nevada. In 2008, Nevada ranked 27th out of 50 states
for HMEP grant awards.
Question 3. In 2007, the Department of Energy (DOE) officially gave
Congress draft legislation that would abolish Department of
Transportation's (DOT) authority over transportation of nuclear waste
under the Hazardous Materials Authorization Act. It would also preempt
state and Indian tribes' transportation requirements. While there is no
chance Congress will pass such sweeping authority to the DOE anytime
soon, do you think DOT regulations and state regulations need to be
preempted to facilitate a massive nuclear waste shipping campaign?
Answer. PHMSA believes that spent nuclear fuel can be safely and
securely transported to a permanent repository under current law and
PHMSA's existing hazardous materials transport safety program. The
current regulatory program--based on uniform, federally-mandated safety
controls and strong Federal-State partnerships for oversight and
enforcement--has achieved an exemplary safety record for spent nuclear
fuel movements over the past 50 years (1,500 shipments).
Question 4. The DOT requires that nuclear waste shipments avoid
intermediate stops to avoid potential accidents and sabotage during
stops. What role does or would the DOT play in the routing of nuclear
waste shipments?
Answer. DOT has established Federal standards and guidelines for
routing of nuclear waste shipments. Rail routes for radioactive
materials shipments are determined by rail carriers, subject to Federal
standards, including PHMSA's recent interim final rule requiring that
carriers select routes posing the least overall safety and security
risks. Under PHMSA's rule, beginning in 2009, rail carriers
transporting highway route-controlled quantities of radioactive
materials must analyze the safety and security risks along rail routes
where such materials are transported, assess alternative routing
options for those materials, and make routing decisions based on those
assessments. Highway routing guidelines have been developed jointly by
PHMSA and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. These
guidelines are issued in DOT's publication ``Guidelines for Selecting
Preferred Highway Routes for Highway Route Controlled Quantity
Shipments of Radioactive Materials.'' Briefly, these guidelines require
carriers to follow ``preferred'' routes; prepare and file route plans;
provide driver training; provide emergency response training and
information; and follow security requirements. They also establish a
methodology for determining how a ``preferred'' route is selected. The
methodology includes the following: route identification and comparison
criteria; criteria to evaluate radiation exposure to personnel and the
environment; guidelines for assessing economic risk; emergency response
evaluation methods; and general highway safety criteria.
Question 5. How would the DOT ensure that trucks hauling nuclear
waste are safe during required stops, such as refueling?
Answer. The same robust design and construction features that make
transportation casks safe across transport accident scenarios also
limit their vulnerability to sabotage, theft, and diversion during
transport. In addition to coordinating all shipments with states,
Indian tribes, and Federal law enforcement agencies, DOE will have in
place the following standards:
Satellite tracking of shipments, with access to tracking
information by appropriate Federal, State, and Tribal
officials;
Notification to relevant Governors and Tribal leaders before
transport begins;
Special safeguard procedures for the shipper to follow in
emergencies;
Escort training on threat recognition, response, and
management;
Advance arrangements with law enforcement agencies along the
route;
Armed escorts to accompany the shipment;
Escorts to maintain visual surveillance of the shipment at
all times;
Status reporting by the escorts every 2 hours;
The capability to immobilize the cab or cargo-carrying
portion of the vehicle (for highway shipments); and
Protection of specific information about any shipment.
Question 6. Out of 72 commercial sites with nuclear waste, one
third of them do not have rail access. That means the DOE will have to
haul waste by truck from these nuclear reactors either all the way to
Nevada or to a railway. Does adding steps to the transportation process
raise security or safety risks? Has the DOT approved this approach?
Answer. Coordination between the Federal Government and nuclear
utilities will play an integral role in the planning and implementation
of the transportation system. Transporting waste to the repository will
begin at the utilities when they prepare transportation casks for DOE-
managed shipment. As current owners of the fuel, the utilities have the
responsibility of training their personnel appropriately to ensure the
safe transfer of the waste to DOE, pursuant to DOT and NRC regulations.
It is our understanding that DOE will update both the nuclear site
capability assessment data and the data on transportation
infrastructure in the vicinity of sites that was collected in the early
1990s three to five years before shipments start. Site capability data
identify the various operating capabilities at and around the utility
sites that are important to determining cask requirements and site
servicing needs. Transport infrastructure data provide information
concerning the local transportation infrastructure that connects the
utility sites with the nearest mainline rail or interstate highway
system. Both data sets will be used to develop site-specific and final
transportation requirements.
DOT's hazardous materials transport regulations prescribe safety
controls providing an equivalent level of safety for all modes of
transport and Federal security requirements apply equally across all
modes of transport considered for spent nuclear fuel. Accordingly,
hauling spent nuclear fuel from the reactor site to the nearest railway
will not adversely impact its safe and secure transport. As DOE has not
completed its transportation planning, PHMSA has not issued any
transport or packaging approval or permit to DOE for the transport of
commercial spent nuclear fuel.
______
Response to Written Question Submitted by Hon. Daniel K. Inouye to
Ken Cook
Question. What outstanding questions do you think need to be
resolved before the shipment of nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain can
begin?
Answer. Chairman Inouye, the crucial issues surrounding the safety
and security of the transportation and storage of lethal, long-lived
nuclear waste in the United States must meet the highest scientific
standards of objective, rigorous analysis and transparency of process.
Unfortunately, the rush to approve and build the proposed Yucca
Mountain nuclear waste repository has not met these standards.
Since 2002, EWG has helped educate the public about the
implications of nuclear waste, with a particular focus on the
implications of transporting deadly radioactive wastes from nuclear
power plants around the United States to Yucca Mountain, should the
proposed nuclear waste repository there become operational. The
American public's fundamental right to understand the full implications
of shipping thousands of tons of extremely hazardous nuclear waste
across this country should be central to the government's process for
licensing Yucca Mountain, for operating any other repository for this
material, and for all decisions to relicense existing reactors or build
new ones. The Federal Government has not respected this right to know.
There are many examples of how government is violating people's
right to know how the transportation of nuclear waste will affect them.
The Department of Energy, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the
Environmental Protection Agency have not implemented the safety and
scientific recommendations of the National Academies of Sciences 1995
report The Technical Basis for the Yucca Mountain Standard, or of its
February 2006 report Going the Distance? The Safe Transport of Spent
Nuclear Fuel and High-Level Radioactive Waste in the United States.
EPA has not proposed or set a public health radiation safety
standard that is protective of people at peak exposure.
Both the Government Accountability Office and the Nuclear
Waste Technical Review Board have questioned basic scientific
and work produced by DOE, including its characterization of the
physical and chemical characteristics of the proposed Yucca
Mountain site and the effectiveness of proposed man-made
barriers to the spread of lethal radiation.
Addressed the security threats posed by the transportation
of spent nuclear fuel.
Planned for full scale physical testing of spent fuel
transportation casks to determine basic safety issues, such as
crash failure thresholds.
In addition, the foremost experts on Yucca Mountain have provided
extensive detail as to why the proposed nuclear waste dump site is
geologically unsuitable. (See Yucca Mountain and the Nation's High-
Level Nuclear Waste, edited by Allison M. Macfarlane and Rodney C.
Ewing, 2006.)
It makes no sense to generate tons more nuclear waste when we have
not figured out what to do with the tens of thousands of tons already
on hand. Our government has ignored that common sense precaution. Yet,
the government is rushing to approve the license application for Yucca
Mountain before rudimentary, life and death questions have been
resolved about transportation, storage, and a truly protective
radiation safety standard. We should not burden our children and their
children with unacceptable risks.
This result of the government's push to license the proposed Yucca
Mountain nuclear waste dump and its subsidization of the nuclear
industry while ignoring the public health, environmental and economic
costs of these activities virtually guarantees that:
Nuclear power plants would be transformed into long-term
nuclear waste dumps. The recent surge in reactor relicensing
ensures that hundreds of metric tons of extremely hazardous,
high-level nuclear waste would remain in place at reactors
around the country, as more waste is produced long after the
proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump would be full.
The proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump would have to
be expanded or a second repository opened to accommodate the
additional waste. By law, Yucca Mountain is limited to 70,000
metric tons of nuclear waste, which is almost equal to the
amount of nuclear waste that will be stored on-site at reactors
around the country in 2010, well before any repository could be
opened.
If rail were the primary means of transporting the waste,
the security and health risks inherent in these shipments are
enormous, and preparedness is minimal.
The public would be unaware of, and unprepared for, the
implications of policy decisions regarding nuclear power and
nuclear waste and its transportation through its neighborhoods.
People of every state have a right to know and fully understand the
implications for them of shipping nuclear waste to the Yucca Mountain
nuclear waste repository before shipping begins or the license for the
facility goes forward. And they have the same right to know what
expansion of nuclear waste generation will mean for transportation
through their state if reactors around the country are relicensed for
10 to 20 additional years of operation, or new reactors are
constructed. They may or may not know that decisions made hundreds of
miles away will have profound implications for the shipment of high-
level, deadly nuclear waste through their neighborhoods for decades to
come.
I thank you, Chairman Inouye, for the opportunity to answer your
questions.
______
Response to Written Question Submitted by Hon. Daniel K. Inouye to
Kevin Crowley
Question. Do you feel that the recommendations for the security and
social challenges of transporting nuclear waste in your 2006 National
Academy of Sciences report have been adequately addressed by the DOE,
Department of Transportation, Department of Homeland Security, and the
NRC?
Answer. To my knowledge, the Federal agencies have not addressed
the recommendation in the National Academies 2006 report that an
independent examination of the security of spent fuel and high-level
waste be carried out prior to the commencement of large-quantity
shipments to a Federal repository or to interim storage. The National
Academies committee that made this recommendation wanted this
independent examination to be carried out well in advance of the start
of the transportation program so that steps could be taken to address
any deficiencies that were identified. Otherwise, the initiation of the
transportation program could be delayed.
DOE is taking important first steps to address the social
challenges identified in our 2006 report. It is seeking advice from a
social science expert and its external advisory group (Transportation
External Coordination Working Group) on how to address the social
challenges. This work is still in progress and it is too soon to judge
whether it will be successful.
______
Response to Written Questions Submitted by Hon. Harry Reid to
Kevin Crowley
Question 1. In your view, has the Department of Energy (DOE)
adequately addressed recommendations from the Academy's 2006 report
that they make public their ``suite of preferred highway and rail
routes for transporting nuclear waste'' to support state, local and
emergency responder preparedness? What would be the consequences of
failing to engage state and local governments in routing nuclear waste
shipments?
Answer. In my view, DOE is making good progress in addressing this
recommendation by working with state, tribal, and local officials to
develop a consultative process for selecting highway and rail routes
for transporting nuclear waste to a geologic repository. This work is
being carried out primarily through DOE's Transportation External
Coordination Working Group. However, to my knowledge, DOE has not yet
announced the specific routes that will be used to ship spent fuel and
high-level waste to the repository should it be licensed and
constructed.
It is important to consult with state, tribal, and local
governments because these entities generally have better knowledge of
local conditions, for example traffic and road conditions, that can
affect the safety and security of shipments. Failure to consult with
these governments could result in suboptimal route selections, loss of
cooperation, and increased public resistance to shipping programs.
Question 2. The Academy has recommended that the DOE should ship
older spent fuel before they ship newer, more radioactive fuel. Please
describe the public safety and security benefits of this approach? Has
the DOE ever indicated that they plan to follow this recommendation?
Answer. There are two primary benefits for shipping older fuel
first. First, it would provide an additional margin of safety,
especially for reducing radiation doses to transportation personnel who
work in close proximity to the shipping casks (the casks do not shield
all of the radiation emitted by the spent fuel contained within them).
In the Environmental Impact Statement for Yucca Mountain, DOE estimated
that some transportation workers would receive the maximum annual
amount of radiation allowed by DOE occupational administrative limits
during each of the 24 years of the transportation program. That limit
is currently 20 millisieverts (2 rem) per year.
Second, shipping older fuel first would reduce the amount of
radioactive material that could be released into the environment as a
result of a severe accident or terrorist attack that breached the
shipping cask. The risk of such releases is understood to be very small
for severe accidents because of the robust construction of shipping
casks. The National Academies has not undertaken a detailed assessment
of transportation security and therefore cannot comment on the risks.
DOE has not indicated to the National Academies whether it intends
to follow the recommendation to ship older fuel first. It is important
to note, however, that under the requirements of the Nuclear Waste
Policy Act DOE does not appear to have the legal authority to require
spent fuel owners to offer their older fuel first for shipment.
Consequently, if DOE decided to follow this recommendation it would
probably have to negotiate with spent fuel owners.
Question 3. Would transportation risks be reduced if the United
States were to store spent nuclear fuel onsite at nuclear reactors for
several decades before shipping it? What is the best age for nuclear
fuel for transporting it with the least risk?
Answer. Storing spent fuel onsite for several decades would reduce
its radioactivity. Shipping lower-radioactivity fuel would likely
reduce transportation risks, especially risks to transportation workers
for the reasons noted in my response to the previous question. The
risks would continue to decrease the longer the fuel was stored onsite.
However, it is important to note that the risks of transporting spent
fuel, or storing it onsite for that matter, will always be greater than
zero.
It is interesting to note that if DOE ships older fuel first to the
repository using its currently planned shipping schedule of 3,000
metric tons per year, most spent fuel will have been stored at plant
sites for several decades before it is shipped to the repository.
Question 4. In the Academy's 2006 report, the Academy suggested
that the DOE, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and other
agencies develop clear criteria for protecting sensitive information
while making public less-sensitive information. Has information useful
for community and emergency responder planning been made easily
accessible?
Answer. The information that would be helpful to community and
emergency responder planners include the following: the types and
quantities of material being shipped, shipping route(s), and shipping
schedules. Some general information on the types and quantities of
materials to be shipped to a repository (if it is licensed and
constructed) is publicly available in DOE's Environmental Impact
Statement for Yucca Mountain. However, to my knowledge, DOE has not yet
developed specific shipping plans that contain the level of detailed
information that would be required for community and emergency
responder planning. Some of this information is not normally released
to the public until after shipments have been made for security
reasons, so sharing this information with local communities could be
problematic. Both DOE and Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff have
expressed an interest in improving the sharing of relevant information
with state, tribal and local governments, but I do not know what
specific progress has been made in this regard.
Question 5. What measures could the DOE and NRC take to improve the
security and safety of nuclear waste transport? Has the DOE responded
to the Academy's recommendation that an independent examination of the
security of nuclear waste transportation be carried out?
Answer. The National Academies report entitled ``Going the
Distance? The Safe Transport of Spent Nuclear Fuel and High-Level
Radioactive Waste in the United States'' made several recommendations
for improving the safety and security of spent fuel transport. These
were mentioned in my written testimony and include the following four
recommendations:
1. An independent examination of the security of spent fuel and
high-level waste should be carried out prior to the
commencement of large-quantity shipments to a Federal
repository or to interim storage. This examination should
provide an integrated evaluation of the threat environment, the
response of shipping packages to credible malevolent acts, and
operational security requirements for protecting spent fuel and
high-level waste while in transport. This examination should be
carried out by a technically knowledgeable group that is
independent of the government and free from institutional and
financial conflicts of interest. This group should be given
full access to the necessary classified documents and
Safeguards Information to carry out this task. The findings and
recommendations from this examination should be made available
to the public to the fullest extent possible.
To my knowledge, DOE has not addressed this recommendation.
2. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission should undertake
additional analyses of accident scenarios involving very long
duration fire scenarios that bound expected real-world accident
conditions and implement operational controls and restrictions
on spent fuel and high-level waste shipments as necessary to
reduce the chances that such conditions might be encountered in
service.
Steps to address this recommendation have been taken by the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission as noted in the testimony of Mr. Michael Weber.
3. DOE should ship spent fuel and high-level waste to the
Federal repository by ``mostly rail'' using dedicated trains.
DOE's current plans for shipping to the repository are consistent
with this recommendation.
4. DOE should negotiate with commercial spent fuel owners to
ship older fuel first to a Federal repository or to Federal
interim storage. Should these negotiations prove to be
ineffective, Congress should consider legislative remedies.
Within the context of its current contracts with commercial
spent fuel owners, DOE should initiate transport to the Federal
repository through a pilot program involving relatively short,
logistically simple movements of older fuel from closed
reactors to demonstrate its ability to carry out its
responsibilities in a safe and operationally effective manner.
As described in my answer to a previous question, DOE has not
indicated to the National Academies whether it intends to follow the
recommendation to ship older fuel first. DOE also has not indicated
whether it will initiate transport with the pilot program described
above.
______
Response to Written Question Submitted by Hon. Daniel K. Inouye to
Dr. James David Ballard
Question. Your testimony contends that too many questions remain
regarding the security of nuclear waste shipments. What areas need to
be researched further in order to more fully understand the national
security risks of transporting nuclear waste?
Answer. Thank you, Senator Inouye, I am happy to provide additional
details on specific research projects that should be conducted prior to
the commencement of any shipments to the proposed Yucca facility.
Besides the ten items noted in my written and oral testimony that
were identified by stakeholders as needing to be addressed by the DOE
and NRC prior to Yucca shipments, the Committee should also consider
the following:
First and foremost, what I believe is needed is a systematic
analysis of realistic worse case attack scenarios and their
consequences. These could emerge from the AVA process I
discussed in testimony. That process expertise already resides
in a national laboratory environment--specifically Dr. Roger
Johnson at Argonne National Laboratory. This analysis would
offer usable scenarios, examples of which I tried to illustrate
in my written testimony, which could be used as the basis of
consequence analysis. It is critical that examples are not
sanitized by the regulatory agencies that fail to look at such
alternatives in their published analysis.
Next I would suggest a National Academies of Science level
assessment of 21st century terrorist motivations, tactics and
weapons and their consequences/implications for radioactive
shipment security and planning. Agencies seem to be approaching
this problem from a Cold War mindset--perhaps we should
consider not just that what will be shipped are `waste'
products but rather potential radiological dispersion devices
that can be attacked and the contents dispersed into the
environment. These materials need not be captured but rather we
should consider how and if it can be used along the
transportation routes as a means to attack this country,
contaminate transportation infrastructure and other dire
consequences.
Once we have listed the worst cases and defined motivations
for adversaries then we could make more useful comparisons
between the proposed shelter-in-place strategy of leaving the
waste at reactor sites in secure dry storage facilities and
shipping the waste across country to a repository. This would
also demand a full accounting of the transportation planning--
as it is now the DOE has not defined the transportation system
in enough detail to even allow for such an analysis. To meet
that need you should consider requiring the DOE to engage in a
national level transportation related NEPA process.
Lastly, one immediate item that could be undertaken is a
organizational level study of law enforcement and emergency
responder awareness, capabilities and needs relative to the
unprecedented high-level radioactive waste shipping campaign
required for the Yucca Mountain program. No national level
study exists on what these state and local agencies will need,
what they have currently in terms of equipment and expertise,
and what funding will be necessary in the future if Yucca
shipments commence. It seems reasonable to establish a baseline
now so that transportation planning and financial and technical
assistance can assist in offsetting any funding impacts this
proposed project would entail.
Thank you again for asking for the opportunity to testify before
the Committee. If I can be of any additional service please do not
hesitate to ask.
______
Response to Written Question Submitted by Hon. Daniel K. Inouye to
Edward R. Hamberger
Question. In your testimony, you expressed concern that the DOE has
not yet committed to using dedicated train service for shipping nuclear
waste on all routes across the Nation. Do you have any additional
comments on why the DOE appears to be hesitating in requiring the use
of these trains across your system?
Answer. AAR thinks that DOE should explain why it is hesitating.
______
Response to Written Questions Submitted by Hon. Harry Reid to
Edward R. Hamberger
Question 1. Will the AAR oppose the Department of Energy's (DOE)
all-rail transportation plan for nuclear waste if they refuse to commit
to dedicated train service?
Answer. AAR recognizes that because of the safety advantages
afforded by rail transportation, rail is likely to be the preferred
mode for transporting spent nuclear fuel. Even though DOE has not
committed to dedicated train service, AAR is optimistic that,
ultimately, DOE will decide to use dedicated train service because of
its safety advantages, as discussed in my testimony.
Question 2. The DOE is not in the railroad business today. Do you
believe that the DOE is prepared to not only build and operate the
largest new rail line since the 1930s, but to launch a nationwide
campaign to make thousands of shipments of nuclear waste?
Answer. There is no question it takes a high degree of expertise to
build and operate a railroad. DOE, of course, can contract with
railroad industry experts to build and operate the rail line.