[Federal Register Volume 89, Number 198 (Friday, October 11, 2024)]
[Notices]
[Pages 82645-82647]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2024-23630]
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NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
[Docket Nos. 72-36, 50-321, and 50-366; NRC-2024-0147]
Southern Nuclear Operating Company; Edwin I. Hatch Nuclear Plant
Units 1 and 2; Independent Spent Fuel Storage Installation;
Environmental Assessment and Finding of No Significant Impact
AGENCY: Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
ACTION: Notice; issuance.
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SUMMARY: The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is issuing an
environmental assessment (EA) and a finding of no significant impact
(FONSI) for an exemption request submitted by Southern Nuclear
Operating Company (SNC) that would permit Edwin I. Hatch Nuclear Plant
(Hatch) Units 1 and 2, to maintain and load 68M multi-purpose canisters
(MPC) with continuous basket shims (CBS) in the HI-STORM 100 Cask
System at its Hatch Units 1 and 2 independent spent fuel storage
installation (ISFSI) in a storage condition where the terms,
conditions, and specifications in the Certificate of Compliance (CoC)
No. 1014, Amendment No. 11 are not met.
DATES: The EA and FONSI referenced in this document are available on
October 11, 2024.
ADDRESSES: Please refer to Docket ID NRC-2024-0147 when contacting the
NRC about the availability of information regarding this document. You
may obtain publicly available information related to this document
using any of the following methods:
Federal Rulemaking Website: Go to https://www.regulations.gov and search for Docket ID NRC-2024-0147. Address
questions about Docket IDs in Regulations.gov to Stacy Schumann;
telephone: 301-415-0624; email: [email protected]. For technical
questions, contact the individual listed in the FOR FURTHER INFORMATION
CONTACT section of this document.
NRC's Agencywide Documents Access and Management System
(ADAMS): You may obtain publicly available documents online in the
ADAMS Public Documents collection at https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html. To begin the search, select ``Begin Web-based ADAMS
Search.'' For problems with ADAMS, please contact the NRC's Public
Document Room (PDR) reference staff at 1-800-397-4209, at 301-415-4737,
or by email to [email protected]. For the convenience of the reader,
instructions about obtaining materials referenced in this document are
provided in the ``Availability of Documents'' section.
NRC's PDR: The PDR, where you may examine and order copies
of publicly available documents, is open by appointment. To make an
appointment to visit the PDR, please send an email to
[email protected] or call 1-800-397-4209 or 301-415-4737, between 8
a.m. and 4 p.m. eastern time (ET), Monday through Friday, except
Federal holidays.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Heath Stroud, Office of Nuclear
Material Safety and Safeguards, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission,
Washington, DC 20555-0001; telephone: 301-287-3664; email:
[email protected].
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
I. Introduction
The NRC is reviewing an exemption request from SNC, dated June 25,
2024, and supplemented on July 26, 2024. SNC is requesting an
exemption, pursuant to section 72.7 of title 10 of the Code of Federal
Regulations (10 CFR), ``Specific exemptions,'' in paragraphs
72.212(a)(2), 72.212(b)(3), 72.212(b)(5)(i), 72.212(b)(11), and 72.214
that require SNC to comply with the terms, conditions, and
specifications of the CoC No. 1014, Amendment No. 11. If approved, the
exemption would allow SNC to maintain three loaded and to load five new
MPC-68M-CBS in the HI-STORM 100 Cask System at the Hatch ISFSI in a
storage condition where the terms, conditions, and specifications in
the CoC No. 1014, Amendment No. 11, are not met.
II. Environmental Assessment
Background
Hatch is 32 kilometers (20 miles) east of Vidalia, Georgia. The
plant is located on the southwest side of the Altamaha River. Unit 1
began operating in 1975 and Unit 2 began operating in 1979. SNC has
been storing spent fuel in the Hatch ISFSI under a general license as
authorized by 10 CFR part 72, subpart K, ``General License for Storage
of Spent Fuel at Power Reactor Sites.'' SNC currently uses the HI-STORM
100 Cask System under CoC No. 1014, Amendment No. 11 for dry storage of
spent nuclear fuel in a specific MPC (i.e., MPC-68M) at the Hatch
ISFSI.
Description of the Proposed Action
The CoC is the NRC-approved design for each dry cask storage
system. The proposed action would exempt the applicant from the
requirements of 10 CFR 72.212(a)(2), 72.212(b)(3), 72.212(b)(5)(i),
72.212(b)(11), and 72.214 only as these requirements pertain to the use
of the MPC-68M-CBS in the HI-STORM 100 Cask System. The exemption would
allow SNC to maintain three loaded and to load five new MPC-68M-CBS in
the HI-STORM 100 Cask System at the Hatch ISFSI, despite the MPC-68M-
CBS in the HI-STORM 100 Cask System not being in compliance with the
terms, conditions, and specifications in the CoC No. 1014, Amendment
No. 11.
The HI-STORM 100 Cask System CoC provides the requirements,
conditions, and operating limits necessary for use of the system to
store spent fuel. Holtec International (Holtec), the designer and
manufacturer of the HI-STORM 100 Cask System, developed a variant of
the design with CBS for the MPC-68M, known as MPC-68M-CBS. Holtec
originally implemented the CBS variant design under the provisions of
10 CFR 72.48, which allows licensees to make changes to cask designs
without a CoC amendment under certain conditions (listed in 10 CFR
72.48(c)). After evaluating the specific changes to the cask designs,
the NRC determined that Holtec erred when it implemented the CBS
variant design under 10 CFR 72.48, as this was not the type of change
allowed without a CoC amendment. For this reason, the NRC issued three
Severity Level IV violations to Holtec. However, SNC had previously
loaded three MPC-68M-CBS in the HI-STORM 100 Cask System and plans to
load five MPC-68M-CBS in the HI-STORM 100 Cask System beginning in
April 2025. This exemption considers the storage of the three already
loaded systems and the planned loading of the five canisters with the
CBS variant basket design.
Need for the Proposed Action
SNC requested this exemption because SNC is currently out of
compliance with NRC requirements, resulting from the previous loading
of spent fuel into a storage system with the CBS variant basket design.
This exemption would allow three already loaded MPC-68M-CBS in the HI-
STORM 100 Cask System to remain in storage at the Hatch ISFSI. The
exemption would also allow SNC to load five new MPC-68M-CBS in HI-STORM
100 Cask System at the Hatch ISFSI for the future loading campaign
scheduled to begin in April 2025.
Approval of the exemption request would allow SNC to effectively
manage the spent fuel pool margin and capacity to enable refueling and
offloading fuel from the reactor. It would also allow SNC to
effectively manage the availability of the specialized resources and
equipment needed to support
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competing fuel loading and operational activities at Hatch.
Environmental Impacts of the Proposed Action
This EA evaluates the potential environmental impacts of granting
an exemption from the terms, conditions, and specifications in CoC No.
1014, Amendment No. 11. The exemption would allow three already loaded
MPC-68M-CBS in the HI-STORM 100 Cask System to remain loaded at the
Hatch ISFSI. The exemption would also allow five new MPC-68M-CBS to be
loaded in the HI-STORM 100 Cask System in loading campaigns and
maintained in storage at the Hatch ISFSI.
The potential environmental impacts of storing spent nuclear fuel
in NRC-approved storage systems have been documented in previous
assessments. On July 18, 1990 (55 FR 29181), the NRC amended 10 CFR
part 72 to provide for the storage of spent fuel under a general
license in cask designs approved by the NRC. The EA for the 1990 final
rule analyzed the potential environmental impacts of using NRC-approved
storage casks. The EA for the HI-STORM 100 Cask System, CoC No. 1014,
Amendment No. 11, published in 2018 tiers off of the EA issued for the
July 18, 1990, final rule (83 FR 63794). ``Tiering'' off earlier EAs is
a standard process encouraged by the regulations implementing the
National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA) that entails the use
of impact analyses of previous EAs to bound the impacts of a proposed
action where appropriate. The Holtec HI-STORM 100 Cask System is
designed to mitigate the effects of design basis accidents that could
occur during storage. Considering the specific design requirements for
the accident conditions, the design of the cask would prevent loss of
containment, shielding, and criticality control. If there is no loss of
containment, shielding, or criticality control, the environmental
impacts would not be significant.
The exemptions requested by SNC at the Hatch site as they relate to
CoC No. 1014, Amendment No. 11, for the HI-STORM 100 Cask System are
limited to the use of the CBS variant basket design only for the three
previously loaded canisters and planned loading of five canisters
utilizing the CBS variant basket design. The staff has determined that
this change in the basket will not result in either radiological or
non-radiological environmental impacts that significantly differ from
the environmental impacts evaluated in the environmental assessment
supporting the issuance of CoC No. 1014, Amendment No. 11. If the
exemption is granted, there will be no significant change in the types
or amounts of any effluents released, no significant increase in
individual or cumulative public or occupational radiation exposure, and
no significant increase in the potential for or consequences from
radiological accidents. Accordingly, the Commission concludes that
there would be no significant environmental impacts associated with the
proposed action.
Alternative to the Proposed Action
The staff considered the no-action alternative. The no-action
alternative (denial of the exemption request) would require SNC to
unload spent fuel from the MPC-68M-CBS in the HI-STORM 100 Cask System
to bring it in compliance with the CoC terms, conditions, and
specifications in the CoC No. 1014, Amendment No. 11. Unloading the
cask would subject station personnel to additional radiation exposure,
generate additional contaminated waste, increase the risk of a possible
fuel handling accident, and increase the risk of a possible heavy load
handling accident. Furthermore, the removed spent fuel would need to be
placed in the spent fuel pool, where it would remain until it could be
loaded into an approved storage cask. SNC has rescheduled its 2024
loading campaign to April 2025, and further delay in the loading of
this spent fuel into other casks could affect SNC's ability to
effectively manage the spent fuel pool capacity and reactor fuel
offloading. Not allowing the planned future loading campaign could
affect SNC's ability to manage pool capacity, reactor fuel offloading,
and refueling. It could also pose challenges to spent fuel heat removal
and impact the availability of the specialized resources and equipment
needed to support competing fuel loading and operational activities at
Hatch, including spent fuel pool clean-up and refueling outages. SNC
has ordered an additional five MPC-68M canisters for the planned
loading starting in April 2025, that comply with CoC No. 1014,
Amendment No. 11. However, due to factors outside of SNC's control,
delivery of the compliant canisters is not guaranteed for the April
2025 loading.
The NRC has determined that the no-action alternative would result
in undue potential human health and safety impacts that could be
avoided by proceeding with the proposed exemption, especially given
that the staff has concluded in NRC's Safety Determination Memorandum,
issued with respect to the enforcement action against Holtec regarding
these violations, that fuel can be stored safely in the MPC-68M-CBS
canisters.
Agencies Consulted
The NRC provided the Georgia Division of Natural Resources (DNR)
and Georgia Emergency Management and Homeland Security Administration
(GEMA) a copy of this draft EA for review by an email dated August 28,
2024. On September 25, 2024, Georgia DNR and GEMA provided its
concurrence by email.
III. Finding of No Significant Impact
The environmental impacts of the proposed action have been reviewed
in accordance with the requirements in 10 CFR part 51, which implement
NEPA. Based upon the foregoing environmental assessment, the NRC finds
that the proposed action of granting the exemption from the regulations
in 10 CFR 72.212(a)(2), 72.212(b)(3), 72.212(b)(5)(i), 72.212(b)(11),
and 72.214, which require the licensee to comply with the terms,
conditions, and specifications of the CoC, in this case limited to the
past and specific future loading of baskets with the CBS variant
design, would not significantly impact the quality of the human
environment. Accordingly, the NRC has determined that a FONSI is
appropriate, and an environmental impact statement is not warranted.
IV. Availability of Documents
The documents identified in the following table are available to
interested persons through ADAMS, as indicated.
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Document description ADAMS Accession No. or Federal Register notice
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SNC's request for exemption, dated June 25, 2024........... ML24177A217.
SNC's request for exemption, amended, dated July 26, 2024.. ML24208A172.
Renewed Certificate of Compliance No. 1014, Amendment 11, ML23328A045 (Package).
dated June 29, 2023.
Holtec International, Inc.--Notice of Violation; The U.S. ML24016A190.
Nuclear Regulatory Commission Inspection Report No.
07201014/2022-201, EA-23-044, dated January 30, 2024.
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10 CFR part 72 amendment to allow spent fuel storage in NRC- 55 FR 29181.
approved casks, dated July 18, 1990.
EA for part 72 amendment to allow spent fuel storage in NRC- ML051230231.
approved casks, dated March 8, 1989.
Direct final rule for List of Approved Spent Fuel Storage 83 FR 63794.
Casks: Holtec International HI-STORM 100 Cask System CoC
No. 1014, Certificate and Amendment Nos. 11 and 12, dated
December 12, 2018.
Safety Determination of a Potential Structural Failure of ML24018A085.
the Fuel Basket During Accident Conditions for the HI-
STORM 100 and HI-STORM Flood/Wind Dry Cask Storage
Systems, dated January 31, 2024.
NRC email to Georgia DNR and GEMA, ``State's review of EA/ ML24274A068.
FONSI for Hatch Exemption,'' dated August 28, 2024.
Georgia DNR and GEMA email response, ``State's response ML24274A067.
regarding EA/FONSI for Hatch Exemption,'' dated September
25, 2024.
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Dated: October 8, 2024.
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Christian Jacobs,
Acting Chief, Storage and Transportation Licensing Branch, Division of
Fuel Management, Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards.
[FR Doc. 2024-23630 Filed 10-10-24; 8:45 am]
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