Tribal Perspectives on Radioactive Waste Transportation
Regional representatives from Tribal Caucus meeting
Tribes met the afternoon of Monday, April 23 to discuss points of interest/concern related to radioactive waste transportation that they would like the Department of Energy (DOE) to address in the meeting or in follow-up contact.  The group broke into regions to organize comments:

Northwest

• Nuclear Waste Policy Act Section 180(c) funding for emergency preparedness - will tribes who already have some emergency response capability also be funded?  How long will funding last?
• Potential benefits to tribes:
  • Charges per shipment, similar to certain state laws
  • Training, certification, and emergency response
• Concerned about gaps in information - notification, consultation and feedback, the Department of Interior's recognition of new tribes.
• DOE is determined to transport radioactive waste, so tribes should participate if they seek input.

Midwest

• Would like to know more about routing choices and alternatives.
• What type of waste (high-level/low-level) will be shipped and how?
• Seek notification in advance of shipments.
• Tribes need to be committed to working with DOE to fill gaps in information, build institutional knowledge, and move forward with the project.
• Communication/relationship must be on a government-to-government basis.
• There are unique tribal issues: not just concerned about reservation lands, but territorial and burial lands as well, significance of environment and cultural values.
• Benefits to tribes include:
  • Expression of thoughts/input
  • Gain education on the issue
  • Network
• Tribes should speak at high-level meetings in Washington, D.C., hold cultural diversity sessions at DOE's Transportation External Coordination Working Group meetings.

Southwest

• How will a tribe bolster its response capabilities, particularly if they have no emergency management office?
• Who will pay for the cleanup of an accident?  To what level will it be cleaned up?
• Should include small tribes along routes in discussions/funding.
• All of the following must be at the table with tribes on this issue: rail, fire, Indian Health Service, Environmental Protection Agency, city and local government.
• Tribes must do their part as well; stay informed and provide input.
• Transportation agreements need to happen on a government to government basis.
• Each tribe is unique and DOE will need to communicate with each differently.
• Tribes need a technical understanding: high-level waste, solid waste, commercial waste.
• Suggests DOE identify main and alternative routes first, then talk to those tribes that will be affected. (Where did the ½ mile decision come from?)
• Tribal interests are related to cultural values, not money.

West

• Yucca Mountain is located in the middle of Western Shoshone land.
• Reservation boundaries are meaningless; Indian Claims Commission determined them.
• What will be the impacts of GNEP on interactions with tribes?
• Will funding go directly to tribes or to bands?
• DOE-Indian relationship must be government-to-government; deal with each tribe individually.
• How does ownership of the waste relate to responsibility for response to incidents involving that waste?
• Science and economics can't overshadow the spiritual side of tribal concern.
• Tribes must live with the effects of federal actions.  What are the long-term effects of exposure to transported radioactive waste?  Need to educate tribal membership.  Concerned about safe havens and resting points along rail routes on reservations.
• Will the payment of 180(c) funds mean a waiver of DOE liability?
• Will the waste at Yucca Mountain be retrievable and potentially shipped again?
• With administration and political changes a constant in DC, need to continually reeducate the federal government on tribal issues.

Opening Remarks, Yucca Mountain Repository Overview
Eric Knox, Associate Director; DOE - System Operations and External Relations
The Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management's (OCRWM) mission is to manage and dispose of high-level radioactive waste (HLW) and spent nuclear fuel (SNF); naval reactor fuel from submarines is also included.  SNF is presently stored at reactor sites around the country.  The waste that is transported to Yucca Mountain will be in a solid form before it is shipped.

Generation of HLW began in earnest in the early 1950s.  From the 1950s to 1982, the National Academy of Sciences was assigned to study management possibilities for the waste.  In 1982, it was decided that one office should handle this work, and Yucca Mountain (90 miles northwest of Las Vegas) was eventually chosen as the sole location for site characterization to permanently dispose of HLW.

Yucca Mountain has a statutory limit of 70,000 metric tons of waste, which DOE believes should be raised to hold its physical capacity safely, perhaps 120,000 metric tons.

Within the next year, DOE will submit a license application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to construct the Yucca Mountain repository.  After that, the facility will be constructed and eventually authorized to receive waste (the best achievable date being 2017 - highly dependent on funding and abatement of legal hurdles).

The Yucca Mountain program affects national security (safely dispose of waste in a single place, nonproliferation, etc.), energy development (allows nuclear reactors to continue operations), and environmental quality (some former nuclear weapons complex sites will never be completely clean until a repository for HLW is established to ship the waste off of their lands). 

Four strategic objectives of OCRWM include:

• Submitting a License Application for Yucca Mountain by June, 2008;
• Develop and implement a national transportation plan to ship waste to the repository;
• Staff OCRWM to provide skills and culture necessary to operate the repository effectively; and
• Address the growing financial liability from DOE’s inability to accept SNF from utilities.  (56 lawsuits are currently pending.  Approximately 20% have been settled.  Current liability estimated are at $7 billion, and growing by $500 million per year.  Judgments are paid out of the US Treasury's general fund, not the Nuclear Waste Fund - explained below.)

The Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 (NWPA) established the Nuclear Waste Fund (NWF), which is composed of fees from utility ratepayers.  As of December, 2006, the fund contained $19.5 billion.  Since 1982, the amount accumulated was $26 billion ($14.8 collected and $11.2 interest).  It is estimated that $18.4 billion will be necessary to open and operate Yucca Mountain between 2009 and 2023. 

Yucca Mountain legislation submitted to Congress from the Administration would:

• Authorize land withdrawal around Yucca Mountain;
• Remove the statutory limit on the capacity of waste allowed disposal at Yucca Mountain;
• Reform DOE's access to money in the Nuclear Waste Fund (NWF);
• Address water rights to classify Yucca Mountain as in the "public interest;" and
• Address the transportation structure.

The Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP)

Part of GNEP would include the reprocessing/recycling of nuclear waste, reducing the volume of waste requiring disposal at Yucca Mountain, but it would not eliminate the need for Yucca Mountain.  Naval waste and waste that has already been encased in glass would not be eligible for recycling, and the byproducts of recycling would still need to be disposed of.  Most of the SNF currently at reactors would not be recycled.  Recycling could only handle about 2,000 metric tons per year, which is about how much new waste is created each year.

Questions:
Q: Several sites are being considered to host future recycling facilities.  Will waste from reactors sites currently housing SNF be shipped to those facilities?
A: GNEP will not reprocess all waste that exists today.  The program is aimed at recycling future fuel.  The waste that currently exists would be disposed of.

Q: Will the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) regulate recycling?
A: Oversight is not yet determined.  Can’t imagine that it would not involve the NRC.  GNEP will have its own transportation program from reactors to its facilities, and OCRWM would handle transportation from those facilities to Yucca Mountain.

Q: Will the US be receiving spent fuel from other countries to dispose of?
A: We may recycle other countries’ waste and send recycled fuel back to them, but it has never been proposed that we will assume their waste.

Q: When DOE wrote their budget, were there any line items set aside for tribes?  We have not seen much participation from the tribes in the budget process.
A: OCRWM is just one office within the Energy Department, so they can’t speak to DOE’s overall budget process.  The primary funding source for tribes will come through the NWPA's Section180(c) for emergency preparedness, and that process has not yet been established.  For tribes, this distribution will likely be determined through a needs assessment.

C: Tribes need the funding more than five years before shipments start.  Many tribes do not currently have emergency response capabilities, and need to be funded now.

Q: What is the biggest obstacle in getting Yucca Mountain ready to operate?
A: Funding!

Q: What is Plan B if Yucca Mountain falls through?
A: There is no plan B because Congress has designated Yucca Mountain as the lone site.  DOE has to do the job and do it well.

Q: Come 2008, tribes will probably pursue their own lawsuits on top of the 56 currently pending.
A: The 56 lawsuits mentioned include only those currently pending with reactor contractors over the specific issue of DOE’s inability to receive SNF.  There are likely many others already in existence.

Q: In legislation, will you seek to increase the statutory limit on waste that may be disposed of at Yuccca Mountain?  If so, by how much?
A: We are seeking to lift the limit, but not make it unlimited.  We want to have scientists, engineers, etc., establish the figure rather than Congress.

Q: What do the funding figures presented include?
A: $18 billion includes everything needed to have the facility fully operational through 2023.

C: If tribes are affected, they need direct funding.  They don’t need to be competing with each other for funding.

OCRWM Transportation Overview
Gary Lanthrum, Director; OCRWM-Office of Logistics Management
We are ten years away from our first shipment of spent fuel.  There are some questions/issues that have not been resolved.  The question is not whether we are going to move forward with the Yucca Mountain repository, but how to do so?  The Nuclear Waste Policy Act (NWPA) requires a repository at Yucca Mountain to dispose of high-level waste (HLW) and spent nuclear fuel (SNF).

Truck and rail shipment options for the transportation of HLW/SNF to Yucca Mountain have been analyzed. 

Expect the following breakdown of transportation methods:
Truck: 1,100 shipments, 45/year
Rail: 3,500 shipments (10,000 casks), 130 trains (400 casks) per year
23 utilities do not currently have railroad access

Casks to be carried by train are much larger than those to be carried by truck (fuel assemblies will go into a Transportation, Aging, and Disposal (TAD) canisters before being placed into an overpack).  TADs are intended to limit the handling of waste by allowing all transportation and disposal processes to be completed in one canister.  The NRC must approve the canister design based on durability testing: consecutive drop tests, fully engulfing fires, and  submersion tests.  The NRC has also undertaken package performance studies to examine more “real world” scenarios.

DOE decided in 2005 to use dedicated trains to transport waste based primarily on operational benefits (prevents sorting delays at classification stations).  Dedicated trains will also be relatively short in comparison to trains people typically see (two engines, buffer car, three to five casks, buffer car, transport car).  Active monitoring will track train behavior, and the design of new train "trucks" will help decrease the potential for derailment.

Input on transportation decisions come from a wide range of stakeholders whose opinions must be considered.  Tribes are an important stakeholders, but not the only one.  State, industry, railroads, etc. are also key players.

2007 Priorities Include:

• Develop a national transportation plan;
• Complete the Rail Alignment Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) (will include Mina and Caliente routes) and Supplemental Yucca Mountain EIS, likely by October;
• Publish the draft policy on the NWPA Section 180(c) funding;
• Continue to analyze how the TAD concept will work;
• Continue with Benchmarking and lessons learned analyses; and
• Continue work on routing criteria (still gathering input to determine criteria for selecting routes).

There is a huge body of experience (particularly from Europe) on transporting nuclear waste from which to gain lessons learned and experience. 

Questions:
Q: Will there ever be point where tribes and states will be involved in issues like routing?
A:  DOE hosts a Transportation External Coordination Working Group that engages stakeholders - including states and tribes - in just such work.

C: Tribes would like to be dealt with on a government-to-government level.
A: The Department is hosting this workshop to understand how to do this better.  Will need to consider a wide range of interests.

Q: Within the program, what group will be coordinating consultation with tribes?
A: It will vary from transportation to repository issues.

Radiation/DOE Shipments Overview, Transportation Emergency Preparedness Program (TEPP)
Ella McNeil; Office of Environmental Management
Tom Clawson; Technical Resources Group, Inc.

The Transportation Emergency Preparedness Program (TEPP) seeks to help communities prepare for response to potential transportation incidents involving radioactive waste with planning, technical assistance, and training programs.  Planning documents identify weaknesses and gaps (Needs Assessment Document - now available online, automated).  TEPP has established procedures to augment preparedness plans. 

Following planning, training takes place for those who have had basic levels of hazardous materials experience.  Training is accomplished through the Modular Emergency Response Radiological Transportation Training (MERRTT) program.  Each MERRTT class is a two-day course, including: 

A brief explanation of radiation (types of radiation, common isotopes, half-life, etc.). 
Explanation of radioactive contamination
Description of waste packages: ways to use, packaging requirements, guidelines for how to handle packages with various contents, warning labels, etc.

Following training, participants receive a manual guide.  “Drills in a Box” contain the materials needed to carry out full-scale training exercises.

Radioactive materials are transported in ways geared to ensure the safety of the environment and the public.  Packaging is the first way to accomplish this; each type of package requires varying levels of testing before it is approved.  Type A packages are used to transport many radiopharmaceuticals.  Type B packages are the strongest ones used (spent fuel casks would be classified as Type B).  If an emergency responder can identify the package, they can likely determine the risk posed by the material that it contains.  Shipping papers are required to be in the driver’s possession.

Federal Agencies Panel on Tribal Interactions and Consultation Processes
Paul Hofmann – Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA)
The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) works with trust land issues.  BIA does not have one tribal liaison person or office (every employee is supposed to serve in this role to some extent). 

Successful relationships have occurred when:

• An existing/ongoing relationship with BIA exists;
• There is mutual respect for participants in consultation;
• Entire communities are actively involved;
• Agencies are able to challenge their own perceptions;
• Agencies handle confidential information with a resistance to documentation in order to develop trust between the two parties; and
• People feel that they have been heard.

Q: Has DOI determined who qualifies as an “affected” tribe?
A: DOI has been told about the category, but Mr. Hoffman is uncertain.

Bryan Bower – Department of Energy (DOE)
DOE consultation with Seneca Nation, as a model:

• Catalogued cultural resources important to the tribe (at the tribe’s request);
• Tribe provided information on cultural resources along the transportation route; and
• DOE provided funding for emergency preparedness to the tribe.

Greg Phillips – Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
EPA has 10 regions; anyone who is assigned to work with tribes must attend a brief informative session on how to work with tribes.  This becomes difficult because of the history involved, and the number of topics that must be included.

EPA tries to work with tribes on an individual level.  Meeting with tribal leaders and individuals within the community is key.  Simply listen to, and take into consideration, the things that are important to the tribes.

Within each EPA region, tribes appoint members to committees that deal with decision makers at EPA.  (Tribal Regional Operations Committee).

Shawn Smith – Nuclear Regulatory Agency (NRC)
NRC tribal liaison program – Provides technical assistance and information to tribes on NRC activities.

Routing Discussion
Jay Jones; OCRWM – OLM
The identification of routes will determine which tribes are eligible for the Nuclear Waste Policy Act's Section 180(c) funding for emergency preparedness.  DOE has been working on routing for the last two-three years, and prepared an environmental impact statement about five years ago for the locations where waste will be picked up. 

Mr. Jones hopes to eventually meet with all affected tribes either regionally or individually.  He's relying on the affected tribes already identified to tell him about other tribes that might not have been identified initially.

OCRWM Guide to Stakeholder Involvement and the safe transportation plan was issued in November 2003.

Key events include:

• OCRWM Director Ward Sproat's testimony in July 2006 – announced his “transportation plan” priority and the need to work with states and tribes (ultimately, routing decisions will be made by DOE);
• National Academy of Sciences recommendation that states and tribes be involved in routing (February 2006) – Report entitled, “Going the Distance.”

Mr. Jones chairs the Routing Topic Group within DOE's Transportation External Coordination Working Group (TEC) of interested stakeholders.  The group has determined its priorities as: the identification of stakeholders, development of routing criteria, and the identification of rail and highway suites of routes. 

DOE's Washington office is responsible for the identification of national routes; the Nevada office focuses on establishment of a rail line within the state.

The route identification process includes many stakeholders at the state and local levels, as well as the tribes, in addition to federal entities (DOE, Coast Guard, Homeland Security, etc.).

Tribes have the authority to influence routing decisions; may prescribe alternate highway routes, select routes that minimize risks, and consult with other federal jurisdictions.  Criteria and regulations for rail routes are less specific. 

There are a limited number of highway routes to get waste across the country to Yucca Mountain.  There are many more routes via rail.  Material will be shipped from 77 sites (72 reactors and five federal government sites).  In the environmental impact statement, effects of the transportation of radioactive waste within a ½ mile corridor of each route were analyzed.  DOE understands that cultural sites outside of the ½ mile could be affected, but this is being used as a starting point for route analysis.

Previous shipping campaigns are being analyzed to determine the best practices to be used in shipments to Yucca Mountain.  A limited number of routes have been used in these past shipments. 

Routing principles include:
     Radiological safety;
     Regulatory compliance;
     Security and operational flexibility;
     Operational efficiency and utility; and
     Commercial practicality.

Models and tools (TRAGIS and RADTRAN) are used in the analysis of potential routes.  Regional routing assessments have been received.  Two State-Regional Groups have done their own separate reports that identified routes DOE should take into consideration. 

Recap of Breakout Sessions on Routing Priorities:
     Weather;
     Terrain;
     Public events;
     Accident history;
     Alternate and preferred routes;
     Time in transit; and
     Jurisdiction

Tribal-specific routing priorities:
     Early notification;
     Funding for response;
     Consideration of cultural lands; 
     Economic impact zones; and
     Safe havens outside of tribal lands.

180(c) Discussion
Corinne Macaluso; OCRWM – OLM

Tribes are eligible for emergency preparedness funding if shipments to the repository cross their reservation. 
Funding is expected to be provided approximately four years ahead of shipments and continue throughout the life of the campaign. 
Participation does not require any waiver of liability protection. 
Funding could be cut off if shipments cease for an extended period of time, if funds are misused, or if Congress does not fund or fully fund the grants. 
EPA establishes cleanup standards that DOE would meet in the event of an accident.
Grants will be noncompetitive by mandate. 
The ½ mile standard is not related to funding under Section 180(c) of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. 
DOE has been working on 180(c) since about 1990.

Q: Will DOE honor the tribe’s cleanup standards?
A: We will certainly consider it; we need to look at what the tribe’s standards are.

Technical assistance will be provided to tribes on a case-by-case basis.  Could include guidebooks and help on preparing an application. 

Hope to publish a federal register notice on the funding allocation soon. 

Comments:  Tribal concerns center on having the funding they need to develop the response capabilities necessary to handle a radioactive waste accident.  Tribes were particularly concerned that shipments across their reservations may cease for an extended period of time, leading to a pause in funding, but then be used as an alternate route, leaving tribes unprepared in the event of an accident.  

Transportation Emergency Preparedness Program (TEPP) Needs Assessment Form
Tom Clawson; Technical Resources Group, Inc.
The TEPP needs assessment form helps DOE determine what tribes need to appropriately respond to all accidents involving radioactive waste.  The identification of gaps helps specify where additional focus is needed.