A Kentucky environmental advocacy group is appealing its rejected bid to halt the Nuclear Regulatory Commission licensing process for Global Laser Enrichment’s planned, first-of-its-kind Paducah laser uranium enrichment facility.
The Kentucky Resources Council filed its initial petition to halt GLE’s licensing process in May. In its filing, the nonprofit urged the NRC to address the legality of the deal struck between GLE and the U.S. Department of Energy more than a decade ago to give the company access to spent nuclear fuel from the former Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant site, which would share a fence line with the GLE development.
KRC also voiced concern that the regulatory agency was not properly reviewing potential environmental impacts of the $1.76 billion project on the air, land, water resources and communities in western Kentucky, pointing out a reliance on “generic” – not site-specific – data in pre-licensing regulatory documents from GLE.
The three-judge panel established by the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board – an independent federal group that hears cases from individuals who are directly affected by any licensing action involving a facility producing or utilizing nuclear materials – rejected KRC’s petition requesting a hearing on GLE’s federal license application in July. The reason, the panel said in its ruling, was a lack of sufficient standing by both KRC and Paducah resident Michael McVicker, who filed a separate hearing request regarding GLE’s potential license.
Generally, to challenge legal matters like this one, parties must show standing by demonstrating that they have sustained or will suffer harm because of the government’s actions. In its petition request, KRC argued it had standing because one of its members, Mark Donham, lived in nearby Brookport, Illinois – downwind from the site where GLE is proposing to build its facility.
However, the federal panel ruled that Donham – and by extension KRC – lacked standing to intervene.
“At 17 miles, Mr. Donham’s residence is more than triple the farthest distance the [Nuclear Regulatory] Commission has previously found sufficiently close to confer presumptive standing in a uranium enrichment facility proceeding,” the ruling said. “But other than a general reference to his living in the direction of the prevailing winds, Mr. Donham does not explain how the possible release of contaminants might reach him at his property.”
In the petition, Donham also indicated that Midtown Market, a grocery store where he works as a produce manager that’s about 10 miles east of GLE’s proposed project, seasonally carries products grown in West Paducah – not far from the former PGDP site.
“Mr. Donham states that ‘[s]ome of the produce” that the Midtown Market has carried “comes from the West Paducah area.’ He does not specify whether the produce grown in West Paducah will be carried at the Midtown Market in the future, and he does not describe how this produce might impact his health,” the ruling states.
The panel also denied McVicker’s standing, the ruling said, because he only provided “a general description of his location” instead of listing his address and telephone number on the petition, as required.
In the ruling, the panel also dismissed all of the contentions from McVicker and KRC as inadmissible to the proceedings, including the advocacy group’s assertion that the DOE lacked the authority to make the 2016 deal expected to provide GLE with its initial feedstock: 200,000 metric tons of depleted uranium. Those “tails” are still in storage at the former PGDP site, a shuttered uranium enrichment facility that supported national defense efforts in the 1950s before shifting towards the generation of fuel for nuclear power plants and other enrichment sites. A KRC attorney said officials with the U.S. Government Accountability Office have questioned who has the authority to transfer or sell spent nuclear fuel for nearly two decades.
The panel shrugged at the assertion that the KRC’s concern over the deal was relevant to the licensing process for the proposed facility, which has been in the works for more than a decade in western Kentucky.
“This proceeding concerns GLE’s application to construct and operate a uranium enrichment facility and the statutory and regulatory requirements necessary for the NRC’s review of and decision on that application,” the ruling states. “KRC does not explain why GLE’s ability to acquire depleted uranium tails from DOE, and, relatedly, DOE’s authority to sell or transfer those tails to GLE, would be relevant to a finding the NRC must make to support the issuance of a license to GLE.”
At length, the ruling also went through other contentions revolving around environmental and safety regulations from KRC and McVicker. Those include assertions that the site requires a more stringent seismic study because of its proximity to the New Madrid Fault Zone; that the environmental risks of another planned uranium enrichment facility by General Matter at a nearby property requires a “cumulative impact analysis;” and that contaminated plumes beneath the site could be disturbed by the construction process – potentially impacting area water systems.
KRC filed an appeal Monday asking the NRC to reconsider its request for a hearing on GLE’s license application.
Ashley Wilmes, executive director of KRC, said she believes the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board panel “applied the wrong legal standard” to the nonprofit’s petition and questioned their dismissal of her group’s assertion about the 2016 DOE deal.
“We … respectfully disagree with the panel's finding that it's not relevant to the commission's granting of the license whether the feedstock the facility wants to use may not be legally available, since it was a primary justification for the siting of the facility,” Wilmes said in a statement to WKMS. “So we've appealed the decision and believe a hearing should be granted.”
In a statement furnished by a GLE spokesperson, the company said it respected “the NRC’s established process and remain[s] confident in the strength and completeness of [their] application.”
The NRC has yet to rule on the appeal.
