2019 Fall Meeting

The Fall 2019 semiannual meeting of the Northeast High-Level Radioactive Waste Transportation Task Force (Task Force) was held at the Holiday Inn Express in Roswell, New Mexico from October 29–30, 2019. All states were represented except Maine, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts. Attendees and their contact information to this meeting are shown in Attachment 1.

On October 29, a party of 20 persons consisting of task force members, DOE officials, tribal representatives, and state regional directors received a tour of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant facility in Carlsbad, New Mexico. The tour consisted of a safety briefing and entering the tunneled facility where transuranic (TRU) waste is emplaced for permanent disposal, as well as observing the receiving area for the waste.

On October 30, the task force semiannual meeting was held in Roswell. The meeting was conducted by co-chair Jerry Humphreys of New Jersey and staffed by Project Director Uldis Vanags.

The meeting began with introductions, a review of the agenda, and announcements. Mr. Vanags noted to the task force that Patrick Dostie (Maine) and John Giarrusso (Massachusetts) have retired from state government service and new appointments for those states will be sought.

The next order of business was to elect new co-chairs for the next two years as required by the task force “rules of procedure.” It had come to the attention of the project director that the rules require alternating terms for co-chairs. The project director proposed a vote to extend co-chair Jerry Humphreys’ term by one year and a vote for a new co-chair for a two year term. A vote took place and it was unanimous for Jerry Humphreys to serve one year and Wade DeHaas of Pennsylvania to serve for a two-year term. (However, several days after the meeting it was realized that Wade DeHaas was not the designated alternate for Pennsylvania, which invalidated the vote. The project director notified all task force members and Wade DeHaas of the invalid vote and informed them that a vote by conference call for co-chairs would be held as soon as possible.)

Following the election, the task force held its business meeting. The presentations/presenters were:

• Update on 3 Yankees – Eric Howes, government affairs, 3 Yankees
• Emergency Planning for the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe – Nelson Andrews, director, Emergency Management Department
• The Shutdown and Decommissioning of the Pilgrim Station – John Giarrusso, former chief, Planning and Nuclear Section, MEMA
• Update on DOE-EM – Ellen Edge, Office of Transportation and Packaging, USDOE-EM (no presentation)
• Update on DOE-NE – Erica Bickford, transportation program manager, USDOE Office of Nuclear Energy (no presentation)
• Presentation on Proposed Holtec Interim Nuclear Waste Storage Facility – John Heaton, vice chair of the Eddy-Lea Energy Alliance

A round table of state reports was held, and the meeting was adjourned at 5:00 p.m. on October 30, 2019.

Presentations provided at the meeting will be available on the CSG/ERC Task Force web page (http://www.csg-erc.org/policy-radioactive-transportation/) in late December 2019.