UNITED STATES

NUCLEAR WASTE TECHNICAL REVIEW BOARD

TRANSPORTATION STRATEGIC PLANNING CONSIDERATIONS

PANEL ON THE WASTE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

Wednesday, January 21, 2004

Crown Plaza Hotel

4255 South Paradise Road

Las Vegas, NV 89109

Tel: (702) 369-4400

Fax: (702) 369-3770

[BOARD MEMBERS PRESENT]{.underline}

Dr. Mark Abkowitz, Chairman of the Panel Meeting

Dr. Daniel B. Bullen

Dr. Thure Cerling

Dr. Norman Christensen, Chairman, Panel on Waste Mgmt. System

Dr. David Duquette

Dr. Ronald Latanision

Dr. Priscilla P. Nelson

Dr. Richard R. Parizek

[SENIOR PROFESSIONAL STAFF]{.underline}

Dr. Carl Di Bella

Dr. Daniel Fehringer

Dr. Daniel Metlay

Dr. Leon Reiter

Dr. David Diodato

Dr. John Pye

[CONSULTANTS]{.underline}

Robert Luna

[NWTRB STAFF]{.underline}

Dr. William Barnard, Executive Director

Joyce Dory, Director of Administration

Karyn Severson, Director, External Affairs

Linda Coultry, Management Assistant

Alvina Hayes, Office Assistant

[I N D E X]{.underline}

[PAGE NO.]{.underline}

**Call to Order and Introductory Statement**

Mark Abkowitz, Member

Panel on the Waste Management System, NWTRB. . . . . 279

**PREPARATION OF WASTE SHIPMENTS**

**Overview of Nuclear Industry Views**

Steve Kraft, Nuclear Energy Institute. . . . . . . . 289

**Utility Perspective**

Steve Edwards, Supervisor,

Spent Fuel Management Progress Energy. . . . . . . . 322

**CONTAINER AVAILABILITY AND USE**

**Cask Vendor Perspective**

Ian Hunter, Transnuclear, Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . 342

**Rail Transportation**

Robert Fronczak, Association of American Railroads.. 365

**Truck Transportation**

John Hauser, Project Manager, Nuclear Division,

Tri-State Motor Transit Co.. . . . . . . . . . . . . 387

**RECEIPT OF WASTE SHIPMENTS AT YUCCA MOUNTAIN**

**Interface Between Transportation and Surface Facilities**

Gary Lanthrum, DOE, OCRWM. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 396

**Public Comment Period**. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 415

**STATE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENTS**

**Corridor State Concerns**

Thor Strong, Council of State Governments, Midwest.. 433

**Nevada Concerns**

Robert Loux, State of Nevada . . . . . . . . . . . . 452

**Local Government Concerns**

Les Bradshaw, Nye County . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 465

Abby Johnson, Eureka County. . . . . . . . . . . . . 476

George McCorkell, Esmeralda County . . . . . . . . . 483

Mike Baughman, Lincoln County. . . . . . . . . . . . 485

Kevin Phillips, Caliente County. . . . . . . . . . . 493

[I N D E X]{.underline}

[PAGE NO.]{.underline}

**PRIOR TRANSPORTATION EXPERIENCES AND LESSONS LEARNED**

**Waste Isolation Pilot Plant**

Ralph Smith, Waste Isolation Pilot Plant . . . . . . 508

**Foreign Reactor Fuel**

Charles Messick, DOE

Savannah River Operations Office . . . . . . . . . . 540

**Naval Spent Fuel**

Barry Miles, Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program. . . . 572

**Public Comment Period**. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 596

**West Valley Spent Fuel**

Alice Williams, DOE

Office of Environmental Management . . . . . . . . . 609

**DOE TRANSPORTATION PROGRAM**

**Status of DOE Transportation Planning**

Gary Lanthrum, DOE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 624

**Adjournment**. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 679

[P R O C E E D I N G S]{.underline}

(8:00 a.m.)

ABKOWITZ: Good morning and welcome to our meeting. My name is Mark
Abkowitz and I will be the Chair of today\'s meeting. Today, the
Board\'s Panel on Waste Management Systems is meeting to review
strategic planning considerations for developing the transportation
system for potential repository at Yucca Mountain.

Let me begin today by introducing the Board Members who are present. As
usual, let me remind you that all of us serve the Board on a part time
basis and we all have full time jobs elsewhere. In my case, I am a
Professor of Civil Engineering at Vanderbilt University in Nashville,
Tennessee, and also serve as Director of the Vanderbilt Center for
Environmental Management Studies. My expertise is in the area of
transportation, risk management, and risk assessment.

Dan Bullen has taken a leave of absence from his position as Associate
Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Iowa State University. He\'s now
working with Exponent Incorporated, an engineering and scientific
consulting firm. Dan\'s areas of expertise include nuclear engineering,
performance assessment, modeling, and material science. Dan chairs the
Board\'s Panel on Repository System and Integration.

Thure Cerling is Distinguished Professor of Geology and Geophysics and
Distinguished Professor of Biology at the University of Utah in Salt
Lake City. He is a geochemist with particular expertise in applying
geochemistry to a wide range of geological, climatological, and
anthropological studies.

Norm Christensen is Professor of Ecology and Former Dean of the Nicholas
School of the Environment at Duke University. His areas of expertise
include biology, ecology, and ecosystem management. Norm chairs the
Board\'s Panel on Waste Management Systems.

David Duquette is Department Head and Professor of Material Engineering
at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York. That\'s also
where summer is one day in July, having lived there myself for several
years. His expertise is in physical, chemical, and mechanical properties
of metals and alloys, with special emphasis on environmental
interactions. David is the Chair of the Board\'s Executive Committee.

Ron Latanision recently retired from his position as Professor at MIT to
pursue a senior position with Exponent. Ron retains a position as
Emeritus Professor at MIT. His areas of expertise include materials
processing and corrosion of metals and other materials in different
aqueous environments. He chairs the Board\'s Panel on the Engineered
System and perhaps, more importantly, has been designated by the Board
as its Social Chairman. We\'re doing a performance monitoring of that
function this week, by the way.

Priscilla is Senior Advisor to the Directorate for Engineering at the
National Science Foundation. Her areas of expertise include rock
engineering and underground construction.

And, Richard Parizek is Professor of Geology and Geoenvironmental
Engineering at Penn State University and he\'s also President of Richard
Parizek and Associates, Consulting Hydrogeologists and Environmental
Geologists. His areas of expertise include hydrogeology and
environmental geology.

Also with us today is Bob Luna who has helped the Board follow
developments in transportation for the last several years.

Turning to today\'s agenda, it consists primarily of presentations by
invited speakers with just a short period of time designated for
questions and discussion after each presentation. At the end of the day,
we have scheduled a period for comments by members of the audience. If
you would like to comment at that time, please, enter your name on the
signup sheet at the table near the entrance to this room. Alternatively,
you may submit written comments at any time during the day and we will
try to present them to the speakers or otherwise work them in as time
permits. Please, give any written comments to our support staff at the
sign-in table to the back left of the room and they will collect the
comments and give them to us at the front table.

I might point out that because today\'s schedule is so ambitious, on the
formal agenda, we have scheduled just one comment period which is at the
end of the day. However, if your schedule requires you to be somewhere
else at that point in time, please, notify the folks in the back and
we\'ll make every effort we can to create another opportunity to speak
right before lunch if, at all, possible.

Speaking of the support staff, those of you who have been to previous
Board meetings will recognize Linda Coultry who is at the sign-in table.
She\'s usually the one that has a Starbucks in her hand. The other staff
member at the table is a new employee who has recently joined the Board
staff. I\'d like to introduce Alvina Hayes who we are very glad to have
as a staff member and who will likely be seen more frequently at future
Board meetings.

I\'d also like to ask all of you to turn your cell phones either off or
to vibrate so as not to disrupt the presentations and discussion. In
other meetings that I\'ve been at when this question comes up, there\'s
an unwritten law that if your phone goes off during the session, you
have to buy everyone in the room a drink afterwards. So, that\'s a
pretty expensive proposition today, it looks like.

As I mentioned a short time ago, today\'s meeting will review strategic
planning considerations for developing a transportation system for a
potential Yucca Mountain repository. This morning, we will hear from
representatives of those industries and organizations likely to be
involved in operating the transportation system; specifically,
utilities, cask vendors, truck and rail operators, and the operator of
the surface facilities at a Yucca Mountain repository.

This afternoon, we will hear from representatives of the state and local
governments who also would have important roles to play if a
transportation system is to operate including issues such as route
selection, emergency planning, permitting, and inspections.

The third major segment of today\'s agenda will consist of four lessons
learned presentations by speakers who have previously been involved in
transportation of spent fuel or similar materials.

The final presentation today will be by the Department of Energy and has
the tentative title Status of DOE Transportation Planning. We hope this
talk will cover not only the DOE\'s planning, but also provide an
opportunity for the DOE to respond to other information that\'s
presented during today\'s meeting.

I\'d now like to briefly go over some Power Point slides to elaborate on
the Board\'s goals for the meeting today.

Just to kind of cast the landscape for the discussion that we\'re
embarking on today, I think it\'s important to recognize that the
transportation activity is expected to be a very complex operation. And,
it also is complex not only in the scale of the network that we\'re
talking about. This happens to be just kind of an illustrative map of
the locations of many of the shipping origins and, of course, the
proposed shipping destination here at Yucca Mountain. And, you see here
some of the routes that are being considered for movement of those waste
shipments. I\'m not sure, I believe this may be\--it looks like possibly
the rail network, but there\'s obviously highway, rail, barge, and
inter-modal issues that really compound the question of safety and
security and logistics.

At the more sort of microscopic level, if you will, we also have issues
that, in addition to being a corridor state, are unique to the State of
Nevada because it\'s the destination state and then, as you get down
closer to the proposed repository site, you\'re involving individual
counties and other locales. As you are also probably aware, there\'s
been recent indication from DOE that it has honed in on two different
rail car options coming in, one here from the north and the other coming
in along here, known as the Caliente and Carlin corridors. So, there are
issues not only in terms of managing within the existing infrastructure,
but also what kinds of improvements to the existing infrastructure and
new infrastructure may be required. And, this involves in the entire
transportation gambit a number of different organizations and
individuals with different interests and different geographical
locations and so forth and so on.

If I could have the next slide, please? Overlaid on the consideration of
the scale of the project and all the players that are involved, there
are all the issues that intersect with these players in different ways.
This is not meant to be an exhaustive list of transportation issues, but
just to give you a sense of what\'s on the table and what\'s likely to
be discussed as the transportation planning effort moves forward. This
is not in any kind of rank order and, like I said before, it\'s not
exhaustive. But, we\'ve heard a lot about mode and route types of
questions. We heard a little bit yesterday about waste acceptance in
terms of what\'s happening at the origin, what products are moving
first, and what types of packaging they\'re going to require. There are
issues in the operations about permitting and inspection and carrier
selection and maintenance, tracking and notification, security issues.
In the unlikely event of an incident, we have emergency response
situation and then we have a variety of other issues, such as
contingency planning, be it weather or accident, security, safe parking,
what have you. So, we\'re hoping to use today as an opportunity to start
to better understand all the interrelationships in both the technical
and perceived considerations that will be driving the whole issue of
moving these products safely and securely.

If I can have the next slide, please? The only way that we as a Board
have been able to get comfortable with the transportation subject\--and
we\'re certainly encouraging the DOE to think about it this way, as
well\--is to address the transportation activity as a holistic,
systematic process. So, as a result, our lens has focused not only on
the in-transit portion of the trip, but also what happens at the loading
end and what happens at the unloading end. And then, furthermore, what
happens when you go from the surface facility to the emplacement of the
wastes inside Yucca Mountain itself. So, from looking at this from a
holistic, systematic process, one can kind of think about analyzing and
evaluating the situation as a set of sequential activities. And, the
reason the agenda is structured the way it is today is to be able to
hear from individuals that have roles and responsibilities or oversight
activities that are associated with different components of what we
consider to be the transportation function.

Next slide, please? So, to try to sum up the objectives for today, we
want to hear directly from those who have the operational and oversight
responsibilities. This is an important day today to gauge exactly where
you think your issues are with regard to safe and secure transportation
of spent nuclear fuel and high-level waste and to be able to help the
Board understand what you need in the way of information or resources in
order to move forward to be in a position where you\'re comfortable that
you can fulfill your responsibilities as part of a stakeholder in the
transportation activity.

Next slide, please? The last two slides of this presentation are just
kind of a summary of the, I guess for lack of a better word, the
guidance or instructions that we gave to panel participants in
discussing with them their willingness to be part of the program today.
And, you\'ll notice from this series of questions that it\'s really kind
of a fact-finding mission with the idea of being able to collect our
arms around all the issues that need to be profiled to get an
understanding of the sequencing of events that need to take place and to
start to sort of lay out sort of a strategic view of how transportation
planning needs to evolve in order to satisfy the safety and security
requirements. So, in the early sessions today where we\'re hearing from
individuals that would have direct operational responsibilities, the
framing questions are what are your key Yucca Mountain transportation,
safety, or security concerns? How have you been able to address these
concerns based on the information and resources provided by DOE to this
point in time? What concerns have you been unable to address and what
does DOE need to provide to allow that to happen? And then, once you are
enabled in that capacity, how long will it take you to address these
concerns? And, in framing the questions this way, we\'re hoping to sort
of elicit an open response from these participants, but focused on the
question of exactly how they\'re going to get from today to being able
to support a successful transportation operation.

Last slide, please? And then, this afternoon with the program switching
to the state and local participants\--well, actually, I take that back.
The state and locals will still be focusing on the previous questions.
When we get to the lessons learned portion of the program, our guidance
for those speakers were to try to take the experiences that they\'ve had
in other campaigns and to kind of share the background and some of the
issues that they had to deal with both in terms of problems faced and
ways to overcome those problems. But, most importantly, to converge
their thinking on those activities to be able to kind of distill for the
Board the experiences and lessons learned that may actually be
transferrable to the Yucca Mountain transportation scenario.

So, that\'s our goal for today. It\'s a very ambitious day. We want to
hear from a lot of people, and yet at the same time, we want to make
sure that everyone has their opportunity to speak and still maintain a
schedule. So, one of my jobs today will be to act as the bad cop and, I
guess, I need to start with myself since I\'m about to run over here.

Our first speaker today in the section on preparation of waste shipments
is Steve Kraft. That\'s a change from the program where John Vincent is
identified at the moment. Steve was so excited about talking yesterday
that he asked for a repeat performance. Actually, John has had some
other issues come up and was unable to attend today. But, most of you
know Steve quite well. He\'s with the Nuclear Energy Institute in
Washington, D.C. NEI is a policy organization of the nuclear energy
industry and membership in NEI includes firm that operate in all phases
of the nuclear fuel cycle. We have invited Steve to give an overview of
the nuclear industry views on transportation planning.

Steve?

KRAFT: Well, thank you, Dr. Abkowitz. Good morning, everybody. John
sends his regrets, as Dr. Abkowitz said. A personal matter came up and
he is unable to be with us which is truly unfortunate because he is one
of the very, very few people in this country that has actually moved
commercial spent fuel. When I talked yesterday about the experiences of
returning the fuel from West Valley to Oyster Creek, that was John\'s
project. It was John who walked the route. He spoke to that school
system I talked about. That story I told you was something he has
related to me. So, he will continue to remain involved and we\'ll be
seeing him in the future, I\'m sure.

What I was really doing here is responding to Bullen\'s request. He had
more questions for me and I warned him this morning that you ask them
and you get your answers at your own peril. So, we\'ll see how that
goes.

I\'d like to have the first slide, please? I talked a great deal
yesterday about how we saw at the national level the responsibilities
that both sides to the movement of fuel have in the terms of the
contract and I referred to that contract a lot. I\'ll refer to it again.
This is it. 10 CFR Part 961 is the generic form of the contract.
Individual utilities signed their own. If you\'re ever interested in a
truly stirring read, I would suggest that\--although, it might fit in
with what I understand now to be the TRB\'s situation. I mean, you come
to Las Vegas on a regular basis and you sit in dark rooms with the
lights down talking about nuclear waste. You need a new morale officer.
I\'ve got news for you.

Okay. So, DOE is obligated to take all the used nuclear fuel and the
word \"all\" is important. We talked a lot yesterday about how they
might phase that in. What types of fuel move first, second, third,
oldest fuel first. Standard fuel and nonstandard fuel is defined in the
contract. Failed fuel, is the cladding intact, not intact, all those
kinds of questions. One of the important things here is that the DOE is
responsible for the full transportation system. I\'m sure Gary will talk
about that later today.

Title transfer, that\'s an interesting question about title transfer.
Title transfers, according to the contract, at when the used fuel
crosses the plant gate. So, as soon as it leaves our utilities, Part 50
licensed facility, it\'s DOE\'s fuel. But, the law says something a
little different. The law says in 302 A and B that they have to take the
fuel January 31st, 1998, which they didn\'t do and that\'s what the law
suits are about, but title doesn\'t transfer until the repository is
operating. And, I think that\'s one of these little legal conundrums
that have to get worked out. Title transfer is important because it
drives liability insurance more than anything else. You could possess
something and you could have control over it, but if you don\'t own
title to it, it kind of clouds up the insurance situation. And, the
standard form for the Price Anderson liability insurance the utilities
have to have to hold their Part 50 licenses also includes shipments to
and from the plant, in addition to the insurance that the carriers have
to have. So, that becomes a complicated point.

DOE is the shipper of record. DOE is the organization in the jargon of
transportation that presents the package of transportation and there are
lots of responsibilities that fall on that individual. Utilities pay all
the costs. That\'s pretty clear through the Nuclear Waste Fund. We are
responsible to provide at reactor storage. Steve Edwards from Progress
can talk about what they\'re doing in that regard, I\'m sure. And, DOE
must by law provide a utilized private sector to the greatest extent
practical. That\'s something that was written into the law. Every
version of the WWPA in the late 1970s and in the beginning of 1980s had
that provision in it. So, there must have been some understanding on the
part of the Department of Energy at the time and certain transportation
interests that DOE would not use its own forces to move this material.
So, I just thought I\'d point that out that that seems to be a
long-standing activity.

Okay. Individual signed, individual contracts, I talked about that a lot
yesterday. Annual shipping allocations based upon discharge dates and
quantities. Utilities can select the used fuel. Again, it\'s a contract.
There\'s room for discussion, there\'s room for negotiation to determine
what that would be. And, of course, let me just stop and use that as a
point to say something that I thought DOE was doing over the years. And,
it\'s a question that I have now. If you think about the system, the
point of origin and the point of receipt, and everything that has to
happen on those two ends to move the fuel, it\'s sort of always struck
me that transportation is not just the movement of the material from A
to B, but is also the mechanism by which you can force integration of
the system. You cannot have a cask that leaves one of our sites that is
incompatible with the receipt with the transporter, with the receiving
facility, and it cannot be inconsistent with what they do at the
receiving facility. And, if you back up a little bit into the beginning,
it can\'t be inconsistent with what you do before you load the cask. So,
transportation can serve that function. I\'ve not seen a lot of evidence
lately that DOE is using it that way, that DOE is thinking that
transportation does that. Maybe, I\'m missing something. It just may not
be clear to me that that\'s what\'s happening. It was very clear about
10 years ago when they were promoting the idea of the regional service
contractor because the contractor had those responsibilities.

Next slide, please? DOE has a lot of responsibilities here, as do the
utilities or the purchasers as they\'re called in the contract. The
waste acceptance is pretty obvious. Waste acceptance is not simply
receiving the fuel. I know we use the term a lot. Dr. Abkowitz had it as
the very first issue on his non-ordered slide there and I disagree that
is the most important, but that\'s just me, maybe. Waste acceptance is a
myriad of things that has to be done in terms of not\--it\'s scheduling,
it\'s planning, it\'s providing the right kinds of casks, it\'s making
sure that you\'re doing the verification inspections correctly. It\'s
how you allocate. It\'s a whole series of activities that is caught up
in the rubric of waste acceptance.

Take title transport, as I\'ve discussed. They have to move a certified
NRC cask. That is a provision of the law. Now, just so there\'s no
confusion here, let me explain how this works legally, as far as I can
understand it. Because DOE is a Federal agency, they are not obligated
to be licensed by the NRC for anything unless Congress so says because
when they split up the two agencies in actually 1974 when DOE wasn\'t
created until \'77, but ERDA (phonetic) was created, is that the way
Congress wrote that law is that DOE or then ERDA would simply follow the
same provisions of the Atomic Energy Act that led to the licensing and
safety of commercial facilities, but they would simply impose it on
themselves and that\'s where this environmental safety and health
program comes in DOE. So, Congress has to specify whether NRC licenses
anything that DOE does. And, of course, it says so very clearly about
the repository. It gives EPA a role, NRC a role. But, in transportation,
it only says two things; certified casks and notification of the
governor before you ship according to NRC rules. It says nothing else.
And, that\'s an important factor because it\'s not really clear to us
and I\'m sure it\'s not clear to many of the stakeholders what set of
rules DOE is going to use for what phase of the program. There was a
large transportation meeting that DOE held mid-last year, a group they
call the Transportation External working group or something like that
and there was a lot of discussion about asking about that factor and
asking DOE to, at least, from our part, to simply publish a matrix that
says here\'s all the things we have to do and here\'s the rules we\'re
going to follow. In this case, it will be NRC; in this case, it will be
DOE; this case will follow, you know, this procedure, that procedure; we
use these rules; we use whatever they are so people have an
understanding as to what they are. And then, there was a lot of
discussion about how you would have enforcement in that area which was
not clear other than in the NRC areas.

And, what\'s really interesting about this is that when you think about
security and safeguards, NRC has a fully developed system of security
and safeguards for nuclear facilities and shipments. They do not by law
apply to DOE. DOE may very well just use its own program or some
combination of the programs. That needs to be defined. That came out in
the Senate hearing on the Yucca Mountain resolution in June of 2002. NRC
was requested by one of the members of the Senate on that question and
they wrote a letter that said, no, all we regulate are the two things I
said and it was surprising to some people. I think people had forgotten
what\--it had been so long, people had forgotten what the law said.

DOE has to select shipping routes and coordinate with states and tribes.
There\'s a lot of coordination. You had that map that was up there at
the very beginning that sort of tells you how complicated that\'s going
to be. They have to provide security. As I said, to what regulations,
we\'re not sure. And, emergency response training and assistance and
funding through the states and tribes pursuant to Section 180(C) of the
Act. Again, 180(C) says you have to provide funding and training. It
doesn\'t say whose regulations or whose procedures you have to use.

If I can have the next slide, please? It\'s a lot of responsibilities on
the purchaser side. Provide notice for DOE for location of the used fuel
and required mode of transportation and waste. Mode is a big issue. You
all may remember from the debates on the Yucca Mountain resolution how
much interest there was around the Great Lake regions as to whether
there was going to be barging or not. I take no position on barging
mainly because I think it\'s as safe as rail and safe as truck and
anything else. So, you know, really, to me, it\'s an efficiency
question, but there\'s a lot of people who feel very strongly about
that. I pointed out yesterday and I\'ll say it again. When the utilities
notify DOE and say here\'s the material that we want you to move off the
site by when, there\'s a little box you check off that says whether you
want it moved by truck, rail, or barge. Right now, the utilities have
the right to say how they want that moved. Some utilities do not have
heavy loading facilities available other than barging, particularly
those plants, you know, that don\'t have a rail spur coming in may have
barging, whatever.

Again, the utilities and DOE need to be talking about these subjects.
And, of course, utilities can swap allocations and I went back to look.
I said five years yesterday. I went back to look at the contract. I
think it\'s a year notice on that. Now that really will confuse the
system in terms of what DOE is designing for especially in the early
years. Again, they have to start talking and working these things out.
Avoid scheduled outages when they do the shipping and DOE has\--and they
have to select the fuel to be loaded and shipped. Those are the things
that the utilities have to do.

If I could have the next slide? These other considerations, when we were
putting this discussion together last week, John and I had a very long
talk about how we were going to lay this out in terms of getting the
points across and we decided that the DOE and purchaser responsibilities
were the hard things that were in the contract that we understood them
to be, but these are other things that we think ought to be looked at
and perhaps done. We think DOE should agree to comply with all the other
applicable NRC and DOT transport regulations. I think that just makes
sense because those are regulations that\--remember, this is something
that the commercial sector is going to carry out. By law, the utilities
have to interface with it and a lot of stakeholders along the transport
route. I think the NRC and the DOT transportation regulations are
probably the things that the folks I just mentioned are most familiar
with and can use the best. They are an integrated set of rules and
regulations that provide for the utmost safety of these shipments. The
legal question that comes to mind is enforcement. If you\'re going to
follow someone\'s rule, but you\'re not regulated by that entity, I
don\'t know how enforcement occurs, and that\'s something that has to be
thought about.

Used fuel transportation benefit greatly from advanced coordination and
planning. Well, that\'s sort of a motherhood statement, but it\'s a lot
harder to do than you might think and I was asked yesterday a little bit
about utilities working with the localities on that. Now, let me give a
firmer answer because I went back and I\'ve thought about it overnight
when Dr. Abkowitz asked me about that. Back about 10 years ago when DOE
was working on this thing called the regional contract servicing
contractor and we commented formally on all those versions of that draft
RFP, we did tell DOE time and again when you work with the utilities
don\'t just look at the physical part of the plan. Take advantage of
what the utilities have already built in into their locality in terms of
their relationships with the community. Don\'t just roll in there and
sort of take over the job, so to speak. And, I think that\'s the way DOE
will do it, although in that strategy that they published, that kind of
detail wasn\'t in there. So, we were a little more firm as to how that
should be done.

And, that the utility site review for compatibility with technical
licensing requirements of the reactor plant site, that\'s extremely
important. That what the DOE shows up with in terms of a cask, in terms
of training, in terms of procedures has to be compatible with what goes
on at that facility and it\'s not cookie cutter. Not every facility is
the same as every other facility. There are unique circumstances.
Everyone follows the same regulations, but how they do it might be
different. So, the DOE has to do a tremendous amount of work
individually. Some of the earlier plans that DOE had published a number
of years ago seemed to indicate that there were going to be these
interactions with individual utilities to get that stuff sorted out.

Next one, please? Needs to assure transportation program will support
2010 operations. They announced the decision for Nevada and those are
going to be rail corridors. So, they need to confirm their preference
for mostly rail out of the EIS and we understand they announced they\'re
working on the record of decision. One would imagine that that\'s what
they\'re going to do. That\'s what they\'re going to say because of what
they did in Nevada. They need to get on with system procurement. On
that, maybe Gary will lay some of that\--I don\'t know, maybe Gary will
say something about that later.

We think that there\'s a need to use dedicated trains. Now, before Bob
Fronczak jumps up and shoots me for saying that, the issue of dedicated
trains for us goes like this. It\'s that our experience is when shipping
these materials that you have a far greater chance of controlling the
situation, providing emergency response, etcetera, if you have a train
that\'s moving only this material. And, Bob is the rail expert. He can
talk about what that does in terms of complicating the rail system or
not which I think is important to keep in mind. And, I know that that\'s
not always universally accepted by people who do this in government, but
we firmly believe our experience is the dedicated trains is the way to
go. And, I think that we\'re hoping DOE will agree with that. They
haven\'t said one way or the other.

The private fuel storage facility which is scheduled to be constructed
in Toole County in Utah if it ever gets through NRC licensing\--and that
proceeding is going far longer than anyone expected\--has done a
tremendous amount of work in terms of rail planning and shipping.
They\'re going to build a rail spur about 25 miles from the main line
down to the site. They developed their own rail car in coordination with
the Association of American Railroads, etcetera. And, the DOE should
take advantage of all of that. DOE should take advantage of any number
of aspects of that including transportation development, transportation
planning. They also should pay serious attention to that licensing
proceeding for the repository itself. That\'s not exactly on point for
this discussion, but that\'s an important learning experience for
everyone involved. And then, they also have their own shipping campaigns
that we know that they\'re looking at and that\'s the WIPP and the
Foreign Research Fuel.

If I could have the next slide, please? The strategic plan that came out
issued in November, it was really an institutional plan for stakeholder
interactions of which the utilities are one. Utilizing regional groups,
we think, is a positive step. Get along with the states and tribes is a
very positive step in terms of organizing how you\'re going to approach
the problem so you\'re not in a some sort of free for all. I mean, there
needs to be some hierarchal approach to this problem. We\'d like a lot
more detail. I think everybody would. The detail we need in answering
the questions at the top of the meeting here not one by one, but just to
say what we need to know is when, how, procedures, what training we have
to provide our people, things along those lines. We\'re ready to go
otherwise. I mean, we\'re comfortable and confident that this can be
done right. We realize there are others that are not that DOE needs to
do a lot of work with. But, our needs are more on the procedural and
technical side, all the things I\'ve been talking about. Talking to the
utilities about how they\'ll interface, making sure they\'re not doing
anything that cuts across the facility license, stuff like that. We can
update plant information whenever we\'re asked. I mentioned yesterday
those two updates that they\'re going to be doing on the facility
capability assessment and the near-site transportation infrastructure.

Can I have the next slide, please? We think that the naming of Caliente
was a good thing. It was a good thing from a lot of perspectives. It was
a good thing from our perspective because you\'re getting this program
moving forward. It\'s a good thing from DOE\'s perspective. You know,
it\'s pretty obvious there are people in Nevada who don\'t think it\'s a
good thing, but we think it\'s\--that\'s our statement. We think it\'s
good news.

It\'s very encouraging because they need to get on with allowing rail
construction after license issuance. I found that was really very
interesting, that discussion yesterday, about what really amounted to
how much preconstruction can they do? It was better than some of the
comments. This year\'s appropriation bill has a paragraph in the House
Report that tells DOE they need to do preconstruction planing and
preconstruction to get on with it. It\'s in the House Report. It was not
discussed in the Senate Report and it was not countermanded in the
Conference Report. That means that report language stands. DOE needs to
figure out how they\'re going to respond to it. DOE is responding to
other language in that report. The whole transportation decision is
based on language in that report that survived the\--it didn\'t survive
in the statute, but it survived in the report language and DOE is moving
forward. So, I don\'t see where that would not be a problem and they
need to explore that and they need to work with NRC as to how they\'re
going to do that. So, that is encouraging.

We think they need to publish the ROD as quickly as possible which they
said they would. Hopefully, they\'ll get that out fairly soon. And, that
they need to get on with the EIS for the rail alignment for the Caliente
route, the specific rail alignment. They have to have their scoping
hearings. That\'s a multi-year process.

And, Caliente corridor is consistent with our transport policy which I
believe we provided at the last meeting where we talked transportation.
If you don\'t have it, we can provide that to the Board. But, it\'s
consistent because it stays away from downtown Las Vegas and it\'s a
rail system. Those are the two things that make it consistent with our
views.

If I could have the last slide, please? So, we need to have a
transportation system that will support waste acceptance by 2010. We
think the plan and the corridor announcement are good things. DOE can
benefit from the private fuel experience; not just PFS, but all the
private experience we\'ve had over the last 30 or 40 years. They need to
get involved. It\'s extensive planning and coordination. Use of
comprehensive and uniform regulations and then, we believe, that
transport will be safe and secure if all those things are done.

Well, thanks very much. That\'s what we came to say.

ABKOWITZ: Thank you, Steve. Board members with questions? Dan?

BULLEN: Bullen, Board. Steve, I want to thank you personally for coming
back since I obviously had questions that weren\'t answered yesterday or
I didn\'t ask them and to take the microphone again and to field them.

I actually had one that is a followup from yesterday that you touched on
today and that deals with the fact that the utility site review is going
to be updated, basically, the infrastructure report that\'s necessary to
get to and from the working facilities that need to ship waste. The
question that I have, since title to the fuel is transferred at the gate
which is what we talked about today, who is responsible for the
infrastructure upgrade to the gate and then obviously the utility would
be responsible inside the gate. Is it going to be DOE\'s responsibility
to take a look at the bridges and the infrastructure for the shorter
long spurs to individual sites?

KRAFT: Well, I guess, the general answer to that question is yes, but if
you\'re going to contract with the railroad and they tell you they can
get to a site and move a load 125 ton, then\--I mean, maybe it\'s a
better question for Bob\--then the railroad needs to go make sure that a
bridge is going to be okay. And, if it\'s not okay, to go back to the
shipper and say we can\'t do that until we fix the bridge and here\'s
what\'s that\'s going to\--I mean, Bob, you may want to comment on that,
but I would imagine that there\'s a service provider in between there
somewhere that needs to get involved in that.

BULLEN: Bullen, Board. But, maybe the important point I wanted to ask
was who pays?

KRAFT: Oh, it\'s out of the Waste Fund.

BULLEN: Okay. So, DOE would be responsible for the\--

KRAFT: Oh, yeah. I don\'t\--I mean, I said that rather\--I don\'t see
how that\'s not. I mean, but I guess that goes to the contract that
someone is going to have with whoever is driving that train as to how
that\'s going to work.

BULLEN: Okay.

KRAFT: But, having said that, the Nuclear Waste Fund is not going to be
responsible for upgrading every bridge and every overpass in the
country. There are certain infrastructure responsibilities that the
general government has as its responsibility. But, if you asked
immediately outside the plant\--because what I thought you were getting
at, Dan, was immediately outside the plant\--there could be what was
once a dedicated rail spur that came down from the main line to the
plant for the purposes of hauling in the heavy gear, the steam
generators, the switch gear, whatever, for that plant, that had since
been abandoned and may have decayed. That spur may be something that
needs to be worked on, but I would guess in the rail network itself\--I
mean, the railroads are responsible for maintaining their networks.

BULLEN: Bullen. I understand that. The second question I have basically
deals with something that you also said yesterday and that is you
mentioned the utilities and DOE really should be talking and I couldn\'t
agree more. The problem is that elephant in the room of the pending
litigation. Is there a mechanism that you see whereby they could
actually undertake these discussions and not be influenced by that
litigation or\--

KRAFT: Well, yes, there is a mechanism that we\'ve thought of no one has
seen fit to bite though and that\'s to use a third party. NEI is not
suing DOE over anything. You know, we\'re kind of a neutral third party
that holds the interests of the industry. It\'s entirely possible that
there is a group of individuals, a set of consultants, you know, an
organization\--I used NEI as an example, an organization\--who could do
that and kind of insulate that. We\'ve mentioned it to DOE. There\'s
been\--you know, I think that\'s a very complicated legal question for
them. John Arthur mentioned yesterday that he had a team of people come
in and look at their designs. You know, maybe that\'s a way that can be
done.

The real question comes down to\--I mean, I don\'t mean to take up all
our time on it, but I want to make sure we understand the question.
Okay? John Arthur said yesterday that\--he talked about phasing the
facilities. And, Paul Harrington showed Phase 1 and Phase 2. If you
looked at what he had in Phase 1, I think it\'s pretty clear that\'s a
very ambitious construction program to have that first dry fuel transfer
building built during Phase 1. And, I took from what John said that
maybe there will be a Phase 1A. Maybe there will be kind of an early
thing kind of constructed. Maybe it will be the cask. Let\'s just assume
it\'s the cask handling facility. Let\'s just make that assumption.
Well, that suggests that utilities have to be willing to do certain
kinds of packaging on their sites. Okay? I know from talking to the
utility people no one at DOE has asked whether or not you are willing
for the sake of moving fuel in 2010 or beginning of 2010, I should say,
that you\'d be willing to handle these kinds of casks of these
dimensions with this amount of fuel in it to move. That\'s not occurred.
And, that\'s the kind of discussion that I\'m talking about. And, you
know, John Arthur is doing a great job and I think he\'s trying his
hardest to discern what that is, but these lawsuits do\--I\'m sorry,
they just do simply get in the way. And, I will have to stop talking
about it because I will be executed by our General Council if I go any
further with it.

BULLEN: Thank you, Steve.

ABKOWITZ: Priscilla?

NELSON: Nelson, Board. I\'m trying to get back to the questions about
key concerns that you would have as a stakeholder involved in this
overall process. What becomes fairly clear is that this is 2004 and
between 2004 and 2010 there\'s an awful lot apparently to be
accomplished. Are you tracking this process enough to know, for example,
what you don\'t know what your key concerns are early, a choke point in
the schedule, more or less, and by which time if something is not
kicked, the schedule is really in question?

KRAFT: Immediately following the approval by Congress of the Yucca
Mountain site, we prepared our own\--you know, if we were DOE, what
would we do in transportation and it was just, you know, a page or two
of words, but the key point was a Gant chart of steps that we would go
through. And, we offered that to DOE and said here\'s some ideas what
you need to do next. And, we have then revised that once. It\'s all very
formal. We revised that once to reflect that they were not moving very
quickly. And, then the question that we tried to get at is, okay, what
things could you do early versus later given some of the political
realities that seem to be applying. From doing that, we\'ve not
identified any particular choke point that we thought we were going to
hit between now and 2010 in the sense of if they don\'t get X done by X
date, they\'re not going to get forward except that it\'s pretty obvious
that they\'ve got to get that rail line built starting at a certain
point. It takes, you know, so much\--Bob can tell you how much it\'s
going to take to build that railroad. That\'s the one issue that we see
and it\'s not whether the railroad is built or not, it\'s whether if
you\'re not going to get the road done in time what you work around.
Those things have yet to be identified. Now, I can\'t exactly tell you
that they have to be done by a year certain yet. We haven\'t done that
kind of study. But, in light of where DOE is now that they\'ve issued
some of these decisions, we\'re re-looking at that and we may identify
something. But, to date, we really haven\'t come up with some
particular, you know, if these things don\'t happen by this date, it\'s
too overwhelming to get to 2010. We still think they can get there.

NELSON: Nelson, Board. Well, in followup, I was struck by your bringing
up the language that relates to preconstruction or pre-licensing
activities. And, it seems as though what you were saying was that there
are some things that should be done on that basis that must be done
perhaps on that basis.

KRAFT: Thanks for asking the question. Let me clarify. What I thought
the preconstruction language was going after was not the building of the
specific surface facilities for waste, but there\'s a lot of
preconstruction that has to take place. They\'ve got to get heavier duty
power lines in to support construction, not for operations. They have to
get a road in to support the heavier equipment that needs to come in. I
mean, Paul described clearing the pad and doing certain backfill and I
think that there\'s a bunch of preliminary work that we call
preconstruction that has to be done before you start the actual
construction of building the plant. And, when I read that language, I
thought that\'s what they were getting at, that Congress had heard
somehow from DOE or someone that there was some need for that
preliminary construction. The reason I think you can\'t get to the
\"actual\" construction is the safety grade aspects of some of that.
Until you have that construction authorization from NRC, you are on
particularly shaky ground building anything that has to be\--you know,
you may think it\'s not a Q grade or safety grade, important safety
system, and you find that you\'re wrong in the license. And so, that
becomes important. So, I actually thought it meant the preliminary
stuff, the heavier duty power lines and those sort of things.

ABKOWITZ: Ron?

LATANISION: Latanision, Board. You\'d suggested that DOE should
incorporate some benefits from the PFS planning and experience. Could
you elaborate a bit on that? What kinds of things do you have?

KRAFT: Well, PFS learned a great deal about, for example, very large
dynamic loads on trains. PFS spent a lot of time with AAR, but Bob told
the story from their side when he speaks, as to what it was that would
cause problems in rail transport handling heavy loads and what leads to
derailments, you know, brake problems, control problems, dynamic loads
in terms of how the car is actually designed, things like that. And so,
PFS\'s contractors working with AAR and through the facility that they
have in Colorado where they do a lot of the dynamic testing, they
designed a car that they think and AAR believes is going to help remove
some of those problems. And, what it was really aimed at is that there
was a policy that AAR had on transporting used fuel that required no
more than 30 miles an hour and standing passes and\--I don\'t know what
the right terminology is\--but you had to stop if another train came by
or passed you which the way our rail network seems to be operating these
days is that we haven\'t built any main line rail of any consideration
for a very long time. And, again, I keep referring to Bob because he\'s
the expert. You know, they have a derailment in Kansas City and trains
stop in Florida. So, that\'s the kind of thing we are hoping to avoid by
developing this additional rail car technology. And so, there\'s braking
technology and whatever. So, that\'s one part of it.

The other part of it is because they\'re putting in that rail line and
had to work very closely with the Federal Rail Administration and local
authorities on that, there\'s a big learning experience that PFS went
through they could help DOE with.

ABKOWITZ: Dave Diodato?

DIODATO: Yeah, Diodato, Staff. Thanks for the presentation. I noticed on
your Slide 8 that you had a phrase there. You said one of the things
that was important was the institutional plan for stakeholder
interactions. Now, what I\'m interested in first would be who you view
as stakeholders in this process? What\'s your list of stakeholders?

KRAFT: Well, what I was saying here is that the strategic plan is an
institutional plan. That\'s what it is.

DIODATO: Right.

KRAFT: It\'s not a strategic plan that tells you all the things you need
to know as a strategic plan for moving.

DIODATO: That\'s not my question. My question is who is your list of
stakeholders?

KRAFT: Well, I think in this instance we thought of the stakeholders as
the regional groups, the states, the tribes. The industry and utilities
are stakeholders to be sure, but we didn\'t mean that. For purpose of
the discussion, we separated the industry from that group because I
think the interactions and information needs that the regional groups,
the states, the tribes, localities, the local sheriff\'s departments
need is different than the information needs that we have. That\'s how
we were separating.

DIODATO: Okay. Let me be more specific. Do you view citizens as
stakeholders?

KRAFT: Individual citizens?

DIODATO: Yes, individuals?

KRAFT: Absolutely. But, individual citizens seem to rely on their
elected and appointed officials in their localities and states to\--

DIODATO: Well, actually, we\'ve heard from the public that the citizens
don\'t view themselves as stakeholders, in fact, in this process. It\'s
just for your information. You wouldn\'t necessarily view all citizens
as willing stakeholders as a part of the process. You talked about\--

KRAFT: Well, wait, you added another word, \"willing\" stakeholder.
What\'s that?

DIODATO: Well, as a self-identified stakeholder, let\'s say.

KRAFT: Oh, okay.

DIODATO: But, you talked about John Vincent\'s experience and you
valued\--this was what was really a substantial community outreach
effort, it sounded like to me.

KRAFT: Yeah.

DIODATO: So, what I\'m wondering is how is that level of effort
consistent with the pre-selection of this rail route? I mean, how much
community outreach have you seen the Department doing? I mean, is it a
consistency or an inconsistency\--

KRAFT: No, I think it\'s consistent. I think DOE had\--they identified
those rail routes a long, long time ago. They had many interactions,
both formal and informal with groups from in and around Nevada, with
those counties; Lincoln County, City of Caliente self-identified a long
time ago in their interest. In fact, the City of Caliente is said if
you\'re not going to get that rail line built on time, we\'d be happy to
host an inter-modal facility. Nye County, they just got a grant and I
think they\'re ready to issue a report on their views on rail
transportation. During the EIS, I don\'t know how many hearings they
had. I mean, short of going door-to-door and interviewing people, I
think they\'ve done about as much as you can expect them to do given the
size of the problem here.

DIODATO: So, from your perspective, there\'s been community buy in of
the\--

KRAFT: Oh, yeah\--no, don\'t put words in my mouth. I didn\'t say
community buy in. You asked me about interactions.

DIODATO: All right.

KRAFT: And, I described what I thought with the interactions. No, the
community buy in is another story and you\'re going to have some
representatives of those communities here this afternoon. Ask them
whether they buy in, don\'t ask me.

DIODATO: Thank you.

KRAFT: But, I will tell you that what John Vincent did in that Oyster
Creek, that was not the first time that was done. A very, very long time
ago, Duke Power Company was considering transhipment from Oconee Plant
to McGuire Plant where they had more storage capability. They never did
that shipment. Dry cask storage was not available as technology back
then, and when it became available, that\'s what they did instead. And,
the people that did all that planning, they literally drove all the
routes and met and they stopped at every firehouse, they stopped at
every sheriff\'s department and talked. you know, what do you need to
know? You know, here\'s our information. So, the utilities have done
that. Now, you know, you\'re talking about a nationwide network. You
know, that\'s another step in the scale and I think that\'s where I said
that given that scope and you\'re starting with the regional groups or
the states and on down, I think is the right way to do that.

DIODATO: Thank you.

ABKOWITZ: Okay. We have time for just two more questions, Bob Luna and
then Dave Duquette.

LUNA: Steve, on your Slide 3, you talk about how the fuel is going to be
shipped and how it\'s going to be selected. It seems like there\'s a
couple of different interpretations here. One is\--and I heard you say
yesterday

\--is the oldest fuel first and then your third point seems to suggest
that oldest fuel is not necessarily the case. They can ship anything
that they want. And then, I\'ve heard some other statements yesterday
that suggested that you would expect to see negotiations between DOE and
the utilities on what was actually going to be shipped. Which one of
these is correct and/or are they all correct and we\'re going to select
from them when the time comes?

KRAFT: Well, they\'re all correct, Bob, but let me just work through it
again. Oldest fuel first, globally, is the way the shipping allocations
are determined in the annual priority ranking which is a document DOE
issued a long time ago. That creates in the utility and the purchaser a
right to a certain amount of fuel in a certain year. That\'s all it
does. That utility has discretion either shipping those elements that
created that right, other elements it owns, or they can sell that
shipping right to some other utility who can ship whatever elements they
please provided that they meet the requirements of the contract, a
minimum of five year cold fuel can go into cans, etcetera, etcetera.
Okay? That\'s that. That, I think, is two of the things you asked me
about, the allocation and DOE\--and you can select.

The discussions, the negotiations that I talked about was aimed at the
very, very first step of the program in that\--let\'s call it for sake
of argument the Phase 1A. Get the program operating in 2010 before you
have the full blown facility constructed where you\'re going to be
phasing in facilities. And, what you will have to do is talk to the
utilities about, okay, you\'ve got this allocation and you\'ve got the
right to give us any fuel you want, but if\--I\'m now thinking like
DOE\--if you want us, DOE, to move your fuel and your allocation, we can
only do that if you give us this characteristic fuel. Now, what\'s it
going to take to do that? What consideration do you want to do that?
And, that\'s how those three things all fit together.

LUNA: Thank you.

ABKOWITZ: All right. Dave?

DUQUETTE: Duquette, Board. I know that Mark wants to stay on schedule
and I\'m a little late with this, but also someone in the audience
apparently owes us all a drink. Just briefly, I know you prefer rail
transfer. I\'m going to be naive and indicate that I suspect that some
of the plants don\'t have spurs in them at the present time, some of the
ones in the east I can think of, in particular. What fraction of the
used fuel do you think will have to be transported by road or by barge
or by something other than rail?

KRAFT: That\'s dealt with in the EIS. The mostly rail scenario that we
support involves a certain percentage of truck shipments at 20%,
something like that. It\'s not only rail. It\'s mostly rail.

DUQUETTE: And, that would be transported all the way to the surface
facility? It would not be transferred in route to rail and then moved
on?

KRAFT: It could very well do that, go all the way. But, those facilities
do not have the heavy rail capability coming into their plant. Maybe
that\'s 14 or 19 plants. If you look at the rail maps that are in the
EIS, they\'re not terribly far from a rail head. So, they could perhaps
load a heavier cask and haul it over to that rail head, but that means
they have to have the ability in the plant for the heavy cask because a
lot of those older plants that had no rail connection to start with
didn\'t have the heavy duty crane either. So, there has to maybe either
be a crane upgrade or they have to ship smaller casks. In terms of how
barging might work, well, you know, I\'m no geographer, but I don\'t
think you\'re going to barge into Nevada. Well, now, wait, there is a
contractor out there that\'s got a plan, but I don\'t know that it\'s
going to work. But, facetiousness aside, those facilities that have the
barging capability might want to barge off the site to where there\'s a
rail head. When mildly spent fuel, 5% burned fuel, got taken out of the
(inaudible) facility and went to Limrick Plant in Pennsylvania, they
couldn\'t transport by rail or truck through New York City. New York
City has a got a ban that\'s never been resolved one way or another. And
so, to avoid the fight, they barged down along the Delaware River
somewhere and then trucked in the rest of the way. It was a very
successful transport. So, we\'ve had those experiences. And, there are
people who talk about barging, you know, east coast to somewhere on the
west coast and then trucking in. There\'s lots of plans like that that
are kicking around. I don\'t know what DOE is going to want to do.

DUQUETTE: Duquette, Board. Finally, I have some experience with the rail
system in the United States and the infrastructure is in pretty bad
shape at the present time. Do you think the Federal government should
step up to the plate and improve the infrastructure so that we can ship
fuel?

KRAFT: Well, I said before the Nuclear Waste Fund is not intended to be
sued for improving the main line rail system. I think that the railroads
have that obligation. If they\'re going to warrant that they can move
this fuel in a safe secure situation, they\'ve got to look at their own
infrastructure and do what they have to do. Now, whether the railroads
want to do some deal with DOE in some way, you know, that\'s subject to
contract. You know, more power to them. Ask the question of Bob about
that, but we maintain our facilities in a safe and secure manner every
day and we can handle these materials and we expect other industries
that we work with to do the same.

ABKOWITZ: Okay. Thank you, Steve.

KRAFT: Okay, thank you.

ABKOWITZ: Well, I think that Steve got us off to an excellent start in
terms of focusing on the objectives of the panel.

And, I\'d like to continue in that vein with these preparation of waste
shipments not so much now from an entire industry perspective, but to
hear more directly from a particular utility. In this particular case,
we\'ve invited Steve Edwards from Progress Energy to present that
perspective. Steve is supervisor of spent fuel management for Progress
Energy. He\'s responsible for all aspects of spent nuclear fuel within
the company including strategic planning for interim spent fuel storage,
on-site spent fuel storage projects, and the spent fuel shipping program
which regularly transports spent fuel from the Brunswick and Robinson
Plants to the Harris Plant near New Hill, North Carolina. The spent
nuclear fuel shipping program which Mr. Edwards manages has been in
place since 1989 and currently transports over 300 spent nuclear fuel
assemblies each year. As I mentioned before, Mr. Edwards will continue
to give the utility perspective on transportation planning.

Steve?

EDWARDS: Thank you. As has been alluded to a couple of times, I think
there is experience already, both domestically and worldwide for
transportation of spent nuclear fuel which will have direct implications
in our planning for the Yucca Mountain site. I think we can take
advantage of the experiences and the lessons learned that we have
already gained to make that a much more successful effort.

So, what I wanted to do today was review with you kind of why we ship
spent nuclear fuel. As we mentioned, we have shipped pretty much
continuously since 1989, but we actually first started shipping in 1977.
We have maintained an active shipping program over the years. We
typically do about 12 to 15 shipments per year. We have about 16, I
think, planned for this year as is currently laid out. So, I wanted to
go through with you some of what we do in terms of insuring the safety,
security of those shipments, and what we have found is an effective way
to implement that shipping program.

First slide, please? So, what I wanted to go through is some of our
transportation history with you which includes why we are in the
shipping business and why we continue to be in the shipping business and
will be in the future. Talk a bit specifically about some of the things
we do to insure the security of the spent fuel shipments as we talk
about what is important for implementing a shipping program. I think I
wanted to go through some of the things that we have found are very
important. There will need to be considerations put in place such as the
organization. It does require a pretty significant organizational
structure in order to carry it out. It\'s much more than just a couple
of escorts. It may be identified in 10 CFR 7337. And, the people that
are involved with some of the skills and training that are required in
that area. The procedures that have to be developed for every step along
the way, both in the loading, the unloading, and the transportation. The
coordination and notification working with all the various states,
counties, cities, organizations, local law enforcement. Emergency
planning between the shippers, the carriers, etcetera. What we have
gotten into there, I know that one of the comments yesterday afternoon
about the\--the lady brought up about the radio system they had gotten
in their county. They had a radio system, but they couldn\'t communicate
with some of the others. I mean, that\'s a legitimate logistical issue
that we have faced, as well, in terms of you\'ve got all these states,
counties, communities, the shippers, the carriers and it\'s important
you\'re maintaining continuous communication throughout the shipment.
And, things like compatibility of radio frequencies and such is a
legitimate logistical issue that has to be addressed. And, finally, some
of the emergency response. Even though we take great pains to insure
that every shipment is planned safely and is executed safely, it\'s
important that you have in place a plan for providing emergency response
in the unlikely event that anything does occur.

Next slide, please? For those of you that may not be aware, Progress
Energy is a public utility in the southeastern United States. We have
service territory in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Florida. We
have five operating nuclear units at four different sites. We transport,
as I mentioned, from Robinson Plant which is located in South Carolina
and our Brunswick Plant located in southeastern North Carolina to our
Harris Plant which is located in central North Carolina. Our rail routes
run about 200 miles or so.

Next slide, please? So, why are we in the shipping business? The main
reason is that it\'s necessary to maintain the operating reserve at all
of our nuclear units. The Robinson and Brunswick Plants are both older
design and constructed units. Our Robinson Plant went into commercial
operation in 1971 and the Brunswick Plants went into operation in 1974
and \'76, respectively. As such, because of the early vintage of the
designs, they have very small spent fuel pools. They were designed under
the assumption that the fuel would be reprocessed and would really only
be staying at the plant long enough for it to cool down and to be
shipped off site. So, we do not have adequate space at the sites to
store 40 years or more worth of spent nuclear fuel.

So, that\'s the reason we initially got into the shipping business. We
own a fleet of GE Model IF300 shipping casks. We have four of them, as
well as all the rail cars, cabooses, and ancillary equipment necessary
to maintain that. So, we ship to maintain our inventories at the
Brunswick and Robinson Plants. We are able to do that because the Harris
Plant, being a somewhat newer vintage plant, went into commercial
operation in 1987, was originally designed as a four reactor site, had
an integral fuel handling building for all four units. So, we have four
pools even though we only have one reactor. So, we have the capacity to
hold additional fuel beyond what the Harris Plant needed. And, I\'ll say
because we are shipping to reduce inventories, maintaining our
operational focus, that\'s one of the reasons that from our perspective
whenever we do begin shipping, shipping directly out of the pool makes
the most sense in terms of you want to keep the inventories down so you
can continue to operate and off-load. So, the fuel that\'s in the pool
is the fuel that you need to do that. So, from our perspective, shipping
directly out of the pools would be the top priority.

Next slide, please? Over the years that we\'ve been shipping, we have
conducted a total of 173 shipments which has covered about 30,000 rail
miles and we have transported approximately 4,000 spent fuel shipments
during that time.

Next slide? During this time, we feel we have an excellent operational
record. We\'ve had no radiological events. We\'ve had no spills,
releases, and in fact, we do monitor the radiation exposure of all of
the personnel involved in the plant. We\'ve never even had anyone on the
shipping train even pick up any measured radiation dose, in addition to
no dose to the public. And, we have significantly increased our security
in response to the lessons that have been learned after September 11th.

Next slide, please? In order to have a successful spent fuel shipping
program, I think there are certain things that are critical as the base
of that and I wholeheartedly agree with a couple of the comments that
some of the Board members and the staff made yesterday afternoon about
making safety a primary part of your objectives. The way we perceive it,
nuclear safety is the utmost top priority at all times. Even though we
routinely ship spent fuel, shipping of spent fuel is never a routine
activity. From our perspective, you have to have the same nuclear safety
focus that you have on any reactor operation activity. And so, we view
it just as importantly and it receives just the same amount of
management attention, organizational focus, financial resources,
etcetera, as anything in the reactor operation side. I think that\'s an
important point in order to be successful moving forward.

I think also you have to have clearly identified accountabilities. We
are the shipper of record. We have a carrier. We use CSX as our carrier,
but we also interact with local law enforcement, state organizations,
emergency management organizations, communities, etcetera, and everybody
has to know exactly what their accountability is at all times. In order
to have a successful spent fuel shipment, it\'s important that it leave
on time, that it arrive on time, that you have no unscheduled stops, and
that any scheduled stops, over minimal duration. And, in order to
accomplish that, absolutely everybody has to know what they\'re supposed
to do and when they\'re supposed to do it, they have to have the
resources to do it, and they have to be there on station to carry it
out. So, I think everybody has to know their role in it.

In addition, I think something that\'s important is to having a
continuous improvement in culture. We\'ve never had any two shipments
where we\'ve done them exactly the same even though we\'ve done 173
shipments. The way we view it is every shipment there is something that
occurs that we can do better the next time. So, for that, we have
multiple pre-shipment briefings where we involve all of the people who
are going to be involved directly in the shipment. We\'ll get together
days in advance, the morning of, etcetera, and we also have
post-shipment critique and lessons learned where we go through the
entire route and what worked and didn\'t work and what we can change for
the next shipment. So that you\'re always looking for ways that you can
make the next shipment more efficient and safer.

Next slide, please? We do use a dedicated train for our shipments. Slide
#8 which appears not to be on the overhead here does talk about
security. So, I wanted to touch base on that. You should have it in the
hard copy. We do use dedicated rail shipments and I have here our
typical lineup. As Steve alluded to earlier, the industry is pushing for
dedicated shipments. We definitely use them and favor them. We got into
it not because of any safety issues, but it does make the logistics much
easier. We have escorts that ride the train. We have people that are
involved with the shipment. We want to know what\'s on the shipment that
is going directly from origin to destination. And, from our perspective,
a dedicated shipment does that.

There are also security aspects of the shipment, as well, that have to
be maintained. There\'s a lot of safeguards information in terms of the
time and date of shipment, the specific armory of any escorts, the
actual number of armed escorts. We do work pretty closely in North
Carolina and South Carolina with the North Carolina State Highway Patrol
Department, in South Carolina with the State Law Enforcement Division
for providing additional security support. We maintain a certain level
of security. They maintain a certain level of security, as well.

In addition, we feel from a security standpoint that having a continuous
monitoring of the shipment is important. We have a remote satellite
monitoring system so that we know at any time not only where the
shipment is, but what direction it\'s headed in, what the speed is, if
it slows down when it shouldn\'t be, if it makes an unnecessary stop,
etcetera. So, in addition to maintaining communication with the people
on the shipment itself, we do maintain continuous monitoring of the
shipment, as well.

Next slide, please? And, this is where we use the

\--in terms of the dedicated train lineup which we think is effective.
And, as I say, we own two cabooses which we deploy, in addition to
housing any escorts that accompany the shipment, any equipment necessary
for emergency response, and other such things.

Next slide? The next area I wanted to get into that I think is important
is the people that are involved in the shipment have to be highly
trained and qualified. For the most part, we have much of the same core
team that has been involved in all of our shipments since 1989. We have
a fairly extensive training and qualification program that we use for
them. We use people at the sites for the loading and unloading operation
and some of those same people are also used to accompany the shipment.
So that we have people that understand the package, that understand how
it works, what\'s normal, what\'s not normal, and can accommodate it.
So, having people that fully understand what their roles and
responsibilities are, as well as what they should expect to see, is an
important aspect.

Next, please? Next, I want to talk a little bit about the organization.
As I mentioned, if you look at the specific CFR requirements, it\'s
going to talk about an escort or two. Don\'t get lulled into thinking
that those are the only people necessary to make a shipment successful.
We have a fairly formal organization that we put in place during any
shipment and these are folks that are, in addition to their normal roles
in the organization, they then take on these roles during a shipment
itself. We have a shipment manager who is really responsible for the
overall implementation of the shipment. He actually rides in a shadow
vehicle accompanying the shipment so he is close to it at all times, can
respond to the shipment if there is any duress or any issues that need
to be addressed. He stays in constant contact with local law
enforcement, with the carrier, with escorts on the train, communicators
in a remote facility. So, he maintains an oversight and management of
the shipment.

We maintain two escorts in the caboose which you see a picture of one of
our cabooses, one of this is a radiological expert. He has the equipment
with him so that if anything did happen along the route, he would be the
first on the site that would manage any radiological event until any
external response personnel, as well as\--we actually maintain multiple
mechanic experts. We maintain one in the caboose and one in the engine
up front. They know how to operate the equipment and can respond to any
equipment issues that may occur.

Next, please? In addition, we maintain communicators at a remote
facility. They are the ones that actually make notifications,
communicate with state, federal, local officials, stay in contact with
the escorts, with the shipment manager, and company personnel. They\'re
at a remote facility. They\'re also the ones monitoring the GPS system.

We have a response coordinator and teams. We actually have multiple
teams, one from the shipping and one from the receiving site, that are
on standby to proceed to the site if there is any accident along the
route. They would be the first one. They would be immediately dispatched
to assist any local emergency personnel in the management of the event.

And, finally, we maintain a response manager who is responsible for
maintaining senior management within the company, corporate
communications, monitoring the overall aspects, and communicating
outside the shipping organization.

Next? Next, an important factor we have found is to have very detailed
procedures in place that go through exactly what we do. We have them for
loading, unloading, for shipment preparations. So, we have procedures we
go through so that all notifications to state and federal organizations
are made in a timely manner so that all communications occur, as well as
the equipment is prepared. We also have separate procedures we use
during the transportation route itself and we have routine and
emergency. So, within the procedures, we have all the various scenarios
that we would anticipate along the route and exactly what kind of
notifications would be made, what responses would be made, etcetera.

Next? And, finally, in terms of the coordination, this is something I
know you guys have touched on on some of the other presentations. One of
the things that we\'ve found was very effective is that prior to
establishing the shipping program, we did hold meetings in various towns
and counties along the route. We had a communication plan and actually
identified who some of the key stakeholders were all along the route
which included local elected officials, emergency management personnel.
It included newspaper reporters, etcetera. So that whether they bought
into it or not, they at least were informed of what was going to happen
along the route.

We also maintain a regular exercises with our state and county emergency
personnel. We did two of these last year. We typically do them on at
least an annual basis where we bring in everybody from the communities
along the route and do a tabletop exercise so that everybody has a
chance to interact, to respond to what\'s going on.

In addition to the ongoing communication, we talk pretty regularly with
most\--at least, the key organizations that we work with. We maintain an
ongoing dialogue for what their needs are, what our needs are, what\'s
coming down the path, etcetera.

Next? Along the route, there are certain notifications that are required
by regulation. In addition, we work with the local organizations for
what they feel comfortable with in terms of knowing. The regulations are
going to require notifications for the governor or the governor\'s
designee. In both our cases, in North Carolina, that falls within the
North Carolina Highway Patrol, and in South Carolina in the State Law
Enforcement Division, of federal to the NRC. And, prior to commencing a
shipment, just following shutdown, and periodically during the shipment,
we also maintain updates to the state and county personnel.

Next? And then, finally, in the area of emergency response, one of the
things we find that\'s important is you\'ve put everything in place you
can to insure that you have a safe, smooth trip, and at the same time,
you have to be prepared for any event however unlikely that could occur
along the route. So, we identified a number of scenarios which we,
through events along the way, build on this so we have bomb threats,
terrorists, intervenors, derailments, bad weather, changes in Homeland
Security threat levels, etcetera, a lot of predetermined scenarios and
then exactly what we do if we have a shipment in route when one of these
occur. What kind of notifications we make, who responds, who makes
decisions, etcetera.

Also, as I mentioned, we have the caboose. We insure that we have all
the radiological and hazard information readily available so that any
personnel responding to an incident in route have all the equipment they
need. We also have shadow personnel who are not directly on the train so
that if for some reason the train itself\--the people on the train
itself were to become incapable of responding, we also have people that
within a minute or two could be on site. And, we have dedicated and
trained response personnel who are on standby any time a shipment is in
place in order to respond.

And, in summary, I think we have within Progress Energy, as well as
within the rest of the utility industry, a significant amount of
successful transportation experience which could be directly applied to
the planning for the Yucca Mountain transportation and it is a very
coordinated effort between the utility, federal, state, local
organizations, carriers, etcetera, and is something that is going to
require a lot of work between now and then, but it\'s definitely
something that can be successfully accomplished.

That concludes my remarks and I\'ll be glad to take questions.

ABKOWITZ: Thank you, Steve. We\'ll start with Dick Parizek.

PARIZEK: Yeah, Parizek, Board. That\'s a very impressive story and I
guess one question is what would it take to ramp this up to a national
scale because you\'ve been going in the southeast to the Harris Plant,
but could you imagine what it would take to sort of nationalize this? I
mean, your company could do it, it sounds like.

EDWARDS: You know, clearly, our duration is much shorter than what you
have, but I think the components would be the same. So, I think it is
something that definitely could be replicated. One of the things we have
found is that both the North Carolina and the South Carolina folks
coordinate with us very well. We have developed over the years an
excellent working relationship both at the state and the local levels
with those folks. You know, that\'s not something that necessarily
happens on Day 1. It\'s something you have to cultivate as you go
forward. But, I think there\'s no reason that this type of process could
not be replicated across the nation.

PARIZEK: Right. Parizek, Board. What\'s new since 9-11 that may change
in terms of, you know, your protocols to the extent that you can answer?

EDWARDS: Sure. Well, we have put in some plays, some specific things, to
insure our comfort level. In addition, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission
has issued certain advisories and interim compensatory measures. I
guess, the sum total of those are there is greater armed presence both
on the shipment, as well as accompanying the shipment. There is greater
security available to the shipment for fairly rapid response. I think
there is a more closer monitoring of the shipment status and location.
Increased communications. Those are probably kind of in summary.
Unfortunately, the specific\--I think, citizens would be pleased to
hear, at least, in terms of what\--in particularly, in North Carolina
and South Carolina, some of the specific security measures that they
have in place for either accompanying a shipment or in direct response.
I think it\'s pretty impressive what they have available and,
unfortunately, the safeguards and restrictions prevent specific
discussion of those so that any perpetrator wouldn\'t know exactly how
to respond to it.

PARIZEK: Parizek, Board. About weather, do you pay attention to weather,
tornadoes, hurricanes?

EDWARDS: Absolutely. What we do is we schedule our shipments obviously
well in advance, but one of the things we do is we formally do it the
day before shipment. We actually sit down in a group conference call and
what is the weather forecast, what is the national security threat
level, you know, what sort of chatter are we hearing from the FBI, from
our internal security. So, we do that formally the day before shipment.
We also do it the day of a shipment. We again sit down before we release
the shipment and say, okay, what is the weather in route, what is the
security situation, and we make a conscious\--those are two conscious
decision points on whether or not a shipment proceeds.

PARIZEK: You\'re saying no two shipments are the same. What sort of
surprises or differences have occurred that make you state that?

EDWARDS: Well, we\'ll get into working with the rail system. We
typically use main rail routes. So, one of the areas you get into is
what is the ideal time to go so that you don\'t have other
interferences? That\'s one. We\'ve also had some incidents. We had one
that actually got some press out here back in March of 2001 where we had
a couple of escapees from one of these boot camp road crews which we
encountered along the way. So, you know, that got some press from the
standpoint of from the negative side of, well, folks said, hey, this
proves how easy it is for folks to\--could be to attack a shipment. But,
we looked at it from the opposite point of we knew exactly who these
guys were, we knew they were not armed, we knew exactly where they were.
You know, had we chosen to take more evasive action, we could have. It
was not necessary in that case. But, what we found from that was not so
much the security aspect of it, but the communication aspect of it was
an area where we found some improvement opportunities.

PARIZEK: Thank you.

ABKOWITZ: Okay. I\'ve got Dan Bullen followed by Thure Cerling and then
Ron Latanision. I\'d like to ask each Board member to keep it to one
question, please.

BULLEN: Okay. Bullen, Board, just a quick question. First, thank you
very much for the presentation. It was very informative and we learned a
lot with respect to your success in transporting spent fuel. My question
is how do you convey that success or your lessons learned to a group
like DOE? What types of communications do you think would be necessary
for DOE to learn from your successes?

EDWARDS: We had one initial meeting, at least, with some of the Bechtel
folks where they came in to discuss with us, at least, what procedures
we have in place. We\'ve also talked to the GAO and a couple of other
folks, as well. From my perspective, we\'d more than happy to maintain a
dialogue and meet with them, share with them both our lessons learned,
procedures, those type things. So, you know, we\'re more than happy.
We\'ve had some very preliminary discussions to this point, but we\'d be
more than happy to engage in more detailed dialogue and information
sharing.

BULLEN: Thank you.

ABKOWITZ: Thure?

CERLING: Well, I was going to ask a similar question, but I\'ll go to a
different one. Well, what mechanism is now in place for you to share
your experiences with the other utilities that might be doing similar
sorts of experience and how much communication is there for all of the
industry to learn from each other?

EDWARDS: We work with NEI, we work with EPRI. You know, we have various
meetings that occur throughout the year where we have opportunities to
share information. Obviously, within the nuclear plants, we have
operating experienced systems, where any time we\--which we monitor
pretty closely, other utilities monitor pretty closely, so that we can
see what someone else has done that maybe worked or didn\'t work. In
addition, we have maintained professional contacts with our counterparts
in other utilities. You know, obviously, there could be a more formal
process for that, but that\'s at least the way we do it now.

LATANISION: Latanision, Board. I missed the plate of what evolves after
a shipment arrives at Harris.

EDWARDS: Okay.

LATANISION: What\'s the\--

EDWARDS: What happens when a shipment arrives, once it gets into the
plant protected area, our shipping organization really shuts down and
you go into the plant organization. The plant actually takes ownership
of it. The way we do it is the shipment begins and the shipment ends
when the CSX has connected to the rail car and we\'ve turned over the
shipping paperwork and then it ends when we actually take possession.
They disconnect their engine and we take possession of any shipping
paperwork. At that point, the shipping organization really shuts down
because you\'re within the protected area of the plant within the
security and the procedures that exist. You have the emergency plan that
exists for the plant and then we go into the\--all the notifications for
shipment shut down for the various state and federal organizations and
local organizations and then we go into\--we unload it and put the fuel
in the Harris pool and then begin preparing the cask for return
shipments to either Robinson or Brunswick.

LATANISION: Okay.

ABKOWITZ: Thank you, Steve.

EDWARDS: Thanks.

ABKOWITZ: Well, I think we\'re off to a wonderful start in terms of
focusing on information that\'s going to be very helpful for the Board
as it understands the transportation system planning requirements.

I neglected to mention after Steve Kraft\'s presentation that at the
break if any Board member would like to self-nominate as a candidate for
morale officer, I\'ll be handling those things. We may make it part of
the social chairman\'s responsibilities, however.

We\'re going to shift gears slightly now and get into the container
availability and use question. This is kind of part and parcel with the
preparation of waste shipments because obviously if you don\'t have the
right container available, then you have an interface problem with
product that can\'t move even though it may be ready to move because you
don\'t have the right equipment to deal with that. So, we\'re very
interested in understanding that issue.

And, speaking to us today on that subject will be Ian Hunter from
Transnuclear Incorporated. Ian has more than 25 years of mostly
international experience in the nuclear industry. His expertise includes
all aspects of transport planning; cask design, licensing, and
fabrication; transportation logistics; cask operation fleet maintenance;
emergency planning; and outreach programs. Effective about three weeks
ago, he was appointed Vice-President of Government Operations at COGEMA,
Inc., where his responsibilities include developing COGEMA\'s corporate
strategy for supporting DOE\'s future needs to ship spent fuel and
high-level waste to Yucca Mountain. Although we invited Mr. Hunter to
give us the perspective of a cask vendor regarding transportation
planning, I think it\'s fairly evident from his biography that his
expertise is much broader than that.

Ian?

HUNTER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and good morning to members of the
Board and members of the public. It is a pleasure to be here today.

I should mention one corporate issue. You\'ll see on the slides the name
Areva. I will be talking today mainly about COGEMA, Inc. and
Transnuclear, Inc., U.S. companies. We are part of the Areva group which
is a worldwide group with interest in energy and connectors employing
75,000 people worldwide. In the U.S., we have about 7,500 employees.

Next slide, please? I\'ve repeated the questions which I read in the
invitation to come here. At the end of the presentation, I will attempt
to answer some of these questions.

Next slide, please? I took the liberty to stray into this afternoon\'s
session on lessons learned and I will also attempt to answer some of
these during the presentation.

Thank you. I want to start by talking about the broad experience of
COGEMA. More than three decades of safe spent fuel transportation. A
comprehensive experience in all aspects of the transportation business.
A well-established presence in the U.S. It\'s interesting if you look
back into the history of Transnuclear, Inc., it was formed back in 1965.
That\'s almost 40 years ago. Specifically, with the intention of having
a company dedicated to shipping spent fuel. That was at a time when
people expected the nuclear industry in the U.S. to go for a closed
cycle with reprocessing. We all know that hasn\'t happened, but still
there is a need for transportation. Within the Transnuclear, Inc.,
organization, there\'s about 100 engineers dedicated to the safe design
of packaging and the safe transportation. I noted a few words that we
used this morning; holistic approach and integration. I would certainly
mirror that as a sentiment of COGEMA and the way in which we organize
our transport.

Just an example of one of the Transnuclear end products, this is the TN
68 dual purpose cask. It\'s for storing and transporting BWR fuel
licensed in both Part 71 and Part 72. This kind of cartoon picture shows
you a cutaway illustration. It\'s a metallic cask with a bolted lid. It
contains 68 BWR assemblies. I\'ll show you a photograph of it in service
later on.

Next slide, please? In addition to shipping spent fuel, we also ship
high-level waste which is in glass containers. The photograph on the
left, you\'ll see the operation of loading the containers, and on the
right hand side, you\'ll see actually a high-level waste cask and the
shipping operation where the cask is being transferred to a shipping
frame.

Looking back at the history of Transnuclear, Inc., in the early days of
the foreign research reactor fuel, Transnuclear was involved in a lot of
the shipments to both Savannah River, a total of over 250 shipments were
successfully undertaken. And, I think, this afternoon, you\'ll be
touching on the experience of foreign research reactors. So, I won\'t
say any more about that.

Also, we\'ve been involved in shipping fuel\--actually, I think there\'s
an error on the slide here. I think it was from West Valley. Is anyone
from West Valley here? Yeah, apologies for that. Again, I was probably
in high school when that took place. We also own some TN8 and TN9 casks
which are clusters, overweight truck casks, and they\'ve been used for
internal movements. And, we\'ve also been involved in post-radiation
examination shipments.

Moving worldwide, COGEMA group is safely shipping spent fuel as we talk
today. That experience runs over three decades from countries as far
away from Europe as Japan which involves very long sea distances,
typically a six week voyage, and also across the European continent
spanning many countries from Spain, Sweden, Italy, Germany, Holland, and
many others, as well as shipping 30,000 metric tons of spent fuel during
that period. More recently, the high-level waste which has been produced
from reprocessing has been converted into a vitrified residue and those
have been shipped back to the customers. Up to now, we\'ve shipped
almost 1,000 tons of high-level waste in similar packaging.

We are experienced in cask fleet management. COGEMA logistics which is
based in France manages the COGEMA fleet for shipping spent fuel to
COGEMA La Hague. They own a fleet of 50 heavy transport casks, special
heavy haul trailers, and dedicated rail cars. They also operate on
behalf of other owners; people such as Electricity De France, EDF, and
PNTL, casks on their behalf for shipment to COGEMA La Hague.

Just a few words about cask maintenance. This photograph shows a COGEMA
owned maintenance shop. This particular shop is dedicated to the
maintenance of heavy casks. It has a throughput of around 150 casks per
year. One of the important things to remember about maintenance, if
you\'re operating a spent fuel cask which probably has an operating life
of well-over 20 years, there is a significant amount of maintenance
which is required not because the cask itself wears out, but it\'s
subject to minor bumps and scrapes. And, within the provisions of the
safety analysis report, there is periodic maintenance required. This
maintenance needs to be carefully managed, it needs to be carefully
controlled. It\'s an integral part of the transport operation. And, one
thing I would recommend is that those who are responsible for design in
the holistic approach take some note of that. We do have a lot of
experience in maintenance. I note there are a number of consultants
working for DOE in this area, but to my knowledge, no one has consulted
COGEMA or Transnuclear, Inc., to date, on cask maintenance.

Thank you. Multi-modal transports, you\'ll see photographs there of rail
cars, dedicated ships, special heavy haul trailers. When you\'ve moving
from long distances, not every facility has a rail link, and therefore,
there are multi-modal shipments involved.

Next slide, please? This photograph shows the Valognes terminal in the
north of France. This is about 20 miles from COGEMA La Hague
reprocessing plant. Strange as it may seem, there is no rail link into
the plant. There wasn\'t one when the plant was conceived and they
performed many studies and deemed it was economically unattractive to
install a rail link. So, in effect, every single spent fuel assembly
which is shipped to COGEMA La Hague goes by truck for the final 20
miles. This terminal was built specifically to do a safe transfer from
rail to truck.

Our previous speaker, Steve, mentioned the importance of tracking the
shipments. COGEMA Logistics was one of the pioneers in developing
satellite tracking for radioactive package shipments. It now becomes a
regular part of our operations. I wouldn\'t use the word \"routine\".
Using the word \"routine\" implies that we perhaps still pay attention
to things. That\'s not the case. All of the shipments from COGEMA
Logistics are tracked in a real time basis. You\'ll see a photograph
there of the control room or the operations people, but, in fact,
actually duals as an emergency response center in the event of an
incident.

Next slide? Careful planning, preparation, training, procedures, all
very important. Emergency exercises are held regularly. They do involve
stakeholders, people like firefighters, police. I\'ve participated in
many of these exercises. A lot of lessons learned both for the people
involved at the site and those remotely trying to control the operation.
What you see in the photograph on the right is a recovery exercise where
a 100 ton empty cask has been placed as if it\'s run off the highway and
the emergency teams are charged with the task of recovering it safely.
We do take these exercises very seriously and we go as far as involving
media personnel. We will actually employ professional journalists to act
as real time press people and test the response of our own media people;
very interesting.

Part of the holistic approach without mentioning public outreach, there
was a question about stakeholders earlier on. I would go as far as to
say that everybody is a stakeholder including members of the public. A
lot of us who have spent time in the nuclear industry have been behind
closed doors, inside nuclear plants with nice high fences. It\'s very
easy to get complacent and forget about the public in some instances. If
you\'re in the transportation business, you are out there in the public
domain. There is a responsibility to go out and talk to the public,
listen to their concerns, and to give them what information is necessary
to allay those concerns. We do have dedicated teams of people working on
this and we couldn\'t have successfully shipped large quantities of fuel
over large distances without going out and talking to people on a
regular basis.

A few statistics to give you. Group together the spent fuel shipments,
high-level waste, plutonium oxide, and MOX shipments, together with
low-level waste. I don\'t have any numbers for 2003, apologies. Those
numbers are just being compiled. But, basically, we\'re talking around
1,000 shipments per year on a regular basis going to the COGEMA La Hague
Plant, either in or out. Typically, about one per day spent fuel casks
arrives at the plant.

Coming closer to home in the U.S., I\'ll just mention very briefly that
COGEMA is involved in the DCS MOX Project to convert weapons grade
plutonium. It\'s a mixed oxide fuel. There is a transportation element
to this. Obviously, the plutonium itself needs shipping and the MOX
assemblies and we are assisting the DOT with this transportation. Within
the not too distant future, the lead test assemblies will be fabricated
in Europe and shipped over to Duke for radiation in one of their
reactors.

Even closer to home just down the road, the Yucca Mountain design teams
are working on the surface facility on behalf of Bechtel. If there\'s
any questions on the COGEMA part of that, I\'d be pleased to answer
them.

Next slide, please? Just digressing slightly to other areas of packaging
and transport, trans-uranic waste. There\'s a subsidiary of Transnuclear
called PacTec who designed and supplied packaging to the DOE for
trans-uranic waste. This is the RH72B cask. And, we are currently
working on TRUPACT-III again for trans-uranic waste. This is being
developed on the European TN Gemini cask.

I think there\'s a speaker this afternoon on West Valley. No doubt,
they\'ll go into more detail on their experience. The two casks which
recently shipped spent fuel out of West Valley were the TN REG and TN
BRP casks designed by Transnuclear.

Okay. Nice map of the U.S. showing the locations of the ISFSIs where
Transnuclear is serving customers to provide dry storage. The initial
dry storage, we supplied to customers was for site-specific on-site
storage only. More recently, there\'s been a trend for people to go to
dual purpose systems. You\'ll see we have quite a wide extensive spread.
I would say we\'re in an ideal position, Transnuclear and COGEMA, to
assist the DOE in interfacing with a large number of the U.S. utilities.

I\'m not going to go through all the numbers. We don\'t have time. This
is just a breakdown of the dry storage customers from Transnuclear. On
the right hand side, there\'s a pie chart. Approximately, two-thirds of
all spent fuel that\'s in dry storage today is in Transnuclear systems.
Two main systems, the NUHOMS canister system where the fuel is placed in
a welded canister and the TN metal cask system where it\'s in a bolted
metal cask. We offer both technologies.

Just some examples of the metal cask deployment. For Dominion, we supply
metal casks TN 32 model to both Surry and North Anna, you see in the
photographs there.

Next slide? And, for (inaudible) at Peach Bottom, we supply the TN 68
cask. That was the cutaway illustration I showed you earlier. 44 casks
on order, 20 loaded. I made a rather bold statement there, they are
ready to ship to Yucca Mountain. What I mean by that is this is a Part
71 licensed cask. All you would need logistically is a heavy haul
trailer and a pair of impact limiters and within a few hours, TN 68
casks could be on the road and rolling towards Yucca Mountain. They are
licensed for it today. That photograph was taken, I think, pre 9-11. I
expect if one of our staff tried to take it today, they may risk getting
shot with the security arrangements.

Next slide, please? TN 40, one of the earlier casks we supplied,
site-specific storage cask only out in Minnesota, a beautiful picture of
that with the snow on the ground and on top of the containment building.
Last week, we attended a meeting with the NRC and NMC, the operators of
the dry storage fleet for Prairie Island, and we had preliminary
discussions about how we could introduce a transportation license for
the TN 40 casks. The technology in the TN 40 cask is identical to the TN
68 and we\'re fully confident that we can find a way to ultimately have
these licensed so they can be shipped off site.

Okay. Getting back to the real meat of the presentation, you know, the
vendor\'s perspective, we can provide cask and transport solutions to
both the commercial sector and to DOE. But, more importantly, I think,
with our parent company and our broad experience worldwide, we are
offering a gateway to DOE, a gateway to look into that experience and
look how COGEMA apply the same holistic approach.

Next slide, please? Moving towards some answers, I\'ve just picked out a
few of the questions. What do I think are the main characteristics of
the Yucca Mountain shipping campaign? I\'ve listed four. One is the
considerable distances from the individual sites. I think there\'s 102
operator reactors in the U.S. at the moment. Not many of them are close
to Nevada. So, they\'ve all got some distances to travel. Not all of
them have rail links. Some of them may even prefer to barge, as was
mentioned earlier. So, there will be multi-modal shipments required.
There are a lot of stakeholders involved; traveling long distances,
going through different states, dealing with tribes, etcetera. The
fourth characteristic is, you know, what is the most important thing,
safety and security. If I compare that with COGEMA\'s experience, same
order of magnitude of the order of a few hundred casks per year
regularly being shipped, we do address multi-modal shipping in order to
ship fuel from places like Japan through the Panama Canal and across
European countries, each of which has its own set of regulations and
requires its own individual cask licensing. We do have experience of
multiple stakeholders. So, these characteristics are very similar to the
challenges for Yucca Mountain.

What works well? For me, what works well in this industry is the
regulations for the casks themselves, the packaging and transportation
regulations, the IAEA, International Atomic Energy Agency, regulations
have been adopted into national law in virtually every country in the
world. They said it was a good model. They are extremely close to the
Part 71 regulations in this country. I think also that the cask safety
has been demonstrated by the excellent safety record, and in many
millions of cask miles, there\'s never been an accident involving the
release of radioactivity. Also, what I think works well is the public
demonstration tests that have taken place. When there have been specific
concerns of stakeholders, the industry has reacted. I know there\'s some
discussion recently about package performance tests. I would welcome
that certainly from the point of view of public confidence, but only if
these tests were carried out at regulatory limits or with realistic,
credible accident conditions.

Next slide, please? How shall we use the lessons learned? Well, you\'re
going to touch on that more this afternoon with the domestic shipments
and foreign research reactor programs. But, I\'m offering an open
invitation here today to anyone who is involved to come and talk to
COGEMA and learn about our experience in the holistic sense of the world
of transportation; everything including preplanning, outreach,
logistics, fleet management, emergency planning. You can\'t just take
one element and look at it on its own in isolation.

From a security aspect, we do take this very seriously. As far back as
the 1980s, we performed tests on Transnuclear casks with the aid of the
military to determine what the real threat level was in terms of being
able to penetrate one of these casks. Some of our customers in Europe
for dry storage cited in areas where there is a volume of air traffic
which makes them concerned about the possibility of aircraft crash, even
though it\'s a remote possibility. So, the dry storage casks which we
supply to Belgium and also in Switzerland, these are all tested for
resistance to aircraft crashes. So, we have actually built one-third
scale models and impacted them with simulated masses of F-16 and F-18
fighters and the casks do not break.

Again, public outreach is an industry priority. I do believe we share a
collective responsibility in promoting safe transportation and COGEMA
participates in organizations such as WNTI, the Word Nuclear Transport
Institute.

Other the lessons learned for Yucca Mountain? I must touch again on the
work that\'s going on just a few miles down the road here with the
COGEMA teams designing the mechanical handling equipment for the surface
facility. I think that\'s an example that shows how COGEMA technology
can help the industry and the U.S. to meet its needs.

What should DOE provide to vendors? Well, the first thing is an
opportunity to find out what we have to offer. I\'m pleased to see that
in Gary Lanthrum\'s strategic plan he\'s scheduled a series of meetings
with the cask vendors. In fact, Transnuclear will be meeting with
members of Gary\'s team next Tuesday. I hope this is a first of a series
of meeting. We do recognize that the strategic plan is it\'s an early
stage. There\'s a lot of detail to be added. From a technical point of
view, we would like to know exactly what fuel specifications would be
required, what types of casks they\'re looking for in terms of big heavy
casks or legal weight truck casks, what are all the constraints and
limitations that we would have to interface with at the sites to make
this work? And, more importantly, what is DOE\'s expectations in terms
of standards and specifications? We can only learn that through
dialogue.

I\'ll just step back before saying a few final words. I\'m making it at
a 10,000 foot observation. I know that there are legal problems between
the DOE and the individual utilities with regard to the contracts, but
it is perhaps something of a shame that some of the utilities are going
to the extent of buying dry storage which is for storage only on site
without any consideration for the end use. I think what\'s lacking in
the whole system is somebody taking a big picture view, a kind of life
cycle cost analysis. I mean, what is the real cost of spent fuel from
the time it comes out of the nuclear reactor? We do have people at the
moment in individual utilities that are charged with buying dry storage
as they\'ve already paid at the Waste Fund. They want to pay the minimum
for the dry storage with perhaps no considerations for where it\'s going
to go in the future. So, ultimately, a large quantity of our fuel may
have to be repackaged and I think that\'s a shame.

So, my message to the DOE is, please, continue to talk to us. I will
take off my corporate COGEMA-Transnuclear hat now and just mention the
U.S. Transport Council of which we are a member, it\'s a group of
commercial representatives from the nuclear transport industry who have
got together to try and promote safe transportation and to bring
whatever resources together they can to help DOE make this work.
Industry does want the program to succeed.

Thank you.

ABKOWITZ: Thank you, Ian. You\'ve covered a lot of ground and I don\'t
want to shortchange the questions and answers. So, somehow, we\'ll have
to juggle this up. As the moderator, I\'m going to allow myself the
first question.

I understand that there are some wastes for which we do not have
certified casks to move it at this point in time. I was just curious to
find out what kind of time frame is required to go through a design,
testing, certification, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera, until such time as
it\'s actually ready for use.

HUNTER: You mean, start from a clean sheet of paper or from an existing
design?

ABKOWITZ: From a clean sheet of paper?

HUNTER: Well, just to give you an analogy, we regularly contract with
commercial customers for dry spent fuel storage and we\'re offering dual
purpose solutions. In some instances, we\'ve started from a clean sheet
of paper and actually loaded spent fuel in a licensed system two years
later. That\'s a fairly fast track. But, with the commercial sector and
with good corporation from the (inaudible), I would say three to four
years is reasonable planning, maybe a bit longer with the DOE where
there\'s more constraints and more interfaces. But, certainly, now is
the time to start looking at it.

ABKOWITZ: Thank you. Ron?

LATANISION: Latanision, Board. Slide 31, please? You mentioned that
casks have been tested for sabotage aircraft crashing. What are the
standards or criteria that were established before these tests and what
kind of results?

EDWARDS: Well, with respect to sabotage, there were no criteria
involved. That was a confidential study that was done with the security
agencies and the military to look at things like (inaudible) charges.
So, I couldn\'t discuss the technical details of that.

LATANISION: This is the U.S. military?

HUNTER: I think, it was the French military for the Transnuclear casks
in France, but I assume there\'s some cooperation agreement between the
various security authorities to share this data. And, if there\'s not,
we\'ll make sure that the data is available. With regard to aircraft
crash, the Swiss and Belgium safety authorities, they define for us a
loading curve in terms of force per unit time which we have to comply
with in the model tests. That was representative of either an F-16 or an
F-18 aircraft crash.

LATANISION: Thank you.

ABKOWITZ: Dan?

BULLEN: Bullen, Board. Could we just go to the next\--actually, the
previous slide, 30? You mentioned the package performance tests should
be at regulatory limits. The first question is do you think these should
be full-scale tests?

HUNTER: For public demonstration, yes, I think that\'s what the public
wants to see. Even though from an engineering perspective, scale model
testing is perfectly valid, but what the public wants to see is Scale 1
testing.

BULLEN: Okay. Bullen, Board. I actually agree with you. I think that
would be the best demonstration for public tests. I guess, the followon
question is when you state regulatory limits, it brings to mind in the
United States a drop test onto an unyielding surface, a drop test onto a
pen, throw it in a fire, drop it in the water, but a lot of the public
is actually interested in sort of the design basis accident and maybe
even beyond design basis accident. So, are you opposed to them going
beyond a design basis accident to see what it takes to actually fail a
container?

HUNTER: Okay. Well, I think, you have to remember that the regulations
where you have a nine meter drop or a 30 foot drop in a half hour fire,
those are actually termed as mechanical tests and thermal tests.
They\'re not accident conditions. The regulations are very
deterministic. There have been public demonstration tests on what you
might call credible accidents. Like in the UK, they crashed a train at
100 miles an hour into a cask. In actual fact, the forces imposed on the
cask were less than those of a 30 foot drop. What I personally would not
support is testing a cask to destruction simply to see what the ultimate
limits were. That serves no purpose other than to say to people, oh,
these things can break.

BULLEN: Bullen, Board. I\'m familiar with the British test of the train
and I understand that, but I guess the test that comes to mind would be
something similar to the Baltimore Tunnel fire where people are very
concerned about the integrity of the containers in a real scenario
accident. And, I know that\'s been analyzed to death by both the NEI and
EPRI and NRC, but a test of that nature is beyond the design basis or is
that within design basis?

HUNTER: Well, again, a realistic accident scenario with a realistic fire
situation, I think the IAEA studies have shown that something like 99.9
percent of all accidents are bounded by the regulations. So, I don\'t
know if we were in a realistic accident. It\'s very hard to engineer a
severe fire condition around a spent fuel cask.

BULLEN: Bullen. I agree. Thank you very much.

ABKOWITZ: Ian, thank you.

We\'re a bit behind schedule. So, we are going to break. Don\'t worry
about that. But, I\'m going to ask that we limit our break to 10 minutes
instead of 15 minutes. Thank you.

(Whereupon, a brief recess was taken.)

ABKOWITZ: The good news is we have a lot of people here with interests
in transportation, and therefore, the breaks are an important
opportunity to meet and greet. The bad news is that we have a very
ambitious program and we want to make sure that every speaker has an
opportunity to share their views including accommodations for public
comment periods.

What I wanted to mention before we get started in this next session is
that the people who have signed up, the list of people who have signed
up to speak during the public comment period, is growing and we want to
make sure that everyone has that opportunity that has or will be signing
up. I would like to ask those of you that will not be able to stay until
late this afternoon to go back to the desk and identify yourself with
Linda Coultry\--Linda is raising her hand, both hands\--so that we have
better understanding of that and we can try to fit you in before the
lunch break.

We\'re now going to move on to the next part of the program and we\'re
shifting gears now from the folks that have the waste and are developing
the packaging to be able to get that in preparation for shipment and the
handoff of custody to the folks that will be providing the in-transit
operation, namely the carriers. So, this next session is going to focus
on carrier considerations. We\'ll be hearing from both the truck and
rail industry and that\'s certainly not meant to exclude the barge
transportation or the yet to be proposed Caliente Canal. Then, before we
break for lunch, we\'ll have a discussion from DOE, as well, on the
receipt of the waste shipments at Yucca Mountain. And, as I said, we\'re
going to try to also accommodate a public comment period.

So, without any further ado. let me introduce our speaker representing
the truck carrier. That\'s John Hauser who is the Project Manager of the
Nuclear Division for Tri-State Motor Transit. John is Division Manager
with over 30 years of hands-on experience dealing with transportation of
all levels of nuclear materials and radioactive products. For the last
15 years, Mr. Hauser has developed and coordinated projects involving
relocation and temporary storage of radioactive spent fuel. Prior to
that, Mr. Hauser assisted in the design of packaging and trailer
equipment for various levels of radioactive materials. And, as I
mentioned before, Mr. Hauser will give us a view on the trucking
industry on Yucca Mountain transportation planning.

John?

HAUSER: Okay. What I\'d like to do is provide a view of our company,
Tri-State Motor Transit. We\'ve been involved in transportation of
radioactive material for decades. We have a CD-ROM that\'s interactive
that shows our capabilities and just exactly who we are. At the end of
the presentation, our web site is shown and anyone can request a copy of
this CD and we will send it to you.

(Pause.)

ABKOWITZ: John, you have an opportunity to tell your best joke.

SPEAKER: John, my presentation is still up. Would you like to go through
that?

HAUSER: Okay. There we go.

(Pause.)

ABKOWITZ: Does the Board have any questions for John?

SPEAKER: How about them Patriots?

ABKOWITZ: I have one. Is Bedrock, Inc., a Fred Flintstone company or\--

HAUSER: The gentleman that bought our company just a couple of years
ago, he said that was his parent company, a rock crushing company, that
had been in business quite a while and the jokes went crazy. We were
going to change our company slogan to yabba-dabba-do, and that didn\'t
go over very well. He takes everything very seriously. We went back to
painting all of our trucks green which was the old Tri-State color and
he\'s interested in maintaining us in southwestern Missouri.

ABKOWITZ: Let me ask a question of Bob Fronczak. Bob, would you be
prepared to speak now, to speak if necessary?

FRONCZAK: (Inaudible).

ABKOWITZ: Okay. Would it help from a technical standpoint of we stopped
or\--

FORD: Let\'s give it one more try.

ABKOWITZ: Okay.

HAUSER: I\'d have a little bit more of an oral presentation without the
CD, but it\'s not as entertaining.

(Pause.)

HAUSER: I can go ahead and give a presentation without the CD.

ABKOWITZ: Well, why don\'t we give it a try. You\'ll hear Part 2 of
John\'s presentation in a little while.

Okay. We\'re going to start with the rail carrier considerations and
I\'d like to introduce Bob Fronczak with the Association of American
Railroads. As most of you know, the AAR is a trade association that
represents the major freight railroads of the United States, Canada, and
Mexico. In fact, the AAR members are responsible for 76 percent of the
line haul mileage, 91 percent of the employees, and 93 percent of the
freight revenues, and most of the intercity passenger miles on those
railroads. Bob is currently the Assistant Vice-President of Environment
and has his materials for AAR and his responsibilities include the
development and coordination of railroad industry hazardous materials,
nuclear waste transportation, and environmental policy. He actively
participates on AAR\'s nuclear waste transportation task force, the
group of rail members that have responsibility for developing railroad
nuclear waste transportation policy. And, he is also AAR\'s member on
DOE\'s transportation external coordination working group or TEC which
you\'ll hear more about as the day goes on. Bob has also participated in
many of the efforts the industry has initiated since September 11th,
2001, in the area of hazardous materials transportation security.

On a personal note, I wanted to thank Bob for changing his schedule so
that he could be with us today, although I am somewhat concerned about
the statement he made back to me when I apologized for the schedule the
way it was. He said you\'ll hear from me later. So, I\'m still wondering
and waiting what that will require.

Bob?

FRONCZAK: I was afraid for a second there that my presentation wouldn\'t
work either.

You know, having been involved in a rail transportation industry for 20
some years and the fact that the rail network is spread out amongst all
48 lower states and North America, for that matter, I\'ve traveled a
lot. I\'ve missed anniversaries. I\'ve missed holidays. I\'ve missed
birthdays. Today, I missed a dentist appointment and I\'m going to miss
my son getting his varsity letter in soccer tonight, too. So, I missed
two things for this one. But, I think, all in all, this is an important
event and I\'m glad I\'m here.

First slide, please? What I\'m going to do is I\'m going to address the
questions that the Board addressed us. One of the things I\'d like to
address by Board member Duquette is that the rail infrastructure is in
not so good a shape. That\'s very far from the truth. I think the Class
1 railroad network is in the best shape it\'s been in its history and
I\'m going to go through some of the safety statistics that show that.

Now, there are issues with the transportation of spent nuclear fuel into
some of the nuclear reactors because some of those go into reactors that
don\'t have rail service or don\'t have periodic rail service. The rail
network into coal fire power plants is excellent. Going into a nuclear
reactor, it may be a little different story. It might be on a short line
and there might be some issues there.

Next slide? Some background I\'d like to go through is I think at this
point most of the shipments are going to go by rail. Some of that has to
do with the efficiency of rail and the weight of the casks. They are
very heavy.

We do have a very good accident record and I\'m going to go through some
of that. Right now, we\'re estimating that there\'s going to be 250 to
400, say, shipments per year of rail transport when Yucca Mountain comes
on line. Today, we probably have an order of magnitude of less than
that. We probably have 20 to 30 shipments per year. So, this is going to
be a significant ramp up and yet it\'s going to be a very, very small
portion of our business and we want this to integrate with our current
business as effectively as we can make it happen.

It\'s going to be a long shipping campaign. So, we feel that there are
some things that we can do to the equipment to help reduce derailments.
These shipments are going to be high visibility. They\'re going to get a
lot of attention and I don\'t think we want to have that derailment if
we can prevent it.

We want to minimize the impact on operations and insure continuous
improvement and ultimately our goal is incident-free transportation.

Next slide? We feel that there are significant safety advantages to rail
transportation. 99.9956 percent of all hazardous materials that are
shipped today arrive without a release of hazardous material. There\'s
never been a release, we\'ve heard that, of radioactive material in the
transportation of spent nuclear fuel by rail.

Next slide? Our safety record is improved tremendously since 1980. And,
1980 is important to the rail industry because when the Staggers Act was
passed. We were \"deregulated\". We\'re still very regulated industry.
But, it allowed us to go very much to contract rates, and because of
that, we\'ve been able to invest a significant amount of money in
infrastructure and our safety record has shown it. Hazmat accident rates
have declined by 87 percent since 1980 and 34 percent since 1990.

Next slide? Derailment per million train miles have dropped 70 percent
since 1980 and 23 percent since 1990.

Next slide? One of the issues that we feel is important is the issue of
dedicated trains and we\'ve heard it this morning from Steve Kraft. I
guess, the key reason that dedicated trains are important is it reduces
in our opinion the probability of a derailment due to adverse train
dynamics. What I mean there is that a standard freight car is 100 tons
and that\'s 263,000 pounds gross weight on rail. We\'re going to
286,000. A spent nuclear fuel car is going to weight estimated well over
400,000 pounds and I\'ll show you what the private fuel storage car will
weigh. That\'s going to weigh 476,000 pounds. Some of the Navy cars
going today are over 500,000 pounds. Now, that\'s a significant weight
difference than a standard freight car and that sets up adverse train
dynamics when you have that kind of car next to empty cars in regular
freight transportation.

We take derailments as a very serious safety issue. That\'s how our
industry is judged in the safety arena. There\'s a lot of efficiency
benefits to dedicated trains and I think you heard some of that this
morning. One of them is both safety and efficiency, but there\'s fewer
switches. You don\'t have to go through classification yards in a
dedicated train. Now that can save you from, you know, say, eight hours
on a typical good day when it hits the yard, makes a train, gets into
another train, or it could take up to 48 hours or better if it hits it
on a weekend and there\'s no train going. I\'ve heard of chief operating
officers go ballistic and threaten to fire people for seeing locomotives
sit on the side of the rail not working like they\'re supposed to be
working. That\'s about a \$2 million investment. These casks are going
to cost somewhere on the order of, say, \$2 million to \$3 million. I
think that\'s an investment that we want to keep working. As a taxpayer,
I\'d like to see it keep working.

By using dedicated trains, best available technology can be utilized. If
you put these casks in regular trains, you\'re subject to whatever
freight is in that train. That could be a 40 to 50 year freight
container. Not to say that that freight container is not safe, it\'s
just that you can build additional safety into these containers, and
I\'m going to go on to that in a little bit more detail. And, Steve
mentioned it this morning. I think, not only does DOE need to make a
decision on the mode of transport which I think they\'re pretty close to
doing, but they also need to weigh in on how they\'re going to transport
it in the use of dedicated trains.

I heard the question of the Baltimore Tunnel brought up this morning,
too. And, had that shipment been done in dedicated trains, there
wouldn\'t have been that car of, I think, tripropylethaline (phonetic)
that would have caused the fire that was in the Baltimore Tunnel.

Next slide? From a security standpoint, we have not taken a real strong
stance on security other than to say that if you\'re going to provide
security on board that train, we don\'t run cabooses anymore. That
caboose that you saw this morning by Progress Energy was a company-owned
caboose. The railroads use end of train devices now to do the same thing
cabooses used to do. So, if you want to use on board security, you know,
we suggest that a personnel car be provided, that that personnel car
have the comforts that are necessary to maintain people on that train
for several days which is the amount of time it could take to run from
the east coast all the way out to some geologic repository.

The railroad industry has done significant work in the area of
anti-terrorism since 9-11. And, I can spend another 20 or 30 minutes
just going over an overview of that. It\'s a threat driven plan. We are
dependent upon intelligence by the U.S. Government. As that intelligence
indicates that there is a threat against the rail industry, we crank up
to various alert levels. We have four alert levels, 1, 2, 3, and 4.
We\'re at Alert Level 2 and we have been since 9-11. At Level 2, we\'ve
got on the order of 54 alerts or alert level actions that we take. When
we go all the way to Alert Level 4, we have 113 total actions that the
industry takes.

Next slide? I\'ll get into Question 2. Next slide? We haven\'t\--I guess
the real answer to this question is that we haven\'t done anything or
haven\'t gotten any information from DOE to help us in the area of best
available technology, but all along we have talked about that. What
we\'ve done about that on our own is to develop a performance
specification for trains used to haul high-level radioactive waste. Now,
that has all the cars and the train as a part of the standard. It
requires static and dynamic modeling before construction. That takes
time. It requires full-scale car characterization on a static level, as
well as dynamic level out at our transportation technology center which
is what Steve was referring to this morning, our facility out in Pueblo,
Colorado. It also has a 100,000 mile evaluation period built into it.

Next slide? The former standard requires a road-worthiness that is over
and above what our current\--what\'s called Chapter 11\--road-worthiness
requirements are. In other words, this car is more road-worthy and it
uses things like premium trucks to operate over more severe track than
our typical freight equipment and still operate safely. We have
electronically controlled pneumatic brakes as part of the standard and
right now all trains are equipped with pneumatic brakes. Pneumatic
brakes require an air signal to go from the locomotive to the end of the
train. That takes time. And, electronic brakes, that goes at the speed
of sound. That signal goes at the speed of sound so that all the brakes
are applied at the same time. It significantly reduces the stopping
distance and the potential for a great crossing accident. Electronic
conduits through the train also allows for on-board defect detection.

Next slide? What is built into the standard, performance standard, is
on-board defect detection system. So, the things that we do\--some of
which we do wayside at the current time like hot box detectors that are
spaced, say, 40 or more miles apart, we can monitor that bearing in real
time on the locomotive. Other things that are built into the standard is
to monitor truck hunting so that if a truck is bouncing back and forth
between the rails, we can detect that and take action to prevent that
from occurring. Wheel flats, something that we can do wayside now, we
can monitor on-board and also the braking performance, vertical,
longitudinal, lateral acceleration, and (inaudible).

Next slide? This is a diagram of what we see the dedicated train to look
like. This is, I guess, the model that private fuel storage is using.
Two locomotives, not necessarily because it\'s necessary for power, but
for redundancy in case you have problems with one. You\'ve got a buffer
car. The buffer car is required by regulation. We feel that the buffer
car needs to be of consistent weight with the other car. In other words,
you don\'t want a late flat in between two very heavy loaded cars. Then,
followed by cask cars and then another buffer car and a security car at
the end.

Next slide? We\'ve taken some other steps on enhancing safety in the
rail industry. We\'re up to OT-55-E. It says D in this, but we\'re up to
Issue E at this point. OT-55 is our operating practices for the
transportation of large quantities of hazardous materials including
spent nuclear fuel and high-level waste. In OT-55, there are over and
above regulatory requirements on track inspection, defect monitoring. In
other words, there are wayside detectors spaced more often. There\'s
increased maintenance frequency on those trains, as well as track and
increased employee training. And, there\'s a maximum speed limit of 50
miles per hour for what we call key trains which this would be one of
them. There\'s also\--and I don\'t plan on talking about it, but FRA has
also developed our safety compliance oversight plan for high-level
radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel shipments. I\'m sure they can
talk about that if you\'d like to hear more about it.

Next slide? We heard this morning about private fuel storage. They\'re
the first shipper that we\'ve had to build to our new performance
standard. The cask car was manufactured by Trinity Industry. Again, the
overall weight of that cask car combination is 476,000 including impact
limiters. The modeling and characterization has been complete and out at
our transportation technology center right now they\'ve done the static
testing. And, they were in the process of doing the dynamic testing
which is the on-track testing, but they\'re postponed that until they
can work out the issues with the State of Utah.

Next slide? This is what the car looks like. One of the key differences
in this car compared to another rail car is it\'s a depressed center
span bolster car. So, there\'s two four axle trucks\--or two sets of
trucks on each end of the car and that\'s because of the increased
weight of the vehicle. But, it\'s real. There\'s been a lot of work
done. It\'s not finished, but it does exist.

Next slide? Now, I\'ll address the third and fourth questions. Next
slide? I guess, so far, most shipments of spent nuclear fuel have gone
by dedicated train. That\'s for a number of reasons. From the DOE
standpoint, a lot of times they\'ll request dedicated trains. The Navy
doesn\'t request dedicated trains, but we give them dedicated trains
because that\'s what we feel should be done. The Yucca Mountain EIS
indicated that dedicated trains are not necessarily advantageous and it,
I guess, made no conclusion about whether they would ship using
dedicated trains or not. So, that\'s a key thing that needs to be done
in the near future to get the transportation system by rail going.

Next slide? Another issue that the rail industry would like to see at
rest is there\'s a very small chance that a cask would have a release in
a transportation incident. We in the rail industry have to plan for that
event. And, we would like to get together with DOE. I think we\'ve been
assured that there is plenty of resources to bear to deal with that
event, but we would like to have a more concrete analysis and discussion
with DOE about how that would be handled, how an incident would be
handled in case we had to deal with it.

Next slide? The procurement and testing of cars that meet our
performance standard takes time. In the Private Fuel Storage Initiative,
the modeling and initial submittal took between six months and a year.
We estimated that the full-scale testing would take between two and
two-and-a-half years. Some of that depends on how many cars that are
going to be tested, whether you have to test the cask car or buffer car
and a personnel car separately, but it\'s going to take time. And,
whereas, we feel that there\'s enough time left between now and 2010,
there\'s not a lot of time and we need to get on making those decisions
so that we can plan for that.

The other thing and Steve mentioned it this morning again is that we
could use some of the experience of private fuel storage. You know, I\'m
sure that they would be willing to license that car for a price, but
again, I mean, we should take advantage of the experience that they\'ve
already developed in the transportation of spent nuclear fuel.

I didn\'t come addressed to talk about the rail construction, at all.
Nobody has asked us about the rail construction. So, we\'re assuming
that DOE is going to contract that out to a contractor to build and
ultimately have somebody operate it. But, you know, we\'re willing to
talk to them if they feel like we\'ve got some sort of input into that.
I\'m sure we\'ll hear more about that. And, I guess, that\'s it.

Next slide? Summary, the rail is a safe\--we feel is a safe mode of
transportation. There\'s some advantages of using it. Dedicated trains
make sense. There are technological improvements that we\'re committing
to continue to build into the rail network to prevent an event from
occurring. And, DOE needs to start making those decisions so that we can
get that to happen all by 2010.

With that, I\'ll entertain questions.

ABKOWITZ: Thank you, Bob. We\'re going to start with Dave Duquette?

DUQUETTE: Duquette, Board. Let me qualify my earlier statement. I\'m
quite familiar because I\'m a materials consultant to AMTRAK in the
northeast corridor from Boston to Washington and much of the Montreal to
New York runs. There have been tremendous problems in the infrastructure
in that part of the country and I\'m fully aware that CSX does in that
part of the country use the same rail systems as AMTRAK. But, I think
that there are problems with some of the infrastructure in the country;
certainly, in the northeast that I know about.

With that, I would like to go to Slide #3, please? Oh, Slide #3 was the
number of derailments per million miles. But, the question I have is how
many million railroad miles per year does the freight part of the
country do, for example?

FRONCZAK: I don\'t know the answer to that right now. I mean, I can get
that for you. That\'s a statistic that we maintain at AAR.

DUQUETTE: But, it\'s in the millions presumably, not in the
hundreds\--not in the 100,000s?

FRONCZAK: Oh, it\'s definitely in the millions, if not billions.

DUQUETTE: No, no, but you\'re suggesting three\--maybe it\'s a couple of
slides after that. It\'s the one that shows the number of derailments
per million miles.

FRONCZAK: Yeah, keep going one more, next one.

DUQUETTE: Okay. One more after that.

FRONCZAK: Yeah.

DUQUETTE: Okay. That indicates about three derailments per million miles
and I appreciate the fact that it\'s decreased considerably since 1990
and I applaud that. But, to me, that\'s still a lot of derailments if
you\'re doing millions of railroad miles per year. I know of, at least,
one near Kansas City that occurred two years ago. There was a serious
derailment. There was another one in the northeast corridor. The tracks
actually buckled because of heat between New York and Washington. So, I
think, the infrastructure does have to be looked at. I think your
progress in addressing problems and reducing accidents is quite
significant. I also want to indicate that I don\'t necessarily think
that a derailment would result in a release of radioactive material. I
just want to point out that it\'s a possibility. Not that the release is
a possibility, but a derailment is a possibility.

FRONCZAK: I mean, safety is number one in the rail industry and we want
to continue to have that number go down. We\'d like to see it zero, you
know, and there\'s cost to safety. I agree that we can be safer and
we\'re trying to be safer.

ABKOWITZ: Okay. We have Bob Luna followed by Priscilla Nelson, Dan
Bullen, Thure Cerling, Dan Metlay, and Ron Latanision. Bob?

LUNA: Thanks. Bob Luna, Consultant to the Board. Bob, I was interested
in your comments about the PFS rail car. Somebody told me, somebody from
the fuel transport industry told me, that they felt it would be possible
to buy used equipment and bring it up to the standards for that you
require for high-level waste shipments. I was wondering if you could
comment on the possibility that that could happen?

FRONCZAK: Well, I think that\'s a very real possibility. I mean, the key
in meeting this new performance standard is going to be equipping it
with the electronic pneumatic brakes and those are add-ons that can be
accomplished. And, putting the right trucks and spring combination
underneath it. Again, I mean, a rail car is a bunch of components. The
trucks are separate pieces that you can add to a car very easily. So,
that\'s a reasonable possibility, sure.

LUNA: Okay, thank you.

ABKOWITZ: Priscilla?

NELSON: Nelson, Board. I\'m going to ask you about the possible
interdependencies and vulnerabilities in the system even with a
dedicated train. These days, there\'s been a lot of sector introspection
about SKADA systems and increasing reliance on information and
particularly on power systems and power supplies and how the
interdependencies develop and cause additional vulnerabilities. This is
a whole system perspective. Is there anything special about transport on
trains that will require some additional security or assurance of the
availability of the information and power system-wide to insure train
throughput? Am I making any sense to you?

FRONCZAK: I\'m not sure I understand your question. I mean, one of the
major differences\--and I think you heard it this morning before I
talked\--is, you know, rail system is an integrated system. And, like
somebody said this morning, I think it might have been Steve\--you know,
if you have a derailment or a problem in Florida, it could affect trains
going up to Chicago. And, there\'s not as many reroutes available.
Reroutes get to be difficult. A reroute is more difficult between
carriers because then you have interchanges involved. Reroutes on an
individual carrier can be very\--add a lot of distance which adds risk.
So, there are a lot of interdependencies, but it\'s nothing that we
haven\'t worked with for years and years. So, I mean, we feel like we
have a pretty good handle on it.

NELSON: It\'s analogous in some respects to the power grid in terms of
redundancies and how you build in redundancies and capabilities in the
system. But, there\'s also reliance on information for decision making
and on power supplies which may not be internal to your system kind of
an issue, but interface with other systems kinds of issues where you\'re
starting to rely more on information, condition assessments, and if you
start losing that because of loss of that kind of an interdependency
with other systems, then you could not be where you are fairly quickly.
So, I\'m wondering are you looking outside your immediate sector for the
interdependencies with other sectors in establishing vulnerabilities or
considering redundancies?

FRONCZAK: I mean, nothing other than what we\'re already doing for
normal routine rail transportation. You know, one of the things that the
rail industry has, we have our own radio frequency. You know, all of our
trains operate on that radio frequency. We have a network set up
throughout the entire United States that allows us to communicate with
all of our trains all the time. Now, there might be some\--you know,
when you get into having other people on board and having to deal with
what a shipper representative on board might want to do versus our
normal routine transportation, I think that a lot of those things have
been worked through on the shipments that are already being made and are
being made today. We just need to make sure that there\'s a lot of
communication there.

NELSON: Okay. Thank you.

ABKOWITZ: Okay. Dr. Bullen has yielded to the delegate from Utah.

CERLING: Cerling, Board. I was just wondering on the issue of\--getting
back to the infrastructure and security issues that are special that
perhaps need to be done with respect to the shipment of spent nuclear
fuel, I guess, my question is really who would pay? Would it be just DOE
or would that be taken in by the railroad industry?

FRONCZAK: That\'s a good question. I figured that question would come up
because you asked it to Steve this morning and he said I was going to
answer it. I don\'t know the answer to it. The rail industry goes after
business and will build a rail line if there is enough business there.
Now, you\'re talking about perhaps 10, 30 carloads of business to
somebody\'s small, little utility. I would find it hard to fathom that a
railroad would want to sink any money into improving that line for 10 or
20 carloads of business. Now, on the other hand, perhaps the line out to
Yucca Mountain where there\'s going to be maybe 400 shipments, I don\'t
even know that that would support a case for a railroad company wanting
to build that line, take that kind of investment on themselves and make
that a business case. We have recently with the City of Chicago\--and I
don\'t know how many of you heard about it\--we\'ve undertaken a very
significant public/private partnership and we\'ve proposed over \$1
billion investment in the City of Chicago on improving railroad
infrastructure to make the flow of commerce through Chicago more
efficient. We\'re asking government to share in that project. And, how
we\'re trying to divide it is we are asking the government to pay for
public benefits and we\'re willing to pay for private benefits. So,
that\'s a possible scenario. For these shipments, I envision that if
you\'re going ot have to invest a significant amount of money in some
small rail lines, you\'re going to have to do a cost benefit that
the\--you know, the government is going to need to pay for it is my
guess and that they\'re going to need to do a cost benefit. Which is
better? Which is cheaper, a heavy haul to the nearest rail spur or some
other mode or upgrading that line? That\'s my opinion.

CERLING: Thank you.

ABKOWITZ: Dan Metlay?

METLAY: Dan Metlay, Board staff. I\'m wondering if you could turn to
Slide 15 and the last bullet? I\'m wondering if you could say a little
bit more about that last bullet; in particular, whether there are any
implications for this situation with possible respect to Yucca Mountain?

FRONCZAK: Well, I guess, the private fuel storage, I guess, they made a
decision that they don\'t want to invest any more money in a
transportation system until they knew pretty well that the
transportation system was going to be used. The implication here is you
have some fairly long-term items that have to be procured; casks, you
know, the cars, building of the rail line. So, key decisions have to be
made. So, the implication is that you need to make sure that the key
decisions are made so that you\'re not wasting money and building
infrastructure that you\'ve not going to use.

ABKOWITZ: Ron?

LATANISION: Latanision, Board. Back to Slide 6, please? This is a
followup to Dave Duquette\'s question. How would those statistics look
if we were talking about European rail lines?

FRONCZAK: I don\'t have a comparison with me between U.S. and European
roads, but the best U.S. roads operate as safe or definitely safer than
European roads. And, on average, we\'re definitely as safe as European
roads. And, you\'re comparing apples and oranges in many respects
because you\'re comparing a primary passenger system in Europe to a
primary freight system in the United States.

LATANISION: No, I appreciate that, but of course, that\'s what we\'re
dealing with here in terms of the transport issue we\'re concerned
about. And so, the question would be how would the rail lines that are
most likely to see high density of traffic compare even in terms of
this\--this is a more normalized average, I suspect.

FRONCZAK: I mean, I have a slide that goes in and compares U.S. railroad
operations to European operations and I\'d be glad to sent that to Mark
or whoever, you know, at the Board and you can take a look at it.

LATANISION: Yeah.

FRONCZAK: But, it\'s very favorable.

LATANISION: Thank you.

ABKOWITZ: Okay, thank you. I\'m going to ask the projectionist to go
ahead and take\--I\'m not done yet with you. Just hang on a second.

FRONCZAK: Oh.

ABKOWITZ: Ask the projectionist to take down this presentation so we can
load up John\'s which apparently will take a few minutes.

Bob, if I were to approach you and said I want to build me a rail spur,
could you walk me through the steps that would be required from when I
approached you to when the first train would be running and also some
reasonable expectation of the time frame associated with those steps?

FRONCZAK: I\'m not an expert on building new rail lines and I think
somebody else brought it up this morning. Again, we haven\'t built that
many new rail lines. I was involved in one small rail spur construction,
but you have to go to the Surface Transportation Board, you have to
figure out whether or not you need an Environmental Impact Statement. If
you don\'t need an Environmental Impact Statement, you still need to
do\--you know, go through a limited environmental evaluation. If you
have to do a full blown EIS, I think we have a little bit of experience
on what the Yucca Mountain EIS took, you know. That can take a couple
years. And then, you have to get into the actual design of the rail
line. Ultimately, out here I don\'t know if they\'ve got the property
procured. So, you have to get into procurement of property. Is there
enough time to do it between 2010 and now, I\'d say, yes, but I
wouldn\'t want to wait until 2007, 2008 to start doing something. Things
need to be happening, I think, in the next year time frame to get the
EIS started and that whole process started. And, I know it\'s not a
detailed response to your question, but it\'s as good as I can do.

ABKOWITZ: Okay, thank you.

All right. I do want to make one announcement here, and also before I do
that, to tell Bob that I feel very badly about your not attending your
son\'s letter awards ceremony, but as so many things in life are
tradeoffs, including risks, I feel very good that we were able to delay
whatever reason why the dentist needed to see you.

Linda Coultry reminded me to just mention to the folks that are here
that if you\'re not already on the Nuclear Waste Technical Review
Board\'s mailing list that there\'s an opportunity to do that and all
you need to do is share that information with Linda or drop her a
business card or any of that kind of stuff. We won\'t spam you with all
kinds of offers and things like that. You\'ll only be notified when we
have something to share with you as a matter of official business.

How are we doing? Not doing well? John, I\'m going to ask you to come up
here and just do the best you can under the circumstances.

HAUSER: Without the assistance of the CD-ROM, it\'s going to be a little
less interesting or colorful.

Initially, from the transportation standpoint, truck transportation, the
carrier I work for, Tri-State Motor Transit, we\'ve been involved in
transporting spent nuclear fuel since 1964, 40 years. We regularly
transport all types of radioactive material in the complete fuel cycle
from UF-6 that goes into manufacturing fuel rods to the spent rods to
repositories. We also are involved in the WIPP Program. At this time, we
are successfully working at that and hope to renew our contract next
time it comes up. It\'s our experience through, at least, 40 to 50 years
of the safe transportation of spent nuclear fuel that it is a safe mode
of transportation.

At this time, I\'ve found that there are about 2,000 tons of spent fuel
produced in the United States annual. It has to go somewhere. If the
rods have to be moved anywhere, right now we have complete
transportation plans and programs in place to cover movement to take it
anywhere in the United States. There have been over 3,000 shipments of
spent nuclear fuel transported since 1964 and they have been transported
safely.

With the specialized equipment, as well as extensive training of the
drivers and updating of the equipment and support personnel, this adds
to the safety to the public. The vehicles have advanced to the point
that the trucks are safer every day. When we first started transporting
the equipment, you wouldn\'t believe how it was. But, right now, the
trucks are equipped with satellite communication, cellular telephones,
we have remote shutdown devices, and continuous monitoring. Now, the
satellite monitoring, we can\--it\'s like the GPS and we can pinpoint a
truck\'s location just within a few feet. Any of the designated units
that would be involved in the spent fuel program, they can be specially
equipped with disabling devices because everyone\'s fear is can someone
steal it?

Can they hop in it and drive it away? We can be equipped where a
shutdown device can be activated either remotely from our facility or
each driver would carry a disabling mechanism. It would be a monument.
It could not be moved until we activated it to where it could be moved.

The cost of communication with the drivers is what makes it really safe.
Cooperations with the states being aware that the shipments are coming,
they can also be set up to where they can monitor the shipment when
it\'s in their state. Making sure that they\'re aware of what it is and
how it\'s moved seems to be what all the states want to know. You know,
is it coming through my state and what are you going to do with it if it
stops? We can repower, we can move, we can reroute. If there\'s a
problem found, a dangerous situation, accident or a bridge, we can make
a right turn. We can avoid because there\'s always an alternate route
set up by the NRC. All shipments have weather criteria. If there\'s bad
weather in an area, we can avoid the bad weather or we can secure the
equipment in a safe area.

Right now, with all the extra measures that\'s been put in place for
security and with the escorts and all that\'s involved, we\'re not
foreseeing any problems as far as security at this time. At any time, we
can alter our plans, add additional security or whatever is required.
Right now, the new measures that are in place, Tri-State Motor Transit
has had them in place since 1953 as far as background checks on drivers
and worrying about the safe end of it. It is safe.

We feel that we\'ve been transporting this stuff, I call it, you know,
spent nuclear fuel for over 40 years safely without incident. We could
transport it anywhere. We could take it to Yucca Mountain. We have
alternate routes. We have routes in place right now going in and out of
Nevada, to Nevada, through Nevada, transporting other materials. It
would not be a problem, at all, for us to put together the needed
programs. Our main concern is that we haven\'t been able to address is
when will truck transportation or any transportation start? If we can
find out when a repository is going to be open and be able to accept
spent fuel, then we could put a program in place within six months
drawing on our experience with the WIPP project. The objectives we see
from a trucking standpoint is provide safe, cost-efficient
transportation. From some of the figures that we\'ve had, we could do
the whole project for what it costs to build a railroad.

What works? Well, full public involvement and cooperation from all
agencies. The past campaigns of spent fuel over the last 40 years, we
can apply them to any shipping campaign. Public forums, let the people
know what is really inside those big gargantuan casks going down the
road and help them understand it. So many people are saying, well, what
is it? What does it do? Why is it in there? I think if people understood
more about what was being transported and the precautions that\'s being
taken, it would make Yucca Mountain or any transportation be a lot
easier.

Without the help of my public commentator, CD-ROM, that\'s about all I
have.

ABKOWITZ: Thank you, John. And, I particularly appreciate your moving us
closer to being back on schedule.

We\'ll start with Dan Bullen?

BULLEN: Bullen, Board. Actually, I want to express my appreciation for
your extemporaneous speech without the use of visual aids. I think
that\'s a great compliment to you.

But, I do have a couple of questions. You mentioned that the drivers
have the ability to disable the truck so that it\'s not movable.

HAUSER: Yes.

BULLEN: What type of specific training do the drivers have with respect
to both the operation of the vehicle and also the safety that\'s
necessary?

HAUSER: Our driver go through, at least, from 40 to 60 hours additional
training as far as spent fuel, radioactive material. We don\'t say we
have an anti-terrorist training, but we do have a response training, a
situation response training that we put our drivers through. And, this
is renewed company-wide\--our company, we have more stringent
regulations. We try to renew it when something new comes out. If
there\'s some new item, some new measure, then we make our drivers aware
immediately. We\'ll sent out a company-wise message to all the drivers
and that\'s quite a few that we can send out a message to all of them at
once. Call them out, we have something new. We try to use the telephone
or more secure ways of letting drivers know if there\'s anything taking
place.

BULLEN: Bullen, Board. Just one other followup then. That is you
mentioned that escorts were provided for the shipments, particularly
post 9-11, but are the escorts provided by your company or are there
also additional escorts provided by each state as you go through their
jurisdictions?

HAUSER: They are provided by the states. Now, the states are usually
compensated. All the states have an interest in providing the escorts,
the inspections, the support for their compensation.

BULLEN: Thank you.

ABKOWITZ: Thank you. Dick Parizek?

PARIZEK: Parizek, Board. Could you elaborate on a safe area? I guess,
that is in the context of you\'re driving along and you have to stop for
some reason. Do I know what a safe area looks like? I mean, will these
trucks be all on the road, typical truck stop, and then can you drive
continuously or do you have rests automatically with multiple drivers or
tradeoff drivers? How does that work?

HAUSER: Okay. It is a continuous movement, continuous movement. The only
time they stop is for meal breaks, fuel breaks. They try to combine
them. As far as a safe parking area for the spent nuclear fuel, you\'d
be familiar with them; State Highway Departments, National Guard Units,
Army Reserve Units, military bases, definitely secure areas, not a truck
stop parking lot. And, they would be attended at all times by one driver
and the escorts.

PARIZEK: That would be different in a breakdown on route if you were on
route and had some truck troubles?

HAUSER: Okay. If we\'re on route and break down, then we have a response
criteria in place. We have a\--we call it a maintenance central that we
can have a truck repaired within hours or repowered within a reasonable
amount of time.

ABKOWITZ: Thank you. Bob Luna?

LUNA: Bob Luna, Board, Consultant. John, could you contrast the relative
difficulty in making, for instance, a 200 mile shipment using heavy
haul, regular, overweight or regular weight highway shipments? What\'s
the degree of difficulty in those three kinds of shipments?

HAUSER: Okay. The majority of the time that we handle spent nuclear fuel
at this time, it\'s in an LWT and it is shipped as overweight, but with
continuous running. When you get into the super heavy haul moving the
150,000 pound containers, you have a lot of highway surveys that have to
be done, you have permitting issues with the states, counties, cities,
townships. A lot of things have to be addressed. But, as a carrier,
we\'ve been involved in that for quite some time. And, to say it\'s
easy, quick, each movement we do as something that\'s heavy haul is
planned the same way with route surveys, security surveys, height,
width, safety, and that\'s\--you know, the coordination of it doesn\'t
really involve any more than we do in our day to day.

LUNA: Let\'s see, a followup. Suppose you were in a state which didn\'t
really want you to do heavy haul. How would that affect the result?

HAUSER: If the state wouldn\'t permit you to move, then without a legal
weight cask, you wouldn\'t move in that state. State cooperation, if the
states understood more that there\'s funding coming to them and helping
them and the general public, you know, back to the\--what we\'re really
trying to do in making the public aware, I think that would end a lot of
the headaches that we have.

ABKOWITZ: Abkowitz, Board. I just have one followup question. John, the
types of casks that Bob Fronczak was showing us which may require an
inter-modal transfer to a truck, I guess, would you classify those as
heavy haul or is that a new extraordinary category?

HAUSER: That\'s what we would call super heavy haul. Heavy haul is
something that can be permitted and moved without like the route
surveys, the weight. Some highways can\'t support those kind of weights
and most states and counties, cities, they\'ll want an up-front deposit.
Yes, you\'re going to move it and we\'re going to hold that deposit for
five years to make sure that there\'s no damage down the line.

ABKOWITZ: So, super heavy haul would be putting new requirements on the
system that we haven\'t seen to date?

HAUSER: That\'s correct.

ABKOWITZ: Okay, John, thank you very much.

HAUSER: One thing, I can send anyone a copy of one of those CDs. I\'ll
send them the one that we have here.

ABKOWITZ: Yeah, the Board would be interested in a working copy,
however.

Okay. We\'re going to our last topic before we get into public comment
period number one and lunch. It\'s now taking the life cycle experience,
if you will, from where the carrier has custody of the product to the
destination and the receipt of waste shipments at Yucca Mountain.

That particular interface is going to be talked about by Gary Lanthrum
with the U.S. Department of Energy. Gary is currently the Director of
the Office of National Transportation Program, formerly the Director of
the Environmental Management National Transportation Program in
Albuquerque. In his previous capacity, he was responsible for managing
all of the EM field transportation programs including nuclear materials
packaging, research, shipping, and certification, the operation of the
TRANSCOM systems for the WIPP shipping and managing the Automated
Transportation Management System for tracking all DOE\'s nuclear and
non-nuclear shipments. Also, he was responsible for the National
Transportation Program\'s national stakeholder outreach program. And,
apparently, he actually got some sleep somewhere in there.

Gary is going to actually speak with us twice today. His first talk, as
I mentioned, would be on the interface. And, I also wanted to point out
that Gary is known to the Board under several aliases including Greg and
Sam.

Gary?

LANTHRUM: I don\'t know if it was my eyes or not, but when I was sitting
back there, I thought the focus could be tweaked a little bit on the
projector. Is that\--actually, it looks better here. Maybe it is my
eyes. Let\'s see, is it any less yellow that way? Actually, I think
it\'s the projector there because on the screen here, it\'s very white.
So, maybe it\'s just getting really tired. Maybe one of the color lamps
in there, the blue or something, has given up the ghost.

While we\'re doing setup stuff, normally I try and introduce whatever
presentation I have with a little bit of humor, but I\'ve been working
so much, I\'ve kind of lost my sense of humor. I will say that the
discussions that have gone on yesterday and to some extent today about a
holistic approach to doing the transportation activities is important.
And, it\'s a little disconcerting because the interface with Yucca
Mountain is just one small piece of my overall approach to
transportation planning and it\'s a little awkward to do this out of
context of the presentation I\'ll give this afternoon. So, some of the
questions that are inevitably going to be asked, I think will be
answered more fully when I do the fuller presentation about the overall
planning and the state of our activities later today.

This first slide though shows that there are three projects that are
involved in the OCRWM planning process. The three projects are as much
an artifact of the budgeting cycle and the planning cycle for funding as
anything. The three projects are basically the development of the
repository itself. There\'s a repository project. There is a Nevada
transportation project that would be responsible for establishing
whatever infrastructure is necessary to do transportation in Nevada,
whether it\'s heavy haul truck or rail or if it\'s just legal weight
truck, it would use primarily existing infrastructure. Then, there\'s a
national transportation project where we look at the requirements
nationwide, what we need in terms of the cask fleet, the rolling stock,
and other capabilities.

The next slide actually talks about those three projects and how they
relate to each other and expands a little bit by adding an area of the
planning that is not within transportation. There\'s been a lot of talk
about interfacing with the utilities and how we develop that part of our
interface. Utilities are one of our stakeholders certainly in developing
the transportation system and making sure that whatever we have in the
way of transportation capability mates well with their facility
capabilities with the ingress and egress options into their sites.

There\'s a lot of decisions that had to get made within OCRWM itself,
but that interface is not my direct responsibility. And, it\'s largely
because of the sensitivity over the lawsuits, but there is a systems
group within OCRWM that does that interface primarily. They will be the
ones that are responsible for developing the delivery commitment
schedules. I believe, they are working on letters to the utilities to
update the long-term delivery commitment schedule discussions with the
utilities that have signed contracts. They will also be the ones that
will be working on the final delivery schedules as we get much closer to
actually making shipments. They are the group that does the interface
primarily on the discussion that was held about the oldest fuel first,
what does that mean, and the fact that utilities themselves have the
capability if they have the oldest fuel that\'s essentially just a
placeholder for line. It\'s a chit to get into the queue. They can use
that chit any way they want once they have it. Once they know where they
are in the queue, they can use that to ship other fuel other than the
oldest. They can trade it with other utilities within that corporate
entity or with other corporate entities entirely. So, there\'s a lot of
flexibility. And, it\'s a different group within OCRWM that does that
interface.

That said, we do have an interest in the transportation side of the
house on a small part of that interface and the primary part we\'re
interested in is the facility capabilities at the shipping sites. And, I
think somebody mentioned earlier\--I don\'t know who comes up with these
acronyms\--but the NSTI, it was the Near Site Transportation
Infrastructure is the way it gets abbreviated. That was done 10 years
ago. We are looking at an update to that transportation infrastructure
report. We led a contract about a month ago to do a paper review of what
was done 10 years ago and now that paper review looks at a wide spectrum
of infrastructure assets. It looks at the ones that would be most
critical to our needs and then from that effort, we will have some kind
of a communication, whether it\'s from the transportation group or the
strategy group that actually asks utilities whether or not what was
reported 10 years ago is still what they have in place or have things
changed and start talking about what changes might have taken place that
we need to be aware of. So, that part is going on.

Transportation is in the middle and at the other side is the repository
work on the surface facilities. And, the primary interface there is on
the cask receiving and on the fuel and canister handling capabilities.
There are a lot of questions that are tied to both the decision on
actual mode that we\'ll be using that will affect both the folks on the
front end and the back end of this process and what actual content gets
shipped because the content is going to drive to some extent the casks
that are selected and may have some bearing on the mode of transport.
And, we are working on those interface points. We\'re at a pretty early
stage of that planning and that\'s probably a good segue into the next
slide.

There are waste integration meetings that go on on a biweekly basis
between both the waste acceptance group at headquarters and the
repository and the transportation group both at headquarters and in
Nevada.

There are integrated project teams for all of our acquisition
activities. We have formed the Integrated Project Team for our cask and
rolling stock acquisition efforts and that includes representation from
both the repository, from multiple other groups within the Department of
Energy, and\--in fact, I\'ll go into that a little bit later. Let me
just go through the rest of these.

There are internal interface meetings that are held. We had our first
one between transportation and the repository surface facility folks a
month ago. We\'ve tentatively got one scheduled for 9 February, at
least, that week for a second meeting. And, again, things are fairly
early in planning stages both for transportation and for the detailed
handling discussions at the surface facilities at the repository. But,
we are starting early, and as they make small steps forward, we are
aware of what changes they make. The discussion took place yesterday
about the fact that they\'ve gone from initially looking at using rail
to move items from facility to facility to wheeled vehicles and back to
rail again. And, we\'re dialed into those discussions and how they may
have an impact on what we develop for a transportation infrastructure
within the state as a whole and nationally. This indicates the one we
had back in December.

There\'s also the Fleet Management Facility. Ian talked about the
capability that COGEMA has and a fairly significant facility that he
showed a slide picture of that had a capability of pushing through about
150 casks a year from maintenance. And, there\'s a lot of routine
required maintenance. We will have routine required maintenance probably
both for rolling stock and for casks.

We are in the initial planning stages for looking at what the facility
capabilities and requirements would be. We\'ve done a couple of studies
about facility location. Should it be near the site, should it be on the
site within the grower/GROWA (phonetic) boundaries, should it be outside
of the GROWA, but within the LAM (phonetic) withdrawal area, could it be
outside the LAM withdrawal area? The answer to that question is, yes, it
could be anywhere. You could locate for a national network. You could,
in fact, contract that capability out and use a service facility
somewhere in the midwest if that was our decision. We are collecting
data that will feed a policy process for making the determinations. But,
as part of that, we\'re talking about if we did locate the facility
close to the repository, are there capabilities that the facility might
have that would be of use to the repository? And, if it were close to
the repository, are there capabilities as far as infrastructure like
power, water, other things that the repository might have that the
facility could benefit from? All those discussions are going on. It\'s
very fluid right now and I suspect that we are some distance away from
making any formal decisions, but the process is engaged.

Then, there are weekly management review meetings. Every Monday
afternoon, the office directors for the strategy group that does the
interface with the utilities for John Arthur\'s organization that does
the Yucca Mountain Project and for transportation along with the deputy,
Ted Garish, in Washington and with Margaret Chu. Those take place every
Monday afternoon. So, there\'s a fairly high level degree of discussions
that are going on, as well as some detailed discussions. The detailed
discussions haven\'t gotten into a lot of nitty-gritty yet because
there\'s a lot of detailed decisions that haven\'t been made. The groups
are together though. The construct is there to make sure that the right
people are in place to have detailed discussions as decisions are made
and that\'s encouraging.

My first discussion with the Board back in September, I had been on the
payroll with OCRWM for less than a month and I think what I indicated to
you was that I was really green and that my first order of business was
to learn what the full scope of work was, to identify ways of managing
that scope of work in a coherent and inclusive fashion, and then to
build an organization around some of the decisions that would be
affected by that. I\'ve done a lot of that and we\'ll talk a little bit
more. What I\'ve moved out in is creating a series of projects that will
help develop the infrastructure that we need.

And, transportation is kind of fun because for a long time it was
involved primarily in studies. We\'re transitioning from doing a lot of
background studies to actually building an infrastructure and making the
decisions that will enable that infrastructure to get built. And, some
time further down the road, we will transition again from building
infrastructure to actual operations. Each of those periods of time in
the transportation system require different skills sets and different
approaches. The management approach of organizing around projects is
very useful for this development of the infrastructure stage. We\'ll get
beyond that.

But, the DOE Order 413.3-1 is the order that basically guides project
management within the Department and it has a very strict level or set
of requirements for making sure that you are inclusive in your decision
making and that you have significant review from all the affected
parties and that is what drove, as much as anything, the development of
our integrated project teams for the cask acquisition.

The Integrated Project Team membership includes representatives from the
business and technical disciplines. We\'ve got legal, financial,
contracting, safety, environmental and health, and other groups. So,
again, the approach that we are attempting is to be inclusive and
holistic, as was indicated earlier.

The project team members for our cask acquisition project include folks
from RW-30, the transportation group. Thank goodness, it\'s our
responsibility, you would expect us to be involved. EM is involved, the
environmental management program. They are the group within DOE that\'s
done a number of\--one of the groups that\'s done a number of spent fuel
shipments up to date and has a significant experience in both the
institutional relations aspects and in acquiring the basic
infrastructure both in terms of transportation service providers and in
terms of casks. EH, we\'ve got them involved to make sure that we are
addressing the NEPA policy and compliance issues appropriately. We\'ve
got Yucca Mountain Project. So, the surface facility people have a play
in our acquisition and understand the acquisition approach that we are
taking and have some assurance that what we acquire will be able to
interface effectively with their surface facilities. We\'ve got Naval
Reactors involvement, again another group within DOE that has
significant experience in acquiring both the infrastructure and in
conducting operations for moving spent fuel. We\'ve got the Nevada Rail
Project specifically involved in case a decision is ultimately made that
we will be doing shipments by mostly rail. And, ME; ME is the
organization within DOE that actually has responsibility for this DOE
Order 413.3 on project management. And, finally, we\'ve got General
Counsel involved because as much as tech weenies like myself, I\'d like
to think that we are unconstrained in developing infrastructure. There
are a lot of legal considerations that have to be taken into account as
we move forward.

The items of primary interface with the repository, the first one is the
cask system envelopes; how the content is going to be managed, how
they\'re going to be loaded, unloaded, what are the actual dimensions of
the casks, what are the lifting lug configurations. One of the
discussions that we had in our first meeting with the surface facility
group at Yucca Mountain was the concept. Since there will be a range of
cask sizes to handle the different contents that we need to ship, the
use of something like a shipping skid that would be what the repository
would actually use to handle. So, one set of lifting mechanisms and
interface could be used for a variety of casks. And then, I would be
responsible for how to attach the cask to the skid. Again, it\'s a
concept that hasn\'t been fully developed, but it\'s one way that we
could address of having more uniform handling equipment in the surface
facilities despite the fact that we would have a range of casks that
would be used. That gets to the cask and vehicle handling interfaces.

The shipper/receiver facility operating requirements, the facility
requirements, again I\'ve mentioned that the near-site transportation
infrastructure study is being revisited. We will do our paper analysis
and extract from that the elements that we think will be more critical
in updating actual utility information, and after we have that initial
paper review, we\'ll be looking more broadly and hopefully interfacing
directly with the utilities. But, we\'re doing the same thing with the
repository and looking at what their surface facility capabilities would
be. And, if there are decisions that we can make early-on in the design
process that would help either them or us, we\'re both willing to move a
little bit one way or the other to accommodate an effective system.

There will be a significant Nevada transportation interface with the
repository regardless of what decisions are made on mode. If we wind up
making a decision for using mostly rail, there will be a significant
interface of how the rail line comes into the repository. Yesterday, you
heard that for the movements between surface facilities, they\'ve gone
back to a rail system. There\'s been talk about whether the gauge of
that rail system would be the same as the gauge of the cars coming into
the site or not. If it\'s not, there has to be a combination of both for
the goods coming in for the transfer point and then making sure that
there\'s capability of an effective interface where you do change the
gauge.

The FMP, again that\'s our Fleet Maintenance Facility, and it\'s not
just the cask maintenance facility which is what Ian focused on, but
also whatever rolling stock we have, we would anticipate receiving some
maintenance there. If we wind up having mostly rail as our
transportation mode, there would be some routine maintenance that we
would perform. If it were more complex maintenance or repairs to rolling
stock for rail, we would probably contract that out to a specialty
outfit that does deal primarily with rail rolling stock. But, there\'s a
significant amount of routine maintenance that would have to be
performed. I expect looking at the scope of the number of shipments that
we have that we will have a fairly robust inventory both of rolling
stock and casks. So, the capability of this facility is going to have to
be robust to match it.

Canister interfaces, both for commercial and DOE spent fuel and
high-level waste, another interface area. The waste characterization
data, that applies to both the certification of the casks that we would
use, as well as to the operating constraints within the facilities.

And, that pretty much covers the interface points that we\'re looking
at. I think some questions again, as I indicated, that are likely to
come up may be addressed better as I go through the broader picture of
the transportation planning and how this interface piece fits into the
bigger picture of the projectized approach to building the
infrastructure that we\'ve undertaken. But, I\'m ready for questions on
this part of it right now.

ABKOWITZ: Okay. Let me ask the first question, if I could. The IPT is an
internal stakeholder group, is that correct?

LANTHRUM: That\'s correct. It\'s the group that helps frame our project
management decisions internally and make sure that we consider all of
the internal requirements. That\'s correct.

ABKOWITZ: Is there any external representation that you would seek out
or is that at a later stage in this?

LANTHRUM: There\'s a lot of external representation that we\'ll be
seeking out. Again, this Integrated Project Team is to guide our cask
acquisition process. I think again Ian reflected that we\'ve already
sent out a notice in Fed Biz that we are starting our cask acquisition
approach and what we\'ve asked is all the viable cask vendors to come in
and talk to us about whether they have suggestions how we might approach
the acquisition of the assets that we will need, if they\'ve got some
ideas about innovative design approaches that might make the operations
be more efficient. So, that\'s one phase of it. In the past, the Office
of Civilian Radioactive Waste and EM have partnered in a group called
TEC. I think that was referenced with Bob Fronczak and possibly John as
members of this Transportation External Coordinators working group. Some
time this spring, we will have another TEC meeting and that\'s a great
opportunity for other industry groups to interface with us. We have
started our interactions with the state regional groups and talking
about a range of transportation issues. Their primary interest has been
on the package performance study rather than on the acquisition process,
but those comments are being incorporated. But, we do have a fairly
inclusive program and I\'ll talk about that on our institutional project
later this afternoon.

ABKOWITZ: Okay, thank you. Dan Bullen?

BULLEN: Bullen, Board. Just a couple of quick questions. You mentioned
the update of the report on the infrastructure near the nuclear
utilities that you have to access.

LANTHRUM: Right.

BULLEN: It starts as a paper study and is going to expand into, I guess,
identification of\--actually walking the facilities, taking a look at
the track, identifying what needs to be done. Can you tell me the time
frame that that might be completed?

LANTHRUM: Well, I didn\'t say we were going to be actually visiting the
facilities because I\'m not sure what the allowances are going to be.
There will be communication with facilities. The first output of the
paper review will be\--the initial near-site transportation
infrastructure included a lot of things that may not be critical. What
we\'re trying to do is to focus down on the critical elements that will
affect our transportation planning, particularly for cask acquisition,
for operations planning in the long-range. We\'ll pull that portion out,
package it in some context, and I anticipate right now that the next
step would be to provide that information to the utilities and say this
is what we\'ve got from 10 years ago. Is it still accurate or have
things changed? For the utilities that answer back and say it\'s still
accurate, we\'re pretty good to go. For the ones that say things have
changed, there will be another phase where we will have to deal perhaps
on a case-by-case basis what the next step would be to update the
information appropriately.

Long before we actually make shipments, there will be utility visits.
We\'re way early in the process right now and I would suspect between
now and 2010 when we hope to start shipments that there would be
additional changes. So, this review will not be the last of things.
There will be site visits before shipments are made. There will be an
awful lot of interaction with the utilities over the specific casks
they\'ll be using, to make sure they\'ve got the capability of loading
them there. We\'ll be talking to them about staging areas. Will they be
able to load multiple casks at a time? There will be significant
interface before shipments actually start.

BULLEN: Bullen, Board. Just a followup to that question. I guess, my
concern deals with the fact that we heard this morning that right at the
site gate is where DOE has responsibilities to be able to get the things
there. And so, I was wondering you\'re trying to get your arms around
how big the challenge might be and that includes, you know, maybe the
infrastructure is already there and hasn\'t been changed, but maybe it
has. So, do you have any idea what kind of lead time you\'re going to
need to be able to accept or start shipping in 2010 to start making the
infrastructure improvements that may be necessary or is that just a
little too premature?

LANTHRUM: I think it\'s premature. The type and scope of those upgrades
is going to vary from site to site. There\'s been some discussion about
the decision, as Ian indicated, in France. They did the study of running
a 20 mile rail spur actually into the La Hague facility. They determined
that with the time value of money and other considerations that it made
more sense to do heavy haul. So, there may be sites that had rail access
at one time that may not have it now and the decision may be made to not
provide rail access. On the flip side, the decision may be for some
specific sites, particularly sites that have multiple reactors at them
where there\'s a significant flow of business, maybe it would be
worthwhile developing rail. So, it\'s going to be an interactive process
and it\'s going to be on a case basis. Some sites may have various
simple upgrade requirements or none at all and those could be done very
close to the time that shipments would take place. Other sites that have
more significant upgrades or challenges would take longer. That will be
part of an overall operational planning process where you deal with
trying to marry the sites and the corporate entities that own these
chits for when stuff gets shipped. Marrying those places in line with
the facility requirements to support those shipments will be an ongoing
process. And, I think that may actually get back into the possibility of
this contract renegotiation. If a site has a priority and wants to ship
something that the infrastructure doesn\'t exist for and would be
difficult to develop, there may be some ongoing discussions and
negotiation about how that contract would be revised to reflect reality.

BULLEN: Thank you.

ABKOWITZ: Bob Luna?

LUNA: Bob Luna, Board, Consultant. Gary, I have two questions. One is
there\'s been a lot of talk about Fleet Maintenance Facility and I can
remember since I\'m one of the gray-haired people in the room, I guess,
that there was a lot of time and money spent in the late \'80s and early
\'90s on fleet maintenance facilities and how to design them, where they
should be, etcetera. I was wondering if you\'ve been mining those
studies as preliminary to the work that you guys have been doing?

LANTHRUM: Absolutely. In fact, the report that\'s been done on siting
options tapped heavily into the work that had been done in the past.
And, we will tap in\--those reports were just on siting options. The
capability options study also is tapping into work that\'s been done in
the past, informed by the conditions of things currently. One of the
things that has moved significantly from the previous reports is the
more advanced development of the concepts for the surface facilities at
the repository. That feeds into the decision and that was not
significantly part of what was done before.

LUNA: A followon. I was interested in your comments on cask handling at
the facility and the discussion of having a skid so that you could
handle various casks. The question that immediately leapt to mind was as
the guys who are going to be specifying what the casks look like, how
big they are, how much they can hold, it seems to me that you ought to
be able to specify sort of a universal handling arrangement for the
casks so you don\'t need a skid at the repository so you get a uniform
activity. I think that that\'s what the Transnuclear\--the people who
run La Hague required when they built the reprocessing facility there.
They\'d accept any cask as long as it fit in this hole and had these
handling capabilities. It seems to me that since you\'re not going to be
using or may not be using a commercial cask that you ought to be able to
do that as the driver in this bus.

LANTHRUM: The discussions are ongoing. No final decisions have been
made. The current consideration of using a skid is something that was
brought up by the repository, not by the transportation group. And,
we\'re trying to accommodate our customers in the transportation arena.
And, if a skid is something that fits into their thought of the flow of
work in the repository, whether it would only be used to offload from
whatever the transportation conveyance was, then they would have
something more uniform after that. That\'s going to be part of the
ongoing discussion. If we didn\'t have to have an additional component
in the system, that would make me happy. But, if an additional component
in the system serves the customer better, then I\'m also willing to
consider that.

ABKOWITZ: Okay. Thank you, Gary. Just as a reminder, he will be
appearing for an encore performance later on this afternoon and we can
continue this discussion.

We are going to have a brief public comment period before we break for
lunch.

We have three people who are scheduled to make those comments at this
point in time. We will start\--four, we now are up to four. I apologize
if I butcher your names. We\'re going to start with Gracian Uhalde and
then Sally Devlin, Bill Vasconi, and Joe Fallini. In the interest of
time, I\'d like to ask each of the public commenters to limit their
comments to no more than five minutes. In making your comments, if you
would approach the podium and use the podium microphone, that would be
appreciated.

UHALDE: Good morning. I\'m Gracian Uhalde and I\'m very happy to\--until
about a week or 10 days ago, I didn\'t even know there was a Board like
this out here. To give you a little background, I\'m a third generation
rancher in White Pine, Nye, and Lincoln Counties with a fourth
generation. I have four sons, two of which are home now and two that are
still in college. I don\'t know how you say it. I have an extensive
background with DOE and their predecessors, the Atomic Energy
Commission. I\'m a survivor of what they termed in those days, which we
didn\'t know until they released the information, 40 off-site
surveillance families. I\'ve seen it snow dirt at the ranch in July or
when they had the Sudan test. Some of the results of what I\'ve seen and
what our family has gone through over the years and it\'s hard to keep
emotion out of it is I\'ve had a tumor myself. My sister had an
unrecognizable brain tumor. The doctors in San Francisco sent it off. I
had a neighbor friend, he lived 12 miles away, that died at a very young
age at either nine or 12 from leukemia. So, I think my background with
DOE probably\--well, let\'s put it this way, I\'ve had enough of them.

Okay. As one of 40 surveillance families, we weren\'t told about
everything in the beginning. It was all classified. That went on for
many years and then finally it was opened up. Like I say, I\'ve seen it
snow dirt at the ranch. I really question anything they say. Let\'s just
cut to the chase. My main point to you people is I\'m going to put a
heavier burden on you. There are people\'s lives out here that are
depending on everything you do and say. I don\'t think that
politically\--you people need to ask the tough questions and don\'t just
fall for the politically correct answers. I mean, you\'ve got to take
the ball. You\'ve got the ball and you\'ve got to take it and make it
happen right. And, I really do appreciate the fact that you\'re here.

Just to give you an example of one of these things, the original
geologic requirements for a repository was that it had to be 90 percent
geological barrier. Now, supposedly, that\'s been changed to six to
eight requirements listing yesterday or what I heard yesterday were
manmade. Well, Yucca Mountain hasn\'t changed. I think the only thing
that\'s changed is the definition of safe. Maybe I\'m wrong, but I think
we\'re seeing a lot of weasel words and things changing

\--the rules are changing as the game goes on.

To give you an example of prime DOE, when they made the request from the
BLM to withdraw acreages, they said they needed 308,000 acres. But, in
the withdrawal itself, they grabbed 641,000 acres. Maybe that\'s for
study purposes or whatever, but they\'re not\--they\'re already starting
out not doing what they say they\'re going to do. And, this is just the
beginning. And, I think it\'s up to you people to ask the tough
questions all the way through and get the right answers. DOE and their
predecessors have created Frankenstein and now they want to bring the
son of Frankenstein home. It\'s that simple. That\'s the bottom line.

And, I hope to comment later. I\'ve got many million thoughts running
around in my head today that I can\'t get them all out. But, I\'d like
to comment later this afternoon, too. But, I\'d just like to give you
that thought, and believe me, the burden is on you.

Thank you very much.

ABKOWITZ: Thank you. Sally Devlin?

DEVLIN: Good morning again and again welcome to Nevada. I just want to
say Linda said we might have the meeting next year at this time in
Pahrump and I will only suggest something to you, gentlemen and lady,
and I notice that everybody is in the uniform. If you come to Pahrump in
the uniform, they will think you are INS or IRS and they will shoot you.
So, please, always be comfortable when you come to Pahrump, Amargosa, or
Beatty. That is our object and we are very informal and we\'ll have a
lot of fun for you.

The other thing I did want to embellish before I do this afternoon\'s
presentation is something\--you know, I\'m a toastmaster and very proud
of it. And, the problem I hear on occasion and I haven\'t scolded you
for a long time is your tenses when I hear when Yucca Mountain is, not
if, might, and all those things. So, please, be a little conscious for
those of us who are not very happy about Yucca Mountain because it is
personally offensive. It is not a done deal. I hope it will never be a
done deal and I think alternatives are what are needed and we will talk
about it. So, please, be a little bit sensitive about your language.

Now, the third thing, of course is fun. And, I do want you to know why I
asked John Arthur for \$25 million for a hospital. Nye County is
considered one of\--there\'s 17 counties in Nevada. There are only two
counties with over 400,000. That is Washaw County and that is Las Vegas.
That\'s Clark County. The other counties, Douglas and so on and so
forth, they have less than 100,000. And, all the laws were set up for
Reno actually when I lived there in the \'60s and \'70s. But, the most
important thing is that now the state is totally dominated by Las Vegas.
And, of course, Pahrump and Nye County are very much of a bedroom
community. We have over 40,000 living there. I don\'t say they\'re
permanent residents with our escapees and so on. But, anyway, the rest
of the country\--and it is escapee. And, the rest of the county, our
county seat is 200 miles away in Tonopah with less than 2,000. And, of
course, Beatty and Amargosa, Amargosa is growing along with the 15,000
cows that are there. So, lots of stuff that you\'ll read in my funny
report.

But, what is most important is every year I do for the State of Nevada
what they call the Seer (phonetic) Report. And, it\'s sent to me
by\--oh, it\'s very thick\--from the National Cancer Institute. And, I
do it for the state just so they will know what the cancer rate is in
Nevada. Of course, it\'s all fallacious because we never had a health
department, we never had any of this stuff. Maybe some girlfriend is in
the room collecting data because I have no idea and I\'ve asked them
where did you get the data. But, anyway, included in that were the Valid
leukemias.

But, what was kind of fun about it when I do my inimicable letter to the
state is that we in the cow counties\--and we are a cow county, all
18,300 square miles, Mineral, Esmerelda, Inyo who we protect, that\'s
California, Mineral, Eureka, and of course, White Pine\--we\'re very
sparsely populated. We do not have coroners. Did you hear the magic
word? And so, when you die, the sheriff comes out and he is the deputy
coroner. And, my husband died 11 years ago of cancer. And, when the
sheriff came out and took his driver\'s license and his pills, the death
certificate said he died of coronary heart failure. So, everybody in the
rules dies of coronary heart failure because there are no medical
facilities and because there aren\'t any medical facilities, there
aren\'t any coroners. So, now, you know how things work and it\'s kind
of funny. Everybody dies of coronary heart failure. So, we do not have
any reporting. And, there are lots of people. And, it is a major
problem. I\'m not even talking about serious epidemics or pandemics or
all that stuff that might happen. I am talking about what the physical
processes are.

So, I do want you to have a laugh on that that our deputy coroners are
sheriffs or the coroners. And, of course, we have then the FBI in
because of the voter scams because everybody that died, they vote and
you vote the graveyard in Nye County. What else can you do for fun?

With that, thank you.

ABKOWITZ: Thank you, Sally. Bill?

VASCONI: Good morning. Bill Vasconi, a resident here in southern Nevada.
I wasn\'t going to speak this morning. I was just going to play it like
a campfire. I was going to sit back and keep warm and listen without
getting my feet in the fire. But, I may not be here this afternoon. So,
I thought I\'d just say a couple things.

I\'ve been in Nevada for 40 years and 17 of those was at the Nevada Test
Site. I started out there as a radiological technician monitor and went
into NRDS which is Nuclear Rocket Development Station. And then, the
last 10 years was a general foreman during that period of time when we
was testing our nuclear weapons. As most of you know, there were 928
nuclear devices that were detonated at the Nevada Test Site. 820 of them
were underground. So, we have quite a number of repositories out there
at the present time.

I served several years as chair of Nevadans for Nuclear Safety and
Benefits, safety being our primary goal and, yes, equity issues,
benefits for the citizens of Nevada are also up on the list. I am a
small business owner here in the Valley. I do appreciate the Nuclear
Waste technical Review Board for holding their meeting here in Las
Vegas. I\'ve had an opportunity to tour Prairie Island on several
occasions and Monticello and I\'ve taken some folks back there with me
thanks to the efforts of some folks here in the Valley to get those
tours on. So, I do have a good knowledge of how those plants work and I
viewed your storage areas. I haven\'t toured the WIPP Project as of this
time, but I hope to in the future and I\'ve read and heard a lot of good
things about their transportation efforts and their outreach programs in
training first responders.

I do support the DOE\'s announcement of the Caliente corridor. DOE has
their work cut out for them. It\'s a tremendous endeavor, but the route
does keep the high-level and spent fuel shipments out of Nevada\'s major
population centers of Las Vegas and Reno. Reason, resolve, research. We
need to see this policy through to a sound safe resolve of this
nation\'s nuclear issues.

In conclusion, I appreciate your continued involvement as you play an
important role in validating and protecting our health and safety. When
it comes to health and safety, that\'s something we can all support and
agree upon.

Thank you.

ABKOWITZ: Thank you, Bill. Our final speaker is Joe Fallini.

FALLINI: Good morning. My name is Joe Fallini. I\'m part-owner of the
Twin Springs Ranch which is a family operation. It\'s in its fifth
generation now. Our ranch started out in the 1860\'s and we\'re some of
those downwinders and guinea pigs and whatever they wanted to do to us.

The first thing I\'d like to bring your attention to, when the
atmospheric bombs were going off, I was developing pictures at that time
as a kid. All of my film was destroyed by the radiation. I tried to get
pictures of the bombs and we couldn\'t. We had a school there at the
ranch and some AEC people came up. They had a doctor with them and I
presented him with this problem. And, he says, well, here\'s what you
have to do. I explained what happened and he says, well, he says, have
you got any lead around here? Well, we had quite a bit of lead around
the place because we poured bearings and stuff with it for the windmills
and stuff. He says you take a put a lead layer in the bottom of your
deep freeze. You put your camera in it, you put lead around it, you put
lead on top of it, and you don\'t dare open up that up until your geiger
counter is down where it won\'t wreck your film.

So, I\'ve probably got the only true pictures that I know of of what a
fallout cloud looks like coming over the ranch. I\'m going to pass these
out to you people and you can pass them around and you can see it looks
pretty damn devastating which it was because the members of my family
had a cousin that died. They had another cousin that had cancer all over
her lips and stuff. She\'s still dealing with that. And, our neighbors,
all their hair fell out, one of the ladies. And, typical, you know the
leukemia, the cancer story, and things of that nature. I would like to
make one comment. Probably, the reason Gracian and I are here is because
our parents made us stay inside when the radioactive cloud was out. I
think that\'s probably the only reason I\'m here at this time.

I\'d like to start these pictures around and then I\'ll go from there.

(Pause.)

FALLINI: Another thing that I\'d like to tell you about, we didn\'t know
anything about it. I was surprised this morning to find out that DOE had
went to everybody and found out all the problems. And, everything was
taken care of in an impact statement. There was 21 hearings. We never
got invited to any one of them. We didn\'t get an invite through any
other source. We have a ranch of 363,000 acres. And, they\'re
wanting\--made a proposal withdrawal which was in the Federal Register
on December 29th, 1903. We obtained that Federal Register and started
plotting on it what was actually happening to us. Well, sure enough, you
know, they told us there\'s 308,000 acres. Well, I plotted this out and
there\'s 641,000 acres. Now, that is kind of bad, I think, to start off
and tell people one thing and then turn around and have it just exactly
opposite.

This is a copy of my ranch which I\'ll turn around. You\'ll see the
railroad that\'s going through it. They said it\'s a mile wide. If you
look at it in places it\'s five miles on the withdrawal. I don\'t know
why we was never notified of this. Now, it comes back to the same old
story. You know, they\'ll tell you one thing and something else is being
done.

Another thing that I\'d like to relate to is when we was in the
atmospheric shocks, they came out there. We had a school there. My
father was there. And, when they came out, well, one of the doctors came
out and the one that got us aside and told us about the radiation on the
film, he says you guys better get a geiger counter. Well, we got a
geiger counter and the atmospheric shocks continued. They continued and
we went out and they had some people out there checking it and my father
goes out and he says it\'s pretty high in radiation today, isn\'t it?
Oh, no, we don\'t have any radiation. My father said, well, let\'s check
your counter against my counter. So, he went and checked counters and,
all of sudden, yeah, we did have radiation. You couldn\'t even turn the
damn thing on on the third scale. It would just come up and peg. So,
now, I guess, we got told another story. There wasn\'t any radiation,
but there sure as hell was.

And then, we found out later they was going through the country looking
all over the country and they was running up and down the roads and
everything and we asked them what they was doing. Well, we\'re trying to
find plutonium pellets. Did you people know that the first dirty bomb
was made by the AEC when they clad their atomic weapon in plutonium
pellets, set it off, and we\'re up probably right east of Tonopah, and
they was going around trying to find these plutonium pellets. Now,
that\'s another story. Okay. So, we ended up with a dirty bomb. Anybody
think, well, the United States wouldn\'t cause a dirty bomb, would they?
Well, there is goes, you know.

Then here, right down the line, you know, they keep telling us this and
then everything is different. We had a radiation monitor set up at our
ranch. It had a scale on it with a chart. And, that chart\--you remember
Chernobyl. Well, I went out and I noticed\--I don\'t know whether it was
one or two days later, I seen a spike on the monitor. And, one of the
guys come in and I says what\'s this spike? And, he says, oh, it\'s
Chernobyl. Well, we learned later it wasn\'t Chernobyl, at all. It was
venting the tunnel right up here at the test site.

Now, all these things just keep coming down and keep coming down on us.
They tell us about\--oh, boy, you people, they tell you one thing and
give you just exactly the opposite. I\'m getting kind of tired of it
myself. I\'m going to pass this map around and I\'ll show you the mile
wide route. Here\'s the Federal Register paper. You can check with it if
you want and see what we plotted on our ranch.

(Pause.)

FALLINI: The one thing that I would like to tell the DOE, the Atomic
Energy Commission at one time, the AEC, and that was changed in 1977, my
personal opinion, the reason it was changed was to get rid of the agency
so there couldn\'t be any repercussions on lawsuits and stuff. Then, it
was changed to the DOE. So, all these things just keep coming down and
coming down and here I thought, well, they haven\'t even picked out a
method of transportation. And, they said, oh, it could be trucks, it
could be rail. Well, after today, it looks pretty much like rail to me.
When they said they haven\'t chosen the route, it looks pretty much like
the route has been chosen to me because I don\'t see any other Federal
Register notices that shows anything, but the Caliente corridor.

If we go back and we start looking at the cost of this thing, it\'s
approximately just using the DOE\'s figures, it\'s around \$300,000 a
mile to put a railroad in. Well, this struck me kind of funny, too,
because, you know, then why are we going to take that railroad and give
the radiation a trip around the country? It doesn\'t give a damn if
it\'s run around the country. It can\'t see. Now, here we go to our
route that goes through the middle of our ranch. It\'s 308 miles long.
Okay. You can go down through the Chalk Mountain one and it\'s 100 miles
shorter. Well, 100 miles times \$300,000 is quite a bit. If you look at
these routes below Las Vegas on the other side which doesn\'t come
through Las Vegas, there\'s 113 miles and 199 miles. Now, common sense
would tell me if this stuff was that bad, you\'d want to get it there
the shortest way possible.

Another thing that I can\'t understand, how come when we go through
Nevada, they tell you one mile and you look at the corridors of the
railroads all over the United States\--well, what I\'m saying if they
need a mile here, we damn well need a mile all the way across the United
States from every one of these places where they\'re talking live
radioactive waste and the spent fuel rods. Why should we just be a mile
wide and every place else\--I believe some of them are only 45 foot or
so. We seen some pictures this morning where they had a railroad with a
chain link fence on it and that didn\'t look like a mile wide. Why are
we being punished for that?

Then, another thing that we\'ve done, we looked at that map. There
hasn\'t been one penny put into our ranch by the Bureau of Land
Management. We put in over \$1 million worth of water improvements. This
railroad goes right over the top of a whole bunch of them. I don\'t
know. We gather cattle with a helicopter. I\'m a helicopter pilot and
I\'m sure there will be restrictions on over the railroad and they\'re
going to put this railroad through. I\'m sure it\'s going to be fenced.
My cattle are going to be fenced off of water on one side and maybe
right over the top of the source of the water or the end of the water
developments.

Now, if they was talking about mitigation, it looks like they would have
came to us and asked us, but, no, they did not do that. We had to read
it in the paper. Now, if they\'re doing your job, DOE, to come out and
notify everybody that this is going on and you want to know what\'s
going on, why weren\'t we notified? Why were we just on the back burner.
We were just somebody out there. I looked through some of these things
and it kind of made me mad. I paid 700,000 bucks for an error with
Internal Revenue Service because I owned something out there. Now, all
of a sudden, I look in the papers and, oh, the wilderness people, it\'s
going to affect them. Oh, and it might affect the mining people, you
know. And, it\'s going to affect some archeological sites. And, what the
hell happened to the rancher? I guess, it doesn\'t affect him. He\'s the
owner of the thing. Why is this so?

Maybe, we ought to get our ducks in a row here and start going out and
get the true meaning of what this thing is doing to the State of Nevada.
I don\'t know why we got it in the first place, but I can surely tell
you I think it\'s a cut and dried deal. I think them sitting up here
today telling you that maybe we don\'t want rail, we don\'t want to give
our radioactive waste to tour through the country, maybe we just want to
get it there. And, if you have to get it there, let\'s get it there in
the shortest and the best way we can. Why impact all these people? The
first thing I always find out about a government agency, if they want
something, they\'ll go bribe the county officials. Well, Nye County. Oh,
yeah, Nye County, I think it\'s 56 or 57 million bucks they\'re going to
get out of this, you know. Well, what is a rancher going to get out if
they\'re put out of business?

Like I say, I\'m pretty perturbed over this whole thing. Why can\'t we
cut up and tell the truth? When we come to these people, tell them the
truth, don\'t feed this stuff about it\'s only 800,000 acres, when it\'s
240. Why don\'t we tall them the truth about it? I\'m not too sure that
this just isn\'t a meeting like most of the things to tell you what
they\'re going to do. Maybe they\'ve already done it. It looks to me
like they\'ve chose the rail route. It looks like they\'ve chose the one
through my ranch.

Now, what about the trucks? Evidently, they\'ve shipped over 600 metric
ton of this stuff and never had any accident. They\'ve got to ship
another 600 ton. Well, why can\'t it go on the way it was? Why do we
have to come in and devastate a state, take the tax base away from the
people of the counties that pay the taxes? I\'m a little bitter, yes.
I\'m bitter.

Thank you. I appreciate you letting me speak before this Board.

ABKOWITZ: Thank you, Joe.

Just as a reminder, there will be another public comment period late
this afternoon. Because of the schedule, but also I\'m aware that
everyone needs to take a break and also get fed, we\'re going to
reconvene promptly with the emphasis on the word \"promptly\" at 1:15.

Thank you.

(Whereupon, a luncheon recess was taken.)

[A F T E R N O O N S E S S I O N]{.underline}

ABKOWITZ: We\'re ready to continue our program today which, as you know,
is very aggressive. So, we\'re trying to get things going here as
quickly as possible.

If you\'ll recall from the overview presentation this morning, our
interest is in hearing not only from those folks who will have custody
of nuclear waste shipments and spent nuclear fuel and high-level waste
shipments should the repository come into being, but we\'re also
interested in those folks who have oversight responsibilities and are
affected stakeholders along the proposed transportation route.

And, if you\'ll also recall, we talked about kind of the national
infrastructure and corridor issue and then the need to focus in more
specifically on the State of Nevada\'s concerns, and then within the
State of Nevada, hearing from counties and other stakeholders at the
community level.

So, the program is now going to shift into this next session on state
and local governments. We\'re going to hear from three different
perspectives, as I mentioned; the corridor state perspective, the Nevada
perspective, and the local government perspective.

And, speaking on behalf of the corridor states will be Thor Strong. Thor
currently serves as the Acting Commissioner of the Michigan Low-Level
Radioactive Waste Authority which is an office within the Michigan
Department of Environmental Quality. He\'s served as the Associate
Commissioner of the Authority since 1992, prior to his current
assignment. Thor has also served as Michigan\'s representative to the
Midwestern Radioactive Materials Transportation Committee and he became
chairperson of that Committee this month. He also serves as Michigan\'s
representative to the Low-Level Radioactive Waste Forum and serves as an
Emergency Management Coordinator for the Michigan Department of
Environmental Quality and as Michigan\'s representative to the EPA
Region V Regional Response Team. As a representative of the Midwest
Council of State Governments, we have invited Mr. Strong here today to
give the perspective of corridor states.

I might point out that the Midwest Council of State Governments is one
of the handful of regional enterprises that have had a long and
successful history of interacting and effecting issues that relate to
the transportation of nuclear waste and spent nuclear fuel and other
nuclear wastes.

Thank you.

STRONG: Thank you for that introduction and thank you for the
opportunity to be here this afternoon and to share some thoughts on
behalf of midwestern states and perhaps corridor states, in general.

This is going to be sort of a low key presentation, an old-fashioned
presentation without Power Point. The bad news is that if I say anything
noteworthy, you\'re responsible for taking the notes. The good news is
that you\'ll have one less thing to stuff in your briefcase and I
shouldn\'t experience any technical difficulties in the presentation.

I want to start with a little story. Just about 10 miles south of
Lansing, Michigan, the capital of Michigan, is the small town of
Potterville. Potterville is a town of about 2,000 folks. On Memorial Day
of 2002, uncharacteristically a beautiful, sunny, warm Memorial Day in
Michigan, most of those 2,000 residents were outside enjoying the
weather, cooking on the grill or mowing the yard and these sort of
things.

At about that time, a freight train coming in just crossing into the
town limits, derailed. About 34 cars of a 58 car freight train came off
the tracks and ended up in a big heap right inside the town limits. The
34 cars that came off the train included about half a dozen propane
tankers and several tankers filled with sulfuric acid. The 2,000
residents of Potterville were evacuated from town that May afternoon and
the whole town was empty for more than five days while hazmat crews came
in to unload the propane, to clean up some sulfuric acid that was
spilled and generally clean up the mess along the tracks.

Well, now, as you may remember, right about that same time through the
spring and early summer months of 2002 was when Congress was debating
the designation of Yucca Mountain as our repository. The Lansing State
Journal, the main newspaper for our capital city, published an editorial
that recommended that the Senate reject designation of Yucca Mountain
citing transportation concerns as their primary issue and the primary
reason for that recommendation. The paper referred to that Potterville
incident and posed the hypothetical questions asking what if that train
had been transporting spent nuclear fuel rather than merely propane and
suggested that the residents would have been faced with\--and I\'m
quoting here\--\"they would be faced with a devastating nuclear
nightmare.\"

Well, I did write the paper and try to clear up some misconceptions, but
I share this incident because I think it helps illustrate where state
agencies, such as mine, find ourselves in this whole issue. Somewhere in
between the DOE and the utilities trying to get a repository operational
and get the spent fuel shipped to it on the one hand, and on the other,
a skeptical and fearful public along with a media that\'s not very well
informed. Even hazardous materials professionals seem to view
radioactive materials as something different and more mysterious than
other hazmat materials. A couple of years prior to that when Michigan
was looking at a shipment of MOX fuel and it became quite a contentious
political issue, one of the Detroit papers ran an article and it quoted
a Michigan State Police hazmat training officer, no less, and he was
quoted as saying, \"Radiological emergencies are unique. We don\'t
practice for plutonium. Unlike chemicals, these are hazards you can\'t
see, smell, or taste.\" I always wondered how often he goes out and
tastes hazardous materials. But, nonetheless, that\'s what he said.

The agenda heading above my name says \"Corridor States Concerns\", and
indeed there are a number of issues and concerns that I feel need to be
addressed to assure safe and secure transport of spent fuel. But,
speaking for Michigan, we have three nuclear power plants, three
operating nuclear power plants, one of which has already had to adopt
dry cask storage, and a fourth plant that\'s in the midst of
decommissioning. That Big Rock Point Nuclear Power Plant is well-along
in its decommissioning. Within two years, all that will be left at that
plant site will be a dry cask storage facility. So, speaking on behalf
of Michigan and I think from many other states, we share the goal of
wanting to get a repository operational and getting fuel into it.

You\'ve heard and we\'re all aware of the impressive safety record that
transporting radioactive materials can boast. But, the concern amongst
the public still remains and I think we\'d all agree that the Yucca
Mountain shipping campaign will be, at least, from a magnitude
standpoint unlike anything we\'ve ever done before. Within a couple
decades, I presume that the shipment of spent fuel may be seen as a
commonplace and routine activity, but initially it will probably be
anything, but routine.

The states along with their municipalities are on the front lines of
that. We want to do our part to assure the development of a safe and
secure transportation system. What I have to present are just some ideas
that I think we need to have accomplished in order to be able to go to
our citizens, to our government officials, and to our media to show that
we are indeed prepared to oversee such shipments and to be able to
respond effectively to any incident or accident.

A number of things that I\'m going to share have already been spoken
about earlier in the day. So, I\'m going to gloss through some of this.
But, first of all, and most importantly, is that we all work together.
OCRWM\'s strategic transportation plan that was issued last November
calls for \"a collaborative transportation planning process\", and
indeed I think this sense of working together is the very most important
thing and the key to everything else.

There have been a number of shipping campaigns over the past number of
years, and from the perspective of the midwestern states, some of these
have been very good, some of them have been bad, and some of them have
been down right ugly. The primary difference between those, I think, has
been the degree to which a collaborative planning process was followed.

One of the best examples that I can cite from the midwest standpoint of
a good working relationship was in regard to a shipping campaign of
foreign research reactor fuel and I believe we\'ll hear a little bit
more about that this afternoon. But, I can give it kudos by saying that
DOE came to the midwest states more than two years in advance of those
shipments. They developed a very comprehensive transportation plan. They
gave the midwest states a great deal of opportunity to participate in
its development, to share concerns, to share perspectives, and they were
willing to consider those. They even included us in a cooperative way,
collaborative way on the back side in terms of developing a lessons
learned document. Another positive example is the WIPP Transportation
Plan and Program Implementation Guide. The WIPP Transportation Plan is
fairly routinely held up as the model that other transportation plans
ought to base themselves on.

And, the most glaring example of a bad transportation plan was in regard
to a one time shipment of MOX fuel that was to be shipped from Los
Alamos up into Ontario, Canada, I believe, back in\--it happened in the
year 2000. With that campaign, I couldn\'t even get my phone calls
returned when I would call the particular DOE office that was in charge
of that shipment and there was absolutely no effort to work with the
states on that campaign.

So, number one, I guess, what I\'m suggesting is let\'s commit
ourselves, all of the various stakeholders and parties, to work
together. We in the midwest were very gratified to hear of OCRWM\'s
commitment to this collaborative approach, and even more specifically,
were gratified of their recognition of this regional planning approach,
the regional planning mechanism that\'s made possible by those four
regional cooperative agreement groups of which the midwest is one of
them.

We\'ve heard a little bit about transportation mode. Indeed, DOE has
looked at the issues of mostly truck versus mostly rail scenario.
Everybody is sort of, I think, assuming, presuming that the decision
will soon be made on behalf of the mostly rail approach because of the
efficiencies and economies of scale that rail offer. But, indeed, this
is a decision that has to be made soon because a lot of other things
hinge on it.

From the perspective of state agencies and state response crews and this
sort of thing, rail shipments can possibly create some complications
that are not present for highway transport. Because rail lines and rail
yards are private property rather than public thoroughfares, there is
some\--it could be problematic for states to conduct inspections, to
provide escorts, and some states have even expressed some concern about
their ability to respond to an incident if it\'s on\--if it occurs on
railroad property. So, rail carriers are going to have to be open to and
accepting all the involvement by state and local radiological agencies,
emergency response agencies, and that sort of thing.

A moment ago, I mentioned the WIPP Transportation Plan as being a model
and there have been, I think, a couple thousand shipments to WIPP to
this point, all of them by truck. However, DOE right now is looking at
the possibility of a rail shipping campaign to WIPP. Over the next
several months, those four regional cooperative agreement groups are
going to be looking at developing a set of rail safety principles. The
intent, in essence, is to have a rail companion guide to mirror the
transportation plan that\'s been developed for WIPP to this point which
is strictly highway based. One of the principle reasons for the midwest
to be involved and to be interested in this project, this WIPP rail
project, is because we feel it will set a precedent for the eventual
shipment of spent fuel to Yucca Mountain by rail.

We\'ve heard quite a bit this morning about dedicated trains. I won\'t
go into that any further except to acknowledge that the states in large
part are in favor of dedicated trains. The one rationale for dedicated
trains that I did not hear this morning was the recognition that with a
dedicated train, you don\'t have other hazardous materials riding
alongside; hazardous materials, such as propane.

We heard a little bit about routing this morning, too. Corridor states
are going to be very interested in being part of routing decisions,
whether the transport is by rail or by highway. Our loading options are
fewer if transportation is by rail than by highway, but nonetheless,
states feel like they have the benefit of ground truthing routing
decisions and that our active involvement in routing decisions will
benefit everyone.

We want to be involved with those routing decisions well in advance of
shipments, as well. We feel that those decisions ought to be made
several years, at least three years, in advance of a shipping campaign
in order to give ourselves the chance to focus our training efforts.

And, finally, on the issue of routing, we\'ve long maintained that DOE
must retain the responsibility for those routing decisions and retain
the responsibility for interacting with the states and local governments
on those decisions. We would not like to see those responsibilities
passed off to carriers or to other transportation contractors,
recognizing that, yes, indeed, DOE is obligated to privatize much of the
transportation program, but there are some responsibilities that they
should just not simply pass off to contractors and routing is one of
those.

How many of you remember the move Jerry McGuire? How many of you
remember sort of the one classic line by the actor, Cuba Gooding, in
that movie? Remember what it was? \"Show me the money.\"

Section 180(C) funding, you heard a little bit about that this morning.
Section 180(C) is a provision within the Nuclear Waste Policy Act that
requires DOE to provide funding and technical assistance to the states
to help us prepare for and plan for eventual shipments to Yucca
Mountain. Well, the states did work with OCRWM back in the mid-1990s to
develop a set of draft policies and procedures for implementing Section
180(C) funding. That policy document though has been kind of sitting on
a shelf since about 1998 and we think it\'s a pretty high priority to
get that policy back out, dust it off, and update it and look at it
again. One of the provisions of that draft policy was that it provided
for the issuance of planning grants to affected corridor states starting
four years prior to the commencements of shipments. So if, indeed,
we\'re looking at shipments by the year 2010, then finalizing that
policy needs to be undertaken soon because those first initial planning
grants ought to be coming to states by the year 2006.

One other aspect of 180(C) funding that is important for DOE to
recognize is that states are not all going to approach issues of
transportation planning, training, and emergency response all in the
same way. That 180(C) policy should maintain lots of flexibility for the
states to be able to use those funds in ways that they deem most
appropriate to meet their particular needs.

Going off point just a little bit in regard to funding, as I mentioned
earlier, that hazmat trainer who was quoted as making comments about rad
materials being so much different, I continue to be surprised at how
little radiological response is built into general hazmat training by
states and by municipalities. There is a real need to institutionalize
that training. At this point in time when communities all across the
country are looking at and concerned about the prospects for dirty bombs
and other radiological terrorism kind of things, I think there\'s an
opportunity to provide some more institutionalization for radiological
response training through either Homeland Security funding and a concept
that some of the states were trying to push DOE several years ago and
that being a consolidated grant concept. Rather than each individual DOE
Office doling out small bits of money to states for particular shipping
campaigns, the consolidated grant concept would sort of be a more
umbrella approach to providing funds for the states.

You also heard earlier about full-scale cask testing. I think most
states are very fully supportive of a new round of full-scale cask
testing. First, from a technological standpoint to indeed validate the
computer models that are used to test casks and to certify casks for
shipping, but also and perhaps more importantly from a state
perspective, to be a way to boost public confidence in the ability of
those casks to withstand major accident scenarios. There isn\'t a lot of
universal agreement on the extent of a new cask testing protocol.

There is some disagreement on such questions about whether to include
the puncture and submersion tests, as well as the impact and thermal
test that NRC is proposing at this point. There\'s a question\--I think
we heard it earlier\--about the issue of whether to test to failure or
not. And, there\'s an issue about whether cask testing should be a
prerequisite for the licensing of new casks, cask designs. At least, the
corridor states are not in total universal agreement on those questions.
It seems to me that the most important thing to do at this point is to
get something accomplished in regard to cask testing. At least, the
basic protocol as it\'s been proposed by NRC, and with the results of
those tests in hand, maybe that will help determine what more, if
anything, needs to be done.

We heard a little bit earlier about shipment tracking. The states indeed
need to be able to track and known where a shipment is as it comes
across, especially states that are large and predominately rural. There
is the DOE TRANSCOM system that states have generally used, and in large
part, been fairly satisfied with. TRANSCOM has come a long way in recent
years to be more usable, more real time kind of thing. There\'s still
some problems experienced with TRANSCOM. With a shipping campaign of
spent fuel out of University of Michigan\'s research reactor last fall,
our state police had problems\--the system just didn\'t back itself up
regularly enough. We felt like we were sort of not keeping up with the
shipment. That day that was being shown wasn\'t real time enough.

But, nonetheless, TRANSCOM has improved and I think improvements will
continue to be made. The one important thing from the state\'s
perspective is that there is a single system, a single satellite
tracking system that\'s employed for all shipments. Again, indeed, if we
proceed to a mostly privatized transportation system, what we don\'t
want to have is several different contractors with several different
satellite tracking systems, all of which the states have to absorb and
become party of.

You heard earlier also about provision for armed escorts. This can
perhaps be a thorny issue as we go down the road. For some recent fuel
shipments out of Oak Ridge, the DOE used Federal marshals to provide
that armed escort. Two of the states along the shipping corridor would
not provide their own armed escorts; whereas, the other several states
that were on the shipping corridor provided their own escorts even in
addition to the DOE armed escorts. States, I think, are going to
continue to have differing perspectives on what they want to do in that
regard relative to armed escorts. But, as a starting point and I think
as Steve Kraft mentioned earlier the first thing this morning, as a
starting point, we would like to see DOE commit itself to fully
following the NRC regulations concerning shipment security and
specifically in regard to routing approvals and the provision of those
armed escorts.

I want to mention just a couple things in closing that are kind of
particular to the midwest, one which was mentioned earlier. That is
barge shipments. When Congress was debating Yucca Mountain designation
in 2002, indeed, some of Michigan\'s Congressional delegation were
concerned that the DOE Environmental Impact Statement included the
prospect of barge shipments on the Great Lakes. And, in fact, they
incorrectly interpreted that to mean DOE wanted to ship and intended to
make shipments by barge on the Great Lakes. Nonetheless, even though
that\'s not the case, shipping by barge out of plants in both Michigan
and Wisconsin would be a particularly thorny political problem for us
all. The Great Lakes are seen by particularly Michigan, but I think
other Great Lake States, as such a crown jewel in terms of their natural
resource base that shipments by barge would be seen as particularly
onerous. We did write a letter to Dr. Margaret Chu last August stating
that the Midwest Committee recommended that OCRWM eliminate the option
of Great Lake shipments by barge.

Finally, there\'s an issue of winter shipments. Some states have
expressed concern over the problem that severe winter weather may pose.
Now, of course, truck shipments are probably more vulnerable to severe
weather than rail shipments are, but some states have expressed concern
over the problem of responding to a particular incident in the midst of
severe weather, whether by highway or by rail. The Midwest Committee
suggested to OCRWM that they look at the possibility of scheduling
shipments from northern sites in the summer and from southern sites in
the winter.

So, as you see there\'s no shortage of issues for the states, the
tribes, and municipalities to work with DOE on. I guess, the good news
is that, at least, from the perspective of the corridor states is that
there are no real show stoppers. We need to be committed to working
together to address these issues. We need to consider each other equal
partners, I guess, if you will, and dedicated to try to work through
these things with each other\'s interests in mind.

With that, I\'ll answer any questions that you might have.

ABKOWITZ: Thank you, Thor.

I guess, I\'ll start off with the first question.

You mentioned in your discussion of the importance the states associate
with being involved in the routing decision. At the same time, my
understanding is that the states are pushing DOE pretty hard to announce
modes and route decisions as a record of decision as soon as possible so
that you\'ll have the maximum amount of planning opportunity. Has your
regional association and your partners been asked to come to the table
to discuss the routing decision making process, how you\'ll be involved,
what criteria are going to be used, and so forth and so on?

STRONG: We\'ve certainly been pushing the mode decision. The routing
decision, I think, is contingent upon first making that decision on
mode. No, we have not to a substantial degree been involved with
specific conversations or discussions over routes at this point. It\'s
something that we\'re eager to get involved with, but we haven\'t
been\--the routing issue is something that may not be quite to the point
in time where those discussions have to take place. It\'s just something
that we need to be involved with eventually.

ABKOWITZ: Thank you. Dan?

BULLEN: Bullen, Board. Just a quick question. You mentioned the 180(C)
funding in support of the states\' emergency response and preparedness.
Has that level of funding been adequate, do you foresee it to be so?
And, I guess, the concern that I have is that DOE has had budget cuts up
until every year except about now and the emphasis is going to be maybe
on building the repository and making the effort to transport. So, I was
just wondering about the sufficiency of that funding and the ability of
the states to obtain it?

STRONG: Right. Well, of course, Section 180(C) hasn\'t

\--we haven\'t received any 180(C) funding to this point. In terms of
its adequacy, the draft plan, if my recollection is correct, started out
with recommending planning grants of \$150,000 which is consistent with
what\'s been done under the WIPP Program. Yes, indeed, states will have
some concern about the sufficiency of funds and, quite honestly, some
states will look at whatever number comes out differently than other
states. Some states will be able to live on the lesser amount of funds.
And, I guess, it depends on what eventually comes out as the allocation
formula. We are trying to keep it simple and base it on things like
number of shipments or number of routing miles and this sort of thing.
So, we\'re hopeful that it will be adequate, but in recognition of what
you just said about the sufficiency of budgets and severe budget
deficits and this sort of thing, that\'s sort of what prompted my
comments about needs for looking at things more universally and include
radiological response training and other umbrellas.

ABKOWITZ: Ron?

LATANISION: Latanision, Board. Have the governors or legislative leaders
in the corridor states that you work with expressed public opinions on
the transportation issue?

STRONG: I think each of these regional planning committees has tried to
keep their governor\'s offices and legislative conferences abreast of
things. I know in the midwest, we have fairly routinely gone to
governors\' conferences and last summer we had the midwest legislative
conference adopt a couple different proposals or resolutions

\--that\'s the word I was looking for\--acknowledging the need for a
full transportation plan and also a resolution was passed in sort of
supporting the idea of full-scale cask testing. So, indeed, there\'s
more that we can do and eventually as we go along we\'ll need to do in
terms of keeping governors and legislatures abreast, but I think we\'ve
been doing a reasonably good job at this point.

ABKOWITZ: Dave?

DUQUETTE: Duquette, Board. This is sort of a followup on Dr.
Latanision\'s comment or question. You\'re in a state that has nuclear
reactors and spent fuel and so on and so forth. But, many of the
corridor states do not. Do you have any feeling for what their attitude
is for transporting it through their states?

STRONG: Well, in the midwest, I think, Indiana is the only corridor
state that does not have a nuclear power plant. And, indeed, they\'re
concerned with basically the same issues as all of the rest of us. The
need to be involved with routing decisions, the need to be able to have
the funds and the time to train emergency response personnel along those
routes, and some states are eager to do things like hospital training
and this sort of thing. I don\'t see a lot of difference in perspective
between a corridor state that has versus those that do not have nuclear
power plants.

Does that answer your question?

ABKOWITZ: Thank you very much, Thor.

STRONG: All right. Thank you.

ABKOWITZ: We\'re now going to shift our focus to transportation concerns
from the perspective of the State of Nevada and speaking on behalf of
the State today is Robert Loux. As most of you know, Bob is the
Executive Director of the Nuclear Waste Project Office within the State
of Nevada\'s Agency for Nuclear Projects. This office has been in
existence since 1983 and Mr. Loux has been the only Director.

He has worked under six Nevada governors in high level radioactive waste
management and other energy policy issues.

From my academic background we refer to Bob\'s success in that regard as
the Webe Theory. We talk about that with regard to our Department Chairs
and Deans and there\'s a lot of former Deans and Department Chairs on
this board, but the Webe Theory is basically, \"We be here before you
get here, we be here after you\'re gone.\"

I would like to welcome Bob up here to talk about transportation
planning and also recognize Bob Halstead who is the transportation guru
for the State of Nevada and is equally knowledgeable and passionate
about the subject.

LOUX: Thank you very much. I appreciate the opportunity to be here today
and appreciate your holding hearing on this fascinating subject.

Some of the issues that I\'m going to touch on have been kind of
illuminated already today.

When our previous speaker was talking about some of these shipments from
Michigan and talking about some of these stories it reminded me of one
about a junior senator from Michigan who, upon hearing about plutonium
being shipped through Michigan to Canada, wrote a rather strong
condemning letter of the whole planning process of the Department of
Energy in shipping this material and ERS ended up banning the effort.
And of course, as you may know, the junior senator went on to become the
Secretary of Energy. I suspect that his views now have changed somewhat
in this regard.

You\'re correct that I have with me also Joe Strolen, in addition to Dr.
Halstead, and as you know, Bob is not a doctor, but he plays one on TV.

Before I actually get started, on a more serious note, all of the kinds
of things that we\'re talking about here today and things I\'ve heard
all morning, have come from all of us who are simply paid to take some
of these positions and to be here today.

And, I just can\'t help but not recognize the Nevada ranchers that have
been here earlier today and spoke to you on issues that I think we all
feel very deeply about. And really, they are the real people who are
affected about what\'s going on here. We\'re all involved in these
planning processes and issues, but truly, those are the people that of
anybody DOE ought to be talking to, it ought to be them. They are the
ones who are on the front line, the ones who are being most dramatically
affected. And, I thought that their comments and statements today were
very compelling, and I can\'t help but recognize that they are the
people that really need to be involved in this process.

As you know, a year or ago or so, I think it was in February, we made a
similar presentation that I\'m going to talk about today, and I\'m not
going to go through all the same issues, most of which you\'ve kind of
heard before, although there\'s some that I will kind of touch on
briefly. We have, as you know, been long involved in all of these issues
that we\'ve talked about today. When I heard the earlier remarks on
Department of Energy, it literally could have been 1984 that we were
sitting here listening to the same thing, and we did hear the same
presentation then that we heard today, and really not much has changed.
And we\'ve made these similar recommendations to the Department of
Energy I\'ve listed here for probably better than 20 years now.

We also have been involved in these regional organizations that Thor
spoke of. The Western Interstate Interview Board, the Western
Governors\' Association, other states and local governments and tribes,
in developing these recommendations, and as I\'ve said, we\'ve worked on
them for, really, more than 20 years, and we\'ve developed
transportation primers. WEBE has, there\'s been WGA resolutions about
transportation. Lessons learned from\--this gentleman spoke of the WGA
WIPP transportation programs, and by and large all of those
recommendations have just been completely and totally ignored by the
Department of Energy, who actually paid for them through these regional
organizations. They paid for this primer, paid for some of these
products that came out that were very, very good planning tools and by
and large have been totally ignored.

Restating these same concerns without requiring DOE to adhere to some
sort of strict decision-making process, we believe, is becoming just a
continued exercise in futility. The only way we know to accomplish the
kind of project that\'s going on here is through NEPA, which prescribes,
as many of you know, a very coherent step-wise planning process that all
of these decisions could be gathered in and could be dealt with
comprehensively as opposed to what\'s really going on in this process.
The fact that DOE has included transportation issues in the Yucca
Mountain EIS really does not really absolve them from conducting a full
blown NEPA analysis of spent fuel and high-level waste transportation.

Here\'s the road map, essentially, we put forward to DOE in August of
2002. No surprise here. Develop a national plan, scoping for a
programmatic EIS, develop a draft programmatic EIS, complete the final
programmatic decisions.

Then issue a ROD, an integrated transportation system, and\--next slide,
and then use the Tiered EISs and the EAs for the subcomponents of the
system for heavy all-truck operation, rail alignment, as the case may
be.

This process, for most state and local governmental planners and even
those in the federal government is not unique. It\'s well know, well
prescribed. It has worked out before even for DOE. For example in the
waste management PEIS for low level waste and mixed waste decisions that
were made in 1999, and DOE followed this kind of step-wise process all
the way along.

The next slide I think is the last one in that sequence.

All the way along, and it has really resulted in a rather coherent,
organized, well defined decision-making process where everyone saw the
opportunities to participate, saw where their input had effect into the
process. And by and large, although Nevada and I suspect Washington
State, aren\'t in agreement with the ultimate outcome of the planning
process, resulted in a decision that by and large have not been able to
be really legally challenged, and have actually served, actually, the
Department quite well.

And the WIPP program is another one. The former speaker mentioned, you
actually have the architect of that program in the room today, Ralph
Smith, from the WIPP program who has done a fantastic job of organizing
all of the WIPP planning process that most states I think have found to
be satisfactory.

The DOE\'s preferred rail notice that we\'ve talked about earlier today
really, and it was noted by Nevada ranchers and others, is really a
symptom of this dysfunctional process that DOE has engaged in. The
current approach is really untypical to what really ought to be done.
It\'s an example of what\'s really wrong. They\'ve announced a
preference for a Caliente rail corridor before a decision has been made
about shipping mode or national campaign or shipping routes. There have
been no analysis, comparative analysis, among the alternatives of the
five routes the DOE indicated in the EIS. There\'s no way to know what
was leading them to the Caliente route, for example, if the exclusion of
the Las Vegas routes were the routes that went through the Las Vegas
Valley, or screened primarily on population. Something I might agree
with, but what does that say to other cities all the way along the way.
Salt Lake, Chicago, all these other places. There\'s no evidence that
there has been any comparative analysis, something that we really
believe ought to be forthcoming. We ought to all be able to see.

And suffice to say, and I think the previous speakers have really talked
to this. There has really been absolutely no\--I mean no, a big
zero\--consultation, communication, whatsoever with the State of Nevada
in any sense of any of these issues. Perhaps some with some of the
counties, but I suspect, by and large, it has not. This whole process is
segmented, piecemeal and really backwards. And really, again, this
announcement that we talked about earlier is really the symptom of the
entire project. It really shows what can go wrong when you really start
doing the piecemeal planning process and don\'t integrate and put these
things in the proper fashion.

Let me just leave you with three or four questions that we would have
for DOE and particularly related to this December announcement on this
Federal Register notice that was referred to earlier.

You know, why would DOE select a preferred corridor without first
identifying the preferred mode? If DOE adopts the mostly-rail mode,
what\'s the actual modal mix to be expected? Why did DOE fail to consult
with Nevada and counties on the rail corridor, like Caliente? And, to
say nothing of the people actually affected, ranchers and other people.

What specific criteria and data were used to select the preferred
corridor? Other rail corridors remain under consideration, something to
be reconsidered if both Caliente and Carlin are found to be feasible,
something that we believe is certainly not beyond the realm of
possibility, given these two alternatives, represent the longest, most
costly and most difficult aspect of the Yucca Mountain transportation
issue.

When will DOE issue a ROD concerning the mode selection? And, has DOE
completely eliminated consideration of mostly trucking, the preferred
mode? And, under what circumstances would mostly truck be used?

These are questions that, in addition to the ones that you\'ve heard
from other speakers are ones that DOE is failing to address, has not
addressed to date, and ones that we submit probably need to be addressed
before the process goes much further.

Lastly, let me say there are hundreds of other questions that we and
others have talked about related to DOE\'s piecemeal that can only be
answered by holding DOE\'s feet to the fire, requiring a comprehensive,
integrated transportation planning process. And we believe this can only
be done by demanding a full and complete NEPA review.

Having said that, in trying to address some of the questions, Mr.
Chairman, you had posed to some of us, we do have some response to some
of them. They may be a little longer than you want to spend time here
today. But I\'m assured if there\'s any tough questions from the Board
that my backup here can probably handle all of those. So with that, let
me just turn it over to you and see what questions you might have.

ABKOWITZ: Okay, thank you, Bob. We\'ll start with Dave Duquette.

DUQUETTE: Duquette, Board. Assuming, and it\'s perhaps a big assumption,
that the project is approved, does the State have a preferred rail
corridor? Well, not a rail corridor, a transportation corridor, I should
say.

LOUX: It\'s particularly I think premature at this point to even kind of
look at those issues until we\'re further down the road in trying to
really understand if the project is really going forward. I think
there\'s probably some serious doubts at this point that it\'s going to
proceed and if it does proceed, certainly not on any time scale. I think
that we need to be involved in a process collectively with the counties
and the cities and other entities in Nevada, with the Department of
Energy at some point in time to really realize that. But no, we don\'t
have a preference.

DUQUETTE: Thank you.

ABKOWITZ: Dan Bullen.

BULLEN: Bullen, Board. Five rail routes from which the DOE made its
selection were part of the final environmental impact statement for the
underground project, as I understand. I guess I\'m\--maybe my memory is
fading, but I was just wondering, what was the public participation in
the vetting of those routes during the course of the environmental
impact statement for Yucca Mountain? And, what additional kinds of
information would you expect to be presented by DOE in the public domain
so that they would have an opportunity to comment?

LOUX: Well, a lot of those issues, you\'re right were talked about in
the Yucca Mountain EIS and the public hearings, some of which were held
in Nevada, some of which were held, certainly, outside the state, and I
suspect in most states they wondered what the heck they were really
commenting on since it wasn\'t clear to them what this had to do with
them at the point in time.

Your second part of the question?

BULLEN: What opportunities were there for the Nevadans to comment on the
sites now\--yeah, what additional information would you expect to see
from that?

LOUX: Well, the first issue is that there has been no opportunity. And
secondly, the issues that we would like to see at this point in time is
certainly some analysis, for example, about how we made this decision
relative to Carlin and Caliente, or reverse that, Caliente/Carlin. What
was the comparative analysis? What were the factors proved one over the
other in preference for the Department of Energy to choose? Were they
financial? Were they avoiding land use conflicts with the population? No
one knows. It\'s as if it was pulled out of a hat. We believe that has
to be a public record, that has to be part of the NEPA compliance
process, and something that ought to be in the public domain that
everyone can examine.

BULLEN: Bullen, Board. Just one last quick question. Would you expect to
see those kinds of arguments in the record of decision when it is
finally finalized with respect to the route selection? Or is it just
going to be a route selection and that\'s it?

LOUX: In a word, no.

ABKOWITZ: Bob, I have a couple questions, if I might. The first one is
we heard earlier today about the intermodal transfer issue and what
would happen when you take a well cask and put it on a truck and now
it\'s a super heavy weight vehicle and would require special permitting.
Is that a permit that only the State of Nevada has the authority to
grant, and what is the, sort of the view or the likelihood of such a
thing occurring?

LOUX: Let me tell you, to the extent that they take place on state
highways, yes, the State of Nevada has that authority. What our State
Department of Transportation has told DOE is that if they want to engage
in that sort of activity that each one of the shipments would have to be
permitted separately, individually, for each individual shipment.

They\'ve also specified requirements on upgrade, additional highway
lanes, if you would, adjacent detour of these highways as prerequisites
to going forward. As well as, I think, a variety of other technical
criteria that they\'ve communicated to DOE already, I know. But those
are just the highlights.

ABKOWITZ: My second question is as these issues start getting vetted at
the county and local level, and I know we\'ll be hearing from folks in a
short while, what role do you see the state playing in sort of
refereeing or facilitating the process?

LOUX: Well, I\'m not sure at this point that we\'re going to get in any
sort of a position of refereeing any sort of discussions. We certainly
want to be a resource. We want to be able to provide what information
experts such as Dr. Halstead and others make those available to them,
certainly on analysis and others. And we want to be in a participatory
mode with these other entities, both the city and the counties all the
way along.

Let me just\--one other comment I really needed to make, and about the
land withdrawal issue that came up earlier. Our analysis, by the way, is
almost precisely the same as the one that these gentlemen have rolled
out. The acreage is not close to what is in the Federal Registry Notice,
No. 1.

Secondly, we believe, despite DOE\'s comments, it does impact
areas\--the Nellis Gunnery Range and Test Site. It travels that. And
certainly, many of the corridors are well in excess of a mile, some of
them are in excess of seven miles. We\'re still in preliminary stages of
mapping much of this out. But our tentative analysis agrees with the
analysis these other gentlemen have done, and they seem to be very
accurate in that regard.

ABKOWITZ: Did your office have any advance notice of this information
before it was published in the Federal Register?

LOUX: The Governor\'s Office got a call and a fax of the letter the day
it actually came out. And that was the extent of any notice that we had
gotten.

ABKOWITZ: Okay. Thank you very much.

LOUX: Thank you very much.

ABKOWITZ: And, by the way, Bob, we will be kind of submitting a list of
24 or so safety issues that is consistent with your question that we
believe, if Nevada was funded, we could help resolve very quickly.

LOUX: Thank you.

ABKOWITZ: Okay, our next presentation is what I fondly refer to as the
local government variety hour. We\'re going to be hearing from
representatives of several different local governments in Nevada. In
particular we\'ll be hearing from Nye County, Lincoln County, Eureka
County, Lander County, Esmeralda County, and Clark County. And, there\'s
an hour that has been set aside for these folks to share their views.
And, as I understand it, there will be, it will be laid out as some
scheduled time to prepare presentations, and then time for full
discussion amongst the county representatives.

And, because Nye County is the location of Yucca Mountain, we have the
Nye County Representative, Les Bradshaw to coordinate this session of
today\'s meeting. Les, if you will come forward and introduce your
colleagues.

BRADSHAW: And let the variety hour begin. If we could call the panelists
forward. They are listed on the agenda, plus we have the Mayor of
Caliente, Nevada, Mr. Phillips. So, if you would take your places up
here, we would very much appreciate it.

Beside myself, Abby Johnson and I have\--will be presenting\--Abby
Johnson representing Eureka County. We\'ll be presenting a sort of a
joint statement from eight of the counties. That would be\--you know,
I\'ve got to memorize these counties going counter-clockwise or
something so I can remember them, but basically the White Pine, Lander,
Eureka, Churchill, Mineral, Nye and Clark and Inyo. So, Abby and I will
be giving a joint statement consolidating the thoughts and concerns that
would answer the questions that the board has posed. The two speakers,
not necessarily for their individual counties endorsing those comments,
but we are presenting a joint statement and consolidating the thoughts
of those eight counties, in the interests of time.

Then, Esmeralda County represented by Mr. McCorkell. George McCorkell,
will present comments germane to Esmerelda, but also to the Caliente
corridor group of counties. That is the three counties, and our efforts
to work together to develop common databases and to present common
information to DOE.

And then, Mike Baughman on behalf of Lincoln County, and then in
addition another participant from Lincoln County, which will be the
Mayor of Caliente, Nevada, located in Lincoln County.

And, we\'ll leave some time at the end for comments and discussions.
Bear in mind that it\'s pretty hard to\--it\'s a trick of good
proportions to try to get the 10 counties to take just an hour. We could
all just go on and on about our individual county concerns. But we have
learned that many of our concerns are common and we\'re going to try to
present those to you and so that there\'s a minimum of repetition and a
maximum of good information being presented to you.

I\'m going to talk on, or just present some ideas on\--the next slide
please, if you wouldn\'t mind\--transportation systems and interaction
process. And then Abby Johnson will talk\--address emergency management
and transportation decision-making. And then we\'ll go on to Mr.
McCorkell, Mike Baughman, Mr. Baughman, and then Mayor Phillips. So,
these are the combined views. And again, individual counties may have
slightly different views or emphasized views.

I would also indicate to you that the way the panel is made up, there
may not be proper emphasis to suit all participants on the relative
magnitude of various issues, but we can bring those issues out on the
questions and answers.

On the transportation system, DOE of course has announced a\--the way I
understand it, they\'ve announced a preference for the Caliente corridor
with a backup for Carlin when they\--if they do decide rail as the
principal mode, and those would be the corridors that they would look
at. So we\'re focusing\--now that takes off three other routes that have
been on the table for a while. And we\'re, I think most of the counties
are focusing on the issues that we have about transportation on those
two routes, or corridors and we\'re assuming that there is going to be a
mostly rail mode choice made, although this choice, as I understand it,
isn\'t officially made at this time. But it has been strongly intimated
or hinted at. But there will always be a residual trucking or highway
shipment component.

So, the issues are narrowed somewhat, but they are not narrowed down to
sort of cut and dried, clearly defined issues. Because the highway
transportation component is still a little\--how that will actually play
out is a little bit unknown at this time. The state and other people
will have certain abilities and influence on the routes that would be
used for that segment of a mostly rail scenario.

Most of the counties on the panel would support very strongly the direct
rail to Yucca Mountain, their feelings being that it\'s probably the
best way to keep the shipments away from most of the population. Most
people, at least the ones that I\'m in contact with, believe that the
rail basically is safer than having it on the highways. And, most of the
cities and towns along the corridors in Central Nevada would prefer not
to have a lot of trucking of nuclear waste through their town.

The rail was built\--the rail will be built off to the side. We can all
help DOE plan that and place that, and so the nuclear waste comes into
minimal contact with the general population in Central Nevada. So
that\'s generally the preferred point of view of most of the counties.
There\'s a dissenting opinion on that and I\'m pretty sure you will hear
about some thoughts on that today.

So, just speaking for Nye County at this point, Nye County is very
strongly saying rail only and rail early. That is, we prefer rail as the
principal mode. We would hope to minimize road transportation to the
extent possible, and we hope the DOE can have the wherewithal and do the
planning and have the funding and the legislative direction to build the
rail early on so that the early highway component of the transportation
campaign can be minimized.

There are, certainly we realize that even if there is direct rail there
will be, have to be a highway component to DOE\'s transportation
campaign. And we recognize that. All the counties recognize that. We\'re
trying to deal with it.

So from transportation system\'s point of view, you asked some questions
about what are our main concerns. Most of the counties would probably
agree that the information flowing from DOE to enable counties to do
planning, to be able to actually plan their activities, to deal with the
impacts of the transportation program, that planning isn\'t\--they
haven\'t laid out the big picture yet, and you\'ve been here for most of
the day and heard that DOE is working at that. But it just, the big
picture isn\'t laid out yet. So timing, benchmark events, and so on, and
a lot of the smaller decisions that make up this larger decision have
yet to be made.

Therefore, communities and local governments don\'t have the ability to
plan their activities to deal with DOE\'s plans and to be able to either
minimize the adverse impacts or maximize what could be called the good
impacts from the transportation program.

And, just as a couple of examples. A communications network in Central
Nevada along whichever corridor is selected would be a good thing, a
communications network for emergency response and emergency services
that\'s consistent, reliable and compatible amongst the corridor
counties and local governments, cities, and useful by DOE. Counties at
this moment are investing money in long-term emergency response
communications infrastructure upgrades, and yet, we are not able at this
point to work with DOE to make sure that our investments are ultimately
going to be usable as we\--ultimately we\'ll have to work with DOE on
having a compatible and efficient and reliable communications system for
emergency response and dealing with transportation incidents.

So that is just one example. And it takes years to get these
infrastructure upgrades in place, and we can\'t just do it at the last
minute. We can\'t wait until a year or two or three or four before the
first shipment or the first train comes down the track to get this
infrastructure in place. And that\'s just one example. And the panel
members could all give you numerous other examples of the long wait time
needed by the local governments.

So we\'re not suggesting that DOE is playing hide the ball at all. They
are very welcoming and open arms to come in and talk to them, but their
decision-making process is not as quickly paced as perhaps some of the
impatient local governments would like to see. And, but, you know, in
the end, I think if we keep talking to each other and keep working
together that we won\'t get up against some, you know, deadline where we
can\'t get our infrastructure in place because DOE is going to start up
on a certain date.

A lot of the county delegates and the city\--well, I\'m\--I\'ll let the
cities speak for themselves, but the local governments would like to see
the big picture laid out, an integration of decision-making components,
what DOE is basing it\'s decision-making on and how the various
components of decision-making are addressing local government questions.
And then what\'s the big picture? How can they predict out a number of
years what the, sort of the business, what I\'ll call the business plan,
will be for actually implementing this project?

A good step would be for the DOE to issue the ROD so that there\'s\--we
know what mode it\'s going to be, but apparently they\'ve selected the
corridor that they will work on first. And that would be a good way to
narrow the issues and focus down and help local governments to do
certain things to relieve the anxiety of having this project in our
midst.

So, the local governments are asking for interaction, which I\'m not
suggesting is totally lacking, but we would\--our concern is that, as
these folks that you heard from\--and I do recognize a large contingent
from Nye County here with views and concerns\--but people were taken
aback or surprised by an announcement that DOE made which was broader
and had more ramifications attached to it than what we had anticipated.
A simple announcement of a corridor or preferred corridor, coupled with
the BLM involvement and the BLM actions and the BLM land segregations.

We in fact were taken aback by the breadth and the magnitude of the BLM
ancillary follow-up actions, or not ancillary, but the concerted DOE and
BLM actions. We didn\'t understand that there was going to be, you know,
I think you heard a figure of 600,000 or 700,000 acres targeted for
basically being put into suspense or, you know, no further actions along
those indicated sections. We didn\'t understand that, and we would have
liked to have understood it. And so, that\'s an example of the need for
even more interactions between the local governments and DOE.

Now, I\'ve listened very carefully today and there\'s\--DOE is a large
organization. It has a lot of management centers, I guess you could say.
But we all need to learn how to deal with that and when a decision is
made that is so broad and so encompassing and has such a magnitude of
impact, we should know that\--we should understand what that decision
really means.

A lot of the counties are concerned about the NEPA process. And I think
others on the panel will address this a little bit more for you, but
there was a NEPA process. We commented. There\'s not a feeling amongst,
the AULGs and the citizens and the city that the NEPA process fairly
addressed the local government concerns. You\'ve heard a lot about this
today and I think you will keep hearing about it. It in fact is a
concern that the NEPA process in fact is not a meaningful process for
interactions on this issue or at the individual citizen level and at the
local government level.

The issue of umbrella organizations has been discussed\--we\'ve just
heard from an umbrella organization and you need to work with those, but
remember, we were saying to DOE at the end of the funnel, and you saw a
little cartoon on the beginning of our thing here, at the end of the
funnel a couple of the counties in the U. S. are impacted more than
anyone else, and they deserve special consideration and they should not
be represented in DOE\'s thinking and decision-making by an umbrella
organization that has a broader perspective and views and concerns and
loyalties and obligations than perhaps these few affected counties in
Central Nevada. So we ask for consideration about some special
interactions process that allows the affected governments that are truly
going to deal with each and every shipment some\--we could say special
standing.

We do, we come to the table with suggestions. We think that perhaps DOE
could ask us more questions. We have a lot of solutions. If we had time
we could\--all the participants here could give you a long dissertation
on solutions that we could bring to DOE. We believe that we have
expertise and ability and insights into the local governmental process,
the local impacts, these fellows that were before you today, we could
have averted a lot of that, the hard edge that this issue has brought to
these people by some prior interactions and some knowledge and some
information flowing out to the people, to the government and to the
individuals.

And, we have a lot of ideas about, in Nye County for instance, which is
the situs jurisdiction of where Yucca Mountain will be, if this is going
to happen, it\'s going to have a huge impact in the northern part of
Amargosa Valley and Beatty, Pahrump. We have some ideas on how, and if
you\'re going to build things or do things or put things in or bring in
2,000 to 3,000 workers, we have a lot of good ideas on how we could work
with you to make that process ultimately beneficial instead of just kind
of a boom and bust kind of a thing.

So come to us and ask us about our ideas on how we can help this project
have the minimal impact and if there\'s positive issues that could be
maximized. I think most of the counties should want to do that.
Certainly, Nye County is looking at ways that, if this is going to
happen, we certainly want to make it a benefit to the communities and
not a drain or a detriment to the communities.

That concludes my remarks. I\'ll turn the microphone over to Abby
Johnson and then the others will follow in their designated order as
we\'ve outlined. And, then we\'ll have some time at the end for
questions. If it looks like we\'re going overtime I\'ll be out waving my
arms to us to speed things up so that we can have some time for
questions.

Thank you so much.

JOHNSON: Hi. I\'m Abby Johnson. I\'m the Nuclear Waste Advisor for
Eureka County. And, Les and I decided to split up this presentation on
behalf of eight out of the 10. And so, as usual, anything that sounds
collaborative is from the eight out of the 10. Anything that sounds like
a radical opinion is mine.

Regarding emergency management, local governments in Nevada are in the
front line of public health and safety for nuclear waste transportation
and are responsible for being prepared in case there\'s an accident.
Even if the risk is believed to be minimal, as Les said, we are
experiencing virtually all the shipments. And we have the responsibility
to be prepared for the unlikely event.

Interlocal mutual aid agreements continue to commit counties to regional
emergency response obligations, regardless of routing and mode
decisions. And similarly, these mutual aid agreements which are
particularly important to rural Nevada, will require emergency first
response training and equipment to be provided by DOE to local
governments who are not necessarily directly on a designated
transportation route because of the nature of our geography.

We find that DOE\'s record is inconsistent with its success with
shipping campaigns. As we\'ve heard today already, the WIPP interactions
have gone particularly well, whereas the foreign fuel shipments by rail
through northern Nevada, at least based on Lander County\'s experience,
did not. And one thing that I think is really important to point out is
that working through the state government\--this is a general
comment\--does not guarantee adequate preparation at the local level.
And this should be a concern for DOE and for states, as well as for
local governments. All three of those should be worried about that lack,
or concern.

Route preparation criteria. DOE needs to establish acceptable route
preparation criteria before shipments could begin. Criteria could
include emergency response training, equipment, infrastructure
improvements, appropriate monitoring, oversight capabilities. The WIPP
example is that shipments don\'t start along a route until it\'s
considered to be open. To be open, DOE has to provide training and
participate with states and public information and, in essence, the
state has to agree that the preparations along the route are adequate,
and that emergency responders are prepared to handle an event.

I guess\--this is one of my comments, is that that\'s great, but that\'s
maybe not enough for the counties at the draining end of the funnel.
There may need to be more interaction with local governments at the
draining end of the funnel.

Thereby leading to the next slide, that it\'s important to involve local
goernments early and often. I\'m going to say what Les said, but in a
slightly different way. One, coordination for AULGs with DOE is
essential. Looking at the WIPP model and possible ways to strengthen it
would be to have the state and the locals involved in transportation
planning and implementation, and that that planning should address
emergency response training and equipment, required infrastructure
improvements, appropriate monitoring, oversight capabilities and the
role of volunteers, which is really a tricky thing, at least here in
Nevada where most of rural Nevada is protected only by volunteers, and
what we would be asking them to do in terms of training for this level
is perhaps more than is practical.

180(c) is not the answer. We\'ve heard a lot about that today already.
Based on a DOE analysis of total system lifecycle costs in 1998, the
amount of project funding dedicated to fulfilling DOE emergency
preparedness responsibilities under 180(c) is inadequate to meet
national needs to upgrade highways and emergency response capacities.
This could lead to under-funding of impacted agencies and jurisdictions.
And, DOE must develop realistic cost estimates for improving and
safeguarding rail and truck.

Well, what about the capacity of the effected units of local government?
There are two points I would like to make here. One is to bring to your
attention, again, a concept that Eureka County has studied, but which
we\'re happy to share with everybody else. And that is that DOE should
plan and budget for regional, and frankly, rural, emergency response
training facilities that would be fully funded by DOE, staffed by
professionals, but controlled or operated by local governments. We
proposed this in a report and in our impact assessment report. This
especially deals with the problem of depending on volunteers, among
other things.

The other concern is emergency medical capabilities and training. Those
capabilities are like regular emergency response in that maybe nothing
is going to happen, but you\'ve got to have everything ready in case it
does. Volunteers, facilities, emergency medical capacity, training, in
preparation for a potential incident.

I would like to move on to transportation decision-making by DOE. The
AULGs are experiencing a piecemeal decision-making on transportation
because of the lack of the transportation programmatic EIS, which would
have analyzed cradle to grave transportation of all materials destined
for Yucca Mountain, including PFS, the defense waste, and would be in
the context of current low level waste and transuranic shipping programs
that are already affecting California and Nevada.

In order to avoid 12th-hour decisions which prohibit effective risk
management, risk analysis and management, such as emergency first
response training, DOE must move forward expeditiously to make specific
mode and route decisions regarding transportation through Nevada.

Regarding the upcoming mode decision, mostly rail or mostly truck, the
FEIS lacked a national route-specific study that should be the basis for
informed decision-making on mode and route, and that takes into
consideration all affected, involved and responsible parties from those
many cradles to that one grave.

The FEIS is inadequate to support transportation planning and decisions
that take into consideration the indirect effects and cumulative effects
of nuclear waste transportation.

And, frankly, what is the basis of DOE\'s mode decision? Who decides?
Why isn\'t this a public dialog since the entire country is affected? 21
FEIS hearings does not constitute a national public dialog. What is the
mode preference based on other than rail is safer?

Bob Loux indicated that when the decision comes out it will just be a
decision with no explanation. I hope he\'s wrong.

In addition, a lot has changed since September 11th, 2001. And, because
FEIS was completed prior to that time, the FEIS does not give proper
weight to security issues. And, a supplemental EIS that focuses on those
regarding Yucca Mountain transportation and the commercial nuclear fuel
cycle should be developed.

Regarding truck decisions, the final EIS for the project does not
provide sufficient detail on potential truck routes into Yucca Mountain.
Although DOE claims that the FEIS is sufficient to support all
subsequent decisions concerning routing, no analysis was done on several
rural routes already used by DOE for nuclear waste transportation. And
also, the FEIS did not compare potential truck routes with respect to
safety and cost.

Regarding rail, as has already been discussed, Caliente is the preferred
rail corridor at this time. Carlin is a secondary preference. The DOE
intends to prepare an EIS, as we understand it\--as we understand it,
comma, the DOE intends to prepare an EIS only on the Caliente corridor.
From a planning perspective, analyzing the secondary route and rail
truck alternatives, in the event the preferred route is infeasible would
be prudent and efficient.

From Eureka\'s County\'s point of view as a potential host of the Carlin
route, the secondary backup plan, DOE\'s decision-making process of
Carlin as the backup route is unclear. If they say we\'re just studying
Caliente and we\'re going to work it whether we go to the north or the
south here, are we no longer the backup plan, or are we the backup plan
until a transportation record of decision on that is issued and they
say, okay, I think we\'ve got a real one? It\'s very confusing.

Some final thoughts: DOE has resisted acknowledging that its current low
level waste and transuranic waste shipping programs are legitimate
subjects of study for the purposes of anticipating how DOE will handle
transportation of high-level waste and spent fuel. DOE should encourage
AULGs to use oversight funding to develop an understanding of DOE\'s
existing nuclear waste transportation practices and regulatory
framework.

Until a supplemental EIS is completed on security issues, there is no
rational basis for a decision on the preferred mode of transportation or
preferred routes. Absent decision on mode and routes, impacted
jurisdictions cannot be identified and costs to prepare these routes
cannot be estimated.

Long range planning for us is extremely difficult. 180(c) is not a
panacea. It will not be available, I guess, until three years prior to
the first shipments. The amount of funding unpreparedness is unknown at
this time. Knowing neither the risks nor the resources available to
offset these risks makes long-range planning quite difficult. Funding
needs to be based on total impact as being under the draining end of the
transportation funnel, from our point of view.

And finally, our challenge as affected units of local government is to
understand the impacts, to weigh the burden of risk and responsibility
imposed by the county\--excuse me, imposed upon the county. To develop a
plan to respond to those burdens, to get DOE to compensate the counties
for the cost of implementing the plan for the duration of the shipping
campaign, and to implement the plan for the duration.

Thank you. And, the next speaker is George.

McCORKELL: Good afternoon. I\'m George McCorkell. I\'m here representing
Esmeralda County. I\'m going to speak very briefly about our Central
Nevada Community Protection Working Group.

As you know, DOE has designated the Caliente rail corridor which has a
significant impact on Esmeralda County regardless of which alignment is
selected. The current corridor is adjacent to much of the eastern edge
of Esmeralda County and is sandwiched between the Esmeralda County Seat
of Goldfield and the Nellis Range Complex.

In coordination with DOE, Esmerelda, Lincoln, Nye Counties and the City
of Caliente have begun the formation of a multi-jurisdictional working
group. We\'re pleased to report that the efforts we have made thus far
to address Yucca Mountain transportation safety and security concerns
have been very effective. The process of working together is allowing us
to identify concerns which we hope to address on a cooperative regional
basis, as appropriate.

We\'re not to the point of addressing these concerns. In fact, we\'re
just beginning the processes of identifying them. While some are
intuitive in nature, some are not, we plan to get to the point at which
we can, through cooperative agreement funding from DOE, provide the
information and potential solutions to the Department to address the key
transportation concerns we will be faced with. The culmination of a
cooperative agreement between DOE and the jurisdictions in the working
group is essential for us to be able to address the concerns we face.

Thus far, we feel good about the success for multi-jurisdictional effort
and the encouragement we\'ve gotten from DOE.

However, there are concerns Esmeralda County will be unable to address
without cooperative assistance from DOE. We are unable to tell at this
time either what all the concerns will be or how long it will take to
address them. The process of identifying our concerns and then
addressing them is of key importance to us at this point.

And then, lastly, just based on the success of the cooperative agreement
they initiated with Nye County several months ago, we\'re encouraged
that DOE is willing to meaningfully participate with both jurisdictions
and experts who know the area and the issues best.

So, thank you. And I think Mr. Baughman is speaking next on behalf of
Lincoln County.

BAUGHMAN: Thank you. My name is Mike Baughman, here for Lincoln County.

And, I believe on the table in front of you you have a copy of our
presentation. You should also have, if you could bring it to your
attention, a copy of a bibliography of sponsored research. It was a
document placed on the table in front of you as well that I\'m going to
refer to briefly when we go through this.

Let me just begin by pointing out that the Board of Lincoln County
Commissioners adopted Resolution 2001-01, which indicates that shipments
of high-level waste and spent nuclear fuel will be transported by rail
to the maximum extent practical. So it is the official position of
Lincoln County that rail is the preferred mode.

If necessary, shipments by truck, and we do think there will be some
shipments by truck, but if it is necessary to ship by truck, that those
shipments should, to the minimum extent possible, use public highways
and to the extent possible avoid transit through communities. Perhaps
along those lines, I think the County has always been quite interested
in the Chalk Mountain route because it does minimize distance traveled
on public highways.

Two very important points that the County Commissioners adopted. One is
to be able to identify and maximize any potential infrastructure and
economic benefits associated with the entire repository program, but in
particular with transportation of spent nuclear fuel and high-level
waste.

And then also, commensurate with their recommendation regarding rail and
truck transportation, that any measures, or all measures be taken to
minimize the impacts associated with this, and particularly risks
associated with the transportation.

I would note that all three of the Caliente, all three of the switch
points that are associated with the Caliente corridor, rail corridor,
originate in Lincoln County. One of those switch points originates
within the City of Caliente. An alternative switch point originates
about three miles east of Caliente and then the third point is actually
out in the county general over towards Utah state line. But all three
switch points are located within\--and Caliente rail corridor always
originates in Lincoln County.

Key safety concerns and security concerns. One of the questions that we
were asked to address, and I just listed two here. And everybody touched
on this briefly, but basically our position is is that any delays by DOE
in making decisions regarding transportation and implementing
transportation planning may impede pre-shipment risk management and the
effective ability of mitigating, if you will, at minimizing risk. And so
we as well are very concerned about potential 12th-hour decisions.

With having said that, I think we commend DOE. We commend Dr. Chu for
going forward with the beginning of transportation decisions, something
we\'ve been encouraging them to do for quite some time. And I believe to
her credit, it has a lot to do with the organizations she set up and the
focuses they are beginning to put on this key issue.

Another key safety and security concern deals with inadequate training
and lack of availability of equipment for emergency first responders and
emergency medical personnel. And, we would note that that lack of
training, that lack of equipment, will have the potential for
exacerbating risks in the event of an accident or need to respond.

A little bit about the county and the city and the work that they\'ve
undertaken since 1984 in this program. The county and the city have
undertaken about 70 sponsored research projects. This bibliography of
sponsored research provides a listing of those for your review and
information. You will note on page 7, for example, there are a variety
of studies that were done concerning transportation, some fairly
recently. Page 10, I\'ll just strike your reference to that\--take your
reference to that. We\'ve actually engaged the University of Nevada, Las
Vegas in conducting independent risk assessment of both rail and highway
alignments, alternatives in the county.

And so, there has been a great deal of work done. That work is available
to this Board if you chose to look at it. That work was used by the
county and the city in developing their comprehensive impact report that
was presented to DOE a couple of years ago.

Unanswered questions. We were asked to put on the table, if you will,
some of our thoughts about missing information areas where we would like
to focus our attention. And, this Board has over the past several years
made innumerable recommendations to DOE. And, I would suggest to you
that this Board has played a very key role in influencing DOE\'s
decisions about how they spend their resources, where they focus their
work.

And, one of the issues we would lay on the table is is that\--to
basically pose the question, and that is how does the public health and
safety benefit of DOE spending to further reduce uncertainty in
repository performance compare to the potential public health and safety
benefit of DOE spending to reduce transportation accident frequency and
severity? And I think a question that would be very interesting for this
Board to take up is is would a shift in spending yield enhanced public
health and safety benefits?

And obviously, what we\'re looking at here is\--and I did a very quick
backup of the envelope analysis looking at the final environmental
impact statement. Looking at the sources of death in the repository.
Fatalities. And, I don\'t even have any idea at this point whether this
is accurate because it was done very quickly. But let me just tell you
in summarizing all those sources in the EIS, but I could identify for
the repository we\'re looking at anywhere from six to 12 people. And
that depends on cool repository versus hot repository, those types of
things.

If we turn our attention to transportation, at the national level we\'re
looking at 13 to 21 people. Within the State of Nevada, we\'re looking
at anywhere from two to eight people.

Now, I suggest to you that transportation certainly at a national level
is a greater source of concern from a public health and safety
standpoint than the repository, perhaps. And, when we spend tens of
millions of dollars, perhaps hundreds of millions of dollars, to reduce
in very minute amounts the uncertainty associated with repository
performance, it yields a commensurately very, very small benefit in
terms of public health and safety, in terms of death.

If we were to take some of that same amount of resource and plow it into
the transportation system to either enhance the safety of rail and/or
highway, we could have remarkable, perhaps, changes in some of the
transportation numbers.

And, I threw that out as food for thought.

I would also note in going through these numbers, the long-held
presumption which we in Lincoln County hold dear, that rail is safer.
The national statistics show that. You need to know that the EIS would
tell us that in fact rail, largely because of the maximally, maximum
credible accident scenario and the exposure consequences associated with
that has a higher number of fatalities in Nevada. And that\'s also
true\--well, it\'s true in Nevada. I\'ll leave it at that. It\'s not
true at the national level.

And so, that begs the question then in terms of looking at rail versus
truck in Nevada and being sure that we have a very safe rail system, and
I\'ll get to that.

We need to know where one day we will conclude that the direct rail to
Yucca Mountain site is feasible. We need that answer soon. We commend,
again, DOE for moving forward. They are engaging engineering consultants
and others to start this evaluation process. Obviously, our concern is
if it\'s not feasible what\'s the fall-back alternative. We have
rail-to-truck intermodal alternative in the EIS that\'s in our county as
well. And if we\'re going to fall back to that, we would like to know
that sooner than later. Again, we don\'t want a 12th-hour decision.

Continuing with the unanswered questions, getting to this issue of
direct rail versus truck and just the rest, the fatalities and all of
that. Again, the same question applies. If it\'s going to cost up to a
billion dollars to build a rail line and, you know, and it\'s going to
be problematic or it\'s going to cost you, take a long time to build it
or it\'s not going to be available until, you know, about 15 years or so
before you\'re done actually with your shipping campaign, at what point
does the costs associated with building the rail line and the
institutional factors with that, would those resources perhaps not be
better spent in shifting those over to enhance highway transportation
system? That might actually be ultimately a safer system. We don\'t know
the answer to these questions. But we think they are worth investigating
as we go forward. We\'re confident this can be done safely. But we also
think there\'s an opportunity here to focus resources to make it even
safer. And we would encourage that.

We have some questions about how direct rail will be operated. We\'re
very interested in whether we\'re talking dedicated trains or general
commerce type trains. Shared use with general commerce. Will this
300-mile rail corridor be available for commerce? Will it help us with
our mining industries and others? I don\'t know. We don\'t know the
answer to that.

Will it be operated by the UP or will it be a DOE contractor? And then
finally, branch line maintenance, and by whom? We want to know, you
know, kind of how is this going to be done and who is going to operate
it.

With that I would like to introduce Mayor Kevin Phillips from the City
of Caliente, who will close out our panel.

PHILLIPS: Thank you, Dr. Baughman. Ladies and Gentlemen. My remarks will
be brief and more of a summary perhaps.

I\'m Kevin Phillips, the Mayor of the City of Caliente, Nevada. Sorry
that Mr. Loux left. I appreciate the fact that he kind of gave out the
qualifications of the speakers that you should most listen to. He
indicated that you probably should listen to the cowboys or those that
don\'t get paid for being here. I\'m probably the most qualified. For
one, I\'m the Mayor of Caliente, for which you don\'t get paid.
Secondly, I have a hardware store which is mighty tough to get paid. And
I run a small ranch. Having said that, I hope you will give considerable
thought to what I have to say.

Point 1 is just a brief historical perspective of the City of Caliente
and Lincoln County. In 1900, the railroad came to Lincoln County and the
City of Caliente. And then later to the smallest hamlet in the county of
Las Vegas.

Point 2, in 1987 Lincoln County was declared affected by Secretary John
Harrington, and the reason was because of transportation. The other
situs contiguous jurisdictions were granted affected status through an
appeal of the definition of affected through the Nuclear Waste Policy
Act.

From 1994 to the year 2000, the name of the City of Caliente appeared in
proposed federal legislation as part of a congressionally perceived
solution to the transportation to the national repository. Ladies and
Gentlemen, the discomfort of the unknown has really been something else
on this. I\'m serving in my 11th year as Mayor, all of which time this
has been an issue. As affected governments we have studies on every
legitimate and imaginable thing, assuming that we are part of the
transportation corridor in Nevada. And hence, affected. But the unknown
has been tedious, tiresome and wears one out. I have said to the
Department time and time again, pick a route. Any route. Toss a coin if
you have to. And then just let us know whether we\'re on it so that we
can either go on with life or start doing real work. The preferred
corridor selection in my judgement, after all these years, is a major
and significant step forward. It not only gives relief to those of us
that are involved in terms of knowledge and knowing, and now focusing on
the issues at hand, but I believe it\'s significant for the advancement
of this project for the Department and for the nation.

Now, the jurisdictions on the corridor, Esmeralda, Lincoln, Nye, and the
City of Caliente, are ready to work cooperatively, constructively, with
each other and with the Department to find solutions.

Thank you. We\'re ready for questions.

ABKOWITZ: Okay. Board members. Do you have questions? We\'ll start with
Dan Bullen.

BULLEN: Bullen, Board, and I hope this isn\'t my only opportunity to ask
questions if I can think of something later that I would like to ask.

A number of the speakers basically gave an indication or at least I
interpreted an indication, that there may be some economic benefits from
the construction of the rail line. And so, could each county either
expound upon whether or not there are benefits that they think would be
derived from this, besides the short-term, as Les mentioned. You know,
come in, build it and then go away. That\'s obviously a boon or bust
kind of thing. Are there other economic benefits that the rail line
might bring, and have they been identified, and are they of interest to
the counties?

BRADSHAW: Let me take\--I know they have some very pointed remarks here
also. Nye has looked at the ancillary benefits of multiple use of the
rail. We are not particularly adverse to dedicated trains, but we don\'t
want to have dedicated tracks. And, we hope the DOE will operate this
rail in a way that will allow ancillary users within the county,
potential people that are there, potential users that have existing
businesses and operations now, and also people that would\--that that
new rail corridor would draw.

We\'ve identified about a million and a half tons of shipping annually
along the\--in the general area. This would include both corridors,
Carlin and Caliente, coming down to Amargosa Valley. Not going down to
the I-15 corridor. People that are shipping by truck now and\--but were
rail available to them, close in proximity to their operations that they
have indicated they would be favorable to being a rail customer. And we
believe that that tonnage, a million and a half, would double within two
or three years of the rail being available, so from that point of view.

Also, there\'s the taxation issues that would bring some additional tax
base. And of course, the worker issue. People have to operate the rail.
They have to buy goods and services and there will be a huge
infrastructure of ancillary business to service the transportation
infrastructure. I\'m not just talking about DOE\'s operation, cash
maintenance and all that, but all the QA people, all the people that are
going to have to fix and grease and clean and so on. That will be a good
benefit to the region. And I know some of the others have some comments
on that. Surely Lincoln County.

SPEAKER: Les, after that, we\'re without comment.

BULLEN: Bullen, Board.

Just a follow-up to that question. And it goes back to the comments with
respect to safeguards and security. I guess the question that comes to
my mind is that, granted, if you picked either the Carlin or the
Caliente route, by the time you get onto that stretch of track, it\'s
still like a one-way ride to the mountain. And so, for economic
development purposes and also for safeguards and security, wouldn\'t it
have made more sense to make this a loop so that it had two routes in
and out of? And I know DOE didn\'t want to hear the fact that you want
to build more rail, but I guess I was just interested in the fact that
if you made it a loop, then you wouldn\'t worry about the Southern
California reactors not being able to have access to the mountain. You
wouldn\'t have to worry about issues of safeguards and security except
for maybe a 30-kilometer spur that would go off to Yucca Mountain and
everything else would be just a commercial rail line like everything
else in the country.

BRADSHAW: Many of the counties, of course, DOE has precluded that now.
They, you know\--

BULLEN: I understand that. I just wondered what the county perspective
was.

BRADSHAW: We\'ve long\--Nye county, for instance, and I think some of
the other counties, has long advocated\--is going to spend a big amount
of money, a billion dollars or whatever on a new rail infrastructure and
the country hasn\'t built something like this for a long\--many, many
years. Let\'s make this part of the western regional transportation
infrastructure and think NAFDA and think relieving the traffic
congestion in California, and think, you know, new opportunities. And a
through-going rail seemed to make a lot of sense to a lot of us,
but\--and we-but you know, there were a lot of pressures against that. I
mean DOE only has a mandate to get nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain and
that\'s all they really want to do. And that\'s all they are mandated
to. Unless somebody tells them to do something different, that\'s what
their job is and they are not going to volunteer to build extra spurs
into Beatty or Tonopah, into other places unless they get some top-down
direction and money to do it. So these issues have been batted around
for many years, but apparently those have been precluded at this time.

BULLEN: Bullen, Board.

Do any of the other counties have comments on that? I mean specifically
with respect to the issues of safeguards and securities, since that was
raised by, I think Abby raised it.

MCCORKELL: Dr. Bullen, I just wanted to\--I thought that was an
excellent question and I probably should have included in my
presentation some of the projects that our multi-jurisdictional working
group is looking to undertake. That is probably one of our top
priorities is to look at those very same issues. So we\'ve already
identified them and we\'re getting ready to put them on the table and
prioritize them. But certainly that is one issue that Nye, Lincoln,
Esmeralda and the City of Caliente, through that cooperative, you know,
this cooperative agreement, would plan to look at.

NAVIS: One comment from Clark County. The point I would like to
emphasize was the point that Abby made about the mutual aid agreements.
Not only county to county that Clark County is involved in, but also
multi-state agreements. So, if something happens across the state line,
to California and San Bernadino County, Clark County is compelled to
respond to an accident in that county. Same with across the border in
Arizona and also Utah. And so, the multi-state responsibility, regional
responsibility that we have makes us feel compelled to emphasize our
affected status regardless of what transportation decision is made.
We\'re also well aware of the fact that mostly truck\--mostly rail means
some truck. To what extent we\'re not sure because we\'re not sure what
decisions are going to be made. And so, we have looked at public safety
and emergency management capabilities with truck scenarios, but we\'ve
not fully looked at the rail implications. And so, that would be our
next step as a county to take a look at what that means for rail. We
believe that any costs to respond to, prepare for, plan for, equip,
manage in any way, would far outweigh any economic benefit to Clark
County. So, that\'s our formal position right now, without taking any
kind of a position on a preference for any route, and to also to
continue to emphasize the need to stay an affected unit of government
throughout this process until a final determination is actually made.

BULLEN: Bullen, Board.

Actually, I would love to follow up on that with respect to the issues
that were brought up with the 180(c) area. Do the counties, and these
are obviously the most affected counties, have a level of funding in
mind that they think would be adequate to support the 180(c) efforts
that are necessary? And I know this is probably very premature because
you know you can\'t apply for a long time, but there\'s got to be a
number that you have in mind and say this is at least a minimum
threshold that we think would be adequate to prepare ourselves for this
type of activity?

NAVIS: One of the analyses that we did that we included in our impact
assessment report talked about just for preparedness alone, looking at
\$360,000,000 for Clark County. About \$2.7 billion over the course of
the shipping campaign to prepare and potentially respond to an accident.
BRADSHAW: And, if I could respond. For Nye County as an example, and
perhaps this working group will work it out, but certainly we have to
remember that you have to get the volunteers jazzed up to go out and
respond to that call. I\'m not talking about\--I mean there may be a
truck tip over some day or a train, but the more usual thing is a truck
is going to\--or train or something is going to break down and there\'s
going to be liquid leak. You\'ve got to get people to volunteer, so
we\'re thinking you have to get a level of expertise and training and
capabilities and communications and equipment that will make those
volunteers respond. If they hear it\'s a nuclear waste thing, they\'re
going to be busy. You know, they are going to go the other way. So, a
couple million, \$3,000,000 or \$4,000,000 in the immediate vicinity to
gear up and with a minimal amount of paid, you know, paid participants.
Most people in Nye County are volunteers. Over 300. And, with some
training there may be five to seven, \$50,000 a year to maintain that.
And that\'s at a level that isn\'t at the\--I mean the volunteers, the
emergency response community would like much more level of
participation, but a minimal. So that\'s kind of what we thought in the
past. But I mean, and we don\'t believe that 180(c) is adequate at all.
I mean from what we\'ve heard. But we don\'t want to be mixed in to
the\--I mean 180(c) is good, but it\'s not going to address our
concerns.

JOHNSON: Dan, I just wanted to add one thing. I don\'t have these
numbers in my head, but on our website, www.yuccamountain.org, we have
our report that talks about the estimates for the emergency management,
regional training facility. And, that has a breakdown, that kind of
thing. So the information is available there. That\'s of course not all,
but that\'s a good start to answer part of that question.

BULLEN: Thank you.

LATANISION: Latanision, Board.

As we\'ve just been discussing, there are some rather clear economic
implications for this development. I wondered if the people, your
constituents in the towns and counties have expressed in any formal or
informal sense their sense of this project? Is there a public sentiment
that\'s clear to you and your colleagues?

BRADSHAW: It\'s clear to me. They are here today. You\'ve heard from
some of them. But there\'s a lot of people, someone mentioned the
uncertainty factor. I think the Mayor did. The anxiety of not knowing.
But, knowing that it\'s coming it\'s like waiting for the train in the
dark or something. You just\--people need to know information, benchmark
events, that sort of thing.

LATANISION: Well\--Latanision, Board.

Let me be more blunt. Is it a matter of the public in your communities
taking this as being something they anticipate will happen or are they
eager for it to happen? Or what is your general sense of the public
reaction to this?

BRADSHAW: I think you\'ve got a range of reactions across the panel, and
very briefly, for Nye, people in our county, many of them are test site
workers and so on, we believe that we can deal with this. If it\'s going
to happen we can deal constructively with it. But it\'s that we need a
level of comfort. We need the warm fuzzy feeling that DOE is going to
work with us and that we can get prepared for it. And we don\'t really
have that right now.

LATANISION: Latanision, Board.

There hasn\'t been anything like a referendum, a vote of any sort, a
referendum on the issue?

BRADSHAW: In our particular county, no, but there has been others.

PHILLIPS: In Lincoln County and the City of Caliente, there has been a
couple of referendum issues. Our people fully recognize that what they
perceive to be really\--sorry about that. Thought I had a bigger mouth.

In Lincoln and the City we\'ve had a couple of referendum issues. The
people support the concept, believing that it\'s inevitable and that it
can be managed, and that we should take advantage to the degree
possible.

LATANISION: Thank you.

NAVIS: From Clark County\'s perspective on that issue, we haven\'t had
any official vote or referendum within the county, but the county
commissioners have passed no less than four official resolutions
opposing the repository based on consistent survey data over the last 15
to 20 years that shows a 70 percent disapproval rate of the repository
within Clark County.

We also have done some more pointed studies and surveys about what
particularly is of concern to the public, and the number one concern is,
consistently, transportation.

JOHNSON: And, in Eureka County our northern community of Crescent
Valley, which should be directly affected by the Carlin route, we have
had public meetings over the years where varying local concerned
citizens have showed up and consistently asked the same questions and
expressed the same concerns, which basically boil down to many of the
things that Mike Baughman had in his presentation. Who is going to own
the rail? Who is going to own the track? Who is going to operate? All
those kind of nuts and bolts questions of\--plus a real concern that
this disrupts their way of life, totally.

BRADSHAW: And, you\'re probably aware that NEI sponsored a survey in
Nevada, at least in Nye and some other counties that addressed this very
issue, and when asking the question, do you particularly want nuclear
waste in your back yard, of course, everybody would probably say, well,
if I could get out of it, you know, why would I want that? But, if the
questions were similar to this, if it\'s coming, do you think you should
be sort of compensated or offset or you should get something for this?
And most people would say, well, yeah. If we have to bear this burden,
there should be some offsetting equity come to

the county. And so that\'s the frame of mind that people are in.

ABKOWITZ: Okay, Dick Parizek.

PARIZEK: Parizek, Board.

The lady in Clark County, did I get the number right? Was it \$2.7
billion or million?

NAVIS: Billion, with a B.

PARIZEK: And, over what time period?

NAVIS: Over the proposed 24 to 38-year shipping campaign.

PARIZEK: And, that would be only for Clark County?

NAVIS: Correct.

PARIZEK: So, each of the other counties\--nothing comes from Clark
County?

NAVIS: It\'s Clark County, all of the cities within Clark County and two
tribal entities within Clark County that\'s a collective member.

PARIZEK: It is likely that other counties would have other needs?

NAVIS: Correct.

PARIZEK: And, I was going to ask whether or not this is transportation
only, not connected to the repository part of this, because it seems to
me there\'s going to be permanent jobs. And this didn\'t include the
\$25,000,000 hospital we\'ve heard about several times. Obviously there
is going to be staff, some are going to be full-time staff. And so how
does the full time staff requirements for the repository help out in
some aspects of the needs for transportation, emergency responses?

NAVIS: We believe that that is more than offset by some of the other
losses we anticipate potentially. Drops in the tourism industry that
would lead to job losses in that industry more than outweigh any
potential benefit we see from any jobs related to the repository.

ABKOWITZ: Thank you. And, Les, I would like to thank you and your fellow
panel members for both a very informative and timely, and on-time
performance. And, we\'ll look forward to working with you individually
and as a cooperative.

And, I might point out, I don\'t know if the Mayor can hear me, but
Caliente might be a desirable site to hold a transportation panel
meeting in the future. We hope if we ask you to host that that you would
be willing to have us.

PHILLIPS: Absolutely.

ABKOWITZ: Thank you. We\'re all going to take\--we\'re going to take a
10-minute break now. It will be a little more abbreviated than on the
schedule. We will reconvene in 10 minutes.

(Whereupon, a recess was taken.)

ABKOWITZ: We\'re going to be entering into the final sections of our
program today, and I notice that we have no more breaks scheduled, but
close to three hours of material, so this will be interesting.

The next piece of the program is to look at prior transportation
experiences and lessons learned with an eye on the concept of let\'s not
re-invent the wheel. There are a number of campaigns that have taken
place in the past or that are going on now that have some similarities
to aspects of what is anticipated should a Yucca Mountain transportation
program become operational, and the planning stages prior to that. And
we certainly would like to have an opportunity to hear about those
experiences and get some measure of what, if anything, is transferrable
to what is anticipated with Yucca Mountain transportation.

Our first presentation today is going to be on the waste isolation pilot
plan, otherwise known as the WIPP project, and the WIPP project has been
alluded to several times today as kind of the exemplary project in terms
of how to do it right.

And, we\'re fortunate to have Ralph Smith with us today. Ralph has been
a central figure in the purported success of that program. As you
probably know, WIPP is the only deep geological repository operating in
the United States and Mr. Smith has been invited to tell us about both
the development and the operational activities related to the
transportation system and the movement of transuranic waste to WIPP for
disposal. Ralph?

SMITH: After everybody has already talked, I guess

my talk is going to be very short since all lessons learned have already
been learned and everybody has alluded to them. As Monty Python used to
say, \"And now for something totally different, you\'re going to see me
do it.\"

The first thing I would like to do is thank Bob Loux for his kind
comments; however, let me clarify something. During most of that
seven-year process it took us to build a transportation system in
agreement with the states, I often felt, not like an architect, but most
like Mr. Fix-it, so it was a lot different than he described in his use
of the word architect.

One, to know what WIPP is. I know that most of you probably already
know, but let me just go over quickly

what WIPP is and what we do.

I don\'t like this. I\'m a person who walks and talks and gets amongst
the audience, so if I feel a little nervous up here it\'s because I
don\'t\--my talks are usually done on the move.

We\'re trying to clean up the transuranic waste in this country above
100 nanocuries, and let me say that\'s a fairly arbitrary number. But
that includes about 6.2 million cubic feet. Right now we believe about
19,000 truck shipments will accomplish that. And, if it\'s over 35
years, we\'re probably going to do\--oh, there we are. I like it a lot
better. I\'m just not comfortable standing in one spot. I think I grow
roots\--about 19,000 truck shipments, and as you\'ll see in the next
slide, we are, if not the largest, certainly one of the largest type B
container owners in the world.

So let me say right now\--go back one. Go back. That\'s all right,
we\'ll get to it when we get to it.

We\'ve done about 2,000,000, a little over 2,000,000 miles loaded,
probably about 6,000,000 since the project took conception in the
mid-80s. We\'ve got about 56,000 drums, 55-gallon drum equivalents, in
the ground, 17,000 cubic meters. This shipment, or this number is a
little bit short since, as we\'ll see in the next slide, we have four
shipments out of Nevada, not three, and so, you know, about 25 shipments
a week and that number changes daily. And, we\'ve been in operation 4.8
years, since March 19th, 99, so we\'re coming up on another anniversary
here pretty quick.

We did have two truck accidents. We were hit by a drunk driver in
Carlsbad. A drunk driver was doing between, we believe 80 and 100 miles
an hour. He hit the back of our trailer, totally destroyed his pickup
truck, and did so little damage to the trailer, we were able to drive it
the other 30 miles to the work site, after having passed the CVSA
inspection.

The other one was a woman in Andrews, Texas decided she couldn\'t figure
out what a stop sign was for so she ran into the side.

We have, however, taken the drunk driver who was a Texan too, we\'ve
taken the Texas magnet out of our trailer so that the drivers don\'t hit
us any more.

Here\'s the sites we ship from. We\'ve shipped from 13 sites around the
country. Some of those major DOE sites and five or six smaller ones. And
these are the numbers in yellow of shipments. Like I said, as of
yesterday we did a four-shipment out of Nevada Test Site, and those
numbers continue to go up every day. And, 2,281 shipments. We\'re very
proud of that.

Here\'s our TRUPACT, or Type B container fleet. Today we have 107.
We\'re going to get to 111 by the end of the month that will be 109 and
we\'ll get a couple more the end of the summer. And 79 TRUPACTS. The
TRUPACTS are the, used to be 14 55-gallon drums and they are used for
contact handled waste. Contact handled waste being waste under 200
milligrams to the surface. In other words, you can move those barrels
around by hand.

We have one 10-160 B. Right now we have half of it. The other half is
owned by the Ohio Field Office. That\'s being used to ship out of the
Columbus site, and as soon as we\'re done with that, whenever that may
be because of legal complications in the State of Washington, we\'ll
take ownership of that.

This slide is a design for remote-handled. Remote-handled is more
radioactive. Still it\'s transuranic waste. A picture of a HalfPACT. A
HalfPACT is just a smaller version of a TRUPACT, and that\'s designed to
ship heavier drums. We have 55-gallon drums that weigh over 1,000
pounds. Well, that\'s a pretty heavy little old drum. And so, using
those, we can get virtually more waste than we could if we put them in a
bigger package because I have to have 14 drums even if they are empty
drums, or damaged drums in the TRUPACT, where in the HalfPACT, I can fit
seven. And plus, I reduce the size of that by 36 inches and that\'s a
lot of material. Let me tell you, a TRUPACT is quarter inch stainless
steel, 10 inches of high density foam, porous stainless steel. It\'s the
outside package. We use double containment packages. Then you have about
an inch of dead space and another quarter inch package that\'s totally
separate. Empty, these things weigh about 13,000 pounds. Full, 19,250.
So those are fairly heavy.

And then, you might recognize this. I had a picture this morning of the
West Alley Cask, which was also Three Mile Island. This is a quarter
size. This is a 72-B, and I know Kachena talked about building those for
us with PacTec. These are for loading three 55-gallon drums
horizontally. They are lead-lined and can take up to 1,000 rem per hour
shipments in there. And, we have, as you can see, 12 of these. When
we\'re licensed eventually to handle, accept remote handled waste, this
and the 10-160B will be the packages of choice.

Okay, on the first slide with the sites, I didn\'t show you all the
routes. We have about 4,000 miles of route. The little black dots are, a
couple, but not all of the sites, we\'ve closed. And, of those 4,000
miles of routes, the ones that are really going to be open for a long
time\--remember, I\'ve got about 75 percent of the waste west of the
Mississippi. But really I have in about five or six sites most of the
waste. And most of it is in Los Alamos, Rocky Flats, which should be
done by the end of this year or it could be into early next year, INE
EO, the environmental lab in Idaho, in Hanford. And Savannah River is
the other big site east, with Oak Ridge having the most remote-handled
waste. Those sites. So basically the corridor that leads from Savannah
and Oak Ridge to WIPP and then the corridor from Hanford down. The west
to the west, and the midwest and the northeast, out here I probably have
less than 300 shipments. In the midwest I probably have 40 shipments,
total, into the northeast about 60 to 65 shipments.

So when we talk about, you know, affected parts of the country,
basically if you take this route, the route from Hanford down, that\'s
what I\'m going to affect long term, that\'s where most of the 19,000
shipments, probably 18,000 plus of those 19,000 shipments are in those
two routes. And, along those routes we do have Atlanta, Georgia,
Houston\--I mean Dallas, Texas, Albuquerque, New Mexico.

One of the things we\'re trying to do is trying to get away from going
through Los Angeles, as we did with Las Vegas. Our desire would be to
not ship through large cities. However, remember that 49 CFR requires us
to use the interstate system to the most extent possible if it\'s higher
route control quantity. And we\'ve told the states that we would
consider each shipment as if it were higher route control quantity, and
I\'m not going to get into that whole ball of wax. But with the State of
Nevada and California we\'re able to ship on non-higher route control
quantity roads because they were not higher route control quantity.

Likewise things coming out of Lawrence, Livermore will probably use this
99 and 58. We\'ve already talked to the state about that, ruling on that
for the last 10 years. And unless we get into higher route control
quantity we\'re trying desperately not to, you know, have to go through
Los Angeles and Las Vegas.

So, what works? I\'ve broke it down into kind of natural breaks. Advance
planning. What works is long-term excellent state and tribal relations.
This business is 110 percent of relationships. When we opened Savannah
River, Interstate 550, which is a spur around the southern part of
Augusta, just opened, just before we made our first shipment. In two
days because of the relationship we had with southern states, Georgia
and South Carolina, we were able to perform a re-route. Instead of
taking the waste north through Akins, South Carolina, to Interstate 20,
we took it around the south part of Augusta on Interstate 550. And
without those relationships that simply would not have been possible. It
would have taken us months, if not a year. In a lot of places, they tell
us it\'s a year to 18 months to get a route approved. But because of
what we\'re shipping and because of our relationships, we in states saw
that it was better, shorter, less impactful, better roads and re-routed.
That\'s what this business is about. Talking to folks, getting
consensus.

You know, I\'ll tell you what. The seven years I spent putting the
transportation system together basically most of that was talking to the
states, the tribes, the local communities. When we opened the Idaho
route I went in every county and community of size between Idaho Falls,
Idaho and Carlsbad and talked to the City Councils, the Mayors, the
state and local politicians, just everybody.

And we\'ve trained. Safety. That\'s the safety protocols we have.
We\--and we\'ll get to the CVSA inspection on the next slide.

Emergency response training, let me say that we have done just short of
30,000 first responders in medical personnel combined. We\'ve trained in
hospitals, we\'ve trained EMT\'s, fire, regular fire, volunteer fireman,
police, state police, sheriffs. You name it, we\'ve trained them. And
we\'ve trained in places that sometimes were not absolutely on our
route. Right now I\'m training in Los Angeles. And, I said, well, gee,
I\'m not going to be shipping there. Some of this is good neighbor
stuff. Our training is for a logical response to a HAZMAT incident.
Well, what we found over the years is that it is

transferrable. That knowledge and that training, not only to a HAZMAT,
but to any incident. And so we\'ve been training both first responders,
command and control, just a number of things, and trying to train along
the routes, or within a reasonable distance. When somebody comes to me
with a reasonable request and says they need some help, you know, this
is about give and take between the states and tribes and DOE and about
building a reputation of working together. And that\'s what we\'ve tried
to do.

We\'ve done 29, almost 30\--we\'ve got the 30th exercise, full scale
exercise. These are all major exercises involving just tons of people.
We have one here in January\--year before, I believe, up on the test
site. And, we have had a lot of lessons learned. We\'ve had several
failures there, which these are state exercises that we support.

And, you know, I always tell people that one of the things we\'ll do is
we\'ll tell you where the ends of the earth is. If you want to run off
of it, we\'re not going to stop you. But we certainly are going to keep
telling you you\'re about ready to fall off the ends of the earth. And,
in a couple of cases people had decided the edge of the earth, that was
fine with them. They would run off of it. And public information. Until
9-11, we used to do a lot of public information. And I mean take our
roach, we have a special trailer with TRUPACTS with the side cut out of
them so you can see the inside. You can see the waste. And we would go
all over the country. I mean I\'ve spent 10 years at this. The first
seven years I traveled more than 200 days a year. And we went every
place.

Since 9-11, the problem has been any of these kind of shipments you
don\'t want to have the kind of publicity that goes with them. And,
it\'s not that we want to make them secret. It\'s just that you don\'t
want to invite some person that looks at things differently than the
rest of us who think that these may be a target for their activities.
And we all know that\'s terrorists and that kind of stuff. And so,
basically, at the request of the states, we\'ve toned down the public
response. Certainly, we\'re still willing to do it. The states, however,
have been less receptive because of concerns about security and that
kind of stuff.

Transportation. Cooperative development of the transportation plan,
which again is the states. Treating all loads alike. Again, this is all
as if they were higher route control quantity.

The thing I don\'t want to do is have, in the middle of the night a
driver, a truck driver\--and these are good people. These are the top of
the truck driving, and I\'ll talk about them in a minute\--having to
make critical decisions. That is not what you want to have done.
Everything is treated the same. The routes are the same, so we can train
them and teach them as best as humanly possible about what to do and not
leave critical decisions until 3:00 o\'clock in the morning on a dark,
snowy night in the middle of Wyoming. You get them every once in a
while, still, but we\'re trying to cut that down so that the safety
factors are maximized and the security factors are maximized.

TRANSCOM. We hear about TRANSCOM\--I could tell you, the first seven or
eight years I was in DOE, TRANSCOM was the only issue that I couldn\'t
get my arms around. It literally would not die. We went through a
computer or internet-based TRANSCOM system a couple years ago, and
virtually, and I know Thor had a couple of problems. But we\'re about 98
percent positive on our new TRANSCOM system. It\'s rare when we have
problems with it.

And, it\'s a far-sight better\--used to be whole banks of modems and I
used to tell people they were wooden boxes that were that old. And, they
would fail all the time. You would get into a system and it would dump
you out. You know, five, six times an hour. Then one day, and the next
day it would work fine for three, four hours at a time, and it wasn\'t
worth anything. The new system, if you can get in, and you guys probably
just haven\'t paid enough money\--the system works wonderful.

And literally, we\'ve just\--but this is the underpinning of the whole
program. Because if you can\'t tell where a truck is and you can\'t talk
to the truck when you need to and the truck can\'t tell you what they
are doing, you got a problem. So TRANSCOM has been just wonderful.

We, as Tri State, and John, I know, I really, I felt sorry for him this
morning, felt like coming up here and doing finger puppets for him.
We\--there has been a number of security enhancements to the trucks. Let
me tell you, though, that because of what we did in this, when 9-11
happened, we were one of the first fleets to come back and be able to
ship. And when all these things, the Homeland Security put on top new
requirements, we had already had those for years. We have all of our
drivers background checked by the state police. And that\'s not only
their driving record. That\'s their criminal record. Every year the
whole company, secretaries, management, mechanics, everything. So, you
know, from the get-go. They are all drug and alcohol tested.

So, anything that Homeland Security has thrown at us so far has been a
no-brainer. We just, we\'ve already, usually have taken care of it. And
it has a lot to do with the states, too, because the states, I\'ll tell
you, they were absolutely\--and the tribes, were absolutely a party, the
three parties in making this plan something that\'s working and it had
to be tweaked very little in the last five years.

One thing we\'re looking at and we\'re trying to do more was tandem
shipments. We\'re not convoying these things, per se, but certainly, as
we get into one of the last slides we\'ll talk about hours-of-service
laws that just went into effect, and we believe those are going to
negatively impact us. Especially during the winter. We have shipments to
the west and, go figure, you get snow. We were stopped yesterday. The
Nevada Test Site shipment got into Arizona and there was snow up around
Flagstaff, which I know is a surprise to everybody. And so, they were
stopped at 1:30 in the morning. Finally got started again about 8:00
o\'clock this morning. So we have that. And when you\'ve got these
shipments, they have to be watched on a 24-hour basis. We all understand
we need a place to put them in safe parking. And I know they did a
fairly good job of talking about safe parking this morning. So I have to
have a driver up. With the new hours of service laws, if I get one truck
up there, I can run that puppy out of hours. And, when they are out of
hours, those things cannot be watched. I have no, literally no way, of
watching those because those guys have got to go to bed. It\'s a federal
law, and I\'m sure not going to tell my folks, oh, go ahead and disobey
the federal law. No problem, you know. I\'m not going to jail. They are
not going to jail.

So that could be a major problem to us and the states and we\'re, you
know, it\'s only since January 4th, so we\'re still in the learning
curve of what that\'s going to look like, but we really think it\'s
going to be a problem.

Points of origin. Every WIPP truck point of origin is inspected by a
state entity, usually the state police or a state transport police, to
CVSA Level VI.

CVSA commercial vehicle safety alliance, what this is is a zero defect
inspection. Light bulbs out, anything, we\'ll put that out of service.
That means when we start from Nevada Test Site, from Lawrence Livermore,
from any place, that truck is as close to perfect as we can get it. And
it\'s time after time. It\'s not just one\--it\'s every time they go up
there. And since we\'ve done 2200 of those, they were done 2200 times.

Also, Colorado, by state law, inspects every one of ours every time they
come in the state. Also New Mexico, I\'m trying to think of the reason
why, but I can\'t, so\--but New Mexico does 100 percent of our trucks
for their inspections when they come into their state. So, something
coming out of Hanford or Idaho is inspected at least three times for
these same standards. Understanding that two of those happen after the
trucks have gone 800 or 1,000 miles and then another one has gone even
farther. And they still pass those kinds of inspections. It\'s
remarkable. The transportation system we have literally is the best in
this country. And we are pouring millions of dollars into it. But,
we\'re pouring it into a good thing. Safety is the number one thing, and
I\'ll show you in just a second.

States activities really mirror what we did. We have trained just a ton
of state employees, usually, like I said, highway patrol or state
transport police. Drivers checks have been done by the states. Response,
we\'ve done all our coordination outreach. And consensus polling, we\'ve
worked with the four of the five major regional groups. The only one
that differs between Gary and me is WEIB. Western Interstate Energy
Board. And, I do WGA and that\'s by choice of WGA, so whatever.

Okay. We\'ll get right down into here.

Mobile contracts. Right now I have two trucking companies that work for
us. They are both contract truckers and they use dedicated equipment and
dedicated drivers. What that means is when they put a truck-tractor on
my job, they don\'t use it any place else. Same way with drivers. The
drivers\' standards for our drivers are so high that, literally, I\'m
talking about the cream of the cream of the crop. If you\'ve ever had a
DUI, don\'t even apply. Don\'t even worry about it. You\'re not going to
get hired. If you have a number of tickets in your own car. don\'t even
apply. We\'re not interested in you. These people have at least 325,000
miles. Most of our drivers have well in excess of, you know, 800,000,
900,000 miles. These are very good drivers to start with and then we
give them six weeks of training of top of that.

But one thing I wanted to point out, this is not a race, Guys. We pay
our drivers salary, not by the mile. Most truck drivers in this country,
the reason they go so damn fast is they are in a hurry to make money.
Our trucks, first of all, are governed at 65 miles an hour. That is
checked when they get back every time so if somebody has decided they
were going to play the game on the computer and game the governor, they
will get caught and they will be working elsewhere. And there\'s no
incentive for it. Whether it takes them an extra hour to get in or not,
like the one last night, is not\--doesn\'t reflect in their pay, at all.

Also, safety incentives. We pay\--if a company, and this is by company,
has no accidents during the year, then every driver in that company gets
15 cents per mile for what they\'ve driven. That can mean, and usually
means somewhere around \$6,000, \$7,000 at the end of the year. Pretty
nice little kick. If they have one accident, they get 10 cents, and
that\'s for everybody. This is a peer pressure deal. If the whole
driving fleet has one accident, they get 10 cents. If they have two
accidents, they get zero. So you can imagine the incredible pressure on
everybody to be absolutely zero accidents.

And again, I don\'t mind paying them 15 cents a mile. Matter of fact, I
enjoy it because that means that I can come in front of an audience like
this and say, Guys, we\'ve done everything we can to keep these safe.
We\'re doing everything we possibly can think of to make sure that the
safety and security in this country for these shipments is being
addressed. But everything is two-person driving teams. Once they start,
as John was saying this morning, the only reason they stop is potty
breaks and diesel fuel.

Continuous monitoring of shipments by the drivers. In other words, when
they are stopped, somebody has got to be up watching that shipment.
These things are just not left out there on their own devices.

And strong working relationships with DOE and DOE\'s contractors. At
WIPP, we\'re about 1,000 people, with 45 DOE people down there and the
trucking companies and the management operating contractor, which is the
Washington Group, as well as the other contractors. We treat this like a
big family. We share equipment amongst the trucking companies. When
there\'s a problem, there are trailers assigned to each company.
Remember, the trailers are mine, the TRUEPACTS are mine, the tractors
are Tri State\'s. Or CAST\'s. I don\'t own tractors. And I don\'t own
drivers. Drivers are their employees. But, we treat this like this was
all of our work, not just a CAST problem or a Tri State problem or
somebody else\'s. This is everybody\'s at WIPP\'s program. And, failure
in this is failure for the rest of the program.

And then challenges. I hate to say what didn\'t work. That sounds way
too negative. There are some things that don\'t work, but let\'s put it
this way: One of the problems\--and Gary is going to have\--this is
going to be a major one. And I think he\'s got a hell of a higher
mountain than I did, shipping schedules.

You know, right now we\'ve got various sites that are shipping and some
of them want to be treated better than others or get more resources. And
they are all DOE sites. We control the people. I can\'t imagine the food
fight we\'re going to get with the utilities when they all say, okay,
tomorrow you be at our front door and you and I have enough resources to
go to the two of them, much less all of them. That will be a food fight.
And that\'s something you\'ve got to address pretty quick, because it
literally will drive you crazy trying to run shipping campaigns when
you\'re running them nationwide.

Inconsistencies at the shipping sites, we\'ve already talked, you know,
I\'m a nosey person. I always have been. And, I also deal with every
state, even though there\'s only 30 states that I deal with myself,
because of the regional groups\--I deal with every state in the country.
And some of the folks that come to us, like say Maine, Maine Yankee, and
ask us about characterization and that kind of stuff. And one thing we
recommended they do was, you know, it would have been lovely if years
ago everybody videotaped all the loading of the casks so we know what
the hell is in there. They didn\'t. So we have no idea. So sometimes
we\'ve got to open the stuff up. Well, opening our waste is the problem.
Opening their waste is insanity.

So what we\'ve done is\--and what Maine Yankee is doing was videotaping
everything it loaded with a commentator because they sent us videotape
and it has them loading stuff, and then it had 10 minutes of nothing. I
said, you know, I can only imagine a regulator saying, what the hell
were you doing in the 10 minutes? You know, what are we missing here?
It\'s like 19 minutes of tape missing from\--you know. So, we went back
and told them, you know, you guys need to have a commentator and you
need to make it continuous, or if you\'ve got breaks in there you need
to say we were repositioning this, or we were doing whatever. But
you\'ve got to get a commentator so you can tell them what the hell was
going on.

And so, that would make the waste acceptability a lot better because you
will know 10 years, and as I told the gal who was up there, 10 years
from now you may be sued as Maine Yankee. How are you going to prove
that the QA was done; that the stuff was loaded as you said it was
loaded? If you\'ve got videos\--it\'s like my trucks. Every single
tractor I have has continuous loop video in the front. If you run in
front of me in a car and stop fast, I can go to Court and pop that
little old puppy in the VCR and show that Judge and jury and everybody
else what you did. And it\'s proof, very invaluable. We\'ve almost been
hit twice by head-on from drivers on four-lane roads and they were in
the wrong lane. At least I hope they were in the wrong lane. And, we
didn\'t do anything with it, but certainly, it was nice to see, you
know, that our drivers were taking responsibility and that kind of
stuff.

Procedures, you know, we had, it just so happens that the accident we
had when we got hit by a drunk driver, the back TRUPACT, which was No.
157 was found to have some blue pseudoallele active contamination in it.
And, the report is coming out on that today or the next couple of days.
Basically what we believe happened was there was a\--the lid was
improperly torqued on a drum. And that should not happen. I mean this is
a procedure that every site has, understanding that every site may have
different drums, different manufacturers, but when those drums come in
their Type A container, they have specifications of how they need to be
handled and sometimes people need to get together with their
specifications. And it cost a heck of a lot of money, time and grief
because we had to send that thing back to Idaho. There\'s no way we can
open it. We\'re not prepared for radioactive material. Understand, we
are a site. We have no radioactive material free on-site, so we can\'t
take radioactive contamination. I know people just\--that\'s kind of
anomaly.

Also, quality assurance. Quality assurance has got to be the big thing,
Guys. If you don\'t, if you can\'t be sure you\'re doing everything
right, NRC is going to get you sooner or later. We have an NRC agreement
for our TRUPACTS. If we ship prohibited items in there or we do things
wrong on a consistent basis\--and I don\'t think it\'s going to be
terribly much consistent\--a couple times they\'ll probably get us, they
are going to shut us down. They jerk license and say, until you come up
with a way to prove to us\--and we\'ve got to prove to them. They don\'t
have to, you know, as long as they sit up there in Washington, that
you\'re never going to do this again, you\'re not shipping. So we\'re
constantly working with the sites on how to make this better because
this is a real challenge.

We did put in here, and I\'m not trying to ping DOT. Lord knows, I
wouldn\'t want their job with this. Although they\'ve not made our job
any easier. They send out these regulations, they send out a little
blurb\--I\'m pretty much done\--and they didn\'t give us enough
information.

Impact of routing. New Mexico, having these things sit along the road
and we have sometimes seven of them sitting up near Trinidad, Colorado.
Probably is not the best thing. And state escorts, from our point of
view, and for waste we\'re doing, is pretty much not a good thing. Okay,
we also have problems with shipping containers. Mostly that\'s caused by
internal stuff where people say you\'re not shipping, you don\'t need
the containers. The lead time on these, even when you think that they
are just soda cans, is huge because they are part 71 QA and building a
TRUCPACT may seem like a very easy thing, but it\'s really not.

And then delivery just proves to be a nightmare. We\'re still getting
TRUPACTS almost five years after we started. Obviously we probably
needed those during that five years.

Carrier contracts. Unfortunately I\'ve got two five-year carrier
contracts that expire the same day. Next June I could virtually have
four contracts, two new ones, two old ones, working, driving the same
stuff the same days for 30 days as we go through a period, and it\'s not
a great thing. We\'re going to fix that.

Also, fixed price contract with no escalation. Fixed price was probably
a bad idea because we had no idea what the costs were going to be.
Literally, this kind of shipping never was done at DOE. There\'s no
cookbook.

And qualified drivers, it has been literally, because I\'m taking the
top one or two percent of drivers in Carlsbad, New Mexico. Think of that
now. Carlsbad, New Mexico. It\'s really, really, really hard to get
those drivers. It really is. And, keep them. You know, when we\'re
paying top wages. Literally, we\'re paying the top of the wage scales
and we\'re giving them bonuses on top of that. And other benefits, and
still a nightmare to try to get drivers.

I think that\'s the last slide, right? That one you can throw away.

Anyway, if anybody needs to get hold of me, there you are. Questions?

ABKOWITZ: Okay, thank you, Ralph. We\'re going to start with Dave
Duquette.

DUQUETTE: Duquette, Board.

I\'m a little confused, probably because I wasn\'t listening carefully
enough, about your drivers. Do your drivers spell each other? Is one
sleeping while the other one is driving?

SMITH: Right.

DUQUETTE: And so it\'s a continuous cycle. They don\'t pull over except
for anything, necessities?

SMITH: Right.

DUQUETTE: Okay, thank you.

ABKOWITZ: Dick Parizek.

PARIZEK: Parizek, Board. On the accidents, the two drunks I guess you
mentioned, is that charged to the driver as an accident?

SMITH: No.

PARIZEK: That was not on his record or her record?

SMITH: Nothing we can do about it. Well, one was drunk and the other
one, as I tell the story, and you\'ve got to remember, I embellish
things. I know that\'s a shock. One was a 19-year-old, this is the
second DUI, this drunk. The second one was his sister on a beer run for
him in Andrews.

PARIZEK: But, I\'m sorry\--so the record remains clean.

SMITH: There was nothing we could do about them. They were both their
fault, totally.

PARIZEK: Other than the TRANSCOM system, because I think I saw that once
years ago in a truck that was needing work, sitting down in Carlsbad.
What other upgrades have been required? I mean you started out with
equipment that was giving you some trouble when you\'re doing new things
or replacing equipment. This thing that we heard yesterday by Budnitz.
We\'re not going to be flying the same airplane for 30 years. You
haven\'t been flying the same truck for four years.

SMITH: Not close. One thing we did was when we first started, when we
were first shipping, we had a different contract. It basically said that
you would replace trucks after 250,000 miles. You replace tires and
brakes after 100,000 and everything. Well, we did that. And it cost us
the first time about \$9,000 a tractor, and the trucking companies loved
us. They got brand new tires off of our trucks because 100,000 miles on
a truck tire is brand new. What we do now is say two percent down time.
If a tractor or any of its components started seeing two percent down
time, we inspect that truck and go in and haul that thing out of there
and put something new in. And so we don\'t care. You can keep a tire
for\--we can\'t keep it forever, obviously, because we have standards on
that, but you know, get the use of miles out of the tires, get the use
of miles out of the brakes, whatever. We\'ve literally had tractors that
within the first 1,000 miles started to have problems and never have got
over it. They were probably Friday to Monday tractors. And trucking
companies have gotten rid of those within months after they got them,
brand new tractors.

PARIZEK: And maintenance, we\'ve heard about the importance of having
maintenance built in, you know, to the whole system, and in your case
you could maintain before you leave and I suppose when you get back, but
enroute, what happens if something breaks down? What\'s the typical
situation? You drive up to Texaco and blow the horn or\--this is kind of
unique stuff, I would think.

SMITH: Well, it is because if we\'ve got a load on\--empty, we can do
whatever\--pretty much whatever we want. With a load our central
modeling calls the state, explains the situation. The trucking companies
usually know where there\'s facilities available to fix them. And, in
some cases, the state will come out and escort us. In some cases they
just allow us to get on\--it\'ll be an off-route, an off-route with the
state\'s concurrence, and that kind of stuff. Again, it\'s all about
communications. If you\'ve got a problem, you\'ve got to tell the states
what\'s going on. We\'ve had a number of them. I mean you can\'t have
heavy equipment like that without having a number of incidents, but
nothing serious. It has just been, you know, tires here or a generator
there, or, you know, just the stuff you would normally think of with
your automobile, only the truck is a lot bigger, lot more stress.

PARIZEK: One more question. You own the TRUPACTS, so do you have
maintenance on the TRUPACTS?

SMITH: Yes, I do.

PARIZEK: Where do you do that?

SMITH: In Carlsbad. EPD is a subsidiary of Washington Group who builds a
number of the TRUPACTS, does the maintenance on them, too.

PARIZEK: You agree with the need for that? I mean\--

SMITH: Oh, absolutely.

PARIZEK: \--that\'s a very important element.

SMITH: Well, under NRC they were required\--they are required to go
through a yearly maintenance and re-inspection earnings. So instead of
shipping them all over the country, it\'s nicer to do it rather close to
home where we can control and look over the shoulders of the folks that
are doing it for us.

PARIZEK: Thank you.

ABKOWITZ: Dave Diadato.

DIADATO: Diadato, Staff.

I\'m thinking about your numbers in terms of your total shipments that
you need to do and the mass and the volume that you need to ship, and
thinking about densities of 1,000 pounds per 55-gallon drum and that
kind of thing, and you started to talk about some serious weight, maybe
even more than Yucca Mountain. I don\'t know if that\'s true, if it\'s
always 1,000 pounds per 55 gallons. But the question is, was there ever
a consideration of this rail idea? Did you ever\--do you look at rail
initially and then why did you reject it, ultimately?

SMITH: We looked at it a number of times. Matter of fact, we\'re in the
process of re-looking at it. I think personally, and this is from my
experience, so this is not DOE and I\'m sure I\'ll be shot by other
folks in the room. Rail has got two major fortes, size and weight. My
trucks, except for the 10-160B are all legal weight trucks. They are all
under 80,000 pounds, size, the height, the length, there\'s nothing that
is over-sized for road shipments. And so, if\--I don\'t know if it
provides us any advantage to go by rail, but that\'s, again, my humble
view of the shipping world. We are looking at rail. We do know
eventually we\'re going to have to ship some things by rail. They are
just flat too big to\--whatever.

But every package, every TRUPACT III that Ian talked about being built,
PacTec is building up in Tacoma, will be truckable and even though
overweight, probably only weigh about 95,000 pounds, which is really not
a big deal. It\'s only when you get 110,000 or 12, where most states
start having a heart attack and their bridges and that sort of stuff,
have a problem handling. So we\'re well within what we can ship, and
like I said, the TRUPACTS and the HalfPACTS, even with 1,000 pound
drums, are never over 80,000 pounds.

DIADATO: All right, thanks. And then the second question was, you had
seven years of going and talking to people and I presume during that
time there\'s some listening, too. So the question I have is what are
the three most common questions you were asked as you went around during
this seven-year period, communicating with people?

SMITH: Well, they wanted to know what the waste was, which is trash.
Except for plutonium, americium and the daughter products. Our stuff in
most cases\--you\'ll never see ours placarded for the hazardous material
because it\'s too little. Okay, even if it was\--even if there was no
radioactive material in there, the amount of hazardous, other hazardous
material just wouldn\'t get it there.

How is it going to get to where it\'s going? So they want to know the
routes. They also wanted to know the mode of transportation. And, they
want to know if it\'s safe. How we answered that\--and let me tell you,
the most important thing we\'ve ever done is train 30,000 first
responders. They don\'t believe DOE people. I am totally shocked, I
mean, I rate it right there with used car salesmen and Martha Stewart. I
don\'t know, it\'s\--but when we train the first responders, all 30,000
of them, in all these communities across the country, and they get to
see this stuff and touch, feel, whatever, when the Mayor of the city
asks them, what do you think about true waste, my problems are usually
over. Guaranteed.

I went to Barstow last week. This is my second week, and for all these
Las Vegas people I\'m out here spending money two weeks in a row, so
I\'m supporting your economy\--went to Barstow last week and you know we
had had some flap about us shipping starting two weeks ago, and that
will be over next Friday since we\'ve done the fourth shipment yesterday
and the fifth tomorrow, two more next week. At least of the first set.
And, they\'ve been trained. Matter of fact, we\'ve done a whole lot of
training in California and Nevada. We had already done it, but we did it
more since Diane Feinstein and her letter to Secretary Abraham, and
literally, the police chief, fire chief both got up and told the Mayor
not a problem.

End of my story, end of my discussion over it.

DIADATO: Thank you.

ABKOWITZ: Dan Metlay, you have a quick question?

METLAY: Dan Metlay, Staff.

I assume you\'ve submitted to NRC regulations voluntarily. Is that
correct?

SMITH: We\'re not covered by NRC. Our shipping\--the only thing with NRC
with us is the Type B containers.

METLAY: Okay, just the certification\--

SMITH: Just the certification. We do not follow NRC. Oh, I\'m telling
you what, there probably isn\'t a dental floss difference between what
they require and what we\'re shipping. Probably, we\'re\--as most people
will tell you about our program, we\'re extra-regulatory for everything.

ABKOWITZ: Ralph, I have the final question here, and I recall reading
somewhere along the way that at one time, and maybe perhaps they still
do, DOE has something called, I believe it\'s a Senior Transportation
Management Forum or some terminology like that with the idea being that
transportation managers from various campaigns would sit down and work
together and share experiences, and, you know, break bread and all that
good stuff. Does such an institution exist today, and have you been
involved in that?

SMITH: No and no. Well, I don\'t know, and no. Whether it still exists,
Gary may know.

ABKOWITZ: You want to speak to that as well? Well, you need a
microphone.

LANTHRUM: I can give a bit of a background. Gary Lanthrum, DOE. There
was\--a long time ago there was a Senior Executive Transportation Forum
that was convened and their charter was to address cross-program issues
that would come up that required inputs from more than one program. And,
it was fairly active in the early days of WIPP being put together, but
as WIPP became more operational and the program, cross-program issues
became fewer and fewer, it fell out of fashion and is no longer
currently operating.

Alice, do you want to talk to whether it was being reconsidered, or
anything in the current realm?

WILLIAMS: A very short answer on that. There is tremendous interface
among all the transportation programs within DOE. Whether it\--and
within the NNSA organization. Whether we go to a formally-constituted
program like we had earlier or whether we continue on a more informal
way of sharing lessons on that remains to be seen, but there is a very
strong interface that we are starting to build between the Environmental
Management Program as well as the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste
Program, which probably will be taking over that kind of function and
we\'re just beginning that activity.

ABKOWITZ: Okay, thank you. And, thank you, Ralph.

SMITH: Certainly.

ABKOWITZ: Our next speaker is Charles Messick, and he will be talking
about the Foreign Research Reactor Fuel Program. On the agenda the
research was actually left out. I don\'t want you to think that we have
started to accept other types of fuel that we were unaware of.

Chuck\'s background has been with the, in DOE, has been with the
Savannah River Site since 1990, and more recently he has been working
with the Foreign Research Reactor Spent Nuclear Fuel Acceptance
Programs, actually been involved with that program since its inception
in 1996. And he has been the Lead Program Manager for the last three
years, and we certainly look forward to hearing Chuck\'s knowledge and
experience from that program. Chuck?

MESSICK: Thank you. It\'s a pleasure to be here today. And, as I get
going on my presentation, I started taking some notes and realized that
some of the things I put in my presentation probably is less applicable
than some of the things that I\'ll try to expand upon today because of
what I\'ve learned today. I haven\'t been involved with this part of the
program and so I wasn\'t exactly sure.

Also, as Lead Program Manager at the Savannah River Site, I\'m also the
only worker I have. I\'m the only FTE at Savannah River Site working on
this program. We are a very low-budgeted operation. I do have some
contractors. So, I\'m my own worker. So, sorry.

What I wanted to point out just as one example, and hopefully, it\'s a
good example, but it may not look so good. We also have not had any
accidents to date. The picture I\'ll show you here is a truck overturned
in Argentina to one of our later shipments in 2001. Actually, that was
in December 2000.

But what this is is the equipment container that was in convoy with the
packages. Even in these countries we differentiate between the
requirements for who can drive the material and who can drive the other
things. However, it wasn\'t the same convoy. They had less experience
driving. The better trucks were carrying the cask and these were
following it. However, we did have one incident during that time.

But the incident shows you that in some ways. one data point shows you
that something did happen, but it happened to the equipment containers,
although nothing\--on the IP-2 containers, nothing happened with those.
But, the accident occurred on the non-retro fuel.

And also, on my presentation, I\'m going to talk a little bit about the
program origin, a little bit more about the\--I\'ve it called the
attributes of the program, which sort of were addressed with the
questions that may be applicable to this program. And them some more of
the detail, lessons learned, some of them very detailed, I\'ve pulled
them together from a couple of different sources. And maybe a little too
detailed and haphazard. So, however, most of the information is in your
slide and I\'ll try to expand on it. I\'ll also try to increase these
notes I took, and they may apply to you.

This program began in 1996 from the signing of the RECR decision by the
Department of Energy. It stemmed from the Atoms for Peace Program from
the 1950s. Part of that program involved 41 countries that we gave
enriched uranius to to run research reactors. Part of the agreement was
for doing that was we would take the material back. Now, that benefitted
us in a couple reasons. We\'d take the material back and put it back
into our process, and that continued on until the 1980s and early 1990s
when those programs were halted. Ours eventually became in place. During
that time, we no longer had use for that material so it became a
bi-product or unusable material for us and it\'s now designated for
repository or some ultimate disposition.

So our program is a little bit different than the past programs, which
is probably why it had some resistance in getting a new program going.

I think I covered some of this so I\'ll skip over some of these and try
to just hit the highlights of what\'s important. And, some of these
things that\'s important to know is that this program is intended to
support the non-proliferation objectives in that the reactor operators
who are still using highly enriched uranium agreed to convert to lower
enriched uranium or some other fuel in order to continue operations. And
I would like to say we have been fairly successful in that, as only a
few reactor operators or reactors in the world that we have supplied
uranium to that are still using HEU and we\'re working on those. They
have not agreed to participate in the program.

There is LEU out there for mostly reactors to convert and use. There are
some issues with that regarding the disposition capability of that LEU
fuel, which is still a problem for a lot of our reactor operators.

This just gives you a brief outlay of the these 41 countries. Part of
our program, and you\'ll see a little bit later, we\'ve separated our
spent fuel into two categories. One is the TRIGA fuel. That is destined
for the Idaho National Environmental Engineer Laboratories. And, all the
other material we call the test reactor fuel is designated for the
Savannah River site, which is 95 percent of the fuel, obviously, so the
Savannah River Site will get most of this material in probably 36 of the
41 countries. So we have the lions share of the work. This involves
about 20 metric tons to be shipped back to the U. S. One ton going to
Idaho, the other 19 tons that go to South Carolina.

One of the other members in an earlier presentation talked about the
West Coast shipment. We have done one West Coast shipment from San
Francisco to Idaho. All the rest of them have come to the Savannah River
Site. So currently we have five have gone to Idaho. You see that later.
Four of them have come to the Savannah River Site first and then another
shipment campaign to get it to Idaho.

Our program is a 10-year program plus another three years for the
reactor that converts it to the\--or stop using the fuel at the very end
of the program for it to cool down to K, and then establish a shipping
process for that. So none of the fuel must be readied after May,
actually May 2006 in order to be eligible for this program.

Beyond 2009 we expect the reactor operators to determine their own
disposition path for that. That is the way this program is set up.

Just to give you a little briefing as far as the shipments we\'ve done.
If you add the two we\'ve done 28 shipments, two of these 23 over here
is actually two of these over here because it\'s only\--the shipment was
only done to the Savannah River Site and forwarded on to Idaho. But we
have pretty much covered the span of the world to get our shipments in.

What we\'re talking about as far as transportation goes here is only
from, primarily for us it\'s the Charleston Naval Weapons Station,
Charleston to the Savannah River Site, a mere 126 miles by pretty much
rail or truck, or road. And, however, so that\'s a very small piece of
the pie for what we do as far as making these shipments happen. And
actually, this is probably the easiest part we have to do, and
hopefully, I\'ll cover that, why it\'s easier in just a moment. That
will give you some idea as to what we\'re doing.

Okay, the 28 shipments\--21 of the shipments come from the Charleston
Weapons Station, which is our primary port of entry into the United
States. We\'ve had two shipments from Canada, both using the same route
that came in through Niagara Falls and down to the Savannah River Site.
Again, one West Coast shipment to INEEL and then four cross-country
shipments from Savannah River Site to Idaho.

And, when we talk about shipments, these\--the regulations talk about
shipments as far as packages. These are shipment convoys or campaigns.
They can be between one, two, up to 16 packages in one shipment, which
I\'ll address that as far as the truck versus train in a little while as
far as potential benefits and/or pros and cons.

In implementing the program\--and I think someone else mentioned it
earlier, too, is, the Department of Energy plays a direct role in making
these shipments happen. We don\'t contract out to the shipper and then
wait for it to happen and open the gates when it gets here. We don\'t do
that. We\'re in direct involvement with this program. I think it makes
it a better program because of that. Also, it causes a little bit of
problems as far as who calls who when they do have some concerns or
problems during the shipment campaign.

We have in the inception been an open forum in what we\'ve done. We\'ve
tried to hold public meetings and hopefully they were adequate. In these
public meetings it was determined that a train was the most preferred
mechanism in order to transport it.

We try to involve all the stakeholders in what we do. And, from
initiation and then afterwards. When we talk about stakeholders, the
resources we use to make a shipment happen, we constantly and
continuously communicate with those folks in order to continue our
process.

And, as Ralph pointed out earlier, that\'s been a real key to our
success, particularly in the smaller distance, from the Savannah
River\--from the Charleston Naval Weapons Station to the Savannah River
Site because we have a constant relationship with those folks. And any
problems that we have we\'ll know it early on.

Now, put up\--well, I\'ll talk about that in a minute.

And Ralph even said the same thing. Sometimes we go beyond in some
cases. And we do that in order to make the shipping campaign a success.
And we talked about go beyond, it\'s not that we go and spend extra
money just to appease people. We justify that. But we try to do the
extra things that makes the shipping campaign more meaningful to the
people that have to support it.

A little more explanation is this program, and the question that came up
earlier as far as NRC shipments and what have you, we still have a small
problem with that. But this program, we have two categories of reactor
operators. We have reactor operators from high income economy countries
and then what we call other than high income economy countries, which
are low income and middle income by the World Bank report.

High income economy countries is what funds our program. We charge them
a management fee and when they ship in we charge them \$4,500 per
kilogram of total mass that we received, and \$3,750 for LEU, what we
receive, then we use that money to pay for the various things that
we\'re responsible for paying for. And, I will discuss this a little bit
as far as the program attributes in just a moment.

However, the other important part as far as transportation goes, by our
contracts we have those those reactor operators, the high income country
ships it to the Savannah River Site. We\'re not responsible for it as
far as the shipping goes. We do have a contract with CSX, we don\'t have
a contract with Tri State. We don\'t have any of those things. But we
are still the coordinators of what happens in the United States. So we
make that happen. But we don\'t have a direct contract with them.

On the other hand, the low income countries, or other than high income
economy countries, we do. We provide a contract to a, what we call a
transportation services contractor who will hire the ship, hire the rail
company\--CSX is the only option we have\--or the trucking company to
make those things happen, as well as a host of other companies.

So the responsibility is different. We still ship in accordance with NRC
regulations on both of those, and there\'s some discussion as far as
what we really are doing in that regard even on the NRC side,
particularly the difference between the Charleston to Savannah River
Site or Savannah River Site to Idaho. So that\'s still open.

The other thing about our program, by the foreign reactor operators,
it\'s a volunteer program. They do not have to participate. If you look
in the EIS it shows you approximately 18,800 fuel assemblies that we
could ship. We\'re really going to get something a little bit less than
10,000 fuel assemblies we believe. To date, we\'ve got about, we have
5,000 fuel assemblies and about 142 casks so far to Savannah River Site,
and about 10 casks to Idaho.

Okay, as far as the attributes, and hopefully, this will cover some of
the things that may be applicable to this program or it may not, or
it\'s a decision that it does or doesn\'t.

Again, most of our segment starts from a single point, that being
Charleston, which is different than what this program may do, but it
changes the perspective. We do have\--we do about two to four shipments,
up to 30 casks per year. Again, one shipment can be one cask to about 16
casks. I think the largest we\'ve had is about a 13-cask, so far. So
it\'s a little bit different than having the WIPP shipments for
instance. It\'s a different type of perspective how you look at that.

And, of course, what I\'m about to show you here on the other
attributes, you may look at that as far as why we do what we\'re doing
to make the shipments happen or make the program a success, or whether
it\'s the right thing to do or not. Obviously, there\'s pros and cons to
each.

As I said, the shipments destined for Idaho will come to the Savannah
River Site first, so they are counted as two separate shipments. The
reason we do that is to adjust for the cross-country portion of the
shipment so that we can avoid rush hour traffic and so we can affect the
time to leave the Savannah River Site and control that so we can\--we
can do that as we committed to the States in order to get past the
larger cities and not during rush hour times. We see a problem
sometimes. It doesn\'t occur that way just because of various other
issues.

Again, we follow NRC regulations and DOE orders. The program coordinates
with and provides grants to the South Carolina State Law Enforcement
Division, and Department of Health and Environmental Control. That\'s
one of the things we can talk about. We do that, provide a grant to make
our program a success. Is it more cost-effective? Is the thing to do to
pay a rate per cask that some of the states are doing? I don\'t know.
But this is what we do for this program. It works well for us and I
think we\'re going to continue that process throughout the end of our
program.

However, if you have several different campaigns going through the
Department of Energy, certainly would make sense if you were going to
provide a grant that you have common grants. It\'s not a good idea, or
may not be a good idea for us to provide one FTE to the State of South
Carolina for a duty officer and for another campaign to do the same
thing. So we can combine resources there.

The program funds all unloading and security operations at the Naval
Board, here at the Charleston Naval Weapons Station. And we provide a
prorated share of maintenance and cost equipment used at the Weapons
Station. It\'s not necessarily a very good deal for us, but it\'s what
we have to do for security purposes. We pay for 100 percent use of the
crane on the wharf in Charleston. All the maintenance for it. We pay for
1/6th of all the rail service they have on the base because we had
determined that\'s our prorated share. It is very expensive for us to do
that. But that\'s our only port of entry so that\'s what we have to do
to make it happen.

However, the things we do here, the people that support us believe in
what we\'re doing and they support us 100 percent. Again, we have
constant communication with them with all the things we do, and when
when we need to do something, we can get it done. And so for that it\'s
just a great benefit.

Here\'s one thing I\'m sort of proud of, I guess. Someone talked about
the security rail car, or the caboose. We also\--I just purchased one
myself, well, the program did. But it took me three years to make it
happen. But that was one of the lessons learned. We constantly had a
battle with getting a rail car, security rail car that SLED determined
was adequate enough or even to get one there, to make a shipment.

We paid a lot of money for this particular caboose, but the final straw
was, whatever it comes down to, we can\'t get a caboose on site to make
a shipment. I have a ship at sea that\'s 100 miles off the coast and I
have to tell it to stop. It\'s carrying a boat load of spent nuclear
fuel on it, and it\'s just waiting around because we don\'t have a
caboose.

The other part of it is, and here\'s the other part, is I talked about
the things that we do to make the program a success. The fact that I
delay a shipment by three days means that I\'ve got 100 people out there
that had planned their work week and planned all the work activities for
a Monday shipment, for instance. And now, all of a sudden it\'s not
going to happen until Friday. What does that do to the State of South
Carolina\'s resources when I\'m using 1/5th of their SWAT team for this
shipment and all of a sudden their work scope changes? That\'s not a
good thing. Consequently, bought the caboose.

And when I bought it they had direct input into what went in it.

Some of the other things that we provide that may be of interest to some
of the other programs, we provide radiological personnel at the port to
conduct radiological surveys. We use the REP Team, the Department of
Energy REP team, to do this function, however, they are not a REP team
when they do that. It is part of the qualifications and part of their
proficiency or qualifications to do our process, so we use that team to
maintain their expertise as well as serve a benefit for us.

We also provide a radiological team to shadow the shipment. We don\'t do
that any more, as of this last shipment. DHEC now does that for us. Part
of the grants. So they shadow the shipment in case of an event.

We also chose not to have a radiological team on the security caboose
because it has been determined, or someone believes, and we go along
with that, that if you have an event that causes a derailment of the
train that the people in the caboose are probably not any help to you.
So consequently, we shadow that.

The second thing is we implement the CVSA inspections for the trucks,
Level VI, and that\'s been a pretty good success for us. Although, if
you look into the lessons learned part of my presentation, there\'s
quite a few things that have come up even though these haven\'t been
inspected. So there are some problems with that. Mechanical things fail.
We\'ve had tires blow out on the interstate. We\'ve had brakes lock up
100 miles after it departed, things of that nature, that\--don\'t know
how to fix that, but we\'re trying to keep up with it.

One of the things we do with that is we do have a repair truck
with\--Tri-State repair truck or a contractor that sort of shadows a
shipment that\'s within 30 minutes of a shipment. One of the things, or
one of the reasons why we do that is not because so much\--well, if a
truck has a flat tire we have to fix it\--is we have all those resources
out there and we have to protect that during that time. So if you have
an event or you have a small breakdown, those resources are really
taking up and protecting that shipment during that time. So it\'s worth
it for us to actually have someone shadowing that that can help.

Some of the things that we\'ve had, again, I\'ve already talked about
the tire blow-out within 20 miles after having been inspected. Has
something to do with hot and cold. Air pressure, I\'m not sure about
that, but possibly. But when you see a SWAT team on the interstate you
don\'t want to stop and ask questions. Not even me. They don\'t know me.
But, nonetheless, that\'s what we do.

We did institute a lessons learned program early on in the program, and
we tried to solicit input from everyone that we could that had any type
of association with the program, and we tried to implement those. We
tried to address them. No, we didn\'t implement everything, of course,
we did provide a 1-800 number to anyone who wanted to call during an
actual shipment campaign. The people who needed to know had the numbers
to call. Things of that nature. We have a communication plan.

Early involvement of all the involved parties invoked ownership, and
that\'s just a statement. But that is in fact true. That\'s why we, I
think we\'re successful for this part of the shipment campaign, and why
it is not a\--it\'s not one of the bigger issues of our shipments
because these people as well as the people that work on the program
believe what we\'re doing is important enough, and that we need to
support it to make it happen. And they do.

Of course, followup, followup, followup. Just a comment.

Here\'s some of the lessons learned, but I kind of go through those in
some of my notes because I think these notes are more applicable. NRC
licensed cask, we use obviously Type B packages, the NRC licenses. Or
DOT certified for certificate of competent authority which they use NRC
for review for that. So, we do follow those regulations.

The other things that might be important to you is we take, for the high
income countries, we take title of the fuel as it\'s unloaded in the
United States. So before that, it belongs to them. At that point it
belongs to us. However, again, as I said earlier, irresponsible shipping
all hinges around Savannah River Site. The only reason we took title at
that point is to apply the Price Anderson Act for insurance.

For other than high income countries, we take title at the foreign port
because we\'re paying for the ship, we\'re paying for the contractor to
help make it happen, so therefore we take control of it over there. In
their country they have to take responsibility because in the event of
an incident, it would be their resources that would have to be mobilized
to make that happen.

One of the other points of comment I guess that occurred earlier is,
facility compatibility for cask and transport equipment. We
talked\--someone said something regarding the flat racks being
compatible or similar. We use a similar thing for\--all of our packages
have to be in isocontainers. Not necessarily hard-walled, but
isocontainers so you can pick up with the standard isocontainer rig,
which is what we provided to the Weapons Station to do that. So we do
that for handling purposes there.

However, when it gets to the receiving facility, you also need to be
compatible with the cask. And, we have had to modify our facilities
twice now, maybe three times coming up, in order to support handling of
the different fuels and the different casks. Since we don\'t control
those, the reactor operator controls providing that\--the cask they are
going to provide. It\'s got to be one we can receive, but they have
different fuel, and so we have to check that out every time.

Dedicated trains, and trains versus truck. Just to address that from our
side, and again, we do, as I said, multiple shipments from one to 13 or
16 packages per shipment. If we did an evaluation of that and sort of
determined that\--and again, these\--okay. I guess I should cover part
of this. But I want to make sure I cover\--because it\'s kind of more
applicable.

But, we determined that it takes about three or four packages in a
single shipment in order to make the break-even point between truck and
rail, as far as cost goes, because what happens is is for us the
security team wants to only travel in convoys of two. So they have to do
the CVSA inspections and then the convoy leaves with the appropriate
escorts, and then we have to wait for those escorts to be available for
the second shipments. So it\'s a resource issue more than a cost issue.
But that\'s pretty much how we determine whether we\'re going to do a
truck or a train shipment. Three or four, we determine from that as far
as when to do train and truck.

Dedicated train is, at least in our opinion, when you have a lot of
resources that are shadowing the shipment, making the shipment happen,
that\'s a\--I don\'t want to say a small price to pay, but it makes the
shipment happen versus leaving a lot of things out there that your
resources are being used for. And there\'s a lot of people associated
with monitoring, supporting that shipment during that time. So for us,
it\'s something that we think we really need to do.

One of the things as far as lessons learned that we think is a really
good thing for us, and I think it has sort of been said, we have
pre-shipment meetings and we have pre-shipment conference calls about a
month before to make sure with all the stakeholders that everything we
are planning on to date is in place and any issues that we know about so
we can work those issues.

One of the month reporting (phonetic) for us is either shortly before
the ship leaves or some time around when the ship leaves the foreign
country so at that point in time we need to make sure of that, that we
are working those issues, so we kind of track that.

And then, we have pre-shipment meeting the day before the ship actually
arrives. With this we ask for everyone to be in attendance that\'s going
to support the shipment, and we verify everything is in place. It has
been well worth that effort. People are well aware of what\'s going on.

We have issues. We had a small engine derailment on the Weapons Station
on one particular shipment. We didn\'t know if we were actually going to
bring the ship in because we couldn\'t get the shipment to leave the
Weapons Station. So, it made the shipment happen. Everyone knew what was
going on. There was no issues with that. We had no complaints by our
stakeholders. They understood and supported as necessary. We didn\'t
know if we were going to make the shipment until two hours before the
ship actually started coming into port.

But we do have to ensure all organizations are ready, ensure the
prerequisites are completed, ensure the shipment is on schedule, make
sure the ship is exactly where it\'s supposed to be at that point in
time. And make sure everyone knows. We announce any changes in the
plans. Verify 24-hour point of contact is in place.

And, what we do with that is, we maintain a list, specifically me as the
shipping director at that point in time, maintain a list of all the
supporting agencies and how I can get hold of each and every one of
those persons while they are away from their home office supporting this
shipment. We have had problems with that before in the past and that is
a very, very good thing to do. And that is in addition to the
communications plan.

Key organizational representatives present at the beginning in
operations, we have had problems where there has been a\--if you were
the expert you would have seen it and could have corrected it, but since
you weren\'t, since they weren\'t there at the time, it went on for
several hours and then all of a sudden that organization shows up, and,
oh, this is all wrong. And so, we have everyone there that needs to be
there for their technical expertise is there at the beginning of the
process.

Press releases are coordinated in advance. Of course, everyone should
know that. There\'s lots and lots of opportunities for
miscommunications. Everyone knows that too. We try to, part of the
things, we do these conference calls and these pre-arrival meetings is
to minimize the miscommunications and to make sure everything is in
place. We work, I think we work hard at trying to make that happen.

I\'ve already talked about the caboose, but leasing it is not a reliable
thing to do.

Rail priority can be problematic. And we have had several instances on
that as far as priorities of rails. We\'re limited to 35 miles an hour.
We have problems with who we get on the tracks with. We have to pull
over, let the faster one of the trains go by. Things of that nature.
It\'s a constant battle and we\'re only going 126 miles, not necessarily
on a main route, but it\'s still on a frequently used route, up to
Augusta, Georgia.

And so that can be a problem.

We need to work with our railroad companies to, not only give us
priority, just to make sure all the other people that are working that
night or that day that we get the priority also. We get the priority
from the people that we work with, but we don\'t necessarily get the
necessary priority for the rest of the organizations or the rest of the
train routing within the country overall that can affect our region.
That has been a problem.

Staged spare rail cars, spare trailers. We have those staged in order
when we do our inspections, and if we have a problem with it, we can
replace them out instead of trying to get someone in to fix it in a very
moment. So we spend time in doing that.

Pre-inspect and operate all moving parts on the rail cars. And, I guess
in your case or for this case, the potential would be to use new ones,
but they will be out in the weather and eventually do that. And when you
come down to loading and something doesn\'t work, you have a problem. So
pre-inspect, stage them correctly. Doesn\'t really apply to you, but it
does to us, since you can\'t really tell where the package is sitting,
what\'s top and bottom. We need to know what it is before it gets to the
receiving facility.

Ensure distribution of the transportation plan and security plan
includes the working level people. We can do the best I can to get it to
the governor\'s designee, give it to the right state officials. Doesn\'t
necessarily mean it gets to everyone that needs to know that you really
do work with on a day-to-day basis. So we go out of our way to make sure
those people are informed also so they can go look for it in the right
office and find it if they need it. Things of that nature.

Since ours are in isopackage, isocontainers, contingency plans for
opening containers since that gets you inside to where the cask is.
Generally we have seals on the containers so we had to do that. And
that\'s one of our lessons learned.

For us clearly communicate, reinforce, safeguard information. That\'s
always been an issue and we have to make sure that our supporting
agencies understand those by NRC regulations. And, we have had
unofficial press releases and things of that nature that\'s undesirable
at that point in time.

Under transportation, we say pre-inspect equipment prior to actual
shipment. Allow plans for\--allow time for unplanned repairs, which we
try to do. Communication with the carriers to make sure they under-stand
their expectations. And that also means down to the truck drivers,
whether they are getting ready to depart. And try to make sure that, as
a validation, they understand what we think they should\--they
understand.

Obviously shipping papers, placarding must be complete. We had one issue
with the regulation changes, and not everyone is on board. We had left
one state and went through three states and got to the fourth state and
they had a problem with it. Things like that. So, we have to be
conscious of those changes and make sure that changes get communicated
all the way down through the corridor states.

Consider rail crew changeover when you\'re planning if you use rail.
They work 12 hours a day, however, the problem was they may work six
hours because they come from 200 miles away for you to put them on a
train before they actually start to work. So you get four hours down the
road and, \"We\'ve got to stop. Our day is done.\" We have to make sure
we do that. And what we do is, no matter how much time they are there,
as soon as we get\--the train leaves the Weapons Station at the first
rail yard, we change out and put a fresh crew on, no matter how much
time they\'ve been there.

Surveying rail cars and trailers. One of the things on the European
side, as some of you may know, is where they detect a contamination here
and they are on rail tracks and I don\'t know what they\'ve done with
their rail cars that\'s been in use for those activities, don\'t know a
whole lot about it, but it\'s one issue.

We also do surveys of the ship after we take material off, the footprint
area to make sure there\'s nothing there. And of course, we never found
anything.

Early route approval. Of course, everyone knows that. Again, we\'re by
NRC going from the Weapons Station to the Savannah River Site. Each
shipper that does that has to get route approval by NRC so I mainly use
two shippers in my campaign, although, and they maintain a route
approval. Each one has to get their own route approval and keep it.

States and law enforcement agencies did not receive notifications. Kind
of said something about that earlier. Plan around rush hours with extra
time. If you have a long CVSA state inspection in one state, that can
affect your rush hour, when this shipment gets to the rush hour. And
also, what you might think rush hour is and when it actually happens may
be a different definition. You might have 5:00 to 8:00 o\'clock in the
morning time and when you get to the state, the state officials at that
particular point in time thinks the rush hour is from 4:00 to 10:00. And
so, consequently, that\'s a problem.

Ensure supporting escorts know when and where they need to be. Of
course, we\'ve had problems or I wouldn\'t have said it.

Contingency plans for transport monitoring. TRANSCOM. We use TRANSCOM
for our shipments both on rail and truck, and it has worked well. We\'ve
had some complaints as far as we turn the TRANSCOM off to a state after
it leaves that particular state because we don\'t have a need to track
that any more. But in some cases their resources aren\'t available to
support getting back to their office and downloading the information
before we cut them off, things of that nature. So all that needs to be
worked out and make sure your stakeholders understand that.

On the security side, and I thought this is a very good one here. Number
one, the need to\--if you go by rail our SLED agents or SLED team uses
the state law enforcement representatives from various different
jurisdictional authorities, both department natural resources, state
transport police, SLED, or actually SWAT team members. And the reason
they do that is depending on if an event happens in parts of the area of
the state since rail is so out of the way, that you need to make sure
you have jurisdictional control over that area or authority over that
area. So that\'s why that team is made up of various different members
from the security side.

Reduce visibility. Of course, we\'re pretty much in isocontainers so
it\'s not really an issue for us; however, our Japanese casks do not.
They look like casks going down the road or on the train.

Designate safe parking areas if you use truck on both sides of the state
lots for security escorting functions because the actual authority
happens at the line and you may need to stop on one side or the other.

Contingency plans for late escorts. Obviously that\'s happened before in
the past, too. Good coordination between the security and the carrier,
because we have some issues with that.

And that\'s, Alex Thrower is the Headquarters Representative for this
program. There\'s only one full time FTE up there also. So we\'re kind
of\--and then on the other full time FTE, Jim Wade out in Idaho is a
part-time FTE for this program. So, as you see, we don\'t have a lot of
people working this program on a full time basis since the program has
been up and running, but we\'re trying to carry on.

Now, to cover the last few things, on the lessons, on some of these
things I thought was important to you, fuel types and compatibility.
Some of our transport packages, we had to go out of our way to get the
packages recertified with NRC with failed fuel, for instance, or
different fuel characteristics that we constantly have to deal with. But
obviously, I\'m sure that your program would look at that in some detail
also.

For us the foreign reactor operators are all different so we don\'t\--we
can\'t get into a routine. This is probably more routine as we get on
this end. Every foreign reactor operator, every country does things
different. Any time we do a first-time shipment from any country, we
have to\--I won\'t say each of them, but we have to show them how we\'re
trying to do things and they have to work through this system, which
makes it very difficult for us, which is where our challenges really
lie.

See if there\'s anything else really important I want to say. Oh,
there\'s one issue someone talked about earlier as far as state versus
federal escorts. We have been in that same boat with the Oak Ridge,
similar to the Oak Ridge shipments. States can\'t support truck
shipments at various times and so we default to the federal escorting
opportunity in order to make it happen, and when they do it, they take
it all the way through. The other states choose to participate with
that, whether or not the federal agents are there, that\'s something
that I would encourage everyone to look at as far as how you implement
that. Maybe it\'s a better thing to do to have federal escorts to run
your program. I don\'t know, but not for us, because we do it so
infrequently.

With that, I thank you very much for the opportunity of talking today.
Any questions?

ABKOWITZ: Thank you, Chuck. Questions from the Board? Dan Bullen.

BULLEN: Bullen, Board. This is just a quick one. And maybe it\'s more of
a comment to the question.

It seems to me that there\'s a great deal of effort in coordination and
communication and organization in trying to make sure that this
relatively short shipment takes place in a timely manner and, you know,
without any glitches or delays. The scale up to the magnitude that the
OCRWM national program is going to see should be sort of forefolding
here. This is going to tell you that it\'s going to take a great deal of
work. And, in your estimate do you think it\'s going to be relatively
easy to do or do you think it\'s going to take a significant effort for
them to do the same types of things without a scale that\'s probably 10
to the 3rd times larger?

MESSICK: Actually, I\'m in agreement with you 10 to the 3rd times larger
to get the program up and running. Now, it\'s a big cost initially and
you have to rely on, you get that up and it\'s sort of taking the chart
of cost and effort and initially get the program running and then the
stakeholders that support you as they become\--routine is not the right
word\--as they become more familiar in working with you, then your level
of effort and costs go down where that communication and support from
those organizations go up to help level that out. And so I think that\'s
your benefit.

I\'m not saying particularly the specific things we use, like grants and
what have you is the best way to go for this program. That\'s just the
way we do that. But the one thing I would say is our program has gone,
I\'ll call it overboard, has gone to the extremes of what we do to
support the\--to make the shipment happen. Security for instance. After
9-11 we had the authorization to ship from a ship that departed in,
roughly the 1st of October, and we\'re at, October, about 14th, in the
United States right after 9-11. Why? Because we\--the things that NRC
has put in place, the ICMs and the supporting regs that come after that,
we\'ve already had those in place. We have not changed what we\'ve done,
officially what we\'ve done, or requirements based on 9-11 because we
already do those things. We put forth that extra effort to make it
happen. Because, again, it being foreign, there seems to be some belief
that the foreign research reactors is a different animal than a
universal reactor, which is the same fuel.

ABKOWITZ: Dick Parizek?

PARIZEK: Dick Parizek, Board.

Once the waste arrives and I guess DOE takes title to the waste once it
wants to move it, say to Yucca Mountain, what does it have to do to know
what\'s in the waste? I mean is there a record of what\'s being shipped
and\--

MESSICK: Yes, and we\--

PARIZEK: \--what\'s being received, and does it need to be verified so
there\'s no surprises\--

MESSICK: Yes, and I\'m glad you asked that question.

PARIZEK: \--within the states, for instance?

MESSICK: I\'m glad you asked that question. We have a very rigorous
document, what you call Appendix A that characterizes the fuel. And what
is done from that, it takes the manufacturing drawings and data that
they have, that the reactor operators keep, their radiation history, all
the other specifications, and we take that

information\--and what\'s more important, not necessarily for its
ultimate disposition, we have now which is only one basin, L Basin in
Savannah River Site, that houses 12,000 fuel assemblies. We have to do a
criticality evaluation, storage evaluation of that fuel, so we have to
know what it is before we can authorize it being put into our basins.

And, the other important point about that is, I have to issue an
authorization ship letter to each reactor operator before that material
can leave the reactor site, and my prerequisite for that is I have to
insure that we have and can store that material safely in our basins
before we let it leave. It has to have a home before it can leave that
site.

ABKOWITZ: Thank you, Chuck.

MESSICK: Thank you.

ABKOWITZ: Maybe I can catch Chuck off line to find out if he bought his
caboose from EBAY Or Cabooses-R-Us.

I just wanted to mention a program change because we are running behind.
We are going to hear from our next speaker, Barry Miles, and then I
would like to interject at that point the public comment period because
I know that there are folks here that have been very patient with us and
although we\'re not going to short-change any speaker on the program, I
want to make sure that we have an opportunity to hear from all members
of the public that want to voice their views.

So, let me introduce Barry Miles.

Linda, I\'ll get with you to find out who will be speaking during the
public comment period.

Barry is the Senior Manager at the Headquarters of the Naval Nuclear
Propulsion Program in Washington D.C. and has served in that program for
over 34 years. The Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program has cradle-to-grave
responsibility for all aspects of nuclear propulsion and naval warships,
including management of the spent nuclear fuel generated by those ships.
Mr. Miles\' current responsibilities include the safe and secure
transportation of Naval spent fuel from shipyards to a DOE facility in
Idaho. Barry?

MILES: Thank you, Mark.

I want to preface my comments to the Board and apologize in advance.
I\'ve been suffering from a pretty bad cold and I\'m fairly hoarse
already. And secondly, I\'m not a public speaker. And I don\'t normally
make presentations outside of our headquarters. It\'s the first time
I\'ve been out to make a presentation to the public, so if I cough and
mumble, please bear with me and hopefully the message will be there in
spite of the messenger.

As Mark said, I\'m Manager of Shipping Containers and Spent Fuel
Transportation at Naval Reactors which is the headquarters of the Naval
Nuclear Propulsion Program.

For the last 16 years I\'ve been responsible to oversee our spent fuel
shipments. This afternoon I\'m going to be discussing our experience in
shipping spent fuel for the last 46 years and provide our prospective on
some lessons learned that may be helpful to the Board.

Our program is a joint U. S. Navy, U. S. Department of Energy Program.
It has its own authority as established by executive order and is
codified in public law. And Mark mentioned some of the fundamental
principles that have governed our program since its inception over 50
years ago. Strong sense of technical authority with continuous
oversight. Protecting people and the environment and cradle-to-grave
responsibility. And all those principles apply equally to our
transportation of spent fuel.

The nuclear freight is crucial to the nation\'s defense and military
presence. 40 percent of all our nation\'s combatant ships are nuclear
powered. That includes all 72 submarines and 10 of our 12 aircraft
carriers. A nuclear-powered aircraft carrier like this one here on the
screen is one of the first assets that our country turns to in times of
diplomatic and military crisis.

During the recent Iraqi Freedom campaign, three of the five aircraft
carriers on station were nuclear-powered. And one of those, the Abraham
Lincoln, was deployed there for 10 consecutive months.

If you look at this screen, you also get the typical view of our nuclear
submarine and the stealth it provides. 12 of those submarines fired over
one-third of the precision strike Tomahawk missiles that were used in
the Iraqi campaign.

So why do we ship spent fuel? When a warship\--nuclear-powered warship
is refueled in a shipyard, we take the spent fuel out, we put it in a
shipping container and we transport it to our facility in Idaho. Our
objective in making the transport is to examine the spent fuel in
support of our ongoing reactor fuel research and development effort.

As you can see from this slide, this examination program in our facility
in Idaho has been successful in extending the life of spent fuel or the
reactor fuel so that now our fuel can operate in the entire lifetime of
a ship, which is in excess of 30 years. The long-lasting fuel minimizes
the number of times a ship has to be taken out of service to support
refueling, which is strategically important to our military, and
obviously it also minimizes the amount of spent fuel that\'s generated,
and then that, in turn, will minimize the number of spent fuel shipments
we have to make.

After we examine the fuel it\'s temporarily stored in our facility in
Idaho with the alternate plan to send it to the geologic repository.

Our program has been working closely with the Department of Energy on
this disposition plan for the last several years, and we\'ve had
frequent discussions with the Department of Energy about our spent fuel
shipment experience.

What is our record? Since 1957 we\'ve safely shipped 754 containers of
spent fuel by rail to the Naval Reactor Facility in Idaho. This slide
shows the typical routes currently used by rail carriers when shipping
from our shipyards to the Naval Reactors Facility. We ship out of New
England from Portsmouth Naval Shipyard near Kittering, Maine. Out of
Tidewater, Virginia from Norfolk Naval Shipyard, and from Newport
News\--Norfolk Grummond Newport News. And from the West Coast, from
Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, which is near Bremerton, Washington. We also
remove spent fuel from ships in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, ship it on a ship
to Puget Sound and then of course by rail from there to Idaho.

I mentioned these are the typical routes that are currently used by our
rail carriers. In the history of the program we\'ve also shipped spent
fuel from several other places where we no longer are doing business.
For example, we\'ve shipped from a Naval shipyard near San Francisco,
California, from Pascagoola in Mississippi, from Charleston, South
Carolina; from Groton, Connecticut, and then from land-based facilities
in Windscott, Connecticut and Shipping Port, Pennsylvania and upstate
New York, north of Schenectedy. In over 45 years of shipping spent fuel,
we\'ve never had an accident or incident, which is the same story we\'ve
heard from the other people today, that has resulted in any release of
radioactivity or any increased radiation levels on or near one of our
shipping containers.

We continue shipping today. The rate depends on the Navy\'s refueling
schedules. Over the last five years, for example, we\'ve shipped
anywhere from three containers in one year to up to 20 containers per
year, and we\'ll continue shipping at that frequency over the next
several decades, with increases once we start going to a repository.

I would note that we use all the major carriers. UP, Union Pacific and
Burlington Northern in the west, CSXT and Norfolk Southern in the east.
And also we use several regional carriers. We also have a broad
perspective of traffic management from that of planning efforts in our
transportation office in Pittsburgh down to firsthand, on-scene
experience from our Navy couriers.

Bottom line is our program has a pretty good understanding of rail
operations and how to successfully, safely and effective manage rail
shipments.

Safety of our shipments results from these three primary factors: First,
the fuel is extremely rugged. Remember, it\'s designed to withstand the
severe operating environment in a operating ship for decades and to
withstand battle shock conditions.

Secondly, the shipping containers in which the spent fuel is packaged
are extraordinary barriers to the release of radioactivity. Even in
severe accidents. We\'ve had discussions on that today.

And third, the shipping practices followed by our program help avoid
accidents, and in the unlikely event of an accident, are intended to
result in quick and thorough response. Our carriers who accompany each
shipment play a major role in accident response, and I\'ll discuss that
shortly in reference to our periodic accident exercises.

These points are indicative of the inherent design and manufactured
ruggedness of Naval reactor fuel. It\'s solid, it\'s built for battle
shock, it contains all fission products and it\'s safe to operate in
close proximity to sailors. So our fuel is exceptionally well-suited for
safe transport and storage in the geologic repository.

Here is the Navy\'s spent fuel shipping container. We call it the Model
M-140 container. It\'s 14 inches of solid stainless steel. It\'s about
16 feet tall and nine feet in diameter. Weighs about 350,000 pounds. And
very importantly it\'s a Type B NRC-certified container.

We\'ve heard this morning and I think Mr. Bullen mentioned some of these
attributes that the NRC specifies stringent engineering performance
standards and they include a drop, immersion, fire and puncture.

The third factor contributing to safe Naval spent fuel shipments are
shipping practices. One, we use government-owned rail cars to
maintain\--that are maintained to meet all federal and railroad industry
mechanical requirements. We make advance arrangements for each shipment
with the involved railroad police and operational departments. We want
to insure that there\'s no surprises between us, the shipper, and the
carriers.

Our shipments are handled as national security shipments. So our
location and status is constantly monitored by the same tracking system
used for nuclear weapons shipments. And finally, we escort every
shipment with specially-trained Navy couriers who monitor the movement
of the shipments from origin to destination and who, in the event of an
accident, provide the emergency first response.

A little bit about emergency response. The robust shipping containers
provide a formidable barrier to the release of radioactivity and that
allows our couriers to focus on the priorities on the screen. Emergency
first aid, summon assistance, prevent injury and verify radiological
condition.

Let me expand a little bit on the \"summon assistance\" priority. The
couriers are able to activate resources throughout our program, from our
national laboratories to our shipyards to our headquarters in Washington
D.C. And then those activities can respond by providing technical and
management assistance by the phone or we can dispatch a specially
trained and equipped team to the scene, if necessary.

The couriers also assist the incident commander. And the incident
commander would be the senior fire or police official at the scene.

Earlier I mentioned that the couriers take part in periodic exercises.
We\'ve been doing these since 1996. Since our shipments are classified
and they are not subject to the planning and notification protocols of
unclassified fuel shipments, the exercise provide a fine opportunity for
civilian authorities to learn about our shipments and what to expect
from our shipment couriers.

And, we\'ve also found that the exercises provide value to the tribal,
state and local authorities to think through and practice their
emergency response actions. Including exercising the remote
communication links that they expect to see during such an event.

This is a picture from an exercise we ran in Idaho in the summer of
2000. The basic scenario was that a train was passing a railroad
crossing, a truck runs through the crossing, hits the rail car
containing one of our shipping containers. It derails the rear wheels of
that rail car and then the train goes down a couple hundred feet and
stops on the track with the rear wheels of the rail car derailed.

Now, again, we\'ve never had a derailment or an accident of a spent fuel
shipment. But, this is the most likely scenario we think we would see
during our shipments. And, what you see here is two of our spent fuel
shipping containers, two of the M-140s, which you see several local
responders who are reviewing the survey data taken by the state HAZMAT
team. And they are comparing it to the data that had initially been
taken by our couriers shortly after the incident occurred. The exercises
take a lot of time and effort, but we\'ve got very positive feedback
from our stakeholders.

And, we haven\'t had any major surprises in terms of lessons learned,
but clearly, we find a lot of benefits in thinking through and
practicing a coordinated emergency response to such an accident.

The next and the last three slides are lessons learned, and before I get
into them, I do want to preface them. Some of these lessons are going to
be, from what I\'ve heard today, direct opposite of some of the other
lessons from other people\'s perspective, and I\'m not trying to be
argumentative up here. I\'m just simply trying to provide you folks our
perspective from the way we do shipments, and in fact give you an
opportunity to weigh all those things together.

The first one I think\--you probably think I\'m harping on this a lot,
but I think this is extremely, extremely important in that the Type B
packaging combined with regulatory compliance by the shippers and the
carriers provide superior hazard protection under all transport
conditions. And, we firmly believe that that\'s the critical piece of
shipping spent fuel.

Secondly, a closed transportation system dictates safe operations. I
think we heard discussion on this earlier today. All trains move over
the same track and therefore accident avoidance is critical for the rail
business.

Accidents shut down lines. A shut-down line means freight doesn\'t move
and railroads make money by moving freight, so a derailed train, as you
heard earlier ripples throughout the rail system. And so there\'s a big
operating incentive for railroads to operate incident free.

And thirdly, on this slide, unencumbered operations enhance safety. What
I mean here is unencumbered operations means that you\'re going to have
less risk of an accident/incident. And our experience is any artificial
constraints to the movement of rail freight are likely to cause more
problems than they solve.

And we have an example of that in our own program. For years, we imposed
a speed limit of 35 miles per hour on all our rail shipments. Not only
spent fuel, new fuel, steam generators, main cooling pumps, whatever we
ship. We started doing that in the late 60s and early 70s when we as a
program had concerns about the dynamic stability of the heavier, higher
center of gravity loads, and I think Bob mentioned that earlier this
morning or this afternoon. And, the industry was also having trouble
with some of their newer hundred ton hopper cars, so we imposed that
restriction. And then, even after testing the rail cars and outfitting
them with improved suspension systems to insure dynamic stability, we
considered it prudent to continue the restriction.

After lots of discussion over many years with the railroads and coming
to recognize that we really didn\'t need to regulate the speed since the
FRA and the industry was already doing that, and also realizing that our
slower shipments were sort of analogous to driving 40 miles an hour in
the left-hand lane of an interstate that\'s\--we concluded that we
really didn\'t need to maintain that restriction. So we dropped it and
adopted the industry\'s technically acceptable hazard materials speed
limit of 50 miles and hour. And that\'s what we\'re doing today.

And this next slide is the one that\'s probably a little bit
controversial.

Our position is a dedicated train is not safer. And I would like to
provide a little bit of history on how we\'ve come to that conclusion.
And, recognize, we\'re coming from a little bit different perspective
than Bob Fronczak is coming from the railroad industry side.

This debate has gone on for over 25 years. The issue has been reviewed
extensively during proceedings before the Interstate Commerce
Commission, which preceded the Safety Transportation Board, and the
courts throughout the 70s and the 80s. And it was determined in all
cases by the ICC and the courts that there was no significant increased
safety benefit to dedicated train service.

Now, one argument that we hear is that dedicated train service lets us
avoid rail yards where there are frequent accidents. There\'s some
realities of railroad operations that would argue against that. It\'s
difficult to totally avoid rail yards if you\'re going to interchange
from one rail to another. You can do it outside of a rail yard, but
often it\'s done and\--that\'s where it\'s done when you\'re going from
one rail carrier to the other.

But secondly, what kind of accidents would you expect to have in a rail
yard? They would pretty much be fender benders. So, from our
perspective, if you\'re going to add extra dedicated trains to this to
avoid fender benders in a rail yard, and in the process you\'re going to
put more trains into this closed rail system that we\'ve heard about
earlier today, that means more trains would have to be followed and
monitored and controlled to insure that you don\'t have collisions on
the main lines. We\'re not sure that makes sense.

Now, just to be totally complete on this, though, there are reasons to
use dedicated trains besides\--but not for safety reasons. The industry,
the utility industry perspective gentleman this morning, Steve,
indicated they do it for logistical reasons, not safety. And we also
occasionally do it for logistical reasons.

For example, at that shipyard up in New England, Portsmouth Naval
Shipyard, the local carrier, Springfield Terminal, doesn\'t regularly
come into the yard. So when we want to move spent fuel out of there,
we\'ll arrange a dedicated train from Springfield Terminal and tell them
exactly when we want to get picked up. They will pick us up, move us on
dedicated train for the few miles up the line until we get to the main
line and hook up with Canadian Pacific and then we\'ll move on regular
freight across the country on Canadian Pacific.

Just one clarification. Bob mentioned that, Bob Fronczak, that the
railroads always move us in dedicated trains. I think he said that. If
he did that\'s not totally accurate. There is one railroad, Union
Pacific, that does always. When they pick us up at Kansas City, they
always move us in dedicated train. Every time. Been doing that several
years.

But other carriers will move us in regular. In fact, on a very last
shipment, just last month, out of Puget Sound, Burlington Northern moved
us in regular freight.

Now, Bob, don\'t call them up and give them a hard time on that.

Again, this is, you know, the perspective that we\'ve had from doing
this over the years that we\'re doing it. We believe it\'s important to
select the right rail car and inspect it. We have a pre-use inspection
procedure that\'s based on industry standards and concentrates on
critical components like wheels and brakes, couplers, and the truck
assembly. And we do that prior to every shipment. We obviously try to do
that prior to loading the rail car because if there is a problem it\'s a
lot easier to work on a empty rail car in a rail shop than it is to work
on a loaded rail car.

And, as I previously discussed, we do periodic exercises, which are
valuable to allow emergency response organizations to practice their
response and exercise their communications.

Routing flexibility enhances smooth operations. As a rail shipment, the
Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program will designate which carriers will
handle a shipment and will designate the interchange points where we
hand off from one carrier to the other. Our experience indicates the
shipper should avoid telling a carrier what track to use between Point A
and Point B on its own system. Routing flexibility for the carrier
enhances smooth operations which enhances safety. Again, we\'re just
trying to remove any artificial operational constraints from the rail
yards for the railroads.

Extra railroad safety oversight is not necessary, based on the inherent
safe operating incentives for rail that I described earlier, and which
we heard earlier today also. We\'ve considered it unnecessary to
duplicate the kind of real safety oversight that\'s provided by the
industry itself and by the FRA. The safety of the infrastructure and the
crews is required for all trains and all shipments.

So, I kind of harp on this, but we see no need for Type B radioactive
shipments which are safe by virtue of the robust formidable packaging to
result in, or be a reason for extra regulatory actions.

And, on a final note, we work security issues with the Chief of Police
of the railroads. We\'ve found that they are extremely cooperative and
that by maintaining an active liaison with them, it\'s extremely
valuable. We\'re confident that if a security emergency response is ever
needed, that the railroad police will get it there, either using their
own resources or working with local and state law enforcement.

That concludes my presentation. I would like to just summarize.

We\'ve shipped 754 large containers of spent fuel over the past 46 years
with no release of radioactivity or adverse effect on the environment.
The shipment safety is driven by three factors: The rugged nature of our
fuel, the robust shipping containers and our proven shipping practices
using Navy escorts.

And finally, this is a summary list of our lessons learned from our
perspective from shipping Naval spent fuel.

Thank you for the opportunity to share our experience, and are there any
questions?

ABKOWITZ: Thank you, Barry. Questions from the Board? Dave Duquette.

DUQUETTE: Duquette, Board.

This is more a curiosity question. You send Navy escorts in the caboose.
How do you do that when you\'re tied into a regular train and not a
dedicated train? You just put it at the end of the train?

MILES: Let me explain a little bit on the Navy escorts. We have our own
escorts. They are part of our program. They go through our extensive
training. And, the answer is yes, what you just said. We supply the
caboose that they ride in to the facility that\'s about to make the
shipment. The couriers come in three or four days in advance, they do an
over-check of the rail car inspection that had previously been done by
both the facility and have been checked by the local railroad company.
And then, in the tender or contract or whatever we\'re using to arrange
the shipment, we have that caboose as part of the train consist. And so,
when we go negotiate that we\'re going to ship two containers of spent
fuel, we\'ll also include that we need two buffer cars and a caboose,
and that\'s all included as part of the package.

DUQUETTE: Duquette, Board. One last question. Are these armed military
personnel?

MILES: Yes, they are.

ABKOWITZ: Terry Cerling.

CERLING: Cerling, Board.

I was just wondering about your emphasis on the exercises for emergency
response and communication. And, what I was wondering is sort of what
faction of the community that are along your transportation routes have
you guys been directly involved in in training and providing these\--

MILES: For our exercises, one of the primary objectives is to improve
the coordination of local response organizations. So when we do an
exercise, for example, we did an exercise up near Portsmouth, New
Hampshire. We invite the local, or the states that are nearby, their
local fire and police people from the communities that are nearby, and
get them all involved in the exercise. And they actually participate in
the exercise because the exercise primarily is to get the coordination
among all those groups and to get their familiarity with our shipment
and with our escorts.

I\'m not sure\--did that answer your question? Did you want to add on?

CERLING: Well, I was just wondering, could you say that all of the
communities on all of your routes have had the opportunity to
participate?

MILES: No. No. I couldn\'t say that. But what we do is we do spread the
exercises out. We\'ve had one in the northwest near Puget Sound, brought
in those states in that area\--Oregon, Washington, the communities
around there. We\'ve had one in Idaho and brought in the states around
there, including the Shoshone Bannock Tribe which is close by. We\'ve
had the Umatilla Tribe which we go through just outside of Washington
and participate in the West Coast one. We\'ve done an exercise in the
Tidewater Virginia area. We bring in the folks in that area. And we\'ve
done one in New England. So we are purposely spreading the exercises
around, moving from one area to another to bring in as many people as
possible into the umbrella of having been exposed to our shipments.

ABKOWITZ: Okay. The lineup is going to be Dan Bullen, Bob Luna, Ron
Lanatision and Dick Parizek.

BULLEN: Bullen, Board.

Just a final quick question from me and that is, how do you convey the
information you\'ve learned in your successful shipping campaigns and in
your exercise to the DOE? Is there a communication mechanism whereby you
can convey that information?

MILES: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. A lot of examples, Gary Lanthrum
mentioned the Senior Executive Transportation\--I forget the name, we
had a representative on that. We\'ve been working to develop the
protocols for shipments that follow on to the REP shipments. We\'ve
worked with the DOE on that. We have frequent meetings, for example,
with the DOE Yucca Mountain folks. We meet approximately quarterly with
them. And I\'m sure I\'ve left out several other places where we\'ve had
interface, but we have been working very closely to insure we\'re
integrated and on the same page.

John, do you want to add anything to that?

This is John McKenzie. He\'s Director of Regulatory Affairs at Naval
Reactors, and he is the primary interface with the DOE force. He will
probably have a better answer than I have.

McKENZIE: John McKenzie. The only thing I would add relative to the
Senior Executive Transportation Forum is, you know, there was an issue
back in the \'97-\'98 time frame and how the different DOE programs were
integrated, where practices were different and why they were different,
and that was a matter of confusion to the states. And they approached
DOE and asked the Department to try to reconcile that, which was the
focus of that work. And what came out of that was a Radioactive Material
Transportation Manual that the DOE issued, I think two years ago which
cuts across all the programs both routine shipments and national
security shipments. And, to the extent that you can describe that in a
publicly-releasable document, goes through the whole process of planning
and the transportation campaign, and what states should expect from
different areas of the Department.

BULLEN: Thank you.

ABKOWITZ: Bob Luna.

LUNA: Bob Luna, yeah. And, I think the manual he\'s talking about is the
protocols that we talked about at a previous time.

I wanted to ask to follow up on Thor\'s question quickly, I assume that
you do do the same king of one on one interactions with local
authorities that the WIPP guys do to make sure that they are up on the
shipments rather than just the interactions with the\--at the exercises.
Is that true or not?

MILES: We don\'t do the same type of one-on-one interactions that the
WIPP program does. We\--in these periodic exercises we have interactions
with the local communities. But again, our shipments are national
security shipments so we don\'t pre-notify the communities we\'re going
through, which is a different approach that the WIPP people have to
take.

LUNA: Thank you. That\'s what I thought.

ABKOWITZ: Ron?

LATANISION: Latanision, Board.

I\'m interested in your comments about dedicated trains, dedicated
service. At the rates that you ship, it looks like it\'s about a
container a month over 46 years, but you presumably accumulate
containers and send, say two every second month or something like that?

MILES: Yeah. Obviously, when we can we prefer doing that, minimize the
number of train shipments.

LATANISION: Right.

MILES: To give you the calibration, though, it really works out that we
have had about half as many train shipments as container shipments.

LATANISION: Yeah, that\'s what I\--

MILES: And, a couple reasons for that. We have a limited M-140 fleet. We
want to get those containers back to Idaho, get them unloaded, get them
back out to be loaded again. But for a particular ship, if there\'s more
than one container on that ship that\'s needed, then we\'ll get those
together. A shipyard will only refuel one ship a year, typically. So
we\'ll get those one, two, three, whatever containers and ship them all
together.

LATANISION: Do you think your view on whether or not service ought to be
dedicated or not would be affected if you were shipping more containers
more frequently, as would be the case in\--

MILES: Not in the case of us shipping our fuel

LATANISION: I\'m thinking of the Yucca Mountain. If we were actually
dealing with the sort of frequency that\'s expected to load the
repositories\--

MILES: I still fall back on the point that\--and this could be a point
of contention, but we look at 90, 99 percent of the security and safety
of the shipment as the package. That Type B package, and our program\'s
philosophy is that we\'re going to go design, model and test a Type B
package and make sure it has margin to the requirements. I mean, this 14
inches thick could be overkill, but it\'s effective. And so, the
radiation limits, the radiation levels on the outside of that container
are two orders of magnitude lower than the regulatory requirements. So,
my simple answer is I think you can do it without dedicated trains.

LATANISION: Thank you.

MILES: Provided you don\'t have some logistic concerns that would
override that.

PARIZEK: Parizek, Board. Do states want to ride shotgun on the trains
through their state, like trucks?

MILES: No, sir.

PARIZEK: Nobody is asking to do that?

MILES: No, sir.

PARIZEK: And then, given the superior nature of your waste form, which
sounds superior to me, plus the containers you already have, could say
DOE pick up on this and use at least the systems you\'ve already put in
place over these many years? I mean it seems to me we also have all
these trucking experiences, although there may be some other needs, and
as the nature of the waste, but here\'s 30,000 trained people out there
ready that DOE might, you know, be able to use. So I\'m just curious
about how much of a problem it would be to just sort of retrofit your
experience onto this DOE program, at least for the parts of the rail
system that you\'ve explained it.

MILES: I think the principals that we use for our shipments apply
equally well to whether you\'re shipping one container or 100 containers
or a thousand containers. So in that regard, that experience would be
directly translatable to what the DOE is doing. I guess I don\'t want to
pre-judge the DOE as to whether they want to do it this way or not.
There are other considerations that they are having to deal with. Their
shipments are not national security shipments. That\'s a big difference
to us.

PARIZEK: Thank you.

ABKOWITZ: Okay. And Barry, we appreciate it. I thought you did an
excellent job of getting\--cutting your teeth.

MILES: I\'m sure you\'re much too kind.

ABKOWITZ: We\'ll have an opportunity to talk with you again in the
future. Appreciate it.

Okay, we\'re going to have our public comment period now. And, as we did
right before lunch I would like to ask each commenter to get to the
rostrum and express their views. There are four people that we will be
hearing from in the following order: Dr. Jacob Paz, Harry Zanville,
Sally Devlin and Gracian Uhalde. And, I would like to ask if you would
keep your comments reasonably brief and the questions on point.

PAZ: I will. First of all was a question about the benefit for
transportation for the county. I make comments to the environmental
impact statement, and following. What happens if a truck were stopped to
visit working girls of Nevada for recreation purposes? I think maybe you
have no (inaudible) no customer. Maybe the state or the local county
should have an ordinance.

Second, I heard all the transportation. One thing which I have missing
is a medical surveillance. What\'s happened short-term, long-term,
epidemiological study, this was missing.

Second, the following issue is just what you\'re making as a
(inaudible). I don\'t take any position, but there is, in my
opinion\--I\'m not a lawyer and this probably will be decided by the
Court. In June, 2001, the EPA issued standards. The NRC incorporated EPA
standard, too. Is final 63 regulation which published November 2001,
about 64 and also the EPA; however, is very much inconsistent with U. S.
Code, Title 42, Chapter 6A, subparagraph XII, Part B, Section 300g-1, a
federal act.

And one further act, just very clearly, I\'ll skip a little bit. The
best available peer review science supporting study conducted in
accordance with sound objective, scientific practice. They got collected
by accepted method or the best available methods. I approach (inaudible)
for five years. I can support myself in the literature, and also I
provide the Board, and I thank you for the reply, DOE did not comply,
and it\'s probably this is an issue which going to be challenged.

The other issue is silica and silicosis. When we have two cases in 140,
it\'s unacceptable. I used to work for OSHA. I work also in Yucca
Mountains, and this is raised in many people mind a red flag. I don\'t
want to accuse anyone, but is very serious issue.

Second, which can be also very serious issue, is the question does DOE,
is also planning to investigate potential employee exposure. (Inaudible)
from zeolite fiber such as aconite, modonite, most reported as a
potential causative agent for malignant mesothelioma. And if we have an
exposure to silica, why we don\'t have exposure? This can be some time
along the line.

And, that\'s all. Oh, I forgot the surveillance. For you is the medical
surveillance. Now you can go to DOE and use peer pressure.

ABKOWITZ: Thank you, Jacob.

Harry?

ZANVILLE: My name is Harry Zanville. I\'m an attorney from San Diego and
I represent rail labor, and I listened very carefully to materials
presented earlier. I have a few questions and a few comments.

First, earlier, there was a question posed by one of the panelists to
the AAR representative that did not come close to answering the question
about accident rates. If you would just like to focus on the Burlington
Northern Santa Fe alone, just go to the website. On the website they
have incident and accident report statistics. The last three years of
reporting were 00 to 02 accident-caused releases. Those were
accident-caused releases of HAZMAT materials, were between 14 and 17 per
year. Non-accident-caused releases were between 143 and 196 per year.

They also admit on their own forum that they have two sets of books.
They have a set of non-operator-reported accidents. If you look at that
you\'ll see that it\'s there. And of course, none of this tracks close
calls, which is a matter of fortuitousness. It\'s just luck. One thing
you have in common with all these accidents that cause releases and
these non-accidents that cause releases is that every one of them is
preceded in the course of carrying cargo with a promise, I won\'t spill
it. There won\'t be problems. There\'s no problem. We\'ll be safe. And
every one of those promises to carry things safely, without spills and
without incident has been breached.

Now, it\'s wonderful to say to people, we want to trust you. You all
must know what you\'re doing because you are in the business to do it
and you are heavily regulated so it must be safe. That\'s not
necessarily so.

Let me give you an example, without picking on BNSF particularly. BNSF
in its 28 states has about 125,000 switches. Those 125,000 switches all
have locks because since the beginning of railroading, there have been
vandals who want to change the switches. All the locks have the same
key. You want to buy a key, go on the internet. Six bucks, you can buy
it. But if you\'re a regular track worker, you probably don\'t even
carry the key. You carry a cotter pin and pop it with a cotter pin. We
have head-on collisions around the country, including the west, and you
need to ask yourself the question, why hasn\'t the FRA, which is
supposed to be in the process of making sure we have rail safety apart
from nuclear issues, why don\'t they deal with these problems? How can
people stand up in front of you and say, hey, trust us. It\'s safe.

The problems go beyond that because you\'re also dealing with
contractors who potentially will tell you, well, you know, if there\'s a
problem, we\'ll fix it. And you can trust us to fix it. And a
non-nuclear example is in Mandan, North Dakota, where the Burlington
Northern\--not trying to pick on them\--for 50 years has managed to drop
enough diesel into the aquifer that there\'s about 2,000,000 gallons of
diesel in the aquifer. They were sued by the State and they promised
after they lost, okay, we\'ll remediate. That was six years ago. They
haven\'t remediated. And now, when an enforcement acts, their defense
is, well, maybe we don\'t really have to remedidate. And these are the
people who you want to use this prime rail contractors to do this work.
The \"Trust me\" mentality seems to be, to me, not quite rational.

There are a couple of other comments I want to make. I\'ll try to make
this as quick as I can.

One of the questions that our rail labor people have routinely is why
are they out there in their non-protective Sears Roebuck clothing next
to a train that\'s got a nuclear load with a guy that has a protective
space suit? One of them is either over-dressed or under-dressed. And we
really would like to know the answer to that question, and we\'ve asked
the FRA and they say they don\'t know. So hopefully you folks can answer
that question. Are there in fact any radioactive emissions that we
should know about? Are we concerned about this? If this is happening
now, what will happen when we have a lot more volume that we\'re
carrying? I think rail labor is entitled to know the answers to these
questions.

And lastly, I would like to respond to the gentleman who is with the
Navy program who said that, \"Gees, in rail yards, you just have fender
benders.\" If you would like to contact us we will show you videotapes
of non-fender benders that happen in railroad yards. The biggest problem
in railroad yards is you have lots of switches. When you have lots of
switches, you have lots of derailments. Derailments are, by definition,
serious.

So thank you very much for your attention. We look forward to having
some answers.

ABKOWITZ: Thank you, Harry.

Our next speaker is Sally Devlin.

DEVLIN: Good afternoon again. That\'s a hard act to follow and I do know
what a cotter pin is.

This is Sally Devlin, your favorite lady, and you\'re my favorite
people. And I do want to say thank you again for coming here.

Before you go I want you to have dessert so if anybody is awake get out
your pencil and paper. I want to give you a little information.

And that is, you met our friends from the other counties in Nevada, and
remember, we\'re not the bottom of the barrel, we\'re only 49th. And I
want you to know why I\'m so serious about this hospital that the
Bechtel BSC gave to us. And that is Nye County, and there\'s Les
Bradshaw, he can verify it. We have over 50,000, over 40,000 in Pahrump
with no hospital. You\'re going to die after 5:00 o\'clock Friday until
Monday morning at 7:00.

I don\'t know, Lincoln County has approximately 3,000 people. They do
have a little facility at Caliente with about 1,000 people. Lincoln
County is a wonderful county. They have over 900 kids in the Coop
Extension Program and 125 leaders, so you know it is a lovely huge
family-oriented county.

Abby told me they have 1600 people in Eureka. And, I don\'t know Lander
County, but Esmeralda County has about 800 people. It\'s 98 percent
federal. In Fishlake in that area, Dyer. They have no phones, no flush
toilets. It\'s really kind of fun. It\'s like our railroad valley.

So you see we are deprived, and I think it\'s very wrong because any
weather we cannot get over the hump to Las Vegas for the hospitals. We
are currently\--the last number that I heard was spending over
\$78,000,000 in Las Vegas for hospital care. This would be cut to more
than half if we had our own hospital. And, maybe if we could have major
surgery and grow like Fallon has, from 25 beds to 40 beds, and they have
less population than we have. So, there\'s your dessert, my friends. Why
we need the hospital, I expect the entire Board to spend the entire rest
of their lives working on this. So I thank you.

Now, one other thing. And that is, as everybody\'s mother I do every
year on the 1st of January take out my new calendar and I do plan my
entire year. And that\'s how I got my kids through school. X\'s on the
calendar every year and so on. And so, I thought I would give you a
brief calendar of my life with father, and whether NWTRB, and this
started in \'92-\'93. And the reason I got into this wreckage was
because the only railroad plan they have was for the train to come
through Pahrump, from Jane Sandy Valley to Pahrump on the Von Schimdt
line through Ash Meadows and Amargosa and up to the test site. And I
said, over my dead body, and that\'s when I went back to school.

Now, the other thing that came about that time was in the federal
budget, and I don\'t know if Senator Griet (phonetic) gave it to me or I
gave it to him, but the first thing I saw in the budget was for two
repositories. And you hear me say that every time. The first budget was
\$25 billion. The second budget was \$35 billion. So it\'s in writing.
There will be two repositories. No ifs, ands or buts about it.

And this is what is going on. I\'ve talked to Russ Stier (phonetic) and
we were at a meeting at the Mirage. I said there was at that time
126,000 metric tons of HOW. And of course, 14,000 metric tons of DOD
classified stuff which I understand now will go in my alloy 22 which the
bugs will eat\--thank you very much for bringing that to everybody\'s
attention. So I know that will be corrected or whatever you do, and I\'m
anxious to see that.

Now, the other thing that was mentioned today, and again, it was
something I brought up years ago when it was \$6 to \$9 million dollars.
And if you all remember it was Price Anderson. And the last we talked
about Price Anderson, it was something around \$8-9 billion dollars, and
this was for accidents. And I\'m hearing today that it now has something
to do with insurance. I don\'t know anything about that.

And remember my boyfriend who is my mentor in transportation who was
with the Department of Transportation here in the state mentored me all
these years, he was with Price Anderson Washington Group. So anyway,
that is something to look into. I don\'t know how Price Anderson would
be involved in insurance. I thought just in claims.

And of course, I am not current, but I have always been for years and
years with the Governor\'s Board on Licensing for Shipping of Nuclear
Waste.

And I\'m going to leave you again with the whipped cream on top of the
cake that you just ate. And that is, the State of Nevada looks like
this, a big C. Up here is I-80, Interstate 80. Down here is Interstate
15. Here is Interstate 95. And it\'s intrastate. It is only in Nevada.
And, it goes up north, it goes east, and it goes parallel to the center
of the state over to Ely through Austin. So that\'s our major
transportation. Three roads. And of course, the interstates are pretty
big. But the intrastate is categorized as a nine hazard road because in
most areas it is only two lanes. And we had an oil spill and the highway
was closed north of Tonopah for 18 hours. So we do have major problems
with that.

And of course places like Tonopah, I believe, Les, you can tell me, that
they ship their very own by plane to Reno. So that is the closest to
them, not us. And they are closer to Douglas County than they are to us.
The only other thing I can leave you with is everybody, because it is
the new year, say a prayer for our \$25 million and hope we get it and I
will look forward to your support. And I look forward to, I hope next
year, and throw out no terrible cookies, real food, I guarantee, and
everybody be comfortable.

And, thank you so much again.

ABKOWITZ: Thank you, Sally.

Our final speaker is Gracian.

UHALDE: All right, I\'m back again to bother you folks some more. I
think I regained my composure a little bit. I have to tell you the
truth, this morning it was somewhat of a miniature shock and awe
treatment for me. I think there\'s only one description that makes it
worse and that\'s when we\'re gone.

Anyhow, there\'s a couple of things that came to my light today that I
would like to go over with you.

Since 1981 or \'84 when, as Mike Baughman alluded to, there were
sounding meetings in Caliente, or whatever. My family has never been
contacted by anyone other than the fact we pay taxes in four counties,
Eureka, White Pine, Nye, and Lincoln. And Eureka, which is the one that
isn\'t getting anything, is the one that called me on December 29th when
the request for the withdrawal was done.

One thing I would like to clarify with you folks, for your information,
is that in the ranching industry, the BLM does not want to recognize
that we have a property right out there on the grazing. There\'s a
double standard. The IRS, I\'ve been through two estates. The IRS makes
you put the whole bundle together, the government, everything that ties
into your cattle, sheep, and then they tax you on that. We\'ve paid
twice. My father, when he passed away four years ago, we had done a few
things to make that better, but believe me, the IRS wants their money
and the BLM says you have no rights out there. But there\'s improvement
properties, things, many things, any rancher in Nevada has done by
himself\--pipelines, wells. Those are our property, and the grazing that
goes along with them.

So the IRS is more than happy to make you put the whole plan together.
And we got audited, and they want their money out of every AUM, animal
unit month, that\'s out there for their grazing.

So it\'s definitely not a free ride and it does make you bitter when
people comes in and just thinks they are going to grab it up and tell
you last.

One other thing I wanted to tell you is just for your knowledge, the
railroad MOE, which I think I\'ve got the map of the Caliente corridor,
the toll map, day before yesterday. The Air Force flies low-level
flights through there. You can see the pilots. Through Garden Valley,
Coe Valley, Worthington Pass. I mean these people are there in live
color, and you can definitely wave at the pilots.

And, the last thing I wanted to tell you was that since the shock and
awe treatment this morning, it looks like my family is going to get 40
miles of the railroad. I don\'t know whether to go rejoice, go bury my
head in the sand or what the hell to do, tell you the truth. But it\'s
just, after what I heard this morning was shock and awe and what I heard
this afternoon made me sick, from our county officials, if that\'s what
they were.

I vote in White Pine County so we\'re not really that familiar with
Lincoln and Nye. One of our main headquarters is Nye County. And, I hear
those people asking for consideration from DOE and things and they have
failed to do the same for their people, for their constituency.

Once again, I would like to thank you. And in closing I would like to
say that I\'m a sheep herder and I feel like the wool has been pulled
over my eyes, and I ask you, please, don\'t let people pull the wool
over your eyes.

ABKOWITZ: Thank you.

Okay, we\'re going to resume with the program. We have two more
presentations to take care of the agenda for today. The first one is the
final prior transportation experiences and lessons learned presentation,
and the focus of this one will be on the West Valley spent fuel campaign
and speaking on that program will be Alice Williams.

Alice Williams is with the Department of Energy\'s Office of
Environmental Management. And she will be talking about that campaign.
It involves the shipment of spent fuel from the West Valley\'s facility
in New York to the Idaho National Engineering Environmental Laboratory.
And, I would like to welcome her. I think she has actually spoken at a
different microphone earlier today.

WILLIAMS: Thank you. Your day has been long and so I will try and make
this a short presentation, but I do want to say that I\'m honored to be
here to do this lessons learned.

The West Valley Demonstration Project lessons learned is a little bit
different than some of the other lessons learned you\'ve heard today
because we are through. We did our one-time only shipment of 125 spent
fuel elements, and with that our campaign is over and we are out of the
business of spent fuel shipping. So our lessons learned are truly
looking backward rather than looking at continuing that shipment.

Before I get into the lessons learned, there needs to be some background
that I present so you can understand a little bit about what was a very
unique fuel campaign. The West Valley Demonstration Project is a cleaner
project, and DOE pays 90 percent of the cleanup, 10 percent is paid by
the State of New York, and it is on state-owned lands in Western New
York.

In 1995 in order to expedite that cleanup process the Department took
title to 125 commercial used fuel elements. 40 of those elements came
from the Robert E. Ganay (phonetic) plant and the remaining 85 were from
Big Rock Point.

We had always planned on shipping that used fuel to Idaho, but there
were several things that had to happen first. It was mentioned this
morning about the transnuclear casks that were designed, and eventually
DOE took ownership for. And also there were other issues of NEPA.

In 1995, there was a legal agreement between the Department of Energy
and the State of Idaho that it would allow this fuel to be shipped after
calendar year 2000. In light of that, we began serious preparations for
that shipment in 1999. The initial briefings were with the potential
corridor states and also with the tribes began in early 1999 and we used
the regional state organizations, such as the Western Governor\'s
Association, the Midwestern Council, as well as the existing tribal
liaisons to begin those initial discussions.

We also began working with the FRA and these corridor states and tribes
in a consultory role with our railroad evaluation studies that the
Department had prepared. And we also began sharing our initial shipment
plans, emergency management preparedness plans, and communications
plans, as well as the security plans, back in the 1999 time frame.

In 2000 we began the negotiations with four railroad carriers. That was
Buffalo and Pittsburgh railroad, a small railroad in New York and
Pennsylvania, Norfolk Southern, CSXT and Union Pacific, and that was an
effort that was one of the longer activities in the project.

We also went back to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to renew the
certification on the two casks. And, we started that in 1999, late 1999.

In 2001 we declared operational readiness to begin unloading the spent
fuel pool for these 120 fuel elements, had been in storage for the last
35 years, and also continued working with the states and continued the
negotiations on the contracts.

By summer of 1990\--or I\'m sorry, by the summer of 2001, all 11
corridor states, two tribes, four railroads, the FRA, as well as the
demonstration project, and the INEEL were ready to begin shipment and we
had set our date for early Fall of 2001.

Now, there\'s conventional wisdom out there that the reason we stood
down that shipment in September of 2001 was because of 9-11. And that is
not correct. The reason we stood down the shipment is because the
Assistant Secretary for Environmental Management wanted to place more
focus and more emphasis on regulatory requirements in the State of Idaho
and as such, directed us to stand down that shipment at that time. So,
what that meant was, is that we had two fully-loaded fuel casks that
remained at West Valley on the railroad sitting, waiting shipment.

In 2002 DOE directed both the West Valley Demonstration Program and the
Idaho National Engineering Environmental Laboratory to begin plans for
shipment in 2003.

And what we did at this time is that we took everything that we had
worked on in the 1999 to 2001 time frame and essentially reconstituted
it. Amazingly, there were very little changes from that plan to what we
were planning on doing in 2003, but there was one major change. And that
was because of the heightened security. Where we had been very open
about our shipment plans in 2001, we went to a strict need to know basis
with the states and the state personnel. And in fact with our own people
within DOE.

All preparations were completed by the end of June, 2003. And the
shipment departed West Valley Demonstration Project on July 13th, 2001.
And it\'s a little hard to see in the picture there, but the train was
configured exactly as was discussed this morning. We had two
locomotives, we had a ballast car, we had one cask, another ballast, the
second cask, another ballast car, and then the personnel carrier at the
end.

A little bit about the shipment. I believe that this is one of the
largest single fuel movements by rail this country has ever seen. We did
ship West Valley fuel by rail in the late 70s so one of those shipments
might have been larger, but certainly in recent years, this is the
largest fuel movement that the government has made.

Although the Navy fuel shipments, as you heard earlier today, might have
been longer, this is one of the longer fuel movements. As I mentioned,
it crossed 11 states with the four railroad carriers.

Now, when we finished the project, which was essentially when it arrived
at the INEEL at 2:38 a.m. on July 17th, the next and final step with the
project was to do a lessons learned, and we completed that in September.
So what I\'m talking about now are the lessons learned which reflect, I
would have to say, continuous process improvement because the shipment
itself was a very successful one that happened with essentially smooth
operations on all aspects.

But, the lessons learned that may be of use to future shipments in that
this country makes some times deal with rail operations, communications,
the shipment schedule, emergency preparation training and inspections.
And I will hit these very, very quickly.

With regards to railroad operations, I mentioned before that one of the
activities that took the most time was placing the contract with the
rail carriers. There were several issues that we worked there and this
was a very long and hard process and I\'m sure if I had one of the
carriers here in this room that they would echo it was a long and hard
process from their perspective, too.

Our recommendation would be to develop an accepted contracting approach,
especially if it\'s not going to be a one-of-a-kind shipment, and use
that for the multiple shipments. Don\'t keep reinventing the wheel over
and over again because of the amount of time and effort that it takes.

Secondly, with regards to the route and alternate routes, we believe
that it\'s very important early on in the process to have
clearly-defined route selection criteria. Some of the criteria we used
was condition of the rail, length of service, population centers,
inspection points, on and on. I think the models we used had about 14
criteria we looked at.

The map there is showing all the potential route and route segments. It
does not reflect the actual route we used.

It is also important that once you have chosen the route that you stick
to that route as much as possible. And that stakeholders along the route
understand the criteria for the route selection. We made no changes in
our preferred route at any time. The other thing is is that in our
protocol, if there had been a route change that was needed during
transit, that would have been the call of the railroad\'s. It would not
have been the call of the Department.

Early on, there were those who wanted us to inspect all of the proposed
track segments, and it was the Department\'s position that we would only
do inspection of the preferred route. And that was how it turned out.

Again, stating what I just said, our recommen-dation is to use the
clearly defined route selection criteria, and there are some very good
models, INTRALINE and STRACKNET are two that are available at this time.

With regards to communications. The regional coordination meetings in
using entities such as Midwest Governors Association, Western Governors
Association, was very, very helpful and very successful for us. All of
the regional organizations were most helpful to us and were, in every
step of the way, crucial to our success.

One of the things that we struggled with was sensitive information and
need to know. Who needs to know, and why they need to know was something
that we struggled with and I think there were some people, especially
elected officials, who even to this day have concerns as to why they
were not on part of that need to know. What we worked with is is that
the Governor\'s Office, the emergency management professionals within
each state, obviously law enforcement, FRA were on the need to know, and
most other entities were not on that list.

TRANSCOM. We\'ve talked about this several times during the day. It is a
wonderful tool and for the most part it worked well on our shipment.
Recommendation on that one is to clarify guidelines for distributing and
controlling the sensitive information and enhance the TRANSCOM
communications within the states. As I said, it worked very well, but it
could have been better on our shipment.

With regards to the shipment schedule, this first bullet about the
actual shipping date fluctuated. DOE owns that and DOE alone owns that,
and to the states, to the FRA, to the inspectors, to the railroad, it
drove them nuts, and I don\'t blame them for being frustrated when we
were making requests down on shipment dates early on. DOE could and
should have done better on that.

On the enroute rad inspections, we had some challenges on this because
one carrier in particular was able to go faster than the schedule that
we had worked to, which meant that we were scrambling to get the
inspectors where they needed to be on time. That was frustrating for the
inspectors. On the other hand, everybody was pleased that we were able
to make up scheduling to make this movement faster than we had expected.
But again, to the extent possible, to the extent practicable, it is
important to adhere to the planned schedule.

Lessons Learned, Emergency Preparedness Training, we did a lot of
training along the routes. One of the things that we could have done
better and should have done better is that the states lay out their
plans in terms of what they need for their training for, not only their
full time personnel, but for their emergency personnel about 12 months
in advance. They do a yearly planning schedule. It would have been a
good idea and much appreciated by those states if we could have
coordinated earlier on with them so that our training needs could have
been factored into their normal training modules. That would have made
sense from their perspective, and it would have made less impact to
those professionals along the way.

Moving on to inspections. This is one that we struggled with quite a
bit. And there are some things here that were both good and bad. Doing
inspections ahead of time as much as possible is very good. We did
inspections on the rolling stock at the Buffalo Rail Yards two to three
days in advance, sometimes as much as seven days in advance so that if
there was any problems with brakes, brake lines, those could be fixed
and re-inspected without impacting the schedule.

We also did advanced inspections where we had\--Ohio is an
example\--came on site and did their inspections before the train left
the West Valley Demonstration Project. We also had some rad inspections
that we had done by non-FRA certified personnel.

In the future, if there are shipments like this made, and I think the
Navy alluded to this as well, one needs to make sure that there\'s a
protocol so that you are reducing the number and perhaps in some cases
even eliminating enroute radiological inspections. It takes time and not
everybody sees the value added of those rad inspections enroute.

In conclusion, shipments like this benefit from a phased approach. You
have the operations side of loading the fuel on-site. You have the
issues of contracts. You have the issues of working with the affected
corridor states as well as the FRA, and the schedule needs to be
integrated with all those activities, well understood in advance so that
everything can come together at one time.

The contracting system with the railroads is something that probably
needs more work. This was a one-time only shipment without a lot of
history behind it, and I would encourage those that come after us to
make similar shipments that this is something that needs to be worked on
early and very, very carefully and thoroughly.

Guidelines on distribution of sensitive information. We\'ve talked about
that before. As I mentioned before, when we were getting ready to ship
in 2001, we were open with all information to any interested party.
Again, when the 2003 shipment was made, we had a different protocol that
we followed of strict need to know.

Process for establishing and maintaining schedule. Again, if there were
multiple shipments covering several years, that would be something that
I\'m sure would sort itself out pretty quickly.

National protocol on enroute inspections, I believe that this is going
to be a big item. Enough said on that.

And again, the radiological training for first responders needs to be
integrated into routine training for these personnel.

And I spoke fast, I covered a lot, but hopefully I will be able to
answer some questions and that your whole day has not left you totally
and completely exhausted.

ABKOWITZ: Thank you, Alice, and it is appreciated that you spoke fast,
but it was a very clear and understandable presentation.

We\'re going to start with Dick Parizek.

PARIZEK: Parizek, Board.

I\'m from Pennsylvania so we\'re kind of anxious to know what\'s
happening up there to the north.

WILLIAMS: You probably know very well what\'s happening up there to the
north.

PARIZEK: Well, but the question is, you said it\'s a one-time shipment
only, but the last logs are still there, are they not.

WILLIAMS: These are only the spent fuel. We do have the 275 high-level
waste canisters that at some time in the future will be shipped to the
repository.

PARIZEK: All right, so the experience you got here obviously may have
great value to you for those others?

WILLIAMS: We would hope it would, yes.

PARIZEK: Yes. Thank you.

WILLIAMS: And, just to clarify that point, the other mission that I did
not talk about at West Valley is vitrifying the high-level waste from
the fuel re-processing operations that were done in the late 60s and
70s. The vitrification is completed. There are 275 canisters of
high-level waste that eventually will go to the repository.

PARIZEK: One more in terms of the inspection along the way. Is that
partly because maybe Ohio was anxious to make sure it was doing its job
and to learn how to do this better? I mean there may be a lot of people
who, the first time or several times through it want to get involved and
later on it becomes streamlined.

WILLIAMS: I think because this was the first time shipment of, and
because it was so large, that all the states were anxious to do the
right thing and to participate correctly. So, what you were alluding to,
I think is very much an issue. And, in some\--and again, in my lessons
learned, I\'m not saying that how we did the inspections was wrong, but
as a first time only one needs to move on and learn from what they had
there.

ABKOWITZ: Dan Bullen.

BULLEN: Bullen, Board.

I\'m a little curious about your control of the sensitive information
with respect to need to know. And was that an offshoot of the fact that
the 9-11 event had happened or because you mentioned that you wanted to
clarify the guidelines for distribution of that sensitive information?

WILLIAMS: Okay. I\'ll go into probably more detail than you want on
that, but to answer the question on how that came about, when we stood
down in 2001, we did do a lessons learned with the corridor states, FRA
and the railroads. And one of the things that they communicated back to
the Department is that we had been so open and we had been so excited to
tell everybody about this shipment, and all the details of it, that we
were actually making problems, not only for ourselves, but also for them
along the route.

And, a case in point, we were within, oh, maybe 48 hours of shipment
when we stood down. And the railroad TRAINBUS, their website was telling
the hobbyists when we were shipping within probably four hours of when
we were shipping. So, we had essentially perhaps overdone this. And so,
we made the decision that, just in terms of the logistics of this, that
there were a lot of people out there who did not really have a need to
know what we were doing, although they had a lot of interest for many
reasons. And so we essentially shut those communication corridors off.

Now, what happened with that is that we had one local elected official
in Western New York who was very, very upset that he was on that need to
know basis. And there was a call that was made at the Governor\'s Office
as to who would be told within each state, and so his idea is it was his
town. Why couldn\'t he know? And it got to be a very emotional and
critical issue.

BULLEN: Bullen, Board. Just to follow up to that. It\'s a very fine line
because you really do want to have enough information that the people
understand who the material is being is sent to, but also you want to
make sure that they have an understanding of it, but there\'s no reason
to tell when it\'s going through. So it\'s a real challenge.

WILLIAMS: And I don\'t know whether we\--and this is one where I don\'t
really know the right answer. I was the Project Director at West Valley
at the time so this truly resides on my watch. Could we have done it
differently? Yes. Should we have done it differently? I really don\'t
know.

BULLEN: Thank you.

ABKOWITZ: Bob?

LUNA: Bob Luna, Board Consultant.

Could you contrast for me the difference between this shipment in which
you decided to go out and survey the rails from the yards to the
destination and the Naval Reactors Program where they say the railroads
do their job and maintain it to FRA requirements. Why should we bother?

WILLIAMS: Okay. First of all, a point of clarification. When we
announced our preferred rail route where we said this is the route that
DOE wants to use for this shipment, that is the major departure between
us and the Navy. The actual inspection of that rail route was done by
the railroads and the FRA, so DOE did not do the actual inspection. That
was done by the professionals. And, I think the Navy did a very good job
of talking about the fact of why there are differences between, say
something like this shipment and what the Navy does.

We, DOE, opted for the particular route that we had here because it was
not a national security shipment. It had everything to do with cleanup
and getting the 125 fuel elements out of an unlined pool so it was
driven by remediation, not by national security. It was a unique
shipment. It was going to be a large movement by anybody\'s standards,
and so those are some of the reasons why the Department opted for this
particular approach.

ABKOWITZ: Thank you, Alice.

The last word today belongs to the Department of Energy, and that will
be provided by Gary Lanthrum. Gary has been formerly introduced earlier
today, and he has a formal talk on the status of DOE Transportation
Planning, but as I indicated in my opening remarks, we\'re also
encouraging him to use this occasion to respond as appropriate to
earlier presentations and discussions that have occurred today.

In his Guide to Stakeholder Interactions\--you may not have seen this.
The print was awfully small, but it is an indication of the sensitivity
to stakeholders, so he is planning on letting everyone have dinner some
time tonight.

LANTHRUM: My challenge is to talk quickly and yet succinctly and
understandably, and Alice set a pretty high target for me to try and
meet. I may go somewhat quickly through some of the slides that are
duplicated. If you miss something because of the speed I try to cover
some of the subjects, let me know. I\'ll be happy to go back.

At the TRB meeting in September I was brand new on the job, and I told
everybody that my real focus was to look at the scope of work and then
to create an organization that could support it. One of the challenges I
had was to reorganize the Office of National Transportation with a
project management focus. I wanted to develop a project logic and assign
project managers that would be responsible for key areas.

I needed to develop an appropriate transportation scope based on the
available budget for this year. That was complicated a bit by the fact
that we under containing resolution for a while and weren\'t really sure
what our budget was going to be. We do have it now. We are moving
forward.

I was committed to get the Transportation Strategic Plan out, which we
did in November. And to begin working with the state regional groups on
substantive issues, not just on general issues talking about how great
the transportation was going to be, but on the\--trying to work into the
details of addressing some of the concerns that they had.

And then to start building the infrastructure necessary to make this
program work. I\'ll just go through the check-marks here. Four out of
the five are essentially under way in good terms. And I\'m just now
beginning the fifth activity, which is to build the transportation
infrastructure.

A quick slide that shows the number of sites that we\'ve got around the
country to ship from. There has been a lot of talk from other presenters
today about the scope of their shipping program. The program that OCRWM
has will be substantially larger, both in total scope and the number of
shipments. Naval Reactors does a lot of work and they do it very well,
and we are taking a close look at the way they\'ve organized. And, to
the extent that their experiences translate to what we\'re going to be
doing, we will try to adopt it.

We paid close attention to what EM is doing, but as Alice indicated,
they haven\'t had the number of spent fuel shipments that we\'re
expected to have to deal with. The discussions made by the Secretary of
Energy have indicated that we could expect somewhere on the order of 175
shipments a year. That\'s roughly two a week.

So it\'s a very significant number of shipments\--actually, pardon me,
it\'s 300 and some-odd shipments a year. Let me get my numbers straight
here. It\'s 130 train shipments and 45 truck shipments, and so it would
be about two a week, roughly.

On the bottom of the slide it does show that there\'s a number of 128
sites around the country that would have spent fuel or high-level waste
that would be moving. That number has decreased from 131, which you
might have heard before. One additional university research reactor has
moved all the spent fuel off. That was Cornell. And so the number of
sites has gone down, but the amount of content that we have to deal with
is still the same. There\'s just been some consolidation of storage.

We talked about the mission before and the focus is on being able to
support safe and secure transportation of the contents that we\'re
responsible for, and that has not changed.

One thing that has gone a little bit more forward, the blue outline is
the overall organization for the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste
Management. What has been added to this is the fact that we\'ve got a
transportation organization now that is broken down by projects. And the
print is really small, but the four projects are basically a national
transportation project, and the project manager there is focusing on
developing the inventory that will be used for all of our shipments.
That\'s the casks and the rolling stock.

There\'s a Nevada Transportation Project that will be responsible for
developing the transportation capabilities infrastructure just in
Nevada, whether it\'s rail or some other mode of transport.

There\'s a Special Projects Project Manager and we\'ve got a whole host
of things we have to deal with on the safeguards and security front, on
the communication and tracking front, and all of those things wind up
being under the Special Projects.

And then I\'ve got an Institutional Program Manager and I make some
subtle distinction between that and the Projects because that\'s going
to be one thing that, as we transition from building the infrastructure
to operations, the institutional program will continue to operate
through that transition period.

On the budget, we did get in OCRWM a fairly full and robust budget for
2004. Of a \$580 million total for the program the national
transportation part of that, or the Office of National Transportation,
got \$63.8, and that\'s broken down with \$44 million for the National
Transportation Program and that reflects the fairly high costs of
starting to acquire assets for that program.

The Nevada Transportation Program has \$18 million scheduled to support
their activities this year. And then overall project management is \$1.8
million.

Under the key activities, and we\'ll skip the rest of this slide because
I will revisit each of those in subsequent slides.

Here\'s an overall view of the budget that\'s gone on with
transportation over the past decade or so, a little under a decade. And
you can see a fairly high funding level back in the mid-90s that dropped
down significantly. And even though it shows some continued level of
funding here, this was for waste acceptance and transportation, which
was the way things were organized in OCRWM in the past, there was
actually no transportation funding during these years. It was all waste
acceptance funding, looking at collecting the data that was needed for
their operations. In 2003 there was a \$10 million dollar budget and
that has bumped up significantly in 2004. Again, that\'s to support the
beginning of our infrastructure build-up.

On the project elements, one of the keys was to organize the work
elements and collaborate with stakeholders. And we have broken things
down into five main projects.

One is the Fleet Acquisition Project, and this is again the cask
procurements or rolling stock procurements. Ian from Cochema talked
earlier today about the fact that we\'re having initial one-on-one
meetings with cask vendors to ask them about ways that they might
suggest that we proceed with cask acquisition. Our goal overall is to
find ways to meet the entire population of materials that we have to
ship. The whole range of contents, and have the vendors propose ways
that we might do that most efficiently and most effectively.

And, we\'re hoping that the experts in the field can come in and propose
some innovative solutions to minimize the amount of infrastructure that
we have to buy as far as different designs. You\'ve heard a couple of
folks say today that for casks you have to have a fairly significant
QA/QC program that is ongoing after you\'ve acquired the assets. The
fewer different designs that we have to deal with, the more simple our
procedures will be for the maintenance program.

And again, those meetings start next week. We would expect the two days
of meetings with the initial set of vendors that expressed an interest
in talking to us to ultimately lead to a draft request for proposal that
would go out in the Federal Register. We would then have
pre-qualification meetings with the vendors or pre-award meetings with
folks, and before our final request for the final RFP would go out, and
then hopefully, by the end of, actually about the middle of the summer
this year, we would expect that the first awards would be made for
conceptual design for casks.

And our general approach is not to try and buy casks right from the
beginning. But to try and keep the competition among the vendors and to
make progress while ultimate decisions on what the configurations of our
initial shipments will be, what the exact fuel is going to be, and where
it\'s going to be coming from.

We would like to start off with conceptual designs to incentivize the
vendor industry to propose a suite of casks that could support all of
our needs. And then from that suite after we get proposals, we would
down-select to a smaller subset that we would actually pursue detailed
design and certification of, and out of that set of answers we would
pursue an additional, again, reduced set that we would actually pursue
for fabrication. But the idea being that we would be able to make
technical progress before a lot of the decisions that go into effect
what we ultimately have to have in place when shipments start to be
made.

We talked a little bit earlier about the Fleet Management Facility
Project. And we call it fleet management rather than maintenance because
it\'s going to be for more than just the maintenance function. There\'s
going to be a fairly significant fleet of both casks and transport
vehicles that we\'ll have to have. Not all of those will be on the road
at all times, so we\'ll have to have a storage area as well as a
maintenance area. And again, we have been doing studies about where this
facility could be or should be located. We\'re getting lots of feedback
from the counties and the affected units of local government, as well as
other folks in the industry that have had some suggestions about where a
facility like this could be located, I\'m expecting that some time this
Spring a decision on location would be made.

Again, that\'s going to be a policy decision as much as it is a
technical decision. And part of the interface for that has been working
with the repository itself to see if there\'s any significant benefit
that should be part of our consideration where the capabilities of this
maintenance facility for transportation might also serve some purpose
for repository.

There\'s a significant amount of operational infrastructure that we\'re
going to have to develop. A lot of folks have talked about TRANSCOM, the
tracking system that Environmental Management uses. And you\'ve heard a
couple of folks talk about the significant upgrades to TRANSCOM that
were made in the early 2000 time frame. It went from a dial-up system
where folks had to pay a long distance phone call to connect to a
web-based system. This still has the security that\'s necessary, but all
the folks that have proper access authority in the corridor states and
tribes do have access to the tracking information for shipments coming
through their lands. And that\'s good. But, by the time we start
shipping in 2010, I suspect there will be a whole lot more that will be
available. There\'s another system that\'s in use by the Department.
It\'s called SECOM, and that\'s the Secure Communications and Tracking
System that the folks that move the nuclear weapons use, and I believe
that\'s the same system that Naval Reactors uses to track their
shipments.

There are some subtle difference between SECOM and TRANSCOM and so
we\'ll be looking at the benefits of both systems.

And we\'ve been talking to the Military Transport Management Command,
MTMC, about tracking systems that they are looking at, so we\'re trying
to figure out what the best technology would be to serve our shipments
beginning in 2010. No final commitments will be made until we get much
closer to actually starting shipments because the tech-nology is
evolving so fast that it would be nice to be able to accommodate as many
of the new innovations that would have benefit as possible before we
actually start shipping.

Another thing that we\'re doing in this regard under the operational
infrastructure as part of the Special Projects Group is looking at cask
vulnerabilities. We\'re participating in a multi-national effort to
assess the threat posed to casks. It\'s a cooperative effort with
France, Germany, Britain and the U. S. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission
is also a participant in this study but DOE has got certainly a vested
interest. And we\'re looking at what the real threats might be out there
as we reassess the design basis threat that we should be able to respond
to, as well as looking at ways that that threat might be mitigated.

And, I\'m trying to think of this one other thing here. I think that
covers the operational infrastructure, at least at this point.

Institutional is something that has been a big focus here, and there has
been a whole range of comments\--I was writing furiously on a little
notepad I\'ve got. There\'s a lot of comments that we\'ve got. It\'s
sometimes difficult when you\'re sitting in an office and you see the
amount of communication that goes out, it\'s easy sometimes to think
that that communication is touching everybody that it needs to. And it
has been very obvious from the comments here that there\'s a long way to
go in making sure that we can cross all those Ts and dot all those Is.

I was out Monday talking to an artist out in\--along the routes that\'s
got a very, very large structure he\'s working on and I was completely
unaware of that sculpture\'s existence until we got a call from the art
foundation that\'s sponsoring it.

And so there\'s not any lack of desire on DOE\'s part to avoid
communication. In many cases we just don\'t know who to communicate
with. And, as we find out more the interested parties, to get people
onto mailing lists and broaden our communication spectrum, there will be
more and more people that will be touched by the long-range plans that
we have. The NEPA mailing list that we have for a ROD that would be
going out, I\'m hoping some time soon, right now has 5,000 names on it.
That\'s a fairly large number of people that get contacted. But there\'s
always the opportunity to grow those lists so that\'s one of the things
we\'ll be looking at.

We\'ve got the Nevada Transportation Project and they will be engaged in
developing whatever infrastructure is necessary in Nevada to support the
transportation decisions that are going to be made in the near future.

One of the challenges I\'ve got is to make sure, not only do we have
integration among the projects that I\'m responsible for, but that those
projects themselves are integrated well with the repository and with
other programs within DOE, both the Naval Reactors Operations and the
Environmental Management Operations. So there\'s a fair amount of
integration that has to go on in addition to developing the basic
infrastructure for the projects that we\'re responsible for.

Under the Fleet Acquisition Project, I\'ve already talked a little bit
about the fact that we\'re having vendor meetings. They are scheduled
for Monday and Tuesday of next week. The first step, though, in the DOE
project management is to establish the mission need, and that was
basically created by the issuance of the final environmental impact
statement and then the site recommendation that went from the President
to Congress, and finally wound up being supported with a congressional
override of the Nevada veto. That basically established the mission need
for developing the infrastructure.

The next step on the process is just to do a lot of our internal looks
at the alternatives analysis. And a number of folks have talked about in
transportation planning you need something that looks like a NEPA
process. Well, for the cask acquisition effort, we have to develop a
cask acquisition strategy that looks at a number of options. Those
options wind up being vetted in a recommendation for the option to
pursue gets made, and that\'s part of what\'s called a CD-1 package.
It\'s a critical decision 1, and we\'re going through the CD-1 review of
our cask acquisition efforts right now. We\'ve had an initial review of
our CD-1 package with the Management Engineering Group in DOE and we
expect to submit the final package some time this Spring.

We\'ll also be getting input from stakeholders in the cask industry as I
had indicated. But it\'s not just the vendors that we\'ll be looking for
input from. As we talk to folks around the country we\'ve had a number
of meetings with the state regional groups already. We\'ve met with the
Southern States Energy Board.

In November just after the strategic plan came out, there was a
meeting\--I\'ll get it a little bit later I think, but the Midwest and
the Eastern Regional Conference of the Council of State Governments, we
met with them in Chicago in December, and next week there\'s a meeting
with the Western Interstate Energy Board in San Diego. We\'re getting
input from the states through these regional groups as they\'ve got
input on what our mode and cask configuration ought to be.

As I mentioned, that our initial procurements will be for conceptual
designs. We want to get ideas about how to move the process forward
without locking ourselves into a final procurement commitment.

We have done a lot of work on documenting our project scope, our
schedules and our resource requirements. And that has been this whole
approach of doing project ties to the management of the transportation
development effort. We\'ve got, I think at the TRB meeting in September,
John Arthur had a piece of what he called his decision logic diagram for
the repository, and there were a number of activities on there with
milestones. That\'s becoming a more important internal management tool,
and since the September meeting the transportation lines on that effort
have been filled in with a considerable amount of additional detail and
milestone data.

Also part of the Fleet Acquisition Project is our Rolling Stock
Acquisition. That\'s a little further behind. In fact, when we started
developing our CD 1 package, we initially tried to include both the
casks and the rolling stock. The rolling stock situation was not nearly
as well vetted as the casks. We\'ve divided the two now. We\'re pursuing
the casks before we do the development of our rolling stock, partly
because a lot of the decisions that are going to affect our rolling
stock acquisition haven\'t been made yet. Until the decision on whether
to use mostly rail or mostly truck is made it\'s pretty hard to tell
whether we should be buying truck trailers or rail cars. So some of the
decisions that our predecessors do to moving out on the rolling stock
haven\'t been made yet.

And we are working on that CD 1 package.

The other thing we\'re looking about is the impact, as Bob Fronczak and
others talked about, this new AAR standard for rail cars. There was some
pictures shown of a car that\'s being developed by Trinity Manufacturing
for the private fuel storage system, and they indicated the car had been
built and some of the model testing had been done and the static
testing, but the dynamic testing was on hold until some decisions were
made about what the status of that actual project was.

That\'s just one of the car designs that we would need, though, would be
the load-bearing car. The standard applies equally to the buffer cars
and to the security car that we would have in any train construct that
we might use. And, how we might acquire either rights to existing
designs from somebody like Trinity or start developing our own designs
is something we\'re doing a lot of thinking about.

It\'s probable that our initial approach is going to be to say that we
are interested in the AAR standard design. We would like to have
proposals from, again, the industry on ways to meet the design. And
since Trinity is the only company out there that\'s done any work on it,
they would be a prime competitor, but I suspect that there would be
others that would step up to the plate and might have different
approaches or different answers to meeting the standard than the one
that Trinity has come up with.

On the fleet management facility, we\'re looking at the functional
requirements, the size of the cask fleet. The maintenance requirements
for casks are outlined pretty thoroughly, 10 CFR 71, Subpart H. That\'s
the QA/QC requirements that the RC establishes. And, in those
requirements, it\'s pretty easy to see what we\'ll have to do with each
of the casks we have to have.

The other thing that we\'re looking at very closely is trying to model
the time it takes to get a cask from a storage facility, wherever it\'s
located, to a shipper, how long would it take the shipper to load the
cask, how long it would take to get enough casks loaded to construct
either a train or a set of truck shipments, how long would it take those
shipments to get from the shipper to the receiver at Yucca Mountain, how
long it would take Yucca Mountain to unload the cask, and how long it
takes to return the cask from Yucca Mountain to the maintenance
facility, and how long it takes to do the maintenance. And that cycle of
looking at the flow of our assets is important to understand how many
assets we need to have. If the casks are tied up for significant periods
of time, either in loading or unloading or in the maintenance aspects,
then the size of the fleet that we would ultimately have to have would
have to increase over a model of our operations that might shorten the
durations at both the shipper receiver and the maintenance facilities.
There\'s a lot of work going into assessing what the flow of casks would
be and that\'s going to drive, to some extent, the size of the facility,
both in terms of storage pads and in terms of maintenance bays.

We have similar challenges with the rolling stock, although for the
rolling stock we don\'t anticipate doing heavy maintenance and repairs
of any rolling stock at this facility. It would be only for the ongoing
routine maintenance that we would be targeting.

Inventory control and inspection, that ties into this whole idea of
modeling the flow of our assets through the operational system. We are
looking at the drivers on the acquisition strategy that the maintenance
facility would have. Again, that\'s primarily on the number or quantity
of casks that we would need of any particular design to make sure we
could support the operational desires of the program.

Again, it\'s the same issue of capacity and turn-around time. And we\'ve
done a fair amount of looking at what the costs and benefits would be
associated with where the facility would be located. If we do build a
facility outside the land withdrawal area, a separate environmental
impact statement would be required for it, and that is part of the
decision-making process that would have to be considered before a siting
location decision is made.

We are working with the repository about the extent to which this
maintenance facility might support some of their needs as well as
transportation needs. And after we\'ve gone through most of that we will
prepare our acquisition strategy package for the fleet rolling stock.

We are holding the integration and technical exchange meetings with the
Yucca Mountain staff. As I indicated, we had our first major meeting
back in December. And our next meeting is tentatively scheduled for the
week of February 9th.

This is an extract that comes from data that was presented in the final
EIS, and it shows largely what\'s driving our preference that was stated
in the EIS, for a mostly rail scenario for our mode. If you have a
mostly rail scenario and you\'ve got a target of roughly 3,000 metric
tons per year through-put to the repository, with the capacity we
anticipate for each rail cask and with an estimate of three casks per
train, you wind up with about 130 trains a year, and about 45 trucks a
year. Again, that\'s a very wild guesstimate right now because we don\'t
know what the specifics of the material that would be shipped initially
are. But that\'s a ball-park estimate based on current cask design
capabilities and operational assessments.

There was a lot of talk earlier about a holistic approach to rolling out
the transportation program. I\'ve got two main areas I\'m concerned
about right now. The first is the procurements of my infrastructure and
this just shows some of the considerations we have to take into account.
For the size of our fleet, both for casks and rolling stock, we
certainly are getting vendor input. That\'s starting next week.

The facility capabilities, and that\'s\--a facility capability isn\'t a
very broad construct. What the shipper sites, both the commercial power
plants and the DOE sites, what they have in the way of lifting capacity,
ingress and egress capabilities for transportation, other basic
infrastructure capabilities that the facilities have is going to drive
some of the considerations I have to take into account for procuring
casks and rolling stock.

The maintenance facility, the capabilities of that for through-put is
going to drive the decision.

There\'s a lot of talk about risk mitigation strategies, and again,
that\'s in the context of the design basis threat that we feel that we
have to address. And that will be something that evolves over time.

And waste acceptance schedules. Now, out of all these things that drive
our needs, the facility capabilities is something that I don\'t control.
The waste acceptance schedules is something that I don\'t control. And
those are probably two of the largest drivers about the size and
configuration of the fleet that I have to procure. And that\'s part of
why we\'re trying to pursue a strategy that would let us move forward
technically without making ultimate commitments about what the actual
configuration of the materials we would buy would be.

On the operational drivers, there are certainly regulatory requirements.
We will have to have casks that are certified by the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission. There are other regulatory drivers that would affect our
operations. Those are going to affect the operational planning.

The operational protocols. A couple of folks, I think the Naval Reactors
folks mentioned the protocols, the DOE manual that talks about how
shipments are made by the Department. That\'s one of the areas that
drives into us. But also in there the stakeholder needs routing
decisions that would ultimately get made based on interactions with our
stakeholder community and where we go with the emergency preparedness
operational planning.

We\'ve got equipment and facility limitations on operations. We\'ve got
enroute security questions that haven\'t been completely answered yet,
and we\'ve got interaction and integration with other DOE elements for
consistency. I don\'t think anybody would like to see different
operational requirements or significantly different operational
requirements for spent fuel shipments that are done by EM as opposed to
spent fuel shipments that are done by OCRWM. So we\'re trying to make
sure that whatever is done is done in the context of the protocols and
that there is as much a uniform approach as possible within the
constraints of the fact that some of the shipments the Department does
are covered in our national security while others are not.

This is a slide, I think you\'ve seen a number of times before in a
number of different contexts, probably, but it gets back to the heart of
the fact that what OCRWM will be doing is not completely new; that there
is a significant history and good safety record for shipping spent fuel.
There has been roughly 3,000 shipments in the U. S. over the past 30
years. And our numbers may not completely jibe with the Naval Reactors
on the 738 containers shipped, and over a million miles since 1957, but
again, it\'s a significant safety record.

Internationally, there\'s an average of 650 shipments per year in France
and Britain. Although that number seems a little bit low based on the
information that Ian presented earlier today for Cochema. And so we may
have to revise that upwards.

All the changes, though, so far have indicated that the experience is
growing and that experience has been successful as far as the
transportation of spent nuclear fuel. We will continue in OCRWM to
review the experience and the lessons learned from other programs and as
we build our operational infrastructure make sure that we tap into that
as much as possible.

On the security we will, and we had a commitment for some time to work
with state regional groups and tribes in developing approaches to
securing the shipments. And we\'re exploring a number of options
currently. I know there were some challenges with the shipment out of
Oak Ridge that EM did last year because of the escort requirements.

Very, very early in the planing process there was consideration to using
essentially rent-a-cops. But if you\'re required to have armed escorts,
the only way that you can use a private security force is for them to
get weapons permits from every jurisdiction they would pass through
along the way. That\'s a nightmarish proposition if you\'re looking at a
couple of shipments a week to try and get that level of permitting
across the country becomes basically unmanageable.

Now, there\'s significant experience, both with the Naval Reactors and
with the Office of Secure Transportation under the National Nuclear
Security Administration, the NNSA folks, they have federal agents that
they employ to protect their shipments. And as federal agents, they have
arrest authority, their weapons permits are good in all states around
the country, and that\'s one of the options that we\'re looking at, as
well as a host of other things that might be possible to provide the
level of security that I expect will be necessary to 2010 when we would
start shipping.

We\'re also tapping in to the Department of Homeland Security, and our
last meeting with our international partners looking at cask
vulnerabilities. We did pull DHS in. That was a first substantive
involvement with them, but we will expand on that as we move forward in
operational planning as well.

The routing issues. For highway, there\'s been a lot of highway
shipments, particularly within the Environmental Management Program for
both the transuranic waste and, to a lesser extent, other fuel
shipments. The DOT requirements are pretty explicit for highway; that
the routes are selected to reduce the time in transit, that the vehicles
operate over a preferred routing system that includes interstate
highways, including the bypasses and beltways that are available. But
that states and tribes may designate alternate routes in addition to or
in lieu of the interstate system.

There\'s also allowance to go from a shipping site to the interstate
system, and from the interstate system to a receiving site that would
get you off of what would normally be preferred routes.

For rail it\'s a little bit different. The reason that states and tribes
have a lot of latitude in choosing routes that are on the highways,
those shipments go through their lands. The property is either tribal
property or it\'s state property that it crosses. With rail, the
shipments are on private property. The railroads own that land. And so
it\'s a little bit of a different situation. And if you go with the
standard industry practices for rail shipment, you have the same basic
guidance where they try to minimize time, distance, they try to minimize
the number of carriers, the number of interchange point. They try to
maximize the use of best track, which loosely correlates to using the
interstate highway system for highway shipments. But there\'s not the
latitude for states and tribes to contribute to routing decisions. You
basically tell the industry, this is the site we want it to be picked up
at, this is the site we want it to be delivered to. Do the right thing.
There are other options for influencing those decisions, but if you use
standard industry routing practices, this is the procedure that would be
followed.

It\'s a map here that has been shown a couple of times during the day in
several different presentations that shows the routes that were in the
final EIS.

When the corridor preference came out there has been some challenge to
whether DOE had a rationale for stating a preference for one corridor
over another. That rationale was in the notice of intent, in the Federal
Register notice, and it did indicate that the primary guidance was to
minimize land use conflicts. And we had a number of comments that were
contributed at\--based on the final environmental impact statement.

The State of Nevada and the City of Las Vegas have been unwavering in
their opposition to any shipments through the Las Vegas valley and so we
took that into consideration, understanding that any attempt to choose
either the southern routes, either the Jean, down in here, or the valley
modified route, both of those largely would go through what could be
loosely looked at as the Las Vegas valley. The challenges that were
issued there would result probably in land use conflicts that would
inevitably lead to litigation and would delay our ability to move
forward.

There has been a number of folks that have talked about the advantages
of using what\'s called the Caliente Chalk Mountain route that would go
actually through the Nevada Test and Training Range and through the
Nellis Range. The Air Force made as much noise about that not being a
viable option as the State of Nevada and the City of Las Vegas made
about routes that would go through Las Vegas Valley. They made it clear
in no uncertain terms that they could take us on and lick us if we tried
to move them through that area.

That left basically two options left to us. The Caliente route that
comes in from the southeastern part of Nevada and wraps around the
Nevada Test and Training Range to the repository, or the Carlin route
that comes in from the north. And then from the northwest corner of the
Nevada Test and Training Range is concurrent with the Caliente route. Of
the two routes, the Caliente corridor had the fewest land use conflicts.
There was more private land that would have been impacted by this route
than there was by the Caliente. So it was a fairly straightforward
guidance that directed our stated preference.

We did, in our Federal Register notice and in the letter to the State of
Nevada, ask for comments that would pertain to an ultimate decision that
would be made on a route and a record of decision, and we\'re still
waiting for input.

Now, recently, we started getting I think some comments in from a number
of folks. We\'ve been getting calls from, again, the Air Force and the
Department of Defense trying to clarify areas of the Nevada Test and
Training Range up around Goldfield and down further around Scottys
Junction. We\'re working with them on those, but they will be
accommodated through the public process if in fact we do select rail as
our mode\--or mostly rail as our mode of transport. There will be a
fairly lengthy process for doing an EIS for that rail alignment. And the
Air Force, private parties that would be affected, there\'s a
significant opportunity for influencing the actual detailed routing of
that rail within the corridor.

Here\'s a comparison, roughly, of the five corridors. And actually, if
you go to the EIS for the repository, the final EIS, if you look at just
purely environmental factors, the overall environmental ranking for the
five corridors did not make any significant\--did not provide a
significant driver for a decision one way or the other. The overall
environmental ranking for disturbance, for effect, was pretty much even,
and to the noise level for the difference between the five corridors.

The lifecycle cost certainly is a big difference, and a number of people
have pointed that out; that the range in 2000 was from \$880 million for
Caliente down to as low as \$283 million for construction costs for
Valley Modified.

In our Federal Register notice for our preference, we addressed that
issue as well, indicating that the anticipated damages for not picking
up fuel and starting our shipments in 2010, there have been a number of
estimates and claims from the private sector on the costs that they
would incur and the damages that they have claimed. The private sector
is claiming damages on the order of a half a billion dollars a year. EM
in an earlier estimate looking at the facility costs, if their
high-level waste started to be picked up in 2010, estimated a capital
cost of \$500 million for facility costs just to provide ongoing storage
capability for these wastes.

And so, looking at the impact of not starting to do shipments in 2010,
we\'re looking at on the ball-park of a billion dollars for the first
year and half a billion dollars each year after that. And that makes a
strong argument that if you pick a corner that would be cheap to
construct, like Valley Modified and yet had significant land use
conflicts in trying to exercise that corridor, the delays in being able
to actually start construction could easily wind up costing much more
than picking a route where the construction costs would be higher, but
where you anticipate the land use conflicts to be less.

That said, we fully understand that any decision is going to have an
impact, and that we will\--as we go through an alignment EIS process if
rail is selected, there will be every effort made to accommodate the
folks that would be impacted by decisions that are made as the actual
alignment itself is plotted out.

This captures the sequence of events that, on December 23rd there were a
number of phones calls, faxes and other communications made that a
Federal Register notice was coming out. That notice was published on
December 29th, and on the same Federal Register notice was the
publishment of a land withdrawal to protect the lands in which we, or at
least the corridor that we had selected, from any other encroachments,
and the land withdrawal itself only prohibits additional action on that
land. Even though the corridor was stipulated as a half mile on either
side of the center line for the existing alignments within the EIS, that
withdrawal was only for the BLM portions, and it\'s fully anticipated
that as we go through the actual alignment process, the amount of land
ultimately affected would be considerably less. We needed a fairly wide
swath so that there was some flexibility on the exact alignment of the
corridor if in fact rail was chosen, so there was some latitude and we
weren\'t locked into a very narrow statement of where the actual track
would be built. And so we want to keep as much flexibility as we can as
we get into the process, as we enter the process if we wind up choosing
rail. The actual widths of land affected would be considerably less than
the portion that was withdrawn.

The next steps are to issue a mode and, as appropriate, a Corridor
Record of Decision. And I say, as appropriate, because if we don\'t
select mostly rail then there\'s no need for any corridor selection in
Nevada. It would be back to a discussion of highway routing or heavy
haul routing.

After that, if we do select mostly rail there would be an additional
NEPA process. We anticipate that process would be approximately 24
months long, but there would be another notice of intent that would be
published In that notice of intent there would be a scoping period that
tries to get input from the public and everybody that would be affected
to how we might scope the process for dealing with, ultimately, rail
alignment. And we would anticipate that would start some time in the
next couple of months if we can get the decisions made. That\'s
something that we\'re working on diligently now.

On the institutional project, we have the four-state regional groups
that we deal with. With one exception it\'s the same groups that EM
deals with. That one exception, as Ralph Smith indicated, works with the
Western Governors Association. OCRWM deals with the Western Interstate
Energy Board. The two are tightly joined at the hip. A lot of the same
people are on both the WIEB and on the WGA groups, and so there\'s good
communication between the two and that\'s not a significant deviation.

But the four groups were invited, the four groups that OCRWM deals with,
were invited back for a meeting with the Under Secretary of the
Department of Energy back in November. That was when we rolled out the
strategic plan, which, as a couple of folks have noted, is largely an
institutional plan.

And in that meeting a commitment was made to work substantively with the
state regional groups on issues that they have, and open the door for
vendor-proposed projects that would move both their desires forward as
well as helping to better inform the OCRWM decision-making process on
development or transportation infrastructure. We talked about that at
the meeting of the Midwest and the Eastern Regional Conference of the
Council of State Governments back in December and I\'m hoping that some
project will be proposed in the near future, but there are a number of
areas where we could collaborate on developing both the decision-making
process and the infrastructure necessary, and I\'m hopeful that that\'s
going to be successful.

And these are some bullets that address to that.

We did get the transportation strategic plan issued. There was a meeting
actually the day after the meeting with the Under Secretary with the
Southern States Energy Board. We did have a December meeting with the
Midwestern Office and the Eastern Regional Conference, the Council of
State Governments, and there is a meeting next week with the Western
Interstate Energy Board.

What our strategic plan did was that it fulfilled a commitment by the
Secretary to get a plan out in 2003. It does again reiterate what the
transportation mission is. It commits to developing a safe, secure and
efficient transportation system and the real goal is ultimately to
operate in a way that the public can rely on the system without
question. And that would be approached through three goals. And one is
the open collaborative planning process, and based on the comments
today, I understand that there\'s a fair amount of work that needs to be
done to make sure that we reach out to all the affected parties.

To develop a safe and secure system and the related infrastructure based
on that collaborative planning. And then, to complete the transportation
system development and validation in time to begin operations in 2010.
And I think that\'s all achievable.

We are talking to other DOE programs about their past experience. OCRWM
did participate in the lessons learned meeting that was held in Las
Vegas for the EM shipment out of West Valley. There\'s going to be
ongoing participation with decisions that are made both in the EM side
and even Naval Reactors, despite the fact that they are working with
national security shipments has been very generous in sharing some of
their planning activities and the approaches that they\'ve got to them.
There has been a lot of discussion about the relative merits of
dedicated trains and what drives the decision-making process in both the
Naval Reactors and in the Environmental Management Program.

OCRWM is committed to working with all the interested parties. That\'s
not just the states and regional groups and tribes, but also individual
stakeholders. We do have a meeting that we co-sponsor with EM, was held
last time in August of last year. It\'s the Transportation External
Coordinator\'s Working Group. It\'s a chance to bring a lot of people
with different disciplines from both industry, the private sector and
government sectors in to talk about transportation issues. There will be
a number of other meetings that go on. I believe next Thursday there\'s
a tentative meeting\--in fact, I think it\'s a lot more than tentative
now, with the affected units and local government out at the Yucca
Mountain project. I\'ll be back in Las Vegas to meet with folks for that
discussion. We are open to other meetings on an ad hoc basis with
interested parties and groups, and the challenge is just going to make
sure that we reach out and identify all the groups that could be
affected and get enough communication to them so that they can provide
their input. And that\'s not easy. There\'s a lot of people out there
that are affected by it, particularly when you look at the national
spectrum of where our shipments could ultimately go.

One of the benefits of this being a program with a repository that will
ultimately have an operating license issued by the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission is that there is a culture of compliance that\'s associated
with going through that certification process now, that licensing
process. And even though the transportation piece of OCRWM is not going
to be licensed, per se, or certified, per se, by the NRC, being under a
management chain that has to develop a culture of compliance is
affecting the things that we\'re doing in the transportation arena. And
we will be part of that same corporate culture, and I\'m hoping that
that will help build confidence as we develop the operational details
with folks. And I know when we issued the Transportation Strategic Plan,
there are a lot of people that didn\'t want to see an Institutional
Plan, and didn\'t want to see a Strategic Plan.

What a lot of folks want to see is an Operational Plan. They want to
know what\'s going to be done, when it\'s going to be done, where it\'s
going to be done, how it\'s going to be done. But we can\'t do that by
ourselves. We can\'t just develop behind closed doors an operational
plan that we issue and then try to defend with the rest of the world.
What we would prefer to do is to develop an operational set of
approaches with our interested stakeholders so that when we do announce
something it already has a certain level of buy-in and acceptance.
That\'s certainly my goal.

The Institutional Program Activities, we\'ll build on an established
regional planning process. There was a lot of work that went on before
OCRWM got back into the transportation business. We will participate in
and support the Transportation External Coordinators Working Group. We
are working cooperatively to develop transportation, institutional and
communications approaches. We will work together on the routing
assessment and the methodology for establishing routes. I don\'t think
the routes themselves will come out any time soon, but the process for
selecting routes and the criteria for selecting routes is something that
we can have substantive discussions on.

We will work on identifying and summarizing existing emergency response
capabilities. Back at the last TRB meeting in Amargosa Valley, I had
discussion with a couple of folks from the smaller counties in the
state, and as was indicated today, a lot of emergency responders are
volunteers. And if those volunteers have to take time off from work to
attend FEMA training and possibly now Department of Homeland Security
training, if OCRWM puts additional training on top of that that\'s not
well-integrated, it becomes a burden rather than a benefit. And our goal
is to make sure that whatever we develop in terms of emergency response
planning and training through the grants to the states, is integrated
well with what currently exists in the states.

And that was one of the activities that I had suggested to both the
Midwest and the Eastern Regional Conference in the December meeting was
a good project would be to develop assessment of what currently is in
place, what in that process works, what doesn\'t work, and to build on
that rather than to start from scratch in trying to build something just
for OCRWM that\'s not well integrated.

Along with that the approach to 180(c) funding. A couple of folks had
alluded to the draft 180(c) funding report that came out in the 90s. And
in that it proposed coming out about four years in advance of the
initial shipment time with the initial planning grants. I think that
might still be a good planning time frame, but again, we\'re open to
input from the state regional groups and the tribes about how we might
proceed and if a more accelerated schedule would be appropriate, would
be more than happy to address that.

This goes a little bit more into the Nuclear Waste Police Act. It does
require the Department to provide technical assistance and funds.
There\'s a bit of a difference between what we are required to do under
the Act, and what EM has done. EM is actually charted to, not only to
provide, but actually to conduct the training.

And so, Ralph Smith and the folks at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plan have
been out doing a road show around the country. OCRWM\'s charter under
the act is to provide grants to the states and tribes.

And the states and tribes will be responsible for how that funding is
rolled out through their lands and with their affected groups.

We will work as proactively as we can to make sure that that\'s
well-integrated with the local communities, but that\'s really not the
OCRWM call. And under the Act it\'s something that\--it\'s a bit of a
challenge, because again, the states do have decision-making authority
in that regard.

Again, the original proposal for the policy and procedure, the draft
versions came out in \'98. We\'ve gotten lots of feedback from folks
that would participate in this effort to not start from scratch, to dust
off what was already done, to clean it up and to revisit that as a
starting point rather than starting from scratch, and we\'re happy to do
that.

We will work with the state regional groups and tribes. And again, the
strong goal is to make sure that we do a good assessment of what\'s
currently in place, what does and what doesn\'t work about it and build
on that rather than starting from scratch.

And we will finalize our policy and procedures based on this ground work
and do it as a bottoms up effort rather than a top down effort, which is
often the mistake that\'s made in large projects.

Our communication is going to be two-way. We will try to communicate
with the affected parties early and often. Again, to the extent that we
know who all the affected parties are. And that\'s going to be a
constant challenge is to make sure that we have done everything we can
to reach out and identify new players that might want to be involved now
that were not involved in the past.

We will build on our past experiences and the lessons learned. We\'re
analyzing both the successes and the challenges. There\'s lessons to be
learned both in the positive and the negative. Both will be taken into
account. And, we will work with all the stakeholders in moving the
process forward.

The selection of transportation routes. If it\'s highway shipments,
there\'s a very clear process for how routing would be developed and
deployed. If it\'s rail routing, the process is not as clear as far as
the role that states and tribes would have in making routing decisions.
Again, if it\'s rail routing, we will use industry practices. And we
would charter or contract or work through tenders with the railroads to
pick up at one place and deliver at another place. The railroads do have
industry practices that mirror the DOT requirements for highway
transport, but it\'s a different process as far as the amount of input
that\'s allowed from the states and tribes.

We will be looking at the emergency response planning and our
operational practices.

Here\'s a brief look at some of the projects and the priorities that
we\'re working on in 2004, 5, and 2006 and beyond. We\'re still heavily
involved in assessing what our infrastructure needs are going to be in
2004. Looking at maintaining and expanding, possibly, the cooperative
agreement activities that we fund. Developing our acquisition strategy.
The actual procurements won\'t go very far this year, but also paying a
lot of attention to the interface with the repository.

In 2005, we would transition more from the acquisition strategy to more
actual procurements, both for casks and for rolling stock. We expect to
expand on looking at the existing infrastructure capabilities at the
shipping sites, both the DOE shipping sites and the utilities. Working
with the SRGs, that\'s the state regional groups, on projects that they
bring to the table that would help further their needs as well as
develop the approach that OCRWM would take. And developing any needed
Nevada transportation infrastructure will be big focal points in 2005.

And, 2006 and beyond, we\'ll be transitioning slowly from primarily
building the infrastructure to moving into operational planning and
operational agreements with all the affected parties. That\'s the rough
layout of the program.

Again, just a quick summary that I committed last September to
reorganizing the Office of National Transportation with a Project
Management focus. We\'ve done that. Developing a project logic and
assigning project managers. That project has gone quite a long ways
towards completion. The decision logic diagram that John Arthur
maintains does have a whole lot more milestones for transportation now.
And we have issued the Transportation Strategic Plan. We have begun with
the state regional groups on some substantive issues and we\'ve
challenged them to come forward with projects that can help move the
process forward. We have stated a preference for the Caliente corridor
with Carlin as the backup.

And in a NEPA process typically what\'s done, as you go into a NEPA
effort, you analyze a range of alternatives that could support what
you\'re trying to do. Typically at the end of the NEPA process when you
issue your final EIS, you frequently come up with your preferred
alternative and then at some later point you make your record of
decision.

In the final EIS for the repository, when that was published the
preference for mode was stated in the EIS and it was for mostly rail.
But no preference was stated for corridor. And, we felt it was
appropriate to follow along with traditional NEPA process to state our
preference for corridor before final decisions for either mode or
corridor were made.

And that\'s pretty much it. Questions?

ABKOWITZ: Gary, thank you very much. That was a lot of material briskly
delivered and well received.

We\'re going to have questions, I\'m sure. So if you will bear with us
as we go through those. Before I turn it over to the Board I do have a
question from the audience that I would like to ask you first.

You mentioned that in the DOE Federal Register this notice of
preference, and carefully used that word as opposed to notice of intent,
and that you asked for comments. And it has been pointed out that a
close reading of the Federal Register notice does not indicate the DOE
specifically requesting comments. And so, the question that has been
brought forward here is whether DOE has asked for comments in the notice
and what they would do with them and why this was the notice of
preference instead of the notice of intent.

LANTHRUM: Well, it was a notice of preference because that\'s what we
do. We issued a preference for corridor. And, I thought I had indicated
that we had communicated with the State of Nevada in the letter to the
Governor asking for any comments that they would have in this regard.
The notice of preference that came out in the Federal Register did not
ask specifically for comments. It did indicate that there would be no
less than a 30-day period between when the preference was stated and an
actual decision would be made. And comments have come in based on that
allusion, but there was no specific request for comments.

ABKOWITZ: So we\'re not formally in a comment period then?

LANTHRUM: No, we\'re not formally in a comment period.

When we issue a notice of intent if a record of decision comes out for
mostly rail, that would be followed up with a notice of intent for
conducting a rail EIS. And, we would enter into a period then of doing
the scoping process, which would be a 30-day period of getting input on
the scoping\--the scope of the rail alignment EIS. And that would be
more like a comment period.

ABKOWITZ: Thank you. We\'ll start with Dave Duquette.

DUQUETTE: Duquette, Board.

I\'m looking at your time line a little bit, and if you want to start
shipping by rail in 2010, that means

you\'ve got to start building in 2006 because it\'s 46 to 48 months to
build a line. Your request for license application is going in no
earlier than December 2004, and even that may be delayed. I would be
surprised if the NRC likes it 100 percent. So I can see a delay with
asking you\--asking you, the DOE, for more information. And that could
stretch out for some period of time. What are you going to do if it
stretches out past 2006?

LANTHRUM: Well, I would fully expect it will stretch out beyond 2006.
This schedule would require start of rail construction before
construction authorization for the facility. And that\'s a decision,
it\'s a policy decision that hasn\'t been made. We haven\'t entered into
discussions about that. And I don\'t think it is the right time.
There\'s a whole lot more information that will be available as we get
close to \'06 about whether pre-CA construction for a rail line would be
appropriate or not. And I don\'t think it\'s a decision that needs to be
made now, but I have made it very clear with our project planning that
if we\'re going to have rail available in 2010, it would require pre-CA
start of construction. And if we don\'t start construction of the rail
line before then, there would be essentially a day for day slip when
rail could be available as opposed to when it would be available if you
did start in the 2006 time frame.

DUQUETTE: Duquette, Board. Just one other comment.

This was brought up by the local officials from the counties. Who is
going to own the railroad? Or the rail line.

LANTHRUM: Haven\'t determined that yet. There are a whole bunch of
issues associated with operations that have not been determined yet.
Back a year and a half ago, in the Fall, there was an effort, an initial
request for a proposal for a transportation integration contractor. That
was then pulled back off the street. That\'s one of the options that\'s
being considered. There\'s a lot of options that could address how that
rail line would be operated. You could contract with a number of rail
operators short line and others that would perhaps be interested, but
those decisions haven\'t been made. And there\'s a lot of work to be
done on decisions on scope.

Again, since we don\'t know what the actual scope of the initial
shipping program is going to be, it\'s premature to talk, having
discussions with folks about who would be interested in operating. The
volume of work that we will be doing, the number of shipments, it\'s a
big deal for the Department, but for overall transportation it\'s a very
small scope of work. And, that\'s going to be one of the challenges as
we look for operators that would be actually interested in taking care
of the day-to-day activities.

There\'s a whole bunch of questions along that line with the, not just
the operation of the rail line, but operation of the maintenance
facility, where we try to do that with an M & O contractor or have a
special contract just for that facility. All those questions will be
answered somewhere further down the line as we get a little better
informed about what the scope of work is going to be.

ABKOWITZ: Dan Bullen?

BULLEN: Bullen, Board. Could we go to Slide 9, please? The question that
I have basically deals with the procurement of casks. And I\'m assuming
that you\'re going to have essentially already NRC-certified casks for
all of your fleet?

LANTHRUM: We have to use an NRC-certified cask. That\'s part of the
Nuclear Waste Policy Act.

BULLEN: I guess I\'m a little bit confused by the initial procurements
for conceptual designs are expected during this calendar year. Aren\'t
those designs already complete?

LANTHRUM: No. There are certified casks available out there, but the
casks that are available currently don\'t support all of our needs. We
anticipate some brand new designs from scratch would be required to
support our shipping program.

BULLEN: Bullen, Board.

I understand that, but will you also be procuring designs that are
already complete? I mean there are more feasible and workable casks out
there that you\--

LANTHRUM: There are. That\'s part of the feedback we want to get from
the cask vendor industry. As they come in and talk to us they will
hopefully have good advice about what would be an efficient suite of
casks that would support our needs, and if that would be made up of some
casks that currently exist.

There\'s actually three types of tasks that we\'ve thought about.
There\'s casks that already exist that are already certified that might
support some of our needs. There\'s casks that already exist that could
have minor physical or licensing modifications made that could support
more of our needs. And there\'s casks that could be designed from
scratch. And that range and that mix is something we\'ll talk to the
cask vendors about, about what their recommendations are, how to move
forward most efficiently.

BULLEN: Bullen, Board.

This is a much easier decision after a record of decision on the mode is
completed. Is that not correct?

LANTHRUM: Well, right. Well, the initial discussions with the cask
vendors on these suite of casks is going to be here\'s the run of
material we have to move. What are your recommendations of how best to
move it with casks? And with either of the mode decisions that are
pending, whether we go with mostly rail or mostly truck, the option is
there for the other mode to still be used. And so we would expect,
regardless of what ultimate decision is made on mode, you could buy some
rail and some truck casks. And certainly from a conceptual design
standpoint it would be viable to move forward. And, as we make a
decision, the mix of the fleet of casks will certainly become clearer,
but I think in any case there will be need for some of each type.

BULLEN: Thank you.

ABKOWITZ: I have a couple of questions I would like to ask you. If we
could go to Slide 21 for just a moment.

The second bullet says OCRWM will work with interested parties through a
collaborative planning process before developing specific policies and
procedures and making transportation decisions. And then on Slide 24 you
say communication will be two-way, early and often, and there\'s some,
certainly, intimations of that type of dialog throughout your
presentation.

And yet, I contrast that with the information that you put out or the
DOE put out and the Bureau of Land Management put out on what was
essentially Christmas Eve and then right before New Years. And also I
hear discussion from you about how the mode and corridor selection or
decision may be made as early as two months from now. How do you respond
to someone who will, you know, question whether or not DOE is prepared
to walk the talk?

LANTHRUM: It\'s a challenge, but we have had significant input from the
states and from the counties. The EIS process, there were comments that
were made. There have been a number of comments made. Bob Halstead gave
a presentation in NAREG last summer in which they came out strongly in
favor of a mostly rail scenario. There are a number of comments on the
record on both the mode and the corridor options that are available to
us. I don\'t think there is a lot new to be gained, but we do have an
open process. We did give the letter to the State of Nevada on\--again,
it was with the actual announcement, but we asked them for any germane
input on the process before we would do an actual record of decision.
We\'ve not gotten any additional feedback even though we\'ve requested
it.

Our primary access for dealing with the states is through the state
regional groups. We don\'t anticipate in most cases having significant
one-on-one discussions with the states. And we do have our ongoing
meetings with the state regional groups. We expect them to bring their
state perspectives to those meetings. Those are open discussions.
There\'s lots of opportunity there.

We are meeting with the AUG members next week here at the Yucca Mountain
project.

Can we do more? There\'s always an opportunity to do more. Have we
gotten input? Yes, I believe we\'ve gotten input.

ABKOWITZ: Abkowitz, Board.

So then I guess my interpretation of that answer is that the lowest
common denominator from the standpoint of DOE\'s interest in state and
local input on transportation planning issues are the state regional
associations, the four-state regional associations. Is that correct?

LANTHRUM: That\'s our primary means of interacting with the states.

ABKOWITZ: Okay, thank you. Priscilla?

NELSON: Nelson, Board.

I want to ask a question about how the internal organization of the
project is evolving now that the Office of Science and Technology is
funded. How would you expect our office to interact with that office?
Because I know markedly that they had no projects that bore directly on
your activities, that I could see.

LANTHRUM: There are a number of projects\--

NELSON: Will it be a force for you?

LANTHRUM: Yes, they are. We are funding a number of projects that were
recommended by them, but since it\'s funding the transportation is
providing, it\'s not on the radar screen as a Science and Technology
project. If it\'s coming out of their funding pot, it\'s a Science and
Technology project. We\'re working on burnup credit for high burnup
fuels. That\'s was a project that they recommended that we might
undertake in Transportation. There are a number of things that they\'ve
come to us and recommended, and we are funding a substantial number of
those through the laboratories this year.

NELSON: Nelson, Board.

What\'s your understanding if they came to you and said, these things
need to be done and you should do them? Presumably there\'s something
that could be done using their terminology on a zero to three year
vision sort of window. But for their longer term vision, would you
expect to be able to go to them with longer term questions?

LANTHRUM: We\'ve gotten a number of inputs from the vendor industry
where, on a number of occasions, they have said that there is no new
technology that\'s needed just to do this work, that the capabilities
exist currently. Just find this and we will provide you with what you
need. As we have discussions with them about how to do it more
efficiently, there may be ways to push the design that would still give
you a package that would be able to be certified by the NRC. There may
be some long-range efforts to increase the through-put per cask, and if
the vendor industry provides input that there would be some good R and D
projects with longer term payoff, we would be more than happy to take
that back to the Science and Technology group and think they would be
supportive.

NELSON: But you would expect those things to be identified by the
vendors?

LANTHRUM: They are the experts on the cask front. There are other folks
that we will be interfacing with that may have suggestions for the, just
the basic transportation infrastructure. There aren\'t huge science
problems that will allow us, that make a binary switch. Can you ship,
can you not ship? So most of it is refinement rather than basic
capability.

NELSON: If you\'re looking for problems, that\'s not what Bob is looking
for. I mean I think he\'s looking to develop opportunity. So it\'s a
different mindset.

LANTHRUM: It is.

NELSON: I was trying to get a feel for where you think that interface is
because it sounds like it\'s young and may evolve a lot.

LANTHRUM: Pardon me?

NELSON: It\'s a young interface and it may\--

LANTHRUM: Yes. Yes.

NELSON: \--evolve a lot in terms of being able to think about longer
term science issues that maybe vendors

aren\'t thinking about right now.

LANTHRUM: Okay. Thanks.

ABKOWITZ: Abkowitz, Board. I wanted to follow up with one other question
and comment, Gary.

Certainly, the plan you laid out is ambitious. And I was curious as to
how many people you are staffing this activity with from DOE and what
kind of contractor support you have.

LANTHRUM: The DOE staff sits at right\--it\'s in flux right now. I do
have the Institutional Program Manager is a slot that I have just gotten
through the approval process. There\'s an announcement that\'s either
just out or will be coming out. So I will be adding that person to the
staff. And it\'s a fairly small federal organization. The primary
support comes from contractor staff. Most of the significant technical
capability and a significant amount of the work is going to be done by
contractor staff. And, a lot of that contractor staff balloons and
shrinks based on the individual projects that we\'re working on.

Now, when I came in the work for Transportation had not been
projectized. And so the work scope that we have for 2004 was less
well-defined as far as the specific resource requirements than it will
be in 2005. What I\'ve developed as far as project planning, we\'re
going through the resource loading requirements for those project plans.
That will be the basis for our 2005 budget request. That\'s in
development now. But right now we\'ve got about 12 federal staff, and
again, the contractor staff balloons and shrinks based on what the
requirements at any particular time are.

ABKOWITZ: Okay. Just as an observation, I think that it\'s going to be
quite a challenge to sustain the number of balls that you have begun to
throw into the air. And the Board will certainly be watching that with
interest.

And, I would also point out that there is a very similar slide that Jeff
Williams presented to us I guess about seven or eight months ago called
Moving Towards 2010 Transportation Priorities, and on the right-hand
column the language in your slide today and the language he used is
verbatim except that his slide said FY 2005 and beyond. And yours says
FY 2006 and beyond. So in eight months we\'ve already slipped one year.
And, I just wanted to make that observation.

LANTHRUM: Well, I might respond to that by saying that we\'ve taken a
different approach in some regards. At one time the idea was that the
cask procurements for example would be done as a single contract that
would be to design, certify and fabricate.

Since there\'s a lot of decisions external to Transportation Group on
what the waste receipt requirements and schedule is going to be, what
the repository capability is going to be, I made the decision that we
need to phase that so we do a conceptual design followed by a detailed
design and certification followed later by actual fabrication
procurement. And so there\'s a lot of things that there\'s been a
conscious decision to slip out or to phase the approach to, and that
does color the way the program looks.

What I hope to bring to the table is the fact that these schedules that
we\'re developing are supported by a project schedule which has scope,
has resource requirements and has, I think what\'s going to be a lot
more defensible than what was provided in the past.

ABKOWITZ: Thank you.

Well, the day is long and the hour is late. And I want to apologize for
such a lengthy program; yet, at the same time I want to recognize that
the Board is extremely interested in this subject and plans to spend a
lot of energy trying to understand and work with DOE and other
stakeholders to get the proper issues identified and evaluated.

So I do want to thank all of your presenters today. I want to thank our
public commenters, the audience and everyone else that has been involved
in organizing this effort. And, also just remind folks that as a panel
on waste management systems, we have several meetings that take place
outside of the regular Board schedule, and we anticipate having several
more of these meetings over the next several months and years, and you
know, please try to keep apprised of when we\'re going to schedule those
things. There\'s a lot of people that we were unable to hear from today
that we would like to hear from in the future.

Thank you.

(Whereupon, at 7:30 p.m., the meeting was adjourned.)