ICP CAB FY 2023 Budget Priorities

I know that the title of this article indicates that it will be subject matter that is incredibly dull and dry, but let’s at least start with a family story that is neither.
 
My wife and I have four children and for the better part of their holiday-conscious lives, they have come to understand that the Easter Bunny brings them gifts of an educational nature. Consequently, as you might imagine, it is not a holiday that is anticipated with the same kind of zeal that others are. Well, this year we thought we would involve them in the decision-making process in hopes of generating more anticipation, or, at a bare minimum, appreciation. We gathered them in the family room and discussed the issue for some time before, like an Easter egg, we found the message they wished to impart, pointed out bluntly from among their otherwise delicate communications by our youngest daughter, “We don’t want any gifts, we just want money.”
 
Among the duties of the various Site-Specific Advisory Boards in the Environmental Management division of the Federal Department of Energy (or EMSSAB in acronym-speak) is the opportunity to provide input specifically with regard to budget priorities each fiscal year. It has been the custom of our board to hear from DOE’s budget staff in the first meeting of the year and to formulate a letter recommending budget priorities to EM leadership. The gist of the letter? “We just want money.”
 
Ok, so we were a little more descriptive than that. We said, “We just want money… so we can continue to complete these tasks, which are vitally important to our fellow stakeholders:”

1. Solidify liquid waste stored over the aquifer
2. Remove all stored transuranic waste from above the aquifer
3. Remove all stored spent nuclear fuel from wet to dry storage
4. Manage high-level waste and spent nuclear fuel for eventual disposal
5. Decontamination & Demolition (D&D) of Radioactive Waste Management Complex (RWMC)
6. Expand the Idaho Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) Disposal Facility (ICDF)
7. Cap the Subsurface Disposal Area (SDA)

For sure I would love for my children to appreciate our educational gifts, but I can acknowledge that, at the end of the day, many of the things that we really want in life cost money. And when it comes to nuclear waste cleanup, even more so. $444,500,000 in Idaho’s case to be more precise, if we use FY 2021 as a guide.
 
For anyone curious as to how that pairs up with other EM cleanup sites around the complex, that $444.5M is about 6% of the ~$7.5B total, most of which goes to Hanford and Savannah River. Yes, in the land of big potatoes, we are small potatoes.
 
Even so, we aren’t shy about taking the opportunity to hide an Easter egg of our own in our delicate communications with leadership in the DOE and went so far as to include language indicating our insistence that attention be given to another crucial up-and-coming need - the need to have certainty about the process for SNF and high-level waste packaging and transportation to a long-term repository, saying,
 
“In particular, the CAB recognizes the need for funding of ongoing maintenance of storage systems at the site and, most importantly, the urgent need for completion of the disposal path -- including nearer term decision making on waste packaging -- so this waste has a long-term repository.”
 
It’s taken me 16 years as a parent to realize that when you ask for your children’s input, you’re going to get it - so be sure to prepare for the likely possibility that they are going to tell you what they want and tell you bluntly.
 
It seems that it must be not much different for Citizens Advisory Boards. 

Click here to read our recommendation in full.