ASLB TO HOLD PUBLIC MEETING MAY 14 IN LAS VEGAS TO DISCUSS FORMATS
FOR CONTENTIONS IN HIGH-LEVEL WASTE ADJUDICATION
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The Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s Atomic Safety and Licensing Board will hold a public conference May 14 in Las Vegas to discuss, among other things, possible formats for contentions to be filed in an adjudicatory hearing on a proposed high-level nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain.

The conference will be held at the NRC’s Las Vegas Hearing Facility, Pacific Enterprise Plaza, Building 1, 3250 Pepper Lane, in Las Vegas, beginning at 9 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time. Although the conference is expected to last only one day, it may extend into the early evening if necessary.

The ASLB’s “Advisory Pre-Application Presiding Officer Board” has asked representatives of the NRC staff, the Department of Energy, the state of Nevada and any other prospective parties who wish to attend to present their ideas on how best to expedite a hearing by using uniform formats for contentions, answers and replies.

DOE has stated its intention to submit a license application in June for the Yucca Mountain repository. By law, the NRC has three to four years to review the application, including resolving any adjudicatory hearings, and decide whether to authorize construction.

Potential parties to the Yucca Mountain proceeding have advised the PAPO Board to expect as many as 650 or more contentions to be filed, which is five times the largest number filed in any NRC proceeding since the contention admissibility standards were revised in 1989. Using a uniform format for these filings could promote efficiency and fairness as various Boards are formed to conduct multiple hearings.

Members of the public are welcome to attend the May 14 public conference in person in Las Vegas, and may view the conference by video hookup from the ASLB’s hearing room at NRC headquarters in the Two White Flint North building, 11545 Rockville Pike, Rockville, Md., beginning at noon Eastern Daylight Time. As both facilities will require visitors to pass through security, members of the public are advised to arrive each.

NRC news releases are available through a free listserv subscription at the following Web address: http://www.nrc.gov/public-involve/listserver.html. The NRC Home Page at www.nrc.gov also offers a Subscribe to News link in the News & Information menu. E-mail notifications are sent to subscribers when news releases are posted to NRC's Web Site.

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Wednesday, April 23, 2008