Food Irradiator Shifts Attention to Site at Kunia, But Won’t Give Up on Airport

posted in: March 2011 | 0

The food irradiator that Michael Kohn of Pa`ina Hawai`i has been planning for years is stalled out once more. Kohn, it will be recalled, obtained a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to built a cobalt-60 food irradiator near the Honolulu airport back in 2005. The intervention of Concerned Citizens of Honolulu resulted in the determination that an environmental assessment would need to be done before the plant could be built.

The challenge to the EA is winding down, with the NRC having issued a draft supplement to it in December (the final was expected to be released around March 1). But Pa`ina has thrown another wrench into the gears; it is now seeking to put an irradiator on land owned by the Hawai`i Agricultural Research Center (HARC), site of the former Del Monte pineapple baseyard in Kunia, in Central O’ahu.

The food irradiator that Michael Kohn of Pa`ina Hawai`i has been planning for years is stalled out once more. Kohn, it will be recalled, obtained a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to built a cobalt-60 food irradiator near the Honolulu airport back in 2005. The intervention of Concerned Citizens of Honolulu resulted in the determination that an environmental assessment would need to be done before the plant could be built.

The challenge to the EA is winding down, with the NRC having issued a draft supplement to it in December (the final was expected to be released around March 1). But Pa`ina has thrown another wrench into the gears; it is now seeking to put an irradiator on land owned by the Hawai`i Agricultural Research Center (HARC), site of the former Del Monte pineapple baseyard in Kunia, in Central O’ahu.

Pa`ina Hawai`i obtained a Conditional Use Permit – Major (CUP-M) from the City and County of Honolulu’s Department of Planning and Permitting in early December, clearing the way for an irradiator on the site. With that in hand, on December 16, Pa`ina asked the NRC to amend its existing license by adding the Kunia property as a second location.

The NRC replied on January 20, stating that the amendment request was incomplete, lacking “the supporting geotechnical and seismic analysis for the proposed additional location… As such, we are voiding your amendment request without prejudice” until the information is received.

Meanwhile, the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board, which has been overseeing the challenges to Pa`ina’s license, saw Pa`ina’s request to amend its license as an opportunity to settle the long, drawn-out legal contest over the airport site. On February 3, the ASLB issued a series of questions to Pa`ina, NRC staff, and Concerned Citizens.

The ASLB asked Pa`ina what kind of representations it made to the Honolulu DPP about the status of a license for the Kunia site. Pa`ina replied that it intended to “get the Kunia site licensed by the NRC” when the CUP-M was granted and that it had, in fact, sent an application letter on December 16.

But in response to the ASLB’s question as to whether the Kunia location was now Pa`ina’s “preferred site,” Pa`ina attorney Fred Benco said, “No, Pa`ina is equally interested in the airport site.” And as for Pa`ina being interested in “ending immediately the current proceeding by joining a settlement in which Pa`ina would seek to amend” its license by replacing the airport site with Kunia, Benco wrote, “No. We have filed an amendment to add the Kunia site to the instant license for the airport site.”

Concerned Citizens, on the other hand, was willing to settle. David Henkin, attorney for the group, noted in his response to the ASLB questions that the draft supplement to the EA “indicates that, of the various alternate locations for a cobalt-60 irradiator, the Kunia site is by far the safest from harm due to natural disasters. Accordingly, if Pa`ina is intent on constructing and operating a cobalt-60 irradiator and is willing to forgo use of the airport site, Concerned Citizens would be open to discussing settlement of the current proceeding.”

Henkin also pointed out, however, that the draft supplement “confirms that the project’s purpose and need could be accomplished without the transport or use of nuclear material, avoiding all potential risks to Hawai`i’s resident’s and environment from accidental radioactive releases. Concerned Citizens respectfully submits that, if Pa`ina wants to construct and operate a food irradiator, it can and should avoid these unnecessary threats to public welfare and use the non-nuclear, electron-beam technology in lieu of cobalt-60.”

On February 16, the ASLB ordered Pa`ina and the NRC staff to answer further questions. First, Pa`ina was given a chance to reconsider its rejection of the settlement option. (Its answer: No.) Second, the NRC staff was asked whether its rules authorized an irradiator license to be issued for multiple locations and, if so, how many multiple-site irradiator licenses had it issued. (NRC’s answer: No definite regulatory authority or precedent, but this doesn’t mean that multiple-site licenses were disallowed. And No, the NRC hadn’t granted any “multi-site license for pool irradiators.” But until Pa`ina’s request in December, no one had ever applied for one.)

An Important Precedent

The proposed food irradiator is not the most significant dispute to come before the NRC, which routinely deals with licenses for nuclear plants that are hotly contested by groups representing thousands, if not millions, of citizens. In fact, usually the licenses for such facilities are handed out (as this one was) without the preparation of any environmental assessment or environmental impact statement.

But by challenging the NRC’s decision to license this facility under a so-called categorical exemption, Concerned Citizens has put itself on the map – or, rather, on the list of authorities that are cited in the motions and briefs of many of the parties pleading their cases before the NRC or the ASLB. Plug “pa’ina” into the search engine on the NRC’s online database of documents, and the results reveal just how frequently the decisions in this case have been cited in other dockets.

Henkin, the attorney whose arguments on behalf of Concerned Citizens have been so persuasive, demurs. “In the course of the proceeding,” he said in an email to Environment Hawai`i, “we’ve raised several issues of first impression and generally have been successful in compelling the staff to take more seriously its NEPA obligations.” (NEPA is the National Environmental Policy Act, which governs the disclosure of environmental impacts.)

“I don’t have any basis, however, for commenting about the case’s broader impact on NRC litigation,” he wrote.

— Patricia Tummons

Volume 21 Number 8, March 2011

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *