ML19056A110
| ML19056A110 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | PROJ0734 |
| Issue date: | 02/25/2019 |
| From: | Harry Felsher Division of Decommissioning, Uranium Recovery and Waste Programs |
| To: | Stephen Koenick Division of Decommissioning, Uranium Recovery and Waste Programs |
| H FELSHER DUWP | |
| Shared Package | |
| ML19056A108 | List: |
| References | |
| NRC-0134 | |
| Download: ML19056A110 (50) | |
Text
Official Transcript of Proceedings NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Title:
NRC Public Meeting:
Status of U.S. NRC NDAA WIR Monitoring Activities at the U.S.
DOE Savannah River Site Docket Number:
PROJ0734 Location:
Augusta, Georgia Date:
February 12, 2019 Work Order No.:
NRC-0134 Pages 1-42 NEAL R. GROSS AND CO., INC.
Court Reporters and Transcribers 1323 Rhode Island Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 234-4433
1 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
+ + + + +
NRC PUBLIC MEETING:
STATUS OF U.S. NRC NDAA WIR MONITORING ACTIVITIES AT THE U.S.
DOE SAVANNAH RIVER SITE Tuesday, February 12, 2019 Conference Room Willow B Hilton Garden Inn 1065 Stevens Creek Road Augusta, Georgia The above-entitled meeting was conducted at 6:00 p.m.
2 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION:
HARRY FELSHER, Moderator CYNTHIA BARR STEVE KOENIG CHRISTEPHER McKENNEY BO PHAM CHRISTIANNE RIDGE DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY:
DAN FERGUSON PATRICIA SUGGS DOUG TONKAY AARON WHITE SC DEPT OF HEALTH & ENVIRONMENTAL CONTROL:
JUSTIN KOON HENRY PORTER SAVANNAH RIVER REMEDIATION:
LARRY ROMANOWSKI KENT ROSENBERGER STEVE THOMAS
3 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 I N D E X Meeting Information, Agenda, Introductions.........4 DOE Presentation...................................9 NRC Presentation..................................24 Adjourned.........................................42
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S 1
(6:00 p.m.)
2 MR. FELSHER: Good evening. My name is 3
Harry Felsher, and I'm the NRC project manager for 4
the NDAA WIR Saltstone Disposal Facility at the DOE 5
Savannah River Site. This is the NRC public meeting 6
entitled Status of U.S. NRC NDAA WIR Monitoring 7
Activities at the U.S. DOE Savannah River Site.
8 Before we get started, I'd like to take 9
a few minutes to go over some logistics. First, if 10 we're asked to evacuate the building, please follow 11 the direction of the hotel staff. Also, for those 12 of you in the room who have not yet signed the 13 attendee list, please make sure that you do, and for 14 those of you on the phone, please take a moment to 15 send me an email at Harry -- H-A-R-R-Y -- dot F -- as 16 in Frank-- E-L-S-H-E-R at nrc.gov, so that I can add 17 you to the attendee list.
18 Today's meeting is a Category 1 meeting.
19 For those of you not familiar with the NRC meeting 20 categories, a Category 1 meeting means the public is 21 invited to observe the meeting, and the public will 22 have the opportunity to communicate with the NRC 23 after the business portion of the meeting, but before 24
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 the meeting is adjourned.
1 That means that during the business 2
portion of the meeting, the public is observe only, 3
reserving their questions and comments until invited.
4 When the public is invited, there is nothing which 5
requires that you (the DOE) need to respond to any 6
comments or questions from members of the public.
7 However, while there's no requirement 8
that you would respond, there's also nothing that 9
precludes the DOE from responding to questions, if 10 they choose to do so. This meeting is not being 11 webcast, but is being transcribed and attended by 12 off-site people through a telephone bridge line.
13 In order for everyone to hear the 14 discussions, we ask that you please turn off or mute 15 any electronic device, and that you minimize any side 16 conversations. Also, when you make a comment, please 17 start by giving us your name, as well as your 18 affiliation, and please speak clearly and with 19 volume.
20 Finally, please be careful not to discuss 21 any sensitive information. In addition, the NRC will 22 not be discussing ongoing reviews and we will not 23 making any regulatory decisions during this meeting.
24
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 What's the purpose of this meeting? This 1
is a periodic meeting for the NRC to provide 2
information to the public about the status of its 3
waste-incidental-to-reprocessing, or
- WIR, 4
activities. Under the Ronald W. Reagan National 5
Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2005, NDAA, 6
Section 3116(b), the NRC, in coordination with the 7
NDAA-covered state -- i.e., the South Carolina for 8
the DOE Savannah River Site, SRS -- monitors the DOE 9
disposal actions and assesses the DOE compliance with 10 the 10 CFR Part 61 Subpart C performance objectives.
11 NDAA Section 3116(b), monitoring at SRS, 12 only occurs at the Saltstone Disposal Facility, the 13 SDF, and the tank farms, TFs, which covers both the 14 SRS F-Tank Farm, FTF, and the SRS H-Tank Farm, HTF.
15 The DOE and NRC presentations are available through 16 a link on the meeting notice.
17 What's the agenda for this evening?
18 Meeting information, agenda, and introductions; then 19 a DOE presentation; then NRC presentation; questions 20 for the audience to the NRC; and then adjournment.
21 Do I have someone from South Carolina here? Yeah, 22 okay. The NRC, the DOE, and the South Carolina 23 Department of Health and Environmental Control are 24
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 present.
Let us go around the room for 1
introductions, and then we'll get introductions from 2
people on the phone. So please provide your name and 3
your affiliation.
4 I'm Harry Felsher, and I'm with the U.S.
5 Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
6 MR. FERGUSON: I'm Dan Ferguson. I'm 7
with the U.S. Department of Energy, Savannah River.
8 MR. WHITE: I'm Aaron White, and I'm with 9
the U.S. Department of Energy Savannah River 10 Operations Office.
11 MS. SUGGS: I'm Pat Suggs. I'm with the 12 U.S. DOE at Savannah River.
13 MR. ROMANOWSKI: Larry Romanowski with 14 Savannah River Remediation.
15 MR. ROSENBERGER: Kent Rosenberger with 16 Savannah River Remediation.
17 MR. THOMAS: Steve Thomas with Savannah 18 River Remediation.
19 MR. TONKAY: Doug Tonkay with the U.S.
20 Department of Energy Environmental Management.
21 MS. RIDGE: Christianne Ridge. I'm with 22 the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
23 MS. BARR: Cynthia Barr. I'm with the 24
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 NRC as well.
1 MR. KOENIG: Steve Koenig with the NRC.
2 MR. PORTER: Henry Porter. I'm with the 3
South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental 4
Control.
5 MR. KOON: Justin Koon, with the South 6
Carolina Department of Health and Environmental 7
Control.
8 MR. McKENNEY: Chris McKenney. I'm with 9
the NRC.
10 MR. PHAM: Bo Pham. I'm with the NRC.
11 MR. FELSHER: Sir, if you want to 12 introduce yourself, your name and affiliation?
13 MR. FOLK: Oh, Jim Folk with -- Jim Folk, 14 Department of Energy.
15 MR. FELSHER: Okay. We've covered 16 everyone in the room. If the operator could open up 17 the line for anyone who's on the phone call to 18 announce themselves with their name and affiliation.
19 THE OPERATOR: All lines are open on the 20 phone.
21 MR. FELSHER: Okay. Thank you very 22 much. You can put them on mute again. So now I'm 23 going to turn the -- this meeting over to Dan 24
9 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 Ferguson, who will present the DOE presentation.
1 MR. FERGUSON: Thank you, Harry. Can 2
everyone hear me all right? Okay.
3 Well, as Harry said, I'm Dan Ferguson, 4
and with the U.S. Department of Energy at Savannah 5
River, and I want to welcome everyone to tonight's 6
meeting.
7 I'm responsible for the implementation 8
and oversight of the National Defense Authorization 9
Act, or the NDAA, Section 2116 program at the Savannah 10 River Site for DOE.
11 This evening, I will be providing a brief 12 overview of what the NDAA Section 3116 legislation 13 entails, how it applies to the Liquid Waste Program 14 at Savannah River, and a brief summary of 3116 15 activities associated with both treated salt waste 16 disposal and tank residuals stabilization and tank 17 closure.
18 Next slide. This is a list of acronyms 19 that -- for your information. We always use 20 acronyms.
21 So next slide. Part A of the NDAA 22 Section 3116 legislation defines the requirements 23 under which the Secretary of Energy can determine 24
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 that the liquid waste resulting from the reprocessing 1
of spent nuclear fuel can be managed as something 2
other than high-level waste, and this includes waste 3
that does not require permanent isolation in the deep 4
geological depositories, waste that has had highly 5
radioactive radionuclides removed to the maximum 6
extent practical, and does not exceed the 7
concentration limits for Class C low level waste, and 8
will be disposed of in compliance with the 9
performance objectives set out at Subpart C of 10 CFR 10 61, and pursuant to a state-approved closure plan or 11 a state-approved permit.
12 Waste that exceeds the concentration 13 limits for Class C low level waste will be disposed 14 of as above in compliance with the performance 15 objectives set out in Subpart C of 10 CFR 61, and 16 pursuant to a state-approved closure plan or a state-17 approved permit, but also pursuant to plans developed 18 by the Secretary of Energy in consultation with the 19 Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
20 At the Savannah River Site, our tank 21 closure activities are covered by a Closure Plan, 22 which has been approved by the South Carolina 23 Department of Health and Environmental Control which 24
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 is consistent with South Carolina state regulations, 1
and the disposal of salt waste at the Saltstone 2
Disposal Facility is pursuant to a South Carolina 3
DHEC-approved permit.
4 It is this relationship between the 5
Department of
- Energy, the Nuclear Regulatory 6
Commission and, in our case, South Carolina, that 7
makes Section 3116 unique. This is fine. A second 8
part of the legislation that is unique is Part B, 9
which establishes the long-term monitoring 10 requirements for both the NRC and the affected state.
11 In this
- case, monitoring is in 12 coordination with the State of South Carolina 13 Department of Health and Environmental Control.
14 Monitoring is restricted to ensuring that disposal 15 actions are in compliance with the 10 CFR 61 Subpart 16 C performance objections, and upon discovery of 17 noncompliant conditions, the NRC is to notify the 18 Department of Energy, the State of South Carolina, 19 and two congressional committees.
20 Part C of Section 3116 establishes that 21 this legislation does not apply to any waste 22 transported out of the covered state. In this case, 23 it means that any waste covered by the waste 24
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 determination must be disposed of in the state of 1
2 Section D defines the covered states as 3
South Carolina and Idaho, and Section E cites that 4
the legislation is not superseded in states that it 5
does not cover established precedent in other states.
6 Section F provides judicial review criteria which 7
states that DOE is legally accountable for 8
determinations, and the NRC is legally accountable 9
for monitoring actions.
10 Next slide.
As we've already 11 emphasized, the 3116 legislation not only provided 12 the Nuclear Regulatory Commission an important role, 13 but it also created an important role for the State 14 of South Carolina, since this waste will be 15 permanently disposed of within its borders.
16 The State has given a specified role in 17 that, under Section A, it will be disposed of pursuant 18 to state-approved closure plans or state-issued 19 permits, and in Section B, the NRC shall, in 20 coordination with the covered state, monitor disposal 21 actions taken by DOE for the purpose of assessing 22 compliance with the performance objectives set out in 23 10 CFR 61.
24
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 This slide provides a summary of the 3116 1
consultation and monitoring phases that have occurred 2
here at the Savannah River Site. For all three of 3
the Savannah River Site Waste Determinations, DOE has 4
drafted a Draft Basis Document.
5 This Basis Document and all the 6
associated reference materials, including the 7
associated Performance Assessments and hundreds of 8
reference documents, were provided to the NRC for 9
their careful and thoughtful review.
10 In all cases, the NRC requested responses 11 to a series of detailed questions through their 12 process known as Requests for Additional Information.
13 This culmination of this NRC consultation process was 14 the issuance of a comprehensive document known as a 15 Technical Evaluation Report, or TER.
16 The Secretary of Energy then considers 17 the Final Basis Document that was influenced by the 18 NRC consultation process, including the TER, and 19 makes a determination that the specific waste forms 20 can be managed as non-high-level waste under the 21 specific plans and conditions described in the 22 respective Basis Document.
23 The NRC then issues Monitoring Plans that 24
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 are tailored to the specific plans and conditions 1
described in the Basis Documents, and this then 2
begins the formal monitoring activities that include 3
on-site visits and review of documents performed by 4
the NRC in consultation with the South Carolina DHEC.
5 Now, looking specifically as to how the 6
NDAA Section 3116 process applies at the Savannah 7
River Site and the Liquid Waste Program, at SRS there 8
are currently 43 liquid waste storage tanks that 9
contain approximately 35 million gallons of 10 radioactive material. This waste will be carefully 11 and safely removed and treated through either our 12 sludge processing or our salt waste processing 13 facilities.
14 Ultimately, this results in three 15 specific end states. A small fraction of the volume 16 and nearly all of the radioactive material will be 17 vitrified into a borosilicate glass and placed into 18 10-feet-tall, two-feet-in-diameter stainless steel 19 canisters, and these canisters, which are currently 20 being stored on site in one of two specially designed 21 remote storage facilities, will ultimately be 22 disposed of in a federal deep geologic repository.
23 The salt waste is being treated in the 24
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 Actinide Removal Process, or ARP, and Modular Caustic 1
Side Solvent Extraction Unit (MCU) facilities. The 2
Tank Closure Cesium Removal (TCCR) process recently 3
came on line and will also produce a decontaminated 4
salt solution very similar to the current ARP/MCU 5
stream.
6 And I want to apologize for this slide.
7 The handouts that y'all have show the TCCR is active 8
now, but at the time this presentation was made, the 9
TCCR wasn't active yet. So -- and it's working well.
10 It's kind of a new, revolutionary technology. So 11 we're very proud of that.
12 The vast majority of the volume of waste 13 and a small fraction of the radioactive material will 14 be mixed with dry cementitious materials to form a 15 waste know as saltstone which is permanently emplaced 16 in large Saltstone Disposal Units at the Saltstone 17 Disposal Facility.
18 And then finally, there is a small volume 19 of tank residuals remaining following the extensive 20 waste removal and tank cleaning activities within the 21 tank after it has been stabilized using an engineered 22 grout that is designed to minimize the infiltration 23 of groundwater, prevent further subsidence of the 24
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 closed waste tank, and prevent future accidental 1
intrusion into the closed tank.
2 And then, if you'd take one more slide, 3
these two blue-highlighted areas are the two areas 4
that the NRC monitors at Savannah River. They 5
include the Saltstone Facility and the F-Area and H-6 Area Tank Farms. Next slide.
7 This is a drawing of the Salt Waste 8
Disposal Process at the Savannah River Site. Three 9
waste streams enter Tank 50, which is a 1.3 million-10 gallon tank located in the H-Tank Farm Area. The 11 majority of this waste is the decontaminated salt 12 solution emanating from our salt treatment processes.
13 Two more waste streams also feed into 14 Tank 50. These include the low-level waste stream 15 originating from the Effluent Treatment Facility and 16 a low-level waste stream from H Canyon. The low 17 activity liquid salt waste is then transferred from 18 Tank 50 to the Saltstone Production Facility in Z-19 Area, where it is mixed with blast furnace slag, fly 20 ash and ordinary Portland cement, and then pumped 21 into a Saltstone Disposal Unit where it cures to a 22 non-hazardous waste form.
23 Next slide. Since the Salt Waste 24
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 Disposal Waste Determination was signed by Secretary 1
Bodman on January 6,
- 2006, there have been 2
significant interactions between DOE and the NRC and 3
South Carolina DHEC as part of this 3116 monitoring 4
process.
5 If you look at this slide, the yellow 6
section represents the consultation phase, and the 7
green, which follows the Secretary's signature on the 8
Waste Determination, represents the monitoring phase.
9 And you can see from this that there has 10 been significant -- and several interactions have 11 continue between that time between the NRC and South 12 Carolina DHEC for the requirements of the monitoring 13 process.
14 Next slide. Can you just go ahead 15 and -- there you go. DOE entered -- for the disposal 16 of treated salt waste, DOE entered consultation with 17 the NRC on February 28, 2005. The Secretary signed 18 the Salt Water Disposal Waste Determination on 19 January 6, 2006, and then a revised Performance 20 Assessment was provided to the NRC on November 23, 21 2009.
22 The series of NRC Requests for Additional 23 Information and associated DOE responses were 24
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 executed, and following that, NRC issued a Technical 1
Evaluation Report and Type-IV Letter of Concern on 2
April 30, 2012. DOE has actively worked to address 3
NRC's questions and concerns, and we've invested over 4
$10 million in new applied research.
5 To date, DOE has disposed of over 12-1/2 6
million gallons of decontaminated salt solution at 7
the Saltstone Disposal Facility, consistent with the 8
Waste Determination.
9 To reduce the uncertainty surrounding 10 some of the key assumptions that we make within the 11 Saltstone Disposal Facility Performance Assessment 12 and to address the key questions that the NRC has 13 raised, DOE has invested heavily in our applied 14 research program since the issuance of the 2009 15 Performance Assessment.
16 The key areas of focus include the 17 extraction and analysis of field-emplaced saltstone; 18 development of dynamic leaching method to evaluate 19 contaminate release rates and hydraulic properties of 20 saltstone; recalculation of the closure cap 21 infiltration rates; advancement and understanding of 22 saltstone physical properties over operating 23 parameter ranges; advanced understanding of 24
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 cementitious material degradation mechanisms and 1
rates; maturing the flow and transport modeling to 2
keep pace with the SDU design changes, and a reduction 3
of inventory uncertainty for technetium-99 and 4
iodine-129.
5 In conducting this
- research, our 6
contractor, Savannah River Remediation, has sought 7
out the best available organizations to perform this 8
research in their areas of expertise from the DOE 9
national laboratories, academia, and industry.
10 This includes are our own Savannah River 11 National Laboratory, Savannah River Ecology 12 Laboratory, the Vitreous State Laboratory, which is 13 formerly Energy Solutions, Vanderbilt University, 14 Clemson University, University of Virginia, Pacific 15 Northwest National Laboratory, Lawrence Berkeley 16 National Laboratory, Purdue University, and SIMCO 17 Technologies.
18 One of the key initiatives designed to 19 directly address some NRC concerns was the sampling 20 of actual emplaced saltstone materials. SRR spent 21 several years developing the techniques to extract 22 cores from emplaced saltstone within SDU 2A using a 23 series of mockups and employing an outside concrete 24
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 drilling expert.
1 These cores were taken at a depth of six 2
feet into the saltstone to retrieve material that 3
could be directly compared to laboratory-prepared 4
samples that were made using the same Tank 50 salt 5
solutions that were emplaced at this level.
6 So -- but in this process, Savannah River 7
Remediation workers received 2.7 man-rem of 8
cumulative exposure in preparing the work site and 9
then actually drilling and retrieving the core 10 samples. Three workers received over 200 mrem each 11 during the performance of this work.
12 So we have since performed a series of 13 analyses both to determine the properties of these 14 saltstone cores and compared them to the laboratory-15 prepared samples, and what we've determined is that 16 the laboratory-prepared samples provided a very good 17 analog to actual emplaced saltstone, and this was a 18 very important conclusion, given the high cost and 19 associated personnel exposure associated with 20 collecting these cores.
21 And we're continuing to do tests on these 22 cores at the Savannah River Ecology Laboratory. The 23 operational closure of waste tanks that have been 24
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 cleaned is another important end state for the Liquid 1
Waste program. To date, we have successfully cleaned 2
and operationally closed eight of the 51 waste tanks 3
at Savannah River.
4 The first two tanks were closed in 1997, 5
and these predate the NDAA 3116 legislation, but the 6
last six have been closed between 2012 and 2016.
7 Section 3116 was an important piece of the regulatory 8
framework that supported the operational closure of 9
these last six tanks.
10 So we've closed Tanks 17 and 20 in 1997, 11 and then we've closed the other six afterwards, and 12 I'll go through that in a minute. If you look at 13 these photographs, these are photographs from 14 actually the inside of the tank, and you can see that 15 these cooling coils inside the tank made cleaning 16 these and -- very difficult, and -- but this is Tank 17 20, where some of us went by today and looked at, so 18 it's one of the two tanks that were closed early.
19 Next slide. The Waste Determinations 20 were developed for both the F-Tank Farm and the H-21 Tank Farm, and Secretary Chu approved the F-Tank Farm 22 Waste Determinations on March 27, 2012, and Secretary 23 Moniz approved the H-Tank Farm Waste Determinations 24
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 on December 19, 2014.
1 The basis for each Waste Determinations, 2
including the associated performance assessment, was 3
provided to the NRC as part of their consultation 4
process. Individual Technical Evaluation Reports 5
were then issued as part of this process.
6 And the yellow bar represents the time 7
line for the consultation phase on F-Tank Farm, and 8
the purple bar indicates the timing of the H-Tank 9
Farm consultation, and then the green is the 10 monitoring phase for both tank farms, and both of 11 these tank farms have now been combined, as under the 12 NRC's monitoring program.
13 The majority of items on this graphic 14 shows the timing of key documents exchanged, and you 15 can see that there has been a large number of 16 documents generated to support these closures.
17 Beginning in December 2014, the consultation phase 18 was complete and the focus has been on monitoring.
19 This time line shows the timing of key 20 interactions, both on-site observation visits and 21 teleconferences. And we have overlaid the timing of 22 the grouting operations for the tanks on the chart, 23 so that as you can see, the NRC has focused much of 24
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 their on-site time when actual closures activities 1
were in process.
2 And again, six waste tanks have been 3
grouted and operationally closed during this period.
4 This includes Tanks 18 and 19 in 2012; Tanks 5 and 6 5
in 2013; and then switching over H-Tank Farm Area, 6
Tank 16 was closed in 2015; and Tank 12 was closed in 7
2016.
8 In conclusion, since the NDAA Section 9
3116 legislation was enacted in 2004, we've processed 10 more than 12-1/2 million gallons of decontaminated 11 salt solution and disposed of this salt solution at 12 the Saltstone Disposal Facility.
13 Six waste tanks have been cleaned and 14 operationally closed, four tanks in the F-Tank Farm 15 Area, and then two tanks in the H-Area Tank Farm.
16 And DOE has been very responsive to questions and 17 concerns of the NRC. We've hosted numerous on-site 18 visits.
19 We've provided access to the NRC to 20 observe all elements of requested operations and 21 research activities. We've provided timely and 22 constant comprehensive written responses to NRC's 23 Requests for Information, and we've invested over $10 24
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 million in operating funds to support applied 1
research to address NRC questions and concerns.
2 That concludes my presentation, and if 3
there are not any questions, I'll turn it over to 4
5 MR. McKENNEY: Yay from us. So we'll 6
wait for the full questions to end.
7 MR. McKENNEY: Okay. So I'm Chris 8
McKenney. I am the current acting deputy director 9
of the Division of Decommissioning, Uranium Recovery, 10 and Waste Programs for the next month, hopefully, and 11 then I'll go back to my normal job, which I've had 12 since 2009, and that was being the head of the 13 technical group that is in charge of looking at waste 14 incidental to reprocessing.
15 Next slide. So Dan gave a very good 16 oversight of the whole process of the National 17 Defense Authorization Act, about the two different 18 roles. We are here today mainly to talk about 19 monitoring, because that's pretty much, for South 20 Carolina, all we're doing.
21 We have done all the consultations 22 currently for all the activities currently foreseen 23 for -- under the NDAA for South Carolina -- Savannah 24
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 River Site - sorry -- in South Carolina.
1 But -- so we continue to monitor with the 2
State of South Carolina, working with DHEC on our 3
monitoring role, and we have been monitoring the 4
Saltstone Disposal Facility since 2007, F-Tank Farm 5
since 2012, and the H-Tank Farm through 2015.
6 Next slide, please. So for each of these 7
activities, we develop a specific monitoring plan for 8
either saltstone or the tank farm that is based off 9
of all the technical analyses that are done and 10 understanding the
- site, along with all the 11 requirements, like measuring, dose of the boundary, 12 and worker exposure, and those sort of things.
13 But mainly most of the monitoring plan is 14 built around how do the barriers work? How will the 15 depth system contain the waste? And look at 16 those -- where do we have assumptions and what are 17 the support for those assumptions for the 18 performance?
19 So then we break down those into 20 monitoring areas. So we may have one on how the 21 grout performs or how the tank itself will perform or 22 the tank bottom will perform over the long term, to 23 make sure that the waste stays in the tank.
24
26 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 And then those monitoring areas are 1
broken down into specific monitoring factors. So 2
again, how does the grout perform? Well, there's 3
various chemical characteristics of grout that may 4
influence its behavior over time.
5 So we do our monitoring activities by 6
doing either on-site observations, where we come out 7
to see actual processes in place. Like Dan said, we 8
came out a lot during the grouting of the tanks.
9 We've tried to come out during different sets of 10 operations for saltstone.
11 We also mix with that the midst of review 12 and stuff, so we can have a dialogue with the 13 technical experts at Savannah River Site and have a 14 discussion of the reasons why and everything, and 15 what assumptions are being used, and get more 16 clarification for those things.
17 We do write reports based on those -- of 18 what we discussed at those observation visits. We 19 also write technical reviews from us reviewing all 20 the documentation that DOE puts out, trying to 21 collect up.
22 In large part, we have two different 23 types. We have one which is just a technical review 24
27 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 report, which collects up on a specific subject. So 1
it may be on how you calculate dose in the environment 2
or the movement of technetium out of saltstone.
3 It is very specific, not broad. Then we 4
have the other sides of the coin where we have the 5
broad one, which is the technical evaluation report, 6
which looks at the overall system performance for the 7
- facility, which is based on the performance 8
assessment that DOE has developed, and we review 9
that, and it looks at everything of how water may get 10 in, to how the waste may leach, to if barriers fail 11 in the future and what would that be bounded in the 12 environment?
13 Then we also do data reviews of stuff, of 14 looking -- these really inform our technical reviews 15 and stuff, of looking at new research, other things 16 like that, that we can get data for, also looking at 17 environmental data.
18 This actually just came out, like, 19 what -- on standard monitoring around the site of the 20 Savannah River Site or worker protection doses, and 21 things like that, to compare those to the dose limits 22 that apply, which NRC and DOE have the dose limits 23 for occupational workers.
24
28 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 So occupational has never been a key 1
factor for us to pursue, because the goals that they 2
have out at these sites are very low relative to a 3
number of other
- areas, including the limits 4
themselves. So next slide, overall successes.
5 So we have -- as Dan said we do a lot of 6
different ways to reach out to make sure that we're 7
in contact, we understand what's happening down at 8
the site, so that we don't come when it's dead, or it 9
was going to be -- everything else. So we try to 10 plan our visits, or try to even pass documents back 11 and forth, to say, you're going to come out with 12 something in a couple of months, then we'll try to 13 start setting up something to discuss that document 14 or prep for it.
15 We also have we have the 16 management -- we've had those at the management 17 level, which is deputy division directors and on up.
18 We've had -- but most of them -- monthly, we have it 19 between project management staff, and we have those 20 with DOE and -- between DOE and NRC, but we also have 21 another one, which we talk to the affected state, 22 South Carolina, where we discuss with them, because 23 South Carolina is out there every day, or nearly every 24
29 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 day, seeing what's happening at the site.
1 So they are in this relationship; they 2
can be a lot more eyes for NRC, so that NRC doesn't 3
have to do a heavy amount of visits down here to see 4
always what's happening.
5 We've also updated our monitoring plans 6
based on our technical plans. That is either like 7
after we did a technical evaluation report on the 8
performance assessment for Saltstone in 2009. We 9
updated it based on the results of that. We, 10 however, also can it update it just based off of 11 intermediate technical review reports and just modify 12 parts of the monitoring plan, and we do through 13 supplemental letters.
14 We have been, for many years now, working 15 quite well on coordination of DOE and NRC research 16 activities, looking at what is the goal of the 17 research before it's even planned and started, to 18 say, is that going to be looking at the area that we 19 have a want to try to get information for, that's 20 high enough priority, or not?
21 And we've been making progress in 22 actually closing monitoring facts.
Of 23 these -- because of this research, because of other 24
30 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 reviews, because of some additional modeling that's 1
been done, we've been able to close various 2
monitoring factors, to say, you know, we did have 3
uncertainty in these areas.
4 We had -- we weren't sure exactly how 5
important -- how this technetium would flow, or 6
another item, and that allowed us to close the 7
monitoring. Obviously, one of those, which Dan 8
mentioned earlier, was the one on how representative 9
were laboratory samples versus the in-field 10 saltstone?
11 And you know, that was an overarching, 12 key feature of number of questions that were raised 13 between 2006 and up through 2012, 2013. And then 14 when we embarked on this very high-quality research 15 to really address that feature, that allowed us to 16 close that, along with several other factors.
17 So next slide. So Dan pretty much 18 covered this with his nice little line diagram, so we 19 started in 2007 with monitoring. We had a revised 20 monitoring plan in 2013. We have done 20 on-site 21 observations since 2007 and 16 technical review 22 reports specifically about Saltstone Disposal 23 Facility.
24
31 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 Actually, a couple of these may be 1
actually shared, because we did like two that were 2
both -- were joined. And I think I mentioned most 3
of these so
- far, as types of topics we've 4
discussed -- hydraulic performance of saltstone, 5
which we closed some issues, technetium, waste 6
release.
7 And then again, while the recovery is not 8
near-term for saltstone, we have been trying to do an 9
in-process review of how important is that to the 10 relative -- the performance of the rest of the site?
11 And so we gave sort of a state of 12 knowledge at this time of what the knowledge was on 13 the engineered recovery performance and what DOE was 14 planning to expect from the recovery, which is yet to 15 be actually designed, so next slide.
16 Successes for monitoring at Saltstone 17 Disposal Facility. We have, in terms of priorities, 18 everything on the risk and uncertainty. So we set 19 up a whole monitoring chart, which is going to be on 20 the next slide, of what factors were actually driving 21 performance, depending on which performance objective 22 or safety goal was trying to be protected against in 23 the -- for the -- either the short term for workers 24
32 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 or for the long term for members of the public, after 1
all of us are gone and the site is in whatever hands 2
it's in, but it will still be protected in the future, 3
regardless of -- by its passive performance.
4 The -- we also have the success of all of 5
the work between everybody to try to make sure that 6
the DOE -- all the research, not only at DOE, but DOE 7
and NRC research was really focused on the high 8
priority things, so we were trying to get the best 9
bang for our buck, for the effort to try to hit those 10 things and try to address most of the uncertainty and 11 risk.
12 And Dan covered that in great detail. We 13 closed or lowered in priority seven monitoring 14 factors in fiscal year 2018. We did happen to open 15 two monitoring factors, and one was to make sure that 16 we can close them in the future, because one was 17 not -- one monitoring factor was not specific enough.
18 We never had a way to -- so we split it 19 into two separate ones, so that each one of those 20 could be closed on future information, and the second 21 one was to track a -- to get some validation data for 22 the groundwater system at the Z-Area.
23 But it doesn't have -- the monitoring 24
33 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 factor wasn't open for -- based on risk, based on the 1
information to get validation of the groundwater.
2 Next slide. So we have a very colorful set of slides 3
for those in the room. We have larger versions that 4
DOE has graciously brought with them to - for -- to 5
show ours.
6 But we again rank each -- between each 7
area across the top, we have several factors, and we 8
have ranked them in color coordination, with red 9
being the highest, to about -- what are those areas 10 driving performance?
11 And the ones in hash marks on the 12 presentation show that the ones that we've closed.
13 Next one -- slide, please. So we have, you know, a 14 number of issues that we had in the TER in 2013 on 15 areas that needed more support and assumptions 16 needing more support to show that performance of the 17 saltstone would be contained over the long term, and 18 you know, there's been a lot of research trying 19 to -- getting all that information.
20 And it does take time. So -- but we did 21 develop a joint plan to try to say, what is the rest 22 of that information needed so we can address all those 23 issues, make sure that everybody is on the same page 24
34 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 as to what will be needed for success, and so that we 1
can -- when we review the next performance assessment 2
by DOE, we can change our monitoring plan and deal 3
with those factors.
4 Next slide. Sliding over from saltstone 5
to the tank farms. So again we started monitoring 6
in the mid-2010s to -- first with F-Tank Farm, and 7
then we went on to add the H-Tank Farm, and we -- at 8
that time, we combined the monitoring plans into one 9
because there's a few site-specific issues between F 10 and H, but they're minor compared to the general 11 design of a Type 3 tank, and one is a Type 3 tank and 12 the other - the -- you've had eight audit site 13 observations since 2012, and Dan went through that a 14 lot of them were focused on the grouting itself.
15 You know, it moves slow, but sometimes 16 it's important to look at how it's flowing through 17 into the tank, to see if any voids were forming, or 18 other things. There have been 15 technical review 19 reports issued, including on the tank -- regarding 20 waste release, the waste release studies that were 21 done on the Tank 18 plutonium and samples.
22 And then we do -- several of these here 23 are spaced because we do a technical review report 24
35 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 after each tank closure. So when DOE finalizes their 1
tank, they now know what the inventory, the exact 2
inventory was of that tank, because prior to that, 3
back in 2013 and the PAs for 2012, and so in that 4
time period, they assumed, like we will clean Tank 15 5
to X gallons, which will have Y curies.
6 When you -- when they finally get that 7
closure, they now know those two values and they can 8
do a -- they do an evaluation themselves, for their 9
own processes, to evaluate what how that influences 10 the overall performance assessment, or will the 11 unique thing be changed because of that, those actual 12 factors.
13 And then we do a corresponding review of 14 that from a monitoring standpoint. Next slide, 15 please. So again, we have created the monitoring 16 plan and monitoring factors based on the performance 17 of the different tank types and waste types.
18 And in this one, we have a slightly -- we 19 have no risk informed, and using barrier analysis, we 20 did some stuff to evaluate. Also some factors had a 21 bit -- have, we feel, which are orange, which are the 22 same high priority, but they're going to be -- they 23 would be challenging to actual try to reduce the 24
36 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 uncertainty on.
1 And we recognized that, so we wanted to 2
point that, and that we'd likely to be able to get 3
information on other -- from other areas to try to 4
close overall, holistically, the issues. But that's 5
the difference between tank farms and having an 6
orange category and saltstone, that doesn't have an 7
orange category.
8 We have also -- next slide, please. This 9
is one of the more recent -- big recent success for 10 the -- that one of the questions that had been -- that 11 led out of the tank farm technical evaluation report 12 was the question on how soluble the plutonium was.
13 Plutonium is generally not a soluble 14 radionuclide or element. It's an unsoluble element; 15 that's the proper way for -- and in the environment.
16 And -- but there were questions raised. Is -- was 17 there a fraction, and how big was that fraction that 18 could actually be mobile, because there are forms of 19 plutonium that are more mobile in the environment.
20 So DOE did use some tank waste samples 21 and did some years of experiments on that, and there 22 was some more mobile fraction of plutonium in that 23 case, and some -- actually a few other solubilities 24
37 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 for other elements had changed.
1 But that's -- that really reduced the 2
uncertainty there. That doesn't say that the 3
performance is now bad. Next slide. Because now, 4
what to do -- and this is where we are really on tank 5
- farms, is looking at the other barriers to 6
performance, that just because the waste itself 7
behaves in a different way, now it would have 8
to -- it's how much barrier performance do you get 9
from the other barriers regarding this.
10 So just because the solubility went up, 11 it's still may be contained by the grout, the tank 12 itself and the mud bath and other things, so it won't 13 get into the environment. So that's where we are on 14 tank farms. For all this work, NRC, similar to DOE, 15 we are -- Dan had a long list of support 16 organizations.
17 NRC does a - does -- has research 18 from -- yeah, next slide, please -- has from the 19 Center for Nuclear Waste Regulatory Analyses down in 20 Texas, and they do our research for us. And so 21 they've done some experiments to try to evaluate how 22 conditioned the water is by the tank grout.
23 That was one of the big assumptions, that 24
38 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 the water coming through all -- filtering through the 1
entire tank all the way down to the waste layer at 2
the bottom of the tank would get characteristics from 3
the grout into it before encountering the waste 4
layer.
5 And we also did, in parallel, some 6
saltstone technetium release experiments to look at 7
the assumptions around technetium release from 8
saltstone. Next slide. So we have been trying to 9
now make the -- all those research reports public so 10 that we can put them -- and these are some of the 11 recent ones that they're available for both 12 organizations to be able to use in a fully open way.
13 And lastly, I will talk about, you know, 14 what is coming up for us for monitoring? One thing 15 I didn't put -- we will monitor based on level of 16 activities, for level of issues -- or actually things 17 to discuss or areas to look into.
18 You know, we do have, if you looked 19 at -- actually, Dan's presentation previously, if you 20 notice there was like a two-year gap for tank farms 21 between observations, because there just wasn't that 22 many activities happening at tank farms.
23 We don't have a set monitoring plan, a 24
39 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 monitoring frequency. We don't have -- we have to 1
be down here every six months for an onsite 2
observation. We are going to change that frequency 3
over time in monitoring, as there are things to 4
actually discuss between the two agencies, to look at 5
performance, to look at things that are actually 6
underway, rather than maybe for -- not really looking 7
to just come down here to say, we're coming down here 8
because we need to know via our list -- an onsite 9
observation on our to-do list.
10 But some of the major things coming 11 forward is that Saltstone Disposal Facility is 12 revising the performance assessment based off all 13 this great information they have now, and so we're 14 expecting to get that in the year 2020.
15 Based on that, we will review that, issue 16 a new technical evaluation report, and then we will 17 revise our monitoring plan, again, to focus on those 18 things that drive performance, not just because 19 they're a feature at the site.
20 We are also currently reviewing the DOE 21 revised general separations area groundwater model 22 for both
- sites, because those affect that 23 site -- that's a revision that DOE took generally, 24
40 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 and it will have impacts into both -- it may have 1
impacts into both performance assessments.
2 And with that, I will open it up to 3
questions. Any questions here? No? Okay. We'll 4
go the phones for any questions.
5 THE OPERATOR: Once again, to ask your 6
question by phone, press star, one, at this time.
7 One moment for the first question.
8 No questions from the phone at this time.
9 MR. McKENNEY: Does South Carolina want 10 to make any statements?
11 MR. PORTER: No. We just appreciate the 12 working relationship that we've had up to this point, 13 and we'll work continually to work with the NRC and 14 DOE at the site.
15 MR. McKENNEY: Okay. Well, if I have no 16 questions, then we'll actually have a meeting that's 17 well ahead of time as scheduled. But -- so last 18 chance for questions before we close out?
19 Well, thank you, everyone, for being 20 here. And we heard from DOE and ourselves, NRC, on 21 the National Defense Authorization Act, Waste-22 Incidental-to-Reprocessing monitoring at the 23 Saltstone Disposal Facility and Tank Farms at 24
41 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 Savannah River Site.
1 This will be a publicly available meeting 2
summary -- there will be a publicly available meeting 3
summary that will reference the transcription of the 4
DOE presentation and NRC presentation.
5 If you want, you may also sign up for our 6
NRC Waste-Incidental-to-Reprocessing Listserv, which 7
will allow you to get any documents we publish under 8
the Waste-Incidental-to-Reprocessing line, by going 9
to our main website, www.nrc.gov, and go to the Public 10 Involve area, and then look under the listserv.
11 We're going to put -- we'll put the rest 12 of this information in the meeting summary, about how 13 exactly to do it. Also, remind everyone that we take 14 the meeting forms, meeting feedback forms seriously, 15 and there were some by the door, so please take a few 16 minutes to fill them out, and return them to us.
17 You could either fill it out today before 18 you leave, or you can go to our website and type "Form 19 659" in the search window, and download a blank form 20 there. And you can either send it back or send it 21 to -- I think there's another line to do it 22 electronically too.
23 I appreciate everyone for taking this 24
42 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 time this evening. This ends this meeting. With 1
that, this meeting is adjourned.
2 (Whereupon, at 7:00 p.m., the joint 3
public meeting was adjourned.)
4 5
6