ML19246A696
| ML19246A696 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 08/27/2019 |
| From: | Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards |
| To: | |
| Maupin, Cardelia | |
| References | |
| NRC-0500 | |
| Download: ML19246A696 (109) | |
Text
Official Transcript of Proceedings NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Title:
Draft Regulatory Basis for the Disposal of Greater-than Class C (GTCC) and Transuranic Waste Public Meeting Docket Number:
(n/a)
Location:
Tuesday, August 27, 2019 Work Order No.:
NRC-0500 Pages 1-108 NEAL R. GROSS AND CO., INC.
Court Reporters and Transcribers 1323 Rhode Island Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 234-4433
1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 1
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 2
+ + + + +
3 PUBLIC MEETING 4
+ + + + +
5 DRAFT REGULATORY BASIS FOR THE DISPOSAL OF 6
GREATER-THAN CLASS C (GTCC) AND TRANSURANIC WASTE 7
8 9
Tuesday, August 27, 2019 10 6:00 p.m.
11 12 Marriott Renaissance Austin Hotel 13 Sabine Room 14 9721 Arboretum Boulevard 15 Austin, Texas 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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2 FOR THE NRC:
1 FRANCIS "CHIP" X. CAMERON, Facilitator 2
PATRICIA K. HOLAHAN, Ph.D.
3 ANDREW S. PESSIN, ESQ.
4 TIM McCARTIN 5
CARDELIA MAUPIN 6
BILL MAHER 7
STEVE KOENICK 9
FRED SCHOFER 10 STEVE DEMBEK 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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3 PARTICIPANTS:
1 DALE BULLA 2
PAT BULLA 3
MARTHA BARKER 4
AL BRADEN 5
LON BURNAM 6
DIANE D'ARRIGO 7
J. NILE FISCHER 8
SUSYBELLE GOSLEE 9
KAREN HADDEN 10 MARION MLOTOK 11 SYLVIA POPE 12 ADRIAN SHELLEY 13 ROBERT SINGLETON 14 TOM "SMITTY" SMITH 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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4 CONTENTS 1
Agenda Item Page 2
Welcome/Introductions/Logistics.........
5 3
Background and Overview: Draft Regulatory
... 10 4
Basis for the Disposal of GTCC and 5
Transuranic Waste 6
Discussion of the Draft Regulatory Basis
.... 33 7
Meeting Recap and Closure...........
102 8
Adjourn....................
108 9
10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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5 P R O C E E D I N G S 1
6:00 p.m.
2 MR. CAMERON: Good evening, everyone. My 3
name is Chip Cameron, and I'd like to welcome you to 4
the public meeting tonight. And I'm going to serve as 5
your facilitator tonight. And in that role, I'll try 6
to help all of you to have a productive meeting 7
tonight.
8 The topic tonight is the NRC, Nuclear 9
Regulatory Commission, draft regulatory basis for the 10 disposal of greater-than-Class C waste and transuranic 11 waste. We're going to try to cut down on the acronyms 12 tonight, but three that you will hear are NRC for 13 Nuclear Regulatory Commission. You're going to GTCC, 14 for greater-than-Class C; and you're going to hear 15 TRU, for transuranic waste.
16 And our objectives are simply stated, but 17 we hope they're not too hard to achieve. One is to 18 make sure that the NRC gives you clear information on 19 their draft regulatory basis on GTCC. And the second 20 objective is to give the NRC an opportunity to listen 21 to your advice, your comments, your concerns about 22 this particular subject. And we're going to start 23 with some brief presentations from the NRC staff.
24 And Trish Holahan, who I'll introduce in 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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6 a minute, is going to introduce them to you, but then 1
we're going to go all out to you. We have people who 2
are on the phone also, and some of them may want to 3
speak. And --
4 VOICE: You've lost audio, Chip.
5 MR. CAMERON: Okay. I was going to go and 6
alternate between those of you in the audience and 7
those of you on the phone, but we just have several 8
speakers here in the room, so I'm going to go to all 9
of you in the room first, and then I'm going to go to 10 Marcus, our operator, who will then put through the 11 people who are on the phone who want to talk to us.
12 And thank you for signing up here in the 13 room to speak. That gives me an idea of how much time 14 we're going to have to have, and I would just ask all 15 of you to try to keep it to five-minute guideline for 16 your comments, and if you have questions, the staff is 17 going to be here to answer those particular questions.
18 We are taking a transcript tonight, and Donna is our 19 court reporter. So when you do get up to speak, just 20 please clearly introduce yourself, so that she can 21 correctly identify on the transcript.
22 And with that -- oh, one other thing.
23 Radio station KUT did a public service announcement, 24 and we thank them for that, about the meeting tonight.
25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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7 But in addition to the topic of GTCC, they also said 1
that this meeting was going to address the proposal 2
for an interim storage facility in Andrews, Texas.
3 Well, that's wrong, and I apologize to anybody who 4
came to the meeting just for that purpose of talking 5
about interim storage, and we'll gladly listen to you 6
if there's anybody here that did come solely for that 7
purpose, but we're going to give priority to the 8
people who are here to talk about GTCC.
9 And let me introduce Trish Holahan. She's 10 the director of the Division of Decommissioning 11 Uranium Recovery and Waste Disposal at the NRC --
12 Waste Programs. Waste programs. Sorry, Trish. Why 13 don't I turn it over to you to introduce everybody.
14 DR. HOLAHAN: Okay. Thank you, Chip. And 15 welcome and good evening to everybody coming out on an 16 evening. I hope it doesn't rain.
17 VOICES: We hope it does.
18 DR. HOLAHAN: You're hoping it does? Oh, 19 okay. I stand corrected. I came from Maryland, and 20 it was pouring. So, anyways, I'm Trish Holahan, and 21 as Chip mentioned, I just took over the Division of 22 Decommissioning Uranium and Recovery and Waste 23 Programs from John Tappert. He and I switched 24 positions, so he's now doing rulemaking in the Office 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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8 of Nuclear Material and Safety and Safeguards.
1 This organization led in the development 2
of the draft GTCC regulatory basis, which is a tool 3
that the NRC uses to examine the technical, legal, 4
policy, and administrative components of a regulatory 5
issue when considering whether to enter rulemaking.
6 So this is at the pre-rulemaking stage. In addition, 7
the information in the draft regulatory basis should 8
be considered preliminary.
9 With me in the room are Cardelia Maupin, 10 the senior project manager of this project who's going 11 to be speaking; Andy Pessin from our Office of General 12 Counsel; Tim McCartin, who's a senior level advisor 13 for performance assessment.
14 Also in the room are Dave Esh in 15 performance assessment; Steve Koenick, the branch 16 chief responsible for this project; Fred Schofer; and 17 Steve Dembek; oh, and Bill Maher. Sorry. I'm looking 18 for them. But, anyways, they're all here.
19 And we're -- because various disciplines 20 were needed to examine the GTCC waste disposal, this 21 work group was comprised of several different offices, 22 including the Division of Waste -- of Decommissioning 23 and Uranium Recovery and Waste Programs. Also it 24 included the MNSS Division of Rulemaking for cost 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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9 analysis and the rulemaking PM, the Division of 1
Material Safety, Security State and Tribal Programs 2
for agreement, state and tribal interactions; the 3
Division of Spent-Fuel Management for performance 4
assessment and criticality and safety analysis; 5
obviously our legal counsel and the Office of General 6
Counsel; and the Office of Nuclear Security and 7
Incident Response to address security and safeguard 8
issues.
9 In addition, contractual support was 10 provided from the Center for Nuclear Waste Regulatory 11 Analysis, Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, 12 and then as background information, in 2018, the NRC 13 issued a Federal Register notice and held two public 14 meetings seeking stakeholders' input relative to the 15 identification of potential issues associated with 16 greater-than-Class C waste disposal.
17 These activities, along with the comment 18 letters received in response to the Federal Register 19 notice helped to inform this draft regulatory basis 20 which we're going to talk about more. And so the NRC 21 staff looks forward to discussing the draft regulatory 22 basis with you at today's webinar, and then I will 23 turn it over to Cardelia to go through her 24 presentation.
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10 MR. CAMERON: Okay. And just one note.
1 Bill Maher, who's back there, is the state liaison 2
officer for NRC Region IV in Arlington, Texas, and 3
he's also hoping that it rains, so --
4 DR. HOLAHAN: Sorry.
5 MS. MAUPIN: Can everybody hear me okay?
6 Good evening. It is my pleasure to talk to you today 7
about the GTCC draft basis. You might be asking, why 8
are we here. What's the purpose of this meeting?
9 If you know anything about the NRC, one of 10 the things that we believe as one of the principles of 11 good regulation for nuclear materials is that nuclear 12 regulation is the public's business. And it must be 13 transacted publicly and candidly, so the public must 14 be informed about what we're doing and have the 15 opportunity to participate in the regulatory 16 processes.
17 So that's why we're here today. We're 18 here seeking your help. We're looking for stakeholder 19 participation and involvement in this issue called 20 greater-than-Class C waste disposal. I will be 21 referring to it as GTCC, because transuranic waste, 22 what we've seen from looking at the various waste 23 streams, is basically a subset of greater than Class 24 C.
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11 So we anticipate today that we can assist 1
you in your public comments on the draft regulatory 2
basis for the disposal of greater than Class C, answer 3
some of your questions, clarify any issues. And this 4
supports NRC's openness, strategies, and also the 5
cumulative effects of regulation initiative, where we 6
seek to provide -- we seek input from those who might 7
be potentially affected by any proposed regulatory 8
action that we might take. Next slide, please.
9 Okay. I just -- the next slide, please, 10 slide number 3. We're on slide number 3.
11 Now I would like to talk to you about this 12 thing called low-level waste disposal as it pertains 13 to Part 61. If you know anything about the history of 14 waste disposal in this country, there was a point we 15 didn't have any regulations specifically for low-level 16 waste. That came about in 1982 when NRC put together 17 the Part 61 regulation for low-level waste disposal.
18 Prior to that, the Low-Level Waste Policy Act of 1980 19 defined low-level waste in terms of what it was not.
20 It was not classified as high-level 21 radioactive waste, not transuranic waste, not spent 22 nuclear fuel, or not byproduct material as defined in 23 Section 11(e)2 of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954. So 24 it was only after the NRC promulgated its regulations 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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12 in Part 61 that we established a classification system 1
where we classified low-level waste as Class A, B, C, 2
and this concept of those wastes being greater than 3
Class C.
4 This waste is based -- the system in which 5
waste is classified is based on the radiological 6
hazard, depending on the type and quantity of 7
radionuclide in it. Thus, Class A would be the least 8
hazardous. Class C would be even more hazardous, and 9
greater than Class C would be even more hazardous than 10 that.
11 Basically what Part 61 says in its 12 classification system in 61.55, paragraph 4, waste 13 that is not generally acceptable for near surface 14 disposal is waste for which form and disposal methods 15 must be different and in general, more stringent than 16 those specified in Class C waste. So that's how we 17 have this concept of greater-than-Class C waste.
18 In addition, as you look at Part 61, you 19 will see that there are some radionuclides which we 20 call transuranic nuclides that are in our 21 classification system. But as I just told you, in 22 1980, we had that low-level waste policy amendment, 23 Low-Level Waste Policy Act, that said transuranic was 24 not in the definition. Subsequently, the Low-Level 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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13 Waste Policy Amendments Act of 1985 no longer excluded 1
transuranic waste from the definition of low-level 2
waste. Problem is we have not updated NRC's 3
definition of low-level waste since we passed it in 4
the 1982-83, to incorporate this new concept of low-5 level waste, and that's what one of the things that 6
this group has been charged to do is to look at the 7
definition of transuranic waste and to add it to the 8
definition of low-level waste in Part 61 regulations.
9 Next slide, slide number 4. In this 10 slide, you will see that there are currently four 11 operating low-level waste disposal facilities in the 12 United States: Washington; Utah; as you know, 13 Andrews, Texas, Waste Control Specialists; and the 14 EnergySolutions in Barnwell, South Carolina. All of 15 these are in agreement states. They're all 16 regulated --
17 And if you don't know what an agreement 18 state is, let me just define that quickly for you. It 19 is a state that has entered into an agreement with the 20 NRC whereby we would relinquish our authority, and 21 then the State would assume that authority and 22 exercise its regulatory responsibilities in that area.
23 So all of these states are agreement states. And all 24 of the four currently operating low-level waste 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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14 facilities are regulated by agreement states, and all 1
of them accept A, B and C, except for the facility in 2
Utah.
3 Next slide, please. At present, the most 4
comprehensive information that we have about this 5
concept of greater-than-Class C waste has been 6
outlined in the Department of Energy final EIS on what 7
is called greater-than-Class C waste and greater-than-8 Class C like waste. And you might be asking the 9
question, what is the difference between greater-than-10 Class C and this concept of greater-than-Class C like 11 waste.
12 Well, the Atomic Energy Act gave the NRC 13 authority -- and as I said, we can give that authority 14 to the States, so that waste that is generated by NRC 15 licensees and agreement state licensees, that waste --
16 that GTCC waste is called GTCC waste. The waste that 17 is generated by the Department of Energy that is not 18 non-weapons-related, GTC-like waste but is done under 19 DOE's authority, that is called GTCC-like waste.
20 So right now that whole universe of GTCC-21 like which was discussed in the Department of Energy 22 final environmental impact statement is categorized 23 into three areas. Activated metals, that's the 24 internals of reactors. The second one representing 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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15 sealed sources, these are used in industrial and 1
medical applications. And there's a big wide open 2
third category called other waste, which could include 3
waste generated from decommissioning, or in this case, 4
these are glove boxes that might have been 5
contaminated and now is considered, you know, waste.
6 Next slide, please. We were in --
7 VOICES:
Something wrong with the 8
microphone. We can't hear you. Your audio's gone.
9 MS. MAUPIN: Oh, thank you.
10 VOICE: You're back on.
11 MS. MAUPIN: Okay. Sorry about that.
12 Thank you.
13 Okay. Now we're on slide number 6. Now, 14 in this slide, we're going to talk about whose 15 responsibility is it. Greater-than-Class C waste 16 disposal was assigned a federal responsibility as a 17 part of the Low-Level Radioactive Waste Policy 18 Amendments Act of 1985. Basically it said that the 19 NRC is to license the facility and determine whether 20 or not it is adequate to protect the public health and 21 safety.
22 That act also required DOE to submit to 23 Congress a report with recommendations and options for 24 the safe disposal of all GTCC waste, the waste that's 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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16 generated by NRC in agreement states, and those that 1
are generated by DOE programs. And DOE completed that 2
in February of 1987.
3 Subsequently, about 20 years, nothing 4
happened on this whole issue of greater-than-Class C 5
waste disposal, so Congress, in 2005, as a part of the 6
Energy Policy
- Act, assigned a
number of 7
responsibilities to DOE. Firstly, DOE was to do all 8
the various things needed to provide for greater-than-9 Class C waste disposal, some of which was, one, that 10 in February of 2011, DOE issue a draft environmental 11 impact statement. Subsequently in February of 2016, 12 they finalized that environmental impact statement.
13 Another one was that they were to provide 14 a report to Congress on the various alternatives for 15 the disposal of greater-than-Class C waste, which they 16 did in November of 2017. And now we are -- there has 17 been no action by Congress on that report. And in 18 that report, there were two considerations in that 19 November report. One was to use the waste isolation 20 pilot plant as a potential source or potential 21 location of GTCC disposal, and the second one being a 22 commercial low-level waste facility.
23 Next slide, please. On slide 7, we talk 24 about what the NRC has been doing. We talked about 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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17 what DOE has been doing. Now we're going to talk 1
about what NRC has been doing on this issue.
2 Basically in January of 2015, the State of Texas 3
requested clarification on agreement state authority 4
to regulate greater-than-Class C waste. In turn, the 5
staff in July of that year issued historical and 6
current issues paper related to the disposal of 7
greater-than-Class C waste.
8 They submitted that to our body called our 9
Commission. In turn, the Commission gave the staff 10 some direction in the December 2015 SRM which 11 basically has brought us here today. They directed 12 the staff to prepare a regulatory basis for the 13 disposal of greater-than-Class C waste through a means 14 other than a deep geologic disposal repository, and 15 also initially this was to be done after the 16 completion of the Part 61 rulemaking. In addition, 17 they directed us to address this whole issue of 18 transuranic waste, the definition of transuranic waste 19 in Part 61.
20 Subsequently, in October of 2018, of last 21 year, the Commission directed the staff to decouple.
22 We no longer want you to do this in conjunction with 23 the Part 61 rulemaking effort. We want you to move 24 forward, so we can do things like we're doing today, 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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18 engage the public, see if there are any regulatory 1
issues that we need to get out in front of. Talk to 2
our stakeholders. And that's what we're here doing 3
today, and that's why we issued the draft regulatory 4
basis.
5 Next slide, please. Now we're on slide 6
number 8, and we're talking about why we're here. We 7
published just a few weeks ago, on July 22, a Federal 8
Register notice about this draft regulatory basis, 9
requesting your review and comment, and we had a 10 webinar on August 22. We're here today, hosting this 11 public meeting. Right now our -- which we have a 60-12 day comment period, which is to end on September 20.
13 Now I'm going to turn this over to my 14 colleague, Mr. Tim McCartin. Thank you.
15 MR. McCARTIN: Thank you, Cardelia, and if 16 I could have the next slide. Okay. In terms of the 17 regulatory basis, just a little discussion of the 18 process we did and what the results were. And as 19 Cardelia said, use the inventories that were presented 20 in DOE's final EIS for greater-than-Class C disposal.
21 However, we subdivided the information 22 into 17 specific waste streams. You will not see 17 23 specific waste streams in the EIS. You see the 24 broader categories of sealed sources, activated 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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19 metals, and other waste. However, there is a 1
reference in our reg basis, NRC 2019, a staff report, 2
that we fully explain how we got our 17 waste streams 3
4 The reason we did that, as you'll see, one 5
of the important considerations is the hazard to the 6
intruder. An intruder might drill through a 7
particular waste container, and depending on what 8
waste is in that particular container, the hazards are 9
quite a bit different, as there's a fair amount of 10 variability among these 17 waste streams.
11 So, secondly, we did present three 12 alternatives for implementation of GTCC disposal under 13 10 CFR Part 61. Now, I'll say for all three of those 14 alternatives, the process would be the same in that 15 some -- a disposal facility seeking a license would 16 have to prepare an application and submit it to a 17 regulatory authority for review and approval. That 18 would not differ between those three alternatives.
19 However, as you can see, the three 20 alternatives, one is no regulatory change. And by 21 that, in 10 CFR Part 61, the Commission is allowed to 22 look at that on a case-by-case basis. The downside of 23 that is that there's no information, either in our 24 regulations or in guidance, that says how the NRC 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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20 would evaluate that application. What are they --
1 what are the requirements for the disposal?
2 And so when the NRC would review it, we 3
would have to explain why we either approved or denied 4
on what bases, but there would be no changes to the 5
regulation. On the flip side, if we conducted a 6
rulemaking, the rulemaking would provide the 7
requirements that we would use to decide whether 8
disposal was safe or not.
9 And so -- and in between the two -- those 10 are the two extremes, one where someone preparing an 11 application doesn't know the requirements, but yet 12 they submit an application, what they think would be 13 safe. The NRC would be required to review it and come 14 up with criteria for reviewing it at that time. With 15 a rulemaking the applicant ahead of time already knows 16 those requirements. In between there would be 17 guidance, but it doesn't have the force of a rule.
18 And so that really is -- the difference of 19 those three alternatives is not -- there will always 20 be an application and regulatory review, but how much 21 information is available to the public and to the 22 developer of a potential disposal site when they're 23 submitting an -- a license.
24 In terms of the results, we found the 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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21 majority of those 17 waste streams were potentially 1
suitable for near-surface disposal. Volume-wise that 2
was approximately 80 percent. Now, we very 3
intentionally are using the words "potentially 4
suitable." We did not say it was suitable, and so do 5
not separate those two, in that it requires someone to 6
come forward.
7 What exactly are you going to be disposing 8
of? What's your facility design? What are the site 9
characteristics, and the evaluation of whether that 10 would be safe or not, and that's why it's potentially 11 suitable. We are certainly not saying, it's suitable 12 everywhere. It can be done -- we are not giving a 13 pass. The analysis has to be done.
14 Of that 80 percent that was found 15 potentially suitable, approximately 95 percent of it 16 was suitable, could be regulated by an agreement 17 state. That 5 percent that wasn't suitable had to do 18 with requirements for common defense and security.
19 That is a requirement that's left solely to the NRC 20 and is not relegated beyond the NRC. And so that's 21 where that -- the 5 percent that isn't there, it had 22 to do with the special nuclear material and some of 23 the waste that is a security concern.
24 Next slide, please. In terms of the waste 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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22 volumes, there's approximately 12,000 cubic liters of 1
GTCC waste. And DOE had two categories, category I 2
and category II. The category I was expected or 3
existing GTCC waste, and that's waste that a decision 4
has already been made to license a facility that would 5
be generating waste of that nature and/or waste that 6
already exists. And the best example, I think, is for 7
commercial reactors.
8 Most of the GTCC waste generated from 9
commercial reactors is when they're decommissioned.
10 There are not many decommissioned nuclear facilities.
11 Most are operating, so the GTCC waste there is 12 existing, but they're also accounting for these 13 facilities that already exist. They haven't generated 14 the waste yet, but it will be generated when they're 15 decommissioned.
16 That's different than the category II, 17 which is considered potential waste. Potential waste 18 is there isn't a decision made to license a facility 19 that would generate the waste or any activities that 20 would generate that waste. And until a decision is 21 made, it's possible a decision is made not to generate 22 and license those facilities.
23 Once again, I'll draw upon commercial 24 reactors. There was an estimate, I think, of 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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23 approximately 37 new nuclear reactors would be 1
developed in the future in the DOE FEIS, and that 2
waste is potential. Is that a accurate estimate?
3 Today no one knows. They were just making a 4
projection. And, remember, one of the purposes of an 5
EIS is to estimate what might happen. And so they 6
estimated things like that. There are other 7
activities.
8 And so that's the difference between the 9
potential and the existing. You can see it's 10 approximately 50-50. About half of it is potential, 11 and half of it is existing. The two different colors, 12 the blue color is for GTCC waste, and the solid color 13 is existing. And the dashed color is potential. And 14 then for GTCC-like, which is approximately, I'll say, 15 25 percent, and equally distributed between the 16 potential, the solid color, versus -- or existing for 17 the solid color and potential for the hashed color.
18 Those are the volumes.
19 Next slide, please. You heard Cardelia 20 talk a little bit about transuranic waste. In NRC's 21 regulations at 10 CFR Part 61, concentrations of 22 transuranic radionuclides greater than a hundred 23 nanocuries per gram are considered greater-than-Class 24 C waste. One might call that transuranic waste.
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24 And while we don't have to know exactly 1
what a hundred nanocuries is, on this chart, you can 2
see these first two bars, this one is less than ten 3
nanocuries. This bar is greater than ten, but less 4
than a hundred. So this would not be considered 5
greater-than-Class C waste for transuranics, but you 6
can see there is a significant amount of waste that is 7
greater than a hundred nanocuries per gram and would 8
fall into the transuranic waste arena. And so that's 9
what that slide is showing.
10 It does vary significantly from waste 11 streams, but that shows you the extreme is less than 12 ten to greater than 10,000, so there's quite a range, 13 and that was one of the motivations for doing the 17 14 waste streams, to accurately represent and see what 15 volumes were associated with specific concentrations 16 of transuranic radionuclides.
17 Next slide, please. We did have to make 18 some assumptions in doing the analysis. As has been 19 discussed, it is near-surface disposal, so we did look 20 at near-surface disposal. That's the upper 30 meters 21 of the surface. The average disposal thickness was 22 approximately one waste package. We did do -- vary 23 that a bit, but on average, we're looking at one 24 package.
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25 Where is that significant? If you think 1
of a potential intruder drilling through the waste, if 2
he's drilling through one waste package, he gets one 3
waste package worth of waste. If they're double-4 stacked, he's going to get two waste packages. Now, 5
the reason we did one, it's easy to scale up to, well, 6
if you have two, you have twice as much waste. And 7
so -- but for the analysis we did, one waste package, 8
clearly if a facility design was more than one 9
package, it becomes more difficult to show compliance 10 with the requirements.
11 In terms of exposure, there were certain 12 aspects of the waste. The activated metals from 13 commercial reactors are primarily stainless steel.
14 Stainless steel corrodes very slowly, so the 15 degradation rate of that material is low. We did 16 account for aspects related to the waste floor, and 17 then we did other assumptions that were consistent 18 with the analysis that was done in the early 1980s for 19 Part 61 in terms of the pathways, in other words, 20 whether you look at a inhalation pathway, other 21 pathways that would have crop ingestion, et cetera.
22 Next slide. In terms of what hazards did 23 we look at, we looked at, first, operational hazards.
24 Regardless of how you dispose of it, you do have to 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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26 receive the waste at the facility. It's handled and 1
placed in a disposal unit. The operational hazards, 2
there were a couple.
3 One, remote handled packages. Clearly if 4
you get very close to a package that is emitting a 5
fair amount of radiation, direct radiation, for the 6
workers, because they can get close to the packages, 7
there's the hazard for remote handled waste. And so 8
that's considered for worker protection.
9 However, there is the consideration for 10 accidents. A fire could happen that could release 11 radionuclides into the air, and that could travel 12 significantly beyond the facility, and could impact 13 off-site individuals.
14 Then there's the off-site releases that 15 are considered after a facility is closed and the 16 material has been disposed of. At some point in time, 17 packages will leak, and a little bit of waste comes 18 out into the groundwater potentially, travels to 19 places where it could be intercepted by a well. Those 20 off-site releases are looked at to determine what the 21 potential doses are to receptors outside the facility.
22 And then the intruder
- exposure, I
23 mentioned a little bit, and two primary scenarios were 24 looked at. One is an excavation scenario, where 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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27 someone would excavate for the basement of their house 1
and dig for a foundation and possibly interact with 2
the waste. The other is a drilling scenario which 3
could go much deeper. Obviously the -- in Part 61 is 4
considered, the excavation of a house would not go 5
deeper than five meters, and so -- but waste could be 6
deeper than that, and the drilling scenario, if 7
someone was potentially drilling a well for water, 8
would go down deeper to a water table and could 9
intercept some of the waste. So there are two 10 scenarios considered for the intruder.
11 Next slide. What did we find out? As I 12 said initially, most of the GTCC waste is potentially 13 suitable for near-surface disposal, potentially 14 suitable. It does require a specific analysis of the 15 site and the inventory. Obviously the more waste you 16 get in a particular site, the harder it is to show 17 compliance. Depending on the characteristics of your 18 site, the disposal facility design all come into play 19 to determining whether the requirements can be met for 20 safe disposal.
21 GTCC waste containing transuranic 22 radionuclides -- and as I had that previous bar chart, 23 you could see the spread. There was some significant 24 variation with respect to the concentration of 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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28 transuranic radionuclides. They present challenges.
1 First, from the operational standpoint, if 2
you have fire and you release plutonium, there's a 3
potential for significant dose consequence that needs 4
to be evaluated and considered, possibly separate 5
requirements for how it's handled and where operations 6
can be improved to prevent such type of accidents.
7 Consideration of fissile material during 8
operations. NRC has very specific requirements with 9
respect to some of this. You could have an 10 unintentional criticality. How much of this do you 11 allow on the surface of the earth in terms of at a 12 particular site, and there are requirements in NRC 13 regulations that limit how much fissile material can 14 be on the surface for handling.
15 Second, as I mentioned, the intruder 16 excavation scenario. Essentially all the GTCC waste 17 streams were too hazardous to allow an excavation 18 scenario, so as you saw in the reg basis, we said the 19 review requirement, it would need to be deeper than 20 five meters, that limit of where someone actually 21 would excavate for a home and have that. So that 22 scenario would be removed, having it deep enough. We 23 also suggested a requirement that there be a 500-year 24 intruder barrier, in addition to that depth of burial.
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29 VOICE: What kind of barrier?
1 MR. McCARTIN: Well, it could be -- that 2
would be up for the facility to design, but if you 3
put, say, a thick concrete with reinforcing members, 4
so that drilling through into the package would be 5
very difficult, would be a type of intruder barrier.
6 It would have to be evaluated with respect to the 7
drilling practices in the area and those kinds of 8
things, but it would be something that would be 9
sustainable and would not degrade over a 500-year 10 period.
11 And then the intruder drilling scenario, 12 eventually you can drill -- it's a 500-year intruder 13 barrier. It's not forever. You could drill through 14 a particular package, and that's one of the ones that 15 for transuranic waste, primarily the plutonium and 16 Americium, that can present a problem. And once 17 again, it would need to be evaluated. And that's 18 sort of the -- our perspective on how we describe the 19 results.
20 I would like to say, you know, we at the 21 NRC, the technical staff, we don't view ourselves as 22 this great oracle that knows all and sees all. Part 23 of the reason for a public meeting is to understand 24 other concerns. Maybe there's concerns there that we 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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30 haven't captured. Maybe there's different ways of 1
looking at this waste that would be helpful. And so 2
that's part of why this is our perspective, based on 3
the inventories we saw, and we think it's potentially 4
suitable.
5 But I do want to stress, it would need to 6
be evaluated. Any application will have to describe 7
the site conditions, the inventory, the facility 8
design and how those -- that behavior and disposal 9
facility characteristics would ensure that public 10 health and safety are protected. And with that, I 11 will --
12 MS. GOSLEE: May I ask one question? Can 13 you tell me a site specific --
14 MR. CAMERON: Let me --
15 MS. GOSLEE: I just have a question.
16 MR. CAMERON: You know, what we're going 17 to do is we're going to clear up some of the questions 18 first before we go to comment. And I just have to get 19 you on the record for our court reporter, so please 20 introduce yourself.
21 MS. GOSLEE: Sure. I'm Susybelle Goslee.
22 And where site-specific can you show us that concrete 23 has lasted for 500 years without degrading over that 24 period of time?
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31 MR. McCARTIN: Well, I was giving that as 1
an example, but there are Roman concretes that have 2
lasted very, very long time. It would be up to the 3
applicant to show how they have an intruder barrier 4
that would persist that. Now, be aware, you're 5
already five meters below ground, so this would be a 6
barrier that's below ground. It's not on the surface 7
of the earth, so -- but, yes.
8 MS. GOSLEE: That creates different 9
conditions, those barriers.
10 MR. McCARTIN: Right. It would have to be 11 evaluated and -- you know --
12 MR. CAMERON: Thank you. Other questions 13 for -- and thank you, Susy. Other questions for 14 Cardelia and Tim? Other people?
15 MR. McCARTIN: Well, Cardelia has a couple 16 slides. This is sort of the end of the technical 17 presentation, but --
18 MR. CAMERON: Oh, there's some more 19 slides?
20 MR. McCARTIN: How to submit comments.
21 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Well, we'll get to 22 you.
23 MR. McCARTIN: But I can answer your 24 question, but --
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32 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Tim. Cardelia 1
will finish it up for us, very important about where 2
you submit comments. We'll get to everybody.
3 VOICE: Chip, would you just announce 4
Jim's last name again. I didn't catch.
5 MR. CAMERON: McCartin, M-C, capital C-A-6 R-T-I-N.
7 We'll go to Cardelia, and then we'll 8
figure this battery thing out. Thank you.
9 MS. MAUPIN: Okay. If I could get your 10 attention, we can go to slide number 15, please. Next 11 slide, please. Okay. As we said from the beginning, 12 nuclear regulation is the public's business, and so we 13 want to do our business. NRC does its business with 14 transparency, participation as we're doing today, and 15 collaboration.
16 And so what I have for you is these are 17 how you're going to get -- you can get additional 18 information regarding this topic, and also how you can 19 contact the various people, myself, Tim McCartin, and 20 our other colleague, Gary Comfort, in terms of 21 additional information or clarifying questions.
22 Next slide, please. Slide number 16, 23 please. Okay. Great. This provides how you can 24 provide your comments. We're here today to clarify 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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33 some of your questions, but we encourage you to 1
present, to provide your comments in writing, and we 2
provided in the Federal Register notice a number of 3
ways in which you can submit those comments.
4 By submitting your comments in writing, we 5
can -- we are clear on the comments you're making, and 6
it's on the record. It's on the docket for this 7
activity, so we strongly encourage you to submit your 8
comments in writing.
9 Next slide, please. And when you submit 10 your comments, make sure that you include this docket 11 number on all of your correspondence, and once again, 12 the comment period ends on September 20.
13 So now we'll open it back up, Chip, to 14 comments and questions.
15 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you, Tim.
16 Thank you, Cardelia. And before we go to comments, 17 let's clear up some questions that you might have.
18 And when we go to the phones for their comments, they 19 can ask their questions, too. We're going to try to 20 deal with the audience first, and if you could please 21 introduce yourself.
22 MS. MLOTOK: I'm Marion Mlotok. And my 23 question is about drilling practices. So what 24 drilling practices are now might not be what drilling 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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34 practices are in 500 years. I give fracking as an 1
example. It wasn't a drilling practice 50 years ago.
2 So that's my question. How can you possibly be 3
predicting that 500 years ahead?
4 MR. McCARTIN: Well, we aren't trying to 5
predict what the future brings, but one would look at 6
the drilling practices, and there's possibly some 7
understanding of things may change, but it's hard to, 8
you know -- I mean, I recognize with 500 years, it is 9
hard to understand what would be out there from a 10 drilling standpoint.
11 The other aspect, too, is what might be 12 out there to understand what's below ground before you 13 drill, and you might have advanced techniques for, oh, 14 gee, there's something down there. And so once you 15 start getting into trying to estimate the future, it 16 gets very difficult what to do, but --
17 MR. CAMERON: And I just note that the NRC 18 staff will be here after the meeting, if you want to 19 follow up on some of this. So are there other 20 questions? Yes, sir. Let's go back here. And just 21 introduce yourself.
22 MR. BRADEN: Certainly. Thank you. My 23 name is Al Braden. I'm a citizen of Austin concerned 24 with this. I've got some prepared remarks, but I'm 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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35 just staggered by the concept that you guys are 1
talking about 500 years. I mean, this stuff has half-2 lifetimes of tens of thousands of years. It has 3
reactions that create daughter products that can go on 4
for a heck of a long time.
5 And the idea that you're modeling that 6
some poor settler might come and dig a foundation in 7
only 500 years is just astonishing. I'd want to see 8
information on the total expected lifetime of these 9
transuranic elements and the half-life and the decay 10 of the additional products that they create. We're 11 talking about 50-, 100,000, I mean, years that this 12 stuff's going to be radioactive. So I'd want to see 13 more information about that.
14 MR. CAMERON: Can we help this gentleman 15 with his concern?
16 MR. McCARTIN: Well, one, the 500-year 17 intruder barrier, I did not mean to imply we weren't 18 looking beyond that. The analysis would need to look 19 at the long-term effects, but you're not assuming that 20 intruder barrier is intact after 500 years. And so 21 that's, you know -- that was just for the long -- you 22 can't try to propose, let's say, a 10,000-year 23 intruder barrier. That 500 years is a minimum that 24 you have to show this.
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36 But then, you're right. After 500 -- but 1
the analysis continues. I don't know if that -- is 2
that what you were getting --
3 MR. CAMERON: Tim, do you recognize what 4
the gentleman's concern is?
5 MR. BRADEN: Tens or a hundred thousand 6
years is what's required. I just --
7 MR. CAMERON: And you're going to have a 8
chance with others to make your comments, but this 9
is --
10 MR. McCARTIN: But if you met the 11 regulatory limits, say, at 500 years, generally for 12 most of these radionuclides, it would be easier to 13 meet it at 10,000 years, because a lot more has 14 decayed away. There is some in-growth, and you're 15 right on that.
16 But generally for waste disposal, it gets 17 easier with time as things decay away, from an 18 intruder's standpoint. For an intruder, they're going 19 directly into the waste. It will be harder to show 20 compliance at 500 years than, say, at 5,000 years.
21 MR. BRADEN: I'm just thinking that needs 22 to be a design criteria, that the barrier approximates 23 the expected lifetime of the highly radioactive 24 material.
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37 MR. CAMERON: And that was, I think, very 1
concisely stated, and we'll get to you in a few 2
minutes with comments. So anybody -- yes, ma'am.
3 MS. BARKER: I'm Martha Barker. I'm a 4
resident of Kyle, Texas, just south of Austin. And I 5
don't hear any mention of anything to do in the models 6
or the projections about earthquakes. I'm thinking 7
specifically about the Texas site where, we know, 8
there's been lots of fracking and more earthquakes 9
than there have been in the past. That wasn't 10 mentioned in your studies. Are you doing projections 11 about earthquakes?
12 MR.
McCARTIN:
- Well, the current 13 regulations at 10 CFR Part 61 do have requirements for 14 staying away from high seismic areas, things of 15 that -- it would be considered in the analysis. When 16 I said, site-specific, I didn't go into all the 17 different things, but you have floods; you have 18 erosion; you have seismic activity in some parts of 19 the country; volcanic activity.
20 All those things have to be considered.
21 Generally, you are trying to steer clear of high 22 seismic areas, high erosion areas, flooding, et 23 cetera. It would be evaluated, though. But that's in 24 10 CFR Part 61 already. It's not anything that we 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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38 would do differently.
1 MR. CAMERON: Okay. So earthquakes, 2
potential earthquakes would be evaluated. And let 3
me -- we'll be right up to you, sir. Let me go in the 4
back and get another question back here.
5 MR. BURNAM: Sure thing. I'm Lon Burnam.
6 I'm from Fort Worth. And my question is about your 7
comments in the opening part. I didn't actually hear 8
the news story on KUT during the day. Would you more 9
precisely describe what you think they were saying, 10 because I can't imagine anybody here in Texas not 11 thinking that this public meeting is about we have 12 been targeted to receive this waste, and that's the 13 reason this hearing is here in Austin.
14 There have been occasions when you should 15 have had hearings here in Austin that you didn't. I 16 had to go to Phoenix, Arizona, to participate. But 17 would you please explain why and what you meant in 18 trying to circumscribe what we're going to be talking 19 about tonight.
20 MR. CAMERON: And could we do that -- I 21 guess I started us off by talking about the public 22 service announcement on KUT that besides GTCC waste, 23 they mentioned the consolidated interim storage 24 facility in Andrews, Texas, so --
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39 VOICE: The proposed.
1 MR. CAMERON: Yes, proposed. But your 2
question, I think, is very relevant for the staff to 3
answer. Can you say anything about why we're in 4
Austin, the potential for Waste Control Specialists to 5
take perhaps GTCC. Okay. We're not talking about 6
spent fuel. And Cardelia already mentioned the fact 7
that we did get a letter -- or the NRC -- I shouldn't 8
say, we. But go ahead, Cardelia. You know what --
9 MS. MAUPIN: Well, thank you for that 10 question. As you -- as I mentioned earlier, we got 11 the question from the State of Texas to a letter to 12 the Commission to ask for clarification on the 13 authority. So that was just a question, whether or 14 not the agreement state had the authority.
15 So then the staff did -- you know, we 16 submit -- analyzed the issue and submitted that to the 17 Commission. Well, the Commission, as a part of its 18 direction, asked us to do public outreach, like we are 19 doing today. And if you look at that SRM, which is 20 public, SRM- -- what is it? -- 15-0094, the Commission 21 said, well, since Texas asked the question, I guess 22 they thought it was only feasible to raise the 23 question with -- you know, with Texas community, 24 public outreach, so that's why we're here today, 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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40 because the Commission directed us to look at that 1
- question, and also to have public outreach 2
specifically, and that SRM directed us to have public 3
outreach within the state of Texas.
4 MR. CAMERON: And, Cardelia, maybe another 5
way to provide information is you -- on one of your 6
slides, you had where there were low-level waste 7
disposal sites, Class A, B, and C. Any of those, I 8
suppose, could be a site for disposal of GTCC, 9
assuming you've solved the agreement, whatever.
10 I mean, how does that fit in? I think the 11 gentleman is concerned about Waste Control 12 Specialists' facility and this type of material. Can 13 you say anything about that?
14 MS. MAUPIN: The only thing I can say is 15 that, one, we were directed to do this by the 16 Commission. Okay. Secondly, this is not something 17 that is hidden, but DOE did an environmental 18 assessment for Waste Control Specialists that was also 19 issued in October of 2018, specifically for WCS to 20 receive this type of waste. That's public knowledge, 21 public record. So I'm just giving you the facts as 22 they exist.
23 MR. CAMERON: And can you just tell him 24 that -- we think it's a great point that you mention 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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41 the DOE document, but there were more sites that WCS 1
has. Right?
2 MS. MAUPIN: Well, when they did the 3
environmental impact statement, they did it for 4
several sites. But they only did environmental 5
assessment for WCS which was issued approximately on 6
October 23, 2018. You can go to DOE's website, and 7
you can find these documents. They're publicly 8
available. DOE environmental assessment, specifically 9
for WCS, 10 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you for that 11 question. And, yes, sir.
12 MR. SINGLETON: My name is Robert 13 Singleton. And I want to try to put this question in 14 as nonpolitical terms as possible. But it was my 15 understanding that it's the policy of the current 16 administration that for every new rule, two have to be 17 stricken from the books. Any idea what two rules are 18 going to go by the wayside if this rule is instituted?
19 MR. CAMERON: Maybe Andy Pessin from our 20 Office of General Counsel can answer that for you.
21 Andy.
22 MR. PESSIN: That's a good point. We 23 would have to comply with that executive order. I 24 don't believe we've identified any two particular 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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42 regulations, but certainly if we go forward with 1
rulemaking, that would be part of the process. But we 2
have identified anything specifically.
3 MR. CAMERON: And keep in mind what Tim 4
talked about and perhaps Cardelia, is that there's a 5
number of alternatives besides rulemaking for 6
addressing this issue. Is that correct?
7 MR. PESSIN: Correct. Right. There could 8
be the status quo or just guidance only.
9 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you for that.
10 Let's go back to this gentleman. And then we're going 11 to take one more question, and then we'll go to 12 comments, and then we're going to try to go to the 13 phones. Yes, sir.
14 MR. SHELLEY: Thank you. Adrian Shelley 15 with Public Citizen. And my question is about in the 16 Federal Register notice of this rulemaking or this 17 draft mentions an obligation to evaluate the 18 cumulative effect of regulations and mentions 19 specifically other regulatory actions by the NRC, 20 including license amendment requests. So I'm 21 wondering specifically if the Waste Control 22 Specialists' application for high-level storage is one 23 of the other license amendment requests that's being 24 considered as part of that cumulative effect of 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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43 regulation requirement.
1 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you.
2 MS. MAUPIN: I worked on the -- can you 3
hear me?
4 MR. SHELLEY: Yes.
5 MS. MAUPIN: Okay. I worked -- I was a 6
part of the working group that came up with cumulative 7
effects of regulation, and what happened was that 8
post-9/11, NRC was doing a number of -- was changing 9
a number of requirements.
10 And then our licensees and other entities, 11 like the agreement states, say, hey, this is just too 12 much, you know, at one time and trying to implement 13 all these various requirements. Normally we've seen 14 in the past that it would take agreement states almost 15 approximately three years or more to put requirements 16 on the books.
17 So we were directed by the Commission to 18 say, hey, when you are pre-rule, which we are here, 19 pre-rulemaking, before you even do that rule, we want 20 you to go out, and we want to talk -- we want you to 21 talk to our stakeholders. We want their input on how 22 this could potentially affect them. So that's why we 23 are here at this pre- -- we're at the pre-rulemaking 24 stage, asking for your input.
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44 Now, if in your input, which I've asked 1
you to put in writing, you want to bring up, hey, you 2
got this other issue going on, potentially going on in 3
our state; this could do this; this could have this 4
impact. So that is what we are looking for from you 5
and our other stakeholders, because like we said, we 6
don't have all the information within the confines of 7
the NRC. We don't have the far-reaching impact that 8
you might have. So that's why we create a win-win 9
situation by having your input into our processes.
10 MR. CAMERON: I think the answer would be, 11 yes. Okay. If you look at cumulative impacts -- and, 12 Andy, correct me if I'm wrong --
13 MR. PESSIN: Right.
14 MR. CAMERON: But cumulative impacts would 15 look at impacts from any facility that was --
16 MR. PESSIN: Well, if you're talking about 17 cumulative impacts or cumulative effects of 18 regulation, you're generally looking at the regulated 19 community, so you're looking at one regulation or one 20 regulatory requirement being added on to another one 21 possibly, multiple regulatory requirements by the NRC, 22 requirements by other federal agencies. That's what 23 they're looking at. So I don't know.
24 You mentioned license amendment requests.
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45 I would want to go back and look at the Federal 1
Register notice, because the next time we're going to 2
leave that out, because that's -- that would be a 3
site-specific application.
4 We're talking -- cumulative effects of 5
regulation are really looking at the impact on the 6
industry and looking at, you know -- it gets very 7
expensive for any individual regulated entity to keep 8
up with multiple regulatory requirements, particularly 9
if they're changing. And so I think that's really 10 what cumulative effects of regulation has targeted.
11 MR. CAMERON: So it's not cumulative 12 effects as in the EIS sense.
13 MR. PESSIN: Correct. Right. That's a 14 different type.
15 MR. SHELLEY: Right. But, I mean, the 16 question --
17 VOICE: Right. I mean, the question 18 applies equally well. Will they be able, for example, 19 to comply with all
- the, you
- know, Part 61 20 requirements, given both GTCC and high-level storage 21 and low-level storage.
22 MR. PESSIN: Oh, yes. In that sense, yes.
23 Yes, sure. Any potential applicant would have to look 24 at both what we're considering here -- again, this is 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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46 pre-rulemaking -- as well as any other existing 1
requirements or any other proposed requirements. So, 2
yes. In that sense, yes.
3 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Let's go to Susy and 4
Karen, and we're going to comments, and Karen is going 5
to lead us off there with comments. Okay. Susy, do 6
you have a question?
7 MS. GOSLEE: I do. I would like a 8
definition of a term I think that I heard someone say, 9
and it was an executive order. You have to comply 10 with an executive order. Who is that executive, and 11 how would that order be determined? Be very specific, 12 please.
13 MR. PESSIN: Well, an executive order 14 actually is not a law. It's not a law or regulation.
15 It does not have the force and effect of law. What 16 essentially an executive order is, it's a direction 17 from your boss, so the president is the chief 18 executive, and so when an executive order is issued, 19 federal agencies are expected to comply with the --
20 with that executive order.
21 Now, again, it's not a law, so somebody 22 can't bring a lawsuit based upon whether an agency 23 complies with the executive order or not, and if an 24 agency fails to comply with an executive order, that's 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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47 really between the president or the Office of 1
Management and Budget and that agency. Again, it's 2
not something that generally ends up in court. But --
3 MS. GOSLEE: So anything is possible, is 4
what I hear you saying.
5 MR. PESSIN: Well, the executive -- if 6
you're saying, there's an executive order; how do you 7
comply with it, an agency would read the executive 8
order, and it would make -- it would make its 9
interpretation.
10 Now, are you asking about the executive 11 order where the gentleman earlier said, where if you 12 issue one regulation, you've got to -- we've got to 13 take back two?
14 MS. GOSLEE: Well, I was -- no. I'm 15 really talking about your term, executive order. And 16 I assumed that it was the president. So when you say, 17 the president could make an executive order and you 18 have to comply, then the -- potentially you could have 19 anything be in that executive order.
20 MR. PESSIN: Well, I mean, an executive 21 order is not issued, interpreted or followed in a 22 total vacuum. You have other applicable laws and 23 regulations, and so certainly --
24 MS. GOSLEE: Really? You really 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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48 believe --
1 MR. CAMERON: Well, you know what. I 2
think we're getting on thin ice.
3 MS. GOSLEE: Yes. So -- okay. That's 4
really --
5 MR. CAMERON: We know what's possible, so 6
talk further with Andy after the meeting. And, Karen, 7
something?
8 MS. HADDEN: Yes. I have a question. It 9
seems highly unusual that at a public meeting where 10 comment is taken and there is a transcript being 11 taken, that our comments cannot be given formal 12 comment weight.
13 And I would like to ask that you 14 reconsider that decision and take our comments tonight 15 as part of formal comments. I'm sure some of us would 16 also follow up with written comments as well, but I 17 think that the things that are said here tonight 18 matter, and the way that they're said matters, and I 19 would like you to consider accepting this as formal 20 comment.
21 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you. And that 22 was going to be in your comments, and I think our 23 division director is shaking her head affirmatively, 24 that that will not necessarily happen, but the NRC's 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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49 going to take that comment seriously.
1 And, Karen, would you come up to make your 2
comment. Are you okay? Do you have a question?
3 VOICE: Well, I was going to respond to 4
the executive order. It sounds like if the president 5
says, Drop a nuclear bomb in the middle of this 6
hurricane, that you will do it.
7 MR. CAMERON: Did he do that?
8 (General conversation.)
9 MR. CAMERON: Karen, if you don't mind 10 coming up here, and we're going to turn the podium to 11 face the NRC, but you can also look out in the 12 audience, too. So we're setting a five-minute 13 guideline. I know you're probably going to be less 14 than that, but you go ahead.
15 MS. HADDEN: Good evening. My name is 16 Karen Hadden. Can you hear me?
17 VOICE: The microphone's dead.
18 MS. HADDEN: Hello, hello.
19 MR. CAMERON: Oh, here you've got to --
20 here, let me help you.
21 MS. HADDEN: Is there a button?
22 MR. CAMERON: Yes, there is. But it's 23 hard to see. It's not obvious. It's this one right 24 here.
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50 MS. HADDEN: Good evening. My name is 1
Karen Hadden. I'm the executive director of the SEED 2
Coalition, Sustainable Energy and Economic Development 3
Coalition. I heard a comment just a little while ago 4
about these things are not in a vacuum. That's right.
5 There are cumulative impacts when you do 6
various different waste streams at a site, and that is 7
why I think it's important. I know that we heard 8
discussion tonight about the radio saying that there's 9
also high-level waste being considered.
10 Well, yes, there is. And that needs to be 11 considered side by side. These issues are both 12 viable. This is an additional waste stream, and the 13 two -- and the facilities are very, very close to each 14 other at the WCS site. So I don't -- I think that's 15 an artificial limitation, to say that that's an issue.
16 We must be able to consider those together, and the 17 analysis that gets done must consider these things 18 together.
19 I'd like to start by saying that this 20 rulemaking is a bad idea. It doesn't need to happen.
21 It's not accomplishing the right goals, and it's 22 creating additional risks. It should not move 23 forward. And the existing laws have said basically 24 that this stuff belongs deep underground. It does not 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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51 belong in shallow burial.
1 My gut understanding of what's going on 2
here is to say it's like waving a wand over this 3
incredibly dangerous radioactive waste. This stuff is 4
hot, and saying, Oh, but, you know, it's not that bad 5
after all, and we can just go ahead and put it in 6
shallow burial. There are endless reasons not to do 7
it, and we just heard some of them.
8 Potential criticality? Yes, that would be 9
among our concerns. Yes, that would be a problem.
10 And, you know, it wouldn't be the first time, because 11 it has happened. It happened in Russia. Different 12 circumstances, different arrangement of materials, et 13 cetera, et cetera, but there was an explosion. Waste 14 went all over a whole region. These things happen.
15 Contamination of water -- there was 16 basically an admission tonight that that could happen.
17 Well, yes, that's a problem. That is really a 18 problem. And contamination of air, soil, and water.
19 We don't need this. This is not the right way to deal 20 with the waste.
21 And when you go to the environmental 22 impact statement done by the Department of Energy --
23 in 2016, it was published, January 2016. And it was 24 discussed earlier. "Greater-than-Class C low-level 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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52 radioactive waste is waste that is not generally 1
acceptable for near-surface disposal" -- yay -- "and 2
for which the waste form and disposal methods must be 3
different and in general more stringent than those 4
specified for Class C."
5 Well, that's pretty solid right there. It 6
says what we ought to do and not do. This stuff 7
belongs deep underground. We heard tonight about the 8
potential for this waste to get into waterways and to 9
volatilize.
10 There was, as was mentioned, the only site 11 out of all of those in the environmental impact 12 statement that got further analysis was WCS, and they 13 did an environmental assessment and referenced the 14 environmental impact statement and adopted it, which 15 tells me that there's an attempt here to skirt the 16 full NEPA process of an environmental impact statement 17 specifically for this waste at this site. And that is 18 a problem.
19 I read this environmental assessment.
20 It's only 44 pages long, and it is based largely on 21 the original license application for the compact 22 facility and federal waste facility at WCS. This was 23 years ago, and it did not contemplate greater-than-24 Class C waste or the potential high-level waste at the 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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53 site, so it is outdated. It is inadequate. It is 1
wrong. It should not move forward.
2 In this document, you will find that there 3
is discussion of volatilization of the radionuclides 4
that would be buried. Okay. So it was started 120 5
feet deep, and this document says they could stack 6
them seven deep with some sand in between. That would 7
bring it up pretty darn close to the surface. In 8
another place it says, oh, maybe you should put the 9
really hot stuff way low, because then it's not as 10 close to the surface.
11 This is a problem, because then it goes on 12 to say that some of the radionuclides volatilize.
13 They can come out from containers, work their way up 14 through the soil -- I'll wrap up as soon as I can 15 here -- and then volatilize into the air and spread 16 through soil, air and water. That is a problem. We 17 do not need contamination in our state. We do not 18 need contamination in the many, many transport trips 19 that could happen by truck or rail.
20 There -- this stuff just belongs much, 21 much deeper, and I think that this is being done as a 22 matter of money, because when you look at the draft 23 regulatory basis, there's a whole section of comparing 24 costs, and also there's not adequate consideration 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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54 being given to sites that exist that could take this 1
waste right now for deep isolation.
2 And so I'll wrap up by saying, we don't 3
want it. We don't want the rulemaking, and we don't 4
want the waste. Texas has enough already, and this is 5
risk that we do not need to take. It risks our 6
health, our safety, our environment, and the financial 7
health of our state.
8 MR. CAMERON: Thank you. Thank you very 9
much, Karen.
10 Martha, Martha Barker from Kyle, Texas.
11 MS. BARKER: So I'm Martha Barker from 12 Kyle, Texas. I'm a relatively new resident. I moved 13 from Maryland, neighbor to the Commission there in 14 Rockville, and so I'm learning about what's happening 15 in Texas in terms of the environment.
16 What concerns me the most about this is 17 that it sounds as though the impact study that's been 18 done is only relating to this site, but the site is 19 part of a web, and the web includes how that material 20 gets to the place. It presumably has to come on some 21 conveyance, so it's effect -- it's going through 22 towns; it's going through cities; it's going on trains 23 or by rail, by road.
24 So my concern is that it doesn't seem that 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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55 the impact is addressing a wide enough impact crater, 1
if you will. The other thing -- and I'm not a 2
geologist, but as I look at the rock formations in 3
this area -- and I believe it extends -- somebody 4
might be able to help me with this, but I heard 5
somebody explain it that putting toxic waste into the 6
karst in this area is like pouring it into Swiss 7
cheese.
8 I see these formations in the lovely 9
landscaping in my community. There are holes. There 10 are little bitty holes. You can see right through 11 them. The kids like to look through them. But we're 12 talking about putting nuclear waste in that sort of 13 rock formation.
14 And as I said earlier, the concern about 15 earthquakes, I'm not sure how we can, at this stage, 16 predict the seismic activity for 500 years. We 17 already see that in this area, there has been more 18 seismic activity than previously, due to fracking. So 19 those are my concerns. Thank you.
20 MR. CAMERON: Thank you. Thank you very 21 much. And that was Martha Barker. Okay.
22 And, Marcus, are you still with us?
23 MARCUS: Yes, sir, I am.
24 MR. CAMERON: Okay. We're going to go to 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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56 some more people here in the room, and then we're 1
going to go to the phones. But I just wanted to make 2
sure we still had you on board. That's the operator.
3 Robert, Robert Singleton. This is Robert.
4 MR. SINGLETON: My name is Robert 5
Singleton, and if you have any doubt on which category 6
to put me in, put me down as a no. As a matter of 7
fact, you can create a separate category for, Oh, God, 8
please no. That's the category I will be in.
9 I've been thinking about trash bags today, 10 and this will become germane. You know those flexible 11 trash bags, where you can cram more and more stuff 12 into them? Well, that's a lot like the NRC license, 13 the license for WCS. Every time we think we know what 14 the license limits are, they've got another proposal 15 to add something else to it, high-level nuclear waste, 16 GTCC waste.
17 And by the way, thank you, Cardelia, for 18 talking to us about acronyms. I sometimes feel like 19 we're spelling things out around the children when we 20 use that many acronyms.
21 But there are more curies than this, and 22 here's some facts about that. There are more curies 23 in this proposal than were previously allowed.
24 There's only -- the license only allows for 5.6 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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57 million curies, but the GTCC waste would be about 160 1
million curies, more than 28 times the licensed amount 2
for a federal waste facility.
3 There's a word for what's happened with 4
the WCS license. It's call mission creep, and I think 5
that's a term that's primarily applied to our military 6
excursions, but it also applies to this. Once the 7
camel has got its nose in the tent, once it gets this 8
many additions, corrections, amendments, and extra 9
facets for the license, it's no longer the same thing 10 it used to be. It's no longer a camel; it's some sort 11 of frightening mutant camel.
12 I guess my main concern here is I'm really 13 worried about the fact that this was initially sold to 14 us, the WCS license was sold to us as a very limited 15 amount of innocuous-sounding things. But there is no 16 doubt in my mind now that we're way beyond gloves and 17 booties, which is what the original proposal to us 18 characterized the waste as. And I no longer recognize 19 this camel.
20 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you. Thank you 21 very much, Robert.
22 Lon, Lon Burnam, right back here.
23 MR. BURNAM: Good evening, members of the 24 NRC staff, and Chip, thank you. I'm Lon Burnam. I 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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58 live in Fort Worth, and Chip knows this is not my 1
first picnic. Ironically, Friday morning I was 2
visiting with a reporter of the Star Telegram, and I 3
asked her, just how long ago did you cover that 4
demonstration; was that 30 years ago about, over below 5
regulatory concern. And she said, is that applicant 6
still -- basically she said, Is that coming back 7
around.
8 Well, those of you that were part of that 9
Orwellian project will remember it took a whole lot 10 of effort on a whole lot of public people to address 11 that concern. So let me get to my prepared comments, 12 Chip. I'm really concerned, because most of it's 13 about WCS, so when you were trying to constrain me, I 14 was really concerned.
15 So for those of you that don't me, for 18 16 years, I represented Fort Worth in the Texas House of 17 Representatives, from 1997 to 2015. Currently I'm the 18 Lone Star Chapter Sierra Club nuclear issues chair and 19 coordinator, and I also served for the last 18 months 20 on the national Sierra Club radioactive waste working 21 group.
22 Tonight I'm representing myself, but for 23 the last 18 months I've spent at least an hour a week 24 on the phone with this working group, and we keep 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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59 coming to the realization that there is no good 1
solution to this.
2 But I'm here to say, Texas doesn't want to 3
be the one that's dumped on. Okay? So let's have a 4
little background. In my 18 years in the legislature, 5
I learned to expect disingenuous and misleading 6
comments from representatives of the industry.
7 When the enabling legislation to establish 8
the WCS site was passed in 2003, there were explicit 9
promises that were made, they would never try to bring 10 high-level waste to this site.
11 So now it seems there's an Orwellian 12 effort to rename and reclassify this highly dangerous 13 material, just as there was 30 years ago. Am I 14 suspicious? Am I growing a little cynical in my old 15 age? Yes.
16 It was not until this year, in this 17 legislative session, when they tried once again to 18 sneak their special interest legislation through, that 19 they got caught with their hands in the cookie jar, 20 and were finally held accountable.
21 This session, their special interest 22 legislation did not even get to either the House floor 23 or the Senate floor, and they were exposed in 24 committee for the lies that they had told over the 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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60 years, and the author of the bill went back and looked 1
at the tape, and he said, Oh, you're right; they lied.
2 When they tried the deceptive measure of 3
adding part of their legislation to an unrelated bill, 4
the governor not only vetoed the bill. He tweeted, We 5
don't want this high-level stuff here in Texas. Texas 6
has fulfilled our responsibility with the low-level 7
compact. We're one of four. You showed the map.
8 What about the rest of the states that have not 9
fulfilled their responsibility at all?
10 What's wrong with this Orwellian industry-11 driven attempt to dump on Texas? One, it represents 12 the most egregious form of corporate socialism. It is 13 designed to let the rich make greater profits at the 14 expense of the public good, specifically that public 15 being Texas and Texans. The proposal would allow 28 16 times more curies than are currently allowed. It 17 would involve 100,000-pound containers stacked in 18 hollow pits.
19 Three, it would involve over 33,000 truck 20 shipments, if they're trucked, or if they're railed, 21 regardless, that would -- most of it would be coming 22 through the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Let me tell you.
23 I learned a lot about railroads in my 18 years 24 representing central city Fort Worth. This is an 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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61 extraordinarily bad idea.
1 Until the great tariff battle with China, 2
over half of what's imported in this country came 3
through one traffic light on the rails in the Fort 4
Worth from the Los Angeles port. Of course, now 5
they're sending those ships back, and maybe it's not 6
as big of a problem, but let's hope the tariff wars 7
don't last forever.
8 There are no proposed safety improvements 9
at this facility. I've read the documentation -- you 10 should, too -- about the safety violations at that 11 current facility.
12 Finally, as Governor Abbott recently wrote 13 to the NRC, "At this time, I oppose increase in the 14 amount or concentration of radioactivity authorized 15 for disposal at the facility in Andrews County." I 16 don't often agree with the governor, but I agree with 17 him now. And from my perspective, somebody whose 18 family has been here since the 1820s, we got a lot of 19 carpetbaggers looking at how to dump on this state, 20 and we don't appreciate it at all. Thank you.
21 (Applause.)
22 MR. CAMERON: Thank you. Thank you, Lon.
23 Marion. And I'll let Marion pronounce her 24 last name.
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62 MS. MLOTOK: Thank you.
1 MR. CAMERON: And then we're going to go 2
to Dale Bulla, Pat Bulla, and Tom "Smitty" Smith. And 3
then we're going to go to the phones, and then we'll 4
come back to the room.
5 MS. MLOTOK: My name's Marion Mlotok. And 6
I can pronounce it. I have a few main concerns about 7
this.
8 One is this whole process of 9
reclassifying. It's not a process I'm fond of. I 10 mean, the first problem I came across with this Waste 11 Control Specialists was when they were reclassifying 12 how far the Ogallala Aquifer intruded into Waste 13 Control Specialists' territory. And I still don't 14 trust that consideration.
15 We have the Ogallala Aquifer which is the 16 breadbasket of the whole midwest of this country and 17 the green-growing region, and if we're putting even 18 higher-level waste than what we were originally 19 putting, when we reclassified where the Ogallala 20 Aquifer is just by fiat, this does not really work for 21 me, and it puts our food supply in jeopardy. And it 22 also puts, of course, the water supply in jeopardy.
23 The other question I have is about 24 reclassifying radioactive
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63 reclassifying it for a good technical reason, I don't 1
have a problem with that, if we misclassified it in 2
the first place or we've learned more than we used to 3
know. But we're reclassifying it now because Waste 4
Control Specialists wants to have this waste so they 5
can make more money.
6 And when we go back and look at the 7
history of this, this is because when our energy 8
secretary used to be our governor, Harold Simmons, who 9
owned Waste Control Specialists before he passed away, 10 was contributing heavily to Governor Perry's 11 campaigns. And that's why we have it in Texas.
12 And for me, when I hear we're going to 13 reclassify waste so that we can put it in Waste 14 Control Specialists, when as you've heard from other 15 people, this was promised never to happen, I say we're 16 doing this for a financial reason and a financial 17 reason that is going to benefit very few people. It's 18 not going to benefit the people of Texas, because this 19 stuff is radioactive for tens of thousands years.
20 Eventually Texas will be on the hook for 21 this. Whether it's sooner or whether it's later, 22 we're going to have our health and our finances 23 drained as a result of putting high-level waste there.
24 Thank you.
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64 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you very much, 1
Marion.
2 MR. PESSIN: Chip. Chip --
3 MR. CAMERON: Dale --
4 MR. PESSIN: Chip, could I make a few 5
clarifying --
6 MR. CAMERON: Go ahead. Andy Pessin.
7 MR. PESSIN: Yes. Andy Pessin, attorney, 8
NRC OGC. A couple things. First of all, W -- and I 9
appreciate these comments. They're all very good 10 comments.
11 WCS is not licensed by the Nuclear 12 Regulatory Commission. It is licensed by the State of 13 Texas. Okay. So there was a comment earlier that the 14 NRC was the licensing authority for WCS, and that's 15 not accurate.
16 There's also been statements that we're 17 reclassifying GTCC waste. Under the Nuclear Waste 18 Policy Act, GTCC waste is not identified, and it is 19 not part of the definition of high-level waste. Now, 20 we certainly take the regulatory position that the 21 default disposal paths for the GTCC waste is a deep 22 geologic repository, but we never took the position 23 that it cannot go anywhere else.
24 The regulation goes all the way back to 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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65 the early 1980s. We take the position that on a case-1 by-case basis, it can go to a site other than a deep 2
geologic repository. So that's not a new change.
3 That has been the case since the 1980s. So those are 4
the two clarifying comments.
5 Oh, one other clarifying comment. All 6
we're doing here is we're looking -- we're considering 7
whether to go forward with rulemaking or not, and 8
rulemaking is generic. We're not -- this is -- and I 9
understand WCS is implicated here, and they probably 10 are the likely candidate. But our rulemaking is not 11 WCS-specific. If we do have a rulemaking that allows 12 for near-surface disposal of GTCC waste, a number of 13 things would have to happen after that.
14 One is Texas would have to change their 15 regulations, which currently prohibit GTCC waste.
16 That would be a State of Texas action, not an NRC 17 action. And then if WCS were interested in storing 18 this material, they would have to follow up with a 19 site-specific application, and there would be a site-20 specific safety analysis and a
site-specific 21 environmental analysis, most likely an environmental 22 impact statement.
23 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you. And, 24 Marion, thank you for your comments.
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66 MS. MLOTOK: I'd just like to add 1
something, based on what he just said.
2 MR. CAMERON: Go ahead.
3 MS. MLOTOK: It's like, I understand what 4
you're saying. This is a generic thing.
5 MR. PESSIN: Yes.
6 MS. MLOTOK: However, it's a generic thing 7
that is, as you said, most likely to come to Waste 8
Control Specialists.
9 MR. PESSIN: Right.
10 MS. MLOTOK: And so to consider it as, oh, 11 well, this is just bureaucratic rulemaking, that's not 12 really what's exactly at stake here for us.
13 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you. And, 14 Dale, Dale Bulla, and then we'll go to Pat Bulla, and 15 then we'll go to Smitty.
16 MR. BULLA: Thank you. I'm Dale Bulla.
17 I live in Austin, Texas. Listening to these 18 discussions has been kind of sobering. It seems the 19 horse is out of the barn, however. A lot of these 20 questions should have been asked decades ago. Before 21 you start building a poisonous system, you should 22 decide what you're going to do with the poison.
23 And I was thinking of comparisons between 24 our CO2 dilemma right now, with our earth warming. We 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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67 talk a lot about dealing with the damage that's being 1
caused by excessive CO2 pollution, just like we're now 2
talking about the damage of excessive radiation 3
contamination, and both of these things were warned to 4
us decades and decades ago. So, I mean, we're here 5
where we are.
6 My concern also is that the taxpayers are 7
going to pick up the cost for this. If the people 8
that are generating the energy had to pay for the 9
storage, they would shut down. They couldn't afford 10 to operate these plants. We could have wind, solar 11 and storage. It could vastly change the landscape of 12 zero pollution, and I think it's a shame that we're 13 here today.
14 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you, Dale. And 15 this is Pat, Pat Bulla.
16 MS. BULLA: Thank you. Yes. Pat Bulla, 17 and I live in Austin. Short, I agree with much of 18 what's been said. I am deeply opposed to the proposed 19 reclassification of radioactive waste which could 20 likely or would likely affect the West Texas site.
21 As a taxpayer, I do not want my state to 22 have the financial responsibility of potential 23 accidents of such -- much greater level of radioactive 24 waste. Please don't bring it here.
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68 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you, Pat. And 1
this is Tom Smith.
2 MR. SMITH: Good evening, everybody. My 3
name is Tom Smith. I'm better known as Smitty. And 4
I'm sorry I have to be here tonight.
5 As many of you know, in 1985, I started 6
getting involved in this question of what are we going 7
to do with the nation's radioactive waste. Many of 8
you in the room, several of you in the room, were in 9
that debate then, and we still haven't figured out 10 what to do about this mess.
11 And I appreciate the NRC coming down here 12 and offering to listen to us, and the work that you're 13 trying to do to figure out what to do with these 14 wastes that have already been generated. But I want 15 to say, I don't think we want this waste here, and I 16 don't think that the reclassification is a good idea, 17 because the wisdom that we had decades ago to make 18 sure this went to a repository was based on science, 19 not politics.
20 And ultimately this has become a political 21 decision, and I'm afraid that you're caught in those 22 jaws of this political decision, and you have a grave 23 moral decision to deal with this waste responsibly, 24 and sometimes that means standing up to the politics.
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69 That's going to take a lot of guts and a lot of 1
courage. I hope that you have it. I think you do.
2 And I hope ultimately that you make the 3
decision not to reclassify this waste in ways that 4
would put this state at risk. Ultimately what's 5
happened here is this whole thing has gotten triggered 6
by a letter coming from TCEQ that would have 7
benefitted Governor Perry's second largest donor, and 8
they said, Take a look at WCS; they might be willing 9
to have it.
10 And as a result, I think it's important 11 for us to take a look at how politics have now changed 12 in this state. Governor Abbott has written you all 13 letters, saying, Wait a minute, we're not sure this is 14 a good idea.
15 And in a situation very close to this, 16 same side of WCS, after he vetoed a bill that would 17 have brought that waste to WCS, high-level radioactive 18 waste to WCS, he said in a tweet, "Some people want to 19 make Texas the radioactive waste dumping ground of 20 America. I won't let that happen."
21 The politics have changed on whether or 22 not Texas can be considered a waste dump for the rest 23 of the United States. We used to have a saying here, 24 Don't mess with Texas, and I think that's what this 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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70 moment has become.
1 Politics have changed in a different way.
2 The oil companies have changed in a different way.
3 The oil companies have now woken to the fact that this 4
kind of waste may come to Texas, whether it be the 5
high-level stuff or this greater-than-Class C, and 6
have aroused the political tiger.
7 John Cornyn and Ted Cruz aren't going to 8
stand here and let Texas oil get impacted and lose 9
their market because of some fool's errand of trying 10 to bring this waste and dump it out at WCS. They 11 don't want to -- nobody wants radioactive oil, and 12 nobody wants this waste. That's why they're trying to 13 send it here.
14 But you're now in a position where that 15 politics have changed, and if you've got the guts to 16 stand up and say, Not in Texas and we're not going to 17 reclassify it, you're going to have political backing 18 you haven't had in several generations.
19 There's another kind of political change 20 that's happened, because this waste is going to be 21 coming through Texas to go out to WCS, either on rail 22 or by truck. Eight counties and cities in Texas have 23 passed resolutions. They represent the majority of 24 Texans who have said, We don't want this waste coming 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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71 through our cities and our communities, in reference 1
to the high-level stuff.
2 And, again, 41,000 people said, We don't 3
want this high-level stuff coming through. And it's 4
not the distinction matter. It's the radiation 5
exposure they understand. That's the real threat we 6
have here.
7 Now, one of the things that we expect to 8
have happen is that TCEQ is going to have to change 9
their rules and regulations, and we expect that the 10 legislature's going to get involved in this in the 11 2021 legislature. And with the oil companies, 12 together with the environmentalists and those eight 13 counties and cities, the politics have changed. And 14 I don't think you're going to be in position where you 15 can continue to dump on Texas.
16 There's another big reason. There's holes 17 in this plan of putting this stuff out in West Texas, 18 about 600 of them that have never been characterized 19 and have -- that are old uncapped oil and gas wells.
20 Now, the good folks at TCEQ said, when they were 21 looking at this the first time, We have a lot of 22 concerns about water incursion into this site and into 23 the aquifers below it, and the contamination that 24 might result.
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72 Four people from the staff at -- three 1
people at the staff at TCEQ resigned over that. That 2
permit for the low-level site was issued over their 3
objections, and it's important to note. There are 4
other natural disasters that need to be looked at, and 5
they're in your report on -- where they talk about 6
hurricane -- tornadoes, rather, not hurricanes. I've 7
got that on my mind for other reasons. Two tornadoes 8
have been out there. There've been nine F1 tornadoes 9
in that particular area around Eunice.
10 There was an earthquake, a 3.3 earthquake, 11 in that particular part of the world, and yet somehow 12 we magically think that this is going to not affect 13 this waste and not cause that concrete to crack open.
14 I am fond of reading about magical thinking, but this 15 is woo-woo science at its worst, and we need to say, 16 no, we're not going to do this.
17 I think it's also important for us to take 18 a look at what our future is. I've spent my entire 19 career, as you folks have, thinking about what to do 20 with this waste. This is a legacy problem, and the 21 decision that you're going to make to put this waste 22 in a facility that you think might work, just might 23 work, for 500 years, is your legacy.
24 But unfortunately that waste's legacy will 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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73 outlive that 500-year cap. It's going to be hot for 1
10,000 years, for untold generations of your 2
grandchildren and their grandchildren and their great-3 great-great-great-great, is more than my mind can 4
understand, to go out 10,000 years. That's your 5
legacy.
6 And is changing the rules the way to 7
protect your legacy? Or is doing what's right and 8
saying, This waste needs to go where science says it 9
needs to go, deep underground in a geologic formation 10 that will prevent it from getting wet and prevent it 11 from having any incursion into the atmosphere?
12 That's the charge we all have is to 13 protect our legacy and the generations that come after 14 us. Thank you very much for taking on this 15 responsibility, and I hope it doesn't rest well on 16 your would to think about what might happen if you 17 don't have the courage to act. Thank you.
18 MR. CAMERON: Thank you. Thank you, 19 Smitty.
20 We have a few more speakers that we're 21 going to get to here, but we're going to go to the 22 phones. And, Marcus, is there someone who wants to 23 talk to us on the phone?
24 (No response.)
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74 MS. D'ARRIGO: My name's Diane D'Arrigo.
1 MR. CAMERON: So Marcus is gone. Who's 2
the operator?
3 MS. D'ARRIGO: Hello?
4 MR. CAMERON: Yes. Who is that?
5 MS. D'ARRIGO: This is Diane from Nuclear 6
Information.
7 MR. CAMERON: Oh, Diane. Hi, Diane. Go 8
ahead.
9 MS. D'ARRIGO: Hi. Are you getting an 10 echo, though, because I'm getting an echo.
11 MR. CAMERON: It's sort of coming through 12 garbled there.
13 MS. D'ARRIGO: Maybe I should call on a 14 different line.
15 MR. CAMERON: Yes. Why don't you try that 16 and come back to us, and let me try to locate the 17 operator, Marcus, who was -- Marcus, are you there?
18 MARCUS: Yes. I'm here.
19 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Well --
20 MS. D'ARRIGO: I'll get in on a different 21 line.
22 MR. CAMERON: When you're going to put 23 someone forward to us, just tell us that they're going 24 to be coming on. You don't have to say their name, 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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75 but it would be useful to know that you're putting 1
someone out there. And I think the first person you 2
put on was Diane D'Arrigo, and we want to hear from 3
her. But she was going to go try a different phone, 4
so we'll put her on right after the next speaker. But 5
who do you have in line now to talk to us?
6 MARCUS: I have no one else in the queue.
7 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Well, Diane, are you 8
on a different phone now?
9 (No response.)
10 MR. CAMERON: They're all out there on the 11 next level. Okay. We're waiting for Diane.
12 (Pause.)
13 MR. CAMERON: Okay. While we're waiting 14 for Diane and Marcus, we're going to -- as soon as 15 Diane comes back, tell us. But we're going to go to 16 some people in the room now while we're waiting for 17 Diane to get to a different phone. Okay?
18 MARCUS: Okay.
19 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Let's go to Adrian, 20 and then we'll go to Al, and then to Neva Fischer and 21 Sylvia Pope. This is Adrian.
22 MR. SHELLEY: Hi, there. Adrian Shelley 23 with Public Citizen, a resident here in Austin, Texas.
24 And I have the unenviable task of following Smitty, 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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76 but that's something I'm a little familiar with, so 1
just keep going.
2 So, I mean, at base -- right? -- we 3
haven't heard a good reason why this rulemaking is 4
necessary. We heard earlier that the question is, 5
should we embark on a rulemaking or not. And I think 6
the clear answer is no. There's just no reason for 7
it.
8 We've heard from a majority of the people 9
here in the room about the WCS site, and that is 10 because for us here in Texas, it's just not possible 11 to, you know, remove a generic proposed regulatory 12 action from the facility that's actually located in 13 our state and which we have followed some of us, in 14 some cases, for many decades.
15 And, you know, that facility exists on 16 sort of some shifting regulatory sands, and we have 17 seen over the years, you know, chipping away at the 18 regulations for the site, and it concerns us greatly, 19 and that is why that's how it's being framed for all 20 of us who are speaking here tonight.
21 And, again, you know, we haven't really 22 heard a reason beyond that there was a vendor at one 23 point who wanted this rulemaking. We haven't heard 24 another reason why it's necessary. You know, the Part 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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77 61 definitions for the classes of radioactive waste 1
are not vague. They're not open to interpretation.
2 They're very clear.
3 You've got specific radionuclides in, I 4
think it is, Part 61.55, the waste classification 5
section. And it lays out very clearly which are the 6
radionuclides and which are the curie counts, and what 7
class does that put them in. And there's really no 8
wiggle room in there. Right? And so it just doesn't 9
make sense to us for those longstanding regulations to 10 be reconsidered, and that's why most of the folks in 11 this room have framed this as a reclassification of 12 waste.
13 You know, I asked the question earlier, 14 and I've got to say in my comments, whether these are 15 formal comments are not, I've got to bring up again 16 that the regulations require this cumulative effects 17 of regulation analysis, and we heard that that is 18 essentially about the regulatory burden to industry, 19 to the regulated community. And we heard, of course, 20 that there is, you know, a cumulative impacts analysis 21 that's done as part of the NEPA process.
22 But the NEPA process considers projects in 23 isolation and looks at one project. We do an 24 analysis. We do an environmental assessment and then 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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78 a FONSI, and we move on. And, you know, we've heard 1
that the environmental assessment that's been done in 2
this case is relatively generic. And so we have 3
pretty serious concerns about, you know, whether any 4
meaningful cumulative impacts analysis will be done.
5 And so, you know, if it's the cumulative 6
effects of regulation, you know, burden to industry 7
that has to become the earnest sort of, you know, 8
cumulative analysis, then so be it. Right? There's 9
a very real question about whether WCS or its 10 successors in interest can maintain, you know, the 11 number, the volume of sites that are there, the volume 12 of material that it's asked for, and, you know, the 13 sort of constantly shifting asks that it makes of the 14 NRC and of the State of Texas.
15 I think there are very serious open 16 questions about whether, you know, all of those pieces 17 can be juggled all at once, and so, again, whether 18 it's a cumulative effects analysis for the impacted 19 community or the regulated industry, it's got to be 20 done. We cannot look at a generic rulemaking without 21 considering all of the other moving pieces.
22 And there is a pending application from 23 WCS to the NRC. Right? So the NRC's not a -- there's 24 not a high-level radioactive waste application pending 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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79 to the NRC right now? Yes. Interim Storage Partners, 1
yes. The ISP. We all call it WCS, but Interim 2
Storage Partners. Right?
3 They are a applicant before the NRC.
4 Right? So this rulemaking's got to be considered in 5
that context. And, I guess, I will just finish by 6
being yet another person to quote the governor on 7
this. The governor's tweet from June 5 -- it's been 8
said; I'm just going to say it one more time. "Some 9
people want to make Texas the radioactive waste 10 dumping ground of America. I won't let that happen."
11 A whole lot has changed in Texas in the 12 last couple of years, so we'll view it in that 13 context.
14 MR. CAMERON: Thank you. Thank you, 15 Adrian.
16 And we're going to go to Al now, and then 17 we're going back to Marcus, and hopefully Diane is on 18 the phone. But Al Bradley -- Bradley?
19 MR. BRADEN: Al Braden.
20 MR. CAMERON: Braden. I'm sorry.
21 MR. BRADEN: I have the difficult position 22 of following Adrian and Smitty, so -- thank you.
23 Good evening, Commissioners. I'm Al 24 Braden, an Austin citizen. I volunteer with Sierra 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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80 Club and 350 Austin, concerned with stewardship of our 1
life-giving earth. And I think I've got to give you 2
credit for one thing tonight. You've really 3
graphically summarized how I feel about this whole 4
thing.
5 (General laughter.)
6 MR. BRADEN: As I look at all the 7
shortcuts and, you know, 500-year plans and all the 8
things that I read in your slides -- and I'll go back 9
and read them in detail -- it just makes more and more 10 questions and, frankly, a little bit of despair about 11 this.
12 Fifty-five years ago, I was a high school 13 student in El Paso, and I was studying to become a 14 nuclear physicist. At that very time, the Atomic 15 Energy Commission planned, promised, a long-term 16 permanent disposal of nuclear waste, and though I 17 later studied physics and engineering, I did not, in 18 the end, become a nuclear physicist.
19 But in those 55 years, the Atomic Energy 20 Commission did not in the end find the solution to 21 long-term underground disposal of this waste. And the 22 NRC later and the DOE have failed in their obligation 23 to solve the disposal of radioactive waste that their 24 very programs create and support.
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81 And even as reactors are now licensed 1
beyond their original design lives, the nuclear 2
industry is winding down. Their radioactive and toxic 3
waste remains a serious problem for the NRC and a 4
national problem.
5 I've seen the open-air storage cask in 6
Connecticut, from the closed Connecticut Yankee, off 7
in the woods, just 25 miles from downtown Hartford, a 8
city of -- a region of 1.2 million. And I wonder 9
what's going to happen to the above-ground storage 10 cask at Vermont Yankee now being closed and seven 11 miles from my kids and grandkids in Brattleboro, 12 Vermont. So I take this personally. I know that safe 13 and permanent storage is a pressing problem, and it 14 will accelerate as our nuclear fleet winds down in the 15 next 30 years.
16 You have got to find the permanent 17 storage. Relabeling something does not make it safe, 18 does not make it less radioactive, does not shorten 19 its half-life, and does not reduce the risk that it 20 poses to future generations.
21 VOICE: Amen.
22 MR. BRADEN: The solution to this 23 radioactivity is not to dump it in shallow graves on 24 the high plains of Texas. Once Waste Control 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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82 Specialists makes all their money accepting this 1
waste, once the site is full and some sand is poured 2
over it and maybe a 500-year piece of cement, it will 3
become the responsibility of the people of the United 4
States and the people of Texas in particular to live 5
with, remediate, and dig up at even greater cost and 6
put somewhere in the permanent storage that's 7
required.
8 Once that waste touches the soil of Texas, 9
it will not leave, and we will have created a 10 Chernobyl on the high plains that will contaminate our 11 land, our water, and our people for thousands of 12 years, and I cannot accept that. So I, please, ask 13 you, reject this application and reject the concept of 14 the rulemaking to relabel dangerous waste as something 15 less than it truly is. Thank you very much.
16 (Applause.)
17 MR. CAMERON: Thank you. Thank you, Al.
18 And, Marcus, is Diane on the phone?
19 MARCUS: She is.
20 MR. CAMERON: Go ahead, Diane.
21 MS. D'ARRIGO: Hi. I'm Diane D'Arrigo 22 with Nuclear Information and Resource Service. All 23 right.
24 Well, anyway -- (feedback from phone 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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83 connection)
C and greater-than-C in some 1
concentrations, and the 10 CFR 61 regulations require 2
or assume at least a hundred years of institutional 3
control post-closure.
4 So the radionuclides that are generated, 5
which come over 95 percent in the low-level waste 6
stream in the country, is from nuclear power reactors 7
in the commercial waste stream, and this stuff goes to 8
these -- legally they can be unlined soil trenches 9
with a hundred years of institutional control and an 10 allowable release rate.
11 I got a little confused on the call on the 12 22nd of August, where there was some discussion of 13 allowing 500 milligrams per year to people from these 14 sites. It's my reading of the regulation that it's a 15 25 millirem, 25-75-25 millirem, dose is still what is 16 the limit for exposures to the public from these 17 facilities.
18 And I do understand that, depending on 19 the -- pretty much any computer models or scenarios 20 that are done that calculate doses to the public, come 21 up with an inadvertent intruder, a resident farmer 22 sitting on top of this site after the hundred years, 23 and that's the person or the family that would get the 24 highest dose.
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84 And that person is supposed to be limited 1
to a set amount of exposure. Supposedly one can put 2
in all kinds of long, long-lasting radionuclides, and 3
as long as they're a bit deeper in the ditch than the 4
Class A stuff, then the farmer and his family are only 5
going to get what we now consider the legal or 6
acceptable dose.
7 Well, that's my interpretation of 10 CFR 8
61, and now -- well, we also know that in 1980, states 9
were given responsibility for so-called low-level 10 waste, which is defined in the law as everything but 11 irradiated fuel, and it's my understanding that it was 12 transuranics above 100 nanocuries per gram, and that 13 even when the amendments act passed in '85, that 14 states still had this responsibility to provide for 15 disposal for the private nuclear power facilities and 16 other nuclear generators in states.
17 And in 1992, the provision that would 18 force states to take title and liability to this 19 waste, if they didn't provide for disposal, was 20 overturned by the Supreme Court.
21 But since the same programs were still in 22 progress in the ten or so context, there were many 23 programs going on, and the only site that opened was 24 a WCS site. None of the other sites opened. Utah 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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85 opened, but not really under the Nuclear Waste Policy 1
Act. However, it's limited to Class A concentrations.
2 So now we're being asked and Utah's been 3
asked to take higher concentration waste at its dump.
4 We're being asked for the operating dumps that are 5
left in Washington, in South Carolina, and Texas, 6
potentially in Utah, to take wastes that have higher 7
concentrations than those in the A, B, and C 8
categorizations.
9 Well, I've been part of the public 10 interest community, focusing on so-called low-level 11 waste since 1979 and in 1980, and in those early '80s, 12 we -- the Sierra Club passed a provision, calling on 13 low-level radioactive waste to be redefined to exclude 14 anything that was hazardous longer than the 15 institutional control period required for the 16 radioactive waste site, and to have a goal of zero 17 release, to try to isolate the waste rather than make 18 it legal to expose people now and in the future to 19 radioactivity from this waste.
20 When the 1985 amendments act passed, then 21 Congress said, Oh, well, okay; we'll just have states 22 be responsible for Classes A, B and C, but this other 23 stuff that's even more concentrated, we'll have the 24 DOE take care of it.
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86 Well, DOE's having a hard time finding a 1
high-level nuclear waste dump, and while we believe 2
this waste is hot enough to be considered high-level 3
waste or should be isolated, the public interest 4
communities who've been focusing on these so-called 5
low-level waste dumps since 1980, when the law first 6
passed, certainly during that whole siting period when 7
there were 40 or 50 dumps targeted around this 8
country, people were saying, This isn't low-level 9
waste. If it's hazardous longer than we're going to 10 have institutional control, it shouldn't be there.
11 So my point is that what's already in the 12 low-level radioactive waste category is more than it 13 should be, and now what we're being asked to do is 14 accept even more, and exponentially more potentially, 15 depending how one looks at it, certainly many time 16 more radioactivity going into facilities that really 17 are only required to have a hundred years of 18 institutional control or are only assumed to have 19 that.
20 So the amount of radioactivity and the 21 longevity of the radioactivity in all three 22 categories, A, B, and C, is beyond a hundred years.
23 We also know from more recent updated information, but 24 it's not all that new, that women and children have 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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87 much more health effects than men from the same amount 1
of dose. So we've got sexism in our radiation 2
standards.
3 What's allowable for a standard male, 4
which is what the -- or average men and women in some 5
cases, the amount of radioactivity, the legal doses of 6
radioactivity are based mainly on men, and women get 7
more cancer than men, children many times more cancer 8
than men at the same doses.
9 So in addition to putting more 10 radioactivity in, into sites, we're also putting a 11 greater threat on parts of our population, parts of 12 our life cycle, that -- we're putting more threat on 13 our life cycle, on the human and the other organisms' 14 life cycles.
15 So we really need to have a goal of 16 isolating this waste and putting it into a facility 17 that has potential connections to water supplies, to 18 downwind communities, requires transportation back and 19 forth across the country, is too big of a danger.
20 So -- and then going back to the 21 inadvertent intruder and the analyses, where they're 22 done, I had actually a couple of questions for the 23 NRC. I tried to raise them on the 22nd, and I still 24 don't quite get it. So the calculations are being 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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88 done that would allow for much, much higher 1
radioactivity, longer
- lasting, more intensely 2
concentrated, which means it's going to be dangerous 3
longer because it takes more half-life to decay.
4 We're being asked to put that into 5
facilities and let the -- as it stands now, it's my 6
understanding, that on a case-by-case basis, state 7
regulators can allow for greater-than-C to go into 8
these 10 CFR 61 facilities.
9 So if it can be done on a case-by-case 10 basis now, which I know that it has been -- I think it 11 has at the other sites -- then is what this rule would 12 do, one of the options for the rule would be to make 13 it generic?
14 It would be up to the dump operator? It 15 would be up to the NRC with an agreement state in 16 developing the allowance for higher-than-Class C 17 limits going to these sites? How would it be 18 different than it is now, is one of my questions.
19 MR. CAMERON: And, Diane, could you ask 20 your other question, and then we'll go to the NRC to 21 answer, and then we'll come back to speakers in the 22 room. But ask your other question while we have you.
23 MS. D'ARRIGO: The other is 500-year 24 institutional barrier, is that something that's now 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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89 being added? And where did you get the -- I thought 1
that I heard on the 22nd 500 millirems as the 2
allowable dose, when, in fact, 10 CFR 61.41 says it's 3
25-75-25.
4 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you. Thank 5
you, Diane, for joining us. And we're going to go to 6
Tim McCartin for first and second question, or however 7
you want to do that. Tim.
8 MR. McCARTIN: Well, first I'll address 9
the 500 millirem dose and 25 millirem dose. The 25 10 millirem dose is to an off-site individual, and that 11 has not changed. We're not doing anything different 12 for GTCC waste.
13 What is different is the classification 14 scheme of A, B and C was based on assessing the 15 intruder hazard, and when they were looking at the 16 intruder, they looked at limiting the dose to the 17 intruder to 500 millirem for the whole body, and 18 that's a 500 millirem dose in today's dosimetry.
19 MS. D'ARRIGO: Where is that from? It was 20 in the 10 CFR 61?
21 MR. McCARTIN: Well, you won't see it in 22 61 in terms of any of the requirements, because the 23 concentration limits were done to ensure you don't get 24 more than a 500 millirem dose. That would be in the 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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90 development of Part 61, and when I'm finished, I know 1
Dave Esh might be able to give a reference of where 2
that information is from the development of Part 61.
3 Because now we're in a situation for 4
greater-than-Class C waste, the classification limit 5
doesn't apply anymore --
6 MS. D'ARRIGO: Wait, wait, wait. So 7
you're saying that in 10 CFR 61, environmental impact 8
statement or whatever the background was that was 9
updated, that in that they decided it was okay to use 10 500 millirems for an inadvertent intruder?
11 MR. McCARTIN: Correct.
12 MS. D'ARRIGO: But for people who are off-13 site, they would only get 25?
14 MR. McCARTIN: That is correct.
15 MR. CAMERON: Okay.
16 MR. McCARTIN: When Part 61 was developed.
17 Now, because Part 61 in its current form doesn't allow 18 things greater than Class C, how do you protect the 19 intruder? Because the suggestion -- you know, it is 20 greater-than-Class C. These wastes are higher than 21 that limit.
22 And so that's why we've suggested in our 23 reg basis that you need to do an analysis of the 24 intruder to ensure the intruder continues to be 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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91 protected to the level that was protected for the 1
Class C waste in Part 61, which is that 500 millirem 2
dose.
3 In addition, we've said Part 61 says you 4
could have, for Class C waste, a 500-year intruder 5
barrier or depth below five meters. For greater-than-6 Class C, we're not suggesting the or, but you put it 7
at least five meters below the surface and a 500-year 8
intruder barrier, so there's additional protection for 9
these greater concentrations.
10 But at the heart of it, you still are 11 going to have to show the level of protection is the 12 same as the level of protection that's provided for 13 the intruder by the classification scheme.
14 MR. CAMERON: Now, do you want to answer 15 the second question? Was that Diane's first question?
16 Are you still with that?
17 MR. McCARTIN: Can you refresh my memory.
18 MR. CAMERON: Diane, can you ask -- in a 19 short way, can you ask what your first question was.
20 MS. D'ARRIGO: Well, we're in the middle 21 of the 500 millirem one. Why don't we just finish 22 with that.
23 MR. CAMERON: Well, because I think we 24 might be here until tomorrow to finish it.
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92 MS. D'ARRIGO: It's kind of a yes or no.
1 If it's in the regulation, the 500 millirems, and I 2
just can't find it.
3 MR. McCARTIN: Well, correct. You will 4
not see 500 millirem in 10 CFR Part 61. But what you 5
do see --
6 MS. D'ARRIGO: But that's the protection 7
for the intruder that you're providing.
8 MR. McCARTIN: And that's how they 9
determine the concentration limits for A, B and C 10 waste, to limit it to 500 millirem for the intruder.
11 That's how they derived those concentrations. You do 12 see the concentrations.
13 You don't see an explicit statement in the 14 regulations that that concentration was protecting the 15 intruder to 500 millirem. You will see it in the 16 documentation for the development of the 17 classification, the concentration limits. And Dave 18 Esh may be able to provide a reference where that is.
19 I'm not --
20 MR. CAMERON: Dave, do you want to --
21 MS. D'ARRIGO: That's okay. I'll --
22 MR. McCARTIN: -- add something?
23 MS. D'ARRIGO: -- find it offline. But --
24 MR. CAMERON: Are you okay, Diane?
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93 MS. D'ARRIGO: What we've got is the 500 1
millirems. What you're trying to calculate now is if 2
you put in much higher concentration waste, it'll 3
supposedly just only give that same amount of 500 4
millirems to the inadvertent intruder?
5 MR. McCARTIN: Well, the -- an application 6
would have to demonstrate that the wastes they are 7
disposing of would result in no more than that same 8
dose limit of 500 millirem for the intruder.
9 MS. D'ARRIGO: Well, isn't that what's 10 used now for a case-by-case basis, to put greater than 11 C at these sites?
12 MR. CAMERON: And, Diane, I think we're 13 going to have to go to your first question. We've 14 tried to ventilate this --
15 MS. D'ARRIGO: This is my first question.
16 What is the difference between what they're doing now 17 on a case-by-case basis doing -- versus how it would 18 be done more generically in the future, or whether it 19 would be up to the waste operator to do the analysis 20 itself.
21 MR. McCARTIN: Well, I'm not exactly 22 sure --
23 MS. D'ARRIGO: It's the distinction 24 between how it's done now and what the option would 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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94 be. I know you said there's three options.
1 MR. McCARTIN: Well, there is no --
2 MS. D'ARRIGO: How would that --
3 MR. McCARTIN: There is no GTCC --
4 MS. D'ARRIGO: -- analysis be done? Would 5
it be done once generically, or would it be done on 6
each time? And how's it different than what they do 7
now?
8 MR. CAMERON: Okay. We're going to go to 9
that one.
10 MR. McCARTIN: Okay. Well, there isn't 11 any GTCC waste being disposed of under Part 61 now.
12 What --
13 MS. D'ARRIGO: Well, at Barnwell I know 14 there has been.
15 MR. CAMERON: Diane, could you just let 16 him finish his answer.
17 MR. McCARTIN: Now --
18 MS. D'ARRIGO: Sure.
19 MR. McCARTIN: -- in terms of the three 20 alternatives, if we did a rulemaking, we would codify 21 the requirements for the intruder assessment, and that 22 would be done for all sites that potentially could 23 seek that.
24 Now, case by case, they still are going to 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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95 have to show how the intruder is protected, because 1
the classification scheme, you're going beyond what's 2
allowed, beyond the Class C limit, so you have to show 3
the intruder is protected. So we would assume a 4
similar kind of assessment of the impact to the 5
intruder, what the dose might be.
6 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Diane --
7 MS. D'ARRIGO: Well, then, you better 8
consider that women get more cancer than men at the 9
same dose, and kids get even more.
10 MR. CAMERON: Let's try to answer that 11 one, and then we'll go on. Go ahead, Tim.
12 MR. McCARTIN: Well, the dosimetry in 13 terms of -- and it probably is a bad terminology, but 14 the reference "man" is not a male per se. It is a 15 male with additional organs related to a female, so it 16 is a composite. And so you average the dose for all 17 the organs that are there.
18 VOICE: Who knew the NRC could do that?
19 MR. McCARTIN: Well, no. That's ICRP.
20 That's common radiation protection. There is a 21 recognition --
22 MS. D'ARRIGO: That's not a minimum.
23 MR. CAMERON: Okay. So there may be a 24 seminar in the bar upstairs. Okay.
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96 But, Diane, I'm going to have Dave Esh try 1
to give you some references that may be helpful. And 2
then we're going to come back in the room here to J.
3 Nile Fischer, and Sylvia Pope. Dave Esh for Diane 4
D'Arrigo.
5 MR. ESH: Hi. This is Dave Esh. And you 6
were asking about references or Tim pointed you in the 7
direction of me for references. So hopefully I won't 8
mess up the numbers, but I probably will. The draft 9
EIS, I believe, is NUREG-0782, and then the final EIS 10 for Part 61, I believe, was NUREG-0945.
11 And then there's a whole series of 12 supporting documents that if any of you have insomnia, 13 you're free to browse. NUREG-CR-1759, volume 3. All 14 of these walk through all those historic calculations, 15 and they're very detailed. They can be very difficult 16 to go through.
17 So one other reference I'll give you is 18 some colleagues and myself just did a waste management 19 paper this past year on a new tool that we're 20 developing called Table Calc, and that document, I 21 think, walks through pretty clearly in like ten pages 22 how the NRC developed the waste classification 23 concentrations. So if you don't want to read 1,500 24 pages, you can start with the ten-page primer.
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97 The primary author was my colleague 1
Christian Ridge -- her last name is R-I-D-G-E -- and 2
myself, David Esh. If you use Google and put our 3
names in and try Table Calc, hopefully that should 4
come up. if not, send me an email, and I'll send you 5
the paper, and that should give you a good start.
6 MR. CAMERON: Could you give Diane your 7
email with NRC.
8 MR. ESH: Yes. It's -- all our emails, 9
unless you share a name with somebody else, which I 10 don't, with a three-letter weird last name is first 11 name, dot, last name, at NRC.gov. So that's 12 David.Esh@NRC.gov.
13 MR. CAMERON: And the spelling of Esh --
14 MR. ESH: Is E-S-H.
15 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Diane, thank you.
16 Thank you for your interest.
17 We're going back in the room here, and I'm 18 sorry. Fischer? And if you could just pronounce the 19 whole thing for Donna.
20 MR. FISCHER: Hello. I'm J. Nile Fischer 21 from Arlington, Texas. I live within 60 miles of 22 Comanche Peak. I take that this is about changing the 23 designation of waste, and it bothers me because I have 24 concerns that we're going to let the electric 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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98 utilities and the Department of Energy and the 1
creators of our nation's nuclear waste externalize the 2
cost of storage.
3 So any move that's going to take our high-4 level waste, call it another thing and stick in a low-5 level storage facility is concerning to me. We can't 6
go on the cheap with storing high-level waste. We 7
cannot entrust the public's health well into the 8
future to short-lived, state-based interim storage 9
facilities that are for profit.
10 What requirements can the NRC make to 11 ensure that an agreement state maintains security to 12 prevent intruders? Now, that's a rhetorical question, 13 because at this point, I don't think the NRC has any 14 way to ensure that the waste is going to stay on the 15 ground beyond a hundred years, and we know that this 16 waste can stay hot and dangerous for thousands of 17 years, some of it.
18 This question becomes even more difficult, 19 given that these interim facilities are not federally 20 licensed. Right? These are state facilities. They 21 may have to meet some federal regs, but incredibly, 22 these are agreement states' responsibilities once 23 they're opened.
24 I'm concerned that the nuclear fuel that 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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99 our DOE programs generously subsidized, that provided 1
cheap nuclear fuel to public utilities, will have to 2
be guarded at the expense of the local agreement 3
states' budgets. To me, it seems unfair to expect 4
that an agreement state's future taxpayers foot that 5
bill, long after the for-profit storage facility 6
operators close shop.
7 That said, if any GTCC or GTCC-like wastes 8
are going to be recategorized so that they can be 9
deposited at the current low-level, privately managed, 10 consolidated interim storage facilities in various 11 states, then this regulatory agency must consider a 12 plan that protects the American citizen in these 13 states well beyond the 500 years discussed in the 14 models for this new regulation.
15 The NRC has a responsibility to keep the 16 public safe, today's public and the public beyond 500 17 years. Among the environmental science community, 18 which I'm a part of -- I'm a retired science 19 teacher -- there's a maxim. All waste is public. Our 20 Federal Government created the radioactive materials, 21 most of them, subsidized the production of commercial 22 reactor fuels, and promoted their commercialization.
23 There is a
fiscal and regulatory 24 responsibility that these new rules will allow.
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100 Please do not consider the reclassification of higher-1 level waste for short-term economic convenience. And, 2
please, for the love of science, keep the highest-3 level waste in federal hands and out of these 4
consolidated interim storage facilities in these 5
agreement states.
6 Thank you for your time.
7 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you.
8 (Applause.)
9 MR. CAMERON: Thank you very much.
10 Sylvia, Sylvia Pope.
11 MS. POPE: Hello. I'm Sylvia Pope. I'm 12 from Austin, Texas. Thank you for holding this 13 hearing here tonight.
14 And rather than recapping the many 15 excellent points that other speakers have made about 16 the importance of isolating the GTCC and GTCC-like 17 waste in a geologically correct and appropriate 18 facility, I'm just going to tell you about my 19 experience of working early in my career at two 20 facilities that had attempted to contain radioactive 21 contaminated waste on site.
22 And it's my hope that this proposal be set 23 aside, because it's inappropriate to reclassify this 24 waste at a lower level to make it acceptable to bury 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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101 at a shallow depth.
1 So I worked at two sites, and at one site, 2
the concrete entombment container of this mixed 3
radioactive waste site was on the verge of rupture, 4
and that posed a very serious health risk to the 5
public.
6 Just the mere drilling to characterize the 7
contamination in the soil required placing blasting 8
mats on the ground so that the drilling crew and the 9
geologists would be protected from intercepting this 10 buried waste. It is for this reason and this 11 experience that I think it's a highly dangerous 12 precedent to recharacterize this GTCC waste and bury 13 it at a shallow depth.
14 It places our soil, water and air at risk, 15 and we need to reevaluate this proposal, rescind it, 16 or at the very minimum, come up with extremely 17 stringent guidance for any disposal practices and make 18 the disposal practice and the containment structures 19 appropriate for the radioactive half-life of the 20 materials buried therein. Thank you.
21 MR. CAMERON: Thank you very much, Sylvia.
22 (Applause.)
23 MR. CAMERON: And, Marcus, do we have 24 anybody else on the phone that wants to talk?
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102 MARCUS: No questions at this time.
1 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you, Marcus.
2 And let me just check in the room. Is 3
there anybody who did not get an opportunity to talk 4
that wants to say something?
5 (No response.)
6 MR. CAMERON: Okay. The NRC staff is 7
going to be here to talk informally with you and maybe 8
the question you were trying to address about the --
9 whatever gender that was. Okay? Maybe you could talk 10 about that.
11 (General laughter.)
12 MR. McCARTIN: I'd be happy to.
13 MR. CAMERON: At any rate, I'm going to 14 ask Trish Holahan, as the senior NRC official here, to 15 close out for us. Trish.
16 DR. HOLAHAN: Thank you, Chip. Thank you 17 very much for all your comments. It was a good 18 discussion. We heard them all, and several good 19 points were raised, so it is something to consider as 20 we move forward.
21 Okay. Well, thank you very much for all 22 your comments. It was a lively discussion, and some 23 good points were made that gives us food for thought 24 and consideration. So we'll take your comments.
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103 MS. HADDEN: Will you accept those --
1 tonight's comments as formal comments, please?
2 DR. HOLAHAN: I'll have to go back, but 3
what we do with a regulatory basis, we don't itemize 4
each individual comment. It's not a comment response, 5
so we'll take into consideration the comments that we 6
received by reviewing the transcript. But if you can 7
provide written comments, please do, because you made 8
very good comments, but we can't attribute everything 9
exactly the way you want them to be attributed. If 10 you provide them in writing, we'll --
11 MS. HADDEN: Well, isn't there a 12 transcript?
13 DR. HOLAHAN: Yes. But -- there is a 14 transcript, but we'll review it.
15 MS. HADDEN: Isn't this typically done, 16 though? I've been in many, many NRC meetings where 17 the transcript was used to create the formal comments, 18 and typically they are accepted at a meeting like this 19 as formal comments. This is unusual not to do that.
20 DR. HOLAHAN: We've done other rulemakings 21 the same way, but we'll take your comments into 22 consideration, and we'll review the transcript.
23 MR. CAMERON: And I think there's one 24 other thing that Karen brought up before was will you, 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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104 when you make this decision, will you publicize that, 1
so people know whether the comments they gave tonight 2
was okay; they don't have to repeat them. Is that 3
correct, Karen?
4 MS. HADDEN: Yes. That's part of it.
5 MR. CAMERON: Okay.
6 DR. HOLAHAN: Okay. Well, we'll take that 7
back and -- is that what you're saying?
8 MR. PESSIN: I was just -- yes.
9 DR. HOLAHAN: Okay.
10 MR. PESSIN: And one thing you could do is 11 you could -- I know you prepared --
12 MR. CAMERON: Get on the record, Andy.
13 MR. PESSIN: Sorry. To the extent that 14 you prepared a statement that you read from, that 15 could be the basis of a written comment that you 16 submit. I mean, that would be one way to work this 17 out. I mean, it's -- there's no legal requirement 18 that we consider comments received at a meeting like 19 this to be formal comments. I mean, we could do that, 20 but it's not a part of --
21 MS. HADDEN: Please do.
22 VOICE: Why do you think we're here?
23 MR. CAMERON: What if they got the 24 transcript -- and, Donna, when will the transcript be 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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105 available?
1 THE REPORTER: Do you know when it was 2
requested originally? Was it rush?
3 MS. MAUPIN: Normally seven days.
4 THE REPORTER: Okay. That sounds right.
5 MR. CAMERON: What if they Xeroxed the 6
part of the transcript and submitted that as a formal 7
comment? Would that work? I'm going to go to 8
Cardelia.
9 MS. MAUPIN: In rulemaking -- we're in 10 pre-rulemaking right now. What we would like is for 11 you to submit your written comments so they can be on 12 the docket, because we've tried -- we tried previously 13 with the last couple of public meetings, because 14 sometimes you can -- we are all like human, subject to 15 misinterpret the comments and the strength of the 16 comments that you are trying to make.
17 So we are asking, if you are vested in 18 your comment, that's why we ask that -- we publicize 19 this as a means to clarify your questions, so that you 20 can submit the comments on the docket, because there 21 is no way we can formally do this if you do not 22 formally submit them on the docket, and we provided in 23 the Federal Register notice a number of ways in which 24 you could submit them on the docket.
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106 So if you are vested in your comments, 1
whatever you've written down, you can put your name 2
and submit those on the docket.
3 VOICE: Why don't you just say you don't 4
want to do it? That's what you're saying. You don't 5
want to do it.
6 MR. CAMERON: Okay. I think --
7 MS. HADDEN: One more question.
8 MR. CAMERON: Go ahead.
9 MS. HADDEN: Could you then -- the nature 10 of oral comments is different than written comments.
11 It's part of a dialogue that's happening here, and the 12 way it comes across is often different. Both are 13 valid, and I'm hoping that you'll accept both as 14 formal comment. I'm going to ask for that again.
15 And would you please in this case send us 16 a copy of the full transcript so that we might take 17 down what we said and send it to you, because what I 18 had written down, for example, is not what I said on 19 the microphone. We're here with real people, and it 20 comes out differently. I'd be happy and I plan to 21 submit additional written comments as well, but the 22 two are different, and we'd like it all to count.
23 People came from all over the state that are here 24 tonight.
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107 MR. CAMERON: Okay.
1 DR. HOLAHAN: I think you have a -- you 2
make a good point, and we'll certainly send you the 3
transcript when we get it, if you provide the 4
addresses.
5 MS. MAUPIN: Could I amend that? We were 6
planning to put the transcript -- and we said this at 7
our April -- we said this at our meeting on August 22, 8
that once the transcript is available, that we would 9
put it up on the site for -- and on the docket for 10 GTCC. I think, as opposed to trying to send that 11 document to everyone, we plan to put the information 12 up on the docket and on our public website.
13 MS. HADDEN: On ADAMS?
14 MS. MAUPIN: No. The docket specifically 15 for this one that I had referenced earlier. We would 16 put it up on the docket. I know a lot of people have 17 problems pulling stuff up out of ADAMS, so there was 18 a report we just made public. We put that up just 19 within the last week. We've put that up on the 20 docket, so to make it easy for you to get to. So we 21 were planning -- that's what we said before -- to put 22 this up on the docket.
23 MR. CAMERON: Okay. We're putting it up 24 on the docket. It'll be available, and do you want to 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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108 finish up for us, Trish.
1 DR. HOLAHAN: And if you can't get it on 2
the docket, please send an email to us, and we'll send 3
it.
4 MS. HADDEN: And by when, because we have 5
a September 20 deadline.
6 DR. HOLAHAN: Well, it'll be available 7
within seven days, so we'll put it on the docket --
8 MS. MAUPIN: As soon as we get it.
9 DR. HOLAHAN: -- as soon as we get it.
10 And then -- so in about two weeks.
11 MR. CAMERON: Okay. This is good, a good 12 path forward perhaps here, and --
13 DR. HOLAHAN: Yes. And if any of you 14 can't access it on the docket, please notify us, and 15 we'll send it to you.
16 MR. CAMERON: Okay. And, Trish, do you 17 have any other close-out remarks for us?
18 DR. HOLAHAN: No. Just thank you very 19 much, and I look forward to hearing more from any of 20 you.
21 (Whereupon, at 8:35 p.m., the public 22 meeting was concluded.)
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