ML19246A696

GTCC Public Meeting Transcript - August 27, 2019

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: Austin, Texas Date: 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 1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3 + + + + +

4 PUBLIC MEETING 5 + + + + +

6 DRAFT REGULATORY BASIS FOR THE DISPOSAL OF 7 GREATER-THAN CLASS C (GTCC) AND TRANSURANIC WASTE 8

9 10 Tuesday, August 27, 2019 11 6:00 p.m.

12 13 Marriott Renaissance Austin Hotel 14 Sabine Room 15 9721 Arboretum Boulevard 16 Austin, Texas 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 1 FOR THE NRC:

2 FRANCIS "CHIP" X. CAMERON, Facilitator 3 PATRICIA K. HOLAHAN, Ph.D.

4 ANDREW S. PESSIN, ESQ.

5 TIM McCARTIN 6 CARDELIA MAUPIN 7 BILL MAHER 8 DAVID ESH 9 STEVE KOENICK 10 FRED SCHOFER 11 STEVE DEMBEK 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 1 PARTICIPANTS:

2 DALE BULLA 3 PAT BULLA 4 MARTHA BARKER 5 AL BRADEN 6 LON BURNAM 7 DIANE D'ARRIGO 8 J. NILE FISCHER 9 SUSYBELLE GOSLEE 10 KAREN HADDEN 11 MARION MLOTOK 12 SYLVIA POPE 13 ADRIAN SHELLEY 14 ROBERT SINGLETON 15 TOM "SMITTY" SMITH 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 1 CONTENTS 2 Agenda Item Page 3 Welcome/Introductions/Logistics . . . . . . . . . 5 4 Background and Overview: Draft Regulatory . . . 10 5 Basis for the Disposal of GTCC and 6 Transuranic Waste 7 Discussion of the Draft Regulatory Basis . . . . 33 8 Meeting Recap and Closure . . . . . . . . . . . 102 9 Adjourn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108 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 1 P R O C E E D I N G S 2 6:00 p.m.

3 MR. CAMERON: Good evening, everyone. My 4 name is Chip Cameron, and I'd like to welcome you to 5 the public meeting tonight. And I'm going to serve as 6 your facilitator tonight. And in that role, I'll try 7 to help all of you to have a productive meeting 8 tonight.

9 The topic tonight is the NRC, Nuclear 10 Regulatory Commission, draft regulatory basis for the 11 disposal of greater-than-Class C waste and transuranic 12 waste. We're going to try to cut down on the acronyms 13 tonight, but three that you will hear are NRC for 14 Nuclear Regulatory Commission. You're going to GTCC, 15 for greater-than-Class C; and you're going to hear 16 TRU, for transuranic waste.

17 And our objectives are simply stated, but 18 we hope they're not too hard to achieve. One is to 19 make sure that the NRC gives you clear information on 20 their draft regulatory basis on GTCC. And the second 21 objective is to give the NRC an opportunity to listen 22 to your advice, your comments, your concerns about 23 this particular subject. And we're going to start 24 with some brief presentations from the NRC staff.

25 And Trish Holahan, who I'll introduce in NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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6 1 a minute, is going to introduce them to you, but then 2 we're going to go all out to you. We have people who 3 are on the phone also, and some of them may want to 4 speak. And --

5 VOICE: You've lost audio, Chip.

6 MR. CAMERON: Okay. I was going to go and 7 alternate between those of you in the audience and 8 those of you on the phone, but we just have several 9 speakers here in the room, so I'm going to go to all 10 of you in the room first, and then I'm going to go to 11 Marcus, our operator, who will then put through the 12 people who are on the phone who want to talk to us.

13 And thank you for signing up here in the 14 room to speak. That gives me an idea of how much time 15 we're going to have to have, and I would just ask all 16 of you to try to keep it to five-minute guideline for 17 your comments, and if you have questions, the staff is 18 going to be here to answer those particular questions.

19 We are taking a transcript tonight, and Donna is our 20 court reporter. So when you do get up to speak, just 21 please clearly introduce yourself, so that she can 22 correctly identify on the transcript.

23 And with that -- oh, one other thing.

24 Radio station KUT did a public service announcement, 25 and we thank them for that, about the meeting tonight.

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7 1 But in addition to the topic of GTCC, they also said 2 that this meeting was going to address the proposal 3 for an interim storage facility in Andrews, Texas.

4 Well, that's wrong, and I apologize to anybody who 5 came to the meeting just for that purpose of talking 6 about interim storage, and we'll gladly listen to you 7 if there's anybody here that did come solely for that 8 purpose, but we're going to give priority to the 9 people who are here to talk about GTCC.

10 And let me introduce Trish Holahan. She's 11 the director of the Division of Decommissioning 12 Uranium Recovery and Waste Disposal at the NRC --

13 Waste Programs. Waste programs. Sorry, Trish. Why 14 don't I turn it over to you to introduce everybody.

15 DR. HOLAHAN: Okay. Thank you, Chip. And 16 welcome and good evening to everybody coming out on an 17 evening. I hope it doesn't rain.

18 VOICES: We hope it does.

19 DR. HOLAHAN: You're hoping it does? Oh, 20 okay. I stand corrected. I came from Maryland, and 21 it was pouring. So, anyways, I'm Trish Holahan, and 22 as Chip mentioned, I just took over the Division of 23 Decommissioning Uranium and Recovery and Waste 24 Programs from John Tappert. He and I switched 25 positions, so he's now doing rulemaking in the Office NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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8 1 of Nuclear Material and Safety and Safeguards.

2 This organization led in the development 3 of the draft GTCC regulatory basis, which is a tool 4 that the NRC uses to examine the technical, legal, 5 policy, and administrative components of a regulatory 6 issue when considering whether to enter rulemaking.

7 So this is at the pre-rulemaking stage. In addition, 8 the information in the draft regulatory basis should 9 be considered preliminary.

10 With me in the room are Cardelia Maupin, 11 the senior project manager of this project who's going 12 to be speaking; Andy Pessin from our Office of General 13 Counsel; Tim McCartin, who's a senior level advisor 14 for performance assessment.

15 Also in the room are Dave Esh in 16 performance assessment; Steve Koenick, the branch 17 chief responsible for this project; Fred Schofer; and 18 Steve Dembek; oh, and Bill Maher. Sorry. I'm looking 19 for them. But, anyways, they're all here.

20 And we're -- because various disciplines 21 were needed to examine the GTCC waste disposal, this 22 work group was comprised of several different offices, 23 including the Division of Waste -- of Decommissioning 24 and Uranium Recovery and Waste Programs. Also it 25 included the MNSS Division of Rulemaking for cost NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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9 1 analysis and the rulemaking PM, the Division of 2 Material Safety, Security State and Tribal Programs 3 for agreement, state and tribal interactions; the 4 Division of Spent-Fuel Management for performance 5 assessment and criticality and safety analysis; 6 obviously our legal counsel and the Office of General 7 Counsel; and the Office of Nuclear Security and 8 Incident Response to address security and safeguard 9 issues.

10 In addition, contractual support was 11 provided from the Center for Nuclear Waste Regulatory 12 Analysis, Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, 13 and then as background information, in 2018, the NRC 14 issued a Federal Register notice and held two public 15 meetings seeking stakeholders' input relative to the 16 identification of potential issues associated with 17 greater-than-Class C waste disposal.

18 These activities, along with the comment 19 letters received in response to the Federal Register 20 notice helped to inform this draft regulatory basis 21 which we're going to talk about more. And so the NRC 22 staff looks forward to discussing the draft regulatory 23 basis with you at today's webinar, and then I will 24 turn it over to Cardelia to go through her 25 presentation.

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10 1 MR. CAMERON: Okay. And just one note.

2 Bill Maher, who's back there, is the state liaison 3 officer for NRC Region IV in Arlington, Texas, and 4 he's also hoping that it rains, so --

5 DR. HOLAHAN: Sorry.

6 MS. MAUPIN: Can everybody hear me okay?

7 Good evening. It is my pleasure to talk to you today 8 about the GTCC draft basis. You might be asking, why 9 are we here. What's the purpose of this meeting?

10 If you know anything about the NRC, one of 11 the things that we believe as one of the principles of 12 good regulation for nuclear materials is that nuclear 13 regulation is the public's business. And it must be 14 transacted publicly and candidly, so the public must 15 be informed about what we're doing and have the 16 opportunity to participate in the regulatory 17 processes.

18 So that's why we're here today. We're 19 here seeking your help. We're looking for stakeholder 20 participation and involvement in this issue called 21 greater-than-Class C waste disposal. I will be 22 referring to it as GTCC, because transuranic waste, 23 what we've seen from looking at the various waste 24 streams, is basically a subset of greater than Class 25 C.

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11 1 So we anticipate today that we can assist 2 you in your public comments on the draft regulatory 3 basis for the disposal of greater than Class C, answer 4 some of your questions, clarify any issues. And this 5 supports NRC's openness, strategies, and also the 6 cumulative effects of regulation initiative, where we 7 seek to provide -- we seek input from those who might 8 be potentially affected by any proposed regulatory 9 action that we might take. Next slide, please.

10 Okay. I just -- the next slide, please, 11 slide number 3. We're on slide number 3.

12 Now I would like to talk to you about this 13 thing called low-level waste disposal as it pertains 14 to Part 61. If you know anything about the history of 15 waste disposal in this country, there was a point we 16 didn't have any regulations specifically for low-level 17 waste. That came about in 1982 when NRC put together 18 the Part 61 regulation for low-level waste disposal.

19 Prior to that, the Low-Level Waste Policy Act of 1980 20 defined low-level waste in terms of what it was not.

21 It was not classified as high-level 22 radioactive waste, not transuranic waste, not spent 23 nuclear fuel, or not byproduct material as defined in 24 Section 11(e)2 of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954. So 25 it was only after the NRC promulgated its regulations NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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12 1 in Part 61 that we established a classification system 2 where we classified low-level waste as Class A, B, C, 3 and this concept of those wastes being greater than 4 Class C.

5 This waste is based -- the system in which 6 waste is classified is based on the radiological 7 hazard, depending on the type and quantity of 8 radionuclide in it. Thus, Class A would be the least 9 hazardous. Class C would be even more hazardous, and 10 greater than Class C would be even more hazardous than 11 that.

12 Basically what Part 61 says in its 13 classification system in 61.55, paragraph 4, waste 14 that is not generally acceptable for near surface 15 disposal is waste for which form and disposal methods 16 must be different and in general, more stringent than 17 those specified in Class C waste. So that's how we 18 have this concept of greater-than-Class C waste.

19 In addition, as you look at Part 61, you 20 will see that there are some radionuclides which we 21 call transuranic nuclides that are in our 22 classification system. But as I just told you, in 23 1980, we had that low-level waste policy amendment, 24 Low-Level Waste Policy Act, that said transuranic was 25 not in the definition. Subsequently, the Low-Level NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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13 1 Waste Policy Amendments Act of 1985 no longer excluded 2 transuranic waste from the definition of low-level 3 waste. Problem is we have not updated NRC's 4 definition of low-level waste since we passed it in 5 the 1982-83, to incorporate this new concept of low-6 level waste, and that's what one of the things that 7 this group has been charged to do is to look at the 8 definition of transuranic waste and to add it to the 9 definition of low-level waste in Part 61 regulations.

10 Next slide, slide number 4. In this 11 slide, you will see that there are currently four 12 operating low-level waste disposal facilities in the 13 United States: Washington; Utah; as you know, 14 Andrews, Texas, Waste Control Specialists; and the 15 EnergySolutions in Barnwell, South Carolina. All of 16 these are in agreement states. They're all 17 regulated --

18 And if you don't know what an agreement 19 state is, let me just define that quickly for you. It 20 is a state that has entered into an agreement with the 21 NRC whereby we would relinquish our authority, and 22 then the State would assume that authority and 23 exercise its regulatory responsibilities in that area.

24 So all of these states are agreement states. And all 25 of the four currently operating low-level waste NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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14 1 facilities are regulated by agreement states, and all 2 of them accept A, B and C, except for the facility in 3 Utah.

4 Next slide, please. At present, the most 5 comprehensive information that we have about this 6 concept of greater-than-Class C waste has been 7 outlined in the Department of Energy final EIS on what 8 is called greater-than-Class C waste and greater-than-9 Class C like waste. And you might be asking the 10 question, what is the difference between greater-than-11 Class C and this concept of greater-than-Class C like 12 waste.

13 Well, the Atomic Energy Act gave the NRC 14 authority -- and as I said, we can give that authority 15 to the States, so that waste that is generated by NRC 16 licensees and agreement state licensees, that waste --

17 that GTCC waste is called GTCC waste. The waste that 18 is generated by the Department of Energy that is not 19 non-weapons-related, GTC-like waste but is done under 20 DOE's authority, that is called GTCC-like waste.

21 So right now that whole universe of GTCC-22 like which was discussed in the Department of Energy 23 final environmental impact statement is categorized 24 into three areas. Activated metals, that's the 25 internals of reactors. The second one representing NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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15 1 sealed sources, these are used in industrial and 2 medical applications. And there's a big wide open 3 third category called other waste, which could include 4 waste generated from decommissioning, or in this case, 5 these are glove boxes that might have been 6 contaminated and now is considered, you know, waste.

7 Next slide, please. We were in --

8 VOICES: Something wrong with the 9 microphone. We can't hear you. Your audio's gone.

10 MS. MAUPIN: Oh, thank you.

11 VOICE: You're back on.

12 MS. MAUPIN: Okay. Sorry about that.

13 Thank you.

14 Okay. Now we're on slide number 6. Now, 15 in this slide, we're going to talk about whose 16 responsibility is it. Greater-than-Class C waste 17 disposal was assigned a federal responsibility as a 18 part of the Low-Level Radioactive Waste Policy 19 Amendments Act of 1985. Basically it said that the 20 NRC is to license the facility and determine whether 21 or not it is adequate to protect the public health and 22 safety.

23 That act also required DOE to submit to 24 Congress a report with recommendations and options for 25 the safe disposal of all GTCC waste, the waste that's NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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16 1 generated by NRC in agreement states, and those that 2 are generated by DOE programs. And DOE completed that 3 in February of 1987.

4 Subsequently, about 20 years, nothing 5 happened on this whole issue of greater-than-Class C 6 waste disposal, so Congress, in 2005, as a part of the 7 Energy Policy Act, assigned a number of 8 responsibilities to DOE. Firstly, DOE was to do all 9 the various things needed to provide for greater-than-10 Class C waste disposal, some of which was, one, that 11 in February of 2011, DOE issue a draft environmental 12 impact statement. Subsequently in February of 2016, 13 they finalized that environmental impact statement.

14 Another one was that they were to provide 15 a report to Congress on the various alternatives for 16 the disposal of greater-than-Class C waste, which they 17 did in November of 2017. And now we are -- there has 18 been no action by Congress on that report. And in 19 that report, there were two considerations in that 20 November report. One was to use the waste isolation 21 pilot plant as a potential source or potential 22 location of GTCC disposal, and the second one being a 23 commercial low-level waste facility.

24 Next slide, please. On slide 7, we talk 25 about what the NRC has been doing. We talked about NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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17 1 what DOE has been doing. Now we're going to talk 2 about what NRC has been doing on this issue.

3 Basically in January of 2015, the State of Texas 4 requested clarification on agreement state authority 5 to regulate greater-than-Class C waste. In turn, the 6 staff in July of that year issued historical and 7 current issues paper related to the disposal of 8 greater-than-Class C waste.

9 They submitted that to our body called our 10 Commission. In turn, the Commission gave the staff 11 some direction in the December 2015 SRM which 12 basically has brought us here today. They directed 13 the staff to prepare a regulatory basis for the 14 disposal of greater-than-Class C waste through a means 15 other than a deep geologic disposal repository, and 16 also initially this was to be done after the 17 completion of the Part 61 rulemaking. In addition, 18 they directed us to address this whole issue of 19 transuranic waste, the definition of transuranic waste 20 in Part 61.

21 Subsequently, in October of 2018, of last 22 year, the Commission directed the staff to decouple.

23 We no longer want you to do this in conjunction with 24 the Part 61 rulemaking effort. We want you to move 25 forward, so we can do things like we're doing today, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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18 1 engage the public, see if there are any regulatory 2 issues that we need to get out in front of. Talk to 3 our stakeholders. And that's what we're here doing 4 today, and that's why we issued the draft regulatory 5 basis.

6 Next slide, please. Now we're on slide 7 number 8, and we're talking about why we're here. We 8 published just a few weeks ago, on July 22, a Federal 9 Register notice about this draft regulatory basis, 10 requesting your review and comment, and we had a 11 webinar on August 22. We're here today, hosting this 12 public meeting. Right now our -- which we have a 60-13 day comment period, which is to end on September 20.

14 Now I'm going to turn this over to my 15 colleague, Mr. Tim McCartin. Thank you.

16 MR. McCARTIN: Thank you, Cardelia, and if 17 I could have the next slide. Okay. In terms of the 18 regulatory basis, just a little discussion of the 19 process we did and what the results were. And as 20 Cardelia said, use the inventories that were presented 21 in DOE's final EIS for greater-than-Class C disposal.

22 However, we subdivided the information 23 into 17 specific waste streams. You will not see 17 24 specific waste streams in the EIS. You see the 25 broader categories of sealed sources, activated NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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19 1 metals, and other waste. However, there is a 2 reference in our reg basis, NRC 2019, a staff report, 3 that we fully explain how we got our 17 waste streams 4 from the DOE's EIS.

5 The reason we did that, as you'll see, one 6 of the important considerations is the hazard to the 7 intruder. An intruder might drill through a 8 particular waste container, and depending on what 9 waste is in that particular container, the hazards are 10 quite a bit different, as there's a fair amount of 11 variability among these 17 waste streams.

12 So, secondly, we did present three 13 alternatives for implementation of GTCC disposal under 14 10 CFR Part 61. Now, I'll say for all three of those 15 alternatives, the process would be the same in that 16 some -- a disposal facility seeking a license would 17 have to prepare an application and submit it to a 18 regulatory authority for review and approval. That 19 would not differ between those three alternatives.

20 However, as you can see, the three 21 alternatives, one is no regulatory change. And by 22 that, in 10 CFR Part 61, the Commission is allowed to 23 look at that on a case-by-case basis. The downside of 24 that is that there's no information, either in our 25 regulations or in guidance, that says how the NRC NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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20 1 would evaluate that application. What are they --

2 what are the requirements for the disposal?

3 And so when the NRC would review it, we 4 would have to explain why we either approved or denied 5 on what bases, but there would be no changes to the 6 regulation. On the flip side, if we conducted a 7 rulemaking, the rulemaking would provide the 8 requirements that we would use to decide whether 9 disposal was safe or not.

10 And so -- and in between the two -- those 11 are the two extremes, one where someone preparing an 12 application doesn't know the requirements, but yet 13 they submit an application, what they think would be 14 safe. The NRC would be required to review it and come 15 up with criteria for reviewing it at that time. With 16 a rulemaking the applicant ahead of time already knows 17 those requirements. In between there would be 18 guidance, but it doesn't have the force of a rule.

19 And so that really is -- the difference of 20 those three alternatives is not -- there will always 21 be an application and regulatory review, but how much 22 information is available to the public and to the 23 developer of a potential disposal site when they're 24 submitting an -- a license.

25 In terms of the results, we found the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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21 1 majority of those 17 waste streams were potentially 2 suitable for near-surface disposal. Volume-wise that 3 was approximately 80 percent. Now, we very 4 intentionally are using the words "potentially 5 suitable." We did not say it was suitable, and so do 6 not separate those two, in that it requires someone to 7 come forward.

8 What exactly are you going to be disposing 9 of? What's your facility design? What are the site 10 characteristics, and the evaluation of whether that 11 would be safe or not, and that's why it's potentially 12 suitable. We are certainly not saying, it's suitable 13 everywhere. It can be done -- we are not giving a 14 pass. The analysis has to be done.

15 Of that 80 percent that was found 16 potentially suitable, approximately 95 percent of it 17 was suitable, could be regulated by an agreement 18 state. That 5 percent that wasn't suitable had to do 19 with requirements for common defense and security.

20 That is a requirement that's left solely to the NRC 21 and is not relegated beyond the NRC. And so that's 22 where that -- the 5 percent that isn't there, it had 23 to do with the special nuclear material and some of 24 the waste that is a security concern.

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22 1 volumes, there's approximately 12,000 cubic liters of 2 GTCC waste. And DOE had two categories, category I 3 and category II. The category I was expected or 4 existing GTCC waste, and that's waste that a decision 5 has already been made to license a facility that would 6 be generating waste of that nature and/or waste that 7 already exists. And the best example, I think, is for 8 commercial reactors.

9 Most of the GTCC waste generated from 10 commercial reactors is when they're decommissioned.

11 There are not many decommissioned nuclear facilities.

12 Most are operating, so the GTCC waste there is 13 existing, but they're also accounting for these 14 facilities that already exist. They haven't generated 15 the waste yet, but it will be generated when they're 16 decommissioned.

17 That's different than the category II, 18 which is considered potential waste. Potential waste 19 is there isn't a decision made to license a facility 20 that would generate the waste or any activities that 21 would generate that waste. And until a decision is 22 made, it's possible a decision is made not to generate 23 and license those facilities.

24 Once again, I'll draw upon commercial 25 reactors. There was an estimate, I think, of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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23 1 approximately 37 new nuclear reactors would be 2 developed in the future in the DOE FEIS, and that 3 waste is potential. Is that a accurate estimate?

4 Today no one knows. They were just making a 5 projection. And, remember, one of the purposes of an 6 EIS is to estimate what might happen. And so they 7 estimated things like that. There are other 8 activities.

9 And so that's the difference between the 10 potential and the existing. You can see it's 11 approximately 50-50. About half of it is potential, 12 and half of it is existing. The two different colors, 13 the blue color is for GTCC waste, and the solid color 14 is existing. And the dashed color is potential. And 15 then for GTCC-like, which is approximately, I'll say, 16 25 percent, and equally distributed between the 17 potential, the solid color, versus -- or existing for 18 the solid color and potential for the hashed color.

19 Those are the volumes.

20 Next slide, please. You heard Cardelia 21 talk a little bit about transuranic waste. In NRC's 22 regulations at 10 CFR Part 61, concentrations of 23 transuranic radionuclides greater than a hundred 24 nanocuries per gram are considered greater-than-Class 25 C waste. One might call that transuranic waste.

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24 1 And while we don't have to know exactly 2 what a hundred nanocuries is, on this chart, you can 3 see these first two bars, this one is less than ten 4 nanocuries. This bar is greater than ten, but less 5 than a hundred. So this would not be considered 6 greater-than-Class C waste for transuranics, but you 7 can see there is a significant amount of waste that is 8 greater than a hundred nanocuries per gram and would 9 fall into the transuranic waste arena. And so that's 10 what that slide is showing.

11 It does vary significantly from waste 12 streams, but that shows you the extreme is less than 13 ten to greater than 10,000, so there's quite a range, 14 and that was one of the motivations for doing the 17 15 waste streams, to accurately represent and see what 16 volumes were associated with specific concentrations 17 of transuranic radionuclides.

18 Next slide, please. We did have to make 19 some assumptions in doing the analysis. As has been 20 discussed, it is near-surface disposal, so we did look 21 at near-surface disposal. That's the upper 30 meters 22 of the surface. The average disposal thickness was 23 approximately one waste package. We did do -- vary 24 that a bit, but on average, we're looking at one 25 package.

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25 1 Where is that significant? If you think 2 of a potential intruder drilling through the waste, if 3 he's drilling through one waste package, he gets one 4 waste package worth of waste. If they're double-5 stacked, he's going to get two waste packages. Now, 6 the reason we did one, it's easy to scale up to, well, 7 if you have two, you have twice as much waste. And 8 so -- but for the analysis we did, one waste package, 9 clearly if a facility design was more than one 10 package, it becomes more difficult to show compliance 11 with the requirements.

12 In terms of exposure, there were certain 13 aspects of the waste. The activated metals from 14 commercial reactors are primarily stainless steel.

15 Stainless steel corrodes very slowly, so the 16 degradation rate of that material is low. We did 17 account for aspects related to the waste floor, and 18 then we did other assumptions that were consistent 19 with the analysis that was done in the early 1980s for 20 Part 61 in terms of the pathways, in other words, 21 whether you look at a inhalation pathway, other 22 pathways that would have crop ingestion, et cetera.

23 Next slide. In terms of what hazards did 24 we look at, we looked at, first, operational hazards.

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26 1 receive the waste at the facility. It's handled and 2 placed in a disposal unit. The operational hazards, 3 there were a couple.

4 One, remote handled packages. Clearly if 5 you get very close to a package that is emitting a 6 fair amount of radiation, direct radiation, for the 7 workers, because they can get close to the packages, 8 there's the hazard for remote handled waste. And so 9 that's considered for worker protection.

10 However, there is the consideration for 11 accidents. A fire could happen that could release 12 radionuclides into the air, and that could travel 13 significantly beyond the facility, and could impact 14 off-site individuals.

15 Then there's the off-site releases that 16 are considered after a facility is closed and the 17 material has been disposed of. At some point in time, 18 packages will leak, and a little bit of waste comes 19 out into the groundwater potentially, travels to 20 places where it could be intercepted by a well. Those 21 off-site releases are looked at to determine what the 22 potential doses are to receptors outside the facility.

23 And then the intruder exposure, I 24 mentioned a little bit, and two primary scenarios were 25 looked at. One is an excavation scenario, where NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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27 1 someone would excavate for the basement of their house 2 and dig for a foundation and possibly interact with 3 the waste. The other is a drilling scenario which 4 could go much deeper. Obviously the -- in Part 61 is 5 considered, the excavation of a house would not go 6 deeper than five meters, and so -- but waste could be 7 deeper than that, and the drilling scenario, if 8 someone was potentially drilling a well for water, 9 would go down deeper to a water table and could 10 intercept some of the waste. So there are two 11 scenarios considered for the intruder.

12 Next slide. What did we find out? As I 13 said initially, most of the GTCC waste is potentially 14 suitable for near-surface disposal, potentially 15 suitable. It does require a specific analysis of the 16 site and the inventory. Obviously the more waste you 17 get in a particular site, the harder it is to show 18 compliance. Depending on the characteristics of your 19 site, the disposal facility design all come into play 20 to determining whether the requirements can be met for 21 safe disposal.

22 GTCC waste containing transuranic 23 radionuclides -- and as I had that previous bar chart, 24 you could see the spread. There was some significant 25 variation with respect to the concentration of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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28 1 transuranic radionuclides. They present challenges.

2 First, from the operational standpoint, if 3 you have fire and you release plutonium, there's a 4 potential for significant dose consequence that needs 5 to be evaluated and considered, possibly separate 6 requirements for how it's handled and where operations 7 can be improved to prevent such type of accidents.

8 Consideration of fissile material during 9 operations. NRC has very specific requirements with 10 respect to some of this. You could have an 11 unintentional criticality. How much of this do you 12 allow on the surface of the earth in terms of at a 13 particular site, and there are requirements in NRC 14 regulations that limit how much fissile material can 15 be on the surface for handling.

16 Second, as I mentioned, the intruder 17 excavation scenario. Essentially all the GTCC waste 18 streams were too hazardous to allow an excavation 19 scenario, so as you saw in the reg basis, we said the 20 review requirement, it would need to be deeper than 21 five meters, that limit of where someone actually 22 would excavate for a home and have that. So that 23 scenario would be removed, having it deep enough. We 24 also suggested a requirement that there be a 500-year 25 intruder barrier, in addition to that depth of burial.

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29 1 VOICE: What kind of barrier?

2 MR. McCARTIN: Well, it could be -- that 3 would be up for the facility to design, but if you 4 put, say, a thick concrete with reinforcing members, 5 so that drilling through into the package would be 6 very difficult, would be a type of intruder barrier.

7 It would have to be evaluated with respect to the 8 drilling practices in the area and those kinds of 9 things, but it would be something that would be 10 sustainable and would not degrade over a 500-year 11 period.

12 And then the intruder drilling scenario, 13 eventually you can drill -- it's a 500-year intruder 14 barrier. It's not forever. You could drill through 15 a particular package, and that's one of the ones that 16 for transuranic waste, primarily the plutonium and 17 Americium, that can present a problem. And once 18 again, it would need to be evaluated. And that's 19 sort of the -- our perspective on how we describe the 20 results.

21 I would like to say, you know, we at the 22 NRC, the technical staff, we don't view ourselves as 23 this great oracle that knows all and sees all. Part 24 of the reason for a public meeting is to understand 25 other concerns. Maybe there's concerns there that we NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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30 1 haven't captured. Maybe there's different ways of 2 looking at this waste that would be helpful. And so 3 that's part of why this is our perspective, based on 4 the inventories we saw, and we think it's potentially 5 suitable.

6 But I do want to stress, it would need to 7 be evaluated. Any application will have to describe 8 the site conditions, the inventory, the facility 9 design and how those -- that behavior and disposal 10 facility characteristics would ensure that public 11 health and safety are protected. And with that, I 12 will --

13 MS. GOSLEE: May I ask one question? Can 14 you tell me a site specific --

15 MR. CAMERON: Let me --

16 MS. GOSLEE: I just have a question.

17 MR. CAMERON: You know, what we're going 18 to do is we're going to clear up some of the questions 19 first before we go to comment. And I just have to get 20 you on the record for our court reporter, so please 21 introduce yourself.

22 MS. GOSLEE: Sure. I'm Susybelle Goslee.

23 And where site-specific can you show us that concrete 24 has lasted for 500 years without degrading over that 25 period of time?

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31 1 MR. McCARTIN: Well, I was giving that as 2 an example, but there are Roman concretes that have 3 lasted very, very long time. It would be up to the 4 applicant to show how they have an intruder barrier 5 that would persist that. Now, be aware, you're 6 already five meters below ground, so this would be a 7 barrier that's below ground. It's not on the surface 8 of the earth, so -- but, yes.

9 MS. GOSLEE: That creates different 10 conditions, those barriers.

11 MR. McCARTIN: Right. It would have to be 12 evaluated and -- you know --

13 MR. CAMERON: Thank you. Other questions 14 for -- and thank you, Susy. Other questions for 15 Cardelia and Tim? Other people?

16 MR. McCARTIN: Well, Cardelia has a couple 17 slides. This is sort of the end of the technical 18 presentation, but --

19 MR. CAMERON: Oh, there's some more 20 slides?

21 MR. McCARTIN: How to submit comments.

22 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Well, we'll get to 23 you.

24 MR. McCARTIN: But I can answer your 25 question, but --

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32 1 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Tim. Cardelia 2 will finish it up for us, very important about where 3 you submit comments. We'll get to everybody.

4 VOICE: Chip, would you just announce 5 Jim's last name again. I didn't catch.

6 MR. CAMERON: McCartin, M-C, capital C-A-7 R-T-I-N.

8 We'll go to Cardelia, and then we'll 9 figure this battery thing out. Thank you.

10 MS. MAUPIN: Okay. If I could get your 11 attention, we can go to slide number 15, please. Next 12 slide, please. Okay. As we said from the beginning, 13 nuclear regulation is the public's business, and so we 14 want to do our business. NRC does its business with 15 transparency, participation as we're doing today, and 16 collaboration.

17 And so what I have for you is these are 18 how you're going to get -- you can get additional 19 information regarding this topic, and also how you can 20 contact the various people, myself, Tim McCartin, and 21 our other colleague, Gary Comfort, in terms of 22 additional information or clarifying questions.

23 Next slide, please. Slide number 16, 24 please. Okay. Great. This provides how you can 25 provide your comments. We're here today to clarify NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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33 1 some of your questions, but we encourage you to 2 present, to provide your comments in writing, and we 3 provided in the Federal Register notice a number of 4 ways in which you can submit those comments.

5 By submitting your comments in writing, we 6 can -- we are clear on the comments you're making, and 7 it's on the record. It's on the docket for this 8 activity, so we strongly encourage you to submit your 9 comments in writing.

10 Next slide, please. And when you submit 11 your comments, make sure that you include this docket 12 number on all of your correspondence, and once again, 13 the comment period ends on September 20.

14 So now we'll open it back up, Chip, to 15 comments and questions.

16 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you, Tim.

17 Thank you, Cardelia. And before we go to comments, 18 let's clear up some questions that you might have.

19 And when we go to the phones for their comments, they 20 can ask their questions, too. We're going to try to 21 deal with the audience first, and if you could please 22 introduce yourself.

23 MS. MLOTOK: I'm Marion Mlotok. And my 24 question is about drilling practices. So what 25 drilling practices are now might not be what drilling NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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34 1 practices are in 500 years. I give fracking as an 2 example. It wasn't a drilling practice 50 years ago.

3 So that's my question. How can you possibly be 4 predicting that 500 years ahead?

5 MR. McCARTIN: Well, we aren't trying to 6 predict what the future brings, but one would look at 7 the drilling practices, and there's possibly some 8 understanding of things may change, but it's hard to, 9 you know -- I mean, I recognize with 500 years, it is 10 hard to understand what would be out there from a 11 drilling standpoint.

12 The other aspect, too, is what might be 13 out there to understand what's below ground before you 14 drill, and you might have advanced techniques for, oh, 15 gee, there's something down there. And so once you 16 start getting into trying to estimate the future, it 17 gets very difficult what to do, but --

18 MR. CAMERON: And I just note that the NRC 19 staff will be here after the meeting, if you want to 20 follow up on some of this. So are there other 21 questions? Yes, sir. Let's go back here. And just 22 introduce yourself.

23 MR. BRADEN: Certainly. Thank you. My 24 name is Al Braden. I'm a citizen of Austin concerned 25 with this. I've got some prepared remarks, but I'm NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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35 1 just staggered by the concept that you guys are 2 talking about 500 years. I mean, this stuff has half-3 lifetimes of tens of thousands of years. It has 4 reactions that create daughter products that can go on 5 for a heck of a long time.

6 And the idea that you're modeling that 7 some poor settler might come and dig a foundation in 8 only 500 years is just astonishing. I'd want to see 9 information on the total expected lifetime of these 10 transuranic elements and the half-life and the decay 11 of the additional products that they create. We're 12 talking about 50-, 100,000, I mean, years that this 13 stuff's going to be radioactive. So I'd want to see 14 more information about that.

15 MR. CAMERON: Can we help this gentleman 16 with his concern?

17 MR. McCARTIN: Well, one, the 500-year 18 intruder barrier, I did not mean to imply we weren't 19 looking beyond that. The analysis would need to look 20 at the long-term effects, but you're not assuming that 21 intruder barrier is intact after 500 years. And so 22 that's, you know -- that was just for the long -- you 23 can't try to propose, let's say, a 10,000-year 24 intruder barrier. That 500 years is a minimum that 25 you have to show this.

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36 1 But then, you're right. After 500 -- but 2 the analysis continues. I don't know if that -- is 3 that what you were getting --

4 MR. CAMERON: Tim, do you recognize what 5 the gentleman's concern is?

6 MR. BRADEN: Tens or a hundred thousand 7 years is what's required. I just --

8 MR. CAMERON: And you're going to have a 9 chance with others to make your comments, but this 10 is --

11 MR. McCARTIN: But if you met the 12 regulatory limits, say, at 500 years, generally for 13 most of these radionuclides, it would be easier to 14 meet it at 10,000 years, because a lot more has 15 decayed away. There is some in-growth, and you're 16 right on that.

17 But generally for waste disposal, it gets 18 easier with time as things decay away, from an 19 intruder's standpoint. For an intruder, they're going 20 directly into the waste. It will be harder to show 21 compliance at 500 years than, say, at 5,000 years.

22 MR. BRADEN: I'm just thinking that needs 23 to be a design criteria, that the barrier approximates 24 the expected lifetime of the highly radioactive 25 material.

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37 1 MR. CAMERON: And that was, I think, very 2 concisely stated, and we'll get to you in a few 3 minutes with comments. So anybody -- yes, ma'am.

4 MS. BARKER: I'm Martha Barker. I'm a 5 resident of Kyle, Texas, just south of Austin. And I 6 don't hear any mention of anything to do in the models 7 or the projections about earthquakes. I'm thinking 8 specifically about the Texas site where, we know, 9 there's been lots of fracking and more earthquakes 10 than there have been in the past. That wasn't 11 mentioned in your studies. Are you doing projections 12 about earthquakes?

13 MR. McCARTIN: Well, the current 14 regulations at 10 CFR Part 61 do have requirements for 15 staying away from high seismic areas, things of 16 that -- it would be considered in the analysis. When 17 I said, site-specific, I didn't go into all the 18 different things, but you have floods; you have 19 erosion; you have seismic activity in some parts of 20 the country; volcanic activity.

21 All those things have to be considered.

22 Generally, you are trying to steer clear of high 23 seismic areas, high erosion areas, flooding, et 24 cetera. It would be evaluated, though. But that's in 25 10 CFR Part 61 already. It's not anything that we NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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38 1 would do differently.

2 MR. CAMERON: Okay. So earthquakes, 3 potential earthquakes would be evaluated. And let 4 me -- we'll be right up to you, sir. Let me go in the 5 back and get another question back here.

6 MR. BURNAM: Sure thing. I'm Lon Burnam.

7 I'm from Fort Worth. And my question is about your 8 comments in the opening part. I didn't actually hear 9 the news story on KUT during the day. Would you more 10 precisely describe what you think they were saying, 11 because I can't imagine anybody here in Texas not 12 thinking that this public meeting is about we have 13 been targeted to receive this waste, and that's the 14 reason this hearing is here in Austin.

15 There have been occasions when you should 16 have had hearings here in Austin that you didn't. I 17 had to go to Phoenix, Arizona, to participate. But 18 would you please explain why and what you meant in 19 trying to circumscribe what we're going to be talking 20 about tonight.

21 MR. CAMERON: And could we do that -- I 22 guess I started us off by talking about the public 23 service announcement on KUT that besides GTCC waste, 24 they mentioned the consolidated interim storage 25 facility in Andrews, Texas, so --

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39 1 VOICE: The proposed.

2 MR. CAMERON: Yes, proposed. But your 3 question, I think, is very relevant for the staff to 4 answer. Can you say anything about why we're in 5 Austin, the potential for Waste Control Specialists to 6 take perhaps GTCC. Okay. We're not talking about 7 spent fuel. And Cardelia already mentioned the fact 8 that we did get a letter -- or the NRC -- I shouldn't 9 say, we. But go ahead, Cardelia. You know what --

10 MS. MAUPIN: Well, thank you for that 11 question. As you -- as I mentioned earlier, we got 12 the question from the State of Texas to a letter to 13 the Commission to ask for clarification on the 14 authority. So that was just a question, whether or 15 not the agreement state had the authority.

16 So then the staff did -- you know, we 17 submit -- analyzed the issue and submitted that to the 18 Commission. Well, the Commission, as a part of its 19 direction, asked us to do public outreach, like we are 20 doing today. And if you look at that SRM, which is 21 public, SRM- -- what is it? -- 15-0094, the Commission 22 said, well, since Texas asked the question, I guess 23 they thought it was only feasible to raise the 24 question with -- you know, with Texas community, 25 public outreach, so that's why we're here today, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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40 1 because the Commission directed us to look at that 2 question, and also to have public outreach 3 specifically, and that SRM directed us to have public 4 outreach within the state of Texas.

5 MR. CAMERON: And, Cardelia, maybe another 6 way to provide information is you -- on one of your 7 slides, you had where there were low-level waste 8 disposal sites, Class A, B, and C. Any of those, I 9 suppose, could be a site for disposal of GTCC, 10 assuming you've solved the agreement, whatever.

11 I mean, how does that fit in? I think the 12 gentleman is concerned about Waste Control 13 Specialists' facility and this type of material. Can 14 you say anything about that?

15 MS. MAUPIN: The only thing I can say is 16 that, one, we were directed to do this by the 17 Commission. Okay. Secondly, this is not something 18 that is hidden, but DOE did an environmental 19 assessment for Waste Control Specialists that was also 20 issued in October of 2018, specifically for WCS to 21 receive this type of waste. That's public knowledge, 22 public record. So I'm just giving you the facts as 23 they exist.

24 MR. CAMERON: And can you just tell him 25 that -- we think it's a great point that you mention NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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41 1 the DOE document, but there were more sites that WCS 2 has. Right?

3 MS. MAUPIN: Well, when they did the 4 environmental impact statement, they did it for 5 several sites. But they only did environmental 6 assessment for WCS which was issued approximately on 7 October 23, 2018. You can go to DOE's website, and 8 you can find these documents. They're publicly 9 available. DOE environmental assessment, specifically 10 for WCS, 11 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you for that 12 question. And, yes, sir.

13 MR. SINGLETON: My name is Robert 14 Singleton. And I want to try to put this question in 15 as nonpolitical terms as possible. But it was my 16 understanding that it's the policy of the current 17 administration that for every new rule, two have to be 18 stricken from the books. Any idea what two rules are 19 going to go by the wayside if this rule is instituted?

20 MR. CAMERON: Maybe Andy Pessin from our 21 Office of General Counsel can answer that for you.

22 Andy.

23 MR. PESSIN: That's a good point. We 24 would have to comply with that executive order. I 25 don't believe we've identified any two particular NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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42 1 regulations, but certainly if we go forward with 2 rulemaking, that would be part of the process. But we 3 have identified anything specifically.

4 MR. CAMERON: And keep in mind what Tim 5 talked about and perhaps Cardelia, is that there's a 6 number of alternatives besides rulemaking for 7 addressing this issue. Is that correct?

8 MR. PESSIN: Correct. Right. There could 9 be the status quo or just guidance only.

10 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you for that.

11 Let's go back to this gentleman. And then we're going 12 to take one more question, and then we'll go to 13 comments, and then we're going to try to go to the 14 phones. Yes, sir.

15 MR. SHELLEY: Thank you. Adrian Shelley 16 with Public Citizen. And my question is about in the 17 Federal Register notice of this rulemaking or this 18 draft mentions an obligation to evaluate the 19 cumulative effect of regulations and mentions 20 specifically other regulatory actions by the NRC, 21 including license amendment requests. So I'm 22 wondering specifically if the Waste Control 23 Specialists' application for high-level storage is one 24 of the other license amendment requests that's being 25 considered as part of that cumulative effect of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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43 1 regulation requirement.

2 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you.

3 MS. MAUPIN: I worked on the -- can you 4 hear me?

5 MR. SHELLEY: Yes.

6 MS. MAUPIN: Okay. I worked -- I was a 7 part of the working group that came up with cumulative 8 effects of regulation, and what happened was that 9 post-9/11, NRC was doing a number of -- was changing 10 a number of requirements.

11 And then our licensees and other entities, 12 like the agreement states, say, hey, this is just too 13 much, you know, at one time and trying to implement 14 all these various requirements. Normally we've seen 15 in the past that it would take agreement states almost 16 approximately three years or more to put requirements 17 on the books.

18 So we were directed by the Commission to 19 say, hey, when you are pre-rule, which we are here, 20 pre-rulemaking, before you even do that rule, we want 21 you to go out, and we want to talk -- we want you to 22 talk to our stakeholders. We want their input on how 23 this could potentially affect them. So that's why we 24 are here at this pre- -- we're at the pre-rulemaking 25 stage, asking for your input.

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44 1 Now, if in your input, which I've asked 2 you to put in writing, you want to bring up, hey, you 3 got this other issue going on, potentially going on in 4 our state; this could do this; this could have this 5 impact. So that is what we are looking for from you 6 and our other stakeholders, because like we said, we 7 don't have all the information within the confines of 8 the NRC. We don't have the far-reaching impact that 9 you might have. So that's why we create a win-win 10 situation by having your input into our processes.

11 MR. CAMERON: I think the answer would be, 12 yes. Okay. If you look at cumulative impacts -- and, 13 Andy, correct me if I'm wrong --

14 MR. PESSIN: Right.

15 MR. CAMERON: But cumulative impacts would 16 look at impacts from any facility that was --

17 MR. PESSIN: Well, if you're talking about 18 cumulative impacts or cumulative effects of 19 regulation, you're generally looking at the regulated 20 community, so you're looking at one regulation or one 21 regulatory requirement being added on to another one 22 possibly, multiple regulatory requirements by the NRC, 23 requirements by other federal agencies. That's what 24 they're looking at. So I don't know.

25 You mentioned license amendment requests.

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45 1 I would want to go back and look at the Federal 2 Register notice, because the next time we're going to 3 leave that out, because that's -- that would be a 4 site-specific application.

5 We're talking -- cumulative effects of 6 regulation are really looking at the impact on the 7 industry and looking at, you know -- it gets very 8 expensive for any individual regulated entity to keep 9 up with multiple regulatory requirements, particularly 10 if they're changing. And so I think that's really 11 what cumulative effects of regulation has targeted.

12 MR. CAMERON: So it's not cumulative 13 effects as in the EIS sense.

14 MR. PESSIN: Correct. Right. That's a 15 different type.

16 MR. SHELLEY: Right. But, I mean, the 17 question --

18 VOICE: Right. I mean, the question 19 applies equally well. Will they be able, for example, 20 to comply with all the, you know, Part 61 21 requirements, given both GTCC and high-level storage 22 and low-level storage.

23 MR. PESSIN: Oh, yes. In that sense, yes.

24 Yes, sure. Any potential applicant would have to look 25 at both what we're considering here -- again, this is NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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46 1 pre-rulemaking -- as well as any other existing 2 requirements or any other proposed requirements. So, 3 yes. In that sense, yes.

4 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Let's go to Susy and 5 Karen, and we're going to comments, and Karen is going 6 to lead us off there with comments. Okay. Susy, do 7 you have a question?

8 MS. GOSLEE: I do. I would like a 9 definition of a term I think that I heard someone say, 10 and it was an executive order. You have to comply 11 with an executive order. Who is that executive, and 12 how would that order be determined? Be very specific, 13 please.

14 MR. PESSIN: Well, an executive order 15 actually is not a law. It's not a law or regulation.

16 It does not have the force and effect of law. What 17 essentially an executive order is, it's a direction 18 from your boss, so the president is the chief 19 executive, and so when an executive order is issued, 20 federal agencies are expected to comply with the --

21 with that executive order.

22 Now, again, it's not a law, so somebody 23 can't bring a lawsuit based upon whether an agency 24 complies with the executive order or not, and if an 25 agency fails to comply with an executive order, that's NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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47 1 really between the president or the Office of 2 Management and Budget and that agency. Again, it's 3 not something that generally ends up in court. But --

4 MS. GOSLEE: So anything is possible, is 5 what I hear you saying.

6 MR. PESSIN: Well, the executive -- if 7 you're saying, there's an executive order; how do you 8 comply with it, an agency would read the executive 9 order, and it would make -- it would make its 10 interpretation.

11 Now, are you asking about the executive 12 order where the gentleman earlier said, where if you 13 issue one regulation, you've got to -- we've got to 14 take back two?

15 MS. GOSLEE: Well, I was -- no. I'm 16 really talking about your term, executive order. And 17 I assumed that it was the president. So when you say, 18 the president could make an executive order and you 19 have to comply, then the -- potentially you could have 20 anything be in that executive order.

21 MR. PESSIN: Well, I mean, an executive 22 order is not issued, interpreted or followed in a 23 total vacuum. You have other applicable laws and 24 regulations, and so certainly --

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48 1 believe --

2 MR. CAMERON: Well, you know what. I 3 think we're getting on thin ice.

4 MS. GOSLEE: Yes. So -- okay. That's 5 really --

6 MR. CAMERON: We know what's possible, so 7 talk further with Andy after the meeting. And, Karen, 8 something?

9 MS. HADDEN: Yes. I have a question. It 10 seems highly unusual that at a public meeting where 11 comment is taken and there is a transcript being 12 taken, that our comments cannot be given formal 13 comment weight.

14 And I would like to ask that you 15 reconsider that decision and take our comments tonight 16 as part of formal comments. I'm sure some of us would 17 also follow up with written comments as well, but I 18 think that the things that are said here tonight 19 matter, and the way that they're said matters, and I 20 would like you to consider accepting this as formal 21 comment.

22 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you. And that 23 was going to be in your comments, and I think our 24 division director is shaking her head affirmatively, 25 that that will not necessarily happen, but the NRC's NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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49 1 going to take that comment seriously.

2 And, Karen, would you come up to make your 3 comment. Are you okay? Do you have a question?

4 VOICE: Well, I was going to respond to 5 the executive order. It sounds like if the president 6 says, Drop a nuclear bomb in the middle of this 7 hurricane, that you will do it.

8 MR. CAMERON: Did he do that?

9 (General conversation.)

10 MR. CAMERON: Karen, if you don't mind 11 coming up here, and we're going to turn the podium to 12 face the NRC, but you can also look out in the 13 audience, too. So we're setting a five-minute 14 guideline. I know you're probably going to be less 15 than that, but you go ahead.

16 MS. HADDEN: Good evening. My name is 17 Karen Hadden. Can you hear me?

18 VOICE: The microphone's dead.

19 MS. HADDEN: Hello, hello.

20 MR. CAMERON: Oh, here you've got to --

21 here, let me help you.

22 MS. HADDEN: Is there a button?

23 MR. CAMERON: Yes, there is. But it's 24 hard to see. It's not obvious. It's this one right 25 here.

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50 1 MS. HADDEN: Good evening. My name is 2 Karen Hadden. I'm the executive director of the SEED 3 Coalition, Sustainable Energy and Economic Development 4 Coalition. I heard a comment just a little while ago 5 about these things are not in a vacuum. That's right.

6 There are cumulative impacts when you do 7 various different waste streams at a site, and that is 8 why I think it's important. I know that we heard 9 discussion tonight about the radio saying that there's 10 also high-level waste being considered.

11 Well, yes, there is. And that needs to be 12 considered side by side. These issues are both 13 viable. This is an additional waste stream, and the 14 two -- and the facilities are very, very close to each 15 other at the WCS site. So I don't -- I think that's 16 an artificial limitation, to say that that's an issue.

17 We must be able to consider those together, and the 18 analysis that gets done must consider these things 19 together.

20 I'd like to start by saying that this 21 rulemaking is a bad idea. It doesn't need to happen.

22 It's not accomplishing the right goals, and it's 23 creating additional risks. It should not move 24 forward. And the existing laws have said basically 25 that this stuff belongs deep underground. It does not NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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51 1 belong in shallow burial.

2 My gut understanding of what's going on 3 here is to say it's like waving a wand over this 4 incredibly dangerous radioactive waste. This stuff is 5 hot, and saying, Oh, but, you know, it's not that bad 6 after all, and we can just go ahead and put it in 7 shallow burial. There are endless reasons not to do 8 it, and we just heard some of them.

9 Potential criticality? Yes, that would be 10 among our concerns. Yes, that would be a problem.

11 And, you know, it wouldn't be the first time, because 12 it has happened. It happened in Russia. Different 13 circumstances, different arrangement of materials, et 14 cetera, et cetera, but there was an explosion. Waste 15 went all over a whole region. These things happen.

16 Contamination of water -- there was 17 basically an admission tonight that that could happen.

18 Well, yes, that's a problem. That is really a 19 problem. And contamination of air, soil, and water.

20 We don't need this. This is not the right way to deal 21 with the waste.

22 And when you go to the environmental 23 impact statement done by the Department of Energy --

24 in 2016, it was published, January 2016. And it was 25 discussed earlier. "Greater-than-Class C low-level NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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52 1 radioactive waste is waste that is not generally 2 acceptable for near-surface disposal" -- yay -- "and 3 for which the waste form and disposal methods must be 4 different and in general more stringent than those 5 specified for Class C."

6 Well, that's pretty solid right there. It 7 says what we ought to do and not do. This stuff 8 belongs deep underground. We heard tonight about the 9 potential for this waste to get into waterways and to 10 volatilize.

11 There was, as was mentioned, the only site 12 out of all of those in the environmental impact 13 statement that got further analysis was WCS, and they 14 did an environmental assessment and referenced the 15 environmental impact statement and adopted it, which 16 tells me that there's an attempt here to skirt the 17 full NEPA process of an environmental impact statement 18 specifically for this waste at this site. And that is 19 a problem.

20 I read this environmental assessment.

21 It's only 44 pages long, and it is based largely on 22 the original license application for the compact 23 facility and federal waste facility at WCS. This was 24 years ago, and it did not contemplate greater-than-25 Class C waste or the potential high-level waste at the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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53 1 site, so it is outdated. It is inadequate. It is 2 wrong. It should not move forward.

3 In this document, you will find that there 4 is discussion of volatilization of the radionuclides 5 that would be buried. Okay. So it was started 120 6 feet deep, and this document says they could stack 7 them seven deep with some sand in between. That would 8 bring it up pretty darn close to the surface. In 9 another place it says, oh, maybe you should put the 10 really hot stuff way low, because then it's not as 11 close to the surface.

12 This is a problem, because then it goes on 13 to say that some of the radionuclides volatilize.

14 They can come out from containers, work their way up 15 through the soil -- I'll wrap up as soon as I can 16 here -- and then volatilize into the air and spread 17 through soil, air and water. That is a problem. We 18 do not need contamination in our state. We do not 19 need contamination in the many, many transport trips 20 that could happen by truck or rail.

21 There -- this stuff just belongs much, 22 much deeper, and I think that this is being done as a 23 matter of money, because when you look at the draft 24 regulatory basis, there's a whole section of comparing 25 costs, and also there's not adequate consideration NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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54 1 being given to sites that exist that could take this 2 waste right now for deep isolation.

3 And so I'll wrap up by saying, we don't 4 want it. We don't want the rulemaking, and we don't 5 want the waste. Texas has enough already, and this is 6 risk that we do not need to take. It risks our 7 health, our safety, our environment, and the financial 8 health of our state.

9 MR. CAMERON: Thank you. Thank you very 10 much, Karen.

11 Martha, Martha Barker from Kyle, Texas.

12 MS. BARKER: So I'm Martha Barker from 13 Kyle, Texas. I'm a relatively new resident. I moved 14 from Maryland, neighbor to the Commission there in 15 Rockville, and so I'm learning about what's happening 16 in Texas in terms of the environment.

17 What concerns me the most about this is 18 that it sounds as though the impact study that's been 19 done is only relating to this site, but the site is 20 part of a web, and the web includes how that material 21 gets to the place. It presumably has to come on some 22 conveyance, so it's effect -- it's going through 23 towns; it's going through cities; it's going on trains 24 or by rail, by road.

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55 1 the impact is addressing a wide enough impact crater, 2 if you will. The other thing -- and I'm not a 3 geologist, but as I look at the rock formations in 4 this area -- and I believe it extends -- somebody 5 might be able to help me with this, but I heard 6 somebody explain it that putting toxic waste into the 7 karst in this area is like pouring it into Swiss 8 cheese.

9 I see these formations in the lovely 10 landscaping in my community. There are holes. There 11 are little bitty holes. You can see right through 12 them. The kids like to look through them. But we're 13 talking about putting nuclear waste in that sort of 14 rock formation.

15 And as I said earlier, the concern about 16 earthquakes, I'm not sure how we can, at this stage, 17 predict the seismic activity for 500 years. We 18 already see that in this area, there has been more 19 seismic activity than previously, due to fracking. So 20 those are my concerns. Thank you.

21 MR. CAMERON: Thank you. Thank you very 22 much. And that was Martha Barker. Okay.

23 And, Marcus, are you still with us?

24 MARCUS: Yes, sir, I am.

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56 1 some more people here in the room, and then we're 2 going to go to the phones. But I just wanted to make 3 sure we still had you on board. That's the operator.

4 Robert, Robert Singleton. This is Robert.

5 MR. SINGLETON: My name is Robert 6 Singleton, and if you have any doubt on which category 7 to put me in, put me down as a no. As a matter of 8 fact, you can create a separate category for, Oh, God, 9 please no. That's the category I will be in.

10 I've been thinking about trash bags today, 11 and this will become germane. You know those flexible 12 trash bags, where you can cram more and more stuff 13 into them? Well, that's a lot like the NRC license, 14 the license for WCS. Every time we think we know what 15 the license limits are, they've got another proposal 16 to add something else to it, high-level nuclear waste, 17 GTCC waste.

18 And by the way, thank you, Cardelia, for 19 talking to us about acronyms. I sometimes feel like 20 we're spelling things out around the children when we 21 use that many acronyms.

22 But there are more curies than this, and 23 here's some facts about that. There are more curies 24 in this proposal than were previously allowed.

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57 1 million curies, but the GTCC waste would be about 160 2 million curies, more than 28 times the licensed amount 3 for a federal waste facility.

4 There's a word for what's happened with 5 the WCS license. It's call mission creep, and I think 6 that's a term that's primarily applied to our military 7 excursions, but it also applies to this. Once the 8 camel has got its nose in the tent, once it gets this 9 many additions, corrections, amendments, and extra 10 facets for the license, it's no longer the same thing 11 it used to be. It's no longer a camel; it's some sort 12 of frightening mutant camel.

13 I guess my main concern here is I'm really 14 worried about the fact that this was initially sold to 15 us, the WCS license was sold to us as a very limited 16 amount of innocuous-sounding things. But there is no 17 doubt in my mind now that we're way beyond gloves and 18 booties, which is what the original proposal to us 19 characterized the waste as. And I no longer recognize 20 this camel.

21 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you. Thank you 22 very much, Robert.

23 Lon, Lon Burnam, right back here.

24 MR. BURNAM: Good evening, members of the 25 NRC staff, and Chip, thank you. I'm Lon Burnam. I NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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58 1 live in Fort Worth, and Chip knows this is not my 2 first picnic. Ironically, Friday morning I was 3 visiting with a reporter of the Star Telegram, and I 4 asked her, just how long ago did you cover that 5 demonstration; was that 30 years ago about, over below 6 regulatory concern. And she said, is that applicant 7 still -- basically she said, Is that coming back 8 around.

9 Well, those of you that were part of that 10 Orwellian project will remember it took a whole lot 11 of effort on a whole lot of public people to address 12 that concern. So let me get to my prepared comments, 13 Chip. I'm really concerned, because most of it's 14 about WCS, so when you were trying to constrain me, I 15 was really concerned.

16 So for those of you that don't me, for 18 17 years, I represented Fort Worth in the Texas House of 18 Representatives, from 1997 to 2015. Currently I'm the 19 Lone Star Chapter Sierra Club nuclear issues chair and 20 coordinator, and I also served for the last 18 months 21 on the national Sierra Club radioactive waste working 22 group.

23 Tonight I'm representing myself, but for 24 the last 18 months I've spent at least an hour a week 25 on the phone with this working group, and we keep NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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59 1 coming to the realization that there is no good 2 solution to this.

3 But I'm here to say, Texas doesn't want to 4 be the one that's dumped on. Okay? So let's have a 5 little background. In my 18 years in the legislature, 6 I learned to expect disingenuous and misleading 7 comments from representatives of the industry.

8 When the enabling legislation to establish 9 the WCS site was passed in 2003, there were explicit 10 promises that were made, they would never try to bring 11 high-level waste to this site.

12 So now it seems there's an Orwellian 13 effort to rename and reclassify this highly dangerous 14 material, just as there was 30 years ago. Am I 15 suspicious? Am I growing a little cynical in my old 16 age? Yes.

17 It was not until this year, in this 18 legislative session, when they tried once again to 19 sneak their special interest legislation through, that 20 they got caught with their hands in the cookie jar, 21 and were finally held accountable.

22 This session, their special interest 23 legislation did not even get to either the House floor 24 or the Senate floor, and they were exposed in 25 committee for the lies that they had told over the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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60 1 years, and the author of the bill went back and looked 2 at the tape, and he said, Oh, you're right; they lied.

3 When they tried the deceptive measure of 4 adding part of their legislation to an unrelated bill, 5 the governor not only vetoed the bill. He tweeted, We 6 don't want this high-level stuff here in Texas. Texas 7 has fulfilled our responsibility with the low-level 8 compact. We're one of four. You showed the map.

9 What about the rest of the states that have not 10 fulfilled their responsibility at all?

11 What's wrong with this Orwellian industry-12 driven attempt to dump on Texas? One, it represents 13 the most egregious form of corporate socialism. It is 14 designed to let the rich make greater profits at the 15 expense of the public good, specifically that public 16 being Texas and Texans. The proposal would allow 28 17 times more curies than are currently allowed. It 18 would involve 100,000-pound containers stacked in 19 hollow pits.

20 Three, it would involve over 33,000 truck 21 shipments, if they're trucked, or if they're railed, 22 regardless, that would -- most of it would be coming 23 through the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Let me tell you.

24 I learned a lot about railroads in my 18 years 25 representing central city Fort Worth. This is an NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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61 1 extraordinarily bad idea.

2 Until the great tariff battle with China, 3 over half of what's imported in this country came 4 through one traffic light on the rails in the Fort 5 Worth from the Los Angeles port. Of course, now 6 they're sending those ships back, and maybe it's not 7 as big of a problem, but let's hope the tariff wars 8 don't last forever.

9 There are no proposed safety improvements 10 at this facility. I've read the documentation -- you 11 should, too -- about the safety violations at that 12 current facility.

13 Finally, as Governor Abbott recently wrote 14 to the NRC, "At this time, I oppose increase in the 15 amount or concentration of radioactivity authorized 16 for disposal at the facility in Andrews County." I 17 don't often agree with the governor, but I agree with 18 him now. And from my perspective, somebody whose 19 family has been here since the 1820s, we got a lot of 20 carpetbaggers looking at how to dump on this state, 21 and we don't appreciate it at all. Thank you.

22 (Applause.)

23 MR. CAMERON: Thank you. Thank you, Lon.

24 Marion. And I'll let Marion pronounce her 25 last name.

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62 1 MS. MLOTOK: Thank you.

2 MR. CAMERON: And then we're going to go 3 to Dale Bulla, Pat Bulla, and Tom "Smitty" Smith. And 4 then we're going to go to the phones, and then we'll 5 come back to the room.

6 MS. MLOTOK: My name's Marion Mlotok. And 7 I can pronounce it. I have a few main concerns about 8 this.

9 One is this whole process of 10 reclassifying. It's not a process I'm fond of. I 11 mean, the first problem I came across with this Waste 12 Control Specialists was when they were reclassifying 13 how far the Ogallala Aquifer intruded into Waste 14 Control Specialists' territory. And I still don't 15 trust that consideration.

16 We have the Ogallala Aquifer which is the 17 breadbasket of the whole midwest of this country and 18 the green-growing region, and if we're putting even 19 higher-level waste than what we were originally 20 putting, when we reclassified where the Ogallala 21 Aquifer is just by fiat, this does not really work for 22 me, and it puts our food supply in jeopardy. And it 23 also puts, of course, the water supply in jeopardy.

24 The other question I have is about 25 reclassifying radioactive waste, and if we're NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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63 1 reclassifying it for a good technical reason, I don't 2 have a problem with that, if we misclassified it in 3 the first place or we've learned more than we used to 4 know. But we're reclassifying it now because Waste 5 Control Specialists wants to have this waste so they 6 can make more money.

7 And when we go back and look at the 8 history of this, this is because when our energy 9 secretary used to be our governor, Harold Simmons, who 10 owned Waste Control Specialists before he passed away, 11 was contributing heavily to Governor Perry's 12 campaigns. And that's why we have it in Texas.

13 And for me, when I hear we're going to 14 reclassify waste so that we can put it in Waste 15 Control Specialists, when as you've heard from other 16 people, this was promised never to happen, I say we're 17 doing this for a financial reason and a financial 18 reason that is going to benefit very few people. It's 19 not going to benefit the people of Texas, because this 20 stuff is radioactive for tens of thousands years.

21 Eventually Texas will be on the hook for 22 this. Whether it's sooner or whether it's later, 23 we're going to have our health and our finances 24 drained as a result of putting high-level waste there.

25 Thank you.

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64 1 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you very much, 2 Marion.

3 MR. PESSIN: Chip. Chip --

4 MR. CAMERON: Dale --

5 MR. PESSIN: Chip, could I make a few 6 clarifying --

7 MR. CAMERON: Go ahead. Andy Pessin.

8 MR. PESSIN: Yes. Andy Pessin, attorney, 9 NRC OGC. A couple things. First of all, W -- and I 10 appreciate these comments. They're all very good 11 comments.

12 WCS is not licensed by the Nuclear 13 Regulatory Commission. It is licensed by the State of 14 Texas. Okay. So there was a comment earlier that the 15 NRC was the licensing authority for WCS, and that's 16 not accurate.

17 There's also been statements that we're 18 reclassifying GTCC waste. Under the Nuclear Waste 19 Policy Act, GTCC waste is not identified, and it is 20 not part of the definition of high-level waste. Now, 21 we certainly take the regulatory position that the 22 default disposal paths for the GTCC waste is a deep 23 geologic repository, but we never took the position 24 that it cannot go anywhere else.

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65 1 the early 1980s. We take the position that on a case-2 by-case basis, it can go to a site other than a deep 3 geologic repository. So that's not a new change.

4 That has been the case since the 1980s. So those are 5 the two clarifying comments.

6 Oh, one other clarifying comment. All 7 we're doing here is we're looking -- we're considering 8 whether to go forward with rulemaking or not, and 9 rulemaking is generic. We're not -- this is -- and I 10 understand WCS is implicated here, and they probably 11 are the likely candidate. But our rulemaking is not 12 WCS-specific. If we do have a rulemaking that allows 13 for near-surface disposal of GTCC waste, a number of 14 things would have to happen after that.

15 One is Texas would have to change their 16 regulations, which currently prohibit GTCC waste.

17 That would be a State of Texas action, not an NRC 18 action. And then if WCS were interested in storing 19 this material, they would have to follow up with a 20 site-specific application, and there would be a site-21 specific safety analysis and a site-specific 22 environmental analysis, most likely an environmental 23 impact statement.

24 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you. And, 25 Marion, thank you for your comments.

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66 1 MS. MLOTOK: I'd just like to add 2 something, based on what he just said.

3 MR. CAMERON: Go ahead.

4 MS. MLOTOK: It's like, I understand what 5 you're saying. This is a generic thing.

6 MR. PESSIN: Yes.

7 MS. MLOTOK: However, it's a generic thing 8 that is, as you said, most likely to come to Waste 9 Control Specialists.

10 MR. PESSIN: Right.

11 MS. MLOTOK: And so to consider it as, oh, 12 well, this is just bureaucratic rulemaking, that's not 13 really what's exactly at stake here for us.

14 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you. And, 15 Dale, Dale Bulla, and then we'll go to Pat Bulla, and 16 then we'll go to Smitty.

17 MR. BULLA: Thank you. I'm Dale Bulla.

18 I live in Austin, Texas. Listening to these 19 discussions has been kind of sobering. It seems the 20 horse is out of the barn, however. A lot of these 21 questions should have been asked decades ago. Before 22 you start building a poisonous system, you should 23 decide what you're going to do with the poison.

24 And I was thinking of comparisons between 25 our CO2 dilemma right now, with our earth warming. We NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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67 1 talk a lot about dealing with the damage that's being 2 caused by excessive CO2 pollution, just like we're now 3 talking about the damage of excessive radiation 4 contamination, and both of these things were warned to 5 us decades and decades ago. So, I mean, we're here 6 where we are.

7 My concern also is that the taxpayers are 8 going to pick up the cost for this. If the people 9 that are generating the energy had to pay for the 10 storage, they would shut down. They couldn't afford 11 to operate these plants. We could have wind, solar 12 and storage. It could vastly change the landscape of 13 zero pollution, and I think it's a shame that we're 14 here today.

15 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you, Dale. And 16 this is Pat, Pat Bulla.

17 MS. BULLA: Thank you. Yes. Pat Bulla, 18 and I live in Austin. Short, I agree with much of 19 what's been said. I am deeply opposed to the proposed 20 reclassification of radioactive waste which could 21 likely or would likely affect the West Texas site.

22 As a taxpayer, I do not want my state to 23 have the financial responsibility of potential 24 accidents of such -- much greater level of radioactive 25 waste. Please don't bring it here.

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68 1 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you, Pat. And 2 this is Tom Smith.

3 MR. SMITH: Good evening, everybody. My 4 name is Tom Smith. I'm better known as Smitty. And 5 I'm sorry I have to be here tonight.

6 As many of you know, in 1985, I started 7 getting involved in this question of what are we going 8 to do with the nation's radioactive waste. Many of 9 you in the room, several of you in the room, were in 10 that debate then, and we still haven't figured out 11 what to do about this mess.

12 And I appreciate the NRC coming down here 13 and offering to listen to us, and the work that you're 14 trying to do to figure out what to do with these 15 wastes that have already been generated. But I want 16 to say, I don't think we want this waste here, and I 17 don't think that the reclassification is a good idea, 18 because the wisdom that we had decades ago to make 19 sure this went to a repository was based on science, 20 not politics.

21 And ultimately this has become a political 22 decision, and I'm afraid that you're caught in those 23 jaws of this political decision, and you have a grave 24 moral decision to deal with this waste responsibly, 25 and sometimes that means standing up to the politics.

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69 1 That's going to take a lot of guts and a lot of 2 courage. I hope that you have it. I think you do.

3 And I hope ultimately that you make the 4 decision not to reclassify this waste in ways that 5 would put this state at risk. Ultimately what's 6 happened here is this whole thing has gotten triggered 7 by a letter coming from TCEQ that would have 8 benefitted Governor Perry's second largest donor, and 9 they said, Take a look at WCS; they might be willing 10 to have it.

11 And as a result, I think it's important 12 for us to take a look at how politics have now changed 13 in this state. Governor Abbott has written you all 14 letters, saying, Wait a minute, we're not sure this is 15 a good idea.

16 And in a situation very close to this, 17 same side of WCS, after he vetoed a bill that would 18 have brought that waste to WCS, high-level radioactive 19 waste to WCS, he said in a tweet, "Some people want to 20 make Texas the radioactive waste dumping ground of 21 America. I won't let that happen."

22 The politics have changed on whether or 23 not Texas can be considered a waste dump for the rest 24 of the United States. We used to have a saying here, 25 Don't mess with Texas, and I think that's what this NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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70 1 moment has become.

2 Politics have changed in a different way.

3 The oil companies have changed in a different way.

4 The oil companies have now woken to the fact that this 5 kind of waste may come to Texas, whether it be the 6 high-level stuff or this greater-than-Class C, and 7 have aroused the political tiger.

8 John Cornyn and Ted Cruz aren't going to 9 stand here and let Texas oil get impacted and lose 10 their market because of some fool's errand of trying 11 to bring this waste and dump it out at WCS. They 12 don't want to -- nobody wants radioactive oil, and 13 nobody wants this waste. That's why they're trying to 14 send it here.

15 But you're now in a position where that 16 politics have changed, and if you've got the guts to 17 stand up and say, Not in Texas and we're not going to 18 reclassify it, you're going to have political backing 19 you haven't had in several generations.

20 There's another kind of political change 21 that's happened, because this waste is going to be 22 coming through Texas to go out to WCS, either on rail 23 or by truck. Eight counties and cities in Texas have 24 passed resolutions. They represent the majority of 25 Texans who have said, We don't want this waste coming NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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71 1 through our cities and our communities, in reference 2 to the high-level stuff.

3 And, again, 41,000 people said, We don't 4 want this high-level stuff coming through. And it's 5 not the distinction matter. It's the radiation 6 exposure they understand. That's the real threat we 7 have here.

8 Now, one of the things that we expect to 9 have happen is that TCEQ is going to have to change 10 their rules and regulations, and we expect that the 11 legislature's going to get involved in this in the 12 2021 legislature. And with the oil companies, 13 together with the environmentalists and those eight 14 counties and cities, the politics have changed. And 15 I don't think you're going to be in position where you 16 can continue to dump on Texas.

17 There's another big reason. There's holes 18 in this plan of putting this stuff out in West Texas, 19 about 600 of them that have never been characterized 20 and have -- that are old uncapped oil and gas wells.

21 Now, the good folks at TCEQ said, when they were 22 looking at this the first time, We have a lot of 23 concerns about water incursion into this site and into 24 the aquifers below it, and the contamination that 25 might result.

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72 1 Four people from the staff at -- three 2 people at the staff at TCEQ resigned over that. That 3 permit for the low-level site was issued over their 4 objections, and it's important to note. There are 5 other natural disasters that need to be looked at, and 6 they're in your report on -- where they talk about 7 hurricane -- tornadoes, rather, not hurricanes. I've 8 got that on my mind for other reasons. Two tornadoes 9 have been out there. There've been nine F1 tornadoes 10 in that particular area around Eunice.

11 There was an earthquake, a 3.3 earthquake, 12 in that particular part of the world, and yet somehow 13 we magically think that this is going to not affect 14 this waste and not cause that concrete to crack open.

15 I am fond of reading about magical thinking, but this 16 is woo-woo science at its worst, and we need to say, 17 no, we're not going to do this.

18 I think it's also important for us to take 19 a look at what our future is. I've spent my entire 20 career, as you folks have, thinking about what to do 21 with this waste. This is a legacy problem, and the 22 decision that you're going to make to put this waste 23 in a facility that you think might work, just might 24 work, for 500 years, is your legacy.

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73 1 outlive that 500-year cap. It's going to be hot for 2 10,000 years, for untold generations of your 3 grandchildren and their grandchildren and their great-4 great-great-great-great, is more than my mind can 5 understand, to go out 10,000 years. That's your 6 legacy.

7 And is changing the rules the way to 8 protect your legacy? Or is doing what's right and 9 saying, This waste needs to go where science says it 10 needs to go, deep underground in a geologic formation 11 that will prevent it from getting wet and prevent it 12 from having any incursion into the atmosphere?

13 That's the charge we all have is to 14 protect our legacy and the generations that come after 15 us. Thank you very much for taking on this 16 responsibility, and I hope it doesn't rest well on 17 your would to think about what might happen if you 18 don't have the courage to act. Thank you.

19 MR. CAMERON: Thank you. Thank you, 20 Smitty.

21 We have a few more speakers that we're 22 going to get to here, but we're going to go to the 23 phones. And, Marcus, is there someone who wants to 24 talk to us on the phone?

25 (No response.)

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74 1 MS. D'ARRIGO: My name's Diane D'Arrigo.

2 MR. CAMERON: So Marcus is gone. Who's 3 the operator?

4 MS. D'ARRIGO: Hello?

5 MR. CAMERON: Yes. Who is that?

6 MS. D'ARRIGO: This is Diane from Nuclear 7 Information.

8 MR. CAMERON: Oh, Diane. Hi, Diane. Go 9 ahead.

10 MS. D'ARRIGO: Hi. Are you getting an 11 echo, though, because I'm getting an echo.

12 MR. CAMERON: It's sort of coming through 13 garbled there.

14 MS. D'ARRIGO: Maybe I should call on a 15 different line.

16 MR. CAMERON: Yes. Why don't you try that 17 and come back to us, and let me try to locate the 18 operator, Marcus, who was -- Marcus, are you there?

19 MARCUS: Yes. I'm here.

20 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Well --

21 MS. D'ARRIGO: I'll get in on a different 22 line.

23 MR. CAMERON: When you're going to put 24 someone forward to us, just tell us that they're going 25 to be coming on. You don't have to say their name, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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75 1 but it would be useful to know that you're putting 2 someone out there. And I think the first person you 3 put on was Diane D'Arrigo, and we want to hear from 4 her. But she was going to go try a different phone, 5 so we'll put her on right after the next speaker. But 6 who do you have in line now to talk to us?

7 MARCUS: I have no one else in the queue.

8 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Well, Diane, are you 9 on a different phone now?

10 (No response.)

11 MR. CAMERON: They're all out there on the 12 next level. Okay. We're waiting for Diane.

13 (Pause.)

14 MR. CAMERON: Okay. While we're waiting 15 for Diane and Marcus, we're going to -- as soon as 16 Diane comes back, tell us. But we're going to go to 17 some people in the room now while we're waiting for 18 Diane to get to a different phone. Okay?

19 MARCUS: Okay.

20 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Let's go to Adrian, 21 and then we'll go to Al, and then to Neva Fischer and 22 Sylvia Pope. This is Adrian.

23 MR. SHELLEY: Hi, there. Adrian Shelley 24 with Public Citizen, a resident here in Austin, Texas.

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76 1 but that's something I'm a little familiar with, so 2 just keep going.

3 So, I mean, at base -- right? -- we 4 haven't heard a good reason why this rulemaking is 5 necessary. We heard earlier that the question is, 6 should we embark on a rulemaking or not. And I think 7 the clear answer is no. There's just no reason for 8 it.

9 We've heard from a majority of the people 10 here in the room about the WCS site, and that is 11 because for us here in Texas, it's just not possible 12 to, you know, remove a generic proposed regulatory 13 action from the facility that's actually located in 14 our state and which we have followed some of us, in 15 some cases, for many decades.

16 And, you know, that facility exists on 17 sort of some shifting regulatory sands, and we have 18 seen over the years, you know, chipping away at the 19 regulations for the site, and it concerns us greatly, 20 and that is why that's how it's being framed for all 21 of us who are speaking here tonight.

22 And, again, you know, we haven't really 23 heard a reason beyond that there was a vendor at one 24 point who wanted this rulemaking. We haven't heard 25 another reason why it's necessary. You know, the Part NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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77 1 61 definitions for the classes of radioactive waste 2 are not vague. They're not open to interpretation.

3 They're very clear.

4 You've got specific radionuclides in, I 5 think it is, Part 61.55, the waste classification 6 section. And it lays out very clearly which are the 7 radionuclides and which are the curie counts, and what 8 class does that put them in. And there's really no 9 wiggle room in there. Right? And so it just doesn't 10 make sense to us for those longstanding regulations to 11 be reconsidered, and that's why most of the folks in 12 this room have framed this as a reclassification of 13 waste.

14 You know, I asked the question earlier, 15 and I've got to say in my comments, whether these are 16 formal comments are not, I've got to bring up again 17 that the regulations require this cumulative effects 18 of regulation analysis, and we heard that that is 19 essentially about the regulatory burden to industry, 20 to the regulated community. And we heard, of course, 21 that there is, you know, a cumulative impacts analysis 22 that's done as part of the NEPA process.

23 But the NEPA process considers projects in 24 isolation and looks at one project. We do an 25 analysis. We do an environmental assessment and then NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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78 1 a FONSI, and we move on. And, you know, we've heard 2 that the environmental assessment that's been done in 3 this case is relatively generic. And so we have 4 pretty serious concerns about, you know, whether any 5 meaningful cumulative impacts analysis will be done.

6 And so, you know, if it's the cumulative 7 effects of regulation, you know, burden to industry 8 that has to become the earnest sort of, you know, 9 cumulative analysis, then so be it. Right? There's 10 a very real question about whether WCS or its 11 successors in interest can maintain, you know, the 12 number, the volume of sites that are there, the volume 13 of material that it's asked for, and, you know, the 14 sort of constantly shifting asks that it makes of the 15 NRC and of the State of Texas.

16 I think there are very serious open 17 questions about whether, you know, all of those pieces 18 can be juggled all at once, and so, again, whether 19 it's a cumulative effects analysis for the impacted 20 community or the regulated industry, it's got to be 21 done. We cannot look at a generic rulemaking without 22 considering all of the other moving pieces.

23 And there is a pending application from 24 WCS to the NRC. Right? So the NRC's not a -- there's 25 not a high-level radioactive waste application pending NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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79 1 to the NRC right now? Yes. Interim Storage Partners, 2 yes. The ISP. We all call it WCS, but Interim 3 Storage Partners. Right?

4 They are a applicant before the NRC.

5 Right? So this rulemaking's got to be considered in 6 that context. And, I guess, I will just finish by 7 being yet another person to quote the governor on 8 this. The governor's tweet from June 5 -- it's been 9 said; I'm just going to say it one more time. "Some 10 people want to make Texas the radioactive waste 11 dumping ground of America. I won't let that happen."

12 A whole lot has changed in Texas in the 13 last couple of years, so we'll view it in that 14 context.

15 MR. CAMERON: Thank you. Thank you, 16 Adrian.

17 And we're going to go to Al now, and then 18 we're going back to Marcus, and hopefully Diane is on 19 the phone. But Al Bradley -- Bradley?

20 MR. BRADEN: Al Braden.

21 MR. CAMERON: Braden. I'm sorry.

22 MR. BRADEN: I have the difficult position 23 of following Adrian and Smitty, so -- thank you.

24 Good evening, Commissioners. I'm Al 25 Braden, an Austin citizen. I volunteer with Sierra NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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80 1 Club and 350 Austin, concerned with stewardship of our 2 life-giving earth. And I think I've got to give you 3 credit for one thing tonight. You've really 4 graphically summarized how I feel about this whole 5 thing.

6 (General laughter.)

7 MR. BRADEN: As I look at all the 8 shortcuts and, you know, 500-year plans and all the 9 things that I read in your slides -- and I'll go back 10 and read them in detail -- it just makes more and more 11 questions and, frankly, a little bit of despair about 12 this.

13 Fifty-five years ago, I was a high school 14 student in El Paso, and I was studying to become a 15 nuclear physicist. At that very time, the Atomic 16 Energy Commission planned, promised, a long-term 17 permanent disposal of nuclear waste, and though I 18 later studied physics and engineering, I did not, in 19 the end, become a nuclear physicist.

20 But in those 55 years, the Atomic Energy 21 Commission did not in the end find the solution to 22 long-term underground disposal of this waste. And the 23 NRC later and the DOE have failed in their obligation 24 to solve the disposal of radioactive waste that their 25 very programs create and support.

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81 1 And even as reactors are now licensed 2 beyond their original design lives, the nuclear 3 industry is winding down. Their radioactive and toxic 4 waste remains a serious problem for the NRC and a 5 national problem.

6 I've seen the open-air storage cask in 7 Connecticut, from the closed Connecticut Yankee, off 8 in the woods, just 25 miles from downtown Hartford, a 9 city of -- a region of 1.2 million. And I wonder 10 what's going to happen to the above-ground storage 11 cask at Vermont Yankee now being closed and seven 12 miles from my kids and grandkids in Brattleboro, 13 Vermont. So I take this personally. I know that safe 14 and permanent storage is a pressing problem, and it 15 will accelerate as our nuclear fleet winds down in the 16 next 30 years.

17 You have got to find the permanent 18 storage. Relabeling something does not make it safe, 19 does not make it less radioactive, does not shorten 20 its half-life, and does not reduce the risk that it 21 poses to future generations.

22 VOICE: Amen.

23 MR. BRADEN: The solution to this 24 radioactivity is not to dump it in shallow graves on 25 the high plains of Texas. Once Waste Control NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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82 1 Specialists makes all their money accepting this 2 waste, once the site is full and some sand is poured 3 over it and maybe a 500-year piece of cement, it will 4 become the responsibility of the people of the United 5 States and the people of Texas in particular to live 6 with, remediate, and dig up at even greater cost and 7 put somewhere in the permanent storage that's 8 required.

9 Once that waste touches the soil of Texas, 10 it will not leave, and we will have created a 11 Chernobyl on the high plains that will contaminate our 12 land, our water, and our people for thousands of 13 years, and I cannot accept that. So I, please, ask 14 you, reject this application and reject the concept of 15 the rulemaking to relabel dangerous waste as something 16 less than it truly is. Thank you very much.

17 (Applause.)

18 MR. CAMERON: Thank you. Thank you, Al.

19 And, Marcus, is Diane on the phone?

20 MARCUS: She is.

21 MR. CAMERON: Go ahead, Diane.

22 MS. D'ARRIGO: Hi. I'm Diane D'Arrigo 23 with Nuclear Information and Resource Service. All 24 right.

25 Well, anyway -- (feedback from phone NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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83 1 connection) -- C and greater-than-C in some 2 concentrations, and the 10 CFR 61 regulations require 3 or assume at least a hundred years of institutional 4 control post-closure.

5 So the radionuclides that are generated, 6 which come over 95 percent in the low-level waste 7 stream in the country, is from nuclear power reactors 8 in the commercial waste stream, and this stuff goes to 9 these -- legally they can be unlined soil trenches 10 with a hundred years of institutional control and an 11 allowable release rate.

12 I got a little confused on the call on the 13 22nd of August, where there was some discussion of 14 allowing 500 milligrams per year to people from these 15 sites. It's my reading of the regulation that it's a 16 25 millirem, 25-75-25 millirem, dose is still what is 17 the limit for exposures to the public from these 18 facilities.

19 And I do understand that, depending on 20 the -- pretty much any computer models or scenarios 21 that are done that calculate doses to the public, come 22 up with an inadvertent intruder, a resident farmer 23 sitting on top of this site after the hundred years, 24 and that's the person or the family that would get the 25 highest dose.

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84 1 And that person is supposed to be limited 2 to a set amount of exposure. Supposedly one can put 3 in all kinds of long, long-lasting radionuclides, and 4 as long as they're a bit deeper in the ditch than the 5 Class A stuff, then the farmer and his family are only 6 going to get what we now consider the legal or 7 acceptable dose.

8 Well, that's my interpretation of 10 CFR 9 61, and now -- well, we also know that in 1980, states 10 were given responsibility for so-called low-level 11 waste, which is defined in the law as everything but 12 irradiated fuel, and it's my understanding that it was 13 transuranics above 100 nanocuries per gram, and that 14 even when the amendments act passed in '85, that 15 states still had this responsibility to provide for 16 disposal for the private nuclear power facilities and 17 other nuclear generators in states.

18 And in 1992, the provision that would 19 force states to take title and liability to this 20 waste, if they didn't provide for disposal, was 21 overturned by the Supreme Court.

22 But since the same programs were still in 23 progress in the ten or so context, there were many 24 programs going on, and the only site that opened was 25 a WCS site. None of the other sites opened. Utah NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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85 1 opened, but not really under the Nuclear Waste Policy 2 Act. However, it's limited to Class A concentrations.

3 So now we're being asked and Utah's been 4 asked to take higher concentration waste at its dump.

5 We're being asked for the operating dumps that are 6 left in Washington, in South Carolina, and Texas, 7 potentially in Utah, to take wastes that have higher 8 concentrations than those in the A, B, and C 9 categorizations.

10 Well, I've been part of the public 11 interest community, focusing on so-called low-level 12 waste since 1979 and in 1980, and in those early '80s, 13 we -- the Sierra Club passed a provision, calling on 14 low-level radioactive waste to be redefined to exclude 15 anything that was hazardous longer than the 16 institutional control period required for the 17 radioactive waste site, and to have a goal of zero 18 release, to try to isolate the waste rather than make 19 it legal to expose people now and in the future to 20 radioactivity from this waste.

21 When the 1985 amendments act passed, then 22 Congress said, Oh, well, okay; we'll just have states 23 be responsible for Classes A, B and C, but this other 24 stuff that's even more concentrated, we'll have the 25 DOE take care of it.

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86 1 Well, DOE's having a hard time finding a 2 high-level nuclear waste dump, and while we believe 3 this waste is hot enough to be considered high-level 4 waste or should be isolated, the public interest 5 communities who've been focusing on these so-called 6 low-level waste dumps since 1980, when the law first 7 passed, certainly during that whole siting period when 8 there were 40 or 50 dumps targeted around this 9 country, people were saying, This isn't low-level 10 waste. If it's hazardous longer than we're going to 11 have institutional control, it shouldn't be there.

12 So my point is that what's already in the 13 low-level radioactive waste category is more than it 14 should be, and now what we're being asked to do is 15 accept even more, and exponentially more potentially, 16 depending how one looks at it, certainly many time 17 more radioactivity going into facilities that really 18 are only required to have a hundred years of 19 institutional control or are only assumed to have 20 that.

21 So the amount of radioactivity and the 22 longevity of the radioactivity in all three 23 categories, A, B, and C, is beyond a hundred years.

24 We also know from more recent updated information, but 25 it's not all that new, that women and children have NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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87 1 much more health effects than men from the same amount 2 of dose. So we've got sexism in our radiation 3 standards.

4 What's allowable for a standard male, 5 which is what the -- or average men and women in some 6 cases, the amount of radioactivity, the legal doses of 7 radioactivity are based mainly on men, and women get 8 more cancer than men, children many times more cancer 9 than men at the same doses.

10 So in addition to putting more 11 radioactivity in, into sites, we're also putting a 12 greater threat on parts of our population, parts of 13 our life cycle, that -- we're putting more threat on 14 our life cycle, on the human and the other organisms' 15 life cycles.

16 So we really need to have a goal of 17 isolating this waste and putting it into a facility 18 that has potential connections to water supplies, to 19 downwind communities, requires transportation back and 20 forth across the country, is too big of a danger.

21 So -- and then going back to the 22 inadvertent intruder and the analyses, where they're 23 done, I had actually a couple of questions for the 24 NRC. I tried to raise them on the 22nd, and I still 25 don't quite get it. So the calculations are being NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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88 1 done that would allow for much, much higher 2 radioactivity, longer lasting, more intensely 3 concentrated, which means it's going to be dangerous 4 longer because it takes more half-life to decay.

5 We're being asked to put that into 6 facilities and let the -- as it stands now, it's my 7 understanding, that on a case-by-case basis, state 8 regulators can allow for greater-than-C to go into 9 these 10 CFR 61 facilities.

10 So if it can be done on a case-by-case 11 basis now, which I know that it has been -- I think it 12 has at the other sites -- then is what this rule would 13 do, one of the options for the rule would be to make 14 it generic?

15 It would be up to the dump operator? It 16 would be up to the NRC with an agreement state in 17 developing the allowance for higher-than-Class C 18 limits going to these sites? How would it be 19 different than it is now, is one of my questions.

20 MR. CAMERON: And, Diane, could you ask 21 your other question, and then we'll go to the NRC to 22 answer, and then we'll come back to speakers in the 23 room. But ask your other question while we have you.

24 MS. D'ARRIGO: The other is 500-year 25 institutional barrier, is that something that's now NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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89 1 being added? And where did you get the -- I thought 2 that I heard on the 22nd 500 millirems as the 3 allowable dose, when, in fact, 10 CFR 61.41 says it's 4 25-75-25.

5 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you. Thank 6 you, Diane, for joining us. And we're going to go to 7 Tim McCartin for first and second question, or however 8 you want to do that. Tim.

9 MR. McCARTIN: Well, first I'll address 10 the 500 millirem dose and 25 millirem dose. The 25 11 millirem dose is to an off-site individual, and that 12 has not changed. We're not doing anything different 13 for GTCC waste.

14 What is different is the classification 15 scheme of A, B and C was based on assessing the 16 intruder hazard, and when they were looking at the 17 intruder, they looked at limiting the dose to the 18 intruder to 500 millirem for the whole body, and 19 that's a 500 millirem dose in today's dosimetry.

20 MS. D'ARRIGO: Where is that from? It was 21 in the 10 CFR 61?

22 MR. McCARTIN: Well, you won't see it in 23 61 in terms of any of the requirements, because the 24 concentration limits were done to ensure you don't get 25 more than a 500 millirem dose. That would be in the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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90 1 development of Part 61, and when I'm finished, I know 2 Dave Esh might be able to give a reference of where 3 that information is from the development of Part 61.

4 Because now we're in a situation for 5 greater-than-Class C waste, the classification limit 6 doesn't apply anymore --

7 MS. D'ARRIGO: Wait, wait, wait. So 8 you're saying that in 10 CFR 61, environmental impact 9 statement or whatever the background was that was 10 updated, that in that they decided it was okay to use 11 500 millirems for an inadvertent intruder?

12 MR. McCARTIN: Correct.

13 MS. D'ARRIGO: But for people who are off-14 site, they would only get 25?

15 MR. McCARTIN: That is correct.

16 MR. CAMERON: Okay.

17 MR. McCARTIN: When Part 61 was developed.

18 Now, because Part 61 in its current form doesn't allow 19 things greater than Class C, how do you protect the 20 intruder? Because the suggestion -- you know, it is 21 greater-than-Class C. These wastes are higher than 22 that limit.

23 And so that's why we've suggested in our 24 reg basis that you need to do an analysis of the 25 intruder to ensure the intruder continues to be NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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91 1 protected to the level that was protected for the 2 Class C waste in Part 61, which is that 500 millirem 3 dose.

4 In addition, we've said Part 61 says you 5 could have, for Class C waste, a 500-year intruder 6 barrier or depth below five meters. For greater-than-7 Class C, we're not suggesting the or, but you put it 8 at least five meters below the surface and a 500-year 9 intruder barrier, so there's additional protection for 10 these greater concentrations.

11 But at the heart of it, you still are 12 going to have to show the level of protection is the 13 same as the level of protection that's provided for 14 the intruder by the classification scheme.

15 MR. CAMERON: Now, do you want to answer 16 the second question? Was that Diane's first question?

17 Are you still with that?

18 MR. McCARTIN: Can you refresh my memory.

19 MR. CAMERON: Diane, can you ask -- in a 20 short way, can you ask what your first question was.

21 MS. D'ARRIGO: Well, we're in the middle 22 of the 500 millirem one. Why don't we just finish 23 with that.

24 MR. CAMERON: Well, because I think we 25 might be here until tomorrow to finish it.

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92 1 MS. D'ARRIGO: It's kind of a yes or no.

2 If it's in the regulation, the 500 millirems, and I 3 just can't find it.

4 MR. McCARTIN: Well, correct. You will 5 not see 500 millirem in 10 CFR Part 61. But what you 6 do see --

7 MS. D'ARRIGO: But that's the protection 8 for the intruder that you're providing.

9 MR. McCARTIN: And that's how they 10 determine the concentration limits for A, B and C 11 waste, to limit it to 500 millirem for the intruder.

12 That's how they derived those concentrations. You do 13 see the concentrations.

14 You don't see an explicit statement in the 15 regulations that that concentration was protecting the 16 intruder to 500 millirem. You will see it in the 17 documentation for the development of the 18 classification, the concentration limits. And Dave 19 Esh may be able to provide a reference where that is.

20 I'm not --

21 MR. CAMERON: Dave, do you want to --

22 MS. D'ARRIGO: That's okay. I'll --

23 MR. McCARTIN: -- add something?

24 MS. D'ARRIGO: -- find it offline. But --

25 MR. CAMERON: Are you okay, Diane?

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93 1 MS. D'ARRIGO: What we've got is the 500 2 millirems. What you're trying to calculate now is if 3 you put in much higher concentration waste, it'll 4 supposedly just only give that same amount of 500 5 millirems to the inadvertent intruder?

6 MR. McCARTIN: Well, the -- an application 7 would have to demonstrate that the wastes they are 8 disposing of would result in no more than that same 9 dose limit of 500 millirem for the intruder.

10 MS. D'ARRIGO: Well, isn't that what's 11 used now for a case-by-case basis, to put greater than 12 C at these sites?

13 MR. CAMERON: And, Diane, I think we're 14 going to have to go to your first question. We've 15 tried to ventilate this --

16 MS. D'ARRIGO: This is my first question.

17 What is the difference between what they're doing now 18 on a case-by-case basis doing -- versus how it would 19 be done more generically in the future, or whether it 20 would be up to the waste operator to do the analysis 21 itself.

22 MR. McCARTIN: Well, I'm not exactly 23 sure --

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94 1 be. I know you said there's three options.

2 MR. McCARTIN: Well, there is no --

3 MS. D'ARRIGO: How would that --

4 MR. McCARTIN: There is no GTCC --

5 MS. D'ARRIGO: -- analysis be done? Would 6 it be done once generically, or would it be done on 7 each time? And how's it different than what they do 8 now?

9 MR. CAMERON: Okay. We're going to go to 10 that one.

11 MR. McCARTIN: Okay. Well, there isn't 12 any GTCC waste being disposed of under Part 61 now.

13 What --

14 MS. D'ARRIGO: Well, at Barnwell I know 15 there has been.

16 MR. CAMERON: Diane, could you just let 17 him finish his answer.

18 MR. McCARTIN: Now --

19 MS. D'ARRIGO: Sure.

20 MR. McCARTIN: -- in terms of the three 21 alternatives, if we did a rulemaking, we would codify 22 the requirements for the intruder assessment, and that 23 would be done for all sites that potentially could 24 seek that.

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95 1 have to show how the intruder is protected, because 2 the classification scheme, you're going beyond what's 3 allowed, beyond the Class C limit, so you have to show 4 the intruder is protected. So we would assume a 5 similar kind of assessment of the impact to the 6 intruder, what the dose might be.

7 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Diane --

8 MS. D'ARRIGO: Well, then, you better 9 consider that women get more cancer than men at the 10 same dose, and kids get even more.

11 MR. CAMERON: Let's try to answer that 12 one, and then we'll go on. Go ahead, Tim.

13 MR. McCARTIN: Well, the dosimetry in 14 terms of -- and it probably is a bad terminology, but 15 the reference "man" is not a male per se. It is a 16 male with additional organs related to a female, so it 17 is a composite. And so you average the dose for all 18 the organs that are there.

19 VOICE: Who knew the NRC could do that?

20 MR. McCARTIN: Well, no. That's ICRP.

21 That's common radiation protection. There is a 22 recognition --

23 MS. D'ARRIGO: That's not a minimum.

24 MR. CAMERON: Okay. So there may be a 25 seminar in the bar upstairs. Okay.

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96 1 But, Diane, I'm going to have Dave Esh try 2 to give you some references that may be helpful. And 3 then we're going to come back in the room here to J.

4 Nile Fischer, and Sylvia Pope. Dave Esh for Diane 5 D'Arrigo.

6 MR. ESH: Hi. This is Dave Esh. And you 7 were asking about references or Tim pointed you in the 8 direction of me for references. So hopefully I won't 9 mess up the numbers, but I probably will. The draft 10 EIS, I believe, is NUREG-0782, and then the final EIS 11 for Part 61, I believe, was NUREG-0945.

12 And then there's a whole series of 13 supporting documents that if any of you have insomnia, 14 you're free to browse. NUREG-CR-1759, volume 3. All 15 of these walk through all those historic calculations, 16 and they're very detailed. They can be very difficult 17 to go through.

18 So one other reference I'll give you is 19 some colleagues and myself just did a waste management 20 paper this past year on a new tool that we're 21 developing called Table Calc, and that document, I 22 think, walks through pretty clearly in like ten pages 23 how the NRC developed the waste classification 24 concentrations. So if you don't want to read 1,500 25 pages, you can start with the ten-page primer.

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97 1 The primary author was my colleague 2 Christian Ridge -- her last name is R-I-D-G-E -- and 3 myself, David Esh. If you use Google and put our 4 names in and try Table Calc, hopefully that should 5 come up. if not, send me an email, and I'll send you 6 the paper, and that should give you a good start.

7 MR. CAMERON: Could you give Diane your 8 email with NRC.

9 MR. ESH: Yes. It's -- all our emails, 10 unless you share a name with somebody else, which I 11 don't, with a three-letter weird last name is first 12 name, dot, last name, at NRC.gov. So that's 13 David.Esh@NRC.gov.

14 MR. CAMERON: And the spelling of Esh --

15 MR. ESH: Is E-S-H.

16 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Diane, thank you.

17 Thank you for your interest.

18 We're going back in the room here, and I'm 19 sorry. Fischer? And if you could just pronounce the 20 whole thing for Donna.

21 MR. FISCHER: Hello. I'm J. Nile Fischer 22 from Arlington, Texas. I live within 60 miles of 23 Comanche Peak. I take that this is about changing the 24 designation of waste, and it bothers me because I have 25 concerns that we're going to let the electric NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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98 1 utilities and the Department of Energy and the 2 creators of our nation's nuclear waste externalize the 3 cost of storage.

4 So any move that's going to take our high-5 level waste, call it another thing and stick in a low-6 level storage facility is concerning to me. We can't 7 go on the cheap with storing high-level waste. We 8 cannot entrust the public's health well into the 9 future to short-lived, state-based interim storage 10 facilities that are for profit.

11 What requirements can the NRC make to 12 ensure that an agreement state maintains security to 13 prevent intruders? Now, that's a rhetorical question, 14 because at this point, I don't think the NRC has any 15 way to ensure that the waste is going to stay on the 16 ground beyond a hundred years, and we know that this 17 waste can stay hot and dangerous for thousands of 18 years, some of it.

19 This question becomes even more difficult, 20 given that these interim facilities are not federally 21 licensed. Right? These are state facilities. They 22 may have to meet some federal regs, but incredibly, 23 these are agreement states' responsibilities once 24 they're opened.

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99 1 our DOE programs generously subsidized, that provided 2 cheap nuclear fuel to public utilities, will have to 3 be guarded at the expense of the local agreement 4 states' budgets. To me, it seems unfair to expect 5 that an agreement state's future taxpayers foot that 6 bill, long after the for-profit storage facility 7 operators close shop.

8 That said, if any GTCC or GTCC-like wastes 9 are going to be recategorized so that they can be 10 deposited at the current low-level, privately managed, 11 consolidated interim storage facilities in various 12 states, then this regulatory agency must consider a 13 plan that protects the American citizen in these 14 states well beyond the 500 years discussed in the 15 models for this new regulation.

16 The NRC has a responsibility to keep the 17 public safe, today's public and the public beyond 500 18 years. Among the environmental science community, 19 which I'm a part of -- I'm a retired science 20 teacher -- there's a maxim. All waste is public. Our 21 Federal Government created the radioactive materials, 22 most of them, subsidized the production of commercial 23 reactor fuels, and promoted their commercialization.

24 There is a fiscal and regulatory 25 responsibility that these new rules will allow.

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100 1 Please do not consider the reclassification of higher-2 level waste for short-term economic convenience. And, 3 please, for the love of science, keep the highest-4 level waste in federal hands and out of these 5 consolidated interim storage facilities in these 6 agreement states.

7 Thank you for your time.

8 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you.

9 (Applause.)

10 MR. CAMERON: Thank you very much.

11 Sylvia, Sylvia Pope.

12 MS. POPE: Hello. I'm Sylvia Pope. I'm 13 from Austin, Texas. Thank you for holding this 14 hearing here tonight.

15 And rather than recapping the many 16 excellent points that other speakers have made about 17 the importance of isolating the GTCC and GTCC-like 18 waste in a geologically correct and appropriate 19 facility, I'm just going to tell you about my 20 experience of working early in my career at two 21 facilities that had attempted to contain radioactive 22 contaminated waste on site.

23 And it's my hope that this proposal be set 24 aside, because it's inappropriate to reclassify this 25 waste at a lower level to make it acceptable to bury NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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101 1 at a shallow depth.

2 So I worked at two sites, and at one site, 3 the concrete entombment container of this mixed 4 radioactive waste site was on the verge of rupture, 5 and that posed a very serious health risk to the 6 public.

7 Just the mere drilling to characterize the 8 contamination in the soil required placing blasting 9 mats on the ground so that the drilling crew and the 10 geologists would be protected from intercepting this 11 buried waste. It is for this reason and this 12 experience that I think it's a highly dangerous 13 precedent to recharacterize this GTCC waste and bury 14 it at a shallow depth.

15 It places our soil, water and air at risk, 16 and we need to reevaluate this proposal, rescind it, 17 or at the very minimum, come up with extremely 18 stringent guidance for any disposal practices and make 19 the disposal practice and the containment structures 20 appropriate for the radioactive half-life of the 21 materials buried therein. Thank you.

22 MR. CAMERON: Thank you very much, Sylvia.

23 (Applause.)

24 MR. CAMERON: And, Marcus, do we have 25 anybody else on the phone that wants to talk?

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102 1 MARCUS: No questions at this time.

2 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you, Marcus.

3 And let me just check in the room. Is 4 there anybody who did not get an opportunity to talk 5 that wants to say something?

6 (No response.)

7 MR. CAMERON: Okay. The NRC staff is 8 going to be here to talk informally with you and maybe 9 the question you were trying to address about the --

10 whatever gender that was. Okay? Maybe you could talk 11 about that.

12 (General laughter.)

13 MR. McCARTIN: I'd be happy to.

14 MR. CAMERON: At any rate, I'm going to 15 ask Trish Holahan, as the senior NRC official here, to 16 close out for us. Trish.

17 DR. HOLAHAN: Thank you, Chip. Thank you 18 very much for all your comments. It was a good 19 discussion. We heard them all, and several good 20 points were raised, so it is something to consider as 21 we move forward.

22 Okay. Well, thank you very much for all 23 your comments. It was a lively discussion, and some 24 good points were made that gives us food for thought 25 and consideration. So we'll take your comments.

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103 1 MS. HADDEN: Will you accept those --

2 tonight's comments as formal comments, please?

3 DR. HOLAHAN: I'll have to go back, but 4 what we do with a regulatory basis, we don't itemize 5 each individual comment. It's not a comment response, 6 so we'll take into consideration the comments that we 7 received by reviewing the transcript. But if you can 8 provide written comments, please do, because you made 9 very good comments, but we can't attribute everything 10 exactly the way you want them to be attributed. If 11 you provide them in writing, we'll --

12 MS. HADDEN: Well, isn't there a 13 transcript?

14 DR. HOLAHAN: Yes. But -- there is a 15 transcript, but we'll review it.

16 MS. HADDEN: Isn't this typically done, 17 though? I've been in many, many NRC meetings where 18 the transcript was used to create the formal comments, 19 and typically they are accepted at a meeting like this 20 as formal comments. This is unusual not to do that.

21 DR. HOLAHAN: We've done other rulemakings 22 the same way, but we'll take your comments into 23 consideration, and we'll review the transcript.

24 MR. CAMERON: And I think there's one 25 other thing that Karen brought up before was will you, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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104 1 when you make this decision, will you publicize that, 2 so people know whether the comments they gave tonight 3 was okay; they don't have to repeat them. Is that 4 correct, Karen?

5 MS. HADDEN: Yes. That's part of it.

6 MR. CAMERON: Okay.

7 DR. HOLAHAN: Okay. Well, we'll take that 8 back and -- is that what you're saying?

9 MR. PESSIN: I was just -- yes.

10 DR. HOLAHAN: Okay.

11 MR. PESSIN: And one thing you could do is 12 you could -- I know you prepared --

13 MR. CAMERON: Get on the record, Andy.

14 MR. PESSIN: Sorry. To the extent that 15 you prepared a statement that you read from, that 16 could be the basis of a written comment that you 17 submit. I mean, that would be one way to work this 18 out. I mean, it's -- there's no legal requirement 19 that we consider comments received at a meeting like 20 this to be formal comments. I mean, we could do that, 21 but it's not a part of --

22 MS. HADDEN: Please do.

23 VOICE: Why do you think we're here?

24 MR. CAMERON: What if they got the 25 transcript -- and, Donna, when will the transcript be NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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105 1 available?

2 THE REPORTER: Do you know when it was 3 requested originally? Was it rush?

4 MS. MAUPIN: Normally seven days.

5 THE REPORTER: Okay. That sounds right.

6 MR. CAMERON: What if they Xeroxed the 7 part of the transcript and submitted that as a formal 8 comment? Would that work? I'm going to go to 9 Cardelia.

10 MS. MAUPIN: In rulemaking -- we're in 11 pre-rulemaking right now. What we would like is for 12 you to submit your written comments so they can be on 13 the docket, because we've tried -- we tried previously 14 with the last couple of public meetings, because 15 sometimes you can -- we are all like human, subject to 16 misinterpret the comments and the strength of the 17 comments that you are trying to make.

18 So we are asking, if you are vested in 19 your comment, that's why we ask that -- we publicize 20 this as a means to clarify your questions, so that you 21 can submit the comments on the docket, because there 22 is no way we can formally do this if you do not 23 formally submit them on the docket, and we provided in 24 the Federal Register notice a number of ways in which 25 you could submit them on the docket.

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106 1 So if you are vested in your comments, 2 whatever you've written down, you can put your name 3 and submit those on the docket.

4 VOICE: Why don't you just say you don't 5 want to do it? That's what you're saying. You don't 6 want to do it.

7 MR. CAMERON: Okay. I think --

8 MS. HADDEN: One more question.

9 MR. CAMERON: Go ahead.

10 MS. HADDEN: Could you then -- the nature 11 of oral comments is different than written comments.

12 It's part of a dialogue that's happening here, and the 13 way it comes across is often different. Both are 14 valid, and I'm hoping that you'll accept both as 15 formal comment. I'm going to ask for that again.

16 And would you please in this case send us 17 a copy of the full transcript so that we might take 18 down what we said and send it to you, because what I 19 had written down, for example, is not what I said on 20 the microphone. We're here with real people, and it 21 comes out differently. I'd be happy and I plan to 22 submit additional written comments as well, but the 23 two are different, and we'd like it all to count.

24 People came from all over the state that are here 25 tonight.

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107 1 MR. CAMERON: Okay.

2 DR. HOLAHAN: I think you have a -- you 3 make a good point, and we'll certainly send you the 4 transcript when we get it, if you provide the 5 addresses.

6 MS. MAUPIN: Could I amend that? We were 7 planning to put the transcript -- and we said this at 8 our April -- we said this at our meeting on August 22, 9 that once the transcript is available, that we would 10 put it up on the site for -- and on the docket for 11 GTCC. I think, as opposed to trying to send that 12 document to everyone, we plan to put the information 13 up on the docket and on our public website.

14 MS. HADDEN: On ADAMS?

15 MS. MAUPIN: No. The docket specifically 16 for this one that I had referenced earlier. We would 17 put it up on the docket. I know a lot of people have 18 problems pulling stuff up out of ADAMS, so there was 19 a report we just made public. We put that up just 20 within the last week. We've put that up on the 21 docket, so to make it easy for you to get to. So we 22 were planning -- that's what we said before -- to put 23 this up on the docket.

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108 1 finish up for us, Trish.

2 DR. HOLAHAN: And if you can't get it on 3 the docket, please send an email to us, and we'll send 4 it.

5 MS. HADDEN: And by when, because we have 6 a September 20 deadline.

7 DR. HOLAHAN: Well, it'll be available 8 within seven days, so we'll put it on the docket --

9 MS. MAUPIN: As soon as we get it.

10 DR. HOLAHAN: -- as soon as we get it.

11 And then -- so in about two weeks.

12 MR. CAMERON: Okay. This is good, a good 13 path forward perhaps here, and --

14 DR. HOLAHAN: Yes. And if any of you 15 can't access it on the docket, please notify us, and 16 we'll send it to you.

17 MR. CAMERON: Okay. And, Trish, do you 18 have any other close-out remarks for us?

19 DR. HOLAHAN: No. Just thank you very 20 much, and I look forward to hearing more from any of 21 you.

22 (Whereupon, at 8:35 p.m., the public 23 meeting was concluded.)

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