ML20004E324

Forwards Target Criteria for Use During Decontamination of Surface Soil at Wood River Junction,Ri.Encl Addresses Only Radionuclide Contaminants Identified & Pu-239.Comments Invited

ML20004E324
Person / Time
Site:	Wood River Junction
Issue date:	06/01/1981
From:	Page R NRC OFFICE OF NUCLEAR MATERIAL SAFETY & SAFEGUARDS (NMSS)
To:	Amy G UNITED NUCLEAR CORP. (SUBS. OF UNC, INC.)
References
NUDOCS 8106110542
Download: ML20004E324 (1)

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NMSS r/f JUN 1 1981 FCUF r/f FCUP r/f FCUP:WTC WTCrow Docket 70-820 LTyson RGPage IE HQ (2)

BBrooks ACabell JRobertson United Nuclear Corporation RErickson ATTN: Mr. Glenn 0. Amy, Gene.al Manager DWeiss UNC Recovery Systems HWerner One Narragansett Trail RECunningham Wood River Junction, Rhode Island 02894 Service List IE, R:I RLStevenson Gentlemen:

Enclosed is a copy of our target criteria to be used during the dacontamination j

of surface soil at your facility in Wood River Junction Rhode Island. Please l

note that these criteria only address radionuclide contaminants identified as being present at your site plus plutonium-239, which was added at the request of the Citizens Advisory Committee; additional criteria will be developed for I

any other significant radionuclides that may be identified during the decon-l tamination process.

Appendix 0 of the target criteria document contains copies of all of the comments received on the original draft criteria and Appendix E contains our responses to these coments.

If there are any questions concerning the use of there criteria, please feel free to call me or Dr. E. Y. Shum of my staff.

l Sincerely, Original Signed by l

R. G. Page. Chief l

Uranium Fuel Licensing Branch Division of Fuel Cycle and Material Safety l

Enclosure:

Target Criteria dV1

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MAY L 2 ISSI DOCKET NO.: 70-820 LICENSEE:

United Nuclear Corporation Resources Ccmpany FACILITY:

Scrap Recovery Facility Wood River Junction, Rhode Island

SUBJECT:

SOIL DECCNTAMINATICN CRITERIA FOR THE DECCMMISSICNING OF THE UNC'S FACILITY I

Background

By letter dated April 29,1980, United Nuclear Corporation Resources Company (UNC) informed NRC that it had decided to terninate the scrao recovery operations at its facility 6t Wood River Junction Rhode Island.

From 1963 until the present time, this facility was used to recover high-enriched uranium from scrap materials. A preliminary decontamination schedule was presented by UNC (see Appendix A). At the present time, the decontamination of the buildings and equipnent is in process. NRC provides

" Guidelines for Decontamination of Facilities and Equipment Prior to Release for Unrestricted Use or Termination of Licenses for Byproducts, Source or Special Nuclear Materials " (see Appendix B).

In the absence of specific criteria for contaminated land at the UNC site, NRC has established target criteria for land cleanup at the UNC site. A draft of this document had been given to the State, EPA official, licensee and concerned citizens for review and c:znment. Their coments are shown in Appendix 0.

Appendix E includes NRC's responses to their coments. After careful consideration of the above ccmnents, the NRC has proposed the following soil clean up criteria for the deccenmissioning of the UNC site.

II Develooment of Procosed Soil Decentaminatien Cri' aria A.

General Descriotion of the UNC's Ooeration The recovery facility handled and processed various types of high-enriched nuclear fuel scrap to reclaim the uranium. The recovery process included various pretreatnent steps which served one or more of the following functions: reduction of the bulk of the scrap (by oxidation of carbon or organic materials); removal of fuel element cladding; and change of the physical or chemical form to increase f[b m-

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Dear Mr. Crew:

UNC Rescurces has decided to terminate recevery of highly enriched "-=" um.

Present planning calls for reprecessing of the small cuantity of scrap en hand by abcut July 1, 1930, fc11 cued by a cencentrated program of site decentamination.

Cctal SNM inventcry, with the exceptica of precess lagocn residues, should be belcw five kilegrams by early fall, 1980.

Lagcen processing and decentamination are scheduled for cc=pletion by April 1,1981.

Under these circumstances, it is our understanding that license renewal and revision for the upgrade rule are net recuired.

Accordingly, we are fermalizing decontamination-decem::tissioning plans for discussion with you.

In addition, we have been in centa t with other former licenseholders with decc=missioned facilitits in an effort to develop an effective and coherent pregram.

Overall deccmmissicning planning, including nuclear safety and health physics aspects, is presently the responsibility of I-ir. Rchert Gregg; security aspects are undar Richard Giglietti.

Either of these gentlemen or I will be hac.o.v.

to meet with you and your staff at your early convenience, to discuss NRC recuirements and CNC planning.

Very truly yours, hhhh hhlhl l

UNC RICOVERY SYS':T.MS aUUn UnauIH uL d

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Provf o t Net J. Josepw oAnnas<v CCvttNC8 March 19, 1931 Mr. Wirliam Crow Nuclear Regulatory Commission Division Fuel Cycle Material Safety

' Mail Stop 396-55 Washington, DC 20555

Dear 3ill:

I have enclosed for your consideration comments on NRC's Draf:

Soil Du:entamination Criteria for the UNC Recovery Systems.

decomr.sissioning prepared at the request of the Governor and mem-bers of the Giti: ens Adviscry Committee.

I-hope you will give

, them your careful consideration in revising the draft criteria.

You should feel free to funnel any questions you have on these comments through me.

We will look forward to earlies: possible

. notice of your final criteria.

3 e's : wishes.

Si

rely, i

Malcolm

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Policy Associate for l

Environmental Affairs

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MJG;sp Enclosures

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As requested by the State of Rhode Island Radiation Comission, I have =ade a

. th: rough review of the potential radon exposure calculations presented in Table 4 of che tiRC's " Soil Decontamination Criteria" for the U:IC facility in Rhode Island.

Thank you for sending me copies of the two 5?A Standards Proposals and the Memoranda of.Or. 's Magno and Rouse. Unfortunately, few of my questiens were addressed in these docu= ants to my satisfaction..Indeed, even more questions have now been raisef.

I might at this point repeat what I told you on the telephone -I am by no =eans an expert in the field of radon and its carcinogenic effects.

I am si= ply

,t ying to understand the basis of the NRC Criteria on' behalf of the State Radiation Cc=i ssion.

"Following are my observations to date:

(a) According to BEIR III, in mine at:cspheres of Rn the absolute risk of radiation induced lung cancer is - 20 deaths / year /WLM/100(t:tts is an average over various age-at-diagnosis groups).

6 The normal death rate from lung cancer o 400/ year /10 (averaged over all age groups at time of death).

Hence the % increase in death from lung cancer 20 x 100 3TCTT 5%/WUi

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(This is in good agreement with the risk estimates in Table 1(A) in the EPA Federal Register Report Vol. 45, tio. 73 regarding proposed standards for cleanup of sitts).

22S (b) The fiRC calculation (Table 4) for 3.0 p Ci/g Ra yields 0.15 WLi radon /

year and this will result 'in about a 50% increase in lung cancer for a 70 year exposure.

(c) My calculations ushg 3 = 0.7, r = 0.2h 1*

and 1 p Ci/1 Rn = 0.01 WL and 2 p Ci/m'-sec, yields 1.7 WLM radon / year i.e. this will result in about

'a 500". increase in lung cancer.

(Note:

this Rn level is equivalent to

• 0.07 WL i.e. about 5 ti=es the maximum specifi.ed in the EPA Interim '

Cidanup Standards. Table 3).

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(d) tiete:

in,one respect the above calculations of risEmay be underestimates since they use data based on Rn.in mine atmospheres, where dust particles carry much of the Rn.

In homes, a significant portion of the Rn will be attached to ions, which are core readily " trapped" in the bronchi (5EIR IIU-p

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/l~-.t Regulatory Cc=ission Mr. W. T. Crow, Section Leader Willste Building 7915 Eastern Avenue Silver Spring, MD 20910

Reference:

Soil Decontamination Criteria for the Decem-missioning of the UNC's Facility (Draf t)

Gentlemen:.

UNC has reviewed the referenced document, which proposes the application of certain soil decontamina-l tien li=its for the decc=missioning of the UNC Recovery Systems uranium recovery facility in Wood River Junction, Rhode Island.

Our cc=ments to the draft NRC decontami-i nation criteria are attached to this letter.

If you have any questions rega' ding these ccmments, please contact me or Mr. K. Helgason.

Very truly yours, UNC, RECCVERY SYSTIMS

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J. Gregg Flant Manager' RJG:ame j

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G. O. Amy K. A. Helgason

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5-Dr. Colin G. Orton Vice Clait nan Rhode Island State Radiation Comission i:2 Rhode Island Hospital E

Depart:aent of Radiation Oncology 5

Eddy Street Providence, Rhode Island 02902 E__

Dear Dr. Orton:

2 Dank you very much for your letter dated Decaser 29, 1980, comenting

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on the NRC's draft, " Proposed Soil Decontamination Critaria," fpr the ~ ~.

5 deemmissioning of the United Nuclear Corporatien's facility at Wood River

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Junction Rhode Island.

The following are di E

your coments with regard to (1) NRC's propfs_scussicns and responses to ed radium criteria (2) health

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risk on inhalation of radon and its decay products, and (3) parameters used E

for calculating indoor radon level:

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l$ NRC's Procesed 3 oC1/o Ra-225 Soil Limit

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The proposed 3 pC1/g Ra-225 sofi. limit for open land cleanup at the

• C UNC site represents the target criteria consistent with the criteria Bi5 currently established by E?A for similar-type situations.

The EPA's

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interim standard for Ra-225 contaminated land is 5 pC1/g Ra-225 E

including background. The NRC's proposed limit does not include

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background. The background concentrations of urania, obtained from the iiE' licensee's (UMC) preliminary preoperationdi data, indicata that the

=5 Ra-225 concentration (assuning uranim and radiun are in secular equilibrim) at the UNC site is rather low (<1 pC1/g Ra-225).

Therefore, M.

the total limit is expected to be at or less,_than 4 pCi/g Ra-225. As 5

stated in the Federal Reeister (Vol. 45, No. 79, April 22,1980), the

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proposed cleanup criteria of 5 pC1/g Ra-226 is EPA's judgment of the 5

mest stringent uniform cleanup condition that may reasonably be required i;5 for all the inactive stil sites. According to EPA, lowering the standard 5

to less than 5 pCi/g would provide very little gain in health protection, a

since such slightly contaminated soil is sually thin layers c:ritaining 3

little total radium. (This situation should apply to the UNC site.) It

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is also noted that radiun level in soil in some areas in the United iiii States could be as high as 3 pCi/g; therefore, lowering the soil limit of Ra-225 to less than 3 pC1/g is judged by the staff not to be cost-l E effective for open land cleanup action.

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In regard to your comment that the EPA's standad should only apply to i

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3 it is our understanding that the interim standard is intended for'the l 3 ame&,.............h prt cnt of In:= :: =nt:t rredf:' utf er.: f:r he'.mt:d NetM

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