ML20138A584
| ML20138A584 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 04/23/1997 |
| From: | NRC ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON NUCLEAR WASTE (ACNW) |
| To: | |
| References | |
| NACNUCLE-T-0113, NACNUCLE-T-113, NUDOCS 9704280114 | |
| Download: ML20138A584 (285) | |
Text
. . ..
Official Transcript sf Proceedings 4
O NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Atl(W7' oI3 l l
Title:
Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste 91st Meeting .
,sTRO8 (ACNW)-
. RETURN ORIGINAL.- .
JTO BJWHITE,.
4, ACRS T-2E26 Docket Number: (not applicable) , M}
I Location: Rockville, Maryland O
Date: Wednesday, April 23,1997 r
r ACNW OFFICE COPY - RETAIN FOR THE LIFEOF THE COMMITTEE C i Work Order No.: NRC-1089 Pages 340-545 D0 kON k NA NPDRLE T-Ot13 NEAL R. GROSS AND CO., INC.
'% ~}'
Court Reporters and Transcribers
", lf[. j!
L 280009 1323 anode Island Avenue, N.W.
Q -
4~
h Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 234-4433 Ili,lil,l!,1! ,Ill l!I!l.I
lO l
DIBCLAIMER PUBLIC NOTICE BY THE UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION'S ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON NUCLEAR WASTE APRIL 23, 1997 The contents of this transcript of the proceedings of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste on APRIL 23, fN d 1997, as reported herein, is a record of the discussions recorded at the meeting held on the above date.
This transcript has not been reviewed, corrected and edited and it may contain inaccuracies.
l l
l l
l l
I O
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REN)RTERS ANDTRANSCRIBERS ,
1323 RilODE ISLAND AVENUE, NW I (202)234 443; WASilINGTON, D C. 20005 (202)234-4433
340 l 1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA l 1
m 2 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION l
\' \
l
'x /
3 + + + + +
4 91st MEETING 5 ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON NUCLEAR WASTE (ACNW) 6 ++ + + +
7 WEDNESDAY 8 APRIL 23, 1997 9 + + ++ +
10 ROCKVILLE, MARYLAND 11 12 The Advisory Committee met at the Nuclear 13 Regulatory Commission, Two White Flint North, Room T2B3,
\s' 14 11545 Rockville Pike, at 8:30 a.m., Paul W. Pomeroy, 15 Chairman, presiding.
16 17 COMMITTEE MEMBERS:
18 PAUL W. Pt MEROY CHAIRMAN 19 B. JOHN GARRICK VICE CHAIRMAN 20 WILLIAM J. HINZE MEMBER 21 GEORGE M. HORNBERGER MEMBER 22 23 24 l
g Q 25 NEAL R. GROSS ,
l COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS I 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
341 1 ACNW STAFF PRESENT:
,3 2 JOHN T. LARKINS Exec. Director 3 MICHELE KELTON Tech. Secretary 4 RICHARD K. MAJOR 5 HOWARD J. LARSON 6 LYNN DEERING 7 ANDREW C. CAMPBELL 8 RICHARD P. SAVIO 9 CAROL A. HARRIS 10 SAM DURAISWAMY 11 THERON BROWN 12 13 ALSO PRESENT:
t0
's 14 CHARLES FAIRHURST 15 STEVE FRISHMAN 16 LINDA LEHMAN 17 HEATHER ASTWOOD 1
1 18 BOB NELSON 19 JOHN GREEVES 20 JOHN AUSTIN 21 MIKE BELL
! 22 MARGARET FEDERLINE 23 RAY WALLACE 24 q) 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON. D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
342 l
! 1 A-G-E-N-D-A l
! 2 Acenda Item Pace
(,
1 % ,'
~~)
i 3 Opening Remarks by ACNW Chairman 343 l
4 5 Nevada Perspective as to the Difference 1
6 between DOE's Viability Assessment 7 and the Site Suitability Determination 8 for the Proposed Yucca Mtn. Repository 9 Steve Frishman 344 10 Linda Lehman 385 11 12 Screening Methodology for Assessing Prior 13 Land Burials t s
(
b) 14 Heather Astwood 418 15 16 Discussion with the Director, Division of 17 Waste Management, NMSS 18 J. Greeves 442 19 20 Defense-In-Depth 21 J. Garrick 483 22 C. Fairhurst 485 23 l
l 24 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234 4433
343 1 P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S s 2 (8:37 a.m.)
/ \
~'
3 CHAIRMAN POMEROY: The meeting will now come 4 to order. This is the second day of the 91st meeting of 5 the Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste.
6 Today the committee will first hold 7 discussions with several representatives of the State of 8 Nevada on issues pertaining to the proposed Yucca Mountain 9 Repository; secondly, review a screening methodology for 10 assessing prior land burials; third, discuss current 11 events with the NRC's Director of the Division of Waste 12 Management; fourth, discuss the defense-in-depth 13 philosophy as it relates to radioactive waste disposal; I g
's 14 fifth, prepare our reports and secondly discuss committee 15 activities; and lastly, discuss committee activities of 16 the future agenda.
17 Mr. Howard Larson, two to my right, is the 18 designated Federal Official for the initial portion of 19 today's meeting. This meeting is being conducted in l
20 accordance with the provisions of the Federal Advisory 21 Committee Act.
22 We have received no written statements from 23 members or the public regarding today's session. Should i
24 anyone wish to address the committee, please make their j I~
( ,T/ 25 wishes known to one of the committee staff.
l l
NEAL R. GROSS !
COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS l 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
WASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701
)
(202) 234-4433 (202) 234-4433 l l
i 344 1 It is requested that each speaker use one of 73 2 the microphones, identify himself or herself, and speak
( )
x/'
l 3 with sufficient clarity and volume so that he or she can 4 be readily heard.
5 The committee is very pleased to have with us 6 today two guests: Professor Charles Fairhurst --
7 Professor Fairhurst will address the committee laster this 8 afternoon -- and Professor Ken Foland who will, I think, 9 be participating in the meeting for part of the day today.
10 If any of my members have any opening 11 comments? If not, let's proceed to the first agenda item, 12 namely, Nevada Perspective as to the Difference between 13 DOE's Viability Assessment and the Site Suitability
/s
\ s) m 14 Determination for the Proposed Yucca Mountain Repository.
15 I believe Steve Frishman is going to comment 16 also on 10 CFR Part 960, the site-specific siting 17 guidelines for Yucca Mountain, as well as the 10 CFR 60 18 subsystem requirements. Steve, it's always a pleasure to 19 have you here; we're glad to see you, and please, if 20 you're wired --
21 MR. FRISHMAN: Thanks. I appreciate the )
l 22 invitation and I'll be talking for a while on the subject l 23 that you mentioned and then Linda Lehman will be talking t l l 24 on some additional topics that we think will be of l t
n
[ () ,
25 interest to you.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
345 1 First of all, as alwayc I didn't bring any
,3 2 handouts. Last time I brought you some but I just
! )
\_/
3 couldn't find any more of them real handy. I know how 4 much you like the garlic and the alfalfa that I brought.
5 And I hope you get good use out of that garlic.
6 CHAIRMAN POMEROY: Actually, we deeply 7 appreciated that, Steve. As you know, the committee went 8 out to the Amargosa Valley after your presentation and I'm 9 really glad that you brought that particular aspect, 10 particularly the garlic which I enjoyed greatly.
11 MR. FRISHMAN: Well, I hope that you did find 12 that infcrmative because I think it definitely helps with 13 the considerations of critical group, because that's going G
l 4 N/ 14 to have to be considered. And I think you were in the 15 middle of the dilemma of what is a critical group when 16 you're talking with the people there.
17 CHAIRMAN POMEROY: Absolutely.
18 MR. FRISHMAN: Well, I wanted today to go 19 through some things that I know some of you have heard 20 from me, or part of from me in the past, and I wanted to 21 kind of link it all together because things are happening 22 fast.
23 As you're well aware, programmatically, 24 everything seems to be sort of tied to everything else, fN
( ,) 25 and I'd like to give you sort of my version of how I l NEAL R. GIUDSS ,
COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS l 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. l (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
346 1 unwind it all, and the part that I see in it, and where I l r3 2 see the potential pitfalls for people who are trying to
.) 3 understand what the program is doing as it stands still 4 and moves forward all at the same time.
5 MEMBER HINZE: Would it be appropriate, Steve, 6 before you get too far into this, to explain to us just a 7 bit, what the Nuclear Projects Office is about these days, 8 without the DOE support?
9 MR. FRISHMAN: Well, we're selling pencils on 10 the corner.
11 MEMBER HINZE: Is there anything left of the 12 Research Program?
13 MR. FRISHMAN: There's very little left of it.
/ \
14 We had to terminate contracts with all of our contractors 15 and just recently we brought Linda back on as a technical 16 contractor. And Linda has some pretty specific work to be 17 doing, but at this work we don't have sufficient funds to 18 be doing any independent research through contractors as 19 we have done, you know, ever since we first opened the t
20 office back in the mid '80s.
l 21 So what we have done is, we have compiled all l
l l 22 of the independent technical work that we've had done for 23 about the past ten years. And we're going through that 24 and trying to make sure that we understand that and have r~
(_)T 25 that in a useful fc rm. And we do expect that we will be
! HEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS
(
1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005 3701 (202) 234-4433
l 347 l 1 in a better situation again sometime soon.
es 2 As you know, we have filed a legal challenge
, )
%)
3 over the denial of our funds from two years ago, and I 4 think there's a fair chance that we'll prevail on that.
5 We also are in the Administration's budget prc,posal for 6 the next fiscal year, and Lake Barrett encouraged the 7 House Committee that had its first hearing on that 8 proposal to fund us and affected counties because he felt 9 it was an advisable and worthwhile thing to be doing.
10 So I think at this point we're at a low point 11 in terms of fundino, but I think it will improve again.
12 Also, the program. hae changed sufficiently to where if we 13 do get additional funds for technical contractors we're
/_ \
\ \'j 14 probably going to have to be working in a slightly
) 15 different way, and I think we're going to have to respond 16 much more to the emphasis on total system performance 17 assessment.
18 We already have some of our own thoughts and 19 have had, you know, considerable discnssion about where 20 the high sensitivities are in TSPA, and we think we have a 21 fair amount of independent work behind us already that 22 will feed into our ability to review various aspects of i
l 23 TSPA.
24 As with your meeting yesterday on igneous rm s-) 25 activity, I know one of our contractors or a couple of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 I
l
34G' 1 them, have been pretty active in the pursuit of l 7s 2 information in that area, and I think from listening
- (\
l
)
'"'/
l> 3 yesterday it sounds as if our work had been useful, in 4 terms of understanding or at least laying some bounds in 5 the area of the effects of igneous activity.
6 I was glad to hear yesterday, the extent to 7 which Gene Smith's work sort of plays in the thinking and 8 I recognized from listening to John Trapp that that work, 9 one way or another, if we get into a licensing situation, 10 that work is going to have to be recognized and dealt 11 with.
12 And we have similar work in other areas that 13 we'll ce bringing forward as necessary and as the program
~S
l 14 moves forward. And you'll hear some of that today from 1
15 Linda.
16 MEMBER HINZE: Two questions then, Steve. Are 17 you preparing a bibliography of these internal reports, 18 and are you preparing a summary of the research that --
19 MR. FRISHMAN: We have listed almost 20 everything in our Agency bibliography right now that is 21 available on paper, and I believe also available on our l 22 Home Page. Plus we have summaries of some work on our l
l 23 Home Page and we're probably going to be putting more on 24 all the time.
(3,
( ,/ 25 The Page is becoming something that's very l NEAL R. GROSS j COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS l
1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234 4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
349 1 useful for us internally because it helps us find things
,~ 2 and not have to live quite so much out of our vertical N]
3 files as we used to. It's also very useful to other 4 people.
5 MEMBER HINZE: Can you give us the address?
6 I'm afraid I've forgotten it -- if I ever did know it.
7 MR. FRISHMAN: I'll get it to you after this.
6 MEMBER HINZE: Oh, that makes me feel better 9 then, if you have to get it.
10 MR. FRISHMAN: I have it on " favorites" I 11 don't have to worry about the address any more. But I 12 will get it to you.
13 MEMBER HINZE: Thanks.
(s.s i l
'u/ 14 CHAIRMAN POMEROY: Steve, one of the things we 15 run into of course, is that there is this much greater 16 emphasis on TSPA and PA in general. And we see it as 17 still a very vital role for the geosciences in the next 18 few years as well, and I'm sure you probably will touch on 19 that some in our discussion.
20 MR. FRISHMAN: Yes.
21 CHAIRMAN POMEROY: But I wonder, are you 22 thinking in terms of possible future support of some of 23 your tectonics activity, that I thought was very useful in 24 the past?
[ \
v
! 25 MR. FRISHMAN: Yes, we are.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
350 1 CHAIRMAN POMEROY: The University of Nevada, 7- 2 Reno?
, i s 1 %.)
3 MR. FRISHMAN: Yes. It was with great regret 4 that we let go what we let go. In fact, we held on 5 probably a year longer than we should have if we were 6 going to really sharp pencil our own business and try to 7 sort of get through the situation we're in right now. So 8 yes, we want to recapture everything that we can.
9 CHAIRMAN POMEROY: Great.
10 MR. FRISHMAN: Well, I think probably the key 11 word that leads to most of the discuusion that is going on
- 12 now surrounding this program -- on the Hill, in the 1
13 technical world, in almost all of the interests associated
[D
\~/
l 14 with this program -- the key word is suitability, l l l
I l 15 And that's kind of interesting because the '
16 word suitability appears in the Nuclear Waste Policy Act 17 of 1982, was never amended out, but it's also never been 18 defined. Suitability does have, in the Nuclear Waste 1
19 Policy Act, a very specific meaning. And that is, that l 20 it's used in sentences where the Secretary makes l
1 21 determinations such as the suitability of the site for a
! 22 repository.
23 Well, the only standard the Secretary has in 24 the Nuclear Waste Policy Act to determine suitability is (g) 25 the guidelines which are 10 CFR 960. If the Secretary's NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
(20'2) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
351 1 going to make an accountable decision, the guidelines are
,g 2 the only basis for that accountable decision.
I t
\ )
3 And that decision under the Waste Policy Act 4 is the decision to recommend to the President that the 5 site go forward for a license application for a 6 repository. So if the Secretary determines under the 7 current Act, that the site is suitable -- meaning that the 8 site is not disqualified and is also found qualified, that 9 is -- two findings must be made. It is not disqualified 10 and it must be qualified -- meaning it must meet the 11 qualifying conditions of the guidelines.
12 If the Secretary makes that finding then the 13 Secretary has a basis to recommend the site to the n 4
\2 14 President for submittal of a license application to the 15 Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
16 The word is, unfortunately, attached in 17 people's minds to all kinds of other things. Suitability 18 is, throughout -- and I guess I can recall talking to you 19 about suitability in the past, I've talked to the 20 Technical Review Board about suitability in all, you know, 21 over the last five to seven years.
22 But we still have this sort of 23 misunderstanding out in the world about the difference 24 between the meaning of suitability in the Act -- even
,-~
(_) 25 though it's undefined -- and the fact that suitability as NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
352 1 relates to this program in most people's mind, is 7S 2 something that's in the eye of the beholder.
}
\ ,e 3 So now we're in a situation where it has 4 become even more muddled, and that's because the 5 Department has invented a process that they call viability 6 assessment. Viability assessment is not in the Nuclear 7 Waste Policy Act. Viability assessment is something that 8 it took about six or so months to develop in concept at 9 the Department, and it took them another six months for 10 Dan Dreyfuss to figure out what to call it.
11 Viability assessment is something that the 12 Department doesn't do. The Department intends to prepare
,_ 13 some reports so that somebody else can make a viability i' '] 14 assessment -- once again, viability undefined -- so 15 viability then becomes in the eye of the beholder.
16 The viability assessment work that is going on 17 within the Department right now consists of producing four 18 reports and those four reporto will be delivered to the 19 Congress and to the President. Those four reports contain 20 information on the following.
21 The first is the, as they put it, the critical 22 aspects of the design of the repository and the waste 23 package, and as I understand the words " critical aspects",
24 it's primarily emphasizing elements for which there is not
/'~N
(_,) 25 a precedent in licensing.
NEAL R. GIUDSS ,
COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS l 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
(202) 2344433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234 4433 l
J
i i
353 l 1 So it won't be a complete design -- and l l
l i 73 2 percentage-wise it's hard to tell what it will be -- but N] 3 it should be enough so that the basis of the design can be 4 used in the next report, as a portion of the next report, 5 which is the total system performance assessment. You 6 can't do the performance assessment unless you have some 7 minimal amount of design.
8 And as I understand it, the schedule for that 9 -- and this probably should be of interest to you because 10 it will give you sort of a leg up on it, too -- in 11 September of this year, the design people are supposed to 12 hand off to Abe Van Luik's shop a design sufficient to be 13 used in the TSPA for the viability assessment.
! \
\~2 14 I was just asking him yesterday, they were 15 supposed to, in March, have handed off a preliminary, and 16 he was called in from his day off last Friday from what he i
17 said, to find out that it won't be till May. But that i
18 design will supposedly be sufficient to use in the TSPA, 1
19 which is the second report. I 20 The third report is what the Department 21 estimates in terms of a schedule and cost and sort of 22 process, to get to a license application. What does it j 23 take from the time of the viability assessment which is 1
24 scheduled for September, 1998 -- what does it take to get
(-
(_j 25 from there to a license application in terms, essentially, 1
NIDAL R. GIUDSS l COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
l (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON. D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
354 1 of time and money? It's a license application plan. And 7,s 2 that would include the development of the environmental
('"'l 3 impact statement for the repository.
4 And the final of the four is a next rendition 5 of a total system lifecycle cost. Meaning, what does the 6 Department expect the enti.e repository program from 1982 1
7 to closure, cost? They Jid one a couple of years ago that l
8 represented quite a diffe.ence from the one that they had 9 done a few years before that.
I i 10 I won't give you my cynical guesses about what i 11 the next one's going to look like. But we're interested 12 in that and you know, we think that that will probably 13 have a great deal of bearing on the Hill, on how people
.f3 k- 14 view the viability of the Repository Program.
15 So now, laying out something like this at this j l
16 point, when the plan is for a license application to be 17 submitted in 2002 -- the Secretary makes the 18 recommendation if the Secretary has a basis for it in 2001 19 -- license application submission are 2002.
20 There's not really anything wrong with doing 21 something like a viability ar essment at this point.
22 There's been nearly $3 billion spent on Yucca Mountain 23 already; probably take a couple more to get to 2002.
24 And it seems if this were essentially a (j 25 business endeavor, it's reasonable at this point to stop NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON. D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234 4433
355 1 and take a look at these elements and to make a business
,s 2 decision. And if you recall, Dan Dreyfuss has always i \
%)
3 referred to the viability assessment as essentially a 4 business evaluation.
5 But under the circumstances I think there's a 6 great danger that the viability assessment is going to be 7 misunderstood and is going to be used in a way that does 8 not really improve the situation.
9 If you paid attention to the debate over S.104 10 on the Senate floor you heard Senator Murkowski -- the 11 Chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resource 12 Committee -- you heard him talking about 1998 when the ,
1 13 site will be found suitable. And thinking that 1998, the p#
\~/ 14 viability assessment is the on/off switch for Yucca I i
15 Mountain. J l
16 And he's not the only one who misunderstands l
17 it. In fact, almost everybody in a position to make any !
l 18 decisions misunderstands it. So the reason that I wanted 19 to bring it up to you was partly to get you thinking about 20 how you as an Advisory Committee to the Commission, are 21 going to want to deal with the concept of the viability 22 assessment.
1 23 And also, knowing that you're going to be 24 meeting with the commission fairly shortly, this may at
^
(q_j'\ 25 least encourage you to think about it to the extent that NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
356 1 you might be able to give the Commission some guidance on
,s 2 how to deal with the viability assessment because it's an 3 area that is going to be tremendously misunderstood, 4 misrepresented.
5 And I think it's not out of the question that 6 those who misunderstand it most on the Hill, one way or 7 another are going to be asking the Commission what they 8 think about the viability of Yucca Mountain.
9 So it's certainly a situation where I think 10 your advice will be helpful, primarily to assure that the 11 Commission, when asked a question like that, has un answer 12 that is constructive to the system rather than one that 13 just furthers the misunderstanding of the terms.
'- 14 So my suggestion is that, if possible, first 15 of all you don't refer to the viability assessment. And I 16 know that's very difficult to do since it has become a 17 term of art already. But what I mean by don't refer to it 18 is, in September 1998 you're going to see essentially, a 19 basis design for repository and waste package, you're 20 going to see a total system performance assessment.
1 l
21 Now, those don't have to be called part of a j l
22 viability assessment; those are work products. Those are ;
23 work products of the Department in the Yucca Mountain ,
1 24 project and repository program. So if you want to look at
( ,/ 25 those and review them in any way you feel is reasonable --
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
l (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 2344433 l
357 1 they're milestone reports, milestones that the Department x 2 itself has set up -- and I think from your standpoint and
'G 3 from the Commission's standpoint, that's probably about as 4 far as you ought to go.
5 You look at them in terms of they're being 6 milestone reports, and make your decisions about the 7 extent to which you want to review those and the extent to 8 which you want to comment on them; no different from other 9 reports that have been flowing through the system since 10 1982.
11 But to get caught up in the viability 12 assessment concept is to be caught up in the suit. ability
,_ 13 problem, because I recall that there have been times in s !
14 Congressional Hearings where representatives of the 15 Commission have been asked to give answers that are sort 16 of in terms of the misunderstandings that are within the 17 program.
18 And I particularly remember a time way back 19 when, in 1987, leading up to the decision that put us in 20 sort of this impossible position of having only one site 21 and no alternatives. I remember Hugh Thompson was asked, 22 do you think any of these three sites are licensable? And 23 he said, yes, I'm sure one of them is.
24 And then it was Senator Ford who said, you f^3
(_j' 25 wouldn't care to save us a couple of billion dollars and NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234 4433 WASHINGTON D C. 20005 3701 (202) 234-4433
358 1 1
1 tell us which one, would you? But the Commission was l i
7\ 2 caught, and that was a very difficult situation. And I t /
3 know we had a meeting with the Commission just a day after )
4 that, and Hugh's comments disturbed me to the point where l
1 5 I brought it up in the meeting with the Commission. '
6 Where, you know, how can you have a l
I 7 representative of the Commission sitting here and sort of 8 furthering the misunderstandings of the program and 9 speaking without basis? I would not like to see the 10 viability assessment sort of fall into the same kind of 11 thing, and there are members of Congress who are going to 1
12 want to know specifically from the Commission and from j l
l 13 many other people, do you think this site is viable?
's EJ -
14 Well, you have no basis to say what it is.
15 First of all, you don't know what viable is. About all 16 you can say is that we are reviewing the technical basis l
17 for decisions that might have to be made later and 18 milestone reports. That's as far as you can go.
19 And I know it's a difficult situation 20 politically, to be in, but I think that's the only l 21 situation that the Commission can be in without 22 essentially prejudicing its future in a licensing process l l
23 if one ever comes up. l l
24 And that's how serious I think it is. So I o
( ,) 25 wanted to lay at least that out for your thinking, and I NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
359 1 know some of you have heard me say this or something 7, 2 similar in the past, but I think we're getting to sort of
/ 1 Q~) 3 a crunch point, and I know that the staff is sort of 4 looking at what it needs to relative to the viability 5 assessment.
6 And I think it would be well for the staff to 7 at least consider the same advice that I've given you 8 about what to do and what not to do.
9 MEMBER HINZE: Steve, certainly there is that 10 chance for a misperception, and that is from the Senate to 11 the President on down. But the DOE has made it clear that l
l 12 this is not a suitability decision. What I would like to.
13 know from you is, what you think is going to be done ,
(Q
\/
t 14 between 1998 and 2001 in terms of data acquisition and I
l i
l l
15 analysis of the Yucca Mountain site that will change it to ,
l l
16 a point that will reach suitability analysis? '
l 17 MR. FRISHMAN: Okay, well that was going to be i l
18 sort of the basis of the next thing I wanted to talk I 19 about.
20 MEMBER HINZE: Sorry.
21 MR. FRISHMAN: No, you've turned it around.
22 But you turn it around, but you'll hear my answer what's 23 not going to be done, that concerns me.
24 MEMBER HINZE: I'd like to hear what's going f)
() 25 to be done.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
360 1 MR. FRISHMAN: Okay, well I can tell you and
,s 2 then I'll go into the discussion of that. And this has to t
( /
3 do with the guidelines and preposed changes in the l
4 guidelines. l l
5 The only data collection that I see the 6 Department has any emphasis on in the period from -- well, 7 from even now until a license application -- primary l 8 emphasis is on collecting data that would support some 9 type of a thermal loading decision, or thermal loading 10 design.
11 That's the primary missing piece from the 12 Department's point of view in total system performance 13 assessment, and it's also the primary piece of design for
,3 t i N/ 14 which right now, there is -- well, we've argued this out 15 before -- I say essentially no basis; Abe would say there 16 is at least some basis for the current design.
17 And the current design is a pretty high 18 thermal load and that high thermal load is one for which I 19 haven't seen any demonstration that it contributes to 20 performance rather than it's detrimental to performance.
21 If you recall in 10 CFR 60, thermal loading is 22 seen as a potentially adverse condition, and it's seen as 23 the -- the heat from the waste is seen as something that 24 can cause problems and you have to figure out how to deal
(\
i ,/ 25 with it.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 I
361 1 The Department is viewing thermal loading as a
,S
, 2 design factor and one that, at this point they're claiming O 3 -- and I think somewhat optimistically -- will actually 4 enhance performance of a repository if you know, the 5 design is right. So that's where their real emphasis is.
6 Now, there's one other area where there was a 7 lot of emphasis and a lot of people have felt there is a 8 great deal of importance and understanding -- the 9 Department may or may not do any further data collection 10 or try to work that out -- and that's the steep hydrologic 11 gradient just North of the site.
12 And if you recall the current design evolution 13 has expanded the emplacement area now farther to the O)
+
\' 14 North, meaning getting closer and closer to that steep 15 gradient. And the Department had talked in the past about 16 drilling another borehole to try to get some additional 17 data to try to understand what is going on there and at 18 least be able to have some data that says that it won't 19 affect performance.
20 At this point you can make speculation about 21 the extent to which it could affect performance. The 22 Department has some, I call, almost back of the envelop 23 work, where it insists that any disruption of that 24 gradient that would result in essentially, the 1000-foot 7- y
(,,) 25 head right over about a 2-mile area being reduced, I think NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 2344433
362 1 there's some possibilities regarding performance.
rx 2 But at this point the Department is using some h 3 work that they had done to say, you know, it probably 4 won't affect performance, but they're also at this point 5 not planning to collect any further data.
6 So the simple answer to your question is, the 7 main thing that they're going to be doing, other than 8 sitting at their desks, is trying to collect thermal data.
9 The problem as regards the suitability determination --
10 meaning the Secretary's recommendation in 2001 -- is that 7
11 the primary data collection that will be going on is in 12 the heated drift, which is a relatively short piece of 13 drift.
7
(' )
14 And in 2001, it is far from certain that there 15 will be enough data collected that analysis will be 16 credible. And also, one of the key questions that we have 17 asked in the past and still are not satisfied with the 18 answer, is the same one that we ask about the single 19 heater block that's, how can you demonstrate that this 20 test is representative?
21 You know, here's a drift in one portion of the 22 repository block, admittedly there is a very large portion 23 of that block that doesn't even have a drill hole in it, 24 but at the same time the Department is trying to maintain
/~T
(/ 25 that this particular location and the thermal testing is NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
1 363 1 going to be representative of the entire repository block.
2 So the problem that we have is, at the time of
\
b' s 3 the suitability determination -- meaning the application 4 of the guidelines to the site to determine whether to go 5 forward with the license application -- the biggest, 6 probably most important piece of data that can be 7 collected is, essentially an area of unknown because 8 Linda's going to be talking about the other big problem 9 that they have having to do with flux -- groundwater flux.
10 But the biggest arca where they can do 11 something about, they're not going to have convincing or 12 complete data and analysis, or demonstration of 13 representativeness at the time that that decision is made.
/
)
14 This is a real problem, I see.
15 So suitability is still -- you know, once they 16 get to suitability as unde. stood in the Waste Policy Act, 17 an application of the guidelines is still, from my 18 perspective, going to be very iffy.
19 And that'd regardless of whether the 20 guidelines are revised or not. I think it's worse if the 21 guidelines are revised. As it stands now -- John.
22 VICE CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Steve, help me 23 understand this a little bit. Is your concern not so much 24 with the fact that they've identified thermal loading as
( ,/ 25 an important issue for which we need to collect data, but NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
364 1 is your principal concern the way they're going about f~s 2 doing it?
! )
\ '~' /
3 MR. FRISHMAN: My principal concern is that 4 they're going to make a decision without having a credible 5 database behind that decision. And that's only because 6 they are not taking -- they are going to make the decision 7 before the work is sufficiently mature to support a 8 decision.
9 Probably, I think the Technical Review Board 10 has estimated maybe another five or six or seven years or 11 a little bit more. Maybe you'll know enough to make a i 12 decision.
13 MEMBER HORNBERGER: How would that come about? I o
l )
k/ 14 Fourteen n. ore heater tests, or exactly what in your l 15 estimation, would be required to get to a suitable l l
16 database? J 17 MR. FRISHMAN: First of all, I think we need 1
18 to, you know, understand what the, you know what the 19 physical and chemical reaction is to a heater drift. And 20 that in itself, is a pretty massive task, especially since 21 we have demonstration already that with the single heater j 22 block that it's very difficult to get data on essentially l 23 the evolutionary chemistry of the groundwater; the 24 equipment itself failed.
,r y
( ,) 25 But I think the design of the test in one NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
365 1 place, if it's done well -- or the tests -- and we gain
,3 2 some understanding of what happens in the near field, then f i
'~~
3 I think at least it needs to be duplicated in another part 4 of the repository area that does not have identical 5 characteristics and where you can make -- take the step 6 that you're making an effort to do the tests.
7 And something that maybe collectively, is much 8 more representative of the block than just a single area 9 that -- yes, shows some fracture, you know, shows a 10 certain degree of welding and saturation -- when we know 11 from what little tunneling has been done -- and five miles 12 is very little tunneling -- we know from what little 13 tunneling has been done that there is great variability in i
i' 14 this block, much greater than was originally anticipated.
15 So at least some duplication of drift heater 16 test, and something at repository scale rather than the 17 block, which I have a lot of problems with -- the block 18 out in Fran Ridge which I think, from my perspective, a 19 waste of money, and a year-and-a-half ago the Department 20 thought the same thing.
21 So more thermal testing, and while the 22 additional thermal testing is going on, not only to gain 23 understanding of the near field and the sort of evolution 24 of the near field based -- through a thermal pulse, both I (O_) 25 rising and falling -- but also a credible effort to show NEAL R. GROSS ' -
COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W. l (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
366 !
1 that your overall tests are representative. l 1
.g
, 2 VICE CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Yes. So your concern
() 3 is really -- is twofold. One is that even if they were 4 doing over a much broader region of the block, what 5 they're now doing in the heater block test, you would have 6 some concern because of the scope of the experiments, is 1
7 that correct?
l 8 MR. FRISHMAN: Correct. Yes. '
9 VICE CHAIRMAN GARRICK: So you're concerned 10 about the scope and the extent of the testing itself? j 11 MR. FRISHMAN: Right, and if we want to come I 12 sort of subtier into that, there's still a great deal of !
l 13 question on the extent to which the data is really valid I
/~'r i
- )
14 when you do a very fast thermal pulse as opposed to a 15 slower thermal pulse. And that primarily has to do with l l
16 what happens to the chemistry.
]
l 17 So we're in a situation -- and you've heard me l 18 say this, I guess, sine the first time I ever talked with 19 this committee -- and that's, this is not an unsolvable 20 thing in terms of this type of a problem where a decision 21 is going to get made before there's a credible database to 22 make the decision.
23 This is just one more time in which the 24 schedule has driven science sort of off to the side. And
(
(_) 25 if science suffers, the decision then will suffer, and it NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS I 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
367 1 probably won't further the program in any way and probably g3 2 will result in the same thing that has happened in the b 3 past, and that's that, you know, hurry up and make the 4 decision so then we can get in trouble and have delays and 5 have to wait for another decision.
6 And I can see the same kind of thing 7 happening, only I think the Congress is probably just 8 about running out of patience. I'm not sure how much 9 longer that the project would even be funded, if we were 10 just in another cycle. Here's the great decision, but the 11 decision is accepted only by the Department of Energy as 12 being a credible decision, so therefore we fall back and
, 13 review again. So that's the danger.
/ \
14 VICE CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Yes, I don't mean to 15 push this, but I'm really trying to understand what the 16 State's fundamental issue here is. In your judgment, is 17 there a way to do the thermal loading experiments that 18 would be satisfied to the State in a manner that would 19 also satisfy Congress in that we don't get ourselves into 20 a 10-year program?
21 Because you put a very serious constraint on 22 this with respect to your concerns about a thermal pulse, 23 or a thermal transient with a short time constant, and the 24 significance of that in terms of the actual performance of
(~%
( ,. 25 the repository.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
368 1 I guess what I'm struggling with is, how could 73 2 we design an experiment -- and we're only talking for the
() 3 moment about thermal loading -- that would indeed, meet 4 the requirements of the State --
5 MR. FRISHMAN: Well, at the risk of sounding 6 glib and probably losing what little credibility I have 7 with you even today, I'll tell you that they shouldn't 8 have to do it at all. What they should do is apply the 9 current guidelines and just qualify the site.
10 VICE CHAIRMAN GARRICK: I see. Okay.
11 MR. FRISHMAN: Rather than try to change the 12 guidelines. Because there's enough information right now 13 to where if you applied those guidelines, you could remove x -) 14 yourself from the site -- and this is part of what I 15 wanted to talk about in terms of revising the guidelines.
16 Because what we're being asked to do in the 17 re"'sion of the guidelines is essentially reverse the 18 major principles of the regulatory world of geologic 19 disposal that's been there since the very beginning.
20 And the reason for that is, at least in part, 21 because of serious doubt about whether the site will 22 survive in these qualifying conditions of the current 23 guidelines -- especially having to do with groundwater 24 travel time.
q,) 25 So with the changing guideline that is NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
369 1 proposed, this is again, not only sort of an intellectual
,3, 2 issue for you to consider, but it's one where, once again, t'~') 3 your advice is going to be important to the Commission.
4 You're well aware of the 960 guidelines and I won't go 5 through that at all.
6 You're also well aware that the proposal to 7 revise the guidelines for the Yucca Mountain site is one 8 that essentially says, to do a performance assessment and 9 if the site meets the standards of EPA and the NRC, then 10 the guidelines have been satisfied.
11 Now, they do not contain recognition of the 12 requirements in the Nuclear Wr.ste Policy Act for what 13 guidelines ought to be, which is factors which qualify and t )
\/ 14 d.'squalify the site, and many of those factors are named -
15 - and geology shall be primary.
16 So legally the guidelines don't match up to 17 the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. Technically, there's this 18 problem with the guidelines because the Department is 19 doing the guidelines -- is attempting to revise the 20 guidelines as part of its overall program plan.
21 And its overall program plan has this problem 22 in it that I just described to you and that's, the program 23 plan itself doesn't allow sufficient information to be i
24 gathered in time to apply the guideline. So they sort of (D
. (y 25 fail from just a technical rationale standpoint as well.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
370 1 The idea of using a total system approach also 7- 2 causes some other problems in the regulatory world. Now,
(~') 3 as you recall, the waste isolation strategy that the 4 Department is using relies, among other things, on 5 dilution. If you recall, the EPA when it wrote 40 CFR 191 6 made some very strong statements about not having a 7 standard that permits reliance on dilution.
8 Also relying on dilution is a step back, 9 philosophically, in protection against pollution in almost 10 all regulation in this country. So the reliance on 11 dilution becomes built into the total system performance 12 assessment, and therefore gets imbedded in regulation.
13 Now, 10 CFR 60 has subsystem performance
(^~h' k/ 14 requirements which include groundwater travel time, and 15 pre-emplacement groundwater travel time rather than waste 16 particle travel time. And the reasons for that have been 17 strongly stated throughout both NRC documentation and not 18 too far in the past, DOE documentation.
19 And total system performance assessment says 20 that that's an irrelevant factor, and in fact in some of 21 the rationale in the Department's work they say that given 22 the situation at Yucca Mountain, very fast groundwater 23 travel time may in fact, be an advantage.
24 Well, very fast may be an advantage for what 73 t
y ) 25 they think is good repository performance, but I'm not NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
371 1 sure that they can really make that concept stick, because s 2 I don't think that they can demonstrate the type of
/ $
N.,~~,]
3 performance that they're talking about under thermal 4 loading anyway.
5 So we had -- and I know many of us recall --
6 sort of the evolutionary thinking in the whole concept of 7 geologic isolation. And it involves such things as very 8 slow groundwater movement because that was going to be the 9 mechanism that resulted in loss of waste isolation.
10 Another component of it being the concept 11 that, we call it geologic isolation and therefore in the 12 long term -- and that's what our real concern is. Our 13 real concern is in the very long term -- that you are able
/ \
' -)
14 to understand geology well enough to rely on geology as a 15 primary barrier.
16 And what we see in total system performance 17 assessment is more and more emphasis on reliance on'an 18 engineered barrier for a longer and longer period of time.
19 This again, is sort of contrary to the concept of geologic 20 isolation.
21 And also, just to repeat so that the list keep 22 sorts of rounding out, the reliance on dilution as a 23 barrier was far out of anyone's thinking in discussion of 24 geologic waste isolation. And these are just a few of the (n) 25 concepts.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234 4433
372 1 So what the guidelines do is sort of wreak g ~S 2 havoc on the concept of geologic waste isolation as it V 3 was, you know, first thought maybe doable as far back as 4 the mid '50s. So that's something to consider.
5 Now, much more to your immediate concern is, 6 if you recall, anytime that there is a change proposed in 7 the guidelines by the Department of Energy, the Nuclear 8 Regulatory Commission, under the Waste Policy Act, must 9 concur on that change before the change can be 10 promulgated.
11 Now given this, the last time the Commission 12 went through concurrence it was understood -- and I think p_s 13 it's still understood -- that the only basis that the
(' ') 14 Commission has for concurrence is that the proposed 15 guidelines are consistent or at least not inconsistent 16 with 10 CFR 60 and other Commission rules that would apply 17 -- such as for preclosure. The Commission really has no 18 other basis.
19 Now, given the proposed guidelines as they I
20 are, 10 CFR 60 as it is -- not as you might hear later 21 today; it could possibly change -- but as it is because 22 the Department intends to finish this process of l
l 23 promulgating revised guidelines by the end of this fiscal 24 year. And you certainly won't have revised 10 CFR 60 by rx \
l
( ,/ 25 that time.
1 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W. l (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 l
373 1 In fact, there certainly will not be an EPA 7~ 2 rule by that time. So what's the Commission to do?
)
3 Because if the Commission does not concur the guidelines 4 don't get promulgated. And if you look at it in realistic 5 terms, the Department doesn't need the guidelines anyway 6 at this point.
7 As the Department people have said over and 8 over, the viability assessment is independent of 9 regulation. What they're going to do is, for working 10 purposes, they're going to get anybody who wants it, a 11 total system performance assessment, that says -- that 12 those to whoever it is or the risk to whoever it is they 13 finally decide they're going to do in the absence of x- 14 regulation -- they're going to say, this is what it is, 15 this is what we think the uncertainty is, you decide 16 whether it's worth continuing.
17 Now, if you have that you don't need any 18 regulation. You know, rational people would want to 19 compare it to something, but you don't have to have any 1
1 20 regulation, because at some point that number's going to l
21 change anyway and there will be regulations and we'll have 22 a better feel. ,
1 1
23 (Pause for technical adjustment.)
24 MR. FRISHMAN: Okay, well that was probably a rs \
( ,) 25 good time to pause anyway, to think about, what is the j NEAL R. GROSS l COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 , l l
374 1 Commission to do in concurrence? And it may be that the 7- 2 Commission needs to figure out a way to withhold its
( )
w/
3 concurrence, but also make it clear that the Department 4 doesn't need the guidelines promulgated at this point 5 anyway.
6 The guideline's use is for making a 7 suitability determination that's not planned until 2001; 8 it can't be used until there's an EPA rule and also until 9 the 'ommission C at least has conformed Part 60 to whatever 10 the unknown EPA rule is. So at this point the Commission 11 could very easily withhold concurrence and say, we're not 12 withholding concurrence in any way that is detrimental to 13 the Department's program.
(D
\~) 14 When the program evolves to the point at which 15 guidelines are necessary, we can then make a determination 16 with information -- meaning the only basis that the 17 Commission has, which is 10 CFR 60 -- to determine whether 18 the guidelines are consistent or at least not 19 inconsistent, with the Commission's own rules.
20 The tricky part is to avoid the perception 21 that the Commission has somehow damaged the program, when l
l 22 the reality is that in doing that, the Commission will not 23 have damaged the DOE program.
24 I think to get into some of the other options gm
- ,) 25 for how to act, only invite trouble -- such as conditional l NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
375 1 concurrence. Conditioned on what? But I think a 7-~ 2 withholding of concurrence that just stops the process,
( !
3 explained properly, does not damage the Commission and 4 certainly does not damage the Department.
5 So that's an area where I think in your 6 capacity as advisory to the Commission, it's a very 7 difficult question and I offer at least one suggestion on 8 something that you could report to the Commission in order 9 to help them decide where they have to be.
10 I think you have already heard my interest in 11 r3t doing away with such things as the subsystem 12 iserformance requirements; and it's not just groundwater 13 travel time. I think there is value in substantially
(-
i i
\/ 14 complete containment and I remember, you know, all of the 15 sort of, discussion with the staff that went on and all of 1
16 the actual work that went on at the Center on, what is 17 substantially complete containment?
18 And I recall people like Joe Bunting saying, 19 it's real simple. It means you've got complete 20 containment. But that's I guess, very hard to sort of i 1
21 understand, that you have to have complete containment and 22 you have to demonstrate a package that will give that to i
l 23 you.
24 And also I think there's value in retaining
( ,,) 25 the release limits, and in retaining those release limits i
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 2344433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 l
376 1 what it requires is sufficient work to demonstrate that 7~ 2 you have an understanding of the site in terms of its Y_)) 3 performance -- an understanding of the site to the extent 1
4 that you can put on a credible, technical demonstration 1 5 that materials will be contained at some defined level of 6 containment.
7 And you're going to have to understand 8 releases pretty well to do dose calculations. So if there l l
9 are some internal, sort of stopping points, these are 1
10 worth having, because if the site can't meet those tren it 1
11 needs to be known early rather than late.
1r So I think the subsystem performance l 1
13 requilements are important in part, because they're the
/ \
'l
'- 14 drivers requiring some minimal level of understanding of 15 the site. You have done sufficient work to be able to 16 convince other people that you can meet these.
17 And if they were different, you know, 18 quantitatively if they were different, the importance 19 would still be there; that you are able to make a credible 20 demonstration that you can meet some quantitative 21 standard. And not just dose that comes out of the end of 22 the 16 linked black boxes that Abe works with.
l 23 I guess I only wanted to make one more point 24 that is sort of a step away. It's an area that we have
("%
() 25 discussion going on with the staff all the time and we NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE , N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234 4433
377 1 will probably continue to be discussing with the (w 2 Commission next month when we meet with them -- and that's V
3 my old saw: issue resolution.
4 I don't want to go into the recent 5 communications that we've had about it. I just want to 6 let you know that we still have a considerable level of 7 concern over issue resolution, but I also wanted to -- or 8 moreso, wanted to point out another area of concern that I 9 think probably you ought to be aware of if you're not 10 already.
11 And we saw an example of it yesterday that you 12 probably didn't even notice unless someone would point it
,_ 13 out to you. And that has to do with the staff sort of
/ )
\ /
14 reducing its effort in the area of quality assurance. And 15 this I know is in part, a response to the staff's funding 16 problems, but it's also an area for which, in a licensing 17 situation, the staff can make no excuses.
18 The staff people in the areas of the KTIs now, 19 are being essentially relied on to make sort of a quality 20 cut within their own area. And if you'll recall in John's 21 presentation late yesterday about what his plans are for i
22 continuing with his section, you saw that he had one page 23 on quality of data.
24 And what that means is that John and his O
(-) 25 people have, not only the responsibility for the technical NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
j (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
378 1 work that is necessary for them to do, but they become 7
-s 2 sort of, oh by the way, take a look at whether the data's V
3 qualified, too -- rather than having a Quality Assurance 4 organization that would do that and would do it in a much 5 more disinterested way.
6 John would hope that the data is qualified, 7 but to have his people have to make a separate and sort 8 of, concerted effort at being objective within an area 9 where they really have an interest, I think is -- at least 10 leads to potential compromises in quality assurance. And 11 my view is that, and has always been, that if the 12 Commission staff did nothing pre-licensing other than 13 quality assurance, it would still have done its pre- l
/ ; I t 0
\'
14 licensing job.
15 So those are just sort of the areas that I 16 wanted to walk through with you and bring them to your 17 attention in the sense that the major things that I've 18 talked about -- viability assessment, guidelines, and the 19 staff approach to quality assurance -- these are three 20 areas where things are happening right now.
21 The Commission may need some advice and I try 22 to sort of limit my discussion to these things that fit i
j 23 very much I think, within your responsibility to at least 24 think about and maybe make some recommendations to the (O,) 25 Commission, and hopefully consider some of the suggestions NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS i
1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
l (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 l
379 1 that I've made.
1 l
,- 2 CHAIRMAN POMEROY: Steve, we certainly will
(_) 3 consider those. One of the things I'd like to ask you --
f 4 and I presume you may not want to answer this right now, 1
I 5 but --
6 MR. FRISHMAN: Well, I'll let you know if 7 7 don't want to answer it.
8 CHAIRMAN POMEROY: -- there is a solution that 9 may be imposed by Congress on -- or, an additional factor 10 that may be imposed by Congress, and I'm sure that you 11 probably have thought some about the technical basis, or 12 what you would like to see in the way of a technical 13 basis, for any independent spent fuel storage facility, if p) c
\~- 14 indeed it came to that -- if indeed, that was imposed.
15 And at some point I think this committee would 16 like to hear your thoughts on what the technical problems j l
17 of that would be. l 18 MR. FRISHMAN: Okay, and I thought about I 19 whether to discuss that today or not and then I figured 20 that we probably wouldn't have time. But I will tell you l 21 one thing, and that's that I think -- the Commission has a 22 rule that deals with -- l 1
23 CHAIRMAN POMEROY: Part 72, yes. I 24 MR. FRISHMAN: Part 72, Independent Spent Fuel (m.
( ,) 25 Facility -- has siting requirements that go with that --
- NEAL R. GROSS 1 COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS -
1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
i (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005 3701 (202) 234-4433 l
380 1 CHAIRMA1T POMEROY: That's right.
2 MR. FRISHMAH: -- and makes very clear that
(-s\
3 there are standards for seismicity, and I think the 4 Commission probably should do more than, you know, when 5 Congress is discussing a site in Area 25 of the Nevada 6 Test Site, someone from the Commission ought to say that 7 there's a potential problem with licensing a facility such 8 as this at that location, rather than scrt of hemming and 9 hawing.
10 And if you look at thc senate Bill, the 11 drafters of the Senate Bill understood that there was a 12 problem, because there is language there that once again, 13 forces the Commission to essentially change its rule to
/m iN' I 14 meet the directive of Congress which has licensed this 15 thing.
16 If you look at 1270, the House Bill, the House 17 Bill says, license it under existing regulations --
18 meaning Part 72 -- which means that it is very likely that 19 a license would not be possible at that location.
20 So that's my thought on that for the moment.
l 21 CHAIRMAN POMEROY: Okay. Great, Steve. But l
22 if you do have further thoughts on it though in the 23 future, we would like to hear them.
24 MR. FRISHMAN: Okay. And I think as things
- ,q.
( ,) 25 progress, yes, we have some thoughts on independent spent NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
(202) 234 4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
381 1 fuel storage. They're policy-based and I probably won't l i l g- 2 burden you with those, but there are also some that are l
\~-) 1 3 technically-based, and those I think, as time goes on, may '
4 fall into your realm.
l 5 CHAIRMAN POMEROY: Thank you. I'll introduce 6 Linda --
l 7 MEMBER HINZE: Can I ask a question, please?
8 MR. FRISHMAN: Oh, no.
9 MEMBER HINZE: You know, it's fine to talk 10 about the subsystem requirements and the in?.egrity of the 11 gaological site. And you too, have suffered through the 12 pains of trying to deal with groundwater travel time as it 13 is currently in Part 60.
\g i
\/ 14 Have you and your group considered what might 15 be modifications to 60 to make the groundwater travel time 16 or its akin viable, if you will?
17 MR. FRISHMAN: Well, I think there's reason 18 for a groundwater travel time standard, and a pre-19 emplacement groundwater travel time standards, and I don't 20 particularly, you know, have a -- I'm not particularly wed 21 to any particular number of years.
22 I think it is important if you can demonstrate 23 it early, or if you can demonstrate it in an early period 24 of time, only because it means that you understand what t
/%
( ,)r 25 the system is and you know, I think the concept was there NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
l 382 l
l 1 before the recognition of thermal loading.
1
,e x 2 I think it makes it more difficult after a
? i L/
3 thermal pulse, to try to relate pre-emplacement l
4 groundwater travel time to thermal pulse groundwater 5 travel time, but I think it's reasonable to have the l l
6 applicant have to go through trying to persuasively 7 demonstrate that they understand what that's going to be. j i
6 Because in the long run it's going to be
! 9 groundwater travel that makes the difference in dose, if l
l 10 dose is a standard. And it's going to be, you know, 11 groundwater travel that makes the difference overall, in 12 whether you can say that we have geologic isolation or 13 not.
l ( } l
\"' 14 So I don't know that there is a modification 15 that could satisfy anyone other than, if you want to fool l
16 with the years, fool with the years. And I'm not sure l 17 what good that does, because the concept is going to be 18 just as difficult for performance assessors to deal with 19 and for hydrologists to deal with, as it is now.
20 To throw it out because it's difficult, I 21 think is irresponsible, when it is there for very good I 22 reason and reason that has sort of stood in scientific l
23 thinking since the mid '50s, and there's no reason to 1
24 change it that I now of, other than the fact that it's a l p
k ,)
m 25 problem at Yucca Mountain, i l
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
l 383 1 MEMBER HINZE: Perhaps your colleague will
,-) 2 have some thoughts on that.
U 3 MR. FRISHMAN: Well, she'll help you 4 understand the problem.
l l
5 MEMBER HORNBERGER: Steve, before you go, 6 since you got off on this let me try to get a l l
l 7 clarification from you. Everybody agrees that the dose is !
8 going to be through groundwater and therefore, some 1 9 understanding, some level of understanding of subsurface 10 transport is needed.
11 But what I'm unclear about is the argument i
l 12 that if somebody goes through a total systems performance l l
13 assessment which has to include groundwater travel, and p_
kY 14 calculates -- for the sake of argument let's even assume 15 low doses -- exactly what is wrong with the concept of the 16 geological barrier being in place, having gone through 17 that assessment?
18 In other words, why coes it matter if the 19 groundwater travel time is 100 or 1,000 or 20,000 years?
20 MR. FRISHMAN: I think it matters primarily 21 because it's a -- in those terms -- it's a measure of the l 22 extent to which you have achieved isolation. And 23 yesterday -- and I've been watching this evolve just over 24 the last few months and it's disturbing to me -- yesterday (M
(_,) 25 if you noticed, most of the discussion about the recipient NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
384 1 of the dose, and most of the calculations that were done,
,f-)
2 dealt with 20 and 30 kilometers from the site.
V 3 You know, it was just a couple of years ago 4 that we were talking about five kilometers, and we had i
5 reason to talk about five kilometers because that was the 6 rule -- no more than five kilometers. And now, because of 7 a number of things that have happened, the five kilometer 8 calculation is the one that is rarely made anymore.
l 9 And 30 kilometers is there because that's the l l
10 distance that somebody measured to the people who are 11 there today who might get a dose. And the rationale for 12 that is something that we can discuss some other time.
13 But if you notice, you know, groundwater travel time is O
ks 14 not a problem if you have, you know, if you set all your 15 boundary conditions right.
16 But all it does is says that you are willing 17 to accept less and less certainty of isolation, and in 18 fact, less and less isolation itself.
19 CHAIRMAN POMEROY: Other questions? Steve, 20 thank you very much. I did want to say that, you know, 21 when you appear before us we are very informal, and the 22 reason for that is that we've all known each other --
23 several of us have known each other for a very long time.
24 I know that you don't mistake that informality for a lack O)
(, 25 of appreciation of your coming here or of our respect for NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRif3ERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 2344433
385 1 your views, and we certainly want to encourage the State 7s 2 to continue to bring its views before us as they develop.
t \
V 3 MR. FRISHMAN: Okay, well I appreciate that, 4 and I appreciate the lack of formality, because I think 5 for the positions that I bring to you, we need to be able 6 to discuss them at the time, and I appreciate the fact 7 that we are able to do that.
8 CHAIRMAN POMEROY: Our next presentation as 9 part of the State's presentation, will be given by Linda 10 Lehman who is President of Technical and Regulatory 11 Evaluations Group, Incorporated. I think that's a change, 12 isn't it?
13 Linda's going to be speaking to us today on
/~n
( \
\~/ 14 the value of State oversight, particularly in relationship 15 to unsaturated flow models. Linda, it's been a long time 16 since we've seen you and it's a pleasure to have you back, 17 and I hope that continues in the future.
18 MS. LEHMAN: Thank you. Well, I might say 19 that I'm very happy to be back, too. First of all, I'd 20 like to thank the committee and committee staff, Lynn and 21 Howard, for giving me the opportunity to discuss some of 22 the ways that I believe that the State's Technical 23 Oversighc Program has been valuable in the Yucca Mountain 24 project.
f3
( ,) 25 Yesterday you heard from Gene Yogodzinski and NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
386 1 we believe in the State that his contribution has been
,3
, 2 valuable to the debate on volcanology. And it's largely lv) 3 been through his persistence and his belief in the numbers 4 that they've generated, that they have at least been able 5 to convince the NRC to take a serious look at some of 6 these numbers. And we're very happy and pleased to see 7 that John Trapp and his group are seriously looking at 8 those numbers.
9 Today I'm going to discuss some of my 10 contributions to the State's research program in the area 11 of hydrology, and as with Gene's work, I believe that the 12 persistence has paid off, at least with respect to the 13 unsaturated zone models that we've developed for the i )
'v' 14 State.
15 Because now, only recently in the past year, 16 the Department of Energy has now accepted some of the 17 concepts that we put forth in 1991 in terms of boundary 18 conditions and flux rates that we developed early-on in 19 the program, i i
20 Also, in 1994 the NRC apparently took the ;
l 21 State's work seriously and authorized the Center to take a ,
l 1
22 look at some of our assumptions that were used in the I i 23 models, and that work was presented at one of the Dan ,
l 24 Evans' workshops -- I believe 1995, early 1995 -- and the f%.
(,) 25 Center did support the assumptions that we had used.
I NEAL R. GROSS COUh' REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1",23 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 l
387 1 I hope that history will repeat itself with
(] 2 respect to some of the work that we've done on the 3 saturated zone modeling. And I hope it will be less 4 painful and acceptance will come quicker than it did with 5 the unsaturated zone model. And as you know, as I 6 mentioned earlier, it took over five years for the 7 Department of Energy to finally accept some of these 8 numbers and boundary cor.ditions and I believe that this 9 reluctance on the Department of Energy to consider the 10 State's models has only resulted in detrimental conditions 11 to the program, to the Yucca Mountain program in general.
12 So if one thing comes out loud and clear in 13 the talk that I'm going to give today it should be that
('") 14 outside revi-.w should be done and is critical to the 15 program.
1 16 The State of Nevada has had access to data 1 17 that was generated within the program, and I believe that .
l 18 we have seen this data through a different pair of glasses 19 -- to borrow a Russian phrase -- than the Department of 20 Energy has.
21 And I believe that had the State's work been 22 taken seriously by the Department of Energy early-on in 23 the project, e a very different set of data would have 24 resulted from the site characterization work. A database t
r\ t
() 25 would have been generated that would have been more NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON. D C. 200054701 (202) 234 4433
388 1 useful, more oriented toward the processes of concern --
f3 2 fracture flow for an example, versus matrix flow -- and (vI 3 resulted in a database that would be more useful for this 4 next TSPA-VA assessment.
5 Instead now, I believe that the Department is 6 relying very heavily on their expert elicitation panels to 7 come up with the numbers and the values that are needed to 8 fill in the data gaps.
9 So today I'm going to briefly go through a lo history of the State oversight and present the research 11 that we've done over the past ten years or so with respect 12 to saturated zone and unsaturated zone hydrology.
13 And I know that for many of the committee (3
h N/ 14 members a lot of this is going to be repetitious because 15 you've heard it before. Some of the newer members 16 probably have not heard a lot of this work. So I n going 17 to try to run through it briefly.
18 MEMBER HINZE: At least you didn't refer to 19 g7ay beards.
20 MS. LEHMAN: Now, now. I'm getting gray 1
21 myself; I can't do that. But it has been about two years l
l 22 since I've been really involved in the program and had an j i
23 opportunity to speak to you all, so I'm very thankful to l
24 Lynn and Howard for making that happen.
(%
i ,) 25 As you all know, the Nuclear Waste Policy Act NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 GHODE ISLAND AVE., itW.
(202) 234-4433 WASHlh'GTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
389 l
1 of 1982 provided the State technical oversight, and the j
, ~s 2 funds for that review were to be provided from the Nuclear (G l 3 Waste Fund. The 1987 Amendments Act, as Steve mentioned 4 earlier, narrowed down to only one site, Yucca Mountain, 5 and also allowed oversight to occur from the local 6 affected units of government.
7 In 1995, October, the Department of Energy 8 withheld these funds from the State, based we feel, on the 9 recommendations of some Congressmen who had been 10 influencad by the Nuclear industry. And also in 1997, the 11 Appropriations Act further prohibited any funds to be 12 given to the States or affected governments for oversight.
l 13 The action was justified within the Congcess l'h
( /
x/ 14 by implying -- and we believe falsely implying -- that the 15 State was responsible for a lack of progress on the Yucca 16 Mountain program in not issuing permits as rapidly as they l
l 17 had hoped, of course, we found later that after the l
l 18 permits were issued, that the Department still wasn't 19 quite ready to proceed.
i 20 There also is a widespread understanding that l 21 the State's technical reviews were not really valid and ,
, l l
22 were only offered as stalling techniques to the program. I 23 And I hope to show you today some examples that this is 1
24 not the case, f3 (j 25 So the question that I'd like to put forward NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
390 1 to you today is whether or not these actions on the part 2 of Congress were in fact, responsible actions or correct, (J
x'~
3 and maybe talk about what are some of the costs 2nvolved 4 with denying State oversight -- or not taking it 5 seriously.
6 The State of Nevada oversight fur.ds ranged 7 from one to two percent of the Nuclear Waste Program 8 budget, and the funds were utilized for reviewing program 9 documents and technical site investigations, as well as we 10 also had the opportunity through this funding to look at 11 data and do some independent analyses of the contractor 12 and laboratory work. The State also used the funds for 13 socioeconomic and transportation studies.
(~)
k-) 14 Because we were funded we were able to have 15 access to information which probably otherwise would not 16 have been forthcoming to us. A case in point was the 17 information that was provided on the unsaturated zone 18 through the INTRAVAL process. And I guess I'd like to 19 stress that unless you have the data and you have the 20 ability to work with it, that you are just really at the 21 mercy of presenters.
22 And the Department has had some very credible 23 and very strong presenters in the past, and now I think 24 it's recognized that you have to have access to the data
(_,/ 25 and do your own analyses in order to judge whether or not NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
391 1 their work is correct.
,3 2 We've also been able to participate in the I i
\ f 3 regulatory activities of the NRC and the EPA with those 4 funds.
5 In most of the other Department of Energy 6 projects -- especially in environmental remediation --
7 I've been involved as an expert witness on a number of 8 sites: Rocky Flats, Mound, Portsmouth, many of the sites.
9 And in those areas the Department actively cooperates with 10 the States involved. The State of Ohio, State of Colorado 11 have had active roles in all of those programs.
12 And I've even seen films made by the 13 Department of Energy that say yes, this is wonderful, we
> i k/ 14 really think this has helped speed the process. However, 15 Yucca Mountain project I say is an unfortunate exception 16 to this cooperative role that DOE has had with other 17 states.
l 18 DOE has never really accepted the role of 'che 19 State in technical oversight, especially in the geological ,
1 20 sciences or geotechnical sciences. In fact, DOE only 21 provided funds to the State after it was ordered to do so I 22 by the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
l 23 And also I found, and have been very 24 frustrated by the fact, that despite all the presentations
,o
(,,) 25 in front of review groups and committees such as yourself, l NEAL R. GROSS l
COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS l 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234 4433 l
l l
392 1 we seem to have very little effect on the direction of the I
- p. 2 program.
/
l 3 In fact, only now after the tunnel has been 4 bored and there was chemical evidence to support the 5 State's models, that the Department of Energy finally did 6 accept and adopt some of the things that we had urged 7 since 1991.
8 So as I said, today I'm going to speak about 9 the hydrology, unsaturated zone and saturated zone, and 10 you heard yesterday from Gene on the volcanism. I believe 11 Dr. Hinze asked earlier about compiling the State 12 technical work, and one of the tasks that I've ben p_ 13 assigned in my new contract is to pull together some of
('~' )
14 these examples.
15 Today unfortunately, I only have my examples, 16 but hopefully I'll be meeting with all the other 17 contractors next week in trying to pull together a 18 presentation that involves the other examples. Also, I've 19 been tapped by the State to pull together a review plan 20 for the TSPA-VA and put together a technical review team 21 for that, in the hopes that we have funding.
l 22 So first I'm going to talk about the State's 23 unsaturated zone model and its relevance to groundwater 24 travel time and flux rates that are now being used by the A i I
(/ 25 Department and the TSPA.
l NEAL R. GROSS I COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
393 l 1 Historically, the State has had a lot of g3 2 disagreements, I guess, about the concepts and numbers b 3 that have been used in the performance assessments and 4 .
hydrology codes that were used at Yucca Mountain. i 1
5 Some of these things I've listed here; whether 6 or not it was matrix versus fracture H ow , which was 7 dominant; dimensionality questions; distribution and 8 amounts of infiltration; equilibrium assumptions --
9 equilibriums between fractures and matrix; boundary 10 conditions; and some of the parameters themselves that 11 were used in the models.
12 The initial model of the unsaturated zone that 13 was put out by the Department dates back to, I believe,
/\ !
i
'/ 14 early in the 1980s. This particular one is from 1988.
15 Where you can see -- maybe I'll try to use a pointer --
1C the Department largely used no-flow boundary conditions on 1 l
17 either side of the block, had uniform and steady 18 infiltration into the top of the block, and essentially 19 one-dimensional flow through the unsaturated zone.
1 20 These flow and flux rates were limited by the 21 tightest beds, because it's essentially resistors-in-l 22 series calculation and this was very limiting, and that's l 23 why all along you've seen flux rates that have been very I
24 small.
g.s
!q.) 25 In fact the typical infiltrations used in the I NEAL R. GROSS I COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS l l
1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
l 394 1 TSPAs -- and this held through until the very last one --
l f- 2 was a mean of one millimeter per year. Despite our urging
> (%J s
l 3 and despite evidence of infiltration at other parts of the 4 site that were somewhere from three to five percent of the 5 rainfall that fell on the site -- which would have equated I 6 to about five millimeters per year of infiltration --
7 Department consistently came with a mean of one, or in 8 later models even less than one. We commented on this I
9 every year, and every year the numbers got lower instead 10 of higher.
11 The alternative model that I developed in 1991 12 basically did away with this no flux boundary condition on 13 the Solitario Canyon, and urged that there was 2-( i
/ 14 dimensional flow through the PTn unit and probably the 15 Calico Hills nonwelded _ nits. Infiltration could also 16 come in where the PTn was absent, not just where it was 17 fractured.
18 And there's an area to the West which we felt 19 could allow significant infiltration to penetrate directly 20 into the repository horizon, and at this point the 21 repository is closest to the surface. There's only about 22 500 feet or so here that's away from the surface.
23 We also felt that infiltration was focused l
j 24 into faults, arroyos, or bottoms of the canyons, and that
(~h
, '( ,) 25 it was not uniformly distributed.
l NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 224 4433
395 1 I'm going to go through these next slides 2 really quickly. They just illustrate infiltration into 3
%-)
3 fractures which would give relatively rapid transport 4 versus infiltration into the matrix. Some of the values 5 that we calculated for saturated conductivity based on the 6 matrix would have been 1 X 10- meters per second, versus 1 7 X 10-2, if they had infiltration fractures.
8 Again as I said, the difference between 1-D 9 vertical flow versus vertical and horizontal flows.
10 MEMBER HINZE: Is there any -- what's the 11 basis of the Ghost Dance Fault being a conduit?
12 MS. LEHMAN: The Ghost Dance apparently has a 13 surface expression and it's downslope, so I think it could i
\- 14 potentially transmit water. I believe that probably more 15 water is coming in from the West, and later I'll show you 16 some calculations we did on how much water could come in i
17 through those various pathways.
18 MEMBER HINZE: Do you have any subsurface 19 evidence of the Ghost Dance being a high transmise'i'vity 20 zone?
21 MS. LEHMAN: We have evidence in the saturated 22 zone and like you know, I've been out of the program for 23 the past two years so I have not been able to assess any 24 of the tunnel information at this point in time, j
( ,) 25 As I mentioned earlier, the uniform NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
396 1 infiltration assumptions versus focused infiltration, the
,-~s 2 Department has recently gone to looking at the 3 distribution of sediments to determine what the 4 infiltration rates are based on the trasmissivities and 5 permeabilities of the sediments on the surface. I don't 6 know that they have gone as far as looking at the amount 7 of infiltration into the fault zones.
8 And there was the issue of whether or not the 9 fractures had -- what types of interactions occurred 10 between the fractures and the matrix, and most of the 11 models that are used today require full, 100 percent 12 saturation in the matrix before you can have fracture 13 flow.
14 Of course, I believe that we've seen now in i I
15 the tunnels that that's not necessarily the case, and in 16 the last TSPA there was a fudge factor sort of built in --
17 which was an interesting approach -- which I believe the i
18 number was 93 percent or 95 percent saturations they would l 19 allow flow to occur in the fractures, and I was happy to 20 see that the NRC picked up on that and questioned, well 21 why is it 93 percent? What is your basis for that?
l 22 The issue of transient versus steady state 23 infiltration is also important, and as you will see later 24 on when I discuss the saturated zone, we see fluctuations
/'h
(_j 25 in the water table that I believe are attributed to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
i 397 l l
1 movement through the unsaturated zone and represent I l
l 73 2 recharge events. I'll talk about those more later. They 1
(_)
l 3 are about frequency on the West side of the mountain at 4 about three years, and about two-and-a-half years on the )
5 Eastern side of the mountain.
6 And one of the things that I think still needs 7 a lot of work in the TSPA is linking the saturated zone 8 information to that in the unsaturated zone. They are not 9 independent even though everyone likes to model them as 10 such. But they are linked and the saturated zone is going 11 to give us clues about the behavior of the unsaturated 12 zone.
l ,_s 13 So there's still a lot of work that has to be
' ( \
\ /
14 done, and even under the thermal pulse water will be 15 brought up from the saturated zone in some of these l 16 convective cells.
17 I talked also about the no flow boundary l 18 conditions along the faults and how we would like to see i
19 specified flux, so our pressure boundary condition is l
20 assigned at the Solitario Canyon and now the Department i
21 has moved their boundaries.
I 22 And their overall site scale model by Bo 23 Bodvarssen has moved this no flow boundary condition 24 significantly farther West so that we don't have a no flow
/
(_ 25 condition right at the Solitario.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
398 1 Now, the State also was able through the g3 2 funding, to participate in the INTRAVAL Unsaturated Zone i )
' ~ '
3 Working Group which was put on by the Swedish Nuclear 4 Inspectorate and involved about 12 countries.
5 Unfortunately, what happened in the Unsaturated Zone 6 Working Group was that hardly any other countries 7 participated -- in fact, no other countries participated 8 in the Unsaturated Zone Working Group.
9 So it was basically Department of Energy, the 10 Center, and eventually the State of Nevada was able to get 11 their two cents in on the analysis of those data.
12 As many of you know, that the exercise was to 13 take your models and calibrate them against them against
\
k ') 14 the water content profiles that were measured in shallow 15 boreholes in the unsaturated zone, and then to perform a 16 blind prediction of the water contents at depth at UZ-16 17 using our calibrated models.
18 The location of that study was on the Eastern 19 side of the Yucca Mountain repository block, and you can l 20 see the positions here of the shallow holes and UZ-16; l
21 they're located close together.
22 The State did a number of models. We used 23 matrix flow models, one-dimensional models, 2-dimensional 24 models. I found that our matrix models just simply could
(~
(,,)/ 25 not match the profiles as well as the fracture flow NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
l 399 1 models.
,- 2 And we chose to also indicate in our work that l 3 the solutions to this problem were non-unique and that 4 modeling and calibrating against water content alone was 5 not acceptable because it was not a unique solution and 6 that you needed other supporting data which gave you some l
7 sort of time history, or history of evolution of the water 8 in order to determine whether or not your model was 9 correct.
10 This is the schematic of the fracture 11 geometry, a very simple geometry that we used. The j 1
12 fracture wasn't even fully connected. It went through the j 1
13 upper unit, Tiva Canyon, terminated in the PTn unit, and
.r~~%
-- 14 then resumed again in the Topopah Springs. So water that l 15 came in had to essentially move through the matrix in the i 16 PTn unit and then go back into the fracture.
17 Now, these were some of our calibration runs 18 against the water contents, and these are error bars for 19 the data. And our best run we felt, was this run F-4, the 20 solid line. This is the PTn unit which is wetter. The 21 upper unit, the PTn, and then going into what we had into 22 the Topopah Springs.
23 And with those calibration runs our prediction l 24 of what happened with der 1, that UZ-16 down to a depth of
(-
(j 25 about 500 meters, our best prediction was this line, and l
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 2344 433
400 1 which was generated from a flux rate of eight millimeters 7 2 per year.
t
\ ,/
3 So our analyses of flux back in INTRAVAL, 4 which was three to four years ago, somewhere between five 5 and ten millimeters per year, we felt were our best 6 estimates of flux. And only now we're seeing the 7 Department used that.
8 The Department of course, objected very 9 violently to those numbers so we undertook a study te see 10 just how much runoff was available for infiltration --
11 especially in Solitario Canyon and also in the wash where 12 those boreholes were placed.
13 This model is a University of Minnesota model r~N i
- ) i
\' 14 from Soil Physics Department Agricultural College, Dr.
15 John Neiber. It's called depression focused recharge 16 model, and it basically uses a bowl essentially, approach, l
l 17 to figure out how much rainfall is going into the units; 18 how much can escape evapotranspiration and runoff and 19 actually make it down as deep percolation?
20 The model uses statistics from actual rainfall 21 numbere that are generated by the climate Center from 22 NOAA. And the numbers we used in this were from Tonopah, 23 Nevada, which is North of Yucca Mountain. And the numbers 24 were actually a little bit less than the numbers for Yucca O 25 Mountain.
( ,1 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 2344433
401 1 But even with this, and varying various
,S
, 2 parameters, we came up with very large amounts of water 3 that could be available for infiltration. For example, in 4 Solitario Canyon our numbers ranged from 121 millimeters 5 per year to over 300 millimeters per year would be 6 available to infiltrate into the deeper units.
7 In the wash where UZ-16 was located our 8 numbers ranged anywhere from about eight millimeters a 9 year to 160. So we felt that our eight millimeters per 10 year infiltration was acceptable.
11 The Department now has a new model which they 12 published in March. This is from Martha Pendleton's 13 presentation. And as you can see, they have moved the
/ s 14 boundary condition farther to the West. They're looking 15 at evapotranspiration and infiltration, hopefully, in two 16 dimensions along here as well. So we feel like things are 17 improving, at least in terms of that model.
18 Now I'd like to present to you some of the 19 saturated zone work that we did, and this is relevant, as 20 Steve said earlier, to the calculation of dilution. And I 21 believe that if this model is considered seriously, that 22 the dilution numbers are going to dramatically change, as 23 you will see.
24 MEMBER HINZE: From the unsaturated zone
()
() 25 viewpoint, have you or the state thought about what might NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 2344433
402 1 be accomplished from a hydrologic viewpoint by an East- )
i r~x 2 West drift, and if there is a location that would be most
]
3 useful for those studies?
l 4 MS. LEHMAN: I was of course very interested 1 5 in seeing wnat happened very close to the Solitario Canyon 6 Fault. I am not certain now that any of those drifts are 7 going to be completed that come very close to the fault j 8 because now the repository is forced to be up very close I
9 against the Solitario Canyon and really we don't have much I 10 information on that side. So I would like to see some 11 information gained on that side of the block.
12 MEMBER HORNBERGER: Linda, what kind of
,_ 13 information do you envision? ;
c a
~'
14 MS. LEHMAN: I would like to see some 15 hydrologic tests done. I guess I like to use the example 16 of Stripa. Stripa took a long, long time to figure out 17 what the actual hydrology was in the drift, because the 18 drift is disturbed. I think that we're looking at similar 19 things at Yucca Mountain. At least we should take a 20 similar approach to realistically try to find out what's 21 going on there. Unfortunately, factor flow has only l
22 really come into the program in the last year since they 23 analyzed the chemistry.
24 But Stripa was at least a 10 year project b
'x_/ 25 trying to find out what was going on. Then they tried to NEAL R. GROSS l COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS
! 1323 RMODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005 3701 (202) 234-4433
403 1 apply what they learned at Stripa to the hard rock
,g
, 2 laboratory and also had a lot of problems. So I think to L) 3 fully understand what's going on there is going to be a 4 long-term type of process.
5 MEMBER HORNBERGER: Of course as you know, 6 Stripa is a lot wetter than Yucca Mountain. They still 7 had problems.
8 MS. LEHMAN: It's saturated zone, also.
9 MEMBER HORNBERGER: Yes. I mean you are not 10 going to collect dripping water out of Yucca Mountain, or 11 are you? Is that what you envision?
12 MS. LEHMAN: Well, I can't say whether we will 13 or we won't. If you believe in saturated zone theory, you
!^
14 shouldn't be. But I think a lot remains to be done to 15 understand that hydrology.
16 Actually, our work on the saturated zone began 17 in the late 1980s. I believe this was 1990 or 1991 that 18 we initially published some work which we called cosine 19 components in the water table fluctuations at Yucca 20 Mountain. As I was mentioning a little bit earlier, we 21 found that there were about 10, I believe 10 water table 22 wells that we looked at. We wanted to do a Fourier series i l
23 analysis on the fluctuations, but since the data were not I l
24 evenly spaced in time, we had to develop a cosine fitting l
(Th)
(,, 25 methodology to assess that.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234 4433
404 1 1
1 When we did, we found that two wells on the 7-s 2 west side were responding at the same frequencies
'c) 3 essentially, the same lags, and three wells on the east l 4 side. What was striking was the alignment. They sort of 5 all lined up parallel to the Solitario Canyon Fault. So 6 you can see this linear structure that perhaps had some i i
7 control. As I said, things get wetter towards Yucca I 8 Mountain so the frequency was lower here, I means towards 9 Las Vegas. So the frequency here was about two and a half l
10 year period versus about almost a three-year period on the I
11 west side of Yucca Mountain.
12 This response we felt was indicative of 13 recharge. We had hoped to be able to get at recharge by i
(n N/
1 14 looking at this. Of course we had a very difficult time 15 getting information. At one point, I kept a computer 16 program which was a data base of unanswered data requests, 17 some of which were 10 years old. So we never really felt l
18 we had the data to pursue a lot of this further.
19 But this was our first indication that the 20 flow field at Yucca Mountain was segmented and different 21 on one side of the mountain than the other. In fact, the l
22 chemistry which was done at Desert Research Institute, 23 Nancy Matuska, indicated that the chemistry was quite 24 different on one side versus the other side of the (n_) 25 mountain.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005 3701 (202) 2344433
405 1 We also then later on analyzed the responses
,ss 2 to the water table to the 1992 series of earthquakes that v)
I 3 ,
occurred at Little Skull Mountain and the California 4 earthquakes that occurred. One of the things that struck 5 us was the fact that down in the Amargosa and near Devil's 6 Hole, we had a very different response between adjacent 7 wells. We started looking at that.
8 Basically we had four types of responses. We 9 had an upward movement of the water table and then a quick 10 relaxation back to its original position. Other wells 1
11 indicated a quick rise and then a very very small bleeding l l
12 off back to the original level or never returning to the 1
13 same level. We had the exact opposite with lowering, I f~h
, 4 l
\- / 14 coming back and lowering and being sustained.
1 15 What gave us the clue about fault structures i l
16 and control was the fact that Devil's Hole had responded 17 exactly differently than one well very close to it. We j 18 started looking then well is there a fault there, why is 19 one responding completely different than the other. That 20 led our analysis to look at the structures.
21 What we found was basically in the north and 22 northeast trending faults such as solitario or the normal l
! 23 faults that pretty much we had indications that the water 24 table dropped in those wells. But yet the wells on the (n) 25 compressionals, where you had for example, here is a l NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
406 1 transform fault illustration that I have used that in the fy 2 shearing zones and at least parts of these shear zones
! v .)
3 which are moving past each other, we saw rises in water 4 table. We did document that in the report.
5 So again, that led us to the belief that the 6 saturated zone is strongly controlled by fault structures 7 and tectonics. These were some of the wells that showed 8 incremental changes and that never went back to their 9 normal position. Some of the changes were quite large. I 10 believe AD-11, that number is not correct based on some 11 updated work from the USGS. They called us and said well 12 that reported value probably isn't right.
13 But others are fairly significant. When you f')
t s
\# -
14 look in terms of the flat gradients that we have there, 15 except in a couple of the locations, the seven foot rise 16 in water table can cause a reversal in water table 17 directions in some areas. So I think these tectonic 18 linkages have not been fully explained yet and need a lot l
19 more investigation. l l
20 The other thing that we looked at in the l l
21 saturated zone was the distribution of temperature, 1 22 believing that the temperature could tell us something 23 about the flow rates and flow path. As you can see, we 24 have a very cold water spike, 30 to 32 degrees, which r~s u
(_,/ 25 comee down exactly coincident with the strike of the Ghost NEAL R. GROSS
> COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 l
407 1 Dance Fault.
p 2 We also have a high heat area which is very
, 1 3 near the volcanos, and seems to trend along the strike of 4 the Solitario Canyon Fault.
5 In our later modeling, we felt that this 6 thermal difference was going to be significant, and that 7 even for pre-emplacement conditions we felt that the 8 gradients were steep enough across this small area, which 9 is like 10 degrees C over just two kilometers, that these 10 things would have to be considered in any saturated zone 11 model. I would like you to compare that with the 12 potentiometric surface of the saturated zone.
13 In all of the models that you will see i i V 14 generated by the USGS, you have flow field that looks like 15 this, across Yucca Mountain just at right angles to these 16 potentiometric surface lines.
17 This was a 1984 depiction of the wMi table.
18 Since that time, the USGS went back and revised their 19 numbers. They made corrections based on elevation, l
l 20 temperature, density. They corrected these levels for all l 21 of those parameters. They then published their revised 22 map.
23 When this came out, I thought well, what 1
24 happened to this little embayment that was on the north V 25 side, the 730 contour line. I am going to put it back up NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISt.AND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
408 1 again and just point it out to you, this embayment right
. s. 2 here. As you will see, that kind of disappeared. So I
\
)
3 thought this is very strange. I decided to look into the 4 data that generated this map.
5 What we found was that in the report they 6 actually acknowledge that even though they had revised 7 these numbers, they didn't use them. I believe it's the 8 red numbers were the old numbers and the black numbers 9 were the new numbers. They systematically did not use or 10 didn't believe their new data because they didn't find any 11 physical reason for this to be there. That is in their 12 publication. You can see that for yourself.
13 But also in their publication were the revised t l
14 data points. So we took those revised data and plotted ,
1 15 them. As you can see, there are these embayments, some of l
16 which are very very large. These embayments happen to be 17 exactly coincident with some of the fault zones, the Drill 18 Hole Waeh Fault, the Sundance Fault.. We don't know if l
19 there's a fault here or not. We have no evidence, but I l
20 am assuming there is because of the similarity to the 1
t 21 others and sort of saying perhaps there is a fault here 22 that causes this embayment.
23 Now the model that's put here indicates what 24 we believe is the actual flow field rather than just this f)),
'( 25 movement across. We believe there is movement across, but NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234 4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
409 1 we also believe that the water is coming primarily down
,_s 2 these fault structures and drill hole wash, moving down t' )
\
' ~ ' '/
3 the Ghost Dance and perhaps out this other hypothetical 4 fault that we have assumed to be there.
5 So this is a very very different picture than 6 what the USGS is using and what 3ple are assuming for 7 their calculations of dilutior 7epending on where this 8 repository goes, if they are going to avoid the Ghost 9 Dance, perhaps the Ghost Dance is the best place for 10 dilution. We may have high numbers of dilution there, but 11 certainly in other parts of the repository block, you may 12 not have the dilution that you had hoped to have, 13 especially if you have fault controlled systems, then most
{')s
's _/ 14 of your movement will be in the faults.
15 I was recently at a meeting where Russ 16 Patterson from the Department of Energy asked me now to on 17 behalf of the state to review some of their saturated zone l
18 work. I think they are finally taking some of our work 19 seriously. I am going to be meeting with him next Monday l 20 to see what information now is available on the saturated 21 zone. He has asked me to be available to some of his 22 technical people to discuss some of this work in the 23 saturated zone. So I am certainly encouraged by that.
24 So in summary, I just want to say that I
,m
(_) 25 believe that DOE's failure to take the state's work NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
(202) 234 4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 2344433
l 410 l
l 1 seriously early on has resulted in the majority of the l
-s 2 data being collected for an incorrect underlying
\, I
'~'
3 conceptual model, and that being matrix flow versus 4 fracture flow. There is really essentially no data base 5 available on the fractures at this point.
6 I think it will result in a delay in the 7 program as the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board is 8 saying, to get the data you need. It's going to take six 9 or more years. I also believe that that's the case.
l 10 Unfortunately, it allows these viability assessments and l 11 safety assessments to be based on a meager and what I feel 12 is an inadequate data base. That's it.
13 CHAIRMAN POMEROY: Great, Linda. Thank you l
\- 14 all for staying within time.
I I 15 MS. LEHMAN: Well, I'm over a little, l
16 CHAIRMAN POMEROY: Not bad. My colleagues 17 have questions.
16 VICE CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Linda, I would like to l
19 hear you comment a little bit, maybe philosophically about 1
20 the treatment of data.
l 21 If you establish parameter values in the 1
22 context of probability distributions, and of course those l
23 distributions represent the state of knowledge that exists 24 relative to that parameter, what experience has indicated
/'N
( ,) 25 with that type of analysis is that very often you can get HEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
411 1 by with meager data in some areas. At least it puts it in
,y
- 2 appropriate context.
( )
G/
3 One of the things I have not heard you talk 4 about, nor the state models for that matter, is how they 5 treat the issue of meager data or how they address 6 parameters that have uncertainty.
7 In contemporary risk analysis, we have found 8 that if we are careful, and if in fact we input parameters 9 probabilisticly, and if in fact those distributions can be 10 supported, and even though in some cases there may be 11 great uncertainty in them, and the model properly 12 propagates them through on the model, we very often find 13 that in many cases the meagerness of the data is not very
\ )
N' 14 relevant.
15 Would you comment a little bit on how the 16 state has analyzed the data in the cases of limited 17 information and whether or not you have had any success in 18 employing such techniques in your models?
19 MS. LEHMAN: Well, as you know, the state's 20 budgets have been very very small. So we don't have the 21 luxury of employing these type of models such as Latin l 22 Hypercube or a stepwise regression and some of those. But
! 23 in some of the Monte Carlo type analyses that I was 24 trained on when I was a staffer here at NRC, the n
(,) 25 distributions we had to know the shape of the l
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
l (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
412 1 distribution.
(-
k 2 Now you can change those distributions and you 3 can come up with your uncertainty, and it can be 4 propagated. But to me, if you have the wrong underlying 5 model that you are looking at then how valid is your 6 distribution?
7 VICE CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Well, that's my point.
8 My prefacing comment was assuming that you A) have a model 9 that is one in which you have high confidence, and B) that 10 it can be demonstrated that you have input the parameters 11 in those models with a rational, some sort of a rational 12 and systemic basis. Obviously you can make any model bad 13 and you can input any information wrong.
I_s\
t
) 14 But it is a method that if properly employed, 15 it can save enormous time and money in terms of just how 16 much information we need to make a decision. I sometimes 17 believe that we just simply do not -- and I know NRC is as 18 guilty of this as any agency. We just simply do not 19 employ that way of thinking enough in our decision making 20 process. The time has come, it seems to me, to give some 21 serious thought to that type of analysis.
22 I just wondered in your own experience whether 23 there is any movement in that direction.
24 MS. LEHMAN: Well, what I would like to say is A
, (_) 25 that in order to have some confidence in the numbers that NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234 4433 J
413 1 we're plugging into these distributions, you need some i
,~\ 2 field or ground truth. We essentially have none on a lot
! )
3 of the very important parameters such as matrix fracture 4 interaction, codings on fractures, how fast does the water 5 move down the fracture. All of that now is guess work, I l
6 and anybody's guess is as good as anyone else's, but we l 7 simply do not have anything, nothing that's been measured 8 in the field to support any numbers that go into there 9 now. That is a definite concern of mine.
l 10 But I agree that those types of analyses are i l
11 valuable. I think that we have to go to that, especially l 1
l 12 if we had large fields of data, would be nice too. Then 13 you would know your actual distribution and you wouldn't
/~';
t b
'/ 14 have to guess what those were. l 15 MEMBER HORNBERGER: Linda, could you comment j 16 on what kind of data you think are necessary in the 17 saturated zone? I mean you pointed out some of your 18 analyses on again, on alternative type of model. What do 19 you think has to be done to reconcile which of the 20 alternative models are appropriate?
21 MS. LEHMAN: Actually, we did write a report 22 on that. Carl Johnson and I did a report in 1995. It's 23 not fresh in my mind unfortunately, but as I was 24 mentioning before, I would like to see what's going on at
,a
( ,) 25 Solitario Canyon both in the saturated and unsaturated NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
414 1 zone. I think that we need to now go to instead of a
,- 2 distributed, and I am trying to remember the words that i ; i
' ~ '
3 Department of Energy used.
4 They had two types of field programs. One was 5 sort of a statistical approach, where they covered the 6 area, you know, with boreholes. Then the other was called 7 features based, or large features based systematic 8 approach. I really feel that that large features approach 9 was much more relevant to the situation. I would like to 10 see that continued and have more information generated 11 along these features and factors rather than in the int'act 12 blocks.
13 MEMBER HINZE: A specific question. Is the C-
,/~~h
-- 14 well complex one of those fracture zones that you 15 outlined?
1 16 MS. LEHMAN: Unfortunately, I have had some of l l
17 the data from the C-well complex, but we have had no 18 fundina to analyze it. So I believe that there are l
19 fractured areas there as well.
20 MEMBER HINZE: Does that fall within one of 21 those embayments that you --
22 MS. LEHMAN: I don't know. It might fall 23 within the very lower one and over farther. It's fairly 24 far to the east as I recall.
/^N
! ) 25 CHAIRMAN POMEROY: Linda, I just had a couple NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
415 1 of questions. You may not be the right person to ask 73 2 this, but one of the things that I would certainly be b 3 interested in is having someone like you take a look at 4 the isotopic observations in the ESF. I don't know 5 whether the state has any plans to look at those, 6 particularly their association with faulting, but I 7 certainly would be interested if that were possible.
8 MS. LEHMAN: Hopefully yes. If we get funding 9 to do this TSPA, then we will have to use the actual data 10 and we would very much like to review that.
11 It is my understanding that a lot of these, 12 what do you call them, hits of chlorine-36 do occur either 13 on faults or fracture zones.
f s, k- 14 CHAIRMAN POMEROY: And there are plans for the 15 state to do a TSPA?
16 MS. LEHMAN: Well, that's the way we're 17 proceeding, provided we get funds. As I told you, I am in 18 charge of putting together a technical review team for 19 that. I definitely will try to involve the University of 20 Nevada and people that are experts in geochemistry as l
21 well.
I 22 CHAIRMAN POMEROY: We would very much be 23 interested in that also.
24 Linda, one last question I have, because as f's ,
(_) 25 you know we have, at least a few of us have followed what l l NEAL R. GROSS l COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
l (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
416 1
1 you have done for a long period of time. I particularly q 2 thought the tectonic work that you did was extremely 3 interesting. I am curious, there obviously is interaction 4 between you and the NRC staff.
5 MS. LEHMAN: I would like there to be.
6 CHAIRMAN POMEROY: Well, that's the question.
7 Is the NRC staff responsive to you, listening to you?
8 MS. LEHMAN: I believe that they have been.
9 CHAIRMAN POMEROY: Is there something we 10 should do to enhance that communication? Because they 11 have -- we don't have much influence on DOE, but the staff 12 has more perhaps.
13 MS. LEHMAN: Well, I think the best place to
(' )
approach that is through the technical exchanges.
14 I 15 believe that the NRC staff has been very supportive of me.
16 In fact, I am not sure if it was Tom Nicholson who 17 actually told the center to look at some of these 18 assumptions, but certainly someone did.
19 I would like to have easier access, but I 20 don't know that that's possible because the NRC has to 1
21 keep an arm's length from the state. Then we have to go 22 through proper channels and I would like to have more 23 interaction on what the NRC is going to do in terms of 24 their performance reviews so that I could make the most of A) 25 the money, the limited funds that we have. I don't want NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS l 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
417 1 to do a lot of duplication of effort in reinventing the 2 wheel. If the NRC staff is covering certain points, then
(-]
'\s' 3 maybe we can focus on other ones. So I would like to have 4 that kind of a conversation.
5 CHAIRMAN POMEROY: Well we'll certainly take 6 that into consideration, Linda. Thank you 'rery much for 7 the time and effort that goes into this always.
8 MS. LEHMAN: Thank you.
9 CHAIRMAN POMEROY: We appreciate your views 10 and we appreciate the state's views. We would like to 11 continue to hear them in the future.
12 With that, let's take a 15 minute break until 13 10:45. At that point, we will return to our discussion.
I,_ \
14 We should be talking about screening methodology. I would 15 rather take the break now and talk about screening 16 methodology after. So we'll return to that at that time.
17 (Whereupon, the foregoing matter went off the 18 record at 10:37 a.m. and went back on the 19 record at 10:51 a.m.)
20 CHAIRMAN POMEROY: I would like to reconvene {
i 21 the meeting. Next item on our agenda is a review of the l 22 NRC staff's final branch technical position on the 23 screening methodology for assessing prior land burials.
l 24 This is a briefing to discuss primarily the disposition of i
,m
(,)\
F 25 public comments.
I NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
418 1 Heather Astwood is going to give the ex \ 2 presentation. Welcome back, Heather. I apologize for the V 3 delay here. I know you have a tight schedule. We'll try 4 to stay as close as we can to the schedule.
5 MS. ASTWOOD: Okay. Sounds good.
6 MR. LARSON: Front.
7 MS. ASTWOOD: Front where it says on, that 8 one. For something a little less detailed than the last 9 presentation you bad. As he said, I am here to talk about 10 the screening methodology. As you recall, Mike Weber and 11 myself came and briefed you on the actual methodology and 12 the steps involved in the methodology in October. You 13 wrote a letter with some comments and we responded to
/~~s l t ;
N' 14 those comments.
15 However, in the October meeting, we agreed to 16 come back and let you know what the public comments came 17 back to say, and if we would have any revisions to the 18 methodology. So that's what I am going to present today.
19 We are not looking for a formal written letter. This is 20 simply a foller up to the meeting in October as we had 21 said before. However, if you feel you find something that l
22 deserves a letter, then feel free. l i
23 CHAIRMAN POMEROY: We'll try not to.
24 MS. ASTWOOD: Well, I hope not. Just to give ;
/~N ly,,) 25 you a quick overview of the talk, I am going to go briefly NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
419 1 over the background and the screening methodology. I have 73 2 the slides available to go deeper into the screening
< s V 3 methodology if you have questions. So we can do that.
4 -
Then I will get into the public comments and the changes 5 that we are going to make.
6 For background, the timeliness rule came out 7 in 1994, which implemented a schedule for decommissioning 8 to be placed on the previous decommissioning rule.
9 Licensees had to come in to us with a specific schedule 10 for how they were going to decommission and when they were 11 going to decommission.
12 In Information Notice 96-47, the NRC staff 13 sent out to all licensees our interpretation of the C;
\ !
x/ 14 timeliness rule and how that applies to on-site burials.
15 There were several questions about what an unused area is.
16 Is that a burial ground or not. So we sent them our 17 information, our interpretation, and said yes, burial 18 grounds are covered under the timeliness rule and you do 19 need to submit to us information about your 20 decommissioning.
21 We briefed you on October 22, and the on-site 22 screening methodology was sent out later in October for 90 23 days of public comment. It's a draft up until this point. ,
24 Actually today, it's still a draft. We will publish it t'
(h,) 25 final after this briefing. Up to this point, it is still FUEAL R. GROSS l COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRlD ina l 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234 4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
420 1 a draft, g3 2 As for the screening methodology, like I said,
( '^' !
3 I have several other slidec to go more deeply into the 4 methodology. Once I go through this slide, then you can 5 let me know if I need to continue.
6 The reason we developed the screening 7 methodology is because these burials, most of which we 8 were concerned about were old 20.304 and 302 burials.
9 There are potentially hundreds of those burials out there.
10 The regulations at the time did not require the licensee 11 to submit any information to us or ask us permission to do 12 it. They simply did it. So there could be many hundreds 13 of burials out there.
(O
'w/
)
14 Also, because of the variety of licensees who 15 performed these burials, there's a wide range of risks l
16 associated with certain burials. Some of the burials are i 1
17 what we would consider hazardous to public health and l
18 safety, would need to be decommissioned in some fashion.
19 Some of them are not because of the low levels of 20 materials placed in them or the types of materials placed 21 in them.
22 So because of this range, a simple methodology l
l l 23 to evaluate that risk was needed. We need something that 24 could be applied simply and quickly to decide where that (T If it's something that we do need to look at
(,) 25 burial fell.
l NEAL R. GROSS l COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
l (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 l
421 1 more closely and spend a lot of time and money on, or if fS 2 it's something that just is not a risk to the public.
N~]
3 For that reason, we developed the screening 4 methodology. It has three steps. That's about as simple 5 as you can get. We have the review of the records.
1 6 Licensees are asked to go back through their records and 7 determine what they buried in their burial trenches, 8 what's there.
9 They then used that inventory basically in 10 step two to calculate a screening dose from ingestion.
11 They would take the entire inventory that they have 12 estimated is in the trench and assume that that entire 13 inventory leeches into the groundwater in one year, and O
14 that an individual drinks groundwater from that. I mean 15 drinks their water from that contaminated groundwater 16 source.
17 This is very conservative as you can tell. We 18 assume that the entire inventory is there in the fir:t 19 place. Many of these burials are 30 or 40 years old.
20 Some of the stuff has leeched away. We do account for 21 decay, but not for migration. So you are getting a very 22 high quantity of contaminant in a very small quantity of 23 groundwater.
24 If their calculations for all isotopes summed ;
(~h
() 25 up for the screening dose is less than a screening of 100 l
NEAL R. GROSS l COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS j 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 1 (202) 234 4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005 3701 (202) 234-4433 l
422 1 millirem, then they pass the screening methodology and do r~w 2 not have to do any other actions as far as remediation.
N.
3 They do have to send us their calculations and the 4 information and state that this is what they have done to 5 pass the screening.
6 If their dose is over 100 millirem, then they 7 have to either come to us or do step three. Step three is 8 a little easier. They go to their burial ground and the 9 records and try to estimate the size of the trenches and 10 the volume of contaminated soil and waste in the trenches, 11 and come up with a concentration, microcuries per gram of 12 soil in the trenches.
,_ 13 They then use that concentration along with
'-) 14 appendix B in part 20 to back calculate kind of a 15 screening dose again, for a resident farmer. Again, if 16 that screening dose for all isotopes summed is less than 17 100 millirem, then they pass. If it is over 100 millirem, 18 that kicks them into they did not pass the screening, but 19 they have to come into NRC for site-specific evaluations. l l
20 Come in and give us the work you did for this screening ;
1 1
21 and actual depths of groundwater, actual distance to the l 22 resident, actual situations at your site, site specific l 23 samples, et cetera.
24 MEMBER HINZE: Could I ask a question, if I
('M
\ms) 25 might here? Your comment about taking into account decay NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
423 1 but not migration triggered. I realize that this is just
,- s 2 the first pass, your evaluation would consider a lot more
(
v
)
3 things.
4 I am just wondering if there is any 5 consideration in these early steps to look at what might 6 be happening in any wells, the groundwater derived from 7 any wells that are in the vicinity?
8 MS. ASTWOOD: This does not consider any site-9 specific information. This is simply a generic. If thair 10 calc'dations, they have done this, they have a problem 11 with the screening, they can't complete the screening for 12 one reason or another, yes. Of course we would look at 13 that information.
e i
\/ 14 MEMBER HINZE: But my point is that the 15 migration of this of course may lead to concerns. I guess 16 that's taken care of in the second pass then.
17 MS. ASTWOOD: If it's currently leaking and 18 that it couldn't get into the public?
19 MEMBER HINZE: Right.
i 20 MS. ASTWOOD: Yes. That's definitely a 21 concern in another aspect.
l 22 MEMBER HINZE: Okay. Thank you.
23 CHAIRMAN POMEROY: I guess you can clarify 24 something for me too. I know you are going to get to the
( ) 25 comments themselves. I presume you are going to talk NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C, 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
i 424 I 1 about the University of Washington sometime. But and I !
,- 2 don't know whether this is true in that case or not, but
\)'
3 let me ask it hypothetically then.
4 Somebody has made a burial that was certainly )
5 legal and within the rules and regulations at that time.
6 If somebody then fails both step two and step three under !
7 this requirement, even if it's still an active site, are 8 you now going to require remediation of the burial or is 9 this a case by case consideration?
10 MS. ASTWOOD: Yes. That kicks into the case 11 by case. The birials that are allowed to be done now if 12 it's an active burial, the evaluations for the safety of 13 that burial have been done for their license. It's in (3
14 their license. Yes, you can dispose of this quantity over 15 this period.
16 This is to assess burials that have not been j 17 ever looked at by NRC in the past. These licensees could 18 just dump the stuff and we don't know what's there. We i
19 need to evaluate them. ;
1 1
20 As far as if they are still active, that would i
21 just have to be looked at on a case by case basis. Just I l
22 because you don't pass this does not mean you have to I 23 remediate. You just have to come to us with another 24 justification on why you should not have to remediate.
(%
() 25 That is looked at.
i NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE , N W.
(202) 234 4433 WASH:NGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
425 1 CHAIRMAN POMEROY: So you decide whether it
,,g 2 needs just more characterization to handle or some
, a GI 3 remediation?
4 MS. ASTWOOD: Yes.
5 I can now go through detailed step one and 6 step two slides if you would like to, or I could skip onto 7 the public comments.
8 VICE CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Just a clarification 9 again on that. You said on no migration, but you do 10 account for decay. You may have also explained the issue 11 of dilution. What is the position on dilution?
12 MS. ASTWOOD: We took a volume of groundwater 13 that would supply a family of four for one year.
/'\
t
\- 'i 14 VICE CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Oh I see, I see. We 15 diluted the entire concentration into that.
16 CHAIRMAN POMEROY: Heather, I don't think we 17 want to -- hearing no objection to this, I'll go forward.
18 I don't think we want to go into the detail. We have seen 19 that before. I think we remember most of it. So I would 20 like to go right on and just consider the comments.
21 MS. ASTWOOD: If you have any comments along i
22 the way, we can always go into it. {
}
I 23 So in your package, you should skip onto page 24 10, I believe. It goes into your comments that you f
'( ,
/)N 25 submitted to us, since these were first. Again, you l l
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. l (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 I
426 1 submitted your comments to us in a letter in November. We f3 2 responded in December. In our response, we agreed with l
( )
s_/
3 your comments. We felt that they did need to be 4 addressed. Your comments where specifically it said that 5 we should complete independent audits, we should pay 6 particular attention to sites that may have unique 7 problems, uranium or no records or things like that. We 8 should understand the risk and contributors to risk when 9 we do these evaluations.
10 We do agree with these. They did not change 11 the methodology as far as the calculations that we do or 12 the information that we ask for, but these things will be 13 incorporated in a follow-up document which is a policy and
( 1 Y> 14 guidance directive, which we will write to the staff to 15 describe to them how to apply this screening methodology, 16 how to do the reviews, what to look for, and things like .
1 17 you should understand the risk and be careful of the So those will be addressed I 18 uranium and the chlorine-36.
19 in a separate document. j 20 As for the public comments, you I think
\
l 1
21 received copies of the comments that I did receive. I l
22 received five sets of formal written comments. I also 1 l
l 23 have received many, many phone calls with individual j i
24 questions and things like that. But as far as formal
/' i comments, we only received five from three agreement 4
(_,/ 25 I NEAL R. GROSS I l COURT F EPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WAS ilNGTON, D C. 20005 3701 (202) 234-4433 l
427 1 states, which is interesting.
w 2 The general feel of the comments was that they V
3 agreed with the idea of the BTP. They felt that something 4 like this was necessary. They wanted to use it, but they 5 felt it was way too conservative, which I agree with.
6 Everybody has told me it's way too conservative. We do 7 understand that, but that was developed for that purpose 8 so that we would not skip over sites that could 9 potentially be dangerous. So we are not going to make it 10 less conservative. I understand that does cause a problem 11 with some people, but we are going to leave it that way.
12 Several of the commenters talked about the 13 migration of carbon-14 and tritium. They wanted us to
/ ,_s\
\ 'l give them some leeway to account for the migration of C-14 14 15 or not to make it so prominent in the calculations because 16 of the long half-life of C-14, many sites that have large 17 quantities do not pass the screening. The dose is just 18 too high. You can't get the dose down using this 19 methodology.
20 We considered giving them a break as far as 21 the migration. We are not going to. The reason being, 22 there are two. One is it's very difficult to determine 23 what factor to place on that migration. All these sites 24 are very different. The migration of C-14 is affected by
\ms 25 the other chemicals in the trenches, the types of soil, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 l
l 428 l
1 depth to groundwater, I mean all of the parameters that go
- 2 into KD affect this C-14 migration rate. So it would be L
3 very difficult to pinpoint a number such as okay, take 25 4 percent of your volume of C-14 or 50 percent of your 5 calculated volume of C-14. So it would be very difficult 6 to pin down what break to give them.
7 Second of all, we did not want to start giving 8 exemptions to things in this BTP. This is a very 9 conservative BTP, we realize that. They will have to come 10 in for site case by case evaluations, but it is much 11 better for those exemptions to be made case by case by an 12 NRC person who has looked at all of the other contributing 13 factors and risks at that site, rather than to give a p_
( l
'/ 14 generic exemption which in some instance would be harmful.
I 15 So we are not going to change the C-14.
16 VICE CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Do you have any sense 17 at all as to how many of these sites would meet the 18 screening criteria? The thought being that what if 90 19 percent of the sites do not. Then the case by case 20 approach seems to really get out of hand.
21 MS. ASTWOOD: That's true. We have had at 22 least five or six licensees who have either sent something 23 in or called me on the phone saying we have gone through l
l 24 the screening methodology and we have had problems, and f~n
! (_) 25 these are our results. Three of them did have problems NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
(202) 2344433 WASHINGTON, O C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
429 1 with carbon-14. One of them had problems with carbon-14 s 2 in step two, but could make it in step three. The others
/ s 5
' ~ '
/
3 could not make it through at all.
4 I do not have a sense for what percentage will 5 have a problem. I don't think it will be 90 percent. I 6 had gone through past records and done several of these l 7 calculations on my own and several of them passed from 8 ones that we have seen in the past. We can always go back 9 and reassess our evaluations if that turns out to be the l l
10 case.
11 VICE CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Thank you. i 1
12 MS. ASTWOOD: Several commenters felt that 13 more site-specific data should be used. Look, we have
(~N
- s
'w / 14 well data that shows there's no migration. We have soil 15 samples that say this is the concentration, et cetera, et 16 cetera. We have allowed them to use concentration 17 information in the BTP if they wanted to. If they wanted 18 to use specific concentration in step three, they could.
19 But for other site-specific information, we are not going 20 to allow them to do that. That's really more for the case 21 by case basis. If they do not want to do the screening 22 and just sent us that information, that would be fine too.
23 There were several that said that case by case 24 follow-ups after doing the screening, methodology would
(_,) 25 make things inconsistent which is funny to me because we i
- NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS l
1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C 20005-3701 (202) 234 4 433 l
430 1 have been doing it case by case ever since we started g3 2 doing this. This is making it better, not worse.
( )
3 That is the case. I mean if the regions do 4 it, it will be slightly different than if I do it.
5 However, most of the on-site burial requests or 6 evaluations do come through Division of Waste Management.
7 Up until recently, I have been doing most of them. So 8 there is some consistency involved in having it go through 9 the same division.
10 It would also be difficult to make something 11 that is more prescriptive because of the differences in 12 these sites and the different scenarios that could occur 13 at each site. It would be difficult to write something
'- 14 that's generic.
15 The final one, there were lots of questions.
16 I received many many questions about the timeliness rule 17 and how that applies to burials, and does my burial fall 18 under the timeliness rule and what about this building, 19 and what about this action. I agree those are issues that 20 need to be addressed. They are being addressed in other 21 information notices and other papers concerning the 22 timeliness rule, but that really wasn't applicable to this 23 BTP.
24 This BTP was made for something very specific.
( ,)
/ \
25 If they determined by the timeliness rule that it's for NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (2C2) 234-4433
431 1 their site, then they can use it for their site.
2 Mixed waste guidance also is not part of this.
7-m r
LJ 3 We even make several statements in the BTP saying this is 4 not for mixed waste. If it's mixed waste, go talk to your i 5 state.
6 That's really a summary of the comments that 7 we got. I know you have the comments in front of you. If 8 you have additional questions about something that a 9 licensee said, you can ask. We had one, I remember, that 10 said we made a statement in the BTP that said you could 11 not use the burial limits that originally came with 304 12 because you may have exceeded those limits. I got 13 chastised for assuming that licensees would do something p_
14 wrong. That was not my intent.
15 So basically the bottom line is that no 16 revisions will be made to the BTP based on the public 17 comments. We will include things in the policy and i 1
18 guidance directive based on your comments.
19 The last thing that we will do is we'll attach 20 NUREG-1500 to the BTP and put in a statement to say where I 21 you can get it. It is out of publication. They can not l
22 get it from the publication people. So we will send them l
23 to somebody in Waste Management who will be. able to i
24 provide that information. That was one fault that we
/~N
( ,) 25 found, that the licensees just were not able to obtain NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 l
t
l l
432 1 that as readily as they would have liked. 1 l
(~3I 2 Next we would like to publish the BTP in a
(
l %./
3 final format in the Federal Recister notice at the end of !
l 4 June. We have as I said, several licensees have used the ;
l 5 screening methodology and run ehrough the calculations and 6 sent us the information. However, we stated that we were 7 not going to make any final decisions based on this BTP 8 until it was final, until we looked through these public 9 comments and made sure that we weren't going to change it.
10 So now that we feel we're not going to change 11 it, we would like to go ahead and publish it as a final 12 document soon, so we can go ahead and make evaluations for 13 those licensees that have sent things in in a timely
(~T
\'J 14 manner.
15 We are also going to develop, as I said, the 16 policy and guidance directive, and some guidance for 17 inspectors on what to look for, what questions to ask, and 18 maybe look at the records that the licensees have used for 19 these calculations.
20 Last, we need to develop a data base to keep 21 track of all of this information or a data base that's 22 connected to or can work with a data base that keeps track i
.: of the timeliness rule information, when licensees submit 24 information so that we know who has and who has not 25 complied with the timeliness rule, and that we won't have NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005 3701 (202) 234-4433 i
I
433 1 this problem in the future, that we will know who has on-ry 2 site burials and who does not.
!w,)
3 That is really a quick and dirty presentation 4 on on-site burials. Do you have questions?
5 CHAIRMAN POMEROY: I wanted to still get clear 6 on this. One of the things, a lot of this is going to be 7 applicable to hospitals, universities. Is the nature of 8 this going to be work extreme hardships on some of those 9 institutions?
10 MS. ASTWOOD: If they have to remediate?
11 CHAIRMAN POMEROY: If they have to remediate, 12 particularly since they buried it legally and they may or 13 may not have a current burial license.
I\ ') 14 MS. ASTWOOD: Yes, it could. That was one of 15 the concerns we had, was that the site by site evaluations 16 that we were doing in the past were taking a lot of money.
17 We were requiring licensees to do a lot of work that may 18 or may not have been necessary. Remediation is expensive 19 and it cou.'d put some hardship on these licensees.
20 The aspect of it being legal or not, yes. It 21 was legal at one point but that regulation was rescinded 22 because we realized there are potential dangers with these 1
23 burials and that it could be a threat to public health and 24 safety. We had stated that we may go back and look at
(
(/ 25 these.
I NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 i
i
434 1 CHAIRMAN POMEROY: But there is an intent to
,3 2 look at the relative risk of this?
i i !
%J 3 MS. ASTWOOD: Yes.
4 CH. AIRMAN POMEROY: On each individual basis?
5 MS. ASTWOOD: Right.
6 CHAIRMAN POMEROY: Using some sort of risk 7 analysis, I presume.
8 MS. ASTWOOD: Yes. Unless they pass the 9 screening.
10 CHAIRMAN POMEROY: That's correct.
11 VICE CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Just a simple 12 question. What level of activity do you anticipate to 13 implement this as far as the NRC is concerned? How many
/ \
> )
'v' 14 of these a year? Do you have any measure at all? Is it 15 five people, one person, a half a person?
16 MS. ASTWOOD: In the past, we have gotten 17 requests to evaluate these when they were uncovered during 18 an inspection or during the decommissioning process.
I 19 Somehow they would come up. We would do five or six a )
20 year about. We expected when the timeliness rule deadline 21 dropped that we would get flooded with requests, and we ,
l l
22 haven't. So either these people are not being notified or l l
l 23 they don't realize that they have to send something in, or 24 they just simply aren't out there as we had expected them p) i 25 to be.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHCDE ISLAND AVE., N W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005 3701 (202) 234-4433
435 l
1 VICE CHAIRMAN GARRICK: One follow-on to -
l fx 2 Paul's question, which I think is a very good one. That l l
l (v) 3 is, many of these are probably small operations. What i l
4 happens if they just come and say if they are in a l 5 situation where they have to remediate, that they just 6 simply can't do it. They can't afford it or they have l l
7 gone out of business or whatever.
8 MS. ASTWOOD: That's a very hard situation to 9 be in. We try to make the person responsible for the 10 burial pay for the burial. But there have been instances 11 where that person is gone or they have sold the property 12 and it had to be the owner, current owner of the property.
13 We try very hard not to do that, but NRC has no funds to 1
-- 14 clean these up. If it is a threat to public health and .
l l
15 safety, it -- !
l 16 CHAIRMAN POMEROY: So we probably really 17 haven't heard the end of this story yet on a lot of these i l
18 sites. l 19 MEMBER HINZE: You had a binary situation.
20 Either you had records or no records. Being part of a 21 university, I can see a condition where you are some place 22 in between. How do you --
23 VICE CHAIRMAN GARRICK: No records and very 24 poor records.
,m k_) 25 (Laughter.)
i NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
436 1
1 MEMBER HINZE: How do you decide whether you 1 1
2 have sufficient records? )
e'3 LJ \
3 MS. ASTWOOD: That is going to have to be l l
4 based on the licensee's justification. We have asked them 1
5 to look at their records and make the best evaluation they ;
6 can and submit that information to us. If they said we 1
1 7 had two records and this is what it said, we would 1
8 probably say no, that's not sufficient. But it is really I l
going to have to be the call of the reviewer, is there I 9
10 enough information there, does that seem reasonable. l l
11 Which is not different than what we do right now.
12 MEMBER HINZE: I would say you are going to 13 get some of those probably. ;
/ \ l
14 MS. ASTWOOD: Yes.
15 MEMBER HINZE: Have you?
l 16 MS. ASTWOOD: No. The ones I have seen have 17 very good records, which is probably why they could turn 18 around and give us the information so quickly is because l 19 they did have very good records.
20 CHAIRMAN POMEROY: Has this operation always 21 had the authority to impose penalties on, what I would l
l l 22 consider penalties, on people wi?o have done something 23 legally?
24 MS. ASTWOOD: I don't know.
([s,) 25 CHAIRMAN POMEROY: I know you can't give me a NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 2344433
1 437 l
1 legal answer to that, but it's interesting to me that
'r~3 2 somebody can do something legally under the prior burial
)
V> before we revised the rules and then 20 or 30 years, 40 3
4 years later somebody can come back and say well, what you 5 did was legal but now you are going to have to spend a 6 million dollars to fix it up. That is almost a question 7 that has to be decided on a case by case basis in a legal 8 court unless you have some legal authority to do that. I 9 presume you must.
10 MS. ASTWOOD: I am going to have to turn that .
11 to Nelson. I'm not sure what our authority is.
12 MR. NELSON: Excuse me.
13 CHAIRMAN POMEROY: Can you just identify 7-('~')
14 yourself?
'S MR. NELSON: I'm sorry. Bob Nelson. Division 16 of Waste Management, NRC staff.
17 It really stems from the decommissioning rule 18 and that established requirements for licensees to 19 decommission their sites. Then the interpretation that 20 formal burials, the legal interpretation that formal 21 burials were considered unused portions of a licensee's 22 property. That combination of regulation and finding 23 established the legal framework from which we are 24 operating.
('N
(_) 25 I not being a lawyer, I'm not going to get NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 2344 433 WA JHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
438 1 into much more depth than that. But this provides some s 2 amplifying comments. Many of these are going to be very
/ 2 V
3 case by case. The idea of chis methodology was to screen 4 out as many simple cases as possible, while keeping the 5 methodology very easy to implement without incorporating a 6 lot of science like groundwater transport, basically a 7 back of the envelope type calculation that essentially 8 anyone that has basic math skills can implement.
9 The what do we do with the rest is case by 10 case. Some of those can be very simply handled once we 11 have the additional information from the licensee They 12 can be dispositioned quickly and would not requi re any 13 extensive analysis. There are going to be those cases
(
\/ ) 14 where we don't have adequate records or there are limited 15 funds by the licensee to remediate the sites. In those 16 cases, we are going to have to do an assessment of what 17 needs to be done.
18 A good example, I just received one today.
19 This is a 304 burial. The licensee's license has been 20 terminated. Disposed of 328 pounds of depleted uranium.
21 The records are pretty accurate in how much, but it 22 doesn't say where. It says in a dump. So in this case, 23 we don't even really know where to go to look for it. It 24 was a number of years ago, so even if we knew what
/7
(_) 25 municipal landfill it went to, assuming it went to a NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
439 1 municipal landfill, it would be buried under mountains of
l 14 on time we will certainly get to the first five.
1 15 The decommissioning rule, I know that you have )
1 1
16 been following it, lots of people have been following it, l 17 but I want to make sure you are aware that this is to the 18 Commission, it is now a public document which is a bit of l l
19 an unusual situation.
20 The staff recommended and a piece on this rule ,
1 21 making was sent up, there have been questions on it, 22 meetings with Congressional staff and there has been some l 23 controversy, and the Commission decided they would make it l 24 a public document which is unusual.
,y
( ,,) 25 ,
Normally, these are pre-decisional documents NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234 4433
445 1 so it was placed in the public document room.
,-) 2 So, I don't know how familiar you are with the r
x 3 final product, but I individually am pleased to have that 4 target in front of us.
5 It is what I characterize as graded approach.
6 It essentially starts with an unrestricted release limit 7 of 25 millirem. Add to that ALARA and the rule 8 effectively sets up a process where -- The large majority 9 of our licensees as we all know are small licensees. You 10 clean them up and they can get out and go on with their 11 life.
12 So, I think this 25 millirem standard is a 13 reasonable standard that can be dealt with efficiently in i
r~s 1
's #
14 a regulatory environment. So that is the start of the 15 grading process.
16 Above that there are provisions for restricted 17 release. Up until now, the regulations read unrestricted 18 release and that was part of the problem.
19 If you go back to 1988 and read it, it says 20 decommissioning, unrestricted release. And that is what 21 we have all been struggling with.
22 So, this proposed regulation steps up and
- 23 allows restricted release. Again, the doses to the public 24 are restricted to 25 millirem. However, there is a cap of
,~,
( ,) 25 100 millirem so that you can put institutional controls on i NEAL R. GROSS l COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON. D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 i
446 1 the whatever the site is. We usually think in terms of L
l 2 land and buildings when you get into this category.
3
'w) 3 So, there is a 100 millirem cap using ALARA 4 techniques below the 100 millirem cap.
5 Whatever these restrictions are, they need to 6 be enforceable. There has to be some sort of financial 7 assurance mechanism where appropriate to make sure that 8 you have the wherewithal to implement them.
9 Also, when you are going for restricted 10 releases you need to take into account the views of the 11 local population. The 94 Rule talked about site-apecific 12 advisory boards and in fact we are doing those types of 13 things now in the way that we approach sites.
i
'- 14 So, effectively, the final rule did not call 15 specifically for this thing called a site-specific 16 advisory board, but it does require the licensee to get 17 input from the local level, document that input and 18 explain how he has dealt with that input to the NRC staff.
19 So, it is basically a requirement that he has 20 to go through. So, that is the next level of graded 21 approach.
22 The third level is a 500 millirem cap, again 23 plus ALARA below that and that can only be applied where l
l 24 it is technically impractical to meet the lower standards,
{~h
's_,) 25 where it is prohibitively expensive or there is net harm.
j I
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
447 1 That is the set of hoops that you have to address.
2 A second set is durable controls. There may
(~S U 3 be other ways to provide durable controle but I 4 ind.'vidually think in terms of state or federal control in 5 terms of the durable control. So that provision is put in 6 here for anything that would be in this range.
7 And a third provision which is a five year 8 recheck is similar to what you will find in the 9 Superfund/ RCRA area where EPA calls for these five year 10 rechecks. You go back in and you make sure that those 11 provisions have not rdllen away in the last five years.
12 So, again, it is an increasingly restriction i 13 type of approach and I view it as a graded approach that I
\7_)
/ 14 think will help the division address these sites that come 15 in all sizes and shapes.
16 So, that is the rule. I think your staff is 17 somewhat familiar with it and I encourage you to take a 18 look at it.
19 All of these provisions result in releases of 20 less than 25 millirem. The restrictions are in place to 21 make sure that you don't exceed a 25 millirem standard.
22 There is also another provision in the final f
l 23 rule. It is called an alternative criteria that has a 24 view of criteria that are less than 100 millirem. It was 4
/~T 4
(_j 25 put in there -- I don't really have a site in mind that NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS j
' 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234 4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
(
448 l 1 this would apply to. It wou3d be a rare and unique l
l
, em 2 approach.
l
( )
~
3 By the same token we don't want to look at l
4 granting exemptions, so this provision was added to the i 5 rule making process and it is intended to be the rare case 6 when for some reason you can't quite meet a 25 millirem 7 dose criteria.
8 That is the rule and as I said, high on my 9 radar screen. I invite you to take a look at it and I 10 know that you have already and you provided comments on 11 it.
12 CHAIRMAN POMEROY: Can I interrupt you and 13 just ask a couple of things?
r3
- 14 One of the things that is unclear to me, we 15 have read the exchange of letters between the Chairman and 1
16 the Administrator and we have heard about the results of !
17 the discussions on Monday I think?
18 MR. GREEVES: Correct. There was a meeting on 19 Monday.
20 CHAIRMAN POMEROY: What are the implications, 21 if you can John, with regard to our non-inclusion of the l
22 drinking water standard, which non-inclusion we support 23 and have supported in a letter to the Commission.
l 24 But what is the implication of that, of not
/~'
(_)T 25 including those?
l NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
l 449 l
1 MR. GREEVES: Let me finish the few points 73 2 that I was going to say. It is pertinent. Just let me 3 finish up my notes.
4 There is clearly debate on this topic. And 5 the debates as I read them are centering, in part, around 6 the 15 versus the 25 millirem issue.
7 We did have a meeting with the EPA on Monday 8 and there is a statement that EPA provided. If you don't 9 have it I will provide it.
10 CHAIRMAN POMEROY: Got it.
11 MR. GREEVES: I recommend you read it. It 12 shows where the differences are. There are statements 13 that some of the elements of the standard that we have are p,
- 14 not adequate.
15 So, looking at that and evaluating it is one 16 set of implications.
l 17 The other piece in that process is the j 18 groundwater issue that you have raised. For completeness, 1
19 there was a meeting on Monday and there were two other l 20 issues that were raised in the meeting.
l 21 One was this public information process. I i 22 don't think the reader quite understood that we do have l 23 this public information process and we do think it will 24 work. It is just a little bit less formal than what is in rT
, (_) 25 the proposed rule. But that is one of the issues that EPA NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
450 1 did identify when they read the draft.
~s 2 The last one is the alternate criteria. They I I G
3 had an impression that the alternate criteria would be 4 easy to achieve. In other words, I can't meet 25 so let 5 me jump to 30 or 50 or whatever and that certainly is not 6 the intention.
7 So, that was kind of the character of the 8 meeting and it sounds like you already had a pretty good 9 background on that.
10 As far as the implications in it I think it is 11 a little bit dependent on who you ask. You will get 12 different implications.
13 I will tick off some of the ones that I think
,,~
' \
D 14 are clear.
15 If NRC comes out with a rule, say the one that 16 is proposed, and later, as I understand it, if EPA comes 17 out with a standard that is more restrictive an 18 implication is that we would have to comply with that 19 standard. So, that is one implication. l 20 Licensees may be looking over their shoulder, 1
21 not sure of what they will have to deal with; is there 22 another shoe that's going to fall somewhere down the line?
23 Another implication is putting sites on the 24 Superfund list. I am not an expert in terms of how big an
'j
( 25 implication that is.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
l 1
(202) 234 4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005 3701 (202) 234-4433
451 1 We have sites on the Superfund list right now l g-) 2 and we are treating those sites just like we treat all of L.)
3 our sites. The exchanges on these sites, I think, have 4 been quite smooth with EPA. They have a point of contact 5 and we work with them on the issues.
6 So, from my vantage point, there hasn't been a 7 problem with those few sites we have on the list. I think 8 putting sites on the list is a problem.
9 So, those are two implications of that 10 process.
11 Other implications, this rule, these criteria, 12 I think will have an impact in other areas.
13 We have a high level waste rule that is out in
) l
. ' 14 front of us and some of the same issues are being I l
15 discussed there. DOE has many more sites that we do.
16 There are potential implications there, certainly.
17 So, I don't know whether I am answering your j 18 question.
l 19 CHAIRMAN POMEROY: You certainly are, John, 20 perhaps even more than I anticipated.
21 MR. GREEVES: Well, I have baan thinking about 22 this. This is a national issue in .nany ways .
23 CHAIRMAN POMEROY: I guess I was thinking, is 24 this going to throw a very large load suddenly on your
/~
( ,T/ 25 division or on all licensees?
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 i
t
452 1 MR. GREEVES: In some ways I find that I rx 2 throws some relief at me.
\
ld 3 I was up to West Valley two weeks ago. The 4 day before I went up there, the rule was put int he public 5 document room. It allowed me to speak to the issues.
6 What is on your mind, NRC? What is the decommissioning 7 criteria?
8 You are quite familiar with the West Valley 9 site and that site has some of everything.
10 So, it gave me the opportunity to speak to 11 that local citizens task force. Let me speak to that 12 group with this as background. Otherwise, Mike Weber and 13 I were just going to go up there and just point to things Ih'- 14 like mill tailings; mill tailings allow long term 15 institutional control. And that is all we would have been 16 able to do.
17 But with the rule out in the public document 18 room we were able to speak much more directly about what 19 is in this proposed rule. Because a big piece of this 20 rule is how do you use institutional control techniques; 21 how can they work for you.
22 They are used extensively, as I understand it, 23 on the EPA side and that basically gives them a big leg up 24 in terms of solving some problem sites. l 1
,f y (m,l 25 So, it is sort of a change, it is a paradigm NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS
' 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. l (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 1
2
453 1 change. For example in Part 61, ve have these things 2 called, don't count on institutional control beyond 100
,f 3 U 3 years. That puts a certain kind of burden on you and the 4 licensee. How am I going to get this process, what is the 5 design?
6 So, I feel some relief in the sense of having 7 some regulatory rules that make the job much more do-able, 8 for lack of a better word.
9 So I feel, in some ways, a relief to have 10 these kinds of tools available to us. It is frustrating 11 to have to focus on this thing called unrestricted release 12 because we know in a number of cases, you can't do that.
13 Maybe I have over-explained myself.
-' 14 CHAIRMAN POMEROY: No, I think that is great, l
l 15 John. Thanks. !
16 MR. GREEVES: So, I am sure we are all going 17 to keep an eye on this.
18 CHAIRMAN POMEROY: Right, in fact your staff 19 has offered to come in. We are going to have a briefing 20 on low-level waste performance assessment use in a generic 21 sense. They suggested that they would like to broaden 22 that to include a briefing regarding the final l
l 23 decommissioning rule and other aspects of it that we had 1 24 asked questions about such as different criteria in n
(,) 25 different parts of the Agency and how we were tightening NEAL R. GROSS COURT RtPORTFRS ANO TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
454 1 those things up.
! ,3 2 We are going to take them up on that offer, i
i i\_)) 3 but not in the immediate future, perhaps at the end of the i
4 year or something like that. l l
5 MR. GREEVES: That topic is the first one I 6 spoke to so that should give you a sense of-- l l
7 MR. LARSON: John, just a quick question. It 8 is out for public comment or just published?
1 1
9 MR. GREEVES: No, no. l l
l 10 MR. LARSON: You said it was out.
11 MR. GREEVES: Let me be real clear. A rule 12 was out in 1994 and got public comments. The standard 13 practice is that the staff evaluates those comments, comes
,/-
- 14 forward with a recommendation on the rule, passes that 15 rule up to the Commission, and the Commission decides.
16 MR. LARSON: Yes.
17 MR. GREEVES: And they don't, prior to that 18 decision put that document -- it is basically a pretty 19 decisional document.
20 MR. LARSON: Yes, I have it right here.
21 MR. GREEVES: They chose to put it in the 22 public document room; it is not out for comment that I 23 know of.
I 24 CHAIRMAN POMEROY: But we can discuss it among 1
(n,) 25 ourselves.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON. D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
455 1 MR. GREEVES: We had a public meeting on 2 Monday discussing it. !
3 Okay.
3 CHAIRMAN POMEROY: Let's go on, John.
l 4 MR. GREEVES: The second topic that I thought 1 5 we should spend a little time on is the DOE regulatory 6 aspects. I think you are probably aware that in December 7 Defense Secretary O' Leary announced the intention to j 8 submit legislation for NRC to regulate nuclear safety at l 9 the DOE.
10 If you look at the material that is handed out 11 when you go to briefings, you get the picture that it is 12 expected that there would be a two year legislative phase.
13 There is a lot between the idea and the implementation and
? 3 l x/ 14 it does require legislation. l l
15 So, the rest of the things that you will see, l
16 is that they envision placing DOE facilities under NRC j l
17 regulation gradually over a time period. l
{
18 The first phase would be a one to five year 19 kind of program occurring after this legislative phase. j l
20 All the nuclear engineering and energy research would be l l
21 transferred to NRC during that first five year phase.
l 22 The second five year phase would be the 23 regulation of the environmental management facilities. l 24 The last of this at the end, would be the g-) 25 defense program facilities, after a ten year period.
(jp l
j NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISt.AND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C- 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 l
456 1 The sense that I get from this is that the 7S 2 nuclear energy and energy research facilities are much
(/ 3 closer to what NRC does now. It would be much easier to 4 accommodate them. The compliance issues are less of a 5 problem.
6 So, again, it is a graded approach to 7 absorbing a rather large piece of work. On the other end 8 are the defense programs where you have a lot of these 9 clean-up issues.
10 So, I think it is a sensible approach and 11 those are the kinds of things you will hear when you go to 12 meetings in terms of how would this take place.
13 There is kind of a theme when you go to e s
\
'-]
14 meetings of how does all this fit together. The prime 15 question is what is the cost of doing all this? And no 16 one can afford the bounding costs that you might have 17 seen.
18 So, the picture that you get is that the DOE 19 facilities will be ramping down, about 600 facilities that 20 they have, over a ten-year program, they will be cleaned 21 up with time. So, the number that NRC will eventually 22 inherit or regulate would be smaller as time went on.
23 So, at the end of the 12 years there would be 24 a reduced number and this helps the budgets, amazingly
(_) 25 enough.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
457 1 So, again, taking on the easier facilities fw 2 early, reducing the number, cleaning up sites at the end (v) 3 of 12 years, I think I have seen numbers in the range of 4 $75 million. If you were to look at the whole package it 5 would be much larger than that.
6 But nobody seems to be able to pin these 7 dollars down very tightly. The Commission had a briefing 8 on this and it was not an issue that you came away with a 9 real understanding of what the costs were.
10 CHAIRMAN POMEROY: I understand that there is 11 also a number floating around for FTES, new employees, a 12 fairly large number that represent something less than 50 13 per cent but not a lot less than fifty per cent of the e i
\ )
14 Agency.
15 Are people working on the concept of how this 16 is going to happen.
17 MR. GREEVES: Ves. Maybe I am going a little l 18 bit too slow, but let me get through that.
19 CHAIRMAN POMEROY: Sure, go ahead.
20 MR. GREEVES: There is also interest in 21 conducting a pilot program, maybe one of the laboratories.
22 So, those are topics you will run into when 23 you go to various meetings. Tom Grumbly, before he left 24 the department, did brief the Commission recently and in i \
\ ) 25 these topics came up in that briefing.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
458 1 It turns out that tne Coramission is forming a task 2 force to address these issues. The Chairman recently
,3 Y] 3 signed a letter to Secretary Pena identifying that we want 4 to move forward in this area.
5 For example, we are looking for an MOU to 6 address these issues. There is a task force charter that 7 the NRC has put in place and Carl Paperiello is set as the 8 head of that process and John Austin is identified as his 9 deputy.
10 There is a side implication to that. John is 11 not available to me to do the work that I would like him ,
1 12 to do.
13 CHAIRMAN POMEROY: Right. l fmq
> )
a
'd 14 MR. GREEVES: So, if you see less of John in 15 the high level waste program, you will understand. I hope 16 you got the word that Mike Bell has moved over and we are 17 moving up a section leader on Mike Bell's side, to cover 18 those positions. There is always a little trickle-down 19 problem.
20 So, Carl, with thn Austin as his deputy, will 21 be working this task force. Virtually all of the offices 22 are part of this task force; NMSS, NRR, OGC, Research.
23 An early focus of the task force will be the 24 budget issue. So, I am probably better off not r
(j) 25 identifying even the numbers that I have heard. It is one NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
l (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
459 l 1 of those things that has to be an early focus. In fact, em 2 the group met yesterday.
l 3 At this point, I would like to turn to John, l
4 who had the meeting yesterday, and see if he can give us a 1
5 few little insights pertinent for this meeting here.
l l
6 John?
7 MR. AUSTIN: Thank you, John. John Austin, 8 NRC staff.
9 The task force did hold its first meeting 10 yesterday to introduce everyone to the group.
11 The top priorities of the task force now are 12 to finalize the charter. It has been reviewed by the 13 offices, but we thought it important for the members to p_
1 i )
k/ 14 have a buy in to the charter which identifies many of the 15 tasks that have to be accomplished on the way to crafting 16 proposed legislation.
17 Another priority discussed was identifying the 18 issues that need to be addressed in proposed legislation 19 and in documents supporting what that legislation would 20 call for.
21 We have formed five groups within the task l 22 force to look at things such as funding for the group 1
i 23 activities, to examine regulatory approaches and 24 structures if we were to get oversight of the DOE
/
(7) 25 facilities. There is one for the pilot program. One for NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
i (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
i 460 1 external interactions.
2 There is significant interest in the state on l 7-
. V 3 what happens here, both agreement states and non-agreement l
4 states because things like accelerators are on the tab'a 1
5 um be addressed one way or the other, as far as the NRC is 6 concerned.
7 And finally, we have an administrative support 8 group which is preparing things like Gant charts on tasks, 9 who is assigned various tasks, interrelationships among 10 the tasks and we are fairly far along on that. We 11 distributed both the draft charter and the schedules and 12 assignments to the task force members with the request 13 that we get feedback by Friday.
'-] 14 There will be a briefing of the Chairman on 15 May 1, on status and activities of the task force. The 16 Commission has asked for a status report by the end of 17 June along with another briefing by the department and NRC 18 staff by the end of June.
19 It obviously is receiving very high level 20 attention and interest and the urge to the task force 21 members is to get on with it and identify these issues and 22 develop proposed resolution of them.
23 So, we are really marching out very, very 1
l 24 quickly. We are being inundated with tickets with very l s 25 short time fuses on them.
I NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
461 1 I thought Yucca Mountain was going to be a l
gg 2 challenge and I think this assignment will be an equal
' )
~
3 challenge.
4 CHAIRMAN POMEROY: I think you are right on 5 target there, John.
6 M.R . GREEVES: That is it in terms of the DOE 7 oversight issue.
8 The next one on my list was the status of 9 legislation and I know all the people around this table 10 have been following this process.
11 As far as the latest information, on April 15, 12 the Senate did pass Senator Murkowski's amended version of 13 S. 104 by a vote of 65 to 34.
14 The S. 104 passed calls for EPA to set a risk 15 standard in the range of 25 to 30 millirem, as I 16 understand it. It also calls for NRC to define aal 17 implementing assumptions including the critical group 18 issue, so I think we are all please to see something like 19 that.
20 It also addresses a compliance for 10,000 21 years, identifying do not assume human intrusion for that 22 type of an approach.
23 It has a provision where the NRC would report 24 to Congress on an analysis of the repository beyond 10,000
) 25 years.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
462 1 When I read the bill, a lot of it is 7 ~3 2 addressing the interim storage issue, so you will find a
( i w/
3 lot of information on transportation and interim storage 4 issues 5 CHAIRMAN POMEROY: That was really referring 6 to repository, that requirement that NRC report to 7 Congress.
8 MR. GREEVES: Right. All those comments that 9 I mentioned earlier about the repository.
10 CHAIRMAN POMEROY: Right.
11 MR. GREEVES: But the rest of the bill 12 addresses storage and has a provision that there be no
-s 13 construction, for example, until the President has an
\
J 14 opportunity to determine whether the site qualifies or not 15 and designate an alternative site.
16 I understand it also would exclude Hanford, 17 Savannah River and Oak Ridge from consideration.
18 So, it has evolved some. I don't know whether 19 you have been following the bill, but these issues of what 20 is the standard, how long is the compliance calculation in 21 terms of time horizon, how do that. It has evolved some 22 since the bills we have had in the recent past.
23 On April 10, in the House, they introduced HR 24 1270. This is a bill that is similar to HR 1020. There
/
!s,%/ 25 is a long history to these bills; I don't know whether l l
1 NEAL R;. GROSS l COURT REPORTERS AND *iRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAQ AVE., N W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
l 463 l
l 1 you have been keeping up with them all.
I -
2 But, there is a hearing scheduled on this HR p
U 3 1270 for Wednesday of next week, April 30, and the 4 Chairman will be testifying at this hearing, as I 5 understand it.
6 The HR 1270 would require the NRC to 7 promulgate an overall performance standard of 100 millirem l
8 to the average member of the general population. I think 9 this is essentially the same kind of wording that we have 10 had in this bill in the past.
11 It proscribe , EPA would not be promulgating 12 any standards for Yucca Mountain.
13 And NRC must assume that DOE's post-closure
/N iN' )
14 oversight is effective.
15 And NRC would evaluate compliance for 1,000 16 years against a reasonable assurance kind of standard.
17 For 1,000 to 10,000 it would be a likely compliance.
18 So, these are the kinds of words that you will 19 find in these bills, and somewhere along the line I expect 20 they will merge. But the latest is that there is going to
?1 be this hearing next week and the Chairman would be 22 testifying.
l l 23 So, we are in the process of analyzing the 24 implications of these and it is really a process that we
<m k,) 25 are in the middle of, so I don't have anything else to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C, 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
464 1 offer. I just wanted to make sure that you were aware j 2 that these bills were out there ard being discussed.
f.~
t !
~' CHAIRMAN POMEROY: We are trying *o follow 3 l l
4 those fairly closely, John, and although I know that you 5 don't talk to the President too often and neither do I, a 6 long time ago I saw something that held out the l 1
7 possibility that he would veto such a bill as the bill was 8 at that time, a year ago.
9 Do you have any sense at all whether those 10 conditions have changed or not changed?
11 MR. GREEVES: I individua.'v haven't detected I
12 anything that changed that view. I think the merits of 13 the bills is the key,
/ \
' 14 CHAIRMAN POMEROY: Yes.
- 15 MR. GREEVES
- And I think a big piece of it is l
16 the storage issue.
17 CHAIRMAN POMEROY: Yes, that is right.
18 MR. GREEVES: And I am not an expert in that i
{
19 area.
20 CHAIRMAN POMEROY: This provision in the i
21 senate bill for giving the President the opportunity to 22 determine whether he is going to designate a site for the 23 repository is certainly a concession to that.
24 MR. GREEVES: I think our focus has pretty
,r x 1
() 25 much been on the repository in terms of these standards, l
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005 3701 (202) 2344 433
465 1 how would we implement them?
.s 2 CHAIRMAN POMEROY: I hope though, that
- \
Cl 3 somebody is looking at the question of what would happen 4 if they were, ISFSI approach taken in the future as an c 04 aterim possibility and particularly the geologic and 6 seismological characteristics of siting such a facility, 7 if it is done in the western United States at NTS.
8 MR. GREEVES: Those issues would be addressed 9 and the spent fuel program office would have the 10 responsibility in terms of the project. There is a 11 discussion of a topical report on a generic type of 12 approach which would be addressing those kinds of things, 13 at least on a generic level. Then once a site was named, I
rN
+
J
}
\/ they would have to get real specific about what the j 14 15 geologic and seismic issues were.
16 At this point I am down to the Waste l 17 Convention. Mike Bell was able to go to the last meeting. l 18 I had to go off to another meeting and give another paper.
19 So, at this point, I would like to turn to 20 Mike and get an update for you on the Waste Convention.
21 MR. BELL: Yes. Thank you, John.
22 I think the committee has been receiving some 23 more recent trip reports and has had some visibility at 24 the Waste Convention.
) 25 But basically, just to refresh your memory, NEAL R. GROSS COURT i.dPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
i 466 i
1 1 over the past two years there have been a series of l
l
,e g 2 meetings at the IAEA headquarters to develop an
( )
i RJ l 3 international convention on the safe management of I
l 4 radioactive waste.
5 Representatives from over 50 countries and 6 several international organization have participated in 7 these meetings.
8 At the last meeting in March, the group of 9 people who had been drafting the text of the convention 10 basically reached a point where they thought they could do 11 as much as they could. There was a consensus on a large 12 number of issues covered in the convention text.
13 There were a few issues that I will go into a
()
-> 14 little later where there wasn't consensus but there was a 15 large majority in favor of the final position that was 16 reached. We didn't think that additional drafting groups 17 would be able to make any further progress on resolving 18 these two outstanding issues or getting complete 19 consensus.
20 In these meetings, John and I participated in 21 all seven of the drafting sessions. The U.S. delegation 22 usually consisted of several people from the DOE and EPA 23 representative and the delegation was led by Dick 24 Stratford from the Department of State.
(^T
(,,) 25 The convention is a very broad document. The l
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS i l
1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 2344433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
l 467 1 idea is to come up with an international instrument that l g- 2 basically countries would agree on for managing all of
(.)g 3 their radioactive waste, whether commercial or military, 4 whether naturally occurring or man-made.
5 In fact, one of the more contentious issues 6 was in some countries, spent fuel is reprocessed and in l
7 some other countries, spent fuel is considered a waste, 8 and how to deal with the spent fuel issue on a consistent 9 basis was one of the areas that, in the final text, there 10 was still not unanimity.
11 In fact, if you had a chance to look at it, 12 the convention text has a provision in it that deals with 7._
13 spent sealed sources including radium sources.
l t i
14 As you can see, from this list of issues, it 15 presents some challenges now for the U.S. government to 16 proceed and comply with the provisions of the convention, 17 because it affects DOE activities, activities regulated by 18 NRC, activities regulated in some cases by our agreement 19 states, and even things regulated by states but under EPA 20 authority rather than NRC jurisdiction.
l 21 I guess some of the significant issue I l
i 22 already mentioned. Spent fuel; let me go into a little 23 more detail.
24 Because some countries plan to reprocess spent
/9
(_,/ 25 fuel, they don't consider it a waste. There were a few NEAl. R. GROSS COU9T RE00RTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS
'M
. HHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHiDGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
468 1 countries that did not want to have spent fuel dealt with es 2 in any way in a convention on radioactive waste V 3 management. ;
4 There was a much broader view that argued that 5 basically spent fuel, whether it was going to be i 6 reprocessed or disposed of, presented the same sorts of 7 safety considerations when it was being handled in 8 storage, up until the time that it was reprocessed and 9 those sorts of activities should be treated in an 10 equivalent way, no matter what the fate of the spent fuel 11 was going to be. l 12 A few states who reprocess were won over in 13 the end by treating spent fuel and radioactive waste in
! t i
! 14 parallel chapters in the report and titling the 15 convention, the Joint Convention on the Safety of the
' 16 Management of Spent Fuel and of the Management of 17 Radioactive Waste, and having parallel requirements that 18 would apply to spent fuel management and radioactive waste 19 management.
20 That satisfied some, but not all, of the 21 countries that had difficulties.
22 Another contentious or difficult issue to deal 23 with was the military waste issue.
24 The U.S. was arguing strongly that basically 25 defense wastes or wastes from military applications, when NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON. D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
469 1 it became a waste, was managed and about to be disposed 73 2 of, presented the same kinds of hazards as equivalent l t '
V; 3 kinds of commercial wastes. And, for the same sorts of 4 reasons, ought to be dealt with in the convention.
5 Some of the nuclear weapons states, because of 6 national security and classified information, were 7 uncomfortable with this.
8 The final text that was arrived at, basically I 9 puts waste from military or defense sources under the 10 convention in two instances.
l' 11 One, when it is turned over to a civilian 12 agency; in our case, the DOE, for management or disposal.
13 Two, when the contracting party, the country,
/^'T
\~ I 14 voluntarily opts to have it covered under the convention.
15 This satisfied the weapons states and seemed 16 to have the acceptance of most of the non-weapons states.
17 Much of the rest of the world is concerned 18 when they have a neighboring country that is generating i
19 radioactive active waste as a result of defense i 20 activities, that those things are being managed safely and 21 somehow won't have impacts across the border that would i l
22 affect either the public health and safety or the 23 environment.
24 I would say that 100 per cent of the non-(O_) 25 weapons states want military waste included in this NEAL R. GROSS l COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS l 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
470 1 convention.
2 The whole issue of transboundary movement was 73
\
'~') 3 another very difficult one. But basically, how do you 4 deal with a waste management activity or facility in one 5 country that has a discharge or release or underground 6 pathway that would cause exposures in a neighboring 7 country.
8 A formulation was arrived at that did, in 9 fact, did have consensus of the group in that area.
10 It did, in fact, bring into the convention a 11 change to the siting requirements that would require that 12 when siting of waste management facility, a country 13 consult with a neighboring country that could be affected l (N--)
14 by the operation of the facility being sited. i i
15 Now in the U.S., that brings up a curious j 1
1 16 situation because of our agreement state system. Many l l
17 other countries where the radioactive waste is a federal l l
18 or national activity, it's not a problem. But in the 19 U.S., we have our agreement states who regulate many low 20 level waste uranium mill, uranium milling operations and 21 things like that.
l 22 .And in the siting of the new waste management i
- 23 disposal facility, it does create an obligation for the 24 U.S. to consult with Canada or Mexico regarding the (O,) 25 impacts of a facility that might be sited by an agreement NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
l (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
471 l
1 or state compact and regulated by an agreement site that I s 2 we otherwise wouldn't have a role in.
l \
LJ 3 One of the biggest concerns all through these 4 negotiations of the U.S. delegation was to not impose new 5 requirements and to minimize impacts on NRC, the agreement 6 states and our licensees and because of this concern 7 throughout the latter stages, at least of the 8 negotiations, we had a series of meetings with the Nuclear 9 Energy Institute, the Low Level Waste Forum, the 10 Conference of Radiation Program Control Directors. John, 11 the paper he was presenting in March at the last meeting, 12 was at Waste Management '97 on the present status of the 13 waste convention. In order to make licensees and
[, ) \
'd 14 agreement states, other affected, potentially affected 15 entities aware of the upcoming convention and to get any 16 comments, feedback that they might be able to give us on 17 things that they saw that would cause them difficulty that 18 we could then take back to the negotiations and try to get l 19 the text modified to lessen the impact.
20 one of the biggest potential impacts is on the 21 reporting requirements of the convention. The way this l 22 convention would be implemented is through periodic I
I 23 meetings of the parties. It's anticipated that probably i 24 about once every three years all the contracting parties b
(_,/ 25 would meet. Each would prepare a report on waste i
i NEAL R. GROSS l COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
472 1 management activities in their countries that would
'7S 2 identify facilities, give inventories of waste that is
'v!
3 stored, disposed of, deal with how they regulate waste 4 management, including such things as discharges from 5 facilities which is one aspect of what waste management l
6 that's also covered in the convention.
7 One of the largest potentials, I guess, that 8 we saw for having impacts was by requiring information to 9 be collected and reported on that wasn't presently 10 obtained under NRC or agreement state licenses. We think 11 that we were successful in either limiting the reporting 12 requirements to things that we already have available to
,- 13 us, or there actually is the phrase as available in the i \
' -) 14 reporting requirements so that basically some kinds of 15 information may be reported on by some countries, but not 16 others, if that kind of information is not available.
17 Now, we're at the stage where essentially the 18 group drafting the convention has completed its work and 19 given the text back to the Agency. The next step is the 20 IAEA Board of Governors will meet in June to consider 21 whether or not to go forward with that text or in theory 22 because of lack of complete consensus on some of the 23 issues like the spent fuel, the transboundary movement, 24 the Board could decide to say well, we know you thought
/~'s
(_) 25 you had gone as far as you could, but why don't you try i NEAL R. GROSS l COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
473 1 another drafting session and see if you can't move a 73 2 little closer to consensus.
( )
3 MEMBER HINZE: Could I ask a question about 4 that transboundary. Does that include oceanic shore --
5 MR. BELL: I guess I probably should have 6 dwelled on another aspect of transboundary movement 7 because as I mentioned, this as one of the more 8 contentious issues. It deals with shipment, for example, 9 from one country to another and the rights of intervening 10 countries that this shipment may pass through. It also 11 applies to the case of, for example, where reprocessed 1
12 waste and plutonium is shipped from France back to Japan I 13 and it passes through the territorial waters of countries
\-] 14 along the way. l 15 These were some of the more contentious issues l l
16 and it's another area where there's not total consensus in 17 the final text. Some of the countries were primarily 18 countries where shipments would pass through either 19 navigable waters or across their land, wanted more control 20 over the passage territory.
21 The -- so as I say, some of these issues that 22 consensus was not reached may lead the document not to 23 proceed pass the Board of Governors.
24 But if the Board of Governors agrees with the n
(_,) 25 drafting group that this is probably the best document on NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 13L RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
(202) 234 4 433 , A3HINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
474 1 how we would deal with these issues that can be developed 73 2 at this time, the next step would be the IAEA would
( )
3 convene what's called a diplomatic convention in late 4 summer, either late August or early September that would 5 review the text, perhaps modify it to some degree, but if 6 the diplomatic convention was satisfied at consensus, the 7 text of the convention, it would then be open for 8 signature at the IAEA general conference in late 9 September.
10 We have recent experience with the convention 11 on nuclear safety which was a parallel document developed 12 through the IAEA to put down international principles for 13 safety of the commercial nuclear reactors. From the time 14 that was open signatory, until it was ready to go into 1
15 effect was about a two year period to get the necessary I
16 signatures.
17 In order for -- in the U.S. under our system, 18 in order for the west to become a party to the Convention, 19 it does require ratification by the Senate. You may know 20 that the Convention of Nuclear Safety even though the U.S.
21 was a leading proponent of that, like the Chemical Weapons 22 Convention, the Senate has still not ratified it. So the 23 Convention of Nuclear Safety is, in fact, going into 24 effect without the U.S. as a signatory.
(O
(_,1 25 Eventually, presuming we do'get ratification NEAL R. GROSS l COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
475 l
1 by the Senate, basically we would then have this process l
,- 2 where early in the next century the first meeting of the 3 contracting parties to the convention on the Joint l
4 Convention on the Safety of Spent Management and 5 Radioactive Waste Management might have its first meeting.
l 6 It would likely fall under present NRC organization at l l
7 least, this division to pull together much of the report 8 on the commercial aspects of spent fuel regulation.
9 At that time, we would still expect DOE would 10 be pulling together the part of the report that held with 1
11 their activity.
12 The international program staff is preparing a l
13 paper to go to the Commission identifying a number of the
/\
N- 14 issues it ought to consider and in fact, the NPC 15 Commissioners will need to agree basically that the State 16 Department should go ahead and represent the U.S. at the 17 diplomatic conference and essentially proceed with 18 approval of the text of the convention and I guess there 19 would be an opportunity if the ACNW has an interest, for 20 example, to identify the issues or comment to the 21 Commission in the June-July time frame to make its views 22 reflected in the Commission as a final input to the State 23 Department.
24 CHAIRMAN POMEROY: We'd certainly like to be g
i
) 25 kept in the loop on that if that's possible.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005 3701 (202) 234-4433
476 1 MR. BELL: Sure, ys 2 CHAIRMAN POMEROY: Is that it?
(v) 3 MR. BELL: That's it for the information part.
4 If there are any questions, I'll try to answer them.
5 CHAIRMAN POMEROY: Do you have questions for 6 Mike? We turn it back to John.
I 7 MR. GREEVES: Just the one point I think Mike 8 made is if the U.S. is not involved in the planning ,
i 9 meetings on these things, we have no participation in 10 figuring out how this follow-up is going to occur. So for 11 all the chemical, the nuclear safety and the radioactive I 12 waste, if they aren't passed in time for us to participate l
13 in that first planning meeting, lots of things happen in l
/'N l
\ ') 14 that first planning meeting that sort of set the mold for 15 impacts on various countries, so I think it's important 16 for countries to get their ore in and so I just share that 17 with you.
18 CHAIRMAN POMEROY: John, I think we all want 19 to hear the next three times and our time frame is running 20 a little short because we want to get together with 21 Margaret.
22 MR. GREEVES: I'll move quickly.
23 CHAIRMAN POMEROY: Yes, we'd like at least the 24 opportunity to ask you questions about all three --
f
( ),/ 25 MR. GREEVES: I'll pick up the pace and stop 4
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005 3701 (202) 234-4433
477 i l
i 1 and you can ask some questions. l l l
<~x 2 CHAIRMAN POMEROY: Great. l
_j 3 MR. GREEVES: On the low level waste in 4 decommissioning, I really was intending to just talk about 5 a few things, including the direction setting issues. I 6 know you followed, you've commented on them and first, I 7 think we've all read the final direction setting issue on l 8 low level waste. It's not the Option 2 that you highly 9 recommended which was an aggressive program. It's the 1
10 option 3 approach which is do what we're doing now, and i 11 frankly with the pressures on the budget, I'm not sure how ]
l 12 we're going to even maintain that level of effort. So I .
l 13 see tougher times ahead. You touched on a couple of
/ 7,\
s s
'# 14 issues, greater than Class C waste, mixed waste, DOE 15 sites. i 1
16 At the level we're working at, it's going to j 17 be tough to manage all of these activities.
18 The branch technical position, I know we're 19 all interested in that. The staff has worked very hard on 20 that. We have a staff requirements memo that sets out an 21 expectation that it will be out for public comment and we 22 will summarize those comments in August. Well, you can do 23 the math and that means we've got to get it out now and so l
i 24 the staff has presented to me a document that I have
,Q
( ,) 25 confidence in, so I'm putting it through that process and l
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
478 1 I would look forward to your view on that document when we 73 2 put it out for the, I believe it's the 90-day comment
(,)
3 period.
4 I looked with interest on your letter on time 5 frame. Frankly, the first time I read it, I really don't 6 think I understood and I talked some with your staff and 7 got a few clarifying comments. I read it a second time 8 and I think it's quite a thoughtful piece. You obviously 9 have been thinking about this for a long time and I'd like 10 to view it as an early comment on the branch technical 11 position. We're going to get a number of others. So I 12 think we will fold that into the ccmsiderations on the ,
l 13 branch technical position. l rN I
~- 14 I understand we're talking to you about the 15 document in October, so we may want to talk about 16 scheduling issues because if we need to summarize 17 something for the Commission in August, and we're talking 18 to you about something in October, I don't know, we may 19 need to make some adjustments.
20 Another direction setting issue is on 21 decommissioning. You commented on that one. And the final 22 one comes out that we will do some workshops. There 23 should be a pilot plant process and it turns around on the 24 transfer to EPA issue. You highly recommended that we not rN l ,) 25 transfer sites to EPA and the final products ends up NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234 4433
479 1 being, that would be last resort approach, which is i i
1 2 actually consistent with what we've done over time.
( ~'s) i 3 It opens up the question of institutional 4 controls, sort of touches on the decommissioning rule and l
l 5 just heads up -- we are talking to DOE about what would be l l
6 the transfer mechanism for some of these sites that need 7 durable institutional controls to DOE, so I expect you'll 8 hear more about that. DOE has asked to be a participating l 9 party on some of our environmental activities, on these 10 difficult sites. So that's the end of that discussion.
11 Let me just keep moving and maybe we do all 12 the questions at the end.
13 As far as the guidelines, you were briefed in
14 March. The Commission gave us an SRM on April 16th that 15 approved the staff's recommendation of a no objection type 16 response. I think you have to read the paper to 17 understand exactly what all this means, so I'm not going 18 to go into it here.
19 I understand DOE has issued another extension 20 to mid-May in terms of comments on these guidelines and 21 the staff did provide two clarifying comments to the 22 Department on April 17th. I expect that you have copies 23 of those. I won't go into them.
24 The last item that was on the list was Yucca r'N
( ,) 25 Mountain site characterization highlights. I think we all NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234 4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
480 1 know they're about 10 feet away from what they call hole f- s 2 out and they have completed, I understand, the mapping of
'n 3 the south portal. They've also performed some work in 4 Alcove 6 for the North Ghost Dance Fault drift. And they 5 continue monitoring a single heated test result. It's 6 been a while since I've been out to the facility. I think 7 probably my staff can give you a lot more details on this 8 kind of a topic in a follow-up meetings.
9 So with an accelerated pace that got me 10 through the last -- it's fine with me too.
11 CHAIRMAN POMEROY: Are there questions for 12 John on any of these, but particularly on the items 5, 6 13 and 7 that he's just reviewed for us?
I )
\/ 14 MEMBER HINZE: Well, I would like to ask, it 15 appears to me that the exiting of the TBM is somewhat 16 later than anticipated.
17 Is there some specific reason for that or is 18 this really on schedule?
19 MR. GREEVES: I'm not giving a reason. I 20 think that's really a DOE question to answer. I 21 understand it's within feet of exiting.
22 MR. BELL: Well, I think what Dr. Hinze meant 1
i 23 was that it was originally scheduled for I think the 25th 24 of March and it's about a month behind that schedule.
f~%
'( )
25 Actually, for about the last week they did it within a few NEAL R. GROSS
! COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS i
1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON. D C. 20305-3701 (202) 234 4433
481 1 feet of pull-out and I understand that part of the most
,s 2 recent delay is just their arranging some sort of a
)
%/
3 ceremony and to record the event.
4 MEMBER HINZE: What I was concerned about was 5 the condition of the ground.
6 MR. BELL: Now, last few hundred meters they 7 were making very slow progress because they were in poor 8 ground. Much of the time was either in Category 3 or l 9 Category 4 ground.
10 And it's much slower going to go up a slight 11 incline when you're in poor ground than when you've got a 12 little gravity component helping you, so it was basically I 13 crossing the same kinds of terrain they did in the north
[
\-' 14 ramp, but this time going slightly uphill rather than 15 slightly down.
16 MEMBER HINZE: Thank you.
17 CHAIRMAN POMEROY: Mike, could I just ask a 18 question about Alcove 6, the alcove into the Ghost Dance 19 Fault? Have they gone into the Ghost Dance Fault or are 20 they still simply doing testing with drill core?
21 MR. BELL: Let's see, is there a DOE person in j l
22 this? My understanding was -- Ray, do you know, Ray 23 Wallace from the USGS?
24 MR. WALLACE: Ray Wallace, USGS. What's going i r~N 1
( 3
(_) 25 on in Alcove 6 and northern Ghost Dance Fault Alcove is an ]
I NEAL R. GROSS l COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
)
(202) 2344433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 l
482 ,
i 1 excavation across the fault zone. It was already l
,r s) 2 penetrated by a horizontal borehole and they'll turn l L,/'
3 around and drill some more boreholes and test through I l
4 that.
5 CHAIRMAN POMEROY: Could you give us any idea l I
6 of what they're running into? Are they at the Ghost Dance l 1
1 7 Fault itself now with the base?
l l
8 MR. WALLACE: Since they resuried, they've only i 1
9 moved about, I think, 9.4 meters, so I dca't think they're l 10 quite across.
11 CHAIRMAN POMEROY: Yes. Thank you, Ray. l l
12 Other questions for John? l
_ 13 I know there are a number of other questions, i )
14 John, but --
15 MR. GREEVES: They'll catch me on the side.
16 CHAIRMAN POMEROY: John, I want to tell you 17 how much we have appreciated it. I know it takes time out 18 of a busy schedule to come down here and do this, but 19 again, it's appreciated. Thank you.
20 With that, we will now adjourn for a one hour 21 break and after -- at 1:30, back on schedule, we will 22 continue our discussion of defense-in-depth.
23 (Whereupon, at 12:35 p.m., the meeting was 24 recessed, to reconvene at 1:30 p.m., Wednesday, April 23, g
(_) 25 1997.)
l NEAL R. GROSS I COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS i
1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
l (202) 2344433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234 4433 l
l
483 1 A-F-T-E-R-N-O-O-N S-E-S-S-I-O-N
-- 2 (1:39 p.m.)
V The meeting will come to 3 CHAIRMAN POMEROY:
4 order.
5 The next item of our agenda this afternoon is 6 on a continuation of the discussion of defense-in-depth.
7 Dr. Garrick is our lead member.
l 8 So John, you're on.
9 VICE CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Okay, thanks, Paul.
10 As all of you know, this is a continuation of 11 exploring being done by the committee on different 12 viewpoints concerning the existing subsystem requirements 13 and what changes, if any, ought to be considered in the t t
14 new world of risk-informed performance-based regulation.
15 As you also know, the defense-in-depth concept 16 is something that this committee has written letters about 17 in the past expressing their strong support. It has been 18 a kind of a basic and fundamental tenet of regulatory 19 practice for many, many years used first in the reactor 20 game and then picked up on other types of facilities, 21 including waste facilities.
22 The issue has to do with whether or not, given 23 a performance requirement, it impedes or interferes with 24 the flexibility of the analysts and the designers in
,O
(_,) 25 achieving a certain performance goal; and therefore, can NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
I 484 l l
1 become counterproductive possibly, at least that's the l l
fs 2 view of some, with respect to achieving and meeting j
!v) 3 performance goals while, at the same time, coming closer i
l 4 to optimizing the design to do that. l l
l 5 We all know that there's a number of options l
6 available to us. One, of course, is to opt for complete !
l 7 flexibility and just regulate in terms of a risk-based J
8 standard. Another, of course, is a standard plus '
l 1
9 quantitative subsystem requirements that would be more ;
1 1
10 appropriate to what we now know about repositories. I 11 We could have a variation on that as another 12 option and think in terms of qualitative subsystem 13 requirements. Another option would be a standard plus a
\- ' 14 requiranent for a risk-based analysis of the effective of 15 individual barriers.
16 That is to say, we have a performance 17 requirement, and we continue to think and push and 18 regulate in terms of multiple barriers; but rather than 19 suggesting that each of these barriers has to meet a 20 certain specific requirement imposed on the applicant, to 21 quantify what the effectiveness of the different barriers 22 are in quantitative terms.
23 Or, of course, there's always the option of 24 the status quo.
/N
(_) 25 So I think that Charles is going to give us a NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
485 1 little bit of his perspective on this issue both from the fm 2 standpoint of the current regulatory framework and from I i i /
3 the standpoint of some of the things he's observed in his 4 international activities.
5 So with that, I think, Charles Fairhurst, we 6 will ask you to take the floor.
7 DR. FAIRHURST: I'm left-handed, you see, and 8 I put it on the wrong side.
9 Thank you.
10 I'm suitably wired and I will now proceed --
11 or attempt to.
12 Well, it's -- as I say, it is a pleasure to be 13 here, and I know a number of the people in the audience in\
14 and some around the table. It's a delight to have a 15 chance to talk to you again.
16 I also must apologize a little bit in advance 17 because when I got here, I realized that I wasn't quite 18 aware of how public, if you like, the audience was, and a 19 couple of things I wanted to discuss actually from 20 European programs which I thought would illustrate certain 21 things, and I'm going to have to do it by waving my hands 22 rather than showing you pictures because I've not cleared 23 them directly with the people who -- I don't think there 24 would be any objection to me showing them, but I don't O 25 want to take that risk.
(/
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
486 1 So the ne::t step is to turn this power on p 2 here.
r i
Gi 3 Pardon?
4 CHAIRMAN POMEROY: On the front, on the left.
5 DR. FAIRHURST: Ah, marvelous.
6 Thank you.
7 This is -- in lack of directive, I chose a 8 title something like this. And it's significantly 9 influenced by the recent work that has been done at WIPP.
10 I recognize WIPP is not a high level waste repository and 11 there's some very significant differences; but frankly, I 12 think the achievements at WIPP in focusing on the nature 13 of the problem of that repository have been quite G
14 impressive.
15 So --
16 VICE CHAIRMAN GARRICK: I should point out 17 that -- just for those of you who don't know this, that 18 Dr. Fairhurst was the recent past chairman of the National 19 Academy of Sciences Committee on the Waste Isolation Pilot 20 Plant, so he speaks from considerable firsthand 21 experience.
22 DR. FAIRHURST: But I think it is true to say 23 that -- and I don't like to sound like a mutual admiration 24 society -- but John, as you know, has been on that O
25 committee and he has very strongly pushed towards the l NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 2344433 WASHINGTON. D C. 20005-3701 (202) 2344433 l I
1 487 1 development of this performance oessment.
( 2 And I think it is one area, frankly, in the G)/
3 world where other countries look to us for direction on 4 how to do it. So it is being looked up to. Some other 5 aspects, which I'll get into later, are not.
6 (Laughter.)
7 And Lynn Deering was very kind to send me the 8 minutes and viewgraphs of the previous meeting, and so 9 just to try to pick up where that left off, these are 10 three slides taken from there talking about the 11 difficulties that NRC experienced with their Part 60 12 subsystems criteria.
13 And I recognize a few of them because this one 7_)
i
\' 14 leading to suboptimal performance was one that I know was 15 part of the Yucca Mountain -- the TMYS committee's 16 criticism. And I won't go into many more detail, but I 17 think you're all familiar with them, those criticisms.
18 The other slide that was interesting to me in 19 there was this one. After all this criticism, the 20 Commission concluded -- made these two conclusions. That 21 if they were to adopt the EPA standard as the sole measure 22 of performance, it would have failed to convey in any 23 meaningful way the degree of confidence which you'd expect 24 to be achieved, etc.
fn)
(_/ 25 Frankly, I don't quite understand these two.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 2344 433
488 1 And if, during the discussion -- if somebody would like to g~s 2 say what additional confidence would one get by these.
( )
s~~/
3 The confidence -- and I think there is one.
4 Charles McAughey, who's head of the 5 geotechnical -- well, head of the program for Switzerland 6 with the NAGRA pecple, he is a very strong proponent of 7 this, if you like, multi-barrier approach which he calls 8 near field, intermediate field, and far field.
9 But he comes down at the end -- he says it's 10 nice to give people a warm feeling in the tummy. In other 11 words, there's certain things you can do by engineering 12 with a high level of confidence over a short term which, 13 in the political scheme of things, give you a powerful t'~N
\
As) 14 ally scmetimes in convincing the public that this is an 15 iterative thing.
16 And if you can get confidence for 500 to 1,000 17 years on something, then maybe they'll be willing to let )
18 you try it for 100; or you and your descendants try it for 19 100 and then review. Because the whole concept of 10,000 j 20 years as now with Yucca Mountain, possibly a million 21 years, is one that we all throw up our hands in trying to 22 convince everybody in a scientific way.
23 But, after all, the problem is to isolate it 24 for that length of time. And the options now are the ones n
( ,/ 25 that John has just actually summarized. And I was -- that NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234 4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
489 f 1 was one I passed over before.
f~s 2 When the high level -- rethinking high level
( )
V waste came out in 1990, I was the vice chairman of the 3
4 Board of Radioactive Waste Management, and I was called by I
5 the press and asked a number of leading questions which 1
1 6 they ,ot, unfortunately sometimes, answers that they )
)
7 picked on with great glee and published.
8 And NRC wrote into the Federal Register 9 something which was a little cover letter to the National l 10 Academy, and it said when the vice chairman of the Board )
1 11 of Radioactive Waste Management misinterprets in such a 12 public way the NRC position, we think we have a problem. ,
13 And I was the one who was guilty of that.
\ \
N- 14 And it was this question of the maximum life l l
15 of a canister, and I had happened to say that NRC did not j 16 allow one to go beyond a thousand years and that this was, 17 compared to what people were doing in other counties, a 18 significant constraint.
19 And of course, what NRC had done, they had 20 added from the original statement comments about that in 21 the event that one can demonstrate something, NRC will be 22 encouraged. But I was interested when I then went to talk 23 to Frank Parker, who was the chairman. He said well, 24 thank God you made that statement because I thought the (n),
25 same thing and I didn't get criticized for it.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
(232) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, O C. 20005-3701 (202) 2344433
490 1 So there is a statement in there that -- even
,m 2 though those statements are in, there's a general belief I \
V 3 that at a thousand years you're going to have a dickens of 4 a time to get anything beyond that and it would take a 5 major process. Now, that may or may not be true, but 6 that's the impression.
7 And from here, let me move to a somewhat more 8 philosophical point of view because I think it does 9 underline this whole question of uncertainty of geological 10 systems. This what you might call a snapshot historical 11 note that when the problem of radioactive waste isolation 12 came up, there were many options considered: shooting 13 this out into space; and even though some people don't
- A a
\~-) 14 consider it quite geological isolation, sub-seabed 15 disposal. ;
l 16 And there were a variety of commissions --
l 17 what do you call it? Anyway it was one of the Carter i 1
18 Administration's general review which led to -- that's a 19 marvelous thing to look at for all the options that it 20 shows there. And one of them, of course, was putting it 21 on a remote island in tre P.eific with winds that don't 22 fall below about 75 miles an hour year round and so on so 23 that you can't possibly find anybody who would live on 24 there.
O (j 25 But the idea was, of course, that one has to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
491 1 isolate these wastes from the biosphere for 104 to 10 5 g 2 years at the time. It gets stretched out a bit. And so 3 one had to look for stable structures with a stability l
4 that you could guarantee or hope to guarantee for the l 5 order of a million years or more.
6 And so geological -- one immediately turned to 1
l 7 geologists and people who were looking at structures that 8 had, over the period of several billions of years, had at 9 least been in existence; not always the same, but that --
10 there was no -- any manmade structure had that sort of 13 durability or demonstrated durability.
12 But it put us into an interesting no man's 13 land because the geologists and geoscientists were quite
'Y 14 comfortable talking in very general terms and used -- as 15 you know, one of the things with geoscientists, and I 16 consider myself partially one, not wholly -- but one of 17 the points about them is that for any existing structure 18 or any idea, there's usually about ten or a dozen theories 19 of how it evolved.
20 And nobody's terribly concerned which one is 21 the right one because they all seem plausible, and there's 22 nothing really riding on which one is right. Even the 23 topic of, for example, plate tectonics was in hot dispute 24 until just a few decades ago. We're not -- and it's had
(_) 25 an amazing impact.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W. i (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234 4433
492 1 So this is a range in which, if you like, the (S 2 geoscientists, or at least the large group of them, G
3 structural geologists particularly, were quite 4 comfortable. On the other hand, engineers, and I put 5 myself somewhat in that category, even including Roman 6 engineers who built some marvelous structures, some of 7 which are still in existence close to the thousands of 8 years ago -- but the general time frame in which an 9 engineering structure is designed is of the order of 100 10 years -- 50 to 100 years.
11 And that includes nuclear power plants. When 12 you come to such things as, for example, large earth --
,_s 13 large dams, it's true that they were designed also for 100 ,
t '.
\' ,) 14 But in many cases, economically, people are still l
years. ;
15 relying on them but they don't put any money into fixing l
16 them up. There are serious states of disrepair, but ;
I 17 they're still being used. I j 18 And the engineers who designed them will wave l 19 their hands and say well, we didn't guarantee those for l
20 any more than 50 to 100 years. So you have engineers who 21 look for fairly quantitative structures, but they want to 22 do it usually with fabricated materials.
23 And this is a very important distinction 24 because most materials that you fabricate, whether they're
,/
(/ _
25 steels or concretes, you can do a test in the lab and you NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
493 1 can get a very good idea of how it's going to perform on a 7s 2 larger scale.
(
'~') 3 When you come to geological structures and 4 geologic isolation, what we're being asked to do now is to 5 give some -- - ake quantitative or pseudoquantitative 6 evaluations and predictions over a period of time which is 7 not very familiar to the geologisc -- to the engineer, and 8 is also an area that the geologist will say hands off, I'm 9 not quite happy with numbers.
10 And that's a fair amount of the problem.
11 That's why I think it's even written into the law, whether 12 it's the EPA, 40 CFR 191, or whatever, that what one is 13 looking for is a reasonable expectation. We know you
%' 14 can't be sure. An uncertainty comes in in a significant I
15 fashion. And it's how you deal with uncertainty that 16 becomes important.
17 The other fact which goes unnoticed quite a 18 lot -- and here I'll say something that sounds a little 19 self serving. But if there's one thing that I've sort of 20 noticed in different countries, and maybe it's the -- it 21 is that the geotechnical people have taken a stronger role 22 up front and have had a stronger responsibility early on.
23 I think in the U.S., this came out of the 24 nuclear community perhaps by default saying how do we
{'Nq_) 25 solve our -- the problem that we created. So you've got a NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
494 1 lot of nuclear engineers and scientists who were involved gy 2 in reactor design and reactor safety trying to like move b 3 into saying how do we deal with this geological thing.
4 If you go to Sweden or you go to Switzerland, 5 you'll find that there's a stronger component of 6 geotechnical people in there punching all the time about 7 the reason to take special precautions when you're dealing 8 with geologic materials.
9 Let me give you one example. Earlier in the 10 game actually, it was a colleague of mine who worked for 11 the NRC and may still be here -- I won't say who it is, 12 but he came from Boeing. And he came in because -- he was 13 brought in because he was an excellent modeler to r^N
\ 1 N/ 14 numerical modeling.
15 And he was doing finite element analysis and 16 trying to work from what he had learned out of designing 17 aircraft structures into looking at geological structures.
18 And he told me, he said it took me 15 years of working 19 here to really begin to appreciate some of these subtle 20 differences.
l 21 And one of them is this fact that you just l
22 don't -- can't say with certainty -- the same level of 23 certainty what you find in the lab may be entirely 24 different in the field, etc. And so the other fact that
(_,/ 25 is not -- the fact that I was about to mention is not very NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
495 l
1 well realized very often is that when you deal with an f-~ 2 excavation in rock, you're dealing with an excavation to C' 3 material that's preloaded.
4 If you build and airplane or a car or whatever l 5 it is, you build it out of components, you put it i
6 together, and then you drive it or whatever. You apply 7 the forces after the structure is built. And when you go 8 into a geological excavation, it's loaded by gravity and 9 by tectonic forces, at the very act of creating an 10 excavation to look ir.to the thing disturbs the environment 11 so that the near field is changed.
12 Now you get the term disturbed rock zone. But 13 it has changed in a significant fashion. And yet, a lot p
Ns 14 of the information that we're going to gather about 15 designing this is going to be obtained in that near field 16 region. When they do experiments, they call them 17 underground research labs. And so, there are -- recently, 18 for example, in the underground research lab in Canada, 19 who did -- the people, by the way, did a superb job there.
20 I don't know if you know, they went down to --
21 in the granite and went down to 240 meters, and that's 22 where they were going to do their experiments. But just 23 below that was a thrust fault, thrust zone. And it was 24 the U.S. DOE that provided the funding for them to go O(,3/ 25 through that thrust fault down another 150 meters.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. ,
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 l (202) 234-4433 (202) 234-4433
l 496 1 And what they found below there was quite a r3 2 remarkable surprise to everyone. They went from a U 3 horizonta] stress field that was of the order of --
4 laterally, some were in the range of 20 megapascals, which )
1 5 at that depth was not too bad -- and go through the fault, 1 6 and suddenly it jumped to 55.
7 And they found in there granite that is 8 unfractured -- unjointed granite. Nobody believed it 9 existed. The Swedes, everything they had done in their 1
10 program was based on fracture flow, etc. If you look a; 11 the Canadians, they're designing their repository on the 12 notion that you can talk about diffusion and slow speeds.
13 They're not -- they have no fractures in i rs l
('-') 14 there. People won't believe them, but that's the way --
15 you read the report, that's their application for -- and 16 so I'm just pointing out that there was an amazing 17 revelation about possibly that most of the excavations 18 that one knew about in the world at these depths made an 19 association with mineral deposits.
20 Those mineral deposits are, by definition, 21 areas where there's something of an abnormality in the 22 fracture system in the earth's crust and minerals have got 23 in there. And so, if you look around that, you might have 24 the wrong interpretation. One sees a lot of underground D)
(_ 25 labs going on right now around the country -- around the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON. D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
1 497 1 world.
2 But -- so, I don't know how much detail I'll
(]
Q 3 have the opportunity to talk about some of those 4 implications of really understanding what one is dealing 5 with with a geological structure. This morning, Linda was 6 talking about the stripa experiment and saying they had 7 had a ten year program to try to characterize the fracture 8 flow.
9 Well, the interesting thing is, they haven't 10 answered it yet. The answer is not -- nobody knows why.
11 There are various hypotheses that one of the problems was 12 that -- I think you know that there was a drift in which
,_s 13 one sort of pre-excavated the drift by dri
- six bore
! \
14 holes, each -- I think, were they 100 meters long?
15 Yes; and then they measured the water inflow 16 to each of the bore holes and gave it to all of the 17 hydrologists who were doing 3-D fracture flow, etc., and 18 said predict for us how much water will come into the 19 tunnel when we excavate it around the line of those -- and 20 everybody predicted there would be an increase in the 21 amount of water inflow.
22 Not a fantastic one, but some increase. In 23 actual fact, it went down by a factor of eight. And so it 24 indicated they weren't in a position to prediction. Then l
,- 1
(_ / 25 the Canadians acknowledged that when they were driving NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON. D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
498 1 their shaft, they had done a similar experiment. For
,s 2 them, it went down by a factor of four.
( )
%./
3 The latest word is that, you know, Jane Long 4 is suggesting this is due to dropping the pressure of the 5 ground water so that you get an exhalation of dissolved 6 gases, and that inhibits the inflow. But it's not a very 7 well accepted idea.
8 But I'm just trying to indicate that this 9 process which has been perhaps -- and I'd include myself -
10 - not as well recognized as it should be, is that the kind 11 of problem that one is posing to the geoscience and 12 geotechnical community is one where the information has 13 been evolving very rapidly and is still not there.
/ s t
N -} 14 We don't have enough information. I doubt if 15 we will ever have it. And so the notion of uncertainty is 16 absolutely implicit. And whatever kind of rules we bring 17 about or introduce, significant uncertainty has got to be 18 a part of it.
19 Now I'll come back to that point in a minute 20 because -- but let me switch now to the notion of this 21 review. And I think this is actually a fairly prominent 22 Canadian geotechnical individual who came up to me about 23 three years ago.
24 And he said, " Charles, you've been associated
,7 i
) 25 with a lot of interesting things in your life and NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234 4433
499 l
1 important things; but nobody, nowhere, have I seen 4 I
,- 2 anything written that was better than this for the
)
3 geotechnical communities."
4 And he pointed out -- and if you want, this is )
5 Morty Morgenstern who is the president of the National l 6 Society of Soil Mechanics. And he said that is the best ,
1 7 document I've seen as far as laying it out for what it is, 8 as far as the geotechnical areas. And I agree with him.
9 It's beautifully done.
10 What went into that was a document i think --
11 and a very clever staff person got it down to that and it 12 was readable, and it's very well done.
13 And here are some of the things that -- I'm d
K/ 14 sure you've all seen it, but just to me, summarizes the 15 situation we have. There's no scientific or technical 16 reason why we can't do it or why a repository cannot --
17 there doesn't appear to be any.
18 But the U.S. prescriptive approach -- and 19 these are not my words -- is poorly matched to the 20 t e t. . cal task at hand. The U.S. is the only country that 21 has taken the approach of writing detailed technical 22 regulation before all of the data are in.
23 I don't like that term "all of the data."
24 We'll never have all of the data. And so I'd like to l'h
( ,) 25 substitute somewhere "before a sufficient understanding "
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
(202) 234-4433 WALRNGToN, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 2344433
500 1 And the program is bound by requirements and may be
,-~ 2 impossible to meet. And this is the important one.
%.)
3 The alternative approach emphasizes 4 flexibility, time to assess performance and a willingness 5 to respond to problems as they are found, remediation if 6 things do not turn out as planned, and a revision of the 7 design and regulations if they are found to impede 8 progress towards the health goal already defined as safe 9 disposal.
10 The Swedes have -- maybe it's -- a lot of 11 regulation or ideas in other countries are not written 12 down. You sense it in talking to them. They introduced 13 this term of remediation if things do not turn out as
\
[,_2
\- 14 planned. So they were saying it's fundamental you're 15 going to go in there, you'll either find a fault that you 16 don't -- didn't anticipate there, and that fault is 17 transmissive.
18 Or if it's in a seismically active region, it 19 looks as though it could be an active fault. And so what 20 they would do, and the French will do the same -- the 21 French call these sacrifice zones. They will say nowhere 22 in an ore body, as mining, do you find ore all over the 23 place. In some places, this ore is low grade, so you're 24 going to leave it there because it's not economic to mine.
x) 25 And so when you go underground, you shouldn't NEAL R. GROSS i COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C, 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
501 1 expect to have to be able to lay out a nice rectangle v
) 2 array of excavations and say if that won't cross the 3 fault, that's too bad; that's where we're putting the 4 canisters. Well, you don't do that.
5 As you design as you go, say I'll move away 6 from that. How far do we have to move away from a fault 7 in order for this not to be significant? If it's 100 8 meters, that's the rule. And so the notion of observing 9 what you find and designing in an evolutionary fashion as 10 you go is what you have to do if you want to really 11 optimize a design for a repository.
12 And so it may not be possible, in the way in 13 which it's not always possible to say what a mine will 7_
4 i 14 look like when you're finished, to lay out the design in 15 the beginning. And believe me, you can in general; but 16 you have to have the proviso in there that you can modify 17 it and it will -- provided you do it right, it can be 18 acceptable.
l 19 This, by the way, is not from the rethinking, 20 but it's sort of an engineering principle which I think is l l
21 useful to restate. I stuck it in there. But if the 22 performance of a system depends on a contribution from 23 components whose behavior cannot be adequately determined i l
24 or defined, then the design should be changed to eliminate
/\
( ,/ 25 any dependence on that component.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
502 1 That again is flexibility of design. And what
(-)
(_/
2 it talks about is, in essence, what do you mean by a 3 robust design. You have that proviso, and it has to be a 4 proviso in the regulations. Doesn't mean an inferior --
5 it means a superior design.
6 And the other one is the question of geologic 7 modeling, or today we might call it performance assessment 8 or part of performance assessment -- is that you learn 9 over time, you start -- how to achieve assurance about the 10 long term isolation of waste.
11 The first thing that one does, and in fact is 12 done and now it's quite commonplace in geotechnical
, 13 engineering, is to develop some sort of numerical model.
/s s
\
\ ') 14 And you usually have very little information at that 15 point, but the first -- sit around the table, five or six 16 people who have looked at the project for a while, will 17 work out what's our best guess at this stage of the game 18 of what this looks like.
19 And say now okay, so we have a very elementary 1
20 -- and as I say in the performance assessment part, there 21 may be certain segments of that in which you have no a
22 information at all. And so you put a shunt in there. You 23 put something in that says I take no credit for anything l 24 in that link, but I want to acknowledge the link exists (D
(/ 25 because it might be that we need to do some work on that. l l,
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. ii Y
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON. D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 l
i 503
! 1 And then you look and see does it make any l
f-~x 2 difference; what are the critical components of your lack (v) 3 of understanding. And once you've identified those, then 4 ycu know how to plan the next step in the evolutionary 5 process, whether it's field exploration or additional data 6 from the lab or talking to other branches, other types of 7 scientific or technical people.
8 And so this objective of designing as you go 9 using models to do it is profoundly different from 10 predicting the long term behavior in advance. Saying lay 11 it out, tell me what you're going to get. I can tell you 12 -- I'll tell you what my goal is, but I can't tell you how p_
13 I'll get to that goal.
14 And what we have found is that frequently, 15 even a construction of the model informs you tremendously 16 about certain types of things. And I'll come to one of 17 those examples later. It's the one I wanted to say 18 something more about.
19 But finally, as far as the rethinking report, 20 there were a few shocks or, if you like, a few references 21 to NRC as well as DOE and others. But these are the 22 questions you're asking right now.
23 What modeling evidence is necessary, 24 obtainable, or even feasible?
/ \
(s,) 25 To what extent is it necessary to prescribe NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
(202) 234 4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234 4433
504 1 design rather than allowing alternatives that accomplish gm, 2 the same goal?
U 3 This one, what can be done to accommodate 4 design changes necessitated by surprises during 5 construction? And I've tried to suggest that that is an 6 element that must be taken into account.
7 And what new strategies such as features like 8 copper containers might be allowed or encouraged as events 9 dictate?
10 These are things that are suggested, and this 11 was a -- George Hornberger was a member of the group. You 12 know George. This is a rather nice group of people from 13 around the world who I think was including -- well, if you rm
(\ ') 14 read it, not only engineers and scientists, but people I
15 dealing with ethical questions, etc., and social issues.
16 But let me -- I'll try to -- this is where 17 I'll do a bit of the hand waving. I wanted to say well, 18 we all know what the prescriptive approach in the U.S. is. l l
19 And again, please understand that I don't think that one 20 needs to get away entirely from that partly to get some 21 level of assurance. But I had hoped we'd have some ,
22 discussion of that.
23 This is the one I would hope -- that I had 24 hoped to talk about. In France, although they were not r~%
(_,) 25 preceriptive, anything that was written by -- about ten, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON. D C. 20005 3701 (202) 234-4433
l 505 1 15, maybe 20 years ago now, a very capable, eminent
,3 2 geoscientist named Goguel put together a commission which
(
) I 3 was asked to say how should we search for repositories in j l
4 France. l 5 And they made a few general statements. And i i
6 one of the general statements was don't look for one in a l 7 seismically active region. And Steve Frishman might be 8 interested in this because it would suggest that Yucca 9 Mountain falls into that category.
10 But understand, this was 20 years ago. And 11 the reason I say that is that it's easy to be -- have 12 20/20 hindsight and be wise and criticize; but at that 13 time, I don't think many of us would have made many g!
i
\/ 14 different decisions than people making them at that time.
15 It's a question of understanding the evolution and doing 16 the best with what we know now.
17 Well, what the French have done, somewhat 18 different than the U.S., they said before -- some of you 19 may know him, Christian Batai. He was appointed to go l
20 around all the communities that looked as though they had 21 a reasonable chance of formations that would fit and talk 22 to the group, the mayors, the local community leaders and ,
1 23 everything, and find out which communities would be 24 willing to accept a repository if indeed their area was 7m i
( ,) 25 found to look geologically promising.
l NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISt.AND AVE., N W. 1 l
(202) 234 4433 WASHINGTON. D C. 20005-3701 (202) 2344 433 l
506 1 And it was a given that an underground
,-] 2 research lab would be established there as a first step.
L) 3 And if things continued, they would actually expand that 4 research lab into the facility. And you may know that 5 about ten years ago, the French were very much into salt.
6 And it was up in Brittany they had some rather nice salt 7 deposits.
8 And the -- when they went there, they wanted 9 to do some drilling. The farmers brought their tractors 10 out and lined the route and sealed off the roads, and they 11 got the message that there wasn't a great deal of 12 enthusiasm for that in that area.
13 And so they have ended up actually with three 7-(\ ) 14 sites, three potential sites currently. One is in the 15 Champagne area not far from the Nonce City close to the 16 German border in the east in the Paris Basin. Beautifully 17 simple. And one of the guiding principles of one of the 18 leaders of this group in France is the first rule of a 19 geologic repository is choose a geologically simple site.
20 If it's complex, we're never going to get it 21 approved because we won't get through all of the problems.
22 So that was a big attraction, clay, indurated clay.
23 The second one was in the Massive Centrale in 24 the sort of southern part -- south central part of France
(~h
() 25 in granite. And the third one is again in an indurated NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON. D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
507 1 clay and sediments, but in the south not far from r
^
2 Marseilles, and it looked promising.
N_)3 3 But you may know that that region is indeed 4 seismically active. And so there was a concern about what 5 was going to happen if somebody brings this up. And this 6 is the one picture I can show you because it's a map. I 7 mean, it exists outside of the --
8 (Laughter.)
9 But this is -- down here would be Marseilles 10 and the Mediterranean. And I think you know -- and over 11 here are the Alps, and over here is the Massive centrale, 12 and over here are the Pyrenees. And so you've got this 7s 13 build up thrusting this way. There's the African plate i \
\ /
~'
14 pushing through the Mediterranean up this way.
15 And then, of course, the Alpine Arogeny up 16 here. And there's this fault called the Neam Fault here.
17 And this is showing the dip. It's a thrust fault. And if 18 you look in the region, there are several faults which are 19 reasonably close to being identified as boundary faults.
20 They go right down to the basement below the sediments.
21 And the proposed repository is here. But l
22 because there's a lot of se.ismicity around here, there was 23 a concern this may not be the right place to be. And the i
1 24 debate's still going on, but we had to do a very quick ;
l
("))
\_ 25 analysis for them.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT RL?ORURS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE .'SLAND AVE., N W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C 20005 3701 (202) 234-4433
l 508 1 And so there was this well known -- well, the 73 2 person -- the professor who was in charge of drawing the (s_- ) ,
3 new structural geology map of France, and it just came out i
4 about a year ago, and he was talking -- we were chatting 1
5 about this possibility which he called protected lozenges.
l 6 rie said in the three dimensionally jointed j 7 massive rock, isn't it possible, even in a seismically 8 active region, to have something that may very well be 9 protected by boundary faults because you know that 10 seismicity is likely to occur on existing faults? l 11 And is it possible within that region there's 12 a block big enough for a repository, a s is that the case 13 here?
( ~\
\ )
14 Well, the analysis that we did -- we got some 15 geological sections and we were able, we think, to 16 identify a system of faults that bound this region. And 17 the Neam Faults and this one, they're bod thrusting in 18 the same direction. And the major principal stress is 19 coming in this direction.
20 And when we took the cross section, we found 21 something that was really an unanticipated -- at least to 22 me it was unanticipated because I thought this was going 23 to be a block of -- large blocks. But in the sediments --
l 24 and this is where I would love to have shown you the
,/ x
( ,)
l 25 diagrams -- the sediments are inclined upwards from here NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
(202) 234 4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 2344433
509 1 up to here.
,f 3 2 And they're really quite remarkably uniform.
( )
3 In other words, there's no much folding or faulting which 4 you would have anticipated some folding and faulting in 5 between here and here. There's some minor, but most of 6 the layers, even though inclined, are uniform.
7 And right down here, you'll notice that region 8 there. That's a dyeper. That's salt. And when you find 9 out where that salt comes from, it's actually at the same 10 time extruded, and it's in at the top -- just above the 11 basement of rocks and the upper sediments. And that's 12 down at a depth there of about eight kilometers going up 13 to about five in the Massive Centrale.
()
kl 14 And I think you know, if you have salt at that 15 depth, the temperature -- it's very fluid. And what 16 appears is that this whole block is sitting on this layer 17 almost like a lubricated layer. And if you try to build 18 up the stress in here, what it does is you've got a 19 contrast of the basement rock here and the basement there, 20 and you try to push it.
21 And this stuff here will just float away.
22 It's own weight, it will just push away. And all the 23 stress will go down into contact with the basement. And 24 that's where the contrast is. And that will slip, and n
() 25 that will be seismically active. And that's where you can NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
510 1 find a seismicity in the region. ,
I
- f. 2 But at the same time, the material in between 1
'O 3 looks like almost an ideal place to put it because you 4 know that it's protected from seismicity. And so this is I
5 why I say that -- I try to say be careful how one is i
6 prescriptive.
I l
7 A statement like that, not in seismically ,
l 8 active regions, might rule out -- and we're a long way ,
)
9 from saying it's ruled in -- but it might rule out an !
10 actually first rate -- something that can either be first 11 grate or, from an engineering point of view, can be made 1 12 first rate. I I
13 And that's nothing to do with the U.S. I
\ i x/ 14 prescriptions, but it's with statements made by others i
15 about how you rule out certain categories. But in 16 addition to a significant amount of work that's been done 17 by the world community over the last quarter of a decade i l
18 or so, another place where there's been a remarkable 19 change has been in, if you like, the numeracy (sic) of the 20 geotechnical and geoscience community and also the advance 21 of computers.
22 And I think that the modeling and 23 interpretation of structures in terms of computers is 24 something that's a major advance. And so, things that f
(_}) 25 were done 25 years ago, there's no comparison with what we NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
(202) 2344433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005 3701 (202) 234-4433
511 1 can do today and what we should do today.
,y 2 One other thing that I can point out, and I i )
gi 3 don't know whether this is one that you dislike, George, 4 but -- and I'm not putting the diagram up. But I like 5 this, and it shows the creativity of, I think, the Swedish 6 engineers and the very much engineering approach. They 7 came from a mining background.
8 And this question about -- for example, should 9 you insist on a ten thousand year travel time? I'm not 10 saying you should or you shouldn't for the moment. But 11 sometime ago, Tom Cotton put together a report I think for 12 the GAO in which he actually was advocating regional 13 repositories in the United States saying you shouldn't
('T i
\
' -) 14 have just one big one, you should put one here, one there, 1
15 one there; and you should design repositories -- the focus l l
16 then would be on linking it to where the nuclear waste was l l
17 generated. l I
18 And I'm not sure all of this has come to pass, 19 but the big problem with transportation today doesn't --
20 wouldn't surprise me if at some point somebody re-raises 21 this issue. You know, the old all the waste is generated 22 in the east, why are you sticking it in the west; and why l
l 23 do we have to transport it all over there.
24 And maybe one has to find a smaller scale O
(,) 25 repository and say it's not perfect, but can it be i NEAL R. GROSS l COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
l (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C- 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
512 1 engineered properly?
I g N, 2 What the Swedes did, they said look, when you l
, LJ !
3 look at this ground water travel, it's a function of two l l
4 variables, not one. It's a function of the hydraulic 5 gradient, as well as the transmissivity of the 6 permeability. And so we have spent all of our time i t
7 thinking about how to characterize the permeability of 8 transmissivity of a fractured mass.
9 And as we said before, we're not making much 10 progress. We're having a lot of trouble. 1 don't think 11 you can scale it. I don't know how you do it. I know 12 what you can try to do, but maybe this comes back to this 13 notion if an engineering design requires some parameter
\
N '/ 14 and you can't fix it, well you better make something that 15 doesn't require it.
16 And so what the Swedes said -- well, we know 17 we've got no floor if we eliminate the hydraulic gradient. ;
18 If you make the gradient zero, then the floor will drop 19 off. So what they said was they advocated a design in 20 which you -- a very different type of repository, but the l 1
21 waste was put in an interior excavation, a cavern; but l l
22 around the outside shafts are noticed that they are -- and 23 then they put spirals, tunnels arouna.
24 And from those spiral tunnels, they would f(m)/, 25 drive vertical connecting holes, bore holes, so that you NEAL R. GROSS j COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS l 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
(202) 2344433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
513 1 in essence created what is the hydraulic equivalent of a 7-~ 2 Faraday cage. You eliminate the hydraulic difference in
( l R./
3 potential across here. And then, in the inside of that, 4 they did the standard mining excavation.
5 It's something about two meters wide. And 6 they stomped down and filled it with Bentonite or a 7 Bentonite-quartz mixture. And said now, we've got no 8 hydraulic gradient, and we've added a significant 9 impermeable barrier. And what happened was, of course, 10 this was brought up at the time that Sweden was deciding 11 what it was going to do.
12 Could it design a safe storage facility, and 13 the Swedes don't have as much waste to deal with as ours, g\
h k/ 14 so this looked moderately feasible. There are actually 15 some questions about it. You have to be very careful how 16 you excavate this and underneath here, otherwise that 17 central plug will drop on you and so it's not easy to do.
18 It has to be carefully done. But the point 19 I'm trying to make with this is simply don't prescribe 20 things such that you destroy the creativity of the bright 21 engineer or scientist to look at a problem in an 22 interesting way and say how do we solve that.
23 And I'm amazed at how infrequently somebody 24 just says well, we've got all this problem, we're spending r~N ty,) 25 hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
514 1 permeability; and somebody says well, what the hell, why
,s 2 don't we get the gradient?
(v) 3 I'm not saying it's easy, but I'm just -- the 4 fact that somebody raises that other issue means you 5 employ the creativity.
6- Anyway, what happened with this, it was 7 patented and SkB bought it from the guy who designed it.
8 They had a lot of money invested it, SkB's design. But 9 some of us know about it. The other point that bears 10 another look -- I think you know that the Swiss design is j 11 to put the canisters in line with the tunnel.
12 And there's a lot of discussion about the i 13 seismic resistance of canisters in a repository in a
/
T
\~J 14 seismically active region. And I can araure you that if 15 you want to do a calculation of the shock resistance of 16 something like that with a cladding -- with a, you know, 17 Bentonite or whatever around it in the center of a tunnel, 18 it can be made very robust.
19 And I suspect in the Canadian program the 20 problem that they know of course have got with this very 21 high stress environment at 420 meters deep, and they were 22 going to put the vertical placement of the canisters, is 23 that if you do some simple sums, you get a factor of three 24 more or less augmentation of the stress field by creating (n)_,
25 the first opening, so you're getting up to three times 55, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 2344433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
1 515 1
1 about 160 MPA. l l
1 7s 2 And then you put a vertical hole in the floor '
('~)
3 to drop your canisters into. You give another factor of l 4 two or three. And then you turn the heat on or you let it 5 warm up, you're going to have a pretty badly beaten up 6 region there. So it looks, even though they have followed l 7 this in the floor design, I suspect it will very much turn 8 -- change to one of these.
9 So this is -- it's a useful design for --
10 particularly for -- so, what am I actually suggesting? I 11 feel that it's absolutely imperative -- in fact, it's I 12 almost a basic tool, is that you start off with a 13 l performance -- system performance assessment. You have l rN i
(
)
k/ 14 to do it. There's no other way.
15 And since the word -- down at WIPP, we 16 eliminated the TS and just called it PA, performance 17 accessment. And that's okay. But when one talked about 18 total system performance, I wonder where the total begins 19 and ends. Because -- and this was put in the rethinking i
20 high level waste.
21 To put the thing into context, I know i
22 comparative risk is a dirty word to a lot of people and it I
23 never gets anywhere, but I do think it's important if the 24 purpose of this, which the main purpose of it is to inform
(>
'(,) 25 the public, is to start off possibly by saying what are NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS l 1323 RHODE ISt.AND AVE., N W.
WASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701
{
(202) 234-4433 (202) 234-44:3 :
1 t
516 1 the alternatives?
1 2 What if we leave this stuff where it is for
(-)
x/
I 3 five hundred, a thousand, or ten thousand years? And l 4 what's the risk of that? The next one, although I don't j i
5 think it's a major case of transportation, is a pseudorisk 6 of no matter how little you say that risk is, the public 7 won't let you transport it.
8 And then we come to the geological risk. And )
l 9 I think a total system must somehow at least start to 10 build an integrated picture like that.
11 When it comes to particular media and looking 12 at how the performance assessment goes from there, there 13 are a few things that I'd like to mention. Salt and clay, A.
! I x/ 14 particularly salt and coming from the WIPP experience --
15 something that to me was a very important lesson was if 16 you look around the rest of the world, everybody's 17 concerned about the performance of the repository or 18 potential performance and the undisturbed condition.
19 Yucca Mountain, we're looking at ground water 20 travel time. I just heard this morning John Greeves 21 saying that human intrusion would probably not be 22 considered, and I think that's smart.
23 But at WIPP, this salt, the performance, was 24 so fine, so excellent, that if you read our report, you em
( ,) 25 may not -- you'll see that every -- almost every chapter NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
517 1 and a wide variety of opinions and ideas about 73 2 repositories, everyone signed off and said under N~]
3 undisturbed conditions, the following concerns are 4 irrelevant.
5 And so what happened then -- so they 6 concentrated, because of the resource possibilities of 7 WIPP, of any salt, of what is the likelihood of a human 8 intrusion; and so the whole thing was focused on that.
9 And the focusing of attention, one is now at the point --
10 and this is a syndrome of the scientific community and I 11 suppose others -- we all pretend that the problem we're 12 looking at is the total problem.
13 And then you'll take a piece of that and 1 7_
( )
14 everybody focus on that. And I left a meeting yesterday 15 where DOE in its wisdom had chosen in its performance 16 assessment to do some very conservative assessments to say 17 if we pass with this, we don't know the real behavior, so I l
18 we're going to make some assumptions. I i
19 And one of the assumptions was that this 20 repository in salt will compact -- the waste will compact 21 with a residual porosity of 20%. And based on tests in 22 the lab, they took these 50 gallon drums of junk --
23 transuranic waste, and loaded it up to lithostatic 24 pressure. Found that it compacted to leaving a residual
(~h
(_,) 25 void volume of about 20% and said that's it.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
518 1 So they put in that permanent porosity, and 2 then they have some very conservative figures about rates 73 (j
3 of brine inflow and the permeability of the brine itself -
4 - excuse me, that the salt itself -- I think we all 5 concluded that it's essentially impermeable. But there 6 are anhydride layers in there which have some 7 permeability.
8 And we took some very conservative values in 9 that. By taking very conservative value of that, they get 10 enough water in there to corrode all the canisters and 11 create gas which filled these voids. And then they came 12 to -- they made the next statement that this waste will 13 corrode and deteriorate to the consistency of fine sand.
r~%
I )
k/ 14 Now how you get a burnt out motor to corrode 15 to the consistency of fine sand or a -- you know, a lab 16 jacket, I don't know. But that's what they said. They 17 said boy, that's so conservative. But then, when they 18 started to consider human intrusion, you have a gas -- a 19 repository pressurized to lithostatic pressure with gas.
20 The moment you tap into that, everything in 21 that repository comes out. And here is something which, 22 in my view, it's (a) the human intrusion scenario is an 23 invented one. This other scenario is invented by well-24 meaning people who didn't know what the long term behavior
(~T
(_) 25 of this stuff would be, so took what they thought was a NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1M3 RHODE ISMND AVE., N W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
1 519 1 conservative assumption.
s., 2 But the whole approval process or licensing (v )
3 process for WIPP is now hung up on that model and saying 4 that one in the magnesium oxide performance. It's not a l 5 secret. And if I talk to George Dial, he'll ray it's 6 costing him a half a million dollars a day to hold that 7 whole thing up because they've got everybody ready to go 8 or get moving and they can't.
9 And they've got every state in the Union where 10 there's waste pounding them. And so this is where again 11 it's -- I'm trying to illustrate, not criticize; because I 12 don't think I would have done any better. But in looking 13 at a standard, I think that when we do performance
\
i
\- 14 assessment, it's critically important to start -- what is 15 the reasonable behavior that the best informed says is 16 going to happen, and then put your uncertainties -- how 17 bad could it be, how would it be -- put those as bounds on 18 reasonable behavior.
19 Because if not, the -- taken to extreme 20 positions, this is what is not the prescriptive approach 21 of NRC -- but we criticized in our WIPP report DOE for 22 taking these extreme positions because they can come back 23 and bite you in this way.
24 Because now what everybody's focused on is not
,m
(_) 25 even human intrusion. Some of this quotes Spaulding's NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
520 3 model which is a total fiction, in my view, and that's a 2 personal opinion. I just got back the other day from 7-N.) 3 visiting some salt mines in northern Austria which were 4 operated by the Celts 1200 B.C.
5 That's 3,000 years ago. And you can go into 6 that mine, and you can see artifacts of cloth, clothing, 7 chicken bones actually as well, if any of you like chicken 8 for lunch -- and a lot of bronze and, in another mine not 9 far away, steel implements. And you talk to the curator 10 of the museum, and he says those things didn't have a 11 single tarnish on them, and the rope was as strong as when ;
12 it was made. ,
j 13 They cut the timbers in order to make some l l
I 14 opening to get into, and that timber -- you'd think you 15 were cutting this years growth. It was beautiful. So it 1
16 was all preserved. And yet we have to -- we're saying 17 that stuff degrades to fine sand. It just doesn't happen.
18 So it's a very interesting actual analog.
19 So the point I was trying to say, what are the 20 components of anything we do in performance assessment. I 21 really would ask that we engage the geotechnical community 22 -- say what is your best estimate of what that will be, 23 and use that as the linkage going through, and then how 24 uncertain -- not take the extremes.
/^\
( ,) 25 Oh, I might mention here this -- I was going NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
521 1 to say that the different types of rock brought in for g- 2 different purposes -- there are a couple of things that
(_)) 3 one has not said much about, but I think NRC will have to 4 address it one way or another. And even if you don't want 5 to, this is how you deal with human intrusion.
6 I think it's going to come because it's being 7 brought up in another context. And so once it's up, it's 8 up. Europeans generally are trying to push it aside and 9 say, you know, we've got human -- they believe they've got 10 institution controls for four to five hundred years and 11 feel that they can push it back.
12 The other quection is this one of 13 retrieveability. I think retrieveability has a number of f%
'\-] 14 important potentially negative connotations about what 15 would otherwise be a very good solution. Trying to keep 16 salt open for 50 years is not tough. I don't think it's j l
17 difficult to do, and I think if you didn't have it but
\
l 18 required somebody to show that they could actually take j 1
19 transuranic waste, at least, out without having to hold 20 this open for a length of time would be a big problem. l 1
21 I'll come back to this ground water travel 22 time. This is somewhat of an anecdote. My first contact 23 with radioactive waste was actually in a project proposed 24 I think by Dow Chemicr' for Savannah River waste. And O this was -- of course, you know a lot of that was slurry.
's_/ 15 l
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 2344433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 l l
522 1 And so they had what I thought was a marvelous design.
r^x 2 They just took a series of underground b 3 inclined tunnels with an incline -- I figure it wasn't 4 very steep -- but inclined tunnel, parallel tunnels. And 5 they were just going to take this waste slurried and pump 6 it down the shaft and let it fill up in a dilute form with 7 cement so it would solidify.
8 And of course, by being inclined, you got nice 9 contact with the roof and floor, and you got immediate 10 contact. And the -- it looked like a marvelous solution.
11 It was very simple. It was going to take five years 12 working very carefully to put this material down into the 7_
13 waste and get underneath the Savannah River Plant in
( )
14 triassics and so on. l 15 Again, this -- there were a couple of faults 16 there that I thought looked good for protecting it. But 17 it was -- this proposal was knocked down, or this idea was i l
18 knocked down, because this shaft would go through the l
19 Tuscaloosa Aquifer. And there was great concern at the 20 time. They said that what if there had been an earthquake 21 at Charleston many years ago.
22 What if there's an earthquake at the time that 23 this stuff was being pumped down? Now this was the same 24 time that we were putting men on the moon. So the notion rm 25 of shock isolation was not foreign to the U.S. community.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
523 1 And so we had a good idea of how to isolate that.
2 The problem would have been resolved. They 73 b 3 would have had to worry about off site transportation.
4 But the real kicker of knocking it down was when they 5 looked at the model for how fast this waste would migrate.
6 And there was the ideal porous permeable medium, and it 7 was going to take a quarter of a million years, I think, 8 before it moved very, very far.
9 And M.K. Hubbert was one of the reviewers.
10 And he said yes, but this is a fracture zone, and I will 11 take and take a single fracture, parallel plate fracture, 12 and take it from the repository to the bottom of the 13 Tuscaloosa, and it will get there in 100 years. Or it was
.O
'- '/ 14 some number like that.
15 That was the -- and nobody could refute the 16 argument. And this was part of the difficulty, and I 17 don't think -- still think we've got that problem of how, 18 wher you're talking about ground water travel time, how do 19 you define it. Do you define it as fracture flow or 20 porous permeable medium?
21 And that argument is so much at the forefront 22 of the geotechnical -- one of the geotechnical issues 23 right now that I think you'll be in court a long time 24 trying to defend something that stipulates 1,000 year fG t
q,) 25 travel time.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
524 l 1 So I don't think -- I'm not even sure I want 73 2 to show this because I don't really quite believe that you l i'~' )
3 should eliminate the prescriptive requirements. What I 4 would say is that the way in which they're currently 5 formulated, I think there is very good value in saying if 6 we're going to design -- after all, it's an engineered 7 problem.
8 If you're looking to design an engineered 9 solution, let's have several steps in there the way John 10 just said about getting a risk assessment for each 11 component. But there are things you can do which are 12 within the context of a thousand or ten thousand years of 13 extrapolating and understanding performance.
( )
\' 14 And there is a particular need in some ways to 15 repair or to make sure that you've got the excavation 16 damage zone which runs out one of two radii of the 17 excavations -- that you make sure that performs well. But 18 if that doesn't perform well, although -- you're missing 19 an opportunity.
20 There are things you can do with backfill, 21 there are things you can do with shock isolation to 22 eliminate a number of problems that you may be tagged with 23 in certain areas. So that is a very good one to show 24 people that you have designed the initial installation so
,y,
(,,) 25 -- and I think once you just take away the 1,000 year NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE , N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
525 1 rmber for a canister and just say show us what you can do gS e with a canister.
v)
?
3 Put a canister in as a component. And then, 4 beyond that, this intermediate field, there are things one 5 can do. One might be able to prescribe certain things 6 where you can actually do some monitoring over that scale.
7 Because monitoring is something that also gives people 8 confidence, and there's no way you can do much -- except l
9 perhaps the geochemist community.
10 And I'm not saying that lightly. I think that 11 is a real contribution for the geochemists to perhaps help 12 with the far field modeling and have something for each of 13 these components. But with all that, the thing that will, i i
\> 14 I think, be very useful and very valuable to the public is 15 to design a standard regulation that's in concert with the 16 rest of the international community.
I 17 The U.S. is -- and I think we should go to a 18 true safety standard. Dose, risk is what I mean. And I 19 think John will just -- will concur with me that if you i 20 look at the release standards that are now applied at WIPP a
21 and the EPA standards, I'm not knocking this totally, but 22 I'm saying that a release occurs when you, under the l
23 definition, if you get migration to the so-called -- the 24 boundary.
(~\
() 25 But that boundary is a circle or a rectangle, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS i 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234 4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005 3701 (202) 234-4433 I
1 526 1 whichever way you want to do it, that extends from the --
7S 2 about two kilometers each side of the repository going
\
x_/
) .
3 down to the center of the earth. And so it can pass that )
4 boundary at 650 meters below the surface, and it's a 5 violation.
l 6 It's in violation of standard. And I say l 7 okay, well yes, you can pump into there, but what you pump ,
8 up would be non-potable brine. And so what kind of a 9 hazard is it? And so I believe that there is a great deal 10 of margin of extra cecurity that one would see in that 11 kind of a repository and make it a more attractive 12 repository.
13 You wouldn't have that margin of security at r i l I
14 Yucca Mountain. And so that's why I think that you could 15 have same releases, very different consequences. And so 16 we are missing a further discriminant between sites if we 17 don't put that in.
18 Well, I think that's about as far as I should 19 go, John.
20 I'd be happy to try to answer questions if 21 anybody wants. Sorry it took longer than I thought.
22 VICE CHAIRMAN GARRICK: No, I think that was 23 very interesting.
24 And I trust, Lynn, that you'll get us a copy
, N,
(_,/ 25 of his exhibits one way or another. l NEAL R. GROSS :
COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLANJ AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
527 1 MS. DEERING: I'm working on it.
,r'N 2 VICE CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Okay.
( )
N _/
3 DR. FAIRHURST: I'll give them all to you 4 except the ones that --
5 VICE CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Give us the ones you 6 don't want to give us.
7 Yes, I have a couple of questions, but let me 8 yield to my colleague here.
9 (Laughter.)
10 CHAIRMAN POMEROY: You go ahead, John.
11 VICE CHAIRMAN GARRICK: I think that one of 12 the things that you're saying, Charles, is that what we 7
13 really should be doing is coming up with criteria that are
'-'] 14 compatible with being able to optimize the design with 15 respect to achieving a certain safety requirement.
16 And that might include some sort of subsystem 17 requirement, but may be structured a little differently 18 than the existing ones. And I guess I'd like to quiz you 19 on that a little bit. And let me just kind of put out a 20 leader.
21 If, in this day where we do have computers and 22 we can model repositories and we can break it up into 23 pieces and parts, maybe what we should be thinking about 24 in terms of lines of defense or barriers or specifying n i
(_,/ 25 critical points in the model, if you wish, in terms of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON. D C. 20005 3701 (202) 2344433
528 1 understanding them and somewhat agreeing on them on a site fx 2 specific basis rather than prescribing a specific i )
%J 3 requirement -- I know as somebody that's worked in the 4 reliability engineering field that we used to do something 5 called apportionment.
6 We'd want to achieve a certain level of 7 reliability, and then we would apportion that level of 8 reliability down to the system, subsystem, and component 9 level. And generally, that in theory sounded very 10 reasonable; but in practice, it was usually a disaster and 11 never worked very well.
12 So the question is, how can we manage our 13 uncertainties; how can we feel -- develop that warm, fuzzy p_
- \
k# 14 feeling you indicated without necessarily compromising the 15 ingenuity and creativity of the designers?
16 And let me, as I say, just throw out a thought 17 here. If we think in terms of what a performance 18 assessment model is, and let ua for a moment say that what 19 we mean by a performance assessment model is a structure 20 set of scenarios that deals with the question of what can 21 go wrong with the repository, perhaps one approach we 22 could take, therefore, is that if we say that a scenario l 23 has to have a starting point and an end point, and that 24 starting point should be anchored very strongly to a
(' _)\ 25 specific application at our specific site, maybe what we i NEAL R. GROSS l COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISt.AND AVE., N W.
(
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
l l
529 1 should be focusing on in terms of requirements is on an 73 2 agreed on set of initial conditions.
f i V
3 or in the reactor business, we might call them 4 an agreed on set of initiating events. Because that 5 becomes the fundamental building block of developing the j 6 scenarios that would form the basis of our answer to the 7 question of what can go wrong.
8 Maybe, in addition to that, once you -- the 9 regulator and the applicant have agreed on what 10 constitutes a rational and defensible set of initial 11 conditions -- and an example of an initial condition could 12 be a range of infiltration rates -- then maybe we could be 13 talking about pinch points in the model such as the source i
kl 14 term where we might define the source term as the flux out 15 of the region of the engineered barriers.
16 And of course, then you could define other 17 interfaces appropriate to the specific site. And possibly 18 a strategy, therefore, could be talking in terms of those 19 fluxes in terms of what they are and their rates and what 20 have you rather than thinking as much as we often do in 21 terms of the criteria that are currently considered such 22 as containment, control release rate, and ground water 23 travel time.
24 So my whole point is that maybe in this
(-
( ,1 25 contemporary world of risk-informed performance-based NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
530 1 analyses, we ought to retnink what the requirements ought r- 2 to be, and maybe we ought to be thinking along an entirely
(
i.
3 different dimension or plane.
4 DR. FAIRHURST: Yes, what I -- I think the 5 important thing, of course, is to ultimately make sure 6 that the risk to the biosphere or outside is --
7 VICE CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Yes.
8 DR. FAIRHURST: -- that's the crucial issue.
9 And we move backwards as to see how you 10 achieve that and reach that. You could define a certain 11 release. Now I like that, except that I don't want -- and 12 this is -- it's not an easy puzzle. I would like to make 13 some set of -- as you call them, subsystem requirements, 14 but not ones that are so rigidly defined that you let 15 somebody do a subdesign for that and only that.
16 It may well be that, as we've said, now you 17 can modify it if you can demonstrate, you know, there's 18 one that you list but you don't need to satisfy it if you 19 can demonstrate that you don't need it or something. But 20 I think that the main problem of -- there is -- somehow 21 you should encourage the designer to do something in the 22 near field that will make sure that he's got the 23 confinement that he can -- the best confinement.
24 For example, in WIPP, one of the big problems O)
(_ 25 is not -- was that one couldn't understand very well tha NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 123 RHODE ISMND AVE., N W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
531 1 solubility of plutonium because it was in different g-~g 2 activation states. And when you asked expert elicitation G! 3 panels -- what was it, six, seven, ten orders of magnitude 4 variation.
5 But then they say well, we can control that a 6 lot by putting magnesium oxide in the waste. And that 7 was, I think, an imaginative way -- still being argued 8 about -- but of saying well, let's try to limit that 9 problem.
10 Now in reality, there was a particular 11 solubility or group of solubility that would occur. But 12 they eliminated a range of uncertainties by a technical 13 option. And I wouldn't have thought of that, so I I
\ 14 wouldn't like to prescribe in advance exactly what it is.
15 But I say you must take -- you must do what 16 you can at each step of this game to -- I wouldn't say 17 minimize. I want to say take maximum advantage of what 18 engineering options are reasonably available. I don't 19 know how to put it.
20 VICE CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Yes, yes.
21 Well, and I didn't know -- and I didn't 22 articulate it very well either, but the idea here is that 23 may'..e in a time when we are able to do much improved 24 performance assessments, one option here would be to O
(_,/ 25 consider some sort of criteria or guidelines that would NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005 3701 (202) 2344433
532 1 allow us to step-wise move through this model --
2 DR. FAIRHURST: Yes, yes.
r~]
t
'n J 3 VICE CHAIRMAN GARRICK: -- and agree.
4 For exampic. I think if there could be 5 agreement on what the initial conditions are that 6 constitute the starting point of the scenarios that you 7 want to examine, that would be an enormous step forward.
8 And there would probably have to be a very good reason as 9 to why downstream, if somebody didn't like the result, 10 you'd come back and change the initial conditions.
11 DR. FAIRHURST: One thing, for example. I'm 12 just thinking on the fly now. One might say that you must 13 demonstrate a reasonable -- that you don't adversely
,_N E]'
14 affect the permeability beyond a certain region. And that 15 would perhaps push you into looking at your loading 16 density, your thermal loading densities.
17 You know, at Yucca Mountain, one's talking 18 about quite high temperatures. Everybody else is talking 19 about keeping it below 100 C. And in certain rock types, 20 it might be, as in for example in the Canadians, if they 21 ever had temperatures going up to that, they'd crack it 22 right through to the surface.
23 Not really, but they'd have a large damage 24 zone, and that would not be a good thing. And so you may n
(_ / 25 say -- because in fact, that is an important consideration NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS l I?23 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W. j (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 1
533 1 in their case because something like 150 meters away is a 2 thrust fault.
1
(~ 3 And they have to make sure that they don't 4 have any rapid communication to an enlarged radius. And 5 so it is important for them to make sure that they don't 6 induce a significant fracture zone outside. So for them, 7 I think you might have a rule saying that you must be able 8 to demonstrate the permeability beyond two radii or 9 whatever, three radii.
10 That's just a site specific -- but taking 11 something at each of the three ranges that you feel would 12 be useful to do.
13 VICE CHAIRMAN GARRICK: George?
r s
' -- ) 14 MEMBER HORNBERGER: Charles, could you say a )
l 15 few words on where you -- with your international 16 experience, where does Switzerland or France or any of 1
17 these other operations, where do you see them in relation 18 to the subsystem performance goals versus going toward a l 19 risk-based standard?
20 DR. FAIRHURST: Well, they are -- they're all 21 essentially moving toward a risk-based standard -- dose 22 standard at any rate.
23 MEMBER HORNBERGER: Is anyone farther along 24 than we are?
p
() _
25 DR. FAIRHURST: No.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234 4 433
534 1 Perhaps the Swedes, but the -- I don't know if s 2 you know that the Swiss had the site for intermediate
/ \
V 3 level waste at Wallenberg. And they had some very 4 interesting -- 1,000 year travel time. They found 5 negative pore pressures at depth. So in essence, there's 6 regions where the flow field is not accommodated.
7 lt's highly impermeable. And in some places, 8 it appears that the flow is towards some region inwards 9 and outwards. And so there might be areas inside there 10 that they could locate something where the actual flow 11 appears to be towards the repository rather than away from 12 it.
13 Which, you know, it's -- and they're very
( ;
\> 14 excited about it because it looked like something they 15 hadn't even thought about where the local community just 16 turned thumbs down on the site. So they really don't kncu 17 where they are. McAughey's very depressed and it was by a 18 50.5 to 49.5 vote.
19 And so -- and I think you know that in 20 Selafield in the U.K., that was just turned thumbs down.
1 21 And some people say it may get reopened after the British 22 election. But for the moment, the British are in rather 23 dire straits.
24 But the -- as far as the actual designs of the
(~T
(,,) 25 repositories, there's been lots of work been done by each l
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS i 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 2344433 )
I
535 1 of these on site investigations and some excellent 2 modeling being done, for example, to explain the negative U
3 pore pressures. And the capabilities of modeling these 4 days are really quite significant for some of these.
5 The French are at the stage of trying to work 6 with -- they may be, from an economic consideration, 7 determined to knock out one of those three sites. But I 8 think it will be the -- if it goes, it will be the granite 9 site because a couple of people on the review committee do 10 not like the difficulties of trying to characterize 11 fracture flow.
12 They say that that is too big a problem. And 13 the French are very pragmatic about it saying that if we
(~w\
\
- /
14 could have a simple geology so that we can do our 1 15 performance assessment with a better reliability than 1
16 another site, we're going to take that site. '
17 So it's the same pragmatic thing of saying if 18 people are not going to accept it, well why even go to 19 salt, as much as we like salt? But the French -- what 20 they are doing is each year issuing an update on each of 21 those three sites. And they have got a very fast 22 schedule. I think that it's by 2005, I believe it is, 23 they have to decide where the site is.
24 And then that is the site. In other words, C's
() 25 it's not -- it's where -- if you like Yucca Mountain, it's NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005 3701 (202) 234-4433
l 536 1 not to that stage yet. There's still a lot of debate as
, -) 2 to whether it's an acceptable site. But they have to pick C/
3 a site which they're going to go with.
4 So it's very fast. The Germans, there's some 5 trouble, I think, with the Gahlaven site. I don't know if 6 you know about that, but there's some --
7 VICE CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Paul?
8 CHAIRMAN POMEROY: Charles, switching gears 9 here a little bit, as I remember, the rethinking document 10 talked a lot about flexibility of the regulators. And we 11 certainly concur with that. In the four options that you 12 and John have laid out here, there's certainly options 13 that allow a great deal of flexibility.
/,,\
-' 14 But if you had a set of regulations with some 15 imaginative subsystem requirements, do you have any 16 thoughts on how we might get greater flexibility for the 17 regulators within those more flexible perhaps subsystem 18 requirements?
19 DR. FAIRHURST: Well, that's a very tough 20 question.
21 CHAIRMAN POMEROY: I know, I know.
22 DR. FAIRHURST: And it's one that, if you 23 like, I'm pleased that I've not had to come to grips with 24 it too much.
["N
(,,! 25 But it's a very good one. You have to decide NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005 3701 (202) 234-4433
537 1 what is your --
(7 2 CHAIRMAN POMEROY: As you know, there's a lot L
3 of problems with the existing requirements because even 4 though there's flexibility stated in the regulations. In 5 fact, as --
6 DR. FAIRHURST: The perception is that it's 7 not, right.
8 CHAIRMAN POMEROY: -- has been pointed out, 9 there's not, right, yes.
10 DR. FAIRHURST: One of the things that bothers 1 l
11 me about the general U.S. approach is not just simply that )
1 12 it's very prescriptive, but it's written down in such a
, 13 way -- and John, I better now put words in your mouth.
/ ,$ 1 l
\*) 14 But my view is don't give lawyers more opportunity than 15 they have right now.
16 By that, I mean if you put something down that 17 says it has to be a 1,000 year travel time, then 18 somebody's going to say okay, is this Darcy flow, is it 19 fracture flow, and they'll keep you in court for the next 20 15 years arguing about something that possibly doesn't 21 matter.
22 Beciuse it's stated in the regulations in a 23 very -- "looks like a very restrictive way." And I don't 24 know how to do it. But it's a thing you must show that
/O U. 25 you have optimized the design in the near field and NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS l 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
(202) 2344 433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 l
l l
538 1 optimize it in the intermediate field and the far field in 2 such a way that the overall is not suboptimal.
7-V 3 I don't know how -- I'd rather do it in a 4 goosey way, if you like.
5 CHAIRMAN POMEROY: Okay.
6 DR. FAIRHURST: And I think you could sit down 7 and decide what that is.
8 VICE CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Goosey. How can I 9 write that down? l 1
10 CHAIRMAN POMEROY: Thank you. l 11 DR. FAIRHURST: I think that's one I learned 12 from --
13 CHAIRMAN POMEROY: Thank you, Charles.
! '\
14 DR. FAIRHURST: No, and I -- I'd like to try 15 -- because they didn't have those subsystem requirements 16 in the WIPP, and we've managed to seemingly come to a fair 17 degree of consensus that we understand that's a good --
18 and thank God for creep.
19 CHAIRMAN POMEROY: Yes.
20 MR. FRISHMAN: We promised to get you out of 21 here at 3:00 because I know you have to catch a plane, but 22 I wanted to give Bill a chance to --
23 MEMBER HINZC: There's no point in me starting 24 with just four minutes.
(.
(_) 25 (Laughter.)
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
539 1 DR. FAIRHURST: ll stay an extra ten or 15 7s 2 for you. No, go ahead. j
% 1 (u ,/
3 MEMBER HINZE: Well, first of all, I want to 4 congratulate you on a very insightful and provocative, 5 thought inspiring conversation. I think this committee 6 and certainly I have had a strong devotion to the 7 rethinking document. It's like stability's very important i
8 to us. And we do have some opportunities this time '
l 9 because, as we move into this next stage, we're looking at 10 Yucca Mountain and the Yucca Mountain only.
11 So the problem may be a little more tractable 12 than going to set out a generic document. The Government ;
13 usually does what I consider the least common denominator.
,,y
'N-) 14 They work with the least common denominator, and therefore 15 come up with the worst possible set of situations.
16 A couple of things though. One of the things 17 that I found very interesting with your second 18 transparency and the bar chart of time -- as a 19 geoscientist, I was kind of alarmed to hear you say that 20 you felt that geologists were very comfortable in this 10 8, 21 10' region.
22 DR. FAIRHURST: Well, --
23 (Laughter.)
24 MEMBER HINZE: My personal expertise covers 20
,/-'N
( ,) 25 million years, 1.1 billion years ago, and I'm very NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
1 540 l
1 familiar with that. But I would be hesitant to predict l l
l
,m 2 too much into the future to those time scales.
I )
3 But your point was that this 10 3 -10 6 range is 4 kind of a no man's land. l 5 DR. FAIRHURST: Absolutely, it's a no man's 6 land.
7 MEMBER HINZE: And the -- my concern here is 8 that are you saying that -- and is it your thinking that 9 the uncertainties are so large there in terms of what 10 we're trying to accomplish that we cannot consider a 11 geological -- well, --
12 DR. FAIRHURST: No, no -- okay, no; I get your 13 point.
I I V 14 No, the point was that, you know, engineering 15 developments come on the heels of scientific discovery or 16 scientific understanding. And when I was saying -- and I 17 consider myself partially geoscientist too. But what I 18 meant by being comfortable, it was a scientific, academic 19 discussion of the origin of the earth and so on.
20 And it wasn't -- and it's not correct, but if 21 you are going to look for ground water regime, you know, 22 in some area, you'd better look at local effects. But the 23 consequences in a quantitative sense and in a -- meeting a 24 standard, that's a unique problem. And being asked to ;
n a I
e
() 25 come up and understand how a -- you know, very few people, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS I
1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
541 1 if they're hydrologists, in trying to supply a local
,y 2 community, would look for water in granite.
t 1
'V 3 We are very often being asked to find sites 4 which have such low permeability or such -- trying to 5 measure, to verify what you've got by traditional 6 techniques won't work. The current notion about 7 monitoring -- somebody says okay, we can be nice and say 8 you better do this about the near field zone.
9 But if you make it so good, what techniques 10 are you going to make to verify that you've actually 11 achieved that? And the achievement is no flow or 12 whatever. It's not easy.
i
,_ 13 MEMBER HINZE: Well, we have faced this
! )
14 uncertainty problem and the increase of uncertainty with i
15 time and our consideration of times of compliance in both l l
16 low level and high level waste. Just to make certain that 1 17 I keep my colleague two to the left in line., I was a bit 18 dismayed by one of your transparencies that was probably 19 the sixth or seventh one in which you gave the human 20 intrusion risk, the geological risk, but you didn't face 21 the -- one of the items in that was not the engineering 22 risk.
23 And I'm sure that we're all aware that there 24 are engineering risks as well. Is that not right?
,o
(_,) 25 DR. FAIRHURST: Yes, engineering risks of --
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
542 1 1 MEMBER HINZE: Of the failure of the system, i l
' gS 2 the canister, the engineered barriers.
V 3 DR. FAIRHURST: Oh, of course, of course.
4 No, no, no, no.
5 MEMBER HINZE: I just wanted to keep my former 6 friend here in line. Because we will probably have a go 7 at that.
8 VICE CHAIRMAN GARRICK: He doesn't appreciate 9 that engineering is perfect at all.
10 (Laughter.)
11 MEMBER HINZE: The last thing that I would 12 like to follow up on is the retrieveability. Did you
,s 13 happen to have a chance to see Nuclear Reaction last night
' I t
- 14 on PBS at 9:00?
15 DR. FAIRHURST: No, no; I was in an airplane.
16 MEMBER HINZE: Well, we'll have to get you a 17 video of that. And it looked at the totality of the 18 nuclear power problem here in the U.S. and looked at it 19 also from an international viewpoint. And one of the 20 points -- and most people in the room I presume saw this.
21 One of the points was that France had been able to achieve 22 a real rapoire with the local residents and that this --
l 23 with nuclear power.
24 And also, there seemed to be a possibility of
.f 3
(_) 25 doing this for the waste site for the repository because l NEAL R. GROSS l COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
l (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 i
543 1 it was going to be used as a situation where you could g3 2 retrieve the waste and monitor the waste -- where you N.-]
3 could retrieve and monitor the waste.
4 And they gave that as one of the reasons why 5 France is able to achieve this kind of coordination 6 between --
7 DE. FAIRHURST: Acceptance, yes.
8 MEMBER HINZE: -- the locals. And there are 9 negative aspects certainly of retrieveability. But could 10 you expand upon what -- where you were coming from in 11 terms of --
12 DR. FAIRHURST: Yes. Take salt, for example.
13 One of the main values of salt is that it's --
Y- 14 MEMBER HINZE: With salt, you can't retrieve.
15 I would hope that --
16 DR. FAIRHURST: Pardon?
17 MEMBER HINZE: I would hope we would not try 18 to retrieve out of salt.
19 DR. FAIRHURST: No, but if you have a 20 retrieveability condition, you would have to maintain that 21 facility open. You'd have to counter the creep in order 22 to do it.
I 23 MEMBER HINZE: Right.
l 24 DR. FAIRHURST: And I think that's possibly p
'\._) 25 counter productive. It might be possible to go in and say NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON. D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
544 1 look, I've encapsulated this and here in these mines that fS 2 are 3,000 years old, archaeologists are now opening up 1 l
%j 3 that area and bringing everything out even though it's 4 been allowed to close.
5 So that's a different -- now admittedly, if 6 you pull high level waste out, it's different than pulling 7 out a few twigs. But the notion of allowing it to close 8 and then saying if something is happening -- I don't know 9 how you will test whether or not it's performing 10 satisfactorily if you won't allow it to evolve.
11 You know, that's -- now with granite -- with 12 the clay, it's very similar to salt. You know, you want -
l 13 - in the boom clay in Belgium, for example, that stuff, I,_)
'2
'~ 14 you have to freeze it to stop it from closing in. But the l
15 -- well, you don't, you know, i
l 16 But I'm saying that the requirement of I
17 maintaining access to something -- it may be not a big 18 problem during a 50 year period for many things because l
l 19 it's the operation of a lifetime of filling it. But -- '
l i
l 20 and it's interesting what you said about the French, 1
l 21 because I'm actually on the advisory groep that's i 22 overseeing it.
23 They are required to have a section on l
I 24 reversibility -- retrieveability in each one. But if you f%,
(_) 25 talk to them as engineers, they are not making a big issue NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005 3701 (202) 234-4433
545 1 of it because they're not -- they're saying yeah, we'll
,e 2 put it in there; but we're hoping our design is such and O' 3 the retrieveability period is a period of stocking it.
4 Not quite, but almost.
5 VICE CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Charles, since I have 6 to deal with you in the future, I think I better not be 7 responsible for you missing your schedule.
8 So with that, I think we want to thank you 9 again very much for this illuminating discussion and 10 presentation.
11 DR. FAIRHURST: Thank you very much. I hope 12 it was useful. I wasn't sure what direction I had to come 13 from.
rx.
d 5
V 14 VICE CHAIRMAN GARRICK: And Mr. Chairman, can 15 we have a break now? Is it appropriate?
16 CHAIRMAN POMEROY: Yes, I'd like to thank you 17 too, Charles.
18 We'll take a break for 15 minutes. Reconvene 19 at 20 minutes after. We're through with the recording.
20 (Whereupon, the proceedings were adjourned at 21 3:12 p.m.) j 22 23 24 Qj 25 l NEAL R. GROSS j COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISt.AND AVE., N W.
l j (202) 234-4433 #ASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 l
l O CERTIFICATE i
l This is to certify that the attached proceedings before the United States Nuclear 1
Regulatory Commission in the matter of:
l l
Name of Proceeding: 91 87 ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON NUCLEAR l WASTE (ACNW) MEETING i Docket Number: N/A l
Place of Proceeding: ROCKVILLE, MARYLAND ]
! I l
were held as.harein appears, and that this is the original i
i transcript thereof for the file of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission taken by me and, thereafter reduced to typewriting by me or under the direction of the court j l
reporting company, and that the transcript is a true and '
accurate record of the foregoing proceedings.
d&Pa Q ORBETT RINER Official Reporter Neal R. Gross and Co., Inc.
i i
IO l NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RilODEISLAND AVENUE,NW '
(202)234-4433 WASillNGTON. D C. 20005 (202)234 4433
- - _ _ - --- - - - - - - - -- -- - - -- --- - ^^' - ~ ~ ~
i THE VALUE OFSTATE OVERSIGHTIN THE i
DEPARTMENTOFENERGY
\
- YUCCA MOUNTAINPROJECT i
4 l For:Senne ofNemmie l i
Nedear Wasse P>wpiect OfFce i
O By: Linda Lehman, President Technical & Regulatory Evaluations Group,Inc 13231 Henning Circle, NE Prior Lake, MN55372 Telephone (612) 4964594 Fax (612) 4W2097 E-MailLLichnoen @ AOLCOM l O
.,, ?
4 O !
THENUCLEAR WASTEPOLICYACTOF1982 PROVIDES: ,
e REVEW AMS CWERSIGHT BY AFFECTED STATES AND INDIAN TRIBES I =
REVEW AMS OVERSIGHT TO BE FUNDED BY NUCLEAR WASTE FUND THE 1987 AMENDMENTS OF THE ACTPROVIDED:
O= YUCCA MOUNTAIN, NEVADA AS THE ONLY SITE UNDER CONSIDERATION REVIEW AND OVERSK;HT TO APTECTED LOCAL UNITS OF GOVERNMENT l
l O
m o ,a O
IN OCTOBER 1995 DOE WITHHELD REVIEWAND OVERSIGHT FUNDS:
BASED ON THE RECOMMENDATIONS OF A FEW CONGRESSMEN WHO WERE INFLUENrr.D BY THE NUCLEAR INDUSTRY THIS ACTION WAS JUSTIFIED WITHIN THE CONGRESS BY IMPLYING:
O. THE STATE WAS TO BLAME FOR LACK OF PROGRESS TOWARD DISPOSAL GOALS, AND
=
STATE TECHNICAL REVIEWS AND RESEARCH DONE BY THE STATE WERE NOT VALID AND ONLY OFFERED TO CAUSE DELAYS.
O
-..._+.-....--.-.---n, .- . . . .....- . - ~ -. .-.. . . . - -. ~ - - . . .~ . - . . _ . - . . - , .. - . . _ _ - > .
3 k 3' O
l l
THE QUESTIONIS WHETHER THIS WAS A CORRECT OR RESPONSIBLE ACTION AND WHA T WAS ITS REAL COST?
i O
l l
O
m
- , i s i
O 4
i i
STATE OFNEVADA OVERSIGHTFUNDS RANGED FROM 1 -2 % OF DOE NUCLEAR WASTE PROGRAM BUDGET FUNDS UTILIZED FOR TECHNICAL REVIEWS OF:
e PROGRAM PLANS AND REPORTS ON YUCCA MOUNTAIN SITE INVESTIGATIONS DATA AND ANALYSES UNDERTAKEN BY THE DOE AND THEIR LABORATORIES AND CONTRACTORS FUNDS ALLOCATED TO STUDIES OF SOCIOECONOMIC AND TRANSPORTATION IMPACTS FROM A YUCCA MOUNTAIN SITE.
l l
O I
l
t l s
O I
- 4 d
I l
4 THROUGH THESE FUNDS THE STA TE WAS ABLE TO:
l
- ACCESS INFORMATION WHICH WOULD OTHERWISE REEN
! UNAVAILABLE i
)
- CONDUCT INDEPENDENT ANALYSES OF DATA COLLECTED BY THE DOE 1
i i a CONDUCT INDEPENDENT EVALUATIONS OF FACTORS CONSIDERED TO BE OF KEY IMPORTANCE TO WASTE ISOLATION, THROUGH j INTERNATIONAL STUDY GROUPS (INTRAVAL)
I i a PARTICIPATE IN THE REGULATORY ACTIVITIES OF THE NRC AND EPA i
i i
}
i I O
s /
O !
i i
l YUCCA MOUNTAIN PROJECTIS AN UNFORTUNA TE l EXCEPTION TO DOE - STAKEHOLDER COOPERA TION i
d DOE HAS RESISTED THE ROLE OF THE STATE OF NEVADA AS AN i INDEPENDENT REVIEWER IN THE GEOLOGICAL AND GEOTECHNICAL I STUDIES OF YUCCA MOUNTAIN DOE PROVIDED FUNDING FOR THESE ACTIVITIES ONLY AFTER BEING ORDERED TO DO SO BY A US CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS i
I IN SPITE OF MANY REVIEWS AND PRESENTATIONS, THE STATE WAS 1 NOT ABLE TO IMPACT OR CHANGE THE DIRECTION OF DOE ANALYSES AND RESULTS i
O
- ,i /
lo EX4MPLESINCLUDE
=
HYDROLOGY UNSATURATED ZONE SATURATED ZONE VOLCANISM O.
O v
l
!, s 1 l
i i
i l .
i :
l i
l l
1 .
i i
l STA TE OF NEVADA UNSA TURA TED ZONE MODEL l
RELEVANT TO GWTT AND FLUX RATES I
lO O
O Moc.e. Concepts and Assumptions
- 1. Matrix vs. fracture flow. .
- 2. Dimensionality.
- 3. Distribution and amounts ofinfiltration.
- 4. Equilibrium assumptions:
o matrix fracture interactions e water table e infiltration - transient vs. steady-state. I
)
O s. sounaery cenaitions:
e no flow e wet vs. dry fractures.
6.
Parameter models (modeled vs. measured):
e infiltration e conductivity e water retention properties e porosity.
l I
O
_ . . - ~. . - . _ _ . . _ _ _ . _ . - _ _ . -. ____ __.
. 6 d WCCA CREST
$000 - u INFILTRATION s _ j$oo
} GHOST DANCE FAULT 1 Tow
% PTn___
h .
Q \
4 4eee -
Tswi e m
L f i TSw2 5 , 1 I
...... . ..] T4 ) , t- ;
'4 : c 8 3000 - - '"O + <ek'd[."$""*.** *=
< .___ ppw- > ,
top oF ZEotnES .'T'*h.*~r. .~ --~ w+ -
w 1-h d 2 PPn 7 i ;- 4 d 7 *' !hiI5:':f.if . :'-
- j<p
~
, gg- TRw %
'{- r - -
^ ^
~ % - 500 l 07 --
-- ~
- ""- -- ~"'-
1000 N
L t = 4 Anscew m. res' 0 1000 2000 FEET l , ,
250 500 METERS HvDAoGEOLOGIC UNITS HORIZONT AL SC ALE TC T1VA CANYON WELDED PTn PAINTBRUSH TUFF -*
REPOSITORY LOCATION NONWELDED O / TSw1 TOPOPAH SPRING WELDED (MANY LITHOPHYSAE) 9.oWER DISTURBED ZONE TSw2 TOPOPAH SPRING MLDED BOUNOW (FEW LITHOPHYsAE)
CHnv CALICO HILLS NONWELDED VITRIC 7 WATER TABLE CHnz CALICO HILLS NoNWELDED ZEOLITIC PPw PROW PASS "
WELDED tttyy T @N URA DZN PPn PROW PASS NONWELDED BFw BULLFROG UNSATURATED ZONE BELOW WELDED DISTURBED ZONE (MODEL REGION)
BFn BULLFROG NONWELDED ~ ~
SATURATED ZONE TRw TRAM ~
WELDED oT OLDER TUFFS +P SATURATED ZONE FLOW PATH FIGURE 6: General Hydrogeologic Cross Section At Yucca Mountain. The Wavy Arrows Show The Flow Paths, Assumed By DOE, From A Potential Repository Through The Unsaturated Zone To The Water Table And Along The Upper Portion Of The Accessible Environment. Modtfied From DOE (1988).
O
l l
l l
- Model of Infiltration Magnitude l
l 1 used in TSPA 1991 i
\
s -
\
\
gean 1
' \
15 ~ '
c .
}c .\
\
\
\
i .
\
\ .
i .
\
i .
\ . ,
\
i 1 i .
O 1 2 3 4 5 Percolation Flux (mm/yr) i Sandia National Laboratory Report # SAND 91-2745,1992
'g
_ _i O
O - _ _ _
O
O ALTERNATIVE CONCEPTUAL MODEL UTILIZING FOCUSED RECHARGE Focused Recharge !
5000 -
TCw OTac 4000 - 7 Cw j 9.! !
Tsw -
',f TSw2 f E PTn f ? 'i' ;
- 8" " '
f? I l
) 3000 d '
CHnv '
j
.5 i f ,' -
TSw , \;l PPnw 2000 9 :
! t
.N TRw 8 1000
% L. Lehmen & Ass:C res Septem:e'.1521 Solitario Caryon Fault Ghost Dance Fault Not To Scale 0 1000 2500g ,,,
i i !
I i 1 Meters 0 250 500 O
j
Matrix Versus Fracture Flow.
INFILTRATION INFILTRATION I f if if if y lf if l
l Yucca Mt Tuff Matrix l Ksat = 1 x 10e-10 m/s I l (Approximate) I i i l !1 e
i Yucca Mt Tuff Fractures 4
] Ksat = 1 x 100-2 m/s j l (Approximate)
\
- Relatively slow transport Relatively rapid transport 5 .
1 I
i i
Dimensionality 1
i i SIMPLE 1-D VERTICAL FLOW
^ N l ~
l M ----- j. ~
==
,I I a m
- L_
--*----- ... v. . n m .. .. /
l ~ _- ' . .. w .. ..
[ M k.l I f if if if Sohtario Faut Zone Ghost Dance Fauk Zone t
i j
2-D VERTICAL AND HORIZONTAL FLOW i.
~_ '
~
Repository
.. y.....
.... . v ..... - ---- - -- "
. .v . .
i
}
/
Solitano Faun Zone Ohost Dance Fauh Zone
- O O -.-
G _ ..
i I
i l
i i
l Distribution and Amount of infiltration UNIFORM INFILTRATION fi f if lf U w
I f If U If If I f If Z -
__ h W
~
- ) -
I_ ,,1_
- --- ~~
w__-____-___ _ _ _ ,I
_. -__x____
j/
Sohtario Fauk Zone I Ghost Dance Fauk Zone i
I j ,
FOCUSED INFILTRATION j --
~
%U c ,1
~ M 85***y 1y ,
N ---
~~
v___________ --
____x_-__
' }/
Soktano Fault Zone Ghost Da::ce Fauk Zone
~
O O O
i J
Matrix / Fracture interaction j
4 Little interaction Large interaction
{
- a _
s_ _#
i i
i ews
-ar
- U l
i i
46 - -
i
.. e - -
- i i
Controlled by presures, conductivity of matrix and fractures time spent in fracture, fracture coatings, and infiltration assumptions, i.e. steady or transient O O O
_ _. , . , . , . - , . . - - - - - - - - - - - ' ~ ~ ' ' ~ '~~ ~
i i
infiltration - Transient Versus Steady i
z STEADY O g TRANSIENT F O P
l TIME i TIME
\
i i
N
'l I
4 ,
e 2_-____.___._-----
O O
i i
l l
1 l Boundary Conditions at Faults No-Flow Specified Flux or Pressure i
i l x % g Reposgo,y ..
II -
II l
n %ssss L olitario S Canyon Fault L Ghost Dance Fault n Nssse:
L ohtario S Canyon Fault L Ghost Dance Fault i
9 9 9
- i. .
i l
1 O i 1
- I l INTRAVAL Unsaturated Zone Working Group i
i l
l Yucca Mountain Excercise Definition:
i l 1. Calibrate models against water content profiles measured in shallow boreholes
!O (100-120 meters deep) UZN-53, UZN-54, i
! and UZN-55.
4 i
l 2. Perform a blind prediction of the water i content profile in borehole UZ-16 using l i
1 the calibrated models. !
O
J ., -..,i.,..-,_.-.e .a_,..J.1..aa--. 2 ..M.,. _,m.,.a &._ 2.,a e a2- . . - A& aaas,u,44As 4 mma .,a.4 4A . . - = _ . .4y__a..,i..,, - - . . , 2 a. -DA . a-m . . _ =
i iO Location of Boreholes Used for Modeling Study N s s
s, O Amu eum
'. o1 ,-
i e ;
- a = wies.
/
l I s s o
- /
' 8 0 1 2 3 km
{
i ! ths fj V
I lf g<
O q
w
- s. g_ y E: n.D 0wy a]ngQu= se
\f L. Lehmon & AsSOClotes, Inc.
1993 O
(
0 1
1
!o i
Schematic of fracture model geometry Evaporation infiltration d $
Tiva Canyon Member Bedded /Shardy.Bese Unit N 24m m
O x'ra^cruae N
Topopah Springs Member N
u Calico Hills Member -
som l F
- lOI0.0001m g3g O
1
a 1
1 l
1
}
! Comparison of Fracture Model Simulations with Hole Data 0.35 C
- .. I e l$
0.3 -
!/>
! 0.25 -
.: 6
-s h h 0.2 -
i 3 -
i 4
1
,9 0.15 -
- 3 -
i g 0.1 - --
'-~""""="""=""'
- 2 - .
. -- . w J L='""~~~~~~~~
'6 ,1 1 0.05
~ T,"~..
> _.. -. 3 .
0 ' --
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 Depth (m)
- Run F-1 Run F-2 Run F-3 4l _ _ - . _ _ .
Run F-4 s
e
~~
e
.m____---- _ _ - __
l 1
l l Comparison of fracture model predicted water content compared with UZN-16 data 95% confidence intervals 0.5 i
4ms
- C i -
W 0.4 -
C
(
O ~ ..
, O b
i
~
G 0.3 -
- W /
) .. . . -
, /
.@0.2 l
, ,f,. - -- ..
U .. ..
.. g.
gy .p... "-
3 " ..
0.1 ~ " -
T
,3
.. .~ . . .- 1..- g ..
7_
1 0 ' ?
i .. i i 0 100 200 300 400 500 t
l Depth (m) k e
~
i g 9 1 - _ . . - - - _ - - . _ _ .. - . - . - _ . - . .-
- . .s 1
1 ittti 44444
{. Evaporation i Ramfas infiltration & Runoff '"I Flow Top son. LAVIA . \
'"a n =a N 3 Deep Percolation gig / t Cathchrnent i
Depression echarp Recharge
)
O L 4
4 . _ __
outlet t Degreassan i
O
Table 6. Depression Focus Recharge Model Parameters and Result for Solitario Can and for Wash Where UZN-53, UZN-54 and UZN-55 are Located.
b a
Properties Solitario 1 1
Solitario 2 Hole Wash 1 Hole Wash 2 Catchment Area (m2) 6,157,500 6,157,500 1,242,324 1,242,324 Depression Area (m2 ) 1,151,000 1,131,000 253,388 253,388 Land Slope (deg) 5.7 5.7 5.7 5.7 Albedo 0.3 0.3 0.3 0.3 Outlet Height (m) 0.1 0.1 0.00001 0.01 Catchment Ksat (em/s) 1.995E4 1.089E4 1.99E-7 1.99E-8 Catchment Porosity 0.15 0.15 0.15 0.15 Catchment Soil 0.099 0.099 Storage Parameter 0.099 0.099 (m)
Catchment Upper 5.2 5.2 Limit of Stage I 5.2 5.2 Evaporation (mm/dayL2) '
(~ Depression Ksat 4.0E-4 1.5E-4 4.0E-5 4.0E-4 (cm/s)
Depression Porosity 0.51 0.51 0.51 0.51 Depression Soil 0.099 0.099 0.099 0.099 SWrage Parameter (n.)
Depression Upper 5.2 5.2 5.2 5.2 Limit of Stage I Evaporation (mm/ day'2)
Microdepression 0.0 0.001 0.0 0.001 Storage (m)
Depression Recharge 0.308 0.121 (m/yr) 0.008 0.160 O 1
D 8 4
C E
O S a
o 5
onamd s 1
cI$Yh '/ d 4 na / e/f %- <h &
F% A)
$ f.vf o=>
.c.
izage oY Q !
+
. j E W g r's '
,\= m i 2 7
- = O
!I a 5' m g e s s e. s ! 3 h c b
i{
aC+ D
$5SEE a '
- c. m c C
\ -/ ~ E, C , ~!
o
51: = c h
2 =
j ' >
2 3OC c
c 1 O ** ====
= l v > y W Ghost % K;e facit " I .-
m
- N r R O m + c> > e aO n*==
'o
- E,
- ~
a{ O I I n 2 9.
.s. 3." -
as =! ? I l.*
Hfi i j En -*
g>0 it i s i K"?, p r.m, 4 /
i n,
i h "3 m
<3 Jan im . o i 1; h Z
- 3 e O
a O 5 Uk Cr + '
3 ""'
M" 0
c, i Y
- E s?
- O = ~ s 3 m 2
CD b ^
\
~
O i l
1 i
l STA TE OFNEVADA SA TURA TED ZONEMODEL RELEVANT TO DILUTION CALCULATIONS O
l 1
l 0
O O O .,
m _- - - -
~~
- - -.__.J w --
g
~~,, $<
a n Y+
,- w ) { ==1} ,
gs s-c gn <a gn f _
o-
~
s i
, ~~~., SOLITARIO '
5 g% ,
f a hg. 5
~ 'CANyONFAU ~
HE
.s me ~~~.. g- z=
Yucce Cre~ 'sf 'CLT e.g at g c g s s il
- S. x
\ I ea a
& ig
- g \
N t
l t
gegyyof!P8*ge30c -~~~
j t Is
_ GHohTDANCEFA} _ _ _'_ , _ _ _ _ _ _/_ _ _ _ _ '
dg j uw o, L '
~' -
.$5 k M
~W s.
- f. 2l R,
n E
a
- ga a "ll u
& R & l !
5 .
0Q
i .e .
4 1
0 J
s I cc l
i
\
i 4
l 13eatt4 BCF- l CF-3 ' Y I NEVADA TEST SITE !
' !..! !vmi ./ !
.s*.-
l s+%
- i*I
- I
/
l +o g' g W-1 ==""*
j 4, * *
,/*, ' Mercury j ;
/
,. AD-5
! l A
j ! AD4 & I g ;
o AD- 1 AA4-3 "Y M s M O O
N AD 13 I'
, A AD 16 1
Y I i - -
0 to 20 WILES )
i Fault hxabons from Sne Charactenzation Plan Figu es 134 through 1-47 Stress State A INCREASE Norrnal Fa s
Y DECREASE umuur su SHEAR / TRANSFORM sum e a man EXTENSIONAL/rRANSFORMl l Shear Zone!Transbrm Fa:A l'
l L.Lehman& Acwetes,1995 Figure 2. Well locations which showed greater than 15 cm sustained elevation change after earthquakes.
i ,-
TABLE I. DOE Monitor Wells that Exhibited more than 15 centimeters of Water Level Change Between Mid-June and Mid-July 1992.
Wells showing decrease Wells showing increase Well ID Change (cm) Geologic Unit WellID Change (cm) Geologic Unit AD-13 -54.0 alluvium AD-11 478.5 volcanics '
CF-1 -42.7 volcanics AD-16 167.6 alluvium YM-1 -33.5 carbonates AD-5 106.7 alluvium RV-1 -21.3 carbonates AM-7 39.6 carbonates CF-3 -18.3 alluvium AM-6 18.3 carbonates AM-3 -15 2 alluvium AD-4 15 2 alluvium O '
l 0
- < .- I I
i l'a y : l September 26.1995 AN ',, %
Lh.,'. .
' ' .c ~~~~~
.De 3 s l
%*s?~~,*
PA -
e i -f; .
l u
/ *
.t ,.
~. I yY l 1 g Q-I -
gg
%. ,. i '
\ l I 1-c~
-cj
=.
in 1-l I
l I <Z 1>l 1 lD I*
I I~' '
I 8 k, D ~ l D._-
Ql I~
m i IM
~I i .. -
- a. I ;
i 1
, t ,
I e l I i '
I s- l l
1 f=
1 I s2 3 .
l j
l I g -
I g n i
I b" 1 I 1 .
I o
s<
s I
1 i 2
\
'w
=
i i
! /,.
-?-
. ia sx ,
1 d '*
I \Q 8
/ 's i
sE l ' ~ <
., , \
J>C ~
3o I i
l i
I 1
Figure 1. Water table temperature contours in degrecs C (Sass et al 1988). 1 l
d
- Page a 1
5errember 26. pic 1
4 W
900 m 1 ._..
'~~
. ~~
_ 800 m
- y. .,. ,y, -
/ . // / ,r
( ,;/
, - r j
1, 2
! /
- 730 m 4
800 m j 4
i I i !
. I i +
1 l i ;
780 m O
V ,
O '
& I 2
v o-u It I
8
- L -
/
-t i 760 m \ 131 JN 12 ci i "
f
\-
y L5 x 740 m
- 730 m ' ' '
Figure 2. USGS preliminary saturated zone potentiometric surface (Robison,1984).
l 1
1
l . .~
%*lMChlDCT 2h, .1995 n
!a ,
l e:.3r3jrliggv p.w
'y 1 1 i e
{ j e /. el k w itle e denied i+vei
. e ,
731 m r. - ;. ;
!
- 730.5 m ;
4
- p*-1 730 m i
- 731.0 9, e e 25b-1 729.5 m e e
~'
,me7 C : .
H 4 e'29 : e 729 m e
i e
_ . ._ . m
( e e 4 9
e e
- i : g a
729.5 m 730 m
- e ,
731 m 1 730.5 m 729 m l
. e ,
e e Figure 3. USGS Resised saturated zone potentiometric surface (Ervin, Luckey and Burkhardt,1994). Red labels indicate adjusted data inconsistant with surface.
4 S .
, -~
semember 20 is i
i '
a ~ 1000 m i
900 m i j
. 800 m l.
,W I
l
- [7
% i
' J. -. . ._
i l ,- -
T 730 m j
',, ~;p,,
i :
i J A ,
't "
~
1 u..,
i 800 m %
j e'
. i ~ .'
j m^ ~
k
q> \
780 m , 3
. y ,
'a y y .
~
' l a %. A -
l
- , l I l y< >.
I a I 9 -
l i j 760 m j t
, 740 m 730 m i i i Figure 4. Alternalise potentiometric surface with fault locartions and resulting now pathway s.
.* l
} .. l I
i-l
>O i
4 l .
i i
j DOE NOW CLAIMS TO BE EVAL UA TING THE STA TE OF
} -
! NEVADA SATURATED ZONEMODEL 1
IF TAKEN SERIOUSLY, THIS ALTERNATIVE MODEL WILL RESULT IN VERY DIFFERENT VALUES FOR DILUTION O
O
i
,.s.,~
O DOE FAILURE TO TAKESTATE OFNEVADA WORK SERIOUSL YHAS RESULTED IN:
MAJORITY OF DATA COLLECTED FOR INCORRECT UNDERLYING CONCEPTUAL MODEL l DELAY IN PROGRAM WILL BE REQUIRED TO EVALUATE ACTUAL FLOW FIELD (STRIPA EXAMPLE TOOK OVER 10 YEARS TO EVALUATE)
VIABILITY ASSESSMENT AND SAFETY ASSESSMENTS BASED ON MEAGER AND INADEQUATE DATA BASES i l
j O I
o o O & :
BRANCH TECHNICAL POSITION ON SCREENING METHODOLOGY FOR ASSESSING PRIOR LAND BURIALS OF RADIOACTIVE WASTE AUTHORIZED UNDER FORMER 10 CFR 20.304, and 20.302 i
Presented to:
THE ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON NUCLEAR WASTE By:
Heather Astwood Low-Level Waste and Regulatory issues Section Low-Level Waste and Decommissioning Projects Branch Division of Waste Management '
Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards April 23 1997 l
O O O .:. r
't i
OVERVIEW :
- Background e Screening Methodology
- Public Comments i i
1 e Revisions to Methodology e Next Actions q
2 i
O O O :
BACKGROUND e The Final Rule on Timeliness in Decommissioning Nuclear Facilities (Timeliness Rule), published July 15,1994 (effective August 15,1994),
outlines a schedule for licensees to follow in performing l decommissioning activities. ,
e information Notice 96-47, was published on August 19,1996, to remind licensees of their obligation to notify NRC of " unused areas" and to commit to a schedule for decommissioning. i e Staff briefed ACNW on methodology October 22,1996.
e On-site burial screening methodology was developed and published for public comment on October 25,1996.
3
-,c-m
o o O : ,
SCREENING METHODOLOGY e There are potentially hundreds of on-site burials associated with hospitals, research facilities, and universities that will require some type of evaluation.
e The methodology is a simple but conservative screening method to evaluate the potential risk posed by the former burial and the need for additional site characterization and/or remediation of former burials.
. e Step 1 Review of burial records Step 2 Calculation of screening dose from ingestion of contaminated groundwater Step 3 Calculation of screening dose to the residential farmer e if an estimated screening dose produced from either scenario is less than 100 mrem /yr, the site would pass the screening. The staff would not require any additional site work and the former burial would be determined acceptable for unrestricted use.
e if a site does not pass the screening, the site would require evaluations by the NRC staff on a case-by-case basis.
4
O O O
/
STEP 1 RECORDS r
e At the time the burials were made, licensees were required to keep '
burial records.
i e The licensee should review burial records to determine the total activity in the burial aiea. '
e if the licensee has no records, the site will have to be evaluared on a i current case-by-case basis. 1 i
i 5
- - - _ _m--m& -
-__m_ _ - ___ _ _ _ - _ m , _ __ _ - e_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
O O O
~
STEP 2 INGESTION e The estimated total activity from Step 1 is assumed to leach into the groundwater in one year. ,
e The volume of groundwater is assumed to be 91 m , or ei ough to I support a family of four. ;
e A screening dose is then estimated using 10 CFR 20 Appendix B and assuming an individual consumes 2 liters / day of this groundwater for ;
one year. ;
f i
i i
6 i
f
_ _ _ _ - - _ - - - _ - - - _ _ - _ _ - - - _ _ - _ _ _ _ _ _ - - - _ _ _ _ - _ - - - - _ _ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -. - - - - ~ -
O O O :
ASSUMPTIONS e The entire inventory is available at the time of the analysis
! e The entire inventory leaches into the groundwater in one year e An intruder places a well that captures all of the contaminated water in one year e An individual drinks 2 liters / day of the contaminated water for one year
/
o o O :
STEP 3 EXHUMATION CONCENTRATION :
e The total trench volume for the burial is estimated e A trench concentration is then estimated based on the trench volume and the total activity from Step 1.
. e This trench concentration is reduced by a tactor of 4 to account for mixture with clean cover material during excavation.
e This exhumed concentration is then compared to the concentrations !
in NOREG-1500 to produce a screening dose.
8
I O O O :
ASSUMPTIONS 1
l l
! e Total inventory is avaiiable r
l e The total inventory is excavated and brought to the surface e Residential scenario in NUREG-5512 i
t i
i 9 i
O O O :
ACNW COMMENTS e ACNW provided comments in a letter dated November 20,1996.
e Staff responded in a letter dated December 23,1996.
e Staff should complete independent audits and reviews e Staff should pay particular attention to burials containing uranium and chlorine-36; and burials with limited or no records e Staff should understand the risks and contributors to risk
~
10
/i PUBLIC COMMENTS e Received 5 sets of comments to the BTP
-Washington Department of Health
-University of Washington
-Washington State University
-Illinois Department of Nuclear Safety
-University of Wyoming e Most felt that the screening was good but too conservative e 3 comments stated that the migration of C-14 and H-3 should be considered in calculation e 3 comments stated that more site specific data should be used i
e 2 stated that the case-by-case follow-ups would be inconsistent e 4 stated that more information concerning the Timeliness Rule, location of documents, and mixed waste guidance should be included.
11
.. _-._.. _ .._ _____. _ _ _-_._ _..__.-.._- _._._ _ _._ .-- _. _ _.~.- - _ . ._ -
O O O
/
REVISIONS TO METHODOLOGY e No revisions will be made based on the public comments.
m e NUREG-1500 will be attached to the final BTP.
f
[
12
O O O 1:
t NEXT STEPS e Publish BTP as final document in FRN t
e Develop guidance for staff to review screening results I
e Develop guidance for inspectors for burial sites and records i
i e Develop database for all on-site burial information lr i
i I
i i i 13 ;
i i
<? 'o UNITED STATES 8 1 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
$ $ ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON NUCLE AR W ASTE o I WASHINGTON, D C. 20566
% ...* /
November 20, 1996 The Honorable Shirley Ann Jackson 1 Chairman U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Washington, D.C. 20555-0001
Dear Chairman Jackson:
SUBJECT:
SCREENING METHODOLOGY FOR ASSESSING PRIOR LAND BURIALS OF RADIOACTIVE WASTE AUTHORIZED UNDER FORMER 10 CFR 20.304 AND 20.302 During its 87th meeting, Octob r 22-23, 1996, the Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste (ACNW) reviewed staff plans relesant to the decommissioning of sites in which radioactive waste had been buried as authorized under former 10 CFR 20.304 and 20.302. In addition to receiving information on the history and background s
leading to the development of the screening criteria to be s
M
) promulgated in a branch technical position (BTP), the ACNW was briefed on related agency rules and information notices. The BTP, which was not available for ACNW review during its 87th meeting, will be finalized when more directly related field experience is obtained and public and licensee comments are evaluated.
These screening criteria are directed at potentially hundreds of onsite, non-reactor burial locations that will require an evaluation or screening process to determine if further remediation is required. The NRC staff has prepared a simple, conservative three-step method to evaluate the risk from these burial sites:
- 1. review burial records,
- 2. estimate the dose from ingestion of the total inventory in groundwater (a conservative approach), or
- 3. estimate the dose to a resident farmer from all pathways.
If the estimated dose from Step 2 or Step 3 is less than 100 mrem /yr, no further site work is required, and the site can be released for unrestricted use. The ACNW agrees with the NRC staff approach.
The ACNW offers the following comments and recommendations:
9 1. The NRC staff does have a responsibility to assure itself through independent audits and reviews that the risks are EDO -- G960884
. z.
2 reasonably assessed. These reviews are especially important where, for example, the burials may include greater than anticipated inventories of uranium; disposed wastes that contain isotopes, such as chlorine-36, which at the time of I disposal were not perceived to be a significant problem; the I locat. ton and distribution of wastes are imprecisely recorded j tor, in some instances, unrecorded).
- 2. In those situations requiring review and approval of the NRC l staff prior to final site decommissioning, the staff must be l certain that the risks and contributors to the risks are I understood, and should not rely only on an assessment of how l the input parameters were either measured or calculated.
- 3. We concur with the staff's position that licensees not be allowed to use Step 3 of the BTP screening process for !
isotopes with atomic numbers of 88 or higher due to the lack of confidence in the dose equivalent factors in the current version of NUREG-1500, " Working Draft Regulatory Guide on Release Criteria for Decommissioning: NRC Staff's Draft for Comment," August 1994.
The ACNW recognizes the benefit in providing a simple, relatively straightforward approach to resolving the problems extant from these past burials. We note that this issue might provide the Commission with an opportunity to advance 4ts risk-informed, ,
performance-based decision-making process. The ACNW anticipates further discussions on this specific issue with the NRC staff as the staff completes its evaluation of public/ comments and gains applicable field experience. Further, the ACffd intends to explore the compatibility of various screening criteria and methodology currently used by the NRC in the decommissioning process.
Sincerely
, %^
Paul W. Pome Chairman
Reference:
Draft Branch Technical Position, " Screening Methodology for Assessing Prior Land Burials of Radioactive Waste Authorized Under Former 10 CFR 20.304 and 20.302," October 1996.
9
y* *lcoq 1
,,.. ?g UNITED STATES
,j
[ NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSinN
- 'f WASHINGTON, D.C. 2055500'"
\*****/ December 23, 1996 l
Dr. Paul W. Pomeroy. Chairman Advisory Committce on Nuclear Waste U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Washington. DC 20555
SUBJECT:
SCREENING METHODOLOGY FOR ASSESSING PRIOR LAND BURIALS OF RADI0 ACTIVE WASTE AUTHORIZED UNDER FORMER 10 CFR 20.304 AND 20.302
Dear Dr. Pomeroy:
I am responding to the letter of November 20. 1996. from you to Chairman Jackson concerning staft plans relevant tu decommissioning of sites in which r
radioactive waste had been buried as tu herized under former 10 CFR 20.304 and 20.302. On October 25. 1996. the staJf scued a draft Branch Technical i
Position (BTP) to provide a screening methodology that the staff finos j acceptable for determining the need fo 'urtner character 12ation and/or remediation of prior low-level radioactive vaste disposals conducted under the provisions of former 10 CFR 20.304 and 20.302. Such disposals at facilities licensed under 10 CFR Parts 30. 40. and 70. that have been unused for licensed l operations for a period of 24 months, are subject to the requirements of the
' " Final Rule on Timeliness in Decommissioning Nuclear Facilities." Licensees who have unused outdoor areas containing elevated levels of licensed radioactive materials are required to notify the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission that they are in possession of these areas and must begin following a schedule for decommissioning these areas. The staff briefed the ACNW on the BTP on Octobe 22, 1996. A copy of tne ciP is attached for reference.
l In response to the ACNW's comments ar' recommendations. the staff agrees that l
independen+ sudits and reviews are nece>sary to verify that risks are reasonably osessed. It will conduct an independent assessment of each I
licensee submittal. It expects that sites for which the ACNW expressed concern (e.g., sites containing uranium and sites with little or no records)
I will have to be addressed on a case-by-case basis outside of the screening I methodology. In addition, it agrees that the risks and contributors to risk must be clearly understood in site decommissioning evaluations.
l P
i Ho 2 -
l i
1
- p. ... Tomeroy -2 l
As the staf f completes its evaluation of publ:c comments and prepares the j
final.
4Cli,.' technical cosition. it lnoks for..ard to further dis <_uss1cns with the l
Sincerely.
i L.
James M. Tay or Executive Director for Operations
Attachment:
Branch Tecrnical Position cc: Chairman Jackson Commissioner Rogers Ccomissioner D1cus Commissioner Diaz Commi ssioner McGa f figan SECY 9
! .4 t - - - _
i i
iO l
J 10 CFR Part 60 Technical Criteria 1 i
\
and 1
Total System Performance i
Assessment l comments before !
lO American Council on Nuclear Waste by Charles Fairhurst University of Minnesota i
i ApdI23,1997 i
O -
s
- I
d.
EXTENSIVE CRITICISM OF PART 60 SUBSYSTEM CRITERIA Preference Expressed for "OVERALL SYSTEMS" Approach; Only .
Overall Performance Counts Lack of Technical Bases for Individual Criteria; May not be Meaningful indicators of Barrier Performance
- l Unduly Restrictive of DOE's Flexibility to Design Barriers to Meet Site-specific Conditions -
Specific Wording of Performance Objectives Unclear, Subject to -
J Conflicting interpretations Lack of Nexus between Subsystem Criteria and EPA Standard Commission Flexibility to Specify Alternatives illusory; Politically '
impossible to implement at Time of Licensing *
- May lead to Suboptimal Performance 20-
O O O i i
THE COMMISSION CONCLUDED: ,
...if the Commission were simply to adopt the EPA standard as the sole measure of performance, it would have failed to convey in any meaningful way the degree of confidence which it expects must be achieved in order for it to be able to make the required licensing decisions."
i i
...the Commission firmly believes that the performance of the engineered and natural barriers must each make a definite contribution in '
order will befor met." the Commission to be able to conclude that the EPA standard
'/
i Final Rule, June 21,1983 l
O O O
~
l POSSIBLE OPTIONS FOR STAFF CONSIDERATION t
. - I ;
i
- i
, STANDARD FOR OVERALL SYSTEM PERFORMANCE ONLY STANDARDS FOR BOTH OVERALL SYSTEM AND SUBSYSTEMS WITH RIGOROUS NEXUS l
STANDARD FOR OVERALL SYSTEM PERFORMANCE ONLY WITH QUALITATIVE REQUIREMENT FOR SUBSTANTIAL CONTRIBUTION FROM MULTIPLE BARRIERS .
j
- MULTIPLE BARRIER OPTIONS
' l Total Redundancy Engineered Barriers as Supplements Partial Redundancy
- STATUS QUO l
! l
j.. :
HISTORICAL NOTES
/
!O nadioactive Wastes - Long Half-Lives l
i Isolate from Biosphere for 10 4 ~ 10 5 years l Stable Structures with l 10' years or more Potential l Some Geological Formations l
1957 - NAS/NRC (P~rinceton) j (Salt mentioned)
Q :, . !.
l l Engineers Geo-Scientists
! (Reasonable
- (Quantitative) -+ Expectation) +- -+
(Qualitative) 1d8 10 2 6 T 10 3 1C' l +- Fabricated Structures -+ l *- Geol. Isolation -+ l +- Natural (geol.) structures -*l Reasonable Expectation - Performance Assessment Deterministic calculations with random selection of parameter values (within reasonable ranges) solubility, permeability: driving potential; pathways: (releases) exposed populations; food chain; dose; " safety" O '
i.. .
j .
RETHINKING HIGH IEVEL RADIOACTIVE l WASTE DISPOSAL l0
! "No neientific or technical reason to think that a
! matisfmetary geological repository cannot be built."
l U. S. ... (prescriptive) ... " approach is poorly matched to the technical task at hand."
1 l U. S. ... "only country to have taken the approach of 1 l writing detailed technical regulations before all of the data l are in." [ understanding]
!Q
... U. S. " program bound by requirements that may be impossible to meet."
" Alternative approach emphasizes flexibility, time to assess performance and a willingness to respond to problems as they are found, remediation if tidngs do not turn out as planned, a:M revision of the design and regulations if they are found to Isapede progress toward the health goal already defleed as safe disposa!." .
1 0
i i . l lO RETHINKING HIGH LEVEL RADIOAUnVE
- WASTE DISPOSAL (Cont')
l I
dif performanr* depends em comidhution from components whose behavier e====d be adequately determined l (defined), h design should be d ==5d to milminate
! Ap- A=+ em that counponent.
i
-(Robust) ] g g I R abnb9cF One scientifically sound objective of geological modeling is j
to learn, over time, how to achieve reasonable assurance about the long-term isolation of radioactive waste.
That objective is profoundly different from predicting the j O long-term behavior of a repository...[models used for the j latter purpose]
i "Many of the uncertnietias amenclated with a candida'9
{ repository site will be tarknienlly interesting but irrelevant j to overall repository performance." l O
1 RETEDG3NG HIGH LEVEL RADIOACnVE
!O 4
WASTE DISPOSAL (Cont')
i i
! The U.S. Nuclear Eagelstery Comminion, likewise, should I reconsider the m Ecensing requirements for the i repositary. For esaugte-i j e What level of statistical or modeling evidence is l ready sweemary, obtainable, or even feasible?
! e To what extent is it necessary to prescribe l engineering design, rather than allowing l alternatives that accomplish the same goal?
l e What can be done to accommodate design changes necessitated by surprises during i construction?
e
- Q What new strategies (e.g., engineered features '
i like copper containers) might be allowed or encouraged as events dictate?
O
l' PRESCRIPTIVE APPROACH iO l
i (Mainly US - EPA /NRC) j o France (Goguel.): "not in seismically active
! regions" (Rhode-Gardnien) l j Gard Repository: " Protected Lozenges" i
o Sweden: WP Cave
!O l Q = KH l
O -
. - - .- -- _ - ~ . - . . - - - . - - - - . . - - . - _ . _ _ _ - . _ - _ _
l 4
i i
f l
l0
< : , ,c. _
/ f j *
' m
/ /. *
.s ,#
s R
+ - , s "q, l /
~
p l .
w..
nam e +nu. n
, e.-
1 * \ , ,c e-4' a .L
/
. % * * " = -
m L,i )
er
. < ==n.
' s
- s
.* l I
. L e *
, , "* ' ,I
,. g
_ _~ .g ,
_g . .- y 9- ,"-
- v. > ,/
.' g ! a%g j
l ;y ' I / 9 i '-Y '/{# '
~ I.- n/ A-
-y~% F. %
. . . ~' ~., % * ..s.,J );, , -
m .
~.
Ameuse
..y Ih a u-s#
'pQi
()
"h 7. s
s .
h / 1
' l l um j, **, , ' 4- .' '
,7 e
m 4
- -, _ y i
i i
O
.n..__--.n._-_______.._ ---- -. .
o N *,*M . . * ;;
. gs . < ~. .
m.3 y
.,c'*
- g ? * *-
, _ . ,k ."s L.,. g.
- ' **~ * ' '
e p,e 's , g,.p , ei ' s
) y
- g l,
l; Nl ,_
- ~ ..
- c. 5 ,
cy j./ c..it. ,;., .4
- 9. . . ,, -
.... .s.
lI,'W '*'.~$~ '$${dN5', .
"~
'T;{; ..
a;d:..v;. .;Tf; . .*
- C. f.' .7 :9,';
r-I l
\ figurs 2.?. According to the NAGRA Gewahr projee 1985, can.sters and highly c' npu.ed kntoni o blo<! s cre l placedinfull-face dnven tunnels.
i i
l lO M ;;
S me
.. ] _
1 g
I i
- I ,
=- l 1
%'- 2 I l
i l BENTONITE Cl 8Y/
, i OUART2 SAtc i AAAira
.~- HYP)AAUllC CAGE r- se a
+c E ROCn MASS
' s.
Figure
- 3. ~ 'H." Cre, the final repository is surrounded by e lmpervious barrier. The figure stoows how the barrieris ouilt up.
!'TSPA i
^ Q Should include:
o Comparative Risk (e.g. do nothing option) o Transportation Risk as well as o Geological Risk PA l i
j WIPP (TRU) not strictly comparable to H.L.W. '
O SALT: Essentially impermeable; self-healing fractures; modest ion-exchange I
CLAY: Low permeability; self-healing fractures; high ion-exchange (Boom clay France - indurated)
GRANITE: Fracture permeability (URL!)
[retrievability]
TUFF: Yucca Mountain!
o 1,000 years GWTT and Fracture Flow Savannah River - M. K. Hubbert Tuscaloosa Aquifer O Culebr8 (WIPP) -