ML20150E075
| ML20150E075 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 07/05/1988 |
| From: | NRC COMMISSION (OCM) |
| To: | |
| References | |
| REF-10CFR9.7 NUDOCS 8807140311 | |
| Download: ML20150E075 (68) | |
Text
-
's UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Title:
BRIEFING ON ACCOUNTABILITY OF RADI0 ACTIVE MATERIAL USED BY MATERIAL LICENSEES Location:
ONE WHITE FLINT NORTH, ROCKVILLE, MARYLAND Date:
TUESDAY, JU.LY 5, 1988 Pages:
1-50 Ann Riley & Associates Court Reporters 16251 Street, N.W., Suite 921 Washington, D.C. 20006 (202) 293-3950 r) s80714031i 880705 b
m,1= 1 i
x DISCLAIMER This'is an unofficial transcript of a meeting of the United' States Nuclear Regulatory Commission held on 7-5,in the Commission's office at One White Flint North.-Rockville, Maryland.
The meeting was open to public attendance ano observation.
This transcri.pt has not been rev'iewed, corrected or edited, and.it may contain inaccuracies.
The transcript is intended solely for general informational purposes.
As provided by 10 CFR 9.103, it is not part of the formal or informal record of decision of the-matters discussed.
Expressions of opinion in this transcript do not necessarily reflect final determination or beliefs.
No pleading or other paper may be filed with the Commission in any proceeding as the result of, or addressed to, any statement or argument contained herein, except as the Commission may authorize.
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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2-NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
'3 4
BRIEFING ON ACCOUNTABILITY OF RADIOACTIVE MATERIAL 5
USED BY MATE' RIAL LICENSEES 6
7 (PUBLIC MEETING) 8 9
Nuclear Regulatory Commission 10 One White Flint North 11 Rockville, Maryland 12 13 TUESDAY, JULY 5, 1988 14 15 The Commission met in open session, pursuant to 16 notice, at 2:00 p.m.,
the Honorable LANDO W.
ZECH, Chairman of 17 the Commission, presiding.
18 COMMISSIONERS PRESENT:
19 LANDO W.
- ZECH, Chairman of the Commission 20 THOMAS M. ROBERTS, Member of the commission 21 KENNETh C. ROGERS, Member of the Commission 22 STAFF PRESENT:
23 S.
K.
CHILK, Secretary 24 W.
C.
PARLER, General Counsel 25 V.
STELLO i
.n L
1
.2 NUCLEAR MAT", RIAL SAFETY AND SAFEGUARDS:
3 HUGH THOMPSON, Director 4
RICHARD CUNNINGHAM, Director of Industrial and 5
Medical Nuclear Safety Division 6
ROBERT BERNERO, Deputy Director 7
8 9
10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25
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PR0CEEDINGS 2
(2:00 p.m.)
3 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen.
4 The purpose of the briefing this' afternoon is.to discuss the 5
Nuclear Regulatory Commission's program for traceability and 6
accountability of radioactive materials to cssure public health 7
and safety.
This is an information briefing, and no Commission 8
vote is expected today.
Commissioner Carr'will not be'with us 9
this afternoon.
10 In March 1988, the staff submitted an information 11 paper to the Commission Sec'y 88-76, which discussed the 12 accountability of radioactive material used by the NRC 13 licensees and the agreement state licenseen.
The Commission's 14 interest and concern in.this area relate to incidents over loss 15 of control of radioactive material resulting in radiation 16 safety, hazards and/or expensive decontamination efforts.
17 This leads us to be concerned about the ability of 18 licensees to manage radioactive materials properly and, whether 19 or not the NRC and the agreement state regulatory reform 20 program for accountability and control needs improving.
The 21 Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards will brief the 22 Commission today on this subject.
23 Do any of my "ellow Commissioner's have any comments 24 to make before we begin?
25 (No response.]
V 4
1 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
If not, Mr.-Stello, would you proceed 2
please?
3 MR. STELLO:
Yes, Mr. Chairman.
I will turn to Dick 4
Cunningham very quickly.
I reflected a great deal on this when 5
we were discussing it before the Commission meeting, that the 6
concept or idea of accountability is one issue.
But we find 7
that there is a significant issue related to materials 8
licensees where there is significant contam'ination und' 9
questions related to whether there are or are not adequate 10 rasources available to clean up the material for licensees who 11 do not appear to have sufficient funding.
12 As you are aware, the Commission issued a rule 13 recently that vill deal with this issue in part but it will not 14 solve the entire problem I have asked throughout the briefing 15 so that we make clear the Commission or we may still have 16 problems and need to deal with this issue.
17 Mr. Cunningham will do that during the briefing.
18 With that, Dick, I suppose we can get started.
19 MR. CUNNINGHAM:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The 20 Commission was provided a set of briefing charts --
21 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Excuse me just a second, Dick.
Is 22 our communication systet Jrking?
Is the reporter doing all 23 right?
24 REPORTER:
Yes, sir.
25 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Go ahead, Dick.
Thank you.
O
a 5
1 MR. CUNNINGHAM:-
You were provided with a set of 2
briefing charts, the title page'of which says "Accountability 3-for Radioactive Material Used by Licensees."
By 4
accountability, as I use the term accountability here, I will 5
.be~ talking and'mean; who has it, where did it come from, where 6
did it go, who is responsible for it, is it secure and is it 7
identified.
I think that's the context in which we will be 8
discussing accountability today for the mat'erials prog' ram.
9
,Viewgraphs.)
10 On the first viewgraph, we have outlined the purpose 11 of this briefing.
What I would like to do first is to provide 12-some perspectives on accountability by describing first the 13 size of the program that we are talking about.
Then I would t-14 like to describe the relationship of accountability failures 15 and the consequences to public health -- consequencos to the 16 public health benefits the materials as well as the 17 relationship of failures and accountability to other types of 18 accidents associated with tho use of materials.
This gets back 19 to what Dick said about cost of clean up and ability to clean 20 up from accidents.
21 Then I would like to discuss the nature of the 22 accountability problems and where they appear to be greatest, 23 where we need to concentrate our effort.
Finally, I would like 24 to summarize by summarizing what we are going to do to improve 25 accountability as well as some of the other initiatives to
,.Y 4
6 1~
upgrade the program in general.
2.
On Chart two, I have summarized briefly the size of 3'
the program to get sone idea of the size that we are talking 4
about.
We have 8,000 NRC specific licensees.
These are the 5
materials licenses for nuclear medicine, industrial radiography-6 and what have.you, and about 16,000 agreement state licensees.
7 They are almost in direct ratio to the number of agreement and 8
non-agreement states that we have.
It is fust a scali'ng' factor 9
that we are looking at there.
10 These licenses cover both sealed sources and unsealed 11 sources.
The radiography sources are sealed, of course, and 12 unsealed sources in nuclear medicine for example.
There are 13 about at least some two million transfers of byproduct material 14 per year.
This number of transfers is probably more important l
15 than~the number of licensees, when talking about accountability 16 because it is the movement of materials that creates the 17 accountability problems.
I j
18 Of thoss transfers, about 50 percent are medical 19 licensees with relatively short half-life materials.
Hospitals l
20 have to be resupplied with isotopes every week; the tenesium, 21 lodides and things like that.
The resupply is every week.
22 About 25 percent of those two million transfers are industrial 23 and fuel cycle type of shipments that would include anything 24 from radiography sources to shipments of UC-6 or fuel to fuel 25 fabrication plants.
5 7
1 About 25 percent are very minor shipments.
They may 2
be small check sources, they may be sources in smoke detectors, 3
and generally those things that don't require substantial 4
packaging and labeling requirements when they are put into the 5
transportation system.
6 If you go to slide three, I think it's important when 7
discussing problems associated with the use of byproduct 8
materials and the problems of accountability and some 'of the 9
other accidents that we will get into, to put this in context 10 of the benefits to be derived from the use of these materials.
I 11 Most uses are important to public health and welfare.
Some are 12 of major importance and very few are trivial.
When you get 13 Wn to the trivial range, it becomes highly subjective.
Very 14 taw of these are trivial uses.
15 I have given you four examples of important uses.
16 One I picked was nuclear medicine, one simple procedure to 17 locate pulmonary embolisms has been very important.
Prior to 18 this procedure becoming available in the 1960's the chief cause 19 of death in hospitals was due to pulmonary embolisms.
This one 20 simple procedure reduced the death rate in hospitals from about 21 200 per week to essentially zero.
22 Smoke detectors.
When we first authorized the use of 23 smoke detectors, people raised questions about why we were 24 authorizing a $10.00 device with a small amount of Americium in 25 it to be out in the public sector as an exempt product.
Now we
6-3 8
1 know that smoke-detectors save thousands of lives a year, an 2
estimated billion dollars worth.of property damage, of course, 3
you have all.seen it in codes, various codes that smoke 4
detectors are required.
Montgomery County requires smoke 5
detectors in houses.
6 Industrial radiography, certainly very important to 7
radiograph welds on bridges, aircraft, hazardous materials, 8
pipelines and not the least of which is nuclear reacto'rs.
Well 9
logging, use Americium resources to help explore for oil in 10 Southwestern United States.
11 These are examples of the benefits.
Certainly, there 12 are risks associated with that.
Our experience with materials 13 is that the risks are of generally low consequence to the 14 public at large.
In other words, there aren't wide scale risks 15 associated with this.
When an accident does happen, it is 16 usually of consequence an afiected or a few affected 17 individuals.
18 Misadministration is an example of how a risk can 19 affect a single individual.
Certainly a therapy 20 misadministration can be serious.
The cost of clean up though, 21 can be very substantial.
The risks are associated with both-22 operations and accountability.
In other words, accidents as 23 well as accountability.
24 With respect to accountability, our international 25 experience demonctrates that there is a potential for serious O
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9 1
injury,or death.
I will come back to those in a moment.
The 2
U.S.
experience, fortunately, is that we have relatively 3
frequent incidents of low consequence.
A source gets lost, 4
mislaid, what have you, it is not very serious.
But there have 5
been, as a consequence of this, some high clean up costs and I 6
will come back to those in a moment.
7
[Viewgraph.)
8 If you go to the next viewgraph,' number five", simply 9
to add more perspective to this we have listed the numbers of 10 licensees poscessing certain types of radio nuclei of 10 curies 11 or more.
The largest number is Cobalt-60.
These are used in 12 radiators, teletherapy units.
Strontium-90 is relatively low 13 number used in some R&D, some source fabrication and a few in 14 specialized gauges.
15 Cesium-137 is mainly in gauges of various sorts.
16 Iridium-192 is used for industrial radiography mainly.
17 Americium is used in fairly large amounts for Americium 18 beryllium sources for well logging.
19 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Before you go off that slide, does 20 anybody else want to make a comment?
21 MR. THOMPSON:
I was just going to make a comment.
22 That was for sea licensees.
You would expect that agreement 23 status may have, again about 2,000 for maybe like a 3,.000 total 24 number of licensees.
That says authorized to possess more than 25 10 curies.
It doesn't necessarily -- they don't always do
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10
-1 that, but they are authorized to do that.
7 2
CHAIRMAN ZECH:
My question was, are these the areas 3
that you are focusing on primarily?
In other words, are these 7'
4 the areas of maximum risk reduction as you see it?
Are these 5
radio nuclel you think pose the greatest threat?
Is that your 6
view, is that why you are showing us these as possessing, 7
perhaps, the greatest threat?
8 MR. THOMPSON:
Certainly, that wa's one of th'e.
9 characterizations that we were looking at, as to scoping the 10 problem and who had the material with respect to the large 11 clean up potential problem or the capability to have fairly 12 large exposure to -- radiation exposure to the individuals 13 involved.
14 It is not the only aspect, but we focused on this 15 just to give you a scope of the magnitude of the number of 16 licensees involved in this activity.
When we go forward we are 17 talking in the thousands as opposed to in the hundreds or 18 fifties, that it is a fairly substantial effort on our part.
19 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Do you see this is area you are not 20 only focusing on to bring to our attention but is this the area 21 where you are putting your resources on primarily?
22 MR. CUNNINGHAM:
No, sir.
I think that in this area, 23 this has potentially the greatest risk if you lose 24 accountability.
I think we have better accountability 25 regulations covering these types of things.
t 11 1
CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Are we focusing on this area; do we 2
give this priority then if it has that kind of --
3 MR. CUNNINGHAM:
I would like to go on to the general 4
license things that I think have the greatest accountaoility 5
problems that exist today.
There are two aspects of the 6
briefing.
One is what are the risks, so that you have an 7
appreciation for the licensees who pose a risk.
The other one 8
is, where do we have our major regulatory weaknessus ih our 9
accountability program.
l l
10 We have certain accountability, inventory control l
l 11 reporting requirements on these licensees.
There are those l
l 12 licensees wnich we have a very weak regulatory program for l
L 13 accountability purposes.
Those, we believe, pose the greater l
14 risk right now to a loss of control.
These, we are looking at 15 in a longer term with respect to making sure the programs we 1
16 have in general -- make sure that if there are improvements 17 needed, this wottld be the second area of focus.
18 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Let me just see if I can pose the 19 question differently.
My concern is, we have 8,000 specific 20 licensees that you told us.
The agreement states have 16,000 21 specific licensees in.the agreement states.
We have at least 22 two million transfers per year.
That is an awful lot of l
23 activity.
24 My concern is that you should have some system of l
25 priority in covering this large number of licensees and
f 12 1.
transactions.
I would hope that we would be focusing your 2
priority on.those. areas of the greatest risk.
3 MR. CUNNINGHAM:
Yes,-sir.
That is what I will-hope 4
to show later.on.
There are priorities on these kinds of uses 5
that are a little bit different than the priorities on the 6
general licensees.
Sene of the problems with these are 7
accountability problems, a little bit different than they are 8
with the general licensees.
9 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Somewhere in the briefing, please 10 focus on the priorities as regards risk.
11 MR. CUNNINGHAM:
Yes, sir.
12 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
I hope you will be able to tell us if 13 you are trying to focus on those areas where there is the 14 greatest risk.
When you are dealing with this many licensees 15 and when you are dealing with this wide a range of 16 transactions, as you have told us, it seems to me that in order 17 to realistically monitor such a system and to provide for the 18 public health and safety, you have to have a system of 19 priorities that shows that you are trying at least to focus on 20 those areas that have the greatest risk to the public.
21 If you will keep that in mind, let's continue with 22 the briefing.
Somewhere along the line, I hope you will 23 address that in just a little more detail.
24 MR. CUNNINGHAM:
I can do it now or I can do it 25 later, but I would like to bring in the general licensees and i
5 13 1
show how that' fits and then come back --
2 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Do it later, that's fine.
Just do 3
it. - Thank you.
4 MR. CUNNINGHAM:
Materials under general licensing, 5
you will recall that for general licensees that there are rules 6
by which general licensees must comply with but they do not 7
need to apply to us for a specific license.
They don't have to 8
submit a piece of paper and get a license from us befo're they 9
can obtain the materials.
10 These are usually in devices with inherent safety 11 designs so that there is little training or safety facilities 12 required for users.
They are supposed to comply with certain 13 basic rules, however.
This covers a wide gamut of things.
14 Gauges of various source, industrial gauges, static 15 eliminators, gas chromatograph, exit signs, various pieces of 16 industrial equipment.
There are about 300,000 devices out in 17 use.
We do get quarterly reports of transfers.
There is 18 little NRC effort expended on routine inspection of these 19 devices, due to the large number and relatively low hazard of 20 most of these devices.
21 (Viewgraph.)
22 If you go to viewgraph seven, we have accounting 23 requirements in various parts of the regulations.
Remember, I 24 defined accounting as :nainly keeping track of where things are.
25 The accounting requirements or accountability requirements in
}'
14 1
the regulations has grown over the years as new uses have been 2
added to the regulations, or as a particular kind of problem 3
developed and the regulations were amended to cure those i
4 problems.
5 We have about three decades of history of these 6
regulations.
The requirements are generally related to hazard.
7 However, the concept of hazard, of course, has changed over 8
these years.
The idea of what is hazardous' and how ti'ghtly we 9
should control things has changed over the years somewhat, so 10 that the regulations are a little bit different as these things 11 were added.
12 As I said, they are scattered throughout regulations 13 in parts 20, 30 and 40 and there are, at our count, about 30 14 cpecific requirements related to accountability as I have 15 described them.
Our accountability requirements for byproduct 16 materials are certainly less stringent than the safeguards 17 requirements for SNM.
18 It is worth noting that SNM, I understand, has about 19 20,000 transfers per year as compared to the two million.
It 20 costs NRC about $1 million to keep track of these and $3 21 million for DOE.
So, you get some idea of what would be if you 22 used a simple scaling factor to keep track of these in a manner 23 similar to the way we do for SNM materials that fall under 24 safeguard requirements.
25 (Viewgraph.)
1
,c I
15
'l If you go to the next slide eight, agreement states 2
operate just about the same way that we do.
The agreement 3
states have recognized that there is an accountability problem.
4
.One thing the agreement states do more of than we do is inspect 5
general licensees.
They put more emphasis on the inspection of 6
general licensees than we do.
Some of the states require 7
registration of general licensees _and they also charge a fee; 8
we do not.
9 Now getting to examples of problems in the next 10 chart, slide nine.
Here is a listing of some of the types of
-11 accidents, incidents that have taken place over the last few 12 years that have an accountability problem associated with them.
13 Cobalt-60 contamination in New York.
This is in'a 14 New York scrap recovery plant.
It was found contaminated with 15 Cobalt-60.
We estimate that it was I curies and it cost about 16
$2 million to clean up.
We don't know where the Cobalt-60 came 17 from.
Probably from an old radiography source perhaps, or an 18 industrial gauge of one sort or another.
19 In Mexico in 1984, a teletherapy source was broken up 20 in a scrap yard unknown to the Mexican Nationals that did it.
21 The scrap was sold to various steel fabricators.
The Cobalt-60 22 entered into the steel, fabricated into rebar among other 23 things, and was shipped back to the United States for 24 construction.of houses and buildings and there was a problem 25 there.
16 1
Cleaning it up, tracking it down, cleaning it up, and 2
there were injuries in Mexico with people that had direct 3
exposure to the pellets.
A radiography source in Morocco 4
somehow lost control of-that.
We don't have'much information 5
on it.
We do know it was a 30 curie iridium source.
A worker 6
took it to his home -- I think it was a one room house -- and 7
it resulted in eight deaths.
Again, we don't have much 8
information on it.
9 There is some cesium contamination found in a 10 California plant, mainly in the off gas treatment system.
11 About a curie and one-half of cesium and a million dollar clean 12 up.
We had an abandoned gauge in Missouri involving a curie 13 and one-half of Cobalt-60.
The gauge was recovered and wo 14 fined the company $15,000.00.
The Americium-241 contamination 15 in Ohio, this is the Wright Patterson thing that I don't we 16 need to go into further.
17 Most recently, the unfortunate incident in Brazil, 18 very similar in initiation to the one that happened in Mexico.
19 A scrap dealer in Brazil took a cesium teletherapy device.
The
?^
teletherapy device was in an abandoned clinic.
It was opened 21 up at the home of the scrap dealer.
It had some luminosity.
22 The children painted the cesium faces and several people died 23 of that.
There was widespread contamination.
24 I understand thousands of people were surveyed to 25 find out if they were contaminated.
The point here is that if
17 1
not properly controlled, the larger sources can cause death.
2 The smaller sources usually would not cause death, but they can 3
result in expensive clean ups.
4 MR. STELLO:
That, I think, is part of the question 5
you asked earlier.
The radio isotopes that are listed on page 6
five arc, in fact, all of the isotopes that are involved in the 7
major problems where there has been significant injury and 8
death to the public as a result of devices'of these pa'rticular 9
radio nuclei listed on slide five.
10 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Are we taking the next step then, and 11 using these examples and our recognition that these are the 12 most likely areas of risk to focus our own efforts?
13 MR. STELLO:
A short answer is yes, but that's not 14 the limit of the problem because there's more and we will get 15 to.it in a minute.
16 COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
I take it that these are 17 examples were accountability is a principal problem rather than 18 something else, just knowing where the stuff was and where it 19 should not have been?
20 MR. CUNNINGHAM:
Accountability was the precursor of 21 the problem at le'ast, it started the problem.
In any one.of 22 these, certainly there must have been accountability when the 23 Cobalt-60 went into +.he New York scrap plant.
We don't know 24 where it came from.
Somewhere, that Cobalt-60 is. missing.
25 The teletherapy device in Mexico, again, that was
~*
18 1
sorious.
It was in a warehouse.
It had been stored there for 2
years.
-A question whether somebody forgot about it, gave it 3
away, what have you,-but ended up in a scrap yard.
All these 4
have an element of accountability in them.
'5 COMMISmIONER ROGERS:
A breakdown of it.
.6 MR. CUNNINGHAM:
Yes.
7 COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
A breakdown cf accountability.
8 MR. CUNNINGHAM:
Yes.
9 MR. THOMPSON: 'Somewhere the system broke down or 10 maybe in'the Americium, the system broke down because of 11 actions of individuals that may have been a violation of the 12 rules and regulations.
The regulatory system may have been in 13 place. but it was just essentially undermined by people not 14 following the current rules and regulations.
15 Obviously, we are taking certain enforcement actions 16 in these cases to highlight the Commission's seriousness about 17 having control and accountability of these type of materials.
18 MR. CUNNINGHAM:
To get to your last question, Mr.
19 Chairman, what are we doing about these kinds of things, I 20 think the next viewgraph number 10 will start the process.
21
[Viewgraph.]
22 The first thing we need to do is have good 23 communications on what happens and good communications with our 24 licensees to prevent it happening.
The list of the larger 25 groups of isotopes, I think we are increasing our site visits n
o,
'I 19 1
prior to-licensing to be sure that people understand what is 2-going to be required of them and that they have the capability 3
of meeting those requirements.
4 We have put out the NMSS Newsletter.
The second 5
volume of that or second issue of that will be out within the 6
next few weeks.
It gives information about problems like this.
7 MR. THOMPSON:
To go back to that first point, Mr.
8 Cbairman, I think that is a real key element that we h' ave been 9
working with the regions to make sure that you don't give a 10 license to a new individual or company out there, that they 11 don't have the capability, the understanding and the 12 appreciation of the importance of maintaining a safe
'13 environment.
14 In fact, this is clearly one of the issues that we 15 recognized from the Americium at Wright Patterson.
We ended up 16 licencing an individual in a facility that just really wasn't 17 prepared to maintain the appropriate accountability and control 18 of that material.
That is certainly something that we want to 19 ensure never happens again.
20 Those are some of the steps that we have taken 21 specifically to address preventing the problem from happening 22 and getting into the type of licensing that could occur.
23 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Disciplining our own process?
24 MR. THOMPSON:
That is correct.
Our own in the 25 training, the, communications with the regions of what kind of
t 20 1
problems we are having_to make sure that we are aware that we 2
give only -- improve the standards that we are expecting from 3
our licensees.
4 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Fine.
5 MR. CUNNINGHAM:
You will notice that I have just 6
described situations where scrap recovery plants have been 7
contaminated.
This is one of the kinds of problems we have 8
with that.
I would like to provide you -- we worked w'ith the 9
scrap iron and steel industry to develop this information 10 booklet.
11 (Booklet passed to all Commission members.)
12 I think it can be showed on the television screen 13 too.
We met with the Scrap Iron and Steel Industry.
Working 14 with them, helped them develop this booklet which they sent to 15 scrap collectors and scrap steel processors.
We know for a 16 fact that it has paid off, because scrap iron and steel people 17 have found these sources; they have installed detection 18 systems; they have called us and asked about questionable 19 things.
20 In conjunction with that, we also -- and this is 21 rather clumsy, I am sorry to say -- it is a big poster that we 22 made available to the scrap steel people.
We borrowed this 23 from the Canadians.
Our grievance state people found -- saw 24 that the Canadians were doing this.
We borrowed their idea.
25
[ Poster handed to all Commission members.]
re- -
~
t~
21 1
It was modified somewhat and made useful for our 2-purposes.
These are, in fact, posted in a number of scrap 3
recovery yards and people do use them.
They have looked at 4
these and they have called us and asked about certain types of 5
devices from time to time.
Those kinds of things work.
6 It shows an effort cooperating with industry, that 7
certainly isn't one of our licensees but'certainly has an 8
interest in what we do, paying off.
We do, when we ha've 9
incidents, we try to publicize those incidents so that people 10 understand what happened, why it happened, and what should be 11 done to prevent it from happening again.
12 Where we find violations, we have taken vigorous 13 enforcement action.
That one place where they lost track of 14 the gauge, we fined them $15,000.00.
Again, I think the 15 Commission is aware of the enforcement action that we took in 16 the Wright Patterson case.
17 From time to time in the past, we have mentioned 18 publication in professional journals.
When we find 19 professional journals that we have an opportunity to publish 20 in, we take advantage of that because it is professional 21 journals where various groups of people read, maybe more so 22 than they would something that we would send to them directly.
23 We do have cooperation with Federal agencies.
We 24 work jointly with Federal agencies.
I have listed three more 25 as examples.
In the case of FDA, FDA is responsible for the S
22 1
safety of devices; teletherapy devices and the mechanics of the 2.
teletherapy devices; we have cooperated with them on a number 3
of things.
One of the things we have done is, when they found 4
a design defect we have taken information that FDA has provided 5
us and notified all of our licensees about it, or all the 6
licensees that have a certain model of device.
7 DOT, and we cooperate very much together in looking 8
for loss sources and investigating accidents.
U.S.
Cu'stoms,
~
we 9
get calls periodically from Customs of things being imported in 10 the Country and asking if the consignee has an appropriate 11 license.
Customs has been very cooperative with us.
12 International support, we are trying to increase our 13 support internationally so that in developing countries and 14 other countries we prevent these accidents that have very, very 15 severe consequence some of which come back to us like in 16 Mexico.
17 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
What kind of a program do we have of 18 exchanging information internationally?
Do we have any kind of 19 a formal arrangement in that regard?
20 MR. CUNNINGHAM:
On the incidents?
21 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Yes.
22 MR. CUNNINGHAM:
We do --
23 MR. THOMPSON:
They normally come into AEOD.
AEOD 24 does the review and identifies the specifics.
It depends, I 25 think, on which agreements we have with the various countries.
23 1
- CHAIRMAN ZECH :
Does IAEA get involved in this
.2-program?
3 MR. STELLO:
I don't believe so, Mr. Chairman.
I 4
don't think the IAEA gets into the --
5 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Materials licensing?
6 MR. STELLO:
That is an individual --
7.
MR. THOMPSON:
They are in the safeguarding aspect of 8
it from a liability -- for special nuclear' material.
9 MR. BERNERO:
Let me interject.
Later this year you 10 will be over at the IAEA.
They are devoting a special session, 11 the scientific afternoon to incidents like the Glionia, Brazil 12 incident.
There is growing Jnterest in the IAEA, especially 13 with respect to relations between supplier and receiver 14 nations.
There are a handful of nations that make radioactive 15 sources of this type and ship them to other nations.
16 There is growing interest in the IAEA in getting some 17 sort of international coordination or international program in 18 that.
19 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
It seems to me that is an area that 20 perhaps should be pursued, because IAEA is a responsible 21 organization involved in international atomic energy matters.
22 It seems to me that if they are not already set up to 23 coordinate sone of these incidents perhaps they should be.
24 If we haven't approached them on that, perhaps we 25 should.
O
24 1.
MR. CUNNINGHAM:
- Yes, Mr. Chairman, that is one of 2-the-things on the agenda following the general conference.
3 There is going to be input from that scientific session, there 4
is going to be a group of people to go over a' series of things 5
that can'be done that will be useful.
That is one of the 6-things on-it.
7 As a matter of fact, if you go to the next slide 8
' discussing follow-up from the Brazilian incident, if y'ou go to
~
9 the last bullet on that slide.
10
[Viewgraph.)
11 The IAEA has prepared a follow-up report on the 12 Brazilian incident to derive lessons learned from the Brazilian 1;
incident.
We are sending -- NRC is sending Carl Paparilla of 14 Region 3 down there to participate in that report, it's 15 preparation and completion of the lessons learned.
Marty Moss,
'16 in fact, was down in Brazil a couple of weeks ago on 17 legislation to improve their -- designed to improve their 18 program.
19 IAEA hasn't been in as much in the past.
They are 20 getting into it more, and this is the kind of thing we are 21 going to be pursuing with IAEA.
22-CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Fine.
Perhaps when we are in IAEA at 23 the convention here in a couple of months, we should follow-up 24 on that.
25 MR. CUNNINGHAM:
Yes, sir.
I 25' 1
CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Will you be there?
2
. MR. BERNERO:
No.
Mr. Cunningham will be there.
3 MR. CUNNINGHAM:
I will be there.
4 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
You will be there, fine.
Let's both 5
of us make a note of that and approach IAEA officials while we r
6 are there at various levels, and see.
It seems to me that 7-internationally there should be some kind of coordination 8
effort so that the word on these incidents'does get ou't and is 9
coordinated internationally.
30 MR. CUNNINGHAM:
Yes, sir.
11 MR. BERNERO:
Excuse me, cir.
If I could digress 12 just a little bit.
There will be more to it than the 13 information sharing or incident reporting.
There will be 14 serious policy questions like if one nation sells high activity 15 sources of relatively long half-life to a less developed nation 16 for use in medical teletherapy say, does the vendor nation have 17 an obligation-to take that source back for disposal.
18 In other words, the Glionia source was a teletherapy 19 source that was no longer useful.
But, where should they have 20 sent it?
Did they have a logical place in which to dispose of 21 that source?
We have that very question within our own nation.
22 But in the IAEA context, you will get policy issues like that 23 between nations, the suppliers and the user nations.
24 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
As you recall, a couple of years ago 25 the two that were signed in Vienna, one on assistance and the
^
~
1 other on notification for reactor incidence.
Perhaps this is a 2-natural extension of those international commitments in an area 3
of nuclear materi51s, especially those that might be more 4
significant events.
5 In other words, a commitment not only to inform but 6
to assist if it looks like there is some very significant 7
contamination problem, a radiation problem.
It would be a very 8
. interesting subject, I think to discuss in Vienna when'we go 9
there in a couple of months to see if they have anything in 10 mind in that regard.
11 COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
I wonder if I could just make a 12 point here, because this somewhat touches on a concern that I 13 have.
It is a question on the use of the term 14 "accountability."
I think what you just touched on was 15 accountability, and what you have been talking about is 16
. accounting.
17 They are quite different.
They are related, but they 18 are quite different.
Accountability is a much broader concept, 19 and one which poses certain kinds of obligations and is 20 something that one holds an individual or corporation or an 21 entity for.
That is accountability.
Accounting is keeping 22 track of things, keeping records, keeping track of information.
23 I think that it would be a good idea to try to j
24 separate the use of those words here, because I think it's 25 useful to do that.
What we are talking about is really both, a
27 b
1 accounting and accountability.
But the term accountability is 2
being used interchangeably with accounting and that is a much 3
more limited concept.
I think what you are talking about posed 4
the question of accountability.
5 When one produces a sources and sells it, what kind 6
of accountability does one have for that --
7 MR. BERNERO:
Yes.
The buyer takes the 8
responsibility for those isotopes, for those curies an'd thereby 9
pledge to hold them for the necessary period of time or to 10 dispose of them.
What Dick in his opening remarks -- we are 11 talking about who is responsible for these isotopes, who is in 12 charge of them, who has that burden?
That is --
13 COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
I don't want to disrupt your 14 presentation, but I would hope that you might think this 15 through a little bit more with respect to separating, and being 16 more explicit when you are talking about accounting and 17 recordkeeping and tracking which is a part of accountability 18 but it's only a part.
19 MR. CUNNINGHAM:
That is very helpful, Commissioner 20 Rogers, because it goes back.to the question the Chairman had 21 and the difficulty in answering it.
What gets first priority?
l 22 If you are talking about accountability, then the answer rests 23 in the larger sources.
Accounting is the smaller generally 24 licensed sources.
These two are getting mixed together, and 25 that's why we have such difficulty separating those.
28 1
When I get back to the summary and try to answer the f
2 Chairman'a questions, I will talk about accountability and 3
where accounting fits into that.
4 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Fine.
Proceed, please.
5.
-(Vieugraph. J '
6 MR. CUNNINGHAM:
On slide 11, I just should note that 7
whcn ve did get word of the Brazilian incident, we did notify 8
our bread licensnes because of the nature o'f the accid'ent, that 9
they should really, if they have large sources in long term 10 storage and they are not using them they should really get rid 11 of them.
This does bring up a problem though, because if they 12 are above Class C like your radiator sources, there is no place 13 to dispose of them at the present time.
14 We are, of course, working with DOE as a separate 15 matter to try to get them to take Class C waste.
16 MR. THOMPSON:
They have the overall responsibility.
17 We just have not developed a disposal facility that is 18 addressed by the proposed rule we had for that type of material 19 would got into a repository, but that's some years off.
20 Obviously, we are looking at the framework of what do you do in 21 the meantime which is kind of a storage arrangement.
22 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
All right.
Let's proceed.
23 MR. CUNNINGHAM:
Proceeding with staff actions, 24 improvement in the general license program.
Here, the problem 25 is accounting; who has the sources, knowing where they are.
29 1
This is the main problem with the general license program.
We 2
are in the process of developing a real change that would 3
require accounting of these sources on a periodic basis to NRC.
4
.The staff is working on that now and will be submitted to the 5
EDO within the next few weeks.
6 There are other problems with general licensees, as 7
indicated by the 3M static elimination device problem.
There 8
are some other things we have been experiencing.
The ' staff has 9
developed a paper which encompasses a larger investigation 10 program into general licensees.
11 Basically, there are a number of questions and we 12 hope to prioritize what we are going to do with general 13 licensing.
We are looking over about three decades of 14 experience and growth in that industry since it began.
We do 15 have, we think the priorities are probably emphasis on QA, 16 product testing, limits on quantities for general licensees and 17 get back to the thing that Dick had, who is responsible for 18 clean up if one of these gets away and do they have the 19 financial resources to do a clean up.
20 (Viewgraph.)
21 Going to the next slide, summary and future 22 direction.
This is where I try to summarize a question -- your l
23 question, Mr. Chairman.
Use of byproduct materials do have 24 significant benefit to the public.
In terms of accountability, 25 there are regulatory improvements needed to be pursued.
1
30 l'
I think high on these lists in the materials areas, j
2 the one that you are very familiar'with in this administration 3
rules, to try to reduce misadministration, to upgrade 4
radiography performance, to provide financial assurance so that 5
both in instances when a site is decommissioned there are 6
resources to do it.
Also, financial assurance so that if there 7
is an accident there are resources to clean up those accidents.
8 It is one of the more important things we ha've, 9
because most of our accidents do not result in great public 10 health and safety problems.
But they do require clean up to 11 get rid of the waste and make it proper again.
Our goal here 12 is to reduce the frequency of incidents with emphasis on the 13 serious or wide scale incidents.
14 (Viewgraph.]
15 Turning to the last slide, the accounting part of the 16 problem with general licensees is as I just said.
There, we 17 are trying to develop a rule that would have an annual 18' accounting method.
We are also looking at some other 19 improvements in the general licensees.
As we discussed, we are 20 going to support IAEA in its program, their initiatives they 21 are current undertaking to improve materials control throughout 22 the world and reduce the risks.
23 That is the conclusion of my briefing, Mr. Chairman.
24 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Thank you very much.
25 MR. STELLO:
Let me try now to pick up another s
i l
-c 31 1
portion of this answer that I started the meeting with, and 2
that's the facility's -- and the true word here is 3
accountability -- which are given initial licenses and then 4
over a period of time corporations change names which look lixe 5
simple name changes.
Eventually the assets of the corporation 6
at the beginning when they were licensed are no longer 7
available at some period of time.
Hence, you can have a very 8
substantial clean up of a facility once it'is no longe'r being 9
used as an accountability problem.
10 These involve isotopes differently, for example, than 11 those that are in slide five on that table.
They are clearly a 12 concern to us and are being given priority, since someone will 13 be faced with substantial clean up of facilities once they are 14 no longer being used.
15 We have had a number of examples of these in the 16 past, and we are still finding that there are other facilities 17 out there and we have acade changes to accommodate this.
The 18 rule that we have passed covers a number of these facilities 19 but we are just beginning to implement it, so I suspect that 20 there will be -- with respect to getting surety bonds and 21 enough funds for decommissioning and clean up -- I do expect 22 that we will see problems with facilities as we start 23 implementing that rule.
24 I think we will find that there are facilities not 25 covered by that rule, for which there will be inadequate funds
.e 1
32 1
ava'ilable to decontaminate and clean up.
That is a true, if 2
you will, accountability problem but not an accounting.
We 3-know where the material is and know generally how much of it is 4
licensed to be there.
We can go through the arithmetic and 5
show that they are complying, 6
CHAIRMAN ZECH:
What would expect to be done in that 7
circumstance?
8 MR. STELLO:
We are developing -- we have on'e now --
9 we are going to be developing a plan for how to proceed dealing 10 with a particular facility.
Each and every case is probably 11 going to wind up being custom until we find a way to get some 12 more general process in place like perhaps even another rule 13 to cover other facilities.
14 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
We are talking about priorities and 15 accountability and so forth, I guess my concern in this 16 particular area would be with the smaller licensees who may not 17 have the financial strength that would support a clean up 18 endeavor.
19 So, I do think this is something that we should look 20 at very carefully.
21 MR. STELLO:
Yes, sir.
22 MR. THOMPSON:
We have, in the past, been able to get 23 some support from EPA.
Remember on the J.C.
Haynes clean up in 24 that activity.
That is not, obviously, the best way to go.
It 25 certainly is kind of a last resort, but there are those types
33 1
of resources that are available from the Superfund Clean Up 7:
2 activities which your effort is to try to get the facilities as 3
clean as possible using the current licensees and the person 4
who really is accountable for the licensed activity. COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
What is the insurance situation 6
covering this?
Are any of tilese possibilities covered, the 7
smaller operations with insurance?
8 MR. STELLO:
We have a new rule now which will 9
require demonstration of adec;uate assets -- I have forgotten 10 the number s,f the rule.
It was just passed by the commission.
11 We are in the process of implementing it.
With respect to 12 adequate funds, you remember that there was a scale in the rule 13 of money, a scale to the seriousness and expected cost of 14 decontamination.
15 When that is in place, then there will some sort of 16 insurance.
Until that time --
17 MR. THOMPSON:
I think some earlier studies were dont 18 to find out what does the insurance industry.. ave available, if 19 you wanted to get insurance on an accident type of situation.
20 That particular -- I think it is very expensive for getting 21 accident type of clean up insurance.
22 Most people felt that the benefit versus the premium 2.'
would be not in favor of having that, if they had a mutually 24 run insurance.
It would probably take some effort on the 25 nuclear licensees together to form some type of mutual
5
/_,
(,~
34 t
11-'
'ir.surance bill to-act effectively through that and-provide for
~
2.
accident' insurance.
3
-We haven't quite gotten to that rulemaking activity
.4.
.yet, but it is an important one.with respect to the liability 5-of contamination of sites.
'6-MR. BERNERO:, There is another_ aspect of the-clean-up 7
= problem that is worth considering.
In the past where vigilance 8'
-has not been exercised over the individual' licensees
'- I can 9
think of one case in Cleveland.
A company that makes sealed 10
. Cobalt-60 sources, over a period of years due to casual.or 11 sloppy operation, they slowly but surely contaminated the
~
12 facility very badly.
13 Now, it is not an accident and it's not a normal 14-operation.
But it's a major expense to clean up that facility 15
. properly and yet, it continues to try to operation.
There's 16_
that tension that-if you make me clean up you bankrupt me or if 17' you let me operate then I don't clean up.
If you let me
^
18 operate I will set a few dollars aside and clean up slowly.
19 We don't want to get into that situation.
That is 20 one that should not have occurred.
We should have exercised 21 enough vigilance 10 years ago to be able to dis, cover that, long
.22-before it got to the multi-million dollar state.
We hope with 23 present levels of vigilance, will avoid cases like that.
24 MR. CUNNINGHAM:
That is part of the front end work 25 that we are trying to do with licensees.
4
.,--.-,-,,e
s I
\\
35 1
CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Again, this is'the area that I am 2
talking about', priorities.
Sometimes-we need to focus 3
priorities-on a specific area like that.
4 MR. STELLO:
It is beyond those isotopes that were 5
specifically listed in the table.
That-is why we were 6
struggling to answer the question, because those are important.
7 In addition, isotopes other than that for different reasons, 8
can be equa?.ly important and need our priority as well'.
9 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Certainly.
10 MR. STELLO:
To furthur answer Commission Roger's 11 question, we have some facilities that go back 50, 75 years --
12 COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
Pre-atomjc energy.
13 MR. STELLO:
They are even pre-atomic energy and go 14 way back.
15 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Is there anything else?
16 MR. STELLO:
No.
17 MR. CUNNINGHAM:
No, sir.
18 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
That is the briefing?
19 MR. STELLO:
That's the end of the briefing, yes, 20 sir.
21 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Any questions of my fellow 22 Commissioner's?
Commissioner Roberts?
22 COMMTSSIONER ROBERTS:
I don't have a question, it's 24 an obsert' -lor.
Ct is a difficult problem, and you give 25 examples of prob) ems.
Some of these ar.e well publicized and i
[.
+
T 36 1
everybody knew about them.
I shutter to think that any similar
'2 incidents if not worse, we don't even know about.
3 MR. STELLO:
I think the last few years, our 4
bilateral agreements with countries -- if any country knows 5
about them where it's known -- I feel pretty comfortable that 6
we get the information.
7 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS:
Okay.
8 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Commissioner Rogers?
9 COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
What is the status of any of 10 those recommendations that 're relevant here to the 22 11 recommendations made by the Material Safety Regulation Review 12 Study Group?
What are their recommendations, relevant to what 13 we are talking about today?
14 MR. CUNNINGHAM:
We have a briefing in August on 15 that.
The radiography upgrade is one of them, better 16 communication with licensees, better training, more inspection.
17 COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
Are all of those essentially a 18 little bit different from what we are talking about here, or is 19 there some overlap?
20 MR. CUNNINGHAM:
The recommendations of that group 21 were more focused, I beliove, on the staff quality, the staff 22 approach to licensing and inspection than dealing with specific 23 problems out there that might exist.
Now, that is not entirely 24 correct.
They made recommendations like had more licensing 25 guides out there.
Tney did ask us to lock in radiography
t,
- {
37 1
certification.
1 2
I am trying to recall the specific ones.
There was 3
more our functions vis-a-vis what the 1.ensee does that the
~
4 MSRRSG recommendations addressed.
I think we are pretty well 5
along in most of those.
Some of them have no end, because it 6
is something that you have to work at continuously.
7 COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
How much of these problems that 8
are out there that we are worrying about in some way h' ave their 9
genesis in the fact that there is no really clearly identified 10 waste disposal facilities for these things?
If somebody 11 doesn't know where they are going to send something they will 12 just walk away from it.
They leave it on the local street 13 corner.
14 MR. CUNNINGHAM:
I think trat certainly the clean up 15 of some of these low activity largo volume facilities are 16 associated with either no facilities available, high cost of 17 disposal or awaiting something that we could get under these 18 exempt waste treatments.
It is a combination of those things.
19 There is a waste disposal problem there, not only in 20 the physical facilities but the high cost that sometimes 21 doesn't make any sense.
22 MR. STELLO:
There is at least one case where the 23 coupling is one to one.
As I remember the Haynes issue, the 24 r6ason that wound up where it did is that there is no disposal 25 facility available for it.
At least there are several others 1
30 1
for which there is, at least,-a connection.
2 It is clearly a part of the problem.
3 MR. THOMPSON:
As a follow-up, the Srazil when they 4
had the Cesium radiotelethorapy unit, we did a survey to see if 5
there were similar type of facilities in the U.
S.
We 6
identified a handful that were there, not in use and really no 7
place to send it.
That is one of the issues that we are 8
addressing with DOE.
9 Obviously, there is some Congressional interest about 10 having to lice.lse the DOE facilities.
So there is some tension 11 between having a licensed DOE greater than Class C storage 12 facility while we are awaiting to get a greater than Class C 13 disposal facility.
14' MR. BERNERO:
Right now, if we identified a 15 teletherapy unit in the state of neglect somewhere that we 16 happen upon, we could declare that or identify that as an 17 omergency condition and DOE would be able to accept that source 18 and take care of it on that basis, as un emergency.
19 There is not now an existing procedure, protocol or 20 fee schedule for DOF in an orderly fashion to identity that 21 handful of teletherapy devices like Glionia to say we are going 22 to take care of that in the long run and here's the way you get 23 rid of it.
Here's what you have to do, and here's an orderly 24 way to avoid cmergency situations.
We don't have that in place 25 right now.
e,
-+m,
-w,e
-n
t, 39
.What are we. doing about it?-
1~
CHAIRMAN ZECH:
2 MR. STELLO:
There is some activity in proposed 3
legislation that we have had discussions on that.
We would
'4 likt to see DOE openrsd to formal receipt and storage pending I
.5 disposal in a suitable facility.
l
~
l 6
CHAIRMAN ZECH:
In the meantime, what are we doing l
7 about it?
8 MR. THOMPSON:
We have dialogue with the DOE' 9
facilities and the individuals who are in charge of the waste 10 program.
In fact, I am having a meeting with them tomorrow.
-11 One of the issues that we are discussing is precisely this one.
12 We have not tried to negotiate a memorandum of 13 understanding or anything like that, but I am certainly 14-preparert to explore with them if there are ways that we can 15 ase:ist on having a disposal facility or at least a storage 16 fscility.
17 CHAIRMAN Z!;CH:
It seems to me that we have two l
18 problems.
One is a long range problem, which may require 19 legislation in timr..
The shorter range problem is if we have 20 problems out thora right now with some of our smaller licensees 21 in particular that are causing potential contamination 22 problems, what are we doing about it?
23 MR. STELLO:
I think we probably need to go back and 24 look at what more we can do about it.
The long term problem is 25 clearly solved with the existence of the low level waste issue
R' 40 1
being resolved by these things, the high level repository.
2 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Aren't our licensees aware now of the 3
low level waste disposal sites and their responsibilities to 4
not walk off from radiation and contamination areas?
5 MR THOMPSON:
They are.
I think like Bob Bernero 6
was.saying, there is a question of cost.
How much is it going 7
to cost?
There is no fee schedule, there's no clear way right
~8 now for them to --
9 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Don't they have --
10 MR. THOMPSON:
-- existing emergency to really get 11 rid of the material.
I don't think DOE -- is not inclined to 12 say just give it to us and we will take care of all the 13 expenses for you.
14 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
We can't just, in my view, do nothing 15 about that.
First of all, what you said earlier, we should 16 focus more on making licensees more responsible in the 17 beginning.
On the other hand, if we have licensees out there 18 now who are not properly handling radioactive materials we 19 ought to do something about it.
20 MR. THOMPSON:
I think once we know about them, then 21 I think we take the action -- a measured action.
22 COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
Make sure we know about it.
23 MR. THOMPSON:
--for example, the facility that Bob 24 was talking about earlier that had contaminated their facility.
25 It was the tension between ordering them to clean it up versus f
6 41 1
shutting'them down and --
'2 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
I understand that.
My question is 3
not the ones that we know about.
I think the ones that we know 4
about we are handling responsibly.
I think that's what you are 5
telling us; is that right?
6 MR. THOMPSON:
Let's put it this way, we certainly 7
are actively addressing each of those in a responsible fashion 8
if there's no public health and safety issues in the s'hort 9
term.
Obviously, some of them present a long term problem that 10 is a financial situation.
How long are we prepared to let them 11 to contintie to monitor the situation to protect public health 12 and safety rather than clean it up.
13 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
It's not the ones that we know about thatareconcerningmeasmuchastheonesthatkthinkyouare 14 15 telling us that we don't know about sometimes.
I am saying, 16 what are we doing about that?
What are we doing to try to know 17 about the ones that are problems out there and we are not aware 18 of?
19 MR. STELLO:
We presented it in the briefing, what we 20 are trying to do for accounting to improve our ability to find 21 those.
We still have a problem even when we find them, of 22 whether there is sufficient funds, any place in which to se7d 23 the material.
24 In most cases it becomes an issue where the 25 significant issue is going to become the availability of the
c 42 1
funds.
Those become special, case-by-case issues and we.are 2
handling them one at a time.
I think you are raising a 3
question of'isn't there a more systematic and better way to do 4
this in a generic fashion and make it easier.
5 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Right.
6 MR. STELLO:
We are looking at that, and I think we 7
'probably need to go back and find some institutional way to 8
deal with it that will improve it.
9 CRAIRMAN ZECH:
Let me ask the staff to take that one 10 then, and perhaps NMSS can take it for action to get back to 11 the Commission with just exactly are we doing to try to find 12 out if there are problems out there that perhaps have not been 13 reported to us.
Can't we establish a better system of at least 14 requiring from our licensees some kind of notification if they 15 are having problems and if they perceive problems as far as 16 radiation, contamination and disposal is concerned with.
17 If you will get back to us with that, I think it 18 would help.
19 MR. STELLO:
We will.
20 MR. THOMPSON:
The other one, which is really an 21 accountin" pect, we are requesting shortly a rulemaking 22 effort tc start on that activity that will give us the 23 capability to know who has the types of devices, where they are 24 and that they are being alert to those, so that they just don't 25 become abandoned which I think is the other key element that we
s '. -
43 1
are looking at that led to many of these other major problems 2
sometimes.
3 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Address tha too, please.
4 MR. CUNNINGHAM:
The important part of that, we know 5
at least a number of these people are supposed to have these.
6 If they don't have them, that gets back to the point.
7 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
That's right.
8 COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
I want to make the pol'nt that 9
you want to head off abandonment, but what about those that 10 have already been abandoned that we haven't heard about?
11 That's the one that we ought to be abla to get a grip on, 12 MR. STELLO:
We are pursuing -- that one we are also 13 pursing.
You recall -- the Commission, I believe, has agreed 14 and authorized us to use some contract people to go out and try 35 to locate those so we don't have to use our own investigative 16 resources to do it.
We are pursuing that.
17 COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
You are?
18 MR. STELLO:
Yes.
19 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Anything else?
20 COKMISSIONER ROGERS:
No.
21 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
As I recall in March, Region 4 made a 22 proposal for a pilot program or trial program for improvements 23 in material licensing and~ inspection.
Do you recall that 24 Region 4 proposal, and what is the status of that?
25 MR. CUNNINGHAM:
My recollection is that they are
?., -
44 i
1 implementing most of it'.
We did_have one question about how 2
they were going f.o use people that visit sites who were not 3
qualified inspec. tors.
We had some question on that.
4 There is a concern about sending somebody out to a 5
site who isn't qualified representing NRC, and supposed to be 6
able to recognize-a problem that might not recognize a problem.
7 That is getting sorted out.
Other than that, as far as I know 8
the last time I looked, they were in the pr'ocess of 9
implementing these.
10 They had some very good ideas.
It is a start in the 11 direction of getting close contact with licensees and will keep 12 us on top of a lot of these problems that we have been
.13 discussing today.
14 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
You are following that Region 4 15 program thon, are you?
16 MR. CUNNINGHAM:
Yes, sir.
17 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
All right.
What is the status of the 18 rulemaking that I believe -- I have heard about that was to 19 require commercial waste disposal operators to report to NRC 20 information in a computer format on vaste shipments that they 21 received?
It seems to me if that is some form of rulemaking 22 status, that it might be helpful to try to get a handle on this 23 whole situation.
24 MR. BERNERO:
We are not quite right to come to you 25 with that now.
For the.other Commissioner's, we are talking
c, 45 1
about a rulemaking which is under development right now, 2
whereby the invoices for waste shipments to waste burial 3'
' grounds would be coded in a similar way, automated, and we 4
would have a real time or shortly after real time report of 5
everything that goes by isotope, by curie in some sufficient 6
accuracy.
7' MR. THOMPSON:
Into the low level waste deposits.
8 MR. STELLO:- Yes, into burial gro'unds.
We a're not 9
trying to do an arithmetic material balance on the U.S.
10 society.
We are trying to get some coherent idea of what the 11 isotope composition and quantity is in a given burial ground, 12 what the sources of those isotopes or different waste forms 13 are.
14 The staff developed that rule.
It went through our 15 office level of review and got some rather vigorous comments.
16 It was back to the drawing board.
They have redrafted that and 17 are now working a final version that we should be able to get 18 it to the EDO in a matter of not too nany weeks from now and la will get over to you with that.
20 Basically, I don't want to oversell that, you know.
21 It is not a total material accounting of all radio isotopes, 22 but it is taking the waste to generation and disposal end of 23 it.
It would give us, for instance, a good way to know where.
24 J.C.
Haynes sent his stuff.
25 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
At least i
's a partial solution to
's 46 1-trying to find out --
2 MR. STELLO:
It's a start.
3 MR. CUNNINGHAM:
It's part of the solution.
4 MR. THOMPSON:
It's part of the solution.
5 CHAIRMAN ZE'CH:
Right.
While you are here, could you 6
give us a'very brief-status report of the static eliminator 7
device situation?
8 MR. BERNERO:
They are supposed to give the'show 9
cause in 13 days.
The static eliminator thing, you remember, 10 we had so many-thousands of devices there.
In effect, the 11 license was suspended by the nature of the orders that were 12 issued.
No more distribution unless with very specific 13 constraints on it and so forth.
14 The 3M Company asked for and was granted, a couple of 15 month extension to finish their studies; why did this thing y
16 fail and where do you intend to go from here.
We still don't
-17 know for sure what they intend to do.
The deadline is 13 days 18 from today.
They will submit their response to the show cause j
19 order.
It will show cause why we shouldn't cancel this whole 20 thing and stop this, suspend and cancel the license.
They will 21 answer.
22 Meanwhile, we have gathered by now, I think all of 23 the FDA jurisdiction devices --
24 MR. THOMPSON:
I think it may be one licensee.
25 MR. STELLO:
One licensee that was still being
's -
47 1
tracked.
A 2
CHAIRMAN ZECH:
All the others have been accounted 3
for?
4 MR. CUNNINGHAM:
All but one.
5 MR. BERNERO:
That is in the FDA jurisdiction.
6 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Yes.
7 MR. BERNERO:
The non-FDA jurisdiction, I don't have 8
any chart visible.
9 MR. THOMPSON:
I think it's like in the 80 or 84 10 percent, as I remember, have been returned.
I did grant an 11 extension, provided they went through a certain procedure to 12 survey their facility on some of the non-critical industries, 13 to allow those people to continue to the life of their lease or 14 another 60 days.
15 MR. STELLO:
Mr. Chairman, we are, essentially, up at 16 the point where most of the static eliminators that are leased, 17 the period of the lease l's, essentially running out as well.
18 All of those are very close to getting back from all of the 19 users to the manufacturer.
20 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
We are not granting an extension of 21 that license.
22 MR. THOMPSON:
Not any addition.
The one thing, 23 obviously, they were looking -- part of the reason for granting 24 extension is the manufacturer of the other static eliminator 25 device was obviously, his orders were fairly substantial and he
48 1
had a peak in'a timeframe for him to deliver that device.
That 2
was the reason.for the additional period in there -- one of the 3-other reasons.
4 MR. BERNERO:
Remember, we authorized in our initial 5
orders, only for workplace safety, could you continue to use 6
it.
If you had economic problems and you just couldn't run 7
your printing press without it, you would have to get the other 8
fellow's device and put it in to replace this.
That i's where 9
they had this bottleneck, the supply bottleneck.
10 MR. THOMPSON:
We did one other thing, by the way.
11 We did a joint Region 3 -- NMSS went and inspected the other 12 3M activities up there recently.
They'did find some problems.
13 We didn't find any significant issues along the lines of other 14 devices with major failures, such as the ones that we found in 15 the static eliminator.
16 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Thank you very much.
Any other 17 questions from my fellow Commissioner's?
18 (No response.]
19 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Let me thank you very much for a very 20 important briefing.
I must say the materials licensing field 21 is one that I know we are devoting more resources to and more 22 attention to, but it certainly merits that in my judgment.
23 Our mission is public health and safety.
I presume 24 that when you find any issue, even though in these areas that 25 are in low radiation levels or minor contamination, you w311
49 1
look very carefully at it to see if public health and safety 2
could be involved.
If you do find public health and safety 3
issues that we are focur,ing on, with high priority.
4 There is an awful l'ot of licensees out there.
It 5
seems to me in the past, perhaps, we have not given-as much 6
scrutiny to some of these licensees as perhaps we should have.
7 I hope that we will learn that lesson for the future and we do 8
two things.
One, we are very mindful of th'e many lice'nsees out 9
there right now and we do everything that we can to improve 10 accountability as well as their accounting procedures, as well 11 as focusing on public health and safety so that if we do find 12 any problems in that area we jump right on them; 13 Second, of course, we learned the lessons from some 14 of these incidents that have taken place and apply them to the 15 rulemaking process, to our procedures and our policies as well 16 as anything that we do plan for the future.
This is a very 17 important field, whereas we focus on power plants a great deal 18 of the time here.
It is very clear, I think to the Commission, 19 that this area merits a great deal of our attention.
20 So, Mr. Stello, you and Mr. Thompson, Mr. Cunningham 21 and'Mr. Benero and others, if you feel that you need more 22 support from the Commission in this area I hope that you will 23 come to us in a timely manner so that we can give you the 24 support necessary.
If you feel that there are public health 25 and safety issues here that should be brought to the
N' 50 1
Commission's. attention and should merit more resources or more
?
~2 support than you have, please bring that to the commission 3-because I think this is an' area that we really need to focus 4
on.
5 I hope we can get an update of this briefing in the 6
not too distant future, because this is something I think the 7
Commission needs to focus on, perhaps more than we have in the 8
past.
I think we all have a little feeling that it is'not so 9
much the problems that we know about but it is, perhaps, those 10 problems that you have alluded to that pop up from time to time 11 that we haven't been aware of.
Hopefully, they are not_in the 12 area of significant public health and safety issues.
13 We just charge the staff to be especially alert for 14 that area to make sure that we are, indeed, properly carrying i
15 out our mission as far as public health and safety is 16 concerned.
17 With that, thank you very much.
We stand adjourned.
18 (Whereupon, at 3:15 p.m.,
the Commission meeting was 19 concluded.)
20 21 22 23 24 25
m CERTIFICATE OF TRANSCRIBER-This is to certify that the attached events of:a meeting of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission entitled:
BRIEFING.0N ACCOUNTABILITY OF RADI0 ACTIVE TITLE OF MEETING: MATERIAL USED BY MATERIAL LICENSEES PLACE OF-MEETING:
Washington, D.C.
DATE OF MEETING:
Tuesday, July 5, 1988 were transcribed by me.
I further certify that said transcription is accurate and complete, to the best of my ability, and that the transcript is a true and accurate record of the foregoing events, e
u Ann Riley & Associates, Ltd.
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COMMISSION BRIEFING ON ACCOUNTABILITY OF RADI0 ACTIVE MATERIAL USED BY MATERIAL LICENSEES JULY 5, 1988
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ABOUT 200-LIVES ~ SAVED PER. WEEK 0
SMOKE DETECTORS
~ ESTIMATE THOUSANDS OF LIVES SAVED AND REDUCED PROPERTY DAMAGE O
INDUSTRIAL RADIOGRAPHY - QA: BRIDGES, AIRCRAFT, HAZARDOUS MATERIAL PIPELINES 0
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RISKS ASSOCIATED WITH BOTH OPERATIONS AND ACCOUNTABILITY 0
INTERtlATIONAL EXPERIENCE - DEMONSTRATES POTENTIAL FOR-SERIOUS INJURY OR DEATH 0
U.S. EXPERIENCE - RELATIVELY FREQUENT IllCIDENTS OF LOW HEALTH CONSEQUENCE; SOME INVOLVE DIFFICULT AND HIGH CLEANUP COSTS 4
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l'IAIN ACCOUNTABILITY PROBLEM'IS WITH GENERAL-LICENSEES; BUT RISKS ARE DOMINATED BY SPECIFIC LICENSEES 0
OVER 300,000 DEVICES' GENERALLY LICENSED 0
QUARTERLY REPORTS OF. TRANSFERS SENT TO NRC 0
LITTLE NRC EFFORT ON ROUTINE INSPECTION OF GENERAL LICENSEES
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RADIOGRAPHY SOURCE'- MOR0mCo - 1984 o
CESIUM-137 CONTAMINATION - CALIFORNIA - 1985 o
ABANDONED GAUGE - MISSOURI - 1986 0
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