ML20151L688
| ML20151L688 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 06/10/1997 |
| From: | Diaz N NRC COMMISSION (OCM) |
| To: | Mcgaffigan E NRC COMMISSION (OCM) |
| References | |
| COMEXM-97-002, COMEXM-97-2, NUDOCS 9708070148 | |
| Download: ML20151L688 (1) | |
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N UNITED STATES f
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N NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION CoMEXM-97-002 WASHINGTON. D.C. 20555 g
s e e.. e... e. e e.. e o e, e. e e Iigree with Commissioner McGaffigan that NRC should declare itself
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RELEASED TO THE PDR to.be a Commentng Agency on the Ward Valley SEIS process, consistent with NEPA. The SEIS deals with issues that are clearty OFFtCE OF THE y
p our area of expertise and we are therefore duty bound to j
COMMISSIONER e
pQrdbon oursehres to serve as a technical resource to the data inst!a!s administration in the decisions to be made.
.,eeeeeeeeeeeee eseeeees l would further request that the staff provide an estmate of the MEMORANDUM TO:
Chairman Jackson resources that wdl be needed to provide substantive technical Commi ssi oner Rogers comments throughout the SEIS process. The staff should fully Commissioner Dicus define the role that the NR ke as apoqenbng Agency.
I(M)Q p issioner Diaz g
FROM:
Edward McGaffigan. Jr. !bNb
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- C SUBJECT.
NRC ACTION WITH REGARD TO WARD VALLEY LOW LEVEL WASTE (LLW)
DISPOSAL SITE in recent separate meetings with Carl Lischeske. Manager of the Low Level Radioactive Waste Program for the California Department of Health, and the NMSS staff. I was made awdre of a " Fact Sheet" related to the proposed Ward Valley LLW disposal site that was published by the U.S. Deoartment of the Interior (DOI) and of an informal recuest from Mr. Lischeske that the NRC seek to become a " cooperating agency"! wit, regard to DOI's preparation of a second Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) on Ward Valley.
One basis for the recuest from Mr. Lischeske is that many of the issues that DOI proposes to readc.ress in its second SEIS involve technical radiological matters particularly within the scope of NRC's special expertise and outside DOI's areas of expertise.
Illustrative of DOI's lack of expertise is DOI's
" Fact Sheet" (copy attached) which, according to the NMSS staff, is rife with errors and misleading statements, is critical of current law and NRC definitions of low level waste, and needs to be corrected.
To an extent.:I have exp~lored withethecNMSS' staff thetissue of a more active role for the NRC~in'th'e ongoing DOI work on Ward Valley.
From these discussions, I believe that there are several approaches that might reasonably.
be considered to lend NRC's assistance and expertise to the efforts to resolve the technical and environmental issues on Ward Valley that DOI seems intent on pursuing.
Specifically, we might ask the staff to -
(1) AssesstheDOI"FactSheet"andsendalettertop01correctingthe errors in the " Fact Sheet" and offering to assist DOI. within NRC's Under CEQ regulations, a " cooperating agency" is "any Federal agency 1
other than a lead agency which has jurisdiction by law or special expertise with respect to any environmental impact involved in a proposal.
for
/i major Federal action significantly affecting the quality of the human i
environment.' 40 CFR 1508.5.
An agency may be designated as a " cooperating
-Qy agency" upon the request of the lead agency.
40 CFR 1501.6.
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The NMSS staff noted that DOI has informally indicated in the past that 2
it would not seek NRC's assistance.
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