ML20154N577
| ML20154N577 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 06/14/1978 |
| From: | Gilinsky V NRC COMMISSION (OCM) |
| To: | |
| References | |
| REF-WM-6, TASK-TF, TASK-URFO NUDOCS 9810220026 | |
| Download: ML20154N577 (2) | |
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Additional Remarks by Commissioner Victor Gilinsky Before the Subcommittee on Nuclear Regulation Committee.on Environment and Public Works United States Senate June 14, 1978 e
'Mr. Chairman, I would like to add a'few remarks on the
. proposal, outlined-in the Commission's testimony for NRC regulation of DOE high level waste sites.
~Under existing legislation even new tanks at these sites are
- not' subject to NRC regulation.because they are not regarded as intended for long-term waste storage, which has been taken to mean storage for more than twenty years.
This distinction is to my mind not a useful one here.
If nothing I
'else, intent can change; what was intended to be a short-term use can turn out to be long-term; yet under the present approach it will have escaped regulation.
More importantly, I
the distinction does not seem to address the safety problems:
posed by the wastes.
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i The Congress has expressed sufficient concern over the
' safety of a national waste repository to require NRC licensing.
.There wastes would be stored far below ground and in a L
relatively stable fonn.
The Congress should in my view be more concerned -- rather than less -- with comparable amounts of waste stored near the surface in forms less
. stable and more easily dispersed.
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9810220026 790614 PDR WASTE
_ WM-6
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.. _ _ Of course common sense indicates that the regulatory approach for waste facilities already in use must be different from that for new ones.
In the former case what can reasonably be accomplished is more limited.
Nevertheless we ought to try to do the best we can under the circumstances, and NRC regulation will help.
I do not regard it as a denigration of DOE management to suggest that the public safety will benefit from such independent oversight.
I think it is fairly obvious that just as there are advantages in comprehensive and unified DOE
^& 3gement of the nation's high level waste, both milita.
and commercial, there are corresponding advantages in a comprehensive and unified scheme of safety regulation.
It seems to me the natural place to draw the boundary line of the regulated DOE high level waste sector is where regulation becomes clearly incompatible with the operation of military plutonium production programs.
So far as I can tell the waste sites under discussion do not fall in this latter category.
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