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000/MFW/87/06/10 M ] 1 387 NOTE T0: Larry Saraka, LLOB FROM: Mike Weber, LLTB SUPJECT: COMMENTS ON NEW YORK'S LLW REGULATIONS In response to your request on June 10, 1987, I have reviewed your corrents on New York's draft LLW regulations. This note transmits my coments on your coments and suggests additional coments based on my quick review of New l York's reculations. I l
Coments on Coments i
- 1. I agree with most of your coments. )
- 2. Your coment on 328.18(1)(b)(3rd Criterion) should be amended to include requirements that disposal sites be well-drained and free of areas of ponding as specified in 661.50(a)(5). 56 An 1 M[ed p
. 3. I disagree with your coment on 328.18(i)(1)(1). Banning waste L' disposal in areas such as National Parks and wildlife refuges in < . ,
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comparable with NRC's exclusion of 100-yr floodplains, wetlands, and l coastal high hazard areas. It is New York's perogative to ban disposal ..
i in such "protected" areas. Your coment, however, is appropriate for *? h Section (j) on natural resources. @*#
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- 4. Your general coment on 328.18(i) should be amended to indicate that !
.\ N the General Siting Criteria address $61.50(a)(4) in addition to (2), (3), 9 Ml (9), and (11). x
- 5. I disagree with your first coment on '382.20(1)(a). Remediation is generally an action taken to restore or improve an existing situation.
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y Although mitigation is similar, mitigation is an action taken to prevent i or protect. In groundwater assessments, an example mitigative action would be insta. ling a slurry wall to prevent continued contaminant transport, whereas remediation might be pumping out and treating the O
tM contaminated groundwater to restore the aquifer. Both concepts are appropriate for inclusion in New York's regulations if this is their intent.
In your second coment on 382.20(1)(a), you should add the question:
/ "Are there any conflicts between New York's hazardous waste regulations %
b cnd these proposed LLW regulations that would preclude Mixed LLW ohoosal?"
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- 6. I dist. gree with your third coment on 382.20(i)(b). Criterion 5 is not neces1arily inconsistent with the long-tenn stability performance Designing a facility to "facilitate" remedial
\\ . objective in 661.44
' action does not necessarily mean that the action must be implemented.
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-2 iV 7. I suggest modifying your comment number 4 on Criterion 6 of-F
}y# ./382.20(i)(b) by deleting "disposal unit and" from your proposed substitution for the word "repository." '
In addition, I suggest that you modify coment 5 to indicate that Criterion 7 should be deleted if Criterion 6 is so revised or, at the
- very least, changed to delete the phrase ". . . and during the active instituttenal control period."
- 8. I disagree with your first coment on 382.20(ii)(a). Remedial g .'g performance measures should onlyRequiring objectives. be triggered when remedial there is measures danger of exceeding the to prevent radionuclides from reaching the site boundary may be overly restrictive and inappropriate.
In addition, I suggest that you delete your second comment on 382.20(ii)(a). Criterion 9 focuses on release of radionuclides after Y. k water has contacted the waste, whereas criteria 6-8 focus on preventing f ; water from centacting the waste. Therefore, criteria 6-8 are not sub-criteria of criterion 9.
- 9. I suggest that you amend your second coment on 382.20(iii)(a) to indicate that the inclusion of design lifetimes of 100, 300, and 500 years is not appropriate. LLW must be isolated for an indefinitely long f period. The time limits of 100, 300, and 500 years are based on bN
\ o' requirements to protect inadvertent intruders. Their adoption as design 9r o
lifetimes is inappropriate and inconsistent with their purposes in 10 CFR '
Part 61.
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- 10. In your third coment on 382.20(iii)(a), I suggest that you retain the last sentence of Criterion 4 Facilitation of remedial actions is o , ,- a desireable objective provided that it does not compromise long-term
'.V site performance.
\- Additional Coments on Regulations
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,f In addition to your coments, I suggest that you cansider the following coments about the regulations themselves:
YA The regulations appear to be site suitability requirements rather y[c11.
V than siting criteria, as they are referred to in the regulations.
Specific siting criteria would be derived from the regulations to apply in screening or "siting" studies of the state to identify candidate disposal areas. New York should consider renaming the "siting" criteria i g to be site suitability criteria.
k P s 12, 328.18(i)(a)(4) emphasizes grmdwater and geologic systems that may
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' affect facility performance. Therre%'ulation does not einily-indicate e that hydrogeologic systems ,eet-inay be affected by facility perfonnance a
JUN 11 1987 000/MFW/P.7/06/10 g ) T" 150 reed to be characteriz e1er monitorahls, M el hb h , and p mlynhle. Et m uire err _shculd be m i n d iv deiete the phresr "affecting facDity perfemnce."
- 13. The ban on siting disposal units in the 100-year floodplain, coastal e high hazard areas, and wetlands is comon to both above-ground and
,F i below-ground vaults and mined repositories. Therefore, the ban should be (S, / included generically in 328.18(i)(b)(1). Su__ cuud co.% L N
- 14. 328,18(i)(b)(2) and (e)(2) should be revised to indicate that
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y disposal sites shall be located where existing and future uses of surface -
- water and groundwater will not be impaired.
W '.c $' c f 15, 328.18(i)(c) emphasizes past or present exploration and j /
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v' \ , J xploitation. Therealconcernwithmineralexploitationisonfuture/ b p\) isposal site performance. Therefore, the criterion should be revised to -
6' elete the reference to "past or present" exploration and exploitation.
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, 16. There are at least three concerns about 328,18(1)(d)(2). First, NRC 1 -
considered a similar site suitability requirement in developing Part 61, .
's but ultimately decided against it because contaminant retardation is difficult to characterize. Second, the migration of some radionuclides
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Third, if the very is simply mobile not retarded,are radionuclides thus no sitefrom excluded maythesatisfy the requirement, the requirement becomes unimportant because all geologic materials are likely to retard radionuclide transport to some extent.
Therefore, New York should consider deleting the requirement or restating it to make it a more effective discriminator between potentially suitable and unsuitable sites.
- 17. 328.18(i)(e)(1) may cause problems because it may drive siting to p
Q , very low permeability rocks, which may complicate design of facilities to { ,
avoid "bathtubbing" problems. This requirement should be described in
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more detail or deleted from the set of criteria.
18, 328.18(iii)(c)(1)isinappropriate. This requirement will tend to drive siting to fractured, low-pertneability, low-porosity hydrogeologic Jv systems. These systems complicate facility siting and design in several
'$ ways. For example, low-permeability fracture flow systems are extremely difficult if not impossible to characterize, model, and monitor, thus D
conflicting with 328,18(1)(a)(4). In addition, the low porosity specified in the requirement would tend to increase radionuclide transport velocities and decrease groundwater travel times to potential points of exposure. New York should reconsider the merit of this requirement and either delete it or revise it to describe the requirement in more detail.
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. 19. The criteria should define "regional groundwater flow systems" in
\p the context of 328.18(iii)(c)(3) and "inhomogeneities" in the context of t- 328.18(iii)(d)(3).
. 20. The phrase "using reasonably available and practiceble technology"
'r' should be added to the end of 328.18(iii)(d)(1).
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- 21. The requirements in 382.20 appear to use the terms "site", "disposal site", "disposal units", "disposal facility", and "structures"
[l,t interchangeably even though eachgrm has its specific defini_t.io1Lin the_ ,!. ')
, ' .- context of the regulations. Thepfegulationss t6,be re-evaluated to ensure that these terms are being used consistently With their definitions.
- 22. The regulations should define "major natural phenomena" in the context of 382.20(ii)(a)(3). For example, does this imply that probably
' V maximum events, such as the PMF or MCE, should be used as design bases? ,
It may be more appropriate to remove this requirement from the regulations and insert it into guidance on how to demonstrate compliance with the regulations. p4
- 23. Use of the term "flooding"bppears to be inappropriate it1 .-
s 382.20(ii)(a)(4). New Ycrk should consider substitution of the word f
"saturating" for "flooding."
. 24 The phrase "to reet the performance objectives" should be inserted J at the end of 382.20(v)(4).
Please contact me if you have any questions about or would like to discuss my coments .
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