ML20155B824
| ML20155B824 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 06/03/1988 |
| From: | NRC COMMISSION (OCM) |
| To: | |
| References | |
| REF-10CFR9.7 NUDOCS 8806130363 | |
| Download: ML20155B824 (78) | |
Text
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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Title:
DOE BRIEFING ON LLW Pho.han, WEST VALLEY DEMONSTRATION PROJECT AND URANIUM MILL TAILINGS REMEDIAL ACTION PROJECT Location:
ONE WHITE FLINT NORTH ROCKVILLE, MARYLAND Date:
FRIDAY, JUNE 3, 1988 Pages:
1-46 Q
e l
Ann Riley & Associates Court Reporters 16251 Street, N.W., Suite 921 Washington, D.C. 20006 (202) 293-3950 8806130363 880603 PDR 10CFR PDR PT9.7
DISCLAIMER This' is an unofficial transcript of a meeting of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission held on 6-3-88 in the Commission's office at One White Flint North, Rockville, Maryland.
The meeting was open to public attendance and observation.
This transcript 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 Commi;sion in any proceeding as.the result of, or addressed to, any statement or argument contained herein, except as the Commission may authorize.
0 0
1 1
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA l
2 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3
4 DOE BRIEFING ON LLW PROGRAM, WEST VALLEY DEMONSTRATION 5
PROJECT AND URANIt31 MILL TAILINGS REMEDIAL ACTION PROJECT l
l 6
l 7
PUBLIC MEETING 1
1 8
9 Nuclear Regulatory Commission 10 One White Flint North 11 Rockville, Maryland 12 13 Friday, June 3, 1988 14 15 The Commission met in open session, pursuant to 16 notice, at 10:02 o' clock, a.m., the Honorable LANDO W.
- ZECH, l
17 Chairman of the Commission, presiding.
I l
18 COMMISSIONERS PRESENT:
19 LANDO W.
- ZECH, Chairman of the Commission 20 THOMAS M. ROBERTS, Member of the Commission 21 KENNETH CARR, Member of the Commission 22 KENNETH ROGERS, Member of the Commission 23 24 25
1 2
1 STAFF AND PRESENTERS SEATED AT THE COMMISSION TABLE:
2 3
S.
CHILK, SECY 4
V. STELLO, EDO 5
W.
PARLER,.OGC 6
J.
COLEMAN, DOE 7
J.
BAUBLITZ, DOE 8
9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25
3 1
PROCEEDINGS 2
(10:02 a.m.]
3 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.
4 Today the commission will be briefed by John Baublitz, the 5
Acting Director of the Office of Remedial Action and Waste 6
Technology of the Department of Energy.
Welcome sir.
7 MR. BAUBLITZ:
Thank you.
8 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
It's my understanding that the 9
briefing will cover-first of all, the Uranium Mill Tailings 10 Remedial Action Project.
Second, the West Valley Demonstration 11 Project.
And third, the Low-Level Wsste Program.
The Uranium 12 Mill Tailing Control Act requires remediation of 24 mill 13 tailing piles in the United States by the Department of Energy.
14 It requires the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to consult, 15 concur in remedial actions and license the long-term custody of 16 these sites.
17 The West Valley Demonstration Project Act instructs 18 the NRC to monitor the West Valley Demonstration Project to 19 ensure that public health and safety are protected.
It's my l
20 understanding that the Act does not require licensing of the 21 disposal of low-level wastes, transuranic wastes, or the 22 decommissioning process.
However, all of these activities are 23 to be carried out in accordance with applicable Nuclear 24 Regulatory Commission licensing requirements.
The Low-Level 25 Radioactive Waste Policy Amendments Act of 1985 provides for
4 1
the establishment and operation of regional disposal facilities 2
for commercial low-level radioactive waste.
The NRC has a 3
responsibility under this Act to provide technical assistance i
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4 to the states to help them meet their responsibilities.
5 Submitting various information and status reports to Congress 6
and make decisions about emergency access to low-level waste 7
facilities.
All of these various responsibilities require good 8
coordination and cooperation with the Department of Energy.
l 9
The Commission's interest in the hearing today is to how the 10 cooperation and coordination is going with the Department of 11 Energy.
And before we begin, to end my thought, if the 12 Commissioners have any comments they'd like to make.
If not, 13 welcome sir, and you may proceed.
14 MR. BAUBLITZ:
Thank you very much.
I'm pleased to 15' have the opportunity to be here with you this morning, 16 presenting a briefing of information for you on the programs 17 for which I'm responsible.
That the Department carries out in 18 coordination with the NRC.
And for which, the NRC's role and 19 contribution is quite important in our view to the ultimate 20 success of these activities.
I have prepared a briefing here 21 that should take roughly 45 minutes.
I believe that should 22 allow ample time for whatever questions and discussion you may 23 wish to have.
And I'll certainly be happy to answer your 24 questions at any time, as I go along.
25 Would you put on the second slide, please.
I
l 5
1 represent the Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy, Mr. Ted j
2 Garrish.
My office is the Office of Remedial Action of Waste 3
Technology.
We have three divisions.
Two of which are 4
responsible for the programs that we're going to be discussing 5
today.
The Division of Waste Treatment Projects is headed up
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6 by Joe coleman, who's with me here on my left.
Included in his 7
responsibilities are the Low-Level Waste Program and the West 8
Valley Project.
9 The Division of Uranium Mill Tailings Projects is 10 responsible, naturally enough, for the Uranium Mill Tailings 11 Remedial Action Project.
The directorship of that division is 12 currently vacant.
But I do have with me today, Jacob Getrill, 13 of that division, who's assisting with the audiovisual workup 14 in the control room.
15 Next slide, please.
The three programs I'm going to 16 discuss today are described and the roles of the DOE and the 17 commission are defined by specific legislation, that puts these 18 programs in a situation that la different, therefore, from a 19 standard licensee-regulatory agency, relationship.
Our roles 20 are not specifically defined in these cases by the Atomic 21 Energy Act, but by the specific pieces of legislation.
The
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22 Uranium Mill Tailings Radiation Control Act was passed in 1978.
23 The West Valley Demonstration Project Act in 1980.
The 24 original Low-Level Waste Policy Act was passed in 1980.
25 And then a very significant set of amendments were
,c 6
1 passed in 1985.
Those are the three acts that will define the 2
programs we will be discussing.
I'd like to point out my use 3
of terminology here, just for clarification.
I'm referring to 4
our Low-Level Waste Program as the commercial Low-Level Waste 5
Program.
That terminology is specifically to distinguish it 6
from the Department's low-level waste activities with regard to 7
the low-level waste it generates, manages and disposes of at 8
its own sites. This program is dealing with the commercial 9
disposal of waste that is not generated by the Department.
10 Next slide, please.
11 The first project I'd like to discuss is the Uranium 12 Mill Tailings Project.
The authority, as mentioned, is the 13 public law.
The peculiarity of this particular authorization 14 is that it's limited.
The original law provided a 7-year 15 period for the Department to carry out its responsibilities, as 16 defined as beginning when the Environmental Protection Agency 17 promulgated standards for the program.
Those standards were 18 promulgated in 1983, and as a result, our current authorization 19 expires in 1990.
That is a particular problem.
We already 20 have defined the need for an extension to that time period, i
21 And before Congress right now, is legislation to extend the l
22 project through 1994.
I 23 The objectives of the project are to stabilize 24 24 designated uranium mill tailings sites, principally in the 25 West.
And in addition, some four to 6,000 individual
7
[
1 properties that are contaminated with material from those sites 2
in the vicinity of those 24 locations.
Next slide, please.
l L
{
3 The law defines a number of parties who have a role 4
in this program.
There is a great deal of interaction required 5
in carrying this project out.
First of all, EPA, as I 6
mentioned, was given the responsibility to establish standards, 1
l.
7 which they did in 1983.
However, in September of 1985, upon 8
appeal, the Tenth circuit court remanded the groundwater 9
portion of those standards back to EPA for revision.
That has 10 caused us and the commission in carrying out this activity a 11 great deal of extra work and concern.
And I'll touch again on 12 that later.
13 The NRC has, of course, specific responsibilities, 14 I'll get into those in more detail.
Summarizing the key 15 activities are the approval of the remedial action to be 16 carried out and the ultimate licensing of the disposal sites.
17 Department of Interior has their general responsibility for l
18 Indian Affairs and four of our sites are located on Indian 19 lands.
And in addition, four sites that are on public lands 20 which we wish to use ultimately for disposal.
The individual 21 states have specific responsibilities with regard to land 22 acquisition and they also approve the remedial action.
23 Indian tribes are also directly involved and get to 24 approve actions planned on their sites.
Next slide, please.
25 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Are you going to discuss the' burden
8 1
on the clean-up of these sites that may be caused by this EPA 2
proposed groundwater?
3 KR. BAUBLITZ:
Yes sir, I will.
It has complicated 4
things significantly in terms of both the immediate design work 5
for disposal cells and planning for restoration of contaminated 6
groundwater.
The revised standards, and they're promulgated 7
now in draft form, cover both of those activities.
And in both 8
case, they are the cause of some concern.
In our comments to 9
EPA of last fall on the proposed standards, we pointed out that 10 we believe the groundwater restoration requirements in the 11 draft standards would create the need for clean-up over a 12 period of many decades at a cost that could approach a billion 13 dollars.
14 In the case of the impact of the standards on the 15 disposal cell designs, we pointed out our belief that as the 16 standards are currently written, we could not achieve 17 compliance with the standard and would have to rely on many, if 18 not most sites, on the provisions for altering the 19 concentration limits to meet those requirements.
So we have 20 serious concerns.
We have been actively involved with your 21 staff over the last several months, trying to reach an 22 agreement on approaches to take with current designs for sites 23 that we're currently working on and trying to get started on, 24 to accommodate those requirements.
And it's been difficult.
25 But we are making progress.
\\
9 1
CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Are you working with EPA also?
And 2
are they aware of your concerns?
3 MR. BAUBLITZ:
They're very aware of our concerns.
4 As I mentioned, we did submit extensive formal comments on the 5
draft standards.
We are continuing to develop data, as we get 6
more information on the sites.
And we plan to send additional 7
information to them over the next several months.
Our current 8
understanding is their final standards will probably not be 9
promulgated until at least next spring.
Perhaps into the 10 summer.
So we feel there is additional time available to have 11 further dialogue with them.
12 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
All right.
Thank you.
13 MR. BAUBLITZ:
The implementation of the project is l
14 assigned by the DOE to its Albuquerque operations office.
The 15 provisions of the law provide for sharing of costs: 90% by the 16 Department and 10% by the host state.
Our schedule is for 17 completion of remedial actions in 1993.
As you can see, our 18 current schedule already assumes that the extension now before 19 Congress will be approved.
And I mentioned specifically that 20 the authorization extension is required.
21 Next slide, please.
22 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS:
Do you foresee any difficulty 23 in getting the extension?
24 MR. BAUBLITZ:
Anything that requires Congressional 25 action is certainly a problem, from my point of view.
We have
10 1
been active with the staff of key Congressman and Senators and 2
key committees and we have some verbal assurances from the 3
staff that they believe that it will get taken care of.
But I 4
have concerns.
5 COMMISSIONER CARR:
I understood you to say that you 6
had requested an extension to 1994.
7 MR. BAUBLITZ:
That's correct.
We are planning our 8
project to complete all of the remedial actions by 1993.
That 9
leaves a year for the final certification and licensing that 10 needs to take place between the Department and NRC before the 11 authorization expires.
12 The current slides shows a simple picture of the USA 13 showing the location of these sites.
As you can see, they're 14 clearly concentrated in the mountainous areas of the West, 15 where the uranium belts are.
With one outlier in Canonsburg, 16 Pennsylvania that was essentially a special case that was added 17 to the Act for special reasons.
Next slide, please.
18 I'm now going to show three photographs that are not 19 in the hard copy package because of the poor reproduction of 20 the photographs, to give you a little sense of the scale and 21 the type of work that Uranium Mill Tailing Project involves.
22 I'm going to show you some photographs of the site in Durango, 23 Colorado, which is currently under remedial action.
The first 24 photo shows the site.
It contains about one and a half million 25 tons of tailings, located in two distinct piles.
The smaller
3 11 1
one is there, the larger one is over here.
I'm sort of drawing 2
a circle around the larger pile to give you a feel for it.
3 The old mill site was down here.
There's the old 4
stack from the mill site operation.
The Animas River runs by 5
the alte and the city of Durango is directly across the river, 6
just on the other side, so we're quite close to that area.
The 7
proposed plan for the remedial action on this pile, or this 8
pair of piles, is to remove both of these piles from this 9
location and relocate them approximately a mile away, back this 10 direction, to a canyon site that has been acquired by the state 11 for this purpose, on the other side of the mountain.
Next 12 slide, please.
13 I'm going to show you next, another aerial taken a 14 little closer to the location, of work currently in progress.
l 15 Now this, as I say, is a little closer.
The river is just 16 beyond the vision of the graph over here and here.
This is the 17 larger pile, and you can see, work has been started here by 18 simple bulldozing of material off.the edge of the pile down to 19 a collection area here, where it's being loaded onto large 20 double-trailer trucks for transport up to the disposal site.
21 It's simply bulldozed down and then backhoed, loaded into these 22 t rucks.
And they go up an access road in this direction.
On 23 the return cycle, they come back down here, and here's one 24 coming around for the reload.
25 You can see here a water collection basin.
All run-
12 1
off after remedial action started is collected, sampled, and if 2
needed, treated before discharge.
Next slide, please.
The 3
final photograph here will show the disposal site.
This is a 4
shot from directly overhead, looking down on this canyon, which 5
is being prepared for a disposal site.
The haul road from the 6
main site is coming down this way.
You can just sort of make 7
out some trucks coming down there.
The haul road comes up this 8
way.
This area is the tailings being deposited.
Trucks durp 9
the tailings there and proceed back down along the road here.
10 There's a wash station there where the tailings that they've 11 picked up and dumping, moving across the pile are cleaned off.
12 The rest of this activity here is stockpiles of 13 material to be used for eventual cover and staging areas for 14 the trucks and the work.
Once the material is dumped, it's 15 simply processed with earthmoving equipment for compaction and 16 so forth.
Until the total amount, we estimate a total of two 17 million tons of material will be disposed of, covered with an 18 engineered cover and then be finished, meeting the design
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19 requirements of approximately 1,000 year life.
Next slide, 20 please.
21 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS:
It's hard to tell from these 22 photographs.
But isn't that a comparatively small pile?
23 MR. BAUBLITZ:
It'e about average for this program, 24 The 24 sites that we are responsible for in this program are 25 old sites.
They're sites that all ceased operation prior to
13 1
1978.
The total amount of material that we're going to be 2
handling is about 25 million tons.
By comparison, there is a 3
single, commercial site, currently active licensed site in New 4
Mexico that has about the same amount of material on it by 5
itself.
6 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS:
You know what an engineer at 7
Los Alamos told me several years ago?
He said there's no l
8 problem with mill tailings.
You just incinerate the pile at i
9 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit.
Can you imagine that?
In situ.
And 1) this person meant it!
(laughter) 11 MR. BAUBLITZ:
There are proposals for doing that 12 kind of thing with buried waste.
These I think would be
)
13 clearly, much too large.
And I think that would be overkill.
14 That kind of stabilization wouldn't make any sense.
i 15 COMMISSIONER CARR:
Are you going to fill up that 16 entire canyon?
17 MR. BADBLITZ:
We won't fill it.
18 COMMISSIONER CARR:
How do you take care of the fact 19 that it was created by a wash probably.
20 MR. BAUBLITZ:
Well, I can't comment specifically, 21 But that kind of question is very pertinent to the acceptance l
22 of the site and the acceptance of the design of the pile in the 23 site.
Each of these sites, for example, is analyzed from the 24 point of view of a PMF event.
And the cover and the design are 25 designed to accommodate very severe rain and flood conditions.
14 1
The design, the standards, which are design standards, require 2
us to design for a life of 1,000 years, if practicable, and for 3
at least 200 years.
And unfortunately, in the case of rainfall 4
events, the technology I'm told doesn't provide much in between 5
100 years for dans and PMF.
So, we typically design for PMF 9
6 and back off only if there is some specific justification that 7
can be made.
Next slide, please.
8 I'm going to now summarize the requirements in Public 9
Law 95-604 that define the requirements, the role of the NRC.
10 I've summarized the key ones in this short list.
You can see, 1
11 there are five specific items that require specific 12 concurrence.
Cooperative agreements, which we have with each 1
13 state and Indian tribe.
Site acquisition, which is the 14 responsibility of the state for the processing sites themselves 15 and any disposal sites that are required separately.
The most 16 important is certainly the one for concurrence on the remedial 17 action, which is carried out.
Site certification, at the 18 completion of the action.
And then the long-term maintenance 19 and surveillance plans, which tie in then directly to the final 20 licensing of the disposal site.
21 Those activities, being formal concurrences, of 22 course, all then connect directly into our project time life.
23 So it's a critical activity, both in the sense of the need to 24 do it, but aise the timeliness of it for the schedule.
Next 25 slide, please.
r-,
,, -. -,... - ~ - - -.,, -.
,r
- -, - _ _. ~
15 1
CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Has DOE entered into agreements with 2
the affected Indian tribes?
3 MR. BAUBLITZ:
Yes, sir.
4 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
On the remedial actions, did long-5 term care of the uranium mil
- tailing sites that are on Indian 6
land, have you?
l.
7 MR. BAUBLITZ:
We do that on an individual site l
8 basis.
We have an agreement with the Navajo Nation, for 9
example.
And we have completed the first site on Navajo lands j
10 at Shiprock, New Mexico.
And the DOE will be responsible in 11 perpetuity for the maintenence and surveillance of that site.
12 However, it will not, it will remain Indian land, officially.
13 Indian lands always remain Indian lands unless there is some 14 other special arrangement.
But that has been handled through 15 the cooperative agreement.
16 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Are you satisfied that that's a 17 working arrangement?
18 MR. BAUBLITZ:
Yes.
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19 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Have you been able to complete the 20 acquisition of all the Title 1 sites?
21 MR. BAUBLITZ:
We are doing those as the schedule 22 requires.
And they are proceeding as needed.
I'm hedging a i
23 little bit because there are problems as we go down the line.
24 The states have to deal with the current owners.
The current 25 owners in some cases feel they should be reimbursed more
16 1
liberally than the states believe and we agree with.
And so 2
there are litigations.
In some cases, mostly it's a matter of 3
settlement.
Condemnation proceedings are required in some 4
cases.
So.
5 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
So you're continuing to work on the 6
acquisition.
7 MR. BAUBLITZ:
Yes.
It's an ongoing part of tne 8
activity, sir.
9 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
All right.
Thank you.
10 MR. BAUBLITZ:
This slide describes the beginning at 11 least, of a description of the memorandum of understanding 12 which has been executed between DOE and NRC.
Its purpose, of 13 course, is to provide for the mutual responsibilities we have, 14 unde" T)tle 1, recognizing that there are clear and specific 15 respcnsibilities for each agency, a,ttempt to make those clearly 16 understood and avoid unnecessary duplication.
And of course, 17 recognizing the statutory deadlines associated with this 18 program, to try to provide for expeditious review and 19 concurrence on the milestones.
Next slide, please.
20 The contents of the MOU include the things you'd 21 expect, first in identification of responsible organizational 22 units.
In the case of NRC, the division of low-level waste 23 management and decommissioning.
24 In the Office of Nuclear Material Safety and 25 Safeguards, assisted for specific sites by the Uranium Recovery i
17 1
Field Office, is a responsible group.
2 On our side, I mentioned the Albuquerque operations 3
offices, the location of our UMTRA project office, and they 4
have the day to day management responsibilities.
5 There is close interaction between those two groups, 6
I would point out.
There is a regular weekly phone call, for 7
example, to review where things are, what is being done by 8
whom, and what the expectations are, and frequent meetings to 9
discuss specific things.
10 The MOU also lists specifically the NRC 11 responsibilities in the public law and, by contrast with my 12 short list of a few slides ago, there's about a page and a half 13 of single-spaced typing that delineates all the various things 14 that are specified in the law for NRC to do and be responsible 15 for.
16 Then there's a 12 page appendix that contains review 17 and concurrence procedures for all the activities that the 18 Commission is responsible for carrying out.
19 And by way of illustration, there are some six 20 specific documents that require review, comment, and/or 21 concurrence by the commission for each individual site.
22 Most of those come through in both a draft and a 23 final form, so that's something on the order of ten documents 24 per site.
25 In addition, there are another five or six documents
18 1
that are not site-specific, things like the memorandums of 2
agreement with the individual states and tribes, other 3
documents that are project-wide called the assurance documents, 4
and that kind of thing.
5 So there are i large number of individual actions 6
that go on and require review, comment, and in many cases, 7
concurrence.
8 The procedures include target review times in great 9
detail to try to blend this process into the overall project 10 schedule.
11 And the procudures also cover both the processing 12 sites and the vicinity properties.
As I mentioned, there are 13 some roughly 5,000 of these individual properties that have to 14 be cleaned up.
15 We've succeeded in reaching agreement on a general 16 approach that's defined in a separate document that was agreed 17 to once and, as it's revised, it gets agreed to again, but that 18 removes the necessity for NRC review and approval of individual 19 actions on those 5,000 sites.
20 To summarize and further illustrate, the next two 21 slides show sort of a snapshot of about a week ago, actions, 22 documents that are currently before the Commission's, your 23 staff, for review, comment, and/or concurrence.
24 Activities of one sort or another and in coordination 25 or things that have been reviewed and commented on, activities j
19 1
are in progress essentially for all sites.
2 But specifically, right now, there are preliminary 3
designs for two sites here for review and comment.
There are 4
environmental documents for two sites here for review and l
5 comment.
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6 There are remedial action plans or mods for five 7
sites here for review, comment, and concurrence.
Certification 8
reports for two sites are here for concurrence and comment.
9 The next slide continues.
There is a remedial action 10 inspection plan for one site here for review, comment, and 11 concurrence and there is a surveillance and maintenance plan 12 for one site.
13 So, as I say, that's just intended to give you sort 14 of a snapshot of the current pace and level of activities.
I'd 15 like to spend just a moment, returning briefly to the subject 16 we mentioned before, the groundwater standards.
17 That is a cause of significant concern to us mutually 18 because of the nature of the change.in the ground rules that 19 occurred at this point in time.
20 As I mentioned, it has implications for the long term i
21 groundwater restoration problem.
We feel less concerned about i
22 that because we, and I believe your staff, have agreed that can 23 be separated from the current remedial actions and we are 24 proceeding along those lines.
25 The disposal cell design, however, there are specific
20 1
implications of the new standards as I mentioned which we feel, 2
as they are written, may be possible to achieve without 3
approval cf specific alternata concentration limits for 4
essentially every site.
5 And that is a difficult situation, is requiring a lot 6
of time, additional time, extra time on the part of your staff 7
and our own people, to move ahead in this situation.
8 The last slide on UMTRA, which won't show up on the 9
screen very well but you can see in the hard copy, is our 10 overall project schedule.
11 It is much too detailed.
I have no intention to try 12 to go over this in detail, but I wanted to point out a few 13 specific things.
14 First of all, the scope of the project, the bottom 15 line, you can see the annual budgets and the grand total of the 16 DOE dollars for the program.
It's about $925 million.
17 In addition, the states' share is about ano.ther $60 18 million.
The base project as it now exists is about a $1 19 billion project.
20 The current funding levels are about $116 million and l
21 we're proceeding on the basis of $100 million per year, 22 roughly, for a period of about six years.
23 We're right in the middle of the peak of the 24 activity.
NRC's role tends to peak just before we begin 25 remedial action.
21 1
The final approval of the remedial action plan and a 2
lot of other documentation takes place during the roughly year 3
or so leading up to starting remedial action.
4 And if you look at the shaded bars that designate 5
remedial action you can see we have a lot of remedial action 6
starts this year and in the next three years.
7 We are right at the beginning of what will be a 8
several year period of peak activity in the moving ahead with 9
this project.
10 So this is the time and the next several years will 11 be the most demanding for your staff in support of this 12 project.
13 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Looking at that chart, can you tell 14 me, in your estimation, in what timeframe the first few sites 15 will be ready for licensing for long term custody?
16 MR. BAUBLTTZ:
Sure.
The very -- the first site 17 listed as Canonsburg site, the remedial action there was 18 completed in fiscal 1986.
That site has now -- is one of those 19 I refer to without doing it by name, for which we have the 20 certification report here for final review and concurrence.
21 That's the first one that came up, of course, for
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22 certification approval and our experience, not surprisingly, 23 has been throughout the project that the first of a kind of 24 review, approval, and concurrence tends to take longer, j
i 25 We've been cutting our teeth on Canonsburg throughout
22 1
the life of the project.
We certainly hope that in subsequent 2
sites the final certifica.'en process will not take so long.
3 And as I mentioned in response to an earlier 4
question, we've deliberately allowed about a year at the tail 5
and of the schedule to cover final certification and licensing 6
activities.
7 The next slide, please.
Moving ahead now to the West 8
Valley demonstration project, this project, as the chairman 9
pointed out initially, results from a commercial fuel 10 reprocessing plant located in New York State, shut down in 11 1972, with about 600,000 gallons of high-level waste in 12 underground storage.
13 The company, I think, decided it did not want to 14 remain in the business and the site reverted to the State of 15 New York.
16 In 1980, the West Valley demonstration project doc 17 was passed, assigning the Department of Energy the 18 responsibility for setting up a demonstration project to 19 solidify that high-level waste.
20 The next slide lists the objectives for the project 21 as specified in the act.
First, to solidify the high-level
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22 waste in a form suitable for transportation and disposal.
i 23 In parallel, to develop containers suitable for that 24 disposal.
Then to transport the waste to a Federal repository 25 for permanent disposal.
23 1
To dispose of low-level and transuranic waste that's 2
produced in the solidification procesa and also, finally, to 3
decontaminate and decommissioning the facilities that are used 4
in-the solidification projects.
5 The next slide will show our schedule.
The project 6
has been divided broadly into two phases.
The first phase is 7
the solidification phase.
The second phase is the 8
decontamination and decommissioning phase.
9 Phase I is to be completed by the middle of 1994.
10 Phase II is roughly estimated to be completed in 2010.
That 11 part of the project has not been well scoped and precisely 12 defined and the ultimate end is somewhat tied, at the present 13 at least, to the availability of the repository.
14 It seems likely that the D&D can be completed faster 15 than that and, if in fact the Department can discover some way 16 to store the high-level waste somewhere other than West Valley, 17 we may be able to terminate the project earlier than that, but 18 that's uncertain at this time.
~
19 The implementation, again, the Department has a 20 project office assigned locally in West Valley and, again, we 21 have a cost-sharing situation with the state where we pay 90 22 percent and the state pays 10 percent of the cost.
23 The next slide is a pictorial representation of the 24 site, very simplified to provide an easy way to define the 25 various pieces that are at the site.
i.
24 l
1 It's an over 3,000 acre sito.' Specific parts of this l
l 2
site have been turned over by the State of New York to the l
l 3
Department for carrying out this project.
l 4
The project focuses on the processing plant and the 5
high-level waste tanks.
The one tank that's shaded is where 6
the 600,000 gallons of high-level waste are currently stored.
7 We are going to use the processing plant for the 8
solidification process.
In addition to those two pieces which 9
are clearly part of our project, there are also two disposal 10 areas that are at the site that are not part of the 11 demonstration project.
l 12 There is a low-level waste site that was a 13 commercially operated low-level waste site that is the 14 responnibility of New York State that is on the reservation, i
15 and there is a disposal area that was licensed by the 16 Commission for disposal of waste from the plant when it was 17 operating for fuel reprocessing, and that is still there.
18 Neither of those two disposal areas are part of the ll*
19 demonstration project.
The vaste that was disposed of in the 20 commercial license site during fuel processing is not part of 21 the project.
22 The next slide is a photograph, again, not that we 23 produced on your package, but I'll just use it quickly to 24 describe the various parts of the site.
25 The main process buildings are located centrally I
25 1
right here.
The tank farm where the very tanks are located 2
with the waste are down in this region.
3 The New York State low-level waste site is the green j
1 4
area up here, and the licensed, formerly licensed, the license 5
has been -- what's the term -- suspended for the life of the 6
project, is located right here.
7 The administration area building is over here.
The 8
low-level waste that has been generated by the decontamination 9
of facilities in the processing plant that will be used are 10 being stored in some temporary buildings here and here.
11 And then up here is a facility that is called a drum 12 cell where drums of the low-level waste that are being produced 13 by the processing of the supernatant from the high-level waste 14 tanks, the solidified waste is being placed in this area for i
15 storage until permanent disposal is provided.
16 Next slide.
Here I'm going to take a second and, J
j 17 again, I think it will show up better on the hard copy than on 18 the video, a simplified schematic of the processes that will be
~
19 used to handle the waste at West Valley.
20 Above the line, so to speak, is the low-level waste 21 processing cycle, It starts with the supernatant from the 22 high-level waste tanks being processed through zeolite ion 23 exchangers to remove cesium.
]
24 The liquid that passen through the exchangers then 25 goes through a waste treatment process that includes 1
26 1
evaporation and then solidification in a cement form in a 70-2 odd gallon square drum, and then they go for storage in the 3
drum call I pointed out in the photograph, and ultimately to a 4
low-level waste disposal which may or may not be on site, 5
depending on the outcome'of the environmental review.
6 The remainder of the high-level waste in the sludge 7
form.
That will be combined with the reu11te from the 8
supernatant treatment process.
Combic+:
as a matter of fact, 9
back in the original tank.
10 The sludge and zeolite then will be mobilized from J
11 that tank and pumped into the vitrification process.
The 1
12 slurry ceramic melter is used, or will be used, for the 13 vitrification into silica glass logs.
14 Those will then be stored on-site or somewhere else, 15 if possible, until they can be transported for final disposal 16 at the repository.
17 Next slide.
18 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
You worked with our staff on this j
i 19 process, I presume?
j 20 MR. BAUBLITZ:
Yes, sir.
21 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
And have they indicated that they 22 concurred in this approach?
23 MR. BAUBLITZ:
Yes, although I hesitate to use concur 24 because the provisions are not for formal concurrence.
In 25 fact, I'll go into a little more detail later on, but we have
27 1
worked, I think, very closely with your staff and I think our l
2 approach is that all NRC comments will be resolved.
3 If we want to call that concurrence or not 4
concurrence. I don't think it matters.
We definitely want and 5
need approval from your staff for the technical approaches to 6
be taken.
7 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
All right.
8 MR. BAUBLITZ:
This, again, is a photograph that's 9
not reproduced in the handout.
It simply shows the heart of l
10 the process, the vitrification procesa.
11 This is the slurry ceramic melter.
This box, in f
i 12 fact, the melter itself.
Underneath, there is a turntable that 13 has three locations for canisters and the pour from the melt, 14 the melted glass pour, is discharged into a canister and then 15 the turntable is rotated and, as you can see, with a non-16 radioactive test canister here.
17 That is then removed, of course, remotely in a 18 radioactive case while others are being poured and cooled, and 19 that's the simple way the process works.
20 Next slide.
Again, I've summarized the NRC role per 21 the public law, in this case 96-368.
The NRC to provide a 22 review and consultation on the Department's plans for the high-23 level waste removal, solidification and preparation for 24 disposal.
25 Our plans for the decontamination of facilities used
28 1
for the solidification.
Also on the high-level waste forn 2
itself and the containers to be used for the disposal.
3 And then, in addition, safety analysis reports and 4
any other information developed related to potential hazards ~to 5
public health and safety.
6 COMMISSIONER CARR:
Have you settled on the high-7 level waste form yet?
8 MR. BAUBLITZ:
Yes.
There are still discussions 9
about specifics regarding the form, but it is a borasilicated 10 glass form.
11 COMMISSIONER CARR:
You think stability is all right 12 then?
13 MR. BAUBLITZ:
Yes.
The next slide continues.
The 14 NRC is to have access to the site to monitor the DOE's 15 activities.
16 And finally, the Commission prescribes requirements 17 for decontamination and decommissioning of the site in, Phase 18 II.
The next slide.
19 We also have a memorandum of understanding between 20 the Department and the Commission for the West Valley project 21 to provide the procedures for this review and consultation 22 role.
23 The next slide lists the contents of the MOU.
- Again, 24 the responsibilities are defined.
Again, it's, in the NRC 25 case, the Office of Nuclear Materials Safety and Safeguards.
29 1
However, three different divisions are involved.
The 2
NRC project manager and the lead is given to the Division of 3
Medical and Industrial Safety.
4 The high-level waste management diviaion, of course, 5
has the key role in reviewing the waste form and the low-level 6
waste management and decommissioning division, naturally 7
enough, has the lead on activities regarding low-level waste 8
management and decommissioning.
9 Region I has a role in the routine surveillance of 10 operations and they visit frequently.
Our responsibility, as I 11 mentioned, are vested with the project office in West Valley.
12 The MOU lays out the responsibilities of the parties 13 and also provides guidelines for NRC in the consultation 14 comment.
15 The next slide gives a summary of current and near-16 term activities that are taking place between DOE and NRC with 17 regard to the project.
18 The integrated radwaste treatment system, that's the 19 low-level waste stream that was above the line in the pictorial 20 I showed a few minutes ago.
21 There, the Commission's staff is provided periodic 22 quality reviews and has been undergoing reviews of long-term 23 cement performance.
24 That system began operation about a week ago and we 25 are now in production on that line.
In the low-level waste
30 1
disposal area, the staff is evaluating our approach for the 2
disposal of Th.
and, of course, is developing -- well, will be 3
approving the criteria for closure of the project.
4 The next slide continues.
There will be a safety 5
report prepared by the Department and then the NRC is planning 6
a safety ~ evaluation report on the sludge mobilization system 7
prior to hot operations.
8 Similarly, a safety evaluation report will be 9
prepared prior to hot operations for the vitrification system 10 and there will be consultations, as we mentioned, on the final 11 waste form.
12 In general, the routine safety security and quality 13 assurance reviews and operating reviews, as I mentioned, are 14 being carried out by the Region I staff.
15 The next slide, again, is a rather busy detail of the 16 overall summary schedule and, again, I don't plan to go over 17 this in detail, but want to use it to illustrate the key points 18 in time where the NRC staff's role will be maximized.
19 The final milestones on this chart are the 20 vitrification hot operations to be completed in 1994.
Just 21 prior to that during the cold operations period, will be the 22 time when the final reviews and approvals occur for that high-1 23 level waste form, so that is a key time.
l 24 About midway down, there is the schedule for the 25 waste qualification report for the high-level waste form and
31 1
there is the DOE-NRC review and approval shown there.
2 And then in the sludge processing, which is the 3
bottom series of bars, the waste preparation phase preceding 4
the sludge wash Jnitiation, it's during that period of time 5
that the Commission will be approving the sludge processing.
6 So those activities will be occurring in the 1991 and 7
'92 time period and, as you will remember, that period is also 8
a time when some of the peaking will still be occurring on the 9
UMTRA project.
So those are very busy times.
10 COMMISSIONER CARR:
How about explaining your legend P
11 there to me.
What do you mean when you say schedule 12 constrained?
13 MR. BAUBLITZ:
The difference is the schedule 14 constrained is essentially a depiction of the critical path 15 where that activity is connected directly to some other 16 activity.
17 So that slippage in a constrained area causes 18 problems.
Slippage in an unconstrained area is less of a
~
19 concern.
20 COMMISSIONER CARR:
And what about the critical 21 activity, what does that mean?
~
22 MR. BAUBLITZ:
That just means -- those are the i
23 activities that, from a technical and programmatic point of
)
24 view, are the most significant.
Vitrification, hot ops, is 25 probably the best illustration.
32 l
1 COMMISSIONER CARR:
And the arrows, what are -- you 2
said you had already started the processing of the supernatant.
3 Does that just mean it continues on, where that arrow is?
4 MR. BAUBLITZ:
Yes.
The next slide will begin the 5
discussion of the low-level waste program.
As I said, we're 6
calling it commercial to distinguish it from DOE's programs for 7
management and disposal of its own low-level waste.
8 Our role in this program is to facilitate the 9
establishment of an effective national system with the states, 10 as you know, having the lead for establishing low-level waste 11 capacity.
12 The two pieces of legislation we mentioned before 13 that establish the DOE's role as well as the NRC's.
The next 14 slide lists the objectives of this program for the Department.
15 We are to provide principally technical assistance to 16 the states and regions in developing new capacity.
We have 17 very specifically assigned administrative and reporting 18 responsibilities, especially under the Amendments Act.
19 And also provided by the Amendments Act, the 20 Department is responsible for disposal of non-DOE greater than 21 Class C low-level waste.
22 And again, the non-DOE is simply in there to 23 distinguish the responsibility to this program from the other 24 parts of DOE which are responsible for DOE's own waste.
25 The next slide is a pictorial representation of the
33 1
status of the regional compacting process.
There are eight 2
approved compacts currently.
3 One compact is proposed, and shown in cross-hatched, 4
there are nine states plus the District of Columbia and Puerto 5
Rico, which are currently unaffiliated, some of which are 6
moving actively toward providing disposal capacity for 7
themselves.
8 others are sort of waiting and seeing and perhaps 9
will align themselves through contracts with other regions at 10 some future time.
11 The next slide summarizes the DOE and NRC 12 interactions on the low-level waste programs.
In the greater 13 than Class C area, the Department is responsible for disposing 14 of grcater than Class C waste and the act specifies that it 15 should be disposed, or shall be disposed, in an NRC licensed 16 facility.
17 The act providea for milestones for progress in the 18 low-level waste area and one specific milestone, the next one 19 as a matter of fact, in 1990, requires the states to submit 20 applications for licensing to the Commission.
21 DOE's role for all the milestones is to make a 22 decision and disburse rebates to the states and compacts, 23 depending on their success in meeting the milestones.
24 In the case of the 1990 milestone, the decision is 25 really based on NRC's judgment as to the suitability and
34 1
acceptability of the license application, so that we have a key 2
interface there.
3 Separate from low-level waste policy act, but
~
4 contained in the high-level waste act, the NWPA, so-called, 5
there is a provision that has to do with low-level waste and 6
the transfer of low-level waste sites to DOE for long term 7
custody and care.
8 And NRC is responsible, in the cases of those 9
proposed transfers, to determine if the conditions are proper 10 for site closure and permanent custody by the DOE.
So any 11 process there would be done in close coordination.
12 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Just a comment here, if I may, kind 13 of a related field.
We've recently published a revision to 10 14 CFR Part 61, for greater than Class C disposal, and we'll be 15 interested in having your comments on that proposed rule.
16 I don't know if you've had a chance to look at that 17 yet or not but --
18 MR. BAUBLITZ:
Well, we have.
I th!.nk in terms of 19 the specifics for greater than Class C, the rule states a, I
20 guess you could term it as a preference for disposal in a high-21 level waste repository, unless an alternate is demonstrated to 22 be suitable.
23 And my own judgment at least on that, at this point, 24 is that that doesn't change things dramatically from our point 25 of view.
35 1
I see that's still our responsibility to decide what 2
we think is best.
If we conclude that the repository disposal 3
is best, and by best I mean from all kinds of considerations 4
including economic, then that's what we should propose.
5 If we conclude that some alternate could better 6
achieve satisfactory disposal more economically or more easily 7
somehow, then we should develop something to propose for the 8
commission's approval.
9 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
'We'd appreciate your comments when 10 you can finalize them.
11 MR. BAUBLITZ:
Yes, sir.
12 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
All right.
Thank you.
13 MR. BAUBLITZ:
Other areas of interaction on the low-14 level waste program include some specifics.
We have in 15 progress the preparation of prototype license applications for 16 two technologies that are being considered by the states.
17 We hope to have those prototype applications finished 18 early next year and submit those to the commission for review
~
19 and comment.
20 This process, we hope, will be directly helpful to 21 the states and the regions in the preparation of their
~
22 milestone for their license application to meet the next 23 milestone.
24 In addition, there is an informal but important 25 series of coordinatir-t go on continually.
There is a
36 1
low-level waste form and separately a technical coordinating 2
committee that bring together states, regions, and the Federal 3
Government which are sponsored by DOE but which the Commission 4
staff have a strong role and participation in.
5 And then finally, I have, again, a schedule chart to 6
show the timescales at which things are happening.
This is a 7
generic plan that the Department has developed to show how the 8
states might proceed to meet the milestones.
9 And the 1990 milestone, as we mentioned, is for 10 submission of a license application and that will be the 11 decision that we will be relying heavily on the Commission for.
12 13 And in addition, a prototype license application and 14 review of those proceeding over the next year, roughly, we hope 15 will be in time to bn of helpful use to the states in meeting 16 that milestone.
17 COMMISSIONER CARR:
Do you expect all those license 18 applications to come in at one time?
~
19 MR. BAUBLITZ:
No.
We expect, based on what we know 20 now, that probably more states will miss that deadline in terms 21 of an actual license application than will meet it.
22 The provisions of the law will allow the states to 23 delay license application submission for several years if there 24 is a certification by the Governor of the state that he accepts 25 full responsibility for the provision of waste handling and
l 37 i
l 1
storage as required.
2 Based on the progress of things so far, it looks like 3
many of the states will be following that route, but we hope at 4
least several of the ones that are further along will meet the 5
'90 deadline.
6 That concludes my presentation.
7 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Thank you very much.
Are there any 8
questions from my fellow Commissioners?
Mr. Roberts?
9 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS:
On the West Valley endeavor, 10 where you've got a lot of high-level waste, do you coordinate 11 with OCRA?
You know what I mean by the acronym?
12 MR. BAUBLITZ:
Yes, sir, I do.
13 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS:
The Office of Civilian 14 Whatever.
15 MR. BAUBLITZ:
Reactive Waste Management.
The high-16 level waste.
17 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS:
All right.
18 MR. BAUBLITZ:
We do extensively, particularly on the 19 issue of high-level waste.
There is sort of a three-way 20 operation there, in a sense, with us and RW, as we call them, g
21 the high-level waste office, and the commission staff.
22 Ultimately, the DOE, through that office, will be i
23 submitting an application for licensing of the repository, 24 based on some source terms.
25 The West Valley waste will be a contributor to that j
l
- - -. _, _. ~ - _
38 1
source term, so it's of interest to all parties that there is a 2
good understanding of what the West Valley waste form is going 3
to be like, and that there's a high probability that it will 4
fit an ultimate scenario for licensing.
5 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Commissioner Carr?
6 COMMISSIONER CARR:
Yes.
You can probably answer a 7
question for me.
I went out and looked at the Quiviras site 8
and then I went across the road and looked at your Ambrosia 9
Lake.
10 MR. BAUBLITZ:
Almost missed it, didn't you?
11 COMMISSIONER CARR:
It's small, all right.
I can't 12 figure out.
Don't you have enough leeway to save money by not 13 doing all the things you're doing, as compared to what we're 14 doing ecross the road?
15 KR. BAUBLITZ:
It's a very good question.
I conclude 16 that we do net have that leeway.
17 The Department made what I would term vigorous 18 comments on the EPA standards when they were first promulgated, 19 from the point of view that they were probably more 20 conservative than was necessary.
Some of those comments were 21 accommodated and some were not.
22 I think the standards probably are more conservative 23 than they really need to be.
I think, though, that it's a 24 subject that is worthy of continued effort.
25 And I say this in the context of both from our point
39 1
of view as the implementors and from the commission's point of j
2 view as the concuree, if that's the right term, given the fact 3
that the cost of the program is exceeding everybody's original 4
expectation by several factors, and given the fact that there 5
are severe limits in terms of time and resources to get all 6
this work done.
7 It seems to be in our best mutual interests to try to 8
identify ways that we can, in fact, do less and still meet the 9
general mandate of reasonable assurance of public health and 10 safety.
11 COMMISSIONER CARR:
And given the fact that the 12 threat isn't all that strong.
13 MR. BAUBLITZ:
If you look at the consequences of 14 failure, which, you know, for a reactor system is a very 15 serious thing, if you look at the consequences of failure of 16 one of these designs several hundred years in the future, it's 17 a non-event.
18 COMMISSIONER CARR:
I've got to admit, I was 19 surprised when I went out there and saw a guy pushing a pile of 20 dirt with a bulldozer and not even wearing any kind of mask to 21 keep from breathing it.
I'm not sure just what we had in mind 22 there.
23 MR. BAUBLITZ:
The real problem, what really got this 24 program started, in my opinion at least, is the fact that the 25 tailings for many years were completely uncontrolled and were i
l
40 1
misused.
2 As you well know, the 5 to 6,000 vicinity properties 3
result principally from people carting the stuff off and using 4
it around their houses and public buildings, et cetera, et 5
cetera.
In the'. setting, the radon levels inside structures 6
can build up to levels that can clearly be hazardous to people 7
over long periods of time.
8 What the standards set out to do, I believe, was to 9
correct that problem and to put the tailings in a controlled 10 situation to prevent further misuse, and I certainly believe 11 that could be done much more simply and less expensively than 12 we are doing it.
13 On the other hand, the standards exist, the law 14 exists, and I think everybody's been doing the best they can 15 with that circumstance.
But, as I said, perhaps, facing some 16 of the specific problems we currently have, it is a fair time 17 to reevaluate and see if we can't change.
18 COMMISSIONER CARR:
I guess I'd help if you want to 19 support a change in the law.
20 MR. BAUBLITZ:
We might entertain that, sir.
21 COMMISSIONER CARR:
Okay.
That's all I had.
22 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Commissioner Rogers?
23 COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
Well, just coming back to that 24 question of cost.
How did the Canonsburg and Salt Lake City 25 projects, as they stand now, come in with respect to cost and 1
l
41 1
budget?
2 MR. BAUBLITZ:
Our experience on the over-all project 3
and those projects, the first examples have been that our 4
initial estimates were low by a factor of maybe two to three.
5 What we discovered as we proceeded were a couple of things.
6 First of all, it takes much longer than we originally 7
anticipated and much more ef fort in terms of design, 8
alternatives, options, to reach agreement with the state and, 9
to some extent, with the Commission, but more with the states.
10 We do an awful lot of preconceptual/ conceptual design 11 and studying of options and so forth.
In addition, until you 12 get a really good characterization of a site, we discovered 13 that our estimating was very poor.
14 We found about two and a half years ago that our 15 over-all project costs went up by $300 million, roughly, as a 16 result of our just for the first time really having good data 17 on each of the sites a.nd a good conceptual design that met the 18 standards and the requirements that had by that time evolved in 19 our interactions with the NRC staff, in terms of what the 20 expectations and needs were.
21 COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
What's the relevance of your 22 decision on the final form of borasilicate glass to future 23 thoughts?
Is this a kind of ad hoc decision for this 24 particular West Valley site or do you see it as having --
25 MR. BAUBLITZ:
Well, the Department has, in the
- - ~
. -. - -, -, ~. - -
. ~.,... - -.
42 1
defense waste area, high-level waste vitrification projects.-
2 There are actually a total of two others, one in Savannah River 3
that's well along and one in Hanford that's starting, and in 4
both of those cases, the same form has been selected.
5 Isn't that right, Joe?
6 MR. COLEMAN:
Savannah River and West Valley are the 7
same form.
8 COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
Have you been considering 9
synrock?
Have you looked at that as an alternative?
The 10 Japanese seem to be putting a fair amount of effort into i
11 looking at that as a possibility, that it seems to have some 12 superior points.
13 MR. BAUBLITZ:
I'll ask Joe to respond to that, if he j
14 could.
j 15 MR. COLEMAN:
The early work was done on the synrock 16 approach, I believe, by Livermore Laboratories, when the 17 defense program was considering different waste forms for 18 Savannah River, solidification of the Savannah River high-level 19 waste.
Once that selection was made, then that work was 20 abandoned.
21 The West Valley then selected the borasilicate glass, 22 following on with Savannah River.
The high-level waste is not 23 exactly the same, but it is similar.
24 The Australians, of course, have been doing continued 25 extensive work with synrock and, I believe, in coordination now
43 1
with the Japanese.
2 I'm not aware of exactly what will happen with the 3
Hanford waste vitrification project, and what waste form they 4
will select.
That's in process, and I think the only 5
opportunity that has been discussed, albeit in a very cursory 6
fashion, is perhaps synrock might be considered some years down 7
the road for the final waste form for the high-level waste at 8
9 COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
Thank you.
10 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Well, my questions have been answered 11 during the briefing.
On behalf of the Commission let me thank 12 you, Mr. Baublitz, for an excellent presentation.
You and your 13 colleagues that are here, too.
14 I think, if I recall, this is the first briefing the 15 Commission's had by DOE on this subject.
And, because of our 16 statutory requirements in the low-level waste program as well 17 as the West Valley demonstration project and the uranium mill 18 tailings program, this presentation was,.in my view, 19 particularly useful and very timely.
20 We need to be kept abreast on these activities.
As 21 you probably know, the Commission is considering amendments to 22 10 CFR Part 40 for licensing and long-term care of the uranium 23 mill tailings of sites, and today's briefing certainly should 24 provide additional insights for us on this important subject.
25 It's occurred to me that perhaps it would useful for
44 1
the Commission to receive from the staff an information paper 2
that would refer to our activities related to the West Valley 3
demonstration project just to bring us up to date on that.
I 4
think that would be important that the staff do that for the 5
Commission, specifically.
6 It's my understanding that our staff has and will 7
continue to work closely with DOE and the states and compacts 8
in implementing the low-level waste policy act, consistent with 9
the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's responsibilities to protect 10 the public health and safety and the environment.
11 The Commission certainly intends, with our staff, to 12 continue to work closely with DOE and with other activities on 13 these important areas.
So, again, we thank you for an 14 excellent presentation.
15 Do my colleagues have any final comments to make?
1 16 Commissioner Carr?
17 COMMISSIONER CARR:
I might comment on the things 18 you've got sitting over here for us to work on.
In case we 19 can't get all our work done at the same time, do you prioritize 20 that for us or do you tell our people which ones you. ant back 21 first?
22 MR. BAUBLITZ:
Well, I think we do in both specifics 23 within a project and over-all.
The activities on a day-to-day 24 basis do vary, but I think the coordination is focused on 25 trying to provide that kind of feedback so that there is an
45 1
understanding.
2 The nearest-term peaks, I think, clearly occur in 3
UMTRA.
There is an awful lot of important activity, though, 4
also going on right now at West Valley.
So, we do have to keep 5
closely in touch on those things.
6 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Are there any other final comments?
7 Comw.issioner Rogers?
8 COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
Just, with respect.to this cost 9
situation, I would hope that our people would be alerted to any 10 cost considerations,that go beyond the original thinking with 11 respect to NRC participation, so that we know where we stand 12 with respect to our budgets for this kind of activity, where 13 some rethinking has to take place on a budgetary basis, whether 14 these original cost estimates that were very low will have more 15 reality in the future, as you seem to have indicated that, as i
l 16 you learn how to go about this, that maybe the cost will come 17 down.
18 I suppose what you're saying is that it will come 19 closer to your original over-all cost estimates that are in 20 this projected budget.
)
21 But, just so that we're alerted to where there has 22 been maybe an underestimation of cost of NRC's participation, 23 it would be very helpful.
24 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Let me just affirm that comment.
We 25 know we're working in many areas here in new fields and unique
. - -. _ _. =., _.. -.,,... -,... -,
46 1
fields in an area that we don't have tremendous experience in 2
necessarily, and we appreciate the fact that estimates are 3
simply that, just estimates.
4 But, it's important, as we look ahead, especially in 5
such a long-range program, that we do make as realistic 6
estimates as we can of our budget needs.
So, I agree with 7
Commissioner Rogers to ask you to please be mindful of that, as 8
well as the programmatic issues, also.
9 MR. BAUBLITZ:
We'll try to be as specific as we can 10 in projecting time scales and needs in terms of NRC's 11 participation.
I can appreciate that.
12 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
It will be also particularly helpful 13 in that regard if you give us as much factual information and 14 as much detail as you can so we can defend our budget in this 15 rather unique, but very important, area.
16 MR. BAUBLITZ:
Yes, sir.
We'll be glad to do that.
17 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
All right.
Any other comments?
18 If not, thank you again for an excellent 19 presentation.
We stand adjourned.
20 (Whereupon, the briefing was adjourned at 11:10 a.m.]
21 22 23 24 25
CERTIFICATE OF TRANSCRIBER This is to certify that the attached events of a meeting of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission entitled:
00E BRIEFING ON LLW PROGRAM, WEST VALLEY TITLE OF MEETING: DEMONSTRATION PROJECT AND URANIUM MILL TAILINGS REMEDIAL ACTION PROGRAM
~
l PLACE OF MEETING:
Washington, D.C.
i' DATE OF MEETING: FRIDAY, JUNE 3, 1988 li 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.
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_J l-I Ann Riley & Associates, Ltd.
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l DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY REMEDIAL ACTION AND WASTE TECHNOLOGY PROGRAMS BRIEFING FOR THE NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION l
l JUNE 3, 1988 l
l JOHN E.
BAUBLITZ l
1
i l
i ASSISTANT SECRETARY
(
FOR NUCLEAR ENERGY l
T.J. GARRISH i
j OFFICE OF REMEDIAL 1
ACTION & WASTE 4
TECHNOLOGY i
l J. BAUBLITZ, ACTING DIRECTOR 4
I l
DIVISION OF DIVISION OF DIVISION OF URANIUM MILL FACILITY & SITE WASTE TREATMENT l
TAIUNGS PROJECTS DECOMMISSIONING PROJECTS i
J. FIORE J. COLEMAN 4
- UMTRAP
- FUSRAP
- LOW-LEVEL WASTE
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- GRAND JUNCTION
- SURPLUS FACILITIES
- WASTE TREATMENT
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0FFICE OF REMEDIAL ACTION AND WASTE TECHNOLOGY STATUTORY AUTHORITY PROGRAM ELEMENT AUTHORITY
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j URANIUM MILL TAILINGS URANIUM MILL TAILINGS RADIATION REMEDIAL ACTION PROGRAM CONTROL ACT, P.L.95-604
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i WEST VALLEY DEMONSTRATION WEST VALLEY DEMONSTRATION i
PROJECT PROJECT ACT, P.L.96-368 4
COMMERCIAL LOW-LEVEL LOW-LEVEL RADI0 ACTIVE WASTE 1
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WASTE PROGRAM POLICY ACT, P.L.96-573, LLRWP i
AMENDMENTS ACT, P.L.99-240 3
i I
URANIUM MILL TAILINGS REMEDIAL ACTION (UMTRA) PROGRAM AUTHORITY l
o PUBLIC LAW 95-604; 7-YEAR AUTHORIZATION l
j OBJECTIVES l
o STABILIZE 24 DESIGNATED URANIUM MILL TAILINGS j
SITES IN 9 WESTERN STATES AND ONE AT i
CANONSBURG, PENNSYLVANIA.
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CLEAN UP ESTIMATED 4,000-6,000 CONTAMINATED J
PROPERTIES IN VICINITY OF PROCESSING SITES.
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WEST VALLEY DEMONSTRATION PROJECT OBJECTIVES o
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FACILITIES USED FOR HLW SOLIDIFICATION i
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LOW-LEVEL RADI0 ACTIVE WASTE POLICY AMENDMENTS ACT, P.L.99-240 26
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SECY Correspondence & Records Branch Attached are copies of a Comission meeting transcript and related meeting li; document (s). They are being forwarded for entry on the Daily Accession List and j'
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