ML20199A511
| ML20199A511 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 01/21/1998 |
| From: | NRC COMMISSION (OCM) |
| To: | |
| References | |
| REF-10CFR9.7 NUDOCS 9801270238 | |
| Download: ML20199A511 (124) | |
Text
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R 3, \\ A UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 4
Title:
IIRIEFING ON MATERIAL CONTROL OF GENERALLY LICENSED DEVICES PUllLIC MEETING Location:
Rockville, Maryland Date:
Wednesday, January 21,1998 l
Pages:
1 - 109 l
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DISCLAIMER
-This is an unofficial transcript of a meeting of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission held on January 21, 1998, 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 reviewed, corrected or edited, and it may contain inaccuracies.
The transcript is intended solely for general informational purposes.
As provioed by 10 CFR 9.103, it is not part of the formal or informalirecord 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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1-1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2'
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3
4 4
BRIEFING ON MATERIAL CONTROL OF S
-GENERALLY LICENSED DEVICES 6
7 PUBLIC MEETING 8
9 10
. Nuclear Regulatory Commission 4
11-Commission Hearing Room 12 11555 Rockville Pike 13 Rockville, Maryland 14 15 Wednesday, January 21, 1998 16' 17 The Commission met in open session, pursuant to
- 18 notice, at 2:05 P.m.,
the Honorable SHIRLEY A. JACKSON, 19
. Chairman of the commission, presiding.
20 21 COMMISSIONERS PRESENT:
22; SHIRLEY A. JACKSON, Chairman of the Commission 23 GRETA J. DICUS, Member of the Commission
'24 NILS:J. DIAZ, Member of the Commission jp 25' EDWARD McGAFFIGAN, JR., Member of the Commission 4
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STAFF AND PRESE!JTERS SEATED AT COMf4ISSION TABLE:
2 ANDREW G. SHARLEY, III, AISI 3
JA!4ES F. COLLINS. S!G 4
JILL LIPOTI, CRCPD 5
ROLAND FLETCHER, OAS 6
CARL PAPERIELLO, DIRECTOR, N!4SS 7
DONALD COOL, DIRECTOR, DIMNS 8
JOHN LUBINSKY, CO-CHAIR, NMSS 9
FRANK CONGEL, AEOD 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 A
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PROCEEDINGS 2
[2:05 p.m.)
3 CHAIRMAN JACY. SON:
Good afternoon.
The Commission 4
has requested that this briefing be provided to assist the i
5 Commission in its review of the staff's proposal for j
6 improving NRC's control over and licensees' accountability 7
for generally licensed and specifically licensed devices.
8 To provide for additional points of view on this 9
issue, the Commission, in addition to our own staff, has 10 also requested that representatives be invited of the steel 11 and metal manufacturing and recycling industry, and present 12 today are Andrew Sharkey, president and CEO of the American 13 Iron and Steel Institutet James F.
Collins, president of the 14 Steel Manufacturers Association; and Michael Mattia, 15 director of risk management for the Institute of Scrap 16 Recycling Industries, Inc.
17 In addition, in the role of fellow regulators who 18 must deal with this issue, the Commission has requested IP input from Chairman Jill Lipoti of tl.
Conference of 20 Radiation Control Program Directors, and Chair-Elect Roland 21 Fletcher of the Organization of Agreement States.
22 So welcome to all of you, and I thank all of you 23 for taking the time to address the Commission today.
24 So unless my fellow Commissioners have any opening 25 comments they would like to share, I always assume the one ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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i sitting in the center would like to make the opening 2
remarks, and therefore Mr. Sharkey, would you please begin 3
and then we'll go down.
4 MR. SHARKEY:
Good afternoon and thank you for 5
this opportunity to appear before you today.
6 My name is Andrew G. Sharkey III.
I'm the 7
president and CEO of the American Iron and Steel Institute, 8
a non-profit trade association whose 49 member companies 9
account for approximately 70 percent of the raw steel 10 production in the United States.
11 I'm here today to present AISI's view on the NRC 12 staff's recommendation for improving the Commission's 13 control over and licensee's accountability for radioactive 14 devices, and I might add I'm here also to send a very strong 15 message that this is not a problem for just one segment of 16 the steel-producing industry, it impacts all steel 17 producers.
18 This is an important issue for AISI because its 19 member companies operate basic oxygen furnaces and electric 20 arc furnaces in which scrap metal is melded.
When NRC 21 control over and licensee accountability for radioactive 22 devices are inadequate, as they have been in the past, too 23 many of these devices wind up in the recyclable scrap 24 stream.
They can then make their way to steel mills and 25 other metal smelting and recovery operations where, if not A
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detected, then may be placed in the furnaces and melted.
2 Through a combination of prudent actions and good 3
fortune, large integrated steel mills have avoided a 4
radioactive melt thus far, but they clearly remain at risk.
5 Others have been less fortunate.
From 1983 6
through June of 1996, there were 40 confirmed meltings of.
7 radioactive sources, 25 of these occurring in the United 8
States.
During that same period, there were almost 1900 9
discoveries of radioactivity and scrap metal.
10 I might add, opending the better part of the day 11 yesterday with one of our companies that's a member of both 12 our organizations, they showed me documentation of eleven 13 alarms between March 4th and December 20th of last year.
14 Two involved drivers who had recently undergone medical 15 tests.
Three were determined to be NORM, and six were 16 determined to be contaminated material, principally oil and 17 gas pipe.
18 So the problem clearly is both real and serious 19 and it needs tc be addressed effectively and expeditiously.
20 The consequences of such an incident can be very 21 severe.
At many mills, the cost of decontamination disposal 22 and shutdown losses have reached $23 million in a single 23 incident, with the average cost falling in the range of $8 24 million to $10 million.
4 25 The cost of dealing with a radioactive melt at a l
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large integrated steel mill is estimated to run as high as 2
0100 million or more because of the scope of the facilities.
3 These estimates do not include the consequences of exposures 4
that potentially may occur whenever devices are lost, 5
abandoned or otherwise enter the public domain.
6 In its report of July 2nd, 1996, the NRC Agreement 7
State Working Group outlined what we believe is the proper 8
course of action to deal with this important issue.
The i
9 working group recommendations called for enhanced regulatory 10 oversight of general and specific licensees possessing 11 devices exceeding designated activity thresholds; increased 12 responsibilities and obligations for licensees and device 13 vendorsi significant penalties for lost devices; and a 14 program for handling and disposing of orphaned devices.
15 In its present recommendation, the NRC staff 16 claims to agree with the working group's analysis of the 17 problem and for the most part with its proposed solution.
18 Toward that end, the staff proposes to develop and implement 19 a registration program for general licensees of devices 20 containing at least ten millicurie of Cesium-137, 21 While we applaud the titaf f's determination to 22 proceed down this path, we do have several concerns about 23 its proposal.
24 First, we think the registration program should 25 not be limited to general licensees of devices containing A
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Coverage under the program should depend on the 2
activity level of the device, not on the licensee's status.
3 All licensees of devices that exceed the 4
designated thresholds should be included in the program as 5
well.
Moreover, the program should not be limited to 6
devices containing Cesium-137.
Those devices are important 7
and they should be covered, but other isotopes, particularly 8
Cobalt-60, have been involved in melting incidents as well 9
and have entered the public domain.
10 The working group went through a very deliberate 11 exercise of identifying the particular isotopes and 12 associated activity levels that warrant increased regulatory 13 oversight and accountability.
While the staff agrees with 14 the working group's assessment, it proposes a much moro 15 limited program due to resource constraints.
16 Given the severe consequences of a loss of 17 accountability, we support the working group's 18 recommendation regarding the scope of the coverage, and we 19 believe it should be possible to secure the necessary 20 resources.
21 For example, if the registration program is funded 22 through fees imposed on licensees, as the staff recommends, 23 the expanded coverage will result in additional funds -- in 24 additional fees to fund the program.
4 25 As licensees, AISI member companies would not ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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object to paying reasonable fees -- for example, five to ten 2
dollars per source, not to exceed $500 per license -- if 3
they are used for this purpose, and we are also willing to 4
ack members of Congress to provide the NRC with additional 5
funds needed to accomplish this important goal.
6 Second, we are concerned about how the program 7
proposed by the staff will be stzvetured.
The core 8
requirement would be annual registration by covered 9
licensees.
Under one regulatory option, there would be 10 follow-up by the Commission in cases where the licensee 11 fails to register or cannot account for the device.
Under 12 another option, there would be no such follow-up.
13 The possibility that the Commission might adopt 14 this uecond option is troubling.
While it is us9ful to 15 identify devices that cannot be accounted for, that alone is 16 not sufficient.
The Commission also must attempt to find 17 out why the devices cannot b. accounted for to determine 18 their fate.
19 As the working group emphasized, an active role by 20 the Commission in comparing annual inventories and transfer 21 reports and resolving any discrepancies is a critical 22 component of an effective oversight and accountability 23 program.
24 While an active follow-up role will add to the 25 cost of the program, we believe these costs can be funded A
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1 through additional fees or penalties levied on those 2
licensees whose shortcomings make the follow-up action e
3 necessary.
This approach would be-consistent with current 4
NRC' practice.
5 Third, various aspects of the program recommended 6
by'the working group, including responsibilities of 7
licensees and device vendors, are not explicitly addressed 8
Lin the. staff's recommendation.
This does not necessarily 9
mean that the staff has rejected these aspects of the 10 working. group recommendation.
The staff may simply view d
11-these as details to be developed as part of the rulemaking f
12~
proposal.
13 We hope this is the case because these elements of 14 the working group recommendation, such as obligations of 15 vendors to report transfers of devices, to provide proper 16 disposal information to customers, and to ensure that the-17 device is being transferred, carry a clearly visible and 18 durable identification and warning label, are an important 19 complement to a registration system.
20 Fourth, we are concerned about scheduling.
Under 21 its plan, the staff would forward a proposed rulemaking 22 package to the. Commission in October 1998 and a final rule 23 in October 1999.- That means the final rule would not be 24 promulgated until the year 2000 and the registration program
$4 25; would notitake effect until the year 2001 at the earliest.
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Given the importance of the-problem and the i
2-working group's estimate that'an average of 1.5 radioactive 3
melts occur each year, we believe-the staff should
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accelerate the rulemaking.
l 5
Since most of the spade work has already been done i
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by the working group, it should be possible to publish a t
7 proposed rule this summer and to issue a final rule in the i
8.
summer of 1999 so that the implementation of the j
9 registration program could begin by January 1 of the year
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- 2000, i
- 11 Finally, we are concerned about what appears to be f
12 a lack of sufficient urgency in the staff's approach to
. dealing with the problem of orphaned devices.
While the l
13 t
14 universe of orphaned devices will shrink progressively once i
15 a registration system is implemented, such devices are a 16 significant concern today and will remain so for the 17 immediate future.
l 18 Under the current system, a person who finds t
- 19' himself in possession of an orphaned device is an innocent h
20 victim of inadequate oversight who may nevertheless~be 21 saddled with very substantial costs for handling and 22 disposing of radioactive material, f
This really creates a disincentive for non-23 24 licensees to screen for radioactive devi'ces and an incentive e!
25:
for them to simply pass the device on to others without ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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notification when they are found.
2 Proni the standpoint of accountability and public 3
health, this is a perverse incentive structure.
It should n
4 be reversed as soon as possible.
5 Non-licensees must be encouraged to look for 6
orphaned devices in the materials they handle and to take 7
appropriate action when such devices are found in their 8
possession.
This means that the responsibility, including 9
the financial responsibility, for handling and disposing of 10 orphaned devices must be datineated clearly among DOE, EPA, 11 the Commission, and state radiation control authorities.
12 Agency funding for the disposal of orphaned 13 devices must be made available, through new legislation if 14 necessary, and non-licensees who are likely to come into 15 possession of orphaned devices must be given guidance on the 16 riska involved, the means to identify lost devices, and what 17 to do when such devices are found.
18 We believe the Commission should move forward on 19 each of these fronts promptly and, to the extent feasible, 20 concurrently.
21 In closing, let me return to where I began.
- Lost, 22 abandoned or intentionally discarded radioactive devd.:es 23 represent a serious problem for steel-makers, metal 24 recyclers, potentially exposed workers, cnd members of the 4
25 general population.
It is a problem that the Commission can ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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13 1-and should address promptly and affectively.
2 The staff's recommendation is a good-starting 3-point, but it does not go far enough or fast _enough.
We 4
believe the NRC has an opportunity to take critical steps to 5-prevent a serious over-exposure incident involving American l
6.
workers and the local community.
We hope the Commission j
7 will~ recognize the urgency of the problem and act 8
accordingly.
l 9
Thank you very much.
= 10 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Thank you very much.
11 Let me just ask you a question.
Do you believe 12.
that-it's important in whatever choice the Commission makes-13 that there be the opportunity for enforcement and inposition
+
14 of civil penalties?
l 15 MR, SHARKEY:
Yes.
I i
16 1 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Okay.
Thank you.
17 Mr. Collins.
I 18 Oh, you had a question?
I!m sorry.
e 19 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
The Tuscaloosa 20 experience that you describe, it sounds like almost all of 21 it was NORM because the six examples of piping-from the oil 22 and gas industry, it sounds like it's probably the
-23 accumulation of NORM material, it's not a device that was 24 lost in the piping.-
So in that particular case, it sounds 25 you know, we do-a good job of passing _the! uck around b
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here, but it sounds like it's Ms. Lipoti's counterpart in 2
Alabama that probably has, you know, most of the problem.
3 Is that a correct reading cf that?
4 MR. SRARKEY:
I can't comment on those particular l
i 5
incidents.
You may, in fact, be correct.
I'm sure Mr.
6-Collins will cite other examples that will perhaps be more 7
compelling.
8 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN No, I fully understand 9
that it's an integrated problem with NORM and the things we 10 control, and that's why Ms. Lipoti is at the table.
11 MR. SRARKEY:
Right.
12 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
But I'm trying to bound 13 it.
14 The other issue, and this may not be fair, maybe 15 to Mr. Mattia, when you get one of these devices in a mill, 16 if_it's 9.9 mil 11 curies and it gets melted, is it not a 17 problem, or -- I mean, the 10 millicuries is what the 18 working group recommended, and I'm not trying to enlarge a 19 problem that's already thus far more than we can handle, but 20 what was the rationalo in the working group report for 10
.21 millicuries, and is a steel mill at risk if it's less than 22 10?-
23 14R. MATTIA:
Jim, do you want-to comment on that?
24 MR. COLLINS:
First of all, the steel companies.
i 4-25 have sot their devices at such:a low level ~of tolerance in ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES,_LTD.
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order to discover sources of radiation that -- let me 2
describe this.
One truck driver had a physical, took a 3
barium inhalation, and it rang the detector.
They couldn't 4
find any scrap on the truck.
5 So the answer is, whether it's NORM or whether 6
it's the device, the radiation detector will ring, it will 7
stop the ingress of scrap either on a truck or on a railcar, 8
and that whole load has to be inspected to determine what 9
set it off.
10 So every -- most mills have zero tolerance for il radiation coming into their mills, and whether it's NORM or 12 whether it'n the device, they still have to inspect, and 13 often when they inspect they find it's NORM, and often when 14 they inspect they find the device.
15 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
But that raises the 16 issue, if we did a perfect job of taking the staff's -- the 17 working group's recommendation and get all of the devices, 38 general and specific, 10 millicuries and above and had them 19 all accounted for, and the states did something similar, 20 although I'm not exactly sure what that would be for NARM 21 and NORM, would you all -- you all would still have to spend 22 money, assuming perfection, you would still have to spend 23 money for the categories of devices that are lower that 24 still may be a problem for you; is that correct?
25 MR. COLL"NS:
Well, if the Cesium-137 device ANN R.* LEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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volatizes and goes up into a baghouse in the fonn of vapor 4
2 that is captured by the dust, that dust, if it's above two 3
picoeuries per gram, cannot be disposed of by the steel 4
company.
5 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
That's right.
6 MR. COLLINS:
And the CoJt of disposing of the 7
dust can be upwo'M
?f two to three thousand dollars per 8
ton, and there are thousands of tons of'chis dust in 9
railcars behind steel mills across the country who have l
10
_ melted either sources or certain kinds of background 11-radiation that has_ caused the dust to be come higher than 12 o picocuries per gram.
13 So most steel mills, whether it's NORM or whether 14 it's --
15 COMMISSIONER DICUS:
Is that the 10 millicurie 16 cutoff, then, below that?
And maybe Dr. Lipoti can address 17 this, but I think, if I recall, somewhere in this 18 neighborhood, there is a cutoff where it's unlikely that if 19 a source were melted, there's going to be exposure impact on 20 the werkers together with the concentration of the baghouse 21 dust.
22 DR. LIPOTI: -The working group in an appendix had 23 looked at a whole range of various sources, and in fact, 24 they did not mention a specific cutoff for -- when they T
'25-1 mentioned cutoff for the registration program,.they said l
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Cesium-137 at greatdr than 10 millicuries, Cobalt-60 greater 2
than one millicurie, Strontium-90 greater than
.1 3
millicurie.
So it really depends on the source and the 4
radioactivity involved.
5 They did a ranking *nsed on what they felt would 6
be the sources of concern, but the risk assessment which the 7
staff has agreed to undertake would do a better sort of all 8
of the sources which might be involved, and that was one of 9
the working group recommendations as well as the staff 10 recommendations that you do a risk re-ranking, and certainly 11 something that I support and I'm sure that the steel 12 manuf acturers would be grateful to have better guidance --
13 MR. SHARKEY:
Yes.
14 DR. LIPOTI:
-- on exactly that point that you 15 bring up.
16 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
So are you saying in the end 17 that the issue is not to focus in on the specific threshold 18 of ten millicuries --
19 DR. LIPOTI:
That's correct.
2t CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
-- but to wait and have a more si informed way of making the judgment based on a risk 22 assessment.
23 DR. LIPOTI:
I'm not saying wait.
The wait word 24 was not mine.
I'm saying start with what the working group 25 recommended, which was several sources at varying ranges, ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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and then proceed with tha risk ranking for the additional 2
sources that you would want to include and be more informed 3
about your next step.
But the first step -- I thought it 4
was pretty clear we naculd take that first step.
5 CHAIRMAN JA,'EADN:
Ukay.
I think that for 6
orderliness of process, because there are at least five 7
presenters before we oven get to the staff, I think it's 8
important to just -- let's just walk through and have each 9
person make -- and we don't mind if you make an abbreviated 10 statement that kind if hits the high points, and then we can 11 have a more robust discussion.
12 MR. COLLINS:
I'm James Collins of the Steel 13 Manufacturers Association.
We have 59 steel companies in 14 our membership with 48 in U.S.,
seven in Canada, and four in 15 Mexico.
We accounted for 43 percent of U.S.
steel capacity 16 in 1997 We're the primary trade group of the electric 17 furnace steel producers, who are the largest recyclers in 18 North America, probably the largest recyclers in the wcrld.
19 We recycled 42 million tons of various scrap last year, and 20 by weight, I don't think anybody else gets up that high, 21 Unfortunately, this scrap contains radioactive 22 sources and other sources of radioactivity.
Sou.ces are 23 regulated by the NRC and typically come from spent or lost 24 gauges used in manufacturing facilities and hospitals, 25 military facilities that have been downsized, et cetera, and ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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. they represent'a. problem for steel companies, a major 2
economic problem for steel companies, for the environment,-
3 the: health and safety of steelworkers and-the general 4
- public.
5 We're obviously unhappy about the lack of progress in doing something about these loss sources in the scrap 6
-7
- supply.
8 Two examples we used in our statement are the'one 9
down'in Texas where a Cobalt-60 source got lose.
It was in-10 a camera weighing approximately 1600 pounds, containing a 35 1
11
'and a half curie source of Cobalt-60, and in a second camera 12_
. weighing 600 pounds containing an 8.6 curie source of 13 Cobalt-60.
14 The net result, after these sources were bounced 15 around amongst some scrap dealers, one finally having found 16 through radiation detection that this particular source was
~ 17 :
radioactive, was that the source was sent back to another-18 dealer and in the process,- the capsule containing the cobalt
- fell out from under a truck and resulted in the exposure of 19 20-twelve adults and two children with pretty severe doses of
- radiation..The truck driver suffered severe radiation
- 22 blistering from handling the: source, and five police 23 officers also received. low doses of radiation.
24 The_next example-is!an SMA member company in-25
- Kentucky l melting? two; Cesium-137 sources.
The steel company
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sustained a $10 million loss. -Today itihas on site twelve 2-railcars fulliof low level contaminated:baghouse dust 3
resulting from the incident.
It has an additional one 4
million pounds of-dust in storage containerc, 10,000 cubic 5
feet of protective equipment that was used during the clean-i 6
up, and 15,000 cubic feet of contaminated gravel and soil.
7 All this eventually has to be disposed of, and the costs are 8
going to be horrendous.
9-There have been 26 known incidents, as Andy 10 Sharkey has just indicated.
We have listed the companies in 11 our membership whero those incidents have occu'rred..
12 The NRC staff we believe incorrectly portrays the 13-radioactive source problem as only an economic problem for 14 steel companies.
We believe that there are health and 15 safety factors here that warrant the attention of the 16 Commission as well as the economic.
We don't mean to 17 minimize the economic impact, but that there are dual 18-factors involved here, both health and safety of our 19 Workers, the general public, and certainly the economic i
l 20 impact is a major one.
21
. We believe'that -- we don't have an exact number, 22 but we believe between 100 and 150 million dollars of' cost l
-23
.has already been incurred in steel companies, and that does 24 not include the.disposalLcosts'of all those railcars full of-ol. '
25 dust-behind these steel plants _that haveuto be taken care of h
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eventually, so you're probably look at at least $300 million i
2 of cost over a ten-year period of time.
3 The U.S. Congress enacted the AEC Act establishing 4
the Atomic Energy Agency, now the NRC, to protect the health 5
and safety of the public.
We believe that the risk of lost 6
radioactive sources in U.S. scrap supply were unanticipated 7
when the act was passed, but the mounting losses of these 8
source, however, show that the current regime for licensing 9
and maintaining an accurate inventory of generally licensed 10 sources has not been effective.
11 We're sort of dismayed and we're really puzzled 12 and a little angry that the NRC staff, instead of 13 immediately initiating a rulemaking to solve the problem, 14 proposes to do further study and wait until the year 2001, 15 which from the inception of the advisory group, the working 16 group, would be probably six years before something might 17 happen.
18 All our members have installed highly 19 sophisticated radiation detection systems to monitor the 20 incoming scrap, and they believe, and I think honestly so, 21 that they are the innocent victims of insufficient control 22 of radioactive sources in the economy.
23 Radioactive scrap is one of the highest priorities 24 for our member companies.
They're doing everything 25 reasonable to keep radiation out of their mills, and they ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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have had frequent visits with the NRC Commissioners and 2
staff and EPA and members of Congress to try to explain the 3
problem and determine if something could be done as rapidly 4
as possible.
5 We do not believe that a course of action to do 6
additional study given the fact that there is already a 7
wealth of data out that we published, that the states 8
published, that the Conference of Radiation Control Program 9
Directors publishes on incidence, will prove anything other 10 than to be a waste of time, and we think further study is 11 unnecessary and we would like to see some action implemented 12 to impose A) a strong monitoring program to assure 13 accountability for these sources amongst the source holders, 14 and we fail to understand why this is controversial.
15 3M was on the advisory group, was on the working 16 group, and 3M has 1,500 sources within its corporate 17 structure, and 3M said, we'd be glad to engage in a more 18 strict monitoring program for the sources we hold and a 19 reporting program to report the status of those sources to 20 the NRC, and they, as a responsible company, they have taken 21 this position because they recognize that it is not in their 22 long-term interest to lose these sources and have the loss L
23 of the sources attributed back to them.
24-On the other side of the equation, if there is 25 either an inadvertent loss of a source or a negligent loss l
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of a source, we think a $2,500 fine is meaningless.
You 2
could impose a $25,000 fine on an inadvertent loss and a 3
$100,000 fine on a negligent loss and possibly capture the 4
attention of the source holders with that kind of a program, 5
but you're not going to do it with a $2,500 fine.
6 MR. SRARKEY:
True.
7 MR. COLLINS:
We think the staff proposal to 8
initiate a licensing program to cover only Cesium-137 9
sources over 500 millicuries is inadequate.
We picked up 10 sources below 500 millicuries that -- at steel companies 11 through their detection system equipment, and we know that 12 if those sources below 500 millicuries were taken into the 13 furnace, that we would have contaminated electric furnace 14 dust, we would have contaminated furnaces, we would have to 15 stop production to clean up, and you're talking about 16 millions of dollars of losses.
So we don't understand the 17 cutoff.
18 We think that something ought to be done about 19 orphaned sources so that kind of a situation that occurred 20 down in Texas does not reoccur where people are footballing 21 source back and forth because they don't want to hold it 22 because they know that disposition of that source is going 23 to cost them money.
We think a federal program should be 24 implemented to do that.
25 In closing, I would like to express my ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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appreciation to you, Chair Jackson, and to Commissioners 2-Diaz and Dicus-and McGaffigan for having this hearing.
We 3
think it's important, we think the issues should be 4
. addressed and addressed quickly by the Commission.
5 Thank you.
6 CRAIRMAN JACKSON:
Thank you, M
7-Mr. Mattia.
8 MR. MATTIA:
Good afternoon, Madam Chairman, 9
Commissioners.
My name is Mike Mattia, I'm the director of 101 risk management for the Institut.e of Scrap Recycling 11 Industries, and like my fellows at this table, we want to 12 thank you for the opportunity to address you today.
13 I am representing approximately 1,600 companies, 14 1most of them small businessmen who are in the business of 15 recycling scrap material.
You name it,'we recycle it.
16 Primarily the problem here is with the scrap 17
~ metals, the iron,-the steel,_the aluminum, the copper, the 18 stainless.
These are metals that have valuo.
These are 19_
metals that continue to have value, and oftentimes, these 20 metals compose the housing that protect devices, material 21 that contain radioactive contaminated material or 22 radioactive sources.
23 It's because of the value of the material, the
-- 2 4 -
metal, that: these sources come to scrap recycling 25-facilities-They're not 'orought their intentionally.
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1 Loftentimes the' demolition contract,r or the peddler has no 2.
idealwhen he's bringing in'a-load of scrap.
Also the' scrap
-3 recycler doesn't realize that the material that's being 4
brought to his facility containt possibly deadly. amounts of 5
radioactive material.
6 When that material gets to a scrap recycling-7 facility, it generally undergoes a very,'very rigorous 8-process of cutting, bailing, shearing, shredding to conform 9
the metal so that it can go to the various steel mills for 11 0 remelting.
The problem is that those type of rigorous scrap
. processing can not only' breach a housing, it can
'll 12_
disintegrate it, and now you have radioactive material-that i
13 is-out in the clear.
14 This is where the problem starts for the scrap
-15 recycler -- unknowingly receiving materiali putting it
- 16 '
through a tremendously rigorous process.
Imagine being able 17 tx)- take. an automobile and shred it-to fist-size pieces in a 18 matter of seconds.
You can. imagine what that can do to the 19.
~ housing of a radioactive. source.
20 To date,-to the best of our knowledge, the-
- 21
- consequences on.our_ members of improperly controlled
-22 radioactive material has been purely economic,-but it's been-23 hef ty economic.-
There's been millions:of dollars that have
- 124, to have been spent to_ install radiation monitors,:to l25; decontaminate land and equipment, and tx) transport and r
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dispose of contaminated material, contaminated byproducts.
2 How often has this happened?
The numbers 3
literally change daily.
As of the writing of this report, 4
there were 2,400 detections, and 270 recovered' sources and 5
the smelting of 31 sources of radioactivity.
It's our-6 knowledge and belief that that number represents a very 7
small fraction of what is actually out there and what our 8
members, the members of my cohorts and the general public 9
are being exposed to every day.
10 Now, as we mentioned, to date, these occurrences 11 have only caused economic hardships.
However, the potential 12 for physical harm is tremendous.
That there has yet been 13 reported in t'..e U.S. a death or a serious threat to health 14 of either a person working in a scrap recycling facility or 15 a steel mill or in a community that surrounds these 16 facilities can be chalked up to only two things:
one, the 17 diligent efforts of the individuals that represent the 18 companies at this table and their companies in monitoring 19 and in sheer luck.
20 Generally, our industries every day play a game of 21 Russian Roulette.
We get -- sources are out there, they're 22 coming in, and so far, other than economic, our luck has 23 held up.
However, how long do we play such a deadly game 24-before our luck runs out, before we shred or shear a source 25 and cause main contamination in a facility or in an outlying ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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26 1-community or both?
2-The working group that is spoken of issued a very-3 thorough' report-and we wholly endorse all of the elements in 40 that report.
The elements that we particularly are-5 concerned about is the increased regulatory oversight of the 6
various amounts of the stated isotopes, more stringent civil 7
-penalties,-and a program for handling orphaned devices.
8 The NRC staff has commented on that working 9
group's report, and I would like to just talk about for a 10-brief few moments-their repcrt.
11 In terms of the registration program, first there 12 is the concern of the rulemaking process.
It's been 13 mentioned here already several times that it's a lengthy 14 rulemaking process.
If a rulemaking process is, indeed, 15 necessary, I echo everyone else at the table that the 16 Commissioners do whatever is possible to expedite that 17 rulemaking process so that it indeed goes farther quicker.
18 However, would there need to be a rulemaking to
-19 =
simply ask all licensees that fall within the parameters of 20 the working group a simple question:
Do you still have what 21;
.you're_ supposed to have?
22-Should the staff not-use currently available 23 resources to conduct a mailing that asks that question?.
24 Then you would have information that would tell you the true 25
_ scope of the problem -- what is now under proper-control?
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=1;
-And'theiresponse from this mailing could then-determinefwhat-2 was needed in terms of-a registration program to assure that-3
.all devices eventually come,under proper control.
4 The working group's recommendation was for 5 -
increased regulatory oversight of the various isotopes at 6
the various limits, and since each of these has found their
?
7 way into-scrap recycling facilities at one point in time.or 8
another,-we wholeheartedly endorse those parameters.
9
-However, the staff had indicated that its current 10
- budgetary resources would only allow, for-example, for it to 11 do a complete registration and follow-up of the 500 12-millicurie sources of Cesium-137 in terms of numbers.
If 13 they were to go any further, they could do a registration 14-but they could not do a' follow-up.
Is that prudent?
l, 15 The other question that comes back to the problem 16 of what we think would be a good census is that suppose we
- 17 take several years and ultimately we follow the staff's 18 recommendations and we-go out and we find out that all of 19 the cesium sources of=500 millicuries are fine, we he.ve just p
20 taken a' tremendous amount of time and effort to find that
.21 we're safe from those, but we have no idea what the hazard 22 is to the. rest.
23; So what we propose that this Commission look at 24
'is,' number one, that we go and findiout what do we'know of
' the sources that-are supposed to be under the care and
~~
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28 1-custody and control of individuals who have either_a-general 2
or specific license to have those in their possession.
Then 3
we can use that information as the basis of a rulemaking to 4
determine what do we really need to go out and control, and 5
also as part of the rulemaking, to ask if there are limited 6
resources, and we understand that it's a reality, what 7
should be the hierarchy of the sources that are known to be 8
missing that we should go after and find and try to control.
9 Finally, we understand that the working group has 10 indicated that labeling and identification of sources should 11 be improved, and we didn't see specific recommendation of 12 that in the staff's report, but that's very important.
13 while we and everyone at this table will continue to expend 14 tremendous resources on identifying material using source 15 device detection, one of the best ways still is visual 16 identification.
17 Oftentimes, you can take a very potent source, put 18 it in a large railcar full of scrap metal, and the most 19 sensitive detection device won't pick it up because the 20 scrap metal itself causes more shielding.
So if there were 21 better ways of identifying sources permanently so that if 22 the mechanical detection fails, we can follow it up 23 hopefully with visual detection.
24 There were recommendations for penalties for lost 25 devices, and as I hear everyone at this table will clearly ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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- 1_-
agree 1that $2,500 to lose a gauge that could cause 2
significant threat _ to health or life is _ f ar: from being 3-appropriate.
4 So we ask the Commission to look at the penalty 5
system as a two-phase, first that the Commissioners consider 6-increasing the fine for the loss of a device that is 7
identified before it can cause any damage to two to three 8-times the cost of authorized disposal.
However, if the 9
handling of the device'causes human suffering or
'10 contamination of equipment, grounds or product, the fine 11 against the identified party responsible for the device 12 should reflect the actual cost of full cleanup and the loss 13 of business revenue.
14 Further,. We ask that the Commissioners consider.
15 using these fines to create a fund that avoids the burden 16 today to the private company, out-of-pocket expenses for the 17 decontamination disposal and loss of business revenue.
18 Finally, there is the-issue of orphaned devices.
19 Both the_NRC staff and the group agree that there are 20 various state and federal agencies that have various amounts 21
_of authority, and that an understanding and a working 22 relationship should improve.
Yet very often, even though y
23-there is authority out there, in many cases, our members, 12 4_
when they find a source or have a problem, they'll go to an L
25-agency,: that: agency will refer them to the second, the i
I p
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second to the third, and the third will refer them back to 2
the first one, and if there is ever a direct answer, 3
generally that answer is, "You have it, it's your problem."
4 We understand generally the problem is because of 5
limited funds, and it's also been expressed that as long as 6
a device is there and the shielding is intact, then it can 7
stay in a scrap yard, it can stay in a steel mill because it 8
doesn't pose an immediate threat.
Again, we ask is that 9
prudent?
We're not in the business of handling devices, of 10 receiving them; we shouldn't be in the business of storing 11 and disposing of them either, 12 We agree that the various federal agencies should 13 determine how best to dispose of these devices, but we ask 14-that if a device is found in a scrap yard or a steel mill, 15 that it be removed from that venue, it be placed under an 16 appropriate venue in a federal or state agency, and then 17 figure out how to dispose of it, but get it out of the 18 private sector.
19 Again, we would like to thank the NRC staff *or 20 all of their work.
We have had a wonderful working 21 relationship, and it's this relationship that has increased 22 the understanding in our industry and it's going to 23 continue.
24 We're not going to slack off regardless of 25 regulations.
We will continue to monitor, we will continue ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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31 l'
to= install detectors,:and we-will. continue =to aggressively-2-
~ pursue;this issue.
But'we need help, we need the cavalry,
'3 because we cannot. keep playing this game of Russian 4.
Roulette, because if something serious ~happens, if'we have a i
5 serious, serious contamination, a serious breach'of a 6
source, then as we all know, it is out of all-of our hands.
7 It becomes the purview of the press, it becomes the purview 8
of knee-jerk-reaction.
9:
We're' concerned with the health and safety of not 10 only our workers, but our communities if that should happen, 11 and we would like to see that that hopefully not happen.
12 Thank you.
13 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Thank you.
14 Mr. Fletcher, 15 MR. FLETCHER:- Chairman Jackson, Commissioners,.
16 NRC staff, fellow presenters and members of the public, 17 first of all, I am honored to represent the Organization of T
18 Agreement States as its chair.
19 As many of.you know, the agreement states number 20 30, and currently license and regulate about two-thirds of 21
.all the byproduct material, radioactive material that is L22 licensed.
23L i-I'm-also very pleased to-have this opportunity to-
-24
- make this presentation'before.the Commission to.further
-25 emphasize the' bond that-exists between the NRC and the ANN RILEY: & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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Organization-of. Agreement States.
It's more than -- a bond 2
that has been strengthened over more than 35 years, and I 3
look forward to helping to further strengthen that bond.
4 I'm here to speak today initially about the report 5
of the working group on the regulation of generally and
-6 specifically licensed devices, initially from the standpoint 7
of OAS support, and our support is for the working group 8
report in that it, we believe, demonstrates the need for the 9
regulation of all licensed devices, and our particular 10 concern, as it is the concern of those who presented before, 11 is the oversight of GL devices.
12 This increased oversight that we feel is necessary 13 stems from instances that have occurred in virtually all of 14 the ;0 states I represent.
These instances vary depending 15 upon the kinds of situations and materials we encounter, but 16 they have invc red emergency responses to reports of 17 contamination at.:.ndfills, scrap yards, incinerators, and 18 ofttimes frequently these responses are caused by 19 contamination produced from GL devices.
20 I must admit as a program manager that I suffer 21.
from a little bit of regulatory paranoia when it'comes to 22 devices that I know very little about as far as their 23 location, as far as their activity, as far as what the 24 reporting requirements are.
'25 I have a feeling that many of my fellow program ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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- i lj managers l suffer from the same ailment, and what we would 2
like to see very much is'a program of regulatory 3
responsibility.with_respectito generally licensed devices.
j
-4
-If something happens to a licensee who has been 5
issued a specific license, weifeel very confident that we
.6 can trace.from. cradle to grave or we should ba able to trace 7
_from cradle to grave everything that has happened to that-I 8
material and everything that a facility has done to maintain
-9 radiation safety.
[
j 10 We have no idea and we're very uncomfortable with' 11-the fact that there are a-number of GL devices in various 12 areas that we have no idea about their location, whose 13
-managing them, what the management practices are, et cetera.
t 14 So we would support very strongly that these devices be 15 brought under control and that they be -- that some level of 16-responsibility -- that a level of responsibility that gives 17 comfort to the public as well as the regulatory agencies be -
18
.followed, and I'believe that the working group report 19 itemized very well.how that'should be done.
-20 We want to further emphasize the need for the 21 regulation of all licensed devices, from a program of 22 consistency more-than anything else'.
The Agreement States 23;
-have a broad requirement for regulation. 1We regulate not 24 only materials,-of-course, but all sources of radiation to 1
25--
= varying _degreesJdepending;upon_the states.
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I realize there is a great deal of controversy 2
regarding what to do about naturally occurring radioactive 3
materials and devices that contain this material, but I 4
don't see how we can be a consistent regulatory body, 5
particularly in the eyes of the public who don't understand 6
all that we do or don't do, I don't understand how we can 7
continue to pursue our goal of radiation safety across the 8
country without taking into account the need for the 9
regulation of these devices, and I believe very strongly 10 that the opportunity is being presented here with the 11 institution of the national registry to bring all radiation 12 producing devices under some form of control.
13 As you'll note in my comment, I see this initially 14 as being a national program, but it han the potential of 15 some degree of worldwide benefit, and as this becomes a 16 smaller and smaller planet, I believe that's going to be a 17 greater and greater necessity.
18 So from Agreement State perspective, I'm here to 19 reinforce the recommendations made by the working group.
20 The working group process, as we mentioned in instances 21 before, we believe is a very beneficial process because of 22 the way various agencies and various individuals are brought 23 together to discuss these problems.
So I believe that more 24 attention and more care should be given to their 25 recommendations than has been at this point.
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I'm going to take the liberty at this point to 2
just mention -- I realize that these weren't-primary
'3 subjects, but to just mention two other areas that the 4
Agreement States do have some concerns about, hopefully for 5
future discussions.
6 One of those is the recent proposal to transfer 7
responsibility of formerly licensed sites to the Agreement 8'
States.
This is a very, very controversial and very, very 9
distressing subject which we will be providing -- some of 10 the states are indivi6ually providing input, but we will be 11 providing further discussion.
This is, we believe, outside 12 of our-agreement.
Secondly, we need to address the current 13 status of DOE contractors.
14 Once again, I bring these subjects up because they 15 are very, very controversial, they are very, very bothersome 16 to many of the member states, and I hope that we have the 17 opportunity to discuss them further at some time in the not 18 too distant future.
19 Once again, I appreciate this opportunity to
-20 discuss these subjects, and I hope that you will take these 21 comments in your. discussions and give them the attention 22 that'the Agreement States would like them to have.
23 Thank you.
24 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Thank you very much.
25 Dr. Lipoti.
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DR. LIPOTI:
Chairman Jackson, Commissioners, I 2
have provided formal notes, formal testimony, but I'm not 3
going to speak from that testimony, I'm just going to talk 4
to you and then you can ask questions.
5 I'm very pleased that you have convened this 6
meeting because it's important for you to take action on the 7
staff's recommendations to have a registration program for 8
GL devices.
The states have been dealing with this issue 9
for quite a while, and it's wearing sort of thin.
10 CRCPD supports the recommendations of the NRC 11 Agreement State Working Group based on the consequences of 12 the loss of accountability of the material.
13 In terms of the risk assessment, we very much look 14 forward to the comprehensive risk assessment of all the 15 material currently in use to restructure the current 16 licensing and inspection programs, and I understand that's 17 due to be finished in October of '98 and I'm very pleased to 18 see that going forward.
19 We recommend that for the GL devices, that you 20 consider the economic consequences as well as health risk 21 because I think that will assist you in coming up with a 22 second tier of GL devices that might be subject to a 23 registration program.
So we very much support and look 24 forward to that risk assessment.
25 In terms of the universe of regulated facilities, ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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1 we recommend that the registration program apply to the l
2 sources as delineated in the working group's 3
recommendations:
Cesium-137, greater than 10 millicuries; 4
Cobalt-60, greater than 1 millicurie; Strontium-90, greater 5
than.1 millicuries and transuranics, greater than 1 6
millicurie.
7 Of course, CRCPD stands ready to work with you 8
with our suggested state regs so that we can go forward on a 9
parallel rulemaking so that the states will be ready to 10 adopt in an expedited fashion.
11 I have to say that I believe that NARM sources 12 must be regulated to the same degree and based on the same 13 risk and the same kinds of risk assessment that you are 14 doing with your AEA materials.
So I would like to charge 15 our suggested state reg committee to incorporate 16 requirements for both AEA and NARM material, so that would 17 expedite the adoption of those regulations by the states.
18 The difficulty will be in coming up with a risk 19 assessment for all of the NARM sources, and if funding is 20 available, I would like CRCPD to take that on, but I'm not 21 sure we're going to be able to do that.
That could be 22 fiscally constrained.
23 On the issue of implementation, I think when you 24 deoign your automated system, it should be big, it should 25 take into account the universe of at least the 30,000 ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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sources that are recommended by the working group, if not 2
bigger, and not just design an automated system for the 3
first 500 and then try and make it bigger later.
When you 4
design some automated system,-it's important to account for 5
growth.
6 The rulemaking should also be for.the entire group 7
of working group recommended sources, but you may need to 8
phase in additional sources based on your risk assessment.
9 I think that if you spread the costs over the larger 10 universe of sources, that the cost might be able to go down 11 for each licensee.
I thought the cost was a little high per 12 licensee.
13 One of the things that the staff didn't include 14 was the vendor responsibilities, and some of other 15 presenters have mentioned that, I certainly support that 16 recommendation in the working group paper, and I think it's 17 extremely important for the vendors to inform their 18 customers that registration fees might be charged, that the 19 material is radioactive.
20 I saw the literature, the sales literature, the 21 tritium signs---'I've had a lot of tritium sign problems 22 lately -- and the sales literature never mentions that 23 tritium is radioactive, and I don't think that it's 24 universally known.
25
'The cost for disposal should be included up front ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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a 39' 1-on the-information that-someone receives if they're going to 2
purchase-oneiof these devices.
They should;be warned that 3
-there is substantial cost for clean up if that device 4
becomes involved in an incident, and that-there are 5 -
penalties for non-compliance.
I would just suggest that you 6
convene a group of vendors and you gain their input into 7
what they might incorporate into their sales literature.
8 It's important also to have information available 9
for non-licensees so that the finders of these sources have 10-some direction what they should do when they find them.
11 I would like to talk just briefly about the 12 CRCPD's orphaned source initiative because I'm not sure that 13 all of you were aware of this initiative.
EPA has provided 14 funding to CRCPD in the amount of $200,000 and the goal is 15 to develop and facilitate implementation of a uynamic 16 nationwide system that will effectively manage orphaned 17 sources.
18 CRCPD has named a-committee with Joe Klinger as 19 the chair, Jim Yusko, Bob Free and Cheryl Rogers as members.
20 Jim Yusko is here today.
And they're meeting next week to 21 -
start on their charges.
One of their first charges is to 22 define the roles and responsibilities and the procedures for 23-the major stakeholders.
I think some of-the testimony 24 presented here has shown that the roles are not clear.yet 25 between various agencies and'their authorities,.so that ANN ~RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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11 becomes-a=very[important issue.
2 The CRCPD's committee is also developing a 3
- materials management program which will. describe brokerage J
4 facilities available, direct disposal, and will provide-5 outreach to manufacturers-for recycling options, so that 6
when someone finds one of these sources, they can have a 7
flow chart for how to get rid of it.
8 We intend to put forward an outreach program which 9-would-include outreach to finders of the sources as well.as 10 the other stakeholders involved.
We wish to maintain an j
L11 incident database.
NRC staff participates.
They provide 11 2 staff input to this committee, as does the Department of 13
. Energy.
14 I think what you 1. ave for generally licensed 15 sources is this regulatory net, but there are holes in this 16 net where these sources are getting through, so then there 17
-is this secondary net which has been put in place and kind 18 of tagged together by the steel manufacturers and the 19
. recycling industries and states, and this secondary net is 20 wearing thin, and that's why we're here today, to tell you 21 how important this is.
22.
I'm starting to see_ evidence that people are 23'
'tryinglto-hide these sources when they put them in the scrap J24 metal.
In-November, one of my staff went out on a scrap 25-metal alarm incident and when he came back, he said, Jill, I ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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i 41 il think'you'should_know about this one because it was 2-
-interesting.
The source was-in a coffee can and there was 3
chain wrapped around the coffee can and some' sort of 4"
. rudimentary shielding.
They kind of hoped it would get past 5
the detectors.
It didn't this time.-
So we start to'see 6
evidence of people trying_to evade _the second net, which 7
isn't even-regulatory, it's just a safety net, and I think 8
that'our-staff is distracted form their normal duties when 9'
they have to respond to alarms, and there's a lot of them, 10-it's-more-than one a week. So we're ready for new options, and we want to-12 proceed forward on this, and that's why I didn't say wait.
13 Thanks'.
14 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Okay.
Thank you very much, 15 Commissioner Dicus.
16 COMMISSIONER DICUS:
Thank you.
I don't have any 17 questions right now.
I will have some questions for the 18 staff,:and I think they have a feeling what some of those 19 might be, but a couple of comments, and one of them is on 20 rulemaking.
-21 Granted, sometimes our rulemaking processlLs a 22-
-little-_ extended, but at least part of that is due to the=
23-
- process we must follow, and we can't go_outside of and
-24 general counsel would probably address this much better than l
25-I can.
l?
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-1" The other issue on the cost of the program and particularly-the1 cost per licensee, I choked a little bit 2
3.
- when I saw: those : costs, and one-of the things we'll. ask the.
'4-staff to do is explain-where those costs come from.- But 5:
they may be close to valid and it's just one of those 6
problems that we have to factor into'what we're-doing.
~
7 CHAIRMAN CACKSON:'
Thank you.
8 Commissioner Diaz.
9 COMMISSIONER DIAZ:
Just a quick comment.
It
'10 seems to me'like when we covered all the subjects, there was 11 an area that was really' prevention, and, you know, we --
12 that sounds loud and clear to us.
13 The other area was the mitigation area, and I 14 heard some things about, you know, orphaned sources and so i
15-
-forth.
I think one area that, you know, sometimes we have 16 to deal with is the stream of contaminated materials which 17 are not radioactive enough to be considered as orphaned H18 sources and what happens-to those materials, whether they're 19 NORM or NARM and so forth.
- 20 I understand from the presentation of Mr. Collins 1NL that there are enormous amounts of materials-with a slight 22 amount of contamination that are not being dealt with, and 23-that will be an important consideration.
1:4
.Thank;you.
25; CHAIRMAN JACKSON:. Commissioner McGaffigan.
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43 1
COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
Mr. Mattia, you 2
mentioned the possibility of just sending out a mailing and 3
trying to find out what the scope of the prob 3im is.
4 As I understand it, we don't know in the cabe of 5
generally licensed devices who to send the mailing to 6
because we don't keep track of generally licensed devices.
7 Am I wrong on that?
8 MR. MATTIA:
Well, it was my understanding from 9
the staff that anyone who purchases a generally licensed 10 source that the manufacturer submits their information to 11 the NRC, and so there is a start of a database that if I 12 brought a generally licensed source in 1975, and I listed an 13 address, that that would be the first point of contact:
Are 14 you still at this address and do you have the licensed 15 source?
16 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
And then if it isn't, we 17 have a -- okay.
So I understand, what you're saying is we 18 would use -- for the specific licensees, we should have 19 their addresses.
For the general licensees, we would use 20 the addresses that were given to us by the manufacturers and 21 see if the people have them.
That's your proposal.
Okay.
22 In the case of radium -- in the case of NARM and 23 NORM, you mentioned, Ms. Lipoti, that over 50 percent or 24 about 50 a lot of the.:rses involve Radium-226 that end 25 up in these folks' mills.
Do you have a curie level that ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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you would,-if you're doing the state regulatit... today, that I
i 2
you would propose to your fellow states, like the 10 l
3 millicurie or the 1 millicurie.r the.1 millicurie that we 4
had for the other substances?
5 DR. LIPOTI:
I don't.
I think a risk assessment 6
is very much needed in that area and has not been done.
7 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
Okay.
The last item, t
8 and most of these que~tions, I agree with Commissioner i
9 Dicus, go to the staff, but I do think, having listened to i
=1.
this debate for the last 14 months, we may have to-take some c
i 11 of you up on your offer to help us on funding, because I r
12 think that the staff's reluctance is partially funding, that l
t 13 they see large resources and they're not quite sure -- maybe 14 having more people paying fees would be one way to solve the 15 problem, but you get into some inequities, some fairness 16 iusues.
17 I also think this economic issue is pervasive, the 18.
question of whether it's strictly a public health and safety.
19 job, and.that may be what the Atomic Energy Act requires --
20-I'll defer to counsel on that -- and the degree to which we 211 can take into account under our current framework these i
22
.large economic costs that accrue to non-licensees.
23 But those'seem to me -- I mean,-if you're trying 24
.to. figure out why the staff is proposing something less than 25' what the working group 1 proposed, I think it is partly a' fee
~
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1 issue and then it's partly now much do'I ake into account-I 2
these large economic costs that are being accrued by folks.
3 It also comes up in the orphaned device thing.
i 4
The reason you have everybody. pointing to the next person at l
5 the table is that -
and I'm not sure that's our i
6 responsibility since we don't have a place to put them, but j
7 I tend to think, having listened to the discussion, that 8
somebody should be willing to take the -- some federal 9
official, not just en an imminent danger to public health 10 grounds but as a matter of fairness should be willing to 11 take some of these things o*f of people's hands once they're 12 in their hands.
13 But the problem seems to be, again, whose f
14 responsibility that should be and should there be a 15 criterion other than just imminent danger te public health, 16 but somt sort of recognition that this is a public policy 17 program problem that we're dealing with, and there's a i
18 fairness issue to the innocent victim.
19 But I'll take any comment you want to make.
20 MR. COLLINS:. On the question of fairness, during 21' the working group meetings over a period of 18 months or so, 1
22 there was no comment from any-holder of a device, and I'm 23 talking again using 3M'as a caso in point, a company which 24-
-has 1500.of.these devices, that a noniinal registration cost 25 and annual fee for the holding of these devices is not in t
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order.
Steel companies themselves use these devices.
There
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2 is such a proliferation of there devicer-across this economy
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that all kinds of industries and all kinds of service groups
[
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like medical establishments have these devices, and more and
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5 more are coming on line.
I i
6 A nominal fee certainly seems to us to be a better j
7 approach to funding the program on the part of the user than
~ t 8
a huge economic impact on the part of a number of j
9 unfortunate companies that can't Shield these devices from t
10 going into their operation.
11 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
May I just ack another 12 question?
l 13 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Go ahead.
14 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
$480 per device times 15 1500 -- you're sure 3M would make the same statement having 16 heard the staff's estimate per device?
17 MR. COLLINS:
Well, I --
i
- 18 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
Even a hundred dollars.
19 Even if it's a hundred dollars, which is what Oregon
- 20 achieves, 100 times 1500 is $150,00P.-
21 MR. COLLINS:
You're talking about a device that 22 costs -- it can cost upwards of two or three hundred
= 23' - thousand dollars,;and a $100 registration fee for such a 24
- device or a.$200_ fee-is a very nominal cost to run a
- 25 radioactive device'in the American economy, yes.
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i 2
CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Dr. Lipoti and then Mr. Mattia, j
. 3 DR.-LIPOTI:
I had some thoughts.
I also puzzleu l
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4 over the fact that costs cannot be considered for regulatory
~
5 actions necessary to ensure adequate protection of health G
and safety of the public, and I thought about it, and then I 1-t 7
came up with, but costs can be a factor in those cases where 8
-there's more than one way to achieve a level of adequate 9
protection, and in this case, one of your adequate 1 0_ -
protections of the public is really the steel manufactures-11 and the_ scrap metal people having these alarms on their
[
12 facilities.
13 So I think that you need to consider that another 14 way of providing adequate protection might be a stronger 15 regulatory program, and then there, maybe the economic 16 consequence -- the economics could be factored in.
So I 17 would want to talk to that general counsel a little bit 18 about how that might be factored in.
19 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Well', she's sitting at the
- 20 table.
21 HMS. CYR:
There's nothing under the Atomic Energy 22 Act -- I mean, the Atomic Energy Act:provides that we may 23 take action to minimize damage to property.
Where we have 24-taken it into account is -- the only place where we have
=
25 limited it is,- as you said, in -- when we're going to beyond
+
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adequate protection in reactor space have we placed any 2
limits on our ability to do that vis-a-vis backfitting 3
considerations.
But the Act clearly provides that the 4
agency has authority to take action to minimize danger to 5
property.
0 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Well, that's an interesting 7
comment, and I'll just then interject a comment, and maybe 8
it's from a strategic point of view in terms of if you ever 9
have occasion to present again, notwithstanding what the 10 general counsel said, it seems that you missed an 11 opportunity to talk about it from an environmental 12 protection perspective in terms of a device that gets broken 13 apart or whatever ending up in a scrap metal stream and 14 ending up therefore being propagated beyond the boundaries 15 of your property and having some adverse impact, as well as 16 a focus on the worker.
17 MR. COLLINS:
I did mention in my statement the 18 impact on the environment.
19 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
You did mention that?
Right.
20 But I'm just saying in terms of highlighting it as opposed 21 to how many dollars it's costing you.
I mean, there is an 22 implied -- we accept Dr. Lipoti's point of view, you know, 23 secondary regulation where there is some cost for you, but I 24 really think, from the point of view of where our 25 responsibilities lie, I think the issue of worker protection ANN RILEY & ESSOCIATES, LTD.
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49 1-and the-issue of environment.a1 protection is an important 2
consideration.
l 3
MR. COLLINS:
The state 8 are very concerned about j
\\
4 the earloads of irradiated electric furnace dust in rail 5
cars that are behind the string of steel plants that have no 6
home, no place to go.
Very concerned.
7 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Okay.
I 8
DR, LIPOTI:
I want to make one more point.- You 9
might consider taking the penalty money for people not f
- 10 complying and putting it in a revolving fund that could be 11 3adt available for disposal of some of this.
i 12 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Well, these sorts of issues
-13 have come up in the past about what to do---
14 MS CYR:
That would require legislation.
15 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
-- yes -- with our civil
-16 penalties, and that's not so straightforward.
But it's an 17' interesting idea.
t 18 Mr. Mattia, 19 MR. MATTIA:
Yes, thank you.
20 I wholeheartedly agree with Commissioner i
21 McGaffigan.
Tnere is a reality here that there are 22 restraints.
We would have loved nothing more than to come
-23 to._ you and say please register everything ef fective -- take 24 a couple ronths to implement it, and if you need a dozen L25?
FTEs, we'll run up on the hill and get chem for-you.. We t
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would love that to happen, but the reality is the sources 2
are out there, they're showing up at the facilities, and 3
maybe what we need to do is find out what the most effective 4
way of combatting this problem short-term is.
5 I mentioned the fact that in the staff report, 6
they talked about let's go after the 500 millicurie cesium 7
sources.
Well, granted, these are the most dangerous, but 8
if we spend several years, get to the end of that road, and 9
find out they're all safe and sound, what have we 10 accomplished except we ha're assured that we're not in danger 11 from those but probably from everything else.
Eo go out and 12 find out what's really the scope of the problem, work to 13 find what resources are truly available and hone them in on 14 where we can stop the leaks in the dam as quickly as 15 possible and then start to expand the coverage area to 16 hopefully someday include everything.
17 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Mr. Sharkey, 18 MR. SHARKEY:
Just briefly, I would like to 19 respond to Commissioner McGaffigan.
20 I think the steel manufacturers here would be much 21 more interested in devoting our energy and resources to 22 addressing the funding issue than going out and conducting 23 additional surveys.
I think it's an urgency issue, it's a 24 matter of time.
I think Jim and I. agree on the fact that we 25 would rather get our arms around how we can make this thing 1001 RILFY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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51 1
~ work from a funding standpoint than doing more surveys.
4 2-CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Okay.
3 I think at that point, we will draw this part of 4
the briefing to a close and ask the NRC staff to come 5
forward.
Let me_thank each one of you for a very 6_
infornative set of presentations.
7 MR. MATTIA:
Thank you.
8 MR. FLETCHER:
Thank you.
9 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Thank you.
10 Mr. Thompson,_please proceed.
11 MR. THOMPSON.
Chairman Jackson, thank you very 12
-much.
I guess I wish I had this morning's meeting rather 13 than this afternoon's meeting.
14 CHAIM004 JACKSON:
Why, because we're too nice?
15
[ Laughter.)
16 MR. THOMPSON:
Well --
17 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Be very careful.
18 MR. THOMPSON:
Be kind.
19
[ Laughter.]
20 MR. THOMPSON:
You've already heard the 21_
presentations from the steel industry concerning the
- 22 consequences they. face when licensees lose radioactive 23 material and their comments on the staff's action plan.
In 24 addition, you have heard the concerns of the representatives 25 of the' state radiation control programs and their i
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recommendations for improving accountability of devices and i
2 their comments on the staff action plans and, obviously, 3
there are wide ranges of suggestions and some important 4
elcments that we certainly have considered.
I think each of E
those items that they've talked about we have certainly 6
considered.
7 I guess I would want to respond to kind of ons 8
issue and that dealt with the issue of Russian roulette.
I 9
think the concerns there, and they are not to be downplayed, 10 that there art devices out there that can be deadly and have 11 a sufficient amount of radiation that could cause death, 12 those are not the devices that we're talking about today in 13 the generally licensed devices.
Those are specifically 14 licensed devices.
For example, the one in Texas that was 15 the large cobalt device, it was a specifically licensed 16 device and they are under a regulatory scheme for which both 17 us and the agreement states have inspection procedures, 18 they're licensed, we know about those devices ahead of time.
19 But that is not to minimize the concerns that even 20 if~they are stolen and they end up in a scrap metal area, 1 21' don't want to minimize that there are concerns by both us 22 and the states and anyone who deals-with those.
But that is 23
.not the type of devices that we are Iroking at.
24 The staff has evaluated the recommendations of the 4
- 25.
NRC agreement state --
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CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Excuse me a second.
-2 Did you have a comment on that?
3 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
No.
4 MR. THOMPSON:
But he concurs fully with that 5
argument.
I 6
[ Laughter.)
1 7
CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Let's let him finish his 8-opening comments.
9 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
I just want to get 10 educated on where -- on cesium 137, how much can it be
-11 before it is specifically licensed or before a specific 12 license is required?
How many, how many Curies do you get 13 and does it depend on the device and the amount of shielding 14 it has or how does that work?
15 MR. THOMPSON:
It is that but I'll-turn to, I 16 guess --
-17.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
For coherence here, I think 18 that it's_important that we finish and then --
19 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
I just was trying to I
20 follow up on that point.
l 21-CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
No, I understand.
22 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
Public health and 23 safety.
My understanding from Rita-Aldridge about-a year 24 ago is that some of these devices that are generally 25~
licensed; mishandled.can-be a problem and I just wanted to ANN RIIIY & - ASSOCIATES, LTD, Court Reporters 12501I. Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034 D
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refresh my memory about that.
2 MR. THOMPSON:
And we did have one proposed 3
rulemaking, you may recall, that was a device that we looked 4
at if an individual put their head in a particular area, 5
that could be a high level radiation.
I don't remember that 6
being a deadly, a lethal dose but that's just my current 7
memory.
8 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
I'll come back to it.
9 MR. THOMPSON:
In any event, we've looked at the 10 NRC agreement state working group that examined the issue of 11 control over and accountability for the devices that we've 12 talked about.
The staff submitted an action plan, including 13 its evaluation of the working group's recommendations to the 14 Commission on November 26, 1997, SECY 97-273.
15 That paper was submitted to the Commission in the 16 context of our efforts to be both risk informed and 17 consistent with the resources that were available to the 18 staff and our operating plan and the budgets that we had and 19 that was the options that we laid out to the Commission and 20 we tried to take that in what we would say a risk-informed 21 to look at the devices that would pose the largest risk and 22 address those first.
23 I would now like to introduce Dr. Don Cool, 24 Director of the Division of Industrial Metal and Nuclear 25 Safety.
Dr.-Cool will discuss the staff's action plan for ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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t L1 improving-the NRC control over and the licensees' t
2 accountability for licensed devices.
Also at the table with 3
-me today are Dr. Carl Paperiello, Director of NMSSt-John i
4 4
Lubinsky who served as the NRC co-chair of the working i
5 groupi.and Frank Conycl from AEOD.
6 I would now like to turn the program over to 7
Dr. Cool unless there are some other questions-8' CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Before Dr. Cool launches into-9 his presentation, can one of you give an answer succinctly 10 to Commissioner McGaffigan's question.
l.:
-il DR. COOL:
I-will try to do so.
12 In fact, you will find that there is a range of a l'
13 couple orders of magnitude in terms of the Curie quantity of 14 cesium where it could be generally licensed or specifically 4
4:
^
15 licenced.
The maximum Curie quantity in a generally 16 licensed device is something on the order of 5 Curies, a 17 relatively significant quantity of material.
18 You will find lots of sources considerably smaller 19 than that also in specific licenses.
So in fact, at the i
20 moment, the regulatory regimu is not a neat and tidy box 21' based on activities or quantities of materials.
And, in 22-fact, there are a number of devices which, depending upon 23-how they have been packaged or sold, may_be specifically licensed in some circumstances or may, under-other 24 L
25 circumstances or_very slight modifications, obtained and B
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56 1-used under a general license.-
i 2
CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Can you lay out for the 3
Commission what the criteria are, the main ones that you f
4 really use in determining whether something should be a l
5 specifically licensed device, generally licensed?
6 DR. COOL:
The criteria for generally licensed 7
devices and the types of tests that it would have to meet 8
are laid out in Part 31, which is the actual laying out of l
-9 the general license for devices.
And the associated l
-10 criteria and tests that have to be passed for a specific 11.
source-or a specific kind of device in Part 32.
i 12 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: - Can you list for us today what-113 some of those are?
14 DR. COOL:
Actually, I am going to turn, if you 15 don't mind, to John who can give you, I think, probably a
,i 16 little more accurate descz-iption of some of those tests in 17 Part 32.
18 MR. LUBINSKY:
As Don was saying, in Part 32 is 19 the criteria for what would meet the ceneral licensing 2"
requirements.
It is very much a performance-based 21' requirement.in that'it does not look at actual Curie content 22 but looks at the normal use conditions as ' fell as accident 23 conditions and -uts a limit on a maximum dose, maximum dose s24 being 500 millirem-during normal.use to any-worker and then 25 under accident conditions where it is unlikely, such as
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.an individual from a generally licensed device.
3 Many of these fall much lower than this limit.
As j
l 4-Don was saying, there are some in the 5 Curie range for l
5 cesium that are under a general license.
The performance 6
testing would look at actual conditions of use th?' are l
'7 provided by the manufacturer of the device.
I 8
The manufacturer would come in, request ~that the l device be. allowed or authorized for use under a general 10 license, would demonstrate what type of testing conditions 11 that the device has gone through so that it would meet the 12 normal conditions of use and the performance-based criteria
{
13 of the 500 millirem during normal use and the 15 rem.
14 CRAIRMAN JACKSON:
Commissioner.
15 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
I may be -- if -- is an 16 accident condition one of those scrap folks who is shredding 2
I 17 the thing somehow and you have a 5 Curie source, it's 18 generally licensed, and whatever they do te get a car down 19 to a couple handfuls of metal, that happens to that thing by 20 accident.. Would there then be a significant exposure to 21-potentially the workers in the yard?
=22 Again, I am trying to follow up on Hugh's comment 23_
at'the outset that there is no public health and safety 24-l risk.:
25 101. ' THOMPSON:.
I didn't say "no,"
I said, 1
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}
1-
" deadly."
I thought ~.-
2 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
On, okay, deadly.
3 MR. LUBINSKY:
The rule itself does not talk about
,-l f
4 losu and the consequences associated with loss.
It talks 5
about accident and uses a, for example, explosion or fire.
G Under those types of conditions, you are talking about 7
internal as well as external exposures.
And.the scenarjos 8
typically for an accident condition-would include unshielded l
9 material but typically when a manufacturer provides this
- 10 information to us, the scenario does include information 11 that there has been a release of the material.
12 So therefore the time frame in which the material 13 is released to the public before there is some type of 14 intervention is taken into' consideration.
When you get into i
15 areas where it is in the public domain and could be at the 16 scrap facility where the container is broken open or that 17 the dispersion has occurred of the material, the time may be 18 more than what the manufacturer originally estimated in the 19 dose assessment that he provided to us, i
20 You do need to look at the fact that, as many have c
21 said already, the devices are labeled and they have some 22 identification.
So when this does occur, after damage 23 occurs, it is likely thatLsomeone is going to see this 24 labeling:and take the proper precautions to keep that time 257 frame down.
But once it reaches the public domain, there is t
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nothing to say that it would definitely be identified in a 2
timely manner.
3 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Yes, Dr. Cool?
4 DR COOL:
If I could add one thing?
I think it 5
may be important to note that an accident condition is 6
something that is recognized and you go through the i
7 analysis.
So you assume that an explosion has occurred and 8
therefore you have some recognition and then perhaps some 9
activities dealing with the event.
10 An alternate scenario which is, I don't believe, 11 John, correct me if I'm wrong, part of the nominal process, 12 is assuming that it is undetected and an accident occurs, a 13 shredding or other material, where there is no detection and 14 no information and things just progress without recourse.
15 The accidents are assuming that I've got it here and 16 something happened here, the ateel overflowed and melted it 17 or an explosion occurred which ripped it apart or various 18 other activities.
19 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
What you're really saying is 20 that your " design basis accident" assumes a certain 21 accountability program and a certain accountability for the 22 device.
23 DR. COOL:
That's correct.
24 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
If it propagates in the public 25 domain that no longer exists.
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DR. COOL:
That's correct.
2 CHAIRMAN JACT. SON:
Let's go down the line here.
3 Commics!oner Dieus?
4 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
We will eventually let 5
them make their presentation.
6 COMMISSIONER DICUS:
Well, maybe.
7 Back to your opening comment, and I tend to 8
perhaps agree that at lea. we are not dealing with sources 9
that we don't anticipate, an acute deadly exposure, but 10 that's not to say that we could not have exposures that have 11 a health effect, potential health effect and potentially a 12 serious health effect so we need to make that distinction.
13 We are dealing with sources that can in fact do that.
14 MR. THOMPSON:
That's right.
And we are dealing, 15 I think, in the neighborhood of just NRC a half a million 16 sources.
Of a half a million sources, there are very few 17 numbers that reach this level like that.
18 We talked about I think in the working group there 19 may be something on the order of 25,000 sources that are of 20 concern, at least as kind of identified by the working 21 group.
So it goes -- this is just from NRC and of course 22 you have heard, I guess, the presentation today.
A number 23 of the detections really deal with NORM and NARM type 24 material.
So if you look at the types of devices and the 25 likes of detections out there, there are millions of these.
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types of devices, both in agreement states and NORM type of 2
activities.
So it is not a small subset of issues that we 3
are addressing.
4 COMMISSIONER DICUS:
And one more, addressing the 5
issue of labeling.
And it was brought up I think by the 6
industry as well, that sometimes the labels simply are 7
obliterated.
Some of these devices are in industry, in 8
plants, have been there for years and, for any number of 9
reasons, there's not a label on it anymore.
I've 30 encountered those devices.
11 I think one of the issues that was brought up is 12 to look at labeling and are we, in fact, labeling them well 13 enough or in a manner that probably would sustain some 14 pretty rough handling, which some of them are designed to 15 do.
But maybe not the labeling.
16 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Commissioner Diaz.
17 COMMISSIONER DIAZ:
Yes, very quickly.
This is 18 purely driven by the intention of putting Mr. Thompson in 19 deep waters.
20
[ Laughter.)
21 COMMISSIONER DIAZ:
And no other intention.
22 But looking at prevention, if a specifically 23 licensed device, significant or possibly deadly, you know, 24 radiation doses can get into the main stream, like the Texas 25 one, what does that say about prevention for those that are ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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l' not so well kept and labeled?
2
.MR. THOMPSON:
I'm sorry, you mean for --
l 3
CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
His basic point is that, you 4
_know, to have a focus on prevention and you talked-about
}
i 5
specifically licensed devices which presumably have a better-i d -
6 accountability program associated with them.
And if they 7
can end up like --
j 8
COMMISSIONER DIAZ:
That's right.
I don't think f
9 we have a program for which we can have criminal acts that 10 we can prevent, even where we have resident inspectors --
- 11 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
I don't think that's his point.
12 COMMISSIONER DIAZ:
No.
I'm talking about 13-probably of occurrence and the consequences and how to 14 prevent them.
And you wouldn't prevent a specifically i
15 licensed device to enter public life even if it would be 16 very large and therefore that says that the other generally 17 licensed devices needs to have proportionally maybe larger 18-preventions measure because they don't have the same 19 benefits of registration and accountability and so forth.
20 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Let me put it crudely.
' 21-MR. THOMPSON:
That will get me.
22 COMMISSIONER DIAZ:
That was. intentional.
.[ Laughter.)
I 23 24 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:. If you can't prevent a 25 specifically_ licensed device from ending up in a situation A'4N:RILEY'&' ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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where you can have a potentially -- an exposure that has 2
public health and safety consequence, what confidence should 3
we have that the generally licensed devices --
4 MR. THOMPSON:
You don't.
And that's exactly 5
right and, in fact, when you look at our analysis with 6
respect to what we would be able to prevent, we don't 7
guarantee and in fact we say you cannot guarantee a hundred 8
percent.
9 If we implement this program perfectly, you know, 10 with every device, there are still devices.
The 11 registration, some will slip through the system by human 12 error, not by intent.
Or there may be, as we heard 13 Dr. Lipoti talked about there will be some that will find 14 themselves disguised, even though they may have been 15 registered.
People may be willing to --
16 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
I still think you're missing 17 the point.
18 COMMISSIONER DIAZ:
You're missing the point.
19 MR. THOMPSON:
I certainly am.
I'll take my 20 lessons later.
21 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Let me make sure he's finished 22 now.
23 COMMISSIONER DIAZ:
No, I'm finished.
24 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Okay, Commissioner McGaffigan?
25 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
Just on this issue of --
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and I have been looking in Parts 31 and 32, they're long, to 2
find this 500 millirem and 15 rem standard -- but the -- is
~
3 that an ICRP recommendation?
Is that unique to this 4
country?
How do we differ from other countries in defining 5
specific versus general licensed devices?
6 DR. COOL:
That is something that we best maybe 7
sit down in your office because it will take a long period 8
of time.
9 What you will find is that there are considerable 10 variations internationally.
You vill find that a 11:
registration or a registration style program is used by 12 folks like the U.K. for lots of devices, including a lot of 13 the things that we specifically license, including 14 radiography.
You will find that the control of these 15 devices on the other end of the spectrum in many countries 16 the IAEA has as member states simply doesn't exist at all 17 and we have been part of efforts with IAEA to try and 18 establish sort of minimum programs that some of those member 19 states should deal with.
20 In fact, internationally, the control vt these 21 sources, the trafficking is a term that has been used 22 occasionally, is a significant and ongoing condition, not 23 just because of the breakup of the former Soviet Union but 24 because, in fact, sources continue to move around.
25 CHAIRMr.N JACKSON.
I think though this is too much ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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Washingtonian-itis, because I thought the question was, how 2
do we arrive at our standards and to what degree do they 3
report with existing international standards?
4 DR. COOL:
Our standards were, in fact, derived 5
well before ICRP-26.
The dose for a member of the public, 6
you noted we quoted was 500 millirem.
Since then, Part 20 7
has been revised to 100 millirem.
So that no longer 8
comports with the international recommendations.
9 The accidental dose of 15 goes back I'm not sure 10 how far, you will find a range of values in terms of 11 accident scenarios and what might or might not be 12 acceptable, some of them above, some of them below.
13 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
So this is somewhat off 14 the subject but is there any intention to ever go back and 15 bring this all into conformity with ICRP recommendations?
16 Because, you know, in all honesty, when we talk about 17 decommissioning, we cite ICRP.
I think we have a hard time 18 picking and choosing among ICRP.
And when we are in a 19 dispute with another agency, we say ICRP is good and when l
20 it's inconvenient to us or maybe there's backfitting issues, 21 I don't know.
But we don't know in and change down to 100 22 millirems.
I don't know whether that would make some of 23 these devices that are specifically licensed -- generally 24 licensed today specifically licensed right off the bat.
So 25 is that part of an overall program in the staff's view at l
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come point?
2 MR. THOMPSON:
That's part of our risk assessment 3
approach.
As I recall, part of the whole purpose was to 4
look at the devices that are generally licensed now and 5
decide which of those should be specifically licensed or 6
como under a registration program, as well as there may be 7
come devices we specifically license right now and, when we 8
do a risk ansessment on them, that they don't need to be 9
specifically licensed.
Again, that's the effort to have our 10 resources applied on those types of devices based on the 11 risk that they present.
12 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Why don't we move along.
13 MR. THOMPSON:
Don?
14 DR. COOL:
Okay.
I guess now I come back and say, 15 good afternoon, Chairman Jackson and Commissioners.
16
[ Laughter.)
17 DR. COOL:
I will go directly to slide two and we 18 will try to move through this with all expeditious speed.
I 19 think you are probably very familiar with the background.
20 This has been ongoing for a long period of time.
21 We vill go ahead and go to slide three.
22 What I want to touch on briefly today is the 23 activity associated with orphaned devices and you have 24 already heard from Dr. Lipoti a number of the activities 25 going on.
Briefly, what we are doing in the risk assessment ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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1 arena in response to the Commission's strategic setting 2
issues and then the registration program itself.
'3 Go ahead and go to slide four.
4 As you have already heard and which we agree, a 5
number of folks have identified the orphan source issue as a 1
6 significant issue ~.
We have been pleased to work with the
.l 7
conference in their efforts and the meeting which already 8
took placed and we will be participating in a meeting next l
9 week with the group as they come off, start this particular 10 process to work through that activity.
11 In addition to that, there is a longstanding r'
12 relationship both programmaticelly and in our emergency 13 response arena in terms of dealing with situations where a 14 source is identified.
There are relationships with the i
15 Department of Energy and understanding of the kinds of 16
. questions that we will ask and then get the' Department of 17 Energy involved in terms of whether or not there is, in
+
18 fact, a measure of safaty if a device is identified in the l
19 public domain, if there is a method for dealing with that l
l 20 within the existing regulatory structures in state or 21
.another licensee, whether or not there is someone who may 12 2 wish to have that device.
23 In fact, CRCPD for a number of years has had a p
. 24 list of people who are interested in using a device and that-I g
j.
-25 has proved useful on a number of occasions where something.
t i
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{
i 1
is identified and we are able to get them that has and them i
i 2
that wants together.
And then situations where all of that l
3 fails where we have been successful in engaging the 4
Department of Energy to provide assistance in picking up and l
5 actually providing radiological support -for surveys or i
6 control of sites, for taking and dispositioning sources, 7
particularly americium sources.
Those activities are 8
ongoing.
9 We recently had an exercise called Lost Source 10 Exercise up in our Region I that included EPA, several
]
. 11 states.
It was very useful in identifying who is going to 12 call whom, under what circumstances.
And we continue to i
13 pursue a whole variety of those sort of situations.
14 CRAIRMAN JACKSON:
So to what extent -- you are is basically saying everything is being handled on an ad hoc 16 basis at this point?
17 DR. COOL:
At this point, we are operating on an I
la ad hoc basis.
19 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:. And you mentioned here the 20 agencies are continuing to formalize the procedures in an 21 MOU between the agencies.
Does such-an MOU really exist?
22 DR. COOL:
The draft of the MOU was sent to the 23 Department of Energy.
We received in late December the-24' Department of Energy. General Counsel's markup of that-25
- memorandum.
We are working with folks in our general ANN RILEY &' ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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counsel's office now to see whether or not we can move 2
f orward, take the next step and actually have an MOU that 3
can be signed.
So there is --
f 4
CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
What kind of time line are l
5 you --
6 DR. COOL:
-- actually draft language being moved 7
back and forth.
8 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Are you operating on a time 9
line to have that done by a certain point?
10 DR. COOL:
I would like to have that done in a 11 matter of a few months.
Unfortunately, that has been going 12 on a lot longer than I would like it to be.
13 CHAlmWUJ JACKSON:
I understand a'll that but you I4 don't have an agreement with the Department of Energy or any 15 other agency at this point in terms of a time by which you 16 need to have this formalized?
17 DR. COOL:
That's true.
19 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Yes, Commissioner.
19 COMMISSIONER DICUS:
Dr. Lipoti was somewhat 20 critical of this and indicated that perhaps there is still a 21 passing of the buck among the federal agencies, which I 22 think goes to the heart of some of the Chairman's questions.
~ 23 And la.kewise, you are talking about with DOE, which is 24 accepting some of these sources for disposal, but EPA is 25 likewise involved.
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-1 Where are we with that?
Do you agree with i
2 Dr. Lipoti's assessment?
3 LDR. COOL:
I, in fact, agree with Dr. Lipoti's-f i
4 assessment.
There are a number of circumstances where it 5
takes a while for the federal family to figure it out and 6
that is a frustrating process, having been on a number of 1
.7-those calls at all hours of the day or night, because a-lot 8
of times what happens is we've got a source, nobody knows 9
what the source is.
Something has alarmed or someone has 10 found,something.
11 In that kind of circumstance, if you go through 12 the Federal Radiological Emergency Response Plan activities, 13 EPA is in the lead.
If it is identified as being AEA i
14 material, then NRC would.have the federal lead.
Recognizing 15 in all of that, in fact, the state is in the forefront and 16.
we are moving back and forth.
1 71 So I agree with Dr. Lipoti.
It can be very 18 frustrating as it all sorts out.
Sometimes it is not 11 9 terribly satisfying and sometimes it takes a relatively 20 protracted, perhaps. days,-period of time.
21 COMMISSIONER DICUS:
Or maybe weeks.
22 A followup question then, in the MOU, and what we-23 are working, is it designed to correct this problem, that we 24 get:the call until the federal family figures out who is in 25 the lead?L Somebody istgoing to=go get:the source'and getLit F
~
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out of the public domain or assist the state in getting the 2
source on a temporary basis to get it out of the public 3
i 3
domain?
4 DR. COOL:
In fact, no, not completely.
This i
5 memorandum is to formalize the relationship and process
(
6 steps by which we can get DOE to accept a source.
It does i
-7 not deal with some of the procedural issues and 8 ~
jurisdictional issues between EPA, NRC, DOE --
9 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
How do you intend to get at 10 that?
11 DR. COOL:
I actually think the best approach is i
12 where CRCPD is going right now and that is exactly, and I 13 agree again with Dr. Lipoti's comment that she made to you i
14 about the fact that the relationships and jurisdictional 15 issues is one of the things they have asked the working 16 group to identify on early on in the process to try and 17 provide some better definition.
18 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Yes.
19 COMMISSIONER DICUS:
Okay, one last.
I'm sorry.
20 And.then you've got the floor.
21 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
No, that's fine.
22 COMMISSIONER DICUS:
If CRCPD seems te be the 23 instrument-that is going to work, try to-work this problem 24-out'I guess for.the federal family and then, of course, with l
25
.the states as well, who is funding them to do that?
I mean.
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- 1-how is th'at being done?L Is'that the. funding the EPA is 2
'providing?
3=
-DR. COOL: -EPA has provided funding to the'CRCPD~.
1 4
--And I don't know the extent-or duration, at least for this-5' year, for.this= group to be considering these and try to pull
-6; together some program.
.7 MR. LIPOTI:
Some of the 200,000 goes into next-f 8
year.
9 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Okay.
10 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN Can.I clarify this issue 11 of getting out of public domain?
Because in talking to
'12 Mr..Mattic last week.in my office, it sounds like when 13 oftentimes whatever fed decides they are in charge finally 14 shows up, they will.do a. survey and say, not a danger, your 4
15 problem, see you lacer because there isn't an imminent 16-danger to public health and safety.
And then this person is 17
- left with the courts and maybe -- how do you-deal with these 18 folks in the scrap yards who aren't our licensees.
19 Say.it's an Atomic Energy.Act material but it's-a 20
-very small device.
Is it a possible answer under this MOU 21-you-are dealing with DOE on that DOE would say, this is too 22-
.small for us to accept and'it's up to the finder to dispose 5 23-Jof.it?
-24 How --1I'm asking whether?this MOU is going to 25:
. solve:th'e; problem of the small scrap person.
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73 DR. COOL:
The MOU is not based so much on-the 2
size of-the source as'a series of questions associated with-3-
whether or not'there are controllmechanisms or mechanisms to 4
ple.ce it_under control._ I think you would_probably find the
'S answer _would be at least'somewhat unsatisfying.
'6 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Sw the point is, why is there 7.
not effort to address what happens t. the ground, you know, 8
in terms of jurisdiction, who is ~ going to take it, who is 9'
going to do what?
You'know, why are you working on that MOU that doesn't address thooe issues?
Is there, you know, a Ell reason for that?
12 MS. CYR:
Well, there is an authority question,_I 13 think, in-some circumstances It is not clear what NRC's 14 authority is.in all circumstances to take possession of 15 material.
16 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
No, no, no, I understand that.
4 17 MS, CYR:
I mean, and DOE may be di the same
-18 circumstance.
' 19 =
CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
That's Commissioner 20
.McGaffigan's point.
21 MS. CYR:
I mean, they are working on an MOU in 22' the constraints of what.has sort of been their traditional 23 operation in terms of-where DOE is willing to take it.
= 24 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
The point I'm trying to 25-make-really,.and1I think it came up earlier, if there are 1
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-ow-m w
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-. 7 4
.i authority issues either for us or DOE and therefore 1
2-legislation required, I think that has to be identified as-
-3 an option'so that just we and DOE or EPA, whoever is-i 4
involved,.we get the' authorities clear in statute and then 5-maybe the problem gets a little easier.
- ~
6 But at the moment, writing MOUs to limited 7'
authorities, my fear is you.will expend a lot of energy and 8=
not have actually produced a satisfying result, which I 9
think'is the word you were using just a moment ago, 10 Dr. Cool.
11 COMMISSIONER DICUS:
One more thing --
12 MS, CYR:
That's not to say there's not value in 13 clarifying those circumstances in 'hich you can at least get 14 that much done.
I mean, there may be additional efforts 15 that need to be undertaken.
16 COMMISSIONER DICUS:
I just -- I think it's the 17 last comment on this slide.
18 CRAIRMAN JACKSON:
Oh, my-god.
-19
[ Laughter.]
'20L COMMISSIONER DICUS:
Well, we have 11 more-21
. minutes.
. 2:t I. hear a lot,-you know, and.we've said it, a lot 123
'of. comments about the bureaucracy and they're important and
-24 we do have some legal issues to get over.
But let's not-25-EloseLsight of the-fact that we have to protect the public's I
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health and safety and we have got to. cut _through the 2
bureaucracy to be.sure we do that, in the final-analysis.
3 MR._ THOMPSON:
Juld I think that is, in case, what 4-happens.
In fact, often we will show up,_even though EPA is 5
the nominal-lead for those activities, and work with-the 6'
state and used to -- T?RC, I think, used to be much more 4
7 proactive on unidentified sources.
EPA. called us and'said, 8
you have no authority, you know, we will be the responding-
"9 authority for unidentified sources, and that goes back to 10-the issue on the authority where that has really been an 11
_ impediment at times.
12 MR. CONGEL:
Could I add just a little?
I'believe 13:
the issue is primarily most difficult when_it comes.to the 14 actual cleanup in getting rid of the source.
I want to
'15 emphasize that we have been involved with a number of 16 significant events-ranging from spills of tritium to sources 17 in the environment and we have never had any difficulty in 18 getting cooperat!,on from the other federal agencies, 19 particularly DOE and EPA and DOT if it's a transportation 20-devico -- or accident, rather, when it involves the public 21 health and safety.
22 The difficult part.comes afterwards when the
' 23 situation is stabilized and then we try to find out who is 24'-
going to be responsible-or who can take care of the' cleanup 25 or disposal.- Then we get into the issues that we're talking ANN-RILEY~&' ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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about.
But there have been a number of remarks made here 2
that say, well, while they sort out who the responsibility 3
is, I would like to make it clear that that never, during my 4
experience --
5 CHA!RMAN JACKSON:
In the imminent phase, it's not 6
a problem.
7 MR. CONGEL:
It's not a problem.
There's an 8
enormous amount of cooperation and I think Hugh was actually 9
getting at it.
10 I, really, and the other agents don't care whether 11 it's identified, unidentified, licensed or not.
Let's make 12 t'are that we have the public health and safety first.
13 I have never had a difficulty with that and 14 they're not even the stereotype Washingtonian bureaucrats 15 saying, well, you know, that's yours.
No.
DOE provides rap 16 teams, any capabilities that we ask for, very quickly.
But 17 the next step is -- so I just want to make sure we focus on 18 what I really think is the issue but not the first step.
19 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
I think it strikes me from what 20 you have already said that there needs to be some 21 clarification in two baskets.
One has to do with just what 22 is the MOU meant to clarify and cover and provide that 23 information for the Commission.
But more importantly or as 24 importantly is to then clarify, you know, in a follow on 25 way you know, where the problems are that relate to what ANN RII EY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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we've been discussing here in terms of interagency 2
jurisdiction, et cetera.
And what, in your,best judgment
-3 needs to happen in order to bring clarity to it, if it's 4
legislation or if it's just further negotiation between the 5
agencies or whatever.
6 We need to understand that because, to have this 7
discussion in a vacuum, risks making us as frustrated as 8
some of the other people who, you know, we've already heard 9
from because it doesn't help us in terms of decisionmaking.
10 MR. THOMPSON:
Right.
11 CRAIRMAN JACKSON:
Okay, why don't yor go on.
12 DR. COOL:
Okay, slide five.
We will talk briefly 13 about the risk assessment that my group has undertaken.
14 This is a Landamental reexamination of the activities 15 conducted in byproduct material, that is, Parts 30 through 16 39 of the Code of Federal Regulations.
It includes these 17 kinds of devices.
Radiography, well logging, irradiators, 18 all of those kinds of activities.
19 I have asked the group to step back, look at the 20 various kinds of systems, you could put that in quote, or 21 radiography is a system.
They have identified something on 22 the order of 40 or so systems, gauging devices being a 23 system.
I asked them to take a look at that in terms of a 24 number of ricks, doses to members of the public, doses to 25 workers, doses under accidental conditions, doses on it ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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getting out somewhere and some consideration of what, for 2-
-lack of a-better way to place-it, is the outrage factor.
3 That is, if something actually happens with that device, 4
what is the reactivity level that either the NRC or the 5
federal f amily or the states then use in terms of trying to 6
deal with those devices and the situations that occur in the 7
environment.
8 There is a fair amount of actual data which is out 9
there.because these devices have_been used over a long 10 period of time.
Asked them to take a look at that, the
~
11 various data that is in our NMED, Nuclear Materials Event 12 Database, and other databases, to use quantitative criteria.
13 Some probabilistic risk assessment or similar sorts of 14 methodologies which have been done for certain kinds of 15 systems, not completely in the way that you would expect a 16 reacLar situation to be.
And qualitatively in terms of
.17 other kinds of processes and examinations.
18 I have asked them to have that process completed 19 by the end of this fiscal year and my expectation would be 20 that then come next fall we would be able to provide for you 21 the results of that and some potential recommendations 1about 22
?whether or not-there would -- this analysis suggests changes:
23 to the kinds of touches that we-do, the kind of license, 24:
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followup and the system as a whole.
2 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
How does this play into the 3
options that you have laid out in the paper before the 4
Commission?
5 DR. COOL:
This plays out as being the 6
recommendations or specifically moving and starting to lay 7
the basis of a registration program is to lay the framework 8
for that which I believe will be a bin that the risk L
9 assessment will suggest a number of things, including a 10 number of things that are now specifically licensed might 11 well fall into.
Because if the fundamental issue is 12 accountability, and that will certainly be the case if it is 13 a gauging device and is specifically licensed.
14 If that is the appropriate approach for dealing 15 with that kind of material and accountability is a key or 16 the major component in dealing with the risk, then perhaps 17 it ought to be in that bin and this would lay the framework 18 and, if we were moving forward in rulemaking, would already 19 be underway in terms of develcping and establishing that bin 20 into which we could in some organized manner add other 21 groups.
22 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Have you got a comment?
23 COMMISSIONER DICUS:
On this risk assessment, and 24 I've got, I think, maybe three questions, quick ones, on it.
25 I'll ask them now.
If you want to wait and answer them a ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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'few' slides on --
2-CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Why don't you go_ ahead.
3 COMMISSIONER DICUS: Mrhe-questions are, during the 4'
risk assessment, and I am talking about now only on 5
generally licensed devices, this aspect we have under 6
discussion at the moment, our definition of risk in the 7
agency is a probability times a consequence.
How are you 8
getting a handle on consequence for the generally' licensed 9
devices?
10 And prefacing, before you answer, I don't know 11 that we know what all the consequences are.
How are you 12 going to deal with risk when part of the formula may be 13-missing?
14 DR. COOL:
Through a combination of modeling and 15 the events that have been seen.
We are taking the fact that 16 there have been smeltings of material.
I am asking them to 17 take a-look at and try to model, and this is kind of a 18 deterministic worst case approach, because there is not a 19 good way to do some maybe perhaps more satisfying or more 20 accurate consequence of doses to individuals if you shred it'
-21' andLif it got out into the domain.
22 So it is a combination of using actuarial and f
23
~ experienced data where that is available along with-24' deterministic or modeled kinds of approaches where that-25' isn't available.
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. COMMISSIONER DICUS:
Okay, and'what are the 2
complications, particularly when a source is.in the public 3
domain?
In some cases, I think in one case a source was 4
found'in some gravel with no idea how 1cng it had been 5
there, no idea how many people may have walked by, been-6 involved, or even how it got there and how many people might-7
-have been exposed.
So there is this tremendous unknown.
It 8
makes it very difficult to do this and where we simply have 9
to walk into it knowing this.
10 The second part, the second question is, our 11' database is incomplete.
I am using the nice word.
-It is, 12 in fact, flawed.
And the data we have may represent a 13 fraction of what has happened.
How are you going to deal 14 with that.
15 DR. COOL:
And the answer to the first question 16 is, yes, I agree with you.
There is an enormous 17-unc3rtainty.
There is no mathematical construct other than.
18 to try and at least set boundaries on worst cases and 19 otherwise to try and deal with that.
20 The answer to the second case, yes, the database 21 is undoubtedly flawed.
-There have been other things that 22 have undoubtedly happened.
The number of occurrences, while 23-
.that may change probabilities to some extent, may or'may not 24 change the range of uncertainty that you have in terms of 25.;
.the potential consequences.
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-CHAIRMAN JACKSON:_
If-you're-.looking at 2:
. consequences,:are you looking at worker protection?
1 3
DR._ COOL:
Workers, members of the public, 4
routine, accidental --
5 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
And are you'looking at j
6 environmental contamination?
7 DR. COOL:
And environmental issues, the material 8
gets outside of the facility.
9 COMMISSIONER DICUS:
And then are --
10 DR. COOL:
I have asked them to consider all of
- 11 those.-
i
'12 COMMISSIONER DICUS:
Are you looking at protection 13 of property?
14-DR. COOL:
I have asked them to specifically look
-15 at that, which goes above and beyond the kinds of analysis 16 we've done previously; that's correct.
17
' CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Cc.missioner McGaffigan?
18-COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
Protection of property,
-19 economic consequences, the melt that-occurs and having to 20 deal with all the carloads of material that sit outside
-21 these steel mills.
Is that~a consequence you are looking 22' Eat?
DR. COOL:
Yes, sir.
23-
-24 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Okay..Why don't you move _on.
- 25--
The next slide,.which would be slide DR.. COOL:
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lt.
six, is somcthing that-we have presented previously.
.2 Under NRC jurisdiction in the generally licensed
-3 device realm, there are close to 500,000 devices.
As you 4
can-see, nearly three-quarters of-those-constitute tritium 5
exit signs and a variety of other percentages, just by way 6
of background.
7 If I can go ahead and go to the next slide --
8 CHAlRMAN JACKSON:
From a radiological standpoirt, 9
what is the largest activity source here or category sourca?
10 DR. COOL:
you're going to find the largest 11 activity devices in-that piece of the pie that says fixed i~
12 and portable gauges.
There may be a few sitting over in the
-13 other category.
-14 The exit signs will have fairly high numbers in 15
. terms of Curies of tritium but, radiologically speaking, the 16 dose that can be delivered, that does not have the same 17 consequence as the cesium devices.
18 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Okay.
19 DR. COOL:
Go ahead to slide seven.
20 I have tried to lay out schematically where we 21 would be in this process.
I think-perhaps it is intuitive, 22-obvious, but it is sort of interesting to look at it in the 23 event tree, fault tree kind of format where presuming you've 24 got it under control and tuen potential for losing it, 25 whether or.not it gets in or out of the public doma_. or ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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84 L1 whether itLis continuing to sic in the facility.
Does-it--
lL
_ get in : the scrap stream or get: buried or some other -
3;
- i. consequence?
Is--it detected?
Does that second safety net 4
that Dr. Lipoti referred to catch it--or not?
You-have already heard the quoting of a lot of 5-61 statistics on some of these end points in terms of number
'7
-detections and number of melts.
8 A-registration program, the kinds of things'that 9
everyone has been discussing here, is influencing the
.10 percentages you would put on that very first branch.
. 11 Whether-or not they have it accounted for and know where it 12 is-or not, that's where all of the influence of this 13 particular program goes into in terms of that very first 14 piece of the process.
15 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Yes.
16.
COMMISSIONER DICUS:
On this chart, I think you 17 have an event tree missing and that is what about loss of 18' source integrity before smelting?
And that has happened J19-once.
- 20-DR. COOL:
Um-hum.
}'
- 21 COMMISSIONER DICUS:
I think you have to put that 22 in, in this event tree.
'DR. COOL:
That and, in fact,-a number of others 23.
24 if;I wanted to-get-to;a greater level of detail,-I agree 25<
- with _you.--
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~85 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Well, I'm-only assuming _--
2 DR. COOL: - This -was f or _ illustrative purposes to 3
indicate where registration influences the process.
4 COMMISSIONER DICUS:
This is not the event tree --
S DR.-COOL:
This is not the ultimate event tree.
6 It is not intended to be the ultimate event tree.
You-are 7
very right, there are lots of other things in there,_ lots of 8
other branches.
9 COMMISSIONER DICUS:
Given that clarification, we 10 can_go on.
-11 DR. COOL:
The current program, in fact, requires
-12 a whole series of things.
It requires the vendor to provide 13 the general licensee with a copy of the regulations.
The 14 regulations require testing, reporting, some recordkeeping.
N N
15 Vendors are required to notify the NRC of the distribution 16 of their devices in answer to the question which 17 Commissioner McGaffigan asked.
18 Purthermore, general licensees are supposed to be 19 reporting transfers and disposal of their devices.
They are 20 not charged fees and we don't ever interact with them except 21 under a circumstance where something has shown up and we are 22 backtracking..So we are in event response-mode.
-23 Based on the information which comes into and is 24' recorded in my: general license database, we in fact have a 25 database which'we put in all of the reports from the vendors ANN-RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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and those: reports which we receive of transfers.
It's 2
fairly apparent to me that we are not'getting all the-3 transfers and otherwise because of the number of reports 4
that we get from the user saying I have' transferred this or 5
that is a very small number.
We get some.but it clearly 6
does not match up with, I would Lelieve, a priori, are the 7
things going on out there.
.8 Nevertheless, that database does exist and, in 9
fact, has on a number of occasions proved very useful in 10 terms of backtracking.
One of the cases on point, which I 11 think at least some of you are probably familiar familiar 12 with,Lwas in fact the shredding of an americium source and 13 DOE was very useful, picked up the source, took it down and 14 found the serial number.
We were able to back track through 15 the manufacturer and the general license database to the 16 licensee.
17 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Is there an enforcement 18 mechanism to use against the general - -general licensees
. 19 who fail to properly transfer or dispose of their devices?
20 DR. COOL:
There is.
And, in fact, the case I
- 21
.just cited ~is in that process right now.
2)
CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Yes?
23 COMMISSIONER DICUS:
On this database that may be
- 24.
a littletflawed but do we ever review it:for indications of 25-program trends and weaknesses beyond what.you've just J
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1-discussed?-
2 MR. CONGEL:
We are in the process of updating.
3 __
that'.
I was going to say_something a few minutes ago when r
4-you mentioned it but Don kindly answered for me.
l 5
But the program itself.is still in an evolutionary 6'
stage and we are still probably, I would say, about five 7
years into a very strong updating and improvement ranging 8
from incorporating in a better way the agreement states' 9
information to working with our counterparts in Carl's 4
- 10 office for a better quality assurance and quality control of 11 the data.
12 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
It took you five years into --
i 13 MR. CONGEL:
I certainly didn't want that to sound 14 like -
maybe it's Washington-itis again.
But it was about 15 five years ago that I would say there was increased 16 attention being paid on it.
And there have been a number of 17
_ subsequent and consecutive improvements and feedbacks on 18 this database.
-19 COMMISSIONER.DICUS:
But it's still a troublesome 20-area?
-21 MR. CONGEL' There's parts.of it where we're H22 learning and,11ndeed, we have had our exchanges of info.
23 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:'
Commissioner McGaffigan?
124:
COMMISSIONER-McGAFFIGAN:
Could you use this;to do
- ~
- 25.
_ hat 1Mr. Mattia-proposed, to send off to the -- not all the w
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- 88 1:
tritium sites 1but the-48,000 gauge' folks that were in that-2-
previous chart, send-off a letter saying, do you have the-3 device ~still?; Is;it up_to that?-
4 MR. CONGEL:
Imperfect and yes.
It would in-fact
~
5 be the' base line upon which we would starc this process.
i 6:
-And, in fact, there'was a survey that-was
'7 conducted'back-some --
4
-8:
MR. LUBINSKY:
1989-1990; time-frame.
9 MR. CONGEL:. Which resulted in some significant
" 10.
adjustments, some information that was found.
You could 11 start that process.
There are pros and cons to surveys, 12 You so through the OMB clearance process and 13 certainly thaticould be done.
Part_of the process is-if you 14 were.doing_that with the-explicit intent of moving into a
[
15 registration program, you would in fact'being engaging in an-16 activity which the General-Counsel, at'least at this point,
.17 -
hasLindicated to me would be de facto a registration program-18 and which I really should-have done rulemaking for prior 19
-to --
20 MS. CYR:. As long as you're doing a one-time 21.
survey,- And.you al'so have.a proposed rule on the street
' 22-that constitutes a-registration program and I think you've
- 23 gotito discuss how:that differs from whatever.you might be
'24-proposing otherwise, too.-
~
25L There.wasfa; rule proposed in 1991-to create'a s
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89 1
. registration program which was never finalized.
But it is-2
.still out on the street as a proposed rule.
3
-CHAIRMAN' JACKSON:
Fascinating.
4 MS. CYR:
It does not cover fees, which is a big 5
issue, and it specifically said it would not address the fee 6
issue.
But you need to sort of, I think --
7 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Thank you.
8 Now, how does that -- what is the story there*ich 9
that rule and how does that play against your options that 10
-you've laid out in this paper?
11 DR. COOL:
Thank you for jumping me head about 12 three pages 13 To quickly answer your question, in fact, one of 14 the alternatives that we have been exploring is the extent 15 to which the revival and, perhaps, publication of a piece of 16 that rule which has already been proposed would move more
.17 quickly.than the base line which was laid on this paper of a 18 rulemaking package.
19 That rule did, in fact, propose a requirement 20 which would have. allowed us to go and do a registration 21 program.
That rule did not get to some of the technical
- 22 issues such as labeling or fees or-some of these other 23 things..So it is not a one-to-one match with that which the 24' working group has recommended and otherwise but may, in-25 fact, be a mechanism.
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We_are having a-long chat with Stu Treby now.
2-CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
It's not in_the paper we have i
3 before us.
4 DR. COOL:
That's correct.
5 MS. CYR:
It was proposed to register everybody, I 6
_think, wasn't it?
'7 DR. COOL:
It was a proposal to register all 8'
devices..
q 9
MR. THOMPSON:
That, again, was one of the rules 10 held in abeyance because of the resource levels to implement 11 such a rule and there, again, comes the tension that we've 12 had in agencies where we have declining resources, we had 13 looked to the areas that had the highest risk to public 14 health and safety, not we - ~we were not focused on 15 protecting property at that time and therefore that 16 rulemaking has been. held in abeyance since then to do the 17 working group study and other things with the appropriate 18 risk focus on it.
19 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Yes, Commissioner.
20 COMMISSIONER DICUS:
You heard the industry say J
21 that there may be a greater role-for vendors and their
.22 responsibilities.- Do you have-any comments on that?-
23-DR.-COOL..One-of-the things we looked at very H2 4 _
hard.was whether you could do this by placing that burden on
~
25 the vendor. -There are certainly some pros in_ terms-of not ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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.needing as resource _ intensive program here.
There are also 2
some cons in terms of placing the vendor essentially in 3
double jeopardy of having_to report on that to whom he is 4
also trying. to sell some other jurisdictional issues.
5 The working group,.in fact, during their 6
discussions, examined that particular issue and the working 7
group also concluded that that was not the most favored 8
approach.
But, yes, we have looked at that.
One of the 9
other alternatives was that but there were some significant 10 cons to placing it all out there.
11 1 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Commissioner McGaffigan and 12 then we'ra going to move on.
13 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
Two very quick 14 questions.
15 The 1991 rulemaking, did it come out of this
'89-16
'90 survey that you mentioned?- Is there a history there 17 where you did a survey, you discovered a problem and then 18 you started a rulemaking that ne never finished?
19 MR.'LUBINSKY:
As Don was saying, we haJe been 20 looking at this a long_ time and that was part of it.
There.
21 was'a survey and there were studies performed that said, 22' let's go forward with this rulemaking.
A lot of the 23 estimates lon-resource requirements as far as to follow up on 24-licensees who do not respond were initially based on that
-25 1990-survey.
It included about 3,000 general licensees and ANN 4ILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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1 it-was a voluntary survey.
It-was not a mandatory survey, 2-That started the rulemaking process or helped i
3-support =the rulemaking process in '91'and also since we're 4
_ going through the history, after the rulemaking was:put.on 5
hold in '93, the Commission came back to us and said, you 6
put the rule on hold and what are you going to do now.
7 That was when we came back and put the work _ group 8-togetner to-look at this from a national perspective and the 9
basis-for the registration was based on a lot of the same 10 detail.in that initial rule.
11 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
And then this issue of 12 labeling that comes up in the working group report and you 13 say you agree with and all that.
I'm looking at danger of 14 putting the rules in front of a commissioner here but 3251 15 says at the moment each device bears a durable, legible, 16 clearly visible label or labels approved by the Commission 17 which contain a clearly identified and separate statement, 18 et cetera.
19 Why is that not enough to make sure_that these 20 devices are today, you know, couldn't we by reg guide-or-21
.something say what we mean by --
22 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Have we been implementingT his?
t R23
-COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
Clearly visible, it's 24 durable.. Durable:means it's_got to be. etched or whatever?
25 MR. LUBINSKY:
We have been interpreting the word--
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- l'
_'" durable"Lthe'same way we have_ looked at'the criteria for 1
2-doses'ini3251.
lThat is,-durable during the normal and---
3 likely conditions-that you will see during use and likely 4
accident conditions, m
5; Of course, during the' explosion, you would not 76
-expect any labeling to survive.
But as partaof that, it did 7-
-not look-at what happens when this gets into the public 2
78-domain'because that is not-an expected condition or was not-4 4
9 an expected condition for-this rulemaking.
1-s10 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
At that time, 11-MR. LUBINSKY:
So therefore durable and legible 12 would be-during normal use.
If it's used in a laboratory 13 facility where it sits on a tabletop all day,.you're not 14:
_ talking about etching or embossing ~ labeling for it to meet 15 20 years' of use in that type'of environment.
16-CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
I-think we need to just go on.
L 17 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
Would it be a new rule C
18 to go back and clarify, in light of what we learned, durable 19 now should be interpreted as-follows?
Or does that require i-20 a rulemaking or does that require just.a statement?
21 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Maybe Karen can answer;that.
22-MS. CYR:
I think it-probably would require'-- we-
- 23 would have to look vactly at what you're trying to do but I 24 think-you really_are_probably changing the basis under which-25 lyour rule was_ adopted;and you probably would have to go
- v. __
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- through some'kindLof a notice and comment-period.
2.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
I think I am going to dictate 23
_that the last slides be gone through without any questions-4 so we can come back.
5.
DR COOL:
And then we'll ccme back and do it in
'6 one fell swoop.
7 The next slide on the registration program is up 8
'on the screen.
An ideal registration _ program which is the 9-basis of the staff's recommendation would still be a process-
-10 by which the requirements would be in the regulations.
11 There would be some additional requirements.
We would go 12 back and look at some of the durability issues, probably 13 specifically require serial numbers and other-things to be 14 part of that so you could have a better tracking if ei u 15 found it.
A number of those sorts of things.
16 The process would require that the licensee 17 register the device with the NRC and that there would be an 18 annual touch which would include both an accountability, we 19 believe you have X number of devices.
Come back to me and 20-say, yes, we also have-X number of devices, we have touched 21-and inventoried them on a-quarterly, monthly basis which 22:
would have:to be specified-in the regulations, we have seen 23-them,_they-are labeled, the labels are present and clearly 24 visible, intact, the sorts'of things that are required-25-there,Dand"the submission of.the fee.
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To get-to one ofjthe questions and, I hope, read 2
.your mind perhaps, at least a little bit, I was not terribly
.3 happy with the cost either-but it is driven 1by your 4.
assumptions about how far and.how many you are-going to 5
chase in the initial' years of the program.
Our assumption
'6 is thatLwe~would be trying to follow up on roughly 15 7
percent and went through and did the mathematics associated 8
with:that~
It has the overhead built-ini which is used by-9' the. comptroller's' office in-terms of_ dealing with-the fee 10 billing applications and at least some measure of where you 11' might be in terms of allocation, enforcement and other sorts 12 of ma.nagement activities if you assumed after a few years of S
13 this you had it settled down that you were maybe doing only, 14 say, two or three percent that you were.having to do follow 15 up and you then looked at the resource that would be needed 16 to do that, you would find that the price would be something 17 on the order of $200.
18 It scales very much to the kind of resource needed 19 to do the initial file -- followup and accountability with 20 those devices which, obviously, will be the greatest during 21-the first year or two of conduct.
That's why you have a-22 number which-is disparate from the kind of numbers that you
~
23 see in the. states which have been running programs which 24 have, for the most part, gotten over that hurdle.
.-25 LThe process would,-in ideal circumstances, be ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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.following up, are you-still there, do you still have them, 2
whare.did it go.
For perhaps some of=them, contractor 3
support in~termsEof. skip trace, you're:not there, those 4
sorts of things.
5 Next slide, please.-
6 In terms of the startup activities, the rulemaking 7
in order to get_that process into place and the coordination 8
with the states and the upgrade and development of_the 9
automated system, the computer system necessary to support 11 0 this.
The general license database is an old mainframe
- 11
. system,-not terribly-useful but a good starting point upon 12 which we would then generate those.
That's more or less a 13 fixed cost without regard to necessarily specifically the 14
. kinds of licensees you would be touching. We-can go ahead to the next slide on 16 implementation activities then.
17 You do the registration.
Once you had the
-18_
rulemaking in place, you could run the actual letters, send 19-them out, get it back, entered into the database on a --
20 what I have listed on the slide as a scale factor,.-abdul a 21 third of an FTE and $67,000 or so per thousand.
So figure 221 out the number of licensees you want to touch and that's 23 roughly the-cost.
The dollars associated with probably a 24 contractor doing a lot;of.the maintenance and running of the-
.25 computer-system _rather.than having my staff people'doing all ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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97' 1
ofithat input itself.
2 And then the followup activities in terms of-going 3
outi resolving discrepancies, doing reactive-inspections on 4
.the order of 1.5-PTEs per thousan'd~ licensees that_are out 5
there.
Again, somewhat of.a scaling factor.
6 The paper provided alternatives based on the 7
' resources available that are within the operating plan and 4
8 budget which I presently have to do the job right, that is 9-to touch them and do the followup would mean that we could 10-get those licensees who have cesium on the order of 500 11-millicuries or more.
If you didn't want to do the job 12 right, you could for the same resource touch a larger 13-quantity in terms of mailing it out and getting it back.
14 I think you have heard from a number of folks and
-15 I think I would agree that that is not a preferred approach.
16 It doesn't go all the way down the line; it stops half way.
17 From there, alternative three is an alternative 18-which picks up the other cesium devices that were in the
-19 working group report.
What we have tried to do is provide 20 you.with a unit cost factor such that if we wanted to go 21
-with yet further resources and touch all of the devices-that 22 were.in-the working group recommendation, you could go 23 through and very quickly do that.
That would be on the 7
24 order of eight or nine FTEs and associated dollars 125h imultiplied'out on a per licensee basis.
The working group
~ '
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l' recommendations would encompass something on the order of 2,
6,000: licensees and on the order of 25 or so_thousand 1
l 3-
~ devices.
I 4.
With that, I'm done with the presentation and 5
would be glad to try ar.d-answer some additional questions.
6-CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Let me ask you a couple of 7
questions.
8 Are there currently specific licensees who are not 9
physically inspected?
110-DR. COOL:
No, but some of them have inspection 11 frequencies of five to seven years.
12 CRAIRMAN JACKSON:
Okay.
So, de facto?
13-DR. COOL:
De facto, they are not touched for 14 relatively long periods of time.
15 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
If that's the case, would they 16 be candidates for registration program, also?
17 DR. COOL:
I personally believe that they would 18 be, without pre-jumping my registration program.
Those are 19 the kind of folks that sort of look and smell like a lot of 20 these" kinds of devices and, a priori, if this is'the right 21' kind of-approach for them, what's good for the goose should
-22
-also be good-for the ganders.
23 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
And you mentioned the startup 24 costs in_ terms of registration,. automated registration 25 system.
Since there are automated registration systems that
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currently exist in several states, is there ani nportunity 2
to go the other way, to scale up, you know, their systems 3
for use by the NRC and could that afford us some time saving 4
and cost saving?
5 DR. COOL:
Perhaps.
The-fact that we have a 6
database sort of indicated to us that scaling up and 7
bringing that existing database into the cliene server 8
system of the Agency was perhaps yet the quickest system 9
because that data already exists and if you matched fields 10 you could --
-11 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
But did you look at it?
Did 12 you look'at it, that possibility?
13 DR. COOL:
I don't know that the group explicitly 14 looked at trying to buy one of the existing state systems.
15 MR. LUBINSKY:
During'the working group we talked 16 about that possibility.
The one concern there was that most 17 of the states were cealing with a smaller number of
~
18 licensees and devices.
We're talking about on the order of 19 500,000. devices, so you're talking about a large number-of 20 records.
Where the states were dealing with much smaller
^
H21 '
databases.
22 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
.I agree.
But that's separate 23 than an actual examination of what they have to look'at
.24 whether there is some scalability.
25-MR. LUBINSKY:
While the-examination was looking ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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at the scalability from the work -- this was during the 2
working group.
It wasn't believed that we could actually 3
just schle those up because of the life cycle requirements 4
that we're looking at within our C-type systems and by the 5
time we finish going through tailding that system up to what 6
we really need, it would be more cost effective to convert 7
the general license database over to a client server system.
8 CHAIRMAN JACKSONt Did you actually go through 9
developing user requirements for the use to which -- for the 10 kind of database system and automated registration system 11 that we would need?
12 MR. LUBINSKY.
We are going through now and wo 13 have developed a draft statement of work for what the 14 requirements would be for the new system and that would be 15 more from an efficiency standpoint of performing the 16 mailings and collecting the data and updating the system.
17 LHAIRMAN JACKSON:
So I would argue to you that 18 until you have developed those user requirements and then 19 you've in fact template overlaid them to what states, say 20 look at the larger states, have, you really can't answer the 21 question of whether or not the system is sufficient?
22 DR. COOL:
Not completely.
Correct.
MR. THOMPSON:
That's correct and, Chairman, also 23 24 we would certainly coordinate with the CIO because there may 25 be other commercial off-the-shelf products.
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CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
That was going to be my next f
2 piece.
Exactly.
[
3 And then for the last question I have, if I look i
4 at alternative two, there doesn't appear to be any incentive I
5
-for general licensees under that alternative to register, i
G Is there some hidden incentive, such as the threat of 7
enforcement action, against those who don't registet if 8
devices are found as a result of incidents?
9 DR. COOL:
As *<e mentioned, I thought in the 10-
~ paper, part of what wa would be looking at would be 7
11 enforcement alternatives, potential incentives which would 12 apply, irrespective of whether you were trying to do a 13 complete followup or the incomplete followup.
14 CRAIRMAN JACKSON:
You may have mentioned it in 15 the paper but you didn't mention it this afternoon.
16 DR. COOL:
I'm sorry.
17 In fact, one of the things that we have discussed, 18 in f act in f airly great depth, with Jim Lieberman, Director-19 of Office of Enforcement, is the kind of approaches we could 20 take and the possibilities of automating or simplifying an 21-enforcement process to minimize our resources to take 22 specific actions.
And, in an incentive basis, whether or 23 not Tne would wish o defer enforcement if they were 24 cooperating with us and gair.ing accountability.
Almost 25:
'perhaps an amnestyfprogram for the first year or two to try
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to get them captured before bringing in the penalties which 2
would make it somewhat of an incentive to et the job done 3
now and get them Laptured, as opposed to us find you a 4
couple of years down the road.
5 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Okay, Commissioner Dieus.
6 COMMISSIONER DICUS:
You have answered most of my 7
questions so I have very few more.
More in the form of 8
comments.
9 One thing, you addressed it in your oral 10 presentation, it was not in the paper, the fact that 11 startir.g up the pr. Tram and.aitially going out to find 12 where there are problem areas will be a spike FTE load but 13 that should go down.
And that was not reflected in the 14 paper which caused us some concern.
15 I don't agree with your cutoff of what sources, 16
.dovicer, should be looked at in terms of the Curie content.
17 I think it should be on a broader basis and I think you have 18 heard significant reasons why today that I feel that way and 19 perhaps others as well.
20 That's not to say, with all the questions and 21 comments we've had on the product that we got and had to 22 review, that I don't appreciate the work that's been done 23 and I want the staff to recognize that.
I think from my 24 perspective I'think the work has been too limited in its
-25 scope and what wau considered important and perhaps some of ANN.RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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the bases used for your analysis ur your points to get from 2
A to D might not have been as appropriate to use or as clear 3
or as well founded as they should have been and I have 4
several recommeidations or comments.
You will probably see j
5 those when the vote on this issue, when my vote on this 6
issue surfaces.
7 Just let me say that I think in the reactor side 8
of the house, we hava a very aggressive regulatory program 9
and, certainly, on the materials side of the house we have 10 areas that we have aggressive regulatory programs but I 11 think we have areas where our regulatory program is not as 12 aggressive and perhaps not as effective as it should be, 13 And clearly from the data that wa have documented, the 14 places where members of the public or even radiation workers 15 are more likely to receive an unnecessary or even 16 overexposure of radiation is in the materials side of the 17 house and not in the reactor side of the house.
18 I am not saying necessarily that, gee, we don't 19 have to worry about reactorsi certainly we do.
But 20 materials safety in my view is certainly no less important 21 than reactor safety and I think the Commission's regulatory 22 actions should reflect this and I think perhaps you've heard 23 that today.
24 That's all I have.
25 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Commissioner Dia ?
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104 1
COMMISSIONER DIAZ:
Yes, I think what I needed to 2
say has mostly been said by Commissioner Dieus.
3 I would like to, you know, hammer on it.
I think 4
when I came here, it seems like a long time ago, one of the 5
very first things that we had was a meeting on these issues.
6 At the time, I was full of innocence.
Now I am rull of 7
scars.
And what I have not seen in that time is that this 8
issue has progressed with the same speed and the same due 9
consideration to the difference on public risk that I think 10 it has.
11 I believe we do great work when we have localized 12 sources and try to become risk informed.
Distributed 13 sources are a completely different issue and it is kind of 14 tentative or not really fully accountable to be risk based, 15 I think.
I think risk informed will still leave us room to 16 make determinations that propose a much more aggressive 17 program.
I chink this is a case which is obviously needed 18 and I would recommend that the staff stops for at least a 19 brief period of time being totally concerned with resources.
20 We would like to hear, at least I would like to 21 hear, the best of the stuff and then allow the Commission to 22 look at the resource issue because I think this has been R23 here too long.
It is an issue that can be better taanaged 24 and it requires a-very aggressive program and my vote will 25 reflect that.
/
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CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
Commissioner McGaffigan.
2 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
A couple of questions.
3 The staff, on this issue of penalties for lost 4
devices, in the paper it basically agrees.
But then it 9
5 says, for specific licensees, we will consider increasing 6
the civil penalties.
How quickly is that consideration 7
going to be done and do you agree with the numbers in the 8
workirn group report with regard to how much they need to be 9
ramped up to actually be a deterrent?
10 DR. COOL:
I changed to the enforcement policy and 11 I suspect that Mr. 7,ieberman is somewhere in the audience 12 and might be able to answer this a little more quickly.
13 Could probably move fairly quickly.
14 The numbers in terms of having the pena ties more 15 accurately correspond to or have some measure of 16 correspondenne to the costs of disposing the device, I 17 think, are reasonable kinds of numbers to approach.
There 18 were some things thrown out today that we would lave to go 19 back and think about in terms of where those penalties 20 resided that were suggested by come other folks and while I 21 personally as an individual liked the idea of having a use 22 for those within the agency in terms of fonding, I think the 23 general counsel has already indicated present legislation 24 doesn't allow me to.
25 COMMIS810NER McGAFFIGAN:
I'm not trying to get ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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106 1
into that point.
2 The second point is generally licensed devices.
3 Here you say we won't do it until we get around to the 4
implementation of the registration program because we have 5
to notify general licensees that it may be coming.
Why?
Is 6
that -- why couldn't we do it faster rather than wait 7
potentially to 2000 or 2001 to tell the generally licensed 8
- fol):s we're going to hold yot -- you mentioned the case 9
earlier where we are indeed fining sumebody the small fine 10 for having lost control of their devices and they ended up 11 being shredded.
But why can't we -- why can't we put a 12 notice out sooner that we're going to take this seriously 13 and here are the fines that may accrue to you as a general 14 licensee?
15 MR. THOMPSON:
I don't believe there is a reason 16 we can't do that.
We'll have to work with the general 17 counsel and go through the process --
18 MS. CYR:
Right.
I mean, the requirements are 19 that they're supposed to notify you if they transfer it and 20-an obligacion to dispose of it.
I think that there are ways 21-within the existing framework even without new rules that there would be some basis to take civil-penalties.
I think 22 23 what they were focusing on here was to the extent there was 24 a-failure to register a followup in that circumstance until
'25 you run through, that was what.you were trying to penalize,
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you would have to wait until you had a --
2 COliMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
But right now, it's 3
not -- I'm noe sure what the rule requirement is but we 4
don't like people losing contro) even of generally licensed 5
devices.
We don't like them ending up in the wrong place.
6 The final issue and I'll try to be short, the fee 7
issue.
Right now, you're "pending, between research and 8
NMSS, some amount of money in this area, a million, million-9 and-a-half a year --
10 MR. THOMPSON:
No --
11 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
Including research and 12 FTEs and everything?
13 MR. THOMPSON:
I think we're closer to one FTE.
14 Consistent with what we got in the budget, it's about one 15 FTE and we found about $300,000, so that 16 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN:
And is that partly 17 driven by this question of equity?
I mean, at the moment, 18 there is no -- we don't have a registration program so there 19 is no general licensee to hit so it's the reactor folks or 20 whatever who end up paying -- gets into overhead and we 21 charge it to everybody.
22 Does that partly motivate why it's hard for the 23 staff to find the additional resources?
And is this a 24 candidate if we ever did take some stuff out of the fee base 25 until 2001, when we have a mechanism to apply fees?
Is this ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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1 the sort --
2 MR. THOMPSON:
I'll let Paul speak but I'll speak 3
first.
6 4
It was not a significent issue with me.
What was i
5 a significant issue with me was the impact on other programs l
6 that we had when the FTE competition came in and NMSS was 7
held down and had other programs they had to do, they had to 8.
do because they had to do licensing, they had to do-some of f
L 9
those activities.
'10 It wasn't the fact that it was an issue of equity 11
- on five or 10 FTEs worth of work.
It was that we couldn't, l
12 in the competition, we weren't able to argue at that time to 13-the Commission that this program was more important than 14 other programs.
15 CHAIRMAN JACKSON:
I would like to thank each 16 participant who is still here for the information you have 17 provided to us in today's briefing.
It is clear, as you 18-heard, that the time to address this issue is very much 19 overdue.and it is my hope, because the ball is also in the 20 Commission's court at this time, that the Commission will
~
21
'come to a decision that will address not only the very real
.22 health and safety concerns related to the current lack of 23 l control we are experiencing with these sources based on a-24 risk perspective,-but also on the economic impact in an 25
~ environmental context that-these lost devices are having on r
t
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'109 1
the unlicensed individuals or companies who inadvertently l
2-come into possession.
But it's one that has to be rooted in 1
3 our fiscal and legal realities and that's all part of our l
4 decisionmaking.
5 But, in the meantime, I think it is important to 6
provide some clarity to the commission on.just what the MOU, 7
this interagency MOU, is meant to accomplish.
But also 8
where there are issues that need to be addressed and perhaps 9
elevated or dealt with in the legislative arena.
10 And then also for the edification of the il Commission, I think it would be useful for us to understand.
12 what the 1991 rule dealt with and what you plan to 13 potentially extract from that relative to the options that 14 are before us.
If you could do that within a week, I would 15 appreciate it.
16 Thank you very much.
We're adjourned.
H17 (Whereupon, at 4:48 p.m.,
the briefing was 18 concluded.)
19 20 21
-22 23-24 25 ANN RILE
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t
l CERTIFICATE a
This is to certify that the attached description of a meeting of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission entitled:
TITLE OF MEETING:
BRIEFING ON MATERIAL CONTROL OF GENERALLY' LICENSED DEVICES PUBLIC MEETING l
PLACE OF MEETING:
Rockville, Maryland i
DATE 0F MEETING:
Wednesday, January 21, 1998 was held as herein appe~ s, is a true and accurate record of the meeting, and that this is the original transcript thereof-taken stenographically by me, thereafter reduced to typewriting by_me or under the direction of the court reporting company
~SaOv)fkok-Transcriber:
\\
l Reporter:
Mark Mahonev
[
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United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission i
Improving NRC's Control Over, and Licensees' l
L Accountability For, Generally l
and Specifically Licensed Devices L
(SECY-97-273) 1 l
[
Dr. Donald A. Cool, Director i
j Division of Industrial and Medical Nuclear Safety Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards i
)
January 21,1998 c
i 4
i i
i
I l
BACKGROUND
+
The Commission has been concerned about loss of control of generally licensed devices for more than 10 years.
+
An NRC and Agreement State Working Group examined the issue and provided recommendations for improvements to current regulations.
+
In developing an action plan to address control of generally and specifically licensed devices, the staff considered
+
The information provided in the Working Group report.
+
The Commission's direction to consider the feasibility and cost l
effectiveness of registration programs in lieu of current licensing and l
inspection programs.
l
+
The Commission's direction to reexamine the applicability of risk-informed, performance-based regulation for materials licensees.
I 2
l
I r
i I
l 1
STAFPS ACTION PLAN i
l
+
The Staff's action plan addresses the following issues:
l
+
Continuing to work with the States on orphaned device issues.
l
\\
l
+
Performmg a nsk assessment of all activities currently regulated under 10 CFR Parts 30-36 and 39.
I
+
Development and implementation of a registration program for certain j
j general licensees.
l
[
t e
b 3
i
-W
---w e--
s
i
I ORPHANED DEVICE ISSUES i
+
Stakeholders identified orphaned devices as a concern and the Working Group recommended that NRC ensure that all orphaned devices are handled and disposed in an appropriate manner.
+
The staff is working with the Conference of Radiation Control Program
(
Directons and U. S. Environmental Protection Agency on development and implementation of a program for identifying orphaned devices, identifying l
persons that will accept the devices, and funding for disposal of the devices.
The first meeting between the agencies was held June 1997.
+
The staff is continuing to ensure that orphaned devices are identified and disposed properly. This has included requesting assistance from the U. S. Department of Energy (DOE) for disposal of devices that present a threat f
to public health'and safety. Cooperation between NRC and DOE has ensured I
that orphaned devices have been identified and removed from the public l
domain. The agencies are continuing to formalize the procedures in a Memorandum of Understanding between the Agencies.
4 I
I l
RISK ASSESSMENT OF MATERIALS LICENSEES
(
+
The risk assessment is being performed as part of NMSS overall effort to respond to the Direction Setting issues identified as part of the Strategic i
Assessment.
i
+
The purpose of the risk assessment is to develop a risk-informed, i
performance-based approach to the regulation of nuclear byproduct material l
that is currently regulated under 10 CFR Parts 30-36 and 39. The risk i
assessment will make use of qualitative and, to the extent possible, I
l quantitative and probabilistic tools to identify and evaluate risks associated j
. with nuclear byproduct materials systems.
t
+
The results of the risk assessment will be alternatives for a graded regulatory approach based on risk. The alternatives will include the types and frequency of licensing and inspection activities for each category of licenses.
+
A team of NRC and Agreement State staff is performing the risk assessment j
and held its initial meeting in June 1997 and expects to report its findings to j
i the Commission Fall 1998.
t t
)'
5 I
2
i i
l TYPES OF DEVICES USED UNDER l
A GENERAL LICENSE IN NRC JURISDICTION Approximately 490,000 Devices
)
EdSW 71 % - --
sso.om l
=
as
~
40.000 If""
f
\\___
s2.om
[-
Fbed and Patable Geuyes 10%
48,000 l
6 l
l l
EVENT TREE FOR LOST GAUGES Remons In Gauge Pubic in Scrap Deteded consequem Lost?
Doman?
Metar7 setore meri Gawrah Uconood g
in Posseeman or a uoensee L
Gauges W
7 C
i in LandRE-No DemogeMeg6gtWe Does y,,
g i
W LOCokin
- Dose and Damage Unimown i
g C
e asoase-saaneensede Does y,
omesse-oi.poes casemmeensue oe.e l
Yes i
l t
I i
7 i
i i
l i
. CURRENT GENERAL LICENSE PROGRAM i
+
The current general license program includes the following-t i
1 i
+
All regulatory requirements (e.g., testing, reporting, and record keeping l
i requirements) are included in the regulations. A copy of the regulations l
}
ss provided to the general licensee by the vendor.
l i
+
Vendors notify NRC of transfers of devices to general licensees.
+
General licensees are required to report transfers and disposal of devices.
i l
+
General licensees are not charged fees.
1 l
+
NRC does not have initial nor routine contact with general licensees and i
NRC only performs inspections of general licensees ia response to i
incidents.
l 8
I 1
e
" 'l L
i i
I REGISTRATION PROGRAM
+
An ideal registration program would include the following:
i
+
All regulatory requirements (e.g., inventory, testing, reporting, and record keeping requirements) for persons subject to registration would be included in the regulations.
I
+
Licensees would initially register each device with NRC, annual re-(
register each device, and verify accountability of the devices and i
I compliance with the regulations. This would provide an annual reminder l
to licensees that they are subject to certain regulatory requirements and allow for an inventory of devices.
l
+
Costs of the registration program would be recouped through registration fees -$480 per licensee annually.
i i
+
NRC would follow-up with licensees to resolve discrepancies and perform I
reactive inspections in response to loss of material or reports of incidents.
The licensees subject to the registration program would not be subject to i
routine inspections.
l a
i 4
4
i I
I i
i l
\\
START UP ACTIVITIES AND COSTS t
I i
l
+
Rulemaking - would require 1.5 FTE and close coordination with the States.
l i
i Automated Registration System and Guidance Development -would require j
+
(
2.2 FTE and $700,000:
l l
l
+
The staff would develop an automated registration program to implement the registration program, using the structure and information from the existing general licensee database as a starting point.
i l
+
The staff will develop guidance for users, vendors, and NRC staff on how to l
implement the registration program.
l
+
The resources necessary for stud up of the registration program (3.7 FTE and i
$700,000) are not dependent on the number licensees subject to registration.
l l
The applicability (which licensees are subject to registration) can be easily amended.
S' rt up activities would be accomplished over a three year period and the l
+
a resources are included in the budget for FY 1998-2000.
j i
i l
10
)
f i
IMPLEMENTATION ACTIVITIES AND COSTS i
+
Registration of Devices:
I
+
Would include registration of each device, annua re-registration, entry of user and device information into NRC database, user verification of accountability of the devices and compliance with the regulations, and collection of registration fees.
[
i
+
Implementation of the registration program would begin in FY 2001.
i
' +
Resources for implementation of the registration program would be G.33 FTE and
$67,000 for every 1000 licensees subject to registration.
t
+
Follow-up Activities:
+
NRC would follow-up with licensees to resolve discrepancies, would perform reactive inspections in response to Inss of material or reports of incidents, and would take
+
apprupi.'.^ enforcement actions in response to inspection findings.
+
Follow-up activities would be performed in conjunction with implementation of the registration program in FY 2001.
{
+
Resources for implementation of the registration program would be 1.5 FTE for every 1000 licensees subject to registration.
t h
11 f
ALTERNATIVES
+
Afternschre 1 -Implementation of a full registration and follow-up program for 500 Liconoces:
+
Licensees g-:::::: ="3 devices ce ^_1.;.,, > 500 millicuries of Cesium-137.
+-
15% of licensees (75 licensees) would require follow-up activities.
+
Pmgram would require 1 FTE and $34,000 and resources are included in Om budget for FY 2001.
Alterno6ve 2 ".c_; :cc..^_ :-c. of c.'_^
^h. program for 3000 licensees but NRC would NOT conduct
+
follow-up activities:
+
Licensees possessing devices containing > 10 rni116 curies of Cesium-137.
+
15% of Ilconoses (450 licensees) would require follow-up activities but NRC would NOT fonow-up with these licensees.
+
Program would requisw 1 FTE and $200,000 and resources are included in See budget for FY 2001.
+
Alternative 3 "c A...:..^_^~:=. of a full c;'1:2 and followg program for 3000 Licensees:
+
Liceneses possessing devices ce ^_:c.'.., > 10 rni1Iicurles of Cesium-137.
+
15% of IIconoces (450 licensees) would require foIIow-up acthrities.
+
Program would require 5.5 FTE and $200,000. However, only 1 FTE and $200,000 are included in 9m budget for FY 2001. Therefore, an addrelonal 4.5 FTE in FY 2001 is needed to implement tais alterna#ve.
12
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