ML20203L840
| ML20203L840 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 02/24/1998 |
| From: | Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards |
| To: | |
| References | |
| ACRS-T-0120, ACRS-T-120, NUDOCS 9803060263 | |
| Download: ML20203L840 (77) | |
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AC///vFo/20 OFFICIAL TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON NUCLEAR WASTE
Title:
- 98Til ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON NUCLEAR WASTE (ACNW) MEETING Docket No.:
73;g gy ks=ra; on:3:r;u
~: scws::E M/S T-:E;6 Work Order No.: ASB-300-154 $$ljf b
LOCATION: RMkdlie, Maryland DATE: Tuesday, February 24,1998 PAGES: 1 - 75 I?A
-uvuuu ANN RlLEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
1250 I Street, NW, Suite 300 Washington, D,' . 20005 I- (( (( kkk k (202) 842 s034 ACNW OFFICE COPY- RETAIN FOR THE LIFE OFTHE COMMITTEE
1 1 UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION !
2 ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON NUCLEAR WASTE 3 ***
4 98TH ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON 5 NUCLEAR WASTE (ACNW) MEETING 6
7 U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission 8 Two White Flint North, Room 2B-3 9 11545 Rockville Pike 10 Rockville, Maryland 20852-2738 11 12 Tuesday, February 24, 1998 13 34 The Committee met pursuant to notice at 8:31 a.m.
15 16 MEMBERS PRESENT:
17 B. JOHN GARRICK, Chairman, ACNW 10 GEORGE HORNBERGER, Member, ACNW s
19 CHARLES FAIRHURST, Member, ACNW 20 RAYMOND G. WYMER, Member, ACNW j 21 22 23 24 25 I
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2 1 STAFF AND PRESENTERS SEATED AT THE COMMISSION TABLE:
2 ANDREW C. CAMPBELL, Staff, ACNW 3- LYNN DEERING, Staff, ACNW 4 RICHARD Y,. MAJOR, Staff, ACIN 5 GT.ORG10 GNUGNOLI, Staff, ACNW 6- HAROLD LARSON, Staff,-ACNW 7
8 9
10
- 11 12 13 14 15 ,
16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23-24-25
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3
( 1 PROCEEDINGS
() 2
[8:31 a.m.)
3 CRAIRMAN GARRICK: Good morning. The meeting will 4 now come to order.
5 This is the-first day of the 98th meeting of the 6 Advisory Committee-on Nuclear Waste. My name-is John 7 Garrick, Chairman of the ACNW.
8 Other members of the Committee include George 9 Hornberger, Ray Wymer, and Charles Fairhurst.
10 The entire meeting will be open to the public.
11 We have some changes in today's agenda, which we 12 uill-call on the Staff to explain momentarily. We were 13 today to have first reviewed the NRC Staff's strategy and 14 rulemaking plan for the proposed Yucca Mountain High Level
() 15 Waste Repository and to discuss the content of an ACNW 16 report on a Yucca Mountain specific rule. ,
17 Those are the items that we will come back to in a 18 few moments and explain the change.
19 The Committee will prepare a report on the issue 20 resolution status reports for the high level waste 21 pre-licensing program and we will discuss Ccmmittee 22 activities and future agendas.
23 Richard Major is the Designated Federal Official 24 for today's. initial session.
25 This meeting is being conducted in accordance with ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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4 1 the provisions of the Federal Advisory Committee Act.
() 2 We have received no written statements or requests 3 to make oral statements from members of the public regarding 4 to today's session. Should anyone wish to address the 5 Committee, please make your wishes known to one of the 6 Committee Staff, and it is requested that each speaker use 7 one of the microphones, identify himself or herself, and 8 speak with sufficient clarity and volume so that he or she 9 can be readily heard.
10 Before proceeding with the first agenda item. I 11 would like to cover a few brief items of current interest.
12 First, on January 19th the Department of Interior 13 approved scientific drilling at the proposed Ward Valley Low 14 Level Waste Disposal Site, but said the environmental tests 15 would be done sequentially with the Federal Government 16 performing theirs first.
17 Site developers do not know when they will have 18 access to the site since Interior has not stated when its 19 tests will begin or end. Pete Wilson, Governor of 20 California, called this just another in a multiyear series 21 of delays.
22 Second, on December 30, 1997, the State of Nevada 23 accepted permanent custody of t*- former Low Level 24 Radioactive Waste Disposal Site at Beatty, Nevada. The site 25 operated from 1952 until it stopped accepting waste at the
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3 5
1 end of 1992.
() 2 Transfer of the license to the states is ene of 3 the several steps eventually leading to termination of the
- 4. license nt the end of the institutional control period, 5 which may be os long as 100 years.
6 Third, and we are going to here from Mike in just 7 a moment, but there is something pleasant to announce 8 regarding him -- Dr. Michael J. Bell, Acting Branch Chief, 9 Performance Assessment and High Level Waste Integration 10 Branch, has been selected to receive the Robert E. Wilson 11 Award in Nuclear Chemical Engineering for 1998 by the 12 Nuclear Engineering Division of the American Institute of 13 Chemical Engineers. It happens to be a branch that is even 14 older than the American Nuclear Society.
15 The award is presented annually to a manber of the 16 Gociety for outstanding chemical engineering contributions 17 in the nuclear industry.
18- In 1981 Mike was previously recognized by the 19 American Society of Mechanical Engineers as the Radioactive 20 Waste Engineer of the Year.
21 Fourth item, Commonwealth Edison recently 22- announced that it was shutting down permanently the two-unit 23 -Zion plant. CEO James J. O'Conne:1 said it was strictly an 24 economic decision. Dismantlement of the plant will begin in 25 2014. It is noted that both of these plants are shutting
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6 1 down 13 years prior tc the operating license expiration.
() 2 Hearings on the proposed Texas Low Level Disposal 3 Facility have commenced with the initial hearingF estimated 4 to take cwo to three weeks, held January 21-23, 1998 in 5 S!.erra Blanca. Additional hearings are scheduled for Austin 6 and El Paso. Testimony under oath will be taken by judges 7 from the State Office of Administrative Hearings to 8 determine whether to issue a license to open and operate the 9 site near Sierra Blanca.
10 A decision is not expected until late this year.
11 Finally, according to a February 6th article in 12 the Newark Star-Ledger, after nine years of unsuccessful 13 effort and the spending of nearly $7 million, the New Jersey 14 Low Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Facility Siting Board
) 15 has voted to end efforta to locate a low level waste site 16 within the state.
17 in a letter to the Governor, the Board recommended 18 that its $1.5 million budget be slashed and the agency 19 become only a caretaker of records.
20 New Jersey low level waste is now shipped to the 21 Barnwell site in South Carolina.
22 I think now we will ask Mike Bell, the recipient 23 of the honor I just so described, to tell us why our 24 proceedings today have been altered.
25 MR. BELL: Thank you, Dr. Garrick, for your kind ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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f 7
1 words, and I hope you still feel as kindly after I get done.
() 2 3
Basically, when this morning's presentation was scheduled we " tad submitted --
4 (Laughter.)
5 MR. BELL: -- well, I was just about to explain 6 that the Commission was still voting on our paper and until 7- the voting was complete the paper was not a public document 8 and that we could not release the paper or speak to its 9 contents.
10 I just have been informed that the Chairman's 11 office has called and said we can release the paper but the 12 vote -- okay. We are back where we were yesterday 13 afternoon.
14 Basically what we have been told by the Chairman's
() 15 office is we can't release the paper. We can sort of 16 discuss it in general terms, but we can't get into any of 17 the poli.cy issues, which essentially frustrates the whole 18 purpose of makinJ the presentation, because that is what we 19 need feedback from the ACNW on.
20 Under the Commission's process until the paper is 21 voted on, the paper cannot be made public. You can't 22 discuss the policy matters in the paper. We have been 23 working as hard as we could with the EDO's office, the 24 Secretary's office, the Chairman's office to get this paper 25 release'd and the Commission has not agreed to release this
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8 1 pre-decisional document.
() 2 What I have discussed just earlier this morning 3 with the EDO's office is that, you know, we are going to try 4 to get that turned around, perhaps during the course of this 5 meeting, and in that case if we could make the paper publi.
6 and discuss its contents we would propose coming back I 7 Thursday morning and giving the presentation that we had 8 planned to make this morning.
9 I truly apologize both to the Committee and to the 10 members of the public, who may have come specifically 11 because of their interest in this presentation, but 12 essentially we are caught up in Commission procedures.
13 CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Sounds like it's out of your 14 control.
) 15 MR, BELL: Unfortunately it is, and we are on a 16 very fast track with this rulemaking. We are trying to 17 complete our final rule in less than a year and a half from 18 now, and getting it before the ACNW early was very important 19 to our meeting that schedulu.
20 I am very disappointed in the situation.
21 CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Well, if there is a way of 22 still accomplishing it during this meeting, during the 98th 23 meeting, and we can hear from you on Thursday, we will 24 manage that somehow because I think the Committee would like 25 to be able to discuss this topic as soon as we possibly can.
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i 9
- 1 All right. I think with that we will fast forward
() 2 to 1 o' clock this afternoon and pick up on the agenda item
) 3 that has to do with preparation of ACNW reports.
4 I think also that means that we will not require 5 any further court reporting and we can move into discussing J
6 specifically the Committee letter on high level waste issue 7 resolution process --
]
8 MR. DELL: Dr. Garrick --
9 CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Yes? -- another news bulletin?
10 MR. BELL: We are getting confusing information 11 from the Chairman's office. For those of you who are 4
12 interested in this particular presentation, hang in for a 13 few minutes, perhaps you can spend about 10 minutes ,some 1
14 other topic while I check with the Chairman's Staff and
() 15 maybe we can give this presentation yet this morning.
l 16 I wonder if that is acceptable.
i-i 17 CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Yes, I wonder if it is worth 18 trying to do that. Maybe the simplest thing to do would be j 19~ to take a 10-minute recess and see where we are at that
- j. 20 time, in which case we will ask the reporter to stand by, so l.
21 why don't we do that?
l 22 Why don't we take a 10-minute recess.
l
', 23 (Recess.]
24 CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Our meeting will come to order l 25 once again. We are told that, as a matter of fact, we will ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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10 1 -receive a briefing. There will be a little different
() 2 emphasis on the briefing, I am told, than was originally 3 intended because of the absence of a decision by tne 4 Commission on this issue at this point. But, nevertheless, 5 and, fortunately, we are going to be able to hear from the 6 staff and the Committee will have an opportunity to discuss 7 the issues.
8 For this particular topic, Dr. Fairhurst will be 9 the Committee member that will have the lead in leading the 10 discussion.
11 So, Charles, it looks like we are going to put you 12 te work this morning after all.
13 DR. FAIRHURST: Thank you very much.
14 t?HAIRMAN GARRICK: You have got a microphone.
15 DR. FAIRHURST: Yes, we are all waited with baited 16 breath to see what is actually going to be revealed.
17 (Laughter.]
18 DR. FAIRHURST: So, go ahead, please.
19 MR. BELL: Janet, can I just explain our 20 situation?
21 MS. KOTRA: Please do.
22 MR. BELL: Basically, about the same time I was 23 announcing that we couldn't make the presentation, I guess '
24 the Commission was agreeing that we could release the paper.
25 So we will bring -- by the end of the presentation, I think
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11 1 we will have copies of the paper to put in the back of the
() 2 room and make available, j- 3 The Commission has still not completed voted yet.
4 So the extent of our discussion will be here is what the 5 staff recommended, these are the options the Commission is 6 considering. You will be able to pursue with the staff why 7 we recommended what we did and form your own judgment about 8 whether the staff was recommending the course that you would 9 consider proper.
10 Now, I think Janet and Tim both tried to hastily 11 to clean up their slides to take out a few bullets that --
12 MS. KOTRA: Hot off the press.
13 MR. BELL: They anticipated how the Commission 14 might actually vote because --
15 MS. KOTRA: No , I wouldn't presume to do that.
16 (Laughter.)
17 MR. BELL: Because of that, we ar5 not planning to 18 put the handouts out now, but we will make sure they are 19 properly cleaned up and make them available to the ACNW 20 staff after the briefing, and they can he included in the 21 transcript of the meeting. Thank you.
22 Janet, go ahead.
23 MS. KOTRA: Okay. It's right in front. Okay. We 24 are still experiencing technical difficulties, folks. Okay.
25 ~ hank you.
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12 1 Despite the last minute changes, it truly is a
() 2 pleasure to be with you again this morning. I will be 3
_giving the introductory material. Tim McCartin, who is now 4 making copies of the paper, will be with us shortly and he 5 will discuss it. more detail the individual elements of the 6 strategy as the staff has recommended it to the Commission.
7 As I think everyone in the room is now aware, this '
8 is still very much a ball in Jiay. The Commission is 9 comp"ating its deliberations. We expect to have complete 10 instructions from the Commission presently, I mean within 11 the next few days, and it had been our intent to come down J'
12 here armed with the staff paper as well as the instructions
-13 from the Commission. I think that will be forthcoming soon.
14 In reminding everyone about how we get to where we
( 15 are, I will discuss very briefly the legislative background, 16 why we believe there is a need for new technical criteria, 17 what Commission direction we have received that led to the 18 develcpment of our strategy paper.
19 I will touch on the individual elements of the 20 strategy very briefly. Tim will discuss each one of them, 21 in turn, in more detail in response to your queries, 22 recognizing that this, indeed, represents the staff's view.
23 The Commission will give us instructions on not only the 24 adequacy of the strategy but also may have specific guidance 25 on how that strategy is to be implemented.
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13 '
1 So we can answer any questions that you offer to
() 2 us from the perspective of what has been recommended. And, 3 as I indicated earlier, I think it would be inappropriate 4 for me to speculate about the Commission direction because 5 they are still negotiating that upstairs.
6 Lastly, I will put forward a preliminary timetable 7 and the emphasis here is on preliminary. As I think 8 everyone who follows this issue is aware, there are a number 9 of factors that are truly not wholly within the Commission 10 or the Commission's staff control.
11 We are trying to responsively develop 12 performance-based criteria to implement a dose-based 13 standard in a timely fashion so that the department will 14 have it available as it proceeds to develop a license '
() 15 application. I will put up the timetable,.but recognize 16 that everything on that timetable is going to be subject to 17 not only our own efforts but to the actions of outside 18 agencies.
19 Okay. As many of you may recall, I had the 20 pleasure of speaking to this Committee in December of 1995, 21 where I discussed the staff's reaction to the Report of the 22 National Academy Sciences, as instructed, that was prepared 23 pursuant to the Energy Policy Act of 1992.
24 That Act, as you inay recall, requires the 25 Environmental Protection Agency to issue new standards for O ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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14 1 Yucca Mountain that are health-based, that are based on and
() 2 consistent uith the recommendations of the National Academy 3 of Sciences. These standards are to be only such standards 4 applicable to Yucca Mountain and final standards were to 5 have been in place by August ist, 1996. This date does not 6 appear in the Act, it actually says one year following the 7 issuance of the report. The report was issued on August 8 1st, 1995.
9 NRC Regulations must conform to final EPA 10 standards within one year, again, according to the Act, 11 There is no date specified, but we are concerned that there 12 be regulations in place that implement a technical basis 13 that is somewhat different than existed at the time our 14 current regulations were put in place. And so we are
() 15 proceeding to at least develop this strategy and put it 16 before the Commission now so that we can have a chance of 17 conforming our regulations in a timely fashion.
18 A very brief summary of the key recommendations 19 that the Academy put forward in its report is that the
^
20 quantitative limit on individual risk is protective of the 21 public health and safety, provided that there exists some 22 definition and acceptance of negligible individual risk.
23 that the standard should limit risk rather than dose to the 24 average memoer of a critical group. They endorse the ICRP 25 methodology for identifying a critical group. ICRP, as you ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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15 1 may recall, ties the critical group to a dose standard.
4
() 2 3
They would look for a risk-equivalent for the average member of the critical group.
3 4 They also indicated in_their report that the 5 reference biosphere and critical group characteristics ;
6 should be defined by rule to eliminate speculation during
-7 the licensing proceedings.- That there is no techn.<. cal basis 8 for reliance on institutional controls to prevent human 9 intrusion. That intrusion should be evaluated separately 10 using a stylized scenario, again defined in regulation.
11 Lastly, they did offer as much to the NRC, as to 12 the EPA, that it is only total system performance that 1
13 counts. Quantitative subsystem requirements could lead to 14 sub-optimal design. I am sure that this a point that this
() 15 Committee is all too well aware of and was echoed and 16 amplified upon in its letter to the Commission in October of l
17 this last year, about the importance of placing the l
18 - regulatory decision on total system performance and stepping 19 back from a definition of quantitative subsystem 20 requirements.
21 Well, then, one might ask, what is wrong with the 22 current regulations? Why won't they do? As I indicated 23 earlier, there were some key assumptions whAch formed the ,
24 basis for the existing generic regulations at 10 CFR Part 60 25 that were promulgated in July of 1983. At the time those
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' 16 1 regulations were proposed and 2ssued in final, there was an n
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2 assumption that EPA standards would limit cumulative 3 release. They do not address the need for a reference 4 biosphere, the definition of critical group, and the 5 separate treatment of human intrusion, as recommended by the 6 National Academy.
7 Certainly, treatment of human intrusion was 8 anticipated in those regulations and definitions of key 9 terms were made that would anticipate the inclusion of human 10 intrusion as part of the overall performance assessment. We 11 now have guidance from the National Academy that there is 12 not really a technical basis for doing that, and the 13 recommendation from the Academy is to treat it separately.
14 Therefore, our existing regulations would have to be
() 15 modified to address that as well.
16 Clearly, in 1983, performance assessment of 17 geologic repositories was, if not in its infancy, in its 18 toddlerhood, and there has been a great deal of evolution in 19 the state of the art, in the understanding of probabalistic 20 methods applied to geologic systems, and in the 21 quantification of uncertainty.
22 This was a big issue w'.4en the Commission was 23 putting the existing Part 60 regulations in place. There 24 was a lot of concern about the huge uncertainty, the lack of 25 familiarity and confidence in what performance assessment ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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17 1 could and could not do, and it animated greatly the
() 2 discussions underlying the existing regulations.
3 We believe that this situation has changed 4 scmewhat reir'ive to what it was in the late '70s and early 5 '80s. Again, these generic regulations do not reflect the 6 extensive site-specific information that we now have, not 7 just about a site, but about an unsaturath3 site in a 8 particular place with particular characteristics that we 9 have learned about from the-department's efforts at site )
10 characterization.
11 These generic regulations included quantitative 12 subsystem performance objectives which were explicitly not 13- derived to implement a dose- or risk-based standard. In 14 fact,-they have been criticized since they were promulgated,
() 15 that they weren't derived to implement the cumulative 16 release standards either, that there was not a stringent nexus between the two. The Commission and the staff have 18 been addressing those criticisms for many years, but, 19 clearly, these quantitative subsystem performance objectives 20 were not derived to implement the dose- or. risk-based 21 standards we are likely to have to implement now.
22 Lastly, there is a large number of generic site 23 selection criteria which no longer apply. We are dealing 24 with a specific site and with a stand-.d for a specific site 25 and we will have to have regulations that will implement a 1
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18 l
1 site specific standard.
() 2 3
As recently as last September, the Commission provi/.ed gen cal direction to the entire NRC staff in the 4 context c'. a strategic plan, and in particular with regard 5 to high level waste and the issue we're here to discuss thin 6 morning, the strategic plan issued in September of 1997 7 indicated that the agency will participate in the 8 development of practical and implementable standards. In an 9 earlier briefing before this committee, both Tim and I have 10 discussed our interactions, our extensive interacticns with 11 the EPA staff, our willingness to share the technical 12 insights that we have gained from our performance assessment 13 we've worked on at the Center for Nuclear Waste Regulatory 14 Analysis, and we have -- when the opportunity has presented
() 15 itself, we have provided comments, both informal and 16 somewhat less informal, to EPA in their development process.
17 The strategic plan also indicates that the agency 18 will implement those standards through site-specific 19 perfortaance-based regulation, and that is what we are here 20 to talk about, the strategy that the staff has developed and 21 ) recommended to the Commission for how to go about doing s
22 that.
23 On Christmas eve of 1997, the staff presented to 24 the Commission a Commission paper, policy paper, SECY 25 97-300, proposed strategy for development of regulations O ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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4 19 1 governing disposal of high-level radioactive waste in the
~
( 2 proposed repository, Yucca Mountain, Nevada. This is the 3 paper that we hope to be able to provide you, if not today, 4 before the conclusion of your meeting this week.
5 The staff recommended that the Commission should 6 promulgate new simplified regulations which will pertain 7 only to Yucca Mountain, and the staff proposed a strategy 8 for developing performance-based regulations to implement a 9 dose or risk based standard.
10 As I indicated, I'm going to touch very briefly on -
11 what the elements of that strategy were, recognizing that 12 the Commission has not yet prepared its final guidance to 13 the staff. Tim will discuss in more detail what our 14 recommendations were with regard to this strategy.
() 15 The first one is that there are a number of 16 requirements that were developed in the generic context that 17 still are of use to us in the site-specific context, 18 administrative, pre-closure, retrievability and quality 1
.19 assurance requirements. We expect -- we don't have-a solid 20 basis for doing anything differently. He developed those 21 and we believe that they are sound, and so obviously 22 site-specific regulations for Yucca Mountain would look very 23 similar in this particular regard. '
z 24 We would clearly have to define the overall 25 performance measure for post-closure that limits individual
)
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20 1 dose or risk as opposed to compliance with an EPA standard
() 2 that would limit releases, cumulative releases as was 3 anticipated in '83. The regulations would have to specify 4 specific assumptions appropriate for the reference biosphere u and define the characteristics in the location of a critical 6 group appropriate for Yucca Mountain.
7 You may recall the National Academy of Sciences 8 report said that you should use cautious but reasonable 9 assumptions based on currently available information. So 10 clearly this is where we would have to draw on that 11 information and make some regulatory judgments about what 12 are the appropriate assumptions.
13 This is consistent with the position that the 14 Commission staff has taken in its testimony before the
) 15 National Academy and for many years, that while in the past 16 we may have preferred a derived standard that would limit 17 releases of concentrations, we have maintained for many 18 years that a risk or dose based standard could be 19 implemented so long as these assumptions were tied down and 20 that they were done so in rulemaking such that they would 21 not be open to endless and limitless speculation in the 22 context of licensing.
23 We would also need to specify an intrusion scenario for evaluating the consequences of an assumed 24 25 intrusion event, again consistent with the recommendations ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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21 1 rC the Academy.
() 2 3
Consistent both with the caution of the National Academy and the more specific recommendations of this
.4 _ committee presented in the October letter, the staff intends 5 to require the demonstration of post-closure performances 6 achieved by a system of multiple barriers as we always have
, 7 but place no quantitative requirements on the performance of 8 individual barriers or components.
9 What then, you ask.
10 Instead, our regulations would require the results 11 -of intermediate calculations within the overall analysis of 12 repository performance to demonstrate the contribution of 13 multiple barriers and their respective uncertainties. This 14 gets at what was really underlying the Commission's big
() 15 concerns back in '83, that there were large uncertainties, 16 that we wanted to have some basis to believe that it was 17 --all the reliance was not going on a single barrier about 18 which tnere were large uncertainties.
19 So it's still going to be important, and I think I 20 made this point in my presentation to the committee in 21 March, that while the Commission staff in developing its 22 strategy is going to be looking very hard at whether 23 quantitative sub-system performance requirements were 24 necessary to get you there, it was unlikely that either the 25 staff or the Commission would want to abandon the O ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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22 1 requirement for multiple barriers and defense in-depth.
() 2 The regulations would require evaluation only of 3 those site attribution design features that are directly 4 relevant to Yucca Mounthin as part of an overall performance 5 assessment. It would be our objective to eliminate 6 unnecessary generic citing and post-closure design criteria.
7 Again, this is a rule, regulations that would be developed 8 specifically for Yucca Mountain and, therefore, generic 9 criteria that were deemed to be important and significant in 10 a generic context back in '83 really have no place in part 11 of an evaluation of an overall performance assessment for 12 Yucca Mountain.
13 Lastly, at this time, the staff does not -- you 14 know, is willing to consider all pathway total system
() 15 performance objectives is sufficiently protective of 16 groundwater and has developed its strategy consistent with 17 that philosophy.
18 Very briefly, I have a preliminary schedule here.
19 We expect this week -- it will have to be this week -- that 20 the Commission will approve the staff's recommended strategy 21 or, in the alt ( rnative, provide guidance as to how the staf f 22 should proceed. We are meeting with the ACNW to solicit 23 your input on this approach and, as promised, you will have 24 the paper now that the Commission has given us instructions 25 that we may release it.
\
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23 1 We have no fixed date on when EPA will publirh the
() 2 stress standards. I got a call or a voice mail message this 3 morning from Rey Clark from EPA, and he was able to give me 4 no spect (:s other than that they're still hoping to get to 5 OMB soon and that they would have a proposal out by mid 6 year. Beyond that, that's why we left this as uncertain.
7 We-had other-dates in here and they have been changed many ; ,
8 times.
9 We will then provide -- hopw to provide a draft 10 rule to the ACNW, tentatively August of this year, and have 11 a dratt proposed regulation to the Commission in September.
12 As I'm sure you recognize, this is a very aggressive 13 schedule and it's why it is very important to us that we 14 meet with you as soon as possible and solicit the
() 15 committee's insight and guidance on the approach we're 16 taking.
17 Assuming we are able to pull this off, and the 18 Com...ission approves the publication of proposed rule, we 19 would be trying to issue in the fall, October, November time 20 frame. We would have to provide an analysia of public 21 comment consistent with the normal notice and comr 'nt 22 rulemaking procedures. We would come back to the .W 23 having analy*edz the comments that we have received and meet 24 with the committee on what we would intend to propose to the .
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24 1 rule package to the Commission in late spring /early summer
() 2 3
with the idea that we would be able to publish a final rule next summer.
4 Tim will talk more about the role of guidance in 5 the standard review plan and how that fits into our overall 6 strategy, but there will be a need for completing regulatory 7 guidance in the form of a stradard review plan, and we will 8 be completing that in fiscal years 2000 and 2001.
9 With that, I guess I would like to turn it over to 10 Tim McCartin, unless there's any -- there are any questions 11 about my introductory material.
12 DR. FAIRHURST: Do you want to leave the questions 13 until we've heard from Tim?
14 MS. KOTRA: And I will be available along with Tim
() 15 after he has completed his presentation.
1 16 Thank you. And again, we apologize for a few 17 false starts.
18 MR. McCONNELL: While we are doing '.r at, my name 19 is Keith McConnell with the NRC Staff. I might add that 20 --and I don't think Mike addressed this -- we had a third 21 part of the presentation today, a brief presentation by 22 probably Trish Holohan from the Division of Industrial 23 Medical Nuclear Safety who now has the responsibility for 24 doing rulemakings within the office, and unfortunately, we 25 weren't able to get a hold of them this morning. They were ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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25 l 1 going to talk in a generic sense about what the rulemaking
() 2 process would be like within NMSS now. So we'll have to 3 reconstruct that briefing and come back to you at a later 4 time.
5 CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Thank you.
6 MR. McMARTIN: Okay. Just briefly, we did get 7 relief from the Commission that we can release the SECY 8 paper today, so copies are being made and hopefully in the 9 next hour or so, there will probably be copies available for 10 people who want it.
11 Today, I'll talk to some of the considerations 12 that we're doing in terms of the -- primarily the 13 post-closure performance of the repository, but also this is 14 our way of soliciting input from the committee as we go
() 15 about writing the rule, anc . you saw with the schedule 16 Janet gave, we'll come back with a draft rule relatively 17 soca in terms of the usual schedule for a rulemaking.
18 In terms of our approach, we're really looking at 19 a tiered approach that quantitatively there will be an 20 overall performance limit in the rule, and that will be the 21 only quantitative criteria in there for post-closure 22 performance. In the rule, we would puc exper ations of what 23 we expect in a performance assessment.
24 Finally, when we get to specifying very tight 25 particulars, via processes, features, et cetera, that would ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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26 1 be in the issue resolution status reports, which would go 9 2 3
out as guidance and have acceptance criteria, but some of b the more details in terms of, in the old rule, the facts and -
4 pacts, would be more in the guidance, thereby the rule b 5 itself is more general in terms of meeting the overall
- 6 system performance. As new information comes in, we 7 wouldn't go about changing the rule, but the guidance might 8 change, and it's looked on as giving us flexiuility as more 9 and more information comes in.
10 One of the pictures -- we have to apologize, these 11 got xero:ced rather quickly this morning, but you've seen 12 this picture before. It's also in the Commission paper, and 13 in terms of the specificity of the rule, once again, there 14 would be the standard for performance there. There would be 15 some, as Janet pointed out, some intermediate calculations.
16 We will be looking at multiple barriers. There will be some 17 things specified in terms of how the perforinance assessment 18 is done and calculated with respect to this, not 19 quantitatively, and then in terms of detailed information 20 with respect to particular proc 1ses, et cetera, this is 21 where the IRSRs and acceptance criteria would be, and those 22 -- as you see the IRSR reports coining out, you get a better 23 sense in terms of what processes we're looking at. Once 24 again, you can see chere are a lot of things going on with 25 characterization of the nountain, experimental programs, the i
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1 27 m
1 waste package material, et cetera. Doing it in guidance in ll 2 the IRSRs allows us the flexibility of changing as the 3 information comes in, and I think that's very important.
4 In the old part 60, if you remember, there were 5 facts and pacts which were identified in the rule. That's 6 more or less what this would be. The problem, of course, 7 becomes do you know everything when you write the rule, and 8 it sort of ties your hands unnecessarily, and that is a big 9 difference between what's the current approach in part 60 10 and what we will be adopting in a Yucca Mountain specific 11 regulation.
12 In terms of how things will look, certainly we 13 will have the total system performance measure, and as Janet 14 mentioned, a reference biosphere critical group. Complianca 15 with any other post-closure requirements would be done in 16 the context of the performance assessment.
17 There would not be another calculation performed, 18 but you would use the performance assessment to pull out 19 information, for example, with respect to multiple barriers 20 and the quantitative self-system requirements in old Part 21 60, one could argue, had to do additional calculations to 22 demonstrate those requirements.
23 That's not planned for the new regulation. It 24 would be done within the structure of the performance 25 assessment. It may put some particular requirements on what G ANN RILEY & ASSOCTATES, LTD.
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28 1 outputs you're displaying, but it would be within that I\
\_] 2 calculation and how it's accounted for in the performance 3 assessment, and likewise, there wouldn't be a quantitative 4 requirement for an explicit value to be met.
5 There certainly will be other requirements for 6 particular evaluations that fall outside of performance 7 assessment. We're anticipating a stylized calculation for 8 human intrusion. Certain requirements for retrievability 9 criticality would be done outside of the PA, and so there 10 certainly would be requirements there. And then once again, 11 the IRSRs would be specific -- specific technical issues and 12 &cceptance criteria would be addressed there.
13 Now if we go to the total system performance
- 14 measure, and here's where we certainly would like to hear
() 15 the recommendations of the committee. This is an area of 16 sort of certain unknown, and it gets to policy 17 considerations. So we would like to know certainly what the 18 co.mmittee thinks. We are in a dilemma in the absence of an 19 EPA standard. We certainly would look to the NAS 20 recommendations and what ICRP has been saying for a total 21 system performance measure and, you know, we're certainly 22 open to what the committee feels is an appropriate level of 23 risk.
24 Also within that is certainly the compliance 25 period, also another policy call, and we're interested in O ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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29 1 what the committee considers apprc priate there.
() 2- We certainly -- you have given us at least one 3 letter on compliance period, and we certainly would assume 4 your opinion has not changed in that regard. But we're p 5 anticipating that the EPA stanuard would specify the level 6 of risk, would specify the time period; however, there is'a 7 point where if we don't have an EPA standard, we will have 8 to do something and we will be going to the Commission 9- seeking their opinion on that, and that is a policy call.
10 We are anticipating that compliance would be with the annual
.' 1 individual-dose and, once again, the reference biosphere 12 critical group. But one thing you. won't see in the 13 Commission paper, we have not specified what the level of 14 risk and what the compliance period could be, but that is
) 15 something we will have to address at a future time period if 16 an EPA standard is not forthcoming.
17 MR.-McCARTIN: What kinds of things are we looking 18 to require for the performance assessment?
19 As I said, compliance would be based on the 20 quantitative comparison with a total system performance 21 measure. We certainly would expect a dose to the average 22 member of the critical group would be considered with the 23 ussociated uncertainties in making that comparison but right 24 now, and please be aware we are right in the midst of trying 25' to develop this, you know.
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30 1 In very simple terms we would want a complete high ll 2 quality analysis. Of course we are going to have to explain 3 what do we mean by that, and we think we will have certain 4 technical requirements that there has to be a sufficiency of 5 data, the documentation -- we would talk to that, the 6 consideration of the uncertainties and parameters 7 assumptions and models.
8 We think we will have to talk to some tests as to 9 how you -- uhy you believe the models are giving you 10 representative results and certainly verification and 11 validation falls in that category.
12 We would have to address what we mean by those 13 particular words.
14 Identification, screening, selection of features, 15 events and processes that often are grouped together form 16 scenario classes and we would have to explain, I think, talk 17 to all of those in what we expect in the performance 18 assessment in addressing these aspects that if done would 19 represent a complete and high quality analysis.
20 There would be certain programmatic requirements 21 Certainly we are not going to back away from having to do 22 the work under an improved QA plan and certainly acceptable 23 ptocedures when the use of expert opinion is done.
24 The one that is always at the back of people's 25 minds is okay, what are we going to do for explaining f ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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31 1 defense-in-depth multiple barriers and right now we are 2 looking at you would have to identify discrete barriers of h
3 the repository system and discuss their contribution to 4 performance, b 5 One important thing is as they are incorporated 6 into the PA, and we would not put particular requirements.
7 Other than that, one of the things we have thought 8 about -- if we used our particular code that we have 3 9 developed, we may demonstrate the contribution to barriers-0 10 in a particular way. We are not going to require DOE to do 11 it the way that we feel appropriate for our code. They are 12 going to have to look at their code and decide what is the 13 best way to demonstrate the contribution of the various 14 barriers and certainly sensitivity analyses, there are 15 scatter plots, there's importance analyses, there's a 16 variety of different ways and once again we are right in the 17 midst of dis:ussing this particular aspect, but I know one 18 of the conce rns brought up was that we could be very 19 specific with tae knowledge of how we would do it with our 20 code, and that really is unnecessary, that we will certainly 21 talk in the statement of considerations in terms of the 22 types of things we might do with our code to explain what we 23 mean, but we feel it would be up to DOE.
24 They know their code. What is the best way to (
25 demonstrate the contribution of the various barriers, and h ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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32 1 that is what we would require in terms of demonstrating h 2 mulu gle barriers, and then it is a somewhat subjective 3 decision -- does this constitute multiple barriers?
4 That is up to the decisionmakers, ultimately to 5 the Commission to decide have you shown us, made a case that 6 there's multiple barriers. There would not be a 7 quantitative requirement that, say, maybe someone would say 8 each barrier must contribute 25 percent to performance, et 9 cetera. There will be no requirements, but you do need to, 10 and I think it is important to show how the various barriers 11 contribute to your final result and then leave it at that to 12 have you demonstrate multiple barriers.
13 As I talked to you a little bit, there were 14 certain requirements outside of the total system 15 performance -- once again, stylized calculation for human 16 intrusion. The NAS recommended a single drilling event that 17 might damage one container and see how that affects the 18 overall performance to the critical group.
19 Retrievability, criticality are things we 20 certainly will have to discuss.
21 There are other considerations that we are looking 22 at. We have design criteria certainly for the operation 23 phase of the repository will be in there.
24 The question becomes one of we have laid out what 25 would be done -- let's say we have laid out what will be f ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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33 1 done in terms of post-closure performance, for demonstrating 2 multiple barriers. The question would become one of are 3 there other post-closure requirements for design or the site ,
4 that would make sense in addition to the ones we have.
5 We have not closed the book on that. We think it 6 is judicious to consider is there something elre we should 7 have in addition to what we have required in the performance 8 assessment and we will be looking at it.
9 Once again, we would be interested in hearing the 10 Committee's view that -- and it is one of the things that we 11 believe we'll have to talk to in the statement of 12 considerations is relying on just the post-closure total 13 system performance measure good enough? -- and there is 14 nothing else we should be doing in terms of design and site 15 criteria.
16 We will have to talk to that and it is one we'll 17 be looking at. Right now other than -- our approach to date 18 is we are trying to come to grips with all the requirements 19 we would do for the PA. Once we lay that out and at the 20 Staff level we are happy with that, it is sort of step back, 21 are there other things that need to be co.sidered.
22 There is no particular -- anything in particular 23 we have in mind, other than we think it is the smart thing 24 to do. Is there something missing there that should be 25 there that isn't covered in the PA.
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34 1 Then, finally, just one last thing -- and I have 2 talked to it a little bit -- but I think it is a very h
3 important aspect of what we are doing, the issue resolution 4 status reports.
5 We will talk in detail on site conditions and 6 design criteria. It allows us in the guidance arena to be 7 very flexible as the evolution of information at the site 8 continues to progress.
9 It is not codified in the regulations. It gives 10 us greater flexibility and the IRSRs, the acceptance 11 criteria in the IRSRs form a basis for the standard review 12 plan, and as you know I think it is a very useful thing that 13 the first wave of IRSRs have gone out.
14 We are getting comments. We will be getting 15 comments back from the Department of Energy as well as 16 others, and you can see really the specific details of how 17 we are looking at particular features, processes, et cetera, 18 are in the IRSRs, what kind of acceptance criteria, what 19 kinds of things we are looking at will be in there, and I 20 think appropriately there, that we shouldn't try to capture 21 those kinds of details, codify that in a regulation, where 22 two years from now maybe particular design changes, maybe 23 additional information at the site changes our view of 24 something and gives.us I think the needed flexibility to 25 have a successful licensing proceeding.
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35 1 That's it. Janet and I are open to any questions, I comments.
3 DR. FAIRHURST: Thank you very much.
4 I have about 30 questions, but --
5 [ Laughter.)
6 DR. FAIRHURST: --
I'll hold them back and see.
7 Does anyone else want to take the lead in questioning?
8 CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Well, I'm sure we all have a 9 few questions, but maybe since you have 30 we better get a 10 start of some of them.
11 (Laughter.]
12 DR. FAIRHURST: The first one was apparently ane 13 of the reservations of one of the Commissioners was that 14 this -- I may be misinterpreting it -- but leaving the 15 current 10 CFR -- what are the sort of risks involved in 16 changing, modifying from the present existing standard, 17 existing regulations -- you know, 10 CFR 60 and going to a 18 new one?
19 Somebody said that they're reluctant to approve it 20 because of the risks inherent in changing the standard.
21 MR. McCARTIN: Well, part of it -- I mean the two 22 alternatives is what you are talking to in the SECY paper.
23 One is to create a separate part, leaving Part 60 alone, off 24 to the side.
25 DR. FAIRHURST: As a generic --
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36 1 MP. McCARTIN: Yes. It would not apply to Yucca 2 Mountain.
3 DR. FAIRHURST: Right.
4 MR. McCARTIN: But sites other than Yucca Mountain 5 potentially could be used if some future site comes along, 6 but we are deferring anything about Part 60 to a later time.
7 The other option is revising Part 60 to apply to 8 Yucca Mountain only, so there no longer wouAd be a generic M 9 regulation, and there are pros and cons to both approaches.
10 I will offer up a few ideau. I know Janet has --
11 it depends -- one of the dilemmas that we had was if we had 12 to revise Part 60 and justify every single wcrd change in 13 Part 60 in making the new Part, it could be a fairly tedious 14 effcrt and you'll notice the time schedule we have is rather 15 short.
16 However, creating .1 new Part that is its own 17 animal if you will, we would have the flexibility to pull in 18 whatever we wanted from Part 60. de clearly are not going 19 to racreate a lot of the language that is very good in Part 20 60. There are many aspects, as Janet alluded to, the* we 21 would create.
22 Now snould Part 60 remain in place, off to the 23 side? I mean there are different reasons but I know Janet 24 has a better sense of all -- there are a bunch of different 25 pros and cons for each one.
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l 37 -
1 MS. KOTRA: I think what might clarify the issue
- 2 is that the purpose of the paper going up to the Commission 3 was twofold.
4 It was to lay out the strategy that I discussed in 5 general terms and Tim talked to with more specifics, that 6 this is what the best crack the Staff has taken at how we 7 would develop risk-informed performance based technical 8 criteria for Yucca Mountain.
9 In addition, the Staff solicited guidance from the 10 Commission on how to best implement that strategy. Would it 11 be through modifying the existing regulations, and as Tim 12 indicated, there's some major downsides with that, in the .
13 sense that the whole conceptual basis for the existing 14 regulations were founded on assumptions that may or may not ,
15 or may partia? b obtain to the current situation.
16 That is a very complicated situation to untangle 17 in a clear and understandable way.
18 It was thought and the Staff chose to recommend 19 this option to the Commission that it would be more 20 straightforward, simpler, and quicker to establish separate 21 criteria that apply to Yucca Mountain.
22 However, this was put forward as an option to the 23 Commission and you are correct in that this is what they are 24 currently deciding.
25 So we are asking two things from the Commission.
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! 38 1 We are asking for them to approve the strategy as discussed
() 2 for technical criteria and we are asking them to tell us how 3 we they want to see us implement it, either through a 4 separate part of the regulations with perhaps a separate 5 number, Icaving the existing Part 60 alone, undisturbed, or t 6 that we would take the existing generic regulations and then 7 have to modify them to apply to Yucca Mountain, either line 8 by line or create a new subsection within the existing 9 regulationss 10 You will see in the paper that will be made 11 available to you later this morning, hopefully, how we laid 12 out those pros and cons. In summary, I think the 13 simplicity, the time constraints drove the staff to 14 recommend a separate part. There is a downsi6e risk to that 15 in that you leave in place generic criteria that, at least 16 theoretically, would still be available to apply to some yet 17 unnamed site.
18 I think that the staff, if asked, would clearly 19 say we would not use the existing Part 60 to apply to a new 20 site either because we have learned a lot, we are smarter 21 now than we were when we put Part 60 in place, at least we 22 certainly hope we are.
23 CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Yes.
24 MS. KOTRA: But this is, again, a very -- very 25 tauch of a policy question and we are awaiting Commission
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39 1 guidance on it.
e f 2 CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Yeah, I realize it is a policy 3 question. It is alsc really right at the heart, it seems to 4 me, of the whole -- whole issue 5 The one thing that I think would be a 6 misinterpretation of criteria for modifying or creating 7 waste regulations would be to associate the business of 8 moving towards risk-informed regulations only with Yucca 9 Mountain, and I guess that is what bothers some of us. That 10 there are two drivers here as far as the regulatory activity 11 is concerned. One is Yucca Mountain and having a set of ,
12 regulations and ctandards that are efficiently specialized 13 to Yucca Mountain, but the other is, and it has nothing to 14 do with Yucca Mountain, is the issue of risk-informed. And 15 the retaining of the 10 CFR 60 with elements in it that are 16 clearly at variance with movement towards a risk-informed 17 regulation such as the subsystem requirements would seem to 18 be setting the stage for just postponing of the situation to 19 when it may be more complicated and more difficult to deal 20 with.
21 MR. McCARTIN: Well, but one thing, I mean the 22 reason -- I mean part of it is merely a cost, and we felt 23 that it would take far more staff effort to take Part 60 and 24 justify every word change in it. There is no site being 25 envisioned for high level waste disposal other than Yucca O ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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40 1 Mountain, and partlof it is we can defe: this question of
() 2 revising Part 60 to a later time, and it may never, ever 3 come on the horizon. And there would be no question that 4 the new Part would apply just to Yucca Mountain, but --
5 CHAIP. MAN CARRICK: Tim, I don't want to overpress 6 this. The only thing I want to emphasize, though, is I 7 agree with what both you and Janet have said about Part 60 8 containing some very valuable and basic information that 9 should be retained. On the other hand, if there are some 10 things in the regulation that are clearly at variance with 11' what we are trying to do in 1998, then it is a little more 12 difficult to appreciate. Why not deal with it?
13 In other words, we are not -- it is not a matter
-14 of necessarily revising the whole regulation, but it might k 15 be a matter of going in and doing some surgery on the 16 obvious aspects of the regulation to make it more compatible 17 with -- because there are some people that are of the 18 opinion that there is not a -- it is not an infinitely small 19 probability that Yucca Mountain will not make the grad 2, and 20 that in maybe a couple of years from now we will be looking 21 at an alternative. And given the time that is required to 22 address regulations, and changes, and rulem? king, it just 23 seems in the interest of efficiency that the obvious against 24 the criteria of a risk-informed criteria are Yucca Mountain 25 speci.ic criteria, we ought to do as much as we can.
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41 1 DR. HORNBERGER: Actually, the related question,
() 2 just for clarification for me. Is it possible, let's 3 suppose we take the approach of having a new Part, and I 4 understand all of the good reasons tnat you have, so I 5 understood you to say that there are really parts of the 6 existing Part 60 that are good and you wouldn't want to 7 reproduce, and are useful. And so the first question that 8 arises in my mind is -- Is it easy to use the parts of the 9 existing Part 60 that you like and ignore the parts that you 10 don't like?
11 Okay. And then if the answer to that is, well, 12 maybe, or maybe not, the question that I have that I guess 13 is related to John's, would it be possible to go into the 14 existing Part 60, take out the parts that you re- ly need, O( ,/ 15 the good language, and just incorporate that into a new 16 part?
17 MR. McCARTIN: That's exactly wnat we are doing.
18 I mean our starting point clearly is Part 60. I mean the 19 whole, the stage licensing, the QA, I mean there's just --
20 DR. HORNBERGER: So that becomes a part -- that 21 becomes a part of the new?
22 MR. McCARTIN: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Oh, 23 yeah, we are not looking to -- you know, and our initial --
24 DR. HORNBERGER: I understand.
25 MR. McCARTIN: The initial work we are doing is we ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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42 1 are taking, we are actually doing redline strikeout with ,
l 2 Part 60 so people, at least internal staff can -- who are 3 very familiar with Part 60 -- can see what we are changing.
4 The question becomes one of -- I mean that clearly is the 5 prudent way to go because there was a lot of work done in 6 developing in Part 60 and all of the pieces of there.
7 There are pieces we clearly are going to change.
8 But in terms of trying to craft it from start, we aren't E 9 doing that. But the question would be, if we are given the 10 task of revising Part 60, do now we have to justify every 11 change in word? And that's where the extra burden -- we ggg 12 think we can do it in a broader scope language with a new
() 13 Part.
14 But -- Mike.
15 MR. BELL: Yeah. Dr. Hornberger, maybe I can shed 16 a little light based on my experience with the original Part 17 60. Basically, the rule, as it finally comes cut, is going 18 to need to be supported by technical analysis. For a Yucca 19 Mountain specific rule, we have models, codes, a whole 20 infrastructure to do the technical analysis that support a 21 Yucce Mountain specific rule.
22 I don't have the infrastructure to do a generic 23 rule that would apply to humid sites and all of the other 24 geologic media that you might want to consider, and I think 25 trying to do a generic rule would be a very difficult task, ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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43 1 given where we are now.
() 2 MS. KOTRA: If I might add, in structuring the 3 paper, and in the recommendations for the Commission, it was 4 the staff's intent to accomplish the gaol of developing-5 risk-informed, performance-based criteria for Yucca Mountain 6 within the context of current budget projections, and that
-7 is what we attempted to do. For the reasons Mike and Tim 8 have discussed, to go well beyond that, for a new generic 9 rule that would all possible applications, there is no way 10 that we could do that in the context of the resources that 11 we have available to us right now.
12 MR. McCARTIN: And if'I could add one thing along 13 those lines, I mean part of this is drawing upon the NAS 14 recommendations, and they said -- they recommended an l 15 -average annual dose to a critical group for this site, for 36 Yucca Mountain. That is not to say -- for us to extrapolate 17- it is applicable to any site would also require work on our 18 part. I mean maybe that would be a reasonable thing to do, 19 but we can't draw upon the NAS because their recommendations 20 were for the Yucca Mountain site, and, once again, that --
21 changing that performance measure would require work on our 22 part. So I mean, you know --
23 DR. FAIRHURST: Okay. Then Ray.
24 DR. HORNBERGER: Just a quick question. Supposs 25 you craft a new Part, which there are all sorts of goods ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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44 1 reason for going that way. Is there any, then, possibility
() 2 of rescinding the old Part after you have one for Yucca 3 Mountain in place?
4 MR. McCARTIN: I assume that could be done, 5 although I am not a rules expert to know what it would 6 require to rescind a regulation. But, clearly, if we have a 7 new Part, I believe there would be very otrong language in 8 the beginning to suggest that this is the only regulation 9 that will be applied for licensing high level waste disposal 10 at Yucca Mountain. No other regulation applies. It would 11 not -- if Part 60 remained there, there would be clear 11 2 language saying you are not applying both of these. So we 13 would do that.
14 Now, whether -- I don't know, I am just not 15 familiar to pull back a regulation, what is required. But 16 if one could strike it out, I guess that is an option. But 17 I don't know.
18 DR. FAIRHURST: Okay.
19 MR. McCARTIN: We usually don't pull rules. <
20 DR. FAIRHURST: It would seem, I think Janet had 21 the key phrase, that one has learned an awful lot in the 22 intervening period. And my follow-up question to this would 23 be, if you look in the Academy report, there is a minority 24 report in it which criticizes quite strongly the way in 25 which the critical group recommendation was made and it 5
O, 4
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1 cites other ways of doing it in other countries.
() 2 And I was wondering, since in making any new '
~3 rules, you are always looking over your shoulder.at what 4 kind of challenges there are going to be to this, and one of 5 them is the challenge of an existing 10 CFR 60. But the l..
6 other one might be that in going to a risk-based regulation 7 cn standard, one is falling more in line with what every 8 other country that is looking at a rule is doing. And so; 9 the question is, how much note have you been taking.then, 10 rather than looking back at 10 CFR 60, at looking at what 11 other countries have been doing?
~
12 Professor Pinkford,-in particular, sites the way 13 in which other countries approach it --
14 MR. McCARTIN: Sure.
,- 15 DR. FAIRHUPRT: -- as a direct criticism of the 16 Academy proposal. Se that question is going to have to be 17 faced.
18 i MR. McCARTIN: Right. And I think wr are 19 certainly -- we certainly participate in some of the 20 international efforts with respect to dose calculations, et 21 cetera. We are aware of Professor Pinkford's 22 recommendation.
23 I believe, in our mind -- now, part of this 24 depends on what the EPA standard 7oks like and what they l 25 justify in terms of the critical group reference biosphere ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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46 1 in the standard. However, regardless of what goes on there, t(s')
l l s/
2 we are certainly doing calculations internally to consider t l
3 both the spatial and temporal variability of dose to a 4 critical group, and we are looking at different types of 5 critical groups at different locations.
6 And while the rule may specify a particular 7 location for the critical group, it is possible, I think we 8 will have analyses that support why, given uncertainty in 9 location, in lifestyles, et cetera, if I change this 10 location, if I change the particular lifestyle, would I see 11 doses drastically differs +? I think we will have to 12 address that and we will be looking at different approaches 13 for doing the critical group. '
14 Because of the uncertainty in that calculation.
F 15 MR. McCONNELL: Just to go back to the 16 international aspect, we do have representation with the 17 BIOMOVS activity which is done by IAEA in which they are 18 looking at specific characteristics that might be applied or 19 used to identify critical groups on an international basis, 20 and I think there are at least two meetings this year that el we have attended where these issues are being discussed at s
22 the international level.
23 So we are aware of those f'a ctors and considering 24 them in what we do in the rule.
25 MS. KOTRA: In addition, we would also add that Jl '
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47 1 the Deputy Division Director, Margaret Federline, is 2 participating with ICRP as it contemplates updating its _
3 guidance in ICRP 46, so we have a number of efforts underway 4 to be mindful and endeavor to be consistent with the 3 5 international community in that regard.
6 DR. FAIRHURST: Go ahead.
7 DR. WYMER: This is a little bit off the beat, but 8 the issue resolution status report seemed to me to occupy a 9 rather peculiar position in this wilole process in that they 10 are not formally part of a perfcrmance asserw?.ent and yet 11 they input dramatically into the formulation of the '
12 performance assessment.
17 Could you say a little bit more about it?
14 MR. McCARTIN: Well, there wouldn't be -- the way 15 it would factor in, I think, in the performance assessment 16 is that there would be particular aspects, features, and 17 maybe I should use an example.
18 Let's say matrf..- dif fusion in the f racture tough. .
19 The issue resolution status report would identify matrix 20 diffusion and identify potentially the types of things that 21 we would have to see for the DOE to take credit for matrix 22 diffusion. When they do the performance assessment they are 23 going to have to document what they took credit for and the 24 basis for th.t and I think they could look to the issue 25 resolution status report to the types of acceptance criteria ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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48 1 we would be applying for them -- for us to accept the credic
() 2 that they are taking for matrix diffusion so it is in the 3 documentation _of the thing, of the PA and what they have 4 included and what they have excluded.
5 Maybe today it's matrix diffusion, maybe two-years 6 from now they have said, well, there really isn't matrix
-7 diffusion going on, but there is absorption on the fracture 8 walls and we are taking credit for that and as we see the 9 program progress, as new information comes in, that is where
'10 the issue resolution status report on radionuclide transport 11 could -- oh, now it's, say, absorption on fracture walls.
12 Here is our opinion on that and acceptance criteria for 3 13 that.
14 But ultimately they would get a sense through the
) .15 acceptance criteria what kind of documentation for those 16 processes they would have to have in the performance 17 assessment, and so it goes-back to how they document their 18 basis for what they have included and what they have taken
.19 credit for.
20 DR. WYMER: Well, when I said they have sort of n 21 peculiar -- they play a kind of peculiar role, I was really 22 thinking of there is a give and take, there's back and forth 23 between you people and the DOE people on these things, and 24 as you do that you are really refining the performance
~25 assessment process in a significant way, so it seems to me O ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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49 1 that they do occupy a peculiar position.
2 They are sort at molders and shapers in a strange 3 way of the final performance assessment process.
4 MR. McCARTIN: It is a dilemma we are in, in that
) 5 the basis for some of the things is evolving and performance 6 assessment being iterative, there is thic back and forth 1 7 8
9 which I think that back and forth, if it is in the regulation it is a nightmare, because now you put something in and come licensing time if there is a requirement for DOE 10 to provide the basis for matrix diffusion, well, what if we 11 get closer and they are not going to rely on it?
12 Well, you've still got to provide -- and we have 13 these things in there that would require potentially DOE to 14 evaluate the really isn't that important.
15 Now maybe it would be a simple thing to do but you 16 create a lot of specifics in the regulation that in terms of 17 demonstrating compliance may not be needed.
18 It seems in the old Part 60 there were a lot of 19 specifics provided, sort of a catch-all that everything that 20 could be considered -- in the long-run we're not convinced 21 that really helps you.
22 What you really want is DOE is going to have to 23 identify -- what we are leaning toward is the features, 24 events and processes that they have considered and how they 25 have included them in the PA --
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50 1 DR. WYMER: Okay. I won't say any more about it
( 2 now but I'll come back to it later probably.
-3 DR ., FAIRHURST: With the notion is that 4 defense-in-depth is really a meaningful term.
5 I am still trying to grasp at what it does mean 6 but you talk about identifying discrete barriers, right? --
7 and then identifying their contribution to the overall 8 performance.
9_ First of all, could you tell me which -- if you ,
10 were to take Yucca Mountain, for example, or I presume any 11 generic repository, how would you define those barriers?
12 Would you say that one very crude definition would be 13 engineered barriers and natural barriers, right? That's 14 two.
15 MR. McCARTIN: Right.
16 DR. FAIRHURST: So the defense-in-depth is either 17- one works or both work, right, and you can still --
18 MR. McCARTIN: Well, we would want to see a 19 contribution to performance --
20 DR. FAIRHURST: But is that the extent --
21 MR. McCARTIN: -- from the natural system and the 22 engineered system.
23 We would leave it up to DOE. With our code we may
- 24. do it this particular way.
25 They may have a different code and a different ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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51
'1 approach. It is up to them.
( 2 DR. FAIRHURST: Will they be free to identify, 3 let's say, 10 barriers --
4 MR. McCARTIN: Sure.
5 DR. FAIRHURST: -- and -- okay.
6 MR. McCARTIN: Sure.
7 DR. FAIRHURST: And how do you identify the 8 contribution of each one? Just take it out of the system 9 and show that it plays no role and see what happens, or what 10 do you do?
11 MR. McCARTIN: Well, you get into a'part that gets 12 very -- we are right 4- the middle of trying to decide.
13 Where we are headed, one approach would be what we 14 have called an importance analysis where maybe I display the 15 dose, the time history of the dose from the repository, and 16 now do it with no container, and I show the difference 17 between with a container and without a container, 18 essentially removing a barrier, if you will.
19 Now what exactly it means removing the container 20 gets to be do you have to say that the container is not 21 there so when you have rock fall it's on to the fuel rods or 22 is it just that it is the ingress of water occurs at T 23 equals zero, and so maybe you just take a particular feature 24 of the container, that the container serves to divert water 25 away from the fuel for "x" number of years and maybe it is ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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52 1 just that feature.
2 I know we have talked a lot about what it means to 3 remove that.
4 Another way to do it might be that you look at the N 5 sensitivity of a particular parameter. Maybe there is an 6 infiltration -- well, maybe infiltration may not be the best 7 one, but maybe like say a KD, a retardation of particular 8 radionuclides for the natural system, and you show that, 9 gee, these three radionuclides are the most important to 10 performance -- the KD affects the -- the geologic system is 11 adding something, g 12 What we will try to do in the statement of 13 consideration is with our code and our approach here is what 14 we would do to demonstrate and we are working on that right 15 now, and we are looking at be it scatter plots, be it 16 sensitivity analysis, be it importance anc.iysis what exactly 17 we come up with.
18 We are right in the middle of that work, but we 19 think it should also be up to the Department of Energy with 20 their code, be it a particular -- removing a barrier in this 21 way or looking at sensitivity analysis but the only thing 22 that we would want to see, we want to see a contribution 23 from the natural system and the engineered system.
24 MS. KCTRA: I just might elaborace on this from 25 somewhat more of a policy point of view in the sense that ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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53 1 you have conc eting cbjectives here.
() 2 Our instructions are to be simple, 3 straightforward, performance based, less prescriptive.
4 This is not just in the waste program. This is 5 what the agency is struggling with across many programs.
6 In doing so, on the one hand, you have to define 7 in a way that is easily communicated what you mean by 8 reasonable assurance and this concept of multiple barriers 9 is something that we hold to very tightly, but you run into
-10 trouble if you try to specify that too precisely.
11 If you try to do it too simply in the natural 12 system versus the engineered system, you lose some insights 13 ..aout tLe protective nature of those barriers.
14 For example, the natural system acts both as a
( 15 barrier to water coming in and it acts as a barrier to water 16 plus nuclides going out and the considerations that are 17 important for the one may or may not be exactly the same for 18 the other.
19 So I think that there is a desire on the Staff's 20 part, on the Commission's part to avoid being excessively 21 prencriptive and allow the :pplicant to show-the role of 22 multiple barriers consistent with their overall performance
- 23. assessment code.
24 Then we have to make what Tim correctly printed
,25 out is at heart a subjective gudgment --
is there reasonable 5
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i 54 1 assurance that there is a contribution of multiple barriers
() 2 to the achievement of the overall performance objective, but 3 the standard is the overall performance objective.
4 We do not want to create de facto substandards or 5 sublimits that actually then take over the licensing 6 process.
7 DR. FAIRHURST: Thank you.
8 John.
9 CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Yeah. One c! the things that 10 is very important here it seems to me is not to confuse 11 prescriptiveness with quantitativeness. I think that one of 12 the important changes that we're talking about here is a 13 change that allows us to exercise the concept of 14 transparency by establishing the couple between the is performance of individual systems and the performance of the 16 total system. I happen to think that that is a far more '
17 insightful approach than - and may even turn out to be a 18 more conservative approach than a subsystem requirement 19 prescription approach.
20 One of the things -- but it carries with it some 21 new requirements or at least nee ideas on how to address 22 this question of individual system performance. If in fact 23 we are talking about a risk-informed approach, the key 24 aspect of a risk-informed approach is uncertainty, and the 25 -risk is-all tied up in the uncertainty. And so it is not O ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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55 1 feasible for us to look at the importance of individual
() 2 systems just in terms of the effect on the central tendency 3 parameter, for example, of the overall performance. It may 4 turn out that the more important issue is that it may not
- 5 have hardly any impact, a particular system, on the central 6 tendency parameter, but may have an enormous impact on the 7 uncertal.nty associated with the bottom-71 9 results. That 8 is critically important.
9 And so it's going to require a little different 10 set of thought processes on what we mean when we talk about 11 importance and the contribution of individual performance to 12- overall performance. So I hope that as we go down this path 13 that is an integral part of the analysis.
14 It does bring me back to something you said 15 earlier, Tim, that's a little more technical that I wanted ~
16 to make sure I understood. You said something -- you used 17 the worde not quantitatively when you had the picture up 18 there, and I thought you were talking about the performance 19 of individual barriers. I --
20 MR. McCARTIN: Quantitative requirements.
21 DR. FAIRHURST: Yes. And I think that's where 22 it's very important for us when we're talking this business 23 to keep making that distinction. We're not talking about 24 being less quantitative with respect to understanding the 25 -performance of-an individual system. On the contrary.
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56 1 We're putting the spctlight on an individual system and what
() 2 it has to do with overall performance.
3 So in one sense we want to be very quantitative, 4
>re quantitative than we've ever been in the past about the a 5 performance of individual systems. All we'se saying is that 6 we're not apportioning, if you wish, the total performance 1
parameter down to subsystem requirements to -- as prescribed 8 performance that we think is necessary to achieve a certain 9 overall performance. So I think these are some points that 10 are very important for us to understand as we exchange on 11 this and for the NRC staff to understand as they exchange 12 with DOE.
13 CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Right. Yeah. No, no, you're 14 absolutely right, it will be quantitatively -- we require to
() 15 quantitatively evaluate the contribution to performance, but i 16 there would not be a requirement.
17 But one of the big things that I think is 18 mandatory is that it's done with the same P7 -- performance 19 assessment code that you're using to calculate the total 20 system performance, and there isn't a separate calculation, 21 although there could be postprocessing of results and 22 display of other kinds of results, but it's within the 23 context of that performance assessment code.
24 DR. FAIRHURST: Maybe I can turn to a different 25 issue then.
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V 57 1 CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Have we answered one of your 30 2 questions yet?
3 [ Laughter.)
4 DR. FAI2HURST: Well, there's about another 29 to ;
5 go.
6 I was involved with the Academy study of this, and 7 so I've never been to the background of some of this.
8 With regard to how you're going to deal with human 9 intruFion, you're talking about stylized assessment, and L
10 there's been a lot of work and a lot of publications saying 11 there's no scientifically credible basis for establishing a 12 quantitative human intrusion standard. And yet currently
} 13 with the WIPP program I'd say human intrusion is driving the 14 entire assessment, and the acceptability.
( 15 So have you any ideas now how you're going to deal 16 with the human intrusion part of a regulation or --
17 MR. McCARTIN: Well, our thinking is along the s
18 lines of what we envision the Academy recommendation, which 19 was there would be a calculation dcne of a drilling event i 20 that would basically damage a container and provide 21 potentially a short circuit to the water table, and we would 22 look on how that impacts the overall performance of dose to
_ 23 the critical group.
24 To date our calculations would indicate that that 25 really isn't anticipated to be a significant impact, if just ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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58 1 for the fact that_we have evidence of certainly some fast
() 2 paths to the water table in our current performance 3 assessments have that, so we already have that one 4 additional path where one container is damaged isn't viewed 5 as a significant concern at this time.
6 DR. FAIRHURST: Would you get into probabilities 7 of human intrusion over a certain time period?
8 MR. McCARTIN: Well, at least our understanding of 9 the Academy report, we would do the calculation, look at the 10 results, and then they recommended comparing it to the same 11 stancard as was -- for the primary postclosure performance, 12 and for examination of the robustness of the facility to 13 human intrusion. I think we do a similar kind of thing, but 14 that -- I mean clearly that's right now we're still working
(
~
15 on the rule and it's one area that we elso would be 16 interested in seeing what if anything the EPA would say 17 about that particular approach in the standard. Right now 18 we don't know if they would address that or not, but we're 19 anticipating a stylized calculation.
20 MS. KOTRA: Just a short answer to his question 21 though is that no, we would not be in the business of ,
22 estimating the probabilities of human intrusion. We 23 would -- you know, we would do the calculation as 24 recommended by the Academy, which was to test the resiliency 25 of the postclosure performance of the repository system in O ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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59 I
1 light of some assumed intrusion event, a.la what Tim
() 2 described. But the recommendation as I understood it was 3 that there was no basis in science for making such estimates 4 of probability, and that would noc be part of our 5 regulationc.
6 DR. FAIRHURST: Here again the linkage with the 7 international community is very important, because that's an B issue that's hitting every one of those countries that's 9 looking at it.
10 MS. KOTRA: Absolutely.
14 DR. FAIRHURST: And they're very, very sensitive 12 to whatever the U.S. does. In fact, the Yucca '. Mountain --
13 the WIPP standard has gotten very concerned, you know, 14 somebody quoting look, this is how it was done here, why (I 15 don't we do the same? And you could fail any repository in 16 the world with such a kind of standard.
17 MS. KOTRA: I think that point was made very
-18 eloquently in the Academy report, and I think that our 19 strategy at this point absent some very different approach 20 that EPA might propose and with which we must be concistent 21 would be to follow that guidance and to -- clearly there is 22 no repository that could be envisioned or built that 23 couldn't be defeated by some assumed intrusion event. It is 24 not our intent to come up with anything other than what the 25 Academy recommended, which is a simple, single event that O ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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__.u_..____ _ _
't 60 1 damages one canister and look at the robustness of the whole
()
1 2 system response to that.
3 DR. FAIRHURST: I'll leave some of the others, but 4 go on to -- any other cuestions from the -- go ahead, Joe.
5 DR. HORNBERGER: Since Charles started in on these 6 special cases, I had a question. With regard to 7 retrievability --
8 DR. FAIRHURST: That's the one I was about to --
9 DR. HORNBERGER: As Janet started out saying, you 10 know, we're in this position because our thinking has 11 evolved and we have new ideas on all sorts of things, and I
- 12 haven't heard retrievability discussed much in that light.
13 I think that Janet said oh, well, we're happy with 14 retrievability as in part 60.
I 15 Can you either tell me how thinking has evolved or 16 if it hasn't, why?
E 17 DR. FAIRHURST: Janet, were you about to say ,
18 something?
19 MS. KOTRA: Well, I think it is not just a matter 20 of # hat has evolved. We still have statutory requirements, 21 and under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, and nothing that has 22 been -- no modification to that Act, or no subsequent 23 legislation has disturbed the fact that we are to require 24 some period of retrievability.
25 I am not aware any additional technical work that
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61 1 would disturb the assumptions that underlie the requirements ~
() 2 that currently exist for retrievability. Clearly, we will 3 include such requirements as the law requires, but that is 4 not an area that we are working on actively right now, 5- unless I am mistaken.
6 MR. McCARTIN: Well, other than we are working on 7 the rule, in a broad sense.
8 MS. KOTRA: Right.
9 MR. McCARTIN: But we haven't gotten to that part.
10 What it is --
11 MS, KOTRA: We are not plowing new ground, I think 12 is the answer.
13 MR. McCARTIN: Right. Right. It was just 14 identified as there are certain -- you know, even though
() 15 post-closure performance is usually on everyone's mind 16 there, we are going to -- we do have to address these other 17 ones, and would_it change any from what is in Part 60, I 18 don't know. There might be-a few things that are for 19 site-specific reasons, but, in general, we view, we will 20 have to have -- there are requirements, we are still going "
21 to have requirements in those areas.
22 DR. FAIRHURST: I'll turn to -- go ahead.
23 CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Have you got any progress to 24 report on your thinking relative to the reference biosphere 25 and the critical group?
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i 62 l i
. 1 MR. McCARTIN: In terms of?
() 2 3
DR. FAIRHURST:
[ Laughter.)
How many people? What are they?
1 4 MR. McCARTIN: Oh, easy things. Oh, pick a 5 number.
6 We are here, you know, looking for input on that, 7 and I guess.
8 [ Laughter.)
9 MR. McCARTIN: There are certain things that are 10 --
11 DR. FAIRHURST: Fifty people, 75 miles from --
12 [ Laughter.)
13 MR. McCARTIN: Right. Yeah. It's -- that will be 14 part of the policy decision, I believe, in terms of what-() 15 exactly ends up in the rule. But two things, I mean, one, 16 we are waiting for the EPA standard to see what they might 17 say with respect to that. That certainly limits or expands 18 what we need to address in our rulemaking.
19- The other side of it is we expect to do, to 20 implement what we re.1.ieve was the spirit of the NAS report, 21 ] was you want to use cautious but reasonable assumptions in 22 specifying the critical group and reference biosphere. And, 23 at this time, we are certainly not -- we are looking at what 24 seems to make sense, but we are not prepared to give any 25 particular numbers.
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63 1 CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Yeah, well, the reason for the
() 2 3
question was, of course, this Committee addressed those issues.
4 MR. McCARTIN: Right.
5 CHAIRMAN GARRICK: The reference biosphere, and I
6 the critical group. We also .adressed the issue of time of
.- compliance.
8 MR. McCARTIN: Right.
9 CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Ard which were an expression of 10 our thinking on those subjects as of those dates. And I 11 just wondering if they had spawned, those letters had 12 spawned any activity or effort and whether the idean had 13 advanced beyond what we -- what we had -- the seeds that we 14 had planted warlier.
() 15 MR. McCARTIN: Right. Certainly, we are aware of 16 the thoughts behind what was recommended, and we are just in 17 a very difficult position at this time. I mean we just 18 can't give any --
19 CHAIRMAN GARRICK: I understand.
20 MR. McCARTIN: I mean if someone wants a number, 21 t:e just can't do that.
22 MS, KOTRA: Let me just say that, yes, those seeds 23 are germinating. We are in the process of identifying teams 24 and groups that are going to address critical group, 25 reference biosphere and different aspects of the rule, and i ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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64 1 we are, as you are clearly aware, we are on a very
() 2 3
aggressive timetable and we just now getting that l organization structure in place to allow these different l
4 pieces to be worked on by the people who are best equipped 5 to do that.
6 MR. McCARTIN: Yeah, and I realize that all of us 7 have been kind of anticipating a step change in our state of 8 knowledge about the standard, on the basis of EPA's 9 progress, which hasn't been overwhelming. "
10 [ Laughter.)
11 MR. McCARTIN: And we are hoping, if we get 12 something, say, by mid-summer, maybe that is very useful to 13 us. But it is a dilemma and it is something the Commission 14 will have to deal with. Becauc+ there are certain things 15 that we are expecting in the stendard for EPA to deal with.
16 If it is not there, then we have to pick it up, and that is 17 basically a policy call on the Commission's part.
18 DR. FAIRHURST: The EPA is aware of what you 39 expect -- what you think is their role and you think is 20 yours? In other words, are the --
21 MR. McCARTIN: Yes.
22 MS. KOTRA. They are aware of our views, 23 DR. FAIRHURST: Yeah, that's -- that's fine.
24 MR. McCARTIN: And as they develop their standard 25 for Yucca Mountain specific site, they have certainly told
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65 1 us that they feel -- they have to talk te the people that
()
2 they are protecting, and so we believe they wil_ be talking
+
3 to locations, time periods, reference biosphere, critical ,
4 group 5 Now, how specific they get in the standard, we are 6 certain. But they certainly have to -- when they go to 7 their review committees, they have to -- who are we-8 protecting? And they_do have to talk to those things. So, 9 you know, there will be some addressing of these issues in 10 the standard, but to what extent, we'll see. Hopefully.
11 DR. FAIRHURST: In developing a standard, there 12 was ba~kground work that was done at the centers, SRA 13 delivered that.
14 MR. McCARTIN: Yeah.
15 DR. FAIRHURST: And how valuable was that? Did 16 that help you very much in what you were doing?
17 MR. McCARTIN: Well, certainly, they identified 18 some of the uncertainties with Part 60 that we would 19 certainly try to eteer clear of in doing a new regulation.
2 20 Some of the areas of uncertainty are parts that we are 23 planning on doing away with, the quantitative subsystem 22 requirements, things of that nature.
23 T..ere are certain phrases, statements that -- or 24 words that were in the regulation that they said, gee, what 25 does that mean? And as they have identified those
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1 j 66 1 particular types of woras, it is useful for us. And in one
() 2 of the slides I had, what did I say, a high quality complete 3 performance assessment might be one of the things that they
- would say, gee, unless you say what that means, beauty is in 5 the eye of the beholder. What is high quality to one person 6 may not be to another person. And so in the sense there 7 were a number of phrases like that, that aertainly as we 8 develop our rule, we feel we will have to define and make it 9 clear what is expected and what is intended. So, 10 DR. FAIRHURST: And what about public involvement 11 in developing this? Do you have a plan for --
12 MR. McCARTIN: Oh, yeah. I mean the schedule 13 Janet had said we would go out for public comment on the 14 rule in September, October --
) 15 MR. McCONNELL: See, there is the anticipation 16 that there will be probably a 90 day public comment period 17 after the Commission approves the Proposed Rule, after and 18 assuming the Commission approves the Proposed Rule.
19 DR. FAIRHURST: So that is where the public will l- 20 get its chance?
l 21 MR. McCONNELL: That's correct.
22 MR. McCARTIN: And in forums like this.
23 OR. FAIRHURST: And does anybody else -- I don't l
24 want to dominate the questions.
25 CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Well, I think that on the issue O ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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67 1 of public participation or public involvement, what the
() 2 3
Committee is very interested in is seeing what stepr the staff is taking for what one might call real time i 4 involvement of the public. That is to say one of the 5 criticisms you often hear when you go to public forums is ,
6 the absence of the opportunity for the public to input into 7 what one might call the initial conditions of the problem, 8 or the definitic of the problem. And I think that we are 9 very aware of the standard public review periods.
10 I think one of the things we are always looking 11 for, is_there anything more we can do that doesn't totally 12 disrupt the process, but that makes the public feel that 13 they are having a greater role in the evolution of the 14 solutions, rather than just considering proposed solutions,
) 15 after the fact, so to speak.
16 MR. McCARTIN: Yeah. It is a good point. We are 17 in scrc of a -- '
18 MR. BELL: Tim, let me answer.
19 MR. McCARTIN: Yeah. Oh. good.
20 MR. BELL: Basically, at this point, Dr. Garrick, 21 what is anticipated is, you know, the normal notice and 22 comment rulemaking. This is not a participatory rulemaking 23 where we are going to set up public interest groups to tell 24 us what they think the rule should look like. We will take 25 opportunities, as they present themselves, to explain to the O ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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68 1 interested parties what we are doing. But the interested
() 2 parties, for the most part, tend to be the State of Nevada, t 3- the local government, certain public interest groups.
4 If you are looking for is public meetings where we 5 just invite the citizens of Las Vegas, or Clark County or ,
6 something like that, to come and ask questions and hear what 7 we are doing, we don't have anything in mind like that.
8' CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Well, actually, some initiative 9 has been taken by the ACNW on this process by, at least once 10 or twice a year, our meetings inviting public comment and 11 public opinion, and I think that has been reasonably 12 successful and the participation has been good. In fact, we 13 have some more of that coming up later this year. MS. KOTRA:
1 14 Once we get the proposed rule the Commission, taking a page
() 15 from its deliberations on the original Part 60 -- thesc are 16 very complicated policy questions. Each and every one of
, 17 the question 6 Dr. Fairhurst and the other members have 18 touched on could be the subject of an entire one-day 19 colloquium.
20 My guess is that the Commission will, once it has 21 a proposed rule, will have at least one and probably more 22 ,
than one public meeting on aspects of that, but that is 23 going to be their prerogative. We have been tasked to
(
.24 provide a strategy for getting a proposal forward in a 25 certain time period, and I think that the extent to which ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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69 1 that schedule will allow for extensive public participation 2 above and beyond the normal -- which is, you know, open and 3 _ consistent with the Commission's policies of openness --
4 will be up to the policymakers, 5 CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Thank you.
6 DR. FAIRHURST: Are you -- go ahead.
7 DR. CA*1PBELL: Oka*,
f Tim, you at one point talked 8 about making comparisons betyeen DOE results and NRC 9 . results, and the two codes are different.
10 There may be significant differences and there are 11 between the two codes, in part because they have different 1
12 purposes.
13 How are you going to make those comparisons? I 14 remember specifically there was a tech exchange about a year ,
15 and a half, almost two years ago, where there were some 16 cotaparisons and it was somewhat difficult to ferret out why 17 those differenaes occur, but it was very useful.
18 One of the questions is how are you going to do -
19 that? How are you going to ferret out how *hese differences 20 arise and is there a proposal for resolving those 21 i differences, and then will the public and ACNW have an 22 opportunity to see how that whole process is done?
23 ! MR. McCARTIN: Yes. Part of that would be our
- 24 review of the license application ard the licensing process, 25 but in terms of -- the DOE will come in with a performance ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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70 1 calculation. We will do our performance calculation.
() 2 Most likely the results will be differcnt for a 3 variety of reasons. We will have to understand and explain 4 why there's differences and part ef that would get to the 5 completeness of the doc'imentation that we would require DOE 6 to present that, be it some 11 termediate results, be it the 7 sensitivity analysis, et cetera, so we could understand --
8 you know, part of it, the contribution to performance, gee, 9 they had say matrix diffusion and we didn't and we see, gee, 10 that's a pretty _important parameter -- that is why your dose 11 is "x" and ours is "y" -- whatever.
12 I think the strength is in the two different 13 groups using different types of approaches. We will 14 _probably err more on conservative approaches than the DOE,
() 15 but we will have to understand, oh, that particular 16 assumption, maybe we can do some modification -- not 17 modification, maybe we can vary a parameter in our code and 18 say yeah, if we did that we'd see similar things.
19 We will have to talk to understand why the 20 differences exist but I don't know if we have to -- we are 21 not looking to, in our performance assessment, to try to '
22 invoke the exact same parameters and models, run it, and see 23 that the doses match up.
24 MR. McCONNELL: Yes, I would just expand on that, 25- too, that we do have a key SPA methodology, IRSR, in
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71 1 developm1nt we hope to get out in the next couple weeks,
() 2 3
which would permit us to resolve these things prior to receiving the license application.
4 It defines the various aspects of the calculation ^
5 we believe are important and we would use that as a basis 6 for comparison with what DOE is doing now for the VA and 7 other activity.
8 DR. FAIRHURST: Do I understand then these -- such 9 things as regulatory guides and staff technical positions 10 you will not be developing? You will_not be developing 11 those?
12 MR. McCARTIN: Well, the IRSRs would be the 13 guidance --
14 DR. FAIRHURST: The central guidance?
) 15 MR. McCARTIN: Yes.
16 DR. FAIRHURST: That's it?
17 MR. McCARTIN: Yes.
18 DR. FAIRiiURST: You are not going to be doing any _.
19 others.
20 MR. McCONNELL: Although there will be the 21 development of the standard review plan --
22 DR. FAIRHURST: The standard review plan and the 22 IRSRs.
24 MR. McCONNELL: The IRSRs are kind of the initial 25 stages of the development of a standard review plan.
(
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72 1 CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Actually, maybe the past
() 2 important component of this whole comparison exercise will 3 be a comparison of the supporting information, supporting 4 evidence.
5 That is where the IRSRs will come into play as an 6 important component of the supporting evidence. You know, 7 if you can get past the hurdle that there is a clear -
i 8 understanding between the parties on what that is, then the 9 problem reduces in complexity considerably because we.all 10 know that the models are quite different.
11 MR. McCARTIN: Sure, sure.
12 CHAIRMAN GARRICK: And so we can put the focus on 13 those differences.
14 MR. McCARTIN: Right.
) 15 DR. FAIRHURST: Could I confirm now what is 16 your -- I know what was shown -- but what is the da'.e at 17 which you expect to have this? It's one year after EPA I 18 know but what is the date? No?
19 MR. McCARTIN: The final rule?
20 DR. FAIRHURST: Yes.
21 MR. McCARTIN: The final rule is I believe July 22 '99. That is the target date, if you will.
23 "R. McCONNELL: We are working towards a DOE 24 identified milestone that says they needed to have NRC's 25 implementing standard or implementing regulation in place n
(
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73 1 July of 1909, so we work back from that date to establish
() 2 the schedule you will see in the Commission paper -- or that 3 you saw earlier.
4 DR. FAIRHURST: Yes. But you require a year from 5 EPA -- maybe I am --
6 MR. McCONNELL: Well, the Energy Policy Act --
7 DR. FAIRHURST: -- requires you --
8 MR. McCONNELL: -- required us to have our 9 regulation in place a year after EPA finalized their 10 standard. '
11 DR. FAIRHURST: So EPA has to have at least July 12 of this year, right?
13 MR. McCONNELL: You could interpret it that way.
14 DR. FAIRHURST: I'm naive.
15 MR. McCARTIN: Or we would do it quicker.
16 DR. FAIRHURST: Yes.
17 MR. McCARTIN: I mean that's -- I mean that is the reason that we have been doing, taking the approach we have, 1
18 19 that we really can't wait to see a proposed EPA standard.
20 , DR. FAIRHURST: Yes.
21 MR. McCARTIN: We need to get a lot of this stuff 22 in place. We think we can.
23 Hopefully the EPA standard doesn't come out 4
24 drastically different than the NAS recommendations so that 25 we -- if we are going a'ong the lines of the NAS ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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74 l 1 recommendations or we are kind of cloue, if you will, so --
() 2 3
DR. FAIRHURST: George?
DR. HORNBERGER: Do you anticipate that the EPA 4 standard will solve the negligible risk question, and if it 5 doesn't does that mean that you have to grapple with that 6 thorny issue?
7 MR. McCARTIN: That's an interesting question.
N 8 Hopefully they will, yes.
9 (Laughter.)
10 MS. KOTRA: I am not sure that it is necessary 11 that they grapple with that across the board, but I 12 certainly wouldn't presume to advise theni on that question.
13 The Academy basically answered the question that 14 the Congress asked, which is is a standard based on
() 15 individual dose, health-br. sed standard based on individual 16 dose, sufficiently protective. The Academy came back anc 17 said yes, it is, but you have to assume the negligible risk.
18 The EPA is under Staff direction to be based on 19 and consistent with the National Academy recommendations so 20 ultimately I think that is their call to make and to justify 21 in the course of their rulemaking.
22 It is our fervent intent to have criteria in place 23 that will implement a dose or risk based standard on the 24 assumption that what EPA comes up with, as Tim indicated, 25 will not be drastically different from what the academy i
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75 1 advised them to do.
() 2 DR. FAIRHURST: Well, I think we have had a fairly 3 thorough hearing and for me at least it was very 4 stimulating, very informative. Thank you, Janet and Tim and 5 others who contributed.
6 Can we take a break now?
7 CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Yes. Now I think --
8 DR. FAIRHURST: Or am I finished now?
9 [ Laughter.)
10 CHAIRMAN GARRICK: We are never finished.
11 I take it that is all we are going to hear from 12 the NRC Staf ,oday so that brings us to a logical break 13 point and we will now, rather than fast forwarding to one 14 o' clock, at eight o' clock we will fast forward at 10:40 to 15 one o' clock and when we reconvene we will address letters 16 and reports, et cetera, so I think this will mean that we 17 will no longer need the transcription.
18 With that, let's thke a 15-minute break.
19 (Whereupon, at 10:40 a.m., the open meeting was 20 recessed, to reconvene at 8:30 a.m., Wednesday,. February 24,
. 1998.]
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() before the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission in the matter of:
NAME OF PROCEEDING: 98TH ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON NUCLEAR WASTE (ACNW) MEETING DOCKET NUMBER:
PLACE OF PRO:.EEDING: Rockville. MD were held as herein appears, and that this is the origir.al transcript thereof for the file of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission taken by me and thereafter reduced to typewriting by me or under the direction of the court
() reporting company, and that the transcript is a true and accurate record of the foregoing proceedings.
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