ML20209D103
| ML20209D103 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 06/30/1999 |
| From: | NRC ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON NUCLEAR WASTE (ACNW) |
| To: | |
| References | |
| NACNUCLE-T-0131, NACNUCLE-T-131, NUDOCS 9907130038 | |
| Download: ML20209D103 (76) | |
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= OFFICIAL TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS Q' . NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON NUCLEAR WASTE
Title:
-MEETING:' 110TH ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON NUCLEAR l WASTE,(ACNW)
\
TRO8 ' ACNW)
RE'
.v 'N ORIGINAL 'r b} I BJWHITE i M/S T-2E26 , r ru i a 415-7130 THANhs! W '
Docket No.:
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- Work 1 Order No.: ASB-300-838 l p _;
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9907130038 990630 i PDR ADVCM NACNUCLE T-0131 PDR LOCATION: San Antonio.TX
, DATE: Wednesday, June 30,1999 PAGES: 435 - 509 I
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ACNWOR400 COPY-RETAINFOR g DIEUFEOFTHE00MM11TER L b
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3 DISCLAIMER
-UNITED' STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION'S
' ADVISORY' COMMITTEE ON NUCLEAR WASTE JUNE'30, 1999 The contents of this transcript of.the proceeding z of.the United States' Nuclear Regulatory Commission Advisory Committee;on Nuclear Waste, t!aken on June 30, 1999,.as
- reported herein, is a record of'the discussions' recorded at the meeting. held.on the.above date.
This transcript-had;not been reviewed, corrected and edited and it maylcontain inaccuracies.
O
[' _ .t.'
/
\
l j;
p 435 l' UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
'2 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3 ADVISORY' COMMITTEE ON NUCLEAR WASTE
'4 '***
- 5. MEETING: 110TH ADVISORY.' COMMITTEE ON 6 NUCLEAR WASTE (ACNW) l 7' ***
.8 ;
'9 . Southwest Research Center l
l' 10 Building.189
- 11. 6220 Culebra Road i
l 112 San Antonio, Texas a '13^
1 14L Tuesday, June 29, 1999
- . \_j!..
[ ~\: 15 ,
l 16' The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 8:30 17- a.m.
18 "19 MEMBERS PRESENT:
20 B. JOHN GARRICK, ACNW Chairman 21- GEORGE HORNBERGER, ACNW Vice Chairman 22; RAYMOND WYMER, ACNW Member 23 CHARLES FAIRHURST, ACNW Member
.24 25
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/f
436 l' PROCEEDINGS 2
(8:30 a.m.)
I 3 , MR.~GARRICK: Good morning. The meeting will now L 4 come to order. This is the third day of the 110th meeting 5 -of the Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste.
6' JTliis entire meeting will be open to the.public.
7- Today'the committee'will first review the staff's plans for
-8' conducting a review of the Department of Energy's draft 9 environmental impact statement for the proposed repository 10 at Yucca Mountain.
11 We will hear the NRC staff and the center discuss 12 the current concept of defense-in-depth as it applies to a 13 high level waste repository. And for the information of
.14 . those in the audience, it is intended to adjourn the meeting
~
j
,eg A ,); 11 5 no later.than noon.
16= During the afternoon,-members will hold a l
17 one-on-one individual technical discussion with the- i 18- pertinent' center staff on selected areas of member interest.
'19 Howard Larson is the Designated Federal Official 20 for the initial portion of today's meeting. This meeting is
=. 21 ; being conducted in accordance with the provisions of the
~
22- Federal Advisory Committee Act. We have received no written
- 23 statements or requests to make oral statements from members 24 Dof-the public regarding today's session and should anyone J25- wish'to do so, .please make your. wishes known to one of the
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437 1 committee staff.
[ 2- It is; requested-that each speaker use one'of the
-R I-
'3 . microphones,= identify himself or herself, and speak with 4- sufficient clarity and' volume co.that he or she can be
'S readily-heard.
6 Our'first topic this morning, as indicated, is the 7 .. DEIS; review guidance and the committee member that will
'82 ab'ist in leading that discussion will be Charles Fairhurst, 9 and, as I understand it, Mike Lee is going to make the 10 initial. presentation.
11 MR.-. LEE: For the record, my name is Mike Lee.
12 I'm in the Division of Waste Management and I'm here to talk 13 about the status of the proposed plans for the review of the 14 draft 1 environmental impact' statement.
) 15 Just'a few opening remarks, if I may. I just want 16 tci remind everyone that we're focusing on the review of the !
-17 draft. The adoption of the final environmental impact 18' statement is another: issue 'and- involves a dif ferent set of i
- 19. plans and assumptions, which we haven't prepared or 20 developed at-this time. So we're just focusing today on 21' this briefing of the review of.the draft.
22 I'd also like to' point out that we're also 23' beginning to enter a change in culture here. The last 24 several: years, we've been focusing our program on key 25: . technical issues and at the receipt of.the draft
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438 1- environmental-impact statement, we're moving into a J
n
-[\_/) '2 'different frame of activity,
, 3 It's certainly pre-licensing, but it's more
-4 ' pre-licensing;than in the past. So when we review the
.5f . draft,. we're going to be.-- draft EIS, we're going to be not
'6 'abandoningLthe-KTI approach,15ut we're going to have a 7; focused' evaluation of issues related to performance and environmental' impact.
~
8~ .
9- Slide two is the-outline for.today's presentation, and I: have a rather sh' ort presentation. So I don't know, if 11; .you have questions, do you want to interrupt me or do you 12- want to just run through the presentation and ask questions?
13 .How would you like.to do that?
- 14 . MR'. GARRICK: cWell, we don't know. HWe'll play it l 15. :byLear. We--may interrupt you.
16- MR.~ LEE: All right. .That's fine. 'If I could 1
17- move to slide-three, then, please.
18- <The program direction for how NRC is to conduct .l l
- 19 itself,fas well-ascother: DOE.and other agencies, as defined l
'I
-20' by the Nuclear. Waste Policy.Act, as amended,.NWPA' directs '
21 . DOE to'l issue a dra'ft'EIS for comment and with respect to l 22 that EIS, NRC comments are to accompany any DOE site 223 recommendation.
24: .I'd likeTto remind everyone that the Yucca 25 Mountain site.is still under characterization. ~It has not l
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439 El'
~
been selected for development as a repository. It's only
-t 2, --being characterized at this time.
l3) Should DOE decide to propose that Yucca Mountain.
4' be suitable for' development as a-repository, it will submit
-5 .a recommendation.to the' President, along with NRC, along 6 .with the. final EIS, as well as NRC's comments on the. draft
'7 :EIS'.
8
~
NRC.'s requirements'for its part, which'are
-9 cintended to implement the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, as
'10 amended, ' require'.that in any potential license application l
11- for,a geologic' repository, that the license'_ application 12 consist of general information, a safety analysis report, as 1' 3 well'as a final environmental impact statement.
- _14 And the Act also stipulates that in reaching any 15 potential. construction authorization decision to build and 16 . operate.a geologic repository,'NRC shall adopt DOE's EIS, to 17 . the' extent practical.
18- Slide 1four, please. With respect.to the I 19 :- ~ respective roles'of NRC and DOE, the Nuclear Waste Policy
-20 Act,;as amended,4 defines those roles. For its part,. DOE has '
21L the primary responsibility for evaluating'any potential
- 1. i l>
- 22. environmental impacts.
23 The Nuclear Waste Policy Act also stipulates that i n '24 DOE's' EIS is' not required' to consider' the need' for a
~
=25 repos'itory, alternatives to geologic disposal, or ;
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440 1
1 alternatives to the Yucca Mountain site. I
'2 For its'part, NRC is a commenting agency with
)
-3 respect to the' draft EIS, CEO regulations define lead 4 agency and cooperating agency, but not commenting agency.
5: That's done by the Nuclear Waste. Policy Act. And NRC, in 6- its' commenting' role, is expected to provide comments with
-7 ' respect to the environmental impacts-found within its
)
8 jurisdiction or areas of.special expertise, and a background 9 .in what NRC's" role is in the review of the draft EIS 'can be 10' found in the statement of considerations for Part 51, both 11 draft and final, as well as a number of other Commission 12 papersLthat have been written in the past.
13 If the committee needs reference to those 14 Commission: papers, I'd be happy-to provide those numbers
'15 'off-line.
16 MR.-GARRICK: Mike, can you just --
17 MR. LEE: Slide five talks about --
18' MR..GARRICK: Mike?
11 9 MR. LEE: 1 Yes 20 MR. GARRICK: Could you just highlight a'few 21 examples of' jurisdiction and'special expertise in terms of 22 -- give us some heads-up on what the nature of the comments 1
~ 23- might: be' and the direction they'll las headed for? I don't E24 meanLfor you to try to talk.about any results, because you 25- :have:no basis for doing that, but can you amplify that a 1
Oc
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441 1 little bit?
['% )*) 2 MR. LEE: On slide five, I was going to do that.
3 MR. GARRICK: I didn't see it. I looked ahead at 4 five, and that didn't tell me much, and that's why I asked 5 the questical. But go ahead.
6 MR. LEE: Okay. Well, why don't we just cut to 7 the chase. The second bullet on slide five says that NRC is 8 . going to-review and comment on the draft EIS. And what do 9 we think the scope of our review would include? At a 10 minimum, we're going to focus on radiological health and 11 safety issues, both post-closure as well as pre-closure.
12 We're also going to review and examine 13 transportation issues off-site and we're also intending to 14 review any other issues that may have a bearing on the
( 15 judicial review that would take place when DOE's EIS goes 16 final.
I 17 So the short version is we expect to do a thorough '
18 and comprehensive review of the EIS, to the extent we can, 19 during the 90-day public comment period. !
I 20 MR. HORNBERGER: Do you have any examples of what 21 some of these other issues might be? )
22 MR. LEE: I know that doves and bunnies is surely 23 one. That's jargon for fora and fauna, things like that.
24 .But I guess to be more precise, we'll be evaluating the 25 impacts to the existing environment. We'll be looking at
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442 1 issues related to the environmental consequences of
~s
( ) 2 construction, operation and closure, including short-term 3 impacts of those activities.
4 We'll be looking at environmental equity issues.
5 We'll be looking at DOE's proposed mitigation plans for any 6 potential environmental. impacts. We'll be looking at 7- alternative designs which DOE intends on including in the 8 EIS, we understand, under three different thermal loading i 9' regimes. We'll be looking at archeological impact, cultural 10 impacts, socioeconomic impacts, cumulative impacts. 1 1
11 How's that for a start?
12 MR. HORNBERGER: That's pretty comprehensive. But 13 does NRC have areas of special expertise in things like 14 counting bunnies and dollars, economics?
p.
( ). 15 MR ., GARRICK: I think they cut out.
16 MS. WASTLER: Are you there now?
17 MR. HORNBERGER: Yes. Did you hear the question 18 or no?
1' 19 MR. LEE: Dr. Hornberger, you broke up at the time 20 you were.beginning to speak.
21, MR. HORNBERGER: My question was whether NRC had 22 capability, special areas of expertise in some of the areas 23 that you mentioned; for example, ecology or economics.
24 MR. LEE: Yes and no. As part of the development 25 of our review plan, a review group has been assembled. That
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443
.1 iwill consist ofLNRC staff, both in the Division of Waste 2- Management, as'well'as the Spent Fuel l Project Office.
( . In 3' 'those areas for which we don't have the right expertise, for
=4 ~ example, in the. areas that.you just' referenced,-we are going 5 :toJrely on our . contractor' at the center or any subcontractor
-6 that the: center can line up to help compliment that review 17' capability.
- 8. EIt's envirioned"that we're' going to~have all the 9 -right analytical or evaluative capab'ilities in place'. We're 10 ,not going.to have a lot of depth in those capabilities,-but s
11 nonetheless, we hope to have enough of the right type of.
12- staff that'we could look at all the areas of the EIS.
13 .R..GARRICK: . Mike, could you also comment a M
~
14 little bit on the tools you're going to use to address the l 15 health-and safety issue's? Is the integrated safety analysis
'16 going to be a part of this? l
- 17. MR. LEE: Well, I believe, for the post-closure j i
1 81 performance: assessment or for the evaluation of post-closure 19' and post-closure ~ impacts, we're going to rely on our ITA 20f -capability currently in place. That was recently exercised
- 21. for the staff's review of the VA.
~
' 22- For the pre-closure, we. expect to use some H23 capability that has yet to be defined. It's not clear to me 24 if we're going to have the'ISA in place in the next 30 days, 12 5 _ because that's the current schedule for the receipt of the 2
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444 1 EIS. But nonetheless, NRC has, in the past, had extensive i
[<~n} 2 experience in the review of pre-closure safety issues with Gi 3 regard to nuclear facilities. So whatever capability was j 4 available to the staff in the past is certainly available at 5 this time.
6 MR. FAIRHURST: Could I ask a question?
7 MR. GARRICK: Yes.
8 MR. FAIRHURST: Some of these issues, of course, 9 radiological impacts and so on are very long time periods. {
10 A typical environmental impact statement does not deal with 11 these kind of timeframes, right?
12 MR. CAMPBELL: You'll have to repeat the question.
13 MR. FAIRHURST: Sorry. Are we back?
14 MR. CAMPBELL: Try repeating the question.
( ,) 15 MS. WASTLER: San Antonio, could you repeat the 16 question, please, again?
i 17 MR. FAIRHURST: Yes, I will. I was asking that, 1 18 for example, in your integrated safety assessment, that will 19 look at safety over the period of time that -- there they go 20 again. Are we okay now or not?
21 MR. LEE: We still-haven't he.trd you.
22 MR. FAIRHURST: What period of time do these 23 analyses -- or impacts, what periods of time do you 24 traditionally look at?
25 MR. GREEVES: I'll answer the question. There is
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445 1 no cutoff.
/D 2;' 'MR . GARRICK: Could you focus the camera on Mr.
. .V
~3' Greeves?
a 4: MS. WASTLER: San Antonio, I'm sorry, but we lost
.]
5 _. you again- .
i l
6 LMR. HORNBERGER: We'll try it on this end.'
I' -y f 71 MR'. FAIRHURST: John'Greeves said he can answer j 1
8 the question.
)
- 9. MR..GREEVES: The question was, is there any i
10 timeframe for these'EIS reviews. .This is John Greeves, 11 Director of Waste Management. Are you picking me up with
- 12. Jt his mic'okay?.
l 13 MR. CAMPBELL: The court reporter is okay.
c14 MR. GREEVES: The answer to your question.is that j
() 15 there areLno time limits, d 16 MR. LEE: . San Antonio?
17' MR. GREEVES: They just asked how long the EIS 18 -time ~ period would cover,'andJthe answer is there's no l 19 limits.
- : :20 ; MR. LEE: .That's correct. Right now, we expect 21- that DOE;would do an analysis.of impact through peak dose,
! 22 .that's for,the post-closure. Jim, did you want to add ,
l-s j
23- something?. BeyondL10,000 years, DOE is planning on looking ]
- 24. at the results'gualitatively,,not quantitatively.
l
- :25 MR '. FAIRHURST: . Well, what about issues like I l
)
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l 446l transportation?- You're not going to worry about 1 l'
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{
'2. transportation over - -presumably, that has a finite time 3- and then you've got the repository flow,.right?
14 MR. GREEVES: It's whatever makes sense for that 5 particular. technology. We would do for transportation what 6 _ we would_do for a nuclear power plant.
.7 MR. FAIRHURST: And this would be in'any kind of 8 previous environmental impact statement, non-nuclear. issues.
._ 5L MR. GRE3VES: In transportation issues, there was, 10 -I think, a generic EIS that covered that for transportation 11 issues, other issues. I'm not the expert on it, but, yes, 12 there's been EIS's evaluated for things like transportation,
-13 chemicals.
14 MR. HORNBERGER: The real question is, are there
() 15 examples of EIS's that have covered a 10,000 year period.
16 MR. FAIRHURST: Thanks, George.
17- MR. GREEVES: I don't think -- I don't know of 18 "any, other,than --
19- MR. FAIRHURST: Radiation business. J J
20 MR. GREEVES: The chemical business doesn't do it.
- 21 They look at about 30 years.
l 22 MR. HORNBERGER: Are'there examples in the l
. 3' 2 radiation business? Are there examples of EIS's that have 24 been done for low-level sites?
25~ MR. GREEVES: We have not done a low level site.
1
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1 447 L 1 They've been done by the_ states. 1
() .21 MR.-FAIRHURST: My concern'is that somebody l
3 doesn't invent a whole new set of requirements just be.cause '
4 this happens to be a nuclear. It goes way beyond what one 5 would do for any classical environmental impacts.
i 6 My understanding for the radiological hazard, but 1
7 whether one starts then saying the impacts on a population 8 at that time, you have this. fully hypothetical situation of 1
l 9 a population, it doesn't make sense at all. J l 10 My question was really how it got defined.
)
11 MR. CAMPBELL: A point of interest. Did WIPP have I
12 to do an EIS?
13 MR. FAIRHURST: They said there wasn't any, 14 because there are no relations, except by human intrusion.
() 15- MR. CAMPBELL: Did DOE have to do an EIS for WIPP?
~
16 MS. DEERING: Any significant environmental --
17 MR. FAIRHURST: I think we need to look at that.
l 18. MR. LEE: If I might just add. We haven't been 19- able to follow your dialogue there very clearly because of 20 'the breakup in the communication, but.in preparing the EIS, 21 we expect. DOE to-follow the CEQ guidance on what an EIS 22 should cover, the. period for which it should cover, l
23 .That includes both any regulations, as well as j 24 implementing memorandum of guidance. So I don't know if 25 .that helps you or answers your question or contributes to l
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l 448 1- the response that you got.
/-r 2- MR. FAIRHURST:
(} ~
Are you saying that the CEQ has 3 establishedLrules? Are they real established rules for this 4 particular case?
5 MR. LEE: They have general guidance on what an 6 environmental impact' statement should cover. They don't 7 have. specific guidance on what a repository EIS should cover 8 'cnNtransportation'or anything like that.
9- .All right.
Well,-slide six. As-I alluded to 101 earlier,-the staff.is in the process of preparing some 11' proposed review' guidance that-would be used to evaluate' l
12 DOE's draft environmental impact statenent and what we're 13 proposing is'one review that would consist of two 14 . components;fa. comp 3eteness review and what we're referring 15 'to as an evaluative review.
16- In1 terms of the completeness review, as I
'17 mentioned. earlier in response to a question from Dr. Garrick
- 18. and Dr. Hornberger,1we expect to do a' comprehensive 19 evaluation of the EIS to make sure.that it's given due 20 consideration to all potential environmental impacts.
- 21 In conducting that review, we'll rely on guidance 22 Lthat CEQ has provided. That. review, in some respects, will 23 be a.' audit type of review, to make sure that DOE has a
-24 placeholder for all of these potential impacts.
25- LIn its evaluative review,-the staff will do a more l' I 4 %-
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449 h 1 -detailed evaluation of1th'e content of the EIS. That would
'/ \
,b 2:L . include an-evaluation of data, data-gathering methods, and 2( data; analysis techniques.
4 We hope to confirm that the data and analyses that 5' are' included in'the EISLsupport the conclusions that are
'6 " advocated:or proposed in the'EIS. We'll also evaluate '
7' impacts and;any mitigation proposals that DOE is presenting.
- 8. This review, of course, would be a function of how i 9- much we can;do inithat 90-day public comment period. As 10 part of the' development of this review guidance, we have a 11- task force in place, as I mentioned earlier,.with SFPO, OCC 12 and the center. As_the guidance is being finalized, it will 13- be: transmitted to the Commission and we expect copies will 14 be.provided to_the committee for its information.
p*
() .15 I believe that was the same format, more or less, 16 that was followed for the VA review.
17 On slide seven is the proposed schedule that the 18: staff is going to adhere to in the review of the draft EIS.
19 Again, we're following the same format, more or less, that 20 was used.for the VA We expect to transmit the proposed 21 guidance'to the Commission in mid-July. Our current 22 understanding is that DOE intends to issue the draft EIS for 23 public comment on July 30.
24- With respect to post-EIS receipt activities, l
25- again, these dates are contingent on the receipt of the J
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450 11 draft EIS;or the. issuance,- rather, of the draft EIS in July.
.2 As was the case with the VA, we expect to conduct a
- 3. technical exchange with DOE, rather,' in'the August timeframe 4 to-discuss openly any proposed comments or questions we have 5 with' respect'to the DEIS.
'6- We're currently scheduled to brief the ACNW, I 7L think September ^14 is the-date that we are looking at. DOE 8 .has committed to brief the Commission on September 15.
9 . We expect, as'part of our review process, to 10- conduct a' series of public; meetings in the Nevada area. The
- 11. exact number and the location is still being worked on. But
-12 fthis week.is a week that DOE doesn't plan on having any of 13 its public hearings and as a consequence, we thought that
'14 Lwould'be a good week to be at Nevada.
15 So those that aren't aware of it, DOE is proposing l 16 14 public hearings, both locally and nationally, as part of j
'17 the public comment process on the DEIS. Seven are being 18 held in Nevada and then the other seven are to be held 19 nationally, including, I thirik, one in Washington, DC.
20 As part of the staff's review of the draft EIS, we 21: intend on attending or monitoring most, if not all of these 22 public hearings.
4 23 Earlier on the schedule,.we expect to brief the Commission on' October 12.
~
24' We would expect that the ACNW, as I 25 p' art of its' deliberative process, would brief the Commission ,
' N .
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E 451 1 at some time in October, at a time that you'all work out hO 2 'with SECY, and the public comment period ends, I guess, V.. '
3 October 28.
4 We do know that the' State'of Nevada has already L 5' requested.that the public comment period be extended. We lt
- j .'6' 'know>that DOE is preparing a response at this time. We i
7 don't know what the nature of that response is, l- 8 That's it.
~
9 MR. FAIRHURST: Well we asked quite a few
-10 . questions during the presentation.
11 MR. GARRICK: Mike, I don't think you're expecting 12 any-comments or a letter between now and when we get briefed
.13 - inLSeptember, but we might want to do something following the' September meeting.
14 !s that correct?
() 15 MR. CAMPBELL: He's startled.
16 MR. WYMER: He's frozen.
17 MR. GARRICK: How come it worked so well yesterday 18 afternoon?
19 MR. LEE: We're back.
20' MR.-GARRICK: We were just raising the question of 21^ actions by the committee'. I don't think we're in much of a 22 position'to say anything at this time as far as a letter is 23 concerned, but we probably will following the September
~24- briefing. Is..that what you're expecting?
25- MR. LEE: Sure. I think -- yes, that's correct. 1 ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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[ _p 452 1 I think one of the challenges for the. committee is to define l'\_-/-t 2 what itsirole is in the review of the draft as the staff is 3' Ldoing its parallel ~ review.
4- .MR.-GARRICK: Right.
5 MR. LEE: As I noted earlier in the opening 65 remarks, the EIS or the DEIS, rather, isn't falling into
- 7. .this nice, clean KTI format. In theory, all the KTIs are 8 . preserved, because we're focusing on both post-closure and 9 pre-closurecimpacts with' respect to the EIS itself and the 10 .KTIs ultimately. roll up in'that' regard'.
11 But as I'said, the focus now is more on 12 performance or dose, I should say.
'13- MR. GARRICK: Have there been any -- much exchange 11 4 . 'between NRC and DOE on the issues and content?
T ,(. 15 MR. HORNBERGER: They're gone. Are you backi 16 MR. GARRICK: What has been the level of exchange
-17 between the staff and the DOE on the EIS?
18 MR. LEE: Essentially, none. DOE -- for 19- everyone's benefit, NRC conducts all its interactions, both 201 at staff.and~ management levels,-in public forums. The DOE 21 haslmade it clear that given the nature of the information 22 -that's in the EIS, they -- I guese the short version is they 23 haven't been willing'to meet with us because they know that
'24 the. meetings would be public meetings.and they don't want to 25 idisclose'.the content'of the EIS until it's available for 1
l l
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i 453
- 1
- .public comment.
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1% . ,
2 So because the staff isn't going to interact with
.3: DOE in a'non-public~ fashion, we've had -- the only i
4- interaction we've had have been at TRB meetings, where we
! 5 can hear the presentations at the same time the public has.
6 We're assuming that - .yes?
7 14R . FAIRHURST: ~ Keep going.
8 MR. HORNBERGER: I.just wanted;to ask, Mike, is it 9 a single' contractor who has done the DEIS for DOE?
10 MR.-LEE: I believe it's multiple contractors.
11 iWendy Dixon's group is the lead within DOE for prepaling the
-12 EIS. I know that for the' post-closure dose assessment, they 13 , relied on-PNL. I think that Jason & Associates is'the lead
.14 subcontractor'under the M&O for preparing the EIS.
- f') .
( ,/. 15 But in terms of the number and types of T16 subcontractors that. DOE relied on, it's not really clear to 17 me. I know those-two.
18 MR.-FAIRHURST: How does the dose assessment'for 19 the EIS -- maybeTI'm' missing something -- differ from the 20 ' assessment'that's u_ing done through performance assessment?
21 What's the difference?-
22: MR. LEE: We're b'ack. Okay.
23'. MR '. FAIRHURST: I was wondering. Could you 24 explain a little bit -- it may be difficult for you to
'25 . explain,. since you've.had no dialogue with them, but you say N)
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454 r
1 .PNL is doing the post-closure dose assessment part of the l '2' EIS. ;I'm saying, how -- does that.mean that they're doing a 3 totally-independent analysis of the performance assessment s- 4 or what? I l 5' MR. LEE: It's my underctanding that what PNL is I'can't speak-for DOE, but it's my understanding that
~
6 --
-7 what DOE has-done is the performanc'e assessment capability 4
8 that,was being. developed under Abe Van Lube, that capability j 9 'was copied, more or less, in the code, in the model, the 10 data, and handed off to.PNL and PNL, working with the EIS 11 team, exercised that same capability, data, models,
'12~ whatever,.for the purposes of their post-closure performance 13 assessment.
14 They're working with the same capability, more or
' 15 -
less. They just had other hands exercising it.
16 ~MR, FAIRHURST: So it's, in essence, a 17 semi-independent check of calculations, right?
18 MR, LEE: I wouldn't know. I can't answer that. l
'19 MR. REAMER: There's no difference, theoretically. j l
20 But all of this is pretty speculative. I want to underscore l 21 that we have.not had the interaction with DOE on the 22 document. We can try to speculate-and answer your questions
>23 as best we can,;but really it's the Department of Energy i 24 that holds the answer to your questions. It's not the NRC 25 staff' .
I i
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455 1 -MR. FAIRHURST: And part, I think, of the 2 committee's problem is that we're asking questions when we
-3 haven't.seen anything and you haven't seen anything and 4 we're all guessing, trying to somehow respond to the ;
I 5 presentation.
15 MR. GREEVES: May I ask? Does the committee have c
-7 a --
l 8 MR. LEE: I mean, one of the -- this is unlike the 9 TDL With the.VA,'it was telegraphs, we had a lot of 11 0 - experience reviewing background' documents and a number of 11 interactions' leading up to the review of the VA. This is a 12 different situation, again, because of. DOE's desire to keep 13 the EIS non-public until it's available for public comment l 14' We didn't have the luxury this time of involving '
O) q, 15 ~ourselves with DOE and getting a better appreciation for the
. 16 types and kinds of information and the conclusions that it 17 might contain.
18 MR. GREEVES: Who would be a lead member on this l 1
- 19 topic?. We'd like to' keep you informed. In the past, you've 20 sort of selected a lead member on a topic. So the one who i 21 is asking the most questions is maybe a candidate?
22 MR..FAIRHURST: That's only because they told me I 23 had.to ask questions.
1 24 MR. GARRICK: Mike, what would happen if'the EIS 1 25 performance assessment was substantially different than what ;
l
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456 1 we're. hearing about now? Just to follow-up on Charles' l\ l2 inquiry. l
, : (f; 1
3- MR. FAIRHURST: That's right.
I 4- MR. HORNBERGER: Nobody knows. i I
5- MR. LEE: Who is to say?- I mean, quite frankly, )
6 .we're working under the assumption that the EIS is going to l
-We understand that the EIS is going 7
l contain.no surprises.
8 'to; rely on the same data, models and codes that were being 9 ~ developed in site characterization space, as well as other 10 information'that's being collected by 00E as part of its 11- . environn-ental impact site characterization program.
12' We don't expect any surprises.
13 MR. GARRICK: Isn't the EIS going to have --
14 MR. LEE: I can't -- I don't --
r 15 MR. GARRICK: 1sn't the EIS going to have the same 16 problem'that you're having? Namely, it's going to be a i L17 snapshot of a design that probably is no longer valid.
18- MR. P. LEE: If I--could, sir. We're going.to fix 19 this.: I am rebooting and having about five' minutes worth of
. 20 ~ my equipment reset'to try and clarify this.
21 MR. GARRICK: Yes. Mike, we're going to take a
- 22 five-minute break and see if we can improve the l 23 . communication.
24' 'MR. LEE: Okay.
l 25 [ Recess.].
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457 1 'MR. GARRICK: The meeting will come to order,
~
2; please.
l
'b l
3; 'We were-talking, Mike, a little bit about the
.4 instability.'of the design and'the implications of that with
-5 respect to the EIS. I suspect it's no different than any of
- 6. 'the other issues we've been dealing with in that regard.
l
./ 'MR. LEE: The only thing I would say is that we 8 know that DOE is going.to consider a number of design l '9 alternatives for purposes of bounding potential impact. So l.
10' .even though the design may still be in finx, I think the
~ 11 . intent of the'EIS is to identify potential impacts and try 12 to articulate some bounds'on what those impacts might be.
.13' I don't think there is a big problem there.
.14 - MR. GARRICK: One other area that we started 15 discussing.and maybe we can hear some more comment on is i 16- that' eventually, even:though there are restricti ns on the 17 NRC jurisdiction and.the' implications of the rule-making 18 .that took place with respect to expertise and jurisdiction 19 some.several years ago, eventually, the NRC has to adopt 20 this EIS.
t
'21 ' Now,. what-do you do if, on the one hand, you're
'22 . satisfied'in accordance with the rule and your expertise and l 23 Lthe area of jurisdiction, but,'on the other hand, you know l
24' there are:some.other things outside your' jurisdiction that !
~25 ' you're uncomfortab1e' with, and a lot of those things you I
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458 1 don't haveIto'be an expert in to at least have some insight
()
3 2f and understanding of that?
3 How do you deal with that? How do you deal with 4- the situation where, according to the letter of the law, 5 you've satisfied'the recuirements, but from a technical I
~6 standpoint,,you just know something else isn't complete or !
7 meets the high. standards of the-Nuclear Regulatory
'8' Commission?-
I 9 MR. LEE: Well, without. specifics, I would say 10- that as part of our review of the draft, we would hopefully 11 identify any and all areas for which we had some degree of
~12 uncomfortableness and comment on those areas during the
':13 review of the draft.
-14 For its part, we anticipate that DOE, in v
g ) 15 evaluation of public comments, would prepare, as parts of 16 its Federal Register notice announcing the availability of 17 the final EIS, would have some administrative record on how 18- it' addressed and responded to each of the various comments.
19 'Be that as it may, though, once DOE issues its 20 final EIS, we expect,~and this is stated, I guess, in the 21' I statute, that there would be the potential for judicial 22 review and litigation of any' issues that were, in the 23 opinion of litigants, not satisfactorily addressed.
24 So we wouldn't be' involved in that. The statute 25- has said?that? falls under the purview of the courts of j'%,/ )- ~
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, 459 sl- . appeal.
- [v')
2 I mean, is:there some area specifically that 3- you'reLconcerned:about?
4 MR. GARRICK: Well, one of the things that we have 5' 'been sensitive to in the nuclear field is that sometimes 6 there:is the feeling that the nuclear standards'are very 7 much different than other standards-in terms of the high 8 level of safety requirements and, of course, the EIS is 9 going to.ad' dress a lot of other issues than nuclear safety 10 and radiological issues.
,11 So the only thought there is that --
is this an 12 opportunity to 't'ry to begin to' introduce concerns and 13 questions that:would~be constructive with respect to moving
'144 in a more harmonious direction with respect to issues of
'15 risk and safety.
16' I' realize that --
17- HMR . LEE: Well', I'think we all have to remember
'18 what the EIS is intended to do or the role it's intended to J
19 . serve in the program, and that's as a decision-making tool 20 for DOE as part of its deliberative process on suitability.
21 .of designing and. building and operating a repository at
~22 Yucca' Mountain.
23 Issues related to public health and safety are 24 < covered in.NRC's regulations. So I think that that dialogue 25 is taking place right now. DOE knows it's going to have to
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i 460 1 ! implement NRC's regulations'and we've had, over the last two l
)
-['N 2 ' decades, many meetings and. exchanges on how NRC's o<
- 3. regulations would be implemented or what we would expect, 4 even-though we have a new regulation being proposed, the 5 level or the1 standard of demonstration that DOE would have 6- to' meet.
7~ DOE-knows.they have to be transparent in their 8 decision-making and'that their demonstrations need to or 9- should be subject.to the rigor and evaluation fol]owing the i
10 scientific method. 'We should be able to take their data, !
' ll- methods, models, and implement.them and come up with the 12 same. conclusions'that DOE does.
13 MR. HORNBERGER: Mike, to go into a licensing, 1
> 14 does, in fact, NRC have to adopt-the EIS and if so, could l
() 15 you clarify for me a little bit what the word adopt actually 16 entails?
17' MR. LEE: I think I'm going to defer to our 18 resident attorney,.Neal Jensen, who happens to be in the' ;
19 audience, who could talk a little bit about the adoption 20- process.
21 There is guidance in.10.CFR 51 about what that adoption would' involve. -Here is Neal. ;
23 MR. JENSEN.: The' Commission issued regulations in 24 11989 governing its process for adopting DOE's EIS. We are 25
~
legally mandated to adopt it to the extent practicable. We
'9
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461 1 placed',-at.that time, in our regulations, the standard by.
4 N~ V 2 which we would judge whether it.was practical or not, and L
b-l 13' <that's 1109-C of.our regulations, which I'm looKing for at 64- the moment.
5 That provides that we will find -- or the 6- presiding officer at the hearing.will. find that it is 7 practical-to, adopt DOE's EIS, unless one or two events.
8 First, the action proposed to be taken by the Commission 9 differsifrom the action proposedcin the license-application 10 submitted by the Secretary and the difference may fil- 'significantly affect the quality of the human environment.
.' 12 .Or the second problem that might prevent us from 13 -finding it practicable to adopt-is if we were to find 14 significant.and substantial new information or new
/"'
( N: j 15 considerations renderin.g such EIS inadequate, 16 So what the committee has said is that barring one l
l x 17. or the other of those two findings, we will find it 18 practicable to adopt the EIS.
! 19 Now, the Commission has also said that, for 20 example, if new information should come to light between the 21 time DOE submits the application and the time of the i
22 licensing hearing, we would anticipate that DOE would l 23
~
supplementLits EIS and take account of that new information
' 244 and we'would' adopt the supplemental EIS under the same 2!L standard.
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462 1 MR. HORNBERGER: Thank you.
)' 2 MR. FAIRHURST: So you are able -- I mean, DOE is 3' able to submit the license application while there are 4 issues still being resolved with regard to an EIS. Are the i 5 two enough linked or is that --
6 MR. JENSEN: DOE's final EIS is anticipated, I 7 believe, in July of 2000 and the application is, I think, to i
8 be submitted.in 2001 or 2002. So hopefully, there won't be 9 substantial new information that will affect the final EIS.
10 But if there is, then our regulations call for DOE providing 11 a supplemental EIS to take account of the new information.
12 MR. FAIRHURST: And so you can adopt that. There 13 is no time linkage, but you have to adopt it before you 14 proceed to examine the license application. Is that what n
15 I'm hearing?
(s-)
16 MR. JENSEN: No. The adoption takes place in the 17 context of the licensing decision. It would be adopted in 18 the decision of the presiding officer.
1 19 MR. FAIRHURST: I see.
20 MR. JENSEN: Which, of course, that would be 21 reviewed by the Commission.
1 22 MR. FAIRHURST: NRC has, what is it, three years 23 to make a determination on the license application?
24 MR. JENSEN: Right. The regulation in 51.109 (a) l 25 provides that when we issue the notice of hearing, the il O ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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l 463 1 staff, at that time, will announce its decision as to b}
[ 2 3
whether-the staff believes whether it is practicable to adopt DOE's EIS.
4 Opposing parties may then disagree with that and 5 then have an opportunity to submit contentions demonstrating i 6 their position that it is not practicable to adopt, and then 7 that' issue will come before the presiding officer. I 8 MR. FAIRHURST: I see. So people can challenge. I 9 So intervenors can challenge NRC and the hearing officer is 10 the one that -- okay.
'11 MR. JENSEN: Yes.
12 MR. LEE: But not in the EIS. On the license 13' application.
14- MR. FAIRHURST: They can't challenge --
h (j 15 MR. JENSEN: Whether or not it's practicable for 16 us to adopt. Not the issues in the EIS, but whether it is 17 practicable -- assuming staff takes the position that it is l 18 practicable for the NRC to hdopt the EIS, that staff can be !
l 19 challenged in the licensing proceeding. :
- 20. MR. FAIRHURST: But you can go ahead and examine 21 the license application while that challenge is being 22 resolved. ;
23 MR. JENSEN: Yes.
l 24 MR :. FAIRHURST: Okay.
25 MR. GARRICK: All right. Any other questions?
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i 464l.
1- Any' questions from the staff?
I 'O 2~ MR. LARSON: So you do have 51.109'in your V
3 notebook back in Section I, but it's in with 51 and among 4- the hundreds of pages. Yon will find similar words. ,
i 5' MR.'GARRICK: All right. Thanks a lot, Mike.
6 Unless there.are other questions, I think we're through with l 7 that topic now. We were expecting that --
.8 MR. RUSSELL: A. question.
'9 MR. GARRICK: Yes.
10- MR. CAMPBELL: You're going to have to go to a
'll microphone, and it's not that one.
12- MR'. RUSSELL: I think it's a trivial question. I 13 was noticing that the NWPA doesn't require the DOE to 14 consider alternatives, and yet when you were discussing the
(
-v 15 other possible issues that might be considered during the 16 review, you mentioned alternatives. I'm not clear on the 17 disparity there.
l 18 MR. GARRICK: Would you give your name?
19 MR. RUSSELL: Blaine Russell. I'm a consultant
'20 here.'at the center. l I
21- MR. GARRICK: Okay.
1 22' MR. LEE: - DOE Is required to consider design 23 . alternatives in its EIS, but not alternatives to geologic L 24 Ldisposal. Does that answer the question?
l 25- HMR . RUSSELL. Thanks.
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1 465 1 MR. HORNBERGER: And not alternative sites, is
\ 2 that right?
U Alternative designs you're talking about.
.3 MR. LEE: That's correct. Alternative designs, in 4 the context'of Yucca Mountain, but not alternatives to Yucca 5 Mountain.
6~ MR. HORNBERGER: Right.
7 MR. GARRICK: Any other questions? I l
8 (No response.] -
9 MR. GARRICK: Okay. Thanks, Mike.
10 We had scheduled to break for 10:00. We're a 11 little ahead of schedule, which I'm encouraged by, because J12- it will give us more time for our one-on-one that I think we 13 would like to have.
14 If Keith McConnell is ready, I think we'd like to
() '15 move.directly into the discussion of defense-in-depth.
16 MR. McCONNELL: For the record, I'm Keith 17 McConnell. .I'm the Section Chief for Performance Assessment 18 in NRC's' Division of Waste Management.
19 MS. WASTLER: I'm sorry, Keith. What's the 20 question?
21 MR. McCONNELL: There is no question.
22 The way I was going to approach this part of the 23 . presentation is have a little bit of introduction and then 24' Tim will go through a review of what's in Part 63 and 25 discuss it, as far as defense-in-depth requirements, and
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- 1. 'then'I1will come-back.and I will talk about basically the 2 plan.that's being developed.within the Division of Waste
'3 Management to address defense-in-depth and clarify the L 4- particulars.
5 So it's kind of a three-part presentation. It's i l
-6 going _to end.up.being relatively short, also, I believe.
)
-7 MR. GARRICK: Okay. )
8~ MR. McCONNELL: So, again, our purpose here today 9- is'toLinitiate the dialogue with the committee on our i 1
-10 efforts to clarify the. requirements for defense-in-depth for 11 the proposed repository at Yucca-Mountain. .
I 12 -I think as the committee and others are aware, '
13- over thr ast couple of months, since Part 63 was issued for 14 public . nment, a number of issues have been raised about
- p)
Q .. 15 the particular requirements; for example, whether'they are 16 sufficient to provide for defense-in-depth for a repository.
17l Also, there were questions about what the staff expectations t
-18 were for defense-in-depth and how we expect DOE to _
19 '. demonstrate defense-in-depth.
20 The: most prominent venue for those comments and
-21 ' questions was the Commission meeting that'was held in March
[ :22 on DOE's viability assessment, where the committee and other
-23 stakeholders addressed this particular issue and-I think raised a' number of these comments and questions.
2 5 .- One of'the outcomes and.the principal outcome from O ANN.RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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- 1. that meeting was direction from the Commission to the staff j
) 2 in the~ form of a staff requirements memorandum that we 3
evaluate how we could more clearly address'the issue of 4 defense-in-depth in our requirements in Part 63 and to I 5 foster-a common understanding of that term
- 6. I-would note,.also,.that in our public meetings on 7 Part 63 that we had in Nevada in March, that this issue was 8 .also raised and was a prominent issue at those meetings.
9 This, in essence, this presentation is kind of a 10 precursor of our response. We've developed a draft plan to 11 address defense-in-depth. It's now in concurrence within 12 NMSS, so'it's likely to change. There is not all that much 13' substance in it at this point, but be assured that we do 14 intend to come back:to the committee later in the year to 1 1
1 15 discuss more substantive aspects of defense-in-depth. i j
16 .Unfortunately, if you listened to the EIS schedule 17 and you look at the schedule that I will present a little
-18 -bit later, scheduling all these things so that they don't 19 conflict is~ going to be.a challenge in itself, I believe.
20 I guess if there are no questions or comments at 21- .this' time, I'll turn it over to Tim, who will go through 12 2 , 'what's in Part 63 with respect to defense-in-depth at this 23' ' time. l 24- MR. McCARTIN: I'll be discussing, as Keith 25 mentioned, the approach we had when we proposed Part 63, and
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468 1- I'd like"to touch on-four particular areas.
- s[~'\
11
.2- First, I'll talk about the definiti'on of the 3 defense-in-depth. concept, what's required in Part 63, then, 4 plus, some specifics about the requirements for multiple 5 barriers, and then what quantitative approaches are possible 6 for_ demonstrating multiple barriers.
- 7 With that, .everyone.is familiar with the
'8 Commission; white paper on risk-informed performance-based l
9' regulation, and in that paper, they did define the concept )
10' 'of defense-in-depth and I highlighted, although there's a 1 11 lot'of words here, I tried to highlight aspects that we
- 12 .believe are. applicable to the approach for disposal of high-13 -level
- waste and multiple barriers, from' employing successive 14 compensatory measures to mitigate damage if there is a 15- malfunction or naturally-caused event; ensure that safety 16 will'not be wholly dependent on a single element; and, the 17 facility or system in. question has to be more tolerant of l18- failures and external challenges.
19 And all those aspects and the philosophy of 20 ' defense-in-depth,'we believe, we accomplish through
~ 21 requiring the -- the requirement for multiple barriers.
-22 Specifically, what is in the regulation, and Part 23; -63 is relatively simple in its requirements. There is a 25 24 millirem annual. dose limit that is estimated through a
- 25 ~ performance assessment. That must include an analysis of f . ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034 g
469 1: ' uncertainty in those dose estimates.
' /) 2 Secondly, there is a demonstration of the A./
-3 capability of-multiple barriers. Multiple barriers imply 4 Jand are required to be both engineered and natural, and a 5 stylized calculation for human intrusion.
- 6 This point is a little more detailed. What the 7 regulation requires for multiple barriers; very simply, a 8 barrier is defined as any material or structure that 9 ' prevents or substantially delais movement of water or 10 -- radioactive material. That is what'makes it a barrier.
'11 There are -- as we've done, there are no quantitative 12 requirements for individual barriers; however, DOE is 13' required to identify the barriers, describe their 14 ' capability, and provide the technical basis for the 15- capability of that barrier.
16 This affords DOE flexibility to identify and take 17 credit for whatever barriers they want and select whatever 18 " approach they believe is appropriate for demonstrating that 19 contribution.
20 With that' flexibility, which isLwhat we tried to 21 provide in Part 63,, DOE has that responsibility. We aren't 22 Edictating to them what to do. And I think -- what are we
- 23 thinking about when we' talk about this demonstration of 24" Lmultiple barriers?
'25; First, what we had in mind was DOE will do a
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470 1 performance _ assessment. In that performance assessment, )
2 they are going to make assumptions about the behavior of the i .3 engineering and the natural system, some aspects of that 4 system.will act as barriers, and it's in the context of the 2 5 performance' assessment that we're expecting this analysis to 6' be done.
.7 Specifically, the barriers should be 8 representative of distinct features, characteristics or 9 attributes of the repository system. For example, the i i
10- engineered barrier unsaturated zone,' alluvium of the 11 unsaturated zone, we weren't looking for -- we were looking 12 for broad categories. We were not expecting an analysis -- j 13 you could go to, gee, is each waste package a barrier. l 14 You have the inner container, the outer container,
() 15' a ceramic coating, the cladding, the fuel itself, a drip
'16 shield, the unsaturated zone; do you have every individual 17 layer, every ten meters of the saturated zone, is that a 18 barrier.
.19 We are not looking to have barriers defined in a 20 very fine fashion, but looking at more broader attributes.
21 And byzthat, you can look at the capability of barriert, and 22 that second. point, should be explained in terms of the 23' definition of the barrier, which is preventing or 24' substantially! delaying-the movement of radioactive materials 25- or water.
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471 1 For example, the waste package delays releases for
'['N 2- many, many years. The unsaturated zone shields the O
3 repository from a lot of water. Deep percolation is only a 4 smallzfraction of the. annual precipitation. That also 5 contributes ~to performance.
6 The unsaturated zone limits the number ef vaste ! l 7 packages that get wet. Just the natural system itself, 1' EL heterogeneity, water doesn't rain down into the repository. l 9 We do not' expect all the packages to get wet.
10 Thereby, that unsaturated zone limits the number 11 of packages that get wet and thereby limits the radioactive 12 waste that's available for release to the ground water.
13 And, lastly, the alluvium in the unsaturated zone !
14- significantly' delays many of the radionuclides by
( -15
~
absorption. For example, although there are certain 16 radionuclides, such as iodine, technetium, neptunium, that 17- .may be slightly retarded, the vast majority of radionuclides l 18 in the inventory never make it to the critical group because 19 it's' retarded in the alluvium; not because they didn't get 20 out of the waste package, but there is retardation in the I
- 21. geosphere that prevent them from ever getting there in
.22 -10,000 years.
23- Lastly,'we-believe that a risk-informed approach, 124" d the rigor needed to 'efend the barriers' capability should
'25- .be proportional.to its'importance.to performance.
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472 1- And what does DOE have to do? We're looking at l--y{
i-[ 2 laboratory field. measurements that certainly can be done for 3 some attributes, analog studies certainly can be brought 4- forward to give1some basis for why we believe that 5 . capability exists for that particular barrier.
6 A n d' , finally, quantitative approaches. There are 7 -.many ways to' illuminate, provide insights in terms of a 8 barrier's capability and how it is affecting the overall 9- performance'of the facility. There are safety analyses 10 where you'can look at parameters, alternative models, the 11' importance analysis that Norm, I think, appropriately said 12 'the other day,"that'it actually is another form of 13 sensitivity analysis.
14 DOE has done one-off analysis-. Our regulations of 151 -10,000 year compliance, maybe you do some analyses beyond 16- -10,000 years to show attributes of how the-barriers are l1 '17 functioning.
18 All of those are possible. We have not dictated 19- to DOE how'to do that demonstration. It will depend on what
- 20. types'of barriers, their' analysis, information that is still 21' coming in.- We're open to any approach that makes the PA and e
., 22 the' capability of the barriers they've used more transparent )
'a
' ' I
- 23 and suppo'rts a more informed licensing decision, but we're 24 relying on the DOE. It will.be their analyses.
25 Although we'know what we might do with our i l
l
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E-473
- 1 .particular. code,'ittisn't the DOE's code and they will have
'2' -- they.;have their code,;they're the experts with.their l'
l-3 . code, they'll have to make that determination; what 4- illuminates the multiple barriers.the best and most 5~ effectively.
'6, .W ith'that,.that's -- I don't.know if we want to l
l .7- take: questions now-or after Keith's presentation.
l 8 -MR. McCONNELL: I'll' leave it up to the committee.
9 LI think,this is the more technical part of the discussion L10 here. So I assume, if you have technically related-
! 11 Lquestions, it might be appropriate to address them now.
12- 'MR; .GARRICK: The only comment I want to make is
-13 -that this committee.was-in very strong support of the 14' . elimination of subsystem requirements, but I think sometimes by 15 'what's lost in~that is we were also in very strong support
-16 ' of. understanding quantitatively the performance of l 17 i'ndividual barriers.
l -18 And I think.sometimes when we present this
- 19. material,- there is the implication that we might be going 20 backwards here, and that's just not the case.
- 21. . When you say no quantitative requirements for
-22 individual. barriers, what we're -- the emphasis, of course, 23- -is on.the requirements. On the other hand, we are pushing j' 24 very hard that we quantify the performance of individual l: '25. barriers.
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474 1 So I just'wouldn't want either the public or-2 anybody else ;o get the impression that the committee is 3 moving away from quantification. On the contrary. We're 4 ' pushing-very hard.that it's not the requirements that's 5 important, it's_ understanding what the performance of these 6 barriers is, and we are in a much better position now to 1L quantify that than.we ever have been before, and that should l
)
8 be the_ emphasis.
9 MR. McCONNELL: I think we've heard the committee.
10 Tim,'let me start,_and I'll shift it. I think we've heard
-11 the committee. I think our overall goal.in all these 12 efforts is to'not reintroduce subsystem _ performance 13 objective into the rule.
.14 MR, GARRICK: Right.
15 MR. McCONNELL: But we also have heard you, from 16 your March '98 and October.'97' letters, that you do want 17 quantification, and I think the post-processor, that I guess ,
18 will'be discussed this afternoon, is an attempt to bring 19 _this quantification out and to make the analysis more l 20' E transparent, but more.in the context of how we would review 21 .a license application.
_22- Sorry, Tim, go ahead. ,
-23 MR. McCARTIN: I don't know if I have much to add.
24' ILthink we certainly.do agree that we want things to be 25 quantified. 'And we certainly struggled in writing Part 63, I
l
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475 1~ .where-you dont have quantitative' requirements, how do you L/~N' 2 work in what you want to see.
.V ~3 And what we've heard, I think, so far, in the 4- comments we've heard, is that we left it' purposely fuzzy so 5 thatLDOE had. flexibility to select particular. approaches.
6 Somehow we need to try to better explain.,what we want to see 7 'in terms ofiilluminating the understanding of how the 8' barriers are3 functioning and we'll obviously-be talking to 9 the committee, as well-as responding to the public. comments, 10 .trying to~give a'better explanation.
111 But-'it's difficult to get that into words in the
'12 rule and we're open.to suggestions. We're hoping we get, 13 both from the committee, we hear you, and the public 14 comments, we're hoping we'can improve that' tone in the
.c 15 ..regul'ation.
161 .MR. GARRICK: Thanks, Tim 17 MR. HORNBERGER: Tim, I.was interested to read --
18- I guess it's the final draft or the penultimate draft of 19 Jack Sorenson's paper, and it strikes me that what you're 20 doing;is'you have.an opportunity here to take the ;
21 rationali'st approach,'as described by Jack, and not be l l
22; shackled by the so-called structuralist approach because of l 23 prior regulations. !
24 Do you view it that way, also, to try to move it 25 in that direction?
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476 1 MR. McCARTIN: I don't know if I've read that
() 2'
-3 paper. Was that the ACRS paper?
Yes.
MR. HORNBERGER: I'd recommend it to you.
4 MR. McCARTIN: Yes. I have read it. I didn't 5 know -- I don't recognize the author's name. But, yes, I 6 think we agree with their approach.
7 MR. GARRICK: Okay. Anymore questions before we 8 turn to Keith?
9 MR. HORNBERGER: We'll wait until Keith is 10 finished and ask some questions then.
11 MR. GARRICK: Okay.
12 MR. McCONNELL: What I'm going to do is address 13 basically the plan that we're developing in response to the 14 Commission direction and what I will attempt to do is I
n) 15 respond to four questions; what are the underlying bases for 16 implementing defense-in-depth, and I think we've probably 17- already addressed that in Tim's-presentation; how will we 18 clarify our expectations for demonstrating defense-in-depth 19 through multiple barriers; when and how will the 20 clarifications be made available to the public and other 21 stakeholders in this process; and, what is the schedule of 22 planned activities.
23 With respect to the underlying bases for i
24 implementing defense-in-depth, as Tim indicated, we're going i l
25 to ensure that the Commission's white paper on risk-informed l
Q
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477 1 ; performance-based regulation is a part of our regulation and 1 :2- .our' Yucca? Mountain; review plan.
'3 It was issued after,the proposed rule was put out l'
4 -- tor public comment, but we think that the rule probably 5 . embodies.the ph'ilosophy.that'the Commission had in that
' white' paper, andi also the requirements in the proposed Part
~
6-
.7 :63.
8 tWe' haven't' looked at public. comments to date, but' 9 _our' expectation is right now,'I guess in ignorance.of those
- 10. 'public. comments, that'the requirements in Part 63 would1.'t 11- change'substantially. But, again, our overall goal is to 12 avoid thejimposition or reimposition of subsystem-13' performance objectives in the regulation.
14 How will we clarify.our expectations for
( h' 15 demonstrating ~ defense-in-depth through multiple barriers?
016 Again, in response to public comments, we'll refine the 17- requirements as.needed. But more importantly, we're going 18 to use the Yucca Mountain review plan and the acceptance 19: criteria and review methods in:that review plan as the 20 primary ~ context. We will define how we will review 21: defense-in-depth and what we expect DOE to demonstrate for
~
22: 'those particular requirements. l 23 I_would, I guess, point out that it's not
- 24 -unexpected that we receive comments on defense-in-depth. I 12 5 thinkJwe anticipated'that.when we drafted the proposed rule, l
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478 :
1 1 because it'is'such a. substantial change from what's in Part
'2 63,'and in the SOC, we indicated that we were developing the
)
3- Yucca Mountain review plan and would provide more detailed l
-4 guidance in that review plan.
i 5
When and how will' clarifications be made available L 6 to allist?keholders? Well, you're probably aware we had a 7- technical exchange with DOE in May, where we discussed 8- ' defense-in-depth in brief, and they laid out on the table 9 some of their techniques that they're using to implement i 10 defanse-in-depth. We do intend to coordinate with the !
- 11 advisory committee, as well as the joint ACRS/ACNW Committee l
- 12 on Risk-Informed Regulation, as well as NRR and others 13 within the agency.
14 'We also intend to have a public meeting in Nevada !
( 15 to discuss the Yucca Mountain review plan in general and the 16 approach to defense-in-depth in particular. !
17 Again, scheduling that meeting amongst all the EIS 18 meetings and'not conflicting is going to be a challenge for 4
19- us, because we've heard from the public out there that all 20' these. meetings can become burdensome for the participants l 21 out there. So we'll see what happens.
22 With respect to the schedule of planned 23 -activities,Lagain, this is proposed. It's in concurrence 2'4 within NMSS, so it could change. The top three have
'25~ basically been done. We won't go through all of these, but
(#
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l' 479 )
1- I1would direct.your attention,to four and five. Four and
- 2 five note where we're going.to speak internally and 35 externally about
- our approaches and gaining information from l 4 'other stakeholders in'this proces to make sure we're
-5 ' consistent in-approach within NRC, and also that we've
! ~ 6 .- gotten the views of the public and other stakeholders.
l ..
17L Also, I'd direct your attention to numbers seven 8 and eight. Number seven basically notes that we intend to ,
I 9 come;back to the committee prior to the issuance of the 10 final rule on Part-63 -- not the issuance, I'm sorry -- the
-11 completion of the draft rule that would be submitted to the 12 Commission, to discuss our appro ch or proposed approach and
'13 'get your input at that time.
- 14 I think we will probably be communicating with you
- 15 ' 'informally before that, es we have done on other topics.
And then number eight, our, I guess, conclusion is
-17 that we expect to complete a proposed approach to 18 -clarification of defense-in-depth by November and include it
-19 in the package that gos3 to the Commission on the proposed 20 final rule at Part 63.
.21 So basically, over the next six months, we've got 1 22 .a lot of work to do-in defense-in-depth and in review of the 23 draft EIS,.as does the committee and the committee staff.
24 So if nothing gets delayed, we have a lot of 25 interesting times ahead of.
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1 l
l 1 480 1 That's basically the end of my presentation. Tim, 2- do:you have~anything to add?
[}
3 .MR. McCARTIN: No. I
~4 MR.. McCONNBLL: So I'd open it up for comment.
5- MR. HORNBERGER: Great. Keith, could you perhaps 6 expand:just a little bit on what you learned in the 7 technical exchange a month ago?
8 MR. McCONNELL: -Well, as you:know, DOE has been i 9 attempting to implement an importance analysis type of 10 ' approach to demonstrating defense-in-depth. They discussed 11 that with the TRB several months ago and they expanded on 12 that discussion in the technical exchange, and I would
..13 .probably defer to Norm and Tim, but my perception was that 14 it was a refinement of what Norm and Budhi are working on, (O _j 15 where they do neutralize either a barrier or a component of 16' a. barrier and then compare the results of that analysis with
- 17 Lthe overall -- or with the' nominal case, in essence.
18' So, again, the relative importance of a particular 19 barrier. Budhi, do you'-- Tim or Norm?
20J MR. McCARTIN: .I guess I would only add one thing 1 that I thought we got-from the tech exchange; that in
~
21
- 22. talking about the neutralization, one of the things that I I 23 think_-- you need to be-very careful when you start 24 -neutralizing the barriers and one of the reasons the ;
25- previous DOE TRB numbers that were showing very high doses, )
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_ -._.m
481
'l .. neutralizing one of the~ barriers somewhat caused another
- 2 mocel in the system to.be invalid, because they never
~3 anticipated that that'would be the case, that that barrier
-4 would be neutralized.
5 Basically,-they were getting a very large 6 diffusional release.of waste, but the reason they used that 7- model-is they never expected it would be invoked that early 8- in the. performance period. So although they effectively 9 ' neutralize the waste package,' the model, the diffusional 10 model then was somewhat invalid for the conditions they 11 retaoved f rom it.
12 So you have to really be careful of your results, i 13 and I.think that's the one thing I believe -- and that's why 14 I think we want to leave the flexibility to DOE. It's their {
15 model. They've got to figure out what works with that.
16 But.you do have to be careful when you start --
17 you-have a lot of' flexibility in models, but you just can't 18 .necessarily start turning switches every which way and not i 19 understand the implications' downstream, if you will.
20' MR. FAIRHURST: Have you given any thought as to l 21 how'that particular example, how you would deal with it in 22' what you might call a rational way?
~23 If I recall what they did at that time, it's take
, 2'4 out the waste packages at' year zero or something and said 25 .just put this waste into drift, which --
. N
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Court Reporters 1025. Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
482 1 MR. McCARTIN: Right.
' ,-q ~
l 2 MR. FAIRHURST: --
is a challenge, the potential
[
3 for all of those waste-pachages to fail like that is zero.
4 .I mean,' the probability.would be zero.
5 So how do you propose to deal with that?
!~ ~6 MR. McCARTIN: Nell, if they still want to do that 7 typefof analysis, and I'm not saying whether they should or 8 shouldn't, but:given you're going to do that, I think they {
1 9.: have to look at their diffusional. release model and make 10 sure it's still valid'in the situation.they have.
L 11 .It wasn't, and so they were getting tremendous i
{
l L
12 releases when they really shouldn't have, and that, to me, 13 was the problem. I think they'd have to go back and have a 14 different type of -- they'd have to revise their release
) 15 .model. I 16 MR. GREEVES: John Greeves. We actually seek your .
17 feedback in thisiprocess. Just individually, I have trouble l 18' with doing evaluations ~that are just not physically l 19' I think we should tell DOE don't do that.
~
- possible. It- I 20 .just doesn't.make sense. If there is an analysis where you 21 assume everything' fails on day one, shouldn't we tell them l L 22. not~to do that?
23 MR. FAIRHURST: No.
24- MR..GREEVES: There ought.to be some bounding L
i <
25 process here.
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_ m 483
.1' MR. FAIRHURST: What I was trying:to provoke with t
j 2 lthe' questionis, you're-absolutely right, you put tons of 3 metal in there,;and tons of metal is not suddenly stolen.
4 If they can fail more rapidly, how do you take it out of the 5: system _to evaluate its contribution?
6 MR. .GREEVES: In a. feasible fashion. Taking these 7 approaches where you remove barriers that are physically 8 there.
9 MR '. FAIRHURST: I agree.
10 MR. GREEVES: We'd like some feedback from you on 11 that.
12 MR. HORNBERGER: I would think that Budhi or Norm 13 would be jumping up_and down.about now. But I think that 14 when We heard Norm, was it yesterday, I mean, he was very
() 15 careful to point out that'this was not an analysis that was 16 'to be' realistic. It was a form of analysis to try to gain 17 insight"into a relative' contribution of-a barrier.
18 So it's almost a very stylized kind of -- well, 19 it's not a'--'well,:it is a kind of sensitivity analysis, I 20 guess. Norm used that word, so I guess-I can safely.
21- MR. FAIRHURST: But, George,' if you take it out at 22' 10,000' years or 5,000 years,-it's a very, very different 23 barrier than it is in year one.
24 'MR. HORNBERGER: I know. I don't think that 25 either Budhi or Norm would. argue that the state of the
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l 484
'1 analysit, right now'is the end. I think they've put forward
/ 2 a: method that is to be. judged to be a possibility of a kind
.L-13' of' approach, and I'think that's what Keith and Tim are 4' trying'.to grapple'with now in'Part 63, to give some 5 indications of.an approach or a series of approaches that 6 DOT might use, not that they have to use.
.7' It's not'-- that's my reading of it. I don't mean 8 :to: speak for you, Keith. You answer'the question.
l 9 MR. McCONNELL: No. I think you're correct. I 10 think you're correct, except that it would be -- it's not
'll only direction to DOE. It's also direction to the staff in
- 12. the sense that it's' going to be how we review what DOE does 13 to implement defense-in-depth. We might take a different 14 approach than what DOE does just to provide an independent 15 view of-what level of defense is provided for.
16' Budhi?
- 17. MR. SAGAR: I guess I have to come there. Budhi
- 18. 'Sagar, with the center. I completely agree with Tim. I 19 think we've tried-to find that out during Norm's 20 . presentation, that when you do something to a barrier, you 21 have to'make sure that the rest of the model is valid, no.
22 question about that.
-23 And there may be codes which may not be designed 24 to do that. So that's'why we said it's not the
'25 post-processor. You'have to go back and'do something to p
-V_
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485
- 1' your code for this to be-effective. All that is agreed to.
(.' {Tj J2 But to John Greeves' issue, again, so long.as we understand )
.3. that this is not a realistic analysis, it has to be stated i
L 4 'up front.what you are doing.
l 5 You're not trying_to'tell something to somebody
'6 that's not true. But you are trying to say what if, what if 7 this happened, what do-I get, and it's just a matter to say 8 the values help us to reduce the dose'by X amount, and
~
9- that's all it's telling you.
10 MR. FAIRHURST: But you know what happened when 11- that --
taking away the canister was discussed.
12 Immediately, the intervenor said, see, it's a bad site.
13 MR. SAGAR: And the intervenor may be right, for
-14 thersite point of view. Why are we so afraid of that? If p)
( 15 you taketaway the waste package and you get a huge release, 16 okay,.the site is not so good. But that's what we would i
17 get. I 18: Now, if they did.the analysis wrong, which is.what 19 Tim is'saying, that doesn't say the site is wrong. That
- 20 says the.model is wrong. 'You have to differentiate between 21 1those.two. But the site can be bad and the engineered 22- -barriers'can be bad. How do you judge that?
23 MR. FAIRHURST: Well, I ask the question, what is 24 .the' probability that a waste package disappears the moment 25- you put it in there? It's zero.
/'~
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486 l' MR'. SAGAR: And I'm not disagreeing with that. I
'2 think you can' factor in the probability which would be the
(}
3 main line performance. assessment. You would have the
'4 probability. You would have even time-dependent failure 5' ' rates. Youfwould have all sort'of those things built in and
-6 we present it t'o you with 246 sampled parameters and 300 7- other. deterministic parameters, so on, so forth.
8' That would.be presented and would be the main 9 focus offreview. Now you start asking, well, what if the 10 uncertainties were so great or what if this happened, how 11 much each one is contributing to the risk, it's not 12 realistic. I completely agree, it's not realistic.
'13 MR. FAIRHURST: I'm talking about more the forum 14 in'which this is examined, not the -- my understanding of --
' f( .
15 MR. SAGAR: Well, there seems to be a sensitivity 16 ud t if you have presented a result which you cannot claim a
,17 - to be" realistic, then it should never, ever come out in 18 public. 'Now, that may be true. I'm not a lawyer and I have 19- never, never participated in a. licensing action.
-20: So I don't know what the sociological impact of 21'- all this is. But as an engineer, I've done it all my life.
22- MR. FAIRHURST: Sure, now I. understand. But wait 23 till you talk- with those .other engineers, right?
,24 MR. SAGAR: Right. Well, the engineers talk to
- 2 5. the public.apparently it's okay when you design a bridge or
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487 l 1 a' dam to say whatlif, what if the thousand year flood came,
.2 what would happen, and that's okay to judge risk.
3 , ,MR. FAIRHURST: There's about.5,000 other bridges 4' around.
MR. .SAGAR: But this'being nuclear, I mean, people 6L are extra se'nsitivefto.that. ,
1 7 MR. FAIRHURST: I understand.
1 8 ~MR. GARRICK: Budhi? Go ahead.
1 i
9- MR. CAMPBELL': In the presentation that you and f 10- Norm had'given aboutLa year ago, you talked about a number
- 11. of possible risk. measurements using this technique, the I 12 importance measures, risk' achievement worth'and a number of i 13 'others,,and'those are presented as some sort of ratio and 14 that's the' measure that'you're looking at.
f- 15 MR. SAGAR: That's correct. !
16 4 -MR. CAMPBELL: I think part of the problem is DOE ;
1 17 -is trying! to present this in terms of a dose rather than as ;
i 18 some measure of contribution to performance, which is really l 19 a ratio or some< sort of normalized ratio. Does that make I 120: sense? ,
121~ Maybe it's a matter of how you present this rather 22 than'-- and what your measure is. It's not really dose.
12 3- It's a ratio.
92'4 MR. SAGAR: Well, yes, it's a ratio and what you
- 25. really.want'to do isLrank your subsystems or components as D ANN RILEY'&. ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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488 1 to which one is more effective than the other.
1
- 2 : .But the ratios are based on the dose, expected
'3 l dose you calculated. So I don't deal in the middle step.
- 4 Does that make it more transparent.or less transparent? It )
.5 is the.same thing. Should I always ptasent probability 6- ~ multiplied by consequence or should I say probability is X 7 .- and consequence is-Y, now I'm multiplying it and this is the
'8 answer? Doeszone make it'better than the other?
9 I mean,'on the one hand, we want transparency 10 where all steps have to be clear. On the other, we are 11 sensitive to only presenting certain things and hiding some 12' others. Well, I have great difficulty, personally, getting 13 a balance in those two. l 14 _ MR. GARRICK: One of the things that's important l 15 lin-what.Keith and Tim said, it.seems to me, is coordination 16 with NRR and the getting of a consistent NRC-wide tenet of
-17 operation with respect to defense-in-depth.
And as I. read the defense-in-depth letter that was
- 19. . developed by the ACRS, .the. theme of that letter is that we
-20 .ought to be able to be much.more scientific, and this is 21 what we've been saying all along, we ought to be able to'be
'22 much more' scientific about what we mean by defense-in-depth 23- and'the role of risk assessment in that regard.
24- Basically, the role of risk assessment in that 25: regard'is it gives us a great deal more insight than we O
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489 1 perhaps previously had on where or when defense-in-depth is
.(m) x_/
2 appropriate.
3 I think that's a healthy and constructive 4 perspective. The words we've used in this committee are 5 that the risk-informed approach takes some of the mystery 6 out of defense-in-depth and they use a specific example of 7 how PRA illuminates the issue of defense-in-depth and they 8 use the example of fires.
9 On the one hand, there is pretty good information 10 and pretty good evidence and we're able to capture the issue 11 of the frequency of fires as a function of location in our 12 probability density functions pretty darn well, but when we 13 get into the next step of the fire, namely, the propagation 14 and the growth of the fire, it's much more difficult to t'h 5 ,) 15 characterize that in what some people have, in their mind, 16 as what is meant by being quantitative.
17 But'you still can. You can represent all phases 18 of the fire quantitatively. You just may not like the 19 spread of the curves, the amount of uncertainty.
20 So there, the whole -- the convergence of the 21 defense-in-depth idea is on, again, the issue of 22 uncertainty, as something to provide us additional assurance 23 that where the uncertainties are greater than we like, that 24 we can deal with that with the concept of defense-in-r-pth.
25 I think, however, the area where we have to be l
1
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490 1 very much on guard is in the area of our risk measures, and
[
\.
2 that's the -- there is a substantial amount of controversy 3 going on right now on the reactor side in that arena.
4 The ACRS is advocating the elevation of core 5 damage frequency to the level of a bona fide safety goal.
6 Well, the voices on the other side are saying, wait a 7 minute, Core damage is not a measure of risk. It doesn't 8 measure health effects and, furthermore, you can go to the 9 risk assessments and find scenarios where you can decrease 10 the core damage frequency, but you increase the health and 11 safety risk; so is that a good direction for us to go.
12 There's a contingency of people that said no. l 13 Fortunately, in the waste field, we are focusing on the l
14 health effects or at least the dose to the public. So we've
'_/
\ 15 eliminated that dilemma.
16 But I think one of the things that the two groups, 17 the NRR and the NMSS, to respond to John Greeves and wanting 18 advice, that we need to be very careful about is this issue 19 of drifting back into a subsystem requirement state of mind.
20 I'm reading a sentence here in the ACRS letter and l 21 it says for those regulatory functions that are not well 22 suited for PRA -- and for the life of me, I don't know what 23 those would be -- are aware the current capabilities of PRAs 12 4 are not sufficient. We suggest that the limits on 25 application of defense-in-depth be placed at levels lower I' ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. I
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491 1 thanLthe top level safety objectives. l
() 2 Now,.I later' find out what they mean by that, but j 3 the thing that we need to be very much on guard for is that 4 we don't think that we can-allocate, if you wish, these 5 goals to lower levels, because, again, the risk is so EF site-specific that what-is important at a lower level in one 7 site will not be important at another site.
8 So .t i just' simply -- -- experience tells us that !
9 concept just simply does not work. The whole issue of risk I 10 apportionment or risk allocation to lower levels does not 11 . work, because -- and I think we've got classic example after 12 example to demonstrate that.
13 So.I think that what I would urge NMSS to do,
'14 because.their problems are quite different,. is to work with I) 15 NRR, but not work with them in a follow mode. Yo11've got to
- 16. work with them in a very proactive mode and leadership mode, 17 because.you are in a, fortunate position, as somebody already 18 said, of not having a lot of the baggage of the old 19, regulations that makes it' burdensome and cambersome to move 20 : expeditiously towards a risk-informed approach.
21 The waste field is there and it ought to take
]
22 advantage of that opportunity. But to also be on guard for I 23 the' emergence'of an approach to defense-in-depth that i
- 24. doesn't really befit the spirit of a real parformance-based 25- method of regulation.
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n 492
- 1. SR) that/s a long statement, but I think that the
'( '2- main point of it'is that the NRR and NMSS need to work 3 together, but'NMSS.needs to be proactive and have a 4 leadership position with respect to how this concept applies 5 'to. materials.and that you,have some advantages that you need L .6 to.be aware of, that.the reactor side does not in terms of y
the risk measures that are b'eing employed, and you're in, in
^
.7 8 Tcertain-respects, a betterl position to implement a ll 9 risk-informed approach immediately rather than subsequently.
l 11 0 But that'you need to be on guard for.this inertia 11' 'that'_seems to exist for developing lower level standards and 12 ~ lower level safety goals'and what have you.
13 MR. McCONNELL: 'Yes. I think we agree with 14= basically everything you said. I think if you look at the
() 15 schedule for what we have to do, that it's going to require R16 -us.to be fairly! assertive, what we do to address this with il7' ourLcousins in NRR, because we are.probably on a much 18 ~ shorter timeframe than.what they're working toward
- 19 And we also are keenly aware, I think everybody 20 who has' discussed this issue within the' staff, about the 1
-21' slippery /slopeLthat exists out there. 'Once you start 22- quantifying the. risk, there's always the.next question, 23 ,which says, okay, well, how mucn performance.from the 24' ' individual barrier is sufficient, and I think there is an
'25 inherentLdesire to answer that question.
~.
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, 493
~
1- )
But when we start answering that question, even in b
' \_/ -
'2 ( a review plan, we-get'to'the point where w *~e, in essence,
-3 defining subsystem performance objective.
- 4. MR.'GARRICK: The only answer that makes sense to 5 .that;questionLis.the. impact on the measure against which 6' Lyou're!trying to protect the health and safety of the 7 public.
81 MR. McCONNELL: as you' indicated, I don't think we
'9. o
-wantito' start all~cating performance to individual barriers.
10 MR. GARRICK: Right.
11- MR. EISENBERG: Could I say something?
]
l 112! MR. GARRICK: I always get Norm up front. Yes. '
MR. EISENBERG: Actually, I would like to respond 14 to something Dr. Fairhurst said with regard to whether or
()
15 notfthe analysis was realistic or not. As Budhi indicates, i
16 .the importance analysis is not and is not intended to be a 17i . realistic analysis.
l 11 8 ' However,'it may be able to shed some insights onto 19~ thisiissueLof defense-in-depth. Let'me just expound a ;
20 little biton what.Sorenson said in his paper.
-21 Even with the rationalist approach, what he i 22= focusedLon was that defense-in-depth was, in a risk-informed 23 regulatory environment,~ was a way to deal with uncertainty 24 and"obviously we're talking about how to deal with the 25 residual: uncertainty.
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e 494 1- Now, a problem.that is faced by both the reactor
()
' 2_ regulation people and by repository regulation people is i .-
3- that:we know-that our analyses, even if they're the best we L 4 can make them; that they have uncertainty.
- 5. And'the uncertainties, unfortunately -- and, you
- 6. :know, wetry[veryhard, I think, to follow Dr. Garrick's 7L advice and say.-- and try to represent the uncertainties in 8- 'the analysis. We try to get'a realistic appraisal of what ,
9 the. parameter distributions are and we try to represent
.10 other. types of uncertainties in the analysis.
11 But even though we try to do that, everybody knows
.12 that the analyses have residual uncertainties. Some of 13- those uncertainties relate to completeness, some of those 14 uncertainties relate to whether or not.the models are O( ,f 15 ' correct. i (16 I-think examples in the reactor business are that, 17 for example,-manyLof the PRAs do not have: fire risk L18 , assessments, they do not have shutdown risk assessments, I 119 _they do_not have seismic risk assessments.
20' .So I think you always have to be careful in this l 21 arena where you're basing your regulatory decisions-on a 22- risk that -- you must remember that there are-uncertainties
-23 that;we-have tried'to characterize and' quantify in the
- 24. . analysis,._but there may also be other uncertainties that are 25L -not: quantified or analyzed. ;
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l 495 1 And one of the reasons that we went into this
'2 importance-analysis is that it ~is a way not necessarily of l -3 knowing.what those'are or how big they are, but it gives you l
L .4? some concept ofzhow bad things could be,- and, therefore,
~
5: gives you-a benchmark, if you1will, as to'how.important it
, 6:-
is tcL -- and this is what' Tim: said in his talk. I 1
.7 ; The support for a particular part of the system or
~
F for a particular. barrier should be. dependent on the role
)
9: that it, plays in providing the desired performance. And 10 this-is a way to get at that.
11- So I'm not sure that this is especially inimical l
12 to having a risk-informed approach for doing things in that
- 13 context.
14 It's just another way_to get at, if you will, some
- ( ) 15- of the other uncertainties.
~16 MR. HORNBERGER: If I-could, I'd like to comment 17 -- well, partly in~ response to Norm, but also to be R18 responsive to the question that John Greeves posed to get
- 19. feedback.
. 2 0' . To tell you the truth, I have always been ;
[21' uncomfortable with the neutralization of barrier approach, L ;22 for specifically reasons that Charles and John hint at, but !
I-23 ILrecognize that it's one way, as Norm just explained, to )
1 24- perhaps get some information and that's what we're after. l l .
1 25 But I guess what I would urge the staff to do is )
[
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496 1,
to remain open to~other approaches, as I.know they are, and,
() 4 3
- 3 2'
- in particular,~ I know Stan Kaplan has made some suggestions ffor: presentations and, to me, another way to look at it l
l 4 , would be tcrlook at-some of the' measures that Stan has
'S suggested: for looking at alternative designs, which is a 6 way, perhapsLin ahmore. transparent way, to evaluate the 7- importance of various barriers to the performance of-BI . repository, in a'way that doesn't assume that there aren't 9 any canisters there from time zero.
- 10. MR. McCONNELL: SetsLthe stage for this
-11 afternoon's discussion, I guess..
12- .MR. GARRICK: Right.
13' MR. .McCONNELL: Or maybe later this morning.
14 MR. FAIRHURST: The waste package may be not O(_,/ 15' entirely unique, but a little bit different in that it's 16 containing waste'which is declining, decaying in time, and 17 'you'may"want to say -- to give the public a better feel. If
.:18. weLneutralize these at?t!.me zero, this is what happens; if ;
19 we do it at 2,000 years, this is what happens,'at 4,000, l 4
2(F six.
J21 Other barriers ~are virtually time-independent.
22: -The.cime to the' unsaturated zone and through the -- that-
- 23'- particular one;is.perhaps>a different in how you deal with 24' it 25 MR. McCONNELL: One other aspect ~that we found in ls <
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IY g/ 497 l ._1 our public meetings istit's one thing for us to talk amongst
() '2 our scientist engineer-selves on this particular issue, but !
3 it's another thing to talk to the public and communicating l 4 with the public is_ difficult, particularly when we talk 51 complex issues, like neutralization of' components of j
)
6 barriers. i l
7 I think they kind of go blank at that point.
8 MR. WYMER: I have one comment that relates to all L 9 this, but it's certainly not as global as what I've just i
10 been hearing discussed and it sort of relates to the "11 hierarchy of barriers.
12 When you look at the system multiple barriers, you 13 say, well, here's the big one that really cuts out the main 14 part of the dose and there are other things that cut out O
(_ ,f 15 lesser parts. Very soon, you get down to a barrier that, 16 while'itsmay be a very effective barrier, in the face of all 17 these other barriers, it's inconsequential.
18 So there is a gradation of contributions of 19 barriers,. going to Norm's statement, there are uncertainties 20 in.these systems. So the question is how do you determine,
~
121 where do you determine the cutoff is in where you consider 22 the utility of multiple barriers.
I 23- You can at least speculate that there may be an 24
- unforeseen.and major failure of one of the barriers that i 25 you're really relying on, but it just doesn't work, for some JURT RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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498
- 1. reason. I know that's unlikely, but speculate for a moment.
- 2' Then you can drop back and say, well, there's another 3 ' barrier down here which really only decreased the very small 4 dose that you got because the barrier'was assumed to work, 5~ it didn't - .it?wasn't apparent.
-6 But if you remove this other barrier, then it 7 could be:the 800-pound; gorilla that really controlled the 8 dose. So there is'aLquestion of how deep do you go in 9 deciding where;you stop considering multiple barriers.
10 1And I don't know the~ answer, but I'd like to hear
'11 a little bit-of discussion on it.
.12 MR. McCONNELL.: We probably have to answers to 13- that question. The first answer ~is that we'd probably 14 -require DOE to develop chat hierarchy about which barriers
) 15 .are most important, and then go down from that.
- 16. ,
But, also,:and Tim can' elaborate on this, in the 17 rule, we do indicate or define what a. barrier is~and
=18j -basically it has-significant capability to, I think, aid in
.19 isolation'of waste. Is that correct, Tim? Are they there?
- 201 '
~MR. McCARTINi Right. The emphasis is.on the 1
21 capability!of.a. barrier.
22- I guess one could make an argument, let's say you 12 3 ihave-no juvenile failures and~no corrosion of the waste
~
24 -package,-nothing gets out. So.obviously the only thing 25~ contributing to keeping the dose low in our performance l
/ '
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I 499 1 assessment is the waste package.
l,,) '2 However, multiple barriers is looking at the 8J
\
3 capability of the barrier. And I might go to the alluvium 4 and look at, it has tremendous retardation capability.
5 Because there was no radionuclide to get there in 10,000 6 years,uit didn't have to serve that function, but the 1
l 7 capability still exists. That's why we wrote --
8 MR. WYMER: So it's a capability, and not the ;
9 contribution. Is'that what you just seid? )
i 10 MR. McCONNELL: That's what is in Part 63. j 11 MR. WYMER: And that's very good.
12 MR. McCONNELL: But there are probably diverging 13 views on that.
14 MR. McCARTIN: Thc ; 3 are different ways to
/~T
( ) 15 demonstrate that capability. For example, in the case I 16 gave, where -- let's assume there's no container failures 17 for 10,000 years. I may do an analysis such as I failed 18 some of the containers to see, okay, what happens to the 19 dose due to the alluvium, or, conversely, I just show I've
]
1 20 done the measurements, I've done the analysis, the I 21 laboratory work to characterize the site, and the 22 retardation in the alluvium is X. I 23 That's why it's a barrier, is that retardation. I 24 don't necessarily have to stress it. Maybe 1 do a
- 25. calculation past 10,000 years to show how it does it, but l
[~}
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-1 .you don't necessarily have to. You aren't required to do
(
r 2 that.
[ .(O/
- 3 There are multiple ways to talk to the capability.
4 MR. WYMER: Okay. 1 E 5 MR. .McCONNELL: Okay. ;
i i 6 MR. CRAGNOLINO: Since the waste package was 7_ mentioned'by Tim, I.think that this could be a good example 8 of'Eu1' approach that can be adopted to solve this issue. ,
i 9 I showed yesterday a plot in which you have three i 10- different materials, 825,'625, and alloy-22. For this case, l
11 you have different response, all realistic' cases. l 12 You have an initial. failure for 825 and 625 due to i
13 localized corrosion and you have later on a period, which 14 you don't see too much, failure, and the uniform corrosion is fore 825 and.625.
): 15 16 For C-22, you' don't'have localized corrosion. You 17 have only one process. I think that every barrier should
- 18 have properties that you can --
19 MR.~GARRICK: You're right on target, yes, and 20 that's what we've been pushing for, is more
- 21. engineering-oriented information that we can trade off and 22 see.
'23' Anything else?
24 MR; _GREEVES: Just a1 question, and this is a
~
25 philosophy l issue, in part. What is.your view on
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501 l' ' institutional control? We can't rely on it for meeting the
/ 'Y i!! requirements of the regulation, but is it part of the b
3- defense-in-depth strategy? I mean, the realistic issue is a 4' site like this, as long as society sticks around, is going {
5 'to be controlled. Is that a part of the---
6? MR.'HORNBERGER: You're'right. It's a' {
7 philosophical issue. My own view and what I've tried to
]
~8: stress is using the use of the term multiple barriers rather
-9 than defense-in-depth, because I think multiple barriers is 10; very clear-cut, we understand what we're doing.
- 11 .This.doesn't mean that we don't have institutional 12 control',.it doesn't mean that we don't take all sorts of 13 other measures, but defense-in-depth, even as Jack Sorenson
'14 'found out,:is a concept that's pretty-fuzzy around the c/^T.
(,) 15 edges, whereas multiple barriers is pretty clear.
16 MR. GREEVES: I'm reading the Commission's paper 17 and the firstfsentence. leads, successive compensatory 18 measures,-and compensatory measures-includes. actions by man.
19, MR. HORNBERGER: 'It's-fine. So if you want to 12 0_ 1have_it that'way and if you want to define it that way and 21 you ask me'should we have institutional controls, of course, 22 we should have' institutional control and we will, as you 23- pointed out,-for as long as it._certainly makes sense. l 12 4- How one builds that into an analysis, particularly
_over 10,000 years, the argument has always been that we
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502 1 can't take credit for that.
(x} 2 MR. GREEVES: And for meeting compliance criteria, 3 I think that makes sense. But in answering the question, do 4 you have defense-in-depth, I raise the question, is it 5 legitimate to say that's a piece of defense-in-depth.
6 MR. FAIRHURST: If you have a license application 7 in at a certain time, I think all you can put in is what you 8 can guarantee -- not guarantee, but what you can say 9 scientifically at that time.
10 MR. GREEVES: I'm asking a different question.
11 MR. FAIRHURST: I know you are. But what I'm 12 saying is that, for example, not only for institutional 13 controls, but the whole advance of technology, the whole 14 ability to improve or change over that period, and that's
/~
(s). 15 part of a broader spectrum that I do not think you can take 4 16 -- you can't go with a license application and say I know 17 there will be improvements in technology; therefore, it's 18 going to be safer than I've got.
19 And in the same way, you can't guarantee 20 institutional controls and so you can't put any -- you can 21 say it cannot be a part -- the majority -- I much prefer to 22 define it as multiple barriers, because then I know what it 23 applies to, it's a system that I have designed.
24 MR. McCARTIN: From a Part 63 standpoint, I think 25 we would say that the last line of defense and the overall bT ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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503 1' defense-in-depth strategy for the Commission and for the
]* 2 rule is that they have to have a plan for long-term 3 Loversight; And'you're right, we can't count on it in our 4 performance assessment. But there is, in the regulation a 5 requirement that they will have oversight for that site out L6 into the-future.
- 7. And you're right; you can't quantify it, but in j
'8 terms of a defense-in-depth philosophy, I think it is one of
}
9' those measures.
1 10 I agree, also, that you can't take credit for it, 11 but it is why7that-requirement is there; it is that last t
12' line of defense.
13- MR. GARRICK: The problem you mentioned is 14 probably far more serious with-respect to the stewardship
() -15 issue of the cleanup.of the national laboratories than it is
'16 for'the af.ministrative control associated with stuff that's !
17- a thousand meters under the ground and designed very well to 18; stay there and be relatively undisturbed.
19 So I think it really has to be put in perspective.
-:20 It's.part of'it, but the design philosophy, the safety 21- design philosophy in-the nuclear business has always been, 22
~
as it is in most systems, to move in the direction of
, 23: Edecreasing dependence on administrative process. I 2
.4- 'MR. GREEVES: 'The staff is asking the question.
i
'25' We've.got this guidance'from the Commission'that says !
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l 504 1 successive compensatory measures. Engineer scientists like l "
2- .to talk about barriers, that's what they understand, and the l %.)
3 staff is asking the question that can-we, in addition, not 4 ;for purposes of'doing a performance assessment for the 25 5 millirem standard, but a-separate provision ir the rule 6' calls for defense-in-depth.
.7 MR. WYMER: I think institutional controls are a 8 part of. defense-in-depth.
9 MR. GREEVES: Tim just articulated that we, at the 10 present' time, are identifying that that's a piece of it.
11 It's not everything, i
(
12 MR. WYMER: The fact that it's time-dependent, it 1.3 doesn't really wash,. I mean, it doesn't make any difference.
14 ~If it helps for'the.50 years pre-closure, why, then you have l) 15 <some defense-in-depth through the institutional controls.
161 MR. GREEVES: I would just invite you to think 17' 'about this process, because we don't want to give them an
-18 answer that you will --
19 MR..HORNBERGER: I think it's fine. The 20 difficulty is -- and if you talk to Jack Sorenson, Jack I
21: .Sorenson and I.have had several conversations, and the )
I 221 difficulty that exists right now is.that you add confusion l 23 tost <erms when you use them to be sort of all-encompassing, i
. 24 because whatjhappens-then,iit means -- if it means-
-25 everything, then it really is a nothing term. It doesn't I l
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505 1 define anything, and that's the difficulty you run into.
.[)'
2 ~ So if everything is defense-in-depth, if
~
i; 3' pre-closure' operational' procedures are part of 4 defense-in-depth, if warning flags, if a fence, on and on
_5 and on, if it's'all defense-in-depth, should we do it all?
6 Of course we're' going ~to do it all, of course we are.
7 So if you want to call that defense-in-depth, 8 that's fine, _but my only view is you're just muddying the 9 ' waters. .
l 10 :MR. FAIRHURST: I agree. I agree, yes. l
- 11. 'MR. GARRICK: And the transition has been from the l
12- ' more mysterious defense-in-elepth way of thinking to l 13- hopefully _ moving in the direction of the quantification of 14 uncertainty, and that's the healthy aspect of what's going l 15' on here and that's why I think the ACRS points to the
- 16 . uncertainty quantification exercise as the mechanism for 17 indicating when additional actions are necessary to deal i
18 with those uncertainties that they choose to' call
~
19 defense-in-depth, 20 MR. FAIRHURST:
Lome hac as an aside, I was
- 21. recently involved in'a discussion in Europe about 22 institutional controls and it was when DOE decided to say
.23 .they would maybe keep the repository open for 300 years i 24 rather than 100, which threw them into total confusion, 25 because.they said.that they, for a long time, because they l
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- 1. have longer institutions, they had a mind set that 300 years (f 12- was not a bad number and they thought the US was being far
'3- 'too severe by_ limiting to 100.
4- Then they said they saw what happened to the 5 -control of nuclear materials in the Soviet Union and the
.6 . breakdown and the lack of institutional control there, and 7~
theyfsaid, my god,1we are pulling back, we thought 100 years 8- 2was'maybe'too long, and now we cay you're going to go to l 9 300 10' ik) you can get'into a' debate:on that thing, but all the uncertainties are far more than any waste package {
12 failurei L13 It's a little bit of a red herring.
I 14 MR. GREEVES: I would just invite you to think j
'15 about the. question I asked, because in an operating L '
-16 ' facility, a fence is a-barrier, but we also. require surveys. i
- l. 17- .And I can give you examples where the licensee went out and
-:18 .made surveys and'found out'that he was doing the wrong L 19 thingi i l
L 20- It's'not a fence, Lit's not a container, it's a ;
2f human activity _and you've made a change and it's kind of a
-22 safety network, a defense-in-depth process that helped the 23- . safety,: he was able to tighten up his facility. 3 24 'MR. FAIRHURST: You do what you can, but don't 25 take credit Eforfit.
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507 l
l' MR. GREEVES: I'd-just invite you to -- because we
- l- N ' 2
(_,/
'3 MR. HORNBERGER: We haven't issued an answer on 4 these questions. We have thought about it and we will 5'
~
- continue to think:about it.
So your point is well taken.
6 It's not a very. clear-cut issue.
7[ MR. GARRICK: fim.
8 MR. McCARTIN: I guess one thing I'd like to add
-9 would be,-that our requirement is for local barriers. We 10 have no requirement-for. defense-in-depth. It's just the
- 11. . Commission has a philosophy of defense-in-depth and I guess 12 that's where maybe we need to make that clearer somewhere in 13: the SOC. But I think the long-term oversight, just as with 14 emergency planning for' operations of all nuclear facilities, j
() '15- I think'the Commission considers that part of N 16 defense-in-depth.
I 17- That you have all these measures in place, tnese
- 18. -barriers, but then you also have emergency planning for
- 19. things that, gee, they may not work the way we hope, and I 20 think that that all encompasses the defense-in-depth 12 1 philosophy. But our requirement is for multiple barriers.
- 22 Maybe we need to make that clear in the SOC and I 23 ' talk to that.
24 MR. GARRICK: All right. Thank you. Thank you 25 very much. I think that concludes the discussion on ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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508 1, . defense-in-depth, which is --
j 2 MR. FAIRHURST: For now.
3 MR. GARRICK: For now.
4 MR. FAIRHURST: Gone. deep enough, right?
5 MR, GARRICK: And I'm sure it will reappear.
6- What I would like to do now is talk a little bit
'7 about what we want to do the rest of the morning and my 8 suggestion is that we start it off by taking a break.
9 But before we take the break and when we come 10 back, I'think.that I would like the committee to talk a 11 little bit about whether or not what we've heard the last 11 2 couple of days,.if there's any action that we need to take 13 . as a result of it, and depending on that' discussion, we may 14 want go revisit the agendas for the July and September
() 15 meeting and talk about them'a little1more deliberately with 16 respect to products-that we ought to be generating.
.17 Also,.we need to make sure that our planning with 18 respect to the Commission meeting is -- we advance it as far 19 as we can for this meeting.
1
'20 .So I think.this will terminate, for the most part,
)
21 the discussion of the presentations and certainly does the 22 - presentations themselves, except to the extent that we might 23 want to~ discuss a little bit whether or not we want to '
24 generate something.as a~ result of'it. !
125 'So'with tnat,.let's take a 15-minute break. I Tl I 4
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.1 - [Whereupon,' at' 10::45' a.m. , . the meeting was ]
2" . concluded.] l
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1 j ANN RILEY'& ASSOCINISS, UO.
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l REPORTER'S CERTIFICATE This is to certify that the attached proceedings
{) .before the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission.in
.the' matter-of:
NAME OF' PROCEEDING: 110TH ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON NUCLEAR WASTE (ACNW)
CASE NUMBER:
PLACE OF PROCEEDING: San Antonio, 7%
.y were held as_herein appears, and that this is the original 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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u Penny Bynum Official Reporter Ann Riley & Associates, Ltd.
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