ML20209D990
| ML20209D990 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 03/19/1998 |
| From: | NRC |
| To: | |
| References | |
| NUDOCS 9907140103 | |
| Download: ML20209D990 (219) | |
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JR G NA_ g- . OFFICIAL TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Title:
WORKSIIOP ON MATERIALS DECOMMISSIONING 4 Case No.: j I Work Order No.: ASB-300-186 l OI / l LOCATION: Rockville,MD DATE: Thursday, March 19,1998 PAGES:1 - 218 r ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. A. 1250 I Street, NW, Suite 300 V._ Washln {y j)o , 00'3 140030 71 3 980319 9907140103 PDR i:-
1 1 UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
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5 WORKSHOP ON 6' MATERIALS DECOMMISSIONING 1 7 *** 8 9 U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission 10 Two White Flint North, Auditorium 11 11545 Rockville Pike 12 Rockville, Maryland 13 14 Thursday, March 19, 1998 (~% (._) 15 16 .The above-referenced workshop commenced, pursuant 17 to notice, at 9:00 a.m. 1 18 PARTICIPANTS: 1 19 JOHN R. HICKEY, NRC ' L 20 MARGARET FEDERLINE, NRC 21 DOMINICK A. ORLANDO,.IRC 22 DAVID FAUVER, NMSS 23 FELIX KILLAR, JR., NEI 12 4 DAVE CULBERSON, Fuel Cycles Facilities' Forum 25 ROLAND G. FLETCHER, Manager MD Radiological Health ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
2 1 PARTICIPANTS: (continued) fG 2 Program ( } 3 ROBERT BOLAND, Mallinckrodt Chemicals, Inc., St. 4 Louis, MO 5 DAVID CRAIG, Fort Monmouth, U.S. Army, New Jersey 6 CORT HORTON, Merrill Pharmaceutical, Inc., 7 Cincinnati, OH 8 WAYNE HELIGER, Oklahoma State University, ! 9 Stillwater, OK 10 JOE CROSS, Phillips Petroleum Co., Bartlesville, I 11 OK i 12 A. JOSSPH NARDI, Westinghouse, Electric Co., , i i 13 Pittsburgh, PA ' 14 ROY BROWN, Mallinckrodt Inc., St. Louis, MO l l (y
\s,) 15 SCOTT MURRAY, General Electric Co., Wilmington, NC 16 17 ,
l l 18 l 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 t ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
3 1 PROCEEDINGS () 2 (9:00 a.m.) 3 MR. HICKEY: On the record. 4 I'm John Hickey, Chief of the NRC Decommissioning 5 Branch. Welcome to NRC and welcome to the Washington area. 6 This is a materials decommissioning workshop. It's open to I 7 the public. It's being transcribed and it's being covered 8 by the press. 9 We're looking forward to a successful workshop. 10 There are several things we want to accomplish today and we 11 also want to show you our NRC hospitality and feel that 12 you've had a good successful workshop when you leave. 13 The.first thing I'd like to do is introduce our l'4 Deputy Division Director; Margaret Federline to present a 15 welcome and opening remarks. Margaret? 16 MS. FEDERLINE: Thanks, John. I just want to say { 17 how much we appreciate you being here today. We realize I 18 that decommissioning is one of the busiest fields that you i 19 can be in today no matter what facet of decommissioning I 20 .you're involved in, whether you're a licensee, whether 21 you're a service organization, whether you're a state 22' organization, we just really appreciate the broad 23 participation. 24 And I want to urge you during the workshop today, 25 we're interested in your views. That's what this workshop ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. O- Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034 l
l 1 4 l' is for. We want to hear from you. Don't hold back. You
-() '2 know, we're not sensitive and we want to hear absolutely l 3 everything you have to say because the key to what we're 4 doing here today is to improve the review process. We want 5 to make sure that we protect public health and safety. Of 6 course, that's NRC's prime responsibility. But what we're i
'7 interested in is improving the efficiency and the 8 effectiveness of our review process and we count on you to 9 provide us feedback to be able to do that.
i 10 The start of this effort, it had its base in the i 11 chairman -- Chairman Jackson's initiative on rebaselining 12 agency' activities. I know many of you participated in this 13 and commented on it. One of her first initiatives when ete 14 came to the agency was to say, we really need to step back i 15 as an agency and look'at what we're doing, understand what 16 the basis of our future is and how we're going to move into 17 the next decade. So she initiated an activity which defined l
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18 direction-setting issues. And one of the issues that they I 19 focused on in the decommissioning area was what sort of a ' 20 strategy we should have in place for improving the 21 decommissioning process. 22 As you're aware, the Commission established some 23 preliminary views and went out and sought public comment on i 24' those views and then directed the staff, based on those, to 25 move forward with some activities. And one of the ' O ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034 b l
1 l 5 1 activities is to look at how we can put a more () 2 ' performance-oriented process in place for decommissioning 3 reviews. You're all aware that we have completed a 4 rulemaking on radiation criteria for decommissioning and now 5 we want to look at out review process and determine how we 6 can make that more efficient and effective and we're really 7 counting on your help today. 8 I've had an opportunity to meet very briefly with 1 9 several of you. I hope to get around and talk with you in 10 more detail today about what your applications are, but, 11 please, we're very sincere. We want you to speak up. We l 12 appreciate the time of the folks who volunteered to make l 13 presentations. '
-. 14 Let me turn it back to John Hickey now to discuss b"x / 15 the objectives of the workshop and to introduce our staff 16 'who will be making presentations.
1 17 MR. HICKEY: Thank you, Margaret. 18 I'd like to propose this qtestion as the overall 19 theme for the workshop, " Decommissioning, How Can We Do it 20 Better?" A subset of that question might be, 21 " Decommissioning, how can we do it faster?" But I think 22 some of you realize that we've had many cases where 23 decommissioning was accomplished quickly, but it was done 24 improperly and we had to reopen the cases and revisit them 25 at considerable effort and expense. So the issue here is [/l
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ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
6 1 performing decommissioning properly. (o) 2 I'd like to discuss the agenda and the objectives l 3 of the workshop and also make some administrative 4 announcements. We have a complete spectrum of what you 5 might refer to as the " decommissioning community" at this 6 meeting. We have NRC people frvm both headquarters and the 7 regions, we have state representatives, and we have people 8 that represent the industry as a forum and also individual 9 licensees. And as Margaret said, we appreciate the people 10 accepting invitations to make presentations. 11 Although our first few speakers are NRC staff, in 12 order to orient the workshop most of our speakers are from 13 the industry, and our primary purpose is to hear feedback 14 from you on how we can do decommissioning better. , (~h ! (_) 15 So, one of our objectives is to get suggestions 16 and discuss improvements of the decommissioning process. 17 Another objective is to talk about the current 18 status of decommissioning. Some of you may be interested in 19 hearing an overview of what we see is involved in 20 decommissioning today and we also had some recent 21 developments in decommissioning. And if you haven't had an 22 opportunity, or if you would like an opportunity to review, 23 we're going to tell you about some very recent developments. 24 As most of you are aware, last year we issued a very 25 important decommissioning criteria rule. Recently we issued l () ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
7 1 a site survey manual which has the acronym MARSSIM which was (Oj 2 a very major multi-agency effort to put out guidance on 3L doing site radiation surveys. 4 So the second objective is to present you some 5 information on the status of decommissioning. 6 A. third, more short-term objective is that the 7 Commission has directed us, in addition to conducting this 8 workshop to conduct a pilot program. And we would like to , i 9 discuss with licensees today, or in the near future, to the 10 extent it's not done today, interest in participating in a 11 pilot program where certain cases can be expedited where the 12 licensee is ready to move forward with decommissioning. And 13 I think you will be hearing from some of those speakers 14 today telling us a little bit about what's involved at their 15 site and also what they see as problems and suggestions 16 concerning decommissioning. 17 If I could make some administrative announcements. 18 I want to make sure -- the one thing you need to make sure 19' is you have a copy of the agenda. The individual speakers 20 will have handouts. If you don't have them right away, 21 we'll make sure you get them as the presentations are made. 22 But let's make sure that you have the agenda. 23 To orient you to where you are, we are in what's 24 ' called the "P-2" level. And the architecture of this 25 building is kind of unusual. There's really not much here ( )- ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
8 1 on this level other than this auditorium and parking. (~) 2 Immediately out in the lobby there are restrooms and 3 drinking fountains. If you need any help or have any 4 questions, you can see there are several NRC people here and 5 in the audience that can assist you if you have any 6 questions. 7 Without a visitor's badge you can ride the 8 elevator immediately outside up to the lobby level, you have 9 pay phones and a cafeteria and restrooms and the exit of the 10 building. If you're with an NRC employee you can also ride 11 the main bank of elevators. This is not a particularly j 12 large crowd, so I don't think that will be a problem. But 13 you can go with an NRC employee up to the main lobby if 14 that's more convenient. 15 We will have a lunch break, and as you exit the 16 building where you came in, immediately across the street 17 and to the left there are several restaurants. And we'll 18 repeat some of that information or you can ask people 19 questions if you're not familiar with the area. 20 We would note that the meeting is being 21 transcribed so that everything you say will be on the public 22 record and there will be transcripts available in the public 23 document room within a few days after the meeting if not on 24 the cover of the Washington Post. Although with all the 25 other things that are going on in Washington, I'm not going '() ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
9 1 to presume that the Washinoton Post would be that interested () 2 in this meeting. But the Trade Press is interested in it 3 and they will cover the meeting. So keep in mind that you 4 remarks are being transcribed and they will be available in 5 the public document room. 6 So we would ask that you use the microphones when 7 you speak and identify yourselves for the convenience of the 8 transcriber, Mr. Brooks, and if he has any problems, he's 9 going to call out to me so bear with him because it is 10 important that we have the meeting properly transcribed. 11- I'm going to notify our speakers that are 12 scheduled to appear after the break, if you could plan on 13 coming up and taking your seats at the table, probably on 14 the side just so you can see, and then I'll introduce you in () 15 turn. And feel' free.to make any introductory remarks about i 16 who's accompanied you to the meeting, any background 17 information on your organization. 18 We're interested in hearing about your site to 19 kind of put a perspective on what decommissioning challenges 20 you are faced with. More important than that, we're 21 interested in any suggestions and comments you have on the 22 current decommissioning process and how it can be improved. 23 Later on in the afternoon we will have a panel 24 discussion and we've invited most of our speakers, or at 25 least a representative sample of the speakers and our own i g ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. , N Court Reporters j 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
10 1 staff, and the region is slated to participate in that panel G ld' 2 and discussion and we'll talk about what we've heard so far 3 and also we have some challenging questions that we would 4 like the panel to discuss. We've not asked the panel to 5 prepare any remarks for that discussion, so we hope it will 6 be a frank and open and helpful discussion. And then later 7 on we will talk more about this pilot program that we would 8 like to conduct and solicit interest in that. If not at 9 that meeting, we would like you to get back to us after the l 10 meeting. 11 So I'm looking forward to a challenging, i 12 productive workshop. Again, we appreciate all of your i attending, particularly those who had to travel to attend, 13 l I 14 but we reserved NRC's best facility to conduct this i /~' i (,,)\ 15 workshop, and I'm sure you'll all agree this is a nice i 16 facility. And we do feel it's important and we put a lot of i 17 effort into hopefully making this a successful workshop. l 18 So getting back to our program and one of our 19 objectives is to bring you up to date as to where we are in l 20 decommissioning at the moment. 21 I'd like to present our first speaker, Nick 22 Orlando, who is the senior technical person on the staff 23 here. Anf. he's going to present an overview of the 24 decommissioning process. Nick. 25 MR. ORLANDO: Thank you, John. m (f ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
11 1 What I'd like to do, as John said, is give you (%.)\ 2 sort an overview of the way that we see - "we" being NRC -- 3 the decommissioning process and the steps that the staf f 4 goes through in reviewing the decommissioning plans and 5 reviewing the documentation that licensees send in to us. 6 I'm one of the folks at NRC that is involved in 7 that process. So I have a real vested interest in making 8 this work simply because that will help make my job a little 9 bit easier. 10 [ Slide shown.] 11 MR. ORLANDO: First of all I want to talk just a 12 little bit about the timing of decommissioning. 13 Licensees revert from " Active" to r^s 14 " Decommissioning" status, and this is in the regulations, l k ,)- m 15 when either the license expires or is revoked by the 16 Commission; when the licensee permanent decides to cease 17 operations with licensed material at the entire site, or at 18 some outdoor areas or separate buildings and the facility is 19 -- or those areas are not suitable for release for 20 unrestricted use. l 21 Another thing that will trigger you going into the 22 decommissioning mode is you'll have 24 months that will 23 elapse between when principal activities -- and " principal 24 activities" are those activities that are discussed on your 25 license -- storage for decommissioning is not one. But 24
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() ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034 l j
1 12 1 months since principal activities have been conducted under () 2 3 the license, or when no principal activities have been conducted in a separate building or outdoor area and 4 radiation would be present such that you couldn't release 5- the area in accordance with NRC requirements. 6 Just so you know, so I condensed down some of my ! 7 overheads here into a smaller number of slides, but the . 8 words are the same. I just wanted to save a little bit of I 9 paper. Next slide. 10 [ Slide shown.] 11 MR. ORLANDO: Within 60 days of the occurrence of 12 any one of those items the licensees are required to inform 13 the NRC in writing that one of these things has happened and 14 begin decommissioning if you're not required to submit a O;,/ ( '15 decommissioning plan; or, within 12 months licennees are 16 required to submit the decommissioning plan and begin 17 decommissioning when NRC approves the plant. 18 (Slide shown.] 19 MR ORLANDO: There are some extensions that are
'20 allowed under NRC's timeliness rule. These include whether 21 it's technically feasible for the licensee to complete the 22 decommissioning within the 24 month -- and if you have a 23 very complicated decommissioning that might not be possible; 24 whether sufficient waste disposal capacity is available and 25 to allow decommissioning of the facility within a 24-month O ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
1 13 1 period; whether a significant volume reduction can be / (m) 2 achieved by allowing materials to decay in storage. 3 [Slido shown.] 1 4 MR. ORLANDO: Whether significant reduction in 5 radiation exposure to workers can be achieved by allowing 6 some of the short-live radionuclides to decay; and other 7 site-specific factors such as the regulatory requirements of 8 other agencies, or if the actions could result in more 9 environment harm than deferring cleanup and other things 10 that may be beyond your control. 11 There is one small caveat, though, that is in the 12 regulations and that's that the granting of the extension 13 has to be in the public's interest. 14 Now, the NRC is on record as stating that if t (,)/ 15 decommissioning is delayed for long periods of time after 16 the cessation of activities we're concerned that there could l 17 be a reduction in safety or the level of safety at a 18 facility as management attention wanes. In addition, 19 because of the potential for corporate takeover or 20 bankruptcy, we're concerned. And, as you all know, the cost 21 of waste disposal has increased at rates that are in excess 22 of inflation. And we're concerned that in the event a 23 facility has to be remediated by the Federal Government 24 that's going to increase the costs. 25 The point I'm trying to make is if you do decide n (j ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
14 1 to request an extension or if you feel that an extension is 2 warranted, one of the things you're going to need to (~}s t N- l 3 demonstrate to the staff is that this is in the public's ' 4 interest. So that's just sort of a word of warning. 5 [ Slide shown.] 6 MR. ORLANDO: The next question that comes up, and l 7 the next important step is, when is a decommissioning plan 8 required? We have a vast majority, I think of NRC licensees 9 can probably terminate their license without submitting a 10 decommissioning plan. l 11 I was fooling arcund yesterday with some of the l 12 NRC licensee program codes and just based on what the 13 licensed activities are, I think that probably something 14 less than 20 percent of NRC licensees could terminate their
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(%_,) 15 licence without the submission of a decommissioning plan. i 16 These would be sort of the sealed-source folks, 17 people who can make a demonstration that they're able to 18 clean up their facility without tripping any of the l 19 conditions that I'll discuss here in a minute. But we are 20 talking about -- most licensee don't need a DP. I'm 21 assuming that most of you folks are the types that will, so 22 what I'll do is go over a lot of that information in just a 23 few minutes. 24 When is a decommissioning plan required? Well, 25 NRC regulations state that a decommissioning plan is () ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
15 1 required when it's required by license condition, or when () 2 the procedures and activities necessary to carry out l 3 decommissioning have not been approved by the Commission and 4 these procedures could potentially increase health and 5 safety impacts to workers or the public, or if you're in 6 infancy under 10 CFR Part 72, you would have to submit a 7 decommissioning plan. 8 [ Slide shown.] 9 MR. ORLANDO: The regulations describe several 10 instances when a decommissioning plan would be required such 11 as the procedures would involve techniques not applied 12 routinely during cleanup or maintenance operations, when 13 workers would be entering areas not normally occupied; where 1
-14 surface contamination and radiation levels are significantly O)
\, 15 higher than those seen during normal operations; where the 16 procedures could result in significantly greater airborne 17 concentrations of radionuclides than were present during 18 normal operations, or the procedures could result in 19 significantly greater increases of radioactive material to 20 the environment than those associated during normal 21 operations. 22 [ Slide shown.] 23 MR. ORLANDO: Now, if a decommissioning plan isn't 24 required, the licensee has a -- the next several sets of 25 slides I'm going to step through the process both from our / ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
i l 16
- 1. perspective and what we perceive as your perspective at l f-s -
2 least. 3 Excuse me. ! 4- If a decommissioning plan isn't required a
!S licensee has a relatively simple, straightforward set of 6' things that they have to do. The first thing they have to !
7 do is notify NRC that they're going to -- that they've 8 ceased operations. And I've listed what the regulations 9 are. 10 The next thing they have to do is transfer the 11 decommissioning records that are described in the NRC 12 regulations, or affirm that they are not required to retain 13 or transfer those records. 14 The next thing they have to do is to determine the J
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(ssl 15 amount of radioactive contamination at their facility. Then 16 they have to remove it to levels that would permit 17 unrestricted release of the facility. i 18 Dispose of their radioactive waste in accordance 19 with NRC requirements then determine that their facility 20 does meet our unrestricted use criteria. 21 Submit a final radiological survey to NRC or make 22 a demonstration in some other method, or by some other ' 23 method, I should say, that the facility meets our criteria 24 for unrestricted use. i 25 If they are going to submit a survey, typically i ! /~T t l s ,/ ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034 1
17 1 what we would like to see is perhaps 100 percent sanding of () 2 surfaces, some fixed and removable evaluations at about 100 3' square centimeters per 300 square feet, and radiation level 4 measurements at a meter from surfaces. 5 The last thing that these folks would need to do 6 then would be to submit the completion of -- or the 7 certification of disposal of radioactive materials, NRC Form' 8 314 to NRC and that would essentially be all that a licensee 9 would have to do. 10 (Slide shown.] 11 MR. ORLANDO: What the staff would be doing during
-12 all these activities would be logging the material -- or 13 logging the records in, reviewing the surveys, writing 14 letters saying that the facility meets our requirements for 15 unrestricted use. And perhaps for some of -- for these 16 types of licensees they might go out and do a closecut 17' inspection or closecut survey. We have some criteria in our 18 regulations and in our procedures that say when that has to 19' happen. But in general most of these types of 20 decommissionings could be done with minimal staff 21 interaction with the licensees.
22 (Slide shown.) 23 MR. ORLANDO: Now, if a decommissioning plan is 24 required, things-get a little more complicated. What the 25 licensee has to do is submit the notification as before, () ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
18 1 transfer the records required in the NRC regulations and 2 then we suggest you perform a preliminary or scoping survey 3 which includes a document review and some limited l 4 measurements in and around the areas where radioactive I 5 materials were used, might have been used, and definitely
- 6 weren't used.
l 7 The next thing we think, or the next step in the 8 process here would be the development of some kind of 9 characterization plan. Note that NRC regulations don't l 10 require that you develop a site characterize plan or submit 11- that to NRC for review and approval, but if you're at a 12 facility where a decommissioning plan is required, one of
! 13 the things that we would expect to see in the 14 decommissioning plan would be a description of the 15 radiological condition of the facility, and if it's a large j 16 enough facility, you would want to develop some kind of a l 17' plan so you could do that characterization in a manner that
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18 was efficient and got you to the point you wanted to be. I 19 The next thing you do is perform your site 20 characterization in accordance with the plan. Then you'd 21 submit the decommissioning plan to NRC in accordance with 22 our regulations for review and approval. 23 One other thing I'd like to point out, and this is 24 not in the regulations, but the staff prefers, or I'm I 25 asking, or urging you that if when you submit
+ ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034 l
19 1 decommissioning plans they should be submitted as license 2 amendment requests. 3 We like to incorporate the decommissioning plan 4 into the license so that it becomes the enforceable
.5 document. We do believe that if we: approve the plan we do 6 have the ability to enforce the conditions of the plan. But ~7 by doing it as a license amendment, that makes it nice and 8 clean and crisp and there's no questions as to what the 9 enforcement authority for NRC is at the facility during the 10 decommissioning.
11 (Slide shown.] 12 MR. ORLANDO: The next thing you would be perform 13 the remediation in accordance with the decommissioning plan 14 using the financial assurance mechanism that was approved by 15 NRC. The completion of the decommissioning you transfer the 16 radioactive material in accordance with our regulations 17 usually by sending it a low-level radioactive waste disposal 18 facility. 19 The next thing you do is perform a final survey of 20 your facility to make sure that it met our release criteria, 21 submit that final survey report to NRC for our review and 22 approval. And upon approval submit the NRC Form 314 to NRC 23 showing what the disposition of all of the radioactive 24 material under your license is. 25 [ Slide shown.] ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
20
'l MR. ORLANDO: Now, for the NRC staff, when you
) 2 send'-- our steps that we have to take if a decommissioning 3 plan is required are a little more complicated than if one 4 is not required. 5 The first thing we need to do when we get a 6 notification from licensees is acknowledge the notification. 7 And then make sure that the licensee has submitted all of 8 the decommissioning records or has affirmed that they're not 9 required to. 10 The next thing that we tell our staff to do is to 11 contact the licensee to discuss NRC's requirements for 12 releasing sites and what is expected of licensees, the 13 quality and quantity of information in the decommissioning 14 plan. And at this time it might be the appropriate point if ( 15 there needs to be some face-to-face interactions with the 16 staff that's when I personally think that they should occur 17 at the beginning before you start to develop your DP. 18 The next thing that the staff has to do is the 19 determine whether any local citizen groups are interested in 20 the decommissioning or.whether there's any other regulatory 21 authorities that need to be involved in the decommissioning. 22 And also determine who needs to be included on the 23 distribution list for all of the documents pertaining to 24 decommissioning. 25 The next thing is if there is sufficient citizen ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
21 1 interest we would set up a local LPD -- excuse me -- a local ((~%
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\ l 2 public document room or in lieu of setting one of those up, 3 we might arrange for the library to sort of be a repository 4 of information for citizens who are interested in following 5 the decommissioning. j 6' These two obviously are not -- can involve a fair 7 amount of time and once -- as you know, you get the public 8 involved, you want to make sure that you keep them involved 9 throughout, or we want to make sure we keep them involved 10 throughout the process. 11 [ Slide shown.] 12 MR. ORLANDO: Once we get a decommissioning plan, 13 our procedures require that we do an acceptance review. 11 4 That's a very fast turnaround. We try and do that within 30 p)
\m ,
. 15 days. Take a look at the decommissioning plan make sure 16 that all of the elements of decommissioning plan are in 17 there. We don't necessarily to an in-depth technical 18 review. What we'would do is just sort of check and see that 19 you've got all of things in there that you're supposed to 20 have.
21 The next thing we do is send you a letter saying, 22 we've got it and we're ready to start our in-depth review. 23 The next thing we do, we have to publish a federal 24 Reaister notice informing the public that we've received the 25 decommissioning and that we're considering amending the () ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 2000$ (202) 842-0034
22 1 license to incorporate the procedures that are outlined in () es 2 the decommissioning plan. This also, in many cases, will 3 open up hearing rights for individuals wishing to have a 4 hearing on the NRC's actions. 5 If our acceptance review indicates that the 6 decommissioning plan is acceptable, we'll then go ahead and 7 do the in-depth technical review of the decommissioning. 8 Now, this many involve NRC staff having our hydrology people 9 get involved, other HPs get involved, we'll interact back 10 and forth with folks at the local level, the state people, 11 things like that, other regulatory agencies. 12 As I said, we'll coordinate the resolution. If 13 during the review we have any problems, we'll try and f 14 coordinate the resolution of those with other individuals (y,) 15 who have authority at the facility and get back to the 16 licensee. This is probably the part of the decommissioning 17 process that everybody finds the most honest because it's 18 the iterative back and forth of what does this mean, this is 19 what that means; what are you going to do over here; this is 20 what I'm going to do over there, that kind of stuff. 21 If warranted by public interest during the 22 decommissioning or the review of the decommissioning plan we 23 may hold a public meeting to see if citizens have any input 24 to the NRC during the decommissioning process. 25 And finally, the review of the decommissioning (n) \' ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
~
r~' 23 1 plan, once it's completed we'll incorporate it into the
'2 license as a license amendment.
3 During decommissioning activities we try and get 4 out to.the site at specific or at important milestones in 5 the decommissioning, during the characterization if we know 6- that's-going to happen, during cleanup, during the final 7 status survey. Also, as you know, you'll also be inspected 8 periodically by the regional staff during decommissioning to 9- make sure that your decommissioning is being conducted in a 10 manner that's protective of the public health and safety. 11 We are also charged with maintaining contact with 12 state officials, other federal agencies that may have 13 interest at the site, and keep the local citizens up to 14 speed on what's going on. 15 [ Slide shown.] 16 MR. ORLANDO: We may, during this time hold 17 additional public meetings. Some of the facilities that 18 I've been involved with, we've held several public meetings 19 just to keep folks informed as to what's going on during the
~20 process.
21 And if there are any modifications that come up 22 during the decommissioning process where the plant has to be 23' reviewed,_we would need to coordinate the review of that 24 with anybody else who's got a regulatory interest at the l l 25 site. l bV ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters r 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
24 1 (Slide shown.]
'[ -2 MR.'ORLANDO: Now, you've cleaned up your site,
~3 .you're going to send us your final status survey report.
4 The first thing we are supposed to do is perform an 5 acceptance review and take a look at it and make sure it's 6: got all of the bells and whistles in there that it's 7 supposed to have and start going through and making sure 8- that perhaps the cleanup criteria matched what was agreed to 9 in the decommissioning plan and things like that. 10 Then we would review the final status survey. If 11 there's any problems we'll let you know and get back to you. 12: Again, this is another one of those that probably most 13 people find somewhat onerous where, what does this mean, j 14 this is what;that means, what did you do over here, that's 15 what I did over there kind of stuff. l 16 When-we accept the final status survey report the I 17 NRC staff has to make a determination as to whether a 18 confirmatory survey is going to be conducted at the site. 19 And if so, then we have to arrange to have that happen. l 20 [ Slide shown.] 21 MR. ORLANDO: Typically when we do a confirmatory 22 survey either our contractor or the staff will develop a 23 confirmatory survey report. When we get that and approve 24 that document we go ahead and take a look to make sure that 25 all the licensed material has been disposed of in accordance ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
1 i 25 1 with our activity and do our final closecut inspection where
/7 2 the inspector will go out and just sort of make sure all the (a1 3 signs are down and everything looks the way it's supposed 4 to. t 5 After we've verified that all the radioactive 6 material has been cleaned up and that the site is ready for 1 7 release the staff will develop a letter for signature by a 8 branch chief, or as appropriate, informing you that your 9 license is terminated.
1 10 Sometimes right around that point, sort of between i 11 the closecut inspection and the letter that's -- or the 12 termination of the license, we may hold another public 13 meeting depending upon what the citizen interest is. l 14 That, in a nutshell, is the process. I went (3 (._,/ 15 through rather quickly because I want to let Dave get up 16 here and start taking about some of the criteria and j 17 whatnot. Again, this was sort of a stylized, idealized j l 18 process. I just tried to lay out all of the steps in the 19 process that we have to go through to oversee the 1 20 decommissioning of your facilities. 21 If anybody has any questions I'd be happy to 22 answer them. 23 MR. HICKEY: If you could step to the microphone 24 please, and identify yourself. 25 MR. FLETCHER: Roland Fletcher. l r's t ('~~ ) ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. i Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034 l l t
26 { 1 MR. HICKEY: I think everybody knows Roland /\ 2 Fletcher. l] 3 AUDIENCE PARTICIPANT: Not quite. 1 4 MR. FLETCHER: Roland Fletcher, State of Maryland ; 5 representing the Organization of Agreement States. 6 You mentioned in your notifications that you 7 notify other regulatory bodies, et cetera, and I'm sure the 8 Agreement States would be one of those bodies, but do you lt 9 have any criteria on the timeframe? The reason I bring this i 10 up is sometimes when a decommissioning is going on at a 11 facility in an Agreement State, there are other regulatory a 12 bodies that, you know, need to be involved and there are 13 perhaps waste removal going on, perhaps there's even 14 reciprocity that needs to go on. And what I'm encouraging [_ 's 1 \s,/ 15 is that the Agreement States are notified as soon as 1 16 possible in this process so that those items might be 17 covered. 18 MR. ORLANDO: We don't have any formal criteria 19 for how fast it has to happen, but that is one of the things 20 that I think is a priority. I agree with you. Even in 21 non-Agreement States, I think it's important to get 22 everybody who needs to be involved, involved very early on. 23 So that, you know, there aren't any -- so any bumps that are 24 on the horizon can be addressed right at the get-go. 25 I've been lucky enough to -- for the ('~ ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
27 1 decommissionings that I've been involved in we've done that () 2 and it's worked very, very smoothly. But I agree with you, 3 I think the earlier the better. 4 MR. HICKEY: Anyone else? 5 [No response.] 6 MR.' HICKEY: Okay. Well, thank you very, very 7 much. Let's express our appropriate to Nick. 8 [ Applause.] 9 MR. HICKEY: Thank you, Nick. 10 Before introducing our next speaker, I wanted to 11 alert Mr. Killar and Mr. Culberson that I'll be calling on 12 you next when our next speaker has completed. 13 Our next speaker is going to talk about recent 14 developments in decommissioning including our new (m l 15 decommissioning rule and some guidance that's under 16 development and the site survey manual that I mentioned. 17 I'd like to introduce Dave Fauver, one of our 18 senior technical-people. Dave. 19 MR. FAUVER: Good morning. 20 MR. HICKEY: Good morning 21 MR. FAUVER: What I'd like to do is just briefly 22 go through the requirements of the new rule that has been 23 mentioned a couple times this morning. 24 For the most part I think that these requirements 25 are in addition to what Nick just went through, most of the ( ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I' Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
28 1 administrative-type things that were covered will still
) 2 apply except as modified using the results of this workshop.
3 So I'm going to go through this and a lot of the 4 rule requirements do not apply to this group in terms of the 5 relatively simple to moderately complex sites which may or 6 may not require decommissioning plans and in all likelihood 7 -- well, in all cases for this workshop will not be 8 restricted release. But I'm going to go through the entire 9 rule just to provide some context. 10 [ Slide shown.] 11 MR. FAUVER: It was approved by the Commission on 12 May 21 of last year. It is currently effective. It was 13 effective 30 days after publication. And there is a 14 grandfathering provision in the rule which allows the old
/~
15 criteria to be used until August 20, 1998. And what that 16 means is, if you look at the -- I believe it's in the rule, 17 or in the statement of consideration, that if there is a 18 sufficient decommissioning plan submitted prior to August 19 20th of this year, then essentially it would be 20 grandfathered and there are some timelines as to when that 21 should be approved and this type of thing after that. 22 [ Slide shown.] 23 MR. FAUVER: The rule has an unrestricted use I: a l Oriteria. This is essentially what would apply to this 25 group. We don't need a decommissioning plan or even if you
,x \-') ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
29 1 have a relatively simple site with minor decommissioning 2 plan then you would in all likelihood be seeking 1 3 unrestricted use. l l 4 It's a 25 millirem per year all-pathways standard. 5 For simple sites there may be some generic methods for ' 6 performing the dose assessments to meet this standard. As 7 you get slightly more complex, particularly with some soil 8 contamination and if you have uranium and thorium, this may 9 involve some site-specific dose assessment work. 10 And so as a part of this workshop I think that's 11 something you might want to keep in mind as we discuss any 12 kind of risks involved or uncertainty involved in moving l 13 forward in a process like this where you're doing 14 site-specific dose assessment without a decommissioning plan 15 to resolve some of these issues up front. So that's 16 something to keep in mind. q 17 There's also an ALARA provision below 25 millirem 18 and if you look at the draft regulatory guide, there are 19 some calculations that would be acceptable to meet this 20 ALARA below 25 millirem.
'21 Nick talked about decommissioning plans and the 22 requirements for decommissioning plans and so it may or may i 23 not be required if you're seeking unrestricted use. And 24 that's again, I think, a major discussion in this workshop 25 is where do we draw the line between requiring a
( ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
30 1 decommissioning plan. What can we do under our existing A 2 ( J-license and it might involve a review of those criteria that 3 Nick put on the board and hopefully -- or that are.in the 4 current regulation as cited on this slide. And those are 5 the types of things that hopefully.we can have a discussion 6 on-as we move forward. 7 Now, the rest of this discussion probably won't 8 apply to that is-group except for maybe the people who have 9 more complicated cases than we're prepared to discuss today. 10 [ Slide shown.]
.11 MR. FAUVER: There is a restricted-use provision.
12 Basically you have a 25 millirem per year dose with 13 restrictions in place with 100 millirem cap if you assume 14' that t.he restrictions fail. Again, you have the ALAR
) 15 provisions in the rule that you have to look at. You have 16 .to have a mechanism for enforcing the institutional 17- . controls, there are some financial assurance requirements, 18 public participation requirements, and I'll get into some of
- 19. the details on.that in another slide. And a decommissioning 20 plan is required for restricted release, required by the 21 rule.
22 If you can't meet the 100 millirem, assuming the 23 institutional controls fail, there's a provision for a 24- higher. cap with the failure and there are some additional 25- provisions that you have to address and some items that you s () ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1
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l 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 ! Washington, D.C. 20005 I (202) 842-0034 i l l
31 1 have to look at to meet or qualify for this 500 millirem
~
(j 2 cap. Again, it's 25 millirem per year with restrictions in 3 place. 4 [ Slide shown.) 5 MR. FAUVER: There's a clause that says that 6 reductions to meet the 100 millirem per year cap are not 7 . technically achievable or would be prohibitively expensive. 8 So that would be the finding that one would have to make to 9 justify the 500 millirem cap with failure of controls versus 10 the 100 millirem cap.
' 11 The net public and environment harm is the same 12 for the 100 millirem cap.
13 There's a clause that says the institutional 14 controls must be " durable" and I believe there may be some A (m) 15 definition'of.that in a reg guide, but I anticipate that as 16- we implement this rule over the next year or two, this will 17 be more well defined. 18 Sufficient financial assurance as required with 19- the 100 millirem cap, although there's a clause that says 20- it's a responsible government entity or a third ~ party. For 21 the 100 millirem cap it simply says, " third party". So what 22 that really means in terms of implementation as we move 23- forward, I think some of that will be defined as we go. And 24 the check of the site to ensure the institutional controls 25 remain'in place must be at least every five years for 500-() ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250-I Street, N.W., Suite 3v0 Washington,-D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
I 32 1 millirem per year cap; whereas for the 100 millirem per year
\
l
)
2 there's no stated time for the rechecks. 3 Again, you have public participation and you are 4 required to submit a decommissioning plan. 5 (Slide shown.] 6 MR. FAUVER: There's another criteria it's called 7 the " alternate criteria". Essentially this allows the dose 8 to exceed 25 millirem as long as it's 100 millirem, as long 9 a sit would be less than 100 millirem per year accounting i 10 for all manmade sources, whether there's a nuclear plant ' 11 with effluents or some other facility, or whatever it may 1 12 be. If you look at.the rule it excludes medical, and 13 there's a couple of other exclusions where you would make l l 14 this calculation. -
/~
i l (_) 15 The alternate criteria would apply to both 1 l 16 restricted use and un.'s d icted use conditions. Although if 17 it were to be used which we think would be used rarely it i l 18 may be more likely under some type of unrestricted use l 19 conditions, although I don't want to prejudge that. 20 If you use alternate criteria you restrict the 21 site to the extent practical. You reduce doses to ALARA 22 levels, there's a public participation requirement which is 23 the same as the other two -- the next slide will talk a 24 little more about that -- decommissioning plan required, and 25 you need specific Commission approval of alternate criteria. l I ,) ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. l Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
l' l 33 1 The statement and consideration, this is a quote that "The (O) 2 Commission expects the use of alternate criteria to be 3 confined to rare situations." 4 [ Slide shown.) 5 MR. FAUVER: There is a public participation 6 requirement when you have either a restricted use 7 alternative selected or you're using alternate criteria. It 8 requires thatfyov seek advice from this broad cross-section 9 of community intelests that may be affected. You provide an 10 opportunity for comprehensive discussion of the issues by 11 the participants. You make publicly available the summary 12 of discussions and the e_reements and disagreements and in 13 the decommissioning plan you have to have a description of 14 how this advice was sought and how it was incorporated into () 15 your plan and this type of thing. 16 [ Slide shown.] 17 MR. FAUVER: The implementation guidance is in a 18 draft regulatory guide, DG4006. This guidance was provided 19 to the Commission this week. It has four modules. It has a 20 module on dose modeling called derived concentration 21 guidelines but it's dose modeling. It has a module on final 22 surveys, a release under restricted conditions and ALARA 23 analysis. 24 In terms of this workshop I think that a number of 25 these will apply to a greater or lesser extent and, again, l
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Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034 l L
34 L '1 will come into play as you try to move forward with this l () 2 'with or without NRC involvement in the process. The dose 3 modeling I talked a little bit about, but the survey is the 4 second issue. Most of these facilities that we're dealing 5 with will have some type of survey requirement and we have 6 new guidance out. It's so-called MARSSIM guidance, the
- 7. Multi-Agency Radiation Site Survey Investigation Manual.
8 And so there is' going to be some issues in the 9 implementation of this that there probably will be some 10 policy issues that need to be answered and this type of 11 thing and that we may run into a little bit of problem or 12 issues as we try to move forward without NRC involvement. 13 The restricted conditions, again, it doesn't apply 14 too much in ALARA. 15 I have down that the draft guide is expected to be 16 issued in May. What that means is perhaps the Commission i 17 will complete its review and we may be able to resolve any 18 comments, perhaps by May. Nonetheless, the draft guide has 19 been posted on the website during this development period 20 over the last several months and the Office of Research 21 intends to put the latest version that went to the 22 Commission and update the website to include that version. 23 Also the PDR will be updated to include the latest l l 24 copy of the draft guidance. There's a two-year period of l 25 use, at least as it stands right now, it's a proposed ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 l Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
r 35 I l-1 I 1 two-year period of use and then finalize maybe one, maybe l (f ). 2 'two. I believe the paper is requesting two. It went up to 3 the Commission. 4 I don't want to take.up any more time, I want to 5 get on to the work of the workshop and hear what you all 6 have to say. Any questions?
..7 [No response.]
- 8. MR. HICKEY: Please step to the microphone.
l 9 MR. MANLEY: ~ Ray Manley from the Maryland 10 Radiological Health Program. For those licensees that'may 11 have initial problems coming up with financial assurance for 12 decommissioning funding plan or in such cases as 13 decommissioning where monies run out or very near are run 14 out, is the Commission considering the restricted release as 15 an alternative method of decommissioning? 16 MR. HICKEY: Yeah, I might be a better one to 17 address that. The restricted release is not tied to the 18 issue of the adequacy of financial assurance so it's two 19 . separate issues. The appropriateness of restricted release ' 20 stand and falls on its own merit and the sources of money
.21 are treated separately. So it may be that somebody else 22 including the taxpayer has to pay for the decommissioning, 23 but the solution is determined by how much it costs, not 24 where the money is coming from.
25 MR. MANLEY: Thank you. [ l ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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~1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
36 1 MR. FAUVER: Thanks.
?
( 2 MR. HICKEY: Any more questions? 3 [No response.] 4 MR. HICKEY: Thank you, Dave. 5 [ Applause.] 6 MR. HICKEY: I have a couple of other 7 announcements. I wanted to reintroduce Richard Turtil from 8 the technical staff and Larry Bell the supervisor of the 9 materials decommissioning section. I think you've met them 10 in-the course of the peeting this morning and Richard, I 11 believe spoke with many of you inviting you to the session 12 and we appreciate all the hard work they put in on making 13 this workshop happen. And, of course, we're all available 14 to assist you in any way we can today. k s/ m 15 I have one other thought-provoking question for 16 you today to think about during the workshop. And that's 17 whether you're ready to start decommissioning now assuming 18 that you're involved with the case. If y_. _e comfortable 19 with starting decommissioning now, that's good and maybe 20 you'll feel even more comfortable after the workshop, but if 21- you're running into some problems I hope that we'll hear 22 about that today. And to the extent we already have answers 23 we'll discuss those. And to the extent we need some 24 suggestions or improvement and hope we get to talk about 25 that. ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
37 1 Okay. This is the point where NRC stops talking. () 2 And we have a spectrum of well-qualified speakers to 3 represent various aspects of decommissioning other than from 4- NRC's perspective. 5 Our first speaker is from the Nuclear Energy
'6 Institute, Felix Killar. Thank you-for coming, Felix.
7 MR.'KILLAR: Good morning ladies and gentlemen. 8 I'm Felix Killar. I'm the director.of Material Licensees 9 and Nuclear Assurance with the Nuclear Energy Institute and 10 I'm. going to provide you a perspective from NEI as to the 11 decommissioning of material licensee facilities. 12 This morning I try and cover three quick bases. 13 First I've got to talk a little bit about the process. I 14' didn't realize Dick was going to do such a good job of going 15 into excruciating details of the decommissioning process, so 16 I have an overview, so you'll get a difference of f 17 perspective-from the NRC versus a licensee of the 18 decommissioning process to start out witness that. 19 MR. HICKEY: That's what we want to hear. 20 MR. KILLAR: Secondly, I'll talk about where we 21 see the delays, what are the things that bog the process 22 down? What are the things that stretch this whole thing 23 out, so where can we get' items or ways of streamlining and 24 improving the. process. And thirdly what I'll do is present a proposal on ANN RILEY'& ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034 1 _ _ _ _ _ J
38 1 how to do that process in which we think all this can be { (-~) s_/ 2 done within the current set of regulations so there isn't l l 3 any rulemaking or anything along that lines that has to be l l 4 done. It's just a matter of taking the existing rules and i 5 adapting it. ' 6 [ Slide shown.) 1 7 MR. KILLAR: Okay. Going through the process very 8 quickly, this is basically a reiteration of what Nick said.
- 9. If you look in 10 CFR 30.36, 40.42, 70.38,and 72.54 that's 10 where the decommissioning termination requirements are in 11 the regulations for material licensees.
12 The whole process starts with your first notice. ; 13 This notice is within 60 days of the ceasing operations, 14 your licensing expiring, or 24 months after operations have 1 (~\ ! (._,) 15 been stopped for whatever reasons, a lack of business or l 16 what have you. Throughout this whole process I've got a 17 footnote, you do have to maintain your financial assurances l 18 and financial viability. So that is underlying the whole 19 thing. 20 Then the decommissioning process actually begins 21 either immediately with the notice to the NRC or with your 22 submittal of a decommissioning plan. 23 Submittal of the decommissioning as Nick alluded 24 to is required either as a license condition or principally 25 because you're going to be doing something that you haven't (~h () ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
39 1 been doing during your normal operations maintenance. () 2 The decommissioning is then to be completed within 3 24 months of approval by the NRC. 4 [ Slide shown.] 5 MR. KILLAR: The final steps are the submittal of 6 your Form 314 and your conducting of your final radiation 7 survey. Then you put you package together and submit it to 8 the NRC and the NRC looks over that all the material has 9 been properly disposed of, that your radiation survey 10 indicates that your levels are within a proper release, all 11 your documents, records, and what have you that are required 12 by the license have been submitted, and that -- let's see 13 what else do we have up there -- that's pretty much 14 basically it. A (,,) 15 So that's basically the process in a nutshell of 16 what Nick went over in 15 minutes, I covered in two. ; 17 [ Slide shown.] 18 MR. KILLAR: Where are the holdups, okay. The 19 holdups are in two principal areas; the submittal of the
.20 decommissioning plan, and the development of the 21 decommissioning plan.
22 What happens when a licensee prepares his 23 decommissioning plan, he goes through two iterations of it. 24 He first goes out and figures out what he's going to do and 25 how he's going to do it. Then he goes out and rewrites the () ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I1 Street, IT . W . , Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
L 40 1 whole thing again and is saying, now, how could I tell the
.(qj 2 NRC what I'm going to do and how.I'm going to do it so that
'3 they're happy with this.
4- Secondly, they have to put together their final 5 survey plan. And a lot of times they're doing their final l
- 6. survey plan when they don't know what their final survey is E 7- going to look like. Because what-happens as'you go through 8 decommissioning, things change from when you're writing your 9' decommissioning plan and when you get to your final survey.
10 So the process gets stretched out because of trying to 11 answer the questions that you may think come from the NRC 12' prior to actually submitting the program. So the 13- development of a plan ends up taking a lot longer than what 14 it should if you're just going out and doing this without k 15 having to submit it to the NRC. 16 Secondly is the NRC approval process and Nick 17 alluded to this in his presentation. -This is where the give 18 and take is. You submit your decommissioning plan, sometime 19 later, I won't speculate about how many months or years, you 20 get questions from the NRC on a decommissioning plan. In 21- the meantime everything is just sitting there stagnant, 22 waiting for this thing to go forward. 23' Additionally you're getting questions on your 24 final survey plan. Once again, you haven't even started 25, your survey plan, you put together what your ideas or ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. fI) Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite-300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034 L
41 1 expectations of the survey plan are and now you're answering 2 questions on something that is just a vision more than a 3 -practicality. And basically what this does is stretches out 4 the whole process, just getting the decommissioning plan 5 approved and the final survey plan approved. 6 The last aspect of it is that when you get 7 everything all down, you're wrapped up, sent all the . I i ; 8 paperwork in, sometimes it seems like it's going into a dark ' 9 hole. That the NRC for whatever reason hasn't been able to 10 get a response back to you as far as whether the records are I 11 complete, whether there is information lacking, or they have 1 12 _ problems with information and things. And once again, 13 you're sitting there on your thumbs as a licensee waiting 14 for this response from the NRC so that you could actually 15 wrap this thing up and terminate your license and go on 16 about your business. 17 [ Slide shown.] i 18 MR. KILLAR: How can we improve this process? 19 Well, I think we can improve the process by taking 20 some lessons on what's going on over on the reactor side of 2.1 the house. Under the reactor side of the house -- well, 22 first off, I want to back up. Before you even get to the 23 decommissioning, one of the things that you have to look at 24 is what is decommissioning and what is remediation? If _25 you're operating your facility you have a pipe or a fitting ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. ! Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034 l l
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42 1 that's leaking, there's nothing to prevent you from going () 2 out under your existing operations or existing approved 3 license of cutting that pipe out, change that pipe out 4 putting a new pipe in. You have that ability to do that 5 under your license. 6 However, once you get into the decommissioning 7 mode to go out and cut that pipe out to send it off to a 8 low-level waste burial ground you have to have approval from 9 the NRC. And so what we need to do is differentiate between 10 what's decommissioning and what's remediation. And what I 11 envision as remediation is that you can do anything that 12 you've done during operations in shipping stuff off-site to 13 low-level waste burial grounds and that's considered 14 remediation. And down to basically if you want to go as far O \s ,/ 15 as gutting your building. Now, you do have to be concerned 16 about getting into your notification requirement, if you can 11 7 gut your building in 60 days, then you may be able to do 18 that, but not likely. 19 But you do have your notification you have to meet 20 with. But for basic tearing out, allow the basic equipment, 21 the easier things that you would be normally shipping off 22 site and what have you, you should be able to do these 23 without going through or entering into the actual 24 decommissioning mode and decommissioning aspect of it. 25 Once you send your notice in -- but what I'm () ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
43 1 recommending is that all-you do is you send your notice in () 2 and you have a 90-day period. What this 90-day period does, 3 it gives the NRC the opportunity to publish their notices in l 4 the Federal Reaister, notify the local and state officials 5 which they deem appropriate, and this time period is a time 6 period for anyone who wants to challenge the shutdown of 7 .that facility the opportunity to do that. 8 Once that 90-day period-has expired the licensee l l 9 commence decommissioning under their existing procedures ! 1 10 that have been approved under their license. So if they got 11 radiation protection requirements, they've got criticality 12 safety for operations, they apply those into this mode of 13 decommissioning the facility. But they have not had to have I 14 an approved decommissioning plan in order to go forward and 15 commence-this decommissioning. l 16 The only thing that they need to have approved 17 from the NRC is if they're going-to do something that is ; 18 different than what they were doing during their normal 19 operations, if they're doing a process that they haven't 20- previously been using. Something for like doing an etching 21 on something to kind of remove something off -- the 22 contamination off.the. surface that they had not previously 23 had approved from the NRC, things on that line. That would i 24 require maybe a license change and they would have to submit 25 an amendment to their license.and get that approved prior to () ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W.,-Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
44 1 doing that. ([ 2- However, they can go forward under the -- with the 3 notice after the 90 days of any decommissioning activities 4 that are in the conditions and under the conditions of their 5 . existing license and don't involve any of these processes 6 that,have not previously been approved. So that certainly 7- would speed up the whole process of rather taking all this 8 time period for the approval. 1 9 Once he's gone through and completed all the 10 processes and completed his decommissioning, he's done his 11' survey, then he puts a whole package together and submits 12 this package to the NRC which includes the basic materials 13 that we talked about. The final survey which demonstrates 14 that they've met the requirements of 10 CFR Part 20, all the 1 (_f 15 records _that are required to carry on a far as the disposal 16 and things on that line. 1 17 The question of whether you need to continue 11 8 sending these 314s in because you already have these records 19 of all your shipments of low-level waste off site, why do 20 you need to send out a separate form which is a tabulation 21 of all the other forms you've already had. You've sent in 22 all your shipments of records and shipments of low-level 23 waste and you bundle this package up and send it off to the 24 NRC. The site is now clean, it's ready to go, the only 25 thing'you re waiting now for is the NRC to come out and do a l ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D..C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
45 1 final survey if they deem it appropriate of their own, or an l f~3 ( j 2 independent survey'and also to assure that all the paperwork 3 is complete. 4 So this, I think, will be a way of doing the 5- decommissioning within the process and within the 6 regulations, but at a lot speedier time because we're 7 basically taking out all the time it's taking for these 8 documentation and paper-type items which don't go towards 9 creating a successful decommissioning. 10 I'll be glad to answer any questions on that 11 perspective. 12 MR. HICKEY: Emily? 13 MS. FEDERLINE: Felix, one thing that we've 14 worried about is the license during the operational period
) 15 probably will be more complex than it needs to be during the 16 decommissioning period. In other words, there may be some 17 activities that your license requires you to conduct during 18 operations that would not be required. What is your
- 19. recommendation in terms of simplifying a license? Let's say 20 the health and safety plan, the quality assurance program,
- 21. those aspects. Do you see any efficiencies in trying to 22 simplify the license?
23 MR. KILLAR: Well, the way you can approach that, 24 when you send -- when the licensee sends his notice in of 25 termination, you will indicate that I will use these ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 i (202) 842-0034 t I
46 1 following processes and procedures or what have you which p () 2 are currently within my license and that way pick out the 3 ones that eliminates things that were, you know, like going 4 out and verifying your ratchet rings and circuit type, you 5 may not have to do that during decommissioning. So you can 6 eliminate those type things that would not be needed during 7 decommissioning. But it would still help identify 8 specifically which procedures, which processes go into 9 decommissioning. 10 MS. FEDERLINE: Do you see that saving costs? I 11 mean, that would be sort of a formal step early in the 12 process where the licensee would come in and say, these are 13 the things I'm going to use for my current license, please 14 remove the other things from my license. (.-) 15 MR. KILLAR: I think what the big benefit is, is 16 that you don't have to worry about an NRC inspector coming 17 and asking you. 18 MS. FEDERLINE: Right. Right. 19 MR. KILLAR: Because typically you won't be doing 20 those things anyway, so it won't be incurring any costs, but 21 you would be concerned that you're going to get gigged on it 22 because it's still a license condition. You need to do that 1 23 on a periodic basis. 24 MR. BELL: So, in fact, you would be talking about l 25 some license or maybe to remove that from the license so l l ( ,) ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 , Washington, D.C. 20005 l (202) 842-0034 c
47 1 that you won't have it as a problem during the () 2- decommissioning activity? 3 MR. KILLAR: Yeah, you can handle that with this 4 -- with your notice that you're required to put in anyway. 5 So,-leave that as a part of the packet. 6 Similarly, if you look through in the requirements 7- for.the decommissioning plan there's requirements for the 8 description of the facility and things like that. If in the 9 60-day notice if you want to include a brief description of 10 the-facility and things like that, you could do that, but 11 ~ 'right now NRC already has on file as part of license all 12 that information. Does it make sense to repeat all that 13 information?- 14 The idea is to reduce the burden on the licensee, 15 but also' reduce the burden on the NRC of documentations and 16 materials you have to go through. 17 MS. FEDERLINE: Does anybody else in the audience 18 have a~ view on that,. simplifying the license? 19 [No response.] 1 20 MR. HICKEY: I'll ask the question again later 21 when we are having more discussion. 22 Felix, one more thing, if you don't mind, for 23 those_that are not familiar with NEI, could you just briefly 24 say a few words about NEI? 25 MR. KILLAR: NEI is a nuclear trade association AFN RILEY_& ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300
' Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
48 1 basically represent all of:the nuclear utilities in the () 2 country, plus we represent the major material licensees and 3 major radiopharmaceutical and radionuclide producers and ) 4 distribution companies. Additionally, we have as membership 5 the companies that support these activities in the-l L 6 transportation sector, low-level waste disposal sector as 7 well as the attorneys and the consultants in that line.
- 8. Our. principal activities are looking to have the 9 nuclear option open and viable on an economic means. We i
10 work on the Hill lobbying Congress for making sure the ! 11 recognition of the benefits of clean air and clean energy 1 J 12 with nuclear power and we also work very closely NRC, DOE, 13 and DOT on nuclear issues, you know, transportation, DOE's 14 program for things such as waste disposal, the waste 15 program. -Right now I'm deeply involved with the plutonium 16 disposition program and the utilization of the MOC and 17 potentially licensing of a MOC facility. So we cover the 18 gauntlet. 19 MR. HICKEY: Thank you. 20 [ Applause.] 21 MR. HICKEY: I should have mentioned with Dave 22 Fauver's presentation in connection with our developing 23 guidance for decommissioning there is an open meeting on 24 Monday afternoon and Tuesday, this coming monday afternoon 25 the 23rd, and Tuesday the 24th of our Advisory Committee on l_ ) ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. L Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
49 1 Nuclear Waste in this building. And there will be a lengthy s ( ) 2 discussion, as much as eight hours or more, on the 3 development of the guidance. It's an open meeting which 4 means you're welcome the attend and observe. But the agenda 5 is set and if you're not on the agenda then you can merely 6 observe, you're not participating in the discussions. 7 That's as distinguished from this type of meeting which is a 8 public meeting where all of the people are welcome to 9 participate and comment and ask questions during the 10 meeting. 11 Okay. Our next speaker is Dave Culberson from the 12 Fuel Cycle Facilities Forum. Thank you, Dave. 13 MR. CULBERSON: Let me first say thank you. I 14 appreciate the opportunity to be here on behalf of the Fuel A (-) 15 Cycle industry. I'll tell you a little bit about the forum 16 in just a minute. 17 I'm Dave Culberson. I am the licensing manager at 18 Nuclear' Fuel Services, but I also serve as the chairman of 19 Fuel Cycle Facilities Forum. And we are really pleased to 20 be represented here today. I think this is an excellent 21 opportunity to discuss a lot of important issues in the 22 decommissioning arena and we appreciate the opportunity to 23 be here. 24 We really appreciate the NRC's willingness to host 25 this kind of meeting that's open, lots of discussion and
,~,
I \ ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. \- Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
c 50 1 back and forth exchange because I think that's really where ( ) 2 a lot of things are accomplished. 3 [ Slide shown.] 4 MR. CULBERSON: I'll start of just by telling you 5 a little bit about the Fuel Cycle Facilities Forum for those 6 of you that may not be familiar. We are a rather informal l 7 group that has been organized since about 1988. Consists of 8 primarily source and special nuclear material processing 9 facilities. And we focus all of our efforts on l 10 decommissioning to try to differentiate that from other 11 industry groups that focus on more operational issues. We 12 really work hard to try to stay focused on decommissioning 13 issues so that we can accomplish a lot more in our group. 14 We deal primarily with regulatory and technical g (,/ 15 issues, those seem to be the ones that we spend the most of 16 our time on. We meet about three times a year all over the 17 country. We try to hold our meetings in locations where we 18 can actually visit sites that are represented and actually 19 witness some of the decommissioning activities to get a 20 first-hand feel for what's going on all over the country and 21 to see what everyone else is having to deal with. And it 22 really has helped in the exchange of information. 23 We've been closely following the decommissioning 24 rule development for that entire time and have submitted 25 several sets of comments throughout the process, have l t l ,s" j ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034 (
51 1 participated in all the public and open sessions and I in () 2 believe this group, I can honestly say, represents those few 3 tens of sites that are going to be the more challenging j 4 ones. We certainly don't have solutions for most of the 5 problems we're dealing with, but we have lots of questions ' 6 and we'll be talking about a few of those today. 7 [ Slide shown.] ' 8 MR. CULBERSON: I'm going to touch on about seven 9 different points today. These are the next seven bullets. j i 10 This is just a real highlight. l 11 First this group essentially endorses DSI 9, j 12 Option 2 which deals with performance-based decommissioning 13 review process whereby licensees could proceed with 14 decommissioning using performance-based criteria under their
! ,) \_s/ 15 existing operating license accomplish most if not a good bit 16 of the decommissioning effort without actually having to 17 submit the decommissioning plan for much of that.
18 Secondly, we endorse the DSI-9, Option 7 which 19 deals with disposal of low-level waste fron the 20 decommissioning process in a uranium mill tailing site. And 21 actually I'll tell you a little bit more about each of these 22 in a few minutes. We'll talk just a little bit more about 23 each of them in perspective. 24 We have a number of key technical issues that have 25 surfaced throughout the last few years dealing with I ['i e
~
ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
52 1 implementation and demonstrating compliance with the () 2 criteria that have been developed particularly because of 3 the contaminants of concern at these facilities. 4 Essentially all of the facilities deal with uranium and 5 thorium and their daughter products and that's where most of 6 the complexities are introduced. So this group represents 7' that group of licensees that are going to have the toughest 8 situations technically. i 9 You're going to see several recurring themes 10 today, I'm sure this is probably one of them, when is a 11 decommissioning plan required. It's not clear to licensees 12 in many cases and hopefully we can discuss that in more 13 detail. 14 We believe that a number of the decommissioning 15' efforts -- decommissioning-type efforts and activities could 16 be accomplished under the operating license. 17 [ Slide shown.] 18 MR. CULBERSON: The fifth key issue is, what is 19 EPA's role and authority in the decommissioning process? 20 We'll touch on that just a little bit more. There are some 21 issues that have surfaced and continue to surface with 22 respect to implementation of timeliness rule and how that's 23 . implemented and when it's appropriate to implement. 24 And finally, we would like to applaud NRC efforts 25 to involve industry. This process in the last few months, .,~ f 4 ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
j 53 l' the last couple of years has been very commendable and we l() 2 appreciate your involvement, your willingness to listen to 3 the issues that we have and I think the opportunity to sit j 4 down and work together is beneficial for all. l 5 [ Slide shown.] i 6 MR. CULBERSON: First those issues deals with 7 DSI-9, Option 2 which would allow a licensee to do a good j 8 bit of the work under performance-based criteria that would l 9 be introduced in the license or are already in an existing 10 license. I 11 Currently the licensing branch and inspection 12 branches oversee those operations at the facility. Many of 13 the operations that are conducted under the existing 14 licenses are no different than the activities that will be (~S (_s/ 15 conducted in decommissioning for a vast majority of that 16 work. And so safety programs, environmental t ragrams, 17 nuclear safety programs, all of that, material control and 18 accountability issues are essentially in place now. And 19 there are some ongoing routine requirements for monitoring 20 and surveillance that may not be necessary because you're 21 not processing anymore, but we believe a good bit of that 22 could_ge done under the existing license. And that's 23 another theme that has already been introduced that we think 24 needs serious consideration. 25 'In many cases the licensee's desire to go about i ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. [#Y
'- Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 841-0034
l l 54 1 the remediation and approach decommissioning without
/ \
(' ) 2 actually terminating a license. So many of the facilities 1 3 represented in the Fuel Cycle Forum have operating sites. l 4 They're not at the point of terminating a license yet. Yet 5 the timeliness rule forces some of those issues to be 6 addressed and it's another case for allowing remediation 7 work to proceed under the existing license and let the 8 decommissioning plan then only be required at the point 9 where the licensee says, I'm done, I've reached the end of 10 plant life for a facility or an area. I'm ready to 11 terminate the license to take that area out of the license. 12 Then a detailed decommissioning plan should be appropriate. 13 (Slide shown.] 14 MR. CULBERSON: Option 7, deals with disposition ( ,/ 15 of uranium and thorium contaminated waste at mill tailing 16 sites. Just a point of note, we just had a meeting jointly 17 last week with that National Mining Association. We've been 18 meeting with them for the last year or so jointly, and we 19 have together initiated an effort to pursue this a little 20 bit more rigorously. We believe that a number of the fuel 21 cycle facility sites have materials that would be good 22 candidate material for either processing as alternate feed 23 or for disposal as material that is similar to mill tailings 24 actually in those operations. 25 There's not a lot of difference in material. It
/~s
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\/ Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
I 5s 1 came from that point in the process initiallj and it just () 2 makes a lot of sense technically and economically. 3 And a number of these facilities deal with SNM, 4 but we also believe that there are good technical 5 justifications for treating SNM within reason, of course, 6 like that material and removing some of the barriers that 7 would prevent low-level waste or low enrichments of SNM to 8 be processed in the very same way. Because it's all going 9 into the ground, most of it in bulk anyway, so we don't see 10 that as being much different at a mill tailing site versus a 11 low-level waste disposal cell. 12 (Slide shown.] 13 MR. CULBERSON: Just to touch on some of the key 14 technical issues, these have been discussed many, many () 15 times. I'm sure many of these are not resolved, won't be 16 resolved easily.in the near future, and there are probably a 17 lot of them going to be site-specific issues. 18 The fact that we process uranium and thorium and 19 daughter products are present makes it difficult to 20 differentiate those materials from what's naturally 21 occurring the background at just about all the sites in the 22 U.S. particularly at the low levels that are required to 23 demonstrate compliance with the decommissioning criteria. 24 That's where we really get into some problems. The guidance 25 has helped that process some I think in understanding how we ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
56 1 can deal with that. But it's still a challenge with the
/~) 2 technology that's available and the levels that we're (u-]
3 talking about. 4 We think it's important that NRC acknowledge, and 5 I think you have, that the guidance may not work at some or 6 all these sites, these complex sites, and so some 7 accommodation may be needed to actually look at more 8 site-specific requirements and criteria and guidance - or 9 not necessarily guidance but methods for accomplishing the 10 decommissioning. 11 The principal of ALARA, the way it's applied once 12 you reach 25 millirem, then you would applv the ALARA 13 principal below thet. We believe that in many of these 14 sites it's probably appropriate to look at ALARA and look at
\s ,) 15 a site-specific situation and determine whether 25 millirem 16 is really a level that ought to be considered as your 17 baseline for ALARA or maybe it should be something higher 18 than that witbout compromising safety. That should be a 19 site-specific licensee and NRC-agreed to decision so that 20 ALARA could be implemented, but not necessarily just below 21 the 25 millirem reference level.
22 And because of all the technical issues that are 23 associated with these particular sites, we believe it's real 24 important that one of these sites, at least one of these 25 sites be included in the pilot program so that these issues () ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters , 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
l 57 1 -- these types of issues get addressed or looked at for
. 2 . simplifying the decommissioning process.
3 [ Slide shown.] 4 MR. CULBERSON: This question has already come up. 5 I'm sure a number of people ask this frequently, from a 1 l 1 l 6L ' licensee's perspective it is not always clear when a
'7' decommissioning plan is required. For an operating facility 8 that wants to go so far as to take down a structure, many 9 times that's no different than what the licensee has done 10 .for many, many years under the license. The activities are 11 no different or are very, very similar to what has been done 12 in terms of maintenance and cleanup at a site. It appears 13 that many of those activities could be done wit :3ut a 14 decommissioning plan. But for licensees and speaking for
- 15. NFS particularly it's a gray area.
16 We understand what the concerns are with respect 17 to meeting the regulatory approvals and community 18 involvement if that's necessary, but at the same time from 19 an operating licensee's standpoint it's very, very difficult 20 to know just how far you go and when you step over that line 21 'and enter decommissioning space. 22 We think that the licensees ought to be able to go 23 through a deliberative process, .ask those questions that are 24 specified in Part 70 as to when the decommissioning plan is 25 required, and if they can answer no to all those, then ANN'RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
58 l 1. proceed with the documentation in place, proceed under the I [D N/ 2 existing decommissioning plan. 3 But then the other side of the coin is, one day 4 you could turn around and find out that there's nothing left 5 at the site, so, yes, it's a question that needs to be , .6 resolved. We're not sure how it ought to be addressed, but l-7 we do feel like a number of the remediation activities could 8 be conducted without a formal decommissioning plan in place, 9 or perhaps proceed in parallels as Felix has suggested. 10 [ Slide shown.) 11 MR. CULBERSON: EPA's role comes up often at our 12 meetings and our discussions. Just what is that role? 13 There's always a concern on a licensee's part with respect 14 to finality that even though you're done, you're not done. (3
'xs ,) 15 And it's not clear what the EPA's role is. They have not J16 been actively involved as far as licensees can tell in 17 soliciting a great deal of input from licensees involving 18 them in that process as the NRC has. So it's not clear 19 where this will end up.
20 We would just encourage NRC to continue to work 21 with EPA to resolve that so that there is no question of 22 dual jurisdiction, finality issues or not can be put to rest 23' and.that we would be dealing with one agency. And I think 24 we believe that that is appropriately the NRC. 25 [ Slide shown.] ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
j 1 I 59 l 1 MR. CULBERSON: Several issues with respect to the [ 2 timeliness rule. The 24-month performance period that's
%)
3 identified, we believe could be relaxed some based on 4 intended uses of the site and facilities. There are a i
)
t 5 number of situations where sites go into kind of a slow-down l 6 period and 24-months is not unreasonable for a facility to I
)
7 be inactive between jobs or when marketing efforts are out 1 j 8 trying to bring work in. And we believe that it's 9 appropriate that that be considered and that it not be 10 automatic that in 24 months a licensee have to go into a 11 decommissioning process. It's very onerous and laborious 12 the way it's specified now. 13 The current timeliness rule sort of compels the 14 licensees to go into the timelines mode which again is the r~
! ,T) 15 site characterizatic , notification, decommissioning plan 16 submittals or alternate schedule submittals. And we believe 17 that with some lesser process that could be streamlined and 18 made to be a little bit more accommodating to those 19 facilities that do have slowdowns that may last longer.
20 Particularly at a facility that's not intending to go 21 decommissioning and delicense at that particular time. 22 We'd like to see the NRC agree to a safe standby 23 condition in lieu of actually having to decommission to 24 unrestricted release levels. That goes hand-in-hand with 25 the extension of the 24 months to where there could be a i () x JJai RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034 l
60
- 1. period of time, a finite period of time where a licensee
() r~m 2' could put a facility or an area in safe standby so that the i 3 public health and safety is protected, that the environment ( 4 is protected, yet the licensee is not required to go into 5 decommission. 6 Again, this is primarily a factor at operating 7 sites, those complex sites that would have a difficult time 8 carving off a piece of their site and decommissioning and 9 delicensing that. 10 (Slide shown.] 11 MR. CULBERSON: Again, the care and maintenance, 12 that kind of goes hand-in-hand with the previous bullet. 13 And just a point that the way the decommissioning process is 14 structured now, a licensee has to ask the question right up () 15 front, do I decommission to restricted or unrestricted use 16 or take no action. It requires a lot of information that 17 may not be available at that point because that dictates 18 which direction to go in terms of the collection of data, 19 the development of decommissioning plans, alternative 20 selection and just -- I think the point here is just to 21 recognize that that's a difficult decision to make 22 sometimes. So there needs to be accommodation for that 23 process to actually. change during the development of the 24 decommissioning plan and process itself. 25 And that some things you may find -- the licensee () ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
61 1 may find themselves in the predicament of finding themselves
/ 2 too far down the road and not having accomplished some of 3 the things that would be required for an unrestricted 4 release, for example, if that didn't actually believe early 1
5 on that they needed to go in an unrestricted release route. 6 (Slide shown.] 7 MR. CULBERSON: Again, I'd like to emphasize, we 8 believe NRC has been very cooperative and active in seeking l 9 industry input into the development of the rules and the 10 criteria and the development of the guidance. We appreciate 11 that and we would encourage that to continue. We are more 12 than willing to meet with you on formal and an informal 13 bases to discuss issues like this.
-14 Just as another point of reference, at our last 15 Fuel Cycle Forum meeting the group elected to have another '
16 ' tabletop exercise similar to the one we had a couple of j 17 years ago which many of you participated in. We anticipate 18 that this summer. The date has not been selected. We have 19 a general idea of how we want that structured. Right now it 20 appears that rather than having a tabletop exercise that 21 would be for the purpose of identifying -- the purpose of 22 identifying problems and the process and the criteria and the rule this one would start with the assumption that we 24 have the rule, we have the guidance documents in place, now, 25 let's all work together and actually find a way that we can j l ANN RILEY & ASSOC::ATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 i l (202) 842-0034
E 62 1 implement these at' fuel cycle facilities. O b 2 We very much are looking for NRC involvement in 3 that workshop or that exercise and I'll be working with key j 4 people here to facilitate that. l 5- We believe the guidance that's in place has really 6 been official, the ALARA particularly. It's nice to see 7 something out formally that gives us guidance on the ALMA l 8 process. And we encourage that to continue. 9 And the final point is that we hope that NRC would l 10 continue to focus its resources on solving these technical 3 11 issues in implementing and processing the existing case load 12 as' opposed to spending a great deal of time on things that
' 13.
. dilute resources of both NRC and the industry. I think that 14 would help us and be beneficial to us all. A few meetings ;
15 where we focus on some of these technical issues is always 16 very constructive. That's all I guess I need to say about 17 that. 18 And that's all I needed to cover today. If you 19 have any questions, I would be happy to entertain those. I 20 did bring a number of fuel cycle company representatives -- 21' , well, I didn't bring them, they're here. And they're here 22 primarily to answer your questions. I may not be able to 23 answer them all. I certainly answer any I can. But, if you 24 have questions I will be glad to entertain those. 25 MR.'ABU-EAD: I believe you mentioned -- ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
I 63 1 MR. HICKEY: Excuse me, you need to identify 2 yourself. 3 MR ABU-EID: My name is Boby Abu-Eid I'm with the 4 Division of Waste Management, NRC. I thank you for this 5 presentation. It was excellent. You gave us perspective on 6 how to' deal with different issues and I looked at your last 7 slides and you indicated that NRC staff should focus on 8 technical problems. I would really appreciate elaborating l l 9 more on what you have in mind, what are these technical { 1 10 problems because we like to hear from industry. What are l 1 11 those problems so we could focus on? Thank you. { 12 MR. CULBERSON: Thank you, Bob. A couple of them I 13 we identified earlier. This whole issue of differentiation 14 of uranium and daughter products we have to demonstrate 15 compliance at levels that are very, very close to background 16 or included in variations in natural background or where I 1 17 natural background varies enough that it masks the ability 18 to demonstrate. There are technologic issues associated 19 with measurements, both analytical in the laboratories as 20 well as in the field during in-process measurements. I l i 21 mean, that has come up a number of times, how do you i 22 actually tell a bulldozer or a front-end loader that you're i 23 done out in the field on a day-to-day basis at these levels 24 without having to take samples and send them off to a 25 laboratory and wait several weeks to get results back. f) ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. v Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite.300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
64 1 That's just not practical. So that issue is a very real .(). 2 issue. 3 Final surveys -- scanning surveys, what's the 4 benefit of that? How do you do that so it's meaningful 5 sites that are contaminated with uranium, thorium and their 6 daughters? What do you do about situations where the 7 daughters are not in equilibrium and how do you deal with 8 that? These are the types of things. We've identified a 9 number of these technical issues in comments that have been 10 submitted over the last several years. I don't think many 11 of those have changed. 12 We have, I believe, NRC and EPA through MARSSIM 13 and other things have worked through a number of those, but 14 there are still lingering and troubling issues out there O\ (j) 15 that licensees face when the rubber meets the road, when we i 16 actually have to implement, have to put this into practice. 17 And that's when a number of -hs issues surface. I'm 18 convinced there are a number of technical issues that 19 haven't even yet surfaced once we cry to implement rule and 20 guidance documents at the levels we're talking about. 21 MR. ABU-EID: Thank you. As a technical staff I 22 would like to hear more from others also about what are 23 these technical issues we should focus on. This will help 24 us focus our resources on those issues. Thank you. 25 MR. CULBERSON: I would ask if there are any Fuel
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65 1 . Cycle Forum members here that would want to mention anything -( ) 2 specific for Boby's benefit. 3- MS. SWEENY: Hi, my name is Katie Sweeney. I'm 4 with the National Mining Association and I just wanted to 5 echo Dave'Culberson's comments regarding DIS-9, Option 7 and 6 putting a non-11(a) (2) material in uranium mill tailings 7 piles. 8 I don't~know if this is an appropriate time to go 9 into more detail about some of the barriers that we see to 10 putting those materials in tailings piles and some
.11 recommendations we have. I don't know if you want to wait I l
12 until this afternoon? 13 MR. HICKEY: I think we should wait on that. 14 MS. SWEENY: Okay. Well, then I would just like O ( ,) 15 to echo Dave's comments. I think that that's an option that 16 needs to be explored very seriously and it could save on 17 disposal costs and use existing capacity. Thank you. 18 MR. CULBERSON: Thank you. 19 MR. KOH: Good morning, I'm Barry Roh, a 20 decommissioning consultant. Do you have any idea of what 21 the disposal costs or cost range would be in an 11(e) (2) 22 disposals? 23- MR. CULBERSON: I don't. That's one of the things 24 that hasn't been worked out. There are a number of 25 variables there. There are a limited number of sites
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66 1 obviously. The ability to dispose of bulk materials is A) t, v 2 variable, recoverability of some of this material either 3 uranium, thorium, or something else that might be in the 4 soil or rubble. There are a number of variables and we 5 haven't gotten far enough to understand what those costs are ; 1 6 really going to be. 7 MR. KOH: Has your group gotten far enough to { 8 consider what sort of number you need to make that a' viable 4 9 option at some of these more complex sites? 10 MR. CULBERSON: I think it's a general, generic 11 statement that from licensees' standpoints, whatever is cost l 12 beneficial. It becomes a cost issue. If it's cheaper and 13 makes sense, makes more sense from scheduling, overall ! 1 14 costs, if it's less expensive and more economical to do O (_,) 15 that, that's what licensees would be interested in as i 16 opposed to commercial low-level waste disposal. ) 17 MR. KOH: But you haven't developed any sort of 18 plans or numbers yet -- 19 MR. CULBERSONr No. At this point -- 20 MR. KOH: -- to indicate what would be cost 21 beneficial? 22 MR. CULBERSON: -- at this point all we have done 23 is at the meeting last week we had a good health discussion 24 between National Mining Association and the Fuel Cycle 25 Facilities Forum. l We are going out to both organizations - l l l
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67 1 with ques.ionu:f.res on trying to solicit information -- ( ) 2 technical information on the types of material that is out 3 there that might be candidate, the volumes, who might be 4 interested from the standpoint of the candidate sites, what 5 do they.have available capacity wise, what are they 6 interested in, could they handle it, were there licensing or 7 regulatory issues that we have to face. A lot of state 8 issues have to be addressed. 9 Once we get all this information together where 10 you have a committee that's going to be doing some 11 brainstorming to figure out how it makes sense to proceed 12 and what the right path is. We don't have that path forward 13 totally defined yet. That's going to evolve, we hope, over 14 the next several months and we anticipate within the next (D_) 15 several months being able to come and meet with the NRC and 16 sit down and talk, explore options, and take it from there. 17 It may be an individual site-to-site type of a 18 relationship, it may be something generic to both 19 industries. At this point we just don't know. We're on the 20 front end of that process. 21 MR. KOH: Thank you. 22 MR. CULBERSON: You're welcome. Thank you. Any 23 other questions? 24 MS. FEDERLINE: Dave, I was wondering if you had 25 given any thought -- in our experience the earlier public I
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67 1 with questionnaires on .rying to solicit information -- 2
'(A) technical information on the types of material that is out 3 there that might be candidate, the volumes, who might be 4 interested from the standpoint of the candidate sites, what 5 do-they have available capacity wise, what are they 6 interested in, could they handle it, were there licensing or 7 regulatory issues that we have to face. A lot of state 8 issues have to be addressed.
9 Once we get all this information together where 10 you have a committee.that's going to be doing some 11 brainstorming to figure out how it makes sense to proceed 12 and what the right path is. We don't have that path forward 13 totally. defined yet. That's going to evolve, we hope, over 14 the next several months and we anticipate within the next O). (_ 15 several months being able to come and meet with the NRC and 16 sit down and talk, explore options, and take it from there. 17 It may be an individual site-to-site type of a 18 relationship, it may be something generic to both 19 industries. At this point we just don't know. We're on the 20 front end of that process. 21 MR. KOH: -Thank you. 22 MR. CULBERSON: You're welcome. Thank you. Any 23 other questions? 24 MS. FEDERLINE: Dave, I was wondering if you had l 25 -given any thought -- in our experience the earlier public i l l
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L-L l 68 l 1 involvement occurs the more successful a decommissioning ) 2 project generally turns out to be. And under you proposal 3 that you're talking about, safe standby conditioning in lieu l 4 of decommissioning and sort of conducting a number of
-5 activities under the operational license. How would ly see 6 public involvement being brought into that process?
7 MR. CULBERSON: I guess I viewed those as 8 operational-type activities just like we do today, public, 9 you know, would be involved as thay are today. I think we 10 find ourselves in the situation where many of the activities 11 that we do at the site that are driven by the timeliness 12 rule or SDMP, or something, forces us into more public 13 involvement when it's not necessarily required. I mean, 14 it's not different than the facility continuing its 15 operations for another year or.two or four. And the public 16 involvement as I viewed that was at the point where if we 17 really are ready to terminate a license and release the site : l 18 either for restricted or unrestricted use, that's when you
'19 want public involvement to know that they're going to be 20 comfortable with whatever decisions are made and they're 21 involved in that process. But for many of these facilities I 22 taking a building down and out of service or cleaning up a 23 portion of the site until such time in the future as the 24 licensee says they're done and ready to walk away, I don't 25 personally see that there's need for much community ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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69 1 involvement at that point. It's the end of the process when [D b) 2 you decommissioning and the decommissioning plan is required 1 3 and you're ready to walk away. At that point I think it's 1 4 appropriate, and, of course, the public always has 5 opportunity for involvement while you're operating. 6 MS. FEDERLINE: Would this process mainly that 7 you're describing be focused on unrestricted release? In 8 other words, would these be cleanups that would be focused 9 on unrestricted release when you finally do terminate your 10 license? 11 MR. CULBERSON: It may be restricted or 12 unrestricted. It's going to be very site-deper; dent. If 13 you've got groundwater issues, if you've got contamination 14 issues, if things are not cost effective to deal with, you (~~)\ (_ 15 know, that's a decision that's made at the end of life. A 16 lot of that is going to be economic. 17 MR. KILLAR: Felix Killar, NEI. I'd like to add 18 to what Dave was saying. On public involvement we've always 19 been supporters and promoters of public involvement and the 20 idea is involvement all along the process that you don't 21 involve the public when you're at the closing the door. 22 What you do is you involve the public as you're operating 23 your facility and then as you transition from operation to 24 decommissioning to closing the facility down, the public is 25 fully knowledgeable of the process and what's been going on. [D \2 ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
70 1 And that way they don't feel like they're being told about [) 2 it at the very end and as a surprise. 3 You're not looking at anything different than what
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1 4 you would.have been doing all along, is that's the approach 5 we've recommended for our members throughout the process. 6 MR. NAGY: I'm John Nagy from Nuclear Fuel 7 Services, I'm the health physics manager there. A comment. l l 8 One of your last bullets, Dave, was about technical staff ' 9 and technical issues being addressed. And I think the issue 10 there is not just that there are a list of technical issues, i 11' and there will be more, it's from the licensee standpoint we i 12 seem'to deal with a handful or a couple of handfuls of i 13 people routinely that seem to have a large burden here at 14 the NRC to deal with the technical issues. 15 And_I think the question is directed almost at 16 management at NRC to say, make sure you really have enough' 17 of the technical staff you need to really conduct your 18 mission and that your priorities are placed correctly in 19 terms of your staffing. 20 It's a big burden at the licensee's to make sure 21 we have enough health physicists and geologists and 22 everything else to do our work. I know you have the same 23 burden here. So from our perspective part of that was that 24 bullet was about having the resources in the right place to 25 deal with the hard technical issues. () ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
l 71 1 And then one other comment. There was nomething l) 2 about. the cost of disposing of waste of the 11(e) (2) 3 material'. One of the biggest factors there would be opening 4 up another option, if nothing else, would bring some j 5 competition into the costing _of waste disposal. And that L 6 alone is going to make a difference so that you can't really ! 7 ask the question, how much would it cost, I think, but you 8 can say that it will make a difference and help bring down 9 decommissioning costs just to have some more options there. 10 'MR. CULBERSON: .Thank you. 11 MR. HICKEY: Thank you, Dave. 12 (Applause.] 13 MR. HICKEY: 'We're going to take a break until 11 14 now. .And the five remaining speakers for the morning after O(_ / -15 the break I would like to ask them to join me up at the l 16 table to-facilitate the introductions since we'll have 17 several presentations before lunch. ' 18 So be back here promptly at 11, please. 19 (Recess] 20 MR. HICKEY: Back on the record. 21 I'd like to introduce one that's been around. I 22 think he's seen people come and seen people go in the world 23 of decommissioning. He's the director of the Maryland 24 Regulatory program and he's also-chairman of the 25 Organization of Agreement States, so he represents the
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72 1 collective state regulation of radioactive materials and 2 we're very pleased to have him here today, Roland Fletcher. 3 MR. FLETCHER: Thanks, John. When someone says 4 you've been around, you really start to feel a little uneasy 5 because you start wondering if someone will say, well, I 6 remember when he was around. 7 [ Laughter.] 8 MR. FLETCHER: This morning I a have the 9 opportunity of representing the organization of Agreement l 10 States and to give you some state perspective. Now, I don't 11 have transparencies, but you should have a single-page 12 handout. If you'll note, I added on letter to the title. 13 Instead of a state perspective, it's more state 14 perspectives. We have a 30-state organization that it's 15 very difficult to come out with a single perspective. So l 16 we're going to be looking at the subject of decommissioning 17 and the concerns that many of the states have. 18 I would, however, like you to think about your 19 state here. I'm also a native Marylander so I'm always 20 pleased to have people visit our state. And if when you 21 arrive back at your locations you feel that you've had a 22 very enjoyable and pleasant stay here, I want you to 23 remember that your stay was in Rockville, Maryland. 24 However, if for whatever reason you arrive back at 25 your destination and you feel that your stay was not as ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
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.1 -pleasant as it could have been, I want you to remember that
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I) 12 this is a Washington area meeting. j 3 (Laughter.) 4 MR. FLETCHER: Controlled by - under federal 5' ~ jurisdiction and states are often told that we have no-l 6 control in those situations. I 7' Let me first begin by talking about -- well, first
,8 let me make a^ correction to my handout that will help keep 9 me from being embarrassed. If you'll notice at the top in 10 the letterhead it says " Thomas Hill, Secretary", please 11 change that to " Richard Ratliff" secretary. I made that 12 mistake before and I don't think he'll forgive me twice. 1 13 Richard Ratliff, Secretary.
14 The first item that I'd like to talk about is 15 something that'has been touched-upon by almost everyone who 16 has come up, and that is, for the most part, when we're 17 . talking about decommissioning we're talking about just a 18 simple part of the whole licensing cycle. You know, the 19 initial issuing of a' license, the term of a license and then 20 when the operation is done there's a decommissioning and 21 termination. And most of these -- the vast majority of 22 these are fairly routine. There's no -- you don't encounter 23 that much difficulty. 24 The same thing occurs in the 30 Agreement States. 25 For the most part'the types of facility be they research
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74
'l facilities, doctor's offices, whatever, the decommissioning j) '_2 process is just a standard routine part of the whole 3 ' licensing cycle. And it is, therefore, of not great 4 concern, or at least not of any more concern than the whole 5 process of inspection, renewals, and things of that nature.
6 It becomes a standard thing. 7 What we try to make sure happens in the Agreement 8 State is you can normally tell whether or not a 9 decommissioning is going to be a problem decommissioning by 10 whether or not the life of the license is a problem 11 lifetime. Whether or not problems are 'mcountered in 12 compliance during the course of the license because that 13 will often let you know that you can anticipate some 14 problems going through the end of a licensed process. It is 15 very important that you know your licensees. In states it's 16 -- we deal with a number of licensees that for the most part 17 we're quite familiar with. And, therefore, we know pretty 18 well what to anticipate. 19 Now, there have been states, and I don't intend to 20 elaborate on exactly which ones they are, but there have 21 been states that have encountered some very difficult and 22 touchy problems with licensees going through decommissioning ! 23 and in almost every case the problems were originally tied 24 to operational problems, problems with maintaining 25 compliance within the framework of the operation of the ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. - O-- Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
r 75 ' 1 license. So for the most part, you can anticipate when j
) 2 you're going'to run into a decommissioning problem.
3 Our procedures are virtually, you know, by rules 4 actually - . virtually identical to those of the Nuclear 5 Regulatory Commission because of our requirement to maintain 6 compatibility. And as the new rules are disseminated, each 7 one of the Agreement States have to incorporate those rules 8 within the time period of three years. 9 The second item that I want to talk about and that 10 is of great concern to the Agreement States is this cleanup 11 decommissioning and cleanup criteria. For the most part, 12 and once again, I'm speaking for the majority of states, 13 there's a great deal of support for the cleanup criteria 14 established by regulation -- by NRC regulation and one that t
,_/ 15 seemed reasonable and one that we are able to incorporate it 16 into our own regulations and enforce. There are a few 17 states, and you have to remember that states to do not 18 operate in a vacuum. There are a few states who have 19 expressed some concern that because of the concern that the 20 EPA has raised with regard to the cleanup criteria their 21 some of the other agencies in the those states have raised 22 similar concerns.
23 So it is very difficult for all 30 states to jump 24 on board and say, we are all in favor of this. But for the
.25 majority of those in the agreement states, I can say that ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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l ! 76 1 they do support the 25 millirem criteria. But I also want 2 us to think about what -- when we talk about public 3 participation, we have to be cognizant of the fact that all 4 of these various numbers that we: keep throwing out to the 5 public are not. going to help us when we go before the public 6 and talk about clean up criteria. Because we've got so many 7 numbers that we really are having - I'd say some degree of 8 difficulty explaining -- and sometimes I have difficulty 9 trying to understand myself what the real difference is 10 between on number and another. And if we have problems with 11 it, think of the problems that the public is going to have 12 understanding why we're having so much difficulty coming to 13 a single answer. So I would hope that we could work a 14 little harder getting to that point. And many of the 15 Agreement States, believe me, feel the same way because our 16 publics are real close and they get real. involved when it 17 comes to areas that they don't feel that we're giving them 18 our best foot forward. 19 Another area that the Agreement States have 20 voiced, and I realize this is not a session dealing with the 21 financial assurance perspective, but you can't talk about
'22 decommissioning without touching on finances. I don't know 23 how you do that. And one of the -- I guess -- procedural 24; . questions that the Agreement States ask is exactly what the 25 financial -- how the financial assurance bond or instrument ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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l l 77 l 1 is to be used. Once school of thought is that should a A i j) .2 facility go belly up, bankrupt, et cetera, and have no 3 money, then that's what that bond is used for. But if we 4 look at the amounts, you have to raise serious questions 5 about that.
- 6. Another says that before a licensee is allowed to 7 terminate, they have to complete their cleanup and then they
-8 receive their bond back. I don't know whether or not there 9 is a specific guideline. I mean, I have looked and there 10 are implications of this, implications of that, but I don't 11 know if there's a clearly defined way of using that 12 financial assurance instrument. And I think maybe many of 13 us would like to see that addressed.
14 We don't feel that there should be any difficulty O(m,/ - 15, requiring licensees to prepare a decommissioning proposal, a 16 decommissioning plan. I mean, it's like an operational 17 plan. I am a retired Army Lieutenant Colonel and believe 18 me,_the Army knows how to plan. Many times we don't execute 19 the plan ever because World War III has been planned for I 20 don't know how long. But the plan has been made and 21 therefore you should - 'I don't think a licensee should be 22 excused from having a plan available updated as frequently 23 as possible. But that's from an Agreement State perspective 24 because it's -- if something unexpected happens when do you 25 have time to plan. It seems to me that a plan should be in
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78 ! 1 place anticipating the unexpected rather than reacting to l (\
-J 2 it.
3 One final area that I do want to address, and I 4 realize once again it is a little outside the purview of the 1 5 specifics of this conversation. But one of the problems the I 6 Agreement States have dealt with in letters to the ' 7 Commission et cetera, is the aspect of the Agreement States 8 having to become responsible for sites previously released l l 9 by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission even before an l 10 Agreement State agreement was signed. And now should those l 11 sites be found to be not meeting current standards that the l 12 Agreement States should take over the decommissioning i 13 process. 14 Now, if you think about all that we've discussed 15 .as far as decommissioning is concerned, the plans, i 16 preparation the knowing of the licensee this puts the l 17 Agreement States at a tremendous disadvantage because one, 18 oft times we don't even know that our licensee was released 19 prior to the agreement until we get a list perhaps from the i 20 Nuclear Regulatory Commission. W3've had no experience in 21 most cases with those licensees. And like in any other 22 case, we're not budgeted for it. So I think this is an area l l 23 of decommissioning should it arise -- and I know many states 24 are having some sites identified to them -- should it arise, 25 it is going to be a ticklish problem. And it needs to be
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79 1 accommodated and dealt with a little differently. Once, () 2 again, I realize it's a little outside the purview, but I 3 wouldn't feel right being here at the NRC at an NRC workshop 4- without mentioning that as something that influences the 5 decommissioning process. l l 6 The Agreement States stand ready, and as many of 1
- 7. you know the Agreement States probably account for 8 two-thirds of the non-nuclear reactor licensees in this 9 country. So we have a substantial stake in the process. We 10 have a substantial stake particularly in a meaningful and 11 enforceable cleanup criteria. We have a substantial stake l i
12 in all that we discuss here. So we will be participating to
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13 the degree possible and we ask that all of the real good 1 14 ideas are circulated here so that we c&n talk about them and () 15 come up with the best plan possible. 16 That's all I have this morning and I'll attempt to 17 answer your questions. 18 MR. HICKEY: I'm sure we'll have some questions 19 for you and several others as a group later. Thank you very 20 much, Roland. 21 [ Applause.] 22 MR. HICKEY: Our next speaker is Bob Boland from 23 Mallinckrodt, St. Louis. And Mallinckrodt is a large 24 organization so-I'm sure he'll clarify which area of 25 Mallinckrodt that we're talking about today. ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
( 80 1 MR. BOLAND: I represent or I'm with our corporate l ( - 2 environmental affairs. staff. I'm going to speak I 3 specifically today about the decommissioning of our CT 4 facility in St. Louis. The decommissioning of 5 Mallinckrodt's first commercial nuclear activity. I will 6 talk about the other Mallinckrodt nuclear activities, some 7 of them in a moment. . 1 8 (Slide shown.] l 9 MR. BOLAND: The little project we're going to 10 talk about is the decommissioning of the Columbium and 11' tantalum facility. We extracted columbium and tantalum from 12 ores, primarily natural ores, some synthetic ores, tin 13 slags, things imported from Malaysia and in the raw ore 14 bodies these raw ore bodies contain natural uranium and l 15 natural columbium, .hence we had to operate these facilities 16 under NRC license. 17 We've been in the decommissioning process since 18 about 1992. We submitted a characterization plan for NRC 19 review, implemented the plan after receipt of NRC comments 20 and on the basis of that characterization plan submitted 21 Part 1 of the decommissioning plan. That Part I addresses 22 the decommissioning, dismantling above-ground structure, 23 remc 41 of process equipment, bringing down former 24 ~ manufacturing facilities, decontaminating associated areas 25 and we left the hard stuff, real difficult stuff for Phase ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
81 1 II or Part II, that will address decommissioning of the i 2 subsurface. 3 (Slide shown.] 4 MR. FAUVER: Our site is subject to a few l 5 complexities. One it's in the middle of an active and 6 expanding manufacturing facility. We've got about a 7_ thousand amployees working 24-hours a day making 8 pharmaceuticals and other specialty chemicals. 9 The plant is built on artificial fill. Our plant l 10 like much of the development along the Mississippi River in l 11 St. Louis was over time -- artificial fill was used over l l 12 time to raise the topography to keep us out of the 13 Mississippi River flood plain. So our CT facility is built 14 on eight to 30-feet artificial fill. Some of it is dirt and 1 f' l '$ 15 some of it gravel, some of it is wood timbers, most of it i i 16 coals cinders from the use of coal in and around the St. 17 Louis area. And that coal carries with it natural uranium,
- 18. natural thorzum, and all their daughters so we have an 19 elevated background of the situation also.
20 We're regulated by multiple agencies. Not only do l 21 we have NRC, Missouri Department of Natural Resources, EPA l I 22 as an oversight agency for them, other production facilities 23 are regulated by FDA, DEA, we've got one more player in the 24 park in Mallinckrodt -- new player on the block, U.S. Army l 25. Corps of Engineers. They are decommissioning our last 1 l l
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1 82 ' 1 little fun thing and that is the first two uranium (Aj 2 cefineries in the U.S. and the world were on our site from 3 1942 to 1958 Mallinckrodt was the location where all of the 4 uranium in the U.S. was refined under the Manhattan 5 Engineering District, and then the Atomic Energy Commission. 6 Those facilities are being decommissioned by the Army Corps 7 of Engineers loose wrap program. And one more agency -- one 8 more interaction and one more source of natural uranium and 9 natural thorium in the Mallinckrodt environment. 10 [ Slide shown.] 11 MR. BOLAND: If I could be presumptuous and just 12 talk a little bit about what we've learned about our needs 13 and general licensee needs in the decommissioning process. 14 Certainly our management wants to continue operation D 15 expansion, maintenance of the existing production facility. 16 That's now where our companies operations are, our future 17 is, and we're trying to integrate the decommissioning 18 activity with that ongoing operation. 19 We're looking for timely and implementable 20 guidance on decommissioning from NRC. We're looking for 21 expeditious discussion, the ability to discuss and resolve 22 technical issues with NRC in an expeditious and timely 23 fashion. 24 And last but not least, and we've talked a little 25 bit about it already, we're looking for affordable -- [\- ' ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300
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1 83 1 1 affordable outlets for disposal of the soil and debris. b3 2 We have a few recommendationc. We've talked about 3 the guidance coming out. We're looking forward to seeing 4 it. I don't mean to chide the agency, but certainly we will 5 all be better off when we have guidance out that we can use. 6 [ Slide shown.] 7 MR. BOLAND: One thing that concerns me 8 particularly with respect to our site-specific situation is 9 what I've heard that NRC is doing with respect to dose 10 modeling. That is that you're looking at developing your 11 own internal version of RESRAD and in essence abandoning the 12 model that has been utilized up to this time. 13 I have a concern -- a very cite-specific concern e-14 in looking forward to conversations with our employees, our k_,y
/ 15 public and our regulators. Now, we may have two different 16 areas in the site that are being evaluated by two different 17 dose models and I'm terrified that those models will predict 18 different soil concentrations for a given dose. And one of 19 my concerns, it's a suggestion that I have for NRC in their 20 development of the dose modeling, make sure that that 21 doesn't happen.
22 Guidance -- and we would suggest, and certainly 23 for sites like ours which have some unique characteristics 24 that we not forget that the guidance is just that, guidance. 25 And to the extent that we can through discussion with the p\
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ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
84 1 NRC like to reduce the resistance to change and reduce the () 2 res.tstance of tweaking the guidance on a site-specific basis 3- to address site-specific concerns. And to do that, we would 4 suggest continuing, and in essence, making even more freely 5 -- making freer use of face-to-face discussions between 6 technical people so that we can make decisions, implement 7 plans without a lot of paperwork, without the time involved 8 cn our end to prepare grandiose plans, your end to review 9 them, and probably some backup. 10 There are certainly extremes on -- and there are 11 cases where documentation will certainly be required, but to I i 12 the extent that we can minimize that, make -- make 13 reasonable, dependable, kind of secure decisions in a 14 meeting, discussion-type of environment then move on. I s_) 15 think that will expedite the process. 16 We've talked about the top bullet and I won't 17 mention anything more about it. To the extent that we can, 18 it will help us, and then also the last one we've talked 19 about also. There are soils, there are building debris, 20 there are any number of materials that will be generated in 21 the decommissioning which will be some of them being a 22 free-release criteria, some of them not, but certainly of a 23 low activity. And we think that many of those materials 24 could appropriately be placed in places other than 25 Envirocare or Barnwell. Mill tailing impoundments are one.
- \
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85 1 I think that EPA, regulated-waste landfills offer a great ([ 2 deal of security and should be considered as potential 3 low-level waste outlets without an arduous licensing 4 procedure. 5 Those are my comments. Any questions? 6 [No response.] 7 MR. BOLAND: No. Thank you. 8 MR. HICKEY: Bob, just one clarification, on your 9 Phase I you're saying there are problems that go to the 10 issue of debris and volumetric materials as opposed to just 11 cleaning up surface contamination? 12 MR. BOLAND: Yes, our Part I will actually involve 13 dismantling buildings and dismantling those structures. 14 MR. HICKEY: Thank you. 15 [ Applause.) 16 MR. HICKEY: Our next speaker is David Craig from 17 the U.S. Army Fort Monmouth. David? 18 MR. CRAIG: The Evans area of Fort Monmouth is a 19 210-acre site that's about ten miles from the Fort Monmouth 20- ' main post and this particular site was used for research 21 down through the years in electronics equipment. 22 We got history records out of the St. Louis 23 archives that went back to 1950 and they identified that 24 even radioactive material used prior to 1950 and there's
- 25. absolutely no record of that use.
ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
i j 86 1 Some of the first stuff to come on site was mixed ( ) 2 fission products. l 3 We found that the radioactive material has been 4 used throughout the site down through those early years 5 particularly in the 1950s and at that time the health 16 physics services there were advisory instead of having
-7 regulations. Everything appears as a recommendation to 1 8- research. Researchers typically didn't follow the 9 recommendations. And the cleanup was done when it 10 interfered with the research work.
11 Another thing was, almost all the R&D at that 12 location was secret. It was a defense compound and the l 13 community around it -- which has grown -- until just about 14 1992 -- had no idea what was going on inside the fence line. A k) s- 15 And finally, the spill reports that we had almost 16 all projects were mentioned by number. They weren't ; 17 identified. Building locations were rather vague, but spill 18 reports showed that strontium-90 which was being used for 19 . batteries, and cobalt-60 and mixed fission products were 20 spilled in laboratories and outdoor areas.
.21 (Slide shown.]
22 MR. CRAIG: The reason that this is being closed 23 is called the Base Realignment Closure Act of 1993. And in 24 that Act it was decided that the Evans property would be 25 returned to the'public. And that return to the public is I Q(~% ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 1 (202) 842-0034
i I 87 1 this site has already been planned for use as parkland, !
<x
! ( D) 2 baseball fields, and a community college is planning to put i l -3 a campus on the cite. ! 4 So immediately -- early in this BRCA effort there 5 were some community committees formed and we have typically 6 two times a year that we give a tour of the site and tell 7 .them what activities are going on, not only in the radiation 8 surveys, but also in the EPA chemical recovery plan. l 9 We started this -- we had the NUREG-5849 with it's 10 date of-1992 and immediately in the process we got delayed ) 11 because of scheduling delays. All of the research 12 activities that were ongoing there had to be moved to a new 13 . location. They were literally moved to Alabama and other 14 sites on the east coast and up the main coast of -- but 15 construction delays and relocation delays meant that survey 16 activities could start. 17 So, when we started looking at all this history it 18 was determined that probably a decommissioning plan wasn't 19- appropriate, but the 10 CFR Part 30.36 it wasn't necessary. 20 But we felt that we needed a characterization plan to 21' -identify all these areas to come up with the a 22 classification. In the process of that the publication of 23 the 1500 Series, 1505, the characterization plan got 24 modified. So that 1500 series that was going to go into 25 effect it provided some advantages. So we based the ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034 1 L
88 1 modification and characterization plan, and then since we () 2 wanted early notification of the NRC and the state, we used 3 that characterization model as a median to start 4 communication. And when we did~we then found out that NRC 5 wanted us to -- so we had to again kind of change in 6 midstream and -- 7 MR. HICKEY: Excuse me, David, could you stand 8 right at the mic. The transcriber is not getting you. 9 MR. CRAIG: Okay. I'm sorry. 10 (Slide shown.] 11 MR. CRAIG: The one thing that we did want and 12 that was one of the features of the 1500 was the 13 non-impacted areas. And when we talked with the NRC, Region 14 I, they agreed that we didn't have to use just the /~ (_)T 15 unaffected and affected areas, we could use non-impacted. 16 So that was a major assistance on the part of Region I and 17 helped us develop our survey plan. 18 [ Slide shown.] ' 19 MR. CRAIG: Now, this is just a breakdown in the 20 structures and how we initially classified them and, again, 21 every one of.the -- one of the things that we did find on 22 site, the R&D work, extensive across the site and in the 23 buildings, and then in about the 1960s these R&D buildings 24 became administrative buildings. And, again, because of 25 records and everything else the closeout surveys for that ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034 0
89 1 period say no radiation above tolerance. ( ) 2 (Laughter.] 3 MR. CRAIG: And the building was converted from a i I 4' research facility to an administrative facility. 1 5 (Slide shown.] ' 6 MR. CRAIG: One of the things we decided to do was i 7 use natural boundaries and with the agreement of NRC Region 8 I we were able to start in areas that we considered 9 unaffected or non-impacted and actually began the process of 10 the turnover of the property. So we initially created these 11 zones and the ones that are labeled as Zone 1 and 1(a) have 12 already been released unrestricted. 13 (Slide shown.] l 14 MR. CRAIG: Again, NUREG-5849 only gives you two
) 15 options, affected and unaffected. And those are very broad.
16 If it had anything there at any time or any contamination at j 17- any time, even though you've got some cleanup record, in 18 this case we had a lot of vague ones, you have to classify 19 it as affected. 20 The level of survey is very, very specific, 100 21 percent of-surfaces up to two meters on the walls and if 22 anything is found you go on up to the ceiling. A number of 23 physical surveys that you'll take in the building are very 24 specific. Unaffected buildings get about maybe one-quarter 25 of the effort or even less than those so we got caught in I ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. \- Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
90 1 kind of a two-sided trap. One, we went down very carefully j 2 through the. list and we followed the regulation and if it 3 said radioactive material had ever been present there, we 4 identified it as a protected area. l 5 Since we've begun the surveys we've had two
- 6. instances where there's a very specific requirement, 7 NUREG-5849c it's three times -- a spot three times higher 8 than the level which is --
l 9 The area being 25 percent of the release limit 10 which is you go from unaffected to affected. We've had 11 three buildings that that has occurred in. 12 The isotope has not been an NRC-regulated isotope. j 13 It's been radium every time. But, again, I'm not real clear l
-14 how you -- and we have the state involved and are interested i G
C l 15 in what we're releasing. They've agreed to use the NRC 16 guidelines that were in effect. 17 Two of the things that we've run into, this base 18 realignment and closure effort-is across the United States 19 in a multi-million dollar project. Our first consideration 20 in designing surveys es .eeting the regulation and the 21 guideline compliance, but we're being looked at by budget 22 people and they're -- I won't say twisting our arm, but 23 they're saying in every case that you possibly can, go down. 24 We've explained that we will do that, but we have to do it
-25 -- we'just can't go beyond the guidelines.
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91 1 But one of the big concerns right now is becoming (~% () 2 money. And one of the problems that I've had with budgeting 3 is all of the names of the surveys when we tried to explain 4 to them how you had gone for characterization to a final 5 survey level, they wanted to know why you couldn't save 6 money by -- 7 It's a complex process explaining over and over 8 again that if it looks like it's going to satisfy the 9 criteria for a final survey, that's the appropriate level to l 10 start at. In most cases even though our history was vague, 11 I'm very confident that the radiation safety program had 12 kept it a minim .. i 13 [ Slide shown.] 14 MR. CRAIG: This is just a picture of some of the 15 survey activities. As you can see, the building in the 1 16 center has been abandoned for probably 20 years or so. No 17 heat, on lights, the doors and windows are boarded up so we l l 18 had to make sure that we had heating for the winter period 19 and lighting for all the different surveys. 20 The gentleman in the center at the bottom, his 21 clothing is protection against sticks. The open test ranges l 22 that had been open fields when all this work was done are 23 now 20 years of wooded and second growth. The deer tic 24 population is huge. There's two or three levels of poison ! 25 ivy, poison oak, and poison sumac, so the only injuries I'v: I
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() l ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. l Court Reporters i 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034 h
g l 92 L 1 had so far have been from naturally occurring environmental
.,y
- 2 factors.
3 [ Laughter.] 4 '[ Slide'shown.] 5' MR. CRAIG: This is just a status. We've actually 6 -- that Zone 1 and 1A represents over half of the site. So 7 'we were very fortunate in that~that outside area had almost 8 no positive history of any involvement. And we've already 9 moved in and our survey process is probably 90 percent 10 complete on rest of the project. 11 The only place that we're going to have a delay is 12 currently we'have a small area called Zone 4A, that's where 13 out accounting laboratories are located, we have a research 14 building that still has over 5,000 curies of adioactive
) 15 material in it and we also have a RAD waste storage building 16 .in this area. These are still operational. And our 17 decommissioning process may actually halt because of 18' scheduling and a building has not been constructed to 19 relocate the facilities in yet. But we may just get to July 1
20 of this year and have to pause in place ~for the construction
- 21. of new facilities.
22 [ Slide shown.] 23 MR. CRAIG: This just shows in relation.to the 24 . entire area how much has been releasad. 25 [ Slide shown. ] [\- ' ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
93 l 1 1 MR. CRAIG: And these are the four buildinge that I ! 2 I mentioned that operations are still active in these 3 buildings. l 4L [ Slide shown.] 5 MR. CRAIG: The things that-I see for improvement l 6- and, again,-.just from the perspective of this project that l 7 isn't nearly as complex as some of the soil projects that 8 you're going to hear today. The one thing that we do have l l 9 is Subpart of 10 CFR 20 is in place, so now there is a j 10 number that you are shooting for. The tables of isotopes 11 'and activities that will allow you to make some judgments, 12 I'd like to see-those published. 13 The other things that I've had some opportunity to I 14 go to workshop on MARSSIM and I'm a little apprehensive that i 15 people that are on smaller projects may have some difficulty 16 facing a document'that's over an inch thick in trying to 17 pull a good survey plan that meets all the requirements out 18 of it. And for that reason I think that it's going to be 19 very important that NRC get involved in workshop to get 20 MARSSIM off the ground, get it to where it's understandable 21 to people that' don't happen to have a non-parametric 22 statistical analysis group on site. It's tough enough to 23 say, but it's one of those things that really needs to be 24 looked at. 25 Thank you. ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
94 1 MR. HICKEY: Thank you, David. (
) 2 [ Applause.]
3 MR. HICKEY: I think those were some good 4 suggestions on your last slide. I noted several of those 5 and I'd like to talk about those later. 6 Our next speaker is Cort Horton from Merrill 7 Pharmaceutical. Thank you, Cort. 8 MR. HORTON: Good morning, almost good afternoon 9 now. 10 [ Slide shown.) I 11 MR. HORTON: This is a picture of the Hoechst 12 Marion Roussel facility in Cincinnati, Ohio. For the pasc 13 years, not only Hoechst Marion Roussel, but also their 14 predecessor including Marion Merrill Dow and Dow Chemical 15 and so on and so forth, they have been involved in 16 manufacturing pharmaceuticals for over-the-counter as well 17 as prescription consumers. 18 [ Slide shown.] 19 MR. HORTON: You may recognize some of these. 20 Some of them are common household names, some of them are 21 not. 22 [ Slide shown.] 23 MR. HORTON: And, as an NRC licensee we actually 24 -- we are licensed for some 20-some odd radioactive 25 isotopes. These are the primary contributors to what we 1 ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
95 1 will be performing DanD Operations for. As you'll recognize () 2 with the exception of the carbon and the tritium many of 3 those are low-energy beta emitters, also short lived. 4 Although we'll_still do some final status surveys, we have 5 some areas that we know actually have some extensive 6 contamination with S-35. 7 (Slide shown.] 8 MR. HORTON: Now, when we decided that we were i 9 going to go through the DandD process and the reason for 10 doing the DandD process is that the research and development 11 facility is actually relocating from Cincinnati to 12 Bridgewater, New Jersey. I spoke with the people a Hoechst and I said, hey, look, I don't think that we're going to 13
)
14 have to submit a DandD plan under the rules and regulations () 15 of 10 CFR Part 30 like some of the other speakers talked 16 about. So we petitioned the NRC and said, hey, we don't { 17 believe that a plan is required. The NRC says, hey, that's l 18 -a great idea, you're absolutely right. However, we'd like 19 for you to develop a DandD amendment. So I developed a 20 14-page DandD amendment and submitted that. i 21 As a result of that we're going to really start 22 probably more accurately than saying we're staring DandD, 23 we're going to start final status surveys 1 April. And what 24 that means is we're actually contracted with a company to 25 come in and perform all of DandD activities. We think that ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
96 1 the DandD will be completed including the final report back (). 2 from the NRC sometime in March 1999. And the cost of all 3 these activities, a mega buck, to clean up low-level 4 radioactive materials. 5 [ Slide shown.] 6 MR. HORTON: Now here's the good stuff. This is 7 what I call "new you can use", I hope. 8 Some opportunities for improvement. Hoechst 9 Marion Roussel spent about somewhere between $60- and 80,000 10 developing the financial assurance criteria and so forth to 11 make the submittal to the NRC with a surety bond.* Certainly 12 there are companies that are doing decontamination and 13 decommissioning and then there's companies. A large company i 14 such as Hoechst, they do about 34 billion a year in annual (D (_) 15 sales. Hoechst would have been content to send in the 16 surety bond for a million or three-quarters of a million 17 dollars. I think we submitted three-quarters of a million 18 dollars, but we would have been delighted just to send the 19 surety bond and say, hey, we're going to start DandD. 20 [ Slide shown.)
- 21. MR. HORTON: Necessary radiological surveys. In 22 the case of our facility what I would offer for 23 consideration or facilities like the R&D facility in 24 Cincinnati, I don't think that all the radiological surveys 25 are necessarily applicable and appropriate. If you're l ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
97 1 looking for carbon and tritium, why would you need to do 2 exposure rate measurements. 3 Decommissioning plans and procedures and I think 4 just about every speak up here today has talked about that. 5 What is necessary to begin DandD? What are the things that 6 you've done beforehand that can count, things like that? So i 7- when we set up our working' group meetings I hope that we can 8 work that to some kind of closure. 9 Some risk-based surface-free release criteria. 10 How many folks out there are still using reg guide 186? 11 Everybody knows what reg guide 186 -- the old stuff that was 12 developed in 1969, 1970 based on instrument qualifications? 13 How about something for the surfaces that is risky-based? 14 And finally, a graded approach for facilities for 15 D&D. Certainly I think this is the first start when we're 16 talking about non-reactor facilities, that's a great first 17 move. How about the other facilities like a Hoechst Marion 18 Roussel that's working with short-lived or just beta 19 emitters, let's do something for that facility or the people 20 that are in the fuel services buildings. Maybe there needs 21 to be something set up that more delineates who's going to 22 do what kind of D&D, 23 (Slide shown.) 24 MR. HORTON: And I'd like to close my presentation 25 with nobody's as smart as all of us and I'd hope that a year h b ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250'I Street,=N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
- j. 98 l' from now when we look:back at this gathering we'll be able 2 to say, hey, out of that meeting where we went to Rockville, 3 Maryland this is what'we did. A lot of times a lot of these 4 meetings everybody gets together and we have a lot of 5 momentum going home, and then two or three months later the 6 momentum is gone and we're on to bigger and better things.
7 So I hope that that does not happen out of this 8- meeting. 9 And with that, I'd be delighted to try to answer 10 any questions that you might have. i 11 MR. WEBER: I wasn't clear about your point on -- 12 MR. HICKEY: You need to identify yourself, Mike. l 13 MR. WEBER: Oh. Sorry, this is-Mike Weber from 14 NRC. I wasn't clear on your point about financial l 15 assurance. 16 MR. HORTON: Okay. Good question, Mike. 17 My understanding of what happened at least at i 18 Hoechst and I came in a little bit after the fact, there was j l 19 a review process that went through trying to decide what 20 level of surety bond that Hoechst would have to put up in 21 order to start their DandD process. About a year later l 22 after we had submitted the surety bond, the NRC came back 23 and said, hey, sp.ecifically the question was, we don't know 24 .if you had the right level of signature authority on the 25 surety bond. And so the risk management folks out of Kansas l O ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters l 1250 I Street, N.W.,-Suite 300 l Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034 ; i
L 99 l 1 City and myself and senior management from Cincinnati, we (g) 2 spent about another two weeks making yet another submittal I 1 3 to the NRC when the surety bond had already been submitted. 4 So the point that I think is, is that for some -- 5 and I don't think that this can be across the board. For 6 some companies such as Hoechst a large, financially-secure 7 company, at least today, let them send in the surety bond 8 for a million dollars or whatever and then for some of the 9 smaller DandD sites that are getting ready, maybe they need 10 more preparation and evaluation and working more closely l 11 with the NRC to decide how much surety bond. l 12 Did I answer your question? 13 MR. WEBER: Yes. I 14 MR. HORTON: Any other questions, please?
/^
(_)% 15 [No response.] 16 MR. HORTON: Thank you. 17 [ Applause.] 18 MR. HICKEY: Thank you, Cort. I'm glad to hear 19 yours is a case where you're moving ahead and you have the 20 end in sight in the next year. We have a lot of cases that 21 have not done that well. 22 Our next speaker is Way Heiliger from Oklahoma 23 State. Wayne. 24 MR. HEILIGER: I hope you're not looking to me for 25 complexity compared to Mr. Boland. The slide I have is l
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100 1 .really quite simple. 2 Oklahoma' State University is a land grant college. 3 As such we've been through our centennial year and we have 4 had activities there in science and agriculture and 5 engineering research. Therefore, they've had some waste and 6 they need to dispose of.it. They chose an area in a remote 7 location. I need to. kind of tell you a little bit about 8 . Oklahoma State and Blaine County is located -- they have 9 like 20,000 acres in that county, they're in the process of 10 acquiring more property. They have no interest in ridding 11 themselves.of any property so the site they chose was part of their property. There's active research around the area 13 in terms of range management. We have to get permission to 14 even'get off of the active area and drive on the grass or 15 -cut a' tree to put in the monitoring well. So this is the , 16 cite that's going to remain secure or under heavy management 17 'for a long time. 18 Roughly _in the radioactive area we started in 1959 19 placing waste and the technology was to take a backhoe, dig 20 a: trench, put the barrel in it and cover it up. And that 21- proceeded up until 1981.
>22 As indicated, we have like 110 individual burial 23 : cells. These are placed'on a grid, numerically identified, 24' plus there:are steel markers in the. field and there were, I 25 think, compared to.some of the other. things I've heard, we
]
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~
F I l 101 1 have very accurate records of materials that were placed () 2 there. Although we have 30 some isotopes that have been 3 placed over the years, 98 percent of it comes in as -- the 4 two main isotopes are tritium and carbon 14 with tritium l 5 being the major contributor there. That's 98 percent of the l 6 waste. There were three particular individual -- I call 7 them " activities" or burials that amounted to 95 percent of 8 the waste. Unlike some other sites you've seen, I'm looking l 9 at a ripping 0.5 acre in the radioactive area. 10 This is small time, I understand, but maybe that 11 bodes well for me because I think we want to really be 12 seriously considered for the pilot study and I think he 13 mentioned simplicity and less complex sites. And this -- I 14 think I definitely fall in that category. So maybe that ( \ ( ,/ 15 bodes well for me. I hope. 16 The chemical waste area in addition to having i 17 radiological waste the University had chemical waste so they ! l 18 chose to -- fortunately they chose to separate the two areas l l 19 and I have a chemical waste area out there. I've got about 20 40 cells, it's two-tenths of an acre. And the records there 21 are not as complete inasmuch as that with the radiological 22 activity there were nice measurements and records Tept, in 23 the chemical waste are there would be things like a can of a 24 .given substance, a box, five cans, a jar, you know, real i 25 descriptive terms. I went through and did worst-case
,~~
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102 1 scenarios and tried to quantify those and came up with about O ( j 2 like 21 cubic yards of material. 3 We have -- I included the area that -- the 4 perimeter we have is fenced. I've got 0.8 acres there that 5 was not fenced -- I mean, that is fenced but is in the 6 active site but was not utilized for any activity. 7 In the '80s when the activity ceased, then we 8 started then. I think '81 was the first. attempt at the site 9 characterization, and this was related more to the hazardous 10 waste, but we encompassed the whole site. So we started our 11 first'geotechnical studies and hydrogeological studies in 12 '81. We have the good new of having had quite a bit of 13 i extensive study. We've done groundwater studies, measured, 14 even had'the leisure and luxury of putting in pezometers and /^)\ \s, 15 measuring groundwater fluctuations over a 17-month period so 16 we can then design monitoring wells that would catch the 17 high-and low flows during those timeframes. 18 Okay. That's enough about the site.
'19 Some of the difficulties I have is I'm dealing 20 with multiple agencies and nothing like the other people.
21- And'I-felt somewhat disconcerted because I had to deal with 22 the NRC and the Oklahoma Department of Environmental 23 Equality with EPA oversight-which I understand now that I'm 24 really a piker. But that's all right, I enjoy simplicity. 25 I did a lot of computer. programming back in ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
103 1 college and I really understand the " kiss" principal. So
- () 2 anyway, I have two agencies that I have to-deal with. And 3 we have an objective and what we're looking at, we're 4 looking at is we're looking at small site and we're looking 5 at small quantities and we're really concerned about if we 6 have to excavate these materials, especially in the chemical 7 area that there were a lot of wastes that were placed 8 together, just gathered up and placed. And they're in jars, 9 and they're in cans, and they're in glass containers, and 10 they're in boxes, and who knows what the chemical reaction 11 would be if you go in and start mixing all these materials 12 together. And, therefore, our overall goal is -- and I'm 13 sure that everyone that has a site is to encapsulate the 14 waste, you need to eliminate the transport mechanisms and we
() 15 feel like the health and safety of the public and workers 16 and everyone is most adequately addressed that way. 17 As yet Oklahoma is not an Agreement State. I 18 understand they're working toward that, but that's going to 19 be a couple years off so that means then still that we deal 20 with the NRC people. 21 It was~ determined that we need to submit a 22 decommissioning plan, so I put together a decommissioning 23 plan that pretty well summarized what we had done through 24 the years and I submitted that on August 15th of 1996 and 25 then on November 20 we had a response from NRC and they give l ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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i 104 1 us 30 days to respond to them and I've got some side im l i I
\_-) 2 comments here, but the unfortunate thing was that was l 3 Thanksgiving and we didn't get the letter officially until 4 like the 7th of December. So we got roughly 20 plus days to 5 run RESRAD and respond to the NRC.
6 Now, we called the NRC and the NRC was saying, you 7 know, sure we understand that you're not going to get this 8 done in this timeframe and that's fine. What I got into was 9 the vice president for research he has a letter and he knows 10 a letter has come down from the NRC that says there has to 11 be a submission by December 20th. And, you know, we go by 12 the 20th and there's not a submission. And he's been told 13 that the NRC has been advised and the NRC says that's all 14 right, but still that's a verbal and then you get into x_) 15 January and he's looking and he still remembers this 20th 16 December date. And, you know, it creates consternation on 17 the upper level management people that they are running not 18 in the good graces of the regulatory agencies which those 19 are the things they have to answer for and it was a source 20 of a problem for us, the quick turnaround that was 21 requested. 22 I have another problem in the terms of the 23 timeline is that everything we do goes through a board a 24 regents, they have a yearly meeting, you know, there are 25 budgets, there are all these things. But we have these > (% ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. l 5
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105 1 funds that are encumbered to put a cap on the site. That's () 2 part of our objective is to cap this site and do some 3 gradings or grading and these activities. Well, we 4 encumbered the funds and we don't use them. And very 5 truthfully, you know, there are other entities in the 6 University looking over here at these encumbered funds and 7 they're lusting after my funds. 8 [ Laughter.] 9 MR. HEILIGER: And I'm saying, no, you can't have 10 them and they're saying, well, you know, this has been going 11 on now for two or three years in some cases of the chemical 1 12 -area, and, you know, I'm having to fight people off to say 13 that when this happens then I'll be posed and ready to take 14 action. And if we could following that with some timeline h,/ s 15 recommendation there, but it's just not in the industry I 16 understand some of these projects that you want to put off 17 as long as you possibly can because of the dollars involved 18 and that's somewhat been the mode of operation. 19 This is a little bit different in that we're an 20 institution and we go through a yearly situation. Then we 21 have people that are seeking our-dollars. 22 These are minor things to some people, but to me 23 they're very important. The one I'm talking about the NRC 24 was helpful. Now, I'm in the trenches, you know, I'm the 25 one doing the work and-I wanted to come up and say that I
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106 1 appreciate the fact that the NRC's got e-mail up and running () 2 and' going. You know, I can send something off and I can put 3 a request out there and I can get an answer. To me that's 4 important. 5 I work as a sole practitioner and, you know, I'm 6 not always there to place a call and then wait on someone to 7 return a call. And I have appreciated the fact that e-mail 8 is up, alive and well, and into the current activity. 9 The NRC has been responsive to telephone requests. I 10 When you place a call you usually -- you get something 11 answered and that's important. You're not hung out there 12 for days on end not knowing what to do. I've enjoyed having 13 the web pages available with information. Now here, again, 14 I realize that in the overall scope of things that this may j f,)
\~- l'5 not be important to some, it'c real important, I think to i
16 those of us that are trying to do the work. 17 When I was going through the RESRAD program the 18 people I talked with were very knowledge about the input i 19 parameters. There was a real in-depth knowledge of the 20 program and helped me decide and make some choices so that I 21 could move through that in an expeditious manner. I am -- 22 by training, I've done the last 27 years in groundwater 23 studies and soil studies and I think that was beneficial in 24 going through the RESRAD. Then the questions'I had were
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25 well addressed by the NRC staff and we came to the quick
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107 1 resolution and allowed me to move through that. !n t) I 2 Suggestions. If I could just have a general 3 timeframe for the NRC review, you know, it doesn't have to 4 be short. All I'm saying is that I need a timeframe so that 5 when I do my budget and I'm making these -- encumbering 6 these funds then that the people know that within this 7 timeframe this activity will have taken place. 8 I'd like more official allocated time for my 9 response. I did appreciate the fact that when I called and 10 said I couldn't do it in 30 days that, you know, that was 11 acknowledged as being acceptable, but I need something a 12 little more or a little less confining there in the response 13 letter or the letter that's requesting the response so that 14 the upper level people feel that progress is being made and g\ \.m,/ 15 we're on track and we're not running afoul of the law, so to 16 speak. 17 One of the other areas -- and I understand the 18 staffing problem and the turnover in staff, the chemical 19 side of this, we've turned over ten different people with 20 ODEQ which that has nothing to do with you, but I would, as 21 much as possible, like to have one staff member assigned as 22 a point of contact for the project so that we could, you 23 know, disseminate from there. When we first submitted a 24 decommissioning plan it went to Walnut Creek and then it's 25 in other places for review. They looked at it, had -(- j ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
108 1 questions, we responded, then it wound up back in Arlington. 2 A single source of contact is helpful in that instance. 3 Something that I did not get on the list, but if 4- you have a preferential format that you want the 5 decommissioning plan prepared in that sequence and that 6 order,'then we need to know that. I prepared the 7 decommissioning plan based on the individual tasks that we 8- preformed in somewhat a chronological order. The questions 9 that we received back from the first review of the 10 . decommissioning plan led me to believe that I had not 11 prepared it in the manner which they were accustomed to 12 seeing or they wanted to see. Some of the questions that 13 were asked, the materials were included, but led me to 14 believe that the format I used was not that which was 15 expected. So if you could have a -- if you have a 16 -preferential format, you know, let us know so that we can 17 prepare it so that -- understanding you guys go over many of 18 these things and you know what you're looking for when you 19 go through these. WE need to be able to put some
- 20' information in that form so that it's -- you know,'it's 21 easier for you to do it, it expedites the review and 22- . eliminates some of the transfer of information back and 23 forth.
24' I'm for simplicity. My apologies, I forgot to put 25 my other slide up there. [ ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300
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109 1 MR. HICKEY: Questions? /^-{+- ( 2 r) MR. MURRAY: Scott Murray with GE at North 3 . Carolina. Coincidentally, I graduated in '75 from Oklahoma 4 State's Health Physics program, so, hi, Wayne. 5 A couple of questions, was this a 20.304 burial on 6 site -- 10 CFR 20.304? 7 MR. HEILIGER: I can't address it. 8 MR. MURRAY: And do you still have a current 9 license? 10 MR. HEILIGER: Yes. The license is current. 11 There are still activities. .The site has been placed under 12 the -- or with the current license, Dr. Johnson. Was he 13 there when you were there? 14 MR. MURRAY: Yes, sir. 15 MR. HEILIGER: Dr. Howard Johnson. Yeah, he's
~16 still the RSO.
17 MR. MURRAY: You explained the problematic that 18 you had where you use it or you lose it on your funding or 19 whatever, I guess while you were waiting for turnaround with 20 the decommissioning plan or what have you. Did you 21 consider, perhaps implementing either characterization 22 surveys cn even some remedial activities under your current 23 license? I mean, was that a possibility for you? Before 24 your plan was approved, while you were waiting for plan 25 approval? () ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES LTD. Court Reporters 1250-I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
110 1 MR. HEILIGER: Well, it's difficult, I think for a ( 2 state agency to go in and tell them that you're going to 3 perform some activities and then it may not be quote 4 " blessed" by the regulatory agency. And that was a real 5 level of concern for us that we -- if we did institute 6 activities and then later on that those weren't enough or 7 'they were not acceptable or there's something that comes 8 along and says, we wish you hadn't done this, then that does 9 not look good for people that made the decision to spend 10 those funds. 11 MR. MURRAY: Well, I guess my real question is, 12 was it an internal decision not to proceed, or was it 13 something that the regulator, for example, from the region 14 -- 15 MR. HEILIGER: No, no, it was not from the 16 regulatory agency. 17 MR. MURRAY: Okay.. So it was internally decided 18 not to go forward? 19 MR. HEILIGER: That was an internal decision 20 within the institution. 21 MR. MURRAY: Because of the risk or the concern 22 that if you did something it wouldn't be acceptable later? 23 MR. HEILIGER: Correct. 24 MR. MURRAY: I see. Thank you.
~
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L 111 1 MR. HICKEY: Thank you, Wayne. f-~s ( ) 2 Joe Cross has graciously agreed to hold his 3 presentation over until after lunch, so we're going to break 4 for lunch. 5 Again, if you exit through our main lobby, there 6 are restaurants across to the street and to the left, and we 7 also have a large cafeteria and convenience store in the 8 main lobby area. So, please return promptly at 1:00 as a 9 courtesy to our afternoon speakers. 10 [Whereupon, at 12:10 p.m., the public workshop was 11 recessed to be reconvened at 1:00 p.m., this same day.] 12 13
-s 14
(_) 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25
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f 112 1 AFTERNOON SESSION ( 2 [1:05 p.m.] 3 MR. HICKEY: On the record. Thank you for 4 returning. Again, thee meeting is being transcribed. 5 Our first speaker who graciously held his 6 presentation over from this morning is Joe Cross from 7 Phillips. l 8 MR.. CROSS: I had a little uneasiness about 9 speaking at this meeting. I didn't know exactly for sure 10 what it was all about. And I sure hope that last night was 11 not an omen because about two or three times during the 12 night I was suddenly awakened by my TV coming on until I 13 . noticed that there was a short in my remote. So I'm hoping 14 it gets better from there. 15 [ Laughter.) 16 [ Slide shown.] 17 MR. CROSS: Let me talk a little bit about the l 18 Phillips in April. Last year Phillips submitted a l 19 decommissioning plan for its radiation laboratory. This is 20 located in Bartlesville, Oklahoma. And we're seeking 21 permission to close this building and release it from 22 restriction so that the building debris can be disposed of. l 23' The purpose of our plan, the building was old and 1 24 when I_say not in good shape, we needed things like the 25 electrical needed to be updated, the heating and air i l l ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
1 113 1 conditioning needed some work to be done on it, that sort of
.< ~s 2 thing.
(v) 3 [ Slide shown.] 4 MR. CROSS: The roof needed some repair work done 5 on it, a lot of things like that if we were going to
)
6 continue to use the building. 7 The work with radioactive materials has greatly 8 reduced over the past several years and we've decided that j 9 the building really wasn't feasible to remodel the building l 10 for other purposes. And the work that we were doing with 11 radioactive materials really could be done in a small lab'in 12 a newer building, one that had been designed for radioactive l 13 materials for purposes with radioactive materials at a later l 14 date. So we decided that really we could consolidate all
/
(_,) 15 our work into this one small lab. i 16 [ Slide shown.) j 17 MR. CROSS: Our plan really was approval of site 18 specific release limits for tritium. The NRC has recognized 19 that it has a low hazard due to its radiological and 20 chemical properties. At out particular site achieving the 21 NRC REG GUIDE 1.86 limits really was costly. We have taken 22 a look at it and as you can see for the size building and as 23 you will see later the amount of tritium that we have is 24 - very, very costly. 25 It would not provide any additional protection, 1 [)
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114 1 but there really was no hazard associated with our site. r~ (j 2 The NRC has recognized this low-level hazard from 3 tritium at other sites and this is what led us down to our { 4 path'of preparing a decommissioning plan with the site 5 specific limits for tritium. ) 1 6 (Slide shown.) 7 MR. CROSS: A little bit about our building. It's 8 located at the Phillips Research Center, that's in 9 Barttlesville. The Research Center is enclosed inside a l i 10 fence. We have a staff security force at all times there. 11 It's a card key entry. 12 The building itself is a 5,400 square foot 13 concrete block building. It was constructed in 1958 to l 14 1985. It was comprised of two accelerator vaults with six-( 15 to eight-foot thick concrete walls and associated 16 laboratories. The primary use was for fast neutron ( l 17 activation using tritium targets. There was some other 18 radial chemical work and applied work with sealed sources 19 had been performed during the building during its history. 20 (Slide shown.] 21 MR. CROSS: In the past 10 years there's been an 22 effort to reduce the amount of sources and items that we i 23 have on site, basically the work that we're doing there at 24 our company doesn't justify it, did not justify it, so over 25 the past ten years the sources -- the sealed sources and D) ( ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
l 115 1 that, that we had on site has been significantly reduced. () 2 And really the only isotope remaining there in the building 3 except for a small amount of packaged waste which is 4 packaged and ready for shipment whenever we complete our 5 project is residual tritium in the floor, ceiling and walls 6 of this particular building. 7 [ Slide shown.] 8 MR. CROSS: Our objectives for this project was to 9 remove the building and really just restore it to an 10 unrestricted Greenfield condition. We want to accomplish 11 this, we want to decontaminate the building to acceptable 12 limits, we want to dispose of waste at appropriate sites, 13 and the completion of the final radiological survey and then 14 to demolition of the building itself. And then we want the
) 15 debris to be excavated, transported and disposed of at a 16 solid waste landfill. And then with the site, we want to 17 backfill it and grade it and seed it. And that's our 18 purpose of what we want to do with this building. I l
19 It's a -- you know, a stand-alone building by 20 itself. 21 [ Slide shown.] 1 22 MR. CROSS: The primary work that we've done so 23 far has really been directed toward site characterization, 24 though we've done some work in the building itself. The 25 interior of the building really, you know, the things like ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
116 1 the lab benches and that have been removed. They've been A ( ,). 2 monitored and they have either been disposed of or just 3 stored awaiting plan approval depending on what the levels 4 that we found. 5 The decommissioning plan has been submitted to NRC 6 and we're waiting for the NRC approval. 7 (Slide shown.] 8 MR. CROSS: A little bit about where things stand, 9 we've done a detailed dose assessment of the site and we 10 perf orme,d , we hired a consultant to do that. The dose 11 assessment was based on site characterization data and very 12 conservative exposure pathway scenarios. The release limits 13 that we requested in our plan are consistent with other
,_ 14 cases. And the release limits that we suggest in our plan i s
(_/ 15 provide very adequate protection, in all cases less than 2 16 millirem per year for all the cases. 17 [ Slide shown.] 18 MR. CROSS: These were the issues that had when we 19 started or really for what we were trying to do. Our costs 20 to reach the REG GUIDE 186 was high and this is not just 21 from -- these values are from consultants or from contract 22 companies coming in and giving us estimates of it would do 23 to really clean our building or tear it down and remove it. 24 We don't see any additional protection provided by 25 doing so. The plan was submitted -- we submitted out plan l l /N l (
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l I 117 ! 1 11 months ago We really think that the scope of the work 2 is pretty simple, pretty straightforward, it should not 3 require an extensive study. Really our desire is the 4 complete the project just as soon as possible. 5 That's what I have to'say about our site. I'll 6 try to answer'any questions. 7 MR. HICKEY: Joe, could you tell me if you know 8 off hand, if you do need to clean up tritium, what does that 9 involve? What do you actually do as a practical matter that 10 would cost up to $4 million. I'm not questioning the dollar 11 value, but just trying to get a sense of what needs to be 12 done or what might need to be done. 13 MR. CROSS: It's a concrete structure so if you -- I 14 you know, to satisfy the survey requirements being able to l 15 take off and what layers to take off, identify those layers, 16 come back and survey later to see if you have additional 17 sites that really just being able to pin down where -- where 18 it's at and how it might -- you know, where it's going to 19 come out to the surface at. 20 MR. NAGY: John Nagy from NFS. How did you make 21 the determination of what was going to be done under the 22 decommissioning plan and not done under the decommissioning 23 plan? 24 MR. CROSS: Well, we were looking at just what we
- 25. could do under our -- you know, as far as cleaning up what ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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118 1 we needed to do at that time, and when we first entered it (A) 2 we thought we had a pretty ..imple solution just being able 3 to go in and cleanup and do survey. And we thought we would 4 fall underneath the reg guide 186. At that time then.we 5 started taking a look at what it costs and how much 6 protection would be provided to reach that tritium. That's 7 when we decided that it didn't make sense to continue down 8 that path, so we decided to go with decommissioning. 9 MR. NAGY: But you described that you have a plan 10 that's in for approval, yet you've already done a lot of 11 work, we won't call it decommissioning, okay, but you've 12 removed all these materials from the building, you've i 13 cleaned it out, interior spaces of it, you went through some 14 internal procese, or did you work with the NRC to decide ()\ s 15 whether that would be --
\
16 MR. CROSS: No, we had had a company come in to 17 work with us as just really to take a look at our building 18 itself to see what they could do in terms of -- thinking 19 that it would be meeting the 186 guideline. And at that 20 point we discovered that it wouldn't. 21 MR. NAGY: What are you doing in terms of 22 continuity? You've had to do some work now and had a 23 company, I guess, come in and help you clean out this 24 facility, do you have -- you've stopped now waiting on 25 approval?
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119 1 MR. CROSS: .Right. () 2' MR. NAGY: So is that costing you money to wait , 3 during this period? 4 MR. CROSS: I wouldn't:say that it's costing us 5 money other than just not knowing what you can do, having a 6 building there that's an older building that is 7 deteriorating, just the physical structures of it are 8 deteriorating. 9 MR. TURTIL: Richard Turtil, NRC. Joe, I was 10 wondering if you could just in a way in view.of your 11 decommissioning plan being submitted, do you have a sense of 12 the -- I guess the give and take or the kind of 13 communication that you've had with NRC just to get a sense 14 of -- g,) 15 MR. CROSS: Before we submitted the plan we l 16 visited with our regional office and talked to them about
]
17 what we thought needed to be done in terms of doing that and i 18 communicated within those timeframes, prepared the plan, 19 . submitted the plan and received the response back that it i 20 had been received, and really just other than when we phoned ' 21 in and called in, that's really primarily the extent of our 22 communication. We called and asked them for some status of 13 what our plan is. But we haven't had as much as we'd like 24 to have. I guess just not knowing where things are at is 25 kind of one of our concerns.
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f 120 1 MR. HICKEY: Thank you, Joe. 2 [ Applause.] 3 MR. HICKEY: Our next speaker is Joe Nardi from 4 Westinghouse. 5 [ Slide shown.] 6 MR. NARDI: I appreciate the opportunity to talk I 7 to the NRC and discuss some of our problems. What I've done i 8 in this slide is to talk about a lot of different sites that 9 we have. So I'm going to go over very quickly a large 10 number of sites and not discussing them in any specific 11 detail, but rather to try to highlight those sites that were , 1 12- successful and those sites where we're having problems so 13 that I hope that in the end you'll see basically a summary 14 of why we take the position of what we've done. () 15 I would also like to point out that I very much 16 endorse what was said this morning by the Fuel Cycle 17 Facilities Forum and by NEI, that I think that that very j 18 well summarizes many of my points. 19 [ Slide shown.] 20 MR. NARDI: I've been involved in a various ways 21 in a number of decommissioning activities with about eight 22 different sites including a small training reactor, uranium 23 mine, broad scope licenses, shutdown reactor that's a 24 possession only license, including licenses that were 25 terminated in the 1970 timeframe and we are now revisiting ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 , (202) 842-0034
121 1 for various reasons and AEC contracts operations that were 2 terminated.
)
13- [ Slide shown.]. 4- MR. NARDI: Starting with the sites, the Zion I 5 training-reactor,.this is in Zion, Illinois, a low-power 6 reactor used for training purposes a milliwatt level. We
- 7. . shut it.down in the mid-80s and started the decommissioning 8 project. -Wrote!the~ decommissioning plan, it took one year
.9~ to decommission -- or to get approval of our decommissioning
.10 plan and literally one and a half days to dismantle the core
-11 structure. I think that that's an example of the level of 12 detail'that goes into certain things which is not warranted.
~13 This total survey'was only a matter, but we did l 14- get it terminated.
V 15 .[ Slide shown.] 16 .MR. NARDI: I'k that that is a uranium mine and 17 I. realize that it's an Agreement State, but it' also points 18 out.a problem that we've had. We actually completed all of 19 the decommissioning, both the groundwater and the site 20 structures in December '93. We got within a couple months 21 of terminating the license and the agency shifted from PDH 22 to TNRCC. A couple years later we got within a couple
! 23 months and the agency shifted from TNRCC back to PDH. I'm 24; -still waiting after five years for that termination.
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122 1- MR. NARDI: That' shift in management structure has () 2-3 been very difficult to deal with because we just start all over, it seems. 4 Bloomfield, New Jersey is a site that was a former 5 lamp manufacturing plant. It had both the lamp i j 6 manufacturing operations in which we basically fabricated 7 tungsten filaments and also worked.-- there was some work 8 done on.that site with the Manhattan project. All of the i 9 uranium that came from the one site we talked about this l 10 morning probably went through the Bloomfield site. 11 Westinghouse took the site back. We had actually 12 sold the business but we retained the property. We revised 13 'the license in the mid-80s to possession for decommissioning
'14 license. I've got a mistake on there. I said we started k 15 early '90. We actually started to do work in 1988. i 16 We did make one big mistake in that we did an 17 incomplete survey and that showed up in the ORISE 18 confirmatory survey. So we had to go back and redo a lot of 19 our surveys and some work. But we have got partial site 20 license termination which allowed us to tear down the 21 buildings'. This is a1 unique problem in the sense of because 22 of the long term of these inactivity of these buildings.It's 23 one of the few sites where we actually have totally empty, 24 inactive buildings. Most of our sites are actually being 25 used for other purposes.
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l l l 123 l 1 [ Slide shown.] () _2 MR. NARDI: However, that gives you other problems 3 such as the deteriorating condition of the building, other 4 issues such as the real problem was the bird droppings. 5 That was the health problem at the site. And just the 6 deterioration of the building that raised many safety 7 concerns. 8 At this point in time we have a risk analysis 9 . submitted and we're waiting for review and approval of that 10 for license termination. 11 [ Slide shown.] 12 MR. NARDI: This is one of my success stories. f i 13 This site is in Large, Pennsylvania. It was a high enriched ! 14 uranium operation for the NERVA project terminated in the 15 1972 timeframe. We subsequently retained the' license and 16 used it for other by-product materials. In the early '90s 17 we started decommissioning of the site, it took about two 18 years to do it. We were very successful that after 19 completing everything we actually got termination of the 20 license in about four months after the final submittal of 21 the license. Now, this was successful for a number of 22 reasons. One is that we did all of the work under the 23 existing license, worked closely with the region, submitted 24 our reports as we went so that they were seeing the data as 25 we were -- basically as we were generating it. So we did () ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
i l l J 124 1 not do a decommissioning preparation of final surveys and do
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2 everything. It was all done as a long-flowing project. And 3 that was very successful, I think, in doing that, but it 4 took a lot of effort. 5 [ Slide shown.] 6 MR. NARDI: Another successful project was the 7 plutonium operations &t the Cheswick site. The facilities l 8 shut down in 1979. We did all of the decommissioning under 9 the license, within the scope of the license. We completed i 10 it in about two years, the building has -- actually, all of l 11 the buildings. associated with that operation with the j 12 exception of one small building were actually taken down to 13 bare ground. The license termination however, has been l 14 complicated by that being the last SNM license on that site. 15 And the other licenses which were previously terminated are 16 really the issue. As far as I'm concerned the plutonium 17 operations was one of the easier ones we did. 18 [ Slide shown.] 19 MR. NARDI: If you're following along on the 20 slides this one is out of order. I changed this one, this ! 21 is pushed back. I just mentioned that on the Cheswick site 22 the former operations involved facilities that were shut 23 down in the early 70s. They consisted of operations that 24 were both high in rich uranium and low in rich uranium. 25 Some of them were AEC license, some of them were operated , i ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034 L
125 1 under contract, AEC contracts through BETIS or whatever. () 2 [ Slide shown.] 3 MR. NARDI: The licenses and the contracts were 4 actually terminated for those facilities. It's been 5 identified under the Oakridge review program. We started to 6 redo some surveys in more depth since the 1996 timeframe and 7 have identified a lot of work that has to be done. One of 8 the major problems in a facility like this is that the 9 interior of.the buildings were considered as part of the 10 termination, but not a lot of piping underground. And so 11 when we go back and look at it we really have to go back and 12 look at the piping and we're doing a lot of work to remove 13 piping and also redo some of the cleanup work on the 14 building surfaces. (O _) 15 (Slide shown.] 16 MR. NARDI: Forest Hills site, another site in 17 Pennsylvania. This one is complicated because operations 18 actually began in 1915 as a research and development center. 19 It was a major research and development center for 20 Westinghouse. They worked with radium during the war years. 21 There was some work done with Manhattan Project. So it's 22 not just simply NRC-licensed materials, it's a lot of 23 different things that are in that operation. Some of them 24 we did not know about until we got into the actual cleanup. 25 Characterizations sound good, but until you ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
136 1 actually start taking things apart, you don't see a lot of
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() 2 things that you would have seen -- that you would hope to 3 see in the characterization. l 4 We originally did all of the work under the 5 license and we got quite far along until we realized that 6 one pit on the site has contamination outside the pit in the ! 7 bedrock or beyond the walls of the pit. When we got to that 8 point in discussions with the license reviewer we decided to 9 submit a decommissioning plan and that was done in March of 10 '95. We're still waiting approval of that decommissioning 11 plan. I don't want to blame the NRC entirely on that one 12 because I was doing other work on other sites and really 13 didn't have anything that we could do if we had approved 14 that with our priorities. A k ,) 15 [ Slide shown.] 16 MR. NARDI: Blairsville, this is another site that 17 was operated under AEC license and AEC contracts. It's 18 currently a site producing circuloid tubing for the nuclear 19 industry. It's operated with high-enriched uranium and 20 low-enriched uranium from the early 50s to -- sorry, mid-50s 21 to the early 60s. It's been identified in the ORNL reviews 22 as a potential site for revisiting. We began to redo some 23 surveys in 1993 and identified some areas. Rather than 24 issue the license, this was another very useful thing that 25 happened for us is rather than reissue that license or bring l - (n) ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
127 i 1 that back up, we agreed to work under the scope of the m i 1 2 Forest Hills license and essentially extend our license to LJ 3 that site. That permitted us to do a lot of cleanup and a
\
4 lot of work under an existing license at another site. 5 Right now the remediation is essentially complete, 6 but we have to submit all of that. That's another successful operation. l 8 [ Slide shown.] 9 MR. NARDI: One of our most complex sites is what { 10 we call the Waltz Mill Site. This is also near Pittsburgh. 11 It's been operation since 1955 with multiple facilities. i 12 It's a site that's listed on the SDNB program because of the { 13 groundwater issues it is an operating site. We have no l 14 intention of terminating the operating license. This i
/N l
() 15 complicates matters tremendously because we have to work 16 around existing facilities to do some of the remediation 17 work. 18 It's also complicated from a licensing standpoint 19 because we have both a possession-only license on the site 20 for a reactor which means we're dealing with NRC 21 headquarters and we have the SNM 770 license which is the 22 one 4e're operating under which is at a region. So we have 23 two groups that we're dealing with, f 24 The decommissioning plan for the reactor has been 25 submitted. We've answered our first set of questions. Our p ( ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
\ -) Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
128 ! 1 remediation plan, we call it, for the 770 license because () 2 that is going to continue in operation. It's been in since 3 -November of '96 and we don't have a real approval on that. 4 It's complicated on getting approval because of the approach 5 we are taking here that we are not taking in any of the 6 facilities, the free release. We are asking for -- we're 7 outside the normal scope of what would be called l 8 decommissioning of free release, trying to get facilities 9 that would be continuing to be -- from a licensing 10 standpoint it raises any other issue. 11 , We are doing work on the site under the scope of 12 the license right now. And basically we're working on 13 letter submissions and letter agreements that the work we 14 .want to do is within the scope of the license. () 15 This last license is one that has just come up. 16 It's a by-product license for our pump repair operation. 17 It's actually part of the license facilities at Cheswick for 18 by-product. 19 We made a recent decision beginning early this 20 i year to decommission one of the buildings to terminate the 21 activities in one of the buildings, but we're going to 22 continue the commercial operations in another building. So 23 we are, under the timeliness rule I submitted a timeliness 24 rule notification three weeks ago that we would be 25 decommissioning the one separate building and preparing to O ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250'I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
129 1 submit a decommissioning plan. () 2 3 The letter I wrote to you under the timeliness rule acknowledges the need to submit a decommissioning plan. 4 It'also states that we will do a lot of remediation work 5 within the scope of the license and tried to define what,we 6 will-do until we get approval on the decommissioning plan. 7- That's a really_early letter so I don't know that anybody 8 has really read my words yet. 9 This was one facility that I thought might be an 10 appropriate one for consideration under the plan. 11 In summary, our experience has involved multiple j 12 approaches with varying success depending ont the 13 situations. To me there's a lack of clear guidance as to 14 when you can work under your license. It's pretty much the l) 15 words are there, but the words leave a lot to the 16 imagination in terms of how do you actually define what's 17 within the scope of the license. I think that our 18 experience has shown that you can do quite a bit of work. 19 And I think that a lot of the decommissioning should be done 20 within that scope rather than doing a decommissioning. plan 21 -- thac formal approval kind of an approach. 22 NRC approvals have taken time, are difficult to 23 allow for in the scheduling of our process. They have 24 resulted in us waiting for tnings to happen. That makes it 25 very difficult and costs money the way -- especially like at ' O ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters
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130 1- Waltz Mill where we've got a full team assembled, working, () 2 it costs a lot of money to keep that team together if we're 3 not doing a decommissioning. 4 I'm very concerned with the grandfathering of work 5 that we already did at some of our sites in the finality of ! 6- the' issue with the new decommir.sioning criteria in place. 7 Because a lot of.these licenses, as you see, are not l 8 terminated yet, or were termilated a long time ago, how do 9' we get to a full agreement o's that. 10' Even with the new criteria implementation is still 11 an unknown. We're just beginning to face up to some of the 12 problems of what do the new guidelines really mean in terms 13 of what can you survey? l 14 Any questions? ,
) 15 MR. HICKEY: Joe, could you clarify. At the South 16 Carolina site, do you have any pieces that you're 17 decommissioning or want to decommissioning that are 18 candidates to break off? Because obviously that's a very 19 active site?
20 MR. NARDI: What you're talking about is the fuel 21 fabrication facility in Columbia, South Carolina. We do not 22 have anything right now that looks like a candidate for this 23 program in terms of something that we would break off and 24 decommission. We have one area within the building which is 25 like a room within a building that is not being utilized 4 'C\ ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
131 1 right now, but there's still some potential for use and the (7"N) 2 position right now is we do not want to decommission that.
)
i 3 [ Applause.] l 4 MR. HICKEY: Thank you. I want to emphasize that 5 we want to have as much dialogue as we can this afternoon, j 6 We're hindered a bit by we have a large group and 7 transcribing the meeting. And this morning I wanted to make 8 sure that we kept to the agenda to make sure that the l 9 speakers who had prepared presentations had an opportunity 10 to make their presentations. 11 But essentially this afternoon we're very flexible 12 and informal and we want to have as much -- basically the 13 afternoon is reserved for discussion. We have an agenda, 14 but it's really to discuss things as they come along. And I O(ms/15 think we've already been given a lot of food for thought. 16 The driver for the workshop was to identify cases that could 17 be moved and decommissioned in a relatively short period of 18 time. And I've already heard four examples that I thint 19 that is the case. And if those can be decommissioned 20 primarily by the efforts of the licensee, but hopefully NRC 21 will play a role in seeing that they do come to fruition. 22 I'll consider that a success in itself. 23 Our next speaker is Roy Brown from Mallinckrodt. 24 MR. BROWN: Thank you, John. You heard earlier 25 this morning about another facility of Mallinckrodt. I'm ( [) ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
l l 132 l going to limit my comments this afternoon to Mallinckrodt's 1 2 involvement in the area'of nuclear medicine and l 3 radiopharmaceutical. Although I don't have any comments 4- about a specific site, I am going to talk in generalities 5 about the field of nuclear medicine and the use of 6 radiopharmaceutical, both the manufacturing of 7 radiopharmaceutical and the use of radiopharmaceutical and 8 nuclear pharmacies and in hospitals.
.9 There are roughly between 10 and 12 million 10 nuclear medicine procedures performed each year in the U.S. <
l 11 And'these are done at several thousand different hospital l l 12 facilities, hospital settings, and clinic settings l l 13 throughout the U.S. and in several hundred nuclear I 14 pharmacies, and these will be most of my -- most of my 15 comments I will address to these facilities. l 16 I have reviewed the issues of decommissioning with 17 several different groups in preparation for this morning. ! 18 I've talked to the Society of Nuclear Medicine, the American 19 College of Nuclear Physicians, I've talked to some 20 individual physicians and some nuclear pharmacists as well. 21 I've also talked to other manufacturers of 22 radiopharmaceutical in addition to having Mallinckrodt's ; 23 comments, and I've also talked to other companies that 24 operate nuclear pharmacies. 25 Unfortunately there wasn't time to formalize l- ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. !. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034 o
133 1 industry comments, so the comments I will be presenting
'ni 2 today are more representative of Mallinckrodt, but as I said
(/ 3 before, I have talked to the other major manufacturers. 4 [ Slide shown. ] 5 MR. BROWN: Let me start off talking about 6 manufacturing operations. We recognize that manufacturing 7 operations will require more detailed decommissioning plans. 8 In the business of manufacturing radiopharmaceutical there 9 are quite often products, radioisotopes with longer 10 half-lifes. These are sometimes contained under impurities 11 and sometimes the target material of radiopharmaceutical. 12 Quite often the decommissioning of manufacturing facilities 13 are more involved. They get into more health and safety 14 issues, sometimes concrete scabling, sometimes groundwater ("N (_) 15 issues, sometimes contaminated soil issues, and also there's 16 also the potential for neutron activation and cyclotron 17 bunkers in areas around cyclotrons. 18 So for this reason we recognize that the 19 manufacture of radiopharmaceutical is a little bit more 20 complex than the practice of nuclear medicine in hospitals 21 and nuclear pharmacies and we do recognize that this most 22 often will require a decommissioning plan or some kind of a 23 license termination plan. 24 However, I do want to spend some time talking 25 about the lower risk activities, the practice of nuclear (-) ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034 L
134 1 medicine in clinics and hospitals and also the use of e lm) x_/ 2 radiopharmaceutical and the preparation of 3 radiopharmaceutical in nuclear pharmacies; I'm calling this 4 the so-called, " lower impact areas". 5 These materials -- the radionuclides involved here 6 are all for human use, either diagnostic use or therapeutic l 7 use, so consequently the half-lifes are very, very short, l 8 sometimes measured in the manner of minutes, often measured 9 in a matter of hours, or a few days. So the half-lifes are 10 very short, and also the quantities involved are very, very 11 small. 12 Also, when you operate a nuclear medicine 13 department or a nuclear pharmacy the levels you keep of both 14 removable containment and frisk containment throughout your n () 15 cycle, day-to-day, is kept very, very low. So the prospect 16 or the possibility of any major cleanup or any major 17 decommissioning effort is really not there. If you follow 18 your license and your license condition and all the 19 regulations in Part 20, you pretty much have a clean site 20 that's very, very easy to decommission at the end of your 21 site's facility. 22 In the MARSSIM document and some of the draft 23 guidance documents, there's discussion of the alternate null ! 24 hypothesis and this is really the most appropriate approach 25 for these low-risk activities. This is discussed a little i [)
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i l 135 i 1- bit in MARSSIM, not in very much detail, but we feel it [ ) 2 really needs further development both in the draft guidance 3 document and anything-that may come out down the road. 4 [ Slide shown.] 5 MR. BROWN: As you can tell from some of the 6 comments earlier today, there is some confusion exactly when 7 a decommissioning plan is really required for a low-risk 8 materials facility. In some of the NRC presentations it was 9 delineated when it is required and when it's not required. 10 When you talk to the actual nuclear medicine physicians, the 11 ~ nuclear medicine departments and some nuclear pharmacies, 12 though, it's not really that clear when you look at the new 13 regulation and the draft guidance document coming along, 14 it's not that clear either. 15 So one thing the industry would like to see is a 16 more clear delineation of exactly when a decommissioning 17 plan is required and when it's not required. 18 The draft guidance document does talk about if you 19 have no licensed condition that requires a plan to be 20 submitted or when decommissioning efforts don't require, or 21 don't involve health and safety issues, then you do not need 22- a decommissioning plan. 23 The nuclear medicine industry strongly agrees with 24 this approach for the reasons I mentioned earlier. If you 25 want a good operation, follow your license condition, follow ()- ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034 i
136 1 Part 20, use these short, half-life isotopes in these lower (O
,f 2 quantities, you really don't have a decommissioning issue.
3 And this is something we very strongly feel. It seems like 4 the NRC is in agreement with this concept, but it's really 5 not clear yet in the' regulations or in the guidance 6 documents. 7 Let me also, while we're talking about license 8 conditions, I pulled a couple of our nuclear pharmacy 9 licenses. Mallinckrodt operates 40 nuclear pharmacies in 10 the U.S. and I pulled a couple of licenses at random just to 11 see what was in there. And there was quite a variety of 12 different language in the license and this is something I'd 13 like to see addressed too. A couple of examples I have up 14 here are from Region 1 and from Region 3. Both of them make 15 sense, but I guess where the misunderstanding is why can't 16 we have more consistency here? From Region 1 the license 17 says, "in addition to the possession limits in Item 8, the 18 licensee shall further restrict the possession of licensed 19 materials to quantities below the minimum limits specified 20 -in 10 CFR 30.35(d). . . for establishing financial assurance 21 for decommissioning." 22 Well, that's pretty clear and that's sensible 23 language and that's something we would like to see continued 24 and spread throughout all low-risk licensees of this type, 25 all low-risk medicine licensees. ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Ccurt Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
137 1 However, if you look at another license we have in () 2 Region 3, it says, "The license shall maintain records of 3 information important to safe and effect decommissioning. . 4 . per the provisions of 10 CFR 30.35 (g) until this license 5 is terminated by the Commission." Well, once again, 6 standing alone this makes sense. It's fine, but we 7 shouldn't be having disparities between region, between 8 different licensees in the same Region. We would like to 9 see some consistency in this license condition language. 10 [ Slide shown.] 11 MR. BROWN: So to summary recommendations, we 12 would like to see the allowance of a low-risk nuclear { {
-13 medicine operation's ability to perform very simple 14 decommissioning provided four conditions are met.
) 15 First of all the facilities notify the NRC of I
16 their intent to cease operation. 17 Two, the facility would be cleaned to an 18 unrestricted release level of the 25 millirem per year. 19 Three, no unusual decommissioning efforts are 1 20 required. Those that may take extraordinary efforts or may 21 involve health and safety issues. 22 And four, the facilities below the level requiring 23 financial assurance. l 24 We would like to see these four criteria really 25 easily displayed in the regulations and in the guidance 1 ANN RILE. & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W , Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
138 1 document. It's there if you ferret it out and you can find () 2 it. But we would like to see it delineated a little bit 3 more clearly so everyone out there understands that if you m 4- meet these conditions as a low-risk, nuclear medicine 5 operation, as long as you meet these condition, then you 6 don't have to file a decommissioning plan, you can put it in 7 the form of a license amendment and proceed with it. 8 A second recommendation, as I mentioned before, we 9 would like to establish a consistent-license condition 10 language for low-risk nuclear medicine activities, one 11 relating back to exactly when you have to file a 12 decommissioning plan and when you don't have to. That can 13 either be in the regulations, but it probably is more 14 appropriate in the guidance documents. ( 15- And lastly, one general comment about the 16 manufacturing of nuclear medicine or radiopharmaceutical 17 involving more latitude in decommissioning. Right now the 18- manufacturers are used to and have been using RESRAD in the 19 decommissioning of the higher-risk activities, some of the 20 manufacturing and some of the cyclotron activities. RESRAD 3 :21 has been used very successfully for a number of years. We 22 understand NRC is moving to the development of their own 23 computer code, DandD screen. We just would like to see the 24 ability to continue to use RESRAD. That's worked well for 25 the industry, we'd like to see that in the future. () ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court' Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034 L-
i 139 l 1 Thank you. l (f 2 MR. HICKEY: Questions? 3 [No response.] 4 MR. HICKEY: Roy, do you have a facility now 5 that's undergoing decommissioning cn: it's on the horizon? 6 MR. BROWN: Nothing immediately, but with 40 7 pharmacies and quite often moving pharmacies, adding new 8 pharmacies, closing other pharmacies, we may have something 9 on the horizon, but nothing is slated right now. So we 10 don't have a facility to offer up for a pilot plant, but 11 perhaps in the next six months to 12 months, we may. 12 MR. HICKEY: That 40 includes Agreement States? 13 MR. BROWN: Yes. As a matter of fact, we have 14 more in Agreement States than we do NRC states. (A_) 15 MR. HICKEY: Do you have any perspective on the 16 decommissioning approach? I mean, I know you can't go 17 through all the Agreement States, but do you just have any 18 overall comments about the approach to decommissioning if 19 you're in an Agreement State? 20 MR. BROWN: It's really highly variable. A lot of 21 the Agreement States, it's a lot more clear, and it's better 22 delineated. In other Agreement States it's fuzzy and up to 23 a case-by-case interpretation. 24 MR. HICKEY: Thank you. 25 MR. BROWN: Thank you.
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Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
140 1 [ Applause.] f( ) 2 MR. HICKEY: Our final formal presentation is 3 Scott Murray from GE. Scott. 4 [ Slide shown.]
- 5. MR. MURRAY: One of the advantages, I guess, of 6 going last in a presentation format like this is you get to 7 hear all the other speakers who go before you and you can 8 adjust your comments accordingly.
9 Unfortunately, going last also there's not too 10 many more points to be made. So I apologize in advance if 11 some of the things that I will be talking about have already 12 been covered. 13 I'm Scott Murray. I'm a production manager at a 14 uranium fuel fabrication facility with General Electric. 15 Die first step in the fuel manufacturing process is mine. 16 Our facility located on this map you can see there 17 in blue is about a 1600 acre site, about three miles north 18 of the town of Wilmington and about six miles from the 19 ocean, from the Atlantic Ocean there in North Carolina. A 20 lovely place to live. 21 It has two GE businesses at this facility, both 22 nuclear energy and aircraft engines. The nuclear energy 23 part, like I mentioned;is primarily consists of boiling 24 water reactor fuel fabrication. As a result, we have a 25 broad scope special nuclear material license covering all () ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034 I j
141 1 the fuel bundle production activities such as conversion, ( ,, 2 fabrication, laboratory analyses, nuclear safety actions, j 3 and waste treatment. 4 (Slide shown.] 5 MR. MURRAY: One of our materials is the 6 by-product really, or the production of the uranium fuel is 7 calcium fluoride. Calcium fluoride is generated primarily 8 from the treatment of ammonium fluoride liquid that's 9 generated in the chemical conversion process to produce 10 uranium powder. The Fluoride waste stream also contains low j 11 concentrations of uranium. And in the early years, really 12 for about four years or so, from about '68 to '72, these 13 materials were stored on site. As a result of that, we have 14 one, or actually two locations, and the first location I'll (D
\_s/ 15 be talking about a little later here contains about 70,000 16 cubic feet of calcium fluoride in an area about the size of l l
17 a football field. It's not a very large area, it was l 18 discontinued for use of storage back in 1972 and basically 19 sat there pretty much inactive since. 20 A variety of process modifications have been 21 implemented to reduce both the volume and the uranium levels 22 and in fact until recently we had a market for the calcium 23 fluoride because the levels were so low. We actually sold 24 it as a beneficial by-product in a couple of industrial 25 applications. f~T ( ,) ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
142 { I 1- Oh, I should also point out, the calcium fluoride () ~2 remediation activities of this area -- this one particular 3- area essentially started in 1995 prior to the implementation 4 of'the timeliness rule. This is an activity or an area, 5 like I said, that would in fact be a-candidate for the 6 timeliness rule, and we did it before we had to, to go ahead 7 and.try to deal with this particular area. 8 (Slide shown.] 9 MR. MURRAY: The broad-scoped license that we have 10 at the facility we felt contained the necessary program 11 elements to support this type of effort, to relocate this 12 material or package it for disposal. So what we did in 13 early 1995, in February of '95, we met with the NRC to 14 review our intent. We sat down and we actually spoke with 15 both NMSS, the Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguard Branch 16 and also the low-level waste people at the.same time to try 17 to get concurrence that we could go forward with this under 18 our existing license. They were in agreement with our 19 intention and we discussed at that meeting how we should 20 proceed, and we invented this thing called a final survey 21 .and release plan. Notice, we avoid using the term 22 " decommissioning" because we felt like we weren't 23 terminating our license, it's a healthy site, it's a healthy 24 license and really we had no intention of terminating 25 anything. All we were doing, really, was trying to free ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I' Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034 j 5
r i 143 1 release a particular area -- cleanup and free release a
,m
() 2 particular area. 3 So we called this thing " Final Survey and 4 Release". I don't believe that term exists anywhere in the 5 regulations. We invented it, but it was a document. We 6 generated a document consistent with NUREG 58.49, the Manual l 7 for Conducting Radiologic Surveys in Support of License 8 Termination, and the document itself, if you don't count the appendices on it, ended up being about 29 pages. i 9 Fairly 10 simple document, fairly straightforward. Very consistent 11 with 58.49. We didn't ask for anything special. We pretty i 12 much dotted the "i"s and crossed the "t"s that 58.49 said we l 13 should. ' 14 We, at the same time, began activities to prepare l
/,\
(_,/ 15 this area for remediation, for the relocation of this 16 material and for the actual cleanup. So while the document 17 was being reviewed we were actually remediating. The plan 18 finally got approved, you can see up here, Rev. O, the plan l 19 went in, in mid-95 or so, we ended up submitting three 20 different plans over the course of this. It was kind of 21 interesting because after the first plan went in we started 22 getting a series of questions and answers or questions 23 anyway, requests for additional information, and these were 24 coming at about one every six weeks. We would get one, we 25 would turn it around, we would answer that request for (m
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Court Reporters , 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 ' Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034 l
144 1 additional information and about three or four weeks after r") , 2 we put our answer in we would get another one. 1 (J~. 3 In fact,'it was kind of interesting, we were 4 wondering if we would get more documents between the Q&A I 5 process than the entire length of the plan itself. 6 But after five different -- five separate requests 7 for additional information we did finally get the plan, REV. 8 2, now this is the third submittal finally approved in April 9 of '96 there, you see, after about 11 months worth of 10 process. 11 (Slide shown.] 12 MR. MURRAY: Some observations that we had. We 13 kind of view this as a success story. In fact, my
/--
14 understanding of the pilot program we may have already done ( ,/ 15 what I guess is being proposed, to streamline the process, 16 to make things happen, we did it successfully, we believe 17 under our current S&M license. At least so far so good. We 18 have not yet free released that area, but we are in the 19 final stages of the approved survey and release plan. 20 We did it without a decommissioning plan which I ( 21 think you've heard several people said they also 22 successfully did it without a decommissioning plan, and we 23 think this was to everyone's benefit. We think it went 24 quite well. 25 As far as opportunities to streamline the review r~N)
! ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. '- Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034 a
l 145 1 process, you've heard some of this before, I guess. It's 2 not immediately obviously why the plan approval took as long 3 as it took. It was in our mind a fairly simple plan. We 4 followed the NUREG guidance, 11 months seems like a long 5 time, perhaps not. I guess this is the first experience we 6 had in trying to get something like this approved. And 7 perhaps it may have been one of earlier ones that the NRC 8 maybe had experience in trying to get approved. It was, 9 again, a final survey and release plan rather than a 10 decommissioning plan. But it was a fairly simple document, 11 a 29-page document, that, to us anyway, seemed like it took 12 a long time. Now, there was no downside to that in reality, 13 because, again, like I said, we were doing the actual work 14 and we didn't rea.11y need the final survey and release plan 15' approved until really almost a year after, in fact, it got 16 approved. So it didn't harm us in any way, but 11 months 17 seemed like a long time. 18 Some perhaps reasons why it may have taken this 19 long, perhaps the guida- specifically NUREG 58.49 may not 20 have been as accurate as NRC had hoped. Perhaps the 21 reviewers that were looking at this document didn't accept 22 the guidance as adequate. Perhaps the reviewers that were 23 looking at.it weren't as familiar with our facility as i 24 perhaps they could have been. To my knowledge none of the i 25 people that were looking at this plan had been to our 1 ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. i Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300
"""" M "; a % 3 ' '
]
E 1 l 146 1 facility during this timeframe and that may have been a l
/~T
( < 2 potential hindrance. l R.J It wasn't exactly obvious why, I ' l 3 guess, it took iterations along those lines. 4 The next point, or last point I'd like to make, 5 regional reviews and utilizing the regional support 6 throughout this whole process was in fact useful. In fact, 7 I would encourage to consider even more regional utilization 8 and regular license reviewers. We found that our regional l 9 folks are very easy to work with when they understand what 10 we're doing. They're familiar with us, they're familiar 11 with our plan, they make routine site visits. And it's 12 encouraging, I guess, that we were able to do this within l 13 our existing SNM license and at the same time use the 14 regional support. I 15 So one thing I would encourage is if we can, try 16 to leave this to the extent possible within the regions or 17 certainly within the operations branch rather than in 19 requiring other lengthy reviews with people that may not be 19 as familiar with this. 20 That's my comments anyway. I only had those few 21 things. Like I said, it was a simple plan and a successful 22 story. l 23 Thanks. ; I 24 MR. HICKEY: Questions? ' 25 [No response.] l 1
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147 1 MR. HICKEY: Scott, do you have anything else on l () 2 the horizon? i
- 3. MR. MURRAY: Well, we have many other things going l
1 4- on, but nothing., I think, that would be a candidate for your !
- 5. pilot program. We've had a philosophy, I guess, all along i
~6 to try to clean as you go and this was one of our legacies 7 that we wanted to go ahead and address before we were forced 8 to do it. So probably the same answer that I guess Joe gave 9 you for the -- yeah for the Westinghouse facility, probably 10 not.
11 MR. HICKEY: Thank you. 12 (Applause.] 13 MR. HICKEY: Okay. I'd like to again thank all of 14 our speakers. I'm sure that all of you have made O (_f 15 presentations at one time or another and you recognize that 16 it's more involved to make a presentation at a meeting 17 rather than to just attend the meeting. Even for a short 18 presentation it take a lot of work to communicate things 19 clearly and usefully to your audience. So I certainly 20 appreciate your coming and taking the time to make those 21 presentations. 22 Next we are going to have a panel discussion. So 23 I'm going to have a five-minute stretch break and I'd like 24- the. people that we've invited to be on the panel to join us 25 at the table in five minutes. I \ ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. l Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
i 148 1 Don't worry too much about the formality of the () 2
.3 seating. We have some place cards here, but just find a l place up here. It's going to be informal. The people who e
4 are not at the table are also welcome to participate. 5 [ Recess.] 6 MR. HICKEY: On the' record. The rest of the 7 afternoon we'd like to have a fairly open discussion. The 8 only request.I have is that you come to the microphones to 9 make sure the transcriber can hear you. 10 In addition to Mr. Killar, Mr. Culberson, and Dr. 11 Fletcher, who have graciously agreed to be on the panel, but i 12 that's just for the purpose of facilitating discussion, 13 anybody can participate that would like to. 14 I would like to introduce two more NRC staff O( j 15 members, Dr. Ron Bellamy from our Region I office which is 16 in King of Prussia near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He has 17 responsibility.for a large number of decommissioning sites 18 both for inspection and the project management. So, I'm i 19 sure a lot of you from the Northeast have met Ron before. 20 And Mike Weber is the chief of our fuel cycle 21 branch which is responsible for our operating fuel cycle 22 facilities, but some of those overlap into decommissioning 23 issues so. Mikes and my branch often interface on 24 decommissioning matters. And I also interface with the 25 regions regularly including Ron's group. l-l ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. O- Court Reporters i 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300
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149 1 I heard four points that I'd like to start with t ( 2 this afternoon. We've handed out a list of questions which 3 is a consensus. We polled a lot of attendees on questions 4 that they thought should be discussed and we got many more l 5 questions than are on this page, but we tried to capture 6 most of the points that were made from the suggestions. But 7 I want to adjust -- it probably would not be productive or 8 not be the best way to go about it to just go through these 9 questions one-by-one in any case. But I want to adjust the 10- discussion because I heard some things today that caught my 11 attention. 12 The four things that I'd like to talk about first 13 is, first of all there were some questions that touch on 14 what documentation is now available and we'd like to () 15 summarize.some documentation that NRC has published and is 16 available that not all of you may be aware of, to make sure ; i 17 that you're aware that you can get access to that 18 documentation.
.19 The second point, and I think the most important 20 thing I heard this morning was the issue of what can you do 21 under your existing license and how do you and how does NRC 22 make determinations on what can be done under the existing 23 license because certainly it's my intent that licensees 24 should proceed to do things that are under their existing 25 license. And questions about that should not be a delaying f ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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150 1 factor in proceeding with decommissioning or any other (e 5y 2 regulated activity. 3 The third issue had to do with this question of 4 disposal of source material in 11(e) (2) by-product material 5 and related materials at current disposal sites, primarily 6 uranium mill tailing sites. 7 The fourth issue had to do with the length of time 8 that it takes for NRC to complete its reviews. And frankly 9 I don't want to discuss that, but I think that it is an 10 issue and maybe from both sides we can put more perspective 11 on that issue. But certainly we -- ideally the length of 12 time it takes NRC to perform a review should not be the 13 critical path in performing decommissioning, but we can 14 discuss that more. A (_) 15 If Nick Orlando has returned -- is Nick here? 16 Okay. I'm going to wait, when Nick gets back he'll say a 17 few more words about the documentation that's available. 18 But let's talk a little bit more about the issue of what you 19 can do under your current license and what cannot be done 20 under your current license? And I think I may call on my 21 colleagues first from NRC to comment on that. 22 I heard a success story, I think, from GE where 23 they decided they were going to do something under their 24 current license and it was appropriate and they went ahead 25 and' proceed to do it. [/) ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
1 l l 151 l l 1 Ron, do you have any comments on that? l ( ) 2 MR. BELLAMY: Yeah, and I've heard a theme go j 3 through today and I think Dave Craig probably said it best, ) 4 but Joe Nardi also alluded to it in his remarks. 5 We have found with out exception that the process 6 works smoother the more interaction there is between you the 7 licensee and us in the NRC regional office, and then between 8 us and the NRC regional office and John and his staff and 9 the others down here. Without exception that has been the 10 way to go. And to specifically try to talk about what you 11 can do under the license I think -- I think the more 12 dialogue there is, the more -- I don't want to use the term 13 " leeway", but the more ability there is for you to do things 14 under your license. And ';he best way to find that out is to A (,) 15 ask the question, ask it up front and then work with us and 16 we'll get you an answer before you head off in another 17 direction, before you come in with a capital decommissioning
'18 plan. Let us know clearly what you want to do and hopefully 19 clearly we can get back to you with some indication of 20 exactly what you can and what you can't do under the 21- existing license.
22 Unfortunately, I think a lot of it is going to be 23 on a case-by-case basis. I think it's going to be, we've 24 got to go over the license, go over all the license 25 conditions, all the tie-down conditions, specifically hear () ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
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152 1 what you are proposing to do and then try to work to come up 2 with the path of least resistance so that it's easy -- so 3 it's the path of least resistance both for you as the 4 implementer and for us as the regulator.
'S MR. HICKEY: Dr. Fletcher?
6 MR. FLETCHER: I have been called " doctor" but I 7 don't have a doctorate. 8 MR. HICKEY: Sorry. 9 MR. FLETCHER: I would like to add to what Dr. 10 Bellamy just said from an Agreement State perspective. Very 11 often we have found that if there in a level of 12 understanding and communication between what the licensee 13 wants or needs to do and what the requirements are, and even 14 if there are areas where the requirements don't specifically 's,_ ) 15 address those areas, alternative solutions can be worked 16 out, or at least alternative approaches can be agreed to. 17 And as long as my staff has the opportunity and ability to 18 perhaps do some on-site observations or perhaps some close 19 work with the licensee in almost every case the solutions 20 reached are agreeable to both parties. So I have to agree 21 totally that the more communication and dialogue there is 22 between the licensee and the regulatory staff in Agreement 23 States the better the solution is for both parties. 24 MR. WEBER: On this question of, how far can you 25 go under your existing licenses? At least for the fuel f j ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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153 1 facilities most of the fuel facilities have very clear () 2 statements in their applications on what activities they are 3 authorized to conduct under their licenses. An in many 4 cases somewhere along the lines the fuel facilities have'had 5 to go'in and. excavate some contaminated soil or something 6 along that line. So NRC has already reviewed procedures up 7 front on what's to be done, how it will be conducted, what's 8 the health and safety program that's going to cover that 9 kind of any'and therefore, in many cases you have the 10 flexibility if you.are a fuel fabrication facility to do 11 r a/ of the activities we've discussed this morning. 12 Especially those that are more simple and straightforward.
.13 I think where you get into trouble is where the 14 authorized activity is defined in a very prescriptive way to
() 15 say we are going to take blue widgets and paint them green. 16 And then later on if somebody comes in and says, well, now 17 our blue widget machine is broken, and we want to tear it
- 18. down and we're going to jack-hammer out the concrete, and 19 we're-going to scabble the walls and things like that, all 20 of a sudden you've gone into a new territory in terms of
- 21. what you're authorized to do and what you're not authorized 22 to do and that's what really prompts the need for the 23 license amendment to authorize those new activities.
24 Now, that's where the delay comes in because as 25 you probably experienced at least from NRC's perspective, ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
l 154 1 there are resource constraints. -We do.try to prioritize the () 2 reviews that are being conducted. In fuel cycle we first 3 placed' priority on safety amendments, safety and security 4 safeguards amendments. 5 Secondly are regulatory or legal constraints. For 6 example an inspection may identify a violation of a license, 7 some action is necessary cn NRC's part to remedy that 8 , situation, so those who get second priority, and lastly you 9 have business needs. 10 The timeliness rule, however, kind of changed the 11 environment to some extent by layout again these legally 12 enforceable schedules. So that puts you, if you were 13 normally into a business decommissioning activity where you 14 just wanted to do something because you thought it was good () 15 business practice, now you might'be bumped up in your 16 -priority and in our priority by the timeliness rule. 17 I think to go much beyond that in terms of what's 18 authorized under the licenses, you would really have to look 19 at the specific license, and what's described in the 20 ' incoming application or as it's amended through the years. 21 -MR. HICKEY: Thank you. Does anybody else not up 22 here at the table want to elaborate on this? And I'll make 23 one more comment while you're thinking about that. I'm just 24' thinking out loud here. I didn't come in here to present 25 the solution, but.this is one thing we're going to take with [ ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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155 1 us to resolve this issue. Certainly it seems that if you're () 2 already doing things under your license like replacing 3 equipment and disposing of the old equipment, then it should 4 be apparent that you can continue to do that as part of your 5 decommissioning operation unless there's a question in your 6 mind as to whether you should be doing -- you've already 7 done stuff as part of normal operations that you're not 8 supposed to be doing. 9 MR. WEBER: In which case we'd like to know that 10 promptly. 11 [ Laughter.] 12 MR. HICKEY: I guess where you could run it -- 13 just, I think a rule of thumb is, when you're talking about 14 demolishing or gutting rooms and buildings or excavating, .f 15 and those aren't part of your normal operations, now some 16 sites those are part of operations. If it's a large-scale 17 facility which has broad authorization, a University or a 18 fuel cycle facility may have that within the scope of its 19 normal operation. 20 But I think that at least raises a question as -- 21 or even a conclusion that you would need a decommissioning 22 plan. 23 Step right up. 24 MR. BROWN: Roy Brown with Mallinckrodt. I have a 25 question. I'd like to get NRC's interpretation about ( ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
rz 156 1 decommissioning a lab or a building within an operating site () 2 and how to fill out a 314 with that regard. I would like to
)
3 get. headquarters an opinion on that 4 MR. HICKEY: What is the question? ! 5 MR. BROWN: What do you do if you want to 1 l-6 decommission -- the site is still in operation, you want to 7 ,' decommission one lab, or one set of labs in a building. 8 MR. HICKEY: Okay. l 9 MR. BROWN: What is the regulatory process for ' 10 that? 11 MR. HICKEY: This may be a good opportunity for me 12 to have Nick come up. Can you talk about the documentation 13- and then I think we can make a joint effort to answer these 14' questions. 15 MR. WEBER: Maybe as Nick comes up, Roy, could I { 16 .just clarify. The-intent of the licensee in this case is 1~7 not to release that room from the license, right? You're i 18 not asking to remove that from the authorized location of 19 use, or are you? 20 MR. BROWN: Why don't we say that you will remove i 21 it from authorized use, yes. 22 MR. ORLANDO: That would have been specifically 23 listed on your license. 24 MR. HICKEY: You need to use the mic. 25- MR. ORLANDO: That would have been specifically i ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
l i I 157 1 listed as a place.of use on your license. g l t
\ >j 2 MR. BROWN: Let me say no, because some licenses 3 are broad enough where you don't spell out every single 4 laboratory that you use.
5 MR. HICKEY: But it would be included? 6 MR. BROWN: But it would be included, certainly. 7- MR. KILLAR: This would typically, or I would 8 think, and my understanding is that what you're looking at 9 here is something that falls specifically under the 10 timeliness rule. You had a lab or an operation that was 11 part of an overall facility. You were producing product in 12 that lab and for whatever reason you decide to discontinue 13 producing that product. You no longer have a need for that 14 facility,.but you want to keep it under license for some
/'~N '(,) 15 period of time. But now you've been inactive for two years, 16 you're up against the timeliness rule.
17 MR. HICKEY: Let's address the general issue 18 first, Nick, of the documentation that's available. 19 MR. ORLANDO: Well, I think in that particular 20 instance, and I may be wrong, I want to go back and check, 21 but in that instance you could clean up the facility, you 22 know, you may not necessarily have to notify NRC. I would 23 have to think about that, but your documentation, clean up 24 the lab, keep to, you know, whatever level that would be 25 necessary for NRC to review, maybe do some surveys, it kind C' ('- 'N ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
158 1 of depends on the extent of the clean up. And that's why U) 2 I'm kind of hesitating here. 3 If you're talking like a nuclear medicine 4 laboratory, you're basically, in those kinds of situations, 5 you're going to collect up all your sealed sources, pick up 6 all of the diapers that are on the benches, go through and 7 maybe do some wipe -- some cleaning with some nondestructive 8 type removal activities, wipes, whatever, then you can go 9 back and evaluate it, do some smears, fixed and removable 10 measurements, some radiation exposure measurements. If 11 you're not going to terminate the license at that point and 12 you're just sort of -- and it's a broad scope and you're 13 moving around with in buildings, then you just keep that 14 material or that documentation for review during the next (n) s, 15 inspection. 16 If you're going to completely terminate a full 17 area of use on a license, then you may need to notify NRC 18 and go do more. Does that answer your question? 19 MR. BROWN: Thank you. 20 MR. ORLANDO: I'm kind of hemming and hawing a 21 little bit to get into it there, but I just wanted to 22 understand exactly where you were coming from. 23 MR. HICKEY: I want to come back to this question 24 because we have some more comments. But first of all, Nick, 25 could you address the general issue of documents that the 7")
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159 1 handbook -- what's available in the handbook as far as () 2- graded approach and some of the other points that were
~3 raised this morning.
4 MR. ORLANDO: Okay. I pulled up some of my own 5 slides. ! 4 6 (Slide shown.] l 7 MR. ORLANDO: I hate it every time you come up 8 here you got to bend the mic down. Let's do this. 9 One of the things that I heard today a couple of 10 times was that you'd like to see NRC maybe adopt a graded 11 approach perhaps based on the actual risks or the complexity
\
12 of the cleanup that might be involved. 13 I think Cort said it and one of the individuals 14 from Mallinckrodt mentioned the.same thing. And we already O(_) 15 are starting to do that. In fact, we have a document out 16 there that's called the NMSS Handbook for Decommissioning. 17 Is anybody aware of this? Or are some of you aware of it? 18 Could I see a show of hands just so I know who I'm 19 -- 20 [ Showing of hands.) 21 MR. ORLANDO: Okay. So some -- not NRC people, 22 hopefully. 23 [ Laughter.] 24 AUDIENCE PARTICIPANT: We hope they've heard of 25 it. () ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
160 1 MR. ORLANDO: Yeah, they better have heard of it. tm i
) 2 I just spent the last month going out and doing some 3 training.
4 Okay. We call it the "NMSS Decommissioning 5 Handbook." What this thing is, back in 1994-95 the General 6 Accounting Office and the NRC's Office of Inspector General 7 did a review of the decommissioning program and determined 8 that while the staff was decommissioning or was overseeing 9 the decommissioning of nuclear facilities in a way that 10 ensured that they were being remediated safely, there was a 11 lack of consistency in the way we approached the 12 decommissioning. I think we kind of heard that a little bit 13 here today, you know, we've heard this license condition in 14 Region 1, or this one in Region 2 or whatever. .O (,_,/ 15 So sort of in response to that in 1996 the NRC 16 staff, as a group effort, and by that I mean with all the 17 regional folks and headquarters folks put together what we 18 call the "NMSS Decommissioning Handbook." We also published 19 it as NUREG BR-0241 for use by licensees. The reason we did 20 that is because we adopted a graded approach -- 21 [ Slide shown.] 22 MR. ORLANDO: Can everybody see that? 23 We did adopt this -- pardon me? 24 AUDIENCE PARTICIPANT: They can't read the words. 25 MR. ORLANDO: Oh , okay, I was afraid this was p ( ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
161 1 going to happen. But, in any case, what we did is divided () 2 'the decommissioning of nuclear facilities up into one of 3 four types, based on the complexity of the site and what the 1 4 NRC staff had to do in order to comply with the National ' 5 Environmental Policy Act. And the bottom line is that most 6 of our licensee or most of the license terminations are 7 going to occur here in the type ones. By those types of 8 licensees would be sealed sources, where they could 9 demonstrate that the sources never leaked. Essentially the 10 staff can terminate the license without any kind of on-site 11 visit, no survey, nothing like that. Essentially a licensee 12 would send in a -- typically what we end up getting with 13 these is the notification that they're going to. cease l 14 operation, a copy of a leak test -- the last leak test and l (~ \
\ 15 the-314 and a letter that says, I sent that back to -- I l
16 sent that atroxler gauge back to the manufacturer. I sent 17 that density gauge back to the manufacturer. 18 For a type two which is what I think a lot of the 19 nuclear pharmacies, nuclear medicine departments and things 20 like that would be, these are a little more complicated, 21 they would not require a decommissioning plan, they would be 22 a categorical exclusion, but these folks would decommission 23 or would demonstrate that they could meet our unrestricted 24 use criteria by sending in a very simple survey. 25 Okay. This is the folks that I talked about in my ( ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034 e
162 1 talk this morning, don't need a decommissioning plan, but (x ( ) 2 would send in a survey. Okay. 3 Type threes are those -- those licensees that I 4 think we're trying to encompass or capture in this group 5 here where a decommissioning plan is required. It would 6 qualify for a categorical exclusion and you would submit 7 some type of documentation in the form of a survey or 8 something like that to demonstrate that your facility meets 9 all criteria for unrestricted use. 10 Then the type fours are the very complicated sites 11 where in order to comply with the National Environmental 12 Policy Act, the staff is going to have to generate either an 13 EA or an environmental assessment or possibly an 14 environmental impact statement. These sites might be O(_,/ 15 remediated such that the site would be released for 16 restricted use. There may be some on-site burials that will 17 remain in place. So we have adopted this graded approach to 18 the way we oversee your decommissioning -- or the 19 decommissioning of your facility. 20 The handbook itself is available from the 21 Government Printing Office. I called the other day, it's 22 $27, which unfortunately I don't get a cut of. But if you 23 take a look at it, it will take you in a stepwise fashion 24 through what the NRC staff is going to do. And, in fact, 25 the slides that I showed you this morning came right out of r% i ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. ( \- Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
163 1 here. And it also will kind of give you an idea of the /"'T (x_-) 2 expectations that we have from you as licensees for some of 3 these type one, two and three decommissioning. 4 Clearly, when you're into the type fours, the very 5 complicated things, that's when we're going to be 6 interacting real closely and then you're going to start 1 7 getting into some very, very detailed discussions with the 8- staff. i 9 But, if you get the opportunity see if you can ) 10 pick up a copy and take a look at it. It's going to be 11 revised here pretty soon to bring it up to speed with the l 1 12 new rule and some other things that have happened, but until 13 that time, at least it will give you something to take a ! 14 look at to maybe address some of the issues that I heard (OI m, 15 here earlier today. 16 MR. MURRAY: Yeah, Nick, Scott Murray from GE. 17 We didn't have the benefit of this guidance 18 obviously when we started on ours back in '95, but you're a 19 little bit familiar with our site, and I mentioned it again ! 20 today, our calcium fluoride removal. Where in your mind 21 would we have fit on that chart? 22 MR. ORLANDO: Probably a type three, but I would i 23 have to think about it a little bit more. I mean, my first 24 guess is that you would have had to -- you would come in 25 with some kind of demonstration, okay, something like a 5849 i
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164 1 head survey. l f-l U 1 2 We also, in the handbook, came up with some 3 guidance criteria for the different types of review, type ; 4 one review and the licensee would have used only sealed i 5 sources and can demonstrate that they never leaked. ! 6 A type two, the licensee would have used 7 relatively short, half-lived material or would have used a 8 sealed sources but couldn't demonstrate that they leaked. 9 And then for a type three, I apologize for not j l 10 being able to grab it real quickly, the decommissioning -- ' 11 it would have required a decommissioning plan, but it would 12 have qualified for categorical exclusion. And my guess is 13 that'that's kind of maybe where you were. You were going to ! 14 be doing some things, and you're right, I was involved in 1
/h I (m ,/ 15 the review of that.
16 You were going to be doing some things that I 17 think weren't exactly already spelled out under your 18 license, but they were captured by the categorical exclusion 19 in -- 20 MR. HICKEY: Excuse me, I think we need to clarify 21 when we're talking about a categorical exclusion we're 22 talking about a requirement related to the Environmental 23 Policy Act? 24 MR. ORLANDO: .A categorical exclusion or CATEX is 25 a category of actions that the Commission or that singularly r~ ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. (h'}. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
165 1 or in combination won't have an adverse impact on the (~,) environment. ( 2 Something is a categorical exclusion then you 3 -- or if the action qualifies for a categorical exclusion, 4 then you don't have to prepare an environmental assessment 5 or environment impact statement. 6 MR. MURRAY: One of the things that made our story 7 a success, I believe in my mind, was that we were able to do 8 the work without a decommissioning plan. Now, maybe that's 9 just a play on words because our final survey and release 10 plan may have been basically the same thing, but in my mind 11 anyway, it was a success because we did not need a 12 decommissioning plan and we were able to use our license. 13 Are what you're saying now that we benefitted 14 because this guidance wasn't out and had we come in now we (ss 15 would have had to had one? 16 [ Laughter.) 17 MR. ORLANDO: I think -- now, this is guidance for 18 the staff and it's not meant to be -- it's guidance for the 19 staff. I think in your particular instance -- that's why I 20 said, a type three maybe. I mean, you came in with some l 21 specific requests to do certain things that, you know, I 22 don't think required a full-blown decommissioning plan to 23 do. 24 Mike, do you want to -- 25 MR. WEBER: Yeah, Scott, if you recall GE had been r"% i, ) ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034 i
l 166 1 previously authorized to do the kind of activities that you
,CN
() 2 were also engaged in to do the calcium fluoride retroval. l 3 There was one point in your history when you removed 4 contaminated soil. So the staft -- that was the basis for 5 the staff's determination that you did not need a 6 decommissioning plan because you had already benefitted from 7 NRC review of your procedures and we were confident that you 8 could do it. 9 The other issue is you were using uranium and 10 that's one of the isotopes that we kind cf pay a little more 11 attention to than the by-product materia.1 that's kind of 12 thought of under the type two. 13 MR. HICKEY: Did you finish your remarks on the 14 available documentation, Nick? f% (_ 15 MR. ORLANDO: Yeah. 16 MR. HICKEY: Okay. Go ahead. 17 MR. BELLAMY: Let me j ust add something to that. 18 One of the key things in the document that Nick presented, 19 NUREG BR0214 -- 0214? -- is it provides a catalogue of 20 NRC-available guidance on decommissioning. So not only do 21 you have the process and the expectations laid out in the 22 document, but you also have an appendix which lists all of 23 the relevant NRC guidance documents. So if you're going 24 through and mulling over what your plans are or what's 25 available from the NRC on financial assurance, on final ('h. ( ,) ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034 l ' u
167 1 survey plans, what have you, the documents are all listed () 2 there and they're there with the intent that you look them 3 up and get the additional guidance. 4 There are also a series of' appendices to that
.5 NUREG which provide a lot of the more difficult to find 6 guidance documents right in that NUREG so you don't have to 7- .go' chasing those documents down.
8 -Let me give you a regional perspective on that 9- document. We consider that to be "The" document with "the 10 guidance". .So if you call us with a question I would expect 11 my staff to have that document right in front of them and 12 they're going to go through'that document to try to find you 13 the answer before I'm going to have them pick up the phone 14 and call somebody down here. I was going to say " Bible" ( 15' .that may be a little bit of a stretch, but to be quite 16 honest with you, not much. 17- MR. HICKEY: Questions. 18 MR. PALMEP: Yes. Art Palmer, Chase 19 Environmental. 20 Nick, could you put your last slide back up there. 21 I wanted to. address the type four criteria. 22 MR. HICKEY: Nick, could you just summarize what 23 type four.is because I think people are finding it hard to 24 read. 25 MR. ORLANDO: Yeah,-if-you've never seen or heard l ANN RILEY-& ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005
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a 168 1 of this stuff, is this the slide you wanted, or the one with f-% I l j 2 the group? 3 MR. PALMER: No, that's the one. 4 MR. HICKEY: I think they can see that. 5' MR. PALMER: The specific question is, you have a 6 type four review required if radioactive material remains at 7 the site in excess of the level specified in NRC's criteria 8 for unrestricted use. And my question is, exactly what 9 criteria is that? Is that the 25 millirem criteria or is 10 that the Reg Guide 186 criteria? 11 MR. ORLANDO: Okay. The handbook was written 12 prior to 25 millirem. I have to be very careful because 13 there's a discussion in the license termination rule about 14 the applicability of the generic environmental impact p)
\m, 15 statement to the 25 millirem. In general, though, I think 16 'that if you're cleaning up to unrestricted use, 25 millirem, 17 then you would be in the type three area.
18 MR. PALMER: Okay. Thank you. That does it for 19 me. 20 MR. ORLANDO: But to be very, very honest with 21 you, before you walk away with that in your hip pocket, this 22 is in the process or it will be revised. We have to think 23' about it a little bit, the new rule has changed the world 24 just a little bit and this predates the new rule. So it 25 will be revised in the near future. b\-- ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
=~ l I 169 l 1 MR. HICKEY: But I think what we can say is that () 2 if you're going by the new rule and you're going to exceed 3 25 millirem then you're a type four. At least that was the 4 intent. Now, we still haven't fully laid out the guidance 5 on the new rule. But prior to putting the new rule out, it 6 was the old criteria which many licensees are still going to 7 pursue the old criteria under the grandfathering provision. 8 There's still a window to do that. So that could also put l 9 you in type four. i 10 MR. PAL 11ER: I guess my concern was the situation
)
11 where you had limits or had contamination in excess of 1.86 12 limits, but were able to clearly demonstrate that you were i 13 below 25 millirem, would you still be required to have the 14 environmental assessment and the safety evaluation report 15 completed for approval of the decommissioning plan? ; 16 MR. HICKEY: That would not necessarily be the 17 case. It would depend. So, in a sense, you're on the right 18 track. If you're under the 25 milliren., then 1.86 is not 19 relevant and so you may end up in category three. But it 20 would depend on other -- that in itself wouldn't put you in 21 ' category four, but other things might put you in category 22 four. 23 MR. PALMER: Could you give me an example of what 24 another item would be? 25 MR. ORLANDO: That would put you in category four? r~\ Q ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
170 1 MR. PALMER: Right. That would push it back up () 2 into category four? 3 MR. ORLANDO: Where you might be leaving material 4 on site in excess of the limits, maybe if you-were going to 5 go for restricted use. 6 MR. HICKEY: But I think he was saying you would 7 meet 25 millirem. 8 MR. WEBER: Well, one example would be if you 9 could not satisfy the conditions for the categorical 10 exclusion. For example, if you, in your decommissioning 11 activities projected a significant increase in worker l 12 exposure then you would pop out of the categorical exclusion l i 13 and then the staff would have to do an environmental 14 assessment, or might have to do an environmental assessment. 15 MR. PALMER: Okay. I appreciate that. Thank you. l 16 MR. HICKEY: Yes, sir? l l 17 MR. SCHUTT: Yes, my name is Kerry Schutt, I'm 18 with Nuclear Fuel Services. 19 Really with the decommissioning there's two 20 problems as I see it. The first one being that it's so 21 comprehensive in nature that you're submitting a plan which 22 goes all the way from characterization all the way to your i 23 final survey status and release when that might be two to 24 three years down the road. Additionally, it doesn't really 25 take into account or account for the existing health and (ll ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters I 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 { Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
171 1 safety programs, material control and accountability (qj 2 programs and it's prescriptive in how the work is going to 3 be conducted. 4 Now, Scott mentioned earlier that they didn't have 5 a decommissioning plan. They did nou have an NRC approved 6 decommissioning plan, but I think you'd agree'that they did
/
7 have health and safety plans, they did have a 8 decommissioning plan for performing that scope of work, that 9 NRC or anybody else could have taken a look at when they 10 ' visited the site. What I think needs to be looked at is 11 whether or not there's any value added in the NRC approving 12 these plans. There being a requirement to conduct one, to 13 have one there at the site for the NRC to take a look at, I 14 think that's very important. I'm a very strong proponent of 15 having plans. You've got to do them for budgets, for a 16 myriad of other reasons. But in general the work can 17 actually be performed safely for the workers for the 18 environment and for the population using the existing health 19 and safety programs that are already approved under the 20 existing licenses that are in place. 21 And I think that's what needs to be taken a look 22 at. You know, I don't have a problem conducting work, 23 having an extremely good detailed plan in place, but I also 24 want the flexibility to when I run into a surprise that I 25 can then make adjustments to my plan, I can make adjustments O; (_, ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
172 to how I perform that work without having to be concerned 1 q. ( j 2 about being in violation because my plan is an amendment to 3 my existing license. 4 And that's the area that I think needs to be taken 5 a look at. 6 MR. HICKEY: Before the NRC people comment on it, 7 I have some comments on that, but let me ask if our 8 gentlemen here or anybody else want to comment on the issue 9 of value added to having NRC approve the plan? 10 MR. CULBERSON: Well, I covered this a little bit 11 this morning, I believe, and I'm not sure that I can answer
.12- this very effectively. The existing health and safety plan 13' and program that's in place I don't believe is much 14 different for an operating facility than it-will be for 15 decommissioning. Therefore, in my mind much of that is 16 already proved by having the operating license. You're not 17 adding a whole lot more to that. What you're adding are 18, specifics. In fact, in many cases I think the program may 19 be slightly less because you don't have a lot of additional g
}
20 monitoring that you would have if you had a lot of material 21- in place that you were processing. So there's actually 22 maybe some relaxation there. 23 But I think you have a good bit of regulatory 24' approval already which_are adding with the decommissioning 25 plan are the specifics of how you're going to accomplish the ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005
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173 1 decommissioning process as opposed to enhancing your health () 2 and safety program a lot or environmental monitoring program 3 a lot. 4- I don't know if that addressed your question or 5 not. 6 MR. HICKEY: Felix, do you have -- you're not 7 obligated to comment, but I just want to give opportunities 8 here. 9 MR. KILLAR: I just love to talk, so that's not a 10- problem. I think it's a mixed bag. I think for the major
'11 material licensees the facilities who have done a whole 12 series of operations throughout their -- or different 13 processes throughout their operating life there's minimal 14 value of submitting the decommissioning plan to the NRC. ) 15 However, if you take a smaller facility that's 16 been making one unique product line getting into this area 17 and then this decommissioning is something that they may not 18 be comfortable doing. And so they may actually be in a 19 category one or category two, but there may be value added 20 to them to submit the plan to the NRC just to give them a 21 level of comfort that what they're doing is decommissioning 22 will be acceptable to the NRC.
23 A lot of times these smaller facilities will have 24 a contractor come in, go through and put together the
- 25. decommissioning plan for the facility. And by having it go ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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174 1 into the NRC it provides sort of a check to make sure that { 2 the contractor did come up with the good recommendations or 3 suggestions on how to go through the decommissioning. So 4 there is some value to the NRC to review those type plans. 5 But for the more complicated sites and the larger 6 facilities, I think it takes a lct of the resources to put 7 these together. It takes a lot of the NRC's resources to 8 review those type plans and I'm not sure that they provide 9 that much value at that point in time. 10 MR. HICKEY: Thank you. I was going to make some 11 comments along the same lines. I'm going to speak in terms 12 of what the ideal is. The consideration as far as health 13 and safety is a minor-consideration. Yes, we want the work 14 to be done safely. But that is not our main concern in l {^~) \ (,) 15 approving the plan. The main concern is that it won't have 16 to be done over again which is more -- I think that's more 17 of a benefit to the licensee. It's also of a benefit to us 18 to NRC and the public, but a lot of things that are 19 undertaken in decommissioning may be irreversible or at 20 least not easily reversible if you ship stuff off site that 21 shouldn't have gone off site and now you have to go try to 22 retrieve it. Or if you characterize a site and only find 12 3 half of the contamination and then you do a lot of
'24 excavation and demolition.
25 So the intent is that the licensee and NRC in ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034 i
175 1~ getting an approval from NRC they're getting confident that () 2 the decommissioning will be carried out properly and will 3 not have to be done over again. But I think we've heard 4 some things this morning where we can -- through several 5 approaches, one is using a graded approach or just by 6 establishing criteria or establishing where lines are drawn 7 as to how much the licensee can do. If we can better define 8 how much'a licensee ought to be able to do on their own 9 without NRC approval and where NRC approval is truly needed 10 and truly beneficial. 11 MR. CULBERSON: John, if I could make one more 12 comment, maybe to take that just a little bit further in the 13 form of an example. I'm speaking for the Fuel Cycle 14 Facilities. Now, you have a operating facility that has a I 15 building that may have been used for processing materials in ; 16 the past. It's no longer needed for that purpose as part of 17 the ongoing operations in preparing it for some other use, 18 the building has been gutted. Under the normal operating 19 license I don't think anyone will question that that's not 20 an allowable activity. 21 Now, the licensee has decided there's no use for l 22 that facility for some period of time. It's still got some 23- useful life left to it, it's sitting in the middle of a 24 site, no intent to delicense, no intent to terminate the 25 license, no intent to go to unrestricted release, ' hat's [#I \- ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters i 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
1 1 176 1 valuable real estate that will likely be used for an ex (v) 2 operation that may pop up in two or three or four or five 3 years from now. A lot of business development takes that 4 long to materialize. In a case like that, could that 5 building be demolished to make way for a better structure? 6 Could that building be left in tact, cleaned up -- at what 7 point would it become decommissioning? I mean, that's part l 8 of what I think industry is struggling with. l 9 If it's part of an operating license and you can l 10 do all of that, then a decommissioning plan really adds l 11 nothing. You're not going to delicense the facility, yet ' 12 you're going through all the same types of motions you would 13 if you were decommissioning, it's just that that's not the 14 end objective. So somewhere the operating license spins off k_) 25 and the decommissioning would take place. In that case I 16 think it would not be a decommissioning action, but 17 licensees -- I'm not sure that all the licenses that we have 18 are that clear as to what represents decommissioning and 19 what's normal operation. 20 Maintenance for sure is in most licenses, but I'm 21 not sure that demolition of deconstruction of a facility is 22 specifically called out. It probably would be interpreted 23 that it's acceptable. It's just a question of where do you l 24 cross the line. I think a lot of it would depend on who you 25 asked, I think, at the Agency, whether you ask an inspector c l ('~') ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034 l l
l l-177 1 at the region or you ask NMSS, or whether you ask low-level () 2 waste, you probably would get a different answer in terms of l 3 whether a decommissioning plan is required in that case. 4 And that's a lot of where I think the confusion lies. And 5 that is an example that maybe would help explain. 6 MR. HICKEY: Yeah, th.d.s goes back to one of the
-7 first questions about what do you do when you have a room or 8 building to decommission. And if I can try to be brief 9 here. We certainly have concern if a building is going to 10 be demolishe( because that, you know, raises questions in l l
11 being able to verify things later if questions are raised. ' 12 On the other hand a demolished, building is not of 13 as much practical help as a safety concern as say if the f 14 building is going to become a day-care center or something.
) 15 Because a demolished building that is contaminated probably 16 isn't going to present as much of an exposure problem to 17 members of the public later on. So, again, it would depend 18 on how broad the license is to begin with.
19 Some licensees could go ahead and demolish a
'20 building and just make a record. I mean, they could clean 21 it up and demolish it and just make a record of the fact 22 that it was cleaned up and demolished. And that would be 23 available for NRC inspection.
24 In the examples of the questions that were asked 25 earlier, if you were cleaning up part of a building or a ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
l 178 1 room, you have no obligation -- or if that area has fallen rx lL} 2 into non-use, you have no obligation to NRC. You can leave 3 it contaminated or you can clean it up within the confines 4 of your license. You might need to get an amendment to , 1 5 permit you to conduct the operation to clean the place up, l 6 you don't have to get a decommissioning amendment or have a 7 decommissioning plan if it's part of the building. 8 Where the obligation to NRC is incurred is if 9 you're going to clean up an entire building and that's where 10 you are obligated to clean it up and you have to assess 11 whether or not you need a decommissioning plan. And I'm l 12 hoping as a result of this exercise we can better clarify 13 what you're allowed to do under you license and what 14 requires a decommissioning plan. /^ (,,T / 15 So let's go back to the case of a partial building 16 or a room. If you want it removed from your license, then 17 you could go ahead and clean it up and notify NRC that you 18 want it on the record that it's being removed from the 19 license and just present the information that it's been 20 cleaned up. 21 But then if you want to use it again for 22 radioactive material you would have to amend our license 23 again. So, in a nutshell, that's administratively how that 24 was handled. Maybe if you have more questions about that, 25 when we adjourn we can talk more about that. r% (' ) ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
i 179 1 Now, .you have been. waiting very patiently with a () '2 . comment or a question, so, go ahead. Identify yourself,
~3. please.
4 MR. BRIGHTWELL: ' Good afternoon. My name is Shane 5 Brightwell, I'll move the mic away because-my voice carries. 6 I have a few questions that I would like to get
- 7. cleared.up and then actually I wanted to give an example ]
8 that follows up on what you were just talking about. 9 First off, I think I already know the answer since j 10 the MARSSIM is sitting out on the table. But MARSSIM 11 basically replaces 5849 now;.is that true? 12 MR. HICKEY: Yes. I 13 .MR. BRIGHTWELL: Okay. Simple enough. The intent 14 of 1.86 or equivalent -- well, 1.86 in particular was at a ( '15 reactor facility the demolition'and disposal of a building i 16 we talked about using 1.86, the applicability. I think Mr. 17 Craig or somebody addressed how it is dated, but still in 18 use in some licenses. 19- MR. HICKEY: And will continue to be in use. 20 MR. BRIGHTWELL: We have a broad-scope licensee 21 that we're doing work for and we got to a point right now, 22 it's an old building he wants to demolish the building. 23 We've gone-through and done a characterization survey and we 24 are teetering right on the 1.86 criteria. And the problem 25 -is, he is.not sure if he can employ decontamination or ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters
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180 1 remediation. activities, not because he's never done it (p) 2 before, they have been done before, so there is a 3 precedence. But they're not routinely used because of Good 4 Housekeeping. So we have one instance on record where they 5 have done tile or structure material removal. 6 No instance of scabbling for remediation purposes. 7 .And he certainly wanted me to address this situation today 8 or ask the panel-to give us a little bit of guidance on 9 whether or not he can move forward in his decontamination 10 process or better yet, what if he wants to go and sample the 11 concrete? Sampling is not considered a form of remediation. 12 It's considered -- well -- 13 (Simultaneous conversation.] 14 MR. BRIGHTWELL: I mean, as long as they don't 15 want to sample, you know, 3,000 pounds of it. But you 16 understand what I'm saying. 17 MR. HICKEY: I understand your point. I'm not 18 going to answer it yet until you get to a stopping place. 19 Go ahead. 20 (Laughter.] 21 MR. BRIGHTWELL: Okay. Sorry. I guess that's my 22 stopping place. 23 MR. HICKEY: I think this is probably a good 24 example where Ron was talking about it's a good idea to be 25 in communication with the region, or I'm not sure who the ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
1 I 181 1 project manager is about the specifics of what might be able / \ i ',s_-) 2 to proceed under the license or not. I don't know if you I l 1 3 have any more comments or not. ' 4 MR. BELLAMY: And I didn't hear where you're from 5 and who you work for, and that's good, let's leave it like l 6 that. Just in case you're in my region. l 7 [ Laughter.) 8 MR. BELLAMY: I think if a licensee had done 9 routine decommissioning activities in the past but had never 10 -- I think the example you're asking is, they had never 11 actually undergone a scabbling type operation -- I would 12 expect to hear about that before I let them do that. 13 MR. SHAFFER: Ron? Ron? Could I interject? 14 MR. BELLAMY: Go ahead, Steve.
/ \
ss) 15 MR. SHAFFER: Hi, my name is Steve Shaffer, I work 16 in the region. You said they were broad-scoped, are they 17 are type A broad-scope, do they have a radiation safety 18 committee that's authorize to authorize different uses? 19 MR. BRIGHTWELL: Yes. 20 MR. SHAFFER: You could bring up a plan to the 21 radiation safety committee and if they approve the plan 22 under that, you could do decommissioning activities to that 23 building because you are a type A broad-scope. A type B 24 couldn't do that. And that's why we keep coming to 25 different points where we say it depends on your license. r~s ('~') ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
1 1 182 1 A type A broad or a fuel cycle facility has about () 2 the broadest authorization you're going to get, although 3 most of our materials licensees don't have that. In this 4 specific case they could do that under the radiation safety 5 committee authorizations. 6 MR. KILLAR: If I could comment, this may be also 7 a' good example where you may already have the authority to 8 do it, you've done it in the past but you may be
.9 . uncomfortable with going forward and so it may be an l
10 opportunity to present something to the NRC and say, hey, we ] 11 think we can do it, we just would be comfortable and make 12' sure that you guys are happy with what we're doing. 13 MR. BELLAMY: Yeah, we don't like surprises. You 14 brought the example of laboratories. I would say it's ) f^^\ ;
\s,/ 15 -routine for us to go out to do an inspection and see in a j 16 broads scope that a licensee is no longer using this 17 laboratory or they start another laboratory. And as Steve 18 said, if it's applicable under,that license and the 19 Radiation Safety Committee can approve it, chere's no 20' problem with that.
21' You also brought up the nuclear medicine 22 laboratory example. In most cases I'm aware of, the exact 23 location of that nuclear medicine laboratory was part of the 24 license application and I would be very disturbed if you 25 moved your nuclear medicine laboratory and we didn't get a
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183 1 license amendment request in advance to do that. l () 2 MR. HICKEY: If you can, I'd like you to have one 3 more question and then we'll come back to you after some 4 other people have an opportunity. Go ahead. 5 That's okay? Yes, sir. i 6 MR. NAGY: John Nagy from NFS. Speaking from the 7 perspective of a site, and I guess it's complex as well as 8 many other things, but we have ongoing operations. We 9 expect to be working that site, you know, for the next 50 10 years. We also have ongoing decommissioning of class areas, 1 11 environmentally or otherwise that were contaminated. l 12 The point Felix brought up -- in fact, I came up 13 here and then he basically said what I was going to say. I l 14- think the slide that talked about the need for O(_/ 15 decommissioning plans and getting the type three and type i 16 four where you need the plan. I kind of feel, as Felix l 17 said, that's'almost backwards. When you take a plant like 18 NFS, we manufacture nuclear fuel, high enriched uranium 19 processing, we know how to handle radioactive materials, we 20 have a safety program designed around those types of 21 operations. Certainly we can encompass environment 22 decommissioning type safety programs within the scope of 23- that. 24 I don't think you're adding value putting a 25 decommissioning plan onus on us. In fact, I think it ['\ - ~ ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
I l ( 184 j 1 subtracts value. I'm aware of situations in which 2 environmental cleanup is delayed waiting for approval. When 3- is that ever in your value as an agency or in our value, you I 4 know, when does that value us, it doesn't at all. So we 5 need to get on.to the business of being able to do the work 6 'of cleaning up. 7 The other thing too is, you know, we've been in 8 decommissioning now for almost ten years and we have a lot 9 more work to do. We have a large organization of people 10 that we need to keep working on the cleanup efforts. So if 11 we have to stop because we're waiting for approval, it's 12 really silly. I mean, so we need to be careful. 13 When I think about Chairman Jackson's initiatives 14 that rebase lining stuff that we all looked at, talking 15 about performance-based criteria. If you guys stick to the j 16 mission which is that we have successful cleanup goals, l 17 those goals are ones that will be acceptable to you, to the 18 public, they protect everyone, I think licensees 19 particularly licensees like NFS, we can get it to that point 20 and it's clarity on the end point that we really need. The 21' guidance documents and everything are. great, but I noticed a
- 22. couple of the gentlemen earlier today when they would talk 23 about these reg guide 5849, it's a draft reg guide, 5849.
24 There's other reg guides that have come after it to try to 25 cover the same ground. But it was referred to as ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034 3
185 1- requirements in the reg guide. That language is easy to ()~ 2 creep into our. conversation because when we work with the 3 NRC staff and they'have'to approve something they naturally
- 4. go to whatever documents they have that lay out the ground 5 work as the basis for their approval.
6 So.you put out an innocent document that's a reg 7 guide or a NUREG, you even put the word " Draft" on it and lo 8 and behold it becomes requirements. Those are the basis for 9 a decommissioning plan and what goes into the 10 decommissioning plan. And then it gets attached to our 11 ' license and it's all of a sudden written in stone. And 12 therein lies the built-in inefficiencies. 13 We couldn't run our company that way, you know, 14- and we don't. We need the flexibility to run our company
'15 'because.we certainly can't run an efficient decommissioning 16 that way. .And it's not helping us to try.
17 MR. WEBER: Can I address that?
- 18 MR. HICKEY: Go ahead, Mike.
19 MR. WEBER: John, I think you hit the nail on the
- 20 head in terms of you need to know what the end point is and 21 that-is one of the benefits that we haven't really focused 22' 'on in this discussion in the panel about why do you need a 23 decommissioning plan. And I.think some of you already have 24 ' sensed this, but the rules have changed in terms of 25 decommir aning. Under the new license termination
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186 l 1 rulemaking you have a lot more flexibility in some ways than () 2 you had under the existing framework. l 3 In your own case, you've proposed new soil l' 4 concentrations. And it's through NRC's review of the 5 decommissioning plan that contain those proposed soil 6 concentrations that you get that finality, if you will, from 7 this agency in terms of what's going to be acceptable and 8 what's not. 9 The same sorts of things are going to go into 10 reviews of other decommissioning plans in terms of ALARA. l 11 You don't want, I would think in your case, to go all the ' 12 way through the decommissioning process, spend lots of 13 money, and then come in and present your results to the NRC 14 to have somebody sit on the opposite side of the table and r k.,\/ 15 'say, well, that's not ALARA. You know, you need to go back 16 and do it again because all you had to do was do this or i 17 that and you could have substantially reduced your soil 18 concentrations. 19 Again, a benefit of the decommissioning plan 20 review groundwater contamination. If you have groundwater 21 contamination, I think you'd want to know up front what 22 you're going to have to do to address that or make a 23 proposal on what you're going to do and then get NRC to buy 24 off on that. l 25 So I guess my bottom line in this comment is that ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034 I
L i 187 l 1 the rules of the game have changed under the new license (n i V) 2 termination criteria rule so that, yes, you have health and i i 3 safety plans in place, yes, you have MC&A plans some of you, 4 and that's great and we would expect that you're going to 5 continue to practice those good measures. But there are 6 some added things that are going to come into the 7 decommissioning plan that haven't been there before. So 8 that's going to be a key part of the decommissioning 9 process. 10 MR. NAGY: I completely concur and I think we were l 11 talking earlier about the technical staffing at NRC and the 12 focus of that staff. It is those issues that we both have 13 shared values in in completing. When it comes to how we do 14 our health and safety program, we have a licensed program, O(,) 15 we have all these things already set up. We need to maybe 16 redefine a little bit what we're talking about when we talk 17 about decommissioning plans. Maybe that reg guide or -- I 18 yeah, it is a reg guide on how to put together 19 decommissioning plans is something that really needs to be 20 updated to focus on those issues and not on, as it clearly 21 lays out, the detailed other aspects of our facility. 22 The decommissioning plan is almost meant to be the 23 entire encapsulation of how you run that project. And at 24 facilities like mine that are ongoing, clearly not needed 25 and we need agreement right up front on that so we don't i l [\' ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
--c \ l 188 I 1 waste time on it. l j , e~s ( l (x/ ) 2 MR. HICKEY: Okay. I'm going to take one more l { 3 question. And I wanted to alert the people that wanted to 4 talk about the 11(e) (2) disposal issue that we're going to l 1 5 take that up next. i 6 Yes, sir. { l 7 MR. NARDI: Joe Nardi from Westinghouse. Really l 8 John has said a lot of it, but I want to reemphasize when 9 you asked the question about is there value added from a 10 decommissioning plan, there certainly is in certain aspects. ; 11 But the decommissioning plan does incorporate or try to 12 project an entire history of what you're going to be doing 13 from characterization starting all the way through final 14 survey.
/~T
(,,/ 15 And my experience has been when you get into it 16 you learn a lot more than you ever expected. So our result ; 1 17 is that our decommissioning plans tend to be very generic 18 and not very helpful in terms of exactly what we're going to 19 do and that's the way we have to write them because we've 20 found that's what we need. 21 When you have a really broad-scope license, I'm 22 glad to hear what was said, that that broad-scope license, 23 you know, we could go under it and do a lot more because 24 that was the whole point of the radiation protection 25 committee, the concept of being in essence the way I preach m ( ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
i 189 1 it to them is a mini-NRC. They have the responsibility to j f 2 review, approve so that we can proceed with our own internal 3 approval process-to let us do things quicker. I 4 The way it is right now, I don't see a lot of
]
5 value added for a decommissioning plan. Because if it's 6 being so far up front and being so vague, taking a lot of 1 7 time to approve, get it done, we could have been doing 8 things in the meantime. Maybe we need to break it up into 9 the pieces'that John is saying so we focus on only this 10 aspect, not focus on the decommissioning plan. 11 MR. HICKEY: Thank you. Could I ask the woman I 12 from the American Mining Association to reintroduce herself 13 and the topic on the 11(e) (2) and we'll talk about that for 14 a few minutes. Thank you. I ( a (_) 15 MS, SWEENY: Katie Sweeny, National Mining 16 Association and I'll try to keep it kind of brief. I know 17 we're running a little bit late. But basically we realize 18 that there are a lot of barriers to disposal of non-11(e) (2) 19 by-product material and uranium mill tailings. But we think 20 that they are surmountable and these barriers need to be 21 looked at,.they need to be addressed. It makes a lot of 22 sense to put similar materials in these uranium mill 23 tailings piles. 24 I guess some of the barriers are contained in 25 NRC's 1995 final revised guidance on disposal of () ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
190 1 non-11 (e) (2 ) by-product' material and tailings impoundments () '2 and that policy established nine criteria that facilities 3 must meet before they can engage into direct disposal of 4 non-11 (e) (2) material and tailings piles. 5 The final guidance in its present form imposes so 6 many burdensome requirements on the licensees that it is 7 extremely difficult if not impossible to dispose of 8 non-11 (e) (2) by-product material in tailing piles and this 9 is really unfortunate given the many advantages associated 10 with such disposal practices. 11 For example, such disposal will promote maximum 12 utilization of available facilities for radioactive waste 13 disposal. And as we all know, developing new waste disposal 14 facilities particularly for radioactive waste materials has (-) 15 become extremely difficult and there is currently a serious 16 shortage of facilities available to accept low-level 17 radioactive wasted. Existing uranium mill tailings 18 impoundments offer large amount of space for disposal and 19 are subject to stringent NRC and EPA oversight making them 20 particularly attractive for radioactive waste disposal. And 21 the use of existing tailing impoundments is philosophically 22 consistent with criterion 2 of Appendix A of 10 CFR Part 40 23 which. requires NRC to avoid proliferation of small waste 24 disposal sites and thereby reduced perpetual surveillance 25 obligations. () ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N .. W . , Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
p ] 1 191 1 The National' Mining Association was very 2 interested in when NRC came out with its strategic 3 assessment and DSI-9, Option 7. And have kind of started a 4 dialogue on what kind of -- whether or not there would be a 5 willingness by NRC to consider broader uses for uranium mill 6 tailings facilities. Obviously we would support that and we have some 8 preliminary recommendations on maybe changes to the 9 non-11(e) (2) disposal policy. And I'm not going to get into 10 that in too much detail because the National Mining l i 11 Association is submitting a white paper next month to the j l 12 Commission on this issue amongst others. But I'll just 13 quickly go through some of the recommendations. 14 First we think NRC should lift its ban on disposal 15 .of naturally-accelerated produced radioactive material in 16 tailings impoundments. l 17 We also think that NRC should delete the 18 presumption against disposal of special nuclear materials in 19 tailings impoundments. Due to the failure of the regional 20 compact scheme at the low-level radioactive waste policy act 21 to significantly lower the costs associated with disposal of 22 special nuclear material and the exorbitant costs for 23 constructing new nuclear waste disposal facilities. There's 24 really an acute shortage of space for SNM disposal. 25 Third, NRC should remove its prohibition on ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters
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192 1 disposal of mixed waste in tailings impoundments. We m I ) 2 realize that NRC has some jurisdictional concerns and %/ 3 they're also, you know, frankly, political concerns with 4 that as well. But we think that that's something that could 5 be overcome with some effort. 6 Fourth, the Commission should eliminate the 7 requirement for DOE and state concurrence in non-11(e) (2) 8 material disposal and commitment to take title to tailings 9 impoundments that take such materials. 10 NRC imposed this requirement to address concerns 11 that DOE or state may be unwilling to take perpetual custody 12 of tailings impoundments containing commingled waste upon 13 closure required under UMTRCA. But in its comments on the 14 proposed guidance DOE indicated to NRC that it would have (g) , 15 not objections to disposal of non-11(e) (2) material if 16 certain conditions were met. 17 An issue that's closely related to the 18 non-11 (e) (2) disposal guidance is NRC's guidance on 19 alternate feed materials. Basically NMA has once suggestion 20 there that might help. The co-disposal test requires 21 licensees to meet all the nine criteria established under 22 the NRC guidance on disposal of non-11(e) (2) material in 23 order to process alternate feed which we consider a method 24 of recycling. And NRC developed this test to ensure -- this 25 co-disposal test to ensure that if a facility could be paid ,">) ( ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. N/ Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
1 193 1 to accept and dispose of a feed material in its tailings ! Il 2 -pile but instead chooses to process that material through V 3 the mill, it is processing the material primarily for its 4 valuable source material content. 5 And we think that although this test is intended 6 to prevent sham disposal, that it's not really necessary. 7 The sham disposal argument is basically unsound. Regulatory 8 status of alternate feed material cannot be based on the 9 commercial viability of uranium thorium extraction from the 10 material since the viability will vary with market 11 conditions, existing contracts, future commitments, and 12 other factors. We think there should be a presumption that 13 if a licensed mill wants to use an alternate feed to extract 14 source material that the feed is being processed primarily ( 15 for its source material content and furthermore we believe 16 that recycling reduces the cost of disposal while reducing 17 levels of radioactivity and leading to recovery of a 18 valuable resource. 19 Basically those are some of the things that we 20 have thrown out on the table. 21 MR. HICKEY: Let me ask a question for you and for 22 others that are interested in this issue. Let's set aside 23 the administrative issues. Does the Mining Association have 24 -- have they reached the point of a specification on what 25 should be allowed to go in and do they have a demonstration O ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
194 1 that from a health and safety point of view the materials () 2 that are specified are equivalent to what's already there? 3 Or are they leaving that up to somebody else to make those 4 determinations? Obviously you don't want all accelerator 5 produced material and all special nuclear material to be 6 eligible to go into these -- 7 MS. SWEENY: No. 8 MR. HICKEY: -- impoundments? 9 MS. SWEENY: No, they would have to be 10 radiologically similar to what's already in the tailings 11 pile. And, of course, there would have to be certain 12 restrictions on various types of waste. There could be 13 conditiens put on the type of special nuclear material, the 14 amount of special nuclear material that's put in there. We 15 know that NRC has some concerns about criticality. You 16 know, it could be -- we think that those concerns could be 17 addressed. 18 I do have a lot more specifics on what we think 19 should go in and should go out. And in some cases it's 20 materials that NRC has said in their documents or guidance 21 that, yes, we realize this stuff is almost identical to 22 what's in your tailings pile, but there are other reasons 23 why we haven't been able to allow that kind of action to 24 take place. 25 MR. HICKEY: Any other comments or -- over here. () ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
195 1 Roland. () 2 MR. FLETCHER: A lot of uranium mills and mines in
- 3. Maryland.
4 MR. HICKEY: Yeah. My comment -- Roland is the 5 chairman of OAS also. 6 MR. FLETCHER: My comment doesn't specifically 7 . address the mill tailings, but it addresses the subject that 8 the surface was scratched on, of course, and that's where 9 does ALARA fit into the decommissioning process and a lot of 10 states are,asking that question. 11 In Maryland, of course, I thought of a 12 hypothetical situation, what if some of the activities at 13 'NIH involved naturally occurring or accelerated boost 14 material? I know that, what if they decided they didn't () 15 want to do it anymore, who is going to review and approve 16 their decommissioning plan to clean up the site. 17 Because as it stands now the State of Maryland j 18 does not have jurisdiction and the material is not regulated 19- by the NRC. 20 MR. HICKEY: Yes, ma'am? 21 MS. REHMANN: Good afternoon. Before you go off 22 this topic I would like to make a few comments on this. My ) 23 name is Michelle Rehmann, I'm with international uranium 24 corporation of Denver, Colorado, or IUC. And I'd like to 25 take the opportunity while we're on this topic to give the (O ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. \ Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
196 1 perspective of our company on the impact of the current () 2 regulations and guidance on our company's racycling and 3 uranium disposal operations. 4 We concur with NMA's support of DSI-9, Option 7.
.5 IUC owns and operates the White Macey Uranium Mill which is 6 located about six miles south of Blanding, Utah.
7 We employ more than 100 people and are the largest 8 employer in the county. And we hope to remain in operation 9 both processing alternate feeds and mined ores. We intend 10 to do this as a licensed facility. In March of 1997 the NRC 11 issued a ten-year renewal to our licens,.. We are currently 12 in operation. We are recycling materials that would 13 otherwise be considered radioactive wastes. We process them 14 as alternate feed material. And we've also applied for a I 15 performance-based amendment to our license to enable us to 16 accept alternate feeds through a standard operating 17 procedure SURP process rather than individual amendments. 18 In addition to uranium we also extract other 19 valuable minerals such a vanadium, tantalum, niobium, it's 20 material specific. 21 With respect to waste disposal, however, we have 22 double-lined monitored cells which currently contain about 23 3.5 million tons of 11(e) (2) by-product, but our total 24 capacity is on the order of about 10 million tons. I 25 Unfortunately our license limits us to accepting only a .tp]
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ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters l 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 l Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034 a
197 1
- 1. maximum of 5,000 tons of 11(e) (2) waste from in situ mines
() 2 only per mine. Which is very small compared with our 3 capacity. 4 Although our facility has met all NRC design 5 criteria which we feel are sufficiently stringent and has 6 had no releases to groundwater, we would like to be in a 7 position to help meet some of the waF"O management needs of 8 our industry. But the current regulatory climate doesn't 9 f acilitate use of our site for disposal of either 11(e) (2) 10 and certainly not non-11(e) (2) materials from other sites. I 11 And as responsible members of the fuel cycle ! 12 community we believe it would be in the public's best 13 interest to facilitate development of a regulatory framework i 14 to support recycling when possible as well as the use of () 15 existing uranium milled tailings facilities as lower-cost, j 16 environmentally protective alternatives to the existing 17 disposal facilities. 18 If NRC were to do that, we believe that the Agency 19 could also reduce the possibility of disposal monopolies and 20 exorbitant disposal costs associated with sitting and use of 21 other facilities. Thank you. 22 MR. HICKEY: Thank you. I'm going to keep the 23 panel convened, but I need to make a short presentation on 24 our pilot program and then we 11 continue with the panel, I 25 think, through to adjournment. ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
198 1 Some of you may need to catch flights, I hope your () l 2 flights aren't delayed by the weather. 3 There is a one-page handout on the pilot program 4 if you have not picked it up, please pick it up before you 5 leave. If you'd like to discuss the program when we 6 adjourn, we'll stay around for a few minutes, but if you're l 7 not able to discuss it today and you're interested, please 8 get back to us. ; i [ Slide shown.] 9 10 MR. HICKEY: As Margaret Federline mentioned, this 11 workshop and the concept of the pilot program came out of 12 our strategic assessment. And our overall mandate was to 13 evaluate new and different decommissioning approaches and 14 conduct this workshop. And part of the workshop was to () 15 initiate the pilot program effort. 16 The exact guidance that came from the Commission 17 was that we should test the performance-based approach that 18 simply provides the residual contamination goals and allows 19 the licensee to proceed without an approved decommissioning 20 plan. And I think the gentleman from NFS just gave us a 21 good summary of how that could work. And we're not even 22 constraining cases which do not require a decommissioning 23 plan. There is also a possibility that where you normally 24 would be required to submit a decommissioning plan we tell 25 you you don't have to submit a decommissioning plan. So you ( ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
1 i 199 1 don't need to make the decision, we'll just tell you, you () 2- don't need to submit.it. But that's something that will 3 need to be evaluated before we actually institute this plan. 4 Now, why would we be able to do that? 5 [ Slide shown.] 6 MR. HICKEY: Well, we're looking for cases where 7 the licensee volunteers, I'm sure you're glad to hear that, 8 and where the licensee is technically capable and adequately 9 funded. And we haven't talked a lot about funding today, 10 but there aren't many licensees where financing and 11 decommissioning is a big problem, so we don't want to get 12 into that as for a case where we're trying to expedite the 13 decommissioning. The site is minimally contaminated and you l 14 all may already have some view on your sites whether they're 15 minimally contaminated, but the intent is minimally j 16 contaminated and you would be able to proceed to i 17 decontaminate as a routine non-complex case. 18 Now, we might have to work to make a decision on a 19 case-by-case basis where -- whether we thought that the case 20 fit into that category. So I don't want to set anything in 21 concrete now. But that was the original intent. 22 Now, we heard today that we'd also like 23- consideration of this 11(e) (2) disposal problem. Now, that 24 is an involved problem. That was not the original intent to 25 include a case like that in the pilot because it wouldn't () ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
200 1 fall into what we would consider a non-complex case. () 2 However, we will consider that. That's one of the reasons 3 we had the workshop because we wanted to get some of these 4 ideas. 5 Now, what -- we've touched on this today, but 6 let's talk about what the expectations are from this 7 program. .Well, NRC has certain expectations. And you see things from your point of view, but we also see the things 8 j l 9 from the point of view of the cases where we go out and 10 survey a site that the licensee tells us is clean and we 11 find it to be grossly contaminated both with respect to 12 areas where che licensee has performed measurements and not 13 found anything and also where the licensee didn't even check 14 to see if the radioactive contaminated was there and we find () 15 radioactive contamination. So our expectation with respect 16 to the licensee's capabilities is that they know where their 17 contamination is and they conduct the operation safely and 18 they provide adequate documentation at the end of the 19 process that the site is actually clean. 20 So when we go out to check we won't have to ask 21 that the operations be performed over again. 22 Now, you also will have some expectations. One is 23 the performance-based approach where you set your target and 24 we tell you, okay, your target is fine, we want you to 25 accomplish the target, you won't need to wait on us to O' ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
201 1 approve how you accomplish that target, just go ahead and () 2 approach that target. 3 And in cases where we do need to perform a review
-4 or approval or a rite visit you would expect a timely 5 response from us. So our goal will be to put a priority on 6 the cases that are in this pilot program so there are not 7 . delays associated with your waiting for something from us.
8 So in a nutshell that's our intent of the pilot 9 program. 10 I will tell you, I heard at least five examples 11 today plus the 11(e) (2) issue that I think readily fit in as 12 candidates for this program. And I think there will be 13 others, but even if we get as many as five, maybe not the 14 five I heard today, but if we get five that are like the 15 cases that I heard today, that would be a good start as far 16 as I'm concerned. 17 i I'd like to take questions on the pilot program 18 and I'd like to keep the panel convened if they don't mind
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19 until we adjourn and let's continue with whatever people 20 want to talk about. E: first, let's see if we have any 21 questions on the' pilot program. Joe? 22 MR. NARDI: Joe Nardi, Westinghouse. If you were 23 selected for the pilot program, would there be a formal 24 agreement between the licensee and Westing -- and the NRC? 25' [ Laughter.] () ' ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
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p 1 202 1 MR. NARDI: And who would run that? Would it be ( )' 2 run out of the region if we would normally have run it out 3 of the region, or would we come-into headquarters? 4 MR. HICKEY: Okay. I can only give you my 5- tentative views on this because we haven't set the 6 groundrules in concrete yet. My intent is the current 7 project manatirs would still run the projects. But that's 8 something that ought to be considered. You know, we'll note 9 that as a result of this workshop that that's something we 10 need to consider. 11 As far as a formal agreement, I think there will 12 be a formal written documentation that there is a pilot 13 program and here are the members. You know, the people who 14 are participating will have written documentation they're () 15 participating in the program. 16 Beyond that there will not be any agreements. If 17 the activities are consistent with the current regulations 18 and license, if all you're doing is proceeding in accordance 19 with'the existing regulations then you don't'need any 20 exceptions or any. unusual understanding. If there are some 21 unusual arrangements such-as a determination by NRC that you 22 don't need a decommissioning plan, and the licensee feels 23 they need that, then that also would be documented. 24 MR. NARDI: A somewhat related question here, and j25 I'm not sure, go ahead. ' '() i ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington,.D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
l 203 1 MR. HICKEY: Okay. Anything else on the pilot n 2 program? Yes, sir, or any other topic? lw]' 3 MR. SCHUTT: Yes, Kerry Schutt Nuclear Fuel 4 Services. 5 What mechanism are you looking for, for a 6 nominated site? Are you looking for a white people from 7 people that describes the scope or just a phone call to Mr. 1 8 Ibrtil?
]
9 MR. HICKEY: Right now, we just need a phone call 10 and then we'll talk more about what it is you want to 11 decommission. 1 12 MR. NARDI: That's what I was thinking. 13 MR. HICKEY: I like that question. 14 MR. NARDI: Would we have to prepare something 15 that describes the site? Joe Nardi again for the record. 16 Would we have to prepare something that describes the site 17 and how we fit into those categories? 18 MR. HICKEY: My sense now is you wouldn't have to 19 provide anything beyond what you normally would be notifying 20 us of as far as what descriptions are necessary. 21 Yes, sir. 22 MR. SRAFFER: Steve Shaffer, Region 1. With the 23 DSI-9 initiative program, are we still going to require that 24 they submit a final status survey plan ahead of time? 25 I mean, it's one thing to take the D plan out of
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I I 1 204 l 1 the decommissioning process, but I don't think we want to
) 2 take the final status survey plan out because if we do that i
3 you can invest a lot of money into their own plan and then 4 have us come back and say, well, you haven't surveyed 5 enough, or certain areas weren't surveyed, and then they 6 have to bring a crew back in. I 7 As Joe knows with the survey plans, the survey 8 plans are very expensive in actually performing the' surveys. 9 And I would think it would be in everybody's best interest 10- that the survey plan be reviewed and approved prior to l 11 starting the survey which wouldn't hold uo to l 12 decommissioning at all, hopefully. 13 MR. WEBER: But that's part of the decommissioning 14 plan, f)i (, 15 MR. SHAFFER: Normally it is. That's what I'm 16 saying, if you're going to skip the decommissioning plan, we 17 should still have a statement or agreement that you submit a 18 final ~ status survey plan which could easily be reviewed 19 while you're doing the decommissioning. And then approved 20 before you put millions of dollars into doing your final 21 statue survey. 22 MR. HICKEY: Wait a minute, you have to -- you 23 can't just call out, I'm sorry, because we have to have it 24 i on the -- 25 That is an appropriate comment. I can't give you g ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202)-842-0034
205 1 -- that has not been determined so we'll take that as a () 2 comment that we need to consider.
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3 Yes, sir, Felix? 4 MR. KILLAR: John, have you all considered what 5 the time period for this part of the program is? Did you 6 want to have it completed in the next two years, when you're 7 looking at the volunteers we'll have as a screening process 8 . going.to run the next three months, six months, what type of 9 ' timing window are we looking at for this whole program? 10 MR. HICKEY: Well, that is, you know, certainly 11 things that can be completed within two years are good. I 12 don't want to necessarily rule out cases that may go beyond 13 that,.but I think we'd like to be able to learn some 14 lessons, you know, in a relatively short timeframe and not f'T ( ,/ 11 5 be waiting several years to assess that. But the case I 16 really liked today was the case, I believe it was with
- 17. Merrill where he was talking about starting right away and R18 being finished in less than a year. That really sounded 19 good to me. That was a good timeframe.
20 Joe? 21 MR. NARDI: Joe Nardi again. How long would it 22' take to put this in place? Because we do have the facility 23 where we're trying to start right now, in fact, we are 24- starting-right now in terms of internal work that we would 25 have done~anyway. But we certainly wouldn't want to
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ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. \# Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 j (202) 842-0034 '
206 1 participate in something that's going to take us a year to
/~T-(
( f 2 reach an agreement. , 3 MR. HICKEY: Yeah. We're talking about a few l l L 4 -months and even if you go ahead and start we can kind of l 5 catch up. But we'need to consult with the Commission before 6 we actually officially start it. So there will be time to j 7 assess this workshop, the other contacts will notify the 8 Commission and get feedback from the Commission. But we're 9 not talking about taking a year. I would say certainly 10 within a couple months we ought to know who our people are.
- 11. And then within a month or two after that, come to an 12 understanding of what the groundrules are and either start 1
13 it or if the people are already started, just kind of blend 14 in the fact that they're in the pilot program. O_ kmsI 15 MR. NARDI: Do you intend to visit the sites to 16 look at them? 17 MR. HICKEY: I wculd say definitely. And I would 18 have hoped we had already visited some of them. I mean, I 19 might not personally visit all of them, but a headquarters 20 and a regional person from our staffs will visit all of 21 them. 22 Yes, sir? 23 MR. PALMER: Yeah, Art Palmer, Chase 24 Environmental. What's the impact of the pilot program on 25 facilities that are trying to get-decommissioned that don't '( )- ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
207 1 participate in the pilot program? Will the draw on () 2 resources delay conventional decommissioning in addition to 3 the delays already experienced? 4 MR. HICKEY: I think that's a good question. It's _5 .not intended that it would delay other projects, but, you 6 know, it's a zero sum game, so I don't really have a good answer. That's something that we're going to have to assess 8 ourselves depending on how many people are interested and 9 how non-complex the cases are. 10 MR. WEBER: John, if I can add, at least 11 conceptually, if we're not going to do a decommissioning 12 plan review, then there is no action for the staff while the 13 licensee is going off and doing the decommissioning. So the 14 only cost would be down the road, right, if we had to do -- 9 / 15 MR. HICKEY: I was going to say, it may speed some 16 things up. But, again, I don't want to hold that out 17 either. Because, you know, if something -- and Mike gave 18 one example where you just don't expend the resources. But 19 there's also. cases if a case has kind of been sitting around 20 and it could have been dealt with, but it wasn't, there may 21 have been some issues that came up in the meantime that 22 diverted resources and additional inspections were done or 23 ' additional enforcement actions came up, so there are scme 24 opportunities to save resources through this program also. 25 So we'll have to see how many people are I; ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. l}N Court Reporters I 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 l Washington, D.C. 20005 ] (202) 842-0034 ; 1
208 1 interested. () 2 MR. PALMER: Okay. Thank you.
'3 MR. HICKEY: Yes, sir. You gave a good summary of 4 what a I think a pilot program ought to look like. l 5 Performance-based.
6 MR. NAGY: Well, let me propose something else. 7 Licensing has a full-time person at our plant' site that 8' spends a lot of time in our production facilities watching 9 how we do things and everything else. Have you considered i 10 maybe instead of the formalities of having the large plans j 11 preapproved by all the staff sitting here and their offices 12 that perhaps in the decommissioning arena you have your 13 staff spend more time at facilities like ours during the I 14 process working with us as we develop and figure out how to ! (_)j t 15 get through the whole process and have a better working 16 relationship as opposed to that legalistic formal approval 17 paper relationship that we have currently. 18 You know, I think the way it works now with 19 licensing is excellent. We have an on-site inspector, we 20 get to know them, they get to know us, and I think the same 21 thing could happen a little bit more in the decommissioning 22 arena. I wouldn't propose-you have a person on site all 23 time, but maybe just a little more health physicist to 24 health physicist interaction, your geologist gets with our 25 geologist a couple times a year and gets updated on what's () ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
209
'l going on. Just a proposal.
[ l 2- MR. HICKEY: Thank you. V i 3 (Pause.] 4 MS. FEDERLINE: We've really identified the need 5 to do this. We think it's very important that our licensing 6 activities be tied more closely to our inspection activities 7 and we're trying to come up with a master inspection plan 8 that would allow us to spend more time at very key points in 9 the decommissioning process with the licensee. So we've got 10 that planning process underway and you should see more of 11 that over the next six months. 12 MR. HICKEY: Yes, sir. 13 MR. ASMUSSEN: Keith Asmussen, General Atomics. i 14 In your Commission direction here it says that you would
) 15 simply provide the residual contamination goals. Do you 16 mean goals, targets, or do you really mean some hard limits 17 and in what form would those be given?
18 MR. HICKEY: I'm just using the word the 19 Commission used. But the intent there is the release ! 20 criteria. Either the new rule or what we call the action 21 plan criteria which were the criteria in effect before the 22 new rule was issued. 23 MR. ASMUSSEN: That's the 25 millirem per year? 24 MR. HICKEY: Correct. If it's for unrestricted 25 use, yes. The new rule. O ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
210 1 MR. WEBER: John, I think it would be helpful if () 2 you elaborated a little bit on what we mean by routine 3 non-complex decommission. For example, if you have a little 4 bit'of soil contamination, is that a candidate site, or how 5 about if you have embedded piping, or, you know, are there 6 things that in your mind or based on the earlier discussions 7 that are clearly off the table? -That might help in terms of 8- people considering. 9 MR. HICKEY: Yeah, without -- things that are set l 10 in concrete would be an example of -- without setting things 3 11 in concrete, my intent is that the primary decommissioning 1:2 should be indoors and accessible. When you start to get 13 into areas that are inaccessible and not easily 14 characterized then you're going into a more complex area. 15 If it's outdoors, then it should be easily accessible and 16 limited. You know, if it's a little bit of soil 17 contamination that can be readily characterized and cleaned 18 up,-then that still could be non-complex.
-19 When you're talking about large volumes of outdoor i
20 material then I think that we're now talking about a complex ! 21 situation. And that's why I said that it wasn't our intent 22 that the candidates for disposing of material at tailings 23 piles were something we thought was within the scope of 24 this. But we will consider that, because that is an 25 important issue. ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
k 211 1 MR. WEBER: But if a facility was decommissioning r ( 2 and they wanted to transfer their material to a mill tailing 3 site that was authorized to take the non-11(e) (2) and they 4 followed the policy, that would be outside of NRC's review? 5 MR. HICKEY: As long as they've characterized what 6 it is that they have to remove. As long as they can readily 7 characterize that. 8 MR. WEBER: And then sites with groundwater 9 contamination? 10 MR. HICKEY: Groundwater I think is -- at least 11 that did not fall in the scope of what we were considering. 12 Let me move on. I'm not going to try to repeat l 13 all the points. In fact, what I'd like to do is give people 14 an opportunity just to give one last message to NRC and to 15 the attendees of a thought that you would like to leave us 16 with. But one thing I want to emphasize, it's clear there i 17 is an. issue on what people should be able to do under their ' 18 current license and what they should need NRC approval to 19- proceed with. So that's one of the things that we certainly 20 will pursue. And there are several other matters that came 21 up that I've noted and other people have noted and will be 22 in the transcript. 23 So I think I'll ask our panel members first if 24 they have a final thought and then'unybody -- any of the 25 attendees are also welcome to do so. ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
212 1 Let's start with Roland Fletcher. [)s_ 2 MR. FLETCHER: First of all I'd like to state my 3 appreciation for being invited to participate in this panel. 4 I think it's been beneficial both from the things that I've 5 heard and been a part of and the things that I've been able 6 to interject on behalf of the Agreement States. 7 The only thing that I would leave with each and 8 every one of you is whether you are regulated by the Nuclear 9 Regulatory Commission or by the Agreement States, the 10 relationship is quite similar and many of you may have 11 agencies or offices in both and you can see the similarity 12 in what is done by design. So the things that we are 13 discussing here and the things that may be put into place by 14 the Nuclear Regulatory Commission will have a direct effect, O) (_ 15 maybe not an immediate, but a direct effect on the 16 relationship between the Agreement States and various 17 licensees. And we've heard some of the same comments and 18 complaints and recommendations that have been surfaced here. 19 And we are in varying degrees paying close attention to ways 20 that we can work together and solve these problems, 21 MR. HICKEY: Felix? 22 MR. KILLAR: I think I would also like to thank 23 the NRC for conducting the workshop. I think it's been very 24 helpful for getting a lot of issues out today and discussing 25 them. fm i
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213 1 Particularly I think the discussion about the (Oj 2 grouping or the grading of the facilities was very helpful. 3 Although I think a number of people recognize that, a lot of 4 people I don't think have really recognized that and so I 5 think it's helpful to bring that out. I think it's very 6 worthwhile. 7 I guess the message I would like to leave is I 8 would like to go maybe with the gentleman from Oklahoma 9 State and the " kiss" principal that let's try e .d minimize 10 the decommissioning plans, the only thing the licensees 11 would need to submit are things that they currently haven't 12 been doing under their operating license so that they can go 13 and make sure the NRC is comfortable with whatever process 14 _they're going to take during their decommissioning and try /~'% \_,/ 15 and move this process along a little bit faster and a little 16, bit more logically. 17 MR. HICKEY: David? 18- MR. CULBERSON: I would also like to express my 19 appreciation for the opportunity to come. I think this has 20 been an excellent exchange. This is the spirit of what we 21 try to do in the Fuel Facilities Forum and we will continue 22 to seek this kind of interaction in our meetings. I would 23 encourage you to give serious consideration to including one 24 of the complex sites, maybe an easy part of a complex site 25 in this pilot program because I think in reality you would ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
214 1 find it's not really that complex in terms of the () 2 3 decommissioning plan whether you could proceed without one or not. I think there's a good possibility much of that 4 could be done. And, again, I'd just like to express my 5 appreciation for the opportunity to be here. Thank you. 6 MR. HICKEY: Ron, any comments? 7 MR. BELLAMY: My goal -- really our goal as stated ; 8 earlier of having better and more intense and frequent 9 communications I think will also carry over into one of tha 10 issues that John indicated that the panel might touch on, 11 but we didn't get around to, and the is the timeliness of 12 NRC review of decommissioning plans. We get an awful lot of 13 decommissioning plans -- well, we got an awful lot of 14 licensing actions to review. ! 15 My region issues over 1,000 licensing actions a
'16 year. And I'm not going to sit here and tell you that 17 decommissioning plans get buried in that review, but I'm 18 trying to sit here and think of a case where our lack of 19 approval of a decommissioning plan specifically held up a 20 licensee that said, "I'm ready to go" and I'm really 21 struggling with -- there are some minor --
22 MR. HICKEY: You're only speaking for your region, 23 now? 24 MR. BELLAMY: I'm only speaking for my region, 25 that's correct. That's correct. I'm only speaking for l [ ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034 k
215 1 1 Region 1, no question about it. () 2 But, again, in the lines of better communications, 3 if there is a decommissioning plan that you need so that you 4 could do some work today, I would expect you to call me. I 5 can juggle the priorities of my staff. I go over the status 6 of every decommissioning plan and every-licensing action 7 every month with senior regional management. And if it's 8 important to you we will make it important to us. 9 Decommissioning is important to us. 10 We recently reorganized in the region. I now have 11 a staff of 15 basically health physicists that work for me 12 and my sole responsibility is decommissioning projects. 13 MR. HICKEY: Mike? 4 14 MR. WEBER: I'm encouraged by the pilot program. l 15 I see it as a real opportunity to address or test out some 16- of the complaints that we've often heard since the 1988 17 decommissioning rule went into effect and then the 18 additional improvements or enhancements were added on top of 19 that. 20 So I hope the licensee community also looks at 21- this as an opportunity. And I think ideally the pilot 22 program would contain a range of sites, some a'little more 23 complex, some less complex, but hopefully they'll provide a 24 realistic test for where is value added in the process and 25 what can we do to revise the existing procedural ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
1 216 i' I 1 requirements to get a better product and help us all out. () 2 MR. HICKEY: That's a good thought. Does anybody 3 else have any other comments or questions on any topic? 4 Scott? l 5 MR. MURRAY: Yeah, Scott Murray again. 1 6 Again, I would encourage to continue to allow ) 7 flexibility under the existing licenses. I guess the one 1 8 surprise that I got from this workshop is there's the table ) i 9 -- and Nick, I guess this is your NUREG. It does not say ) i 10 anything about performed any work or remediation under the
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1 11 existing license. I mean, it's just black and white. You 12 need a plan or you don't need a plan. And that's one thing 13 I'd encourage somehow, flexibility continue to allow -- 14 again, in our case it was a success, I think, because we're ( 15 able to do it within the existing license. I am fearful if 16 we came to the region or the headquarters now with the same 17 concept that we were doing three years ago and someone 18 pulled out this table that it said, no, you need a plan. l l 19 And we would have'been boxed in with a plan the license 20 amendment and'everything that went with it. It would not ! 21 have been as easy a process, I'm fearful, as what we had 22 back maybe two or three years ago. Now, maybe that's not 23 the' case, I'm just suggesting that's the way I interpret j I 24 this guidance. 25 MR. WEBER: I know we're in closing comments, but I l () ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters
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z 217 1 not to continue the discussion. I think you have to look () 2 beyond just the table. Ther3 is text in there that ! 3 describes under what conditions a decommissioning plan is 4 required. And that was specifically written so that that 5 kind of guidance -- I think consistent with our discussion 6 here today -- is reflected in the procedures in there. 7 The table is merely a summary of what's in the 8 text. 9 MR. ORLANDO: Thank you for giving it Nick's book. 10 I like that. ; 11 [ Laughter.] 12 MR. ORLANDO: Maybe. I'd echo what Mike said. I i 13 almost didn't put that table in there and in fact it's been 14 revised a little bit. The principal determiner of whether a 15 decommissioning plan is required or not is the regulation. 16 And it doesn't come out clearly in that table. And when I 17 discussed the chart there with other people I kind of made 18 apologies for that. 19 Whether you did or did not need to have a 20 decommissioning plan at your facility should have been and I 21 believe it was made based on what was in your license and 22 what you were allowed to do. The table or the handbook 23 doesn't change that at all. 24 MR. HICKEY: Okay. Well, I'm going to recess the 25 meeting, but we'll stay if anybody would like to have ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
218 1 further discussions or comments. Thank you all for coming. () 2 You know, whenever I go to one , two- or even a three-day 3 meeting, I feel like, you know, gee, we're going to talk a 4 whole day about this. But then when the meeting is over I 5 feel like I could have gone day and night for a month and 6 kept talking about the subjects. But I particularly want to 7 thank our speakers and our panel members. Thank you all for 8 coming and have a safe trip home. 9 (Whereupon, at 3:50 p.m., the public workshop was 10 concluded.) 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 t ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
I 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: WORKSHOP ON MATERIALS DECOMMISSIONING CASE NUMBER: ! PLACE.OF PROCEEDING: Rockville, MD were held ars herein appears, and that this is the original I transcript thereof for the file of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission taken by me and thereafter reduced to q 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. n v (5 W' W V' Gerald Brooks Official Reporter Ann Riley &' Associates, Ltd.
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