ML20246L091

Transcript of Periodic Briefing by Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste on 890427 in Rockville,Md.Pp 1-47

ML20246L091
Person / Time
Issue date:	04/27/1989
From:	NRC ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON NUCLEAR WASTE (ACNW)
To:
References
REF-10CFR9.7 NACNUCLE, NUDOCS 8905180232
Download: ML20246L091 (51)

Text

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J.C UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMIS SION

(((1gl PERIODIC BRIEFING BY ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON NUCLEAR WASTE (ACNW)

ROCKVILLE, MARYLAND Ia0CatiM:

hg(g; APRIL 27, 1989 47 PAGES

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NEAL R. GROSS AND CO., D'C.

COLTT REPORTER $ AND TRA%3CR2BERS 1323 ?.hode Island Avenue, Northwest Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 234-4433 -

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8905100232 890427 PDR 10CFR PT9.7 PNV

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O 0 DISCLAIMER i

This is an unofficial transcript of a meeting of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission held on April 27, 1989 in the Commission's office at One White Flint ' North, , Rockville, Maryland. The meeting was open to public attendance and observation. This transcript has not been reviewed, corrected or edited, snd it may contain inaccuracies.

-. The transcript is intended solely for general informational purposes. As provided.by 10 CFR 9.103, it is not part of the formal or informal record of decision of the matters discussed. Expressions of opinion in this transcript do not necessarily reflect final determination or beliefs. No pleading or other paper may be filed with the Commission in any proceeding as the result of, or addressed to, any statement or argument contained herein, 1

except as the comnission may authorize.

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NEAL R. GROSS /

Cover nevoersas AMo TRANSCRIBERS 1313 RNo0E ISLAND AVENUE, N.W.

WASHINGroN, D.C. 20005' (202) 232 4 600 (202) 2N

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9 1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

( 2 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3 * *

• 4 PERIODIC BRIEFING BY ADVISORY COMMITTEE 5 ON NUCLEAR WASTE (ACNW) 6 * *

• 7 PUBLIC MEETING 8 * *

• 9 Nuclear Regulatory Commission 10 One White Flint North 11 Rockville, Maryland 12

('I 13 Thursday, April 27, 1989 14 15 The Commission met in open session, pursuant to 16 notice, at 10:00 a.m., the onorable LANDO W. ZECH, JR.,

17 Chairman of the Commission, presiding.

18 19 COMMISSIONERS PRESENT:

20 LANDO W. ZECH, JR., Chairman of the Commission 21 THOMAS M. ROEEXTS, Member of the Commission 22 KENNETH C. ROGERS, Member of tne Commission 23 JAMES R. CURTISS, Member of the Commisslor.

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25 (202)234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS & COMPANY, INC. (202)232-6600 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N.W., WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005

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'l STAFF AND PRESENTERS SEATED AT THE COMMISSION TABLE:

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w. SAMUEL J. CHILE, Secretary 2

3 STUART TREBY, General Counsel's Office l-4 l

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!. 6 FOR THE ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON NUCLEAR WASTE 7 DR. DADE-W. MOELLER, Chairman, ACNW 8 DR.-MARTIN J. STEINDLER, ACHW 9

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l l . 3 1 P,R.O_ C_ E E D_ I,ilG S-2 (10:02 a.m.)

3 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Good morning, ladies and 4 gentlemen.

5 Commissioner Carr will not be with us this 6 morning. He has advised me that he will read the 7 transcript carefully. His staff is here, I note.

8 Today the Commission is meeting with the 9 Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste. The Advisory 10 Committee on IIuclear Waste was formally established in 11 June of 1988, to advise the Commission on various nuclear 12 waste management issues.

4. '. , 13 As noted in the meeting agenda, the Commission 14 will be briefed this morning on three issues: Greater-15 than-Class-C waste, high-level waste management, and the 16 West Valley Demonstration Project, and then we'll conclude 17 by having the Advisory Committee on IIuclear Waste give us 18 their views on the future activities that are planned.

19 This is an information meeting, and no 20 Commission vote is expected during this meeting. Do any 21 of my fellow Commissioners have any comments they wish to 22 make before we begin?

23 (No response.)

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,- 24 If not, Dr. Moeller, you may proceed.

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25 DR. MOELLER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

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. 1 Before I begin, I would like to make several y

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2 preliminary comments. First of all, as with you, we're 3 missing one of our members. Clifford Smith is not with us 4 today -- he called to express his regrets -- and it's due 5 to illness in his family.

6 Secondly, we recognize, Mr. Chairman, that 7 perhaps this is the last formal meeting we will have with 8 you as Chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and 9 we will always remember that the committee was formed 10 while you were the leader, and we're very appreciate of 11 the support and encouragement that you and your fellow 12 Commissioners have provided to us, particularly during 13 this first year when we were learning how to do things.

14 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Well, . thank you very much. I 15 feel confident that we, my colleagues and I, made the 16 right decision when we established the Advisory Committee 17 on Nuclear Waste. It's already giving us a lot of good 18 advice, and I'm sure that you'll continue to do that in i

19 the future, and thank you for your kind thoughts.

20 DR. MOELLER: Well, thank you. I also want to l l

21 mention in terms of communications with the Commissioners, l l

22 that we have very much enjoyed the meetings that we've 23 been able to have with the technical assistants, and we

s. - 24 hope that those can continue and that you will use that as

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25 an additional avenue of communication with us. These (202)234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS & COMPANY, INC. (202)232-6600 l 1323 RHODE ISLAND WEUUE, N.W., WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005 f

s 1 meetings, we believe, have been very helpful.

i 2 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Well, we're pleased to hear 3 th'at, and I've had the same thought from my own people,.

4 and I can assure yo.u that that certainly seems to be a 5 very valuable system, and certainly intend to continue

6. because it is providing very good background and advice 7 for all of us on the Commission, and also it's important 8 for our. technical assistants to be brought up-to-date by 9 the Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste in a personal sort 10 of way, and we appreciate the time you spend with our 11 people. I think it's a very good method and a very good 12 way to keep all of us informed. We appreciate it very

( 13 much.

14 DR. MOELLER:. Yes, sir.

15 Well, we are, of course, in the midst of our 16 ninth meeting, and I thought I would just briefly review

,17 -- n o t review, but name the topics that we are 18 considering. One item we are reviewing, and we will plan 19 to provide you comments on it, is the proposed statement 20 being prepared by the staff to update the waste confidence 21 decision.

22 We are looking at the proposed technical 23 position on post-closure seals. We will be looking at the 24 licensing support system. I doubt if we will send you any f-C' 25 comments on that, since that was donc, of course, by (202)234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS & COMPANY, INC. (202)232-6600 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N.W., WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005

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2 . We are also scheduled to look once, again, at-3 below regulatory concern, the policy statement there, and' 4 I'm hoping that this will then conclude that, that the I l

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5 letter we send you this month will be our last on that, 6 and we're also looking at the disposal of mixed' waste.

7 Most importantly, of course, at this meeting 8 we're continuing to review with the Division of High-Level 9 Waste Management, their review of DOE's SCP and their-10 . preparation of the site characterization analysis report.

11 In anticipation of that and in preparing to 12 complete our business on it by the deadline of the end of i

.L 13 June, we held a working group meeting on this on April the 14 19th, and we have. scheduled two additional full committee 15 meetings between now and June the 30th. These are two 16 meetings in addition to the one we had already scheduled 17 for June the 28th through the 30th.

18 So, our goal is to complete our review and to 19 have everything finished up by the deadline that has -- or 20 the target date that has been indicated to us.

21 In terms of reviewing that and attempting to be 22 sure that we provide an independent point of view on it, 23 we have been exploring several topics through a mechanism

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25 reviewers and, as you know, the Division of High-Level (202)234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS & COMPANY, INC. (202)232-6600 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N.W., WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005

7 1 Waste has set up, or it's organized with team leaders to i-2 review geology, tectonics, et cetera, hydrology pertaining 3 to the proposed Yucca Mountain Repository, and we plan to 4 divide, er to take those separate reports and assign them 5 to individual consultants, as I say, for in-depth reviews.

6 And this will provide us a little more confidence that we 7 are doing our job.

8 We, as a committee, can review them 9 superficially or in-depth, to some degree, but we'll feel 10 better doing it this way.

11 We also plan to take the design acceptability 12 analysis for the exploratory shaft facility and assign

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13 that to one or two consultants, to read in-depth and to 14 comment to us on it.

15 A third item that we're doing in reviewing the 16 High-Level Waste Repository is that we have taken the 17 first of -- and I know you realize there are 106, I 18 believe, study plans -- well, we've taken one of those 19 study plans as sort of a pilot project, and we have 20 reviewed it in-depth to see, you know, how it might go and 21 what we could learn from it.

22 The one we took was one on measuring groundwater l

23 flow time, and we found a couple of interesting things, in

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24 going into that. First of all, we found that we, as a kil 25 committee, or I suppose no one, can review a single study (202)234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS & COMPAliY, INC. (202)232-6600 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, ii . W . , WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005

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1 plan unto itself. They are. closely inter-tied, and-so you .'

2 have to.look at -- as Commissioner Rogers constantly tells 3 us, look' at a systems approach -- you have to look not 4 only at that study plan, but all the others that it's tied- l 5 into.

6 We also found that in this one study plan, some 7 interesting observations, in that the study plan had been 8 written perhaps three years or so ago, and the author of 9 this study plan,. the principal author, was present at our 10 meeting, and he could fill.us in on all the developments 11 that had occurred since it was written.

12 So,,there's a lot more to it, again, than what.

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.b 13 is the written word. And,- of course, what we're 14 constantly seeking in our reviews of the study plans will 15 be, are they geared to provide the data that we need for 16 performance assessment or whatever. So, we're really 17 zeroing in on that.

18 Now, it took us a full day to do one study plan 19 such as we did, so there's no way, of course, that we can 20 review all 106, so what we plan to do, or at least one 21 approach that we might take, is that Dr. Steindler, for 22 example, has identified a number of key technical issues 23 that we really need to address in our review.

24 Well, we may use his list and then select out 25 which study plans address those particular technical (202)234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS & COMPANY, INC. (202)232-6600 eeae a non= v m n um a wanma wu m esmaenw . a e. - oanaa

9 1 issues, and select and review those in our work. So, 2 that, I thought I would share with you, as what we're 3 doing on that.

4 As a fourth item, although this is entirely in 5 the discussion stages, we simply, in sharing our thotghts 6 with you, wanted to mention that we have been considering 7 the methodology of applying risk analysis to the 8 Repository, and we're considering whether it might be 9 useful to do what I would call a " scoping study" PRA of 10 the Yucca Mountain site.

11 There has already, of course, been other scoping 12 studies .perf ormed, such as one on environmental pathway i

13 analysis, and we thought that there may be benefit in such 14 an approach. And our primary reason-for doing that would 15 be to identify or confirm what are the key parameters, and 16 also to constantly seek out, if we can, any fatal flaws in 17 the current proposal.

18 A fifth item is several new developments in 19 dealing -- in interacting with the staff on the Yucca 20 Mountain plans -- this is the IIRC staff, of course. In 21 the way of pathway analyses, they have brought to our 22 attention information that indicates a potential for the 23 release of Carbon 14. And, so, in other words, there l t- 24 could be a gaseous -- and we were famili'ar with this, but

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25 they are now getting down to specifics -- that the gaseous (202)234-4433 IJEAL R. GROSS & COMPAtIY, IIIC . (202)232-6600 ecae amama - owa awmwm na ma esemacmw . rs e . 96naa

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I. 1 pathway may be of significance. Well, we plan t'o get into

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2 that'more.

3 Again, we reviewed, last week and at this 4 meeting, the technical position on post-closure seals. In 5 that technical position, they consider the gaseous pathway

'6 and its importance and, of course, we need to get into it 7 and find out what is the source term --

you know, how 8 significant is it --

and how rapid would the release be, 9 and so forth. So, we wanted to share that with you.

10 A second' new. development is that --

is the 11 question of whether the shafts are -- the exploratory 12 shafts -- are really located where they will provide i

cu_ 13 representative data on the Yucca Mountain unsaturated 14 zone. Of course, you don't want to collect too many 15 samples, you don't want to collect too few, but you would 16 like for the ones that you do collect to truly be 17 representative of the conditions down there. So, the 18 . staff is looking into that, and we plan to follow that and 19 work with them on it.

20 One other item related to our work in reviewing l

l 21 the Yucca Mountain facility is our interaction with the

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22 Technical Review Board, which has been --

they are 23 appointed by the President, and appointed to advise DOE on

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'F 24 the progress and on their own work on this facility.

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25 Well, one of the questions raised by the Nuclear j i

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. 11 1 Waste Technical Review Board, at one of its recent l s

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l 2 meetings -- I believe this was perhaps a meeting of one of 1.

3 their --

what I would call one of their subcommittees 4 rather than the full committee --

but they asked if, in 5 excavating the exploratory shaft facility, and 6 particularly in excavating the drifts out from the shaft, 7 whether the drifts were aimed in the right direction and 8 whether they were going to be excavated in far enough 9 distance -- at a far enough distance, to really provide 10 all of the information that's needed. And we have never 11 16oked into this, so we found the information quite 12 valuable to us.

v 13 Now, George Lear attended the first meeting -- a 14 member of your staff,"of course, and our liaison with the 15 staff -- attended the first meeting of the Technical 16 Review Board, and Mel Carter, Melvin Carter, who is one of 17 our consultants, is a member of that Technical Review 18 Board.

19 We have found that the ties that are being 20 provided by this liaison are very valuable, and we simply 21 wanted -- we wanted to share that with you.

22 As another item, we have, of course, been 23 thinking about the quality assurance programs underlying i

24 the development of the Repository, and we have noted, and C

25 it's been reported to us, that some 15 to 20 percent of (202)234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS & COMPANY, INC. (202)232-6600 aeae awaam - nwa awamww w w wace wacmm a c eaana

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12 1 the costs of many of the da.te-gathering operations are due g

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2 to, or done _in compliance with, quality assurance 3 provisions.

1 4 While some people might say, "Well, this is a 5 tremendous expense, and maybe it's unwarranted", we  !

6 believe that this --

well, we know the program is l' 7 necessary,'and we believe it's far too early to reach any ,

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8 judgment on that. We, again, plan to watch it as it moves 9 along, and try to keep abreast of it.

10 Another item that is constantly in our minds is  !

11 the degree to which the NRC staff needs to develop an 12 independent capability for modeling the Repository site.

t; b.IE. 13 We know that they need to be able to do it independently, 14 but also if they attempt to totally develop from ground i

1 15 zero, so to speak, the models all the way through from  !

I 16 beginning to end, that is a tremendous task. 1 17 We believe that independence can be maintained 18 without developing totally new models. We don't have all 1

19 the answers , but we're certainly interacting with the 2

20 staff, to assist them and to keep up with what they are i 21 doing and to assist in any way that we can.

'i 22 It does appear that DOE, in response to the l

23 objection raised by the staff on the draft, consultation 1 24 draft SCP, has expanded its horizons to include alternate 25 conceptual models for the Yucca Mountain site.

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. 1 As a final comment on this opening portion which 1

l 2 I'm directing to our review of the SCP SCA, I would off*er lL 3 the following comment, and we do it not.as criticism of 4 the NRC staff -- above all, I'll say later that we think 5 they're doing a very good job -- bat one item that we want 6 to just simply share with you is that they offered their.

7 objections and their comments and questions and so forth,  ;

l 8 on the consultation draft SCP.

9 Well, then, DOE, of course, in response to that, 10 attempted to address each of these concerns. In some 11 cases, it was siaply changing a paragraph; in other cases, 12 .it might consist of inserting ten new pages.

D@,' 13 Well, now, the NRC staff, in reviewing these 14 revisions,,is coming up, in some case's, or'they could come 15 up, with an increased number of concerns rather than a 16 reduced number. And having both of us formerly been 17 members of the ACRS and we watch the list of unresolved

-18 safety issues, and we recall how instead of being resolved 19 they seem to grow in number, we simply want to flag this 20 -- and the staff is well aware of it -- that, obviously, 1

21 they want to raise all legitimate concerns, but we hope 22 that the number can be kept to a manageable size.

23 And I, personally, felt, with five objections on 24 the consultation draft, you know, that was good. It was a

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25 clear-cut message. They didn't give them 138 concerns, l

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. 14 1 they gave them five objections, plus additional concerns, L ._

2 but they clearly categorized what is important. DOE knew 3 what they considered to be important, and we're sure it 4 was extremely helpful to them and a very good job on the 5 part of the staff.

6 I think, with those remarks. I will conclude 7 this first section, and we're certainly open to questions 8 or comments.

9 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Are there any questions from my 10 colleagues, on the high-level waste presentation?

11 Commissioner Roberts?

12 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS: No.

L L. c _. 13 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Commissioner Rogers? ,

14 COMMISSIO!IER ' ROGERS : Yes. How'long would you 15 think a PRA would take to do for the Yucca Mountain site?

16 DR. MOELLER: I can't answer that and -- even as 17 to how long it would be, but I'm told that a scoping study 18 PRA versus a full-fledged one would be not on the back of 19 an envelope, but it certainly is manageable. I would have 20 to ask someone more informed on it, perhaps someone on the l

21 !!RC staff. We do not have that answer, but we understand 22 certainly a few months, I guess you could do it,~ depending 23 -- and we've asked our own supporting staff to look into what has been done in the past. What is the backlog of

{ 24 25 information on this, and we have not completed that, but (202)234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS & COMPANY, INC. (202)232-6600

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4 1 the time required would~ depend upon how has been done in I 2 the past.

l 3 COMMISSIONER ROGERS: Do you have any reason--

4 has any specific reason come up for you to doubt'whether 5 the choice of the locations of the exploratory shafts is l-u 6 .the best, or is this a more general desire to just look at

,7 everything from a fundamental point of view?

8 DR. STEINDLER: I think the latter rather than

-9 the former.

10 COMMISSIONER ROGERS: Nothing specific which 11 would'suggest~that this is an important thing t'o --

12 DR. STEINDLER: Nothing specific that we raised.

13 The original objections raised by the staff we understood, 14 and that's been taken care of.

15 DR. MOELLER: And those were very legitimate and 16 undoubtedly very constructive, the questions which were 17 raised, and the shafts were m'oved, of course, the 18 location.

-19 COMMISSIONER ROGERS: Your suggestion that NRC 20 develop an independent modeling capability for the site, 21 is there any way you could elaborate on what you're 22 thinking about there, as to what that means? I know 23 you've said, well, they can't start from scratch and ao i

/' 24 everything, but what are you thinking about there? Is it b

25 to question the basic concept of a model, the starting

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16 g 1 point of a model, or to fully exercise a mcdel to see what f: _

2 one can draw from it? Just how do you view that?

3 DR. MOELLER: Well, I'll comment briefly, and 4 then certainly Dr. Steindler can expand.

5 We believe, and the staff has said to us that 6 they believe that they need an independent capability for 7 assessing the adequacy of the site. In order to establish 8 the performance assessment of various components within 9 the facility, you need models, and you plug the data into 10 the various parameters and come out with information.

11 It's a tough area to handle because the staff 12 would like, I believe, to, as I say, independently l-- 13 evaluate what DOE is claiming and, yet, what we're saying 14 is, if they try ' t 'o develop a totally separate, 15 independent, completely different set of models, if they 16 came out with different answers, you would not know -- I 17 would not know -- whether it was imperfections in the 18 model or a true difference. Marty?

19 DR. STEINDLER: Let me try the answer in a 20 different way. Models address a number of fairly 21 fundamental issues. One of the important issues is rate 22 phenomena because the attempt is made to predict. Another l-1 l

23 idportant issue is steady-state phenomena. That is, there i .:

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24 is enough time for some aspects of the behavior of the 25 system -- for example, geochemistry --

to reach what some (202)234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS & COMPANY, INC. (202)232-6600 a- maaam - nua awswns u w m evmesaw ae onnaa

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2 Some of these phenomenon are very strongly 3 influencing the final determination of whether or not the 4 Repository will perform according to criteria. Some of 5 them are peripheral to that final determination.

6 Our view is that those models, those descriptors 7 of the real world that are necessary to -- that make an 8 important difference to the final answer of performance, 9 ought to be checked and arrived at from two, or perhaps 10 more, different systems. That's the independence that 11 we're looking for.

12 Whether it is possible to completely divorce an l 13 independent model development from what has already been 14 done in the literature" -- my personal' view ~ is , I doubt it.

15 Technical people should and do, obviously, know what the 16 rest of the world is doing, so as not to rediscover 17 wheels, but there is a big difference in taking somebody 18 else's model, plugging in some numbers that you think are 19 representative and then deciding whether or not your 20 answer is the same as the other chap's, and doing the 21 development of the algorithms on your own.

22 I think what the staff is looking for, and what 23 I think we would certainly agree with, is that the staff E'

24 needs to be able to say with some confidence that, yes, 25 we've looked at the description of the performance (202)234-4433 ITEAL R. GROSS & COMPA!TY, I!JC . (202)232-6600 9%9% Dwaaa Ve?. Awa AVENVVW . M.M. MA NTWGP6M- B E_ 20068

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18 lg 1 assessment in the year 9,000, for example, and we think lL-2 it's based on a realistic picture of the world. They have 3 to do that independently, and that's the kind of thinking 4 that we're going through.

5 That's a little fuzzy because we haven't focused

'6 --

7 COMMISSIONER ROGERS: Yes, I'm having a little 1 1

8 trouble getting a hold of that.

9 DR. STEINDLER: -- because we-haven't focused in 10 on explicitly what the' performance model really looks 11 like, and they tend to be very large and complicated.

12 COMMISSIONER ROGERS: The question would be, in 13 a sense, whether one -- whe ther you're talking about

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14 looking at all the p'ossible alternative models that might 15 be developed, or whether one is looking at the modeling 16 process via, say, what we do in a nuclear plant, a 17 vertical slice through one system, take everything from 18 start to finish with, say, one model, to see whether the 19 process, the modeling process, and the assumptions 20 involved in the development of the algorithms, and so on 21 and so forth,,all seem to be sound, without trying to look 22 at the full range of possible starting point models. I'm 23 just trying to understand what your thinking is on this

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I .. 24 because it looks to me like it's going to be very tricky L. -

25 to try to not do the whole thing all over again, to (202)234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS & COMPANY, INC. (202)232-6600 sto% esaaa vet, Rwa Avenna - w m_ MA evarrwam . a_c. 9 n n a et

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1 maintain a fully independent capability. 1 i

2 DR. STEINDLER: Well, let me give you one 3 example of where I might venture, at some risk I'm sure, 4 into the arer. of saying that it's probably not terribly 5 critical whether the model deve';oped by DOE is 6 independently reviewed and checked against something 7 totally different from the NRC.

8 The behavior of the metallic exterior of the 9 waste form, for example, in the case of glass, is being 10 looked at in an experimental program in lots of different 11 places. The attempt is being made to predict -- to obtain 12 enough data to understand either the mechanism of 13 corrosion or to be able to predict from empirical 14 considerations, what~ the pene tration' rates and corrosion 15 rates are.

16 A narrow view of that system is sufficiently 17 easy to envelop so that two people looking at the very 18 same model can come to independently arrived at 19 assessments of whether or not that flies. That kind of 20 assessment, it seems to me, is not necessary to repeat on 21 an independent basis.

22 I have less of a warm feeling that such a thing 23 would not be necessary for somebody asking where do nuclides and how do nuclides travel in geologic systems.

{ 24 25 There, my personal view would be, gee, somebody really (202)234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS & COMPANY, INC. (202)232-6600 aeae amamm o m o wn awmamem m u unememaans a e essas

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2 The models that I'm aware of are modarately 3 convoluted and complex and, therefore, become a little 4 opaque. They are hard to see into, and you have to do an 5 awful lot of work to take them apart. That, I think, 6 would be something that the staff ought to be able to do 7 independently.

8 I don't know whether that helps.

9 COMMISSIONER ROGERS: Fine. Well, I think we 10 don't really have time to discuss all the ways it might be 11 done, but I wanted to get a feeling about your thinking on '

12 it. Thank you very much.

I L- 13 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Commissioner Curtiss?

14 COMMISSIONER ~CURTISS: ~I have just two or three 15 more general questions. You touched upon the Nuclear Waste 16 Technical Review Board and, of course, since the ACNW 1ast 17 briefed us in October, that Board is now fully l

18 constituted, it's up and running.

19 You touched upon one issue involving the 20 direction of the. drifts that the Nuclear Waste Technical 21 Review Board identified and that you found to be of some 22 interest.

23 I wonder if I could ask, more generally, now I 24 that that Board has been established, how you see your L.~

25 role vis-a-vis that independent establishment, just (202)234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS & COMPANY, INC. (202)232-6600 m- amans sun a wa n umans m* wa ssemamm n c 9aaaa

. 21

- 1 generally and, more specifically, where issues come up 2 that the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board identifies, 3 it looks to me like that one of maybe two, maybe more, 4 possible ways to hpproach those issues from our 5 standpoint, they could be of interest to the ACNW and we 6 could pursue those and devote the resources of the ACNW to 7 address those same issues that the Review Board is 8 addressing or, alternatively, in the interest of 9 conserving resources here and focusing more specifically 10 on things that might not be under review by the Waste 11 Technical Review Board, they may be issues that the Board 12 could take the lead on.

13 Do you have any thoughts on that relationship, 14 and where issues conie" up that are s'imilar in both fora, 15 how you would approach those?

16 DR. MOELLER: We, of course, need to gain 1 17 experience on this. My initial reaction is that if the 18 Technical Review Board is exploring a subject area and if 19 we can maintain close liaison with them, we will, to a 20 large degree, depend upon and benefit by whatever they 21 uncover.

22 I believe it may be too early at the moment, at 23 least for me, to even know how they're going to operate,

( 24 and what sort of level of investigation they are going to 25 do. This thing about the drifts, the direction and (202)234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS & COMPANY, INC. (202)232-6600 aese amamm - uma n umamm mw wa amwamm a e sanas

+

4

. . 22

1 distance, which shows that they are capable of getting L;

2 in'to the most -- you know, it's a basic question, but

'3 they're capable of getting into very detailed analyses of 4 what's going on.

5 Marty, do you have --

6 DR. STEIIIDLER: fio .

7 DR. MOELLER: But we will maintain liaison, and 8 I hope -- we see them as an added resource. We do not see 9 them as competition. We see them as a lot of help.

10 COMMISSIONER CURTISS: Let me go back to the 11 site study plans. You indicated that after your first 12 pilot review of the groundwater study plan, that you have L

L- 13 taken a look at the entire list of 106 and, I take it, ,

14 tried to come up with'a methodo1~ogy 'f or i'dentifying sort 15 of the key issues, and then from that methodology, 16 identifying the number of site review plans that you--

17 site study plans that you would need to review. Do you 18 have a feel yet, based upon the issues that you've 19 identified, how many that might be?

20 DR. MOELLER: fio , sir, and, in fact, I probably 21 was misleading in what I said. There have been several 22 issued to-date, and there's a schedule for two or three a 23 month for the next few months.

24 We're pretty much controlled by what is made l t.

25 available to us, and when, as to what is available even (202)234-4433 IIEAL R. GROSS & COMPAliY, IIIC. (202)232-6600

~

6

- 23 1 for us to review. I believe that the -- or the HRC staff 2 has, of course, reached a judgment on how many they plan l 3 to review. Do you recall, was it 20 or so?

4 DR. STEINDLER: Twenty-something.

5 DR. MOELLER: Twenty, or some number like that.

6 We have not set a number on how many we can review, or 7 should review. And to repeat, we're governed by when they 8 come out and so forth.

9 COMMISSIONER CURTISS: When you use consultants 10 and contractors in that capacity, are you finding any 11 difficulty in coming up with consultants that aren't 12 involved in some other aspect of the program, don't have a J

13 conflict?

14 DR. MOELLER: That was a pr'oblem, of course, and 15 continues to be a problem, but I believe we have a pretty 16 good team right now. It numbers about a half a dozen that 17 we're using regularly, and they have the time and they all 18 are independent, and we found them very useful. In fact, 19 I was just commenting this morning on the way over, that 20 we're operating somewhat differently from the ACRS, not 21 that that's good or bad, but what we do is, in drafting 22 our reports to you, every consultant has input into our 23 reports.

i 24 The final decision on exactly what it says is 25 Drs. Smith, Steindler and -- we make the decision, but our (202)234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS & COMPANY, INC. (202)232-6600

l .

24 l

1 consultants are serving as almost m' embers of our

' Ll .

2 committee. They're very helpful to us in the input that l'

l 3 they provide.

l 4 COMMISSIOliER CURTISS: Thank you.

5 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Just a comment first, and then 6 the question. The comment would be, you mentioned the 7 USIs and the problem of wiping them off the books and l

8 getting them resolved.

9 We recently had, for your information, a 10 briefing by the staff on the unresolved safety issues, and 11 I think the Commission was very ' encouraged to see the 12 staff has made considerable progress in that regard.

L- 13 As ' I recall the briefing, their intentions,

~

14 their goal is to comp 1ete the unresolved s'afety issues by 15 this calendar year, which would show, I think, 16 considerable effort in that regard. I thought you'd be 17 interested in knowing that, although you're not 18 necessarily involved in all the issues of the Advisory 19 Committee on Reactor Safeguards now, I recognize, but I 20 wanted to mention that because we are encouraged by the l i

I 21 progress you're making, and on the generic issues also.

22 A question, though. I visited the Yucca 23 Mountain site fairly recently, and it was a very valuable iI 1 t '

24 visit for me. I'm aware that the State of Nevada has s _ l 25 voiced some concernr about the Yucca Mountain site 1

(202)234-4433 tiEAL R. CROSS & COMPA!IY, IIIC . (202)232-6600 J,

- 25 1 suitability because of recent geological faulting, active i i

f 2 volcanism, and the presence of mineral resources. Those l 3 were brought to my attention during my visit.

4 Do you consider that the site characterization 5 plan addresses these issues adequately, or are there 6 ongoing -- is there ongoing work in this area? AnEl do you 7 believe that this agency, the staff, our staff should ask 8 the Department of Energy for additional information on 9 these issues, or do you believe it's being addressed 10 adequately?

11 DR. MOELLER: I would hesitate to say 12 definitively, until 'we --

because the statutory SCP has 13 only been'with us for a few months now, and we have not

~

14 had an opportunity to delve into each'of those subjects.

15 I would say, in response -- and I hope it's a 16 partial answer to your question -- that we have had Nevada 17 in to appear before us. We believe that they have raised 18 a number of legitimate questions. We value their input, 19 and I'm sure the NRC staff values their input, and we 20 certainly are seriously considering every comment they 21 have, as we independently review the matter.

22 Marty, do you --

l 23 DR. S T E I !! D L E R : Yes. I was just going to l . i' 24 comment that the seismic -- for example, the seismic 25 discussion in the site characterization plan is fairly (202)234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS & COMPANY, INC. (202)232-6600

L . 26 j, 1 extensive. It outlines a -- wha t appears to be a lL:-

L 2 reasonably close attention to the well-defined problems.

3 We view the issue of how to go about analyzing 4 that for sufficiency,- as one that comes on us in two 5 stages, but the first stage is to get a look at the draft

'6 response that the staff is making to that analysis. They 7 bring geologic resources to bear, obviously, to do that.

8 And.once that's done and we begin to get some input from

-9 the State of Nevada and our own sources, we would be able 10 to give you a much more coherent ansa r to the question.

11' CHAIRMAN ZECH: Well, thank you. I hope you 12 will follow those issues, though, because I think they are

!. +

" 13 very important issues to be resolved, and we would 14 appreciate your following those ' closely as you continue 15 your work on the Waste Repository.

16 DR. STEINDLER: Let me just add that the State 17 of Nevada, in their presentation, also made these very 18 same points to us. And because -- if for no other rx2 son, 19 because they made those points, those will be points that 20 we will track, to the extent that we can.

21 ' CHAIRMAN ZECH: Very good. All right. Shall we 1

22 move to the next topic, Dr. Moeller?

23 DR. MOELLER: Yes, sir. The next topic is the

~

i West Valley Demonstration Project, and you'll recall at l 24 25 our meeting with you gentlemen on October the 27th of '88, (202)234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS & COMPANY, INC. (202)232-6600 c- ame - um aummm w a un ammamw ae oassa

o 1 1

1

. 27 1 you explicitly asked that we keep up with West Valley, 2 look into it', and provide a report to you, which we did.

3 During our sixth meeting in January of this 4 year, we met with representatives from DOE and its 5 contractors and the State of New York's Energy Research 6 and Development Authority, and heard a very good review of 7 what's going on at West Valley.

8 And as you know, the procedure being applied 9 there is, they have the tanks of the high-level waste, and 10 they are taking the supernatant --

there is a sludge at 11 the bottom of the tanks, and liquid above --

and they're 12 passing the supernatant through ion exchange media, 13 removing the bulk of the cesium, radioactive cesium, from

~

14 those wastes, and "then they' are solidifying the 15 decontaminated supernatant using a cement approach.

16 We were encouraged by the report because they 17 had, I believe, already solidified 15,000, or some number 18 -- as I say that, it sounds so large I'm hesitant to be 19 sure whether it's correct -- but they had a very careful 20 quality control program, and whereas we had constantly 21 heard reports from the nuclear utilities where they had 22 solidified, or thought they had solidified, some low-level 23 waste or ion exchange resins and had all types of problems 24 with it, at West Valley, they had identified only two or

{'

25 three or four -- you know, just a very few number -- of (202)234-4433 UEAL R. GROSS & COMPANY, INC. (202)232-6600

- 28

[. 1 the thousands of drums that had given them any problem L

2' and, even there, these were identified as proble'ma not 3 because the barrel had split open or the waste had 4 suddenly liquefied, they were identified more as a problem 5 in terms of looking back on the quality assurance program 6 that was followed in preparing the waste. So, we're very 7 encouraged by that. )

8 Well, then they take, of course, the resin in 9 which the cesium has been removed, and then they take the 10 sludge, and the plan there is to make this into a 11 borosilicate glass. And as I recall, they had already 12 formed some 300 or more borosilicate glass canisters, so 1-E' 13 they're moving ahead with that.

14 What we ca'me out of the m'eeting with were the 15 two recommendations which we sent to you in a formal 16 report, and these were two areas that we believed needed 17 attention. The first was that the acceptance criteria for 18 the vitrified high-level waste, including the enumeration 19 of testing procedures to indicate conformance with these 20 criteria, need to be identified by DOE.

21 And I might say --

well, let me go ahead with 22 the second one -- that the public health and safety 23 criteria for the facilities and the land area that are 24 being decontaminated and perhaps ultimately released for k

25 limited or some degree of public access, that those (202)234-4433 ITEAL R. GROSS & COMP AITY , INC. (202)232-6600 i 1

l

. 29 1

7 1 criteria need to be identified or established.

2 We found, as a follow-up to this meeting, that 3 the staff, and particularly the EDO, on April the 17th, 4 sent to Mr. Fraley; our Executive Director, a very i 5 detailed response, and pointed out that the Division of 6 High-Level Waste Management staff's position is that DOE 7 must ensure that the waste forms provided by any of the 8 waste producers, are acceptable for disposal in the 9 Repository.

10 And then he --

that was in response to the first 11 itiem or concern, and in the second one he pointed out 12 that an EIS will be prepared by IIew York and DOE, for the 13 cleaned up site, and that within it 'here would be data, 14 et cetera,,on the release of the~ are'a back to the public 15 for, again, the degree to which it might be released to 16 the public.

17 Let me comment here, in the way of our sincere 18 appreciation and our compliments to Mr. Stello. Following 19 every meeting --

you know, we issue the action items and 20 so forth --

and following every meeting, we get a very 21 detailed response identifying what the staff is doing as a 22 follow-up to each of any concerns or whatnot that we have 23 identified, and the responses are positive. They are not i

( 24 just that "we're thinking about it and going to get to it 25 in a year or so", they tell us exactly what they're doing, (2021234-4433 TJEAL R. GROSS & COMPAIIY, IliC . (202)232-6600

- 30

[. 1 and this has been extremely helpful, and it makes us feel L' _

2 th'ta what we're doing is productive.

3 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Well, we're very pleased to hear 4 that, I heir .

5 DR. MOELLER: Marty, do you have any comments on 6 West Valley?

7 DR. STEINDLER: No, I don't think so.

8 COMMISSIONER ROGERS: When did you 'usit West 9 Valley?

10 DR. MOELLER: We have not visited. We plan --

11 COMMISSIONER ROGERS: Oh, you didn't.

12 DR. MOELLER: -- we're trying, we now say, this

?.

L-- 13 fall. We certainly don't want to do it in the winter. ,

14 (Laughter.)

15 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Are there other questions?

16 Commissioner Roberts?

17 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS: No.

l 18 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Commissioner Rogers?

19 COMMISSIONER ROGERS: No.

20 CEAIRMAN ZECH: Commissioner Curtiss?

21 COMMISSIONER CURTISS: No.

22 CHAIRMAN ZECH: I have none. I'll be interested 23 -- I think the Commission will be particularly interested, l'

t

(, 24 after your visit, to make sure you have the same views, 25 but we're pleased to hear that you think things are going 1

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O C

31 1 very well right now.

{'

2 Shall we move to the next subject then?

3 DR. MOELLER: Dr. Steindler will talk about 4 greater-than-Class-C waste.

5 CHAIRMAN ZECH: All right.

6 DR. STEINDLER: This can be fairly brief. We've 7 looked at at least a portion of the greater-than-Class-C 8 issue. You can divide that greater-than-Class-C low-level 9 waste matter into, really, two parts. One of them is an 10 issue on rulemaking which is aimed at defining how this 11 waste is to be disposed of, and the other one is the 12 process of managing, right now, the unwanted source b.k 13 material and the sundry other components that are 14 classified as greater-than-Class-C low-level waste.

15 You remember that the rulemaking issues really 16 started out around the topic of redefinition of high-level 17 waste, and the Commission elected to, instead of doing 18 that, address the disposal of greater-than-Class-c low-19 level waste, and proposed to identify that that material 20 should be handled at least in a geologic disposal area, as j 21 one option for handling it in that direction.

22 At the seventh meeting in February, of the 23 Advisory Committee, we looked at the proposed amendment to

,..- 24 10 CFR 61 that addressed this issue, and we wrote to you, 25 Mr. Chairman, our agreement with the general prcposed (202)234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS & COMPANY, INC. (202)232-6600 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N.W., WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005

32 1 rule, and added two items. One, we added an item that we Ic L'

2 suggested an explicit s t a tiement , wherever possible, that 3 the Department of Energy has a range of options, that they 4 understood that they have a range of options, rather than 4

5 giving them the impression that they have to dispose of 6 this material in a repository.

7 And with that, we also recommended that the 8 staff should begin to specify waste package performance 9 criteria and requirements for this greater-than-Class-C 10 waste, so that DOE could then reflect on what kind of an 11 appropriate way they . would care to propose to the 12 Commission for the disposal of this material.

L,'.

u,_ 13 The staff response to our suggestion has been 14 excellent. They have-revised the text and made emphasis 15 wherever possible. I think that issue is fairly clear and 16 has been resolved.

17 In addition, in the statement of consideration 18 that's proposed for the Federal Register, there was added 19 a comment that the staff is going to initiate an effort to 20 specify in much more detail, the waste form and packaging 21 performance criteria for this type nf material, specific 22 for various kinds of greater-than-Class-C low-level waste.

23 -

We are aware of some of the concerns that DOE

! 24 has expressed, and we've read the documents that reported i ..

25 this, about this particular rule, including some (202)234-4433 IIE AL R . GROSS & COMPAIJY, ItJC . (202)232-6600 1323 RHODE ISLA!ID AVEIJUE, II . W . , W ASHIIIGTOII, D.C. 20005

., 33 ,

i 1 reservations about projected waste volumes and the l 2 uncertainty in those numbers, but we have not addressed 3 the issue any further than just reviewing the proposed 4 rule.

5 On the other hand, we understand that a more 6 pressing issue has been brought to your attention, and 7 that's concerning the process of disposing of the 8 increasing number of no longer needed sources.

9 Here, all we have done is maintain some kind of 10 cognizance of what the problem is, and we believe this to 11 be a -- what we would call a "non-technical" issue. This 12 is the issue that was involved in the derivaticn of a 13 process whereby the Department of Energy exercises the 14 responsibility that it has been given.

15 We think that the processes under study right 16 now, and the planning that's been done, should be 17 perfectly adequate to resolve this. We don't see any 18 particular advantage to the Commission, for us to address 19 this issue in one of our meetings and, unless you direct l 20 otherwise, we probably will watch to see what's going on, 21 rather than get specifically involved.

22 So, in summary then, this greater-than-Class C 23 low-level waste issue has been looked at from the 24 standpoint of the rulemaking. We've made some comments.

(. .5 The staff has responded perfectly adequately to the (202)234-4433 I!EAL R. GROSS & COMPANY, INC. (202)232-6600 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N.W., WASHItiGTON, D.C. 20005 i

l

. 34 1 concerns we have.

I

,t_ 2 We do look forward, however, in the not too 1

1

! 3 distant future, in receiving an indication from the staff 4 on what kind of a schedule they plan to follow in the 5 development of a waste -- essentially, the waste 6 acceptance criteria for greater-than-Class-C low-level 7 waste, and we do -- because we think it's important, we do 8 intend to track that process and interact with the staff, 9 to the extent that we can, as'they develop these criteria.

10 And, as I say, we think that the safe storage 11 process between Department of Energy and the various 12 licensees should be resolvable by a perfectly sensible i- 13 process, and we see no reason to pursue it.

L _.

'4 1 CHAIRMAN ZECH: All right. Thank you very much.

15 Any questions from my fellow Commissioners?

16 Commissioner Roberts?

17 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS: No.

18 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Commissioner Rogers?

19 COMMISSIONER ROGERS: Well, just on the changes 20 to the Federal Register notice that staff has made, and in 21 the letter that was sent to you, of February 24th, by Mr.

22 Stello, on final rulemaking on disposal of greater-than-23 Class-C low-level rr.dioactive waste, I just noted in 24 looking at that, that the -- in the background statement, i I

k~ 25 there is a final sentence -- I believe it's final, (202)234-4433 IIEAL R. GROSS & COMPANY, INC. (202)232-6600 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE!TUE, N.W., WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005

e.

l 35 1 although -- it's final on this page; whether it's final of

!' 2 a paragraph --

the technical criteria to implement the 3 performance objectives and environmental standards would 4 be developed by the Commission, after DOE had selected a 5 specific disposal technology and decided to pursue 6 development of an intermediate facility, and whether you 7 think that the.re is sufficient guidance to DOE? That 8 leaves me to wonder whether we're waiting to say something 9 about what we expect, after they've already decided to do 10 something, and I'm just a little concernod about whether 11 there is sufficient guidance there, as to what 12 requirements NRC might leave on an intermediate disposal 13 facility, and whether you've looked at that question, 14 whether you think there is sufficient guidance.

15 DR. STEINDLER: Yes, we very briefly looked at 16 it. One of the reasons for my comment about the fact that 17 we're looking forward to a schedule from the staff is, 18 essentially, precisely because of that concern.

19 It is difficult to envision how planning for a 20 significant option can be made, without some kind of 21 guidance. There exists guidance currently, in 10 CFR 60.

22 It is not directly applicable to the kind of waste we're j 23 talking about.

24 If the schedule of the staff for beginning this  :

25 process is sufficiently rapid, I think the problem will 1

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L ,- .-

e 36-1 resolve itself, but you're precisely correct.

g. .

(f . ,

2 COMMIS SIONER - ROGERS : I would ask you to just 3 try to follow that question, whether there is adequate 4 guidance,_ so that there isn't a - holdup because people

'S can't' move without somebody else having decided something

~6 that won't be decided _until the people move, you know.

7 DR. STEINDLER: Until somebody moves, right.

8 Exactly.

9 COMMISSIONER ROGERS: ~It's a circular problem.

10 DR. STEINDLER: Right.

11 COMMISSIONER ROGERS: Thank you.

12 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Commissioner Curtiss?

!. 13 COMMISSIONER CURTISS: Just to pick up'on that L._

14 same point and make sure I understand what you mean by the 15 development of waste acceptance criteria. When you say 16 that, do you mean not only the criteria for accepting the.

17 waste in the form that it's accepted in, but criteria that 18 would go to the facility at which it is to be stored or 19 . lisposed?

Y 20 DR. STEINDLER: Yes. We, as we appropriately 21 pointed out, should not assume- that the Department would 22 be interested in immediately moving that waste to the 23 Repository, once it became available.

24 There are undoubtedly suitable options, *

?:

' ~ ~

25 depending on the waste that's involved, that do not (202)234-4453 NEAL R. GROSS & COMPANY, It!C . (202)232-6600 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N.W., WASHINGTON,-D.C. 20005 1

37 1 involve the Repository. At this point, guidance on what 2 the criteria would be for the facility and its 3 performance, with whatever the waste form that you happen 4 to be interested in, are not very clear. It's that kind 5 of guidance now.

6 COMMISSIONER CURTISS: I gather one of the 7 problems in this area has been that there's been 8 considerable uncertainty over just how much greater-than-9 Class-C waste is out there, and what the source will be, 10 particularly in the decommissioning area where a lot of 11 this greater-than-Class-C waste may be generated.

12 What's your view on the feasibility of 13 developing acceptance criteria at. this stage, given the 14 uncertainty over the volumes and sources of the waste to 15 be generate'd?

16 DR. STEINDLER: My estimate would be that one 17 ought to be able to classify the greater-than-Class-C 18 waste composite inventory, into a number of classes, the 19 nuclides of which represent identifiable risks and, as a 20 consequence, if those classes of waste could be arrayed in 21 an appropriate way, you should be able to identify, even 22 without having a really close idea of how much material is 23 involved, what kind of protection one needs for a

~

24 particular, say, a neutron source.

4 25 You may not care whether you have one or a (202)234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS & COMPANY, INC. (202)232-6600 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N.W., WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005

38 1 hundred, but you do have some measure of what any i

t . 2 particular source --

encapsulation, for example, of the 3 waste package -- should look like.

4 COMMISSIOt1ER CURTISS: It looked to me like that 5 is a difficulty with that kind of approach. Arraying the 6 risk of the various types of greater-than-Class-C waste 7 from high. to low was essentially what the staff was 8 trying to do in its original rulemaking to define high-9 level waste and, after six or eight years of working on 10 that, this proposal that we have now may reflect a view 11 about visibility as a technical matter of parsing at that 12 finally, and saying -- and classifying the waste in a way

i. - 13 where you would say "this is high-level waste and, by L. _. '

14 definition, would have to go into a repository, and there 15 are intermediate and lower categories of waste that can go 16 elsewhere".

17 Is it your sense that the technical ranking of 18 the types of waste is something that could be pursued in a 19 manner along the lines of what was originally proposed in 20 the high-level waste definition rulemaking?

21 DR. STEIllDLER: I'm not sure about how it was 22 originally proposed, but it's certainly my sense that I 23 haven't seen anything that prevents me, a priori, from 24 believing that that kind of risk analysis can be made, -

i .

25 depending on the knowledge of what's in the waste, no.

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39 l l

1 COMMISSIONER CURTISS: Have you had a chance to i

2 take a look at DOE's views on this subject because I 3 gether they're talking about going back to the original 4 approach and trying to define what is and isn't high-5 level waste, rather than simply saying in the absence of 6 another facility to dispose of the waste, it will all go 7 into the Repository.

8 DR. STEINDLER: I'm aware of the DOE position 9 only in its broad outlines, We've not had -- the 10 Committee has not addressed the issue by asking DOE to 11 come in and tell us about it, but we certainly can.

12 CHAIRMAN ZECH: I think your suggestions to the 13 staff regarding the range of options was certainly a 14 sensible one, and the staff incorporated, as you have told 15 us here this morning.

16 Do you have anything specific in mind as 17 regarding options, other than the geologic repository, for 18 acceptable storage of, or disposal of, greater-than-Class-19 C waste?

20 DR. STEINDLER: No, not specific, and we've not 21 addressed that issue at all. It comes under the umbrella 22 heading of " greater confinement" in the common parlance, 23 and greater confinement can be almost anything you would 24 care to have between a repository -- i

{~ 25 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Do you know if anybody has 1

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40

+

1 really seriously addressed what might be greater I

L._ 2 confinement?

3 DR. STEINDLER: Oh, yes'.

4 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Yes. There's a fair amount of 5 --

6 DR. STEINDLER: The Department, as far as I 7 know, has issued a number --

8 CHAIRMAN ZECH: A fair amount of effort has been 9 -- gone on in that regard.

10 DR. STEINDLER: Yes.

11 CHAIRMAN ZECH: I think the only thing that the 12 Commission, when we've discussed this in past meetings,

! 13 it's simply been our view that we need to come up with a u.--

14 repository for greater-than-Class-C waste, but we've been 15 told that the amount of it is rather small, and it does 16 vary in its radiation levels, and it would seem that l

17 storing it in the repository would certainly be a very 18 acceptable way to store it.

19 I think we'd be very amenable to keeping an open 20 mind about other options, but I do believe that the other 21 options should perhaps be weighed against the advantages 22 and disadvantage of storing it in the repository.

23 So, whereas I certainly agree with your 24 suggestion to keep an open mind to the range of options--  ;

L

(- 25 and I think it's appropriate that you've included that--

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_ - _ _ _ _ __-_____________-__--_____-______-__________-___a

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. 41 1 I do feel that the repository would certainly be an i 2 acceptable, but I think we should look at the advantages 3 and disadvantages of the various options, before we make  !

4 any final decision.

5 We were briefed last month by the staff, on the 6 storage of surplus seal sources by the Department of 7 Energy, and have you had an opportunity to review that 8 proposal at all, yet?,

9 DR. STEINDLER: Well, we're aware of the fact 10 that you've been briefed, but the proposal to store seal 11 sources that we've looked at -- I mean, the paper that 12 we've looked at was not so specific as to identify a 13 particular facility or, for that matter, a particular 14 source term. ,

15 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Well, I think your views on 16 that, when you get a chance,'would be very useful to the 17 Commission.

18 Are there any other comments from my fellow 19 Commissioners? Commissioner Rogers?

20 COMMISSIONER ROGERS: Yes. I just wondered if 21 -- you just touched -- mentioned the words, but you didn't 22 say very much about mixed waste, and I don't want to open 23 up a whole new round of discussion, but I wonder if you've 24 been following the EPA-l!RC progress there.  :

(

25 We understand that from, I think, your last (202)234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS & COMPANY, INC. (202)232-6600 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N.W., WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005

_ .__ _ _ __-_______-_-____.____ - __ ,____-_- - __ A

i 42 1 meeting with us or the meeting in October, that you I

2 reported that MUMARC was preparing a report to be due in

]

3 January. Has that report come out, and have you had ' a 4 chance to look at it? Any thoughts on it, comments on it?

5 DR. MOELLER: I don't believe we've seen it. ,

6 Now, we are --

mixed waste is on the agenda for this 7 meeting. Several of us, informally, have been -- well, 8 we've been considering the matter for some months, and 9 several of us, informally, have asked whether, again, our 10 committee might serve a very useful purpose, by bringing 11 into one room industry and the staff, et cetera, DOE, and 12 just seeing if we couldn't get a -- you know, begin to I'L.x 13 resolve the issue, begin to reach a consensus on it.

14 There are,. of course, political -- a political 15 side to it, as you well know, in the dual jurisdiction or 16 responsibility, and most of the industry groups say "we 17 wish that NRC could handle it alone". I suppose there's 18 not a whole lot we could do there, but we certainly plan 19 -- we're going to discuss it at this meeting. We 20 certainly have it on the agenda for future meetings.

21 And while we're talking about West Valley, as 22 you had raised, Commissioner Rogers, there may be mixed 23 waste generated there.

24 And back on the greater-than-Class-C, of course, i f

g. .

w .u 25 we looked at it a year or so ago, and we were told the (202)234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS & COMPANY, INC. (202)232-6600 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N.W., WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005

. 43-1 same .as. Chairman Zech just said, that the volumes were 2 extremely small and, you know, it would only. take up a 3 little, tiny' corner of the repository, and just go ahead B

4 with ' it, and that seemed like a reasonable option and, 5 yet, what DOE simply is asking is, don't require the 6 repository, let us have the other options.

7 And as we dig into it, we're finding -- as these -

8 seal sources now have been brought up, we're' finding 9 additional greater-than-Class-C waste. One thing we .

.1 1'

10 really need to once, again, do is an inventory or a 11 projection of how much of this there's going to be.

12 Another comment on it is, when we were looking 13 at Yucca Mountain -- of course, the first repository is 14 limited by the Congress, to so-many -- 70,000, you know, 15 whatever metric tons of waste. Well, we're told that it's 16 quite possible that Yucca Mountain's capacity will not be 17 that large.

18 Well, if this is, indeed, the case, then it may 19 be more of a push to put greater-than-Class-C waste 20 'elsewhere, or find greater confinement. And, of course, 21 we have reviewed the greater confinement strategies

'22 because, as" you know, many states have vetoed shallow, or 23 what we'd call shallow-land burial, and say, we want 24 greater confinement in concrete bunkers, et cetera. $

& So, there are -- there's any degree or any level 25-(202)234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS & COMPANY, INC. (202)232-6600 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N.W., WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005

. 44

)

L 1 of confinement that you want. It can be provided and if, L i U- indeed, it's a whole lot cheaper than a repository,and if 2 f 1

3 it protects the public health and safety, then it should 4 be considered.

5 COMMISSIONER CURTISS: Let me jump back to mixed ,

6 waste, as long as the topic came up. One of the -- I 7 guess, one of the troubling things over the years, as I've 8 looked at that issue, is that it's unclear to me what we 9 get, in addition to the requirements that we impose under 10 our regulations, with the imposition of the subtitle (c) 11 r. requirements of RCRA for mix.ed waste, particularly where 12 the predominant hazard may be radioactive.

' 13 To put it differently, don't we essentially 14 achieve the objective, from a health and safety 15 standpoint, that RCRA would achieve laying on the 16 requirements that we've laid on for low-level waste 17 facilities?

18 I guess I'd be very interested, as you look at 19 the question of how much progress we're making generally, 20 if you could focus from a technical standpoint on whether 21 you see the requirements that we have in place essentially 22 providing the kind of protection that we would get with 23 the addition of the RCRA requirements or, alternatively, 5

y 24 do we get an additional level of protection from the RCRA L. . .

25 requirements that would warrant going through the turmoil (202)234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS & COMPANY, INC. (202)232-6600 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N.W., WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005

45 1 that I think many of the states in the low-level waste L_

2 area are going through, that DOE's going through now on 3 the WIPP facility, and that we may go through in other 4 contexts, if we don't. resolve it.

5 Th'ank you. .

6 DR. STEINDLER: On a purely qualitative basis, 7 the advantage that we have in the radioactive business is 8 that our problem goes away, by decay, whose rates we can 9 identify fairly.

10 The final degradability of some of the material 11 that's come under the heading of mixed waste is not only 12 uncertain, but the rates are difficult to predict. and I

u_ 13 it's in that sense that the protection that we afford 14 being time-dependent may be differen.t, but to assess that 15 in a particular way is the question that you're asking, 16 and I think one could certainly address that by looking at 17 what's known on the disappearance of the hazard from the 18 chemical portion of the mixed waste.

19 COMMISSIONER CURTISS: Well, I'd be interested 20 in what you have to say on that. Thank you.

21 CHAIRMAt! ZECH: Any other corrments?

22 ( fic response.)

23 Well, let me, on behalf of the Commission, thank 1

24 you very much for a timely and informative briefing this 25 morning. The safe disposal of nuclear waste is a l

(202)234-4433 IIEAL R . GROSS & COMPA1IY, It!C . (202)232-6600 1323 PHODE ISLAND AVEliUE, II . W . , WASHI!!GTO11, D.C. 20005

?'

46 1 significant public issue that requires the best efforts of

'- 2 al,1 of us involved, and as advisors to the Commission, 3 your role is a very important one.

4 I believe I speak on behalf of all of my 5 colleagues when I can say that we're very pleased with the 6 committee's efforts to-date, to keep up-to-date and to 7 keep abreast of the significant waste management issues.

8 I note that you are working very closely with 9 the fir C staff, and you're providing periodic 10 recommendations to the Commission prior to the Commission 11 m.aking decisions, and that's very important. And I'd like 12 to also comment on what I sense anyway, I believe, and my Y

g_ 13 colleagues would join with me, as a positive and 14 constructive, helpful approach to your assignment as the 15 Advisory Committee on fluelear Waste.

16 I think that attitude is very helpful to the 17 Commission, and I want to emphasize that. We appreciate 18 it very much. You have a very large task to perform for 19 us. Your advise is extremely important to us, and we 20 appreciate very much the way you're going about your 21 business.

22 I think it's important that we continue to meet 23 periodically with the committee in order to keep informed

p. 24 about the thoughts you have, the recommendations you have, L-25 the comments you have, so that we can, in time, make the

( 202 ) 2 34-44 33 11EAL R. GROSS & COMPATIY, Ilic . (202)232-6600 1323 RHODE ISLAIID AVEt!UE, N.W., WASHIIIGTO11, D.C. 20005

k = -

i r, 47 l

l 1 best decisions possible.

2 We thank you very much for your information this 3 morning and, again, for the constructive approach you're 4 taking to your duties on the Advisory Committee for 5 Nuclear Waste. We appreciate it very much.

6 Are there any other comments? Yes?

7 COMMISSIONER ROGERS: Just that I want to say 8 that I thought this was a very, very helpful briefing, and 9 that we covered an enormous amount of ground in a very 10 short time with great clarity, and I appreciate it very 11 m.uch. I think that the committee is doing a superb job.

12 DR. MOELLER: Well, thank you, sir, the feeling I 13 is mutual. We admire what you're doing.

14 CHAIRMAN ZECH: All right. Thank you very much.

15 other comments?

16 (No response.)

17 Thank you, again. We stand adjourned.

18 (Whereupon, at 11:08 a.m., the meeting was 19 adjourned.)

20 21 22 23 .

5 24 t

25 (202)234-4433 IIEAL R . GROSS & COMPANY, I!!C . (202)232-6600 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N.W., WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005

I e,

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CERTIFICAT5 0F TRANSCRIBER This is to certify that the attached events of a meeting of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission entitled:

TITLI 0F MEETING: PERIODIC BRIEFING BY ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON NUCLEAR WASTE (ACNW)

PLACE OF MEETING: ROCKVILLE, MARYLAND DATE OF MEETING: APRIL 27, 1989 were transcribed by me. I further certify that said transcription is accurate and complete, to the best of my ability, and that the transcript is a true and accurate record of the foregoing events.

/ ^ A*-

L-f L

Reporter's name: Phyllis Young 4.

J e

e HEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTER $ AND TRANSCRIBER $

1323 RHODE 6.%AND AVENUE, N.W.

WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005 (202) 232 4 600 (202) 234-4433

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! TRANSMITTAL TO: t/- Document Control Desk, 016 Phillips t

3 ADVANCED COPY TO: The Public Document Room DATE: Sf9f.S4 5 FROM: SECY Correspondence & Records Branch I I Attached are copies of a Commission meeting transcript and related meeting i, document (s). They are being forwarded for entry on the Daily Accession List and I i

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placement in the Public Document Room.

required.

No other distribution is requested or Meeting

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Meeting Date: M[$.?[84 Open / Closed i:'" -

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