ML20309B037

Comment (10295) E-mail Regarding ISP-CISF Draft EIS

ML20309B037
Person / Time
Site:	Consolidated Interim Storage Facility
Issue date:	11/03/2020
From:	Public Commenter Public Commenter
To:	NRC/NMSS/DREFS
NRC/NMSS/DREFS
References
85FR27447
Download: ML20309B037 (51)

Text

From: Barbara Warren <warrenba@msn.com>

Sent: Tuesday, November 3, 2020 2:46 PM To: Park, James

Subject:

[External_Sender] Fw: Docket ID NRC-2016-0231; Report Number NUREG-2239; License application of Interim Storage Partners (ISP) to operate a Consolidated Interim Storage Facility for Spent Nuclear Fuel in Andrews County Texas; NRC's ISP/WCS CISF DEIS Attachments: Final NRC comments on ISP CIS & EIS.pdf; Final NRC Comments on GTCC.pdf I also sent to the other address, but there is no receipt.

Barbara Warren From: Barbara Warren Sent: Tuesday, November 3, 2020 11:18 AM To: WCS_CISF_EIS@nrc.gov

Subject:

Re: Docket ID NRC-2016-0231; Report Number NUREG-2239; License application of Interim Storage Partners (ISP) to operate a Consolidated Interim Storage Facility for Spent Nuclear Fuel in Andrews County Texas; NRC's ISP/WCS CISF DEIS Re: Docket ID NRC-2016-0231; Report Number NUREG-2239; License application of Interim Storage Partners (ISP) to operate a Consolidated Interim Storage Facility for Spent Nuclear Fuel in Andrews County Texas; NRC's ISP/WCS CISF DEIS NRC, please see comments attached as well as earlier joint comments on GTCC proceeding.

I will also forward Sierra Club document completed in August 2020 in a separate email.

Thank you, Barbara Warren

Federal Register Notice: 85FR27447 Comment Number: 10295 Mail Envelope Properties (DM6PR19MB388353A4568C44778385634DDB110)

Subject:

[External_Sender] Fw: Docket ID NRC-2016-0231; Report Number NUREG-2239; License application of Interim Storage Partners (ISP) to operate a Consolidated Interim Storage Facility for Spent Nuclear Fuel in Andrews County Texas; NRC's ISP/WCS CISF DEIS Sent Date: 11/3/2020 2:45:47 PM Received Date: 11/3/2020 2:46:51 PM From: Barbara Warren Created By: warrenba@msn.com Recipients:

Post Office: DM6PR19MB3883.namprd19.prod.outlook.com Files Size Date & Time MESSAGE 905 11/3/2020 2:46:51 PM Final NRC comments on ISP CIS & EIS.pdf 476602 Final NRC Comments on GTCC.pdf 944890 Options Priority: Standard Return Notification: No Reply Requested: No Sensitivity: Normal Expiration Date:

Recipients Received:

Main Office: 422 Oakland Valley Rd. Cuddebackville, NY 12729 Phone 845-754-7951 E-mail: warrenba@msn.com November 3, 2020 US Nuclear Regulatory Commission Washington, DC 20555-0001 Submitted via: WCS_CISF_EIS@nrc.gov Re: Docket ID NRC-2016-0231; Report Number NUREG-2239; License application of Interim Storage Partners (ISP) to operate a Consolidated Interim Storage Facility for Spent Nuclear Fuel in Andrews County Texas; NRC's ISP/WCS CISF DEIS

Dear NRC Commissioners and Staff,

This public comment is in response to the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (Docket ID NRC-2016-0231) regarding Interim Storage Partner's (ISP) application for a license to build and operate a Consolidated Interim Storage Facility for Spent Nuclear Fuel in Andrews County, Texas (NUREG-2239).

Initially WCS applied to the NRC but then withdrew its application. By letter dated June 8, 2018, Interim Storage Partners, LLC (ISP), a joint venture between WCS and Orano CIS, LLC (a subsidiary of Orano USA), requested that the NRC resume its review of the CISF license application under its new name, reflecting the organization of the joint venture. With this request, ISP submitted a revised license application, later updated on July 19, 2018, that included a revised Environmental Report (ER) and revised Safety Analysis Report (SAR). The proposed ISP CISF would provide an option for storing SNF from U.S. commercial nuclear power reactors for a period of 40 years.

(Executive Summary of Environmental Report). NRC clarifies that this action that is under review is only for Phase 1 of the project involving 5000 metric tons of SNF, GTCC and MOx.

A Clean Environment* Green Purchasing* Pollution Prevention* Healthy People* Green Jobs* Zero Waste A Healthy Economy* A Sustainable Future

I Deregulating high level radioactive waste Multiple proceedings have occurred under the Trump administration to deregulate radioactive waste. Deregulation results in weakening of standards and rules which provide essential protections- health, safety and environmental- from the extraordinary hazards posed by high level radioactive waste and Spent Nuclear Fuel (SNF). Both of our nuclear agencies- DOE & NRC- have recently been involved in deregulation.

Deregulation is associated with weakening the input of scientists and health experts, limited standards and regulations, increasing many costs borne by the public and local government entities and reducing costs for private businesses.

The Federal Government launched this proceeding to deal with large quantities of spent nuclear fuel, after failing to develop the preferred long term solution, a site suitable for geological disposal. The absence of a long term repository also resulted in lawsuits by the nuclear industry, which has forced the government to make payments to nuclear industry owners for continued storage of spent nuclear fuel. According to the US Government Accounting Office (GAO), a government investigator and overseer, spent nuclear fuel is the most hazardous substance known. It should be obvious that the most hazardous substance known, which remains hazardous for thousands to millions of years, should be explicitly excluded from all deregulatory efforts.

If NRC and DOE continue to proceed with deregulation, major efforts should be undertaken to analyze the proposals in depth for the long term radiological impacts on health and the environment including complete understanding of intergenerational impacts for future generations, if institutional controls are unfunded or inadequate. The future economic and health burdens will fall on our children, and many future generations. Multiple different radionuclides and their products of decay create complex exposures that can add or multiple the effects of other radionuclides and hazardous substances.

A. In October of 2018 DOE Proposed the Re-Interpretation of High Level Radioactive Waste (HLW)

DOE said its interpretation under this proposal does not require the removal of key radionuclides to the maximum extent that is technically and economically practical before DOE can define waste as non-HLW.

There was no scientific, technical or economic justification for this decision. It was not consistent with trying to isolate long- lived radionuclides from humans.

Merely changing the definition does not reduce the dangers or risks of the radionuclides present.

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B. Approximately one year later in November of 2019 NRC proposed to deregulate Greater than Class C waste.

Three classes of radioactive wastes are allowed to be buried in surface disposal facilities- Class A, B & C which are all considered Low level radioactive waste. In contrast disposal of Greater than Class C radioactive waste currently requires a geological repository (which is not considered to be land disposal).

The proposal before the public was whether to allow Near Surface Disposal for Greater than Class C radioactive waste (GTCC waste), weakening public and environmental protections. It is our understanding that NRC has not finalized a decision regarding this proposal. Given the many complexities associated with Greater than Class C radioactive waste, it is astonishing to see that NRC is proposing to include it to be stored at the ISP proposed site in the absence of finalizing their Greater than Class C proposal and making all needed changes to 10 CFR 61 and important tables.

The ISP proposal is for Consolidated Interim Storage, NOT Surface Disposal of GTCC waste. A permit for Storage would be accomplished under a Part 72 permit using a Case by Case basis. NRCs ultimate decision regarding GTCC waste is unknown at this time. We verified this on November 2, 2020.

However, there are multiple hurdles to be overcome:

Greater than Class C radioactive waste, as described in multiple documents completed by DOE and NRC, identifies an extraordinary complex mixture of radionuclides that are gases, liquids and solids, that sometimes deliver high doses to humans if not handled remotely, that are sometimes contaminated with hazardous chemicals, that can contain enough special nuclear material to be a risk for a criticality, that contain very long lived radionuclides and transuranics, that decay to other radionuclides with different properties, that can generate gases in enclosed containers and create an explosion risk. This waste must be separated and managed based on specific characteristics. It cannot be handled as a single category.

NRC in its own analyses found doses of 10,000 millirems per year, 10,000 years after final disposal. The acceptable single dose of radiation is approximately 25 millirems. NRCs existing regulations make GTCC waste unacceptable for near-surface disposal.

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NRC has difficulty rationalizing the problem of long- lived radionuclides that can expose the public to high dose exposures as far into the future as 10,000 years post closure. Such a lengthy time period induces a great deal of uncertainty, for example- the Great Lakes were formed about 10,000 years ago. DOEs FEIS analysis also found doses as large as 10,000 mrem/year. Despite such alarming findings, NRC hangs on to an erroneous belief that engineered barriers and ideal physical site conditions can secure the waste and protect public health with reliance on passive management only, in the absence of ongoing active measures to secure the waste.

Three classes of waste were originally defined: Class A, B and C. At the time the regulations were developed LLRW was envisioned to be waste that decayed to acceptable levels by either 100 years for Class A or B or 500 years for Class C. The structure of NRC LLRW regulations was developed around this concept.

NRC never talked about acceptable exposure levels for GTCC - the doses are significantly higher than for Class C LLRW and provide higher doses up to and beyond 10,000 years when any remaining disposal site integrity is unlikely.

Some GTCC waste streams emit such high dose rates that they can only be handled with remote equipment to avoid high exposures. This is true of some transuranic waste at the West Valley nuclear site in NY.

Some GTCC streams pose criticality risks due to Special Nuclear Material.

Some GTCC waste streams have large quantities of Transuranic materials. Some of these are long lived and pose unique hazards for inhalation and ingestion as alpha emitters. However, it is not clear that the weighting factor of 20 for alpha particles was applied in the exposure assessment.

A limited set of operational accidents were analyzed - damage to a waste container from dropping or low speed vehicle collisions.

Due to large doses of radioactivity in GTCC waste, the impacts of accidents are larger and the margin for operations or system error are significantly smaller compared to Classes A, B and C waste. Therefore the management controls and other systems must be more robust. (NRC Regulatory Basis, p. B-10)

However, a real operational accident (non-fire) at Hanford that contaminated 4

workers with plutonium and spread the contamination for over 3 square miles did occur this year.

A fire analysis revealed that a release via fire could expose people to 16 Rems of radioactivity, a significant exposure, far above allowable worker annual exposure levels.

GTCC with high TRU content was not evaluated in the NRC analysis.

Special phenomena related to GTCC waste disposal were not evaluated: Heat generation, radiolytic gas generation and criticality. These phenomena could affect the release rates from the disposal facility and cause impacts to offsite members of the public or an intruder.

Most of the evaluation focused on post-closure of a near-surface disposal site.

The operational period of receiving, assessing, sorting and placing waste into the disposal location and the length of the period in years was not evaluated. The operational period is likely most applicable to the ISP CIS facility.

While a few natural phenomena were considered, climate change impacts related to worsening or exacerbating weather events were not. Extreme rainfall could have impacts on GTCC waste and its containment prior to final closure of a disposal site.

Whereas doses to a hypothetical inadvertent intruder are generally decreasing with time, doses to an offsite individual from GTCC waste disposal are generally increasing with time up to 10,000 years after disposal. NRC Regulatory Basis, p.

B-18.

The inadvertent intruder excavation results show large impacts exceeding 10,000 mrem doses, which persist for more than 10,000 years for over half of the GTCC waste streams.

The dose for exposure is the result of the likelihood of exposure times the radionuclide concentrations. Because GTCC waste streams have much higher concentrations than Class, A, B and C, even infrequent events could contribute more significantly to total exposure and risks.

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NRC findings of its own analyses demonstrated that near surface disposal will not isolate the waste over the long term and will expose the public to huge radiation doses exceeding 10,000 millirems as long as 10,000 years after final disposal.

C. Transportation Deregulation To comply with the National Environmental Policy Act and out of an abundance of caution our nuclear agencies studied all of the difficulties and potential problems associated with a massive transportation campaign that will take decades to complete.

The agencies engaged numerous experts to deal with the training of emergency responders, the stockpiling of emergency supplies and established a large number of new regulations to address the issues identified for long term transportation of very hazardous SNF. This paragraph is NOT TRUE. It is fictional.

Neither of our nuclear agencies tackled the enormous task of addressing transportation of SNF across the country to the proposed CIS facilities in New Mexico & Texas, and the many potential hazards. Neither did NRC comply with established law in the National Environmental Policy Act that requires transportation to be studied in an environmental impact statement as an essential element of a new facility. The lack of detailed review of transportation has allowed a large area of concern to escape any public review. The absence of important information currently will facilitate the deregulation of many future transportation decisions, escaping even adequate state and local considerations.

We want to stress that the Federal Community Right to Know Act recognized important rights for the public regarding hazardous materials and also established the availability of information and what is required for emergency planning. Community Right to Know is a critically important right that unfortunately has been hindered by inadequate funding. Transportation has received little focus and it is likely to incur serious community impacts, as a result of inadequate funding and analysis to date.

Here we highlight some of the numerous issues of concern and policy recommendations of the National Sierra Club 2020 in their final report dealing with Spent Nuclear Fuel.

1) Many elected leaders have discussed a National Infrastructure bill for more than a decade. Despite the increasing need for infrastructure funding our leaders have failed to supply the funding. The American Society of Civil 6

Engineers regularly issues a national report card. ASCEs latest Infrastructure Report Card gave the nations 16 infrastructure categories a cumulative grade of D+. The ASCE has identified this time as an ideal time to fund infrastructure projects given low interest rates. States are also suffering budget shortfalls related to the Covid pandemic. Such funding would also provide many job opportunities.

https://www.infrastructurereportcard.org/asce-engage-details/?id=508114 In the absence of major amounts of funding and time to address the most significant degradation of infrastructure across the nation, we need to plan for major transportation disasters involving nuclear waste.

2) The D+ grade for infrastructure and the long term lack of funding means that infrastructure has continued to deteriorate, making trips with the extremely heavy loads of SNF a potentially very dangerous situation. DOE has been constructing a special rail car for rail transportation. However it is possible that DOE may also be using trucks and barges for some parts of the transportation, which require different evaluations. Barges pose additional serious hazards if SNF containers should fall into the water, because water enables uncontrolled nuclear fission to proceed.

3) Climate change and associated severe weather impacts have further degraded infrastructure in many areas of the country. Very comprehensive evaluations will be needed to evaluate potential severe weather impacts to transportation infrastructure, and make corrections to route infrastructure.

4) Overall federal transportation expenditures have increased threefold, primarily for highways, while aviation funds quadrupled. In contrast federal rail expenditures have declined in real dollar numbers by almost half. The Association of American Railroads (AAR) 2007 Study identified a need for

$135 billion just to address the heaviest Class I freight rail roads, needed for SNF cask transport. As a result there are likely very large unmet needs for rail lines.

5) There will be extensive personnel training needs associated with years of SNF transportation. Federal, State and local personnel will be necessary for inspection and maintenance, route planning and training for emergency response personnel. A variety of technical expertise will be needed. It is particularly important to recognize the degree of reliance on local volunteer crews for emergency response and the level of training they will need for responding to a radiological emergency.

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6) A comprehensive system of accident and incident reporting as well as investigation is needed for all SNF and other radiological shipments, led by the National Transportation Safety Board. Radiological shipments must have an official regulatory system similar to other hazardous materials with monitoring, reporting and investigations of incidents and accidents, associated with adverse outcomes. It is not acceptable that only radioactive shipments escape the purview and expertise of the independent NTSB, which can also issue reports and make recommendations for improvements.

7) The National Transportation Safety Boards (NTSB) investigations have identified multiple rail accidents that point to inadequate track maintenance and inspections, as well as insufficient oversight and enforcement by federal inspectors. As a result, the NTSB has said there is a need for particular attention on maintenance, inspection, and repair for all routes handling hazardous materials. This would include SNF.

8) The NTSB has recommended the replacement of older tanker cars with newer models that have more features to protect against a catastrophic release of hazardous materials. SNF should also not be traveling on the same route with other hazardous materials, increasing the potential for catastrophe. The NTSB has investigated accidents involving flammable materials that burned for more than 24 hours2.777778e-4 days <br />0.00667 hours <br />3.968254e-5 weeks <br />9.132e-6 months <br />. Such fires would jeopardize containment.

9) A major accident at Battelle Labs in Ohio resulted in the widespread dispersal of SNF which was oxidized during transport from Connecticut. The oxidation of the fuel increased the volume of the fuel and caused the rupture of the fuel rods. The overheated canister exploded upon pool immersion spreading the oxidized fuel and radionuclides over the entire area of the pool. As a result of this incident, NRC required helium to be present in SNF canisters as a requirement for all SNF shipments. However, surprisingly NRC is now proposing to allow confirmation that helium is still present in canisters to be done only upon arrival at a CIS facility.

Collectively transportation issues represent very serious risks associated with CIS proposals. The absence of careful analysis that identifies corrective actions magnifies the risks.

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II Essential information pertaining to the parties in the business relationship should be transparent, not restricted by NRC as proprietary information, and thus not available to the public.

Unfortunately, there is little transparency regarding the relationships and responsibilities of the owners/operators of this CIS facility and other controlling or involved entities.

Interim Storage Partners, LLC (ISP) is proposing to lease property from Waste Control Specialists (WCS) for approximately 20 years, while a permanent repository may not be ready to receive highly radioactive waste for 100 years. Leasing and ownership are quite different in terms of responsibilities, especially for businesses that have potential for significant environmental impacts and liability for long term cleanup costs.

Principals with the required expertise must be available 24 hours2.777778e-4 days <br />0.00667 hours <br />3.968254e-5 weeks <br />9.132e-6 months <br /> a day, to provide approval for emergency actions given the nature of the hazardous operations that will be undertaken.

Under the nations environmental laws, property owners are assigned greater responsibility than those who only have a lease agreement. This is even more complicated by the fact that Orano, USA LLC is majority owned and controlled by an entity of the French government. Complete information should be available to the public, as well as potentially involved federal, state and local officials concerning all agreements related to the management of the leased property, handling and monitoring of all hazardous materials, escrow funds to pay for contamination or other adverse events and recovery, fees adequate to cover local emergency services for the facility, etc.

Ownership and financial and other responsibilities should be clearly defined for the full duration of consolidated storage, pending transfer to a permanent repository. The public should have legal and financial assurance that the hazards and risks will not be abandoned and ultimately left to be borne by the public. NRC should not be allowed to restrict such important information unless NRC and the federal government accept full responsibility for any damages and environmental cleanup.

We have not seen an examination of potential for adverse impacts at this facility, which could affect US foreign policy with France as well as our relationship with NATO.

III Consolidation of SNF in a single or a few locations could encourage reprocessing.

Reprocessing is a failed endeavor worldwide. Any rationale for engaging in reprocessing falls apart upon examination. Multiple experts have detailed the enormous 9

problems associated with reprocessing. (See reports by von Hippel, Makhijani and Alvarez below.)

von Hippel, Frank. Managing Spent Fuel in the US: The Illogic of Reprocessing. Research Report of the International Panel on Fissile Materials. Jan 2007.

Alvarez, Robert. Radioactive Wastes & the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, Institute for Policy Studies in collaboration with Friends of the Earth, USA and the Government Accountability Project.

Makhijani, Arjun, PhD. The Mythology and Messy Reality of Nuclear Fuel Reprocessing.

Institute for Energy and Environmental Research. Apr 2010.

We list some of the major issues and problems here:

• A key driver for reprocessing, uranium fuel shortages, no longer exists.

• The development and use of MOX fuel is an essential step in reprocessing.

The US government invested in this process at the Savannah River plant; but it was finally cancelled in 2019, due to exorbitant and rising costs in the tens of billions of dollars.

• Since plutonium is no longer used as nuclear fuel, excess plutonium is currently being stockpiled as waste. The existing stockpile is enough to make tens of thousands of nuclear weapons.

• Global surveillance to police the associated threat of weapons development and use requires extraordinary levels of effort on the part of the US.

• Reprocessing is many times more costly than long-term storage and disposal.

• Significant public health, safety and environmental risks are involved.

• Reprocessing requires other costly facilities -- breeder or burner reactors --

that are sodium- cooled. Worldwide, breeder reactors have proved dangerous, experimental, expensive and not effective at reducing the volume of high-level waste. At present only Russia has operational breeder reactors.

• The private sector has indicated they will not pay for all that is required.

The cost must be paid by the federal government.

• The governments failed effort to promote commercial reprocessing at West Valley, NY has left high-level radioactive waste, including the majority of Greater than Class C waste in the nation, to endanger the Great Lakes with contamination by long-lived radionuclides.

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Given the enormous problems associated with reprocessing, the NRC should not allow reprocessing to enter into consideration via a back door - via permitting of a Consolidated Interim Storage facility.

IV Consolidated Interim Storage Facilities are the first of their kind long term but temporary storage facilities for commercial irradiated nuclear fuel or spent nuclear fuel (SNF).

A. NRC failed to adopt new comprehensive regulations for these newly proposed interim storage facilities. Despite the significance of the hazards, including catastrophic risks, rather than develop regulations appropriate to the hazards and risks, NRC merely used existing regulations for dry storage of SNF at reactors. Such ISFSIs (independent spent fuel storage installations) at nuclear reactors hold a small fraction of the radioactive fuel planned for the current CIS Facilities.

B. NRC adopted the final Continued Storage Rule in 2014. This rule required all dry storage facilities to build Radiation Shielded Dry Transfer Systems (DTSs) - even including those at nuclear reactors that have had dry storage for as long as 100 years. These heavily shielded dry transfer facilities, including air filters, would enable remote handling of casks and canisters to transfer SNF to new containers while preventing radiation exposure of workers. At nuclear reactors it would facilitate thorough inspection for corrosion or cracking of containment and ensure that helium is still present prior to shipment. The absence of these facilities at a CIS facility means there is no way to handle any damaged casks or leaking casks upon arrival after experiencing shocks and vibrations from long distance transport to a CIS facility. NRC first assumes there will be no damages after potentially traveling thousands of miles being subjected to significant vibrations and jolts. However, if there is damage, NRC accepts an unacceptable solution -

merely returning the cask to the sender despite the potential for a damaged cask to leak significant radiation over the return triproughly equivalent to what was released from the Chernobyl disaster.

NRC has not explained why it failed to adopt New Regulations for proposed CIS facilities or why it is not requiring huge new facilities with thousands of tons of Spent Nuclear fuel to build Dry Transfer Systems as required in the 11

NRC 2014 Final Rule. In the absence of a DTS facility, there is potential for a major radioactive release to occur because there is no other planned means of containing a radioactive release. There are no other available tools. A Return to sender policy is just irresponsible. It likely means local towns and officials will struggle to obtain the funding and resources so they can handle a radiological emergency. However even if they might be able to afford the resources, they wont have the expertise to manage such serious events at the local level.

C. Two very important requirements are not being applied by NRC to the ISP CIS facility and shipments of SNF:

1) The first requirement relates to NRCs existing requirement to require inert gases to be inserted into SNF canisters prior to shipping spent nuclear fuel. Following a severe accident that occurred at Battelle National Labs, NRC required that helium or other inert gases be utilized for all SNF shipments to avoid fuel oxidation and ruptured fuel rods. This accident contaminated the entire fuel pool area at Battelle. Since dry storage casks may have been sitting a sites for twenty years, it is possible that helium has leaked and is no longer present. NRC would now be allowing shipping to occur without verifying the presence of inert gas or helium first.

2) DTSs could be required at all existing reactor sites prior to shipping SNF elsewhere. In this way DTSs would enable inspections of stainless steel containers for corrosion or cracking prior to a long journey to a CIS facility.

At a CIS facility a DTS would enable internal inspections of canisters for cracking or corrosion, or other abnormal findings in addition to repackaging in the case of damaged canisters.

The current NRC plan to Return to Sender all damaged containers is totally unacceptable and carries very high risks of a massive radiation release affecting populations along the route. This is just one example of inadequate analysis of major health and safety impacts characterized as small to moderate impacts by NRC.

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V Two official advisory bodies have weighed in. The US Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board is an official advisory body, providing oversight and recommendations related to nuclear waste and transportation. Sandia National Laboratories has identified needed research especially relevant to CIS facilities.

1) The 2019 US Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board report, Preparing for Nuclear Waste Transportation: Technical Issues That Need to Be Addressed in Preparing for a Nationwide Effort to Transport Spent Nuclear Fuel and High-Level Radioactive Waste, identified 30 technical issues to be resolved prior to transportation of SNF, which will require significant planning, integration, and interaction with other federal agencies, the nuclear industry, state and local agencies, and others. The major undertaking could take longer than 10 years. The Board highlighted the need for a repackaging facility saying it is an important critical missing element for transport and disposal that will be a major undertaking. If no repackaging occurs, some of the largest SNF canisters storing the hottest fuel would not be cool enough to meet transportation requirements until approximately 2100.

2) Sandia National Labs has identified priority research gaps, which relate directly to important considerations for CIS facilities such as long term containment.

We have focused on the highest priorities identified by Sandia NL, numbered 1-

3. It is notable that NRC is planning for CIS when such major and significant research gaps exist. The years necessary to fill these priority gaps were not identified. Significant research gaps related to CIS facilities ability to contain radionuclides, withstand the stress of transportation, and repackage SNF from failed containers should have been addressed prior to proceeding with permitting.

Top Research Gap Priorities: Total 6 Research Gap Priorities 3 Priority #1 Research Gaps Priority #1 Welded Canister-Atmospheric Corrosion Priority #1 -This was a changed priority from #3, due to near term need to acquire data on Stress Corrosion Cracking of canisters.

Priority #1 Thermal or Temperature Profiles- They plan to use a dry cask simulator and test horizontal positions. Additional modeling work is also needed 13

to better predict temperatures from decay heat transfer. This is important as NRC has been approving higher heat loads for canisters.

Priority #1 Stress Profiles They plan to fully analyze stress associated with transportation.

1 Priority #2 Research Gap related to water remaining after drying Drying Issues- Gas samples were pulled from small representative canisters as well as the High Burnup Demo Project cask. Water was found to remain after drying, providing a source of hydrogen for hydride formation, which causes embrittlement of fuel rods. The HBF Demo Cask was found to have 17,000 ppm of water or 100 ml. within the helium backfill.

2 Priority #3 Gaps Fuel Transfer Options- Priority #3, previously Priority #4 This priority has been raised recognizing the need for data to support a surface facility design concept for opening a cask for inspection or repackaging at a consolidated interim storage facility.

These gaps are not described in detail. It is worth noting that the NRC had some sort of design concept when it proposed Dry Transfer Systems in 2014. It is not clear to us why this would need more research versus just arranging for adequate engineering and health and safety personnel to provide more detail than the original plan.

External Monitoring- Priority #3 This item highlights the fact that we lack the ability to monitor canister degradation over time. EPRI, the Electric Power Research Institute, has taken the lead role in identifying non-destructive techniques for monitoring to use in the limited space between the canister and concrete cask. Inspection techniques include- visual, eddy current, ultrasonic, electromagnetic surface transducers and surface sampling. DOE has focused on non-destructive examinations and less proven technologiesacoustic emissions, laser induced breakdown spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy, guided wave technology and emission source tomography.

VI Radiological Chaos threatens our nations future health and well- being.

Our nation already has widespread contamination from nuclear weapons, nuclear power and radioactive waste. Widespread contamination across the nation awaits 14

adequate cleanup, however, we have failed to impose adequate controls to prevent this problem from worsening. The result of this increasing problem is reduced funding for individual sites, less oversight, increased accidents and spreading radioactive contamination, which threatens to leave a massive problem for the next generation. All of this is happening while severe climate change impacts are often beyond our ability to control, and exceeding our ability to prevent the spread of radioactive contamination.

Examples include severe weather events and wildfires. Climate change and extreme weather events are increasing the immediacy of dealing with radioactive contamination and the impacts on health and safety.

A. The nation has a massive backlog of nuclear waste sites that require extensive cleanups.

In 2019 the General Accounting Office reported that these cleanups represented growing environmental liabilities for the Department of Energy, which were 8 times actual spending on nuclear waste cleanups as of the end of FY 2018, $377 billion was needed compared to $46.8 billion appropriated. The funding gap was so severe, that DOE refused to accept the transfer of some sites from NNSA, the National Nuclear Securities Administration, usual practice for this defense part of DOE. It also can take a few years to actually quantify the cleanup needs for a site and assign a dollar cost for it. For new sites, this takes a few years. Thus even the $377 billion dollar need was an underestimate. See GAO-19-28 DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY Program-Wide Strategy and Better Reporting Needed to Address Growing Environmental Cleanup Liability Jan 29, 2019 https://www.gao.gov/assets/700/696632.pdf Since this report the defense side of DOE has received more funding than nuclear waste cleanups.

B. The Law of Entropy, or the second law of thermodynamics, along with the first law of thermodynamics comprise the most fundamental laws of physics.

Entropy (the subject of the second law) and energy (the subject of the first law) and their relationship are fundamental to an understanding not just of physics, but of life A simple example is that of an adult cleaning house and starting by putting away all the toys, books, newspapers etc. that are lying about. The effort involves work and putting things away by categorizing them and storing in appropriate places. Energy is used to put the home in reasonable order. Radioactive materials require significant human energy and effort to maintain the ORDER that is absolutely necessary to prevent the dispersal of long-lived radionuclides into the environment and into humans. Such order includes maintaining containment of radioactive materials, 15

monitoring for instability and adverse conditions. Human and organizational failings, inadequate budgets and other priorities always limit our collective ability to successfully maintain the ORDER, required to contain radioactivity and prevent public exposures. Collectively our failures to tightly control and maintain orderly and rigidly controlled inventories of radionuclides will allow adverse impacts on our environment and the health of future generations with attendant consequences such as birth defects and cancer. Some radionuclides are very long- lived and have the ability to adversely impact many generations in the future. This is referred to as intergenerational injustice.

As a nation we have failed at achieving the required isolation and are paying the price at many nuclear facilities around the countryHanford and Savannah River are just a few of the hundreds of sites that collectively need thousands of years of work - just to temporarily contain and limit the dangerous DISORDER that the Law of Entropy guarantees. Inadequate budgets, too few personnel, inadequate regulation and oversight - all allow disorder to increase.

We are all facing a new threat from the current proposals for interim storage of spent nuclear fuel -the most hazardous substance on Earth, according to the US Government Accountability Office. In evaluating the licensing of CIS facilities NRC should consider the collective radioactive mess we have created since the dawn of the nuclear age. Cataloging the extent of spread of radioactive contamination and identifying the risks at multiple facilities would be a means of developing a nationwide risk assessment for the federal government approach to understanding the impacts of Entropy on nuclear facilities and surrounding communities.

It would be more meaningful to evaluate the nations existing state of radioactive contamination including safeguards and notable failures rather than permitting an enormous CIS facility based on simple non-scientific judgements such as identifying impacts as small, medium or large. In fact we believe NRC has the evidence of widespread radiological contamination across the nation. That evidence if evaluated along with the costs and potential health and environmental impacts, would enable the NRC to check the spread of radioactive contamination and develop the stringent controls needed for long term containment of SNF.

Multiple accidents across our nuclear complex are regular occurrences which clearly indicate that we have failed at properly containing radioactive material Such failures involve inadequate regulations and control, as well as lack of funding. Continuing to ignore the magnitude of the problem is not helpful as a long term solution.

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WIPP, the Waste Isolation Pilot Project in New Mexico, our only nuclear waste facility for transuranic defense waste (TRU), was put out of business by a severe error by Los Alamos National Lab in mixing organic kitty litter with a barrel of transuranic waste. This error cost more than $2 billion dollars and halted new TRU shipments for several years. It also exposed workers to airborne radionuclides.

Los Alamos contractors were unable to deliver work under a defense contract because of repeated problems associated with inadequate attention to preventing criticality.

Hanford in Washington State suffered two severe accidents in two years. First there was a collapse of a tunnel, storing high level radioactive waste. Then there was a severe accident associated with an airborne release from the plutonium finishing plant with plutonium contamination spread over several square miles.

At West Valley in New York State, a former reprocessing site could release radioactive waste stored on steep, unstable slopes to Lake Erie and the Great Lakes, contaminating a significant source of fresh drinking water. Heavy rainfall events from climate change could increase the likelihood of a landslide releasing long-lived radionuclides.

In Simi Valley, California, the Santa Susana site has extensive contamination associated with 10 former nuclear reactors and a core meltdown from a sodium experimental reactor, as well as other industrial and research activities. None of the reactors had a containment structure. Long term neglect and inadequate remediation left the site vulnerable to the airborne spread of radiation. In 2018 a major wildfire affected the site, spreading radiation to local neighborhoods.

There are thousands of such sites across the nation.

C. The NRC in preparing the EIS has concluded that there will be primarily small impacts associated with the ISP CIS proposal.

We do not believe this conclusion is scientifically or technically possible if NRC undertook even a brief evaluation of the nationwide evidence present at existing radioactively contaminated sites. That evidence is not hidden, but widespread and illustrates what the law of entropy tells us. The evidence informs us that we as a nation have failed - allowing radioactive contamination to spread widely in the environment and to a large portion of the population.

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Overall we find that NRC has taken extraordinary liberties with what should be a very careful and meticulous technical review process given the fundamental nature of the hazardous materials involved. Instead there are many examples where NRC has departed from its usual procedures or has adopted entirely new methods of review which have no credibility. The entire project involves extraordinarily hazardous materials. Therefore there should be stringent requirements for all aspects of the proposed facility including frequent independent monitoring and early detection of problems with rapid corrective measures required, including frequent governmental oversight. All precautions and corrective measures should be redundant.

Instead NRC has not lived up to what is necessary to handle such extraordinary hazards. Our comments detail only a limited set of the problems associated with this CIS facility. However, given the large number of problems, we do discuss, we want to stress that single problems and impacts are additive and at times synergistic or multiplied as a result of other factors. In this way events associated with hazardous materials can become catastrophic. Proposed CIS facilities contain all the elements necessary for major catastrophes, killing or injuring large populations, permanently contaminating thousands of square miles. Instead NRC somehow came to the extraordinary conclusion that only small or moderate impacts are involved. Of course this is a direct result of the way the analysis was structured. We urge NRC to remove their rose-colored glasses and start over with independent scientific expertise. We have reviewed just a few of the significant issues.

Conclusion NRC has reviewed two major CIS facilities for the nation under significantly reduced environmental and health protection and absent any review of transportation. We believe the existing evidence supports a halt in permitting for CIS facilities until a comprehensive set of regulatory controls is developed in order for national agencies, and state agencies to have confidence in sufficient and redundant controls, coupled with frequent monitoring and review to ensure that the spread of radioactive contamination is prevented from occurring and adversely impacting the health of future generations. NRC has a responsibility to review the existing evidence of how we as a nation are handling high level radioactive material before authorizing a major expansion involving thousands of metric tons to be poorly regulated and result in frequent catastrophic events.

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Thank you for your attention. For questions or clarification, please call me at 845-754-7951 or email me at warrenba@msn.com Respectfully, Barbara Warren, RN, MS Executive Director

Enclosure:

2019 Joint Comments on the NRC GTCC proceeding 19

Amherst Energy Conservation Citizens Advisory Committee

• Alliance for a Green Economy

• Citizens Environmental Coalition

• Citizens' Resistance at Fermi Two

• Coalition on West Valley Nuclear Wastes

• Dryden Resource Awareness Coalition

• FRIENDS of Great Salt Lake

• Environmental Justice Taskforce of the WNY Peace Center

• Goshen Green Farms

• Healthy Environment Alliance of Utah

• Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, Inc.

• League of Women Voters of Buffalo/ Niagara

• Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

• Nuclear Information and Resource Service

• NYPIRG

• On Behalf of Planet Earth

• People of Albany United for Safe Energy

• Peace Action of NYS

• Public Citizen

• Public Health & Sustainable Energy

• Rockland Environmental Group

• Sierra Club Atlantic Chapter

• Sierra Club Niagara Group

• Syracuse Peace Council

• Uranium Watch

• Western NY Environmental Alliance November 19, 2019 Secretary ATTN: Rulemaking and Adjudications Staff US Nuclear Regulatory Commission Washington, DC 20555-0001 Submitted via www.regulations.gov Re: Docket ID NRC-2017-0081, Greater than Class C and Transuranic Waste

Dear Secretary & Staff,

Introduction Under current law and regulations, there are three classes of low level radioactive waste (LLRW): A, B & C. There are just 4 licensed facilities in the country for LLRW; Barnwell, SC, Clive, UT, Richland, WA, and Andrews County, TX. The facility in Clive, Utah only accepts Class A waste, the least concentrated. The other three accept A, B, & C LLRW.

LLRW is authorized for disposal in a land disposal facilitynear-surface disposal in the uppermost portion of the earth, approximately 30 meters below the surface. Only Class A, B, and C LLRW wastes are currently allowed. Greater than Class C (GTCC) radioactive waste comprises a mix of high level radioactive waste exceeding the limits

established for low level waste in the Waste Classification Tables in 10 CFR 61.55-Tables 1 & 2. Waste exceeding these limits currently requires geological disposal by law, unless the Commission licenses and approves another disposal option. (§ 61.55 iv)

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is now proposing to allow GTCC waste to be disposed in a near-surface land disposal facility. Therefore the proposal before the public is primarily a deregulatory one, weakening public and environmental protections. It should be noted that long term geological disposal is not considered to be land disposal.

The Regulatory Basis prepared by NRC describes the review and analyses undertaken to determine whether near- surface disposal is adequate for Greater than Class C radioactive waste. NRC has determined based on its evaluation that:

x Near-surface disposal is appropriate for approximately 80% of the overall volume of the GTCC waste stream, subject to additional controls and analysis, and x GTCC waste could be safely regulated by Agreement States.

We believe the NRC analyses were focused too narrowly and did not adequately establish an adequate safety case for Greater than Class C radioactive waste, related to the whole spectrum of waste management activity pre- and post- final disposal. NRC findings of its own analyses demonstrated that near surface disposal will not isolate the waste over the long term and will expose the public to huge radiation doses exceeding 10,000 millirems as long as 10,000 years after final disposal.

Recommendations: We recommend that GTCC wastes continue to be treated as high level radioactive wastes requiring disposal in a geological repository. GTCC wastes require a much stronger safety case for the long term protection of the public. NRC failed to include any defense-in-depth measures in its analysis.

Since there was some reliance by NRC on the US Department of Energy (DOE) and their Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) in 2016, it should be mentioned that DOE has not yet issued its Record of Decision (ROD). DOE sent a Report to Congress in 2017 and is waiting for a response from Congress, before issuing the ROD.

The main body of our comments consists of numbered sections, each addressing a particular issue, concerning Greater than Class C radioactive waste.

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Topics

1. Disposal System Definition (1987)

2. Geological Repository

3. Greater than Class C Waste Definition

4. Greater than Class C Characteristics

5. Technical corrections needed to the waste classification tables in 10 CFR 61.55

6. Hazards associated with Features, Events, Processes and Site Operations.

7. GAO has been conducting oversight for years related to Nuclear Waste Clean-ups & Funding

8. Waste Isolation Pilot Project & other disasters

9. West Valley Nuclear Waste Site, New York

10. Analysis of Public Health Protection Conclusion

1. Disposal System Definition DOE issued Recommendations for Management of Greater-Than-Class-C Low-Level Radioactive Waste in a 1987 Report, DOE/NE-0077. Several things are especially worth noting about this report.

x The report was a requirement of The Low-Level Radioactive Waste Policy Amendments Act of 1985 (the Act).

x All references are to Greater than Class C waste. There is no reference to GTCC-like waste, despite the fact that this is a DOE report. Apparently GTCC-like is a more recent decision by DOE.

x DOE used a broad definition for Disposal system as follows:

The disposal system for GTCC low level waste includes storage, treatment, packaging, transportation, and disposal. Requirements for each part of the system will place certain constraints on other parts. These constraints are discussed below:

Treatment & Storage- The specific facility features required for storage depend upon the specific characteristics and volumes of the waste to be stored. That information determines (a) how much storage capacity is needed. (b) what kind of facility (ies) should be used. (c) where the storage facility (ies) should be located, (d) if treatment of the wastes will be necessary before storage and (e) how the wastes and packages will perform during the storage period.

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The first step in evaluating treatment and packaging needs for GTCC low-level waste is to obtain more detailed information on the waste. Mixed waste may contain hazardous organic material that needs treatment. High radiation doses may require additional shielding for the packaging.

Maintenance through storage and transportation might include more treatment and repackaging.

The above steps are straightforward. However, the key concerns are (a) container and/or waste form integrity must be maintained for the storage and transportation period. and (b) waste form and packaging requirements may differ for a disposal technology that is to be selected at some point in the future. Both of these concerns generate a question that the waste might need further treatment or repackaging before shipment to a disposal facility.

Specific concerns identified by Brookhaven National laboratory (Siskind 1985).

Investigations have identified areas of concern for extended storage of low-level waste in general.

Such concerns include radiolytic gas generation. biodegradation, container corrosion, degradation of waste form properties, and loss of strength from freeze-thaw fluctuations. Most of these concerns can be avoided by acceptance specifications on waste form and packaging. Some of the containers could require venting to prevent buildup of gases during storage, transportation, and disposal. In addition, the package design should address potential adverse radiation effects from compounded radiation fields from adjacent packages. These efforts should collectively minimize the need for future treatment or repackaging of the waste because of changes to the waste form or container during storage.

Disposal System Definition. The DOE definition of Disposal here is broad representing an entire system in which analysis of wastes is done thoroughly to identify and implement treatment needs, including appropriate packaging to contain and adequately shield radioactivity. We believe handling and management of GTCC waste is a critical component for safety during site operations to protect workers and the public prior to disposal. Inadequate handling and management may also result in adverse outcomes before disposal.

Final disposal is a more difficult concept since Greater than Class C waste radioactivity can extend for thousands to millions of years and there are unknowns attached with this broad category of nuclear wastes.

The NRC document associated with this proposal, the Regulatory Basis, identifies just four operating LLRW disposal facilities. One of these takes Class A waste only. Under current NRC regulations, 10 CFR 61, greater than Class C waste must be disposed in a geological repository, unless the commission 4

approves of another disposal facility. The 10 CFR 61 regulations for LLRW disposal, promulgated in 1982, defined low-level radioactive waste as excluding high level waste, transuranic waste, spent nuclear fuel and certain classes of byproduct material. However, this NRC proposal includes transuranic waste as GTCC LLRW.

However, hundreds of radioactive waste sites are in limbo, waiting remediation and cleanup and the funding needed to accomplish the work. Greater than Class C waste may be at many sites that have not yet been fully assessedand therefore not included in DOE estimates from the 2016 FEIS. See GAO discussion of DOEs large environmental liabilities at Topic #7.

Recommendation: We recommend that NRC continue to treat GTCC as high level radioactive waste and use a broad definition of disposal system including the components identified by DOE in 1987. Workers and the public need adequate protection from Greater than Class C wastes from generation through the entire treatment, handling, packaging, transport and disposal system.

2. Geological Repositories Geological repositories have been the subject of a lot of serious research in Europe, which has generated more questions, especially about the permanence of geological repositories. It may be possible to identify long term repositories that are not permanent, but require active management to monitor and make corrections to address challenges over the long term. The goal would be to ensure isolation of such long term hazards from the public through active management essentially forever. This is what is suggested by research from Europe, presented to the US Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board.

NRC mentioned below ground vaults and earth- mounded concrete bunkers as possible options, but never evaluated them. Only near- surface disposal was the focus of the evaluation.

Recommendation: The current requirement for disposal in a geologic repository should be maintained until more protective options are developed. NRC and DOE should turn their attention to long term active and passive management of both High Level radioactive waste and Greater than Class C Waste to ensure that 5

isolation is maintained to provide the necessary public protection for these extremely long term hazards.

3. Greater than Class C Waste Definition- Classification based on agency generation or ownership According to DOE in the 2016 FEIS, the NRC LLRW classification system does not apply to radioactive wastes generated or owned by DOE and disposed of in DOE facilities. However, DOE owns or generates LLRW and non-defense-generated transuranic (TRU) radioactive waste, which have characteristics similar to those of GTCC LLRW and for which there may be no path for disposal at the present time. DOE has included these wastes for evaluation in this EIS because similar approaches may be used to dispose of both types of radioactive waste. For the purposes of this EIS, DOE refers to this waste as GTCC-like waste.

The total volume of GTCC LLRW and GTCC-like waste addressed in the 2016 DOE FEIS is about 12,000 m3 (cubic meters) or 420,000 ft3 (cubic feet) and it contains 160 million curies of radioactivity. In its 1987 report, DOE did not even use the term GTCC-like, instead all of the material was GTCC. See Topic #1 above.

The Definition for Greater than Class C waste is problematic under the NRC proposal and needs to be corrected as a first priority. A definition should relate to a specific science and health-based determination of waste contents, reflecting important characteristics that affect health and safety and handling of the material. If DOE owns or manages GTCC or GTCC-like waste, DOE can be identified as the owner or manager, but the waste should not need a separate classificationsuch as GTCC-like.

DOE, as the federal agency in charge at West Valley, apparently has identified some of the West Valley waste as GTCC and other WV waste as GTCC-like.

There should be some explanation for this inconsistency. See Appendix B tables in the NRC Regulatory Basis.

Recommendation: NRC should work with DOE to correct the Greater than Class C waste definition so that it is based on the technical characteristics of the waste, which would provide more accurate information to workers, emergency responders and the public. The owner/manager/shipper, including DOE, can utilize a separate label for such additional information.

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4. Greater than Class C Characteristics Greater than Class C radioactive waste, as described in multiple documents completed by DOE and NRC, identifies an extraordinary complex mixture of radionuclides that are gases, liquids and solids, that sometimes deliver high doses to humans if not handled remotely, that are sometimes contaminated with hazardous chemicals, that can contain enough special nuclear material to be a risk for a criticality, that contain very long lived radionuclides and transuranics, that decay to other radionuclides with different properties, that can generate gases in enclosed containers and create an explosion risk. Most importantly the problem of long term future risks actually increases with time beyond the 100 year institutional control period to 10,000 or more years.

Neither DOE in its 2016 FEIS nor NRC in its Regulatory Basis and Technical Analyses attempted to deal with all of the complexities associated with such a mixture. Rather than consider whether GTCC might be characterized further and separated into more specific categories based on handling, treatment or health protection needs, the Agencies continued to deal with this huge category of very different materials and properties and proceeded to analyze outcomes primarily post-final disposal. In 1987 DOE described various site operations as part of the Disposal System.

The disposal system can involve a lengthy period of site operations that require worker protections, and preventing accidents and radioactive releases to the environment off-site prior to final disposal.

Recommendation: The NRC should seriously evaluate whether scientists and health professionals could use the various characteristics of this waste stream to divide the materials into categories most important for handling, operations and long term management of disposal in order to promote safety, avoid accidents and assure long term isolation from the public. A more detailed characterization would help facilitate safer management, storage and disposal.

5. Technical corrections are needed to the waste classification tables in 10 CFR 61.55, as listed below. See references.1 2 1

Technical Analyses of the Hazards of Disposal of Greater than Class C waste (NRC,2019) 2 NRC Regulatory Basis, Appendix B, p. B-1 7

x Not all radionuclides present in GTCC waste streams were included, when the 10 CFR 61 regulation was developed, and x Not all of the included radionuclides have concentration limits in the regulation.

x The half-lives of long- lived radionuclides should be used to establish the minimum period of necessary isolation from humansapproximately 10-20 half lives.

Recommendation: NRC should make the needed corrections to the waste classifications including adding missing radionuclides and providing concentration limits when 10 CFR 61 is amended following this proceeding.

Half-lives are a more technically sound method for establishing the period of required isolation. The effort should also consider the recommendations for Topics #3 & #4.

6. Hazards associated with Features, Events, Processes (FEPs) and Site Operations.

Not all FEPs were considered by DOE in the 2016 EIS and by NRC in the Regulatory Basis and associated Technical analysis. NRC assumes that all the requirements for site selection, stability, and site design have been fulfilled. Site hazards originally assessed could be significantly altered given the rapid environmental changes occurring due to climate change.

Climate change is magnifying the impacts of many weather events that are familiar. The nation has seen worsening fires, flooding, extreme rainfall and more powerful hurricanes. Climate change effects the integrity of disposal, potentially leading to a release of GTCC radioactive materials. Climate change should have been a major topic in the Agency analyses.

In addition, for the protection of an intruder or the offsite individual, water dependent pathways were not considered in developing the original regulations and concentration limits in 10 CFR 61.55. 3 Recommendation: Science has advanced since the siting standards in 10 CFR 61 for LLRW were first developed in 1982. NRC is attempting to have near-3 NRC, Regulatory Basis, p. B-14 8

surface disposal apply to a very different waste category. However, GTCC waste is more hazardous and more long-lasting, making isolation from the public far more difficult. In addition future weather predictions are now far more uncertain. These complications were not evaluated in the NRC technical analysis, therefore the analysis is deficient. When 10 CFR 61 regulations are modified and updated they must be more protective of public and environmental health and safety and include a thorough evaluation of climate change and associated impacts.

7. The federal governments General Accounting Office (GAO) has been conducting oversight for years related to Nuclear Waste Issues and Funding.

In January 2019, GAO issued its harshest critique in years for DOE. After earlier identifying Environmental Liabilities for DOE as a High Risk for the Nation, in 2019 GAO said that the environmental liabilities for DOEs Environmental Management (EM) Program had reached $377 billion for FY 2018, growing by

$214 billion in the previous 7 years. 4 Actual spending for the same period, which reduces environmental liabilities, was $46.8 billion. The liabilities are now 8 times annual spending.

EMs liability does not include more than $2.3 billion in costs associated with 45 contaminated facilities that will likely be transferred to DOEs Environmental Management programs. Most of the facilities awaiting transfer are under the National Nuclear Security Administration, a semi-autonomous agency within DOE, primarily associated with the military and defense. Until these facilities are assessed in detail it is not possible for DOE to develop accurate cost estimates or to know the amount and types of radioactive wastes present so that adequate precautions can be put in place as soon as possible.

In this report GAO criticizes DOE for continuing to ignore GAO recommendations, for failing to develop a program- wide strategy for the nation, and for not issuing informative annual reports to Congress which hinders the ability of Congress to take corrective action.

4 GAO-19-28 DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY Program-Wide Strategy and Better Reporting Needed to Address Growing Environmental Cleanup Liability Jan 29, 2019 https://www.gao.gov/assets/700/696632.pdf 9

Congress and the public need to know how many existing nuclear waste sites have not even had an initial assessment so that adequate precautions can be put in place as soon as possible. Congress must ensure that all sites have these basic assessments by a federal workforce rather than allowing delays necessitated by the contracting process. Adequate initial assessments can be facilitated by ensuring that the transferring Agency provides a set of documents with information about the site being transferred. High priority should be given to the likely presence of Greater than Class C waste and transuranics and the need for precautions to address criticality potential.

Recommendation: Most importantly DOE must make major management changes to address GAO recommendations. It also needs to obtain essential information about new sites being transferred to its authority so that appropriate safety measures can be immediately implemented. NRC needs to have a better understanding of nuclear waste sites and their inventories in order to properly plan for a regulatory framework for GTCC waste.

8. The Waste Isolation Pilot Project (WIPP) & other disasters The description of the WIPP disaster provided by DOE in the 2016 FEIS was completely inadequate as follows:

It should be noted that waste disposal operations at WIPP were suspended on February 5, 2014, following a fire involving an underground vehicle. Nine days later, on February 14, 2014, a radiological event occurred underground at WIPP, contaminating a portion of the mine primarily along the ventilation path from the location of the incident and releasing a small amount of contamination into the environment. 5 In fact the Valentines day event was a major radioactive contamination event, an explosion of a waste container that exposed workers to airborne plutonium and contamination that shut down the entire transuranic waste disposal facility for years. As a result there was no disposal facility for transuranic defense waste anywhere in the nation due to this extensive contamination event. While now opened for receipt of waste, waste deliveries remain curtailed, because a brand new ventilation system is not yet installed. The proximal cause of this event was 5

DOE 2016 FEIS Summary, p. S-22.

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a serious scientific error made at Los Alamos National Lab, which approved organic kitty litter to be mixed with nuclear waste. However, in reality a whole series of reductions in safety measures had occurred due to DOE budget cutbacks over several years prior to the kitty litter decision.

Following the 2016 DOE FEIS, DOE stated in its 2017 Report to Congress that it focused on disposal in generic commercial facilities, because full waste emplacement operations at WIPP are not expected until the 2021 timeframe.

WIPP, however, has been operating at a reduced level, accepting waste for disposal, so there was no necessity to focus only on commercial facilities for the evaluation in the 2016 FEIS. 6 DOE dismisses this event too easily and it cost taxpayers approximately $2 billion, while exposing workers to damaged health. Other adverse consequences and disasters plague our nation at many sites around the country and they occur frequently. If NRC and DOE utilized the actual record of adverse events at nuclear sites around the country to identify the root cause and used that information to prepare environmental impact statements (EISs) we might have more EISs that actually identify potential consequences, rather than EISs that provide extraordinary amounts of false assurances.

At Hanford a tunnel collapse spread plutonium for more than 3 square miles and also exposed workers. We believe every nuclear waste site has suffered accidents and adverse events associated with insufficient health and safety protections. Despite this every new environmental impact statement seems written in advance of analysis to predict zero or minor environmental and health impacts. Agency predictions of no harm should not display such a wide disparity from REALITY.

Those many realities should be effectively catalogued so they can be utilized as guidance when preparing environmental impact statements. In this way the adverse events can become the lessons learned to guide all future predictions.

It should be noted that the NRC Regulatory Basis is NOT an Environmental Impact Statement. Only a very limited health and safety analysis was performed.

DOE and NRC are dealing with extraordinary hazards associated with GTCC 6

DOE Environmental Assessment for the Disposal of GTCC-like Waste at Waste Control Specialists, Andrews County, Texas, Oct. 2018, p.1-1.

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nuclear wastes and need to appropriately analyze and evaluate such hazards in order to provide defense in depth.

Recommendation: Both of our nuclear agencies- NRC and DOE need to investigate and document all actual adverse experiences at nuclear waste sites around the nation to better inform credible safety and health analyses to properly evaluate new programs and regulatory changes, and to be equipped to reject bad ideas, projects and plans.

9. West Valley Nuclear Waste Site, New York The sole content of NRCs Regulatory Basis related to West Valley is embodied in several tables related to the total amount of Greater than Class C waste and transuranics in the nation.

The NRC volume of 11, 285m3 for GTCC waste is under DOEs estimate of 12,000 m3 or 420,000 ft3 in its FEIS. A factor of 35.31 is used to convert cubic meters to cubic feet. NRC states that the single largest amount of GTCC waste comes from the West Valley Demonstration Project. 7 The Demonstration part of the project related to vitrification of high level liquid reprocessing wastes. It should be noted that the State disposal area is included in these tables, but the state facility is independent of DOE.

A weird construct was created in the establishment of Groups I & 2 for GTCC waste. Group 2 supposedly represents Potential waste estimates for the future.

Unfortunately all of the West Valley waste is actual GTCC waste or GTCC-like waste that must be properly managed and isolated from humans until it can be disposed. It is only potential waste in that regulatory agencies have not made a decision about what exactly to do with it. West Valley waste is REAL today!

West Valley GTCC waste amounts to 1250 cubic meters (m3) or 25% of Group 1 waste and 5215 m3 or 82% of Group 2 waste.

NRCs LLRW land disposal regulations, 10 CFR 61, were finalized in 1982. A private operator, Nuclear Fuel Services, had been permitted to conduct nuclear reprocessing in 1966 prior to the passage of major environmental laws in 1970.

After thoroughly contaminating the site the private operator decided it would be 7

NRC Regulatory Basis, p. B-4 12

too expensive to meet new standards related to earthquakes and abandoned the site in 1972 after just six years of operation.

Since 1972 the site has been operating largely under Consent orders for remediation at the site largely under RCRA, not protective radiation standards.

NRC mentions Site Operations as a key area where accidents and radioactive releases can occur. However, in recent proceedings, NRC and DOE have been primarily focused on what happens after Closure of a Disposal Site. Operations involving Greater than Class C radioactive waste have been ongoing for 47 years at West Valley. Most LLRW sites will have operations that are ongoing for a decade or more prior to closure. Why are the Agencies ignoring this lengthy period and assuming no extensive contamination occurs? A performance analysis should look at the entire system of disposal as outlined by DOE in 1987.

We can attest to the fact that adverse consequences have occurred over 47 years at a site that meets almost none of the siting regulations in 10 CFR 61. The site sits on high plateaus that are extremely vulnerable to erosion. Groundwater discharges out of the side of the plateaus to waterways. Gully erosion is extensive adjacent to the State Disposal Area.

x There was a Cesium release from the main plant causing an air-borne plume which caused soil contamination by Cesium-137.

x There is a Strontium-90 Plume of groundwater contamination that covers multiple waste areas and a majority of the North Plateau at the site.

x Extensive water features on the site flooded the disposal areas with water (a moderator) despite the fact that plutonium was in both disposal areas.

Plutonium in the presence of a moderator can lead to criticality. Interim remedial action was taken to limit flooding.

x After approximately 5 inches of rain fell in 1 hour1.157407e-5 days <br />2.777778e-4 hours <br />1.653439e-6 weeks <br />3.805e-7 months <br /> in 2009 on already saturated ground, a landslide occurred at Buttermilk Creek - removing 15-20 feet of soil from the plateau bank and moving the Creek closer to the State Disposal Area where 12-15 lbs. of plutonium are buried.

x No site stability analysis has been done for the plateau where 2 disposal areas are located- the NRC disposal area and the State Disposal Area (NDA and SDA). NRC indicates in a memo, SRM-SECY-16-0106, that for Greater than 13

Class C disposal they would plan to impose a 1000 year compliance period for site stability. However, the Technical analysis showed high dose hazards for GTCC beyond 10,000 years. If site stability is not required beyond 1000 years, GTCC waste would likely expose the public to extremely high radiation doses - including from inhalation and ingestion of alpha particles.

The Site stability requirement in 10 CFR 61 states: Areas must be avoided where surface geologic processes such as mass wasting, erosion, slumping, landsliding, or weathering occur with such frequency and extent to significantly affect the ability of the disposal site to meet the performance objectives of subpart C of this part, or may preclude defensible modeling and prediction of long-term impacts.8 x Millions of dollars have been spent to provide short term remedial action addressed at only slowing the inexorable erosive processes at the site.

A key question for West Valley is - Where are the transuranics now? The containers were moved from the Main Plant Process Building to a storage building. However we cannot clearly identify it because the charts in the Regulatory Basis do not list a storage building.

The Transuranics The DOE Inspector General in April 2017 9 identified significant contract management problems related to DOE management. These were not the first management problems. GAO and DOE both addressed management problems for correction over many years in the past. The Office of the Inspector General noted in 2017 that after approving a $333 million contract for Phase I work at West Valley, the contractor identified missing items from the scope of work. The important item for this discussion is that DOE omitted the task which involved relocation of the transuranic waste out of the Main Plant Process Building--

Omitted the relocation of 222 containers of high-dose, remote-handled transuranic waste stored in the main plant building, yet it required the Contractor to demolish that building. p. 2 of the Acting Inspector Generals letter.

8 Technical analysis, p.52 9

https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2017/04/f34/DOE-OIG-17-05.pdf 14

As a result of the omissions from the work scope, a significant cost increase of

$196 million was added to the $333 million dollar contract and a nearly 3-year schedule extension to the contract occurred. p. 1 of Detailed Findings Unfortunately, because the information is limited in the Appendices to the Reg Basis we are unsure whether these transuranics are represented in the NRC waste inventory. It should also be noted that the 2003 Final Waste EIS for West Valley said that these transuranics would be sent off-site for disposal within 10 years, which would have been by 2013. There are no current plans for disposal.

We can draw some important conclusions from the environmental analyses performed by DOE and NRC.

West Valley meets almost none of the siting regulations under 10 CFR 61 and therefore cannot meet the performance requirements for even LLRW for its 2 disposal areas.

This made West Valley a logical place for DOE and NRC to review the operations there and the potential for releases of GTCC waste to the environment especially to offsite people, such as those living downstream within Seneca nation territory or drinking water from Lake Erie. The lack of site stability at this site means that landslides are a major concern for the spread of radiological contamination. The Oso Landslide in the State of Washington with similar soils caused significant loss of life. A landslide could dump the contents of the State disposal area entirely or a landslide could affect the integrity of both the SDA and NRC Disposal Areas.

Unfortunately the Agencies environmental analyses were limited almost entirely to final near-surface disposal - not the broader term of disposal system as DOE described in a 1987 report, discussed above under Topic # 1. It also restricted the scenarios considered.

Site Operations for GTCC were acknowledged by NRC as a cause of concern for accidents and releases. However most of the analyses were focused on Post-Final Disposal issuesfailing to adequately analyze impacts of site operations, which may be ongoing for years or decades prior to final closure of a disposal facility.

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10. Analysis of Public Health Protection Alternatives and Regulatory Changes.10 NRC does not provide the public and health professionals any reasonable options that encompass appropriate regulation of Greater than Class C waste.

NRC original regulation in 10 CFR 61 addressed LLRW, and these regulations do not address GTCC waste. None of NRCs options include maintaining geological disposal for GTCC waste. All of the options involve allowing near-surface disposal. None of the options include amending the regulations to address appropriate levels of protection for the public from this much more hazardous radioactive class of nuclear waste, which requires isolation from humans forever.

The three alternatives are:

1) Applicants can make an application for a near-surface disposal facility to the Commission. With no changes to the regulations, the Commission can make a Case by Case determination whether to approve.

2) The Commission can issue guidance for applicants to assist them in applying for a permit and make no changes to the regulations and do case by case determinations for approvals.

3) The NRC can promulgate regulations and develop guidance specifically for a near- surface disposal facility. This would also allow Agreement states to regulate the GTCC disposal facilities.

However, the analyses conducted by technical consultants and NRC staff point to needed corrections and updating for 10 CFR 61 regulations, regardless of the final decision related to near-surface disposal of GTCC. The 10 CFR 61 regulations were written to address LLRW. GTCC waste is not adequately addressed in the regulations or the Tables there. We have highlighted some of these needed changes to the regulations in these comments.

10 NRC Regulatory Basis, p. 35-49.

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In addition it is apparent that changes to 10 CFR 61 have been in process for some extended time period. The Commission and staff discussed issuing new regulations prior to dealing with GTCC. A more recent memo from the Commission changed the order of work so that GTCC would be dealt with prior to finishing a revised 10 CFR 61- in order for NRC to solicit public input on the regulations.

NRC has indicated that no regulatory changes would be one option. However, given the history of Commission directives, and discussions regarding the need for updating 10 CFR 61, we question how no regulatory changes could actually be one of the options.

Transuranics The Low Level Radioactive Waste Policy Amendments Act of 1985 (LLRWPAA) requires that the disposal of LLRW result in the permanent isolation of the LLRW.11 The principal objective of LLRW disposal is protection of public health and safety for long periods of time when the waste may remain hazardous as the half-lives of some of the radionuclides that comprise LLRW are on the order of thousands of years and longer.

NRC maintains that because the 1985 revision to the LLRWPAA did not expressly exclude TRU waste, the NRC could proceed to revise 10 CFR 61 to include TRU as LLRW. The inclusion of transuranics creates a mixture that is hazardous for very long time periods - beyond 10,000 years, when site integrity no longer exists.

The NRC analysis of GTCC hazards Near Surface disposal options included:

x shallow land burial in trenches up to 5 meters deep ( could be less than 3ft.

from surface) x below ground vaults x earth- mounded concrete bunkers x disposal cells x boreholes 11 42 USC. §2021b (7) Definition of disposal.

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Trenches are most common. NRC determined that borehole technology had not been adequately demonstrated. However, there was no real analysis of the other alternatives. NRC focused on shallow land burial for Near Surface disposal.

NRCs analysis resulted in adjustments for Near-surface disposal requiring deeper burial of wastes to a minimum of 5 meters below the cover, and requiring a 500 year intruder barrier as a final cover.

NRC Findings regarding impacts The NRC found that 1) the majority of GTCC is potentially suitable for near surface disposal and 2) GTCC could be safely regulated by agreement states.

NRC identified ensuring long term protection as difficult for certain GTCC waste streams:

Waste Streams excluded related to Critical Mass issues:

x Sealed sources associated with neutron irradiators and remote-handled waste from WV decontamination activity are not suitable for near surface disposal related to operational accidents and theft or diversion.

x An additional waste stream from Mo-99 production is not suitable for Agreement state regulation.12 Assumptions NRC assumed that GTCC waste would meet all 10 CFR 61 requirements for waste characteristics. The inclusion of Transuranics alone means that GTCC cannot meet the existing requirements under 10 CFR 61.2, Waste means those low-level radioactive wastes containing source, special nuclear, or byproduct material that are acceptable for disposal in a land disposal facility. For the purposes of this definition, low-level radioactive waste means radioactive waste not classified as high-level radioactive waste, transuranic waste, spent nuclear fuel, or byproduct material as defined in paragraphs (2), (3),

and (4) of the definition of Byproduct material set forth in § 20.1003 of this chapter.

In addition, as discussed under Topic #5 not all radionuclides were included when the regulations were developed and some radionuclides need concentration limits.

The institutional control period is considered to be 100 years. 10 CFR 61.7 (5)

Waste that will not decay to levels which present an acceptable hazard to an intruder within 100 years is designated as Class C waste. This waste is disposed of at a greater depth than the other 12 NRC Regulatory Basis, p.24 18

classes of waste so that subsequent surface activities by an intruder will not disturb the waste.

Where site conditions prevent deeper disposal, intruder barriers such as concrete covers may be used. The effective life of these intruder barriers should be 500 years. A maximum concentration of radionuclides is specified for all wastes so that at the end of the 500 year period, remaining radioactivity will be at a level that does not pose an unacceptable hazard to an intruder or public health and safety. Waste with concentrations above these limits is generally unacceptable for near-surface disposal.

There may be some instances where waste with concentrations greater than permitted for Class C would be acceptable for near-surface disposal with special processing or design. These will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. Class C waste must also be stable.

NRC in its own analyses found doses of 10,000 millirems/year, 10,000 years after final disposal. The acceptable dose of radiation is 25 millirems. NRC own regulations make GTCC waste unacceptable for near-surface disposal.

Post closure period NRC has difficulty rationalizing the problem of long- lived radionuclides that can expose the public to high dose exposures as far into the future as 10,000 years post closure. Such a lengthy time period induces a great deal of uncertainty, for example- the Great Lakes were formed about 10,000 years ago. DOEs FEIS analysis also found doses as large as 10,000 mrem/year. Despite such alarming findings, NRC hangs on to an erroneous belief that engineered barriers and ideal physical site conditions can secure the waste and protect public health with reliance on passive management only, in the absence of ongoing active measures to secure the waste.13 Hazards to offsite individuals during the post closure period.

Technical Analysis The technical analysis was limited in multiple ways. Only near-surface disposal was evaluated. The main variables evaluated were the depth of disposal of the waste and the presence of a robust intruder barrier. However, the contractors noted that the amount, concentration and form of waste disposed can play an important role in determining the hazards of GTCC waste disposal. 14 As discussed earlier, not all radionuclides present in GTCC waste were analyzed when 10 CFR 61 was developed. See Issue #5 above. The particular radionuclides 13 Ibid, Section 3.1.4, p. 22 14 Ibid, Appendix, p, B-2.

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present and their concentration can be considerably different in different waste streams and this can influence the types of hazards and their potential impacts.

Three classes of waste were originally defined: Class A, B and C. At the time the regulations were developed LLRW was envisioned to be waste that decayed to acceptable levels by either 100 years for Class A or B or 500 years for Class C. The structure of NRC regulations was developed around this concept.15 NRC never talked about acceptable exposure levels for GTCC - the doses are significantly higher than for Class C LLRW and provide higher doses up to and beyond 10,000 years when any remaining disposal site integrity is unlikely.

Important Findings in the Technical Analysis The methods for exposure analysis originally developed in Part 61 were quite different than they are today. In addition, previously exposure scenarios did not include water dependent pathways. 16 The older methods were used for the analyses. See discussion of differences in exposure analyses.

Some GTCC waste streams emit such high dose rates that they can only be handled with remote equipment to avoid high exposures. This is displayed for all to see in NRC tables, RH = Remote handled.

Some GTCC streams pose criticality risks due to Special Nuclear Material.

Some GTCC waste streams have large quantities of Transuranic materials. Some of these are long lived and pose unique hazards for inhalation and ingestion as alpha emitters. However, it is not clear that the weighting factor of 20 for alpha particles was applied in the exposure assessment.

A limited set of operational accidents were analyzed - damage to a waste container from dropping or low speed vehicle collisions.

Due to large doses of radioactivity in GTCC waste, the impacts of accidents are larger and the margin for operation or system error significantly smaller compared to Classes A, B and C waste. Therefore the management controls and other systems must be more robust.17 15 Technical Analysis, p. 2.

16 Appendix B p. 10-11.

17 NRC Regulatory Basis, p. B-10 20

A fire analysis revealed that a release via fire could expose people to 16 Rems of radioactivity, a significant exposure, far above allowed worker annual exposure levels. GTCC with high TRU content was not evaluated in this exercise.

However, a real operational accident (non-fire) at Hanford that contaminated workers with plutonium and spread the contamination for over 3 square miles did occur this year.

Special phenomena related to GTCC waste disposal were not evaluated: Heat generation, radiolytic gas generation and criticality. These phenomena could affect the release rates from the disposal facility and impacts to offsite members of the public or an intruder.

Most of the evaluation focused on post-closure of a near-surface disposal site.

The operational period of receiving, assessing, sorting and placing waste into the disposal location and the length of the period in years was not evaluated.

While a few natural phenomena were considered, climate change impacts related to worsening or exacerbating weather events were not. Extreme rainfall could have impacts on GTCC waste and its containment prior to final closure of a disposal site.

NRC focused on small sealed sources, neutron irradiators, but did not consider large sealed sources containing cesium chloride. Sealed sources can be damaged or may not remain intact under disposal conditions. Cesium chloride is highly mobile in water and can even diffuse through concrete.

The inadvertent intruder could experience a dose of 500 mrems at 500 years after closure. Well -drilling would result in doses larger than 500 mrems. NRC assumed only 1 layer of waste for this scenario. Multiple layers would deliver higher doses.

Some GTCC waste has enough long- lived radionuclides that the hazard can remain for thousands of years.

Some GTCC waste carries high external radiation doses, such as Cobalt-60.

Whereas doses to a hypothetical inadvertent intruder are generally decreasing with time, doses to an offsite individual from GTCC waste disposal are generally increasing with time up to 10,000 years after disposal. 18 18 NRC Regulatory Basis, p. B-18. See Figure B-5.

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The inadvertent intruder excavation results show large impacts exceeding 10,000 mrem doses, which persist for more than 10,000 years for over half of the GTCC waste streams.19 Excavation might occur for home construction.

The dose for exposure is the result of the likelihood of exposure times the radionuclide concentrations. Because GTCC waste streams have much higher concentrations than Class, A, B and C, even infrequent events could contribute more significantly to total exposure and risks. 20 It should be noted that the methodologies and results in the Technical Analysis are not always clear. NRC informs us that to see the contractor results we have to pursue 2 other references. The contractor analyses are documented in (Laplante, 2019) and (Wittmeyer, 2019). Only select results and inputs are discussed in the Technical Analysis document according to NRC.

Given time constraints and multiple documents that were relevant, this was not possible for us. The results in the Technical Analysis document are some combination of NRC staff and contractor work. While there may be some shortcomings, the selected findings demonstrate very high radiation exposure -

beyond 10,000 years.

Conclusion In 1987 following the passage of the LLRWPAA of 1985, NRC recommended to DOE the disposal of GTCC waste in a high level waste geologic repository. NRC added that roughly 85% of the 2000 m3 GTCC waste projected by DOE to the year 2020 is expected to contain large quantities of transuranic or other long-lived radionuclides of concern. In addition, NRC noted that the regulatory criteria for disposal of GTCC waste in a high level repository already exist at EPA and NRC.21 We are forced to question what occurred to affect such a substantive change in NRCs view of Greater than Class C radioactive waste since 1987,other than the growth of the GTCC inventory. We are aware of government- wide deregulation 19 NRC Technical Analysis, p.55 20 Ibid, p.51 21 NUREG-1213, Rev. 1, Aug. 1987, p.10 22

efforts under the current Administration and it is a possible explanation.

Enabling commercial entities to profit from cheaper disposal solutions is another possible rationale. NRC should require any commercial entity that plans to handle long term hazards like GTCC to ensure adequate funds are set aside for maintenance and security of disposal in perpetuity to provide adequate public protection.

NRC should supply a complete explanation for recommending such weak and inadequate protection for the public from the hazards of GTCC waste.

Despite the existing limits of the safety analyses, we have very clear results that tell us the extreme hazard that the Greater than Class C radioactive waste mixture represents. NRC failed to complete a detailed defense in depth analysis for this proposal. Yet NRC did not alter its original objective based on the analyses and continues to propose near-surface disposal. There is no possible way for the NRC to legitimately argue that this mixture can be managed in near surface disposal facilities, except by ignoring science and health considerations and the findings from the Technical analysis.

NRC must maintain its existing requirements for geological disposal for this GTCC waste. Anything less than isolation of this waste from humans for as long as the hazard exists represents intergenerational injustice, by transferring the harm to future generations. The current NRC proposal for inadequate isolation for GTCC also cannot suffice as a basis for transfer of responsibility to the state level.

We need NRC to articulate the extreme nature of the hazard and how exactly the long term hazard will be actively managed in order to provide permanent isolation of Greater than Class C radioactive waste from any future contact with the public for approximately one million years, including via all possible exposure pathways. In 1991 Sierra Club developed their Low Level Radioactive Waste Policy which reflects considerable public concern about the proper management of radioactive waste. The policy states that waste with a hazardous life of greater than 100 years should be treated as high- level wastes. See attached policy.

We hope you will seriously consider our concerns and recommendations.

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Thank you for your consideration. If there are questions, please email or call B. Warren at 845-754-7951 or warrenba@msn.com Respectfully,

Enclosure:

Sierra Club policy Barbara Warren, RN, MS Executive Director Citizens Environmental Coalition New York Manna Jo Greene Environmental Director Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, Inc.

Beacon, NY Jessie Pauline Collins Co-Chair Citizens' Resistance at Fermi Two (CRAFT)

Redford, MI Marie McRae Spokesperson Dryden Resource Awareness Coalition Dryden, NY Charlie Bowman Environmental Justice Taskforce of the WNY Peace Center.

Buffalo, NY Sheila Parks, EdD Founder On Behalf Of Planet Earth Massachusetts Michel Lee Chair Public Health and Sustainable Energy Nanuet, NY 24

Rockland Environmental Group, LLC Susan H. Shapiro, Esq.

Attorney Nanuet, NY Sara Schultz Chair Amherst Energy Conservation Citizens Advisory Committee Amherst, NY Goshen Green Farms, LLC Susan Hito Managing Member Goshen, NY Diana Wright Facilitator People of Albany United for Safe Energy Albany, NY Russ Haven, Esq.

General Counsel NYPIRG Albany, NY Kate Bartholomew Chair Sierra Club Atlantic Chapter Albany, NY Adrian Shelley Texas Office Director Public Citizen Texas 25

Jim Anderson President Peace Action NYS NY, NY Diane DArrigo Radioactive Waste Project Director Nuclear Information and Resource Service Takoma Park, MD.

Alice Slater Nuclear Age Peace Foundation New York Joanne Hameister Spokesperson Coalition on West Valley Nuclear Wastes Cattaraugus County, NY Jessica Azulay Project Director Alliance for a Green Economy Syracuse, NY Terri Parks President League of Women Voters of Buffalo/Niagara Buffalo, NY Lynda Schneekloth Chair Western NY Environmental Alliance Buffalo, NY Sara Schultz Chair Sierra Club Niagara Group Buffalo, NY 26

Sarah Fields Program Director Uranium Watch Monticello, Utah Scott Williams, M.D., M.P.H.

Executive Director Healthy Environment Alliance of Utah Salt Lake City, Utah Lynn de Freitas Executive Director FRIENDS of Great Salt Lake Salt Lake City, Utah Michaela Czerkies Organizer Syracuse Peace Council Low Level Radioactive Waste Sierra Club Policy March 16-17, 1991 I. Goals

1. The public policy goals regarding "low-level" radioactive waste should be the termination of production of fuel cycle wastes and the isolation of such wastes in the safest and least environmentally damaging way achievable.

2. Congress and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) should exclude from their definition of "low-level radioactive waste" any waste having a hazardous life* greater than a 100-year institutional control period.

a. Wastes with a hazardous life of less than one year shall be stored at the place of use or distribution until the end of that hazardous life.

b. Wastes with a hazardous life between one and 100 years shall be stored in specifically licensed facilities. Such waste shall not contain more than 10 nanocuries per gram of 27

transuranic elements. Deliberate use of dilution to reduce the concentration of radioisotopes is unacceptable.

c. Wastes with a hazardous life greater than 100 years should be treated as "high-level" wastes.

II. Technology

1. "Low-level" wastes, as presently defined by the NRC, should be isolated by technology that results in zero-release of radioactivity over the hazardous life and one that minimizes inadvertent intrusion. Reliance cannot be placed on continuation of the present hydrogeology of sites. This is particularly true because global climate change will alter sea level and water tables. It is therefore essential that the waste be enclosed in a multi-barrier, water-impermeable system using materials with proper chemical and environmental stability. Whatever substances are used must be rigorously characterized regarding stability, impermeability and resistance to the radiation levels and chemicals that will be encountered.

2. Federal sponsorship of generator-funded research and development should be provided for new engineered, site-specific waste isolation techniques. These techniques shall have the necessary water impermeability and structural resistance to seismic and other events to ensure isolation of the stored wastes for their full hazardous lives.

3. Sea, freshwater or space disposal of radioactive wastes should be completely prohibited.

III. Institutional Issues

1. Monitoring and the possibility of corrective action should be maintained prior to and for as long as socially possible after site closure.

2. Source and volume reduction of radioactive waste streams should be required, providing that reduction techniques and policies do not result in release of radioactivity to the environment or other adverse environmental and health impacts.

3. Siting and technology choice processes should provide full public participation through public notification of meetings, open meetings, access to documents, and procedures in conformity with the Federal Administrative Procedures Act. There should be opportunity for full litigative participation in all licensing actions.

4. State health, siting and other laws more stringent than federal law or compact provision should not be preempted.

5. Compact commissions, if any, and state waste management authorities or personnel should be prohibited from accepting private donations or grants. Petition and recall procedures should be provided for compact commissioners.

6. An environmental and health impact statement should be required for each radioactive waste storage, treatment or isolation facility. Pre- licensing baseline health studies and ongoing health monitoring studies should be required at all radioactive waste storage, treatment, and isolation sites.

7. Compliance with compact, federal and state guidelines and regulations should be facilitated by the enactment of strong, clearly defined penalties and disincentives for compliance failure by generators, processors, transporters, and radioactive waste storage 28

and isolation facility builders and operators. During facility operation, the site operator should assume liability by means of rebuttable presumption in law.

8. No state should be required to take title to, possession of, or liability for radioactive wastes in the absence of full authority to regulate their generation.

IV. Financial Issues

1. The full cost of LLW isolation and monitoring should be borne by the generators of the waste. An extended care fund, paid for by charges imposed on generators, should cover the costs of site cleanup, decommissioning and active long-term monitoring, storage and health/environmental studies.

2. A long-term liability fund, paid for by charges imposed on generators, should compensate for personal injury and property damage in the event of leakage and provide the maximum third party liability insurance. During operation, cleanup, and decommissioning, the site operator should assume full liability through means of rebuttable presumption in law.

3. A fair and equitable mechanism for shared liability should be established among party states.

4. Disposal fees should be based on volume, radioisotope concentrations, and hazardous life of the wastes.

V. NRC policy on 'Below Regulatory Concern' The Sierra Club urges Congress:

1. to repeal provisions of the Low-Level Radioactive Waste Policy Amendments Act of 1985 that require establishment of deregulation of some "low-level" nuclear wastes;

2. to remove federal preemption over radiation standards and radiological safety regulations so that states may set standards and regulations that exceed minimum federal ones; and

3. to revoke existing 1986 and 1990 Nuclear Regulatory Commission policy statements on Below Regulatory Concern and Expanded Exemptions of Practices.

The Sierra Club recommends that radioactive material and wastes that the NRC, Department of Energy or other agencies classified as radioactive materials or low-level radioactive waste as of January 1, 1989, shall continue to be classified as radioactive materials or low-level radioactive waste, to be isolated only in facilities licensed specifically for that purpose. The Sierra Club recommends that radiation- generating practices of licensees, including brokers, not be deregulated.

• Hazardous life -- the time required for the concentration of radioactive materials within a package to decay to the maximum permissible concentrations given in 10 CRF 20, App. V, Table 11.

Adopted by the Board of Directors, March 16-17, 1991 [replaced polices of May 1983 and December 1984]

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