ML22230A072

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Tran-M771208: Public Meeting General Briefing on Waste Management
ML22230A072
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Issue date: 12/08/1977
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  • RETU N TO SECRETARIAT RECORDS NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION IN THE MATTER OF:

PUBLIC MEETI NG GENERAL BRIEFI NG ON WASTE MANAGEMENT

Date - Thursday, 8 December 1977 Pages 1 - 52 Telephone:

(2 02 ) 347-3700 ACE - FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.

Official Reporters 444 North Capitol Street Washington , D.C. 2000 l NATIONWIDE COVERAGE* DAILY

DISCLAIMER This is an unofficial transcript of a meeting of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission held on December B',i;l977 in .the Commission s offices at 1717 H Street, N. W., Washington, D. C. The 1

meeting was open to public attendance and observation. This transcript has not been -reviewed, corrected, or edited, and it may contain inaccuracies ..

The transcript is intended solely for general informational purposes.

As provided by 10 CFR 9.103, it is not part of the formal or informal record of decision of the matters discussed. Expressions of opinion in this transcript do not necessarily reflect firial ~eterminations or beliefs. No pleading or other paper may be filed with the Commission in any proceeding as the result of or addressed to any statement or argument contained herein, except as the Commission may authorize.

  • 1 CR5794 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

.:mp 2 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3

4 5

'6 PUBLIC MEETING 7 GENERAL BRIEFING ON WASTE MANAGEMENT 8

9 10 Room 1130 1717 H Street, N. W.

11 12 Thursday, 8 December 1977

  • 13 14 15 The meeting was convened at 9:00 a.m., pursuant to notice, Dr:.: Joseph M. Hendrie, Chairman of the Commission, presiding.

16 BEFORE:

17 JOSEPH M. HENDRIE' :.Cha+/-:rman PETER A. BRADFORD, Commissioner 18 VICTOR GILINSKY, Commissioner RICHARDT. KENNEDY, Commi~sioner 19 20 21 22 23

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2

.k CR5894 cmwl 2

3 get:on with it.

P R O C E E D I N G S CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Let's convene this meeting and 4 I am glad to see you'all this morning on a subject of considerable interest.

5 I might say in a very general introductory statement 6

that it seems to me frCDm my brief tenure here that the 7

Commission has initiatives underway in a number of important 8

areas.

9 Waste management is certainly one of these.

10 It also has seemed to me that to at least some 11 extent *the individual efforts, preparation typically of a 12

  • 13 14 15 Commission paper, proposal for acti-0n and so on, that these individual initiatives tend to rise to the Commission in a somewhat random fashion, depending upon the pace at which they are prepared in the Staff, and how well the concurrences 16 go and how difficult and complex the subject is and. obviously 17 all sorts of other things.

18 The effect, however, is to leave the Commission 19 considering as it sits down to discuss with the Staff one of 20 these papers, one item in what may be a broad subject, 21 and I find at least for myself sometimes a little difficulty 22 in placing the individual subject of discussion in the 23 context of what may be the much broader set of policy initiative

  • 24 Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc. that the Commission has.

25

3-4 cmw2 I have therefore asked the Staff to prepare for

  • 2 3

the Commission briefs of the type we will have this morning on waste management which attempt to go across the whole scope of that field, to point out the .. problems, the* ,places where 4

5 we need to do things, and to try to~put a -- identify some of the efforts that are under waywithin the Staff to fill 6

7 whatever may be gaps in our coverage in these area_s.

So I hope that the Commission will be seeing a 8

series of these things; there are probably a dozen major 9

areas we ought to cover in this fashion.

10 Then, subsequently, as we come to grapple here 11 with one or another of the.individual papers connected in 12 a broad field,* hopefully the Commission will feel ,that it has 13 had some recent backgro1:1nd presentation:,and identification 14 previously of where that piece of work or proposal fits in 15 the overall scheme, and, hence, the. context in which to judge it 16 So th.is is the first of these broad coverage 17 briefings.

18 The intent here then ~snot to go down into the 19 detail in any area, but rather to try to present the whole 20 field.

21 One of the important \aspects of this sort of 22 briefing, in addition to providing a context *for individual 23 papers, is to give us a chance to stand back and see if by

.. 24 ce-Fed~eporters, Inc. chance we have left some holes in our approach to the area and 25

5 cmw3 I

do not have under way efforts that we ought to have- *under way 2 to provide appropriate policy guidance criteria, regulations, 3 or whatever may be appropriate.

le 4 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Sounds like a good idea.

5 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Well, it seemed reasonable 6 at the time.

7 Okay. So we are glad to see you.

8 It's good to see the leaders of the first of 9 these general briefings.

10 MR. SMITH: Mr. Chairman, Thank you. Last time 11 we had an opport~nity to brief the Commission on waste 12 management I believe was last January.

  • 13 14 15 I j*ust Mve a few remarks .

At that time we discussed the .. waste management program primarily with emphasis only on the Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards.

16 We have requested an expansion of our resources 17 in terms of people and dollars, last January, and we also 18 sought your permission to.make some changes in our organi-19 zational structure to better address the problem.

20 You were agreeable, and since then a lot has happened.

21 As you know, the President's decision in April with Ace-Fed 22 23 24 Reporters, Inc.

respect to reprocessing, and therefore ultimately how we are going to handle the high-level.waste problem, the form~tion or creation of the Department of Energy, some of the difficulties 25

6 cmw4 that that has presented, and, not least, there has been a

  • 2 3

tremendous surge in interest *by the public.

By the public, I mean not only environmental groups, 4 general citizens, but also the utilities to solve this high-5 level waste problem; 6

So this briefing today is, as you said, Mr. Chairman, 7

to summarize in a very broad way where NRC is with respect to-waste management, where we are now, where we are going, 8

I and what are some of the broad problem areas that we see before 9

us.

10 Mr. Myers is going to give the briefing with 11 assistance from Dr. Bishop, who, of course, has the lead role 12.

  • 13 14 15 within the Office of Waste Management Program .

MR. MYERS:

(Slide.)

Can I have the first slide, please?

The major goals of the Waste Management Program are 16 twofold.

17 First, a regulatory infrastructure considering of 18 regulations, standards, and Guides.

19 Secondly, to make timely licensing decisions.

20 Next slide, please.

21 (Slide.)

The program to meet these goals consists of the 22 promulgation of regulations, the development of review 23 methodologies, and acting on various licensing applications.

24 Ace-F

  • e Re?orters, Inc. The regulations which we expect to be embodied in 25

7 cmw5 10 CFR Part 60 cover several areas.

  • 2 3

General provisions, which include administrative procedures, require records, fees, timing, et cetera.

~----

4 Type of waste, high-level, low-level, mill ~~lings, 5 and for each type specific procedures will be developed as 6 well, such as waste performance criteria, site suitability 7

criteria, design and operating criteria.

That last item, remedial, there we are talking 8

9 about things like abandoned sites, the NSS facility, et cetera.

10 The support of activities include such things as the development of the three-table review of the-ERDA GAIS 11 and working with Savannah River on the disposition of the 12

  • 13 14 15 military waste* there,. not the licenses, but to.

them and help them.

learn from Before I continue, what we handed out were a copy of the slides in addition to some backup material that sort 16 of explains in somewha~ more detail what could not be put 17 on the slide, because of the constraint about size.

18 We also included in the,':handout some previous MEO 19 tables and a list of application~bases as well.

20 Next slide.

21 (Slide.)

22 We have a working definition of nuclear waste which 23 is relatively simple.

  • 24 Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.

That is, those materials that are radioactive and 25

8 cmw6 have no dollar value.*

  • 2 3

We expect to develop a de minimis level of activity, apart from our waste classification work, above which the

- 4 5

regulatory program will fly.

We have not done tha't yet.

COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: What do you mean no dollar 6

value?

7 MR. MYERS: That's a waste;.

8 In other words, traditionally, wastes have no value.

9 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: How do you regard spent 10 fuel?

11 It may or may not have value.

12

  • 13 14 15 It*m.B!y have a positive value .

It may have a negative value at the present time.

CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: But hardly zero value.

COMMISSIONER GILINSKSY: Hardly zero value, right.

16 MR. MYERS: That's on the next slide.

17 If it is part**of the once-through :cycle, and if 18 it's decided you use the throwaway process, it is ih fact waste.

19 It may have value to somebody else at some other 20 I

time, but if *one says that the process we are going to have 21 is to oncc.through cycle,,,. it's back to waste.

22 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: I just wonder whether you 23 need that part of the definition.

  • 24 Ace-Federal Reparters, Inc. Whether2 the~e is some logical designation.

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9 cmw7 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: In any event, we understand,

  • 2 3

for whatever other language MR. MYERS:

spent fuel is in this discussion.

Next slide, please.

4 (Slide.)

5 These are the traditional classes of waste now.

6 Spent fuel is up there first, and as I said earlier, 7 if one decides that we are going with the once-through cycle, 8

it's a waste.

9 If you decide you are going to reprocess, then 10 it.'s~a resource.

l1 But we are planning right now for COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: There's no need to confuse 12

  • 13 14 15 the notion of waste as something; a common-sense definition of waste, is something you.want to discard.

Certain radioactive products which you may want to keep around for a short period of ~ime, and guard them, 16 or you may want .to put; them away, never to get them back again.

17 You know, in a long period, but I guess -- I don't 18 think the economics need come into the definition.

19 MR. MYERS: In part I -*-

20 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: These are materia_ls that 21 need to be protected, depending upon what you want to do 22 with them.

23 MR. MYERS: In some cases you hav.e an economic 24 Ace-F

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resource.

25

10 cmw8 1, If one harks back to just the normal chemical 2 waste industry, there are things like waste exchanges,_ where 3 people actually one man's waste is another man's feed product.

le 4 When it has no dollar value, it ends up getting 5 dumped into a chemical waste landfill.

6 If it has dollar value, it can end up in a waste 7 exchange where someone pays for it.

al I It may be that for the case of nuclear fuel, one 9 should not be concerned about the dollar value, but a tradi-10 tional, in talking about what is waste you are generally talking e 1 11 about something .that has no economic value.

12

  • 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23
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3 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:

fuel. The value of spent fuel.

Let's take experimental The value of spent fuel depends upon the price of uranium and the. cost of reproc:e.ssing and 4 a bunch of other things and it ought to flip in and out of 5 your definition, depending upon how those parts fluctuate.

6 You have to guard it anyway to protect it.

7 MR. MYERS: Let's say there was a final decision 8 there would be no reprocessing. In my mind, it is a waste.

9 But if one decides that you will reprocess, then i t is not a 10 waste.

11

  • Do you. agree with that?

12 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: You still have to protect

  • 13 14 15 it .

MR. MYERS:

MR. SMITH:

Yes.

Sure.

16 MR. MYERS: But there is a difference between protect-17 ing in some storage mode for 20 or 30 years, as opposed to 18 burying it 500 feet down.

19 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:. You don't call i t a waste 20 for 20 or 30 years?

21 MR~ MYERS: If it is stored, it could be considered not waste.

22 23 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: That depends on a lot of 24 decisions that we are not in a position to know the outcome Ace-F

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25 of. That affects how we view the material.

12 bw2 Why don't you go ahead?

2 MR. MYERS: Past the spent fuel 3 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: At least you are supported 4 reasonably well by Webster, if that helps you.

5 MR. MYERS: Thank you. We have also high-level 6 military waste, low-level waste, mill tails and decol11Ill1J.ssioning 7 residue.

8 I would like to :now get into the substance of the 9 waste management program in the context of its two major parts, 10 high-level and low-level.

11 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Before you plunge forward, if 12 I take the traditional classes, is there anything which

  • 13 14 15 everything falls into one or another of these cact:egories .

MR. MYERS: Just about.

CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: I guess i t depends on how we 16 define the categories._

17 MR. BISHOP:* We can jump ahead a little bit. We have 18 seen a problem with the classification of waste for us as 19 regulators. Part of the program you saw in one of the 20 handouts, in a block near the top on classificiation is part 21 of our program and ongoing and Shelly will talk to that later.

We don~t think,as regulators,these classes of 22 23 waste do us very much good, and we have known that for some

.time, - so we will come up with Class A waste:~ and a Class B

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25 waste, and we will tell the world what those mean.

13 1

1 bw3 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: By way of introduction .

2 MR. BISHOP: This has traditional classes. That is 3 the way it is now.

le 4 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Well played.

5 MR. MYERS: I didn't intend i t that way. Let's get 6 into the high-level portion of the program first. Under our 7 current traditional classification scheme, high-level includes 8 spent fuel when it is* once through.

9 Transuranics. NRC' s authority 10 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Let me return to that point.

11 Why do you say w4en it is once th~ough?

12 MR. SMITH: We have to be careful, because our

  • 13 14 15 current definition of high-level wast: does not encompass spent fuel.

MR. MYERS: Well, tile definition of high-level 16 waste, as it appears in the Reg., has to do with the reprocessing cycle.

17 18 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: It has to do with a particular 19 chemical process, i in fact. Doesn't it ta:lk about *a --

20 MR. MYERS: Yes, it does. But since the President's statement of April 7th, you must take the responsibility of 21 spent fuel being disposed of.

22 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:. As the ultimate waste form?

23 MR. MYERS: Right. In that case, in my view, it be-

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comes a high-level waste.

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.4 2 COMMISSIONER.GILINSKY: Do we need to fix up that regulation or that definition in the regulation?

3 MR. MYERS: When the decision becomes final. one way

- 4 5

or the other.

MR. SMITH: When you made the point of what the 6 definition is in the regulations, , but we have to look at it as*

7 high-level waste.

8 MR. MYERS: This is one of the uncertainties of tryin 9 to develop the program. When you speak in the traditional 10 sense of high-level waste as a result of reprocessing cycle, you 11 head toward disposal, et cetera. ** You can't take .. the exact 12 same design and throw a spent frel element---------------

in it, if---

you

~ --- ---- - - - -- ---- ---~

13 chose to dispose of i t finally. It has to be a different-kind 14 of design.

15 These are the uncertainties in terms of laying out 16 a schedule, when the regulation comes out.

17 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: It seems to me the definition 18 of high-level waste or the inclusion, let's say, of spent fuel 19 in that definition, ought not depend upon.whether or not 10, 20, 20 30, 40 years from now, if you return-to that material or not, 21 to my opinion. It ought to depend on the current state of

- 22 affairs. If it is pretty hot stuff, then i t should be treated 23 as high-level waste.

MR. MYERS: It may affect the manner in which you

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25 take care of i t for that 20 or 30 years.

15 bwS COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Sure .

  • 3 2 MR. BISHOP: The program we blocked out for you last January had two components, high-level and low-level component~

4 and branches were established for those components.

5 This slide shows the ~-i:-esponsibili ty really of the 6 high-level waste branch. Traditional classes, looking forward 7 a little bit, which would follow / in Class A waste which are 81 those wastes which must go to a repository or something pro-9 viding long-term isolation.

10 Al though this :i.sn' t necessarily high-level waste, it 11 is what falls within the purview .of that unit.*

12 MR. MYERS: Our authority to treat with high-level 13 waste is also somewhat complicated. It depends in part on the 14 source of the waste, whether i t be an NRC license facility, 15 government, foreign; the ownership of the facility, commercial 16 or federal;*- and *the duration of storage, whether it be long-17 term or short-term, depending upon how you like to define 18 that.

19 Currently, NRC licenses would be needed for all 20 commercial,facilities and.federal respositories *for high-level-21 waste.

22 If you want to include spent fuel in that, we can.

23 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: In fact, i t is up to us, if 24 we define i t to be high-level waste, then we would have Ace-F

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25 authority over the storage.

16 bw6 MR. MYERS:: Assuming someone didn't sue us and

  • 2 say, no, you can't. Right now we expect under these kinds of 3 _ terms, the types of thing*s that would require NRC licenses, 4 would be federal storage of transuranics, short-term storage 5 of high-level waste, Department of Energy research and 6 development facilities and the existing storage of Department 7 of Energy waste.

8 Next slide, please.

9 (Slide.)

10 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Why wouldn't federal

_ 11 storage of transuranics fall under NRC' s responsibi~i ties?

12 MR. MYERS: I believe the way the law is structured -

  • 13 14 15 MR. BISHOP:

MR. SMITH:

We lost our lawyer ...-

Unless it is interpreted in law, we don't have a responsibility.

16 All historical. use of the terms "high-level" and 17 "low-level" waste have been in the context of reprocessing.

18 All of the laws and all of the legislative history we have 19 looked over do not indicate the.Congress in any way had 20 transuranic waste on their minds.

The law gives us the responsibility for the 21 22 licensing of DOT, ERDA, then DOE, repositories.

COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: This is the long-lived 23 24 material that causes public worry.

Aca-F

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---*iI.

MR. BISHOP: -.J)e facto, think we will end up

17 bw7 licensing the disposal of that material, because it will be 2 in the same facility as the other waste.

3 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: It seems to me we looked into

!e 4 this a year or two ago, and the lawyers were going back and 5 forth with it. I don't know what the upshot of i t was.

6 MR. BISHOP: They advised us, if i t was a DOE 7 facility, strictly for storage, it would not be subject to 8 licensing.

9 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD: Is there a particular 10

  • memorandum that spells that out?

11 MR .. BISHOP: I don't remember. There probably 12 is.

  • 13 14 15 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: It is probably not inconceivable there might not yet be some modification. in the legislation, to clarify.

16 .It may even be appropriate for the Commiss+/-on to 17 sugges,t such.

18 I think it depends on the use of the word "storage" 19 and the use of the word "disposal'\ as written in the law.

20 So, if you start talking about storage, it is rather restrictive for us.

21 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: Wasn't i t for the duration?

22 23 MR. BISHOP: It was for high-level waste. The words 24 of the law are "long-term storage of high-level waste."

,Ace-Fe* Reporters, Inc.

I 2s MR. MYERS: As I remember, they don't mention I

I

18 bwsi.

transuranics .

2 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD: So even disposal of 3

transuranics would arguably be unregulated?

i

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6 facility.

MR. BISHOP: If it is in a separate and distinct COMMISSIONER BRADFORD: Even if it were in the same 7

facility, under that interpretation, i t wo_uld be regulated 8 beyond its interaction with.the high-level waste?

9 MR. MYERS: : We would license the facility, the pieces 10 that go into it. What Phil is trying to say, what we know now, 11 the way DOE is thinking, the TRU and the high-level-would be 12 the same place and we would license the facility .

  • 1*;:__.

13 14 15 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:

license it, even if it is TRU MR. BISHOP:

You are saying we would not from the commercial sector.

If i t is under DOE operation.

16 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: It is a peculiar sort of 17 gap.

18 MR. SMITH: In fact, this is something we would like 19 to discuss a little with you. There is just some gaps.

20 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: What is the significance of 21 these gaps?

22 MR. SMITH: I think what it. means, some of the overall 23 waste management programs for the country, I don't think it is good Ace-F. Reporters, ~n~.

25 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: Why not? What is the nature

19

. of the gap? What is the effect of the gap? The Federnal

.bw9 2 Government is doing this.

3 MR. SMITH: The gap is a.considerable amount of 4 grayness as to who is responsible for what. I think we are 5 really talking about a concerted reg1h1atory program for waste 6 management in the country. There are some areas that NRC E2 7 needs to have filled in.

8 9

10 11 12

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20 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: There is going to be a coherent 2 program to manage the waste in any case. You have great difficu ty_

3 in establishing such a program if the regulatory boundaries, 4 if the boundaries of responsibility and authority are Mercalli-5 drawn and don't form a continuous coverage of the whole field.

6 Then you have areas_, nobody knows who is quite suppos d T to do what about that. And those uncertainties are a consider-8 able difficulty in going forward with the program.

9 MR. BISHOP: From a technical viewpoint in direct 10 answer to Commissioner Kennedy's question, .the possibility 11 exists that two materials which are similar in the long term,

12. in terms of their hazards, could be dealt with under entirely
  • 13 14 15 different criteria, by two different operations ..

legally possible.

MR. MYERS:

That is Probably operationally unlikely.

And_end up in different places. It 16 is unlikely but possible.

17 Continuing on, the schedule you see before you is pre ty 18 much provided by the Department of Energy, and we track with 19 them. The defense part and the commercial part, as you can see, 20 are. a year apart.

21 we* expect to, in fact, we know, that the Department of Energy has -- is homing in on site .. In fact, we just got a 22 letter from them.

23 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: These are two different sites.

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25 MR. BISHOP: There is one site designated for defense*

21 waste and there is a number of sites under investigation for 2 commercial waste.

3 The answer is yes, they are different sites.

1-- 4 5 site.

MR. MYERS: The defense one in '77 is that WIPF 6 There is no formal notification of that.

7 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: *Is there going to be defense 8 waste ready to move into a long-term storage facility in 1983?

I 9 MR. MYERS: That is the plan.

10 l'le are working at Savannah River now to do that, 11 solidify it, get it out there.

12 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD: What is the WIPF site?

  • 13 14 15 MR. MYERS: Waste MR. MYERS:

isolation plant.

COMMISSIONER BRADFORD:

Carlsbad.

Where is that?

16 We just received a letter where DOE has requested 17 it that it also be considered for high-level waste.

18 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD: From the commercial 19 MR. MYERS: From defense.

20 MR. SMITH: One of the reasons, if you look at those 21 days, you look at the schedule that NRC is on, with respect 22 to establishing criteria for site selection and design, we 23 begin to see a little problem that we are going to have. Here 24 we have already picked the site. We haven't come up witjl a Ace-F* Reporters, Inc.

25 site criteria.

22 MR. BISHOP: They haven't announced the wast8 for~,

2 but we happen to know from --

3 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: They are working to that end.

4 MR. BISHOP: _From their planning at the three sites 5 they are expecting to have solid, to have it solidified. We 6 have laid no criteria out for defense waste, nor have we been 7 working on it, but we are following them and working with them 8 closely in an informal way on the Savannah. River site and 9 soon on the Hanford site. Shipping the waste to this repository 10 the WIPP site is one of the alternatives under discussion for 11 the waste at all three major defense sites. It is not a selecte 12 alternative yet .

  • 13 14 15 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD. What do you mean when you say you are working with them quite closely?

MR. BJSHOP: They come to brief us periodically.

16 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD: Savannah River?

17 MR. BISHOP:- The DOE officials, as well as the Staff, 18 comes to brief us on their processes. We have gien them advice 19 on such things as quality assurance, they *have taken that advice 20 and actually restructured some of the organization, to do the 21 kind of quality assurance program that we would have a commer-cial operator do.

22 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD: How much freedom will you 23 have to develop criteria, if they have already made a commit-

  • 24 Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.

ment to Carlsbad?

25

.?.3 fm4 MR. BISHOP: It could be a problem .

2 MR. SMITH: That is what I was mentioning earlier.

3 MR. BISHOP: We can still in the licensing process --

4 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: How soon can you develop cri-5 teria?

6 MR. BISHOP: Not soon enough.

7 We have told them that in a Staff letter.

8 COf~1ISSIONER KENNEDY: Not soon enough for that site 9 which is 1980 --

10 MR. BISHOP: In time for the licensing process, yes.

11 Not in time for the site selection.

12 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: If site selection was delayed

  • 13 14 15 to the point where it could coincide with your criteria, what date would site selectio_n occur?*

MR. BISHOP: As. you will see later in the schedule, 16 it will be next spring, that we have something in a draft form available which they could use. So it is not that much time.

17 18 MR. MYERS: Just to ease your mind a bit, we have draft material out now. In othe:r: words, have many people see 19

  • earlyversions of the site suitability criteria, even 20 though we don't expect to get them out for another year in draft 21 form in the sense of having an impact statement.

22 Ne~t slide, please.

23 (Slide.)

COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: I guess all I was saying, it I

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looks like we could get rather easily into a Catch-22. We have 0 I 25

24 have a waste management site right now, or you have got to stop.

2 licensing reactors is one cry I hear, but we can't get a waste 3 management site until we get site selection criteria from 4 another agency. That agency isn't ready to do that yet, so if y u 5 just wait long enough, you do have Catch:-22. I guess I wouldn't 6 want this agency to be part of an exercise of that kind. I am 7 sure you wouldn't either.

8 MR. BISHOP: I think the Catch-22 is not quite as 9 direct as you have indicated. The reason being, the criteria 10 that gets used in the. licensing process after receipt of an 0

11 application. Indeed, DOE should have a preview of those, and 12 they have .

  • 13 14 15 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:

you are talking about defense~

COMMISSIONER BRADFORD:

Also you are talking about 19 7, Who decides DOE --

16 MR. MYERS: The criteria?

17 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD: Yes.

18 MR. MYERS: We have had workshops across the country, 19 we have had peer groups. It is reviewed substantially. We 20 have another group set up, environmental organizations. That 21 would be on the last line. People that are involved in the pro-22 cess. We are trying to push the public participation concept rather heavily.

23 MR. SMITH: There is still a potential problem, I

  • 24 Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.

25 think that you are pointing at, when you come back and establish

25 regulations and publish it in the Federal Register for comment, 2 et cetera, et cetera, many people may have a different point of 3 view, and they raise some issues that we didn't look at.

4 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD: And that process will be 5 concluded 6 MR. MYERS: For the waste packaging form, the site 7 suitability criteria, design criteria, we expect to have draft 8 regulations out April of '78. May of '78. I am sorry.

9 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD: Would you expect that final 10 regulation?

11 MR. MYERS: Depending upon, if you.don't get sued, 12 we are planning 8 months after that. Which would be January

  • 13 14 15 Of I 79
  • MR. SMITH: Some think we are unrealistic, allowing ourselves only 8 months, but that is as tight as we can be.

16 MR. MYERS: You put out a draft impact statement on l? the draft regulations and most agencies will wait to hear from 18 selected agencies no matter how long it takes. If you want to 19 live with the regulations, say, okay, 45 days or over and we are 20 stopping, then anything after that date we are not going to look 21 at, you then *can proceed on some reasonable sched~le. We could obviously surface that issue and say, we have not heard from 22 23 X number of agencies; do you want to go ahead or not? That is one thing.

  • 24 Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc:.

25 Obviously a lawsuit could delay, but. the 8. months is

26 predicated upon going through the formal process of the 45 days 2 review of the draft, a couple of months accommodating whatever 3

comments, redoing it, getting it in final form, then you wait 4 another 30 days after the final goes out before you--the regula-5 tions can affec~ it. It is a schedule that is predicated on 6 nobody throwing a roadblock in your way.

7 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD: At that point, the commitment 8 to the Carlsbad facility would bewhat, 13 months old?

9 How much money would be likely to be spent?

10 MR. MYERS: The Carlsbad facility is about a year 11 behind the commercial facility. A year ahead.. So they expect 12 to start operations in '83 .

  • 13 14 15 MR. SMITH:

January of '79.

They are going to sink the shaft in '79.

We are saying we wouldn '*t have our final things out until

,so, yes, there would have been money spent.

16 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: Two years would have elapsed 17 as well.

18 MR. MYERS: Again it is not as if they are working 19 in the darR.

20 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: But the work that has gone int 21 the site selection which will occur in December of 1977 has been 22 going ori for a year,so it woulq have been two years, effectively 23 that would have been lost. In other words, they have to go

  • 24 back and do it over again, you have to go through that site A.ce-Federol Reporters, Inc. ,*

25 review process, which will take them a good year from that.

27 fm8 2

3 That would theh add to the licensing process, and then they would be able to think about sinking a shaft and we would be talking about 1985 before you would be digging a hole.

4 Just to be sure everybody understands what is e 3 5 happening.

6 7

8 9

10 11 12

  • 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23

.. 24 Ace-F~ Reporters, Inc.

25

28 CR5794 MR. MYERS: We have gotten from DOE, that's their

.!k 2 plan, we are trying to accommodate as best we can and what cmwl 3 we think is reasonable to do.

- 4 5

What we .are talking about is rather constrained because we are being quite optimistic.

The series of regulations we intend to get them 6

out, the time schedule, are the administrative portions of 7!

I the regulations, including the general portion of records, al fees and timing.

9 The packaging and form of the waste, the site,"

10 selection, site suitability criteria, design criteria, and waste 11 classification comes out somewhat on the same time schedule.

12

  • 13 14 15 The operation of decommissioning starts in the 1980 time frame since we don't need that as early as we do the other material.

CHA.I1.RMAN HENDRIE: The classification 16 MR. MYERS: That's what Bill was talking about 17 earlier in terms of Class A, Class B.

18 In other words, try to design a classification 19 system- that is dependent upon the kind of isolation you need 20 as opposed to --

21

  • cHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Can you, ;get the standards with 22 regard to can you get the other items out, without 23
  • 24 Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.

25 having you know what the classification scheme that you wouJld like to see is, I guess.

29 cmw2 MR. BISHOP: We know what the scheme is.

  • 2 3

We don't know what the numerical limits dividing the class will be yet.

That's ongoing.

4 It won't be complete until next spring.

5 The classes qui_te simply from a regulatory viewpoint 6

are driven by the ultimate disposition of the waste, so the 7

classification scheme is what I.laughingly call the Mikado 8

principle, of letting the punishment fit the crime.

9 Since we have only the two disposal mechanisms 10 available to us at the moment, a detailed deposit repository 11 but there need only be for regulatory purposes two classes 12

  • 13 14 15 of waste .

Those which may go to shallow land burial and those which must go to the Eepository.

The Class A waste, for which this* particular chart 16 is aimed, would be those materials which must go to the 17 repository which need that kind of isolation.

18 As to what the limits are, dividing them from.the 19 o_thers, we haven't established that.

20 So we can put out the administrative framework 21 quite easily as we*11 as some of the form criteria, technical 22 detail, site, design, technical details for the repository.

23 The answer is yes, we can.

.

  • 24 Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc. MR. MYERS: Next slide, please.

25 ~

30 cmw3 The other work underway, the assessment capability 2 to allow us to analyze a number of things.

3 First one would be the.geologic* isolation capabilit .

4 We expect to do that by May of '78.

5 Then evaluate the proposed design in May pf '79.

6 MR. BISHOP: A quick note to be sure it's clear.

7 This will have capabilities available.

8 Not that we will have completed some sort of 9 analysis by then.

10 The tools will be available to us at that point.

11 MR. MYERS: The next item is to,work with the 12 Department of Energy.

  • 13 14 15 As I mentioned earlier, we have been giving them informal information.

We expect to formalize this in a number of ways.

16 One with a Staff technical position, by the 1st 17 of next year, which is next month, and a Guide, Regulatory 18 Guide, given the same kind of information in a formal way, 19 by June of ' 7 9 .

20 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: What do they submit in 21 the way of a*license application?

- 22 MR. MYERS: That's what we have to_, tell them.

23 Content and format of the application.

Now, it's not at all clear at this stage of the

  • 24 Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.

25 game, whether,_-you have a single licensing process, a dual

31 cmw4 licensing process, that has existed or what, but the idea 2 of that kind of information will be to tell them what we 3 want, what format we want it *in.

4 MR. SHAPAR: It's not a facility.

5 Facility means production and utilization_

6 Under these concepts it's neither a production or 7 utilization facility.

8 However, that does not mean that within the

  • 9 rubric of materials licensing we cannot construct a licensing 10 framework that will give us an input with respect to site 11 selection and start of construction, and that type of thing.

We have done just that sort of thing, for other 12

  • 13 14 15 materials licenses, such as plutonium fabrication plants and the materials licensing_activities of that nature.

COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: We require the environmental specimens be available before we proceed.

16 MR. MYERS: Before we issue a license.

17 MR. BISHOP: That is our present thinking, as we 18 have transmitted, from Staff* to ~taff, to DOE.

19 We left a lot of-options open.

20 We wanted the environmental statement *and the 21 safety analysis report thoroughly.

22 MR. MYERS: Let me jump to** the last item, 23 Savannah River, that's the technical assess work we mentioned

  • 24 Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc. earlier in terms of our cooperation with them.

25

32 Those are the dates when*they expect to have their crnwS planned safety analysis report and environmental report out.

2 We told them we would review them in somewhat 3

greater detail.

4 We are on a continuing basis working with them, 5

as all of these are being developed.

6 In fact, I think they are quarterly meetings.

7 I There was one a couple of months ago and there,';s -

al I

1 one corning up this rnonth~or next month.

9 The NFS, that one is sort of flaky, in the sense 10 of Federal Register notice and a draft impact statement.

11 Some while ago we published regulations on the 12 treatment of high level waste and excluded the NFS facility 13 and said rulemaking will follow, and we are still tracking 14 that commitment in terms of rulemaking.

15 Whether or not that November of '78 date has meaning 16 in the impact st~tement a year later would depend upon a whole 17 range of things.

18 As you know, there's ongoing work right now.

19 There has been work on what to do with that 20 facility, what it costs.

21 DOE had another million bucks to relock at it 22 and sort of it's in limbo in a sense, is in DOE's lap, in 23 terms of making a decision or recommendation to what should be

- 24 Ace-FZ Reporters, Inc. done with it, how much it's going to cost, who pays . for it.*

25

cmw6 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:

Technically, it's much 33

  • 2 3

like the defense waste.

MR. MYERS: It is defense waste.

4 600 gallons is the biggest chunk.

5 That's defense waste.

6 MR. SMITH: There's 600,000 gallons of high level 7 waste, but a lot of it is fuel they got from the government.

8 The way the waste has been neutralized is that 9

one has sludge accumulating in the bottom and the difficulty arises as to how to remove that.

10 11 The same problem they have in the defense waste.

COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: The difference is, this 12

  • 13 14 15 is a -- was a licensed plant .

MR. SMITH: That's right.

COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: But it poses the same techni-cal problems.

16 MR. S~ITH: Same technical problems in general as 17 some of the older tanks.

18 That is how do you ge~ the stuff out of there?

19 If you decide you want to remove that waste:from 20 those tanks, and do something else with it, you first have to 21 overcome the technical problem of how to get it out of there.

22 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: I had occasion to meet recently 23 with some of the New York State people and we have asked the

.. 24 Ace-F~ Reporters, Inc.

Department of Energy people to do a technical report for us.

25

34 cmw7 Is that coming along or do you perceive 2 MR. MYERS: It's corning along.

3 MR. BISHOP: It ' s underway .

4 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: No change in the status from 5

our discussions with New York State?

6 MR. BISHOP: No.

7 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: What part of the record does it answer?

8

  • MR. BISHOP: There was an earlier report that 9

looks at technology under development at ERDA sites.

10 We have looked at that, _saw some we thought needed 11 further exploration.

12

  • 13 14 15 We *also had some outside the scope of that report which we thought ought to be explored.

We asked ERDA to look at those in some depth.

They have put that in as a major element in their 16 l6oking at the site as a whole~

17 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Why can-!:t they do. what*they 18 plan to do at Savannah River?

19 MR. BISHOP: That's one of the alternatives.

20 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: It may be possible to do that.

21 As I understand what needs to be done, there needs 22 to be a clear understanding of the best technical solution for 23 waste value.

  • 24 Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc. Then you can move ahead with an appropriate 25

35 cmw8 rulemaking, in order to provide a regulatory basis to process 2 and transport that fuel.

3 MR. MYERS: That would be lovely, if i t could be 4 done that way.

5 I try to get across the whole thing is fraught with 6 unknowns, such as, it's been suggested the Federa_l Government 7 take over the whole facility, use it as a storage, waste disposal site, =for example.

8 9

Right now the biggest problem --

10 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: There are a variety of options, 11 but at least* with regard to the DOE study, the attempt is.

to thrash out and_be satisfied that:.they know what the 12

  • 13 14 15 viable options are from an engineering and safety standpoint.

And then hop~fully not allow whatever the political considerations are, to move in directions that don't conform with those safety --

16 MR. ~YERS: I agree.

17 I expect what would come out of the report would be 18 a way to solve the problems and then somebody has to bite the 19 bullet-and decide how.

20 That's going to be a toughie.

21 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: I think Congress has the only 22 jaw tough enough to do that.

23

  • 24 Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.

25

36 CR5794 MR. MYERS: Next slide.

bwl
  • S5 2 (Slide.)

3 This is the last one on the high-level program.

4 It gives you a first cut at the schedule for repository 5 licensing. You will know there are four commercial facilitites.

6 It i t is not at all clear at_.£.':rl.s stage of the game whether there will be four <or not. We have not heard o~~erwise. The original plan was for_ four.

9 MR. BISHOP: The original plan was for six.

10 MR. HYERS: They have cut back two ..*But we still 11 have plans fol,'.' l_C?oking at four cornmerical facilities.

12 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: Plans for looking at them?

  • 13 14 15 MR. MYERS:

license applications.

MR. BXSHOP:

In other words, our plans as respect One of these would have capacity for Ame waste until about the year 2000 16 COMMISSIONE~ GILINSKY: Is i t a matter of making the 17 I underground part bigger?

18 MR. MYERS: It could be you have one site that is 19 a big, massive site.

20 I t could be that i t would make more sense to have 21 one located in the Midwest and one on the East Coast and one Ace-Feo 22 23 24 Reporters, Inc:.

on the West Coast kind of thing.

COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Equity.

MR. MYERS: Transportation. One of the biggest 25

37 bw2 ------

problems in management of *waste is moving it. There is that

  • 2 3

kind of thinking, too.

sure you have enough.

Also, i t might be, you want to make

- 4 5

6 MR. BISHOP: There is one classification. There are some .. geologic media which look like they would be quite good for *this kind of disposal.

7 It seems prudent to explore them all. That is why 8 they are thinking of several sites.

9 The present plan which we learned last month is to 10 select two sites in salt and explore the Hanford site and the 11 Nevada test in s9me detail. to see if. they are. geologically 12 suitable.

  • 13 14.

15 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:

for all of this?

MR~ MYERS:

Who in DOE has responsibility Good question. I don't mean to be 16 facetious. The people that were there seem to have left.

17 MR. SMITH: - One of the things I was going to talk 18 about at the end, the problem of overall national waste manage~

19 ment program in which all of th~ various agencies' schedules 20 are fitted in, who are the people that have the lead roles?

21 At. DOE, i t is basically right, correct me . if I am wrong, concentrated under Bob Thorne's shop and Woody 22 23 Cunningham. As you know, Mr. Thorne is acting. I presume a lot of them are acting. Some of those have left and gone Ac:e-F. Reporters, 7n~. other places. So it hasn't settled down yet as to who is going 25 a

(

-- I 38

    • 2 3

to be the lead driving force there, that individual for waste management.

COMMISSIONER GIL~NSKY: _Cunningham has other I

- 4 5

responsibilities.

MR. SMITH: Yes. He has ver:y broad responsibilities.

6 Waste management is just one of them.

7 MR. MYERS: . I would like to ): now go on to the low-8 level waste program.

9 (Slide.)

10 Again, thisc* is the current way we classify low-level 11 waste. It includes. those wastes that go te>_ shallow ],and burial, 12 mill tailings, decommissioning residue and other materials, such

    • 13 14 as gases.

Any question on that breakdown?

15 i Next slide, please ..

16 (Slide.)

17 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: When you say "decomissioning 18 residue," is that referring to reactors?

19 MR. MYERS: We were careful not to use the word 20 "decommissioning facility." It depends. If you dismantle a 21 reactor and have pieces of i t laying around that have to be

- 22 put someplace, i t could.be pieces of reactors, once the 23 reactor license is terminated.

MR. SMITH: But you are including an aspect of i t Ace*F* Reporters, :~.

25 in there.

39 bw4 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: It could be a variety of 2

other things.

3 MR. MYERS: A variety of other things.

- 4 5

6 plant?

CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: How would one class a decommission d MR. MYERS: Processing plant.

7 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Reactor plant.

8 MR. MYERS: It depends upon how you decommission it.

9 In other words, if you mothballed i t or teamed i t 10 CHAI.RMAN HENDRIE: If I mothball it, i t sounds a 11 little bit like i t is on a standby license from the*facility.

12 MR. SHAPAR: .Mothball intact, they have an ownership

  • 13 14 15 license.

CHAIRMAN HEND.RIE: Let's suppose we tore out what seemed to be the more highly contaminated

  • elements, shift 16 over to someplace else* and they become decontamination res.idues.

17 There remained behind -- it remains behind the foundation 18 structure, themselves,underground which continue to have at 19 least a mild level of radioactivity, and in this particular 20 case, if you knock down the containment shell, put i t over 21 the foundatiion and shells, *now what happens --

Ace-F 22 23 24 Reporters, Inc.

removed.

MR. MYERS:. - It is materials license.

MR. SHAPAR: Assuming the reactor is substantially 25 MR. MYERS: If it were less than the quantity one

40 bw5 would license in any case, it would be an unrestricted use

  • 2 3

site.

CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Suppose i t is more than that, but still not enough to require all that concrete to go into 4

5 high-level disposal?

6 MR. MYE:RS: It could become a de facto waste site .

7 MR. BISHOP: De facto. disposal site. For planning purposes, that is why we include that as a line item for 8

study under the waste ma*nagement progoram.

9 MR. MYERS: I thought i t might be worthwhile to 10 mention the curr~nt federal-state. roles for shaLlow land buf:+/-'.al.

11 The ownership of t".he land is federally-owned; long.;..-.term care 12 is in the hands of the states. ~

Although ther~ has been a recommendation from a 14 task force that the Federal Government is responsible for 15 long-term care, as well.

16 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: If I can interrupt you and 17 go back to the federal respository. What about the repcbsi tories 18 for the commercial waste? Are they designed to handle spent fuel 19 or what?

20 MR. BISHOP: DOE plans to have those repositories 21 capable of h:andling disposal for* .spent fuel or disposal of high-22 level waste.

23 In terms of our program, although the high-level

.* 24 Ace-F . Reporters, Inc.

waste, because i t *started first, we are completing our work on 25

41 bw6 i t first, we have added the element of spent fuel to our

  • 2 3

study of the repositories, as well, and are trying:to move that as quick as we can.

4 The direct answer is yes, indeed.

5 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: wi-11 they be retrievable?

6 MR. BISHOP: That is a separate consideration.

7 It could be.

8 MR. SMITH: It is our understanding ~hat there is 9 some discussion, there is a great deal of discussion going on, 10 that they are looking for a repository I that would handle 11 spent fuel or so-lidified high-level waste and -that would be 12 retrievable.

  • 13 14
15. I That then begins to pose some real problems.

CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Start a little earlier.

just missed it. I am sorry.

16 MR. SMITH: Initially, we were talking about 17 solidifying high-level tlaste in. a deep geologic disposal 18 repository that would p~obably not be retrievable.

19 Now, we have shifted into an area where we are 20 talking about either solidified high-level waste or spent 21 fuel in a deep geologic respository, with the retrievability

- 22 23 built in.

That may mean then. reI?osi t.ories of geologic formation.

in different kinds

  • 24 Ace-F Reporters, Inc.

25 MR. BISHOP:. And different design.

42 bw7

  • 3 2

MR. SMITH: Different design. It is that last aspect, as to whether or not they want that retrievability built in as an option for both. Then that _I think is stil.J, in the

- 5 4

6-state of flux.

So you might say we are hanging loose j' to move in either direction.

7 MR. MYERS: It is conceivable you could end up with 8

one facility that is really a high-level waste disposal site, 9

and drawn explicitly for storage of long-term spent fuel.

10 If you wanted to leave i t there you could. That ll isone of the options.

.: 12 13 14 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: It seems unlikely you would have waste corning out of comrnerical reprocessing plants by whenever, and solidified and everything else, so why would 15 one be pressing?

16 We are talking about different facilities.

17 As far as the commerical facilities go, why would 18 anyone be looking at anything other than spent fuel at the 19 present time, particularly, if you are really pressed in your 20 schedule?

21 MR, MYERS: That is a consideration.

-a:

22 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: I think i t is fai-r to plan ahead 23 and just be sure you go down what seems to be the main track.

24 At the moment you are not .*constructing a . framework which is ce-F Reporters, Inc.

25 just ina:mpatible

  • with other ways that you may have to go.

43 bw8 CDMMISSIONER GILINSKY: I am not suggesting leaving it 2 out, but you are talking about a pretty optimistic schedule, 3 certainly for your first facility~

4 Why would you in that case be looking beyond.

5 MR. MYERS: Just remember we started out looking 6 at the high-level waste from the reprocessing plant to be 7 solidified.

8 We could just cut it over now and just drop that.

9 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Why not keep that option open or 10 the subsequent facilities? You laid out four facilities there ES I 11 you are talking -about.

12

  • 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23
  • 24

.Ace-F" Reporters, Inc.

25

  1. 6 MR. SMITH:

I think there's another problem here.

44 FP/.1 C. 94 2 ornrnissioner Kennedy mentioned it earlier. That is, I think DOE 3 swell aware that unless they demonstrate that we indeed have 4 permanent repository, final solution for the high level waste 5 roblern, that from the energy standpoint, the nuclear program 6 s in trouble, so --

7 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Why do you have to denonstrat

~---------:

a it beyond spent fuel?

9 MR. SMITH: Because they haven't made a decision,is 10 spent fuel in a repository the ultimate solution?

11 I thin.15'. they want to proffer the best solution.

12 One would be to solidify high level waste and take

  • 13 14 15 military waste and put that down .

COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:

argue, not having I would not, but one could proved the second solution, would immediately 16 rule out any subsequent decision to reconsider reprocessing.

17 There simply would be no solution.

18 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: You are just on a different 19 schedule. If you are really pressing, you want to get a fa-20 cil_i ty opened up and used, certainly it is more complicated to add more requirements, you know, that that facility has to 21 satisfy.

22 The simplest thing to do would be simply to deal with 23 the question of disposal of long-term storage bf spent fuel and 24 Ace-F

  • Reporters, Inc.

put the other one *on its lower track.

25

45 fm2 MR. BISHOP: I think what you are talking about is 2 the DOE plan, not ours.

3 Our plans are tracking what we suspect --

4 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: I am talking about the DOE 5 plan.

6 MR. BISHOP: I think their logic is, they want to, 7 because the President said, defer indefinitely, have both option 8 covered so because some day we will dispose of something and we 9 don't yet know which it will be.

10 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: I am not su9gesting that you 11 drop one of the options. I am saying if you are in ~ tremendous 12 hurry, you don't need to carry all that extra baggage along in

  • 13 14 15 dealing with the first facility .

MR. BISHOP: .There is an implicit assumption in that.

That is, there is something substantially different you would have to do in terms of design and high level ~aste, in terms 16 of the repository.

17 18 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Somebody earlier said there was.

19 MR. BISHOP: We are not sure they have significant 20 impact on our criteria or even, for that matter, on other than 21 the spacing of the canisters, much impact on the design.

22 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: The differences are slight, b t 23 it doesn't matter.

24 Ace-F

  • Reporters, Inc.

MR. MYERS: There are differences. If you thought 25

46 fm3 it the concept of retrievability, then they are substantial .

  • 2 3

CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:

I would like to push ahead.

We are much down on the time, so 4 MR. MYERS: Let me finish up quickly on the current 5 roles in terms of federal and states. These are licensed by 6 either agreement 'states or NRC and disposal is NRC.

7 Next slide, please.

8 (Slide.)

9 Land ownership, this is the current regulatory role 10 with regard to mill tailin.gs. Right now the land ownership 11 will be private. It depends upon where you get the land from 12 and in some cases it is government land that is being mined

  • 13 14 15 and the tailings are disposed of in federal land so the Federal Government owns the land as well.

The long-term care funds are state responsibility.

What is meant here is the concept of an insurance policy. We 16 have worked out with agreements with the states of Wyoming and 17 Utah, whereby the company who is doing the milling and disposing 18 of the tailings gets a surety bond from some insurance company, 19 the beneficiary is the state. If for one reason or another, 20 the company is not there at the time reclamation needs to be 21 done, its insurance company pays off to the state. The state 22 does the work. If the company is still in business they do the 23 work and the state never gets involved. That is what that 24 Ace-F* I Reporters, Inc.

means.

25

47 fm4 /: Right n~w licensing operations in either agreement 2 states or NRC responsibility.

3 Post operation. Once the milling is done and we 4 no longer have a license, it becomes state or EPA responsibility 5 Now, we have, as you know, prepared, approved going 6 ahead with legislation to get that kind of authority for NRC, so 7 that we can have a more, in my mind, a more efficient way of al dealing with the problem.

9 Right now, if nothing is done in the way of beefing 10 up NRC's authority, EPA under the Resource Conservation Recovery 11 Act, defines mill_ tailings at the site, hazardous site that will 12 come under the gambit of their hazardous waste regulatory progra

  • 13 14 15 which will he done in part by them and part by the states .

Next slide, please.

(Slide.)

This is the schedule for low level waste, similar to 16 the high level waste program, and you can see that we expect to 17 get the shallow land burial regulations in April of '80. Draft 18 form final, December of '80. All of those are 12 months after 19 the draft.

20 Again the same concern is right here. These are 21 optimistic dates for the final. It could-be impacted by any 22 number of things, particularly legal suits and waiting for 23 people to co~nt.-

24 11..ce-Fe* Reporters, Inc.

We will get out guidelines on federal/state roles.

25

  • 48 fm5 The last one is alternatives to shallow land burial.

2 Bill mentioned earlier, right now there are two ways to get 3 rid of:something. Either shallow land or geologic responsibilit.

4 We are looking at the other ways to dispose of the waste.

5 Such things as sea burial, which is onerous to a number of 6 people, but I have heard there is not much difference in buryin 7 in geologic sites at sea as. well as on shore. So this study wil 8 look at a number of other ways of disposing of low level waste.

9 Next slide, please.

10 , (Slide.)

11 We ~xp~ct to put out rules on mill tail~ngs in 12 February of '79, draft form.

  • 13 14 15 Decommission of facilities, decommissioning residue, treatment of same, by Ju.ly of '79 and the radioactive gas dis-posal by January of '81, with the finals to be coming out 8 months after.

16 N~xt slide,.please.

17 (Slide.)

18 Now, some licensing ac.tions are .going on right now, 19 as you all are probably familiar with-the -Sheffield site. We 20 plan to have* a draft impact statement and safety analysis repor 21 1

finished in July of 78. There was a lot of problems with 22 Sheffield, but not the site itself. Just the administrative 23 paraphernalia in terms of renewing the license .. We have asked-~

24 Ace-F* Reporters, Inc.

the renewal applic'ation came in for modification.. of the site.

25

49 fm6 We asked for the environmental report. They provided 2 us and it is mostly proprietary and we spent a year almost 3 negotiating with them in being able to use their environmental 4 report to write our impact statement.

5 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: The environmental report was 6 proprietary?

7 MR. MYERS: Large parts of it.

8 MR. BISHOP: They have removed that proprietary 9 label from almost all of the report.

10 MR. MYERS: But it took almost a year back and forth.

11 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: What was their problem?

12 MR. BISHOP: Their feeling was the details of their

  • 13 14 15 operation* gave them a competitive edge on other shallow land operators and therefore-it was proprietary.

CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: I see. Fair enough.

16 MR. MYERS: .The reassessment line there is essentiall 17 looking at the other s*hallow land burial sites. There are 18 about 5 or 6 around. To see whether or not work needs to be 19 done to correct any problems that exist.

20 The last item is essentially a technical assistance 21 effort on our part from* the State of New Mexico who has re*-

22 ceived an application_for a new shallow land burial. site from k e . ubg / cd:'23 Chemical Nuclear Company for a shallow land burial site in New Mexico, and we are working with them.

'Next slide.

50 fm7 (Slide.)

  • 4 2

3 Here you can see the actors in the game of waste management proposal. MMSS has the.overall lead. Standards and Research are participating, to develop program managers for 5 their particular parts of the program. Such as risk assessment, 6 research management,for Research and Standard Development 7 will promulgate the regulation and guides and has the lead in 8 decommissioning studies.

9 DLD, expert support on a continuing basis.

10 NRL is expert, in terms of hydrologies, geology

~1 and OSP has provided coordination with a number of states.

12 Next Slide, please.

  • 13 (Slide.)

14 This gives you a graphic indication of the growth 15 of the waste management program over the last couple of years.

e 6 16 You can see it is rather dramatic. This is for MMSS only.

17 18 19 20 21 22 23 A c e -

  • Reporters, ~n~.

25

]94 *

  • 1 dkw The next slide will give you an indication of 2 the other actors and what their* roles are.

3 Next slid.e.

4 C Slide. )

5 This shows the various organizations that are 6 involved in the program, and the resources that are 7 committed to it over the last 3-year period.

8 MR. SMIIB: The totals. Initially, we had a 9 bottom line of totals.

10 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: It's in my printout.

.1 I MR. MYERS: One of the problems is, when you put 12 these things together, there is a manual that says what you

  • 13 14 15 can put on the slides, so it can be read; then you just drop things off. It's bureaucratic.

If you want to get it done, you got to follow the 16 rules.

17 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: You didn't expect to come 18 down and d.eal with this commission .without a certain amount of 19 bureaucratic control, did you?

20 MR. MYERS: But not in the slides. You will notice 21 that 22 CHAIRMAN HENDRI Es Complete coverage: That is our 23 aim.

- 24 individuals.

MR. MYERS: You will notice I & E has 14, 15, 16 They are involved ri-ght now in inspecting 25

794*

  • 2 dkw existing sites for treatment of wate.

-52 They are not involved

- 2 3

4 right now in the program we went through.

On the other hand, NRR is not on there at a 11.

These figures. come f:rom the controller's office. NRR, who 5 is not on there at all, had been providing on a continuing 6 basis 5 to 10 man-years of effort to help us with this pro-7 gram. Research, which has I, 2, and -- 2 and some money, 8 has been ~roviding more than that, and in the future should 9 be providing even more~

10 COMMISSIONER GI LINSKY: The 14 inspectors are 11 in spec ting shall ow burial sites?

12 MR. MYERSs That - reactor sites, how they get 13 rid of their_waste. It's an across-the-board function of I&E 14 that is charged against the waste management.

15 MR. SMI1H= The only low-level burial site that we 16 license is Sheffield. They, of cour~e, inspect Sheffield.

17 What you do with the low-level waste from 18 reactors, they inspect that.

19 MR. MYERS: It's mostly looking at reactor sites 20 and what they do with the waste that comes out.

. 21 COMMISSIONER GI LINSKY: You mean their spent fuel 22 pool?

- 23 24 MR. MYERS= The residue tro.m an .. ion exchange column

. COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: Before it"s removed.

  • 25 COMMISSIONER GI LINSKY: A lloca.ting that part of the

dkw inspection to that. --*

53 2 MR. GOSSICK: Activities like the site in 3 California, in Nevada. Remember, when this stuff what 4 was the name of it? Beatty? -- transportation of low-level 5 waste_.our guys inspect --

6 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: I assume this would in cl ude 7  !&E's contribution to the yellow cake spill, regional 8 office involvement in that?

9 A lot of man-days go into one of these.

MR. MYERS: Next slide.

11 C Slide. )

12 This is the last one. I merely shows the various 13 agencies that are involved. There are not a great many. Us, 14 DOE, and EPA, with the USGS providing expext assistance in 15 their particular area.

16 A more interesting aspect is the public 17 involvement. I mentioned earlier, public participation in 18 terms of developing these standard guidelines for regulations 19 is a new effort on our part, and we had worksh.ops across the 20 , country, peer review groups. We are setting up another 21 meeting with environmental groups. The whole idea is to 22 expose, before you put in the Federal Register, a draft of 23 something. Most people in the outside world feel once you put 24 it in a Federal Register everybody*'s mind is made up *

  • 25 We felt one way to get over that was to get the

55 dkw5 comprehensive overall federal schedule for this problem of 2

  • priority setting, so that all of the players know exactly 3 what the schedules are that we have to meet. And we can 4 begin to move on.

5 Right now, as you can see, it is very difficult.

6 Things change sometimes from day to day.

7 The third point I would like to mention is that 8 there does appear to us to be a need for some focal point in 9 this whole area. I hate to classify it as disputes, but 10 where we run into differences of opinions between various 11 agencies,* all of. which have a part to play in this p_articular

12. sense.
  • 13 14 15 deai.

Those three things are things that bother us a great We don't have any magical solutions for them.

they are things we think need to be addressed.

But 16 At some point we would like to look at the need 17 for consideration of perhaps expanding the authority, our 18 authority, NRC's authority with respect to waste management.

19 That is, those things,.we would like to make it very clear, 20 the interface between DOE, NRC and what NRC ought to license.*

21 MR. BISHOP: And EPA.

22 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Will this require legislation?

23 MR. MYERS: It is conceivable.

24 Ace-Fe* Reporters, Inc.

MR. SMITH: I would defer to Howar on that.

25

54 794*

  • 4 dkw interested and affected groups involved very early on, so 2 we can_ see things and change them when nobody-"s professional 3 pridB is on the line.

4 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Do you want to provide some 5 summary comments?

6 MR. SMIIB: I just wanted to mention two or 7 three things that all of us on the staff are c01cerned about.

8 I'm sure you are well aware of them, too.

9 That is, one is the overall coordination of 10 schedules with regard to EPA activities, DOE's activities, 11 and the NRC. If you examine them, par ti cularl y their 12 relationsh.ip between EPA and NRC, the schedules are not 13 consistent, and there is some work that has to be done there.

14 Otherwise, we could have some problems as we come 15 down the road.

16 COMMISSIONER GIUNSKYz Wasn,t there at one point 17 an 0MB coordinating group?

18 MR. MYERS: There was.

19 MR. SMIIB: But very general. Bill, you were 20 there.

21 MR. BISHOP: Apparently, 0MB felt at the time the 22 Energy Resources Council put out a report in late ,76, and

- 23 24 there had been no activity on that.

MR. SMI 1Hz The other area is, I feel very stongly,

  • 25 and Bill and I have talked about it, that we need a

56 dkw MR. SHAPAR= It depends on how far you want to 2 push it. Our authority over ERDA or DOE now is restricted 3 to high-level waste. There is some confusion about what 4 "high-leveL11 means, whether it embraces transuranics, that 5 type of thing.

6 I think Mr. Gilinsky~s point was well taken. What 7 you are really interested in is what the safety hazard is, 8 not whether it came from one source or the other, or what the

.9 tr ad it iona l definition has been.

10 There is a certain flexibility in the s+/-atute, and 11 depending upon what your decision is, we may be able to give 12 a reasonable interpretation of it that would, perhaps,

  • 13 14 15 obviate the need for futher legislation.

With respect to certain kinds of CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: I assume that even under a 16 somewhat ragged statutory framework, if everyba:fy else in 17 town was as reasonable and as well informed as we are, that 18 agreement could be reached to get everything well coordinated 19 and everything would work fine.

20 However, under the present legislative framework, 21 would such a set of agreements stand whatever challenges might 22 be mounted, calling for judicial review and so on, which 23 would then be based on the statutory language?

24 MR. SHAPAR: They may not, I th-ink is the short

  • 25 answer. One of the reasons sometimes for getting

794*

  • 7 dkw 57 legislation is what we call "clarifying legislation." We

- 2 3

4 had queries like whether the ERDA waste tanks at Hanford fell within the statue, or whether it didn't.

tough decision for this commission to make.

It was a 5 One of the options we will-have is whether 6 borderline questions like that ought to be clarified by 7 legislation. I think it's premature to decide it now, until 8 Cliff and the conferees decide it.

9 10

_l l

,/j1 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22

- 23 24

  • 25

794 *

  • I 58 gsh MR. MYERS: Mill tailings i t "s cl e a r to me 2 unless we amended the Atomic* Energy Act and give NRC 3 authority over those mill tailings, they will be. regulated 4 by the EPA and perhaps the states.

5 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: What "s wrong with that?

6 MR. MYERS: What-" s wrong is they come in at 7 the end of the program. We can do a better job of 8 regulating those mill tailings when you start.

9 In other words, when you are sitting down with 10 the perspective operator and deciding where he will put -

l I CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Before he operates the mil 1.

12 MR. MYERS: Before he operates the door. That's 13 one point.

14 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: I don't- see why, if EPA 15 is regulating - I-"m trying to get my own thinking clear --

16 I don-"t see why if EPA is regulating at that point, has a 17 set of rules which will apply, we can't take those into 18 consid..eration when we sit down and license them in the 19 first place.

20 MR. MYERS: I think the problem has been on the 21 old mills where we didn't have an environmental..handle to 22 begin with. That has.been the main problem.

23 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD: That's also the case in 24 which Shelley" s first reason woul dn*"t appl°y *

  • 25 MR. MYERS: A second point, jus.t fran the

59 gsh stendpoint of the poor guy thatJs out there to get a 2 license, you can go one place; you know, the concept of 3 one-step 1 icen sing.

4 That's opposed to going here and getting a 5 license and going somewhere else and argue about getting 6 another licens.e after it-'s all over, even though there 7 may be rules and regulations out.

8

  • The way the conservation act reads, it says if 9 something is -- if the Atomic Energy Act is in there, 10 they wno't regulate. So the format is already set up.

11 MR. SHAPAR: I would add on this general subject 12 also that the committees in Congress may*have their own 13 independent views about what ought to be licensed and what 14 ought not to be licensed in this area.

15 MR. SMITI-iz That's been re.fleeted in the Clean 16 Air Act.

I7 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: I will note for the 18 commissia.er-s.J benefit there is an attachment at the back 19 of the handout on slides which lis.t the study papers in 20 this area that are far enough along to have numbers assigned 21 to them.,So that you ~ay find that a useful reference as 22 we look at individual papers that come up.

23 COMMISSIONER BR ADFORO: Is ther.e any impediment 24 to your doing an assessment as quickly as possible of what

  • 25 the specific areas are, what the dispute~ are, whether

gsh legislation is needed, and, in effect, getting that

--60

  • 2 process in the works?

3 It can take an awful lot of time to negotiate 4 an interagency agreement. The sooner we begin, the 5 sooner we finish.

6 MR. SMITI-f: No. Bill has done a lot of work 7 in working with Howard's people in those areas that are 8 grey areas such as transuranics.

9 We have that pretty well laid out as to where the 10 grey areas are and, th.erefore, clarifying legislation would 11 make it that much sh_arper.

12 MR. SHAPAR: Don't we have a staff paper

  • 13 14 15 circulating right now?

MR. SMI 1H: Yes, dealing with that.

CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: It..,s not on the numbered 16 list of papers.

17 MR. MYERS: While mentioning papers, there are 18 a number of papers in the mill and on the way up that will 19 fit neatly in the' context we talked about th.is morning.

20 MR. G0SSICK: It didn--'t get in this package.

21 We might send it down separately.

22 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: If i t-'s in a suitable stage,

  • 23 24 I think it-'s helpful to the commission to have someplace a summary of what we believe is in progress in the staff, in
  • 25 the ways the management area, as well a number of others.

61 gsh But we are talking about waste management -----

  • 2 4

3 today. So this list of papers that has progressed to the point of being dignified by numbers, and so on, we have that. But there are other initiatives underway.

5 It would be useful to have that.

6 MR. SMIIB: A general answer to your question:

7 I have asked the staff to look at the waste management 8 pr cg ram from the standpoint of what do we th ink NRC needs to 9 do the job the way we th.ink it ought to be done,- notwi th-10 standing what the present law says, or what regulation says.

11 If there are gaps, ,let's propose to the 12 commission what the staff feels we need in order to do that 13 job the right way.

14 We are working on that right now.

15 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD:- When might we-!!ee that 16 assessment?

17 MR. SMIIB: When we get it ctrculated --

18 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:.* :*-We don't immediately 19 have to have answers,. but it w:ould be nice to know.

20 MR. SMIIB: -- what the problems are. Why don*'t we 21 try ta put a paper together, what we see are the gaps, 22 the problem areas, in terms of the total program.

  • 23 24 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: An information paper. We will see if it*"s. appr:-opriate to schedule another commission
  • 25 discussion.

Okay, then, with no further comments

  • 3 4

2 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: I would add one comment

  • I found that advance information to be extremely helpful in my preparation before*the meeting.

5 I compliment you for an outstanding piece of 6 work.

7 Let me add my thanks to the staff tor this 8 commission, which I *think has been very .useful and wiLl 9 help.

10 It prov id.es us now a context for a number of thjngs 11 and alerts us to areas in which in which I think the 12 commission really ought to begin to move forward: the 13 reorganization on the executive side, in the energy field.

14 They are certainly trying. to move ahead aggressively and 15 effectively, but there is a certain amount of turbulence 16 over there in terms of personnel assignments.

17. I think that if anything increases the need for 18 the commission to be very clearly aware in all of these 19 areas what*"s needed and to. keep saying what we think is 20 needed -- so we wi 11 be interested in the in format ion 21 paper an<:f in the subsequent detailed considerations on 22 particular points coming along.
  • 23 So thank, you very much.

24 (Whereupon, at 10:45 a.mo, the meeting was

  • 25 adjourned.)
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