ML22230A126
| ML22230A126 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 08/02/1979 |
| From: | NRC/OCM |
| To: | |
| References | |
| Tran-M790802 | |
| Download: ML22230A126 (34) | |
Text
RE1URN TO SECRE1ARlAT RECORDS NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION IN THE MATTER OF:
BRIEFING ON RESINS FROM EPICOR-2 Place -
Washing t on, D. C.
Dote -
Thur s day, 2 Augu s t 1979
?cges 1 -32
/
ACE - FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
Official Reporters 444 North Capitol Str eet Washington, D.C. 20001 NATIONWIDE COVERAGE* DAILY Telephone:
(202) 3A7-37C0
1
- *DISCLAD*1ER This is an unofficial transcript of a meeting of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission held on Thursday, August 2. 197 9 in the Commissions's offices at 1717 H Street, N. W., Washington, D. C.
- The, meeting*was open to public attendance and observation.
This transcript*
has not been reviewed, corrected, or edited, and it may contain*
inacc11racies.
The transcript is intended solely for general informationpl purposes.
As provided by 10 CFR 9~103, it is not part of the formal or informal record of decision of the matters discussed.
Expressions of opinion in this transcript do not necessarily reflect final determinations or beliefs.
No pleading or other paper may be filed with the Connnis s ion in any proceeding as the result of or addressed to any statement or argument contained herein, except as the Comiuission may authorize.
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25 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION PUBLIC MEETING BRIEFING ON RESINS FROM EPICOR-2 Room 1168 1717 H Street, N.W.
Washington, D. C.
2 Thursday, 2 August 1979 The Commission met, pursuant to notice, at 2:00 p.m.
BEFORE:
DR. JOSEPH M. HENDRIE, Chairman JOHN F. AHEARNE, Commissioner ALSO PRESENT:
Messrs. Collins and Dircks.
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P R O C E E D I N G S (2:05 p.m.)
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
Why don't we go ahead.
It's your meeting.
Why don't you chair it? It's not a formal meeting of the Coromission, but Vic is interested in the transcript, so we've got a transcrip~ being made.
COJYf... MISSIONER AHEARNE:
The question really came up, I got the memo, John, and that made me realize that I myself needed to understand better a couple of things.
One of the questions was, why doesn't someone from NMSS come up to also sit here.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
How come you wore your green.coat, Jack?
MR. MARTIN:
The wearing of the green, closeness to Mother Earth.
COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
One of the questions was the technical issue and related aspects of whether or not the resin should be solidified.
There were arguments for and against that.
The second question was, what kind of reg-qlations might we have, either in place or thinking of putting in place in the future, about the solidification of resins.
Then a third question was, what's the relative rules of NRR and NMSS on that subject.
It appeared to me that I didn't really understand
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25 those three pieces, and it might be useful just to have a short discussion of those.
MR. COLLINS:
I guess perhaps a good starting point is to start from the last one first.
We view our role in NRR as having responsibility for the review and evaluation of radwaste treatment systems, liquid, gas and solid, for all nuclear power plants.
Under that responsibility we have developed certain guicance for what we believe is necessary to satisfy general design criteria 60 and 64.
In our safety evaluatQon of an SAR with regards to solidification or solid waste systems, I guess prior to about 1974 there was no real formal guidan_ce as to what the staff would look for o'r what they would evaluate in a safety evalua-tion.
By 1974 we initiated the development of a standard review pl2..n, accompanying branch technical positions and regulatory guides to implement the standard review plan, which '
at that time was really a guidance document for the staff.
These are the things we will look at.
Of course, we've taken a somewhat different posture since that time.
It'si become a posture of becoming more a regulatory guidance, unfortun.ately.
In 1 75, when we issued the standard review plans, we did come forth with a position on solidification that essentially told the OL and CP applicants that, you are no longer going to give lip service to solid waste systems.
I
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5 guess the attention prior to that time didn 1 t give the attention to it because our staff was occupied with trying to implement Appendix I, which took care of the gas and liquid, but never addressed the solids question.
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prior to '74-'75 either did not have solidification systems or,:
6 if they did, they were certainly not what we would refer to as 7
state of the art.
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'the indus:try was capable of doing.
We felt that it was down 11 the road. We felt the criteria would be developed by either 12 the Federal Government or by states that would implement a 13i\\
more restrictive criteria on what would be buried and in what
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Ii There was no criteria outside of the criteria to be imposed by the states.
There is no NRC regulation that says what form the wastes must be in.
The branch position essen-tially said, all wastes, including the s 1 udges in, ievapora tor bottoms and the resins, should be solidified.
And we have, in the process of review of all applications that were submitted after 1975, we have imposed that condition on plants.
For the operating plants, it was a different story.
23il For the operating p Bnts, we did not take a position.
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have to recognize the standard review plan was really a
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I It was not ever intended to be a I
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6 backward-looking docurnent.
fitted.
It was not required to be back-COMMISSIONER AHEARi"\\fE:
Was this position on solidification, though, taken for reasons of available techno-logy at that stage was that it could be solidified easily, or that you concluded that solidificat~on had some significant advantages?
MR. COLLINS:
Both.
Certainly the technology existed to do that.
We felt that solidifying certain wastes, particularly the 1fesidues 1n 'the evaporator bottoms, which
~eally contained concentrated materials, and then packaging them in 55-gallon drums was a much better way, to transport the materials and.. to bury them.
COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
Transportation and burial was a better mechanism.
MR. COLLINS:
It was a better way to do it, but there was no formal regulation that required anyone to do it.
Burial grounds have and continue to accept dewatered resins.
The only restriction of the burial grounds is that they do not bury liquids or gases.
So, as I mentioned, we looked at it as forward-looking.
We applied it in the licen~ing process with all kinds of new constructions.
COMMISSIONER ~_HEARi"\\fE:
So as far as new plants --
MR. COLLINS:
They would have to demonstrate through
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their own safety analysis that they had the capability.
COMMISSIONER AHEA.RNE:
To solidify.
MR. COLLINS:
That's right.
Very few of those plants, by the way, have completed their OL review.
I COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
Is it only for plants where they filed construction permits at that stage?
MR. COLLINS:
That's correct.
CO.M.MISSIONER AHEARNE:
So a plant that was already in the process of being constructed, that wasn't?
MR. COLLINS:
It really depended upon at what point in the OL review, at what stage ~hey reviewed it. If they were early into the review, we tried to, I would say, coe~ce 1 d ii q them into doing it.
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Even then, it wasn't made a regulation?
MR. COLLINS:
No, it was never made a regulation.
And the reason, in addition to it, in the past the whole solid waste program has not received the emphasis that it should have:
received.
We have required, in 5036(a) that they present prelirninary designs and they show us how they're going to handle the packages of solid wastes.
So there wasn't much guidance.
And this was a first attempt to try to give the industry some guidance as to*what we're looking at, pulling
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together what the technology could do.
As a result of that branch position paper, we then considered how we might assure that the program carried through in the licensing of the plant, and we had developed then the technical specifications that are out now for irnplemen-,
tation of Appendix I of 40 CFR 190, the first time any techni-cal specification contained requirements on the operability of solid waste systems and what they must do.
We had a basic problem with the solidification question, that has been, what is acceptable, what form of the waste and what agents are acceptable?
We took the p~sition that.we wanted a solid reass, a solid matrix with no free-standing water in it.
That's a very difficult thing to feed.
As a result of that position of j
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.A.ce-Federai Reoorters, Inc. i 25 i I solidification vendors, told them what was forthcoming, told them that they had better develop what we like to refer to as a process control program, which is nothing mor_e than a good QC program, to assure that you end up with a solid mass.
You can perform in the laboratory no a small-scale solidification, but when you take that to a power plant and you turn it over to an unskilled operator, you have a lot different problem.
So we went the round of our conscious control program, which says, here, vendor, you try to bound those
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conditions under which the system must be operated and under which the agent must be used.
Principally, today, there are three types of solidification agents:
cement, which has been used for years and years and years; the urea formaldehyde; then the asphalt.
We now have a system being installed at Midland.
The most recent has been the polymers that have found their way onto the market.
Each one of them has an inherent problem.
Each one has certain bounding conditions.
Some are plagued by concen-trations of various chemical additives.
In my opinion, really, there is no one good solidification agent* that is going *to solidify all types of wastes in a power plant.
The wastes vary on a power plant considerably.
I think it's up to the vendor to establish this process of a total program to at::..
least bound those conditions.
Then you turn it over to the utility, and at least then we have a mechanism to inspect, to assure ourselves that what waste is being solidified will end up being a solid mass for transportation.
Hopefully, with that type*of a program we can get a*way from the kind of problems that we've encountered recently at Bailly, which is nothing new.
typical of U.S. systems.
That problem is quite So this has been something that has been evolving over the last couple years. -We have yet to implement any of
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10 the Appendix I technical specifications.
But we should be, between now and the end of the year; implementing those.
Now, with regard to the operating reactors it was a different story.
We recognized there were certain costs involved in making the plant backfit.
In our implementation of the tech specs to the operating plants, we requested of them' a description of their current system, the capability of that system, and what it would take to upgrade their system to solidify all types of wastes.
And this is where we asked them to do a value impact assessment.
Again, all of this work was without any regulation to guide us.
It was a condition that we felt shouid at le'ast be imposed.
And we received nothing but harassment from the utilities on that question, because they kept coming back to us, and still are, saying, show me a regulation that requires me to do
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- J,1 Basically, that is where we are.
Most of the plants
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two have solidification systems that are capable of solidifying*
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all the types of wastes.
Many of the plants. have installed solidification systems that have never even turned over the material, because they learned that, for various reasons, either that the system design was inadequate or that there was a large potential for increased occupational exposure, because
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So many of them have never operated.
The sol*id wastes systems have always been kind of a stepchild in the treatment system.
They certainly did not receive the attention in licensing, nor int.he whole NRC.
COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
John, if I interpret correctly!
that this is NRR's view that what process is applied at the reactor is really part of the reactor licensing process?
MR. COLLINS:
1 That's certainly NRR's position, yes, because it's in our standard format and content that that is our*basic responsibillty.
It is part of the safety evaluation.
CO:MrHSSIONER AHEARNE:
Can I ask Jack to tell me as*
he sees the problem?
MR..tvr...ARTIN:
I would draw a parallel to the discus-sion we had in the licensing of DOE facilities.
I don't want to go too deeply into licensing systems, but I would like to have the products leaving those pl.ants meet certain require-ments.*
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
Furthermore, you've been trying to come forward *with some new standards on low-level burial grounds.
MR. MARTIN:
Not only burial grourlds, but also the form of the* wastes in: general.
That's the t.i.t-irust of it.
CO~.MISSIONER AHEARNE:
How about in the
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MR. DIRCKS:
I don't think we I ve establi_shed any standards with respect to transportation, although I guess in conversation with Dick, we will move away from the liquid state to the solid state.
I think Jack is also in the process of developing a waste regulation that requires solidification for low-level sites.
MR. MARTIN:
It will basically put into regulations all the things that John described, for all the same reasons.
COM1-1I S SI ONER P..BEARNE :
Except, will it have the same type of grandfather proposal?
- riT..R. MARTIN:
I guess we haven't worked that out yet.
I would think that we would want to put a time limit, so we can get there as soon as possible, or to have some scheme for going through this on an orderly basis.
MR. DIRCKS:
I think the proble~ is we're losing low-level sites that pick up material coming in there.
COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
To what extent has there been interaction, though, between the regulations being developed for the low-level site and the existing proposed changes in design in the branch technical position on reactors?:
MR. COLLINS:
Certainly NMSS has been awa~e for a long time, the low-level waste branch has certainly been aware and. has made copies of all the license and topical reports of the various solidification systems.
So I think
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11 Ii 11 13 for the most part they are pretty much up to speed as to what the capability in the industry has.
That must be recognized in the development of any criterion, any regulation, what is the capability, and recognize the impact that it may have on the industry; if we're going to require a certain form of waste, that we recognize what the cost is when compared to the benefit that we gain from it.
And it could be very costly for many of these plants to backfit to meet this type of require-ment.
And NRR, and myself personally, I'm not opposed, so long as we have a firm foundation as to what are we going to require and why are we goiDg to require it.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
I think one of the sort of dragging points at the moment is that, of the three, or I guess maybe it's four, solidification schemes that are around, there isn't, I would say, a body of experience with any one of them that gives you full confidence that you've got it completely in hand and that it 1 s fully satisfactory.
In turn, that affects, then, the ability to get specific on waste forms for the low-level burial gro~nds.
Clearly, what you would like to have and must have is a fully compatible system, what they're doing in reactors and what transports and what goes into the burial ground.
And people, even.. operators that might be inclined to say, yeah, I I think that's a good idea and I'm willing to go with you, are
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25 14 as yet and probably for some time yet don't have a clear guidance from us as to what the requirements are.
MR. COLLINS:
I don't think we should limit it just to the reactors, too.
Many, many other licensing facilities that are producing large quantities of wastes, too.
MR. DIRCKS:
That's where the rules merge.
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25 15 It's not a control of just having control over reac-tors.
COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
My concern, Bill, though, is l that I don't want to get us into the si tuation.wnere it is., almos:.
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like the NRC and some other federal agency are* having di-fficul t:/;
coordinating the efforts, because clearly the material that leaves the reactor is ending up going to the low-level site.
You guys have to be concerned about the licensing of that low-level waste site, and John and his associates have to be con-cerned with the licensing of that reactor.
MR. DIRCKS:
The factor is the availability of those sites.
COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
I understand that.
But the specter I was beginning to worry about was the situation where we might end up having one office saying this is what you have to do in the plant, leading to one form of waste, and having another office saying but in order to get that waste anyway you've got to do sornething/~lse with it.
MR. MARTIN:
I think that's where we have to define these rules.
I think we're sort of stickin~ our nose in this thing, saying that we're going to define the form this thing takes in all these generator before it leaves your facility and on the road, not with the details of how you do that.
COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
Are you working with NRR?
MR. MARTIN:
Well,* not as well as we'd like.
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25 16 MR. DIRCKS:
I think it's sparring.
MR. MARTIN:
I don't think they admit that we have any business doing that.
MR. COLLINS:
I'rather take**issue with the statement.
I think we had a meeting several weeks ago in which our people participated, and we discussed very much the same subject that we 1 re discussing now.
The meeting adjourned with the idea that we'd have similar meetings like this in the future.
So, I don 1 t really consider that a true statement.
I think our problem at the present time is that we're working on a course that we believe is acc$ptable, in view of the fact that we have no regulations or no other guidan_ce *-for what is acceptable in burial grounds.
Are we saying that the container~
the material to be packaged in the container, is the ultimate barrier; or are we saying that the burial grounds is the con-tainer and the ultimate barrier?
And are we recognizing that there are different forms of material to be solidified, and are we recognizing that what we're asking the industry to do in terms of backfitting these systems to meet that kind of cri-terion?
I -think that 1 s a big question.
COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
There are a number of those related issues that, obviously, we're not going to hash out this afternoon.
My concern -- I would like to shift over to TMI-1 for a minute.
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10 11 12 1"3 14 15 16 17 MR. MARTIN:
May I make one other point.
From the merits of the technical standpoint, our draft regul~tions have much the same position.
COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
I think all of us would tend to agree that the two offices have to work perhaps I
i more closely..
I MR. DIRCKS:
I think it's a recognition of each other' s roles.
COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
But_the best way to recognize the role is to have the two offices working together.
MR. DIRCKS:
I think we're greatly in favor of cooper -
tion.
Both have to recognize the need that they have for each other, and both :i;ecognize each other's mutual benefits.
COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
If we could move to TMI-2 for a minute, because that's really the more specific problem that came up, I guess I would like to know, John, why, if we have concluded that,for all future plants, solidification is the 17, thing, and here is really a new system in the sense of EPICOR-2 18 going into TMI-2 is a new system, and while we didn't think i9 solidification should be in place.
20 I And then, second, is it correct, Jack, that NMSS' 2~ ! expressed view is that those resins must be solidified?
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24 I MR. MARTIN: If itis a new plant, why isn't it being solidified.
CO~.MISSIONER AHEARNE:
It's hardly unique.
It's
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- not really a new plant.
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25 18 MR. COLLINS:
It's hardly a new plant.
There was a construction permit and licensing.
The FSAR was submitted a year aqo.
It did operate since 1978, so I don't consider it to be a new plant.
COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
But the EPICOR-2 system MR. COLLINS:
The EPICOR-2 system, you have to under-stand, at the time the EPICOR-2 system was designed it was designed and constructed under an emergency condition, and with I
full expectation that we had to process that,material as quickll 1
as possible or have the capability to do it and to remove that potential hazard to the heal th a.nd safety of the public up ther.
And the methodology and the design criteria' were the current I
I criteria the plant was licensed*under.
And it is a common practice in fue industry to ship material as it's being shipped up there.
COMMISSIONER A..'9:EAR...'I\\JE:
How long would it take to put in a solidification system?
MR. COLLINS:
Anywhere from six to 10 months to do itJ I
i It certainly would not be consistent with the schedule we have for processing.
It would entail a whole new system for which there is no system up there right now.
CO~..MISSIONER AHEARNE:
You mean you couldn't go I
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MR. COLLINS :.
You. would have. to do that, to design anl I
install and purchase the equipment on an escalated scale, easil1
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- 19 six to 10 months.
It would cost several million dollars, and that is the reason that I have requested the Metropolitan Edison Company to produce a value impact assessment to look at I i
that problem of trying to design a system and install it, versu~
the increased benefits or lack of benefits, and also the cost and the potential for increased occupational exposure because you are going to now be handling that material at another time, and every time you have to handle that material you present a potential for increased exposures.
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,remote-handling systems moreso than you would require in a normal operating plant.
You have to factor all that in.
I felt that, lacking any specific regulations, that was a course that was prudent, was to have them develop that information, present it to the I
staff.
That gave us the basis upon which we could make a recommendation.
COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
What position. do you think NRR would end.up*taking if the three low-level waste sites were to just say, *"We won't accept TMI-2 resins if they' re not solidi-fied 11 ?
MR. COLLINS:
I am sure that if that's the position taken by the three low-level waste sitesy we would have to come up with a*long-term interim storage facility and then construct
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25 20 that facility on site to do it.
We have installed an interim staging area because of the lack of a sufficient number of transport casks to make the trip to Richland and back again.
It's a question.
You're not going to go there, it's either Beattie or Richland.
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i COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
So you have someplace that youi store them now?
MR. COLLINS:
We have an engineering storage facility that we could store them in.
The design criteria for that was up to two years.
If that were the position that Richland were to take, my last discussion with them, they gave me that indi-cation --
COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
But you're saying there is a place there that you could store the resins for a period of time?
MR. COLLINS:
For a period of time.
COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
That is longer than the period of time. it would. take to build a solidification system?
MR. COLLINS:
That probably could be done.
Well, I didn't-want to say that, because it was anticipated that a num-ber of those casks would be shipped out of there and some of that space would be made available for when we start processing the water from the containment building from the primary system So, we'd have to go back and reevaluate the capacity of that engineering system to handle both the high-level waste in
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25 21 containment and in the auxiliary building.
I wouldn't want to say that.
COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
Bill or Jack, your position on the resins ought to be solidified, was it focused in any way specifically on TMI-2, or was it primarily with the view that since you were planning regulations and since we have future plants, that requirement ought to be done here sort of as con-sistency?
I MR. DIRCKS:
I think we started off with the view thait I
solidification, the timing of the facility falling under that, I think,* should-be subject-to*soine provisions in the regulationj.
I The ~uggestipn that TMr-2 wastes be soJidified,af~er some con-versations that we 1 ve had wi.th the vendor, he indicated to 1
I I
carry on our discussions on solidification, *I was not awar.e thati:.
firm decisions had been made either way.
I think we I re still, as,'far as I am concerned, dis-cussing that subject.
I think what we did take a look at is the view of the very long distance on the low-level waste sites, that we didn't think a.3000-mile journey would be good..
Harold explained it to me.
Hes-aid, "Given four truckloads, we thought the poten-tial exposure would be too harmful to the public, and the fact that we were-essentially building a waste-handling system at TMI, and we might as well_ do it to meet the regulations."
COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
What was your argument on the I
I
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25 22 six to 10 months?
MR. DIRCKS:
I had-mot been faced with the six to 10 months construction,.1.time.
I don't know whether Dale or Bob had heard that estimate before.
We have not heard the six to 10 months, nor had I seen any from cost estimates.
I I think, as you said, you are still in the discussion!
stage.
Dale, Bob, and John Davis we were up there in June I
i
-- correct me if I am wrong, John but we asked how soon woul4 you have to know if that was the way that the Commission decided to go.
You had indicated we'd have to know in about a month.
_MR. COLLINS:. We'd have to-know it to begin the engineering on it.
MR. BROWNING:
But the question was:
When would you have to know in order to avoid not delaying.
The idea was about a month.
This projection of two months from that time --i MR. COLLINS:
That wasn't the staff's fault.
We had been in the process of trying to get out an environmental assessment, and had that gone out in the time frame that we originally had considered, we would have had a month.
MR. MARTIN:
I think one further thing:
The way this first came to my attention was in April, when I was giving a
briefing to the ACRS.
We took a tour of the burial grourlds, and the operators explained how these resins came in, just in general.
This got to be a big issue with the Committee, and
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25 23 it certainly brought home to me that it was an odd way to do it and caused me to go back and look at it harder.
That's sort of how we stuck our noses in in the *first place.
MR. CUNNINGHAf.1:
I think we haven't talked very much about the transportation of these wastes.
I understand the TMI-2 wastes, or a large part of it, will go out in Type B containers.
MR. COLLINS:
That's correct.
MR. CUNNINGHAM:
Which are fairly well tested.
We haven't had them leak on crashes and so forth.
We have had Type E containers leak.
But we don't have any information about the Type B containers* they're using, but generally I would i
guess that they're using an inner package that goes into this outer package.
It's a Big Ben-type thing.
You put the inner packages in there.
Now, if you have dewatered resins, as transported before, there is a very good possibility that the air packages will leak.
We have experience in that happening.
When these arrive at the burial site, the over pack is safe.
This is where we: run into problems:
at the burial grounds.
These things are perhaps leaking.
They create prob-lems at the burial grounds and handling problems, dealing with the higher specific activity list, such as in TMI-2 waste is probably going to be more difficult.
And if' these things are contaminated, as they might i
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They have a truck out there, 3000 miles away from TMI.
That is not accepted.
You'd be faced with this problem of what to do with that truckload and perhaps have all the other wastes barred from the burial ground.
It just seems to me that without taking this extra step, you're placing at some peril your total capability to do anything with these wastes.
MR. COLLINS:
I think our problem, Dick, has not been so much leaking containers with resins, but leaking containers with unsolidified material or solidification agents which did not solidify the mater~al properly.
In most of the cases 'we've I
had have been with UF-type systems.
You have a UF system, you*-, 1 end with two, three, or four or five gallons of free-standing water in there.
It's not going to last in a 55-gallon drum, not at a ph of two.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
It endp up with a highly acidic product.
MR. COLLINS:
Here you have an essentially neutral solution.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
Also, it's not a 55-gallon drum pack.
MR. CUNNINGHAM:
I understand that.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
These are weld steel vessels.
I started out myself in initial casual discussions on the subject
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25 25 thinking that solidification was a good way to go, and in principle I think it has the merits that you cite.
I have gone down and looked at EPICOR-2., and the way they're set up to handle these immediate vessels in which the resins are placed.
I was very curious about how well they coul4 actually dewater those things, whether it was just a matter of draining back against the screens and the fabric mesh, but they pump on them, pull a vacuum on them, and you get a product of which that is a specimen, scooped out of one of those drums for practice.
I would think the contact level is over 100 R per hou.
(Laughter.)
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
Just enough to cure your summer cold.
And it comes down fairly dry, actually.
The transportation aspect has been given some careful consideration~
I think the shipping, first of all, the kind of I
vessel in which the resin is placed in the beginnin.g is much i
better than normal quality, which is a 55-gallon drum situationl and the Type B casks are a considerable help and give some I
assurance th~t transportation is not a problem.
They're also going to coromit to sending a GPU repre-i sentative with each truck, which?has the benefit that it providJs additional control on drivers, stretching out, you know, trying to make it across the state by dawn and exceeding speed limits and so onr which has been a problem in some of the accidents
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25 26 that have occurred.
Overall, I have concluded that it looks like a reason -
ble system.
I am concerned about the extended time before one could begin to process into the solid form.
That doesn't mean :
you start EPICOR-2 processing, but it I
does mean that the storag~
is a more extended one, and you're going to have a lot of stuff on site _in the storage pits, and it will be at least a year later than otherwise would be the case in moving the stuff off site to final disposal.
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27 I think there are some accupational exposure considerations.
You know, you take reasonable measures shielding and procedures to keep these down.
But there are bound to be some occupational exposures in the additional steps.
So --
MR. MARTIN: I have some interesting information here.
At Barnwell, the efficiency reports between April 10th and June 5th of this year, I don~t know how many shipments arrived, but there were 30 defective shipments of sludges and re~ins from the power plants, of which 12 were resins, 7 of which leaked, 2 of which conta~inated the truck and tra il 0e r.
CClMMISSIONE~ A.HEARNE,; How many of them were solidified?
MR. MARII~: This was interesting.
The ones that seemed to be, although they had problems with placarding and bolts, resin in cewent 9 resin in cement, resin in ce~en~,
resin in cement, they all seemed to be okay.
COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: H.ow about the ones that were problems?
MR *.MARTIN: They~re not solidified.
MR. COU.INS: Recognize that a lot of them put in
.55-gallon drums are not handled with this type of a liner.
MR. MARTIN: When we 1 re talking about occu~3tional
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Low level burial grounds have the highest occupational exposures.
Of course, they don-'t employ many people
- C0MMISSI0t--JEa AHEARNc: Bill quoted a number of 24DO truck-loads.
MR. COLLINS: Well, L think that"s rather high. ~fa would expect.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: How many of those th.ings ---
- CO U. I NS : \\fa-" 11 p rob ab 1 y pro du c e ab out 5 0 l i n e r s from the EPIC0RE system, 2,)J trucks.
We have approximately on hand right now about 700 55-gallon drums.
And ~e haye some liners that 1ilere -alre2dy processed throuqh the E?ICCJRi:-l system.
'i'/e anticipate another 50 liners from EPIC0r<E-2 process. On top of that, we would have some liners from the system, but process the higher level wastes.
So you"re talking on the level of l 00 to 2.00 shipments ov_er the next couple of years-.----------
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Does that take out the containment?
MR. C0LLIJS: That.,s included in that 200.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: The whole schmeer?
i'ML COLLI.\\JS: The whole schmeer 1t1hich we were talking about over a two-year period.
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9 10 l 1 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 29 COMi'v\\LSSIO.:-/ER AHEARNE: From :rry view, I would like to at least urge NRR and NMSS to get together and try to reach some agreement on whatJs the appropriate way to go about talking to the transportation people across the country and to the waste disposal site about what's going to be done and why on TMI-2.
It certainly canJt help us any to have two different views going out.
ItJs not going to help the public any.
MR. COLLINS: I canJt emphasize enough that if weJre going to require TMI --- we ought to be prepared to lay that same type of condition on other plants because they.,re all doing. the same._thing.
MR. MARTEN: I would agree.
That's the point I wanted to bring up.
MR. CCl.LLINS: And not just pick on TMI-2.
i1e donJt want to make it look as if it appears we/re doing it just for TMI-2 because the same level of activity c.ould be on the resins from any other reactor.
All you have to do is pro c e s s the w ate r a l i t t 1 e bi t 1 o ng e r, a n d in. m an y pl a n ts,
that is being done.
ThatJs why we have spent resin storage tanks.
CO MM LSS I ONER AHEARNE: What I guess U'd like to s,ee, if I canJt urge, Bill, to s.e.e if you and Harold can.,t reach some sort of agreement.
MR. DIRCKS: Harold and l had talked. The talks were
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I don...,L think we/ve broken down any negotiations.
CO.'AMI.SSIONER AHEARNE: But there are two, really, sets of negotiations.
One is wh.at is to be done w.ith all the operating plants?.The other is what is to be done with TMI-2.
MR. DIF?CXS: Oh, yeah.
I think: 1 Jack, your people are working with them on that.
Th'3re.,,s day-to-day contact.
COMMISSIONER.t1.HEARNE: Maybe some of the dav-to-day contact isn.,t as clarifying.
MR. DIRCKS1 I think that there is a recognition CO MM LSS I ONER AHEARNE: For example, there.; s a fundamental disagreement.
MR. MARTIN: We keep wor:<i'ng and then we keep saying that it..,s settled.
COMMISSICbER AHEARNE: No, there_,,s a'fundam.ental disagreement. You've got two offices taking two different views.
And it might be nice if the two officBs tried to reach an agreement.
That...,s what I was thinking.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: And for TMI-2, as soon as we can accompliSh some ag~eement, they need to know down there.
MR.. COU.INS: Absolutely.
I have received as of last ~ight, 2nd I reaily have not had a chance to look at it ~yself 1 I did receive fro~ GPU the information about the cesspool.
And as soon as we get back up there, we'll begin our evaluation on that.
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9 10 l 1 12 13, 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 2,2 23 24 25 31 In addition, we have corning to you an information paper outlining pretty much the shipping program which we discussed last week, so that the people will be informed of the program the Chairman mentioned to you.
CHAIRMAN ~ENDRIE; GPU is negotiating to make a cross-county tour checking states along the way, which I ve been discussing with Washington authorities, the burial ground.
So, they--'re doing their homework on it.
MR. COLLINS: NECO has no problem with accepting it.
Just the State of Washington.
COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: I think it would still be nice i:t: our two offices worked out *some sor-t of agree;nent as. to what the be5t a~proach 15.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Fine, jolly good.
COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Did you ever get down and ses that thing? John sent us soms pictures.
MR. COLLI i'-IS.: :Nhy don--'t_ you take a qu.ic k run up there.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Take your dust b.oo ts.
MR*. COLLINS: It doesn"t take too long.
Just a couple of hours. That stuff--'s not bad.
MR. GUIBERI: I just thought that I~d add one point.
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5 32 Mr. Kennedy and I visited there not too long ago, two weeks ago, and we cha+/-ted with the manager of the health and safety operation.
As it turns out, originally~ before coming to work for Chem Nuclear, they worked with the guy who licensed the 6
facility for the state.
I asked them about this question of 7
8 the resins, and it was interesting because as it turns out, I gue~s Chem Nuclear is actually involved in welding steel 9
liners and the services of vacuum dewatering plans for 10 cleaning up the epicore system.
Jl And I guess the general impression I got frorm them 12 is that they weren..,t concerned at all.
Obviously, they..,re 13 not going to receive it now.
So you can_..,t discount that,.
14 But they,:1ren..,t concerned a*t all that there.,,s any 15 problem with the amount of free-standing water that might 16 shake out using that kind of a system and that kind of a 17 liner.
18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 has been CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: All right. I~ e 11, I think that this very,useful.
COi\\.\\r,I ISSI ONER AHEARNE; Thank you.
CHAIRMAN HE NOR IE: And we_.., 11 go our assorted ways.
(Whereupon, at 2:55 p.~., the hearing adjourned.)