ML23034A206
| ML23034A206 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 01/26/2023 |
| From: | NRC/OCM |
| To: | |
| Shared Package | |
| ML22293A423 | List: |
| References | |
| M230126 | |
| Download: ML23034A206 (117) | |
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1 UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
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MEETING ON THE STRATEGIC PROGRAMMATIC OVERVIEW OF THE DECOMMISSIONING AND LOW-LEVEL WASTE AND NUCLEAR MATERIALS USERS BUSINESS LINES
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THURSDAY, JANUARY 26, 2023
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The Commission met in the Commissioners' Conference Room, One White Flint North, 11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland, at 9:00 a.m., Christopher T. Hanson, Chair, presiding.
COMMISSION MEMBERS:
CHRISTOPHER T. HANSON, Chair JEFF BARAN, Commissioner DAVID A. WRIGHT, Commissioner ANNIE CAPUTO, Commissioner BRADLEY R. CROWELL, Commissioner ALSO PRESENT:
BROOKE P. CLARK, Secretary of the Commission MARIAN ZOBLER, General Counsel
2 NRC STAFF:
DANIEL H. DORMAN, Executive Director for Operations ROBERT LEWIS, Deputy Director, NMSS JANE MARSHALL, Division Director, Division of Decommissioning, Uranium Recovery, and Waste Programs, NMSS SHAUN ANDERSON, Branch Chief, Division of Decommissioning, Uranium Recovery and Waste Programs, NMSS STEPHANIE ANDERSON, Senior Health Physicist, Region IV DOUG MANDEVILLE, Senior Project Manager, Division of Decommissioning, Uranium Recovery, and Waste Programs, NMSS KEVIN WILLIAMS, Division Director, Division of Materials Safety, Security, State, and Tribal Programs, NMSS HUDA AKHAVANNIK, Intergovernmental Liaison Project Manager, Division of Materials Safety, Security, State, and Tribal Programs, NMSS JOSEPH NICK, Special Assistant, Region I
3 1 P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S 2 9:00 a.m.
3 CHAIR HANSON: Good morning, everyone. I convene 4 this meeting to hear strategic considerations associated with the 5 decommissioning and low-level waste business lines and the nuclear 6 materials users business line. Its important to keep the public informed and 7 updated on the agencys activities, so I thank you all for supporting this 8 meeting this morning and I'm looking forward to a great conversation between 9 the staff and the Commission. This morning, we'll hear from two staff panels.
10 We'll take a short break in between. And with each panel, we'll hold 11 questions until the end, and then, we'll hear questions from the 12 Commissioners to the panelists. So, before we start, I'll ask my colleagues if 13 they any comments theyd like to make.
14 (No response.)
15 CHAIR HANSON: Okay. Dan, our Executive Director of 16 Operations, I'll hand it over to you.
17 MR. DORMAN: Thank you, Chair, and good morning, 18 Chair Hanson and Commissioners. The staff appreciates the opportunity to 19 be here today to give you an update on our accomplishments and priorities for 20 the decommissioning, low-level waste, and nuclear materials users business 21 lines.
22 Next slide, please. Let me start by commending the staff in 23 both business lines for their hard work, diligence, and commitment to 24 achieving the agency mission-critical work in this dynamic environment.
4 1 As the Chair indicated, our first panel today will present the 2 decommissioning and low-level waste business line. Our first speaker will be 3 Rob Lewis, the NMSS Deputy Director. Rob will provide an overview of the 4 decommissioning and low-level waste business line with key messages on the 5 focus areas for the office.
6 He will be followed by Jane Marshall, the Director for the 7 Division of Decommissioning, Uranium Recovery, and Waste Programs.
8 Jane will present the accomplishments and priorities for the decommissioning 9 and low-level waste business line.
10 Shaun Anderson, a Branch Chief in NMSS, will discuss how 11 the business line has been working to align staff levels with an increased 12 projected workload and how we are improving the guidance and transparency 13 using risk insights with our stakeholders.
14 Doug Mandeville, Senior Project Manager, will share some 15 examples of this year's mission-critical activities that have built a path forward 16 for future engagement with fellow federal agencies and Agreement States to 17 ensure the effective decommissioning of uranium mill sites.
18 And the panel will conclude with Stephanie Anderson, 19 Inspector from Region IV, who will share regional initiatives in the Business 20 Line Oversight Program to promote agility and consistency between the 21 reactor and material decommissioning program areas. I'll now turn the 22 presentation over to Rob Lewis.
23 MR. LEWIS: Thank you, Dan. Good morning, Chair.
24 Good morning, Commissioners.
5 1 Next slide, please. I'm very grateful to be here today to 2 have the opportunity to represent the great work and great people all across 3 the agency that contribute to the agency's decommissioning and low-level 4 waste business line.
5 The decommissioning and low-level waste business line is 6 a small business line within NRC with roughly 83 full-time equivalent staff.
7 About two-thirds of those 83 are in NMSS and the rest spread across several 8 offices, most prominently, OGC, Regions I, III, and IV.
9 Our team ensures safety and security through our licensing 10 and oversight work of 26 decommissioning power reactors, 4 11 decommissioning research reactors, 8 complex materials sites, 28 uranium 12 mill tailing sites, and 5 uranium recovery sites.
13 We work closely with the Agreement States on their low-14 level waste activities and uranium recovery activities. Additionally, we 15 support other agencies. For example, we support the Department of Energy 16 for the processing of waste incidental to reprocessing at former weapons 17 complex sites, and we support the Department of Energy's work on the naval 18 reactors decommissioning.
19 The image here was taken -- okay, next slide -- the image 20 here was taken just a few weeks ago. This is a decommissioned ship hull of 21 - the reactor vessel from a ship. It's being unloaded at a low-level waste 22 disposal site for final disposal.
23 Despite the relatively small size of the business line, we 24 provide for public health and safety and for protection of the environment on
6 1 activities with traditionally very high levels of interest from the public, political 2 representatives, and the Commissioners.
3 We view proactive and meaningful interactions through all 4 the steps of decommissioning as essential for safe and effective 5 decommissioning. These interactions not only increase stakeholder 6 confidence, they also improve our regulatory decisions.
7 The NRC provides for opportunities for public engagement 8 throughout public meetings in the vicinity of facilities where we receive the 9 preliminary site decommissioning activities report and when we receive the 10 license termination plan. The license termination plan is a formal license 11 amendment which also provides the opportunity for members of the public to 12 request a hearing.
13 I know you have each expressed a lot of interest in 14 decommissioning and low-level waste, and we really appreciate you for your 15 engagement and your support of our work.
16 Next slide, please. The last part of my presentation is 17 designed to look forward at the drivers I see for our DLLW business line over 18 the next three years or so. And I like to divide future drivers into three broad 19 categories: workload drivers, workforce drivers, and innovations.
20 I'll start with workforce drivers. For workforce drivers, like 21 the rest of NRC, this business line is focused on recruiting, developing, and 22 retaining our workforce. The recent high turnover in Jane's Division 23 illustrates how workforce has and will continue to be a driver.
24 Fifty-one percent of the people on its roster in 2019, shortly
7 1 after I arrived at NMSS, is no longer in the position they were in, and 26 2 percent of the current staff are also eligible to retire. We continue to hire and 3 replace the people that have left. We had nine hires last year and seven the 4 year prior. So, we've been keeping pace.
5 That helps us keep pace with respect to people, but we also 6 need to maintain our technical skills. To do this, we've invested in cross-7 training and qualification programs and several knowledge management tools.
8 Finally, we emphasize modeling the values in leadership 9 model behaviors to help ensure strong organizational culture. We're hiring a 10 lot of people this year, and we're very committed to getting their NRC career 11 off to a great start. Shaun is going to give you a firsthand account today of 12 his use of our staffing plan and strategic workforce planning strategies.
13 Next slide, please. The main workload driver for 14 decommissioning is the fact that multiple recently-closed reactors are 15 requesting accelerated decommissioning schedules, based on new business 16 models that incentivize earlier decommissioning work. This challenges our 17 capacity to support simultaneous licensing and inspection activities. Jane 18 and Shaun are going to present today on our planning, cross-training, 19 standardization, and guidance development work to help mitigate this 20 challenge.
21 Outside of reactor decommissioning, we also expect an 22 increase in the uranium recovery area, based on world events and based on 23 the need for a domestic uranium fuel supply. Doug is going to elaborate on 24 how we proactively monitor and adjust to these expectations to be prepared
8 1 for potential new regulatory work.
2 The images here on this slide show the goal of our activities:
3 safely completed decommissioning work. And it shows the Maine Yankee 4 Site on the left and the Humboldt Bay former reactor site on the top and the 5 bottom at the point of license termination.
6 Next slide, please. Innovations that will drive us include our 7 internal focus on risk-informing and new ways of using technologies for 8 decommissioning. We've recently invested in risk-informing and greater use 9 of risk insights to focus our DLLW licensing and inspection work. We've 10 issued licensing guidance and new inspection procedures, and over the next 11 two years, we expect to see program changes from these investments.
12 Stephanie is going to elaborate and give a personal account on how this 13 complements her inspection work.
14 External to NRC, innovative technologies are being applied 15 to decommissioning. For example, robotics are used by the licensee at 16 Three Mile Island Unit 2 to reduce potential people's doses in assessing the 17 higher contaminated areas that remain from the 1979 accident.
18 The images on this slide show a survey technique used at 19 one of our sites where an all-terrain vehicle is pulling an array of detectors, as 20 a new technique. Also, there's a person in the top picture. It shows a person 21 using a survey instrument to map out building structures for the digitization of 22 the building to aid work-planning.
23 These are areas that are ripe for learning from international 24 partners. And I'll just give one example. In 2018, the Nuclear Energy
9 1 Agency created the Committee on Decommissioning of Nuclear Installations 2 and Legacy Management, or CDLM, to provide a forum for senior regulatory 3 authorities, research institutes, and other stakeholders to exchange 4 experience and information. I'm the U.S. representative to the CDLM, and 5 I've been mentioning this only because they've had a particular focus on how 6 advanced technologies could be used worldwide to improve 7 decommissioning, including robotics, digital twins, as I just showed; demolition 8 techniques, remote sensing, and other innovations.
9 So, with my last comment, I just wanted to give a thank you, 10 a huge thank you to Annie Ramirez, who's here. She, over the last three 11 weeks, has done a ton of work to prepare the whole panel to be ready for 12 today, and really, she should be speaking; she's so good. And we really 13 appreciate what she's done. And with that, I'll turn it over to Jane.
14 MS. MARSHALL: Thank you, Rob. Good morning, Chair 15 Hanson and Commissioners.
16 Next slide, please. Since promulgation of the dose-based 17 license termination rule in 1997, the DLLW business line completed the safe 18 and effective decommissioning of 27 power and research reactors, 51 19 complex materials sites, and multiple uranium mine and mill sites. In 20 addition, the business line developed guidance documents, reviewed and 21 approved decommissioning activities, and provided oversight to the license 22 termination process for uranium mill tailing sites, military and non-military 23 radium sites, and provided support to naval reactors decommissioning.
24 Over the past year, the staff completed a significant number
10 1 of actions in both licensing and oversight and the decommissioning uranium 2 recovery and low-level waste programs. These accomplishments 3 demonstrate our continued strong commitment to fulfill the mission within the 4 business line in an effective manner.
5 If we can have this slide -- this slide shows some of the 6 DLLW mission-critical activities. On the left is a picture of reactor internals at 7 SONGS. Reactor internals are a significant focus during decommissioning 8 inspection to ensure that the sectioned and removed pieces are appropriately 9 categorized, packaged, and shipped. On the right is a picture of a 10 decommissioning inspection team at Indian Point Unit 1 radiation waste 11 control room.
12 A few additional accomplishments I'd like to highlight today 13 are:
14 We've completed a total of 53 licensing actions across the 15 decommissioning and uranium recovery programs, which included license 16 terminations for reactors and materials sites.
17 We issued the Long-term Care Fee determination for 18 Western Nuclear, Incorporated, Split Rock Uranium Mill tailing site to prepare 19 for license termination and transfer to the Department of Energy for long-term 20 care.
21 In 2021, the Division conducted a Waste Incidental to 22 Reprocessing, or WIR, program assessment and identified that we needed to 23 improve our guidance documents.
24 The WIR program assessment also recommended that we
11 1 develop a signature authority delegation for WIR documents that would be 2 consistent with office procedures and similar to other licensees. The 3 signature delegation was completed in FY22.
4 We issued two Technical Evaluation Reports related to 5 Hanford WIR activities. We updated guidance for decommissioning program 6 licensing and oversight, including issuing a NUREG on Consolidated 7 Decommissioning Guidance.
8 And the final accomplishment I would like to highlight is that 9 we are hosting the first participant in the Foreign Assignee Program since 10 COVID.
11 Next slide, please. As Rob mentioned, several of our 12 actively decommissioning sites benefit from a high local interest, and I'd like 13 to take a moment to note some of the recent activities in this area.
14 We held two post-shutdown decommissioning activities 15 report public meetings: the first at Diablo Canyon in July of 22 and the 16 second near Palisades in September of 22. These meetings were hybrid.
17 So, we have an in-person presence near the site along with a virtual option 18 that allows members of the public to participate, even if they do not wish to 19 attend the meeting in person.
20 We supported the first offsite Commission meeting in over 21 40 years, which was held in Grants, New Mexico. As some of you remember, 22 the meeting provided an update to the local stakeholders on the interagency 23 actions taken and lessons learned associated with remediation activities at 24 former uranium mill sites throughout the West, and specifically, near their
12 1 homes.
2 In addition, the meeting provided an opportunity for a direct 3 conversation between the Commission and the members of the Red Water 4 Pond Road community on the impacts of uranium contamination on their 5 community and on the Navajo Nation. The photo on the left of the slide 6 shows the staff at the Shade House before the Commission meeting.
7 We published Regulatory Improvements for Production and 8 Utilization Facilities Transitioning to Decommissioning Proposed Rule for 9 comment and supported that rollout with six hybrid public meetings in different 10 parts of the country, plus, presentations at conferences, to facilitate 11 meaningful public comments on the proposed rule.
12 We also proactively reach out to engage non-government 13 organizations, such as citizen advisory boards, in our regular work.
14 We created a new public website, "What's New In 15 Decommissioning" to highlight upcoming opportunities for public involvement 16 and draft documents that are out for public comment.
17 The last thing I would to highlight for our outreach is DLLW 18 support for the 7th Review Meeting of the Joint Convention of the Safety of 19 Spent Fuel Management and on the Safety of Radioactive Waste 20 Management at the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, Austria.
21 NRC staff served as country group officers; presented the U.S. National 22 Report, in partnership with the Department of Energy, and served as technical 23 experts for peer reviews and other contracting parties. The photo on the right 24 of the slide shows part of that delegation.
13 1 These activities are some of the examples of how the 2 decommissioning and low-level waste business line are actively involved and 3 actively invite public involvement during fiscal year '22, as part of our 4 commitment to uphold the principles of good regulation. We are continuing 5 to do this in FY23.
6 Next slide, please. The business line continues to expand 7 its use of web-based licensing to track work. You might recall the business 8 line completed the transition of all casework and non-casework to WBL in 9 2021. The business line is using that data to support agency decision-10 making. We're using WBL in a manner similar to other materials business 11 lines. This approach supports standardization and reduces retraining as 12 people change jobs within NRC. And ultimately, this is expected to further 13 increase the use of data-driven decision-making.
14 This concludes my presentation, and I'll now turn it over to 15 Shaun Anderson. Next slide, please.
16 MR. ANDERSON: Thank you, Jane. Good morning, 17 Chair Hanson and Commissioners.
18 The Reactor Decommissioning Program is a mature 19 program and will continue to strengthen for the foreseeable future. We need 20 to continue to innovate and further streamline our licensing and oversight 21 processes while maintaining public health and safety. Considering more 22 plants are entering various phases of decommissioning, we need to also be 23 able to educate, inform, and communicate effectively to various stakeholders.
24 Next slide, please. First, I want to thank the staff for their
14 1 continued support and substantial efforts to the program. While fairly new to 2 the program, being here for just under a year, I am proud of the management 3 of the workload, the challenging reviews, and the program support that's been 4 maintained.
5 As you may be aware, due to COVID-19, there have been 6 delays in some public meetings, and we have converted others to a web-7 based format. Our team worked hard to establish a variety of communication 8 methods to keep the public informed and involved -- from onsite hybrid 9 meetings related to the PSAR, virtual meetings, supporting various community 10 advisory boards, and updating our web page with information that may be 11 useful to the public.
12 The team continues to be recognized by the hard work and 13 expertise in decommissioning by the frequent requests received to speak and 14 participate at the International Atomic Energy Agency, the Nuclear Energy 15 Agency, and decommissioning strategy conferences. The staff participates 16 in bilateral cooperation meetings with specific countries on reactor 17 decommissioning and provides reactor decommissioning technical seminars, 18 as recently performed in November of 2022 with the Republic of Korea.
19 To build and maintain this team, we continue to leverage the 20 efforts of the Strategic Workforce Planning Tool to inform our hiring decisions; 21 specifically, the tool for the Branch, for the SWPT to provide any insights 22 related to the gaps identified in the organization by technical skill set. It also 23 provided me with a trend in gaining insights on how to move forward with 24 prioritizing some of my hiring at various staff levels.
15 1 As previously mentioned, hiring remains a challenge across 2 the agency and is no different in decommissioning. However, we continue to 3 leverage multiple strategies to ensure we have the resources we need to 4 maintain the workload, such as having staff cross-train as both project 5 managers and decommissioning inspectors.
6 In the image on this slide, there are inspectors from Region 7 I in the top right at Indian Point and Region IV inspectors at SONGS inside 8 containment. And during many of these inspection activities, we try to 9 leverage opportunities to provide on-the-job training, to support qualifications 10 and site familiarization with headquarters staff.
11 And to bring staff onboard, we take advantage of our ability 12 to data-mine through many of the resumes that are online. We also have 13 hired and trained co-op students and provided them with meaningful work to 14 support and enhance the program. We support the Nuclear Regulator 15 Apprenticeship Network to develop and establish strong resources and add to 16 the pipeline. We have also initiated steps to leverage contract resources to 17 mitigate some of the near-term technical expertise necessary or needed in this 18 area.
19 Next slide, please. Decommissioning licensing actions are 20 different than many other NRC licensing actions, in that, once a license is 21 terminated, there's no longer NRC oversight. We must have confidence in 22 our reasonable assurance determination finding that the site is safe for future 23 use. Only then can we terminate the license.
24 The staff has had a long history in decommissioning nuclear
16 1 facilities and has developed several guidance over the years. The staff has 2 expended significant resources in developing technical documents that the 3 staff accepts as one way to comply with the regulations for a wide range of 4 licensee types.
5 NRC's guidance reflects the regulation that is risk-informed 6 and performance-based with graded approaches to demonstrate reasonable 7 assurance. The staff efforts have made the process more transparent and 8 efficient, such as the multi-agency coordination to develop the sound survey 9 approaches and the Multi-agency Radiation Survey Insight Investigation 10 Manual. The staff continues to improve this guidance, both in the release of 11 revisions to incorporate lessons learned or expand in areas of interest to the 12 industry.
13 This past year, we released an updated volume of the 14 Consolidated Decommissioning Guidance specifically for Characterization, 15 Survey, and Determination of Radiological Criteria. The image in the top right 16 is from Appendix J of this update to the guidance, showing exposure scenarios 17 that should be considered for residual radioactivity that could bring the residual 18 radioactivity to the surface, when a member of the public could be exposed.
19 This established guidance has provided a predictable and clear path to license 20 termination for a multitude for licensees since its initial release in 2000.
21 We've also held public meetings, public workshops on 22 developing additional guidance for addressing subsurface radioactivity.
23 Also, the next image is of table salt crystals, which was used to give 24 perspective of DRP sizes during our DRP public workshop on managing
17 1 discrete radioactive particles during decommissioning, where we discussed 2 DRPs as high-activity particles less than 1 millimeter in diameter. Table salt 3 particles are generally of 350 microns. DRPs of concern in decommissioning 4 have been found at sizes ranging from approximately 100 microns in diameter 5 to over 1 millimeter in diameter.
6 And finally, the staff is monitoring the industry initiative to 7 provide more standard information and format of license termination plans 8 applications. This effort could improve the quality and completeness of 9 applications, and thus, result in more efficient NRC reviews, as well as greater 10 opportunities to provide risk insights.
11 And now, I'd like to turn the presentation over to Doug 12 Mandeville. Next slide, please.
13 MR. MANDEVILLE: Thank you, Shaun.
14 Good morning, Chair Hanson and Commissioners. My 15 name is Doug Mandeville, and I'm a Senior Project Manager in NMSS. I 16 began my career here at the NRC over 15 years ago. During my time in this 17 group, I've had the opportunity to work on projects related to uranium recovery 18 decommissioning, as well as reviewing applications for new uranium recovery 19 facilities.
20 Today, I will discuss the activities staff has undertaken with 21 fellow federal agencies and Agreement States to ensure effective 22 decommissioning of uranium mill sites.
23 Next slide, please. As you are aware, the legacy of past 24 uranium mining and milling activities remains a concern in many places,
18 1 particularly in and around Native American communities. Staff is engaged 2 with our federal, Agreement State, and tribal partners to address the 3 challenges related to uranium mill site decommissioning. This includes 4 activities at a programmatic level, as well as at the project level.
5 One specific example of staff's programmatic work with 6 other federal, Agreement State, and tribal representatives is the collaboration 7 with the Abandoned Uranium Mine Waste Group. This group includes staff 8 from the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Energy, and 9 several other federal agencies. The group also includes senior 10 environmental regulators from the Navajo Nation, Pueblo Laguna, Ute 11 Mountain Utes, and the Four Corner States.
12 While this group is focused on disposal options for uranium 13 mine waste, it may identify solutions that could impact NRC-licensed mill sites.
14 The group is in the early stages of its work. The staff looks forward to 15 supporting this effort.
16 The graphic at the top of this slide shows the steps in the 17 uranium recovery decommissioning process, which can require interactions 18 with other regulatory agencies. Prior to the termination of the uranium 19 recovery license, any public land within the long-term care boundary is 20 withdrawn from use to facilitate DOE's role as the long-term care custodian.
21 The staff has increased collaboration with the DOE and the 22 Bureau of Land Management on the public land withdrawal process. Staff is 23 also actively working with the DOE and EPA on individual sites, and we 24 believe we have a good interagency partnership.
19 1 One specific example is the Homestake Site. For this site, 2 the staff participates in routine calls with our regulatory partners at the federal 3 EPA and DOE and the State of New Mexico level. These calls are helpful in 4 communicating the status of cleanup activities at the site, regulatory actions, 5 and provide an opportunity to discuss technical issues.
6 The photo on the lower left of this slide shows one of the 7 evaporation ponds which supports groundwater restoration activities at 8 Homestake. The photo on the lower right shows a drilling rig at Homestake.
9 In October of 2022, staff participated in a workshop on 10 uranium recovery decommissioning with fellow Agreement State regulators.
11 The purpose of the workshop was to enhance communication between the 12 NRC and the Agreement States on uranium recovery licenses that are in 13 various stages of decommissioning.
14 Workshop participants recognize that further collaboration 15 is needed to address complex groundwater contamination at these sites.
16 Staff intends to conduct a subsequent workshop on uranium recovery 17 decommissioning with fellow Agreement State regulators in the fall of 2023.
18 Next slide, please. Through our work with other federal 19 agencies and Agreement States, we have identified several best practices.
20 These include frequent communication with our partners, early interactions on 21 challenging issues, and development of a schedule with dates for key 22 milestones. These are all helpful practices to help support an effective 23 license termination process. These practices are currently being 24 implemented in the uranium recovery and decommissioning program.
20 1 The Rio Algom-Ambrosia Lake Site is one example where 2 we have early interactions on a challenging issue. The map on the left side 3 of this slide shows the mill tailings pile, the blue area in the center and the 4 former location of evaporation ponds that supported groundwater remediation 5 activities, the blue area on the lower right. Also show on this map are the 6 location of several mines, the small squares, that supported Rio Algom and 7 other mills.
8 The specific challenge at this site is distinguishing between 9 mine waste, which is not regulated by the NRC, and milling waste, or 11(e.)2 10 byproduct material, which is regulated by the NRC. Developing a clear 11 understanding of the extent of mining waste compared to milling waste will 12 support an effective license termination process. Staff is working with EPA 13 on this issue. The photo on the lower right shows equipment the licensee is 14 using to conduct gamma surveys to characterize surface contamination.
15 There are two sites located in Agreement States that are 16 making progress towards license termination. The Western Nuclear Site in 17 Wyoming is on track for license termination this spring. The Hecla Site in 18 Colorado is in the early stages of the public land withdrawal process. For 19 both sites, the staff communicates frequently with the Agreement States and 20 DOE to identify key dates in the termination process and provide status on 21 specific reviews. Staff plans to continue these calls, as they help maintain an 22 effective decommissioning process.
23 Next slide, please. As Rob mentioned earlier, staff is 24 maintaining awareness of conditions in the uranium market to inform our
21 1 planning and preparations for the upcoming years. The price of uranium is 2 one of the main factors that drives interest in new facility licensing. Staff 3 maintains awareness of price trends in uranium. It is one of the markers we 4 use to inform decisions about future resource needs in the business line.
5 The graph on this slide shows the price history of uranium 6 in U.S. dollars per pound, based on information collected by the U.S. Energy 7 Information Administration since 2000. The most recent report provided price 8 data through the end of calendar year 2021. At the end of calendar year 9 2022, the spot price for uranium was about $48 a pound.
10 In addition to following market conditions, the staff has 11 frequent conversations with our Agreement State partners and current NRC 12 licensees to understand the status of operations and annual licensing 13 activities. Based on these discussions, staff is observing some initial interest 14 in resuming production and/or expanding existing facilities. Staff will continue 15 to monitor market conditions and activities in Agreement States for planning 16 purposes, so we can be prepared for new licensing work.
17 This concludes my presentation. I will now turn it over to 18 Stephanie Anderson.
19 MS. ANDERSON: Thanks, Doug.
20 And good morning, Chair Hanson and Commissioners. My 21 name is Stephanie Anderson. I am a Senior Decommissioning Inspector in 22 Region IV, and I have been with the agency for 11 years.
23 Today, I will give an overview of the reactor and materials 24 decommissioning inspection activities, including staffing and training for the
22 1 Decommissioning Oversight Program and some of our initiatives to transition 2 our oversight guidance to a more risk-informed, performance-based 3 approach.
4 Next slide, please. The Regions have been actively hiring 5 decommissioning inspectors and cross-qualifying staff to support the increase 6 of the decommissioning activities. Five new decommissioning staff have 7 collectively joined the Regions in 2022.
8 With the recent update to Inspection Manual Chapter 1248, 9 Appendix F, "Training Requirements and Qualification Journal for 10 Decommissioning Inspectors," inspectors can now qualify in either reactor 11 decommissioning, material decommissioning, or both. This has allowed the 12 Regions to qualify inspectors specific to the area of decommissioning that 13 supports their Region's current needs.
14 When an inspector starts a Qualification Journal, they will 15 discuss with their supervisor which decommissioning track to pursue.
16 Regardless of the chosen decommissioning track, all decommissioning 17 inspectors must complete Appendix A of the Qualification Journal, which 18 includes required basic-level training courses, individual study activities, and 19 on-the-job activities, which includes a facility familiarization tour.
20 Appendix B focuses on the technical-level training needed 21 to understand operations, regulatory requirements, and inspection processes 22 of a decommissioning site. Even though there are differences between the 23 two technical tracks, there are several cross-cutting areas. Five out of 17 24 individual study activities and all the required training courses are applicable
23 1 to both technical tracks; for example, the transportation of radioactive 2 materials course. This practice has achieved consistency among both 3 qualification tracks and expedites the cross-qualification process for 4 candidates.
5 The Regions are focusing on knowledge transfer.
6 Nuclepedia pages have been created. There are ongoing knowledge 7 transfer sessions, and the inspectors took the initiative to create a cross-8 regional decommissioning inspector discussion, which is a biweekly meeting 9 to discuss various decommissioning topics at the staff level.
10 Lastly, the Regions are actively exchanging inspectors with 11 one another to support specific technical areas. For example, I assisted at 12 Region I in a decommissioning inspection at Indian Point in 2022 and assisted 13 with the training of recently hired decommissioning inspectors on fire 14 protection at reactor decommissioning sites. The Regions' priority has been 15 training staff to prepare for the future.
16 Next slide, please. In the past three years, there has been 17 a significant drive to update various decommissioning oversight guidance to 18 allow them to be more risk-informed and performance-based.
19 In decommissioning, the first Manual Chapter that was 20 updated was Inspection Manual Chapter 2561, "Decommissioning Power 21 Reactor Inspection Program" and its associated core and discretionary 22 procedures. It has been used for reactor decommissioning inspectors over 23 the past two years.
24 I find the updated procedures improved greatly since it
24 1 focuses on risk-informing our inspection activities. It has also received 2 positive feedback from staff across the Regions.
3 The revision includes clear and defined expectations which 4 are easily quantifiable, which help inspectors planning and assessing the 5 inspection program for completion.
6 The onsite inspection activities are commensurate with the 7 associated risks. For example, I have focus on inspecting the reactor vessel 8 internal segmentation activities ongoing at Region IV's reactor 9 decommissioning sites.
10 A working group was established in February 2021 to 11 update Inspection Manual Chapter 2602, "Decommissioning Fuel Cycle, 12 Uranium Recovery, and Materials Inspection Program." The purpose of this 13 working group was to update the Manual Chapter and its associated 14 procedures.
15 To ensure consistency with Manual Chapter 2561, Manual 16 Chapter 2602 now uses core and discretionary procedures. Core inspection 17 procedures are those performed annually, as applicable at the 18 decommissioning sites, and discretionary procedures are those used to 19 augment the core inspection program and to assess specific technical areas, 20 safety concerns, or aspects of the licensee's performance. This Manual 21 Chapter was issued on December 15th, 2022.
22 Staff used the Be Risk Smart Principles to update the 23 Manual Chapter and associated procedures to ensure the inspection guidance 24 and procedures are risk-informed, performance-based; decrease duplication
25 1 of efforts, and incorporated operating experience and lessons learned from 2 inspection activities.
3 Lastly, Senior Inspectors continue with this momentum and 4 are currently in the process of updating the Inspection Manual Chapter on the 5 Uranium Recovery Inspection Program. This update will include the addition 6 of a new dryer inspection procedure and incorporate the NRC changes that 7 are reflected in Manual Chapters 2602 and 2800. Inspection Manual Chapter 8 2801 is expected to be issued by spring of 2023.
9 This concludes my presentation, and I will now turn it over 10 to Dan Dorman to close out this part of the briefing.
11 Next slide, please.
12 MR. DORMAN: Thank you, Stephanie, and thank you to 13 all our presenters on this panel.
14 This concludes our presentation for the decommissioning 15 and low-level waste business line, and we look forward to your questions.
16 CHAIR HANSON: Thanks, Dan. Thank you all for being 17 here, and thanks for your presentations.
18 Jane, I guess I'd like to start with you. I don't know if it was 19 you or Rob who kind of noted the turnover in the group and the 27 or 26 20 percent eligible to retire.
21 Can you talk a little bit about maybe the reasons for the 22 turnover and what are the challenges that you've seen in hiring, either 23 internally or kind of externally? And then, as you've had that turnover, can 24 you talk a little bit about knowledge management in that area?
26 1 MS. MARSHALL: Okay. Thank you, Chair Hanson.
2 The reasons for individual staff departing, there are a range 3 of reasons as individuals, the staff themselves, of course. Roughly half of 4 the folks who have departed, as Rob mentioned in his remarks, half of those 5 were retirement. The next biggest group were people taking different 6 positions within NRC, and we see that as a positive. They're broadening; 7 they're getting promotions, and still contributing to NRC.
8 And so, a smaller group leave the agency before retirement, 9 and there are varied reasons. Some people wish to be in a different part of 10 the country. Some people have different opportunities.
11 You also asked about challenges for hiring. We have been 12 working with OCHCO to develop broad postings for areas where more than 13 just DLLW business line has needs, such as project managers. And so, we 14 have been aggressively hiring, as we can, using that method.
15 There are some areas that are harder to hire. That's not 16 unique to NRC, but certain skill sets, such as health physicists, are in demand, 17 and industry is having the same challenges that we are.
18 You also asked about knowledge management, which is at 19 the front of our minds. I know Shaun mentioned it in his remarks. We have 20 been making good use of Nuclepedia. So, when any staff does something 21 new, they'll write a one-pager, put it in Nuclepedia, so that other staff can 22 benefit from the lessons that they've learned.
23 Certain IT innovations, such as the shared documents that 24 we all enjoy now, give us additional KM opportunities, because more staff
27 1 have access to the documents that they need.
2 Certainly, Teams has allowed mentoring very easily from 3 Regions, from headquarters to Regions, you know, and across the NRC, more 4 so than it used to be just within the office. So, that level of mentoring across 5 the organization has been a great benefit for knowledge management.
6 I think that covers most of it. I don't know, Rob, did you 7 want to add to that?
8 MR. LEWIS: Yes, to say, at the office level, so Jane's 9 Division is a microcosm, but it's the same phenomenon at the office level for 10 the retirement. I agree, if I remember, when I looked at the numbers, Jane's 11 Division, about 60 people, so 30 left, and since 2019, not just last year.
12 CHAIR HANSON: Yes, yes.
13 MR. LEWIS: But about the same office-wide, roughly half 14 left. The one thing I would say about retirement, I think a lot of people were 15 in kind of wait-and-see mode during the pandemic, and then, when we started 16 reentry, people that otherwise would have been retiring all along retired. So, 17 last year, we had kind of a bump, and I think, NMSS-wide, we had lost about 18 50 people last year out of 300. In a normal year, we have 25 to 30. So, 19 there was a little spike.
20 But the good news is we have been aggressively hiring.
21 OCHCO has been a great partner at that.
22 And as Jane said, you know, rather than each Division 23 posting a job, post one; get a cert with a lot of people. All the Divisions pick 24 from it. That's been the single biggest thing last year, that improvement in
28 1 our ability to hire and onboard people.
2 CHAIR HANSON: Great. Yes, thanks very much. I 3 appreciate that.
4 Shaun, can you talk to me a little bit about discrete 5 radioactive particles and kind of how to manage this issue during 6 decommissioning and kind of where we are in the guidance development 7 process for DRPs?
8 MR. ANDERSON: So, DRPs, just to provide some context, 9 DRPs may exist during the operations of the facilities, and obviously, during 10 decommissioning. During cutting internals or concrete that's being 11 demolished, we may develop some DRPs.
12 The licensee is required and is expected to maintain safety, 13 isolation, and control while the facilities are being decommissioned. The 14 concern comes up when there's a potential release of DRPs to the 15 environment while decommissioning activities are happening.
16 So, I would say the one concern that we do have, one 17 activity we had, is where there was a release of DRPs, and we do expect 18 licensees to actually do extensive surveys, and then, remediation and 19 removing the DRPs, any that have been identified. What we are planning to 20 do moving forward is that, first, we recognize that this is a potential operational 21 occurrence that could potentially happen. There was a request from industry 22 for us to go develop -- a request for additional guidance on DRPs.
23 So, we established a working group and we had a public 24 workshop last November. And within that public workshop, we started to
29 1 frame out what areas that we will cover within the guidance itself.
2 Moving forward, I think the guidance -- we know guidance 3 development takes probably maybe five years or so. So, we're looking at 4 opportunities to actually do some interim guidance documents and generic 5 communications, as we start to fully develop the guidance itself. And we 6 know that industry, NEI, is also working with the industry to develop their 7 guidance on LTPs, which may also cover DRPs, as was presented in 8 November. But we do believe that the guide itself will help strengthen the 9 decommissioning program overall.
10 CHAIR HANSON: Yes, I think those interim steps and 11 looking at ways, you know, obviously, applying risk insights in there, and given 12 the amount of decommissioning that's going on, I could see how some nearer-13 term actions to provide clarity there I think might provide a benefit.
14 MR. ANDERSON: Absolutely. And I just wanted to 15 mention that the staff has been working with the Office of Research to conduct 16 additional research and provide additional risk insights that could be 17 leveraged. But we do have guidance that we've established today, and we 18 are looking at licensees' approaches to make any changes to our acceptance 19 criteria.
20 CHAIR HANSON: Okay. Thanks a lot.
21 Stephanie, good morning.
22 MS. ANDERSON: Good morning.
23 CHAIR HANSON: You mentioned kind of an update to the 24 Manual Chapters for decommissioning and the inspection procedures. I
30 1 know the reactor decommissioning procedures have been kind of in use the 2 longest on this. Could you kind of talk about the impact of those revised 3 procedures on the program and any kind of lessons learned that you guys 4 have had about that, and whether or not those lessons learned have kind of 5 been able to be applied to additional revised inspection chapters?
6 MS. ANDERSON: Absolutely. So, one example I can 7 give you is fire protection used to be a discretionary procedure in reactor 8 decommissioning. And with the update to 2561, it is now a core inspection 9 procedure. So now, we are required to perform that inspection procedure 10 annually at the reactor decommissioning sites where we have seen an uptick 11 in hot work activities ongoing. Every active decommissioning site is 12 supposed to become useful in identifying certain areas that the licensee 13 should be focusing on when it comes to the area of fire protection and where 14 we have identified violations across different licensees.
15 CHAIR HANSON: Okay. Yes, thank you.
16 So, that's, I guess, kind of about the core reactor 17 decommissioning procedures that you've been able to kind of -- is there 18 anything that you've learned so far that you've been kind of apply to 19 subsequent Chapter updates?
20 MS. ANDERSON: So, yes. So, with having core 21 inspection procedures now at 2602, which I haven't actually used them yet for 22 an inspection. They just were implemented in December, but we'll be using 23 them ongoing starting now in January.
24 With those, we've been putting risk modules into the
31 1 inspection procedures and looking at different focus areas when you're out 2 doing inspection, as in management control, effluent, radioactive protection, 3 with the new 2602, looking at material decommissioning sites.
4 CHAIR HANSON: Okay. Yes, thank you very much. I'll 5 finish up with a brief comment for Doug. I appreciated your tracking the 6 uranium price as kind of a signpost and marker for strategic workforce 7 planning. Obviously, we have a lot of -- and I don't have a sense of the total 8 universe yet -- but we have a number of licensees that aren't operating, right?
9 They're kind of holding their facilities in abeyance. And I just want to make 10 sure that, should those folks all decide to kind of flip the on switch, that we've 11 got enough resources and people to go out and inspect those facilities and 12 assure they're being operated in a way that protects the public and the 13 environment.
14 So, I appreciate what you all do.
15 MR. MANDEVILLE: Yes, thank you.
16 CHAIR HANSON: Yes. All right.
17 Commissioner Baran?
18 COMMISSIONER BARAN: Thank you. Thanks for all of 19 your presentations and for the work you're doing.
20 I wanted to start with the topic of remediation technologies.
21 This most recently came up in the context of a company called Disa asking 22 NRC about which regulatory framework would apply to a technology that could 23 potentially reduce the uranium and radium content of mine waste. But I think 24 there's a broader question here about remediation technologies more
32 1 generally.
2 In this case, though, the staff responded that a technology 3 that aims to make mine waste less contaminated would need to be licensed 4 as a milling facility. And the staff's position was that this was required as a 5 legal matter, based on the definitions in the Atomic Energy Act.
6 Let's put the statutory interpretation question to the side for 7 a minute. As a matter of policy or of the relative hazards of the two types of 8 technologies, does the staff believe that the same framework is appropriate 9 for traditional milling and remediation technologies?
10 I'll open that up to anyone on the panel who wants to weigh 11 in.
12 MS. MARSHALL: Okay. I'll start, and then, if anybody 13 else wants to weigh in.
14 So, we looked at this technology and Disa came; they gave 15 a presentation walking through the technology and how it works. And it is 16 very much a milling process. And we've looked at it and staff had a lot of 17 discussions of, is there any other way to view this technology? And we keep 18 coming back to, it concentrates. It takes ore; it takes material; it crushes it.
19 It goes through a process -- in this case, a high-pressure ablation -- and then, 20 you get a concentration of uranium and other minerals. That is milling. So, 21 that's where the technical side --
22 COMMISSIONER BARAN: That's helpful. I mean, and 23 Rob might weigh into it; I saw you going for your button.
24 MR. LEWIS: Yes.
33 1 COMMISSIONER BARAN: When I read the 2 correspondence on this, it seemed very -- the staff's response and analysis 3 seemed very kind of a statutory interpretation-type analysis and it wasn't as 4 much of this kind of technical discussion.
5 So, I'm interested in what Rob has to say about this, but 6 when the staff looked at it, the view was, from a hazards point of view or from 7 a process point of view, this looked a lot like milling to you.
8 MS. MARSHALL: Yes.
9 COMMISSIONER BARAN: It didn't like something 10 different?
11 MR. MANDEVILLE: Correct.
12 COMMISSIONER BARAN: Okay. That's interesting.
13 MS. MARSHALL: Rob?
14 COMMISSIONER BARAN: I hadn't gathered that from 15 the --
16 MR. LEWIS: I remember one briefing I was in, I actually 17 was challenging the team and saying, can this somehow be looked at as 18 cleanup, you know, under Part 30 --
19 COMMISSIONER BARAN: Right.
20 MR. LEWIS: -- or some other part? But we kept coming 21 back to the fact that it looked like milling, and also, it met the definition of 22 byproduct material, and therefore, pointed us directly to Part 40.
23 So, we did try to explore all the options. We're working with 24 that applicant, and any other applicants that might want to explore with us, to
34 1 try to find a path forward. But, yes, we did write a letter to them and said that 2 this does appear, based on the definition in the Atomic Energy Act, 11(e.)2 3 byproduct material, we would have to regulate it as milling under Part 40.
4 COMMISSIONER BARAN: You know, if we take like a 5 hypothetical example to kind of think this through, if a company wanted to go 6 to a contaminated mine, run all the mine waste through whatever technology 7 it was, and then, leave less mine waste behind that's less contaminated, as a 8 matter of policy, I would think we would want to incentivize that, or at least 9 provide a reasonable licensing path for it.
10 But if the remediation technology falls under the milling 11 framework, then our Part 40 regulations, as I understand it, would require the 12 licensee to pay for disposal and long-term stewardship costs, which would be 13 -- that would be a big disincentive, right? I mean, it's hard to see how anyone 14 would ever use a technology to remediate a site if doing so left them financially 15 responsible for the site.
16 First of all, is that right in terms of the application of Part 40?
17 But what's the staff kind of think about that?
18 MR. LEWIS: Yes, I appreciate the question very much.
19 Yes, so the first question is, what framework does this apply 20 to? And Part 40 seems to be the answer, as described by the application we 21 got.
22 The second question is, then, now that it is Part 40, how do 23 we do our review? Can we risk-inform our review? Can we bring innovative 24 technologies to it? Has it got to be reviewed like things were reviewed 20
35 1 years ago?
2 That part, we're definitely very interested in exploring, but 3 the first question has to be answered first: what framework does it apply to, 4 if that helps?
5 COMMISSIONER BARAN: Yes. And maybe we could 6 talk a little bit about that question, a little bit in terms of the Atomic Energy Act 7 and the definitions and kind of the more legal interpretation piece of this.
8 You know, as you mentioned, in the case of the Disa 9 technology, the staff found that it produces byproduct material, and there were 10 kind of three factors the staff pointed to there. It involves the concentration 11 of uranium for the primary purpose of recovering the source material; from ore 12 is the second factor, and then, produces tailings or waste. And then, of 13 course, anything that produces byproduct materials is milling, you know, under 14 the definition.
15 So, I'm interested kind of in hearing a little bit more about 16 that. What I'm trying to figure out is whether we think, the staff thinks, that 17 the byproduct material definition kind of leaves us no choice but to 18 characterize this kind of remediation technology as milling or whether there 19 are alternate interpretations that could give us more latitude to do something 20 different, if, from a technical point of view, that would make sense.
21 Do you have any thoughts on that? I mean, like, for 22 example, if I'm thinking of kind of those three factors, would it be reasonable 23 to conclude that the primary purpose was remediation rather than recovering 24 uranium, or do we have to call mine waste "ore"? And is running existing
36 1 waste through a remediation process the same as producing waste?
2 I mean, I think, to me, none of those questions seem like 3 real clear-cut and obvious. Has the staff kind of thought about that? And 4 maybe you haven't because you think milling is the right answer, from a 5 technical point of view, about where it should fall. But I'm interested in kind 6 of hearing any exploring you've done of those kinds of questions.
7 When I saw the correspondence, it felt very much like we're 8 locked into this outcome. And when I looked at kind of the actual definitions 9 and factors, it wasn't that obvious to me that we were.
10 MR. LEWIS: Yes, and Doug is looking at me like he has an 11 insight.
12 (Laughter.)
13 He was part of the technical team.
14 And so, I would just say, you know, based on our technical 15 review and working with our attorneys, we landed where we landed in the letter 16 and tried to articulate that to the applicant.
17 It was just we reviewed what they applied, you know. So, 18 it was, as presented in the application, this is where we came out. Perhaps 19 the applicant could describe it differently, and we could have ongoing 20 conversations. But my impression is we were pretty firm with where we 21 landed, both from the technical side and the legal side, and let's talk more to 22 the applicant.
23 COMMISSIONER BARAN: Okay. Doug?
24 MR. MANDEVILLE: Yes, I wouldn't have anything else to
37 1 add to what Rob said. I think the only point I would make is, right, this 2 technology is relatively new and wasn't really envisioned when the Atomic 3 Energy Act was written. So, we're kind of in a situation where there's been 4 some different things that have developed that maybe wasn't considered when 5 the legislation was first enacted. So, it's part of the headache here that we 6 have.
7 COMMISSIONER BARAN: Yes. No, I appreciate that.
8 And I appreciate all the thoughtful comments on this.
9 From my point of view, I don't know anything about any 10 particular technology and whether it makes sense, but, as I think of a category, 11 a potential category of technologies, so much of what we've seen kind of in 12 recent years is trying to think through, okay, if someone comes up with 13 something new that hadn't been contemplated that's innovative, are we 14 making sure we have a framework that's going to fit for that? Or are we trying 15 to jam it into a framework that may not be as well-suited for it? And I was just 16 kind of struck here because it seemed like that was less the approach here 17 and more, well, there's just kind of only one way to look at it, and here's what 18 it is. But I appreciate all the discussion of that.
19 And maybe with my last little bit of time, I'll switch topics and 20 ask, you know, the major ongoing rulemaking in the low-level waste area is 21 the Part 61 and greater than Class C effort. Can someone give us an update 22 on how that rulemaking is progressing?
23 MS. MARSHALL: Okay, I can start.
24 So, the Part 61 rulemaking working group is meeting weekly
38 1 and working through. I'd like to highlight that many of the staff experts on that 2 rulemaking also have other projects that they're working on at the same time.
3 So, the staff is developing the proposed rule and expect to 4 get it up by the end of the calendar year.
5 COMMISSIONER BARAN: Okay. Good. And then, 6 maybe just with the last little bit of time, Stephanie, you mentioned the update 7 to the Uranium Recovery Inspection Program. Can you walk us through just 8 a little bit what changes are being contemplated there?
9 MS. ANDERSON: Yes. So, they plan to take the changes 10 that were recently incorporated into 2602 and 2800, especially in the definition 11 area, and incorporate those into 2801.
12 And the dryer inspection, there's not an inspection 13 procedure currently to perform that. It's in various elements of different 14 inspection procedures. So, they want to make one new inspection procedure 15 to perform that inspection aspect.
16 COMMISSIONER BARAN: Oh, okay. Great. Thanks.
17 Thanks, everyone.
18 CHAIR HANSON: Thank you, Commissioner Baran.
19 Commissioner Wright?
20 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: Thank you, Chair.
21 And welcome. It's been interesting so far, and 22 Commissioner Baran raised some good questions. I kind of want to follow up 23 on that a little bit. So, I thought he was spot-on in his questions and 24 appreciate the way you laid that out.
39 1 Doug, I want to ask you a question I think, because this 2 probably is more to you. And I've seen the response that Disa sent to the 3 staff's letter. Okay? I've read that. And it points out what I think may be 4 some compelling arguments, you know, considerations, because it does seem 5 a little circular. Okay?
6 Tell me about the safety aspects of this. I get the benefits 7 for public health, right, and the environment. I get that. And I think that that's 8 obvious to everybody, that this is probably one of these things, if you look at 9 and you trust the numbers that you've seen, that it actually does provide a 10 huge benefit.
11 Tell me about the safety aspects about this, either if it were 12 allowed to proceed, as the applicant would like to do, or if we have to go the 13 long route, you know, the costly route.
14 MR. MANDEVILLE: Yes, I'll try to answer this quickly, 15 right?
16 So, their process generates what they call an isolated 17 mineral fraction and a clean coarse fraction. The isolated mineral fraction is 18 where most of the uranium would go, and that would be sent on for either 19 disposal or further processing. The clean coarse fraction would plan to 20 remain onsite. And, you know, that does still contain some uranium and 21 some radium, and other heavy metals. So, there are some potential hazards 22 there that may still stay onsite.
23 So, from a safety perspective, when the facility operates, 24 we'd be looking at things like dust control and just worker dose, and making
40 1 sure that things are contained. And then, for that material that stays onsite, 2 if it's regulated as a mill, then it would need to meet the Appendix A criteria.
3 And some of that clean coarse fraction, at least what we looked at from a 4 technology standpoint, may not meet the soil cleanup criteria in Appendix A.
5 So, that's kind of some of the challenge there. If it was regulated as source 6 material, that clean coarse fraction, we would be looking at a dose assessment 7 to confirm that it stayed under the 25 millirem.
8 So, that's kind of either option as far as how it would be 9 regulated.
10 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: Right. And so, I'm aware 11 that EPA would really like to employ this technology.
12 MR. MANDEVILLE: Yes.
13 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: So, the fact that they're 14 willing to employ it and go forward with it really sends a signal that, to me, it's 15 like, okay, you really need to pay attention here.
16 I know there was some early data that suggested maybe it 17 was, after everything was over with, it might not be as clean. The more 18 current data that I've seen shows that it's even stronger, it's cleaner. In fact, 19 I'm not going to say it goes all the way back to greenfield, but it does get pretty 20 close, if, indeed, their numbers are correct, right?
21 So, I guess what I'm asking, I'd like to know, it feels like 22 maybe we might be a barrier here, potentially. And how do we get to "yes" 23 on this under the current frameworks that we have? And how do we do that, 24 especially if the safety benefits of what they are? And I get to the point of, is
41 1 it something that a license condition would be necessary for in order, you 2 know, if you want to be sure that the numbers are safe? Is that something 3 that's possible, too, I guess?
4 MS. MARSHALL: Thank you, Commissioner.
5 We have looked at it pretty thoroughly. We are very open 6 to continuing to work with the applicant to see what other considerations we 7 may be able to look at with this technology.
8 As Rob mentioned, he did challenge the staff pretty hard, 9 and I did the same. I mean, it's I understand the appeal of the technology, 10 and we are continuing to talk through it and work with our partners in OGC to 11 see what other options we can look into.
12 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: All right. And then, just the 13 last comment. I know that there's another potential company other there --
14 there's another company. It's not a potential company; it is a company. But 15 they're looking in Utah, right? And that's an Agreement State. And I'd kind 16 of like to follow that as well.
17 But it looks like there's going to be probably competition in 18 this area, you know. And the sooner I think we can solve this, the better, 19 because we already knew about the 500 sites in the Navajo Nation, and we're 20 talking 15,000 sites that could benefit from this.
21 So, this may be one of those opportunities where we can be 22 innovative and transformative, and not be a barrier on things like that. So, I 23 appreciate the questions and the discussion, and I thank you.
24 And I will stop and I'm going to come to something different.
42 1 Rob, I want to come back to the numbers a little bit.
2 And the Chair asked questions about the number of 3 retirements, and things like that, right? And that raises a lot of concern, right?
4 You have 51 percent who retired. You had another percentage that left the 5 agency, that left, and then, half the people that were remaining at the agency 6 were eligible -- or a quarter of those which were eligible to retire, which begs 7 the question, to me, how long does it take to train someone up in this area?
8 You know, if we're losing so many people, and then, we're 9 bringing on people. And maybe sometimes we're not net here, right? And if 10 we're losing more people than we're gaining, and then, three years later, those 11 new people are now the old people, okay, the senior people at the agency, 12 that presents a huge problem. So, how long does it take?
13 MR. LEWIS: Of course, it depends on the person we hire, 14 you know. Some people come with some experience and those are easier 15 to qualify, or not easier to qualify, but they can get qualified quicker.
16 And so, we are looking at our qualification program. In fact, 17 I think we're going to talk about it in the second panel. And that's materials-18 focused, but the same kind of concepts apply to this program.
19 And we're looking for ways to qualify people quicker, 20 teaming them up with senior staff, going out and actually writing out the qual 21 program. Each person gets a specific qual journal, if you will. And when I 22 went through it, it took me two years. So, we think we can do better than that.
23 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: Well, I get the two years on 24 the qual, right, but, then, you've got to build the experience.
43 1 MR. LEWIS: Yes, yes.
2 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: And how long does it take for 3 you to be comfortable that they're gaining the experience?
4 And I ask this for this question: Right now, in this 5 environment that we're in, I've heard anecdotally, in conversations with staff 6 in the building, that some of the onboards, they haven't met people outside 7 their branch. Okay?
8 MR. LEWIS: Yes.
9 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: And in a virtual environment, 10 that's going to be very hard to do. And even with presence with a purpose, 11 that's going to be hard to do.
12 So, how do these people, the new ones, learn and feel 13 comfortable enough to know where to go and who to ask, and how to get 14 there?
15 MR. LEWIS: Yes. So, in our qual program, I'd just say --
16 and I think Dan's hitting the button on me.
17 (Laughter.)
18 MR. LEWIS: But the purpose of our qual program, so 19 there's a technical qualification purpose and kind of we're confident that this 20 person can go out and represent the NRC. And we do both pieces.
21 So, after you do your qual and you go through a board, and 22 as a manager, I'm certifying this person's ready, that's what qualification 23 means: he's ready, he or she is ready to go out and represent the agency in 24 front of licensees and do inspections, or do licensing reviews as well.
44 1 So, that's our premise. It is the fact of remote nature of 2 some workers; it does present challenges. A lot of the work, the face-to-face 3 time, cultural time, if you will, of knowing the unwritten rules of NRC, that's 4 harder, yes, no doubt. It's easier face-to-face, I should say. But it's 5 manageable.
6 I think we've gone through the project. We have, obviously, 7 agency-wide, the TPIWG report, and I know the Commission talked about that 8 recently. And we're going to move forward with a pilot project and test those 9 kinds of things in the future going forward.
10 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: Are we sending any of these 11 persons out with someone before they're qual'ed?
12 MR. MANDEVILLE: Absolutely. Yes, that's 100 percent 13 part of our program.
14 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: Okay. All right. Thank you.
15 I'm really concerned about how we build the employee.
16 MR. MANDEVILLE: Yes, thank you for the question.
17 CHAIR HANSON: Thank you, Commissioner Wright.
18 Commissioner Caputo?
19 COMMISSIONER CAPUTO: Good morning. Thank you 20 all for being here.
21 I'm going to follow on Commissioner Baran's comments and 22 Commissioner Wright's on Disa, but I'm going to come at this from a slightly 23 different direction.
24 Fundamentally, the scope of the cleanup here is significant,
45 1 and obviously, any technology that could be brought to bear would have a 2 huge societal benefit in terms of safety.
3 But, fundamentally, any process, whether it's Disa's or any 4 other technology, is going to take a material that's mixed and sift it, sort it, 5 however it's going to function, into material that's of less concern and material 6 that needs to be properly disposed of.
7 So, fundamentally, under the logic that you talked about in 8 response to Disa, any technology that would address this type of remediation 9 would end up falling under the definition of milling, under the way you're 10 interpreting it now, right?
11 MS. MARSHALL: For technologies that I'm familiar with 12 and have seen, I would say that that seems accurate. I am not going to 13 comment on a technology that I'm unaware of. I do hope that there are 14 additional cleanup technologies.
15 COMMISSIONER CAPUTO: But, in one way, shape, or 16 form, you're going to be concentrating the uranium bearing more hazardous 17 material for disposal.
18 MS. MARSHALL: Mm-hmm.
19 COMMISSIONER CAPUTO: I mean, shy of just disposing 20 of an entire pile, you're in some way going to be separating out the uranium 21 bearing more hazardous materials.
22 So, I guess what I'm struggling with here is, you know, I 23 share Commissioner Wright's concern that the nature of how that's being 24 interpreted makes us a barrier to innovation. Whether it's Disa's or anyone
46 1 else, the nature of how this remediation would fundamentally be conducted 2 would end up getting caught in that interpretation.
3 So, I guess I'll stop there. I think this becomes one of those 4 questions where perhaps it's incumbent upon us as a Commission to sort of 5 think about whether there's any just sort of look at decisionmaking in OGC and 6 whether there is room for risk-informing the nature of that decisionmaking in a 7 way that enables an innovation that's going to bring significant safety benefits.
8 So, that's just, I guess, something that I think we need to consider going 9 forward.
10 Mr. Anderson, Ms. Anderson, you both talked about 11 revisiting and revising a host of documents, both in guidance space and 12 inspection space. Anytime you're dealing with that kind of a revision, it's 13 pretty labor-intensive. It takes a lot of time and thought on the part of the 14 people engaged in that effort.
15 So, I guess, while with any of these documents there's 16 always going to be a need to sort of bring things current, but when you're going 17 through those sorts of renovations -- renovations? -- revisions in these 18 documents, there, hopefully, are a lot of ways to bring to bear the knowledge 19 that's been gained over the decommissioning of 27 reactors, to do a significant 20 amount of risk-informing, to learn from past experience where our inspectors 21 can best use their time most efficiently, et cetera.
22 So, what sorts of efficiencies, given the scope of the 23 workload that you see going forward and some of the personnel challenges 24 going forward? What sorts of efficiencies are you expecting to now benefit
47 1 from in using these revised procedures going forward?
2 MR. ANDERSON: I think there will be efficiencies at least 3 on the licensing and the review side of the house. One of the areas that we 4 want to really focus on, and part of working with the Regions and inspections, 5 is the coordination of activities in the LTP plans that we're receiving from 6 licensees. They're making sure that some of the risk-significant activities do 7 have the staff from the technical side of the house availability; for example, 8 dealing with DRPs. A lot of the concern is documentation and making sure 9 that we're aware.
10 We want to improve our processes and we improve our 11 inspection guidance and communication to the licensees. We're making sure 12 that's communicated to the inspection staff and make sure it's documented in 13 such a way, such that, once we get to actual review of a final status report in 14 the review, a lot of those concerns can be addressed ahead of time because 15 we've already provided some guidance and documentation on how that should 16 be documented, collected, managed, until we get to the time of license 17 termination.
18 At least, conceptually, there's a lot of processes that can be 19 gained and efficiencies that can be gained in the long term, but keep in mind 20 decommissioning is a long marathon activity, but we do want to make sure 21 some of the nuances and the amount of processes that we're actually 22 improving in our inspection program is not just inspection; it's also the 23 coordination with headquarters, and also, with the licensee, and making sure 24 that the licensee's decommissioning schedule, which is very fluid, we want to
48 1 make sure that we're aware and we actually can adjust on the fly.
2 But, as that's going along, we are looking at contracts and 3 being aware of how we can mitigate some of the initial concerns we have with 4 the staff and resources, so that we can maintain focus on guidance 5 development.
6 COMMISSIONER CAPUTO: Okay. I'll come back to you 7 in a minute, if there's anything you want to add. But I'm going to make an 8 observation.
9 MR. ANDERSON: Yes.
10 COMMISSIONER CAPUTO: You said the word 11 "documentation" a lot.
12 MR. ANDERSON: Sorry.
13 COMMISSIONER CAPUTO: And that can be time-14 intensive in and of itself. So, obviously, there's a need for appropriate levels 15 of documentation, but that itself can be pretty time intensive.
16 So, in the nature of revising these documents, is that 17 something that was looked at? Because, you know, the less time our 18 personnel have to spend documenting, the more time they can spend actually 19 doing the inspections and doing the observations.
20 So, you know, obviously, everything needs to be 21 documented because this, in the end, ends up with releasing a site. But I'd 22 hate to spend -- I'd hate to have people spending one day working and four 23 days documenting.
24 MR. ANDERSON: Thanks. Thanks for the clarification,
49 1 well, pointing that out.
2 What I really mean by documentation is, over the life of 3 decommissioning, there are people who are going to retire and leave, and it's 4 not necessarily for us, but it's for the licensee. So, we're looking at the 5 corrective action program and making sure there's adequate documentation 6 of anything that they may have found on the site itself.
7 When we talk about the 5075(g) reports, and the life of the 8 operation of the plant, how can we access those files? Access those files, 9 and is there a way that we can document that in a way that's not hard copies, 10 but maybe electronically available for staff to be able to do more efficient 11 reviews, once we receive it?
12 But the documentation was more for how we collect 13 information on a site from the corrective action programs.
14 COMMISSIONER CAPUTO: Because, you know, 15 documentation is the most fun --
16 MR. ANDERSON: Yes.
17 COMMISSIONER CAPUTO: -- things we do there.
18 (Laughter.)
19 MR. ANDERSON: Thanks for bringing it up.
20 COMMISSIONER CAPUTO: Anything you'd like to add, 21 Stephanie?
22 MS. ANDERSON: No, thank you.
23 (Laughter.)
24 COMMISSIONER CAPUTO: Okay. That's fine. That's
50 1 fine. Mr. Mandeville, the Chairman asked about uranium recovery just given 2 everything that's going on in the uranium market, et cetera. So I'd like to ask 3 a question, a similar question, but slightly different.
4 The last two licenses that we issued for new uranium 5 recovery sites took 9 and 10 years. Do you anticipate anyone coming in for 6 a new license or do you pretty much exclusively anticipate simply restart of 7 existing?
8 MR. MANDEVILLE: We haven't seen any indication of new 9 licenses at this point. We have no letters of intent. We haven't had anybody 10 that's even expressed interest to us yet. So at this point it would -- the two 11 licenses that we've issued that -- have never operated. There's a possibility 12 at some point that they may decide to go into operations. That would 13 probably be the thing that would happen first before we start getting a new 14 facility. At least that's my own --
15 COMMISSIONER CAPUTO: Okay.
16 MR. MANDEVILLE: -- suspicion.
17 COMMISSIONER CAPUTO: All right. Thank you for that.
18 MR. MANDEVILLE: Yes.
19 COMMISSIONER CAPUTO: And, Rob, one last question.
20 Again, the Chairman asked about knowledge management. One of the 21 things I think we're going to face as we go forward -- as long as we have a 22 seven-percent attrition and we finally see this enormous set of experience that 23 we have within the agency actually begin to retire -- knowledge management 24 is an enormous challenge.
51 1 So there was discussion of knowledge management and the 2 various tools that are being used. What I'm concerned about is do we have 3 metrics in place or a way of determining which knowledge management efforts 4 are actually effective? Because with seven-percent attrition one-third of this 5 agency may swap out in the next five years, so knowledge management is 6 going to be an enormous challenge.
7 And in my own personal opinion we need to do a lot more of 8 what we know is effective and a lot less, if not nothing, of ways that we 9 determine are really ineffective. But that's based on knowing which is which, 10 what works and what doesn't.
11 So what ways do you have of determining what works and 12 what doesn't?
13 MR. LEWIS: Great question. As a former performance 14 improvement officer, I love metrics. So we have knowledge management 15 happening in many ways. Obviously coaching new staff. The time I spend 16 to mentor and coach new staff, that's knowledge management. The time all 17 of our technical experts spend with new people. That's knowledge 18 management.
19 Right now we treat that more like we treat the values. Like 20 it's part of everybody's job. Everybody does it. We don't measure it. I know 21 in our NMSS meetings people say, you know, hey, we're very busy. Our 22 workload is up here and we're hiring all these people. We need time to spend 23 with those people. It's got to carve out and some of our workload has to go 24 down. So we're just embarking on that. In fact we were talking about that
52 1 last week at NMSS, with some staff I was talking about.
2 We also could measure how many -- we have a -- a 3 knowledge management tool we have is our websites, not just Nuclepedia, 4 but Nuclepedia included. But we have SharePoint sites. We have the 5 Environmental Center of Expertise, which does a lot of work with this business 6 line. Has like a one-stop shop for new people to get qualified, to find the right 7 guidance, to find previous questions in a particular topic and how they were 8 answered. It's great. Staff loves it.
9 So we could measure the time that people are spending 10 going to those websites. And we know by each website which ones are used 11 and then emphasize those, emphasize the positive, the ones that work let's 12 spend more time on those. So we can do those kinds of things.
13 And Nuclepedia itself, we actually in NMSS last year had 14 kind of -- it wasn't a metric per se, but it was an objective and key result to 15 increase the use of Nuclepedia. I'm on the Knowledge Management Steering 16 Committee, so again I love that idea. I wanted all of our staff to do it.
17 The way we started off, the key result was to -- each 18 organization produce one Nuclepedia page a month. And we thought it was 19 very low-bar. So you might tell people if you're coming to brief me, instead of 20 giving me a briefing sheet create a Nuclepedia page and brief me with the 21 Nuclepedia page, simple things like that. Nuclepedia is easy to use. Our 22 goal was to increase use. Because just like Wikipedia the more and more 23 people that use Nuclepedia, the better and better Nuclepedia is.
24 So our focus last year was to increase number of uses.
53 1 We actually at the end decided to give up on the goal of 2 create one page a month because it was kind of counter -- people were 3 creating pages for the sake of creating a page. It wasn't the right kind of 4 positive reinforcement kind of metric that we want. So we got rid of that.
5 We still want to use Nuclepedia, but we'd emphasized it as 6 far as counting the number of pages you generate.
7 And so I think Nuclepedia, the key metric for the agency and 8 for NMSS, number of independent users, number of sites visited. And we 9 can start tracking that and see where it's working and then double down on 10 those areas where it's working so more and more people use it. Then it 11 spreads the light, if you will, of using Nuclepedia as a central housing for all 12 kinds of knowledge management.
13 COMMISSIONER CAPUTO: Well, I think that's important 14 for us to track which of these processes are actually being used and useful.
15 Dan and I have had a conversation before of the old practice 16 at the agency of interviewing somebody for a couple hours before they left and 17 then pondering whether anyone actually goes back and looks at the video.
18 And producing things like that takes a fair amount of time and effort, not just 19 on the person that's leaving, but everyone that's developing the materials, 20 preserving them materials, storing the materials so that somebody can find 21 the materials.
22 So I think it's important for us to make sure that we 23 understand what's being used and useful and focus on expanding that. So 24 thank you very much.
54 1 MR. LEWIS: If I could just say one thought. I know 2 ADAMS gets -- so ADAMS is great for housing information. Nuclepedia is 3 great for finding information. And if you couple the two, it's a perfect world.
4 So I think we got to do more and more of that across the agency, too.
5 COMMISSIONER CAPUTO: Okay. Thank you.
6 CHAIR HANSON: Thank you, Commissioner Caputo.
7 Commissioner Crowell?
8 COMMISSIONER CROWELL: Thank you, Mr. Chair.
9 These business line meetings always end up being more excited than 10 anticipated for some reason.
11 (Laughter.)
12 COMMISSIONER CROWELL: So thank you all for what 13 you do. I think your side of the house does not get as much appreciation as 14 it should for the job you do. And quite frankly the future of new nuclear is 15 partly dependent on how well we do with the job on your end of the equation, 16 because if we don't have the public trust that we're doing the decommissioning 17 and clean up and those things correctly, we're not going to have the trust of 18 the public to do new nuclear in a responsible way. So thank you for what you 19 do.
20 Ms. Marshall, I just want to mention one thing. I really 21 appreciated your comments about public engagement and the process you 22 take. I think that the public engagement process on the back end seems to 23 be somewhat more robust to me than it is on the front end. If that is correct, 24 I don't think that the imbalance should exist. And perhaps some of the new
55 1 reactor and new licensees and license renewals, those processes within the 2 department, could use some best practices from what you do, engaging 3 citizens' advisory board and things like that. So thank you for what you do.
4 Mr. Lewis, what's the definition of low-level waste?
5 MR. LEWIS: That's a question for an attorney, but I think if 6 I remember right it's in the Atomic Energy Act and the Low-Level Waste Policy 7 Act. It's basically anything that's not high-level waste and/or transuranic 8 waste.
9 COMMISSIONER CROWELL: So as a regulator 10 responsible for managing these things do you find that absence of definition 11 so to speak helpful or unhelpful in doing your job and protecting public health 12 and safety?
13 MR. LEWIS: I think through Part 61 and our work with 14 Agreement States I think we have a good handle for what's low-level waste.
15 We haven't had issues in the sites that we licensed a long time ago, but also 16 in the four Agreement State low-level waste disposal facilities, the waste 17 getting shipped to and from utilities and other types of licensees to those 18 facilities. There isn't often a lot of questions about what low-level waste is.
19 There's questions that do need to be worked through like 20 concentration averaging. If you have a certain size source in a bigger low-21 level waste volume how do you average that out and decide if it's acceptable 22 for disposal under that site's acceptance criteria? So there's those kinds of 23 implementation issues. But the fundamental definition of low-level waste I 24 think we've have a pretty good track record with.
56 1 COMMISSIONER CROWELL: Do you find it challenging 2 at all in the work that you do that the interpretation of low-level waste is often 3 different in the civilian space with the NRC than it is through the government 4 or defense space?
5 MR. LEWIS: Yes, so DOE does have their own system for 6 waste disposal. Obviously they have different types of waste streams than 7 we do on the commercial -- than our licensees do on the commercial side.
8 And again I think in the cases where waste is coming from Department of 9 Energy's contractors and Department of Energy activities to commercial sites 10 -- I think the waste acceptance criteria at each of those sites has worked to 11 decide what can and can't be disposed at that site for both the DOE side and 12 the commercial side.
13 I know that DOE is also looking at some revisions to the way 14 they treat greater than Class C waste, and that ties into the waste incidental 15 to processing work that Jane's been working. And we were very plugged into 16 that. I wasn't personally, but I know the agency and DOE have been working 17 together on that with our attorneys.
18 COMMISSIONER CROWELL: Thanks. I ask these 19 questions in the sense of making sure you have what you need to do your job 20 as well as you can and you think needs to be done.
21 Mr. Anderson, I need a little bit more education from you on 22 these small radioactive particles and exactly where they come from during the 23 decommissioning process and whether they are just an issue that needs to be 24 addressed in the decommissioning process or if they're something that
57 1 persists after decommissioning is completed and that the public needs to be 2 concerned about.
3 MR. ANDERSON: Sure. DRPs are -- again they exist in -
4 - they could exist during the operation of the plant itself, but they are generated 5 during decommissioning activities. That's something that we expect the 6 licensees to maintain safety and management and control of the DRPs 7 throughout the life of decommissioning. In a perfect world we don't expect to 8 see any DRPs entered into an environment and we expect that the licensee 9 is doing appropriate surveys to identify any DRPs throughout their process of 10 decommissioning. And if they do identify any, they are removing them as 11 appropriate prior to the termination of the -- the request for a termination of 12 their license.
13 The concern or the issue we want to make sure that we get 14 ahead of is the potential of release of DRPs into the environment. And if there 15 are releases into the environment the licensee again is immediately taking 16 actions to identify, survey, and doing any remediation as necessary to remove 17 the DRPs so -- such that there is no concern for members of the public when 18 they go for site termination or a request for site -- license termination, sorry.
19 I think that answers your question.
20 COMMISSIONER CROWELL: Yes, it helps. I'm starting 21 from scratch so it --
22 MR. ANDERSON: Yes.
23 COMMISSIONER CROWELL: -- gets me a little bit further 24 down the line.
58 1 Mr. Mandeville, you talked about how your office uses the 2 uranium prices to forecast work going forward, but you -- well, you said you 3 use them to help determine what work you going to have going forward, but 4 you don't really say how. And then I heard Commissioner Caputo ask a 5 question a little bit about how you determine what's coming down the pike and 6 it kind of seemed like it's what you'd hear from companies. But tell me more 7 about how you use that price information, the market information with respect 8 to uranium for knowing your workload.
9 MR. MANDEVILLE: Yes, thank you. We usually use that 10 as like a qualitative piece of information to help us understand what's going 11 on in the market. Like an increasing price trend would really cause us to 12 engage more with the Agreement States and with our licensees to understand 13 what their plans and what they're thinking, but that's just -- the price is just one 14 piece of information.
15 So we would also look at -- base it on those conversations 16 with Agreement State and our licensees. If we get letters of intent, if we're 17 having pre-application meetings with applicants or licensees, those are all 18 things that would help us judge that these licensee are serious and that we 19 need to be planning and budgeting more strongly in those areas.
20 COMMISSIONER CROWELL: Is there a magic place on 21 the spot price chart that triggers action or inaction?
22 MR. MANDEVILLE: No, there's not.
23 COMMISSIONER CROWELL: Okay.
24 MR. MANDEVILLE: I wish it was that easy.
59 1 (Laughter.)
2 COMMISSIONER CROWELL: And I'll just end with a 3 comment here on -- the topic du jour that's come up today is Disa and these 4 technologies. I tend to agree with my colleagues on this one that we're 5 missing the boat in terms of being a modern risk-informed regulator and how 6 we've assessed this. And we may not even be meeting the principles of good 7 regulation, which I know are used as a determining factor around here as well 8 in decision making.
9 So I want to make sure we're thinking about it in that context 10 and that we're finding ways to do the right thing, not just what the black and 11 white or old way of thinking is. And that applies across the board, but this is 12 a key example and probably an inflection point for the agency in really proving 13 that we're a forward-looking thoughtful agency that can be innovative and still 14 protect public health.
15 That being said, we have to look carefully at these new 16 technologies because the devil's in the details. And the more recent data 17 from Disa was encouraging, but it's at one particular site and you can't 18 necessarily say the same for each site that they are interested in doing the 19 work at. So just something that we should all bear in mind about how we're 20 going to apply this going forward. I think there's room to do the right thing, 21 but it may not be a blanket approach.
22 So thank you, Mr. Chair.
23 CHAIR HANSON: Thank you, Commissioner Crowell.
24 We're going to take a short break. Let's reconvene as
60 1 close to 10:35 as we can. Thank you.
2 (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went off the record 3 at 10:28 a.m. and resumed at 10:36 a.m.)
4 CHAIR HANSON: Welcome back, everyone. The next 5 panel will discuss the Nuclear Material Users business line and will be kicked 6 off again by our Executive Director for Operations, Daniel Dorman.
7 Dan?
8 MR. DORMAN: Thank you, Chair, and good morning 9 again, Chair Hanson and Commissioners. Our second panel this morning 10 features our Nuclear Material Users, or NMU, business line. This business 11 line participates with our Agreement State partners in the National Materials 12 Program.
13 Next slide, please? For this morning's panel, Rob Lewis, 14 the NMSS Deputy Director, will provide the overview of the business line.
15 Kevin Williams, Director of the Division of Material Safety, 16 Security, State, and Tribal programs, will present and overview of the 17 inspection planning and scheduling, how we are enhancing the security of 18 radioactive sources and increasing our engagement with Tribal nations.
19 Huda Akhavannik, Intergovernmental Liaison, Project 20 Manager in NMSS, will present on the future of the Nuclear Materials -- of the 21 National Materials Program.
22 Joe Nick, Special Assistant from Region I, will discuss how 23 we are harmonizing hiring, retention, and training in the National Materials 24 Program.
61 1 And Melissa Ralph, Director of the Division of Resource 2 Management Administration in NMSS, will discuss modernizing licensing, 3 inspection, and source security through the Integrated Source Management 4 Portfolio.
5 This concludes my opening remarks and I'll turn it over to 6 Rob.
7 MR. LEWIS: Thank you, Dan.
8 Good morning again, Chair and Commissioners. My 9 pleasure to be with you again now to talk about the Nuclear Materials Users 10 Business Line, which is near and dear to my heart. I spent a lot of my career 11 -- 30 years at NRC and about two-thirds of it are in this program, so I do find 12 the work in this -- I love talking about it because I find the work very rewarding 13 and fulfilling. The things we do in this program, like medical regulation, 14 directly impact the lives of Americans. And we see that in our work, so it's a 15 very rewarding place to be. I think the panelists and the whole staff agree 16 with me. The whole panel's here today and grateful to be here.
17 Nuclear Materials Business Line leads the licensing and 18 oversight of more than 18,000 materials licensees across the country in 19 partnership with 39 Agreement States under what we call the National 20 Materials Program. These licenses are issued for industrial, medical, 21 academic, research and other uses, each with its own set of technical 22 challenges.
23 Medical and industrial uses of radioactive sources is a very 24 globally-natured business as well and has been for many years. Roughly 200
62 1 full-time equivalent staff at NRC support this business line, about 70 of whom 2 are in NMSS and 25 to 30 in each of Regions I, III, and IV, and others across 3 several partner offices.
4 As I did in the last panel I'd like to spend some time to 5 introduce and offer my view on some drivers for the coming years for the NME 6 Program in terms of workforce drivers, workload drivers, and innovations.
7 Our remaining panelists' talks are designed to complement and amplify these 8 areas and describe the related actions we're taking regarding those drivers.
9 Next slide, please? Just like with other NRC programs 10 recruiting, developing, and retaining a workforce is an area that will need 11 ongoing management focus for the next two to three years. In the Nuclear 12 Materials Users Program health physicists is a particular focused area for 13 NRC and for Agreement States. At last year's Commission meeting Theresa 14 Clark presented our plans to increase recruiting, development opportunities, 15 and develop a community, a sense of community amongst our health 16 physicists. These plans expand beyond NRC. We're working with the 17 states, with the universities, and with other professional societies.
18 This effort is still very active. Joe's going to give us an 19 update today as well as a look forward.
20 With many new technologies, new licensee types, and an 21 increasing number of Agreement States sharing our experience and 22 resources across regions and headquarters will become increasingly 23 important for this business line in coming years. Each region or state might 24 not have the expert for a particular medical treatment, for example. We need
63 1 to rely on each other. We are modernizing our qualification process offering 2 developmental and cross-training opportunities to deal with this.
3 I really like the image on this slide because it shows our 4 progress working across the regions as well as our progress hiring and training 5 health physicists. The picture shows a staffer from Region III with inspectors 6 from Region I at Baxter Panoramic Irradiator in Puerto Rico. The pictures 7 includes two people that are new to the NRC and are also health physics 8 inspectors in training.
9 Next slide, please? Workload drivers. Over the next two 10 to three years we do expect ongoing workload in the source security area.
11 Kevin's going to elaborate on some of our recent progress including 12 accelerating a source security rulemaking.
13 One of our key workload drivers I see for this business line 14 for the foreseeable future is the continued high pace of development of 15 emerging medical technologies. This image, for example, shows a new 16 technology we approved just in December for lutetium-177 treatment of 17 certain cancers. Other workload drivers for nuclear material users include 18 working on alignment with Agreement State within the National Materials 19 Program and increasing engagement with Tribal nations. Note that this 20 business line serves as the central support function for the entire agency's 21 activities related to Tribal nation liaison work.
22 Next slide, please? The National Materials Program has 23 been investing in technology for several years, most exemplified by our work 24 on what we call the Integrated Source Management Portfolio, or ISMP. In
64 1 fact a few months ago in the cafeteria we celebrated the 10-year anniversary 2 of web-based licensing which is one of the components of ISMP.
3 Today Melissa's here to give an overview of that tool and 4 how we're modernizing it and encouraging greater use by NRC and by 5 Agreement States. Through that greater use of the systems that's the way 6 that those systems are going to live up to their full potential to support the 7 National Materials Program and database decision making.
8 We recently also performed a forward-looking thought 9 project to look at increasing number of Agreement States. The goal is to look 10 at the future of the National Materials Program with up to 50 Agreement 11 States. What if all the states were Agreement States? And what 12 innovations, decisions, and timing of those decisions need to be made as you 13 walk along that path towards 50, and when did they need to be made by NRC.
14 So Huda is here today to present the results of her working 15 group's project which fresh off the press.
16 So just to underscore the pace of innovation in these 17 activities this program -- and the activities that this program regulates this 18 picture shows a new type of gamma stereotactic radiosurgery unit. It's a 19 brand new type of medical device that I think is currently in critical trials just 20 as of a couple months ago.
21 This concludes my remarks and I'll now turn it over to Kevin 22 Williams, but not before thanking, as I did in the earlier panel -- Candace Spore 23 prepared all the panelists. She's a super star just like Annie and we wouldn't 24 be successful today without her over the last couple of weeks.
65 1 Thank you very much, Candace.
2 MR. WILLIAMS: Thank you, Rob.
3 Good morning, Chair and Commissioners. I'll be giving you 4 an overview of inspection planning and scheduling and how we are assuring 5 the security of radioactive sources, and finally how we are enhancing our 6 engagement with Tribal nations.
7 Next slide, please? This year we rolled out major 8 enhancements to the tools we utilize to plan, schedule, and monitor materials.
9 We issued a major upgrade to the inspection module in the web-based 10 licensing system. The changes are aimed to enhance data accuracy and 11 consistency and align with recent revisions to Inspection Manual Chapter 12 2800, and improved tracking and planning of inspections.
13 As part of our enhancements we recognize that data 14 accuracy and integrity is critical for supporting our data-driven decision 15 making. Currently there are three WBL-based oversight dashboards. One 16 dashboard, Overview of Eligible Inspections, which may be used by inspection 17 planners, branch chiefs, and inspectors in their planning of upcoming 18 materials inspections. The image on this slide shows two parts of this 19 dashboard that can be used with inspection planning. Another dashboard 20 shows inspection timeliness which may be used by management and 21 interested staff to analyze timeliness of inspections.
22 The Materials Inspection and Progress dashboard provides 23 a snapshot of all the open inspections and the stage they are currently at, 24 which is identified by a milestone in the systems. These tools are allowing
66 1 us to monitor the oversight program more efficiently and in supporting 2 continuous coordination among the regions implementing the Materials 3 Program to achieve the goals of the Materials Inspection Program.
4 Next slide? I would like to walk through an example that 5 illustrates how the dashboards are helping us look ahead, spot risk, and plan 6 work.
7 Through the pandemic we instituted measures to ensure 8 that we met our mission with respect to inspection activities. We utilized the 9 flexibility provided by our program to extend some inspections further into the 10 second half of the scheduling window. This resulted in an increase of 11 inspections close to their due date but not late.
12 This graphic shows the scheduling window which shows a 13 plus or minus one year. Specifically inspections cannot be started until a year 14 before they are due and can be extended by a year. This allows us to achieve 15 our goal of cost saving and efficient use of staff time and travel. The regions 16 worked collaboratively to prioritize the completion of inspections including 17 sharing of resources to ensure inspections were completed on time.
18 While we worked across organizational boundaries to 19 ensure all regions were managing the workload Region III had a higher 20 number of inspections that needed to be completed.
21 One item that I believe would have been identified in a more 22 systematic, reliable, and efficient manner using dashboards is the ongoing 23 inspection planning that Region III is undertaking.
24 In July of 2022 Region III intentionally set aside 130 of their
67 1 lowest risk Priority 5 inspections to ensure that they could complete their 2 higher priority inspections on time while onboarding and qualifying new 3 inspectors. Examples of these inspections include academic and research 4 licensees with calibration and reference sources, medical programs that do 5 not use positron emission tomography radiopharmaceuticals and portable 6 gauge users. This was a strategic and risk-informed approach that allowed 7 our inspectors to focus on inspections at the most safety-significant facilities.
8 We are currently working across the regions to complete 9 deferred Priority 5 inspections. In coordination with NMSS in other regions 10 Region III is making a concerted effort to complete the deferred inspections.
11 There's a chance however that our congressionally-reported 98 percent 12 timeliness metric may not be met.
13 We have transitioned the tracking, mitigation, and decision 14 making to dashboards. As a result regional staff are tracking this issue 15 closely and providing regular updates to the Region III and NMSS 16 management.
17 Next slide, please? The NRC and Agreement States have 18 implemented a robust regulatory framework that ensures the safety, security, 19 and control of radioactive materials used for civilian purposes in the United 20 States. All licensed radioactive sources are subject to security requirements 21 commensurate with the relative risk they pose to safety and security. In 22 addition the NRC implements the International Atomic Energy agency, or 23 IAEA, Code of Conduct on the safety and security of radioactive sources and 24 provides the highest security for those Category I and Category II of the five
68 1 categories of sources.
2 The GAO recently investigated Category 3 radioactive 3 sources and made several recommendations to enhance our program. As 4 defined in the Code of Conduct, Category 3 sources if not safely managed or 5 secured -- securely protected could cause permanent injury to a person who 6 handled them or was otherwise in contact with them for some hours.
7 Category 3 sources are considered to be less dangerous than Category 1 and 8 2 sources.
9 And to be responsive to the recommendation of GAO we 10 issued an information notice, partnered with Agreement States, federal 11 agencies, the international community, and other NRC offices to implement 12 additional strategies for the safe and secure use of radioactive material and 13 the requirements for license verification of Category 3 sources.
14 Through our communications licensees already have 15 heightened awareness of the need to remain vigilant in license verification.
16 We have shared methods to detect fraudulent licensees and tools to verify 17 licenses. We have held public -- we have held meetings with the Source 18 Security Working Group to inform the international community to be aware of 19 the practices to detect and prevent fraudulent licenses.
20 It's been a longstanding requirement that NRC and 21 Agreement State licensees report to their regulator events associated with 22 radioactive materials. Since 1990 this information is collected and tracked in 23 the NRC's Nuclear Materials Events Database, or NMED.
24 The Radioactive Source Security and Accountability
69 1 Rulemaking, which was provided to the Commission in December, leveraged 2 rulemaking processes, process innovations, and focused our initial efforts on 3 the License Verification System, or process, which is LVS. The proposed 4 rule will require prior to transfer of Category 3 quantities of radioactive material 5 license verification by either direct contact with the regulator or through the 6 License Verification System. We believe these enhancements will continue 7 to strengthen the regulatory framework and ensure the continued safe and 8 secure use of Category 3 materials.
9 Next slide, please? We are enhancing our outreach and 10 consultation with Tribal nations resulting in an increased collaboration with 11 Tribal nations. We recently revised our procedure on processing an 12 Agreement State application; that procedures is SA-700, to reflect early 13 involvement with Tribal nations regarding NRC activities to ensure meaningful 14 and timely engagement with Tribal nations regarding NRC activities to ensure 15 -- such as; I'm sorry, advanced reactors, reactor decommissioning, and 16 rulemaking activities.
17 As a result we engaged Tribal nations; the Delaware and 18 Osage, as a part of the Indiana and Connecticut Agreement State 19 applications.
20 In addition we facilitated discussions surrounding Pilgrim 21 decommissioning with the Mashpee Wampanoag regarding pre-application 22 reviews. We have engaged the Shoshone-Bannock regarding TerraPower.
23 We also engaged the Navajo as we prepared for the first Commission meeting 24 in New Mexico.
70 1 To highlight the importance of Tribal engagement we 2 developed a first-of-a-kind Tribal program video highlighting the work that the 3 NRC does and the importance of meaningful and timely engagement with 4 Tribal nations as we implement the Tribal Program and the Tribal Policy 5 Statement.
6 We are leveraging the Tribal Radioactive Materials 7 Transportation and Nuclear Energy Tribal Working Groups. These groups 8 engage Tribal nations regarding a broad spectrum of activities related to the 9 shipments of spent nuclear fuel, advanced reactors, emergency 10 preparedness, and environmental issues that may have an impact on Tribal 11 nations.
12 This will allow us to enhance our understanding and to obtain Tribal input 13 regarding NRC activities. We are partnering with other federal agencies to 14 obtain additional insights regarding our continuing engagement with Tribal 15 nations and to strengthen the Tribal Program.
16 This concludes my remarks and I now turn it over to Huda 17 Akhavannik.
18 MS. AKHAVANNIK: Okay. Good morning, Chair Hanson, 19 Commissioners Baran, Wright, Caputo, and Crowell. My name is Huda 20 Akhavannik and I'm an intergovernmental liaison project manager at NMSS 21 and co-chair, along with Augie Ong of the New Hampshire Agreement State 22 Program, of a Joint NRC and Agreement State Working Group called The 23 Future of the National Materials Program. Our working group consists of staff 24 from NRC headquarters, regions, and various Agreement States.
71 1 Next slide, please? Today I want to provide a high-level 2 purpose and overview of our working group efforts. To start, the National 3 Materials Program, or NMP, refers to the partnership between the NRC and 4 Agreement States to regulate nuclear material.
5 In this partnership the 39 Agreement States currently 6 regulate around 88 percent of the nation's total material licenses. This does 7 not include Connecticut and Indiana who have submitted letters of intent to 8 become Agreement States as well.
9 In addition to these states it's possible that other non-Agreement States will 10 also submit letters of intent in the future.
11 In this working group we assess hypothetical increases in 12 the number of Agreement States and how those increases might affect the 13 way the NRC and NMP currently approach issues.
14 In addition to evaluating the number of Agreement States 15 our review also evaluated the types of licensees including considering 16 emerging technologies. As part of our analysis we leveraged work that was 17 done by a similar working group in 2001. Like that 2001 working group our 18 working group also observed that technical experience with current and 19 emerging technologies will increasingly be with the Agreement States.
20 Our working group believes that we can promote this -- I'm 21 sorry. So therefore it's important to promote the consistent exchange of 22 technical and regulatory information.
23 Our working group believes that we can promote this 24 consistency by emphasizing knowledge management activities,
72 1 communication, and collaboration. Although the number of states may 2 increase our working group envisions that the NRC would retain some NMP 3 duties like regulation development and implementation of the Integrated 4 Materials Performance Evaluation Program, or IMPEP, which is a peer review 5 program that we use to ensure adequacy and compatibility of the Agreement 6 States and NRC programs.
7 Next slide, please? The working group reviewed Radiation 8 Control Program elements that you see on this screen defined in the 9 Agreement State Program Policy Statement and selected those most 10 impacted by an increase in the number of Agreement States and emerging 11 technologies. The NRC will continue to review applicable Agreement State 12 regulations for compatibility, perform IMPEP activities, and provide Agreement 13 State training for an increasing number of Agreement States.
14 As mentioned in the last slide we will need to continue to 15 drive for consistency through our knowledge management activities, 16 communication, and collaboration.
17 Efforts to support various information exchange initiatives 18 such as joint working groups to develop new regulations or new guidance for 19 licensing, inspection, and IMPEP will increase with emerging technologies.
20 The working group expects that the current levels of effort associated with 21 updating current guidance and rulemaking activities will continue.
22 With fewer NRC licensees NRC staff will have fewer 23 licensing and reciprocity reviews, fewer inspections and event responses, and 24 fewer allegations to process. However, the NRC will continue supporting the
73 1 National Materials Event Database.
2 These are examples of the types of issues that the working 3 group believes would be factored into staffing and resource planning 4 decisions, but the working group did not identify any immediate staffing, work 5 planning, or communication changes that it believes are warranted based on 6 the current 39 Agreement States and states planning to become Agreement 7 States.
8 Next slide, please? Our working group found that the NMP 9 continues to be successful. Our working group will offer some 10 recommendations for management related to strengthening our partnership 11 with the Agreement States and increasing consistency. Some of our 12 recommendations include supporting knowledge management activities 13 through the continued creation of centers of excellence, providing tools to 14 increase collaboration on joint NRC and Agreement State working groups and 15 IMPEP teams, and to more efficiently obtain Agreement State input for 16 guidance and emerging technologies.
17 We have ideas to better leverage information technology to 18 advertise NMP opportunities for the NRC and Agreement State staff. We 19 also want to utilize available tools to better provide for real-time collaboration 20 on important documents and issues.
21 Currently the NRC leads government-to-government 22 meetings describing important NRC updates. We would like to use this 23 venue to hear more about other areas of the NMP as well.
24 Like any other organization the NMP's continued success is
74 1 supported by a strong safety culture. By sharing experience the NRC and 2 Agreement States can continue to strive for increasingly better and cohesive 3 cultures.
4 As part of refining our recommendations the working group 5 completed multiple outreach activities such as engaging in multiple 6 discussions with the NRC regional offices and presenting at the Organization 7 of Agreement States and Conference of Radiation Control Program Director 8 annual meetings.
9 This past December we also held a public meeting to discuss our working 10 group findings as well.
11 Our working group is drafting an information commission 12 paper that provides our analysis, findings, and next steps which we hope to 13 get to you by spring of this year.
14 Next slide, please? So thank you for your time. I wanted 15 to just take a moment and acknowledge the working group members whose 16 names are on this slide. Their efforts will help ensure the continued and 17 future success of the NMP. And I will now turn the presentation over to Joe 18 Nick.
19 MR. NICK: Thanks, Huda.
20 And good morning. Make sure I get picked up here. Good 21 morning, Chair and Commissioners. Good to be back in the same room with 22 you again after a few years. My name is Joe Nick and I'm currently a special 23 assistant to the Deputy and Director of the Division of Radiological Safety and 24 Security in Region I. I spent most of my 30 years in the NRC in Region I in
75 1 various positions and places, but I've also been the Deputy Director of the 2 previous Division of Nuclear Material Safety in Region III until late-2022.
3 Next slide, please? Today I'd like to talk about how we're 4 partnering to implement innovative and cross-regional strategies to hire, 5 retain, and train NRC and Agreement State Materials Program staff.
6 Within the NRC hiring and retaining key staff is still a very 7 high priority. We're using the strategic workforce planning. We've targeted 8 key positions such as health physicists of licensing and inspection activities.
9 We try to hire individuals with technical experience or education in the health 10 physics area, but sometimes we also hire new graduates with minimal 11 technical experience.
12 We have made significant progress by hiring many new staff 13 over the past year. Many hiring strategies have been successful and we 14 continue to share postings and position descriptions between regional offices 15 and NMSS. We coordinate and join together on agency-wide postings for 16 various locations with current openings and we are continuing to hire ahead 17 for anticipated attrition with our staffs.
18 Our NRC grants for research and faculty-student support 19 excite people about the radiation protection work and develop them for 20 potential NRC and Agreement State positions. We continue to strengthen 21 our recruiting connections with universities, the Health Physics Society, and 22 the federal partners.
23 This slide shows a small group of newly hired individuals 24 being sworn in in the Region II Office. And I think Jack Geisner presented
76 1 this to you in December, but as an example Region III has hired over 40 total 2 new staff in the past two years.
3 As an example of the regional staffing programs, the 4 Nuclear Materials Users Program area alone -- this includes Regions I, III, and 5 IV -- about 18 staff have been hired in the past two years. This represents 6 approximately 20 percent of the regional Nuclear Materials Users Program 7 budgeted. So that's just the budget for the regions.
8 Next slide, please? We're very conscious the need to 9 continue our training to cover evolving technologies and to qualify increasing 10 numbers of these newly hired staff efficiently and effectively. We're looking 11 for innovative ways to update our processes to shorten the time required for 12 initial training and qualification while maintaining that high quality and 13 confidence for success.
14 The newly chartered NRC and Agreement State Working 15 Group will be updating the Qualification Program Manual chapter, and even 16 more importantly adding cross-regional and other innovative efforts to make 17 qualifications more uniform and focused. We're continuing to leverage 18 technical training center resources for classroom and online training as well 19 as world-class facilities and experts to develop staff across the NMP.
20 This slide shows the NRC instructors overseeing students 21 leading -- learning survey techniques and equipment, and that's combined 22 with classroom instruction at the TTC.
23 Another important emphasis involves the development of 24 existing staff. We are providing opportunities including cross-regional
77 1 support for existing staff to grow in their careers and remain engaged in 2 meaningful work. This ensures that our staff are fungible and can support 3 work in different areas of the agency as our workload changes.
4 We've also developed a health physics community, a grass 5 roots effort that provides for knowledge sharing and community building 6 across the agency.
7 Next slide, please? In addition to increasing access to 8 NRC training programs across the National Materials Program we are also 9 exploring possible ways to share resources and experiences that are 10 necessary for qualification and to support intermittent periods of high 11 workloads across the National Materials Program.
12 Then NRC is working with the Conference of Radiation 13 Control Program Directors, CRCPD, to develop methods to share expertise 14 and work products between states. Some areas of interest include sharing 15 resources for licensing actions and staff for licensing and inspection activities.
16 We continue to use our existing framework to identify best practices while 17 recognizing differences in implementation of state regulations and practices 18 while maintaining compatibility with the NRC regulations.
19 An excellent example of collaboration across the NMP is the 20 IMPEP program that we've talked about. We are enhancing the roles and 21 responsibilities of Agreement State members. For example, the IMPEP 22 review of the NRC was led by an Agreement State director and the majority of 23 the team consisted of Agreement State members.
24 We are training Agreement State members to be team leads
78 1 as well. As shown in this slide -- if we could put that up -- thank you -- an 2 IMPEP team working together during the review of the state of Wyoming was 3 comprised of members from the Agreement States and the different NRC 4 offices.
5 We may be able to use some of these collaborative efforts 6 to come up with other ways to share our resources.
7 This concludes my portion of the presentation. I'll now turn 8 it over to Melissa Ralph.
9 MS. RALPH: Thank you, Joe.
10 Good morning, Chair and Commissioners.
11 Next slide, please? The Integrated Source Management 12 Portfolio, ISMP, is increasingly a nationwide asset as the NRC and many 13 Agreement States use it for daily inspection and licensing work, dashboards 14 that support data-driven decision making, and a Homeland Security asset that 15 supports source tracking and license verification.
16 The key systems that comprise the ISMP include the 17 National Source Tracking System, NSTS; the Web-Based Licensing System, 18 WBLS; and the License Verification System, LVS.
19 The radioactive material tracking information on all NRC and 20 Agreement States -- sorry. The integration of these systems forms as 21 comprehensive program to ensure the security and control of radioactive 22 material by tracking all information on NRC and Agreement State licensees 23 and approximately 80,000 high-risk radioactive sources possessed by 24 approximately 1,100 licensees.
79 1 Next slide, please? The National Source Tracking System 2 is essential for national security. It is a secure user-friendly web-based 3 database designed to track Category 1 and 2 radioactive sources regulated 4 by the NRC and Agreement States. The tracking spans the life cycle of the 5 source from manufacturer through shipment and receipt, decay and burial.
6 NSTS meets the U.S. Government's commitment to implement a national 7 source registry.
8 The License Verification -- oh, next slide, please? The 9 License Verification System, LVS, is envisioned as a national verification 10 system for Category 1 and 2 transfers that ensures that only authorized 11 licensees obtain radioactive materials in authorized amounts. The staff has 12 a rulemaking proposal with the Commission to expand verification to Category 13 3 and LVS is ready to meet that demand.
14 LVS enables authorized licensees to verify certain 15 information about licensees authorized to possess, use, or ship radioactive 16 materials. The system allows licensees to confirm that: (1) a license is valid 17 and accurate; and (2) a licensee's authorized to acquire quantities and types 18 of radioactive materials being requested.
19 Next slide, please? The Web-Based Licensing System is 20 perhaps the best known of the ISMP tools. This platform helps the U.S. and 21 a growing number of Agreement States comprehensively manage all 22 inspection -- licensing and inspection information. The tool also includes 23 inspection planning and project management features and is now used across 24 all materials and waste programs to manage byproduct materials, licensing,
80 1 inspection, spent fuel and facility licensing, decommissioning and waste 2 activities, and special projects that are essential to include for proper workload 3 management through a single portal.
4 Next slide, please? We've modernized ISMP significantly 5 over the last few years thanks to the continued Commission support of this 6 suite of tools. In FY '19 we introduced the inspection planning module. This 7 module includes imbedded Google Maps functionality which helps inspectors 8 identify licensees due for inspection within a certain geographical area in 9 addition to by date.
10 We've created new dynamic dashboards using data from 11 the inspection module that help us plan inspections much more easily than 12 the previous manual systems using various pre-populated reports.
13 We started using WBL to directly generate inspection 14 reports which makes the process much easier for our staff and improves data 15 quality.
16 We also linked WBL directly to ADAMS so that these reports 17 and other documents like licenses can be profiled and made public if 18 appropriate within minutes. This linkage was the first of a kind for an NRC 19 system.
20 Next slide, please? This year we're transforming WBL into 21 an asset for licensees as well as regulators. Our applicants will be able to 22 directly submit applications into WBL and get their information requests live 23 status and final license right through the system. This transparency is a huge 24 leap forward for our licensing process and will help keep us accountable as
81 1 we conduct our mission work.
2 We're also creating online forms for licensees to report 3 source transfers and other NSTS transactions. This direct data entry should 4 eliminate many errors that have occurred with stand-alone forms providing 5 more accurate source security information and freeing up staff to take on more 6 challenging mission work.
7 Next slide, please? To summarize, our investments past 8 and future have made it a tremendously valuable tool for our agency and co-9 regulators, licensees, and our nationwide security posture. All four Materials 10 and Waste Business Lines are seeing benefits from the economies of scale of 11 using one coordinated licensing and inspection system and were able to 12 leverage our consolidated data and dashboard to obtain immediate 13 information on milestones and performance. This helps us keep tabs on 14 program health routinely and on demand because we can immediately see 15 how we're doing on our congressionally-reported and other important 16 performance measures, and we can take prompt action to assure we meet our 17 mission.
18 We're also saving a lot of time with these improvements.
19 We've already seen benefits to regional staff who plan inspections when they 20 can readily see when inspections need to be scheduled and use Google Maps 21 to visualize where inspectors should go in one efficient trip. The time saved 22 through our NSTS improvements has already been notable particularly in the 23 annual inventory reconciliation dashboard that has been highlighted in 24 previous Commission meetings, as well as the future to reduce the errors
82 1 through online forms.
2 This concludes my remarks. I'll turn it back over to Dan.
3 MR. DORMAN: Thank you, Melissa.
4 And thank you to all the panelists.
5 I'll add my thanks to Annie and Candace for their leadership 6 in preparing and for all the staff who helped prepare for the meeting.
7 This concludes our remarks and we look forward to your 8 questions.
9 CHAIR HANSON: Thanks, Dan.
10 All right. So I really appreciate that NMSS has undertaken 11 this effort to kind of look at the future of the National Materials Program.
12 Huda, I really appreciated your presentation in particular.
13 And obviously we've got 39 Agreement States now. We've got kind of 14 Connecticut and Indiana. That will bring us to 41. There may be some 15 others out there that are kind of thinking about this as well.
16 And when we get to that 41 number, right, the number of 17 licensees directly to -- of NRC licensees is going to be about 1,900, which is 18 about the same size as kind of our largest Agreement States. So in a way 19 we're kind of like the 42nd Agreement State.
20 But I do worry about this potential phenomenon where we 21 kind of have a decreasing number of licensees that are supporting kind of the 22 overall NMP. And I'm particularly I think concerned about kind of how do we 23 fund that going forward?
24 And so can you discuss -- do we have a -- Huda, you said
83 1 in your presentation, eh, we don't have any immediate actions. Okay. Like 2 next month. But in a year or two, or five years, kind of what's that 3 -- is there a threshold there? When do we approach that threshold? And 4 how much can we do ourselves before we have to kind of go seek additional 5 authority or guidance from Congress? Can you kind of talk a little bit about 6 that?
7 MR. WILLIAMS: Yeah, so why don't I start and we'll see 8 where we get from here. But, you know, while I haven't actually seen the 9 report that Huda and her team had put together, one point that she 10 emphasizes, the existing tools that we have serve us well. You know, they 11 allow us to predict, you know, where we're going and what we're doing.
12 You know, the Agreement State program itself is off of the 13 fee base. But when you look at other activities, right, you know, we'll have --
14 we already have tools that we'll utilize to be able to move those things forward.
15 And so we can analyze that, you know, when we get to that point and we 16 continue to look at that.
17 As we're building out, you know, our budget for the following 18 year, we do take into account those types of activities.
19 CHAIR HANSON: That's okay. You're good. You're 20 good, Rob. If Kevin covered it. No, thank you, and again, I look forward to 21 seeing the report and I really appreciate that forward look and kind of working 22 with -- you know, all of the Commission working with the staff on making sure 23 that the program is well-situated for the future.
24 Joe, I'm wondering if we can talk a little bit about kind of -- I
84 1 don't know what to call it. You had mentioned academic programs or support 2 for academic programs. You know, as I travel around not only the United 3 States but internationally, the need for radiation protection people, radiation 4 safety folks, certified health physicists is universal. It's really remarkable.
5 And you had mentioned some faculty development and kind 6 of university touchpoints. Could you expand on that a little bit?
7 MR. NICK: I'm actually probably not the best person to 8 expand on that because I haven't really experienced too much with it. I know 9 it is helpful. And we over the years in the regional offices have tried to keep 10 touchpoints with different universities for recruiting purposes. That's part of 11 it.
12 But that's not a financing type of situation where we might 13 finance grants or other, you know, things to enhance people's initiative to get 14 into those programs.
15 CHAIR HANSON: Yeah, the pipeline.
16 MR. NICK: Basically, right, right. So I can't really speak 17 to how those grants are working individually, but I do know they are working.
18 CHAIR HANSON: Yeah, well, so here's my -- part of my 19 concern. I was out traveling in think sometime in the last year, and I stopped 20 at a major research university and was talking to the head of the nuclear 21 engineering department. And I brought up this issues about CHPs and you 22 know, what role did that play in his program.
23 And he was -- he was very direct and said, well, not so much 24 because there's not a lot of research dollars there. And these big programs
85 1 are driven by research funding. And I thought, okay, you know, here's a 2 potential gap where we may not be able to kind of look at some of these bigger 3 programs to help us fill this need.
4 And we may have to think more creatively about kind of 5 other schools in the ecosystem. And I'm just, I'm kind of trying to get a sense 6 of, you know, to what extent are we doing that, or is that an area that we should 7 maybe explore more as we think about, you know, building the pipeline and 8 other kinds of assistance to schools out there.
9 MR. NICK: I believe personally that that would be helpful if 10 we did build that more and develop it more, yes.
11 CHAIR HANSON: Yeah, Rob.
12 MR. LEWIS: Well, I was just going to thank you. That's a 13 great observation. And, you know, we do work with Ray and the NRC's grant 14 program. And, in fact, NMSS has benefitted greatly. A lot of people coming 15 out the schools that have those grants are coming into NMSS. And, thank 16 you. And I think -- and there's room to grow there.
17 And also, for the first year, this year we put NMSS people 18 on the grant proposals review project, working with Research. So we are 19 investing in that. I think, you know, as you said, one of the things that 20 Commissioners could even help is, as you're traveling out to a reactor site, 21 pop by the university and talk to the students. Because, you know, we can 22 actually hire a wide range of degrees right out of college and then train them 23 to be health physicists. That's kind of the Agreement State model, and we 24 do that as well.
86 1 And we need mid-career health physicists, certified health 2 physicists, medical physicists, all of those skills as well. And we got to work 3 through Health Physics Society to develop that pipeline to make -- make them 4 aware that NRC is a place that they can look.
5 And I know Theresa Clark, I know you're all aware, has done 6 a tremendous amount of work in that area working with the University of 7 Denver, I believe. A good connection there, and then we brought that person 8 to the RIC.
9 So in the coming year we have a lot of promise. It's going 10 to take time and effort and focus and sustained effort to build that pipeline.
11 CHAIR HANSON: Yeah, no, thanks. And I agree about 12 Teresa's work in this area. It's really, it's been remarkable. And you're 13 singing my song on university visits, so I'm happy to help in that regard too.
14 So thanks, and hopefully we can find some places for the Commission to help 15 in this area. So thank you.
16 And then I guess I'll just kind of finish up, I didn't have a lot.
17 You know, I don't know, Rob, if this rises to the level of a workforce driver or 18 not, but I just wanted to take the opportunity to mention kind of and support 19 and highlight NMSS's work in the -- in the international realm.
20 And the potential, you know, growing need for that, right.
21 Where you know, oftentimes internationally the new reactor development and 22 reactor safety is the thing that gets a lot of attention.
23 But as I said, you know, the need for personnel and 24 capacity-building in order to enable the safe and secure use of radioactive
87 1 materials for medical, agriculture, industrial uses for kind of human health and 2 development supports, you know, U.S. overall policy goals.
3 And I know NMSS has been doing a lot of work in this area.
4 And really hope we can do more, so thank you for that.
5 And with that, I'll hand it over to Commissioner Baran.
6 Thank you.
7 COMMISSIONER BARAN: Thanks. Well, thank you all 8 for the important work you do and for that of your colleagues. Both panels 9 talked a bit about web-based licensing. And I know there's been Agreement 10 States interested in moving to WBL over the years.
11 Could someone give us an update on WBL adoption by 12 Agreement States? Where do things stand on that these days?
13 MS. RALPH: We currently have nine states who are active 14 users of the system and eight more in progress. And of course we stand 15 ready and available to help any other Agreement States that might be 16 interested in onboarding to WBL.
17 COMMISSIONER BARAN: And for the eight that are in 18 process, talk a little bit about that. How long does it take to kind of get them 19 on to WBL and what does that involve on our end?
20 MS. RALPH: Thanks, Commissioner Baran. That's really 21 going to depend a lot on the Agreement States themselves. Sometimes 22 there are very small programs. And so the resources that -- and time 23 investment to train their staff might be different than a -- than an Agreement 24 State with a larger program. So that's going to be -- it's going to vary widely.
88 1 But again, the NRC's here to help. We have resources 2 devoted to helping the Agreement States come on board and get up to speed 3 in a rapid manner as much as their programs can capacitate.
4 COMMISSIONER BARAN: Great. And then as was 5 mentioned earlier, Indiana and Connecticut have expressed interest in 6 becoming Agreement States. Can we get an update on those efforts?
7 MR. WILLIAMS: Yeah, so you know, the adoption is a 8 pretty tried and true process. It probably has about ten steps, right. And so 9 the first thing is to give a, you know, letter of intent. And then the next part is 10 for the state to build its program. And then the third part would be, you know, 11 the staff will review and then the government will submit a letter of intent.
12 So as far -- and there's other steps. But where we're at 13 right now is Connecticut is, you know, they're on track to be done by 9/30 of 14 2024. And we expect to have their, you know, that submittal of their program 15 probably, you know, late this fall.
16 COMMISSIONER BARAN: Okay.
17 MR. WILLIAMS: And then when you look at Indiana, 18 they're a little bit -- they're in the stage of developing their program. And then 19 -- but they're also on track, you know, to have their program in place by fiscal 20 year '25 as well.
21 And as we continue to engage, you know, so they're at that 22 status but we're engaging at the staff level. You know, we've had a number 23 of interactions with the, you know, with tribal nations as well as we go along 24 with this process. So they're coming along, they're moving there, and we
89 1 continue to engage.
2 COMMISSIONER BARAN: Great. Well, and I really 3 appreciate the -- it's kind of been a new trend towards doing more tribal 4 interaction and engagement on these Agreement State -- I'll call them 5 applications, you know, processes. And I think that's a great development.
6 NRC is doing a lot more external hiring now than we have 7 in recent years obviously, and it's hiring that's necessary to offset attrition and 8 to do our work. Of course, hundreds of new employees means a lot of 9 training. And meanwhile, Agreement States depend on NRC to provide 10 much of their training.
11 How are we making sure that we're able to train all of the 12 new NRC employees without displacing the Agreement State employees who 13 benefit from our training programs?
14 MR. WILLIAMS: So let me take that one. You know, so 15 we have -- it's a great partnership with the Agreement States. And one of the 16 things that we have set aside for the Agreement States is they give us 60% of 17 the -- of the seats in the class.
18 And we recognize and we've been -- actually, we just had a 19 counterpart with the Division of Radiation Safety and Security division 20 directors, and we talked about the need to qualify our own people, right.
21 We're hiring new people and we're trying to find that 22 balance. So we've been working with the TTC, one, to add more classes.
23 You know, a lot of these do come from subject matter experts from the NRC 24 that teach like their root cause analysis and inspection-type classes.
90 1 But we're also partnering with the states. We're saying 2 hey, you have subject matter experts, why don't you come get qualified and 3 you assist us in teaching the courses. That way we can have increased 4 offering of the courses and we can find that balance of training our people as 5 well as training, you know, the Agreement States.
6 And it actually has worked well with us. I think the amount 7 of collaboration that we have going on with, you know, we even have the TTC 8 come and brief the -- the Organization of Agreement States board on what 9 we're doing to enhance our training process.
10 And the person from my staff, I'm going to mention her name 11 because she does such a fantastic job, is Karen Meyer. She schedules all of 12 the training for Agreement State and works -- and the staff -- and works very 13 diligently to make sure that we have a very good balance. And so it actually 14 has worked well.
15 And so we're continuing to engage and keep our, you know, 16 our eyes on the pulse and pace on where we need to provide training for both 17 Agreement States and NRC staff.
18 COMMISSIONER BARAN: Great. Well, it sounds like 19 we're really on top that, that's terrific.
20 In terms of health physicists and the shortage, you know, 21 kind of nationwide and maybe globally in that area, you know, Rob and Joe, 22 you talked a little bit about the need for hiring there because they're just critical 23 to our mission. And it sounded like we're having some success with that.
24 I'm just interested in kind of how that -- how that's been
91 1 going. How challenging is it, you know, in this market to get folks in? And I 2 think that's my question, just how challenging it is. It sounds like there's --
3 you've some success.
4 MR. NICK: So I'll give you a regional perspective. We 5 have had success, as I said, I think partly because we don't just focus on pure 6 health physicists. We also look at people we can develop into health 7 physicists. So that's been kind of the help -- helping hand, because there 8 aren't true graduates of health physics programs that are very available.
9 And again, this is across the industry and across the 10 Agreements States and across NRC. So we've all recognized this issue.
11 Personally, for example, I'm an engineer from my degree and background, but 12 I was brought through the NRC as a health physicist and developed more as 13 a health physicist there.
14 So the programs that we have and the training we have 15 actually help us. The training center has extensive programs in health 16 physics that can take somebody who has a good basic scientific background 17 and develop them for health physics. So that's one of our coping strategies, 18 if you will, because of the shortage of actual health physicists.
19 We also try to look for those people with experience. Like 20 I said, we try to keep a balance of people that we can develop and people that 21 have that experience so that we don't rely on just one or the other.
22 COMMISSIONER BARAN: Great, yeah, Rob.
23 MR. LEWIS: And just from an NMSS perspective, you 24 know, we've had some success in the last year. We hired, I can think of two,
92 1 I don't know the exact number, but I know we hired two external mid-career 2 health physicists. One of them's actually the agency Radiation Safety Officer 3 right now.
4 And one of the big improvements, I alluded to it earlier, is 5 you know, we used to write position descriptions. We need a health physicist 6 that's uranium recovery person. We need a health physicist that's a medical 7 bent or slant. And a source security health physicist.
8 We got rid of all that now. Now we just need health 9 physicists. We do the in -- and so we have one position description, one job 10 posting, and several divisions pick from it, that -- and for external jobs.
11 That model is much better, in my opinion, because the 12 specifics of the area, yes, we need to be experts. And the health physicist 13 that's working in one of Kevin's branches does need medical expertise. We 14 can get that through the qual program.
15 MR. DORMAN: The one he didn't mention was reactor 16 health physicists. And you know, recall that 'til recently our regions were 17 structured with the Division of Nuclear Materials Safety and the Division of 18 Reactor Safety. And we had health physicists in both and they never crossed 19 much.
20 So over the, I'd say over the last four to five years, there's 21 been an emphasis on cross-training between the materials and reactor health 22 physicists and manifested in your -- mentioned in several of the discussions 23 here, the Division of Radiological Safety and Security in the region, which 24 combined all the health physicists into one division. And so that gets to the
93 1 adaptability of these resources across business lines.
2 COMMISSIONER BARAN: Great. In the medical area, 3 we have a couple of significant rulemakings in the early stages, one on 4 extravasations and one on emerging medical technologies. How does the 5 staff plan to sequence those rulemakings, and what's kind of the latest thinking 6 on timelines for those two rules?
7 MR. WILLIAMS: So, what we've done is we have 8 prioritized extravasations over emerging medical technologies. And now 9 we're in the process of developing what's that impact, how does that look in 10 terms of the timing and all of that. And we are going to provide that to the 11 Commission in terms of our scoping. And we'll receive the impacts and the 12 timeliness.
13 And what we're going, and we definitely want to look at what 14 efficiencies we can gain through this process without having an adverse 15 impact on public health -- on public comments. So we're going to factor that 16 into our process as well, and we will provide that to the Commission.
17 COMMISSIONER BARAN: Sounds good, I look forward to 18 it. Thank you.
19 CHAIR HANSON: Thank you, Commissioner Baran.
20 Commissioner Wright.
21 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: Thank you, Chair.
22 This is one of my favorite business line meetings of -- all 23 year, I wait for it. The ones that we do, and because really, I appreciate what 24 you do in every area. Because part of it really affected me personally, right.
94 1 And then coming through as a, you know, to the statehouse 2 and then working my way up through PUC and then up to here, you know, has 3 been -- it's opened my eyes in a lot of areas. But there's one thing that, you 4 know, that sticks out that I really love, and that's the value that the states have 5 for us and what they provide to us.
6 And your expertise is wonderful. And I've been to the OAS 7 meetings every year, I've gone to the CRCPD meetings every year. You all 8 do a fantastic job. The relationships, Kevin, that you all have, you and John 9 and Rob and Huda, your presentation at this year was really good because 10 it's exactly what the Chair was talking to you about earlier at the panel.
11 As we get bigger with the Agreement State program, what 12 we do -- how we've been doing stuff's got to change, and it's going to change.
13 And we're going to be more focused I guess on training, on the rulemaking 14 stuff and more the policy things. And which, that's critical to the states.
15 And so, to that end, as I've been traveling around, and 16 especially during the last year, I really started doing this last year, I make it a 17 point as I can when I'm going to visit a reactor site or a waste facility or 18 something like that, I will go to the Agreement State and meet with them.
19 Meet with the public health people, meet with their staff. You know, I've done 20 it in North Carolina, I did it in Arkansas, I did it in Utah, and I've done it in South 21 Carolina.
22 And I don't just meet with them. If they want me to, I'll meet 23 with the people they report to, right. It could be their department head, it 24 could be the agency head, it could be -- or cabinet official or whoever.
95 1 Because I think it's really important that the -- because 2 there's a lot of turnover at the level too, right, in the legislatures and stuff like 3 that.
4 So it's important to me that the states understand just how 5 valuable their programs are to us, right. And why they can do it better, they 6 can do it cheaper than we could, right. So, but as I travel, I hear things, right.
7 And I have reported back to you.
8 And one concerns is the HPs. Another concern is training.
9 We've had access to portals that they, you know, whatever. You all handled 10 all of it, and which I think is good. And then you know, I get to meet with some 11 of the people they license, right, hospitals and things like that.
12 And we've been able to have some success in questions 13 that they've raised. So I really value what you do and I thank you for it. But 14 I'm concerned, going forward, about the HP program and what the pipeline is.
15 I think that's a critical thing.
16 And are we utilizing the two-year programs? Are we using 17 the, you know, the minority-serving institutions that have programs, you know, 18 or may, could implement programs. So I mean, South Carolina State's one 19 in my state, right. But are you all -- are we working those things? Are we -
20 - I know that on the national level -- and this is an international thing too, right.
21 And then there's concerns, because we don't have enough, there's poaching 22 going on, right. Some states pay more than others, so they're going to go 23 there, right. Some agency has an opening, they pay more, they go there.
24 That's a problem, and it's going to be a problem. And
96 1 what's the plan to address that too?
2 Because we can't, you know, when I meet with the states, if they're 3 out of whack, I say look, you know, you're losing people because, you know, 4 they're getting paid $30,000 more in Virginia, you know, than in your state.
5 So what's the plan to kind of -- to stem that tide?
6 MR. WILLIAMS: So thanks for that. I think one of the 7 things I do want to point out is when we look at the National Materials Program 8 as a whole, we focus in on great collaboration. You know, it's the NRC and 9 it's the Agreement States. We agree, it's a partnership.
10 So one of the things that we've taken on -- I have biweekly 11 meetings with the OAS board. And one of the things we talk about, and we've 12 actually talked about this with CRCPD as well, how can we better partner to 13 recognize the challenge that we're having with HPs as a whole.
14 One of the efforts that Joe is undertaking is he's working 15 with CRCPD and he's on a working group. And we're saying, okay, how can 16 we institute best practices. How can we -- you know, like when we, NRC, put 17 out a posting, if we're not going to hire somebody, how can we share that with 18 the Agreement States. How can we share that with others, such that we're, 19 you know, we're trying to increase the pipeline.
20 I will also say there's people that when we talk about going 21 out to, you know -- I'm a university champion. There's a person on my staff 22 who's a university champion. And they're going out, they're actively 23 recruiting.
24 They're going to things such as, you know, like Blacks in
97 1 Government or the Health Physics Society, and they're bringing -- they're 2 getting resumes and they're bringing them back to us. Matter of fact, I just 3 got one last night. Can we go through something on the direct hire? And if 4 we choose that we can't do that, let's share that information.
5 Our grants program, I've been saying this because it did 6 work, Nebraska hired somebody off of the grant program. We need to be 7 able to leverage those things more. And so we are communicating and we 8 are engaging, you know, we're getting, initially making these steps.
9 But it's -- we recognize that it's a challenge for Agreement 10 States, it's a challenge for the NRC. But we're all trying to work 11 collaboratively to make sure that we communicate effectively, and we provide 12 those opportunities.
13 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: That's great. And Huda, I 14 would love for you to comment at all about maybe what you -- you don't have 15 to tell us what the report all says, but there are things, there are highlights, you 16 know, that, or takeaways from that that maybe would benefit the public that's 17 listening in today at this as well as the people at this table.
18 MS. AKHAVANNIK: With respect to staffing and hiring?
19 So --
20 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: Or the future of what the 21 NRC's going to look like when the Agreement State program gets a little 22 bigger, right, you know.
23 MS. AKHAVANNIK: Sure. So a lot of our 24 recommendations, the majority of them are on consistency. And so, you
98 1 know, we look at for example trying to, within the NMP, trying to create 2 opportunities where, you know, we talked about -- Joe talked about how we 3 have Agreement State staff joining our impact teams.
4 We already have Agreement State staff as part of our joint 5 working groups. And so we're looking to really increase that, especially with 6 like upcoming guidance for emerging technologies. Even updating current 7 guidance. You know, I talked about how they, the Agreement States are the 8 ones that have most of the experience with various, you know, uses of nuclear 9 materials.
10 And so we want to definitely leverage that experience. One 11 of our recommendations, for example, is formalizing that process of being able 12 to get folks on these working groups, then being able to like advertise these 13 as opportunities.
14 And so across the NMP it's more easily, more access for 15 people to be able to come and say hey, you know, I'd be interested in joining 16 this working group. I'd be interested in joining this IMPEP.
17 That's the kind of stuff that's like cross training. We talked 18 about knowledge management earlier. I mean, it doesn't get better 19 knowledge management than that, in my opinion, to have folks actually, you 20 know, as part of these teams.
21 Another tool that we could use in terms of, like, knowledge 22 management and being able to like advocate for more consistency is -- I'm 23 trying to remember my recommendations. So, I talked about joint working 24 groups and advertising those.
99 1 For example, we could -- for example, I have -- let me look 2 at my recommendations a little bit, sorry about that. So, one tool, for 3 example, is for training, we can talk about training.
4 And so we mentioned some of the successes in training, 5 how Kevin talked about how for the -- at the OAS annual meeting, we got 6 feedback from Agreement States and how -- and there was a discussion of 7 being able to have more Agreement States be able to actually host trainings.
8 That's an example of like a success of how the NMP, you 9 know, us working together we can increase. Since training would be a 10 challenge since there would be more Agreement States, having the 11 Agreement States focus on providing trainings is an example of a success for 12 that.
13 Another recommendation that we have for training is 14 providing alternate methods for qualification. And so already the IMC for that 15 allows for alternate methods.
16 But this would be, again, kind of formalizing it and making -
17 - making it more clear so when the Agreement States themselves want to be 18 able to qualify their staff, there's less of an inconsistency there. There's more 19 -- there's more like surety on what that means of my staff being qualified.
20 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: So I'd like to indulge me, if my 21 colleagues will indulge me here, because this is important follow-up on what 22 you're talking about. So in the travels, we've heard that training's an issue, 23 right. And not every state's the same, right. Some states have employees 24 that are ready to roll, staff is ready to roll.
100 1 It still takes three years to get them trained up in most of 2 these states the way, you know, to go through the program, right. They don't 3 -- they have needs right now, today. They can't get in the programs because 4 the NRC staff is filling up the programs because we've got to have training too.
5 So I guess we're looking for more opportunities on the 6 training front and ways that we can simplify or speed it up, right, using --
7 hosting things, combining states together. I know these are things you've 8 talked about. But are -- are we looking to roll some things out to meet some 9 of these needs earlier?
10 MR. LEWIS: Exactly. I was going to mention, in fact. So 11 we are working closely with OCHCO. Yes, there's a surge of hiring health 12 physicists. A lot of our training classes at the TTC are health physics-type 13 classes. And so Kevin was kind of alluding to it as well, that we have a train 14 the trainer approach, that's one thing we're doing.
15 But also perhaps an Agreement State could host a class.
16 And then states nearby could come over, that could help manage travel costs 17 or the state's burden. So we are exploring all those, those are all doable.
18 Can I add one more thought about program health overall?
19 Because you know, a lot of people are listening, I'm sure, and I want to get --
20 I want to make sure we leave the impression that, you know, we have the 21 IMPEP program. Of course that's every couple of -- up every for four years, 22 for good-performing programs maybe more often and for a program that had 23 findings.
24 But, through that, the first indicator in that program is
101 1 reviewing the staffing and qualifications of that program and their turnover 2 rates and things like that compared to the number of licensees and the types 3 of licensees in that program.
4 And so that's our basic program to decide programmatic, 5 what we see nationwide. And we closely monitor that. And that tool also 6 lets us work with the states that need help and letters of support to the 7 governor, letters of support to the health director, up to and including 8 probation, where we monitor the improvement and the -- and heightened 9 oversight as well.
10 So that's our performance management program, if you will, 11 for the National Material Program. And it's peer review, so. So the other 12 states, not only us look at the states, but the other states look at each other 13 as well.
14 And final thought, so that's a more of a yearly basis. But 15 on a daily basis we have in each region radiation -- regional state agreements 16 officers, who keep daily contact with states. If a state's experiencing a 17 particular problem, that's their first point of contact. Get them help. NRC 18 can go out and help.
19 One of the unique things Kevin's group's exploring right 20 now, sending an NRAN, an NRC NRAN student on rotation to an Agreement 21 State. So a lot of tools we can use to help states that need it.
22 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: And I do know that when the 23 states are reaching out to us and just expressing that hey, we have a need, 24 they're trying to get ahead of the problem, right. So it's not an IMPEP problem,
102 1 and which I appreciate very much, too. So thank you so much.
2 CHAIR HANSON: Thank you, Commissioner Wright.
3 Commissioner Caputo.
4 COMMISSIONER CAPUTO: Kevin, I have a question.
5 Youre magnet for the question this morning, which makes life easier on the 6 rest of the panelists. But I'm going to, like my other colleagues, I'm going to 7 delve into the health physics, health physicist issue. But I'm going to do with 8 a trip down memory lane.
9 So in the mid-90s, when I was graduating with a nuclear 10 engineering degree, the job market for nukes was abysmal. And I was half a 11 step away from being a nuclear-grade barista fresh out of school.
12 There were a host of premature closures, which as we heard 13 from the earlier panel, a chunk of those 27 decommissioned units. There 14 were university programs that were closing, there were research reactors that 15 were being shut down. So you know, it was -- it was not a good look in the 16 mid-90s.
17 But within five years, there was a recognition that there was 18 a whole swath of experience, excuse me, in the nuclear industry that had 19 started their careers in the heyday of the 70s or not long after and were 20 heading into retirement.
21 So even just within five years of my graduation, utilities were 22 offering, you know, signing bonuses for graduates and so on. And there was 23 just a recognition that the need was only going to escalate as more of that 24 previous generation retired. And trying to get through enough graduates
103 1 through fewer programs was a growing challenge.
2 So Department of Energy started with research. How 3 many programs, how many graduates are we getting, how do we look at 4 increasing the number of enrollments, which you know, of course my reaction 5 at the time was sort of, well, enrollments doesn't always equal graduates in a 6 challenging program.
7 But the focus was how do we grow that pie. Because even 8 once you get those enrollment numbers up, that's still three, four, five years 9 before you see them in the workforce. So for the problem that we have now, 10 this problem's going to grow.
11 And so I guess my question is given how DOE's mission on 12 nuclear energy has expanded so significantly, have we had any conversations 13 with, say, the Office of Nuclear Energy, at looking at the need for health 14 physicists in light of what was done in, you know, 2000 with regard to 15 specifically tracking how many are graduating, what programs are out there.
16 This was the origination of the university program, was to try 17 and find ways to use research to support university programs and keep them 18 afloat, more or less. So are there -- are we having conversations with DOE 19 looking at sort of reprising that effort in this area.
20 Because like I said, I feel like this is only -- this need is only 21 likely to grow. And any fix that gets implemented now, you know, we don't 22 see the benefit for several years. So there's no time like the present to get 23 started.
24 MR. WILLIAMS: Yeah, sure. I think one of the things that
104 1 we've been focusing on, and we'll go back to, you know, the work that Teresa's 2 been doing, right. We've worked internally, she's also worked externally with 3 others. You know, as Rob mentioned, she's engaged the Colorado 4 University.
5 But we've also worked with OCHCO to try to look at what 6 are we doing as university champions. How are trying to, you know, to make 7 sure these programs focus on health physicists and what can we do to make 8 sure that we're doing it.
9 I think we could easily expand that, right, to reach out to 10 DOE and to reach out to our other federal partners. Because we're all looking 11 at this from a perspective of what do we do now, how do we keep -- how do 12 we move the program forward, and what activities can we do to make sure 13 that we can solidify it and increase our bench strength.
14 And so through that process, I think we need to engage and 15 partner better with the Office of Research as well as DOE to look at what can 16 we do to make sure that people are aware, and what can we do to recruit.
17 And then how do we, you know, reach back to our staff here 18 to retain, to make sure that we have that knowledge and how do we engage 19 appropriately to work across the organizational boundaries.
20 COMMISSIONER CAPUTO: Okay, well, I definitely, I 21 definitely agree that I think we should be talking to DOE about reprising that 22 effort, because this is certainly something as big as an effect as it has on us, 23 like the Chairman talked about, there's competition, and Commissioner 24 Wright. You know, there's competition and there's poaching, and this is a
105 1 limited resource that's just getting more limited.
2 So anything DOE can do to sort of preserve the programs 3 that are out there and create funding and so on to spur -- to spur graduates 4 would be I think important for the future.
5 Kevin, another question for you. So the proposed rule on 6 sources has -- proposes that we, at the Commission's direction, start including 7 Category 3 sources in the license -- licensing verification system. How --
8 given how many Agreement States we have, how does this affect the nature 9 of their role?
10 Because I know with web-based licensing, it takes a certain 11 amount of time, training, and resources for them to implement that. Is there 12 any impact here on Agreement States? Or is this strictly an activity by the 13 licensees?
14 MR. WILLIAMS: Well, yeah, we already have the 15 Agreement State licenses, you know, in WBL itself. And so what we're 16 advertising is the use of LVS. And so to expand it to Category 3, you know, 17 of course Agreement States, just like when we actually recognized what GAO 18 was doing, we issued the information notice.
19 And we issued that to the Agreement States so the 20 Agreement States could inform their licensees. So yes, there will be some 21 impact, but it's really focusing on, you know, one, recognizing the number of 22 Category 3 sources that we have out there.
23 But the bigger issue is that we're here as a resource, 24 whether it's Agreement State, whether it's the NRC, and we can use this to
106 1 verify licenses to make a -- make, you know, the verification process easier.
2 And that's the goal.
3 And so we've been partnering, we've been engaging OAS 4 to ensure that we limit the impact. But I think as we focus on, you know, the 5 work that we do and the work that the Agreement States do, we'll have to 6 assess through, you know, as we go through the rule, how do we engage the 7 licensees to see what the impact on licensees are.
8 But from a process perspective, WBL can do it right now.
9 And one of the things that we've talked about is can -- you know, how easy is 10 it to do that. Extremely easy. People can call us right now. We have a help 11 desk that we said hey, reach out to us. If you need to verify we'll point you in 12 the right point of contact, such that we can actually address these types of 13 issues in a timely fashion.
14 So we've been looking at the impact, trying to minimize the 15 impact, but recognizing that, you know, we look at it from a balancing 16 perspective. We believe that we're focusing on the right aspects from a 17 safety and security perspective.
18 COMMISSIONER CAPUTO: Okay, so if the rule -- if the 19 rulemaking goes forward the way the staff has proposed it, and correct me if 20 I'm wrong, let me just start with how many Category 3 licenses are we talking 21 about? How many are there total?
22 MR. LEWIS: I think, so our best estimate, we don't --
23 there's Agreement State licensees we don't have a daily track of.
24 COMMISSIONER CAPUTO: Right.
107 1 MR. LEWIS: But our estimate is around, there's 4500, 2 compared to 1500 Cat. 1 and 2.
3 COMMISSIONER CAPUTO: And so in the proposed 4 rulemaking, these Category 3 sources are going to shift from general licensing 5 to a more specific license, correct?
6 MR. LEWIS: Yeah, and what we proposed -- so not all 7 those 4500 are general license. Most -- the vast majority are already specific 8 license.
9 COMMISSIONER CAPUTO: Okay.
10 MR. LEWIS: But there are some general licensees that 11 possess Category 3 sources and maybe in the order of a dozen or so. And 12 those would have to get a specific license.
13 COMMISSIONER CAPUTO: So what's the licensing 14 burden associated with that shift? Do we have a feel for that? Because 15 that's, you know, potentially work on their side, but also work on our side. Do 16 we have a feel for that?
17 MR. WILLIAMS: So I would think we would have to 18 engage, you know, with that licensing community to make sure we fully 19 understand the burden on them. Why we think this is a, you know, I don't 20 want to oversimplify it, but we do believe that transitioning to LVS to 21 incorporate Cat. 3 we do think is a relatively simply process.
22 But we want to engage our licensees, and as we go through 23 that process, we really want to understand does this work for you, what's the 24 impact, does it increase any burden.
108 1 And we would do the same for Agreement States. We've 2 been engaging them as well. And some of them have already been 3 addressing this in some fashion.
4 COMMISSIONER CAPUTO: Okay, all right. So Huda 5 talked about the future of the National Materials Program and the work of the 6 working group. And heard several times this morning about the number of 7 Agreement States, you know, increasing yet again.
8 So Rob, given the decrease in the number of licenses that 9 we will be overseeing as an agency, does this free up personnel looking 10 forward a year, two year, three years out? Does this reduce our workload 11 somewhat so that we can redeploy those resources and that expertise?
12 And then also do we have an idea of what sort of what the 13 minimum staffing is? I know there's -- there's work in the working group 14 looking forward, you know, for various scenarios. What's the minimum 15 staffing level to just maintain this infrastructure in this program?
16 You know, I guess postulating if everyone was an 17 Agreement State. There's still going to be work that we have to do, and I'd like 18 to know what that minimum head count would look like.
19 MR. LEWIS: Yeah, so our budget has two parts. It's the 20 fee-based part and the -- for licensing and inspection, and then the off-fee-21 based part. So when an Agreement State becomes an Agreement State, I 22 went through this in Pennsylvania with Joe actually, so the number of NRC 23 licensees in Region I went down.
24 We build our budget for the fee-based part, you know, a
109 1 number of licensees times the number of applications we get based on their 2 renewal cycle and amendments. Factor in the complexity of various types of 3 applications and determine a number of hours per year and then translate that 4 to FTE.
5 For licensing and inspection, it's basically a formula, number 6 of licensees crank out the FTE. And so when Pennsylvania became an 7 Agreement State, that went down and Region I adjusted.
8 The people that are affected by that, so the budget's three 9 years ahead, obviously. So the people that are affected to that, some found 10 other jobs in NRC. Some may have retired, some may have left the agency.
11 But we don't get to the situation where because of the time 12 scales, we don't have a situation where, oh, you know, there's several people 13 here that we can now redeploy to another group. We do that over time 14 throughout that year.
15 Your question's a great one. It's almost, you know, you can 16 imagine a line that goes down with the number of licensees and then number 17 of Agreement States. When it gets to 50, the line flattens out.
18 And that remainder, that asymptote or whatever, that is kind 19 of the National Material Program in another sense. That's the national 20 program that needs to happen even if we have zero Agreement States.
21 We will be one of the biggest licensing organizations, even 22 with zero Agreement States, because of the federal licensees. So that's one 23 point.
24 But the items, the training, the IMPEP management, the
110 1 program management, the existence of the radiation safety officers, we call 2 those the Agreement State Program that we currently have off the fee base.
3 So we would envision we'll continue that for -- through the future.
4 There may need to be some adjustments as we get more 5 and more states, but I think that Huda's project is telling us is you know, for 6 the foreseeable future, the current model works for us. And we have order of 7 years to -- before we need to start making some harder decisions.
8 COMMISSIONER CAPUTO: Okay. Well, it certainly 9 when -- whenever we're looking at those sorts of issues with decreasing 10 workload in the agency, having an amount of time to deal with it I think it just 11 so important. Because if you can manage it through retirements, as sorry as 12 we are to see those folks head off into very well-earned retirements, you know, 13 it's so important for us to preserve the expertise.
14 And if the workload is shrinking is this area, I think there are 15 probably a number of people who have -- who have grown expertise in just a 16 range of areas. So it's incredibly valuable and very useful to the agency 17 elsewhere.
18 So I'm glad to hear that we have the time necessary to sort 19 of make those -- make those adjustments. Thank you.
20 CHAIR HANSON: Thank you. Commissioner Crowell.
21 COMMISSIONER CROWELL: Thank you, Mr. Chair.
22 Thank you to all the panelists today for your presentations. And if anyone's 23 stomach is growling like mine, I promise not to go beyond my allotted time.
24 So my first question, in part, anyone can jump in and grab,
111 1 but Ms. Akhavannik, part of it goes to you, at the very least. But for 2 Agreement States, is a poorly performing agreement -- is oversight of a poorly 3 performing Agreement State preferable to the agency just continuing to 4 conduct those responsibilities for the state?
5 And then the second part of the question is I'm curious about 6 your, one of your recommendations on centers of excellence and how those 7 factor into that equation. So, anyone can take the big question.
8 MR. WILLIAMS: Why don't I take the big question and 9 then, Huda, you can talk about the centers of excellence?
10 So, you know, as we look at the Agreement State programs, 11 there are two -- you know, there's a couple programs that are on probation or 12 heightened oversight. The things that we factor on there in terms of what 13 would get there is what would it cost to take that program back for the agency, 14 what does that look like.
15 You know, when you look at it from a fees perspective, what 16 are the fees? Is that sustainable for the program to come back? And it's 17 not, you know, what's preferred. It's where do we see the program at from a 18 public health and safety perspective.
19 And we have processes and we have tools to say, you 20 know, you're either going to put somebody on heightened oversight probation 21 or you're going to suspend the program. If you could make a decision to 22 suspend the program, those are a number of things that we have to address 23 and provide to the Commission in terms of level of oversight.
24 And so if we don't get to that spot and we believe that, you
112 1 know, probation is the preferred method, then we work with them to get their 2 program back to a state of where -- where it needs to be, in terms of whether 3 it's staffing issues, a licensing inspection process.
4 And that is the, you know, when I say the preferred method, 5 what we try to do is -- the National Materials Program is only as strong as, you 6 know, for lack of a better word, you know, the weakest member, or perceived 7 weakest member. Our job is to make sure that the national program is 8 moving and performing well.
9 And as part of that, we have our processes and procedures 10 that we implement to get people back to there. So that's having, you know, 11 monthly meetings. Looking at, you know, having them do a performance 12 improvement plan to get the program back to where we believe is, you know, 13 an acceptable manner. That's what we focus on.
14 And so I think that's what we need to do going forward as 15 we -- as we look at those programs.
16 COMMISSIONER CROWELL: Okay, and I assume a 17 poorly performing Agreement State is not that way intentionally, it's probably 18 a resource issue and the bandwidth and budget and who knows what's going 19 on at a given time.
20 So how about centers for excellence? And I know that 21 there are some existing and maybe a recommendation for more. How do 22 those factor in?
23 MS. AKHAVANNIK: Yeah, so for the centers of 24 excellence, I guess I just want to make a clarification that, you know, at the
113 1 NRC we have like a Center of Excellence for Rulemaking. So for us, the word 2 center of excellence means kind of like a group of NRC and Agreement State 3 experts.
4 And so we look for, you know, when we looked at the 5 program elements that I had up on my slide, we looked at those areas and 6 said, okay, what would be good areas that for the sake of knowledge 7 management, when it comes to questions, instead of only using the resource 8 that Rob was mentioning of the RSAO, they could, you know, the states and 9 NRC could just have dialog with each other and go through these centers of 10 excellence. And it would be just a like to have more widespread sharing of 11 information.
12 And so the areas we're thinking about for centers of 13 excellence, one would be like event response, pre-IMPEP, like preparation for 14 IMPEP. Licensing, risk informing inspections.
15 Like these are the -- oh, rule adoption, especially when it 16 comes to emerging technologies for example, kind of having questions and 17 answers of being able to, you know, like understand what that means and 18 what are better ways to kind of implement.
19 So it's just, it's like a knowledge management idea.
20 COMMISSIONER CROWELL: It's collaboration to keep 21 everyone's game high.
22 MS. AKHAVANNIK: Exactly.
23 COMMISSIONER CROWELL: Okay, good. We've talked 24 a lot about health physicists today. And I've never met a health physicist I
114 1 don't like, but they also tend to think they can do everything. There's got to 2 be some other areas of expertise that we need help in. And what would those 3 be, what other areas of qualifications are we looking for?
4 MR. LEWIS: Yeah, thanks for the question. So health 5 physicists is our focus area simply because they're hard to find and -- and 6 there aren't many even when you do find them. So in NMSS we're a big 7 proponent of the agency strategic workforce planning process.
8 So we go through that every year. And the divisions meet 9 with me and present their results. I think the materials areas, health physicist 10 was number one gap. You know, in strategic workforce planning we look at 11 what skills we have today, the workload, the skills we'll need in five years and 12 the workload, and what are gaps or surpluses.
13 So health physicist was the number one gap, health 14 physicists of all different kinds. Project managers was very close. But 15 project managers are relatively easy to find and train. So they aren't the 16 hiring priority, although we want to hire project managers as much as we can 17 immediately.
18 The other areas in materials I think very distance trailer but 19 there are gaps is mechanical engineers. Because we do sealed source and 20 device reviews. So I would say, you know, if we need ten health physicists, 21 we might need two mechanical engineers.
22 But again, those are the -- the sheer number of them that 23 are available to us is much, much higher, so that's why our focus is health 24 physicists. But thank you for the question because I didn't want anyone to
115 1 leave today with the impression we only want health physicists.
2 COMMISSIONER CROWELL: My last question, which 3 maybe is going to be a Dan question, but Mr. Nick, I'm curious about your 4 perspective as well, given your long tenure at the agency.
5 So in health physics or any one of the other disciplines that 6 we need expertise in, you know, there's a lot of expertise from universities and 7 in the private sector and elsewhere from across the country, including the 8 western half of the country, including just like California. I mention that just 9 because how many universities they have and the big population they have.
10 But I haven't met many people from California that are 11 excited about moving to any of the locations of the regional offices or maybe 12 the DC area. And I think we're undermining our talent pool, the availability of 13 our talent pool by not finding ways to recruit and retain employees from other 14 areas of the country.
15 I mean, we've managed to implement a resident inspector 16 program where employees are located elsewhere. Why can't something 17 similar be done in the materials space?
18 MR. DORMAN: Great question. So I'll start with the 19 resident inspector program and I'll speak to my experience in Region I, where 20 we had several sites along the northern shore of New York state and Lake 21 Ontario that is not the most popular place to go.
22 So we recruit at Rochester Institute of Technology and we 23 recruit at RPI. So we get people who are from that part of the country who 24 want to go there. I think as you come to the HPs and look at the talent pool
116 1 on the western half of the country generally, but and in particularly in HPs, I 2 don't know why they don't want to come to our locations. All our locations are 3 great.
4 But it's -- one of the tools that we have available to us when 5 we have critical needs in key skillsets that are hard to fill, like health physics, 6 is remote work. We've just got to document that and capture it, and then 7 we're working through expanding our guidance to leadership and 8 management on recruiting TBD location.
9 So, in general, our positions go out naming our locations of 10 business. But when we have a critical need, we can put TBD in there as a 11 location as well.
12 COMMISSIONER CROWELL: And I only have a minute, 13 I'm going to break my own promise because if Joe wants to jump in, I'm still 14 going to let him.
15 But I know there's not a direct parallel to the resident 16 inspector program, but we could also think about, you know, housing these 17 health physicists or materials folks in, you know, the offices of an Agreement 18 State that they have state office or county office, or at a medical facility or an 19 academic institution. Those kinds of arrangements are done all the time.
20 And so I want to make sure we're thinking creatively about 21 how we're recruiting and retaining folks. Because it makes a difference, and 22 there's a large swath of the country that's not within 50 miles of an existing 23 office. You know, give it a shot.
24 MR. NICK: The one thing I will add is that we do have
117 1 successful full-time teleworkers out in the field. And it actually helps in some 2 situations. They may be closer to the areas that we need reactive inspections 3 for example, or a specific need spur of the moment.
4 So yeah, it is a model that can work. And I agree with you, 5 we just need to work through the agency policies and use it -- utilize it as much 6 as we can.
7 COMMISSIONER CROWELL: Thank you. Thank you, 8 Mr. Chair.
9 CHAIR HANSON: Thank you, Commissioner Crowell.
10 All right, we have reached the end of our time together.
11 Thank you all again. Thanks to the staff for your presentations, and for the 12 information. Thanks to my fellow commissioners.
13 I think we, you know, plumbed the depths of a number of 14 really important issues before the agency. So thank you all again, we're 15 adjourned.
16 (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went off the record 17 at 12:06 p.m.)