ML24025A055
| ML24025A055 | |
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| Issue date: | 01/25/2024 |
| From: | NRC/OCM |
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UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
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STRATEGIC PROGRAMMATIC OVERVIEW OF THE DECOMMISSIONING AND LOW-LEVEL WASTE AND NUCLEAR MATERIALS USERS BUSINESS LINES (PUBLIC MEETING)
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- THURSDAY, JANUARY 18, 2024
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The Commission met in the Commissioners' Hearing Room, at 9:00 a.m., Christopher T. Hanson, Chair, presiding.
COMMISSION MEMBERS:
CHRISTOPHER T. HANSON, Chair DAVID A. WRIGHT, Commissioner ANNIE CAPUTO, Commissioner BRADLEY R. CROWELL, Commissioner ALSO PRESENT:
CARRIE M. SAFFORD, Secretary of the Commission BROOKE P. CLARK, General Counsel (via video teleconference)
NRC STAFF:
JOHN LUBINSKI, Director, Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards (NMSS)
JANE MARSHALL, Director, Division of Decommissioning, Uranium Recovery, and Waste Programs (DUWP), NMSS CYNTHIA BARR, Risk and Technical Analysis Branch, DUWP, NMSS THERESA CLARK, Deputy Director, Division of Materials Safety, Security, State, and Tribal Programs (MSST), NMSS ROBIN ELLIOTT, Senior Health Physicist, Division of Radiological Safety and Security (DRSS), Region I SHERRIE FLAHERTY, Senior Intergovernmental Liaison Project Manager, MSST, NMSS GEHAN FLANDERS, Senior Health Physicist, DRSS, Region III JOEY ROLLAND, Mechanical Engineer, MSST, NMSS AMY SNYDER, Project Manager, Reactor Decommissioning Branch, DUWP, NMSS
PROCEEDINGS 9:00 a.m.
CHAIR HANSON: Good morning everyone, and welcome.
1 I convene this meeting to hear about the strategic considerations associated 2
with the Decommissioning and Low-level Waste Business Line and the 3
Nuclear Materials Users Business Lines. I think it's important to keep the 4
public informed of our activities. And so, I thank all of you for supporting 5
today's meeting, both our first panel and our second.
6 As I said, we're going to have two panels. We're going to 7
take a short break in between. With each panel, we'll hold questions until the 8
end, and then we will hear questions from the Commissioners to the panel.
9 Before we start, I'll ask my fellow Commissioners if they 10 have any remarks they would like to make.
11 (No response.)
12 Okay. With that, John, we'll had it over to you, our Director 13 of the Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards, for opening remarks 14 and an overview.
15 MR. LUBINSKI: Thank you, and good morning Chair 16 Hanson and Commissioners. We appreciate the opportunity to provide you 17 our annual update on the activities and priorities for the Decommissioning and 18 Low-level Waste and the Nuclear Materials User Business Lines, commonly 19 referred to as DLLW and NMU. Next slide, please.
20 Let me start by commending the staff in both business lines 21 for their hard work, diligence, and commitment to achieving the agency's 22
critical safety mission in what has been a highly dynamic regulatory 1
environment.
2 Our first panel today will present the Decommissioning and 3
Low-Level Waste Business Line. I will be providing an overview of the 4
business line. I will be followed by Jane Marshall, the Director of the Division 5
of Decommissioning, Uranium Recovery, and Waste Programs. She will 6
discuss some recent accomplishments and areas her staff has focused on for 7
more effective and efficient regulatory oversight.
8 Amy Snyder, Senior Project Manager, will discuss the 9
integration of risk principles, relevant historical information, and current data 10 into the decisionmaking process, which has helped to unlock first-of-a-kind 11 challenges and accelerated our review time while maintaining safety.
12 Cynthia Barr, Senior Risk Analyst, will share how domestic 13 and operating experience has enhanced decommissioning guidance and how 14 NRC is benefitting from international collaboration and decommissioning 15 activities.
16 Gehan Flanders, Health Physicist from Region III, will 17 provide an overview of some recent decommissioning inspection activities and 18 how we continue building community relationships. Next slide, please.
19 I am very grateful for today's opportunity to represent the 20 great people and work contributing to this business line. This business line 21 is relatively small compared to others within the NRC with, roughly, 83 full-22 time equivalent, or FTE, staff. About two-thirds are in NMSS and the rest are 23 in Regions I, III, and IV, and in other headquarters offices, including the Office 24 of General Counsel and the Office of Research.
25
The business line manages the agency's programs for 1
reactor and materials decommissioning, uranium recovery, and low-level 2
waste, and closely interacts with other federal agencies, tribal nations, states, 3
international partners, licensees, and the public.
4 The business line is involved with a significant number of 5
licensees which are listed on this slide. I would like to focus on a few types.
6 Our team ensures safety and security through our licensing and oversight 7
work at 23 decommissioning reactors, including 16 in active decommissioning.
8 I am proud to say that the staff was able to complete the review of both La 9
Crosse and Zion Units 1 and 2 site release reviews, and license termination 10 over the past year -- taking us from 18 down to 16 active reactor 11 decommissioning sites.
12 Over the past two decades, we have successfully completed 13 our evaluation and terminated the licenses for 11 decommissioned power 14 reactors. We are also working on a number of decommissioning, uranium 15 recovery, and low-level waste projects. This includes issuing a license to 16 Rare Earth Resources in support of a pilot project to extract rare earth 17 minerals.
18 Through the National Materials Program, we and our 19 Agreement State partners ensure safe decommissioning of material sites, 20 including former radium sites and several complex materials sites. The 21 Agreement States license and provide oversight for the majority of the active 22 uranium recovery licensees and all four active and four of the five inactive or 23 closed low-level waste facilities. There will be a discussion of the National 24 Materials Program and Agreement States within the Nuclear Material 25
Business Line later this morning.
1 Despite its relatively small size, sites in this business line 2
traditionally garner a high level of interest from the public and federal, state, 3
and local government officials. The activities in this business line generally 4
result in significant changes to licensed activities and changes in NRC 5
oversight, including the final termination of the license and NRC involvement 6
at the site. Therefore, it is important for NRC to ensure the sites are safe for 7
unrestricted use and to provide stakeholders information that supports this 8
decision.
9 We view proactive and meaningful interactions throughout 10 the steps of decommissioning as essential for safe and effective 11 decommissioning. These interactions increase stakeholder confidence and 12 they improve our regulatory decisions. The NRC provides opportunities for 13 public engagement through public meetings in the vicinity of a facility, such as 14 when we receive the Preliminary Site Decommissioning Activities Report, 15 referred to as the PSDAR, and when we receive the License Termination Plan.
16 We have continued to perform rigorous community 17 engagement through the support of local advisory boards at reactor sites 18 undergoing decommissioning. Additionally, we have been working hard to 19 maintain our public-facing websites to ensure information about the sites we 20 oversee is available and up-to-date. Next slide, please.
21 On this slide, you can see the business line priorities, but I 22 really want to emphasize the importance of having a knowledgeable and 23 diverse workforce. We can only do all of this by ensuring we promote an 24 organizational culture that focuses on knowledge management and staff 25
training. In the last couple of years, we have issued the revised Inspector 1
Qualification Program and we are currently working on a revision to the Project 2
Management and Technical Reviewer Qualification Program. This effort will 3
modernize the administrative process-related qualifications and reshape the 4
training requirements to ensure our staff has the necessary knowledge and 5
skills to meet the anticipated needs.
6 To develop the necessary knowledge and skills, we've 7
completed the revision of the NRC's Training Course on Reviewing 8
Decommissioning Dose Modeling. Also, we are developing training 9
curriculum this year for low-level waste performance assessment reviewers.
10 All these activities will assist the NRC staff, as well as Agreement State staff, 11 in performing their mission.
12 This concludes my remarks, and I will now turn the 13 presentation to Jane Marshall.
14 MS. MARSHALL: Thank you, John. Good morning, Chair 15 Hanson and Commissioners. Next slide, please.
16 Over the past year, we've been able to leverage our 17 previous experiences to better inform our licensing reviews. I'll briefly 18 highlight a few examples where we were successful and how it will help in 19 future reviews.
20 DLLW staff built on earlier reviews of DOE's disposal 21 actions at the Savannah River tank farms and the Saltstone Disposal Facility, 22 as shown in the picture on the left. We focused on our monitoring activities 23 on barriers that provide the majority of isolation and containment.
24 For the Saltstone review, our risk-informed monitoring 25
strategy identified a shift in emphasis by the Department of Energy from the 1
safety functions of chemical waste retention to long-term performance of the 2
covered system. We shifted our review team's focus accordingly.
3 Leveraging this experience helped us to streamline the 4
review of DOE's Revised Safety Assessment of the Saltstone Disposal 5
Facility, which was completed in FY 2023. Going forward, we will use this 6
methodology in the upcoming Revised Safety Assessments, enabling us to 7
complete these tasks over the next four years with fewer resources.
8 Similarly, staff has greater experience from our recent work 9
on license terminations for La Crosse and Zion. We're incorporating this 10 experience into our ongoing and future license termination, or LTP, reviews.
11 Our latest Interim Staff Guidance, or ISG, provides a 12 comprehensive overview of the methodologies and strategies to tackle distinct 13 challenges encountered during decommissioning. Furthermore, we've 14 reviewed and issued comments on recent industry guidance aimed at 15 ensuring licensees develop a high-quality, complete LTP that satisfies NRC 16 requirements.
17 Staff recently completed the license termination and transfer 18 of Western Nuclear, Incorporated, to the Department of Energy. This is the 19 picture on the right. We'll be able to use the lessons learned from this review 20 to help us with future sites, including the upcoming transfer of the Durita site 21 in Colorado. Our experience with Western Nuclear showed the importance 22 of early collaboration between federal agencies and the states, which we 23 believe will help us streamline the process for future license transfers. Next 24 slide, please.
25
Ensuring the staff has the skills, knowledge, and tools to 1
perform the job is critical. Staff is conducting confirmatory research in 2
decommissioning areas based on industry trends and operating experiences, 3
such as the use of evapotranspiration, or ET, covers and autonomous vehicles 4
for radiation surveys. We're also ensuring that staff are prepared to review 5
license characterization and final status surveys. In this vein of work, we've 6
created a Multi-Agency Radiation Survey and Site Investigation Manual, or 7
MARSSIM, users' group to supplement MARSSIM training and allow staff 8
across NRC to share information and keep up-to-date on the latest changes 9
and trends in this area. This will help ensure that we have sufficient 10 knowledgeable staff that are ready to conduct the reviews and inspections in 11 this area.
12 In addition to the research I mentioned, we've been 13 collaborating with the Department of Energy on ET covers for uranium mill 14 tailing sites through periodic meetings and site visits. The image on the left 15 is of DOE's Grand Junction Disposal Facility, which includes study areas for 16 ET covers. Staff was able to visit the site in June of 2023. These activities 17 have greatly furthered our knowledge in this area and will support the reviews, 18 as we're expecting in the next few years.
19 Another key component of the work being done by the Office 20 of Research is helping us to maintain and update the current models and 21 codes related to the business line, such as the Residual Radioactivity Code, 22 which is better known as RESRAD. These codes are important tools for NRC 23 staff, Agreement State partners, and external stakeholders. On the right is a 24 screen capture of our RAMP, or Radiation Protection Computer Code Analysis 25
and Maintenance Program, website for the development, maintenance, and 1
distribution of radiation and dose assessment codes for the business line.
2 The NRC recently hosted the Fall 2023 RAMP Users' Group 3
meeting. RAMP has codes for environmental assessment, nuclear power 4
plant licensing, emergency response, atmospheric assessment, and other 5
dose assessment scenarios, including decommissioning and uranium 6
recovery. Next slide, please.
7 Over the past year, we've spent considerable time working 8
with our external stakeholders to ensure effective and efficient 9
decommissioning processes. We've supported numerous meetings, 10 workshops, and conferences over the past year.
11 We've also issued generic communications and proposed 12 guidance. For example, DLLW has been effectively coordinating with other 13 federal agencies on uranium recovery and complex material decommissioning 14 sites. Through collaboration with EPA and DOE, a license amendment was 15 approved to bring mine waste from the Northeast Church Rock Minesite to the 16 NRC-licensed millsite, along with important enhancements for erosion 17 protection. Similarly, in cooperation with the EPA and the State of Oklahoma, 18 Fansteel was added to the Superfund National Priorities List. This has 19 opened up an opportunity to remediate the site.
20 We're also updating guidance as issued are being identified 21 during licensing and oversight activities. In 2024, we plan to issue an ISG on 22 evaluating the remaining subsurface residual radioactivity for 23 decommissioning activities. Previous decommissioning plans and LTPs, 24 such as La Crosse and Zion, developed site-specific approaches for open 25
excavation assessments. This new ISG builds off the lessons we've learned, 1
while providing a variety of approaches that licensees can use to address this 2
issue. We're also considering developing an ISG on discrete radiological 3
particles, or DRPs. This will expand on our guidance for information that's to 4
be potentially included in a License Termination Plan.
5 NRC generic communications continue to be used to 6
address issues found throughout oversight activities. For example, in 7
September of 2023, we issued an Information Notice on Fire Protection for 8
Decommissioning Reactor Sites. Currently, we're developing an Information 9
Notice on Contamination Control While Performing Decommissioning 10 Activities. That will be issued in FY24.
11 In May of
- 2023, we hosted the first Reactor 12 Decommissioning Lessons Learned Workshop. This workshop was very 13 successful in bringing decommissioning reactor licensees together to share 14 information and lessons learned.
15 We continue to conduct an annual workshop with our 16 Agreement State partners on uranium recovery. The workshop provides an 17 opportunity to discuss issues, operational experiences, and best practices.
18 The scope of this workshop was expanded to include low-level radioactive 19 waste in FY 2023.
20 We're also currently reviewing NEI Report 22-01. This 21 report will help assist decommissioning reactor licensees in the development 22 and implementation of License Termination Plans that satisfy NRC 23 requirements and align with current best practices. We plan to provide our 24 final feedback on the report in 2024 and believe that it will help improve the 25
quality of future submittals, and therefore, allow a more timely review by the 1
staff. This concludes my presentation, and I'll now turn it over to Amy Snyder.
2 Next slide, please.
3 MS. SNYDER: Thank you, Jane. Good morning, Chair 4
Hanson and Commissioners. My name is Amy Snyder and I am a Senior 5
Project Manager in NMSS. Today, I will be discussing how NMSS has been 6
able to successfully use risk insights, historical data, and real-time field 7
information in our views and decisionmaking. By doing so, it has enabled us 8
to better understand first-of-a-kind challenges and address them in a timely 9
manner while maintaining safety. Next slide, please.
10 We have successfully used risk principles and information 11 to overcome challenges and inform decisionmaking during licensing reviews.
12 For example, the review of San Onofre Nuclear Generation Station's request 13 to reduce the ISFSI-controlled area boundary required us to involve multiple 14 disciplines across the agency, including physical security, radiation safety, 15 spent fuel safety, environmental, and emergency preparedness for this first-16 of-a-kind exemption request. This multidisciplinary team identified that 17 comprehensive review criteria did not exist, but were able to identify how 18 different review criteria could be used to address the issue. The team aligned 19 early on and used qualitative and quantitative analysis to identify what was 20 acceptable to making a safety decision.
21 After this integrated, risk-informed approach, the staff 22 clearly knew what information they needed to focus on and how that would 23 impact public health and safety. This cleared the way for completing the 24 review in a few months. The integrative approach was also used for safety 25
analysis, security, and environmental reviews. Overall, the staff saved about 1
six months using this approach. We appreciate the teamwork with OGC and 2
NSIR on this challenging review.
3 Next, I would like to discuss a recently completed Three Mile 4
Island Station Unit 2 review. There were initially many questions from staff 5
and the public regarding whether it would be safe to transition from post-6 defueling, monitored storage status, which it had been in for nearly 30 years, 7
to active DECON, or active decommissioning.
8 During this review, the staff assessed the hazards 9
associated with the potential uncertainties related to the overall inventory of 10 the fuel debris and the material left in the pressure vessel. Staff used risk 11 insights to evaluate alternative scenarios and the adequacy of the safety 12 margins for the no significant hazards consideration determination related to 13 the proposed actions.
14 These insights enabled reviewers to consider similar ranges 15 of uncertainty and assumptions. This resulted in the team being able to 16 complete the review for the technical specification amendment, which 17 eventually led to site transition to DECON status. Next slide, please.
18 Using risk insights in planning and executing confirmatory 19 surveys has been invaluable to resolve potential uncertainty gaps or to confirm 20 licensees' field work, helping us to complete safety reviews associated with a 21 site's unrestricted releases. This was exemplified in a recent completion of 22 Zion Unit 1 and 2 site unrestricted release. Significant progress was 23 achieved once the NRC review team implemented a risk-informed approach 24 for strategy development and implementation of the NRC confirmatory 25
surveys of the site.
1 By integrating insights, how decommissioning activities 2
occurred across the site, and the results of a licensee's surveys, the team 3
constructed a confirmatory survey plan that focused on areas that had the 4
highest probability of the presence of potential residential discrete radioactive 5
particles. The confirmatory survey results helped to resolve staff's concerns 6
with information under review related to the licensee's past contamination 7
control practices, survey methods, and final status survey results.
8 The top two photos are from Zion during the subsurface 9
investigations. The photo on the top left is an example of an excavation area 10 that was scanned for residual radioactive material -- "scan" meaning inside 11 the surfaces, excavation surfaces and the soil that was also removed. The 12 photo on the top right is an example of soil samples being retrieved from an 13 excavation.
14 The confirmatory survey at Zion covered 128 final status 15 survey units. And at the conclusion of obtaining information, we were able to 16 make decisions about the unrestricted release for the site. This approach 17 helped to address data challenges open since April 2021 and enabled us to 18 make final determination that ensured public health and safety.
19 Another project was the Surface Ship Support Barge, 20 referred to as SSSB. This was a unique, first-of-a-kind project that was 21 conducted at a shipyard in Mobile, Alabama. It was a pilot project to 22 demonstrate whether the Navy could successfully use NRC decommissioning 23 requirements and inspection program to assist with the Navy's oversight of 24 commercial decommissioning projects.
25
The ship had a wet pit akin to a spent fuel pool. The photo 1
in the bottom middle is what the wet pit looked like inside the ship. Each 2
segment of the ship was transported by a crane to a huge containment tent 3
and size-reduced and packaged as waste. The photo on the bottom left is 4
how the shipyard broke up the parts of the ship during decommissioning. And 5
lastly, in the bottom right of the photo is a photo of the NRC contractor 6
surveying the floor during confirmatory survey after the containment tent was 7
disassembled.
8 For the review, the NRC was able to demonstrate how a 9
risk-informed, performance-based approach can be used for such projects 10 while meeting any additional requirements the Navy may have had. Staff 11 developed a risk-informed confirmatory survey plan for this project that 12 focused on active decommissioning areas of the highest risk, such as the area 13 where the ship was segmented and waste-loading areas. After the two 14 confirmatory survey visits, the staff and the Navy aligned on the use of the 15 MARSSIM approach, which avoided a third confirmatory survey. Future 16 reviews with the Navy will continue to become more efficient, as we gather 17 and share lessons learned from the SSSB completion.
18 This concludes my presentation, and now, I'd like to turn the 19 presentation over to Cynthia Barr. Next slide, please.
20 MS. BARR: Thank you, Amy. Good morning, Chair 21 Hanson and Commissioners. My name is Cynthia Barr, and I'm a Senior Risk 22 Analyst in NMSS.
23 Today, I'll be discussing NRC's efforts to update 24 decommissioning guidance to increase transparency in our license 25
termination process and allow a more efficient, effective, and predictable 1
decommissioning process. Next slide, please.
2 NRC staff review of licensee decommissioning documents 3
has emphasized the need for enhancements in decommissioning guidance 4
related to radiological surveys and dose modeling to support license 5
termination.
6 Multiple NRC-sponsored decommissioning workshops and 7
several other public meetings and interactions with industry in recent years 8
have helped NRC and industry identify areas of disconnect and reach closer 9
alignment on acceptable methods to demonstrate compliance with dose-10 based release criteria.
11 In one example, current federal guidance on radiological 12 surveys found in MARSSIM only addresses surveys of surface residual 13 radioactivity, such as surface soils or building surfaces, while almost all 14 complex sites have significant quantities of subsurface residual radioactivity.
15 In fact, that's what makes them complex.
16 Limited guidance in this area has led to evaluation of 17 licensees' subsurface remedial and final set of survey plans on a case-by-18 case basis. To address this gap, the staff developed Interim Guidance to 19 extend MARSSIM, which you heard about earlier, to hard-to-access locations 20 in the subsurface, including open excavations, reactor basement 21 substructures, plan for backfill, and the actual backfill materials themselves.
22 These types of staff reviews are a source of a significant number of RAIs 23 related to the sufficiency of the radiological surveys to support the conclusion 24 that the dose-based standards could be met for surface residual radioactivity 25
that would remain at the site.
1 Sufficient survey support is especially important for 2
subsurface materials due to the difficulty in surveying the materials after you 3
backfill. Therefore, the ISG is expected to provide confidence to our 4
licensees on acceptable methods to demonstrating compliance with our 5
release criteria for buried materials, while promoting more consistent NRC 6
staff reviews of decommissioning and final status surveys. In fact, NEI has 7
communicated the usefulness of the ISG in plants to supplement their 8
technical report NEI 22-01 with additional guidance provided in the Interim 9
Staff Guidance. Next slide, please.
10 More challenging issues of interest to the United States 11 have benefitted from international collaboration. For example, I discussed 12 NRC staff involvement with that ISG to extend MARSSIM to open surfaces 13 and the subsurface, but perhaps a more difficult problem to address is 14 subsurface surveys to support a decision regarding the need for remediation 15 before any major soil-disturbing activities actually occur.
16 Since undisturbed subsurface soils cannot be easily 17 scanned with relatively cheap field instrumentation, due to attenuation of 18 radioactivity in the soil column, you would need downhole gamma 19 measurements; you know, have to drill boreholes or use more expensive 20 laboratory sampling, potentially substantial volumes of subsurface soil.
21 Therefore, a method to optimize the best locations to place those boreholes 22 and take those measurements or samples is needed to make more confident 23 decisions regarding remediation and compliance, considering limited 24 resources.
25
NRC chairs the NEA Working Party on the Technical, 1
Environmental, and Safety Aspects of Decommissioning and Legacy 2
Management, or WPTES, which recently hosted an International 3
Decommissioning Innovation Workshop, as shown on the figure on the top 4
right. We had over 140 experts from all over the world participating in the 5
workshop with a number of presentations from world-renowned experts in the 6
field of geostatistics. These presentations showed various examples of use 7
of geospatial methods to facilitate selection of sampling locations, make 8
predictions where no data exists, and support remedial and compliance 9
decisionmaking.
10 Building on the workshop findings, an NEA expert group 11 was created to explore the uses of geospatial methods to optimize subsurface 12 survey designs and support more efficient and effective decisionmaking.
13 During the WPTES Innovation Workshop, several presentations were also 14 made on the use of drones for engineer cover, monitoring, and maintenance, 15 and radiological mapping, as shown on the figure on the bottom right.
16 There is increasing global interest on the use of various 17 delivery methods and platforms for the collection of large quantities of 18 radiological survey information, but, currently, no guidance on how to process 19 that type of data. Therefore, the expert group was also tasked with 20 developing a standardized approach for analysis of what we call continuously 21 collected data to demonstrate compliance.
22 Recommendations and conclusions of the expert group in 23 these two areas will be considered as NRC continues to develop guidance 24 and tools to address more complex radiological surveys of the surface and the 25
subsurface. Next slide, please.
1 Using both international and domestic experience, NRC is 2
developing updated guidance to address current and future technical 3
challenges related to nuclear facility decommissioning. The NRC is not 4
stopping with development of just guidance. Partnering with our Office of 5
Research, we are also developing practical tools necessary to implement the 6
new methodologies laid out in guidance. These tools will help synthesize 7
complex technical information into easy-to-understand results that will 8
facilitate communication of risk information to our stakeholders.
9 PNNL's Visual Sample Plan computer code used to design 10 radiological surveys has been extended to three dimensions, and we're also 11 further updating it to consider anisotropy and variogram fitting and kriging.
12 Additionally, use of artificial intelligence and machine-learning methods has 13 been proposed to combine different types of data to facilitate subsurface 14 property assignment, for example, or to analyze radiological survey data, 15 among other potential uses.
16 Staying vigilant and ensuring NRC's regulatory readiness to 17 address emerging technologies in the field of radiological survey methods, 18 NRC is also sponsoring work to visualize and analyze big data, such as 19 continuously collected data collected with a variety of platforms, including 20 drones, as depicted on this slide. This work will help us maintain flexibility in 21 methods used by licensees to demonstrate compliance and could result in 22 significant efficiencies in time spent on supporting and reviewing the technical 23 basis for license termination, while supporting more effective decisionmaking.
24 And with that, I conclude my presentation, and I will now turn 25
it over to Gehan Flanders to discuss regional decommissioning activities.
1 MS. FLANDERS: Thank you, Cynthia. And good 2
morning, Chair Hanson and Commissioners. My name is Gehan Flanders.
3 I am a Health Physicist in Region III, and I have been with the Agency for two 4
years. Today I will give an overview of the reactor and the materials of 5
decommissioning inspection activities. This will include how the NRC is 6
providing effective oversight of decommissioning activities to ensure safety 7
and protect the environment as our efforts to build constructive relationship 8
with local communities through public engagement. Next slide please.
9 As mentioned before, the Regions play a critical role in 10 ensuring the safety of the decommissioning program through the 11 implementation of our inspection program. The inspection program enables 12 us to monitor the entire lifecycle of a site undergoing decommissioning. This 13 is important because it allows us to not only focus on sites that are actively 14 decommissioning, it also allows us to provide oversight of facilities that are 15 dormant, and those adjacent to operating reactors.
16 The photo on the right shows Region IV conducting 17 inspection activities at the GEH Vallecitos BWR to confirm that the licensees 18 actions during the removal of the reactor vessel did not create significance 19 environmental impacts. The top left photo from the Region I is offering 20 inspectors at Vermont Yankee observing radioactive waste movement and 21 segmentation. The photo on the bottom right shows Vermont Yankee's 22 current state of decommissioning. The photo on the bottom left is showing 23 how Region III conducted extensive confirmatory surveys and did sampling at 24 Zion. Next slide please.
25
Now I will briefly talk about how our staff has engaged with 1
our external stakeholders regarding decommissioning activities. Specifically 2
I will discuss two recent examples that highlight our efforts in this area.
3 Our staff foster transparency and engagement at Palisades, 4
Pilgrim, and Indian Point community meetings consistent with the NRC's best 5
practices for establishment and operation of local community advisory boards 6
associated with decommissioning activities at nuclear power plants. This 7
engagement is shown on the top image.
8 The second example is how we have partnered with DOE 9
legacy management and the State of New Mexico to engage with the local 10 tribe of Pueblo of Acoma regarding the decommissioning uranium recovery 11 sites. The photo on the bottom left shows a community engagement to go 12 onsite in New Mexico where several NRC staff were able to accompany them 13 on the site and engage with the group. These engagements have allowed 14 the staff to communicate transparency with individuals outside the agency to 15 answer any questions or concerns they may have and to share knowledge 16 and information about the process with stakeholders, including the public, 17 media, local leaders and officials. We also believe there is great value in 18 being out onsite to ensure we have the most comprehensive information 19 available to fulfill our mission and assist us in making and forming regulatory 20 decisions. This concludes my presentation. And I will now turn it over to 21 John to close out this part of the briefing. Next slide please.
22 MR. LUBINSKI: Thank you, Gehan. I would like to thank 23 all our presenters today. I would also like to thank all the folks within the NRC 24 that are part of this business line and contributed to all the accomplishments 25
and success. And I appreciate their safety focus as they continue to 1
implement our mission. With that, that concludes our presentation this 2
morning, and we're open to any questions. Thank you.
3 CHAIR HANSON: All right. Thanks, John. And thanks 4
to the rest of the panel. I'll start off, kick off questions this morning.
5 Jane, I think I'm going to start with you. And I've got some 6
questions I think about, how we're kind of planning for the workload on license 7
termination plans, how many of those we see kind of coming down the pipe.
8 And how is it, how are we adapting when sites are maybe changing their 9
schedules or changing when it is they think that they're going to maybe finish 10 up. And maybe some of that's easy because it's ten years down the road, 11 but it's also possible that some of it is a little nearer term. So you kind of 12 expand on that a little bit?
13 MS. MARSHALL: Okay. Thank you, Chair, for the 14 question. Yes, I will agree that the changes that are further out, you know, 15 eight, ten years out, are much easier to plan for. The near-term changes we 16 do use the add/shed/defer process if it is a change that impacts planned work 17 versus how much staff we have available. So we prioritize it that way.
18 Currently in-house we have five LTPs that we're reviewing.
19 We're expecting two more in 2024. There is a pretty good possibility that 20 there will be an additional third new LTP coming in, in that time.
21 CHAIR HANSON: Okay.
22 MS. MARSHALL: Yes.
23 CHAIR HANSON: Yes, thank you. This is maybe a 24 question for both you and Amy. And I'm interested in, I guess, in some of the 25
changes. We mentioned La Cross and Zion, but particularly Zion. And, 1
Amy, you mentioned kind of a risk-informed approach to confirmatory surveys.
2 And I know a lot of, or the bulk of the decommissioning work at Zion had been 3
done for quite some time, and a lot of that confirmatory survey was what, kind 4
of what needed to be done in order to authorize site release.
5 Can you talk a little bit more about why that additional, why 6
those additional confirmatory surveys were needed and how exactly the risk-7 informed approach was applied? I mean, you talked about a risk-informed 8
approach but we still did, I think 128, 128 final status surveys and other things.
9 And presumably there were surveys kind of before that that were preliminary.
10 So can you kind of talk about that process and explain a little bit more about 11 how a risk-informed approach was applied?
12 MS. MARSHALL: You want me to start and I'll --
13 MS. SNYDER: Sure.
14 MS. MARSHALL: -- ask you to add some of the detail. So 15 at Zion we looked at kind of discrete radioactive particles that were being 16 found, and where they were being found, and focused in on a few smaller 17 areas that needed additional cleaning. So once the site had done additional 18 remediation, they had to do another final status survey to document the results 19 of that additional remediation.
20 We also considered the types of DRPs that were found and 21 what that indicated as far as risk. So it was a very risk-based. And that 22 allowed us to move through, focus on areas of concern, and ultimately lead to 23 site license termination.
24 CHAIR HANSON: Got it. It was the discovery of the 25
discrete radioactive particles and the need to remediate those in order to get 1
us to our greenfield --
2 MS. MARSHALL: Yes.
3 CHAIR HANSON: -- to the greenfield status requirement?
4 Okay, thank you. Helpful.
5 MS. MARSHALL: Okay, thanks.
6 CHAIR HANSON: You're off the hook, Amy. Jane, you 7
mentioned briefly that NRC has been collaborating with DOE on 8
evapotranspiration covers --
9 MS. MARSHALL: Yes.
10 CHAIR HANSON: -- and the performance of those at 11 uranium mill tailings site. Can you elaborate a little bit on that work and 12 maybe what DOE or NRC has found about the long-term performance, or 13 some preliminary indicators about the long-term performance of ET covers?
14 MS. MARSHALL: Okay, sure. So the ET covers, the idea 15 is to minimize any radon coming out of the tailings pile, and to prevent 16 infiltration of additional water into the pile which generates a groundwater 17 plume, which is another remediation concern that we have. We've been 18 working with Department of Energy on different strategies. So the ET cover, 19 you have to find a balance between enough vegetation to keep it from eroding 20 and vegetation that doesn't have very deep roots that would then pierce the 21 radon barrier. So finding the right vegetation is, and getting it to be 22 established so that it will stay, has been a bit of a challenge.
23 CHAIR HANSON: There is something outside of the, I 24 mean, you know, if I think back about the approval of the license amendment 25
for Church Rock, right, we had a relatively discrete kind of intense monitoring 1
period of, say five years --
2 MS. MARSHALL: Right.
3 CHAIR HANSON: -- after that pile was covered with the ET 4
cover, et cetera. But is there a, are there kind of longer term considerations?
5 My understanding was that DOE was finding some issues with ET covers that 6
had been in place for, say 20 or 25 years, and starting to see some 7
performance issues with those. And I'm wondering how that might inform our 8
work or how that might, or how the collaboration with DOE on that front is kind 9
of happening and what changes we might make up front in that process to 10 better ensure kind of long-term performance?
11 MS. MARSHALL: So the concerns are mainly erosion.
12 CHAIR HANSON: Yes.
13 MS. MARSHALL: Which is, yes, you lose the cover 14 through erosion. Some of the, there are different ways that you can prevent 15 erosion riprap but it can erode from around the material for that, which is why 16 vegetation becomes important.
17 Long-term monitoring is the piece of the equation for all of 18 this. That's why we turn the sites over to DOE legacy management. And 19 they do have a long-term monitoring role. And they can repair those ET 20 covers if necessary. Ideally, which is more what we shoot for, is that the 21 cover is designed and then placed in such a way that they don't erode and it 22 doesn't require a lot of maintenance.
23 CHAIR HANSON: Yes.
24 MS. MARSHALL: We've had some other cases where the 25
tailing material settles and so then you end up with a kind of a --
1 CHAIR HANSON: A pond --
2 MS. MARSHALL: -- pond --
3 CHAIR HANSON: -- on top.
4 MS. MARSHALL: -- on top of the --
5 (Simultaneously Speaking.)
6 MS. MARSHALL: -- which is not ideal. Yes. You get an 7
impoundment for areas of intense participation, so.
8 CHAIR HANSON: Well good. I'm glad we're actively 9
involved in that and collaborating with legacy management and others on that, 10 so thank you. With that, I'll hand it over to Commissioner Wright.
11 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: Thank you. Good morning.
12 MS. MARSHALL: Good morning.
13 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: And thank each of you for 14 your presentations. There is a lot going on. And just always is in your area 15 of job. John, I'm going to start with you this morning. You know, you 16 mentioned the license that we issued with Rare Earth Resources. Can you 17 tell me a little bit more about Rare Earth and the timeline for approving the 18 license?
19 MR. LUBINSKI: Yes. Actually, I'll turn to Jane for that 20 one. She can talk about the amendment that did come in last year. We 21 issued the final, or not amendment, the license application. We did issue the 22 license in July this year. And then, Jane, if you could talk a little bit about the 23 overall schedule and what the scope of that amendment covered, I'd 24 appreciate it.
25
MS. MARSHALL: Okay.
1 MR. LUBINSKI: Or license.
2 MS. MARSHALL: Thanks. Thanks, John. We spent 3
nine months on this review. It was a limited review because it is a license for 4
a pilot project. We had some other advantages that helped us keep that tight 5
timeline for review. It was a good submittal, high quality submittal as always.
6 Easier and faster to review. We had meetings with the licensee ahead of 7
time. And the, both of the scope of what they're doing, being a pilot, kept it 8
small. And the footprint of the site is smaller than a lot of the sites that we 9
deal with. So for that we were able to complete it in nine months.
10 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: Anything you learned going 11 forward that you would be able to apply some good stuff?
12 MS. MARSHALL: Yes. We do encourage all licensees to 13 take advantage of pre-submittal meetings because that way we can make sure 14 that they understand what the staff is looking for. And the staff can 15 understand the scope of the license that they're intending to apply for, which 16 helps us plan our work better.
17 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: Good. It's always good to 18 get that on the record. Thank you.
19 MS. MARSHALL: Yes.
20 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: So, Jane, I'm going to stay 21 with you for a second here. You mentioned in your presentation a 22 decommissioned lessons learned meeting, right?
23 MS. MARSHALL: Yes.
24 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: Were there particular 25
highlights from that meeting that were interesting and could help maybe inform 1
us moving forward?
2 MS. MARSHALL: Yes. I was really encouraged by that 3
meeting because prior to that decommissioning is a little bit different than 4
operating reactors. Decommissioning is like most commercial ventures, a 5
fairly competitive market. And at this meeting the decommissioning 6
companies got together and were very candid about some of the struggles 7
that they had encountered. Whether it was DRPs and how to avoid 8
generating DRPs to other issues that would extend the timeline for 9
decommissioning to including best practices for reaching out to the local 10 community and involving the local community in the decommissioning 11 process. So being able to bring together that group of commercial 12 competitors and share lessons learned was really a unique and, in my mind, 13 very encouraging for the industry.
14 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: So they actually --
15 MS. MARSHALL: Yes.
16 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: -- shared everything and --
17 MS. MARSHALL: Yes. They were very candid.
18 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: Good.
19 MS. MARSHALL: Yes.
20 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: Thank you. John, I'm going 21 to come back to you real quick here. You mentioned that you all were 22 revising and adding new training courses for decommissioning and low-level 23 waste. So I mentioned learning how these training courses kind of are 24 planned across your business line. And I'm aware that we have requests for 25
more training in areas that we already offer, especially from Agreement States.
1 So my question is, how do you balance adding the new training with making 2
sure we have enough openings in the courses we already have?
3 MR. LUBINSKI: Thanks. Appreciate that question. And 4
as I said, knowledge management is very important, and especially as we 5
continue to hire new folks into the organization. If I could just go back briefly.
6 Some of the challenges that we had were with the hiring across the programs.
7 We'll talk later about more in the NMU program.
8 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: Sure.
9 MS. MARSHALL: And the national materials program.
10 But there was a lot of Agreement State participation. Eighty percent of the 11 licensees are in the Agreement States, and they have the same hiring and 12 training challenges we had.
13 A lot of the challenges associated with providing that training 14 were being able to have enough seats in the class for folks to come in. It was 15 also then with seats in the class, how many instructors do you have. We had 16 a limited amount of instructors that were working those activities.
17 The training I talked about earlier in my discussion was more 18 related to this business line. The first training I mentioned was actually a 19 revision to a current training right now. So that class we had no problems 20 from the standpoint of the number of people that needed it. It was a much 21 smaller population of folks.
22 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: Right.
23 MR. LUBINSKI: Again, I mentioned this is a smaller 24 business line. Even within the Agreement States, there is a smaller group of 25
people so we didn't see as much of a concern there.
1 Also, these training class lend themselves to be ones that 2
can be done remotely. So when you're talking about training online or 3
remote-type training, you don't have the limitations for the number of seats 4
and the number of people that can be in those classes. With that said, there 5
is still a balance to the development of the training as well as our technical 6
experts here who will be performing that training.
7 Jane mentioned the add/shed process earlier, and it's really 8
the investment in the future. At NMSS our focus areas are people, trust, and 9
workloads. We hit one of them was workload, but it also supports the other 10 of the people and how do you make sure they're trained. So we balance that 11 priority. But I don't see the similar type challenges that we saw with the other 12 programs.
13 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: Okay, thank you. Thank 14 you. Cynthia, you mentioned the use of AI and machine learning in 15 decommissioning, so I want to get you to tell me a little bit more about this.
16 Are you talking about the NRC using these methods or is it something that the 17 licensee would be using and we'd be regulating?
18 MS. BARR: Well currently it's just internally driven. Right 19 now, I had mentioned specifically some of our contractor work and proposals-20 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: Right.
21 MS. BARR: -- for subsurface. So we have two contracts 22 now with Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Pacific Northwest national 23 Laboratory. And both of our contractors working on subsurface had 24 proposed the use of mainly ML methods.
25
For example, ORNL has proposed use of ML for variogram 1
modeling. Or selecting the variogram model, which is a key component of 2
geostatistical modeling. So you can think of using data and training that data 3
to identify, if we're talking about animals, cats or dogs or other source of 4
animals, then in this case it would be identifying certain variogram models.
5 PNNL has also proposed use of ML methods and deep 6
learning to combine different disparate data sources --
7 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: Right.
8 MS. BARR: -- including geophysical data, and also 9
radiological data. So they actually have an example where they have 10 combined these different data sets to identify high probability areas in the 11 subsurface that are pathways for containment and transport.
12 More routinely here at the NRC we have also used 13 neuronetworks and other machine learning technics to perform probabilistic 14 sensitivity analysis. So we may be presenting that as a use case as part of 15 the initiative at the starting. Thank you.
16 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: Thank you. Thank you very 17 much. Gehan, how are you?
18 MS. FLANDERS: Thank you.
19 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: So since you're one of our 20 newer employees, two years, right?
21 MS. FLANDERS: Yes.
22 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: I'd like to hear your thoughts 23 because I believe you might bring a little, well, like a fresh perspective, right?
24 How do you feel about the relationship between the 25
licensing staff and the inspection staff, especially given the back and forth, 1
between the two, during the decommissioning process? Talk with me about 2
maybe your experience with the coordination. Is the back and forth helpful to 3
you, confusing or does it, you know, take time, tell me --
4 MS. FLANDERS: Absolutely. Thank you, Commissioner, 5
for the question. I truly appreciate it. I would say the Agency licensing and 6
inspection staff, they have been working together as one team. They are 7
doing such a great job. And this is based on my own experience.
8 We both make sure we ensure we have a common 9
understanding of the site as a whole. We cooperate together, we work it 10 together for a periodic meeting, which would be calls with the licensee, site 11 visits, what is ongoing activities. We also sometimes, the licensing staff 12 would assist inspectors in licensing basis in support of, with changing an 13 inspection finding. And also inspectors would assist the licensing staff for like 14 the current status of the site, like ongoing activities. And that would be used 15 for any ongoing licensing actions.
16 So in summary, we all work together as one team. And we 17 all make sure that at the site, at any site, we will work together to carry out the 18 agency mission to protect the public and the environment.
19 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: Thank you very much for that 20 answer. That was very good, thank you.
21 CHAIR HANSON: Thank you, Commissioner Wright.
22 Commissioner Caputo.
23 COMMISSIONER CAPUTO: Good morning. Thank you 24 all for being here. I'd like to commend the staff for wrapping up Zion 1 and 2, 25
and La Crosse. Zion ceased operations, or I should say shut down for the 1
last time, three days prior to my joining the company. So that was quite a 2
long time ago. And it spent a long time in SAFSTOR and a fair amount of 3
time in decommissioning. So it's quite a milestone achievement for this 4
Agency in bringing that to closure. So thank you for all that work.
5 I'm going to continue on, I think, in a vein where the 6
Chairman was asking about surveys and some risk-informing. Cynthia, you 7
talked about the challenge of subsurface contamination, right, and the search 8
for it. Where to look for it, techniques on how to find it. But that sort of puts 9
us in a position of trying to prove a negative. Right? Which in inspection 10 space, and Gehan you may want to contribute here as well, how do you 11 balance the search for a negative trying to verify that there isn't subsurface 12 contamination, with being risk-informed and focusing your efforts on 13 something that is safety significant? How do you draw that line?
14 MS. BARR: Excellent question, thanks. Well, MARSSIM 15 already has a graded approach to performing these types of radiological 16 surveys so that you can make confident decisions, eliminating decision errors 17 on the ability to meet our dose-based standards. So we have attempted to 18 extend those MARSSIM principles to the subsurface.
19 So a key component to MARSSIM is a historical site 20 assessment. And so that's using all the historical information, 21 documentation, including interviews with workers, that sort of thing, to identify 22 areas that are potentially impacted versus not impacted. And if they are 23 found to be impacted based on the historical site assessment, a graded 24 approach is used in classifying those survey units as Class 1, 2 or 3 based on 25
risk. It's a little bit more difficult for subsurface because you can't easily see 1
it. So the licensee has information and knowledge about any burials, any 2
piping that carried radioactive materials that could potentially have leaked.
3 We have a rulemaking that asked the licensees to 4
immediately investigate if there are any leaks or spills and to clean up those 5
areas so it doesn't become a problem later on in a legacy site's created. So 6
we're not asking any information, but we use all that information.
7 We can even supplement that information with modeling 8
that kind of reflects the containment transport, and the potential for other areas 9
or pathways in the subsurface that are more difficult to survey to supplement 10 that information.
11 COMMISSIONER CAPUTO: So you mentioned that 12 MARSSIM previously didn't address subsurface, but now you're pursuing 13 subsurface. So were there historical examples that you found that drove that 14 expectation that changed, or is it speculation about what you expect to find in 15 the future, based on spills that you've seen presently?
16 MS. BARR: I think in the past they took kind of a brute force 17 method and evaluated subsurface contamination on a case-by-case basis.
18 So there was no real standardized approach for how you would go about doing 19 those surveys and how many samples you needed to take, what class would 20 apply. And so now we are providing that clarity and that transparency so that 21 it's a little bit more efficient and our decisions are more effectively and long 22 lasting. So hopefully we're just providing -- I'm sorry, did I not answer your 23 question?
24 COMMISSIONER CAPUTO: So if historically it was on a 25
case-by-case basis and now you're doing it across the board, how is that more 1
efficient?
2 MS. BARR: Because before they didn't know what to do 3
and they would go back-and-forth with the NRC. The NRC would have a 4
bunch of requests for additional information. They didn't know what exposure 5
scenarios to consider. Then they would have to go back and redo their 6
models, derive cleanup levels all over again.
7 So at this point in time we think we have enough clarity and 8
experience from our work on all these sites in the past to be able to put 9
together good practices and develop the guidance to a point where the whole 10 process should be a little bit more efficient. And better decisions are going to 11 be made from it as well.
12 COMMISSIONER CAPUTO: Okay, thank you. Ms.
13 Snyder, you talked about a successful example where risk principles 14 addressed issues and informed decision making and led to savings of six 15 months using risk, an integrated risk-informed approach. How did the team 16 focus on the information they needed to reach safety findings? Is there a 17 process used?
18 MS. SNYDER: Thank you for the question, Commissioner.
19 At first, we used the NRC process, Be riskSMART, but it seemed to be focused 20 on the area itself, the technical area that each person had. And it wasn't until 21 we looked at an integrated approach on how that information would be used.
22 For example, a terrorist analysis result would be used in the environmental 23 review, because the reviewer for the terrorist analyst knew what to do, but that 24 end result, how it fits into the environmental assessment, was difficult to 25
comprehend. So each, it wasn't until we integrated the team and 1
understanding of how we're using this information did we have a 2
breakthrough.
3 COMMISSIONER CAPUTO: Okay. So, John, Ive got a 4
leadership question for you. Right? We got a lot of dedicated people at the 5
Agency, and I am a firm believer that people will meet expectations. And if 6
we set ambitious but achievable goals, we have a lot of talented folks that will 7
strive to meet those goals.
8 So how, from a leadership perspective, and in terms of the 9
culture of the Agency, how do we empower staff to make risk-informed 10 decisions and strive for schedule savings and reaching a conclusion, an 11 efficient conclusion to the work, rather than seek, then effectively using the 12 maximum time allowed under milestones and generic schedules?
13 MR. LUBINSKI: Thank you. So let me use the Zion as an 14 example. You complimented the staff, and I want to thank you for that 15 compliment as well. And I want to compliment the staff in working across the 16 agency. You said many talented people. That was an effort that was not 17 just a headquarter staff, but the regional staff working very closely together on 18 that.
19 And the expectation for that, and I'll use, again, as the 20 example going forward, how we set the expectation. The expectation is to 21 meet our mission of safety. In that case, when the staff was going through 22 the process it was identified that what was expected at the site was not what 23 was discovered during the survey. I think one of the questions was a 24 preliminary survey. It was not, it was actually a final status survey we were 25
doing. And the staff, and it was ahead of schedule, right? They were 1
looking, they weren't looking at schedules saying, we're just going to go butt 2
up against a final schedule it was, how can we do this in the most effective 3
way.
4 The minute they hit and said, we have a problem here 5
because we found this discrete radioactive particle, first we went back to the 6
licensee, because again, the licensee is responsible for the cleanup. When 7
it was clear that the licensee could not demonstrate they were meeting the 8
exact items in their license termination plan, the staff then said, how do we 9
look at this in a new and unique way? Because again, they were, we could 10 have just said, well no, you need to follow the LTP, follow your process, go 11 back and do more surveys, do more cleanup. But the staff said, no, that is 12 not the goal of what we're trying to achieve. And I think that's how we're 13 setting the expectation is, how are you making a determination of something 14 safe or not. That's where the staff then looked at it and said, how do I pull in.
15 And it sounds like a lot, Chair, when you say 128 surveys 16 going out; rhat may sound like a lot. But when you're doing your third set of 17 surveys there and you're identifying items that were not expected and you 18 used risk insights to say, now that we've narrowed our focus and the majority 19 of those were done in areas where already discrete radioactive particles were 20 found, they could focus that area.
21 So it's set in the expectation to say to the folks, what is our 22 real goal of what we're trying to achieve. And that is site release. And I'm 23 using decommissioning as the example. How do we achieve site release in 24 the most effective way and an efficient way?
25
Then I'm going to go back where Amy brought up the 1
example earlier about the site boundary. Again, the licensee did not 2
necessarily need that site boundary in a certain amount of time. It's, you 3
know, they had business needs, but it was a longer-term time frame from when 4
they needed that. But the staff didn't put that on the back burner they said, 5
no, we have this unique issue in front of us today and how do we come up 6
with a resolution.
7 So again, it's what is the safety significance. In this case 8
there was a security significance. So the staff, we set the expectation, don't 9
be looking at schedules at this point be looking at what is needed to get the 10 process moving. As part of, Amy said starting with the Be riskSMART 11 approach, it was really integrating the team into those aspects of the Be 12 riskSMART to say, what is really needed to make the decision. And then 13 asked the question of, what information do we have, how much more do we 14 need, how do we get it. And that's where the staff did that in both of these 15 cases.
16 So from a leadership standpoint it's setting the expectation 17 for the result and then asking the staff, what is the most effective way of getting 18 towards that result and what is the efficient way. And I think these examples 19 show that those expectations are being realized, because I agree with you, 20 we've got a lot of talented people in the agency.
21 And when you set those expectations, they're going to rise 22 up to meet it, and they're going to do it in ways that we, as leaders, may not 23 have thought of because they know the way to get there. So I would really 24 be setting the what, not the how.
25
But on your point of schedules, schedules are important as 1
well, because that helps with prioritization of activities. And then that gets 2
into a leadership standpoint of re-prioritizing work. Certain activities are 3
going to come in. The question was asked earlier about schedules with 4
decommissioning and what are we going to do when more work comes in.
5 We may get other competing work in and we'll need to re-prioritize that based 6
on the business needs of licensees. Thanks.
7 COMMISSIONER CAPUTO: Thank you.
8 CHAIR HANSON: Thank you, Commissioner Caputo.
9 Commissioner Crowell.
10 COMMISSIONER CROWELL: Thank you, Mr. Chair.
11 Thank you to all the panelists today for your presentations.
12 You know, this business line may not get as much attention 13 and may not be as "sexy" as the new reactors business lines that we talk about 14 often, but your success is integral to their success and, you know, our broader 15 social license as an agency really rests on how well you guys do your job in 16 coordination with the public and the licensees. So it's important not to be 17 overlooked, so I appreciate what all that you do. And that goes for the next 18 panel as well.
19 I want to pick up on the topic that both the Chair and 20 Commissioner Caputo were talking about in terms of, and I think Cynthia, you 21 said it best. You've got improved efficiency and better data using the new 22 technics and technologies for monitoring. I assume that would also, with that 23 standardization and efficiency and improved data also comes cost savings?
24 MS. BARR: It's hard to quantify but we did do a regulatory 25
analysis for our updates to our decommissioning guidance and NUREG-1757, 1
as well as the interim staff guidance. And so we did estimate the number of 2
RAIs based on data that we had from previous reviews on how many RAIs we 3
could save having the issue to the licensees, their time, responding to those 4
RAIs and staff time reviewing the responses, as well as developing the RAIs 5
to begin with.
6 But there are also savings associated with reworks that are 7
more difficult to quantify if the licensee has to go back out to a site and perform 8
more surveys. Having to mobilize in order to do that is, you know, something 9
that adds to the cost. And so we just want to make sure that we're speaking 10 to industry, we understand what their needs are, what they want to do.
11 As an example, they like to use in situ gamma for hard to 12 access locations. They have these reactor building substructures that are 13 sometimes located deep in the ground, maybe under the watertable. And 14 they want to use this alternative method in order to do the surveys, which isn't 15 a traditional MARSSIM approach.
16 And so, we have taken the time to look and see, what are 17 the types of things that they've been trying to use, and where is our guidance 18 lacking in giving them the confidence to be able to use these alternative 19 methods. And it just doesn't extend to in situ gamma, there is probably 20 another ten examples.
21 So we tried to be responsive to industry, make sure that 22 we're doing adequate reviews that are going to be protective of human health 23 and safety at the same time, but doing it, again, in a smarter way. So I think 24 we're going to see some cost savings. Again, difficult to quantify but I think 25
I've named some examples.
1 COMMISSIONER CROWELL: Oh great, thank you. Kind 2
of an extension of that. I think, I don't know if it was Jane or Amy or who 3
mentioned it previously, but the engagement with industry on 4
decommissioning best practices. You had mentioned that it included best 5
practices for engaging local communities. Can you talk a little bit about, more 6
about what those best practices are?
7 MS. MARSHALL: Thank you. One of the best practices 8
that we've highlighted before is forming community advisory boards. And 9
they're local groups local to the decommissioning facility that kind of serve as 10 a focal point for interacting with the community and focusing community 11 concerns for that specific site. It is entirely up to the local public and the 12 licensee if they want to support that model to have that advisory board.
13 COMMISSIONER CROWELL: So when a community 14 advisory board is established, it doesn't arise organically out of necessarily 15 the community coming together to establish a advisory board, it was, it's NRC 16 suggesting or saying that this is one option for you to engage and we would 17 help you establish a community advisory board, is that --
18 MS. MARSHALL: We are not part of the community 19 advisory board, it is truly the community. We do support meetings as we're 20 invited to give presentations or be there to answer questions. I know Amy 21 has a meeting this evening with Indian Point, is it, advisory board?
22 MS. SNYDER: Three Mile Island.
23 MS. MARSHALL: Three Mile Island. Sorry. So I'll invite 24 you to give some more detail on how those --
25
COMMISSIONER CROWELL: And I don't want to cut you 1
off, and I know kind of the back and forth with the --
2 MS. SNYDER: I'll be glad to add a little bit more. So we 3
give presentations. We find that what, historically what has really helped is 4
to explain the NRC process and to explain the safety significance. For 5
example, the Pilgrim discharge. You know, what the NRC does, what our 6
process is, why it's safe and so forth. So, we're very instrumental in 7
explaining to the public the NRC ensures that what is being done at the site is 8
safe. So it also includes the inspection staff.
9 Also, as a project manager, I give feedback to the licensee 10 who sponsors, usually sponsors the community engagement panel. And also 11 at times to the community advisory board member as far as what might be 12 more effective or efficient as far as helping understand, helping the community 13 understand what's going on at the site right now as far as active 14 decommissioning. Or what's going to happen in the future. So we talk about 15 the inspection program, what was inspected, and what are the areas we'll be 16 keeping an eye on.
17 COMMISSIONER CROWELL: And these are all, you 18 know, good topics and good things to engage the public on. I guess I'm a 19 little unclear, even maybe concerned about, when we do public engagement 20 whether we're being proactive or reactive.
21 And, you know, and John, you're welcome to take this as 22 well because I know you said in your presentation that inspiring stakeholder 23 confidence is a business line priority. And I've learned at my time at the NRC 24 that the word stakeholder is not as straightforward or generic as I once 25
thought. It doesn't, I always took it to mean, anyone and everyone, including 1
the public and licensees. But often it is a subset of just, you know, certain 2
stakeholders who are specifically licensees or applicants.
3 And I just would like someone to kind of explain how we are 4
being proactive versus reactive in engaging the public directly or engaging the 5
public tangentially through proactive encouragement of a licensee, or a 6
community, in how they can engage their constituents in an effective way 7
because, you know, getting that going early is going to head off issues later, 8
because in my experience the big issues with decommissioning are lack of 9
understanding or misplaced facts. And the way to get ahead of that is to start 10 early. So whomever wants to take that.
11 MR. LUBINSKI: Thanks. If I can. If you don't mind, Jane 12 and Amy. It's definitely proactive. Let me start there. I mentioned earlier 13 that even our regulations require us to hold public meetings in the vicinity of 14 the site. You know, I'd have to search the regulations. There are very few 15 cases where our regulations actually require us to hold a public meeting and 16 require and hold in that area.
17 We assure that when we're sending out our documents that 18 we actually proactive reach out to our listservs of folks who have been involved 19 when the site was active, right? We do have the advantage in 20 decommissioning understanding who the folks were that were engaged with 21 the site during operation. We actively reach out to them to make them aware 22 of the meeting. We make them aware of all of the activities that we're doing.
23 I think you said, to the standpoint of educating and 24 understanding, there is a couple of things that, there is two parts to that. One 25
is educating them on the process that takes place at the site. What's being 1
done and what NRC's role is. There is also the process of engaging with 2
them to understand where they can engage in the process. And that's where 3
we're being proactive as well.
4 I'll mention at the next session about our meeting we had 5
with state liaison officers. That's an area where our regions to reach out to 6
the state liaison officers, Governor-appointed officials who work and 7
understand what's going on in the communities and what's important to them.
8 So we use that as a resource to be able to reach to and say, what are the 9
important issues, who are the important communities.
10 Finally we do have our tribal policy statement. And we 11 ensure that we reach out to tribal communities that are impacted as well in 12 going through the process. As an example, we do have our 13 decommissioning rulemaking. We issued a proposed rule, held a series of 14 public meetings in person. And again, reached out to the areas of the country 15 where we felt the folks were most engaged in decommissioning, had the most 16 to offer, and actively sought them out to attend the meeting so that we could 17 get active input from them vice just putting something out in the federal register 18 and saying, here it is, if you want to comment go for it. Instead we're saying, 19 no, we actually want to hear from you.
20 During the meetings also, as Jane said, we don't run the 21 community advisory board, we don't run the meetings. We offer our self as a 22 resource to them. Any time we're invited, I can't think of a time where we 23 turned down going to a meeting, but we go and talk about our roles and our 24 issues there. But we also take it as an opportunity to say, if people are there 25
for the community advisory meeting, we may hold a town hall earlier in the 1
day. It may hold it before or after the meting.
2 And kudos to our regional folks and headquarter folks that 3
attend in person, that stick around after the meeting, to actually seek out 4
people who engage during the meeting to have further discussion. So it's not 5
just that that takes place on the record during the meeting, but afterwards the 6
hallway conversations, the networking, and folks reaching out to have those 7
conversations in a very practical way.
8 COMMISSIONER CROWELL: That's helpful. It's a topic 9
I'd like to explore more with you and your staff at some point to see how we 10 can make tweaks to be even better in this regard. And I didn't get a chance 11 to pick up on ET covers, but I will do that in some other fashion later, so thank 12 you all.
13 CHAIR HANSON: Thank you, Commissioner Crowell.
14 And thanks to our first panel this morning, really appreciate everyone's effort 15 in getting ready for this meeting.
16 We're going to take a short break. We will reconvene just 17 a hair before 10:30. And again, thank you all for the presentations. Thanks 18 for the good discussion this morning and look forward to the second half.
19 (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went off the record 20 at 10:17 a.m. and resumed at 10:28 a.m.)
21 CHAIR HANSON: Okay. Thank you everyone.
22 Welcome back. The next staff panel will discuss the Nuclear Material Users 23 business line, and we're going to kick it off again with John Lubinski, our 24 Director of NMSS. John, the floor is yours.
25
MR. LUBINSKI: Good morning again, Chair and 1
Commissioners. Our second panel this morning features our Nuclear 2
Material Users or NMU business line. The folks in the business line work 3
diligently with a number of stakeholders and in partnership with Agreement 4
State colleagues to ensure safety and security of the National Materials 5
Program, or NMP.
6 For this morning's panel I will provide an overview of the 7
business line. Theresa Clark, our Deputy Director of the Division of Material 8
Safety, Security, State and Tribal Programs, will present how the business line 9
is positioning itself for the future, coordinating internationally and advancing 10 tribal outreach.
11 Sherrie Flaherty, a Senior Intergovernmental Liaison Project 12 Manager at NMSS will discuss the increasing effectiveness of 13 communications and enhancements to the national materials program that will 14 ensure continued success.
15 Robin Elliott, Senior Health Physicist in Region I, will discuss 16 how we are using Be riskSMART to enhance the materials inspection 17 program. And also provide an overview of emerging technologies and 18 guidance changes.
19 Joey Rolland, a Mechanical Engineer, and recently qualified 20 sealed source and device reviewer in NMSS, will talk about how we are 21 modernizing the staff qualification process for licence reviews and inspectors.
22 Next slide please. This business line has been the focus of 23 a large part of my NRC career. I actually began my career in the position 24 Joey Rolland is now, as a sealed source and device reviewer, and spent the 25
first nine years of my career in this business line. I find the work in the 1
business line to be very diverse, rewarding and fulfilling because of the direct 2
contribution of our work, the public health and safety in the daily lives of many 3
Americans.
4 The business line oversees and implements the national 5
materials program to enable the safe and secure use of radioactive materials 6
in medical, industrial and academic applications for beneficial civilian 7
purposes.
8 We implement our mission through effective partnership 9
between the NRC and Agreement States. We establish and maintain 10 effective communications and working relationships with local governments, 11 other, with local governments, other federal agencies and tribal nations to 12 promote greater awareness and mutual understanding of policies and 13 activities.
14 The NMP leads the licensing and oversight of more than 15 17,000 material licensees across the country. Medical and industrial uses of 16 radioactive sources are also a global business and have been for many years.
17 For this reason Theresa Clark will speak about international engagements on 18 source safety and security.
19 Roughly 200 full-time equivalent staff, or FTE, at the NRC 20 support this business line. About, 70 are in NMSS, 25 to 30 are in each of 21 the Regions I, III and IV. And the remainder are across several partner 22 offices at Headquarters.
23 Next slide please. This slide highlights some of the major 24 work activities that are driving the workload and the business line. The 25
common themes here are the novelty of the effort and the need for extensive 1
coordination and partnership.
2 We have several active rulemakings in the NMU business 3
line at various stages of development. These are major team projects that 4
involve NRC Headquarters, Regions and the Agreement States. Examples 5
include reporting requirements for extravasations, which is a very high public 6
interest, and will come to the Commission as a proposed rule this summer.
7 We also are working the fusion proposed rule. This 8
rulemaking the proposed rule will come to the Commission in the fall.
9 We are also working on emerging medical technologies for 10 which we completed the regulatory basis comment period last month. We 11 are assessing the public comments received and are preparing to work on the 12 proposed rule, which will come to the Commission by 2026.
13 Our Staff conduct licensing and inspection across a huge 14 variety of number of licensees. And we expend significant effort to develop 15 guidance tailored to the subject.
16 We are conducting a very high number of sealed source and 17 device reviews as we work to qualify multiple new hired staff. And we are 18 assuring a smooth transition of the sealed source and device program from 19 the State of New York back to the NRC.
20 We continue to ensure effective completion of inspections 21 in a timely manner. I would like to highlight a success story in this area.
22 Last year at this meeting we talked about the chance that 23 we may not ensure timely completion of inspections in accordance with our 24 metric. We mentioned last year that we were prioritizing inspection activities 25
to ensure the most risk significant activities were completed on time. Thanks 1
to early identification of the issue, near daily use of dashboards and other tools 2
we have from our web-based licensing, and most importantly, the cooperation 3
and teamwork across regions and headquarters, we met our metric.
4 In addition, the dashboards indicate that we are on target to 5
complete timely inspections in 2024. I want to thank the team across the 6
agency for this great accomplishment.
7 The image on this slide demonstrates teamwork. It is a 8
Region I inspector describing the high dose rate afterloader device in a Region 9
III license facility, to a Region III staff member, and an Indiana State Inspector 10 undergoing training.
11 Next slide please. The business line partners nationally to 12 increase stakeholder confidence and to build trust. One example in 2023 13 was when we hosted the National State Liaison Officer conference. This 14 conference serves as a form to discuss items of mutual interest between the 15 NRC and governor appointed state liaison officers.
16 The conference covered a wide range of nuclear safety and 17 security topics. Including emergency technologies in reactor and medical 18 applications, fusion energy systems, engagement with tribal nations, 19 emergency preparedness topics related to new reactors and 20 decommissioning, potential nation-wide large scale spent fuel shipments, and 21 source security.
22 Next slide please. Like the rest of the agency, the business 23 line has a priority on hiring staff to ensure it meets today's workload needs and 24 that it is ready for the unique challenges of tomorrow.
25
We had nine NRAN Staff that completed rotations in the 1
business line. In Headquarters, the Regions and in Agreement States.
2 We're happy to say that the program is essentially fully staffed. We have 3
hired folks internally and externally with great experiences and diverse 4
backgrounds. And have a priority on ensuring they are trained and qualified 5
in accordance with the NRC programs.
6 This concludes my remarks and I will now turn the 7
presentation to Theresa Clark.
8 MS. CLARK: Thank you, John. Good morning, Chair 9
Hanson and Commissioners. It's a pleasure to be with you to talk about some 10 of the many activities that we have going on in this business line. Because 11 we have so much going on we're just choosing three items to highlight during 12 my piece of the talk.
13 First I'm going to talk to you domestic and international 14 collaboration on source security. Then I'll share how we're working to 15 develop the talented staff that the NRC and Agreement States need. And 16 finally I'll talk about our advancements in tribal outreach. These are all areas 17 where we're really proud of what we've accomplished, and we see ways that 18 we can enhance our efforts even further.
19 Next slide please. In source security we have risk smart 20 regulations and strong partnerships both domestically and internationally.
21 2023 marked the 20th Anniversary of the Code of Conduct on the Safety and 22 Security of Radioactive Sources. And I had the honor of co-chairing an 23 international meeting at the IAEA last year where we gathered technical and 24 legal experts from around the globe who are interested in these source 25
security topics. We shared information on each countries progress over the 1
last 20 years on the code, and it's two supplementary guidance documents 2
which deal with import/export and disuse sources.
3 George Smith in my division gave the U.S. presentation on 4
our activities over the last 20 years. And given that, all this information about 5
our very large program, which is over 80,000 high risk sources, was really well 6
received and were regarding as an international leader in radioactive material 7
security.
8 We also saw during that meeting how important it is for 9
countries to commit this framework. And even more so to live up to those 10 commitments through positive actions.
11 The U.S. and the Department of Energy both have 12 assistance programs that help regulators and licensees who are along this 13 journey. And it was clear how well those resources were appreciated.
14 Over the years we've strengthen certain requirements in 15 response to our ongoing assessment of the security environment. One 16 example is the radioactive source security and accountability rulemaking, 17 which is currently in front of the Commission. It contains some right-size and 18 practical solutions that address concerns that are out there about valid users 19 of radioactive materials.
20 And separate from this rulemaking we're working on 21 enhancement to our license verification system that will give us a light lift 22 modern way to verify licenses without needing people to sign into our systems 23 in a heavier effort.
24 Our partnerships across the federal family on source 25
security have never been stronger. We've greatly increased our coordination 1
with the National and Nuclear Security Administration, which is our partner on 2
a variety of topics.
3 This year we've extended that to a direct swap of staff.
4 George Smith, who I already mentioned in my division, and Esther Bryan of 5
NNSA have swapped jobs for a while. And they're really developing that 6
developmental experience. And it's helping us strengthen ties across the 7
agencies. Because we have different missions and mandates, the better we 8
understand that, the better we can collaborate moving forward.
9 We've been actively involved in developing implementation 10 plans associated with National Security Memorandum 19. This is a policy 11 document issued by the administration last year.
12 The annex on radioactive material security is the first 13 comprehensive policy that's designed to prevent and mitigate the 14 consequences of potential use of radioactive materials by terrorists. The 15 actions include various agency's work to reduce, eliminate and secure 16 radioactive materials across the country. Our many activities to date, as well 17 as ongoing efforts like our financial assurance rulemaking, are supportive of 18 this policy.
19 Next slide please. As the leader of the national materials 20 program we take our training and development responsibilities very seriously.
21 Every year we facilitate over 900 sessions of Agreement Statement personal 22 training.
23 And we manage the travel funds that help those Agreement 24 State folks get to our classrooms. We couldn't be doing this so successfully 25
without the daily support and dedication of Karen Meyer, who manages our 1
registrations and our travels. Thanks to Karen.
2 The technical training center has increased the blended and 3
online training offerings which provide cost effective on-demand opportunities 4
for students to learn about our topics. With all of this hiring we know that 5
training is in high demand. Some Agreement States have raised concerns 6
about meeting their training needs, especially when they have high turnover 7
of staff all at once.
8 Respond to this in envisioning other potential needs we 9
have increased the number of seats that we provide to states. And we have 10 supported the states in conducting our own training sessions.
11 So on this slide you'll actually see a training that was 12 presented in Washington State with the Oregon's program director leading 13 that training. And this is one of many ways that states can meet their needs 14 to get training. We're widely advertising these options to states, and we 15 continue to encourage it.
16 We're also looking at how we can forecast our needs more 17 precisely so that we can be more proactive in offering the classes that are 18 needed. We especially appreciate the support of the Office of the Chief 19 Human Capital Officer, and particularly Latonya Mahlahla and her health 20 physics training staff. They really make all this program tick, and we 21 appreciate their partnership.
22 As we get ready for the future we also focus on the training 23 that we're going to need for emerging technologies and emerging regulatory 24 topics. A key part of our vision for fusion is to be ready to license and inspect 25
fusion technologies as they evolve from the smaller research topics that have 1
already been licensed.
2 And to support this, in November we held a two-day fusion 3
training session hosted by the office in Nuclear Regulatory Research and 4
featuring MIT experts. Many Agreement State staff are going to be key 5
participants in this licensing process, also participated in the seminar.
6 We're getting more staff involved in our work in these 7
emerging areas. We've had multiple rotations in our medical team at 8
headquarters, and we have many staff supporting our fusion rulemaking and 9
guidance effort. This helps us naturally build our bench strength through 10 formal work assignments.
11 And while we're still on this national materials program 12 related slide, I'll just note that we're finalizing our efforts related to the effort 13 that Huda Akhavannik presented on last year about the NMP of the future.
14 The team completed its assessment and recommendations, and we're putting 15 the finishing touches on what actions we'll take as a result. And we'll be 16 transmitting that to you by commission paper later this year.
17 Next slide please. We continue to strengthen our 18 partnerships and processes for outreach in coordination with tribes. We 19 realigned our organization to raise the profile of our tribal relationships team, 20 which now reports directly to me and Kevin Williams.
21 Nadiyah Morgan has been named our first ever tribal liaison 22 program manager. This is a team leader role that both provides direct 23 supervision of the team and programmatic ownership as we carry out the law 24 on Commission policy. Her team includes Sandy Talley, Heather Frey, and 25
a vacant position we're interviewing for just this week.
1 We also benefit from a series of rotational staff. The team 2
is updating our processes, advertising our services, and investing time in 3
building relationships with tribes. And we have some successful examples of 4
that over the past year.
5 We expanded outreach on Agreement State applications, 6
led an exhibit during the 2023 Regulatory Information Conference, and 7
published a quick reference guide on our consultation options. And as shown 8
in this slide, our tribal liaisons also led a meeting between our senior leaders 9
and the new president of the Navajo Nation.
10 We partnered with multiple federal agencies in a 11 consultation with the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, which is very interested in 12 uranium mining activities in the west.
13 And
- finally, we coordinated extensively with our 14 environmental staff on a number of reviews, including multiple license 15 renewals and the issuance of the Kairos Hermes construction permit.
16 Another partnership that I'm proud of is the increased 17 internal coordination between that team that I just spoke about and our native 18 American Advisory Committee. Our mission work is guidance, outreach and 19 consultation to implement the Tribal Policy Statement. And the volunteers on 20 the Native American Advisory Committee focus on recruitment, retention and 21 cultural awareness within the agency.
22 This November that collaboration yielded a seminar 23 featuring Heather Frey of our tribal team, and our historian, Tom Wellock.
24 And they highlighted the NRC's federal trust responsibilities and provided 25
cultural information. Actually, about ten percent of the agency participated in 1
that event, which we see is a pretty big success. We want to sustain and 2
increase these internal activities.
3 This concludes my remarks. My thanks go out to Candace 4
Spore for helping us coordinate here. And now I'll turn it over to Sherrie.
5 Next slide please.
6 MS. FLAHERTY: Thanks, Theresa. Good morning, Chair 7
Hanson and Commissioners. I will be providing an overview of the working 8
group that was established to assess and provide recommendations for senior 9
management consideration as it relates to enhancing the national materials 10 program, or NMP, and IMPEP.
11 As we partner with the Agreement States to regulate the 12 safe and secure use of radioactive material, we implement our mission to 13 ensure adequate protection of public health, safety, security and the 14 environment from the hazards associated with radioactive material. The 15 national materials program, through its efforts of the 39 Agreement States and 16 the NRC's radiation control programs, continues to effectively protect public 17 health, safety and security for over 17,000 specific radioactive materials 18 licenses.
19 NRC ensures the protection by periodically evaluating each 20 radiation control program using the integrated materials performance 21 evaluation program referred to as IMPEP.
22 Next slide please. In 2022 we established a working group 23 to assess the ability to evaluate whether the current IMPEP process provides 24 for the proactive assessment of the NMP radiation control programs 25
performance.
1 Our goal was to leverage the existing strong relationships 2
and establish partnerships to develop and recommend enhancements to the 3
NMP that would continue to move the NMP forward. We focused on 4
identifying programmatic challenges across the NMP, evaluating assistance 5
currently being provided to the Agreement States, and establishing strategic 6
measures to address unsatisfactory performance.
7 Regarding the need for assistance within the NMP, in the 8
last five years there have been two Agreement States that were placed on 9
probation and heightened oversight, and assistance was provided within the 10 NMP. In addition, other Agreement States self-identified programmatic 11 challenges and requested assistance within the NMP.
12 The working group found that states with challenges have 13 leveraged the relationships built across the NMP and utilized many channels 14 to request support. Similarly, as John mentioned, when one NRC region was 15 challenged with inspection timeliness the regions work collaboratively to 16 complete inspections and ensure we continue to meet our goals.
17 The working group found that although there was an 18 increase in less than satisfactory performance for some Agreement States, 19 this increase was the direct result of two IMPEP reviews with unique 20 circumstances and not indicative of a broader trend.
21 In addition, non-common performance indicators, sealed 22 source and device review, low-level radioactive waste and uranium recovery 23 may be a relatively small part of an Agreement State's program when 24 compared to the licensing and inspection oversight program, so therefore an 25
unset finding in one of these, or more of these indicators, can result in a 1
disproportionate negative impact on the overall finding for the state. Applying 2
a risk-informed approach to these non-common indicators is recommended 3
by the working group.
4 The working group also noted that IMPEP procedures are 5
well defined, and the processes and procedures provide for an effective 6
IMPEP review. We will, or we found that the IMPEP and MRB processes 7
benefit from strong relationships, establishing trust and sharing regulatory 8
experiences that ensure adequate protection of public health and safety.
9 Communicating the status of Agreement State programs, sharing operating 10 experience, enforcement and allegations, and early alignment on strategies 11 will lead to anticipating and addressing performance challenges early in the 12 process.
13 Next slide please. Our working group found that the NMP 14 continues to be successful. We will offer five recommendations for 15 management consideration related to additional ways for improving the 16 effectiveness of IMPEP and the MRB in early identification of potential 17 challenges and ways for providing assistance.
18 The working group will present three recommendations for 19 management consideration related to metrics for tracking performance, tools 20 for identifying performance issues, and assisting programs facing 21 performance issues.
22 The other recommendations focus on enhancing 23 communications and performance awareness procedural improvements.
24 Including items such as providing procedures describing how programs can 25
request timely assistance through not only the NRC but through the 1
organization of Agreement State's board, other Agreement States, and the 2
regional state agreement's officers. This option provides opportunities to 3
leverage our strong relationships and shared experiences across the NMP.
4 We're also recommending for consideration how to further 5
risk-inform the IMPEP process. This could result in evaluating all radiation 6
control programs under the same common performance indicators.
7 Overall, the national material program can successfully 8
implement enhancements to the IMPEP and MRB process building on the 9
strong relationships and established trust while continuing to uphold public 10 health, safety and security.
11 Next slide please. Lastly, I'd like to acknowledge and thank 12 the members of the working group. These individuals are from across the 13 NMP, and they brought a great deal of IMPEP and NMP experience to the 14 process. They brought energy and enthusiasm while leveraging their 15 knowledge and expertise to the development of these recommendations and 16 improvements. Thank you to these folks.
17 That concludes my remarks. I will turn it over to Robin 18 Elliott. And next slide please.
19 MS. ELLIOTT: Thanks, Sherrie. And good morning, 20 Chair Hanson and Commissioners. I'm a senior health physicist in Region I 21 performing medical license review and inspection. I am pleased to present 22 this morning regarding our risk-informed inspections and emerging 23 technologies.
24 Next slide please. As you may know, in 2022 we adopted 25
new inspection procedures incorporating risk modules. These modules 1
formalize how we risk-inform inspections and provide direction on what to 2
consider in each focus area. Risk-informing inspections is not new for us, but 3
expanding direction through the risk modules provides direction for newer 4
inspectors and consistency across the regions.
5 Benefits of risk-informed inspection include ensuring that 6
inspectors focus on the highest risked activities where failures could result in 7
safety significant issues or security lapses.
8 For medical inspections, this means that a risk-informed 9
inspection may emphasize observing activities that result in higher radiation 10 exposures or require greater attention to source security. The pictures on 11 this slide represent verifying the public dose limits outside of a mobile PET 12 trailer for diagnostic imaging, and of a retrieval of a sealed source used in a 13 radioactive seed localization procedure, which is a procedure that has proven 14 to be challenging for source accountability.
15 Additionally, when inspectors target higher risk activities 16 licensees understand that their focus should also be greater in these areas 17 placing emphasis on the identification and reporting of medical events and 18 incident investigation. NRC's presence during such procedures often offers 19 an opportunity for the licensee staff to engage with us, to seek additional 20 information and ask questions.
21 Risk-informing performance observations ensures that 22 value added activities are prioritized and that less emphasis is placed on 23 compliance-based record only reviews. Inspectors have flexibility to delve 24 into a detailed records review if observations result in concerns regarding the 25
extent of condition.
1 For the past few years I have had NRC and State trainees 2
accompany me to learn how to perform risk-based inspections. This one-on-3 one training is invaluable, and the establishment of the risk modules amplifies 4
what the trainees experience when accompanying an experienced inspector.
5 Next slide please. One example of how focusing on higher 6
risk activities produces evaluated findings is relative to high dose rate remote 7
afterloader timer linearity. HDR, or HDR. HDR is a device that utilizes 8
brachytherapy to treat primarily gynecological cancers, but can also be used 9
for breast, prostate and skin cancers.
10 Timer linearity is important to the designated treatment 11 times, times accuracy. By focusing on the details of the licensee's HDR 12 programs, inspectors identified a difference in how the NRC interpreted the 13 performance of HDR timer linearity checks and how the licensee was 14 performing that evaluation.
15 By discussing the issue with others we were able to 16 determine the different HDR units utilize different types of timers. And at the 17 American Association of Physicists and Medicine, or the AAPM, recommends 18 a different approach to timer linearity evaluation. The AAPM accepts timer 19 linearity determined over the longest dwell time, while the NRC's interpretation 20 applies to the total treatment time or the sum of the dwell times.
21 As such, determining compliance with this requirement 22 requires a deeper look into what the licensee is doing. This time is well spent 23 given the overall high risk profile of this procedure and how safety may be 24 impacted by the NRC's evaluation of the issue. As a result of this review, 25
inspectors received a more thorough understanding, and the NRC 1
incorporated this information into the curriculum for the TTC's medical 2
technology class.
3 Next slide please. Another area of focus for medical 4
inspectors and license reviewers is the growth of new emerging medical 5
technologies. The licensing and inspection of new technologies is 6
challenging because of how technical and complex the technologies are.
7 For example, one of the fastest developing areas is 8
theranostics. Which is a personalized approach to treating cancer, which is 9
using both diagnosis and therapy tools as part of the treatment. The most 10 common of these treatments that we have seen in the past few years involves 11 Lutathera and Pluvicto, which are radiopharmaceutical, radiopharmaceuticals 12 utilizing Lutetium-177. And these radiopharmaceuticals are used to target 13 specific cancers.
14 Both therapies have been categorized under the existing 15 Part 35 regulations. However, the implementation of Lutathera therapies 16 differs significantly from the previously existing 35.300 therapies. Other Part 17 35.300 treatments, such as I-131 thyroid outpatient therapies and Radium-18 223 for palliative treatment of bone metastasis, did not require any special 19 equipment or holding area for the patient.
20 As you can see on the slide, for Lutathera administrations 21 dedicated equipment and a dedicated space for isolating the patient during 22 the administration is used until they are safely released.
23 Next slide please. I have benefitted greatly from the 24 medical team monthly calls where inspectors discuss findings and license 25
reviewer challenges. I have also learned much about the development of 1
emerging technologies and new devices by attending various medical 2
professional society meetings. I am grateful that the agency supports 3
attendance at these valuable meetings.
4 Inspectors and license reviews depending heavily on the 5
medical team to provide the information needed to successfully license and 6
inspect emerging technologies as they surface. The headquarters medical 7
team has developed 16 guidance documents to ensure the safe and secure 8
use of radioactive materials.
9 Three of these documents were added in the past year, and 10 four are under development. The medical team's efforts enhance 11 consistency across the regions in how we license and inspect these new 12 technologies. The TCC provides ongoing formal incorporation of the 13 emerging modalities and to staff training and recently updated the class to add 14 all the current licensing guidance.
15 Additionally, as mentioned previously in the HDR example, 16 changes are made as they are identified. There is certainly no shortage of 17 topics for medical license reviewers and inspectors when considering how to 18 meet their ongoing training needs.
19 I appreciate your attention in support of our mission, and 20 look forward to addressing any questions you may have. This concludes my 21 remarks, and I turn it over to Joey Rolland. Next slide please.
22 MR. ROLLAND: Thank you, Robin. And good morning, 23 Chair and Commissioners. My name is Joey Rolland. I'm a mechanical 24 engineer in the material safety and licensing branch. I have been with the 25
agency for almost two and a half years, and completed my sealed source and 1
device reviewer qualification in May of last year. I appreciate the opportunity 2
today to provide you with awareness of an important effort the division is 3
leading to revise the material's license reviewer and inspector qualification 4
guidance.
5 Next slide please. Inspection manual chapter 1248 6
provides the qualification guidance and cards for various disciplines under 7
NMSS oversight. The scope of this effort I am presenting today is for the 8
disciplines that are within the business line. It involves the manual chapter 9
and its appendices that cover qualifications for materials health physics 10 license reviewers, materials health physics inspectors, exempt distribution 11 license reviewers, and sealed source and device reviewers.
12 Since the last revision of the materials qualification 13 programs the materials program has experienced changes to training 14 offerings, more use of technology as a learning tool, in an increase in hiring, 15 and higher turnover, and positions with qualification requirements. As an 16 example, my team of four sealed source and device reviewers has 17 experienced, including myself, four new hires, three departures, and one 18 return since I came onboard. For these reasons we initiated the current effort 19 to aid individuals for preparing for qualification in a more efficient manner with 20 updated guidance.
21 Next slide please.
The working group includes 22 representation from Regions I, III and IV, and the Agreement States. I 23 wanted to take the opportunity to highlight the team members in my slide on 24 the screen. This team has been working to update the qualification process 25
to be even more adaptable and efficient when it is appropriate.
1 Next slide. Collaboration among the working group, 2
coupled with stakeholder outreach, is critical for incorporating past experience 3
into this revision and promoting consistency in the qualification process. It is 4
important that the qualification guidance retains the flexibilities it currently has 5
for crediting prior experience and waiving certain qualification requirements to 6
account for prior knowledge and skill set of any individual seeking qualification.
7 While working group drafts the qualification guidance, they 8
also developed an interim guidance document that provides illustrative 9
examples on the existing flexibilities in the manual chapter and the templates 10 for memoranda informed use to support the qualification process. The 11 working group plans to incorporate those into the final Revision 2.
12 Since Agreement States are required to have a compatible 13 qualification program, the revision not only involves working group members 14 from the Agreement States but it also prioritizes the importance of outreach to 15 the states. Reflecting on the collaboration that we have fostered through the 16 years, the revision will provide expectations for greater collaboration among 17 the NMP to support each other in preparing individuals to license and 18 inspection byproduct material across the nation.
19 One way we have leveraged the knowledge and experience 20 across the NMP is when individuals undergoing qualifications have been 21 provided the opportunity to work in an Agreement State program, to obtain 22 licensing and inspection experience. Similarly, we provide qualifying 23 individuals accompaniment opportunities with subject matter experts in the 24 NRC, and in Agreement States, to foster on-the-job experience.
25
This is something I was able to take advantage of in my 1
qualification journey by accompanying several inspections, which helped me 2
gained perspectives on the products that I review. The revision will be explicit 3
on the benefits of collaboration across the NMP. A reinforcement of tools that 4
we have at our disposal for training and qualification purposes.
5 Next slide please. Additionally, we are considering a basic 6
qualification card that is consistent with other qualification programs in the 7
Agency. The staff anticipates that this will assist supervisors to be better 8
equipped to credit prior experience of candidates who have already completed 9
the basic qualification card in other programs in the Agency.
10 The basic card training activities are expected to help 11 develop and awareness of the Agency's main functions and programs to 12 accomplish its mission in a candidates role as an inspector or license reviewer.
13 We anticipate that once an individual has completed the basic level program 14 they can perform limited scope inspection or licensing activities under 15 supervision.
16 The technical proficiency qualification cards are being 17 revised accordingly to focus on training activities that build technical 18 proficiency and autonomy. The revision also emphasizes the usefulness of 19 interim qualifications during the candidates qualification journey.
20 While interim qualifications have been in use for many 21 years, we are facilitating their use by developing guidelines and templates for 22 employing them more efficiently. This allows organizations to better manage 23 workload while boosting employee's productivity in a supportive learning 24 environment.
25
We're also considering incorporating a common signature 1
authority process into the qualification guidance in the manual chapter in an 2
effort to ensure greater consistency across the business line in granting 3
signature authority and to facility alignment and expectation discussions 4
between newly hired employees and their supervisors.
5 Lastly, it is expected that by the end of this fiscal year we 6
will publish the revised qualification guidance. Thank you for the opportunity 7
to brief you today. And this concludes my remarks. And I will now turn it 8
back over to John.
9 MR. LUBINSKI: Thanks Joey. I would also like to take an 10 opportunity to thank all of our panelists today. Also, I would like to thank 11 everyone in the NRC, Headquarters, Regions, Technical Training Center, as 12 well as folks in the Agreement States that help support this business line and 13 the National Materials Program.
14 With that, we have completed our presentation and 15 welcome any questions. Thank you.
16 CHAIR HANSON: Thank you, John and the rest of our 17 panelists, very much. I really appreciate the presentations and as you said, 18 John, at the beginning I think a lot of the business lines, other business lines 19 may get a little more attention, but this is one that really touches people where 20 they live every day and I think deserves some focused attention here on the 21 part of the Commission.
22 I guess I want to just start off, John and Theresa, and I know 23 a lot of others in NMSS had really put a concerted effort into bringing more 24 certified health physicists into the agency and it was really a focus of a 25
particular hiring push and I want to commend you and the folks in OCHCO 1
and everybody who was really a part of that effort.
2 I have gotten to meet a few of those folks as I have gone out 3
to the Regions and other places of people that have come into the agency. I 4
know it will be an ongoing need.
5 As Joey mentioned, there is some turnover in the program 6
and so forth, but we seem to have made a real dent in that and I just want to 7
thank you for the attention and congratulate your success there.
8 MR. LUBINSKI: Thank you, I appreciate it. If I can, it 9
really is across the agency and across NMSS as well. The last business line 10 we talked about hiring in HP, so it's a big part of that.
11 I want to give kudos to Theresa Clark who has been leading 12 that for NMSS as well. Thanks.
13 CHAIR HANSON: Good. Thank you. So, Theresa, you 14 mentioned a lot of the training that the agency has done, I think 900 training 15 classes, I guess one of my questions is, and I don't remember if you and I 16 were together in the room in Region IV where I got some feedback on some 17 of the training and qualification processes, I think folks really liked the classes, 18 thought they were intense, rigorous, but almost intense, I don't want to say to 19 a fault, right, it crammed a lot of information into a very short period of time 20 and I think one of the things I heard was just a concern about retention, right, 21 like we've gone down this road, we've done this class, it's been super intense, 22 but how much knowledge retention or expertise did they really felt like they 23 retained say three, four, six, a year down the road.
24 Is there -- Have you heard that feedback as well and kind of 25
how are we evaluating maybe the longer-term effectiveness of some of the 1
training programs that we have got in place?
2 MS. CLARK: What a great question, I will say that. So, 3
you know, your career is not cramming for a test and so I think, you know, 4
some of that feedback that we heard, you know, it made me reflect on when I 5
took the reactor series and that really is a lot of information crammed into a 6
short amount of time.
7 I think some of our classes, like when you take the medical 8
class online, you're learning a lot of information about a lot of different topics, 9
but that's why the on-the-job reinforcement of these skills is so important.
10 You might not remember every equation that you ever 11 learned in class, but they give you that foundation of terminology and then 12 when you are really doing your job, when you're accompanying an 13 experienced inspector like Robin and seeing these things in the field that gives 14 reinforcement to what is most important or what is most significant of the 15 many, many things you learned in all of these fundamental training courses.
16 I think that's sort of what Joey is talking about in his 17 presentation on the Qual Program writ large, it has training components, but 18 it has personal study at your desk components, it has on-the-job components.
19 You do all of that and then you continue to hone your skills 20 through refreshers, through the conferences that Robin mentioned and that 21 kind of thing, you know.
22 The NRC has always been very supportive of continuing 23 training, external training opportunities and that sort of thing and that's why I 24 think, you know, even if it feels really tough at the beginning you are getting 25
precisely what you need as injects throughout that time.
1 CHAIR HANSON: Thank you. That's really helpful. It's 2
not a one thing, it's a both/and in terms of building that expertise and capability.
3 You know, Theresa, one of the other things you mentioned 4
was the work you have done and the agency has led on the international front 5
in, you know, material safety and security.
6 It's so important, particularly for developing countries, as 7
they try to bring in and implement more medical technologies, more industrial 8
technologies, etc.
9 I wanted to make the connection back to Robin because we 10 are talking about risk-informing some of those inspection processes.
11 Certainly in a lot of the places, not just Agreement States, but, again, also kind 12 of some of these developing countries are resource limited and so really need 13 to focus their efforts.
14 I guess I am wondering if there is a connection between 15 these two things or can there be or how do we, what are some thoughts 16 between the two of you about potentially incorporating that more into our 17 international assistance activities in this area?
18 MS. ELLIOTT: Well I think that we definitely can gain 19 something from the risk-informing and saving time, which equates to money, 20 so teaching international partners how to focus on the most risk-significant 21 areas is definitely going to be beneficial.
22 MS. CLARK: And I'll add to that a couple of the specific 23 things that we have been doing in assistance. You know, over the past year 24 we helped teach two assistance workshops in Africa where we sent out our 25
experts who do this stuff every day and I am quite sure that they share those 1
sorts of on-the-ground insights of what we do.
2 CHAIR HANSON: Right.
3 MS. CLARK: And then through the international meetings, 4
like the one that I talked about, I am actually going to one next month in Mexico 5
City that is focused on Latin American and the Caribbean, and those countries 6
who are interested in full, you know, implementation of this guidance want to 7
hear what each other are doing, want to hear what the U.S. and Canada in 8
the same hemisphere are doing, and so it's an opportunity to share amongst 9
ourselves and help everyone make lasting changes in addition to these 10 political commitments.
11 CHAIR HANSON: I see. Thank you. I really appreciate 12 that very much. I wasn't aware of the New Mexico thing, or the thing in 13 Mexico City, but aware of the workshop in Mauritania I think a year or so ago 14 and I understand that was a big success, so certainly thank you for that.
15 Sherrie, if I could, I wanted to ask a little bit more about the 16 working group in terms of improving the IMPEP assessment and I am also 17 interested to hear, you know, in terms of what are the strategies, the 18 performance metrics, the tools to improving that, how do we know that we 19 have been successful, what improvement in that process really looks like, and 20 then how does, what does it mean to risk inform the IMPEP process kind of 21 as a whole, could you kind of expand on that?
22 MS. FLAHERTY: Wow, that's a great question. It covers 23 the entire working group.
24 CHAIR HANSON: Yes.
25
(Laughter.)
1 MS. FLAHERTY: Okay. So let me pick it apart. Talking 2
about the multiple recommendations and you're asking about metrics, so 3
starting with metrics.
4 The current metrics that we are using were kind of a catalyst 5
to get us to where we are now and give us an opportunity to take a look and 6
see how can we make those metrics better in getting out in front of things and 7
being more proactive.
8 So what the working group has done, they don't have a 9
specific metric in mind, the idea is to this is going to be an NMP metric so let's 10 have the NMP develop it.
11 So the recommendation is to have senior management take 12 a look at it and see if this is something they would support implementing, 13 bringing the Agreement States and the NRC together to develop a meaningful 14 metric for a proactive way to look at how we are assessing performance and, 15 again, trying to get out ahead of the challenges.
16 Now to go back to the other parts of your question. Some 17 of the ideas for implementation, some of the things that are in there for senior 18 management consideration are self-audit tools, is there a way to develop 19 something.
20 Again, we are trying to look at a proactive approach to 21 identifying problems or issues and challenges before they become larger 22 concerns, and so the development of an NMP-wide self-audit tool is one 23 possible implementation item.
24 The other thing is to look at, have senior management 25
decide if evaluating the current periodic meeting in between IMPEPs is that, 1
got a way that we could improve that to add to, again, our ability to get out in 2
front of things like this.
3 So in terms of implementing and then looking at this and 4
seeing if it's successful, that is in the works. It's all for senior management to 5
take a look at and evaluate and make a decision on which of these are tools 6
that are worth implementing. Does that answer the question?
7 CHAIR HANSON: Yes. No, that's very helpful. Yes, no, 8
I really appreciate that kind of additional context.
9 MS. FLAHERTY: Did you want to add any more to it, John 10 or Theresa?
11 MR. LUBINSKI: I would just add is the biggest challenge I 12 think that the working group has in doing this is we look at metrics as simply 13 that, a metric, it is not a report card.
14 CHAIR HANSON: Right. Right.
15 MR. LUBINSKI: And getting that communicated out to 16 folks is very important because we want to have a relationship across the NMP 17 with the Agreement States and the NRC where we are open with each other, 18 that we are able to say here is an area that we are struggling, here is where 19 we need more assistance, here is where we need that, and we don't want to 20 have an unintended consequence from a metric being a leading metric that 21 someone thinks, wow, I just, you know, I got marked down on my report card, 22 where that's not the way we're looking at it.
23 We want to look at it positively to say we're glad you initiated 24 this conversation early and were able to determine what the significance is in 25
moving forward.
1 I think that's one of the biggest struggles, as Sherrie said, in 2
developing what these leading metrics look like that they don't turn into 3
something that has an unintended consequence.
4 CHAIR HANSON: Thank you. I want to -- I've got 12 5
seconds left. I want to sneak in one quick thing that I think is hopefully 6
confirmatory.
7 Theresa, you mentioned the Staff is working on an 8
enhancement to the NRC licenses that could easily enable kind of license 9
verification and validation.
10 I don't want anyone to be left with the impression that by 11 working on that that somehow that obviates the need for the radiological 12 source security rulemaking. That's correct, yes?
13 MS. CLARK: Yes.
14 CHAIR HANSON: Okay. Thank you very much. With 15 that I will hand it over to Commissioner Wright.
16 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: Thank you, Chair. If you've 17 got any other questions that you haven't asked you might want to pass them 18 because you've already asked a lot of what I had.
19 (Laughter.)
20 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: Oh my goodness. Good 21 morning and thank you. I really enjoy this meeting every year myself.
22 John, one question that wasn't asked I guess has to do with 23 staffing, right. You had mentioned that the Nuclear Materials Users Business 24 Line is essentially fully staffed, right, and I wanted to dig into that just a little 25
bit more.
1 Does that mean that we are staffed in this business line for 2
now or we're close to being fully staffed? I mean if we are fully staffed are 3
we going to be able to continue to hire, especially in areas where we have 4
critical needs, you know, like HPs?
5 MR. LUBINSKI: Thanks. I am going to let Theresa give a 6
much more detailed answer, but I am going to tee it up for her and say that 7
when we say that we are essentially staffed, where you look at our staffing 8
plan and I said there was about 200 FTE in the program, do we have 200 9
people in those slots today the answer is no, it is less than that 200, and to 10 supplement that we have a lot of rotations that come into the program and in 11 going forward, again, we wouldn't want to put a metric in place that we say 12 success is just targeted by saying you're right at your budget number and have 13 those amount of people in the seats.
14 I will let Theresa talk a little more about what she is doing 15 because she has gotten the program to the success. Thanks.
16 MS. CLARK: Yes, thanks. So we don't like to deal in 17 absolutes so that's why some of these words come in, you know, it's natural 18 to have ins and outs of the system and people get promoted and, you know, 19 choose to retire and that sort of thing.
20 We have done a lot for hiring and particularly for making 21 investments in hiring early in areas where we expect losses. That is 22 something we have done especially in health physics and the Commission 23 has supported this. We really appreciate that.
24 That allows us to have people come in, start the qualification 25
program, you know, accompany experienced folks before we lose those folks, 1
and so that's been a really important investment in our future.
2 You know, we've hired a couple dozen health physicists 3
each year over the last couple years, which is great, and the Chair already 4
acknowledged that.
5 We need to keep our foot on the gas because, you know, 6
again, we need to -- It's an experience that's sometimes a little bit hard to find 7
and even if they are coming from outside with a lot of technical experience 8
they need to learn how we regulate and that takes some time. So that's an 9
area that I am focused on.
10 Also, you know, Joey mentioned the sealed source and 11 device reviews and the turnover there. Because that's such a small program 12 that is one where we have to take a lot of care and make sure that we have 13 staff in time to get them trained before they move on to better and brighter 14 opportunities.
15 So we're trying to take a big picture approach to that and get 16 ahead of these challenges.
17 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: Right. Thank you. I am 18 going to stay with you, Theresa. You know, one thing I love about the people 19 that are in the room here, you know, Kevin is in the back over here, you're at 20 the table, and, John, you're here, and, Sherrie, you've been a part of this, the 21 whole Agreement State Program and how we work, how closely we work, and 22 how well we work with them and it is appreciated, right.
23 So where are those -- To delve into a little bit more of the 24 rulemaking process, Theresa, how do we work with the Agreement States 25
during the rulemaking process? You know, what's the communication 1
process like, can you give me a little bit of detail --
2 (Simultaneous speaking.)
3 MS. CLARK: Yes. Thank you for that question. It's an 4
area where we have really grown over the last few years and how deeply we 5
embed Agreement State staff into our rulemaking process and it starts from 6
the beginning, kind of the ideation stage, when we are thinking about what 7
rules we need to put into our prioritization, what's coming down the pike and 8
where we need to prioritize.
9 They are involved even at that early stage. Then as we 10 develop rulemaking plans they comment on those before they come to the 11 Commission. In the actual rulemaking stage they are in all of our working 12 groups.
13 You know, I think I mentioned fusion during my talk. They 14 are a key component of the core team for that rulemaking because we know 15 that they are going to be the implementers of this rule and in some cases the 16 first mover, so they are just like everybody else on those core working groups.
17 The states as a whole in addition to those individual working 18 group members get the opportunity to have a first crack at commenting on the 19 documents that we prepare.
20 So we have already thought through their comments before 21 we send the document to you for your review. It's a lot of coordination 22 through OAS to have -- They have a rulemaking director, they help us identify 23 people for our working groups, and then those individual people are really 24 adding a lot of value to the process.
25
COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: Right. So you brought up 1
fusion. Can you -- So give me a little bit more on that. In your opinion maybe 2
what are the biggest challenges for us to get ready here, you know?
3 MS. CLARK: Yes, thanks. And we have been thinking 4
about word "getting ready." So there is an aspect of readiness and an aspect 5
of optimization as well.
6 You know, we have licensed fusion in this country already 7
using the framework that we have, so in some sense we are ready for that, 8
but technological readiness, understanding the diversity of the 30-something 9
U.S. companies that are working on fusion know enough about it now to 10 develop the framework and then developing the in-depth understanding when 11 they actually come to us or to a State for licensing.
12 We have some time to get some of that together, but that's 13 a key part of the plan, and then optimizing how we do our licensing reviews 14 for fusion just as we have for many other technologies so that we can to the 15 extent possible have coherent decisions made across the National Materials 16 Program, particularly as we see the potential for these to be licensed, you 17 know, nationwide in lots of different applications.
18 That's really what we are focused on in addition to, you 19 know, keep cracking on the rulemaking to get that to you this year.
20 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: Right. Thank you. I am 21 going to ask one broad question, John, and maybe, Theresa, you have 22 something to say on this.
23 So we know we have had issues in Agreement States with 24 poaching from different states, you know, employees was we get them trained 25
up and they go to someplace that makes more money and sometimes they 1
came to work for us, that we poach, too.
2 So outside of that part the States are sometimes resource 3
constrained, right. Are we seeing any kind of an imbalance that is something 4
that we should be concerned about, you know?
5 I mean we've talked about we want to get ahead of things, 6
right, we want to know early and we're really encouraging that and we want 7
States to know that, hey, we're not going to ding you if you come and ask for, 8
you know, say, hey, we're having a little issue here, but are we paying attention 9
to that, John?
10 MR. LUBINSKI: So I think the short answer to that is yes 11 and I think Sherrie's group has that on their radar.
12 You know, one example that I look at as very much a 13 positive, and I mentioned in my talk was, that the State of New York decided 14 to return its sealed source and device program, and the idea there was it was 15 a small part of their program, there was not a lot of work activities.
16 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: Right.
17 MR. LUBINSKI: Keeping people trained and qualified 18 there just didn't seem to be worth the effort to do that.
19 So something like that and having it returned, other States 20 have contracted out to have people work in programs like that, which is 21 another way to do that, that helps kind of draw mini centers of expertise to do 22 that, so I think that helps to balance it.
23 You know, one of the challenges we do see in the hiring 24 area in States is what turns into the State budges and the cost of living in the 25
States and that is an area that we definitely need to pay attention to.
1 As part of our indicators with the IMPEP we do look at 2
staffing, training, and qualifications, we look at turnover, and that's an area 3
that I think will continue to get attention to say are we, you know, in an even 4
place there going forward.
5 I believe, you know, the folks in the States right now 6
understand that program and also understand when they have these kind of 7
challenges the benefits of communicating early with our Regional State 8
Agreement Officers.
9 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: Right. And I have been --
10 When I go around I talk with the States about this, too, but one of the things I 11 think sort of is an advantage in the program is the fact that States will ask for 12 help from other States and they get that help freely, right, and they are 13 communicating that with us.
14 I just want to be sure that whatever we can do as 15 Commissioners and, you know, I can do as Commissioner, to help keep that 16 thing moving forward I want to do it, but I don't know unless you all tell us, 17 right.
18 So if you see something, you know, that we can help with, 19 you know, please let me know.
20 MR. LUBINSKI: Thank you. We will do that whether or 21 not it's just the continuing to support program, visiting the States, and the 22 importance of the program, and then, also, as Sherrie's group finishes her 23 project if there is any actions that we think require either, one, Commission 24 engagement or, two, Commission support, we will definitely inform the 25
Commission.
1 COMMISSIONER WRIGHT: I really appreciate what you 2
do in this area. Thank you so much.
3 CHAIR HANSON: Okay. Thank you. Commissioner 4
Caputo.
5 COMMISSIONER CAPUTO: Good morning. I am going 6
to continue on the line of questioning that Commissioner Wright started with 7
regard to fusion.
8 I think we as a country are in this situation with fusion where 9
at some point there is going to be a breakthrough and maybe it's in the next 10 year or two, maybe it's ten years from now, it's tough to say, but I want to just 11 start by confirming, and you mentioned this and I want to just make sure that 12 we have this very clear on the record, there are fusion systems that have 13 already been licensed and are being regulated by Agreement States and there 14 may be others that are licensed before the end of the rulemaking, so I just 15 want to confirm NRC is ready and able to license fusion technologies today 16 while the rulemaking continues?
17 MS. CLARK: Yes.
18 COMMISSIONER CAPUTO: Good. Can you talk a little 19 bit, you mentioned the vision and strategy for fusion, can you talk a little bit 20 about how you envision fusion commercial deployment and in particular if a 21 fusion company has a business model for mass producing machines and 22 selling them to users how does the framework anticipate or enable that kind 23 of a manufacturing type business model?
24 MS. CLARK: Thanks for that question. It's one that we 25
are actively pondering and we had a really great brainstorming session on it 1
just this week.
2 So we're developing the rulemaking and the guidance to 3
make the framework very clear. As you mentioned, you know, licensing has 4
already happened and could continue to happen, but we want to optimize that 5
process.
6 If this takes off in a way that the companies certainly hope 7
that it will and there is this mass manufacturing approach, we already have 8
mechanisms in other parts of how we license radioactive materials that we 9
may be able to take from and apply to enable this.
10 So, for example, in medical technologies we issue guidance 11 documents for how you can license medical technologies, we talked about 12 that, and those are certainly very widely used and those guidance documents 13 that are technology specific really promote consistency of decision making 14 across the program, so that is one insight that we can take and apply.
15 Another insight that we might be able to apply are sealed 16 source and device reviews where we review a device once and we or other 17 State programs determine that it is safe and we register that device and so 18 that can then be used and referenced across the country.
19 A little bit different in fusion, it's not a sealed source, it's a 20 much more complicated system, but these are the exact sorts of things, so 21 there are already innovations that we have thought through and how can we 22 apply those to a new approach so that we reduce the barriers and reduce the 23 need for multiple reviews across multiple jurisdictions.
24 COMMISSIONER CAPUTO: Because I am firmly of the 25
opinion that if at some point given the level of investment into fusion as soon 1
as one of these companies has a breakthrough the demand is going to be 2
massive.
3 The desire to scale is going to be massive and there will 4
immediately be a lot of focus on this agency, like a laser in this area. So while 5
it may be a little hard to predict I think this is something where I am glad to 6
hear that we at least have some structure in place.
7 In keeping with the rulemaking, Part 30 currently has no 8
backfit provision, so in terms of a licensing framework once license are issued 9
desire to change regulatory requirements in the future should really in my 10 opinion be assessed based on safety benefit, safety significance, etc.
11 Other materials licensees do have backfit protection, such 12 as Part 70 Fuel Cycle Facilities. So how is NMSS addressing the need for 13 backfit protection in the case of fusion facilities, fusion machines?
14 MS. CLARK: Thanks for that. That is a topic that we are 15 considering as we develop the rulemaking and as we look at really every 16 rulemaking in this area where as you state correctly there are not backfitting 17 provisions in Part 30, however, the mindset of ensuring that our regulations 18 are needed, that they are cost beneficial, is inherent in how we look at the 19 regulatory process.
20 So we do a regulatory analysis for every rulemaking, we'll 21 be doing one for the fusion rulemaking to make sure that it's worth doing, and 22 I certainly think that it will be, and we also developed internal guidance that 23 we use within the agency to help us think through very similar sorts of 24 questions that you would think through in a backfitting evaluation even for 25
these types of licensees that don't have it so that we -- We have the mindset 1
of thinking through methodically, you know, why do we need this, what's the 2
safety benefit, what is the cost to the licensees, and we have developed and 3
issued that guidance to our staff so we would intend to continue to use that.
4 MR. LUBINSKI: Theresa, if you don't mind me adding, I 5
appreciate you bringing up the philosophy that we have of again the principles 6
that undergird our backfit rule are the principles that we follow in all the 7
decisions that we make and we have communicated that with the Regions.
8 Also, you know, from a background standpoint is we did 9
consider as an agency back in the '90s of whether to expand back the 10 protection to Part 30 licensees and other licensees that are not covered.
11 The Commission at the time made a decision not to do that 12 and I just want to express we are not trying to provide backfit protection to 13 anyone without coming to the Commission.
14 If we decide to provide for a backfit protection formally it 15 would part of a rulemaking as we would continue to go forward. As Theresa 16 said, we are looking at fusion under Part 30 right now, but whether we do that 17 is case-specific to fusion, whether it would be Part 30, whether it would be 18 beyond Part 30 into Part 40, and other licensees that don't have that would 19 have to be a Commission decision and we would have to bring that to you.
20 COMMISSIONER CAPUTO: So I recognize that the 21 mindset of focusing on cost benefit may be there and there may be principles 22 and guidance underpinning the nature of our processes.
23 I personally think that we should have it enshrined in 24 rulemaking text in regulation for the sake of regulatory predictability and 25
stability for these licensees.
1 This is going to be potentially a large, new area of work for 2
us and I think providing regulatory predictability here is crucial and if we are 3
so confident that cost benefit underpins the nature of our decision making now 4
and the framework as exists then it's not much of a leap to actually provide 5
that measure of certainty to these applicants, so I believe personally that this 6
should be included in the rulemaking.
7 Theresa, you mentioned that there was a 2-day seminar on 8
fusion basics. How is NRC Staff capturing the technical expertise and license 9
experience within the Agreement States to support these conversations and 10 seminars to sort of present the practical experience that already exists and 11 build on that?
12 MS. CLARK: Thanks for that question. So the licensing 13 to date has been research scale, quite small scale, and it's still useful to know 14 about, but one of the things that are doing right now, there is active pre-15 application and application work going on in the States.
16 So in Massachusetts, in Washington State, and in 17 discussions with other States, applications are already being reviewed and 18 those are the people that we're already talking with, you know, for example, 19 the person in Massachusetts was working with us on our fusion rulemaking, 20 so we are talking right now to make sure that we see how they are reviewing 21 those applications using our existing guidance, pulling those insights into the 22 guidance that we are developing, and certainly to ensure that the decisions 23 that we would make are consistent across the program.
24 So right now I would say it's at the informal working group 25
level in addition to these more formal trainings that we are taking and 1
recording and that the Agreement State people are participating in. I hope 2
that answers your question.
3 COMMISSIONER CAPUTO: Okay. So they are not 4
necessarily -- If there is a 2-day seminar they are not necessarily in a speaking 5
role presenting their lessons learned and their expertise?
6 MS. CLARK: So the particular seminar that happened last 7
November was on technology, you know, what is fusion, what's a tokamak, 8
what are these different types of technologies, and it was taught by MIT and 9
had a lot of very deep technical information.
10 I certainly could see the value in some knowledge 11 management seminars, for example, as the Massachusetts review progresses 12 to share those insights seems like a great idea. They have only just started 13 their review, so that's something that we will keep an eye out for in the future.
14 COMMISSIONER CAPUTO: Thank you.
15 CHAIR HANSON: Thank you. Commissioner Crowell.
16 COMMISSIONER CROWELL: Thank you again to all of 17 the panelists, appreciate the presentations. I will take a quick second to 18 correct the record on something I said.
19 I mentioned that your business line isn't always as sexy as 20 the NRRs, but I forgot about fusion and you are certainly --
21 (Laughter.)
22 COMMISSIONER CROWELL: You are certainly giving 23 them a run for their money there, so keep up that healthy competition. I am 24 not going to ask anymore questions on fusion because it's ground well 25
covered, but it's to be noted regardless.
1 John, I'll start with you but others can jump in. I appreciate 2
you and others on the panel highlighting the Tribal Relations Team and your 3
focus on enhancing our tribal engagements.
4 Sitting here at the beginning of a calendar year what is our 5
tribal engagement and/or consultation look like for the balance of 2024?
6 MR. LUBINSKI: Thank you. I am going to turn to Theresa 7
rather quickly here because she has some of the more specifics, but let me 8
say, you know, we don't always look at it based on calendar year in setting it 9
up, right.
10 You know, it's day-to-day we're looking at going forward.
11 We do have routine meetings set up and hopefully Theresa can help with the 12 acronym here, NETWG that we have routine meetings, TRMTC, which again 13 have tribal interactions in both those meetings, and they are on our calendars 14 every year to have roles in speaking there.
15 We continue to look at our licensing actions, not just in NMU, 16 because, again, we have the tribal program for the entire Agency, but also 17 looking forward in some of the reactor areas as well and making sure that we 18 are proactive in engagement.
19 You saw in the earlier session we had outreach with the 20 Navajo Nation as well as the Mountain Ute Tribe, and we do have additional 21 interactions with them coming forward talking about from another business 22 line a new fuels application in-house and making sure we are communicating 23 with the Navajo nation and that's on our radar, but I will ask Theresa to talk 24 about a couple more specific items that we are addressing.
25
MS. CLARK: Thanks for that. We are also planning to 1
work with the Shoshone-Bannock Tribe out west. They had some important 2
insights about how our Tribal Protocol Manual, which is kind of a sub-tier 3
document to the Tribal Policy Statement, how we could enhance that, and so 4
we want to gather their insights as we embark on a revision there.
5 The Connecticut and Indiana Agreement State applications 6
are of interest to some tribes. One of them that springs to mind is the Osage 7
Nation. So we continue to share information with them and make sure that 8
we are meeting their needs.
9 And then, you know, we kind of see ourselves as a service 10 organization so whatever things crop up, there is a meeting that needs to be 11 publicized, there is a new rulemaking that kicks off that we want to highlight to 12 the tribes, we're there to do that work and to share the information.
13 COMMISSIONER CROWELL: That kind of leads me to 14 another question about I guess you've got the responsibility for tribal 15 engagement writ large for the agency, how is the internal cooperation with 16 other business lines working in that regard, is it a good relationship, do you 17 encounter obstacles in trying to exercise your tribal responsibilities within 18 other business lines?
19 MS. CLARK: I think it's something where we have really 20 built strong relationships over the, you know, last several years as we have 21 built our program up.
22 Now that we have this team and we have Dee as kind of the 23 face of the franchise here we have increased our number of coordination 24 meetings within the agency so that our regional counterparts, the regional 25
state liaison officers, know what's going on and they are a key local supporter 1
to our program and we have seen a real uptick in the number of requests that 2
come into us from staff and other organizations to say, hey, I have this meeting 3
going on can you share some information.
4 That is really encouraging when we see people coming to 5
us in addition to us going out to the organization to say here is what we can 6
do for you.
7 COMMISSIONER CROWELL: Okay. You can leave your 8
mic on I'm going to stick with you. You deserve a raise today as well.
9 (Laughter.)
10 COMMISSIONER CROWELL: The Chair had mentioned 11 the license verification system and I just was hoping you could help put that in 12 context for me.
13 You know, right when I was, you know, over the past couple 14 of years and certainly right before I came on board at the NRC I was following 15 with interest some of the GAO reports about source security issues and 16 specifically license verification issues.
17 Does the license verification system address the issues that 18 GAO has raised? If not, what doesn't it address or does the combination of 19 the license verification system plus the source security of rulemaking kind of 20 capture a holistic response to concerns, legitimate concerns raised by GAO?
21 MS. CLARK: Thanks for that. So the radioactive source 22 security and accountability rulemaking would require before you transfer a 23 Category 3 quantity of materials that you, you know, if you are the person with 24 those materials, that you verify that the person you are transferring them to 25
has a legitimate license through our license verification system.
1 Now right now in the license verification system, or through 2
a call to the regulator if there are licenses that aren't in the system, right now 3
our license verification system is a very secure service, and so there are some 4
log in requirements and that sort of thing.
5 What we are looking at as a possible enhancement to our 6
licenses is a way that there could be a verification directly on that license, you 7
know, leveraging some things that we saw the FDA use, and so they might be 8
able to, for example, scan something on the license and directly receive 9
something through the license verification system without needing a separate 10 log in, but that's a way of implementing the potential requirement to verify the 11 license, just an easier way of implementing that.
12 COMMISSIONER CROWELL: Thank you. I appreciate 13 that. Do you want to add, John?
14 MR. LUBINSKI: If I could add, thank you, because you 15 talked about where GAOs -- We have not specifically talked to GAO about 16 what we had as far as whether or not it would meet all the requirements that 17 they have.
18 We have had the conversations, thank you, Theresa, of 19 Whether or not it would meet exactly what they are saying from, I don't mean 20 the license verification, but, again, tokenizing our license.
21 Also, you know, we're early in that conversation. It's a 22 great idea and we are looking at what we have learned from FDA, but we 23 would have to look at what the cost would be.
24 As we said there are 17,000 materials licensees in the 25
United States, it would be a subset of those. Now you are looking at going 1
back and retrofitting licenses going back, so we have not looked at all of the 2
costing of that yet either.
3 So I just wanted to caution we are very early in looking at 4
how that would be implemented and there would be a lot of decisions that 5
would need to be made.
6 COMMISSIONER CROWELL: Yes. To put a fine point 7
on it, I know we are making progress in this area but's painful for all of us when 8
we get hit year after year with either GAO or other, you know, investigative 9
efforts on this stuff and if we just could have some confidence that between 10 the verification system, the rulemaking, and other efforts that we are going to 11 hopefully nip that in the bud so that we are little bit more immune from criticism 12 by having a modern program.
13 Switching topics here for a second, and I think, Sherrie, I am 14 coming to you with this, you had mentioned that over the past five years that 15 there have only been two Agreement States that have been on probation or 16 heightened oversight.
17 Can you give some flavors as to why those States were on 18 probation and heightened oversight and if there is any commonality there or if 19 it's notable in terms of what we should be mindful of with other Agreement 20 States that may have issues or is it just totally unique, each State?
21 MS. FLAHERTY: It's kind of unique with each of the 22 programs. There were two programs that just, you know, had challenges that 23 kind of overwhelmed their entire programs.
24 They are both -- One of them has since come off probation 25
I think or -- Have we got through that one?
1 MR. LUBINSKI: Mm-hmm, just recently.
2 MS. FLAHERTY: Yes, just came off probation. And then 3
the other one is getting ready for a follow-up IMPEP here in the next couple of 4
months so we can assess where they are at.
5 The working group did not feel that that was indicative of a 6
trend. That was one of the charges that we had in our charter was to really 7
make sure is this just a blip or is this something that we need to take a deeper 8
look at.
9 Based on what our analysis was it appeared to be just two 10 programs that had struggles at about the same time that really rose to our 11 attention.
12 So, yes, again, the purpose then of the working group is to 13 take a look and see is there some way that we can get ahead of this before 14 the challenges become overwhelming for the programs.
15 COMMISSIONER CROWELL: Yes. Yes. And to tie it 16 back to the what my colleagues had raised, once you add fusion to the mix it's 17 a real high bar in terms of expectations. Thank you.
18 Robin, I am going to give you a softball hopefully as my last 19 question. If there is one or two or whatever things you want to identify that 20 would be most applicable to hiring more people like you what would those 21 things be, how do we get more health physicists in our workforce?
22 MS. ELLIOTT: That's a great question. I guess the first 23 thing that pops in my head is sharing the opportunities that exist.
24 I think the opportunities at NRC far outreach most other 25
employers because the Agency is so large and health physics spans so many 1
different areas, so I think that's probably the best one, and then the work 2
environment.
3 COMMISSIONER CROWELL: Yes. I actually think you 4
are right in terms of using those as tools for recruitment, but we don't highlight 5
those things as well as we should have, be it for health physicists or otherwise, 6
the unique nature of what you get to do a government agency and the 7
perspective you have there and the culture goes a long way, too, and it can 8
oftentimes make up for lower pay if you really enjoy where you work and the 9
variety of work you get to do and every day is a new adventure that can make 10 up for some of those other things and make it worthwhile, but we really have 11 to consciously sell ourselves as to having that culture and something that 12 people want to be a part of.
13 So we can just start replicating you and others. Thank you.
14 I appreciate it. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
15 CHAIR HANSON: Thank you, Commissioner Crowell. I 16 think that's a great way to end, right, the emphasis on our people and our 17 mission and how important those are and certainly quiet competence is our 18 brand here at the NRC, but there is certainly more we can be doing to highlight 19 some of the really outstanding aspects of our work and the people who do it 20 and the importance of our mission to the American people.
21 Thank you all for your service and your presentations this 22 morning, it is deeply appreciated. Also, to our first panel and the folks who 23 are hanging around still from that, also a great conversation.
24 Thank you to my colleagues for their thoughtful questions 25
on this. With that, we are adjourned.
1 (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went off the record 2
at 11:44 a.m.)
3