ML19241A169

Transcript of Public Webinar to Discuss the Draft Regulatory Basis for the Disposal of Greater-Than-Class C (GTCC) and Transuranic Waste, August 22, 2019, Pages 1-98

ML19241A169
Person / Time
Issue date:	08/22/2019
From:	Maupin C Division of Decommissioning, Uranium Recovery and Waste Programs
To:
Maupin C
References
NRC-0501, NRC-2017-0081
Download: ML19241A169 (99)

Text

Official Transcript of Proceedings NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION

Title:

Public Webinar to Discuss the Draft Regulatory Basis for the Disposal of Greater-Than-Class C (GTCC) and Transuranic Waste Docket Number: NRC-2017-0081 Location: Rockville, Maryland Date: August 22, 2019 Work Order No.: NRC-0501 Pages 1-98 NEAL R. GROSS AND CO., INC.

Court Reporters and Transcribers 1323 Rhode Island Avenue, N.W.

Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 234-4433

1 1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3 + + + + +

4 PUBLIC WEBINAR TO DISCUSS THE DRAFT REGULATORY BASIS 5 FOR THE DISPOSAL OF GREATER-THAN-CLASS C (GTCC) AND 6 TRANSURANIC WASTE 7 + + + + +

8 THURSDAY, 9 AUGUST 22, 2019 10 + + + + +

11 ROCKVILLE, MARYLAND 12 + + + + +

13 The Meeting convened via teleconference 14 and webinar at 1:00 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time, Sarah 15 Lopas, Facilitator, presiding.

16 PRESENT 17 SARAH LOPAS, Facilitator 18 DAVID ESH 19 PATRICIA HOLAHAN 20 STEVE KOENICK 21 TIM MCCARTIN 22 CARDELIA MAUPIN 23 FRED SCHOFER 24 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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2 1 TABLE OF CONTENTS 2

3 Welcome/Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 4 Background and Overview: Draft Regulatory Basis for 5 the Disposal of GTCC and Transuranic Waste . . . 7 6 Discussion of Draft Regulatory Basis . . . . . . 31 7 Meeting Recap and Closure . . . . . . . . . . . . 98 8

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3 1 P R O C E E D I N G S 2 1:03 p.m.

3 MS. LOPAS: Hi, good afternoon, everybody.

4 Welcome to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's public 5 webinar on the Draft Regulatory Basis for the disposal 6 of greater-than-Class C and transuranic waste.

7 My name is Sarah Lopas and I'll be 8 facilitating today's webinar. In just a moment I'm 9 going to review our short agenda and the logistics of 10 today's webinar, but I do want to first hand the 11 meeting over to Patricia Holahan, or Trish Holahan, 12 who is the Director the Division of Decommissioning 13 Uranium Recovery and Waste Programs, for our welcome.

14 Trish.

15 MS. HOLAHAN: Okay, thank you very much.

16 Good afternoon, I would like to thank you for 17 participating in today's webinar. I'm Trish Holahan, 18 the recently appointed Division Director of the 19 Division of Decommissioning Uranium Recovery and Waste 20 Programs, as Sarah mentioned, in the Office of Nuclear 21 Material Safety and Safeguards.

22 This organization led the development of 23 the Draft Greater-Than-Class C Regulatory Basis, which 24 is a tool that the NRC uses to examine the technical, 25 legal, policy, and administrative components of a NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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4 1 regulatory issue, while considering whether enter the 2 rulemaking stage. In addition, the information in the 3 Draft Regulatory Basis should be considered 4 preliminary.

5 With me in the room are various folks that 6 support us. Steve Koenick, the Branch Chief of the 7 Low Level Waste and Programs Branch. And speaking 8 will be Cardelia Maupin, the senior PM for the 9 Regulatory Basis. And also Tim McCartin, a senior 10 level advisor for performance assessment.

11 Because various disciplines were needed to 12 examine the GTCC, greater-than-Class C waste disposal, 13 the working group assigned this task consists of 14 representatives from various organizations within NMSF 15 and across the NRC, which include the Risk and 16 Technical Analysis Branch for performance assessment 17 and the decommissioning group. The NMSS Division of 18 Rulemaking for cost analysis. And the senior PM, Gary 19 Comfort, was also instrumental.

20 The Division of Materials Safety, 21 Security, State and Tribal Programs, the Agreement 22 State and tribal aspects. The Division of Spent Fuel 23 Management, performance assessment and criticality 24 safety analysis. The Office of Nuclear Security and 25 Incident Response for the security and safeguards NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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5 1 issues. And also the Office of General Counsel for 2 legal and policy issues.

3 In addition, contractual support was 4 provided from the Center for Nuclear Waste Regulatory 5 Analyses Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, 6 TX.

7 As background information, in 2018, the NC 8 issued a Federal Register Notice and held two public 9 meetings seeking stakeholders' input relative to the 10 identification of potential issues associated with 11 GTCC waste disposal. These activities, along with the 12 comment letters received in response to the Federal 13 Register Notice, helped to inform the Draft Reg Basis, 14 as well as other factors.

15 The NRC staff looks forward to discussing 16 the Draft Regulatory Basis with you at today's 17 webinar. And at that point, I'll turn the meeting 18 back over to our facilitator, Sarah Lopas.

19 MS. LOPAS: All right, thanks, Trish. So 20 the purpose of today's meeting is, as Trish mentioned, 21 is that we're here to answer your questions on the 22 preliminary findings and discuss Draft Regulatory 23 Basis for disposal of GTCC and transuranic waste.

24 I do want to point out that we are in the 25 middle of a 60-day public comment period on this Draft NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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6 1 Regulatory Basis document, and that public comment 2 period ends on September 20. But I want to be clear 3 that staff is not accepting comments today during this 4 meeting.

5 So Cardelia is going to discuss during her 6 presentation how you can submit your written comment.

7 So just to be clear, what you say today is not going 8 to go on the record. The purpose of today is to 9 discuss and ask questions of the staff.

10 I will say that Cardelia and Tim are going 11 to walk us through their presentation, their slide set 12 that we're going to go through on the webinar. And 13 then we'll be opening up the bridge line one by one to 14 answer your questions. So you'll be able to answer 15 questions over the, or ask questions over the phone.

16 And you can also type your questions using 17 the question function in the webinar. I'm happy to 18 read aloud your questions for the staff to answer.

19 And when we get to that point I'll explain a little 20 bit more, but that'll be after the staff presentation, 21 after Tim and Cardelia present.

22 And then before I hand it over to 23 Cardelia, the last thing I want to point out is that 24 if you're on webinar, I have attached a couple 25 handouts to the webinar that you can download.

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7 1 So I have attached a PDF copy of the 2 slides, so you can download a copy of the slides. And 3 I've also attached a copy of the actual Draft 4 Regulatory Basis that you can download as well.

5 So with that, I think I'm going to hand it 6 over to Cardelia. And please send me a note via the 7 webinar if you have issues hearing us. We did have to 8 make a last minute room switch, so the audio might not 9 be as great as we want, but we're going to try to make 10 sure that Tim and Cardelia speak up.

11 MS. MAUPIN: Okay, thank you so much, 12 Sarah. It's my pleasure to talk to you today about 13 our efforts regarding GTCC and transuranic waste.

14 If you've ever been at the NRC complex or 15 visit our website or been in one of our public 16 meetings, you might have heard of our concept of our 17 principle of good regulation. And one of our 18 principles of good regulation is that nuclear 19 regulation is the public's business and it must be 20 transacted publicly and candidly.

21 So as you look at slide 2, and at the 22 purpose of this meeting, that is what we are walking 23 into today, one of NRC's principles of good 24 regulation. We believe that the public must be 25 informed about and have the opportunity to participate NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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8 1 in the regulatory processes as required by law and in 2 good public interest.

3 Today we're going, you're going to have 4 the opportunity to participate and get involved as the 5 NRC continues its efforts to develop a Regulatory 6 Basis for the disposal of greater-than-Class C waste.

7 In moving forward, I will not be saying GTCC and 8 transuranic because what we've seen is that in many of 9 the GTCC waste streams that transuranic waste is a 10 subset of GTCC, too.

11 During today's meeting the NRC staff will 12 describe the background and considerations in the 13 Draft Regulatory Basis and give the public an 14 opportunity to ask questions about the document. We 15 believe that through these interactions, we should be 16 able to assist you in the submission of your comments 17 on the draft regulatory program -- on the Draft 18 Regulatory Basis.

19 Furthermore, today's meeting supports 20 NRC's openness strategy. As I said earlier, the NRC 21 is committed to public and other stakeholder 22 participation in its decisionmaking processes. As 23 such, we are committed to transparency, participation, 24 and collaboration with the public and various other 25 regulatory -- and our various other stakeholders and NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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9 1 regulatory partners.

2 Finally, today's meeting supports NRC's 3 cumulative effects of regulation initiative in that 4 the NRC encourages stakeholder participation early on 5 in any potential regulatory change in order to assess 6 the potential challenges that that change could have 7 on licensees, Agreement States, or other impacted 8 entities. Next slide please.

9 Now we are on slide 3. On slide 3, we're 10 going to talk about low level waste as it is defined 11 by NRC regulations in 10 CFR Part 61. We will begin 12 by defining the concept of GTCC under this framework.

13 Firstly, the Low Level Waste Policy 14 Amendments Act of 1980 defined low level waste as 15 basically as what it is not. It is not classified as 16 high level radioactive waste, transuranic waste, spent 17 nuclear fuel, or by-product material, as defined in 18 Section 11(e)(2) of the Atomic Energy Act.

19 The first time ever that low level waste 20 was defined in law was in this 1980 law. In addition, 21 after the law was passed, the NRC developed its 22 regulations for low level waste disposal in Part 61, 23 which is entitled the licensing requirements of land 24 disposal of radioactive waste. In Part 61, in Section 25 61.55, it contains the first ever classification NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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10 1 system for low level waste. And that is as Class A, 2 B, or C.

3 These groups are based on the radiological 4 hazards depending on the concentration of certain 5 radionuclides. As switched, Class A would be your 6 least hazardous, B would be kind of in the middle, and 7 Class C would be the most hazardous of these three.

8 So basically Part 61 says that these 9 wastes, A, B, and C, are accessible for near surface 10 disposal under the requirements that are outlined 11 there in Part 61. Also in 61.55 with this 12 classification system, it describes this other waste.

13 And this other waste that's beyond the 14 hazard of Class C, that waste that is not, the 15 regulations said that that is not generally acceptable 16 for near surface disposal and is for which the waste 17 form and disposal methods must be different and in 18 general more stringent that those described in Part 19 61.

20 So the NRC put that regulation in effect.

21 It was in 1982, it was implemented in 1983. And then 22 subsequently in 1985, the Low Level Waste Policy 23 Amendments Act was passed, and it changed the 24 definition of low level waste.

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11 1 longer said that transuranic waste should be excluded 2 from low level waste. One of the things that this 3 group is going to consider is the addition of this, 4 the definition of transuranic waste to the NRC's 5 regulatory definition in Part 61. And we will get to 6 that a little bit later. So next slide, please.

7 Currently, this slide, this figure shows 8 that there are four existing low level waste, low 9 level reactive waste disposal facilities that are 10 currently commercially licensed in the United States, 11 all of which are in Agreements States. The first one 12 there being US Ecology in Washington, which takes 13 Classes A, B, and C.

14 Utah is a whole different one, the one in 15 Clive. It only takes Class A. We have the Waste 16 Control Specialists in Andrews, TX. It also receives 17 A, B, and C. And Barnwell, and the last one's the 18 fourth one being the facility in Barnwell, at 19 Barnwell, SC, which also takes A, B, and C. So 20 currently, all four of the operating low level waste 21 disposal facilities are licensed and located in 22 Agreement States. Next slide, please.

23 As I said earlier, this whole regulatory 24 framework for low level waste was only developed after 25 the NRC developed its regulations in 10 CFR Part 61 I NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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12 1 1982. So as I said, Part 61 basically has said that 2 material waste that is greater than Class C is not 3 generally acceptable for near surface disposal. And 4 so that's what, a part of our mission with this group 5 is to look at that.

6 So, but the best report that we have in 7 terms of looking at the types, the quantities, the 8 different types of waste streams have been done by our 9 colleagues from the Department of Energy.

10 MS. LOPAS: The audio is lost. Hey, 11 Lorraine, are you there, Lorraine, our operator?

12 Lorraine, our operator? Yeah, let us know where you 13 lost us here on slide, what I'm showing is Slide 5, 14 three categories of GTCC waste. Can somebody give me 15 some feedback here on slide 5? Back two slides, let's 16 see. It was only gone for about a minute. Okay, 17 maybe start over on slide 5 here. Yeah, the 18 activated, if you don't mind.

19 MS. MAUPIN: No worries, no worries.

20 MS. LOPAS: Okay, thank you, everybody.

21 I appreciate it. It was our colleagues at DOE, that's 22 where it was.

23 MS. MAUPIN: Okay, our colleagues at DOE 24 have, in their environmental impact has greater than-25 Class C has basically divided greater-than-Class C NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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13 1 into three categories, which are represented by the 2 images on this slide. The first one being activated 3 metals, the internal metal components of reactor 4 vessels. The second one being field sources that are 5 used in industrial and medical applications.

6 And then we have this third, other waste, 7 which is a very broad category that can include a 8 number of things that might be generated during the 9 process of decommissioning a facility.

10 So I would like to go to the next slide.

11 Okay, now on slide 6 we're going to talk about GTCC 12 waste disposal has been assigned a federal 13 responsibility. I mentioned to you earlier the Low 14 Level Radioactive Waste Policy Amendment Act of 1985.

15 In that legislation, it said a number of things about 16 greater-than-Class C.

17 Basically, it said that greater-than-Class 18 C disposal is a federal responsibility, in that the 19 NRC is to license and determine that a facility is 20 adequate to protect the public health and safety. In 21 addition, the law assigned requirements for DOE. In 22 that law, DOE was directed to develop recommendations 23 and options for the safe disposal of all greater-than-24 Class C waste, which they completed in February of 25 1987.

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14 1 Basically, about 20 years have passed and 2 there has been, we have the Energy Policy Act of 2005, 3 which is basically designed to get some more traction 4 on this issue of greater-than-Class C and a facility 5 where it can be disposed of. And in that law, some 20 6 years later, a number of actions were assigned to DOE.

7 Basically, the Congress said DOE, you're 8 responsible for completing activities needed to 9 provide a GTCC waste disposal facility. And in 10 response, DOE in February of 2011 completed a draft 11 Environmental Impact Statement regarding what they 12 call GTCC low level radioactive waste and GTCC-like 13 waste.

14 And you might be asking what is GTCC 15 versus this GTCC-like that DOE was talking about in 16 its EIS? Basically, GTCC that is licensed and 17 generated by NRC and Agreement State licensees is 18 considered what we call GTCC in the DOE's report.

19 There's other ways that might be generated 20 under DOE's activities that has characteristics 21 similar to what we've described as greater-than-Class 22 C waste and is -- it's non-weapons or non-defense 23 generated. That's probably one of the keys there, 24 non-defense generated, and it is generated by, under 25 DOE activity.

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15 1 Then in February of 2016, DOE finalized 2 its EIS on greater-than-Class C disposal. And this 3 has come to be one of the most comprehensive 4 information that we have in terms of, as I said, 5 greater-than-Class C waste. And in addition, the 6 Energy Policy Act of 2005 told DOE that they are to 7 come up with a report and provide to Congress on 8 various disposal alternatives for greater-than-Class 9 C waste, which DOE completed in November of 2017.

10 And the last thing there, the Energy 11 Policy Act that, after submitting that report, they 12 are to await congressional action. At present, no 13 congressional action has been taken, so we are still 14 in that, at that level right now. Next slide, please.

15 So now let's get into what, how the NRC is 16 in the issue. And then we'll get to why we developed 17 the Draft Regulatory Basis. In January of 2015, Texas 18 submitted to the NRC a letter requesting clarification 19 on its authority as an Agreement State to license 20 disposal of greater-than-Class C waste.

21 Texas inquired because the Waste Control 22 Specialists, as I mentioned earlier, which are in 23 Andrews, TX, have petitioned Texas to remove its 24 prohibition on the disposal of greater-than-Class C 25 waste at its facility, and these prohibitions are NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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16 1 contained in Texas's regulatory program or laws and 2 regulations.

3 When we say an Agreement State, Agreement 4 State is a state that has entered into an agreement 5 with the NRC whereby we would relinquish portions of 6 our authority derived under the Atomic Energy Act and 7 that states would exercise that authority. So that is 8 why Texas asked us that question.

9 In response to the letter from Texas, the 10 NRC staff developed, in July of 2015, SECY-15-0094, 11 which discussed the historical and current issues 12 relative to the disposal of greater-than-Class C.

13 This was an effort to answer the letter from Texas.

14 The Commission then, in December of that year, of 15 2015, responded to the SECY paper and provided some 16 directions to the staff.

17 Basically, they said we want you to 18 prepare a regulatory basis for the disposal of 19 greater-than-Class C waste through means other than a 20 deep geologic disposal. And this was to be done after 21 the completion of the Part 61 rulemaking.

22 In addition, the Commission said, okay, 23 the Low Level Waste Policy Amendments Act no longer 24 excluded transuranic waste from the definition of low 25 level waste, so we want you to address the definition NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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17 1 of transuranic waste in your, in the Reg Basis and in 2 Part 61. So that's part of our effort as well.

3 Subsequently, in October of last year, of 4 2018, the Commission directed the staff to no longer 5 couple the effort of developing this Regulatory Basis 6 with Part 61. They said we want you to move forward 7 because we want to see if there any regulatory or 8 issues associated with this issue of greater-than-9 Class C that we need to address, and we want to get 10 early involvement. We want to get our stakeholders 11 involved in this issue as soon as possible.

12 So that's another reason why we are having 13 this webinar today. Next slide, please. So that gets 14 us to our, in July of this year, July 22, we published 15 that Draft Regulatory Basis, and we are inviting 16 comments. Then we're, as I said, having this webinar 17 today.

18 In addition, we have a public meeting that 19 is planned on August 27th in Austin, TX. As Sarah 20 reminded everyone, there is a 60-day comment period 21 for, on the Draft Regulatory Basis, and that ends on 22 September 20. So you want to keep that in mind.

23 We really welcome your comments in writing 24 and we look forward to your help on this issue. Now 25 I'm going to turn it over to my colleague, Tim NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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18 1 McCartin.

2 MR. MCCARTIN: Hello, and I'll be starting 3 on slide 9. And in the next few slides I hope to give 4 a summary of how we analyzed the near surface disposal 5 of greater-than-Class C waste and what our preliminary 6 findings were.

7 And as Cardelia mentioned, we got our 8 inventories from DOE's final Environmental Impact 9 Statement for greater-than-Class C waste. As she 10 stated, in that EIS you'll see the three categories, 11 activated metals, sealed sources, and an other 12 category. What you won't see is we took the 13 information in that report and we divided it into 14 seven very specific waste streams.

15 We did those 17 waste streams because they 16 identify very distinct streams of the greater-Class C 17 waste that have among very specific waste form and 18 inventories associated with them. And in looking at 19 the hazards of the disposal of the waste, it was 20 important to keep things separate in that way.

21 And you'll see that as I go through my 22 talk, but that's why there are 17 waste streams in our 23 Regulatory Basis. You will not -- you'll see the 24 information related to those waste streams in the 25 FEIS, but DOE did not break them out in that NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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19 1 particular way.

2 We considered three alternatives for 3 implementation of disposal of greater-than-Class C 4 waste under 10 CFR Part 61. The first one is no 5 regulatory change. And let me just explain that 6 briefly, what that means currently.

7 In Part 61, the Commission can decide on 8 a case-by-case basis whether to allow disposal of 9 greater-than-Class C waste in somewhere other than a 10 geological depository. And so that would still remain 11 in effect, and that would mean someone would need to 12 come in and to ask the Commission to act on an 13 application.

14 The other would be we don't make 15 regulatory changes but we issue guidance on what would 16 be expected in any type of application for greater-17 than-Class C waste disposal. And what types of 18 criteria and things we would be looking for accepting 19 such applications.

20 And the third is actually do a rulemaking, 21 which could also include guidance, like we actually 22 would changes Part 63 and put specific requirements in 23 10 CFR Part 61 for the disposal of greater-than-Class 24 C waste in the near surface.

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20 1 see how that plays out in the later slides, but we did 2 find the majority of the greater-than-Class C waste in 3 DOE's Environmental Impact Statement was potentially 4 suitable for a near surface disposal and was 5 approximately 80% of the overall volume of waste.

6 Of that waste that we found potentially 7 suitable, most, approximately 95% of that volume, was 8 potentially suitable and could be regulated by an 9 Agreement State. And in terms of the, if I go to 10 slide 10, you'll see there's a pie chart that is 11 approximately 12,000 cubic meters of greater-than-12 Class C waste.

13 And there's two particular categories of 14 it, greater-than-Class C and greater-than-Class C-15 like, that Cardelia spoke. And then we also have, in 16 DOE's FEIS, they had a designation of category 1 and 17 2, which was existing, what we would call existing.

18 And it was waste that would be existed by 19 current licensed activities that are currently going 20 on or going on in the future. But there's been a 21 decision that these activities would occur. That's 22 what we would call existing waste, it either exists 23 today or will, we know it will be existing in the 24 future.

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21 1 volcanism or activities that no decision has been made 2 to undertake these activities or license these 3 facilities. But if they did go forward, it would 4 develop these types of waste. And we can see it's 5 approximately half and half. Half is approximately 6 existing, half is potential.

7 The best way to give some concrete example 8 for this is I'll use commercial reactors. They 9 generate greater-than-Class C waste. It's activated 10 metal waste, the piping and the reactor internals.

11 That waste is generated when a reactor primarily is 12 decommissioned. So there is a little bit that's 13 generated during the lifetime of the reactor due to 14 maintenance, but most of it is generated after the 15 reactor ends its operating license.

16 That's the existing waste would be for all 17 the licensed reactors today, most of which is going to 18 be generated in the future. There also is the 19 potential for new reactors to be licensed in the 20 future. There aren't any license facilities 21 applications there that are being approved, but this 22 accounts for ones in that future that may be, an 23 application may be submitted and approved and 24 eventually it would generate waste. That's potential.

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22 1 an application is never received, well, that waste 2 would not be generated. But that's where the 12,000 3 cubic meters, the total is. And you can see there's 4 a combination of approximately 50% for each existing 5 and potential.

6 There also is the GTCC versus GTCC-like.

7 And you can see it's approximately there. It's more 8 a quarter of the waste is the greater-than-Class C-9 like waste versus approximately three-quarters is the 10 greater-than-Class C waste.

11 Going to the next slide, and this probably 12 shows the largest single reason for keeping our 17 13 waste streams, and it has to do with the amount of 14 transuranic radionuclides that are present in the 15 waste. And there I have five bore charts. And you 16 can see at the high end it's greater than 10,000 17 nanocuries per gram, and at the lower end it's less 18 than 10 nanocuries per gram.

19 So there is a large spread in the amount 20 of transuranic radionuclides in these waste streams.

21 And there was a desire to keep that separate. Those 22 are very distinct quantities, and they have an impact 23 on the hazard analysis. And so that is really 24 probably the best rationale I will say for explaining 25 why we developed these 17 waste streams.

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23 1 Going to the next slide, that would be 2 slide 12, in terms of doing the analysis, there were 3 a couple things that need to be assumed for a 4 technical analysis. In terms of the disposal facility 5 design, as we said, we were talking about near surface 6 disposal. This would be in the top 30 meters of the 7 land surface.

8 We also looked at, on average, a disposal 9 thickness of one waste container. And I will say 10 where that's important is in the intruder analysis, 11 especially a drilling intruder where you've drilled 12 through something. Well, if you drill through one 13 container, you bring up so much waste. If you 14 actually have two containers, twice as much. Three 15 containers -- so it is a, you can see the impact.

16 Things would get twice as, depending on 17 the thickness of the waste. We chose on average one.

18 We did vary some things to get a sense of the impact.

19 But that is one of the assumptions that's important to 20 that analysis, especially for the analysis of the 21 intruder.

22 In terms of the exposure assessment, we 23 did as we could account for the waste form. And the 24 best example there is the activated metal waste from 25 commercial reactors. Generally, it's stainless steel.

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24 1 Well, stainless steel does not corrode very easily, it 2 doesn't, you know, it doesn't flake up in the air and 3 create things that, a release in the air. And so we 4 assumed a low degradation rate of stainless steel as 5 for the exposure assessments.

6 And then a number of the other assumptions 7 we made were consistent with the analyses that were 8 done in the early 1980s that supported that 9 classification tables in 10 CFR Part 61, the Class A, 10 B, and C that Cardelia talked about. We want to have 11 analyses that were somewhat comparable to what was 12 done back then.

13 Going to the next slide, 13, in terms of 14 the hazards, what were the kinds of things we were 15 looking at. And first there's, you have actually have 16 to receive the waste to the facility and you handle it 17 before you put it in some type of disposal unit.

18 Well, when you're handling these packages, certainly 19 for the workers, a large amount, I think approximately 20 at least a third maybe to a half of the waste in DOE's 21 FEIS, its Environmental Impact Statement, was what was 22 called remote handled.

23 Well, remote handled meant the direct 24 radiation on the waste package was high enough that 25 you had to handle the packages remotely. That's a NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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25 1 worker hazard thing because they get close to the 2 packages. Offsite person, you're not, no one should 3 be getting close to these packages, and so that really 4 isn't an impact.

5 Now, the other part is there's a 6 consideration of actions. What happens if there's a 7 fire, and the fire has a potential to release certain 8 materials into the atmosphere, and that can get to an 9 offsite individual?

10 Now, having said that, there's something 11 where once again the activated metals from commercial 12 reactors, well, stainless steel doesn't burn. And so 13 the impact of fire on some of the nuclides associated 14 with activated metals is greatly reduced because it 15 doesn't really burn.

16 Then there's offsite releases, and that's 17 the eventually whatever you dispose of. There is 18 radioactive decay that occurs, but there will be some 19 releases from an underground facility over time.

20 There are some mobile long-lived radionuclides in this 21 waste, and eventually that could make it to a pathway 22 that could be causing exposure to an offsite 23 individual.

24 For those familiar with technetium-99, 25 it's a very long-lived radionuclide in some of the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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26 1 waste, and it actually is very mobile in the 2 underground system. And it is, there is a lot of 3 retardation mechanisms that hold up radionuclides, a 4 large number of radionuclides, from moving quickly 5 with water underground. Technetium is not one of 6 those radionuclides.

7 Plutonium is one that actually is, like 8 one I call sticky. It sticks to the dirt, to the 9 ground and doesn't transport as quickly underground.

10 And so those are some of the things you account for in 11 the offsite releases.

12 And then there's the intruder exposure, 13 someone who actually -- and two scenarios were 14 evaluated. One is an excavation scenario where we 15 we're talking many years on the future and someone 16 actually excavates for a home and actually doesn't 17 realize that they're digging into a waste trench. and 18 they have an exposure due to that.

19 There's also a drilling scenario. Someone 20 puts in a drill and they're drilling down potentially 21 for groundwater for a family well or some other type 22 of well, and they intercept waste that way. I will 23 say for the excavation scenario, essentially none of 24 the waste streams were potentially suitable.

25 And so you'll see in our Reg Basis a NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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27 1 requirement that we believe Part 61 should be revised, 2 if it was to be revised, to require the depth at least 3 a minimum of five meters below the ground surface and 4 a 500-year intruder protection barrier.

5 Now, where that relates to the current 6 regulation, Class C waste is required to be either 7 five meters below the land surface or a 500-year 8 intruder barrier. We're requiring both for greater-9 than-Class C waste, but the excavation scenario we 10 looked at a little bit, and it was going to be an 11 extremely difficult thing to comply with, say a 500 12 millirem dose, which is the dose limit that was used 13 when 61 was first developed for the intruder.

14 The next is the drilling scenario, and 15 that is drilling through a container. Brings up less 16 waste than excavation. And as I said, we did assume 17 on average it was one package. If it was two 18 packages, it would be twice the impact, and so you can 19 get a sense of that.

20 In terms of going to the next slide, slide 21 14, what's the, what was the perspective that we got 22 in going through these analyses? As I said, most 23 waste is potentially suitable for near surface 24 disposal.

25 I think the key phrase there is NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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28 1 potentially suitable. There would need to be analysis 2 done to look at the specific characteristics of the 3 site you're at, how much water is infiltrating the 4 land. There are many aspects. The characteristics of 5 the geology.

6 And then, very importantly, the inventory.

7 What exactly is being disposed of there? We evaluated 8 each of these waste streams individually. There are 9 17 of them. If they're all at one place, what does 10 that mean? And so, as I said, most were potentially 11 suitable, but an analysis would need to be done.

12 Secondly, the transuranic radionuclides 13 presented issues. And there were concerns with 14 release of plutonium from an operational fire that 15 will get offsite. Consideration of fissile material 16 during operations. The NRC has certain limits for 17 when you have material like plutonium, how much you 18 can have there and whether there's potential for an 19 inadvertent criticality.

20 In terms of the intruder excavation 21 scenario I mentioned, the excavation scenario we said 22 if you go greater than five meters, the excavation 23 scenario was not deeper than five meters, so that was 24 removed. And then the intruder driller scenario, 25 plutonium also, it was a primary aspect there.

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29 1 And if you remember back to my initial bar 2 chart, you can see the transuranic radionuclides 3 buried in these waste streams from greater than 10,000 4 nanocuries per gram to 10, less than 10 nanocuries.

5 So this is widespread. Once again, folks, you need to 6 do the analysis, you know.

7 And most importantly, like I said, we rely 8 primarily on the inventories in DOE's Environmental 9 Impact Statement. Any application, any licensee would 10 need to justify and explain and describe what 11 inventory they would disposing. And that's an 12 important part of the analysis that would be presented 13 in any application for near surface disposal of 14 greater-than-Class C waste.

15 With that, that gets through our technical 16 analysis. I'll turn it back to Cardelia for 17 describing how you could provide comments, written 18 comments to the NRC.

19 MS. MAUPIN: Okay, thank you so much, Tim.

20 Thank you for that great presentation.

21 On the next slide, you would see that it 22 references our docket and where you can go, and other 23 sites where you can go to get additional information 24 on greater-than-Class C waste. In addition, I'm 25 providing my contact information, along with Tim's and NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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30 1 our colleague Gary Comfort, who have been working on 2 this project intently.

3 The next slide is, talks about how to 4 provide comments. And as I said earlier, all the 5 information on this issue and nuclear regulation is 6 not contained within the walls of NRC. That's why we 7 do public meetings and stakeholder outreaches like 8 we're doing today. So I strongly encourage you to 9 submit all your comments in writing, in accordance 10 with the direction in our July 22 Federal Register 11 Notice.

12 And all of your written comments would be 13 considered by us as well, you know, on this issue. So 14 we provide a number of ways that you can submit your 15 comments, and they're described here on this slide.

16 You can even hand carry them if you would like to come 17 visit us. Mail, email, fax. So we have a number of 18 ways that you can submit your information.

19 But when you submit your information, as 20 we'll turn to the next slide, please make sure that 21 when you're submitting your comments, that you include 22 the docket ID there, NRC-2017-0081 on all of your 23 correspondence. And once again, I would like to 24 emphasize that our comment period ends on September 25 20. And with that, I think we can open it up for NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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31 1 questions.

2 MS. LOPAS: All right, everybody, this is 3 Sarah Lopas again. I'm going to facilitate us through 4 the questions. So, a couple ways that you can ask 5 your questions. And I already do have some comments 6 and questions submitted by other webinars.

7 So I'll start by reading those, but if you 8 want to ask a question and get on the phone line, 9 you're just going to press star 1, and our operator's 10 name is Lorraine, and Lorraine's going to get some 11 info from you and she'll open up the bridge line for 12 you so you can ask a question that way.

13 So go ahead and press star 1. I'm sure 14 you've already been through this drill a bunch of 15 times with NRC, star 1 to ask a question on the phone, 16 or just go ahead and type a question on the webinar.

17 I will say that if your question is really super duper 18 long on the webinar, you might just want to call it 19 in, because it gets tough for me to follow it on this 20 webinar.

21 And I do want to point out that this call 22 is being transcribed by a court reporter. So again, 23 these are formal comments on the docket, but we wanted 24 to make sure that we got a good record of today's 25 call. So please, start by introducing yourself. And NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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32 1 the same thing with the NRC staff, just when you start 2 to answer a question just introduce yourself. And 3 then speak clearly so our court reporter can get it.

4 So while I wait for folks to go ahead and 5 get their questions on the line by pressing star 1, 6 I'll start with my first question. And I think maybe 7 Tim would answer this one, maybe. Tim was talking, 8 you were talking about that pie chart, it said, 9 Question on the, I guess this pie chart, are both 10 existing and potential GTCC in the pie chart included 11 in that 12,000 cubic liters total?

12 MR. MCCARTIN: Yes.

13 MS. LOPAS: Okay.

14 MR. MCCARTIN: Yes, the 12,000 includes 15 both existing and potential.

16 MS. LOPAS: Okay.

17 MR. MCCARTIN: And the percentages in the 18 pie chart are a percentage of that overall total, 19 which is approximately 12,000 if you actually do the 20 math. And I won't try to do it in my head, it's not 21 quite 12,000 but --

22 MS. LOPAS: Right.

23 MR. MCCARTIN: Yeah.

24 MS. LOPAS: Okay, excellent. And I just 25 want to remind folks it's not the handraising function NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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33 1 that you're pressing here on the webinar, it's the 2 question function. So I can't do anything with the 3 handraising, so you have to type your question in. I 4 just want to make that clear on the webinar. Or press 5 star 1.

6 So I want to go through this next comment 7 here on the webinar. It says, this is from 8 Pennsylvania, from Rich Janati in Pennsylvania. It 9 would be highly desirable for the NRC to extend the 10 public comment period. So just note that.

11 And then the next question I have here is 12 a little bit of a long one, so I'm going to try to 13 read it. It's from Jeff Burright. The DOE and NRC 14 seem to be building off of each other's efforts on 15 this issue, given that the NRC Regulatory Basis uses 16 the GTCC EIS and considers DOE's GTCC-like waste.

17 How might this basis be affected by the 18 new high level waste definition interpretation by DOE, 19 which could result in a larger volume of GTCC-like 20 waste than was analyzed in the EIS?

21 For example, the high level blasts coming 22 from the Hanford waste treatment plant may be GTCC-23 like instead of high level waste. Plus, the cesium 24 strontium capsules at Hanford, cesium ionic stage 25 columns associated with the TSCR system and the German NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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34 1 logs at Hanford.

2 MR. MCCARTIN: Okay, yes, this is Tim 3 McCartin. And I would maintain that our Reg Basis 4 has been developed in a way that's independent of any 5 potential change of definition. And by that I mean 6 what we are trying to say in the Reg Basis is that 7 there's a number of things that are important.

8 But whatever application for near surface 9 disposal is submitted will have to describe the 10 inventory that they're going to dispose of and the 11 site characteristics of whatever, and facility design 12 they have and how that would comply with the 13 regulations.

14 And so I will say let's, for sake of 15 discussion, let's say there was a change in the 16 definition and there was another 4,000 cubic meters of 17 potential GTCC or GTCC-like that could be considered.

18 I would say, well, it could be considered. But as we 19 did in our Reg Basis, when you analyze it, it may be 20 allowable, it may not be.

21 You're going to have to, any site will 22 have to analyze everything they're receiving. And 23 without knowing exactly waste form and the inventory, 24 we can't say whether something is potentially suitable 25 or not. But you can see the kinds of analysis that NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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35 1 would need to be done to demonstrate that it's safe.

2 And I think that -- our Reg Basis puts 3 forward an approach for analyzing waste streams that 4 isn't dependent on a particular definition, if that's 5 helpful.

6 MS. LOPAS: I want to, we have a number of 7 questions on the webinar, but Lorraine, I wanted to 8 check on the phone. Did anybody press star 1?

9 Lorraine, are you there?

10 We may have a missing operator. Lorraine, 11 are you on the line or any operator?

12 OPERATOR: Can you hear me?

13 MS. LOPAS: Yes, we can now, yeah.

14 OPERATOR: Okay, I'm sorry, my bad, I was 15 here. We do have questions in the queue.

16 MS. LOPAS: Okay, great, go ahead, we'll 17 take those.

18 OPERATOR: Barbara Warren, your line is 19 open.

20 MS. WARREN: Oh, okay, good afternoon. My 21 name's Barbara Warren, and I want to, I was trying to 22 follow that last description, but I'm sort of missing 23 it. Are you applying a siting criteria and 24 regulations to this disposal facility design or not?

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36 1 again. Well, currently, there are dose limits for the 2 offsite person. There was a 500 millirem dose limit 3 for, used for analyzing the protection for the 4 intruders. And what I'm suggesting, that's how we 5 analyze the hazards.

6 Now, in addition there are other things 7 like operational accidents, handling accidents that 8 would have to meet the dose limits for worker safety, 9 offsite exposure. So there's a variety of things, and 10 --

11 MS. WARREN: No, I'm talking about things 12 just pertaining to the location of the site. For 13 example, over an aquifer, a drinking water aquifer.

14 Or you know, a situation where you have a hillside 15 where there's no stability for the ground that you 16 would be putting the landfill into. Things like that.

17 MR. MCCARTIN: Okay, let me, Dave Esh will 18 talk to some of the requirements that are currently in 19 Part 61 for land disposal that I think you're 20 concerned with.

21 MS. WARREN: Yes, yes, that's what I'm 22 concerned with.

23 MR. ESH: Yeah, I think we better 24 understand your question now. It's a good question.

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37 1 would still also apply to greater-than-Class C waste 2 disposal. And those include things like, that you 3 were just talking about. Like there's a requirement 4 that a site can't be in an area of high geotechnical 5 or geormorphic instability.

6 That'd be things like erosion and 7 landsliding and deformations. Or in areas with high 8 seismicity or volcanism. And then there's a bunch of 9 criteria associated with water. Some of those are 10 exclusionary type criteria, and then some of those 11 things that must apply for a disposal site.

12 So for instance, you can't dispose of 13 waste in the zone of water table fluctuations, for 14 instance, just as an example. So all of those 15 criteria would also apply for GTCC waste disposal.

16 MS. WARREN: Okay, thank you.

17 MR. ESH: Yup.

18 MS. LOPAS: All right, Lorraine, who do we 19 have next up on the phone?

20 OPERATOR: Our next question comes from 21 John Greeves. Your line is open.

22 MR. GREEVES: Yes, this is John Greeves.

23 Take it back to slide 3. Can you hear me?

24 MS. LOPAS: Yup, we can.

25 MR. GREEVES: Okay. On slide 3, yeah.

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38 1 MS. LOPAS: And this is, is this the Part 2 61 low level waste disposal slide with the circle?

3 MR. GREEVES: Yes.

4 MS. LOPAS: Okay.

5 MR. GREEVES: And this relates to the 6 definition of low level waste. I'm having trouble 7 understanding why you show transuranic inside and 8 outside the waste classification. As you stated and 9 you're aware, the Amendments Act wiped out the 10 exclusion of TRU.

11 My understanding, legislation trumps any 12 legislation. And the question is why not just conform 13 to the Amendments Act and simply basically conform 14 with the Amendments Act? I'm having trouble why you 15 were, you know, I don't know what you're doing, but it 16 doesn't sound like you're conforming with the 17 Amendments Act. Do you understand the question?

18 MS. MAUPIN: I absolutely, John, 19 understand your question. But the problem is, John, 20 that the regulations in Part 61 were never revised to 21 put transuranic waste into the definition of low level 22 radioactive waste that is described in Part 61. We 23 have, we're still hanging on to the Low Level Waste 24 Policy Act of 1980 definition.

25 So one of the things that the Commission NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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39 1 has charged us to do is to no longer exclude 2 transuranic waste from the definition of low level 3 radioactive waste. Basically, you are absolutely 4 right, we need to update our regulations to conform 5 with the most recent law that was passed in 1985.

6 MR. GREEVES: I don't think you actually 7 have a choice. And it's coming across like you're 8 weighing whether you should follow --

9 MS. MAUPIN: If that's what you heard, I 10 do apologize, but that was not the message I was 11 trying to articulate. What I was saying, we're behind 12 the times. We need to update our regulations to be in 13 time with the last law. And that's why I just, I'm 14 sorry the diagram was confusing.

15 But, and one other thing is that I did it, 16 that we did it that way because currently there are 17 some levels of transuranic radionuclides that are in 18 our table, you know, in Part 61.

19 But this overall concept of transuranic 20 waste needs to be updated in our definitions in Part 21 61.2 to clearly conform with the Low Level Waste 22 Policy Amendments Act of 1985. You are right, we 23 should update it, and that's what we are, part of this 24 effort. I hope that helps.

25 MR. GREEVES: Cardelia, your statement is NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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40 1 very clear, the written product is not. So I'm glad 2 to hear your answer, and I look forward to 3 memorializing that. Thank you very much.

4 MS. MAUPIN: Thank you.

5 MS. LOPAS: Okay. Just a reminder to 6 press star 1. And I will say do the quick learnings.

7 I'm getting some feedback that somebody has pressed 8 star 1 multiple times. So maybe we might have many 9 people on the line. How many folks do we have on the 10 line waiting to ask a question, Lorraine? Can I ask 11 that?

12 OPERATOR: We actually three.

13 MS. LOPAS: Okay.

14 OPERATOR: But I called out to their line 15 and they're not responding. But I actually have one 16 person, Diane D'Arrigo. Her line is open.

17 MS. LOPAS: Okay.

18 MS. D'ARRIGO: Hi. So I am following --

19 the concentrations in the 10 CFR 61.55 tables have 20 transuranics in them, transuranics with half-lives 21 longer than five years. The transuranic 22 concentrations are already embedded in the Class A, B 23 and C, well, actually A and C.

24 So I don't really get why you're saying 25 that you don't have to comply with those. Do you NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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41 1 really think that Congress knew what it was doing if 2 it was adjusting concentrations for plutonium isotopes 3 and transuranics?

4 MR. MCCARTIN: Well --

5 MS. D'ARRIGO: The problem that has been 6 -- and I'll just say one more thing about -- as 7 someone who has been tracking this since 1980, the 8 public interest groups, including the Sierra Club, 9 have a position calling for redefining low level 10 waste, or waste that goes into 10 CFR 61 facilities to 11 not be hazardous longer than the institutional control 12 period. And the institutional control period is 100 13 years.

14 So the analyses that are being done that 15 allow for longer lasting waste to go into these 16 facilities at higher and higher concentrations are 17 putting the public at danger. And I just strongly 18 oppose it.

19 And I would like to -- I mean, we've been 20 fighting this issue with the NRC for a long time with 21 the depleting uranium issue. And we've got a similar 22 situation with really long lasting radionuclides that 23 you're saying are going to go into still what are 24 considered unlined soil trenches legally. That's one 25 comment on that.

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42 1 MR. MCCARTIN: Well, one quick thing I 2 think that might have been misunderstood. There is no 3 suggestion that we are going to change the 4 concentration limits in the tables in Part 61.

5 So the fact that greater than Class C, if 6 you're over 100 nanocuries per gram, you're greater 7 than Class C. And so despite the definition, you 8 still now would have to comply with whatever approach 9 is taken for the nearest disposal of greater than 10 Class C.

11 And as you saw in our analysis --

12 MS. D'ARRIGO: How does your analysis 13 comply with an approach? I don't understand. Could 14 you describe that?

15 MR. MCCARTIN: Well, for our reg basis --

16 MS. D'ARRIGO: Yes.

17 MR. MCCARTIN: -- we have identified that 18 certain concentrations, the two waste streams that we 19 did not find potentially suitable were ones that were 20 over 10,000 nanocuries per gram.

21 The other ones -- regardless of how 22 transuranic waste is defined, once your above Class C, 23 which is 100 nanocuries per gram, you are now into 24 whatever approach we end up with for evaluating the 25 safety of greater than Class C disposal.

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43 1 And as I mentioned early on, there were 2 three alternatives that were considered. One would be 3 no action. And, currently, Part 61 allows someone to 4 come in and ask for the Commission to approve it on a 5 case-by-case basis.

6 So just the other was we might develop 7 guidance or actually change the rule. Now in the 8 right basis, we have, and it's preliminary, we're 9 waiting for -- well, we're seeking comment, but as I 10 noted there would require greater in Class C to be no 11 less than 5 meters below the surface and a 500 year 12 intruder barrier.

13 The analysis would still have to show that 14 it would meet a 500 millirem dose for the intruder.

15 The offsite exposure -- there's a lot of other things.

16 Dave identified other aspects of Part 61 that all come 17 into play.

18 So, you know, I wouldn't want -- I think 19 you were thinking it would change the definition of 20 transuranic waste, that it would automatically be 21 allowed. And no, all the -- once you're above 100 22 nanocuries per gram for the transuranics, you are in 23 the greater than Class C. And the analysis and the 24 evaluations would need to be done to show that it is 25 safe. That's what I meant by the process.

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44 1 MS. D'ARRIGO: If it's already requiring 2 a case-by-case analysis, then what you're wanting to 3 do now is make it more generic. I mean, you already 4 can put greater than C into these facilities if you do 5 the analysis on a case-by-case basis. It's already 6 being --

7 MR. MCCARTIN: The Commission can approve 8 that, yes, on a case -- yes, and that's why that's one 9 of the alternatives. We don't have to change 10 anything. We can still do this on a case-by-case.

11 Now some might argue that from a 12 regulatory stability and clarification standpoint, is 13 it better that we actually change the rule and say 14 these are the things that will be required for any 15 greater than Class C near surface disposal?

16 That's why we're out for public comment.

17 That's why these different alternatives exist. We're 18 interested in, like I said, it's preliminary. It's 19 giving comment and --

20 MS. LOPAS: Great. I'm going to -- since 21 we've gone through three folks on the phone, I'm going 22 to go through -- because we've have a number of 23 questions on the webinar. So I'm going to read 24 through a couple of the questions on the webinar.

25 The first one is from Melanie Snyder and NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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45 1 it asks are all the GTCC activated metals stainless 2 steel?

3 MR. MCCARTIN: In terms for commercial 4 reactors, the vast, vast majority is stainless steel.

5 And I have to go back and check. There is a little 6 activated metals associated with the West Valley 7 Demonstration Project. And I'm not certain it is 8 stainless steel, but it obviously is metal.

9 We did not account for it being stainless 10 steel in our analysis. But obviously that's something 11 if someone had more information on that particular 12 waste stream, it could be accounted for. But for the 13 reactors -- there's two parts to be aware of for the 14 activated metals.

15 There is surface contamination, and 16 there's contamination that goes throughout the metal.

17 For the reduced source term, it's the portion that's 18 throughout the metal because that requires the metal 19 to completely corrode. There is some limited surface 20 contamination. And that was available from the 21 beginning for release but.

22 MS. LOPAS: Okay. All right. The next 23 question we have here is a process question. This is 24 from Phil Klevorick. What will be the process and 25 possible timeline after the close of the public NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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46 1 comment period on September 20?

2 MS. MAUPIN: After we receive the 3 comments, generally we will bin the comments, sort the 4 comments and then look at developing responses to 5 those comments and to see how we need to, you know, 6 re-evaluate the Draft Regulatory Basis and make 7 changes to it.

8 As a number of people have alluded to, the 9 Draft Regulatory Basis has not received a review and 10 approval by the Commission so it's considered 11 preliminary. And so in terms of process, we would 12 also have to consider what the Commission would like 13 us to do.

14 MS. LOPAS: Okay. And so for folks on the 15 phone, press star 1. I know those you that have 16 pressed star 1 just hang tight for a minute more. I'm 17 going to go one more question here on the webinar.

18 But we'll get to you on the phone. I promise.

19 So here's the next question on the 20 webinar. It's from Larry Camper. Given the direction 21 in SECY-15-0094 that if the staff determines that some 22 or all of the GTCC waste is potentially suitable for 23 near surface disposal, the staff should proceed with 24 rulemaking.

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47 1 why did the staff not proceed with the rulemaking 2 rather than no recommendation?

3 MR. MCCARTIN: This is the first step, the 4 reg basis.

5 MS. LOPAS: Yes.

6 MR. MCCARTIN: A draft reg basis is the 7 first step in the rulemaking path. And so --

8 MS. HOLAHAN: This is Trish. And it gets 9 into the cost analysis of the various options so.

10 MS. LOPAS: All right. So star 1 if folks 11 want to make a comment on the phone. Lorraine, do you 12 have folks that you're in touch with that want to make 13 a comment on the phone?

14 OPERATOR: Yes. Karen Hadden, your line 15 is open.

16 MS. HADDEN: Hi, can you hear?

17 MS. LOPAS: Yes, we can.

18 MS. HADDEN: Hi. Okay. This is Karen 19 Hadden. I'm in Austin, Texas, and very concerned 20 because Texas is, in fact, being targeted for the 21 final disposal of the entire inventory of greater than 22 Class B waste and greater than Class C in transuranic 23 waste.

24 This is clear from reading the 25 environmental assessment that followed the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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48 1 Environmental Impact Statement. And what I learned is 2 that the curies, the 160 million curies, would be more 3 than 28 times what the pit is licensed for at WCS.

4 It's 41 times the curies of the adjacent contact waste 5 facility.

6 This is a vast increase. And somehow it's 7 expected that our state agency will just wave a wand 8 and say that that's okay. We can just do a license 9 amendment for 28 times more than it's licensed for.

10 Our governor is opposing this, much to his 11 credit. He opposes an increase in the amount of 12 concentration or radioactivity authorized for disposal 13 in Andrews County.

14 The canisters would weigh 100,000 pounds 15 each and would be 7 units deep in the federal waste 16 facility starting from 120 feet deep. This is 17 basically shallow burial where the Environmental 18 Impact Statement specifically says on (i)(6) in the 19 introduction that this waste is generally not 20 acceptable for near surface disposal and for which the 21 waste form of disposal methods must be different and 22 in general more stringent than those of Class C.

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49 1 anywhere. And I'd like for you to explain how it got 2 changed from even considering to five meters deep 3 because the environmental assessment says one big 4 concern is volatilizing of radionuclides where they 5 could come up through the cover on top of the site and 6 get into the air and therefore the land, water and air 7 could all become contaminated.

8 How is it that 5 meters deep can all of a 9 sudden be considered viable when it started out being 10 not acceptable for near surface disposal?

11 MR. MCCARTIN: Well, you raise a number of 12 issues there. I will say first we did our analysis 13 with no particular site in mind. We looked at a range 14 of conditions a range of inventories, and we did the 15 evaluation.

16 At the NRC, we are not promotional of any 17 particular application. We review an application if 18 someone wants to submit an application and review it 19 against our safety requirements.

20 And if a particular design site inventory 21 can meet the safety requirements, that is what our 22 review is about. I understand your concerns. And I 23 think all aspects of the releases and what could 24 potentially happen at a particular disposal site would 25 need to be evaluated.

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50 1 What we try to put forward in our reg 2 basis, and we certainly would appreciate any comments, 3 is have we missed certain things that should be done 4 in terms of safety requirements? Are there any 5 recommendations that people have that feel that are 6 needed to ensure safety, we are certainly happy to 7 hear that.

8 MS. HADDEN: So thank you for that answer.

9 I want to point out in terms of safety that this waste 10 would be going into disposal in an area that is prone 11 to earthquakes. There was an earthquake, a 5 12 magnitude earthquake, 19 miles away and even closer 13 epicenters for lesser earthquakes on the Richter 14 Scale. There's a lot of them.

15 And there seems to be no way that we could 16 monitor what was happening underground. How would we 17 even know if something was banging around and started 18 to release radiation? How are we going to see? How 19 are we going to know what's going on?

20 I think this is a horrible plan, this 21 reclassifying waste. I think it sneaks in waste that 22 should not be coming to Texas. And we're going to 23 fight really hard to prevent this reclassification 24 from happening. It doesn't make sense, and it will 25 create a disaster scenario.

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51 1 MS. LOPAS: Thank you, Karen. I hope that 2 you submit those comments in writing and maybe you'll 3 see our folks at the meeting next week down in your 4 neck of the woods.

5 MS. HADDEN: We'll be there.

6 MS. LOPAS: Excellent. Okay. Lorraine, 7 do we have another person on the phone?

8 OPERATOR: Our next question comes from 9 Tom (Smitty) Smith. Your line is open.

10 MR. SMITH: Hi. My name is Tom Smith or 11 I'm better known as Smitty. And I'm representing 12 public citizen. When this was first discussed, the 13 belief was it was going to go to repository.

14 And most recently, these wastes were 15 target at WIPP. Although there was an unfortunate and 16 preventable accident at WIPP, that site is now open 17 again and accepting waste.

18 What's wrong with WIPP and why is that no 19 longer being considered? And kind of along with that 20 is the only reason we're looking at it is because the 21 Commission under Rick Perry decided to send you all a 22 letter? Is that what this is all really about, 23 because Secretary Perry, when he was governor was 24 trying to benefit a donor?

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52 1 me clarify that WIPP is for defense related waste, and 2 this is specifically not defense-related waste. And 3 so, you know, this really isn't. You know, and I 4 guess that could change, and it could go to WIPP if it 5 changed the law. But currently that would not be the 6 case.

7 I can say in terms of the Commission asked 8 us to look at this. And we have followed that 9 direction, and we put this out for public comment. We 10 believe some of this waste is potentially suitable.

11 However, as Cardelia mentioned, we are 12 looking for public comment. We believe we've 13 described how we analyze things, how we've thought 14 about this problem and why we think it's potentially 15 suitable. And we're waiting to get comments.

16 But the Commission has requested us to 17 look at this, and we are looking at it. I think, 18 certainly, there was the letter to Texas that came 19 into the Commission and was a part of that decision.

20 It wasn't the only part of that decision.

21 MS. MAUPIN: And if I could just jump 22 here. If you have an opportunity and access to the 23 internet, on DOE's site, there is that November the 24 17th -- that 2017 report to Congress where they list 25 various alternatives in terms of GTCC disposal. One NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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53 1 of those is revising the law so it can go to WIPP.

2 So you might want to look at that report.

3 It would either go to WIPP or a commercial low level 4 radioactive waste facility. So there are a number of 5 documents there on the DOE that could help you in 6 terms of information.

7 MR. SMITH: Thank you very much.

8 MS. LOPAS: All right. Lorraine, how many 9 folks do we have on the line waiting to ask a 10 question?

11 OPERATOR: I currently have two questions 12 on line. I've called out to their lines. They're not 13 responding.

14 MS. LOPAS: Okay. All right. Well, we'll 15 let them hang out there for longer. If you're on the 16 phone, you can be up soon but press star 1 if you want 17 to get us on the phone.

18 So we have a number of webinar questions.

19 So let's just work through these for a little bit.

20 This one comes from Janet Schlueter. I 21 might be pronouncing -- Schlueter. I apologize Janet.

22 Janet Schlueter. What is the basis for the staff 23 assumption that potential volumes of both categories 24 exceed existing volumes? So this is from those 25 slides, I guess, showing the -- Slides 10 and 11 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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54 1 showing kind of the pie charts and the bar charts.

2 So the basis for staff assumption that 3 potential volumes of both categories exceed existing 4 volumes. What's the staff basis for saying that?

5 MR. MCCARTIN: The potential -- these are 6 just the volumes in the Department of Energy's FEIS.

7 And they gave volumes for a variety of waste streams, 8 and they categorized them as, I think it's one and 9 two.

10 And one was their existing facilities that 11 are licensed. Two are potential ones. And it's just 12 the volumes they gave in the FEIS. We didn't generate 13 them. I can be a little more specific.

14 On some of the -- for example there's some 15 potential molybdenum-99 for medical isotopes that 16 could happen in the future. There's no decision on 17 doing that. There's other things such as their 18 decisions associated with the West Valley site, that 19 decisions might be made with some of the Commission 20 waste there that -- but no decisions have been made 21 yet.

22 Those are some of the categories of the 23 potential one in addition to the -- and I'll say it 24 was on the order of 35 new reactors or so to be built 25 in the future that applications are not presently NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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55 1 there.

2 We accepted the Department of Energy's 3 numbers. We did not second guess these estimates.

4 But, you know, and it is what they turned out to be.

5 MR. ESH: Janet, this is David. It 6 depends on the particular waste you might be looking 7 at, too. So for instance, commercial reactors the 8 existing is about twice as much as the potential that 9 would come for commercial reactors.

10 So like what Tim said, depending on what 11 you do with West Valley, that could generate a whole 12 bunch. But it depends on the particular waste stream, 13 how much is potential and how much is existing.

14 MS. MAUPIN: I would just jump in there 15 and say if Janet, when she submits her comment, if you 16 have better information, better data because I know 17 that you represent the nuclear reactor arena, so if 18 there is better information than what we have, please 19 feel free to submit it as a part of your submission to 20 our comments. We would greatly appreciate any 21 clarifying information you could provide us.

22 MR. ESH: But I guess one thing I would 23 like to point back, and it gets to a couple of the 24 questions we've had. It was very deliberate that we 25 said potentially suitable because there is uncertainty NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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56 1 in the estimates of what exactly is the inventory for 2 these waste streams. We are using primarily what deal 3 was presented. What the volume is, how much volume 4 might be disposed of at a particular site of what 5 waste streams.

6 And so there are a variety of combinations 7 that one could come up, some are going to be more 8 difficult than others. And that's why we said 9 potentially suitable. The key is whoever would submit 10 an application, either to an Agreement State or to the 11 NRC, they would need to, I think, have a defendable 12 inventory of the peer accepting what the waste forms 13 are and to support an evaluation of whether it's safe 14 or not.

15 MS. LOPAS: Okay. I just want to remind 16 NRC folks just introduce yourself before you chime in.

17 MS. MAUPIN: Okay.

18 MS. LOPAS: So that leads into our next 19 question pretty well. So this is from Rich Janati 20 from Pennsylvania again. How confident are you that 21 80 percent of GTCC waste is suitable for near surface 22 disposable and what is this conclusion based on?

23 Also you pointed out that 95 percent of 24 the 80 percent GTCC that is suitable for near surface 25 disposal can be regulated by the Agreement State.

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57 1 What's the 5 percent waste of the waste that is 2 suitable for near surface disposal that cannot be 3 regulated by the Agreement State?

4 MR. MCCARTIN: Okay. Right. And I think 5 I answered some of that question. We have never said 6 it's suitable, potentially suitable. And that was a 7 very deliberate choice. And it depends. Site 8 conditions are different. Inventory is how much of 9 this?

10 And that's why we said 80 percent was 11 potentially suitable. But that does not mean it is 12 safe everywhere or -- in terms of the 5 percent, where 13 that comes from there are certain limits on fissile 14 plutonium that we have security requirements for the 15 NRC, and it has to do with common defenses security.

16 And that's something that's reserved for 17 the NRC. And so that 5 percent that isn't there, it 18 has to do with a large amount of fissile material that 19 trips the threshold for requiring some security 20 requirements that are reserved for the NRC. And so 21 that's what makes it problematic for that 5 percent.

22 MS. LOPAS: Okay. And that's good. That 23 took care of the next question, asking that same 24 question what's the 5 percent means so. And that was 25 from Ben Wishert.

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58 1 The next question we have on the webinar, 2 and just a reminder to press star 1. You don't have 3 to type your questions into the webinar. You can 4 speak on the phone. So star 1 or go ahead and type 5 your question in.

6 The next question here we have is from 7 Jeff Burright. It says based on Figure B2 of the 8 regulatory basis, so Figure B2, the regulatory basis 9 document, it appears that GTCC disposal should only be 10 safe if the intruder barrier is also built to 11 withstand drilling equipment between 100 and 500 12 years.

13 Is this part of the assumption behind the 14 500 year barrier in the regulatory basis? The 15 analysis does not provide a basis for expecting such 16 a barrier to be feasible. What about uncertainty 17 analysis for early barrier failure? So let me know if 18 you need me to re-read that.

19 MR. ESH: Hi, Jeff. This is Dave Esh.

20 Thanks for the questions. So, yes, you're 21 interpreting that reasonably correctly. Because for 22 some that 100 to 500 year time frame for many of the 23 GTCC waste streams that we analyze, you do need to 24 prevent something like a drilling for occurring.

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59 1 regulations, we would require the disposal depth and 2 a robust intruder barrier, which might take the form 3 of, you know, high strength reinforced concrete with 4 a lot of rebar in it, something like that. But we 5 usually don't get to that level of specificity in 6 terms of what the barrier might be.

7 We would say what the barrier may need to 8 achieve and then allow the licensee or applicant to 9 come with up with how they believe they could design 10 something to meet that requirement.

11 And then -- sorry, what was the second 12 part of the question?

13 MS. LOPAS: Okay. So did you answer this 14 part of the assumption behind the 500 year barrier?

15 MR. ESH: Yes.

16 MS. LOPAS: Okay. The analysis is often 17 waiting or expecting the barrier to be feasible. What 18 about uncertainty analysis in early barrier failure?

19 MR. ESH: Yes. So what those figures show 20 is basically the uncertainty in if the barrier failed.

21 So if you had a barrier that was 5 percent effective, 22 then those curves would not start until 500 years or 23 whenever you think the barrier is going to be fail.

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60 1 looking at.

2 Now I would add that there's a lot that 3 goes into that type of calculation. Many of those 4 impacts to the driller are dominated by inhalation 5 pathways. And so you're really concerned with how 6 much of the material ends up in the air, how long is 7 the person drilling, those sorts of things that go 8 into the calculation.

9 If you have site specific information for 10 those sorts of inputs that go into the calculation, it 11 may be possible that you could justify that the 12 impacts are not too large in that 100 to 500 year 13 period. But as Tim has tried to stress, that's a very 14 site specific thing when you're looking at these 15 different engineered designs and different waste 16 streams and different disposal sites. So that's what 17 we think is the right thing to do for these 18 situations.

19 MS. LOPAS: Okay. Let me get one more 20 question here on the webinar and then we'll go back to 21 the phones. It's star 1 or just hang tight if you 22 pressed star 1 and you're on the line. We'll get to 23 you.

24 So this is from Roger Seitz. And it's two 25 questions. One is on Slide 12, it was stated that NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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61 1 Part 61 approach was followed. However, Part 61 2 classification tables included a factor of 10 3 multiplier that increases the Class C limits by a 4 factor of 10 to account for a variety of pessimistic 5 assumptions built into intrusion scenarios.

6 It does not appear that a similar factor 7 would be used in the technical analysis. Are you 8 implying that limitations on GTCC receive more 9 restrictive than Class B by not including the similar 10 factor in this technical analysis.

11 MR. ESH: Thanks for the question, Roger.

12 This is Dave Esh. We aren't implying that the 13 requirements for GTCC would be more restrictive. But 14 that factor of 10, a large part of the basis for it, 15 was that the waste disposal facility would not be full 16 of waste all at the waste class limit.

17 So for instance for a normal facility, we 18 have a saying that only a small fraction of the waste 19 would be Class C and a fraction would be at the Class 20 C limits and a fraction would be at the Class A 21 limits.

22 Basically, much of the waste would be 23 under the class limits. For this analysis we were 24 looking at if the waste was all at a certain value, 25 for instance, waste in the barrel of a certain NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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62 1 concentration, what would be the impact?

2 This did not consider other waste that 3 runs off of it. And so it wouldn't be appropriate to 4 add in that factor of 10 for this type of analysis 5 because it was really looking at wasting under the 6 limits as it was disposed in actuality whereas as the 7 regularity limits were kind of what's the allowable 8 limits for the different classes of waste.

9 MS. LOPAS: Okay. And then here's his 10 second question, Roger Seitz's second question, and 11 then we'll go to the phones. Also a mud pit was 12 assumed for drilling in the impacts update NUREG 13 supporting Part 51 from the mid-1980s.

14 It does not appear such a drilling 15 approach was considered by the technical analysis.

16 Mud pits are commonly used in a site specific analysis 17 likely may be considered a drilling approach with 18 intruder scenario. It seems that a mud pit should be 19 considered in a technical analysis.

20 MR. ESH: Right. So you're correct. We 21 didn't consider a mud pit because the doses associated 22 with a mud pit are much lower because of the mud being 23 wet and that plus, it's dispersible. But that there 24 are many drilling technologies today that do not use 25 a mud pit and the impacts are much larger.

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63 1 And so you asked if on a site specific 2 basis you could argue that the drilling technology 3 would be a mud pit. You should factor that into your 4 analysis.

5 But for this regulatory analysis, it 6 wouldn't be appropriate for us to ignore the much 7 higher risk scenarios which are used in practice with 8 some of the more modern drilling techniques.

9 MS. LOPAS: Okay. All right, star 1 to 10 get a question on the phone. Lorraine, do we have any 11 questions on the phone?

12 OPERATOR: Yes. The name was not 13 recorded, but your line is open. You may go ahead.

14 MS. LOPAS: Hi. Is somebody on the line?

15 You just need to introduce yourself. If you wanted to 16 talk on the phone, now is your chance so. You did not 17 record you name. All right. Lorraine, we might need 18 to come back. Anybody else on the line?

19 OPERATOR: Karen Hadden, your line is 20 open.

21 MS. HADDEN: Hi. I was glad to hear the 22 discussion about the drilling equipment. The site 23 that this would go to, and it's very clear from the 24 environmental assessment that this is the site that's 25 really being focused on.

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64 1 None of the others are really being 2 considered at this point although many communities 3 would be impacted by 33,000 truck shipments or 11,800 4 rail shipments.

5 But the drilling would be a possibility 6 because this is the heart of the Permian Basin, the 7 largest producing oil fields in the country. It 8 recently came up in the case about high level waste 9 going to this site that there has been a failure to 10 characterize over 600 abandoned wells that are already 11 in existence in the region.

12 So there are multiple pathways by which 13 radioactive materials could, in fact, migrate. And I 14 don't think that there are too many barriers through 15 which drilling could not be accomplished. So, again, 16 I think there needs to be a full blown site specific 17 Environmental Impact Statement for this to be an 18 environmental assessment and adopting the generic 19 Environmental Impact Statement is not enough.

20 There needs to be a full blown look at 21 what would be the real impact of sending this stuff 22 for shallow burial inappropriately near the Ogallala 23 Aquifer, which lies under eight states. This is not 24 a good idea, and it needs to be researched thoroughly.

25 MS. LOPAS: Okay. Thank you, Karen.

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65 1 Let's finish off some of these questions on the 2 webinar and then we'll go back to the phones. So star 3 1 on the phone. It sounds like you are prompted by a 4 recording to record your name. Just keep that in mind 5 when you press star 1.

6 So this next question on the webinar is 7 from Ann Frisch. What kind of statistics will you use 8 to estimate the potential for highway accidents given 9 that there will likely be a lot of requests for 10 parking this material in landfills? What amount of 11 risk do you expect? Who will pay the costs? How many 12 new staff will you need to assure public and 13 environmental safety? Will first responders be ready 14 when a shipment is made? Will the public be informed 15 in advance?

16 MR. MCCARTIN: Well, the reg basis is for 17 disposal. And certainly environmentally -- the 18 Environmental Impact Statement could look at potential 19 transportation accidents, et cetera. Certainly, the 20 shipment of radioactive waste would have to follow 21 requirements that are already in existence by the 22 Department of Transportation and NRC's requirements so 23 usually for the package, for the NRC. But that would 24 be evaluated if a facility was going forward. This is 25 a reg basis for the disposal facility.

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66 1 MS. LOPAS: Right. So you're saying some 2 of those transportation impacts, Tim, would be 3 evaluated for -- and he asked for a specific facility.

4 And that's not what we're looking at right here, 5 right?

6 MR. MCCARTIN: Yes.

7 MS. LOPAS: Right. Okay. The next 8 question here is from Dan Shrum. It says question on 9 the PA. Does a package of GTCC waste consider other 10 waste Class A, B or C, being placed above the GTCC 11 package or was just the GTCC package evaluated?

12 MR. MCCARTIN: Just the GTCC package.

13 And, remember, once again, that's why we say 14 potentially suitable. There are different ways to 15 dispose of things. And what actually was the design 16 of the facility would need to be looked at and the 17 actual inventories for everything that's disposed of.

18 But given the very specific nature of 19 greater than Class C waste, you know, we felt that it 20 was appropriate that it probably be a particular 21 disposal unit would be reserved for it. But, you 22 know, certainly from a drilling thing, if you have one 23 package or two packages, you're going to have twice as 24 much waste and so it would be more difficult.

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67 1 at co-disposal of GTCC and other waste, Dan, those 2 other wastes would be much less concentrated than the 3 GTCC. So, yes, they would have an additive effect for 4 the impacts, but it would be probably be a small 5 fractional additive effect for the impact so. But 6 yes, a site specific analysis would have to consider 7 all the waste in a column not just one type of waste.

8 MS. LOPAS: Right.

9 MR. ESH: Whatever the disposal plan is.

10 MS. LOPAS: And I think that answers Dan's 11 follow-up question where he says what additional waste 12 classifications would be acceptable to be placed next 13 to or on top of GTCC? And it sounds like you guys 14 emphatic that it's site specific.

15 MR. MCCARTIN: Given it's analyzed, it's 16 certainly is potentially okay.

17 MR. ESH: Dan, this is Dave. The one 18 thing we would consider is that the other waste have 19 some of deleterious impact on the GTCC waste. For 20 instance, if you needed to rely on a stainless 21 container for the GTCC waste, would the other waste 22 and characteristics impact the GTCC waste. But other 23 than that, just like I described earlier, you just sum 24 all the activity and the analysis and the scenario.

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68 1 one more kind of multipart question here on the 2 webinar. So submit your questions on the webinar if 3 you have additional ones. And press star 1 if you 4 want to get on the phone line and talk over the phone 5 line.

6 So this question is from Gordon Edwards, 7 who is from the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear 8 Responsibility. So he asks what independent checking 9 will be done to verify waste inventories? He sees 10 three problems.

11 One, list of radionuclides is generally 12 not complete. Two, activity levels can be 13 underestimated by orders of magnitude using mass 14 instead of actual measurement. And three, it's 15 difficult to measure some radionuclides that are long 16 lived lives, such as using carbon-14, a six thousand 17 year half-life poses a long-term hazard.

18 So he's saying in part two of the 19 question, I should have emphasized some radionuclides 20 which are very difficult to detect because of much 21 less penetrating radiation. No gamma. There is also 22 potential for falsified documentation as well. So 23 he's wondering about independent checking to verify 24 waste inventories.

25 MR. MCCARTIN: Well, certainly any NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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69 1 application has to have support for their inventory.

2 That would be reviewed by the regulator and is 3 potentially inspectable. And there are limitations of 4 what one can look at, but there is uncertainty there.

5 It would need to be evaluated, just like any disposal 6 site. That's true for Class A, B and C as well as 7 other waste forms.

8 MS. LOPAS: Okay. All right. Lorraine, 9 do we have any questions on the phone?

10 OPERATOR: Yes. Diane D'Arrigo, your line 11 is open.

12 MS. D'ARRIGO: Thank you. I have two 13 here. One is having to do with the doses. Under 10 14 CFR 61, unless it's been changed, which I don't think 15 it has. It's been considered changed. You're 16 supposed to meet 40 CFR 190, which is 25 millirems per 17 year.

18 And so I know you're doing the long range 19 scenarios out to 500 and that seems to be a more 20 limiting factor for some wastes going in. So I wanted 21 to hear about the dose calculations and the public 22 being allowed to be exposed to what levels from this 23 material.

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70 1 decommissioning of reactors in other large facilities 2 and a need for a place for greater than C because it's 3 taking longer to get a place for high level waste?

4 So is this something to enable materials 5 to be moved in the absence of a high level repository?

6 And then I have one more on transport.

7 MS. LOPAS: Okay. So do we want to tackle 8 the first one regarding questions about doses --

9 MS. D'ARRIGO: Doses and then economics of 10 decommissioning (simultaneous speaking).

11 MR. MCCARTIN: Well, let me raise the 12 economics ones first. And I'll say -- this is Tim 13 McCartin. As part of the working group, that never 14 once came into any discussion for us.

15 The task we were asked was, is this 16 material potentially suitable for disposal in the near 17 surface? And that's the only thing we looked at, 18 whether it's an economic advantage, whether it's 19 potentially suitable and meeting the 500 year intruder 20 barrier. And meeting all -- you might have to have a 21 facility design that would be buried.

22 Our focus was on is it appropriate that 23 this be considered for near surface disposal? And at 24 least I'm not aware of at any time any type of 25 economic where the nuclear industry was brought to us NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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71 1 or anyone on the working group.

2 Now with respect to the dose -- well, 3 okay, go ahead.

4 MS. D'ARRIGO: Okay. I'm sorry. No, go 5 ahead, go ahead.

6 MR. MCCARTIN: With respect to the dose 7 limit, certainly the 25 millirem dose limit for the 8 offsite individual in Part 61 it's still every bit in 9 play and what needs to be met. And maybe I should 10 have this clear.

11 When I talk of a 500 millirem dose, that 12 was for the intruder only protection and that is what 13 was considered. In developing the classification 14 scheme for Part 61, they looked at a 500 millirem dose 15 to the intruder.

16 And so we would require the same level of 17 protection for the intruder that was considered in 18 Part 61 when it was developed. But the 25 is for the 19 offsite individual. That would not change. There's 20 no suggestion whatsoever.

21 And I guess you have a third one on 22 transportation?

23 MS. D'ARRIGO: Well, it has to do with 24 since this is much hotter waste than the low level 25 waste that normally is moved, the A, B and C, would NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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72 1 there be more notification of emergency responders 2 along the route? Would there be -- there's that 3 general thing.

4 And then throughout your description of 5 this, you talk about analysis that will be done. But 6 the analysis is not going to be done every time a 7 shipment is made to a site. It's going to be made, 8 I'm guessing on a generic basis.

9 And then you're going to generically, 10 potentially, generically make this decision because 11 right now people can, generators can, on a case-by-12 case basis do these analysis. It's just something 13 that would be potentially too expensive to do as much 14 under decommissioning.

15 So I'm going back to my first question 16 there. But also the other thing is that this is much 17 hotter and would there be more protection for 18 communities along routes?

19 MR. MCCARTIN: Well, certainly there would 20 be no changes to the transportation regulations, 21 either Department of Transportation or NRC's package 22 requirements and then the restrictions that are there 23 for the dose that is within one meter of the package, 24 et cetera.

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73 1 particular package design that could be used for parts 2 of the -- some of the waste streams? I guess it's 3 possible. We did not look into the particular aspects 4 of transportation.

5 And that's also an important part that I 6 think the analysis, I was talking for a facility, 7 you're going to have to know how much you are going to 8 put there and whether it's safe. And so I think there 9 --

10 MS. D'ARRIGO: And when would you need to 11 know that? Before or after you changed the 12 regulation? I mean (simultaneous speaking).

13 MR. MCCARTIN: Well, you would have to 14 know that to approve an application.

15 MS. D'ARRIGO: So then it would be, like, 16 WCS was given a license for a certain amount of curies 17 and radioactivity. And then they just go back and 18 they get additional increases in what's allowed. So 19 you would give an increase for now taking greater than 20 C in transuranics and then if they needed more, they 21 would just go back and get amendments to allow it.

22 MR. MCCARTIN: You're doing a lot of 23 speculation there that I'm not -- I guess, I mean, we 24 don't give people an open ended license. There would 25 have to be both the inventory that you're going to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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74 1 dispose of, how you're going to dispose of it, the 2 facility design, et cetera, needs to be evaluated.

3 And could it be changed over time? It could be. But 4 that's kind of a different process. Obviously people 5 can file for an amendment to a license.

6 But my understanding is we've got to know 7 what's going where and how is it going to be disposed 8 of to determine whether it would be safe. And that 9 would be the total of --

10 MS. D'ARRIGO: Why would you -- I guess 11 the problem is when would you or the regulator on the 12 Agreement State do that? Are you going to do that at 13 the beginning of the changing this definition, 14 changing these rules or is it going to be done each 15 time greater than C is going to come to the sites?

16 And how many times is that done before you say, well, 17 just let it all go? I'm just trying to -- I mean, we 18 as a public have to intervene every single time that 19 we care about. So, you know, if it's done generically 20 or if it's done on a case-by-case basis.

21 MR. MCCARTIN: Well, okay, if it gets to 22 how might this be accomplished from a regulatory 23 standpoint, currently we have the three alternatives 24 that we're seeking comment on.

25 MS. D'ARRIGO: Mm-hmm.

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75 1 MR. MCCARTIN: Ultimately, it will be a 2 Commission decision as to how they want to go forward, 3 if at all. And so that would -- you know, you're 4 right if, you know, in the one case where we don't 5 change the regulation, and we do it on a case-by-case 6 basis.

7 We wait for someone to come in and say I 8 would like to dispose of this amount of GTCC waste at 9 this site with this design, and they give something to 10 the Commission. Can I do that?

11 MS. D'ARRIGO: And that's the current way 12 that it's done, right now.

13 MR. MCCARTIN: Correct.

14 MS. D'ARRIGO: That's the normal way.

15 Okay.

16 MR. MCCARTIN: And I believe the first 17 step of that would be for the staff to do an 18 evaluation of whether it's appropriate for this amount 19 of waste to go to this facility. And --

20 MS. D'ARRIGO: Yes.

21 MR. MCCARTIN: -- we would have to 22 document our basis for saying either yes or no or yes 23 with requirements. And, you know, I think at present 24 the reg basis gives it some preliminary ideas of the 25 types of things we would look at it.

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76 1 But therein the negative of that 2 particular approach at a particular site, maybe there 3 would be some other things that were more significant, 4 and we would look at in greater detail. We don't know 5 without an application.

6 And I guess I'm not willing to speculate, 7 but we would have to develop an evaluation and a basis 8 for that. And the public would certainly be kept 9 informed of that. But --

10 MS. D'ARRIGO: Well, what it sounds to me 11 like is going on here, and you know, correct me if I'm 12 wrong, is that this process that we've just discussed 13 is going to change, or would potentially change, if 14 approved by the Commission and those steps would no 15 longer be undertaken. It would --

16 MR. MCCARTIN: Well, I didn't mean to 17 imply that. There is different ways that there could 18 be a regulatory evaluation of the safety of greater 19 than Class C disposal.

20 MS. D'ARRIGO: Okay.

21 MR. MCCARTIN: They might also say we want 22 to develop a rule and go through a rulemaking.

23 MR. KOENICK: I think, this is Steve 24 Koenick. I think, Tim, what you're trying to say is 25 if we did proceed down rulemaking, would that replace NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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77 1 the site specific case-by-case analysis? And that is 2 not the case.

3 So whether we have rulemaking or we do 4 site specific without rulemaking, the rulemaking would 5 specify what the requirements are that the licensee 6 would have to undergo. So it would add some formality 7 to what that review process looks like.

8 It would not, by no means, would it 9 replace a licensee coming in for this analysis. As 10 Tim mentioned earlier, they still would have to do the 11 site specific analysis, and they would look at the 12 inventory.

13 So the hazard of the Draft Regulatory 14 Basis defines what types of hazards we would be 15 looking at and how that process would look like, but 16 it would not replace that evaluation.

17 MS. D'ARRIGO: Then what's the advantage 18 of it? The advantage of doing it if you're not going 19 to reduce that regulatory burden?

20 MR. KOENICK: This is Steve again. The 21 regulatory basis, if you add more formality, and you 22 have more institutional documentation of what that 23 process looks like, you codify what it looks like and 24 what you are going to be evaluating as opposed to just 25 doing it on a case-by-case basis. So certain aspects NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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78 1 of these hazards would have been well vetted in a 2 public forum as to what those considerations are. But 3 it doesnt replace the reviews.

4 MS. HOLAHAN: And this is Trish Holahan.

5 I'm just going to clarify. It's not the Reg Basis, 6 but if we proceeded with rulemaking, that would codify 7 the, you know, requirements, but we still do a 8 case-by-case basis for each applicant that comes in.

9 MR. SCHOFER: And finally, this is Fred 10 Schofer. In the Reg Basis Section 7, we attempted to 11 outline each of the pros and cons of each alternative 12 and the process that the licensee would have to go 13 through.

14 MS. HOLAHAN: Yes.

15 MS. D'ARRIGO: Well, and isn't it true 16 though that it would be the Agreement State that would 17 be doing what you're saying would be done, not the 18 NRC?

19 MR. SCHOFER: Actually, we considered it 20 both ways, whether an Agreement State would do the 21 licensing for the NRC.

22 MS. D'ARRIGO: Okay, I didn't get that 23 far, I guess.

24 MS. LOPAS: So, if you have comments on 25 that, Diane, that would be an important thing to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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79 1 submit comments on from the pros and cons of whether 2 a standard Agreement States should do this as well.

3 I have two questions here. I have one 4 follow-up here on the webinar. So star 1 if you have 5 more questions on the phone, but I have a follow-up 6 from the inventory question on two checks from Gordon 7 Edwards.

8 So I think the question is, you know, he 9 did not like your -- he did not find your first answer 10 reassuring, Tim.

11 So he says here, does the NRC -- does this 12 mean the NRC does no independent measuring of 13 radionuclide inventory? Do they take the declared 14 inventory on space?

15 MR. ESH: Hi, Gordon, this is Dave Esh.

16 All of our existing facilities are in Agreement 17 States. And so the Agreement States fulfill that 18 function. But I was recently on -- well, not exactly 19 recently, but it seems like recently on two of what we 20 call our IMPEP reviews, where we review through our 21 Agreement State programs, one in the state of 22 Washington and one in the state of Texas.

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80 1 that the generators have to put down what's in the 2 waste that they're sending. And then the disposal 3 facility has their own requirements about acceptance 4 of the waste.

5 And there are exclusionary requirements 6 like, you know, if barrel's leaking and that sort of 7 thing. They're pretty obvious, but then, the 8 questions you were asking about how do you determine 9 actually what inventory is in there? That's a more 10 challenging question, especially, what the hard to 11 detects.

12 It is something that we've worked on with 13 allowing people to use scaling factors for certain 14 types of ways, but they have to justify their methods 15 that they come up with for use of those scaling 16 factors.

17 For some waste disposal programs, like I 18 know within the Department of Energy, when they do 19 waste acceptance from generators, they'll do some 20 independent measurement and verification of the waste.

21 And in some cases, like for waste that was sent to 22 WIPP, when they were too uncertain about what was in 23 the barrel, they went through a process of opening the 24 barrels and characterizing them and determining 25 exactly what was there.

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81 1 So the high-level answer is, yes, you have 2 to be confident in the inventory that goes in the 3 facility, and there's a variety of different methods 4 and approaches you could use to develop that 5 confidence. And then the assessment ultimately should 6 reflect the uncertainty in that inventory because in 7 some cases, the uncertainty in the inventory may not 8 be important. In other cases, it may be very 9 important.

10 So I hope that better answers your 11 question about the inventory. For GTCC waste, because 12 it is more concentrated, and there could be high 13 concentrations of transuranics, the approaches to 14 characterize that waste and accept it may need to be 15 more rigorous.

16 But that would either come out in say if 17 we developed guidance, or if we did a rulemaking, we 18 would look at whether we need more robust criteria 19 associated with waste acceptance and characterization.

20 MS. LOPAS: Okay. Let me get to this last 21 question on the webinar. Star one, for folks on the 22 phone, to get some questions in on the phone.

23 The conversation -- this is from Jeff 24 Burright. He says, the conversation today seems to 25 stress the need for site-specific analysis, i.e., a NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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82 1 model rather than prescriptive end states for disposal 2 based on waste longevity or concentration.

3 Am I understanding correctly that big 4 picture when it comes to GTCC disposal model rule? If 5 you give up authority to the states for making a GTCC 6 decision, how will you verify that the models used are 7 good enough? Will NRC review a state's decision?

8 MR. MCCARTIN: Well, regardless of any 9 model used, there has to be a basis for the validity 10 of the models and the inputs, et cetera. And so, 11 you're correct in the assumption -- and the analysis 12 has to be done. But it also has to be done right.

13 And that's part of the review process in terms of --

14 and this is where, I mean, if we're the regulator, we 15 would certainly do that review.

16 As Dave Esh talked about, there's an 17 impact process where we do go in and look at how 18 Agreement States are operating, and that's a way for 19 us to look at their process. We would not -- as best 20 I understand it, but I leave it for others, I mean, we 21 don't go in and do a second regulatory review.

22 But if their program is appropriate, then 23 there is an understanding that the right decisions are 24 made.

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83 1 because I don't know if Tim's done an impact in a 2 while. Whenever we do those, we'll do vertical and 3 horizontal slices of the technical work that the state 4 has done. So we may ask to see their -- what they 5 reviewed and how they reviewed it, what guidance they 6 used, if they were looking at a particular model, you 7 know, computer files. We may look at those computer 8 files. We may look at their spreadsheets that they 9 used. All of that goes into the technical -- our 10 technical assessment of their licensing review.

11 And yeah, it's not as rigorous as if we 12 did the licensing review ourselves because this is a 13 shorter-term activity, it's trying to assess the 14 program. But it isn't a matter of that we're just 15 putting checks on a checklist and saying, okay, you 16 see that they have a document, and we don't look at 17 the details in the document. We do to the amount that 18 we can in the scope of one of those reviews. We do 19 review their documents and how they made their 20 determination that the materials that submitted to 21 them were satisfactory or not satisfactory.

22 MS. LOPAS: All right. I'm going to check 23 in on the phone. Lorraine, do we have any questions 24 on the phone?

25 OPERATOR: There is some question. The NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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84 1 name was not -- it was not recorded. But your line is 2 open.

3 MS. LOPAS: Hi, is somebody on the phone?

4 All right, you may be on mute. Give it a 5 whirl. Maybe put yourself on mute one more time.

6 All right, Lorraine, you might have to 7 delete that one.

8 OPERATOR: All right, I'll go ahead and 9 clear it.

10 MS. LOPAS: Okay. So R1, if you want to 11 ask a question, I have one more question here in the 12 webinar. So this question from is Karen Hadden again.

13 She says, please discuss what containers 14 would be used for shipping GTCC and GTCC-like waste?

15 And what doses to the public would be from routine 16 shipments and from stops during and from truck and 17 rail transport?

18 MR. MCCARTIN: Well, it's Tim McCartin.

19 I'm not a transportation expert. And this Reg Basis 20 is about disposal, but there are approved containers 21 that limit the exposure that would be received by any 22 member of the public either while it's stopped in 23 traffic or at any other particular stop and during 24 transport.

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85 1 the regulatory requirements are for the dose limits, 2 but those requirements -- there are different packages 3 out there up to and including packages that are used 4 for spent nuclear fuel that keep doses to a very -- so 5 there's not a -- I'm not aware of any constraint that 6 a package isn't available that could meet the 7 transportation requirements.

8 But what exact package that would be I --

9 we would have to talk to the transportation people.

10 MS. LOPAS: All right, Karen, I'm sending 11 you a message. If you want a specific response to 12 this, maybe from one of the transportation folks that 13 we know, send me your email here, and I'll get your 14 email. Maybe they can get in touch with you to help 15 you understand.

16 MR. MCCARTIN: The one thing I can say, I 17 know in DOE's FEIS, I believe it is a Type B package 18 that they said the GTCC would be transported in.

19 Now, because I'm not a transportation 20 person, Type B has a very specific meaning in the 21 transportation regulations and requirements. But, you 22 know, I'm not prepared to explain exactly what that 23 means.

24 MS. LOPAS: Okay. All right. So, Karen, 25 just send a message here. If we end the webinar NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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86 1 before you end up sending me your email, you can also 2 send an email to Cardelia and/or Kim. And their 3 contact information is in the presentation, and I'll 4 bring that up right now.

5 Okay. So let's do a final call here. I 6 don't have any other questions on the webinar. So 7 final call for webinar questions and final call here 8 for questions on the phone. So star 1 on the phone.

9 Lorraine, do we have anybody right now on 10 the phone?

11 OPERATOR: I'm showing no questions at 12 this time.

13 MS. LOPAS: Okay. Why don't we -- while 14 we wait for those last couple questions to come in if 15 there are some, Cardelia or Tim or Trish, does anybody 16 have anything they want to follow up either on the 17 comment period or any other closing remarks?

18 MS. HOLAHAN: Pennsylvania mentioned that 19 they wanted an extension, you know, put it in writing, 20 and, you know, we'll consider it.

21 MS. LOPAS: Okay.

22 MS. HOLAHAN: And this a fresh start.

23 MS. LOPAS: Yes.

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87 1 today. We've had a lot of questions. Sometimes we 2 can't always get to the breadth or depth of answering 3 some of your questions during these kinds of 4 encounters. I really want to go back and say, please, 5 put your comments in writing, and put the docket 6 number on there. That way your question does not --

7 and comments do not get lost. And we will have a 8 better opportunity to review and evaluate your 9 comments and questions.

10 So in doing that, you're helping us, and 11 we are helping you, and we create a win-win for 12 everyone.

13 And this is Trish again. I'd like to 14 thank everybody for their participation, and the staff 15 here, especially to make it a meaningful dialogue.

16 MS. LOPAS: Okay. Let's see. Lorraine, 17 did we have anybody pop on the line during that time?

18 OPERATOR: Yes, we did. Give me one 19 moment, please.

20 It looks like their name was not recorded.

21 But your line is open. Just go ahead and speak out.

22 MR. CAMPER: Hello, can you hear me? This 23 is Larry Camper.

24 MS. LOPAS: Hi, Larry, yes.

25 MR. CAMPER: Can you hear me?

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88 1 Hi, how are you? First of all, thank you, 2 staff, for your hard work today, very good job, thank 3 you.

4 I'd like to make one comment and then ask 5 a question. I think it's very important for everyone 6 listening in to understand that currently, TRU waste 7 in excess of 100 nanocuries per gram is in fact, 8 orphan waste. If it's not cited within the tables, 9 there's no place for it to go. There's a large 10 inventory of GTCC waste today, and it will be 11 increasing.

12 And I think what we should all do is look 13 carefully at the additional requirements that the 14 staff is citing that would be added to Part 61 to 15 address the disposal of GTCC waste if in fact a 16 rulemaking proceeds.

17 That's the comment. The question that I 18 have is I'd like you to refer to table 3-1, and then 19 in turn, table 3-4.

20 And the question is this, I know that most 21 of the remote-handled waste from West Valley has been 22 deemed to be suitable for near-surface disposal with 23 the exception of 540 cubic meters of waste identified 24 as West Valley decontamination of NPPB, which staff 25 included -- exceeded 10,000 nanocuries per gram.

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89 1 Can you speak a bit more as to the 2 radionuclides and amounts that led you to that 3 conclusion and therefore the conclusion that it was 4 not suitable for near-surface disposal? Thank you.

5 MR. MCCARTIN: Yes, in that particular 6 situation, decontamination activities that are going 7 on at West Valley of the main plant processes, a 8 processing building. And I will -- my understanding, 9 and I'm looking through to confirm, but it's americium 10 and plutonium.

11 MR. CAMPER: Americium-241, 41.

12 MR. MCCARTIN: Yeah. Americium-241 is 41 13 of the nanocuries. And I think the other approximate 14 half of the curie amount is plutonium.

15 And so, it's those two, but I think that's 16 what you're looking for.

17 MR. CAMPER: Tim, thank you for that. Is 18 there a specific place where there's inventory amounts 19 are cited that I could turn to in the analysis? Or 20 better yet within the DOE FEIS?

21 MS. LOPAS: Repeat that, Larry. Is there 22 a specific --

23 MR. CAMPER: Is there a specific place 24 where one can look at the inventory -- the amount of 25 the americium and plutonium either within this impact NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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90 1 analysis or DOE FEIS?

2 MR. MCCARTIN: Well, certainly -- well, 3 for the 17 waste streams, you won't -- you could get 4 it out of the FEIS, but it would be pretty difficult.

5 If you go to the document that's 6 referenced, the NRC 2019, there is an appendix that 7 gives the inventory for each one of the 17 waste 8 streams. And in there you will see -- and because of 9 the 17 -- I'm looking real quick -- I think, A-6.

10 MR. CAMPER: Tim is that the technical 11 analysis document cited in Appendix B?

12 MR. MCCARTIN: Yes.

13 MR. CAMPER: Okay, very good.

14 MR. MCCARTIN: And there's an Appendix A 15 that has all of them. Yeah, and it's Table A-6.

16 MR. CAMPER: Yeah, that's the document 17 entitled, technical analyses of the hazards and 18 disposal of greater-than-class C waste, NRC 2019 19 referenced on B-1 of Appendix D, is that correct?

20 MR. MCCARTIN: Correct.

21 MR. CAMPER: And that's where you'll find 22 more detail as to the inventory that lists that 23 inclusion, right?

24 MR. MCCARTIN: Yes.

25 MR. CAMPER: Okay. Great. Thank you.

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91 1 MS. LOPAS: Okay. Lorraine, do we have 2 any other questions?

3 OPERATOR: Yes, our next question. The 4 name was recorded as Concerned Citizens for Nuclear 5 Safety. Your line is now open.

6 MS. ARENDS: Thank you. My name is Joni 7 Arends, and I'm with Concerned Citizens for Nuclear 8 Safety based in Santa Fe. I thought I heard earlier 9 that this will be transcribed. And I wanted to 10 understand when the transcription would be available?

11 MS. LOPAS: Cardelia, will the transcripts 12 be publicly available?

13 MS. MAUPIN: Yes, we will give the 14 transcriber I think they it takes probably seven days 15 to get it back to us. And we would -- we have a 16 public website on GTCC, and we can post it there. And 17 we can also probably post it on our docket as well, so 18 it'll be easy access.

19 MS. ARENDS: Oh, thank you so much. And 20 then I have another question based on the previous 21 comment. Is it possible -- you described throughout 22 the webinar about the 17 different waste streams. And 23 I'm concerned now that you're saying in answer to the 24 previous question, it's going to be really hard to 25 reconstruct that. I think it's really important for NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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92 1 NRDC -- or NRC to provide references for each page or 2 a reference for the 17 different waste streams based 3 on the final EIS for GTCC.

4 MR. MCCARTIN: Well, okay. I'm not sure 5 -- maybe I -- in terms of reconstructing, you would 6 have -- you know, the information is in the FEIS.

7 We're the ones that took that information and 8 distributed to 17 waste streams.

9 Those 17 waste streams are presented in 10 the NRC 2019 document in an appendix. Each waste 11 stream has a full listing of the inventory et cetera.

12 Now, what I was saying is if you go to 13 DOE's FEIS, you are not going to be 17 waste streams.

14 I can go back and recreate exactly -- okay, this is 15 that one, this is this, and pull it out, but it's not 16 the easiest thing to do because it took me a while to 17 do that. But I mean it is possible.

18 Anyone who wants to know, I can show 19 exactly where I got that waste stream and how I did 20 it. But for simplicity, if you want to know the 17 21 waste streams, they are every -- each one of them is 22 explained and described in the appendix of that 23 document.

24 MS. ARENDS: In the appendix of the NRC 25 2019 document?

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93 1 MR. MCCARTIN: Correct.

2 MS. ARENDS: Okay, great.

3 MR. MCCARTIN: Appendix A. Each one of 4 them is there. But I will say -- if there's one thing 5 I have to say is that what the 17 waste streams are 6 very good at, in my opinion, which having developed 7 it, I guess I'm biased, but you can see there is a 8 wide range of variability between each of these waste 9 streams.

10 And so that's what we're trying to stress, 11 that if you're going to dispose of something, you're 12 going to have to describe what you -- I'm not saying 13 these are -- they're accurate with respect to what's 14 in DOE's FEIS, but some of these future waste streams 15 if they're different -- whatever GTCC waste is being 16 suggested for disposal, as has been discussed, you 17 need to have a basis for the inventory and analyze 18 that inventory, and I think all we're trying to show 19 here is that variability is quite significant.

20 And some of it will be much easier to 21 demonstrate safety in an inner-surface disposal 22 facility. Some will be more difficult. Some may not 23 be possible.

24 MS. LOPAS: I just want to clarify here, 25 Tim. This document that lists the waste stream is NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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94 1 this an appendix or is this a reference in our 2 appendix to the Reg Basis?

3 MR. MCCARTIN: It's a reference --

4 MS. LOPAS: Okay.

5 MR. MCCARTIN: -- in the Reg Basis.

6 MS. LOPAS: Okay. Is it the ML number?

7 Okay, so you'd have to go to ADAMS, folks.

8 And so that ML number, if you're interested, is 9 ML19162A259. So if you are familiar -- sorry, go 10 ahead.

11 Do you need me to repeat?

12 MS. ARENDS: No, I appreciate the 13 reference. As a state that is being targeted or being 14 from a state that's being targeted for this waste 15 disposal. I think the more specificity that you can 16 provide now with regard to the variability of the 17 waste -- the 17 waste streams, and the volume that 18 you're anticipating will be very important, especially 19 if we move down this road.

20 MR. MCCARTIN: Right, and like I said, 21 that reference is Appendix B reference list in the Reg 22 Basis has this NRC 2019 document, but I would refer 23 you to table 3-3 in the Reg Basis, which does -- is a 24 table that gives each of the waste streams according 25 to the transuranics concentrations with half-lives NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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95 1 greater than 55 years.

2 And the volume. And so, if you, you know 3 -- as we have said the transuranic waste pose some 4 unique issues for the intruder, for operational 5 hazards. And you can see there the kinds of volumes, 6 and as you go up the table from bottom to up, the 7 concentrations of transuranics are increasing.

8 And that was one place where we're trying 9 to give people perspective of the variation that goes 10 from zero actually for large sealed sources, which is 11 just cesium-137, which is not a transuranic, which is 12 why it's zero, all the way up to 85,900 nanocuries per 13 gram.

14 So you can see -- that to me is one of the 15 better tables in the Reg Basis that gives a sense of 16 the volumes and the hazards based on the 17 concentrations of transuranics.

18 MS. LOPAS: Okay, I have one more comment 19 here that I'm just going to read from Karen Hadden.

20 And Karen I'm going to read it aloud, but I also -- I 21 think you know that you should submit this in writing.

22 So comment -- Karen says, geologic 23 disposal is needed for GTCC and GTCC-like waste. SEED 24 Coalition, the organization I represent, does not 25 advocate for disposal of either the WIPP Site or Yucca NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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96 1 Mountain, but shallow burial up to 120 feet deep is 2 not appropriate as laid out in the generic EIS. A 3 site-specific EIS is needed for the WCS site.

4 So thank you, Karen, for that comment, but 5 make sure that you get that comment in writing by the 6 September 20th deadline on nrc.gov or the rulemaking 7 email.

8 Lorraine, do we have any other comments on 9 the phone?

10 Are you there, Lorraine?

11 We can't hear you, Lorraine.

12 OPERATOR: Diane, your line is open.

13 MS. D'ARRIGO: Thank you. I just wanted 14 to also support Pennsylvania's request for an 15 extension on the comment period on this. There's 16 probably really not a need to rush it.

17 It's been a long time. And I'm for a long 18 comment's extension.

19 MS. MAUPIN: Okay, thank you. And going 20 back to what you said earlier, if we could get those 21 kind of comments that you want to come -- extension 22 period extended in sooner rather than later because we 23 would have to basically do another Federal Register 24 Notice to extend it.

25 And we would have to discuss this with, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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97 1 you know, our management here. So the sooner we can 2 get those kind of comments in writing, we can, you 3 know, consider them and take the appropriate action as 4 soon as possible.

5 MS. LOPAS: All right. Lorraine, are 6 there any other comments on the phone?

7 OPERATOR: Yes, Larry Camper, your line is 8 open.

9 MS. LOPAS: Hi, Larry.

10 MR. CAMPER: Yes, hi, can you hear me?

11 MS. LOPAS: We can.

12 MR. CAMPER: Oh, good. Thank you. In 13 listening to some of the questions that are being 14 asked, particularly from concerned stakeholders in 15 Texas, I would draw to everyone's attention to the 16 fact that the NRC staff also did a prior analysis 17 around the questions for GTCC disposal. And I think 18 you can find a lot of very useful information in 19 Enclosure 2 to SECY-15-0094.

20 It's entitled, technical considerations 21 associated with greater than Class C low-level 22 radioactive waste disposal and qualitative examination 23 of disposal challenges. And I think that that 24 information, which is rather extensive coupled with 25 the work that's done in the current Reg Basis document NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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98 1 can also serve to answer some of your questions about 2 the disposal of GTCC waste, and in turn, the kinds of 3 changes that the staff is proposing that if a 4 rulemaking were to proceed.

5 So I think that could be useful 6 information for background reading as well. Thank 7 you.

8 MS. LOPAS: Okay. Thank you.

9 OPERATOR: There are no further questions 10 in queue at this time.

11 MS. LOPAS: Okay. All right everybody, 12 with that we are going to end the webinar. I do have 13 one follow-up that I will get from Karen Hadden to 14 Cardelia regarding transportation, but please give 15 your comments in by September 20th. If you have a 16 request to extend the comment period, please get that 17 in ASAP. You can email that to the rulemaking email 18 real quickly.

19 And so with that, we will end today's 20 webinar. Thanks, everybody for your participation, 21 and have a great day.

22 And court reporter, we're going to stay on 23 the line for you. So we will hang on.

24 (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went 25 off the record at 3:28 p.m.)

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