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: 9.        Envirocare shall obtain NRC approval prior to changing any activities associated with the above conditions.
: 9.        Envirocare shall obtain NRC approval prior to changing any activities associated with the above conditions.
Need for the Proposed Action: In May 1997, the State of Utah determined that Envirocare had exceeded the SNM possession limits in its State of Utah license. Consequently, NRC, Region IV conducted an inspection of the facility in June 1997. The findings of the inspection are discussed in an inspection report and demand for information dated May 21, 1998. As a result of the inspection, NRC issued a Confirmatory Order (Order) on June 25, 1997, which required Envirocare, in part, to reduce its possession of SNM and to submit a compliance plan (CP) to NRC for approval. As part of the approved CP, trucks containing SNM waste can proceed to the disposal cell (assuming the conditions stated in the Order apply) without counting the SNM waste in Envirocare's possession inventory. This waste is considered "in-transit," under the exemption of 10 CFR 70.12, because the carrier is still present.
Need for the Proposed Action: In May 1997, the State of Utah determined that Envirocare had exceeded the SNM possession limits in its State of Utah license. Consequently, NRC, Region IV conducted an inspection of the facility in June 1997. The findings of the inspection are discussed in an inspection report and demand for information dated May 21, 1998. As a result of the inspection, NRC issued a Confirmatory Order (Order) on June 25, 1997, which required Envirocare, in part, to reduce its possession of SNM and to submit a compliance plan (CP) to NRC for approval. As part of the approved CP, trucks containing SNM waste can proceed to the disposal cell (assuming the conditions stated in the Order apply) without counting the SNM waste in Envirocare's possession inventory. This waste is considered "in-transit," under the exemption of 10 CFR 70.12, because the carrier is still present.
In a letter dated October 14,1997, the State of Utah informed NRC that SNM waste was being transferred from rail cars to trucks in the Salt Lake City rail yard and then taken to the
In a {{letter dated|date=October 14, 1997|text=letter dated October 14,1997}}, the State of Utah informed NRC that SNM waste was being transferred from rail cars to trucks in the Salt Lake City rail yard and then taken to the
[
[
             - Envirocare site either directly or after storage in transit at a transport facility. To evaluate this practice, the NRC and the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) conducted an inspection.
             - Envirocare site either directly or after storage in transit at a transport facility. To evaluate this practice, the NRC and the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) conducted an inspection.
Line 631: Line 631:
: 9.        Envirocare shall obtain NRC approval prior to changing any activities associated with the above conditions.
: 9.        Envirocare shall obtain NRC approval prior to changing any activities associated with the above conditions.
Need for the Proposed Action in May 1997, the State of Utah determined that Envirocare had exceeded the SNM possession limits in its State of Utah license. Consequently, NRC, Region IV conducted an inspection of the facility in June 1997. The findings of the inspection are discussed in an inspection report and demand for information dated May 21, 1998. As a result of the inspection, NRC issued a Confirmatory Order (Order) on June 25, 1997, which required Envirocare, in part, to reduce its possession of SNM and to submit a compliance plan (CP) to NRC for approval. As part of the approved CP, trucks containing SNM waste can proceed to the disposal cell (assuming the conditions stated in the Order apply) without counting the SNM waste in Envirocare's possession inventory. This waste is considered "in transit," under the exemption of 10 CFR 70.12, because the carrier is still present.
Need for the Proposed Action in May 1997, the State of Utah determined that Envirocare had exceeded the SNM possession limits in its State of Utah license. Consequently, NRC, Region IV conducted an inspection of the facility in June 1997. The findings of the inspection are discussed in an inspection report and demand for information dated May 21, 1998. As a result of the inspection, NRC issued a Confirmatory Order (Order) on June 25, 1997, which required Envirocare, in part, to reduce its possession of SNM and to submit a compliance plan (CP) to NRC for approval. As part of the approved CP, trucks containing SNM waste can proceed to the disposal cell (assuming the conditions stated in the Order apply) without counting the SNM waste in Envirocare's possession inventory. This waste is considered "in transit," under the exemption of 10 CFR 70.12, because the carrier is still present.
In a letter dated October 14,1997, the State of Utah informed NRC that SNM waste was being transferred from rail cars to trucks in the Salt Lake City rail yard and then taken to the Envirocare site either directly or after storage in transit at a transport facility. To evaluate this practice, the NRC and the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) conducted an inspection.
In a {{letter dated|date=October 14, 1997|text=letter dated October 14,1997}}, the State of Utah informed NRC that SNM waste was being transferred from rail cars to trucks in the Salt Lake City rail yard and then taken to the Envirocare site either directly or after storage in transit at a transport facility. To evaluate this practice, the NRC and the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) conducted an inspection.
The inspection concluded that applicable NRC and DOT regulations were being followed. (The inspection is documented in a report dated April 21,1998.)
The inspection concluded that applicable NRC and DOT regulations were being followed. (The inspection is documented in a report dated April 21,1998.)
Before the Order and CP, rail shipments were transported directly to a rail siding adjacent to the site. Rail cars were staged on the siding until the waste could be moved onto the site within licensed limits. Subsequent to the Order and CP which, as noted, provide for trucks to proceed directly to the disposal cell without being counted in the SNM possession inventory, it has been l
Before the Order and CP, rail shipments were transported directly to a rail siding adjacent to the site. Rail cars were staged on the siding until the waste could be moved onto the site within licensed limits. Subsequent to the Order and CP which, as noted, provide for trucks to proceed directly to the disposal cell without being counted in the SNM possession inventory, it has been l

Latest revision as of 02:28, 9 December 2021

Forwards NRC Order Issued to Envirocare of Utah,Inc, Providing Exemption from Licensing Requirements in 10CFR70, for Info
ML20196K714
Person / Time
Issue date: 06/28/1999
From: Lohaus P
NRC OFFICE OF STATE PROGRAMS (OSP)
To:
GENERAL, MINNESOTA, STATE OF, OHIO, STATE OF, OKLAHOMA, STATE OF, PENNSYLVANIA, COMMONWEALTH OF, WISCONSIN, STATE OF
References
SP-99-045, SP-99-45, NUDOCS 9907120023
Download: ML20196K714 (2)
v • d • e


Text

s. J . e JH 2 81999 l l

l ALL AGREEMENT STATES MINNESOTA, OHIO, OKLAHOMA, PENNSYLVANIA, WISCONSIN 1

PROGRAM INFORMATION: ENVIROCARE - EXEMPTION FROM LICENSING j REQUIREMENTS IN 10 CFR PART 70 (SP-99-049 j 1

Enclosed for your information is an NRC Order issued to Envirocare of Utah, Inc., providing an I l

exemption from the licensing requirements in 10 CFR Part 70.

If you have any questions regarding this correspondence, please contact me or the individual i named below. )

l POINT OF CONTACT: Lloyd Rolling INTERNET: LAB @NRC. GOV j TELEPHONE: (301)415-2327 FAX: (30 4 415-3502 l OriginalSigned By:

PAULH.LOHAUS Paul H. Lohaus, Director Office of State Programs

Enclosure:

As stated i

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l Distribution:

DlR RF DCD (SP03) i SDroggitis PDR (YES()

MLMclean, RSAO-IV A/S File l Ut'h file ]

DOCUMENT NAME: G:\ LAB) SP99045.WPD l Tt receive a copy of this document,indcate in the thxNdhpy without attachment / enclosure "E" = Copy with attachment /encbsure "N" = No copy l OFFICE OJff lE O$Pi $lk l l l NAME IWkk PHLohauf DATE 6/g&/99 6/7 //99  !

OSP FILE CODE: SP-A-4, SP-A-28 PDR c w . - >

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j UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION

ALL AGREEMENT STATES MINNESOTA, OHIO, OKLAHOMA, PENNSYLVANIA, WISCONSIN PROGRAM INFORMATION: ENVIROCARE - EXEMPTION FROM LICENSING REQUIREMENTS IN 10 CFR PART 70 (SP-99-045)

Enclosed for your information is an NRC Order issued to Envirocare of Uta. Inc., providing an exemption from the licensing requirements in 10 CFR Part 70.

If you have any questions regarding this correspondence, please contact me or the individual named below.

POINT OF CONTACT: Lloyd Bolling INTERNET: LAB @NRC. GOV TELEPHONE: (301)415-2327 FAX: (301) 5-3502 a x cw Paul H. Lohaus, Director Office of State Programs

Enclosure:

As stated l

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[4 4 UNITED STATES i

j

's NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION WASHINGTON, D.C. 2055fKX)01 4

9 . . . . . ,o May 24,1999 Mr. Charles A. Judd, President Envirocare of Utah, Inc.

46 West Broadway, Suite 240 Salt Lake City, Utah 84101

SUBJECT:

EXEMPTION FROM LICENSING REQUIREMENTS IN 10 CFR PART 70

Dear Mr. Judd:

This letter fonuards an Order which exempts Eiwirocare from the licensing requirements in 10 CFR Part 70. The Order is contingent on Envirocare complying with specific conditions in the Order. The Order will become effective when these conditions are incorporated into your State of Utah Radioactive Materials License. Also enclosed are copies of the Environmental Assessment and Safety Evaluation Report.

If you have any questions or comments, please contact John Greeves of my staff l at (301) 415-7437.

Sincerely,

/S/ Carl J. Paperiello Carl J. Paperiello, Director Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards

Enclosures:

As stated Docket No. 040-8989 License No. SMC-1559 cc: William Sinclair, State of Utah

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}H L,19\ IGJ \ .) Ch 1

% 8 ENCLOSURE 1

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U.S. NUCLEAR REGUi.ATORY COMMISSION in the matter of -

Docket No. 40-8989 Envirocare of Utah, Inc. - SMC-1559 ORDER I.

Envirocare of Utah, Inc. (Envirocare) operates a low-level waste disposal facility in Clive,

' Utah. This facility is licensed by the State of Utah, an Agreement State, under a 10 CFR Part 61 equivalent license (UT 2300249). In 1988, Envirocare began accepting naturally occurring radioactive material (NORM) waste. In 1992, Envirocare began acceptir:g very low activity, low-level waste (LLW) primarily generated during the decommissioning of nuclear facilities. Envirocare's State of Utah radioactive materials license (RML) has been amended to permit disposal of other types of LLW. Envirocare is also licensed by Utah to dispose of mixed radioactive and hazardous wastes (MW). In addition, Envirocare has a U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission license to dispose of waste containing 11(e)2 byproduct material. The MW and 11(e)2 byproduct material are disposed of in separate disposal cells from the LLW. The MW and LLW streams may contain quantities of special nuclear material (SNM).

Envirocare receives wastes by rail and truck. Separate storage and disposal facilities exist for the LLW and MW. Envirocare's method of disposal is to remove the waste from its container or dump bulk waste into lifts and compact the material. Subsequent lifts of material are placed above cc mpleted lifts. The waste streams are diverse and vary from contaminated soils and debris from decommissioning facilities to dry active waste (DAW) and resins from

' operating facilities.

In addition to disposing of mixed waste, Envirocare also has capabilities to treat mixed waste prior to disposal. This treatment typically includes chemically stabilizing of hazardous constituents by mixing the waste with various reagents, and micro- and macro-encapsulation of waste with low density polyethylene plastic. The applicable hazardous waste regulations require bench scale treatability studies prior to treating the bulk of the waste.

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II.

' Pursuant to 10 CFR 70.14, "the Commission may.... grant such exemptions from the requirements of the regulations in this part as it determines are authorized by law and will not endanger life or property or the common difense and security and are otherwise in the public interest." -

Section 70.3 of 10 CFR Part 70 requires persons who own, acquire, deliver, receive, possess, use, or transfer SNM to obtain a license pursuant to the requirements in 10 CFR Part

70. Section 10 CFR 150.10 exempts persons in Agreement States, who possess SNM in quantities not sufficient to form a critical mass, from Commission imposed licensing requirements and regulations. The method for calculating a quantity of SNM not sufficient to form a critical mass is set forth in 10 CFR 150.11. Therefore, Envirocare is currently limited by regulation and its State of Utah license to possess SNM in quantities set out in 10 CFR 150.10

. and 150.11.' The SNM possession limits in the regulation and license, as they relate to LLW disposal facilities, apply to above-ground possession prior to disposal. Therefore, once the SNM is disposed of, the possession limits no longer apply.

In response to an inspection by the State of Utah which determined that Envirocare had exceeded its Agreement State license limits for the possession of U-235, NRC conducted its own inspection of the facility. As a result of this inspection, NRC issued a Confirmatory Order (Order), dated June 25,1997, which required Envirocare to reduce its possession of SNM to the amounts prescribed in 10 CFR 150.11 and Envirocare's Agreement State license, and to submit a compliance plan (CP) for meeting 10 CFR 150.10 and 150.11 to NRC for approval. Condition

. 3 of the Order required Envirocare to include all SNM in the restricted area at the site in applying the limitations in 10 CFR 150.10 and 150.11. Envirocare submitted a CP dated July 23,1997, which was approved by NRC in a letter, dated August 1,1997. Under the l

l provisions of the CP, all waste containing SNM with the exception of waste "in transport" which i is located within the restricted area at Envirocare's site is subject to the limitations in 10 CFR l L 150.10 and 150.11. However, trucks containing SNM waste can proceed directly to the disposal cell and would be considered "in transport" and not in Envirocare's possession. This condition is applicable provided that the waste was disposed of on the same calendar day as arrival, and that the amount of SNM in any individual truck did not exceed the limits in 10 CFR 150.11.  ;

When NRC approved the CP on August 13,1997, Condition 3 of the Order was revised to incorporate the terms of the CP.

2

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When Envirocare submitted its July 23,1997, CP, it noted that application of the "in

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transport" approach to rail shipments and shipments disposed on the same day they are received would greatly assist operational flexibility at no risk to public health and safety. Based on consultation with the Department of Transportation (DOT), the'NRC has concluded that the "in transport"_ approach would not apply to rail shipments.~ However, the staff believes the circumstances warrant some action to provide Envirocare the needed flexibility without undue risk to public health and safety. The NRC staff has been informed that, in order to accommodate possession limits, rail shipments containing SNM waste are being transferred to trucks in Salt Lake City, Utah, for transport to the Envirocare disposal facility. In response to questions raised in a letter from the State of Utah, NRC accompanied DOT on an inspection of the Salt Lake City rail yard and to the carriers facilities. DOT concluded that the process observed met DOT's requirements; however, NRC staff concluded that the process resulted in an increased number of trips, leading to a slightly higher probability of a transportation accident.

Prior to the Order and CP, these shipments were transported by rail directly to the site. Thus the Order and CP have led to increased waste handling and the increased possibility of container rupture and resultant spillage in a metropolitan area.

Ill.

NRC staff has reviewed the current shipping practice and considers it to be less desirable from a health and safety standpoint than having the rail cars proceed directly to the site. However, Condition 3 of the Order and the CP, as they now stand, effectively preclude many rail cars containing SNM from being brought onto the Envirocare site. Envirocare would need to obtain a license or an exemption from the NRC under 10 CFR Part 70 that would permit it to possess the SNM in the cars on the site. Such SNM might well exceed the limits in 10 CFR 150.10 and 150.11, as well as the limits of the State of Utah license.

in this instance, the staff believes that the appropriate action is to issue Envirocare an exemption. Specifically, Envirocare would be exempted from the requirements of 10 CFR Part 70, including the requirements for an NRC license in 10 CFR 70.3, for SNM within the restricted area at Envirocare's site, provided that:

1. Concentrations of SNM in individual waste containers must not exceed the following values at time of receipt:

3

Radionuclide Maximum Measurement

' Concentration Uncertainty (pCi/g)~ (pCi/g) -

U-235*. - 1900 285 U-2356 1190: 179 U-235' 160 24 U-2358 680 102 U 233 75,000 11,250 Pu-236 500 75 Pu -238 10,000 1,500 Pu-239 10,000 1,500 Pu-240 10,000 1,500 Pu-241 350,000 50,000 Pu-242 10,000 1,500 Pu-243 500 75 Pu-244 500 75 a- for uranium below 10 percent enrichment and a maximum of 20 percent MgO of the weight of the waste b- for uranium at or above 10 percent enrichment and a maximum of 20 percent MgO of the weight of the waste c- for uranium at any enrichment with unlimited MgO or beryllium d- for uranium at any enrichment with sum of MgO and beryllium not exceeding 49 percent of the weight of the waste The measurement uncertainty values in column 3 above represent the maximum one-sigma uncertainty associated with the measurement of the concentration of the particular radionuclide.

' The SNM must be homogeneously distributed throughout the waste. If the SNM is not homogeneously distributed, then the limiting concentrations must not be exceeded on average in any contiguous mass of 145 kilograms.

2. Except as allowed by notes a, b, c, and d in Condition 1, waste must not contain " pure forms" of chemicals containing carbon, fluorine, magnesium, or bismuth in bulk quantities (e g., a pallet of drums, a B-25 box). By " pure forms,"it is meant that mixtures of the above elements such as magnesium oxide, magnesium carbonate, magnesium fluoride, bismuth oxide, etc. do not contain other elements. These chemicals would be added to the waste stream during processing, such as at fuel facilities or treatment such as at 4

I

mixed waste treatment facilities.: The presence of the above materials will be determined by the generator, based on process knowledge or testing.

3. Except as allowed by notes c and d in Condition 1, waste accepted must not contain total quantities of beryllium, hydrogenous material enriched in deuterium, or graphite above one percent of the total weight of the waste. The presence of the above materials will be determined by the generator, basod on process knowledge, physical observations, or testing.
4. Waste packages must not contain highly water soluble forms of uranium greater than 350 grams of uranium-235 or 200 grams of uranium-233. The sum of the fractions rule will apply for mixtures of U-233 and U-235. Highly soluble forms of uranium include, but are not limited to: uranium sulfate, uranyl acetate, uranyl chloride, uranyl formate, uranyl fluoride, uranyl nitrate, uranyl potassium carbonate, and uranyl sulfate. The presence of the above materials will be determined by the generator, based on process knowledge or testing.
5. Mixed waste processing of waste containing SNM will be limited to stabilization (mixing waste with reagents), micro-encapsulation, and macro-encapsulation using low-density polyethylene.
6. Envirocare shall require generators to provide the following information for each waste stream:

Pre-shipment

1. Waste Description. The description must detail how the waste was generated, list the physical forms in the waste, and identify uranium chemical composition.
2. Waste Characterization Summary. The data must include a general description of how the waste was characterized (including the volumetric extent of the waste, and the number, location, type, and results of any analytical testing), the range of SNM concentrations, and the analytical results with error values used to develop the concentration ranges.
3. Uniformity Description. A description of the process by which the waste was generated showing that the spatial distribution of SNM must be uniform, or other information supporting spatial distribution.
4. Manifest Concentration. The generator must describe the methods to be used to determine the concentrations on the manifests. These methods could include direct measurement and the use of scaling factors. The generator must describe the uncertainty associated with sampling and testing used to obtain the manifest concentrations.

Envirocare shall review the above information and, if adequate, approve in writing this pre-shipment waste characterization and assurance plan before permitting the shipment of a waste stream. This willinclude statements that Envirocare has a written copy of all the information required above, that the characterization information is adequate and consistent with the waste description, and that the information is sufficient to demonstrate compliance with conditions 1 through 4. Where generator process knowledge is used to demonstrate compliance with Conditions 1, 2, 3, or 4, Envirocare shall review this information and determine when testing is required to provide additional 5

information in assuring compliance with the conditions. Envirocare shall retain this information as required by the State of Utah to permit independent review.

l. At receipt i

Envirocare shall require. generators of SNM waste to provide a written certification with

! sach waste manifest that states that the SNM concentrations reported on the manifest do not exceed the limits in Condition 1, that the measurement uncertainty does not exceed the uncertainty value in Condition 1, and that the waste meets conditions 2 through 4.

7. Sampling and radiological testing of waste containing SNM must be performed in accordance with the Utah Division of Radiation Control license Condition 58.

, ' 8. Envirocare shall notify the NRC, Region IV office within 24 hours2.777778e-4 days <br />0.00667 hours <br />3.968254e-5 weeks <br />9.132e-6 months <br /> if any of the above l conditions are violated. A written notification of the event must be provided within 7 days.

9. Envirocare shall obtain NRC approval prior to changing any activities associated with the above conditions.

l Considering that this exemption will permit Envirocare to exceed the SNM possession limits in 10 CFR Part 150 which will be in direct conflict with the Confirmatory Order dated June 25,1997, the Confirmatory Order is hereby rescinded when this Order becomes effective.

l Moreover, the provisions in Envirocare's CP wil! no longer be in effect.

The licensing requirements in 10 CFR Part 70 apply to persons possessing greater than critical mass quantities (as defined in 10 CFR 150.11). The principle emphasis of Part 70 is criticality safety and safeguarding SNM against diversion or sabotage. Staff considers that criticality safety can be maintained by relying on concentration limits, under the specified conditions. These concentration limits are considered an alternative definition of quantities not sufficient to form a critical mass to the weight Smits in 10 CFR 150.11; thereby, assuring the same level of protection. Moreover, storing the SNM within the Envirocare restricted area will increase the security and safeguarding of the SNM.

Therefore, the Commission concludes that this proposed exemption will have no significant radiological or nonradiological environmental impacts.

IV.

Based on the above evaluation, the Commission has determined, pursuant to 10 CFR 70.14, that the exemption of above activities at the Envirocare disposal facility is authorized by ]

law, and will not endanger life or property or the common defense and security and are ]

i 6 l

I

r otherwise in the public interest. Accordingly, by this Order the Commission hereby grants this exemption. The exemption will become effective after the State of Utah has incorporated the above conditions into Envirocare's RML.,

Pursuant to the requirements in 10 CFR Part 51, the Commission has published an EA for the proposed action wherein it determined that the granting of this exemption will have no significant impacts on the quality of the human environment. Copies of the EA and SER are available for public inspection at the Commission's Public Document Room, located at 2120 L Street, N.W., Washington, DC 20037.

l Dated at Rockville, Maryland this 7 day of May 1999.

! FOR THE NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION

/S/ Carl J. Paperiello j j

Carl J. Paperiello, Director Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards l

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ENCLOSURE 2

V U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION DOCKET 40 8989 ENVIROCARE OF UTAH. INC.

ISSUANCE OF ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT AND FINDING OF NO SIGNIFICANT IMPACT FOR EXEMPTION FROM CERTAIN NRC LICENSING REQUIREENTS FOR SPECIAL NUCLEAR MATERIAL FOR ENVIROCARE OF UTAH. INC.

o L , The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC or the_ Commission) is considering i issuance of an Order pursuant to Section 274f of the Atomic Energy Act that would exempt Envirocare of Utah,' inc. (Envirocare) from certain NRC regulations. The exemption would allow Envirocare, under specified conditions, to possess waste containing special nuclear material (SNM), in greater quantities than specified in 10 CFR Part 150, at Envirocare's low-level waste l (LLW) disposal facility located in Clive, Utah, without obtaining an NRC license pursuant to 10

l. CFR Part 70. A description of the operations at the facility and staff's safety analysis for the ;
' exemption are discussed in the companion Safety Evaluation Report (SER).

ENVIRONWiENTAL ASSESSMENT (EA)

( Identification of Proposed Action: Staff proposes to exempt Envirocare from the

! _ licensing requirements in 10 CFR Part 70. The exemption would permit Envirocare to possess l SNM without regard for mass. Rather than relying on mass to ensure criticality safety,

concentration-based limits are being applied, such that accumulations of SNM at or below these l concentration limits would not pose a criticality safety concern. The methodology used to L establish these limits is discussed in the SER. The exemption is contingent on Envirocare complying with specific conditions in the exemption. These conditions are as follows
1. Concentrations of SNM in individual waste containers must not exceed the following values at time of receipt:

l l

Radionuclide Maximum Measurement Concentration Uncertainty l

(pCi/g) (pCi/g) l-

U-235* 1900 285 U-235" 1190 179  ;

l U-235'- 160 24 l l U-2358 680 102 l l

1 U-233 75,000 11,250 Pu-236 500 75 i Pu -238 10,000 1,500 Pu-239 10,000 1,500 Pu-240 10,000 1,500 Pu-241 350,000 50,000 4

6 i

a Pu-242 - 10,000 ~ 1,500 l

Pu-243 500 75 Pu-244 500" 75 a- for uranium below 10 percent enrichment and a maximum of 20 percent MgO of the l weight of the waste

! b - ' for uranium at or above 10 percent enrichment and a maximum of 20 percent MgO of the l weight of the waste l c for uranium at any enrichment with unlimited MgO or beryllium l d- for uranium at any enrichment with sum of MgO and beryllium not exceeding 49 percent l of the weight of the waste l

The measurement uncertainty values in column 3 above represent the maximum one-sigma uncertainty associated with the measurement of the concentration of the particular l radionuclide.

l The SNM must be homogeneously distributed throughout the waste. If the SNM is not

! homogeneously distributed, then the limiting concentrations rnust not be exceeded on

! average in any contiguous mass of 145 kilograms.

l

2. Except as allowed by notes a, b, c, and d in Condition 1, waste must not contain " pure l forms" of chemicals containing carbon, fluorine, magnesium, or bismuth in bulk quantities

! (e.g., a pallet of drums, a B-25 box). By " pure forms," it is meant that mixtures of the above elements such as magnesium oxide, magnesium carbonate, magnesium fluoride, bismuth oxide, etc. do not contain other elements. These chemicals would be added to  ;

the waste stream during processing, such as at fuel facilities or treatment such as at mixed waste treatment facilities. The presence of the above materials will be determined j by the generator, based on process knowledge or testing.  !

3. Except as allowed by notes c and d in Condition 1, waste accepted must not contain total quantities of beryllium, hydrogenous material enriched in deuterium, or graphite above one percent of the total weight of the waste. The presence of the above materials will be determined by the generator, based on process knowledge, physical observations, or testing.
4. Waste packages must not contain highly water soluble forms of uranium greater than 350 grams of uranium-235 or 200 grams of uranium-233. The sum of the fractions rule

.will apply for mixtures of U-233 and U-235. High!y soluble forms of uranium include, but are not limited to: uranium sulfate, uranyl acetate, uranyl chloride, uranyl formate, uranyl fluoride, uranyl nitrate, uranyl potassium carbonate, and uranyl sulfate. The presence of

- the above materials will be determined by the generator, based on process knowledge or i

testing.

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5. Mixed waste processing of waste containing SNM will be limited to stabilization (mixing

- waste with reagents), micro-encapsulation, and macro-encapsulation using low-density polyethylene.

6 Envirocare shall require generators to provide the following information for each waste stream:

Pre-shipment

1. . Waste Description. The ' description must detail how the waste was generated, list the physical forms in the waste, and identify uranium chemical composition.

' 2. Waste Characterization Summary. The data must include a general description of how the waste was characterized (including the volumetric extent of the waste, and the number, location, type, and results of any analytical testing), the range of SNM concentrations, and the analytical results with error values used to develop the concentration ranges.

3. Uniformity Description.' A description of the process by which the waste was generated showing that the spatial distribution of SNM must be uniform, or other information supporting spatial distribution.
4. Manifest Concentration. The generator must describe the methods to be used to i determine the concentrations on the manifests. These methods could include direct measurement and the use of scaling factors. The generator must describe the uncertainty associated with sampling and testing used to obtain the manifest concentrations. l l Envirocare shall review the above information and, if adequate, approve in writing this pre-shipment waste characterization and assurance plan before perrnitting the shipment ]

of a waste stream. This will include statements that Envirocare has a written copy of all j the information required above, that the characterization information is adequate and consistent with the waste description, and that the information is sufficient to

]

demonstrate compliance with conditions 1 through 4. Where generator process

! knowledge is used to demonstrate compliance with Conditions 1, 2, 3, or 4, Envirocare shall review this information and determine when testing is required to provide additional L information in assuring compliance with the conditions. Envirocare shall retain this

)

information as required by the State of Utah to permit independent review. J l.

l

At receipt l-Envirocare shall require generators of SNM waste to provide a written certification with each waste manifest that states that the SNM concentrations reported on the manifest do not exceed the limits in Condition 1, that the measurement uncertainty does not exceed the uncertainty value in Condition 1, and that the waste meets conditions 2 through 4.
7. - Sampling and radiological testing of waste containing SNM must be performed in accordance with the Utah Division of Radiation Controllicense Condition 58.

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8. Envirocare shall notify the NRC, Region IV office within 24 hours2.777778e-4 days <br />0.00667 hours <br />3.968254e-5 weeks <br />9.132e-6 months <br /> if any of the above-f- conditions are violated. A written notification of the event must be provided within 7 days.
9. Envirocare shall obtain NRC approval prior to changing any activities associated with the above conditions.

Need for the Proposed Action: In May 1997, the State of Utah determined that Envirocare had exceeded the SNM possession limits in its State of Utah license. Consequently, NRC, Region IV conducted an inspection of the facility in June 1997. The findings of the inspection are discussed in an inspection report and demand for information dated May 21, 1998. As a result of the inspection, NRC issued a Confirmatory Order (Order) on June 25, 1997, which required Envirocare, in part, to reduce its possession of SNM and to submit a compliance plan (CP) to NRC for approval. As part of the approved CP, trucks containing SNM waste can proceed to the disposal cell (assuming the conditions stated in the Order apply) without counting the SNM waste in Envirocare's possession inventory. This waste is considered "in-transit," under the exemption of 10 CFR 70.12, because the carrier is still present.

In a letter dated October 14,1997, the State of Utah informed NRC that SNM waste was being transferred from rail cars to trucks in the Salt Lake City rail yard and then taken to the

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- Envirocare site either directly or after storage in transit at a transport facility. To evaluate this practice, the NRC and the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) conducted an inspection.

The inspection concluded that applicable NRC and DOT regulations were being followed. (The inspection is documented in a report dated April 21,1998.)

Before the Order and CP, rail shipments were transported directly to a rail siding adjacent to the ,

site. Rail cars were staged on the siding until the waste could be moved onto the site within j licensed limits. Subsequent to the Order and CP which, as noted, provide for trucks to proceed r- directly to the disposal cell without being counted in the SNM possession inventory, it has been l operationally advantageous for Envirocare to receive SNM waste via truck. In addition, transfer

! from rail to truck in Salt Lake City is more economical for the shippers because rolling stock rental fees are reduced. Thus, the Order and CP may have led to a practice of transferring of SNM waste from rail cars to trucks in Salt Lake City. Some trucks and SNM waste are staged at a nearby industrial facility and do not go directly to the disposal site because of the SNM possession limit. Staff concludes that this process has resulted in a change in the mode of transportation of waste to the site (i.e., more truck shipments), leading to a slightly higher probability of a transportation accident. Moreover, the increased waste handling has increased the possibility of container rupture and resultant spillage in a metropolitan area. In addition,

!- SNM waste is being staged while in transit at nearby unlicensed industrial facility. Thus, the current practice - while conforming to applicable NRC and DOT regulations -- might be regarded as less safe and may be a direct result of conditions in the CP.

To resolve this issue, staff explored ways in which rail cars could be allowed to proceed directly to the site. Staff considered that if the SNM waste was shipped in accordance with 10 CFR Part 71, and applicable DOT regulations, that these conditions were sufficiently protective while the

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waste was on the rail cars, regardless of being located inside or outside the site boundary. Staff further evaluated whether concentration limits could be established to prevent an inadvertent criticality. Considering that concentration limits could be established, an acceptable rationale, therefore, exists for allowing above-ground storage of similar materialin a comparable or more

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. . w dispersed configuration.. This rationale, in the staff's view, supports'NRC taking action to j alleviate the regulatory constraint that appears to have led to the less than optimal practice, j described above, for transporting SNM waste to Envirocare.

.EnvironmentalImpacts of the Proposed Action: Envirocare is licensed by the State of Utah, an NRC Agreement State, under a 10 CFR Part 61 equivalent license for the disposal of LLW. Envirocare is also licensed by Utah to dispose of mixed-radioactive and hazardous wastes, in addition, Envirocare has an NRC license (SMC-1559) to dispo.se of waste containing 11(e)2 byproduct material. NRC has prepared an environmental impact statement (EIS) )

. (NUREG-1476), SERs, and EAs for its licensing action. The State of Utah, in support of its licensing activities, has also prepared SERs. The proposed actions now under consideration would not change the potential environmental effects assessed in these documents.

The regulations regarding SNM possession in 10 CFR Part 150 set mass limits whereby a licensee is exempted from the licensing requirements of 10 CFR Part 70 and can be regulated

by an Agreement State. The licensing requirements in 10 CFR Part 70 apply to persons possessing greater than critical mass quantities (as defined in 10 CFR 150.11). The principle emphasis of 10 CFR Part 70 is criticality safety and safeguarding SNM against diversion or sabotage. The NRC staff considers that criticality safety can be maintained by relying on concentration limits, under the specified conditions. These concentration limits are considered an alternative definition of quantities not sufficient to form a critical mass to the weight limits in 10 CFR 150.11; thereby, assuring the same level of protection.

Therefore, the NRC concludes that this proposed exemption will have no significant radiological or nonradiological environmental impacts.

Alternatives to the Proposed Action: The NRC staff considered two alternatives to the proposed action. One alternative to the proposed action would be to not grant the exemption .

(no-action altamative); therefore, increased handling of SNM waste would continue to occur in Salt Lake City, Utah and at a nearby industrial site. Although the incremental dose increase to transpo tation workers and to the public may be small, it is greater than if the shipments continued to the site via rail. The current practice is considered lets desirable.

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. Another alternative would be to grant the exemption without condition. This option would not I provide sufficient protection of health, safety, and the environment.

Aoencies and Persons Consulted: Officials from the State of Utah, Department of Environmental Quality, Division of Radiation Control were contacted about this EA for the proposed action and had no comments.

FINDING OF NO SIGNIFICANT IMPACT 1 e . The environmentalimpacts of the proposed action have been reviewed in accordance with the requirements set forth in 10 CFR Part 51. Based upon the foregoing EA, the NRC finds that the proposed action of granting an exemption from NRC licensing requirements in 10 CFR Part 70 so that Envirocare may store SNM waste in rail cars under the conditions specified will not significantly impact the quality of the human environment.

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Accordingly, the NRC has decided not to prepare an EIS for the proposed exemption. j Dated at Rockville, Maryland this 7 day of hd] 1999.

FOR THE NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION l'

/S/ John T Greeves John T. Greeves, Director Division of Waste Management Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards-

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ENCLOSURE 3

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f U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION DOCKET 40-8989 ENVIROCARE OF UTAH. INC.

SAFETY EVALUATION REPORT REGARDING THE PROPOSED EXEMPTION FROM REQUIREMENTS OF 10 CFR PART 70 1.0 Introduction Envirocare of Utah, Inc. (Envirocare) operates a low-level waste disposal facility in Clive, Utah.

This facility is licensed by the State of Utah, an Agreement State, under a 10 CFR Part 61 equivalent license (UT 2300249). In 1988, Envirocare began accepting naturally occurring radioactive material (NORM) waste. In 1992, Envirocare began accepting very low activity, low-level waste (LLW) primarily generated during the decommissioning of nuclear facilities. Envirocare's State of Utah radioactive materials license (RML) has been amended to permit disposal of other types of LLW. Envirocare is also licensed by Utah to dispose of mixed radioactive and hazardous wastes (MW). In addition, Envirocare has a U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission license to dispose of waste containing 11(e)2 byproduct material. The MW and 11(e)2 byproduct material are disposed of in separate disposal cells from the LLW. The MW and LLW streams may contain quantities of special nuclear material (SNM).

Envirocare receives wastes by rail and truck. Separate storage and disposal facilities exist for the LLW and MW. Unlike other LLW disposal facilities, Envirocare's RML limits the concentrations of radionuclides in the waste. For mixtures of radionuclides, the sum-of-fraction rule applies. Envirocare's method of disposal is to remove the waste from its container or dump bulk waste into lifts and compact the material. Subsequent lifts of material are placed above completed lifts. The waste streams are diverse and vary from contaminated soils and debris from decommissioning facilities to dry active waste (DAW) and resins from operating facilities.

Relative to SNM, the RML permits a average concentration at time of disposal of 500 pCi/g for uranium-233 (U-233); 770 pCi/g for U-235; 10,000 pCi/g for plutonium-238 (Pu-238), Pu-239, Pu-240, and Pu-242; and 350,000 pCi/g for Pu-241. Envirocare submitted a license amendment request to the State of Utah on February 16,1999, to increase the license limits for U-233 to 75,000 pCi/g, and U-235 to 2,100 pCi/g, and to include Pu-236, Pu-243 and Pu-244 at 500 pCi/g. Envirocare also requested that U-235 be removed from the sum of the fractions requirement in license condition 15 of its RML.

In addition to disposing of mixed waste, Envirocare also has capabilities to treat mixed waste prior to disposal. This treatment typically includes chemically stabilizing hazardous constituents by mixing the waste with various reagents, micro-encapsulation, and macro- encapsulation. The applicable hazardous waste regulations require bench scale treatability studies prior to treating the bulk of the waste.

2.0 Proposed Action Staff proposes issue an Order to Envirocare that would exempt it from the licensing requirements in 10 CFR Part 70. The exemption (Order) would permit Envirocare to possess SNM without regard for mass. Rather than relying on mass to insure criticality safety, a concentration limit is being applied, such that accumulations of SNM at or below this concentration limit would not pose a criticality safety concem.

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c 3.0 - Evaluations In evaluating the safety of the proposed action, staff is relying on the State of Utah safety evaluations relative to SNM for safety other than criticality safety. The State of Utah evaluations

' are documented in a Safety Evaluation Report issued by the Utah Department of Environmental

- Quality, Division of Radiation Control, dated October 22,1998. Where the concentration limit of an isotope based on radiological concerns is lower than the limit based on criticality concerns,

. the lower limit was used.' '

Criticality Safety Currently, criticality safety is maintained at the site through compliance with the SNM mass limits in 10 CFR Part 150, which are incorporated into license condition 13.A of the RML. To allow Envirocare to increase the mass quantity of SNM, staff proposes to shift the criticality safety basis from a mass-based criteria to a concentration-based one. Therefore, staff developed concentration limits for each SNM isotope. Staff determined that several conditions in addition to a concentration limit would be required to assure criticality safety.

Based on its analysis of the operations and waste forms at the Envirocare of Utah Clive site, staff concludes that waste processir:g and disposal operations can be conducted with acceptably low risk of nuclear criticality. The technical basis for this conclusion and the required conditions are presented below. These conditions would be included in an Order to Envirocare and would be incorporated by the State of Utah into its RML. The detailed language of the conditions are presented in Section 5. Conceptually, the conditions are:

SNM isotope concentration limits (Condition 1);

bulk chemicallimits (Condition 2);

unusual moderator limits (Condition 3);

soluble uranium limits (Condition 4);

mixed waste processing limits (Condition 5);

waste characterization and certification requirements (Condition 6); and waste receipt sampling condition (Condition 7).

The basic approach is the specification of four sets of technical criticality safety limits, conditions 1 through 4; then the provision in condition 6 for a certification and waste characterization assuring that these limits will not be exceeded. The waste sampling plan of condition 7 provides for detection of erroneous shipment of waste not complying with the concentration limits.

Condition 5 limits mixed waste processing activities to those currently used by Envirocare.

CONCENTRATION LIMITS FOR SUBCRITICALITY In establishing the U-235 concentration limits, staff used criticality calculations in two studies prepared by Oak Ridge National Laboratories (ORNL), NUREG/CR-6505 Volumes 1 and 2. In addition to these studies, ORNL has performed similar criticality calculations for U-233, Pu-239, and mixtures of plutonium that will be documented in a NUREG/CR on emplacement criticality guidance. Staff also performed independent calculations, as described below, using the SCALE computer program.-

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! . In the ORNL studies, silicon dioxide (SiO2 ) was used to represent the waste matrix. The SNM concentrations presented in the ORNL studies are expressed in grams of SNM isotope per gram of SiO2and assumed that unusual moderators are not present. The studies provide the neutron

' multiplication factor (k) for infinite media systems (k-infinity) over a range of SNM l concentrations. (A k-value greater than one would represent a critical condition.) The studies also provide dimensions and areal densities for infinite slabs and linear densities for cylinders,

! and diameter and minimum SNM mass for finite spheres corresponding to a k-effective of 0.95 over a range of concentrations. Staff conservatively used the infinite media results in developing the concentration limits.

Evaluations by ORNL for a range of compounds also confirmed that silicon dioxide is likely to be the most reactive feasible waste matrix. Other likely soil or waste constituents, such as iron, aluminum, and calcium act as neutron absorbers. Similarly the hydrogen in water acts as a neutron absorber more effectively than silicon for low concentrations of SNM in a waste matrix.

Disposal of pure bulk chemical compounds containing some enriched uranium would raise the question of whether there are chemical compounds more reactive than pure SiO2 . ORNL performed additional studies replacing the Si in the SiO2 matrix with other common elements and determined that beryllium, bismuth, carbon, helium, oxygen, fluorine, and magnesium produced more reactive systems. Of these elements, pure helium and oxygen are gases and would not be expected to be present in significant quantities in the waste. Beryllium and pure carbon (i.e.,

l graphite) are unusual moderators and are limited in condition 2. Although magnesium, fluorine, j ' carbon, and other oxide forms are present in earth materials and in fuel cycle waste, these chemicals are typically not present in bulk quantities or in " pure" form. The presence of bismuth is not anticipated to be significant in waste. To limit the presence of these chemicals from occurring in bulk quantities in pure form, Condition 2 was included to preclude this for waste shipped to Envirocare. Staff understands that for some waste streams Envirocare adds

. magnesium oxide as part of its mixed waste processing. For the general case,20 percent magnesium oxide was assumed, and the U-235 concentration values presented in the ORNL i studies were reduced to reflect this magnitude of magnesium oxide.

in establishing operational concentration limits and considering that concentration will be the L

primary criticality control, staff reduced the subcritical limit to account for operational uncertainties. Part of the concern in establishing the operational concentration limit was based on how accurately generators could determine the concentration of the SNM in the waste.

. Typically, U-235 and other fissile isotopes are measured using gamma spectroscopy methods to

measure the activity of the isotope and/or daughter products. The uncertainties associated with l this method are based on a number of factors including count time, type of detector, container
geometry, density of the waste, distribution of SNM within the container, etc. Staff considers l that a reasonable measurement uncertainty value (one-sigma) would be in the range of 15 l percent.- Staff used 30 percent (two-sigma) in calculating the operational limit to increase the
confidence level that the concentration of the waste based a measurement would not exceed the subcritical value. Other radiochemistry techniques may be used to quantify the concentration of these radionuclides. These techniques typically have lower measuroment uncertainty levels, but introduce sampling uncertainty. The measurement uncertainty levels are

, included in condition 1 and represent 15 percent of the maximum concentration value. A concentration value was used for the measurement uncertainty rather than a percentage value to allow greater flexibility.for generators with waste having very low SNM concentrations. l

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i NUREG/CR-6505 Volume 1 presents that pure U-235 (i.e.100% enriched) in a SiO2 matrix with no water present is the most reactive for low concentration U-235 infinite media systems. This case resulted in a concentration of 8.862e-4 g U-235/g SiO2 at a k-infinity of 0.95. Tnis value of k-infinity is selected as the subcritical limit to account for uncertainties in the criticality

.' calculations.: Higher values of k-infinity would be considered to be possibly critical. This concentration corresponds to 1915 pCi U-235/g soil. ;The validity of the 1915 pCi 23sU/g limit for

' uranium enriched above 10 weight percent was confirmed by independent staff evaluations at L100% enrichment. Further, staff determined that this subcritical limit was not sensitive to variation in the soil density for infinite media systems. Assuming 20 p'ercent magnesium oxide and one percent unusual moderator (see UNUSUAL MODERATOR section for a detailed discussion),~ ORNL calculated a subcritical concentration of 7.88e-4 g U-235/g soil. As noted above, this subcritical limit was reduced to account for operational uncertainty; and a value of 1190 pCi/g was calculated.

In order to allow Envirocare greater flexibility, s' taff also established a concentration limit for 10 percent enriched uranium. The U-235 concentration limit for 10 percent enriched uranium was based on calculations reported in draft NUREG/CR-6505 Vol. 2. Table A.1 of that report shows that the optimally reactive condition is with a small amount of water added to the SiO 2 matrix. A case at 0.0013463 g U-235/g SiO2 obtained a k-infinite of 0.935; while at 0.0015476 g U-235/g SiO2 , k-infinite was 0.982. Interpolating to the selected subenticality limit (k-infinite of 0.95), we obtain 0.0014 g U-235/g SiO2 . To calculate the subcritical limit for 20 percent magnesium oxide and one percent unusual moderator, staff used the ratio of subcritical limits without magnesium oxide for 100 pement enrichment and 10 percent enrichment (i.e.,1.4e-3 divided by 8.862e-4).

Staff applied the same approach as above and calculated a value of 1900 pCi/g for uranium enriched to less than 10 weight percent.

Table 1 shows the conversion from activity of the SNM per gram of waste to grams of SNM per gram of waste. The maximum concentrations in the second column are given in Curies per gram of waste rather than pCi/g as stated in the condition itself. The fourth column of Table 1 converts these concentrations to a mass ratio, that is, mass of SNM per mass of waste, by dividing by the specific activity.

TABLE 1 Radionuclide Maximum Specific Max Concentration Activity of Concentration (Ci/g waste) Nuclide as Mass Ratio

.. (Ci/g nuclide) (g nuclide/

g waste)

<10% U-235 1.9e-09 2.16e-06 8.80e-04 210% U-235 1.19-09 2.16e-06 5.51e-04 U-233 7.5e-08 9.70e-03 7.28e-06 Pu-236 5.0e-10 5.32e+02 9.40e-13 Pu -238 1.0e-08 1.70e+01 5.88e-10 Pu-239 1.0e-08 6.20e-02 1.61e-07

Pu-240 1.0e-08 2.30e-01 4.35e-08 Pu-241 l 3.5e 1.00e+02 3.50e-09 I Pu-242 1.De-08 3.90e-03 2.56e-06 Pu-243 5.0e-10 2.60e+06 1.90e-16 Pu-244 5.0e-10 1.78e-05 2.80e-05 Based on the additional work by ORNL, the subcritical (k-infinity of 0.95) concentration limit for U-233 is 0.00067 g U-233/g SiO2 . Again, staff used the same approach and calculated an operationallimit of 4.45e6 pCi/g. The U-233 concentration value set for radiological concems is 7.5e4 pCi/g. The RML U-233 conce ntration is significantly lower than the value that would be acceptable for criticality safety and is therefore acceptable. ORNL also determined that the subcritical concentration limit for Pu-239 is 0.000399 g Pu-239/g SiO2 . Staff performed similar calculations for Pu-241 and obtained a suberitical concentration limit of 1.15e-3 g Pu-241/g SiO2 -

Similar to U-233, the radiologically derived concentrations for Pu-239 and Pu-241 are significantly lower than the values that would be acceptable for criticanty safety and are therefore acceptable.

'clike the above isotopes, criticality concentration limits for the other plutonium isotopes in an

.9 nite matrix of SiO 2 have not been determined. Some of the common plutonium isotopes such as Pu-238, Pu-2.40, Pu-242 and Pu-244 are fissionable but not fissile. Non-fissile fissionable materials require high energy neutrons to maintain a fission chain reaction; while, fissile material l (U-233, U-235, Pu-23G, Pu-239, Pu-241,and Pu-243) can be fissioned by neutrons of any {

energy. To evaluate the criticality significance of these other plutonium isotopes, sta'f compared the minimum critical masses (typically optimally moderated spheres) of these isotopes with the ,

minimum critical mass of Pu-239 and compared the mass-based radiological concentration  !

limits of these isotopes with the subcritical concentration for Pu-239. Table 2 below illustrates  !

this point. Because the minimum critical masses for the other plutonium isotopes are i significantly higher than Pu-239 and the concentration limit of the other plutonium isotopes I (based on radiological safety considerations) are significantly less than the subcritical concentration of Pu-239, staff concludes that the concentration limits for the other plutonium isotopes will not contribute significently to criticality.

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' TABLE 2 '

Nuclide -_ Minimum 'CL(isotope)/

Critical Mass l Mc(nuclide)/. Concentration Limit (CL) Subcritical (Mc)(grams) Mc(Pu-239) , (g isotope /g waste) Concentration (Pu239)

Pu-236 NA ' 9.40e 3.4e-09 Pu-238 ~ 4.00e+03 9.3 5.88e-10 2.1e-06 Pu-239 4.50e+02 1.0 1.61e-07 5.8e-04 Pu-240 1.90e+04 42.2 4.35e-08 1.6e-04 Pu-242 5.60e+04 124.0 2.56e-06 9.2e-03 Pu-243 NA 1.90e-16 6.8e-13 Pu-244 NA 2.80e-05 1.0e-01

- Data not provided in literature NA - Not applicable -

Staff also evaluated Envirocare's February 16,1999, amendment request to the State of Utah to  !

remove U-235 from the sum of the fractions rule in condition 15 of the RML. Of the SNM, the U- )

235 concentrations are the only values that are a significant fraction of the subcritical limit. As  !

discussed above, the U-233 and various Pu isotope concentration limits are based on radiological concerns rather than criticality safety concems tend are a small fraction of the subcritical limits. Therefore, from a criticality safety perspective, staff considers it acceptable to exclude U-235 from the sum of the fractions requirement in the RML.

l UNUSUAL MODERATOR LIMITS The concentration values reported in NUREG/CR-6505 Volumes 1 and 2 are based on the assumption that urusual moderators are not present. Unusually effective neutron moderating materials, such as beryllium, graphite, or heavy water, could provide a more reactive matrix.

Previous evaluations iave shown that the presence cE. le amounts of beryllium can permit criticality to occur at lower concentrations of SNM in soi.. herefore, limiting unusual moderators is required to assure the effectiveness of the SNM conce t  : tion limits in maintaining criticality safety.- Because prohibiting unusual moderators could rei.wt in problems demonstrating compliance, staff decided to set a finite maximum limit on unusual moderators. In discussions with Envirocare, a limit of one percent of the SNM mass was selected as bounding value. ORNL l peiiviined additional calculations which included varying amounts of beryllium, graphite, and heavy water within the silicon dioxide waste matrix. As discussed above, this magnitude of unusual moderators was used to calculate the gener# cese concentration limits.

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During the development of the exemption, Envirocare requested a concentration limit for U-235 without regard for the beryllium or magnesium oxide content. ORNL performed additional criticality analyses. varying the beryllium and magnesium oxide content to calculate a subcritical limit for U-235 above 10 percent enrichment. A subcritical limit of 1.06e-4 g U-235/g waste was the minimum value. This subcritical limit was reduced for operational uncertainty, and a limit value of 160 pCi/g was obtained. Envirocare also requested a limit for beryllium and magnesium oxide that would result in a U-235 concentration limit of 680 pCl/g for 10 percent enrichment or greater. ORNL performed additional criticality analyses and determined that the associated sum of beryllium and magnesium should be less than 49 percent. These additional concentration limits are included in Condition 1.

SOLUBLE URANIUM COMPOUNDS Staff examined mechanisms that could increase the concentration of the SNM in the waste. One of these mechanisms is that highly soluble uranium could be readily leached with water and concentrate. Highly soluble forms of uranium include, but are not limited to: uranium sulfate, uranyl acetate, uranyl chloride, uranyl formate, uranyl fluoride, uranyl nitrate, uranyl potassium carbonate, and uranyl sulfate. Staff considered that leaching or washing of soluble uranium from waste in containers could occur and collect in a corner of the container.

Staff calculated the maximum amount of U-235 that could be permissible at the maximum

. concentration (1300 pCi U-235/g) for a large intermodal container (70 yd ) assuming the density of the waste was 1.6 g/cm8. This value (51.6 kg of U-235) was compared with the minimum critical mass for U-235 (760 g), in order to insure criticality safety, the mass of soluble uranium should be a fraction of the minimum critical mass. Consistent with 10 CFR Part 150, staff selected a mass limit of 350 g of soluble U-235 or 200 g of soluble U-233 as being acceptable to insure suber:ticality. For mixtures of U-233 and U-235, the sum of the fractions rule would apply.

Staff further recognizes that the mass of uranium will be limited by the consignment mass limits in 10 CFR Part 71.

PROCESSING OF WASTE CONTAINING URANIUM For mixed waste streams, Envirocare has the capability to treat this waste to meet the hazardous waste disposal criteria.~ Currently, Envirocare uses chemical stabilization, and micro-and macro-encapsulation. Staff evaluated the affect of these treatment technologies and

determined that a condition was required to limit the mixed waste processing activities to those currently used by Envirocare. Should Envirocare desire to use new technologies, a request to the NRC in accordance with Condition 9 would be required.

Chemical stabilization is accomplished by mixing various chemical reagents with the waste. .

1 Envirocare currently uses 55 chemicals in its stabilization process. These chemicals may be mixed singularly or in combination and in varying amounts. The end result is to immobilize j

' hazardous constituents; In order to verify the effectiveness of be treatment process, bench scale testing is conducted in accordance with EPA procedures. Following a successful treatability study, the subject waste is treated in large-scale mixers.

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- Staff evaluated the list of chemicals used in the stabilization process and determined that )

several of these chemicals could either mobilize (increase the solubility) or precipitate uranium

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chemicals from use with SNM waste.~ However, Envirocare indicated that this would be overly restrictive. '

Envirocare stated that the stabilization occurred in absence of free liquids and while the mixer  !

was operating. Therefore, the SNM would be homogeneously mixed in the waste and could not become more concentrated regardless of whether it was made more soluble. Envirocare further stated, that following stabilization, that the waste was stored in water tight containers so that even if the SNM was in a soluble fc.m it would not be mobilized to change concentration. Staff

< determined that this argument was reasonable.

Staff also evaluated the criticality significance of micro- and macro-encapsulation. Macro-encapsulation consists of covering a waste container in low-density polyethylene. Envirocare performs this operation on a variety of waste packages including B-12 and B-25 boxes, and 55-gallon and 85 gallon drums. Because polyethylene contains a substantial quantity of hydrogen and hydrogen is an effective neutron moderator, staff was concerned that this process could reduce the criticality safety at the site. Therefore, staff modeled single containers and arrays of containers using the KENO V.a module of the SCALE 4.4 computer code. Staff varied the k density of the waste, water content of the waste, and concentration of the various SNM isotopes.

j Based on these analyses, staff concluded that the concentration based on the infinite media system (condition 1) was more restrictive.

Micro-encapsulation consists of mixing waste with low-density polyethylene at varying percentages in a kinetic mixer. The molten waste-plastic mixtures are placed in molds the size of a B-25 box or into a 30 yd3 roll-off container. Similarly, staff modeled single containers and arrays.of containers varying the density of the waste, polyethylene percentage, and concentration of the various SNM isotopes. Based on these analyses, staff concluded that the concentration based on the infinite media system (condition 1) was also more restrictive.

ASSURING THAT WASTE DOES NOT EXCEED THE MAXIMUM CONCENTRATION LIMITS I

The analyses showing that the concentration limits on uranium isotopes assure subcriticality even in infinite amounts were performed using a uniform distribution of the uranium. A non-uniformity exceeding the critical concentration could be critical if large enough. Thus, it is necessary to assure that the waste meets these limits with a certain degree of uniformity. Staff developed a number of steps in order to assure that the waste uniformly meets the maximum concentration limits.

The first step would occur before any SNM waste is shipped. Envirocare currently requires .

generators to submit a pre-shipment waste characterization before any waste is shipped. Staff intends to augment the current proposal to promote increased emphasis on generators knowing the range and variability of the SNM concentrations in its wastes. The purpose of the pre-

. shipment waste characterization is to provide Envirocare with information that shows that the generator has sufficient knowledge of the range and variability of the SNM concentration.

Condition 5 provides detailed information that Envirocare shall require generators to submit as

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v part of this pre-shipment characterization.~ Envirocare shall review this information and

. determine if it is adequate to assure that the waste shipments will meet conditions 1 through 4.

in reviewing this information, Envirocare will need to rely on the generators description of the waste stream. Knowledge of the process by which the waste was generated and laid down may assure that the concentration varies smoothly throughout the volume with a maximum in a known location. It is then only necessary to measure the concentration at this maximum plus other measurements confirming the smooth variation. In other cases were a smooth variation in SNM concentration in the waste is not present, additional measuroments and characterization will be needed. It is not necessary that each and every point of such waste be measured.

There is a size scale at which relative uniformity is needed. As an estimate of this size scale, staff considered a worst case scenario where a volume of waste complies with the concentration limit, on average over the whole volume, but in which the uranium is concentrated in one comer of a waste package. To protect against the scenario where 8 such comers are assembled together at emplacement, this mass of uranium in a corner needs to be less than 1/8 of a critical mass. For 100% enriched uranium, one-eighth of the minimum critical mass is 87.5 grams.

Using this mass and the concentration limit, staff determined that if uniformity of the waste can

. be assured not to exceed the concentration limit, on average, over a waste mass of 145 Kg, then safety can be assured. This uniformity criteria is included in Condition 1. '

In addition to describing the waste and the characterization methods used, generators will be required to describe the methods that will be used to determine the concentrations reported on

- the manifest. Where the concentration of SNM is a small fraction of the concentration limit and characterization results indicate relatively small variation in that concentration, using scaling factors would be an appropriate method to determine SNM concentrations in individual waste containers. However, where the concentration of SNM approaches the concentration limit or the characterization results indicate large variations in SNM concentrations, using direct measurements on each package would be an appropriate method to determine SNM concentrations in individual waste containers.

The next step would occur at the time the waste is shipped. Envirocare shall require generators of SNM waste to provide a written certification with each manifest that states that the SNM concentrations and the uncertainty associated with determining those concentrations do not exceed the limits in Condition 1, and that the waste meets Conditions 2, 3, and 4. This will further emphasize the importance of accurately determining the SNM concentrations in the ,

waste. I i

The final step would occur after Envirocare receives the waste. Envirocare currently performs l periodic sampling and testing to verify concentrations of radionuclides in the waste using l gamma spectroscopy for gamma emitters and other methods for non-gamma emitters. The i J

frequency of this confirmatory testing and the procedures are outlined in Envirocare's " Waste Characterization Plan", Rev. April 3,1998. The radiological testing is required in license condition 58 of the RML To emphasize the continued importance of this periodic confirmatory testing, staff has included it as an Order condition.

]

4.0 Summary and Conclur.lon of Safety Evaluation Based on its analysis of the operationa and waste forms at the Envirocare of Utah Clive site, staff concludes that waste processing and disposal operations can be conducted with acceptably low risk of nuclear criticality. Staff developed maximum concentration limits to assure criticality safety and a set of conditions that will assure that the concentration limits are not exceeded. These conditions would be included in an Order to Envirocare and would be incorporated by the State of Utah into its RML.

5.0 Exemption Conditions The Order is contingent on Enviro :are complying with the following the conditions:

1. Concentrations of SNM in individual waste containers must not exceed the following values at time of receipt:

Radionuclide Maximum Measurement Concentration Uncertainty (PCi/g) (pCi/g)

U-235' 1900 285 U-235* 1190 179 U-235' 160 24 U-235d 680 102 U-233 75,000 11,250 Pu-236 500 75 Pu -238 10,000 1,500 Pu-239 10,000 1,500 Pu-240 10,000 1,500 Pu-241 350,000 50,000 Pu-242 10,000 1,500 Pu-243 500 75 j Pu-244 500 75 a- foi uranium below 10 percent enrichment and a maximum of 20 percent MgO of the weight of the waste o- for uranium at or above 10 percent enrichment and a maximum of 20 percent MgO of the weight of the waste c- for uranium at any enrichment with unlimited MgO or beryllium

n. .

d- for uranium at any enrichment with sum of MgO and beryllium not exceeding 49 percent of the weight of the waste The measurement uncertainty values in column 3 above represent the maximum one-sigma uncertainty associated with the measurement of the concentration of the particular radionuclide.

The SNM must be homogeneously distributed throughout the waste. If the SNM is not homogeneously distributed, then the limiting concentrations must not be exceeded on average in any contiguous mass of 145 kilograms.

2. Except as allowed by notes a, b, c, and d in Condition 1, waste must not contain " pure forms" of chemicals containing carbon, fluorine, magnesium, or bismuth in bulk quantities (e.g., a pallet of drums, a B-25 box). By " pure forms,"it is meant that mixtures of the above elements such as magnesium oxide, magnesium carbonate, magnesium fluoride, bismuth oxide, etc. do not contain other elements. These chemicals would be added to the waste stream during processing, such as at fuel facilities or treatment such as at mixed waste treatment facilities. The presence of the above materials will be determined by the generator, based on process knowledge or testing.
3. Except as allowed by notes c and d in Condition 1, waste accepted must not contain total l quantities of beryllium, hydrogenous material enriched in deuterium, or graphite above one percent of the total weight of the waste. The presence of the above materials will be )

' determined by the generator, based on process knowledge, physical observations, or testing.

4. Waste packages must not contain highly water soluble forms of uranium greater than 350 grams of uranium-235 or 200 grams of uranium-233. The sum of the fractions rule will apply for mixtures of U-233 and U-235. Highly soluble forms of uranium include, but j are not limited to: uranium sulfate, uranyl acetate, uranyl chloride, uranyl formate, uranyl i fluoride, uranyl nitrate, uranyl potassium carbonate, and uranyl sulfate. The presence of l the above materials will be determined by the generator, based on process knowledge or  !

testing.

5. Mixed waste processing of waste containing SNM will be limited to stabilization (mixing waste with reagents), micro-encapsulation, and macro-encapsulation using low-density l polyethylene. l
6. Envirocare shall require generators to provide the following information for each waste stream:

Pre-shipment 1

1. Waste Description. The description must detail how the waste was generated, list the physical forms in the waste, and identify uranium chemical composition.
2. Waste Characterization Summary. The data must include a general description of how the waste was characterized (including the volumetric extent of the waste, o <. s and the number, location, type, and results of any analytical testing), the range of SNM concentrations, and the analytical results with error values used to develop the concentration ranges.
3. Uniformity Description. A description of the process by which the waste was generated showing that the spatial distribution cf SNM must be uniform, or other information supporting spatial distribution.
4. Manifest Concentration. The generator must describe the methods to be used to determine the concentrations on the manifests. These methods could include direct measurement and the use of scaling factors. The generator must describe the uncertainty associated with sampling and testing used to obtain the manifest concentrations.

Envirocare shall review the above information and, if adequate, approve in writing this pre-shipment waste characterization and assurance plan before permitting the shipment of a waste stream. This willinclude statements that Envirocare has a written copy of all the information required above, that the characterization information is adequate and consistent with the waste description, and that the information is sufficient to demonstrate compliance with conditions 1 through 4. Where generator process knowledge is used to demonstrate compliance with Conditions 1,2,3, or 4, Envirocare shall review this information and determine when testing is required to provide additional information in assuring compliance with the conditions. Envirocare shall retain this information as required by the State of Utah to permit independent review.

At receipt Envirocare shall require generators of SNM waste to provide a written certification with l each waste manifest that states that the SNM concentrations reported on the manifest do l not 9xceed the limits in Condition 1, that the measurement uncertainty does not exceed l the uncerte!nty value in Condition 1, and that the waste meets conditions l 2 througe 4.

l

7. Sampling and radiological testing of waste containing SNM must be performed in accordance with the Utah Division of Radiation Control license Condition 58.
8. Envirocare shall notify the NRC, Region IV office within 24 hours2.777778e-4 days <br />0.00667 hours <br />3.968254e-5 weeks <br />9.132e-6 months <br /> if any of the above l

i conditions are violated. A written notification of the event must be provided within 7 days.

9. Envirocare shall obtain NRC approval prior to changing any activities associated with the above conditions.

e, e . o 6.0 References ANSI /ANS 8.15-1981 (R1995), " Nuclear Criticality Control of Special Actinide Elements," 1995 Envirocare of Utah, Inc., Letter to Tim Harris, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, "Re: Response to Special Nuclear Materials Exemption, January 4,1998 Draft," January 8,1999 Envirocare of Utah, Inc., Letter to William Sinclair, Utah Division of Radiation Control, "Re:

Request RML Amendment to increase Uranium-233 and Uranium-235 Concentration - License No. UT2300249," January 18,1999 Envirocare of Utah, Inc., Letter to William Sinclair, Utah Division of Radiation Control, "Re:

Additional information - January 19,1999 Amendment Request - License No. UT2300249,"

February 16,1999 Kocker, D.C., " Radioactive Decay Data Tables," U.S. Department of Energy, DOE / TIC-11026, April 1981 Paxton, H.C., Pruvost, N.L., " Criticality Dimensions of Systems Containing U-235, Pu-239, and U-233," Los Alamos National Laboratory, July 1987 Toran, L.E. et al, "The Potential for Criticality Following Disposal of Uranium at Low-Level Waste Facilities," U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, NUREG/CR-6505, Volume 1, June 1997 Toran, L.E. et al, Draft "The Potential for Criticality Following Disposal of Uranium at Low-Level Waste Facilities," U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, NUREG/CR-6505, Volume 2, August 1998 Utah Department of Environmental Quality, Division of Radiation Control, Radioactive Material J

License, UT 2300249, October 23,1998 l 1

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J H 2 9 1999 ALL AGREEMENT STATES

MINNESOTA, OHIO, OKLAHOMA, PENNSYLVANIA, WISCONSIN l

PROGRAM INFORMAT!ON: ENVIROCARE - EXEMPTION FROM LICENSING REQUIREMENTS IN 10 CFR PART 70 (SP-99-04S l

Enclosed for your infcrmation is an NRC Order issued to Envirocare of Utah, Inc., providing an exemption from the licensing requirements in 10 CFR Part 70.

If you have any questions regarding this correspondence, please contact me or the individual named belou.

POINT OF CONTACT: Lloyd Bolling INTERNET: LAB @NRC. GOV l TELEPHONE: (301) 415-2327 FAX- (301) 415-3502 1

i OriginalSigned By: j PAULH.LOHAUS Paul H. Lohaus, Director Office of State Programs

Enclosure:

l As stated i

I I

i Distribution:

, DlR RF DCD (SP03) l SDroggitis PDR (YES()

MLMclean, RSAO-IV A/S File - l

' Utah file

)

DOCUMENT NAME: G:\ LAB \ SP99045.WPD Ts receive a copy of this documer,t, Indicate in the IEnuh M Copy udthout attachment / enclosure *E's Copy vulth attachment / enclosure *N" a No co)y OFFICE _OJipf lE O$Pi Dhl l l l I

NAME  !.JMR]p5kk PHLohauif .

DATE - 6/R/99 6/2 //99 ]

OSP FILE CODE: SP-A-4, SP-A-28 I M J'- .$

a m %cfBS  !

h i p aarug 1 g* t UNITED STATES g) j I NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION l

" t WA5H1NGTON, D.C. 3061 6 0001

. . . . . ,o June 28, 1999 ALL AGREEMENT STATES MINNESOTA, OHIO, OKLAHOMA, PENNSYLVANIA, WISCONSIN PROGRAM INFORMATION: ENVIROCARE - EXEMPTION FROM LICENSING REQUIREMENTS IN 10 CFR PART 70 (SP-99-045)

Enclosed for your information is an NRC Order issued to Envirocare of Utah, Inc., providing an .

exemption from the licensing requirements in 10 CFR Part 70. l If you have any questions regarding this correspondence, please contact me or the individual named below.

POINT OF CONTACT: Lloyd Bolling INTERNET: LAB @NRC. GOV TELEPHONE: (301)415-2327 FAX: (301) 5-3502 yh s h

Paul H. Lohaus, Director j

Office of State Programs '

Enclosure:

As stated

& UNITED STATES fe
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION

& WASHINGTON, D.C. 20666-0001 40

'%.... May 24,1999 Mr. Charles A. Judd, President Envirocare of Utah,Inc.

46 West Broadway, Suite 240 Salt Lake City, Utah 84101 1

SUBJECT:

EXEMPTION FROM LICENSING REQUIREMENTS IN 10 CFR PART 70 i Dear Mr. Judd- l l

This letter forwards an Order which exempts Envirocare from the licensing requirements in ]

10 CFR Part 70. The Order is contingent on Envirocare complying with specific conditions in the Order. The Order will become effective when these conditions are incorporated into your State of Utah Radioactive Materials License. Also enclosed are copies of the Environmental Assessment and Safety Evaluation Report.

If you have any questions or comments, please contact John Greeves of my staff at (301) 415-7437.

Sincerely, l /S/ Carl J. Paperiello Carl J. Paperiello, Director l Office of Nuclear Material Safety 1

! and Safeguards

Enclosures:

As stated i

Docket No. 040-8989 License No. SMC-1559 I cc: William Sinclair, State of Utah J

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1 ENCLOSURE 1 l

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U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION in the matter of Docket No. 40-8989 Envirocare of Utah, Inc. SMC-1559 ORDER t

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I Envirocare of Utah, Inc. (Envirocare) operates a low-level waste disposal facility in Clive, Utah. This facility is licensed by the State of Utah, an Agreement S? 3te, under a 10 CFR Part 61 equivalent license (UT 2300249). In 1988, Envirocare began accepting naturally occurring radioactive material (NORM) waste. In 1992, Envirocare began accepting very low activity, low-level waste (LLW) primarily generated during the decommissioning of nuclear facilities. Envirocare's State of Utah radioactive materials license (RML) has been amended to permit disposal of other types of LLW. Envirocare is also licensed by Utah to dispose of mixed radioactive and hazardous wastes (MW). In addition, Envirocare has a U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission license to dispose of waste containing 11(e)2 byproduct material. The MW and 11(e)2 byproduct material are disposed of in separate disposal celis from the LLW. The MW and LLW streams may contain quantities of special nuclear material (SNM). I Envirocare receives wastes by rail and truck. Separate storage and disposal facilities exist for the LLW and MW. Envirocare's method of disposal is to remove the waste from its container or dump bulk waste into lifts and compact the material. Subsequent lifts of material are placed above completed lifts. The waste streams are diverse and vary from contaminated soils and debris from decommissioning facilities to dry active waste (DAW) and resins from operating facilities, in addition to disposing of mixed waste, Envirocare also has capabilities to treat mixed waste prior to disposal. This treatment typically includes chemically stabilizing of hazardous constituents by mixing the waste with various reagents, and micro- and macro-encapsulation of waste with low density polyethylene plastic. The applicable hazardous waste regulations require bench scale treatability studies prior to treating the bulk of the waste.

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Pursuant to 10 CFR 70.14, "the Commission may.... grant such exemptions from the requirements of the regulations in this part as it determines are authorized by law and will not endanger life or property or the common defense and security and are otherwise in the public l

l Interest."

Section 70.3 of 10 CFR Part 70 requires persons who own, acquire, deliver, receive, possess, use, or transfer SNM to obtain a license pursuant to the requirements in 10 CFR Part

70. Section 10 CFR 150.10 exempts persons in Agreement States, who possess SNM in l

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- quantities not sufficient to form a critical mass, from Commission imposed licensing

! requirements and regulations. The method for calculating a quantity of SNM not sufficient to form a critical mass is set forth in 10 CFR 150.11. Therefore, Envirocare is currently limited by regulation and its State of Utah license to possess SNM in quantities set out in 10 CFR 150.10 and 150.11. The SNM possession limits in the regulation and license, as they relate to LLW disposal facilities, apply to above-ground possession prior to disposal. Therefore, once the SNM is disposed of, the possession limits no longer apply.

In response to an inspection by the State of Utah which determined that Envirocare had exceeded its Agreement State license limits for the possession of U-235, NRC conducted its -

own inspection of the facility. As a result of this inspection, NRC issued a Confirmatory Order (Order), dated June 25,1997, which required Envirocare to reduce its possession of SNM to the amounts prescribed in 10 CFR 150.11 and Envirocare's Agreement State license, and to submit a compliance plan (CP) for meeting 10 CFR 150.10 and 150.11 to NRC for approval. Condition 3 of the Order required Envirocare to include all SNM in the restricted area at the site in applying the limitations in 10 CFR 150.10 and 150.11. Envirocare submitted a CP dated July 23,1997, which was approved by NRC in a letter, dated August 1,1997. Under the provisions of the OP, all waste containing SNM with the exception of waste "in transport" which l is located within the restricted area at Envirocare's site is subject to the limitations in 10 CFR 150.10 and 150.11. However, trucks containing SNM waste can proceed directly to the disposal cell and would be conderea *in transport" and not in Envirocare's possession. This condition is applicable ;.,ovided that the waste was disposed of on the same calendar day as arrival, and that the amount of SNM in any individual truck did not exceed the limits in 10 CFR 150.11.

When NRC approved the CP on August 13,1997, Condition 3 of the Order was revised to incorporate the terms of the CP.

2 E I

When Envirocare submitted its July 23,1997, CP, it noted that application of the "in transport" approach to rail shipments and shipments disposed on the same day they are i receivad would greatly assist operational flexibility at no risk to public health and safety. Based on consultation with the Department of Transportation (DOT), the NRC has concluded that the "in transport" approach would not apply to rail shipments. However, the staff believes the circumstances warrant some action to provide Envirocare the needed flexibility without undue risk to public health and safety. The NRC staff has been informed that, in order to accommodate possession limits, rail shipments containing SNM waste are being transferred to .

trucks in Salt Lake City, Utah, for transport to the Envirocare disposal facility. In response to questions reised in a letter from the State of Utah, NRC accompanied DOT on an inspection of the Salt Lake City rail yard and to the carriers facilities. DOT concluded that the process l observed met DOT's requirements; however, NRC staff concluded that the process resulted in an increased number of trips, leading to a slightly higher probability of a transportation accident. 4 Prior to the Order and CP, these shipments were transported by rail directly to the site. Thus the Order and CP have led to increased waste handling and the increased possibility of container rupture and resultant spillage in a metropolitan area.

Ill.

NRC staff has reviewed the current shipping practice and considers it to be less desirable from a health and safety standpoint than having the rail cars proceed directly to the site.- However, Condition 3 of the Order and the CP, as they now stand, effectively preclude many rail cars containing SNM from being brought onto the Envirocare site. Envirocare would need to obtain a license or an exemption from the NRC under 10 CFR Pa t 70 that would permit it to possess the SNM in the cars on the site. Such SNM might well exceed the limits in 10 CFR 150.10 and 150.11, as well as the limits of the State of Utah license.

In this instance, the staff believes that the appropriate action is to issue Envirocare an exemption opecifically, Envirocare would be exempted from the requirements of 10 CFR Part 70, including the requirements for an NRC license in 10 CFR 70.3, for SNM within the restricted area at Envirocare's site, provided that:

1. Concentrations of SNM in individual waste containers must not exceed the following values at time of receipt:

1 3 j

l Radionuclide Maximum Measurement Concentration Uncertainty (pCi/g) (pCi/g)

U-235' 1900 285 U-235* 1190 179 l

U-235* 160 24 U-2358 680 102 U-233 75,000 11,250 Pu-236 500 75 Pu -238 10,000 1,500 Pu-239 - 10,000 1,500 l

Pu-240 10,000 1,500 Pu-241 350,000 50,000 Pu-242 10,000 1,500 j Pu-243 500 75 l Pu 244 500 75 a- for uranium below 10 percent enrichment and a maximum of 20 percent MgO of the j weight of the waste b- for uranium at or above 10 percent enrichment and a maximum of 20 percent MgO of the weight of the waste c- for uranium at any enrichment with unlimited MgO or beryllium d- for uranium at any enrichment with sum of MgO and beryllium not exceeding 49 percent of the weight of the waste The measurement uncertainty values in column 3 above represent the maximum one-sigma uncertainty associated with the measurement of the concentration of the particular radionuclide.

The SNM must be homogeneously distributed throughout the waste. If the SNM is not i

homogeneously distributed, then the limiting concentrations must not be exceeded on average in any contiguous mass of 145 kilograms.

t 2. Except as allowed by notes a, b, c, and d in Condition 1, waste must not contain " pure forms" of chemicals containing carbon, fluorine, magnesium, or bismuth in bulk quantities (e.g., a pallet of drums, a B 25 box) By " pure forms,"it is meant that mixtures of the l above elements such as magnesium oxide, magnesium carbonate, magnesium fluoride, bismuth oxide, etc. do not contain other elements. These chemicals would be added to the waste stream during processing, such as at fuel facilities or treatment such as at l

4 4 I

mixed waste treatment facilities. The presence of the above materials will be determined by the generator, based on process knowledge or testing.

3. Except as allowed by notes c and d in Condition 1, waste accepted must not contain total quantities of beryllium, hydrogenous material enriched in deuterium, or graphite above one percent of the total weight of the waste. The presence of the above materials will be determined by the generator, based on process knowledge, physical observations, or testing.
4. Waste packages must not contain righly water soluble forms of uranium greater than 350 grams of uranium-235 or 200 grams of uranium-233. The sum of the fractions rule will apply for mixtures of U-233 and U 235. Highly soluble forms of uranium include, but are not limited to: uranium sulfate, uranyl acetate, uranyl chloride, uranyl formate, uranyl fluoride, uranyl nitrate, uranyl potassium carbonate, and uranyl sulfate. The presence of the above materials will be determined by the generator, based on process knowledge or testing.
5. Mixed waste processing of waste containing SNM will be limited to stabilization (mixing was;a with reagents), micro encapsulation, and macro-encapsulation using low-density polyethylene.
6. Envirocare shall require generators to provide the following information for each waste stream:

Pre-shioment

1. Waste Description. The description must detail how the waste was generated, list the physical forms in the waste, and identify uranium chemical composition.
2. Waste Characte6zation Summary. The data must include a general description of how the waste was characterized (including the volumetric extent of the waste, and the number, location, type, and results of any analytical testing), the range of SNM concentrations, and the analytical results with error values used to develop the concentration ranges.
3. Uniformity Description. A description of the process by which the waste was generated showing that the spatial distribution of SNM must be uniform, or other information supporting spatial distribution.
4. Manifest Concentration. The generator must describe the methods to be used to determine the concentrations on the manifests. These methods could include direct measurement and the use of scaling factors. The generator must describe the unce tainty associated with sampling and testing used to obtain the manifest concentrations.

Envirocare shall review the above information and, if adequate, approve in writing this pre shipment waste characterization and assurance plan before permitting the shipment of a waste stream. This willinclude statements that Envirocare has a written copy of all the information required above, that the characterization information is adequate and consistent with the waste description, and that the information is sufficient to demonstrate compliance with conditions 1 through 4. Where generator process knowledge is used to demonstrate compliance with Conditions 1,2, 3, or 4, Envirocare shall review this information and determine when testing is required to provide additional 5

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information in assuring compliance with the conditions. Envirocare shall retain this 1 l

' information as required by the State of Utah to permit independent review.

At receipt Envirocare shall require generators of SNM waste to provide a written certification with each waste manifest that states that the SNM concentrations reported on the manifest do not exceed the limits in Condition 1, that tho' measurement uncertainty does not exceed the uncertainty value in Condition 1, and that the waste meets conditions 2 through 4.

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7. Sampling and radiological testing of waste containing SNM must be performed in

- accordance with the Utah Division of Radiation Control license Condition 58,

8. Envirocare shall notify the NRC, Region IV office within 24 hours2.777778e-4 days <br />0.00667 hours <br />3.968254e-5 weeks <br />9.132e-6 months <br /> if any of the above conditions are violated. A written notification of the event must be provided within 7 days.
9. Envirocare shall obtain NRC approval prior to changing any activities associated with the above conditions.

< Considering that this exemption will permit Envirocare to exceed the SNM possession j limits in 10 CFR Part 150 which will be in direct conflict with the Confirmatory Order dated June 1 25,1997, the Confirmatory Order is hereby rescinded when this Order becomes effective.

I Moreover, the provisions in Envirocare's CP will no longer be in effect.

The licenping requirements in 10 CFR Part 70 apply to persons possessing greater than critical mass quantities (as defined in 10 CFR 150.11). The principle emphasis of Part 70 is criticality safety and safeguarding SNM against diversion or sabotage. Staff considers that criticality safety can be maintained by relying on concentration limits, under the specified

' conditions. These concentration limits are considered an attemative definition of quantities not sufficient to form a critical mass to the weight limits in 10 CFR 150.11; thereby, assuring the same level of protection. Moreover, storing the SNM within the Envirocare restricted area will

. increase the security and safeguarding of the SNM. ]

Therefore, the Commission concludes that this proposed exemption will have no  !

significant radiological or nonradiological environmental impacts. j l

l iv.  ;

Based on the above evaluation, the Commission has determined, pursuant to 10 CFR 70.14, that the exemption of above activities at the Envirocare disposal facility is authorized by  ;

law,~and will not endanger life or property or the common defense and security and are 6

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!. otherwise in the public interest. Accordingly, by this Order the Commission hereby grants this t

exemption. The exemption will become effective after the State of Utah has incorporated the l above conditions into Envirocare's RML.

l Pursuant to the requirements in 10 CFR Part 51, the Commission has published an EA

. for the proposed action wherein it determined that the granting of this exemption will have no

significant impacts on the quality of the human environment. Copies of the EA and SER are i available for public inspection at the Commission's Public Document Room, located at 2120 L Street, N.W., Washington, DC 20037.

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l Dated at Rockville, Maryland this 7 day of May 1999.

( FOR THE NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION l

/S/ Carl J. Paperiello l

Carl J. Paperiello, Director Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards  ;

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7

0 f ENCLOSURE 2

j U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION DOCKET 40-8989 ENVIROCARE OF UTAH. INC.

ISSUANCE OF ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT AND FINDING OF NO SIGNIFICANT IMPACT FOR EXEMPTION FROM CERTAIN NRC LICENSING REQUIREENTS FOR SPECIAL NUCLEAR MATERIAL FOR ENVIROCARE OF UTAH. INC. .

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC or the Commission) is considering issuance of an Order pursuant to Section 274f of the Atomic Energy Act that would exempt Envirocare of Utah, Inc. (Envirocare) from certain NRC regulations. The exemption would allow Envirocare, under specified conditions, to possess waste containing special nuclear material (SNM), in greater quantities than specified in 10 CFR Part 150, at Envirocare's low-level waste (LLW) disposal facility located in Clive, Utah, without obtaining an NRC license pursuant to 10 1 CFR Part 70. A description of the operations at the facility and staffs safety analysis for the exemption are discussed in the companion Safety Evaluation Report (SER).

ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT (EA) l identification of Proposed Action: Staff proposes to exempt Envirocare from the licensing requirements in 10 CFR Part 70. The exemption would permit Envirocare to possess SNM without regard for mass. Rather than relying on mass to ensure criticality safety, concentration-based limits are being applied, such that accumulations of SNM at or below these concentration limits would not pose a criticality safety concern. The methodology used to establish these limits is discussed in the SER. The exemption is contingent on Envirocare complying with specific conditions in the exemption. These conditions are as follows:

1. Concentrations of SNM in individual waste containers must not exceed the following values at time of receipt:

Radionuclide Maximum Measurement Concentration Uncertainty (pCl/g) (pCiig)

U 235* 1900 285 U-2356 1190 179 U-235' 160 24 U-2358 680 102 l

U-233 75,000 11,250 Pu-236 500 75 Pu-238 10,000 1,500 1 l

Pu-239 10,000 1,500 Pu-240 10,000 1,500 Pu-241 350,000 50,000 4 l

anO51"Cnce l

y ,, g~

Pu-242 10,000 1,500 Pu-243 500 75 Pu-244 500 75 a- for uranium below 10 percent enrichment and a maximum of 20 percent MgO of the weight of the waste l b- for uranium at or above 10 percent enrichment and a maximum of 20 percent MgO of the j weight of the waste c- for uranium at any enrichment with unlimited MgO or beryllium d- for uranium at any enrichment with sum of MgO and beryllium not exceeding 49 percent of the weight of the waste  ;

The measurement uncertainty values in column 3 above represent the maximum one-sigma uncertainty associated with the measurement of the concentration of the particular radionuclide.

The SNM must be homogeneous!y distributed throughout the waste. If the SNM is not homogeneously distributed, then the limiting concentrations must not be exceeded on average in any contiguous mass of 145 kilograms.

2. Except as allowed by notes a, b, c, and d in Condition 1, v.9ste must not contain
  • pure forms" of chemicals containing carbon, fluorine, magnesium, or Lismuth in bulk quantities (e.g., a pallet of drums, a B-25 box). By " pure forms," it is meant that mixtures of the above elements such as magnesium oxide, magnesium carbonate, magnesium fluoride, bismuth oxide, etc. do not contain other elements. These chemicals would be added to the waste stream during processing, such as at fuel facilities or treatment such as at mixed waste treatment facilities. The presence of the above materials will be determined by the generator, based on process knowledge or testing.
3. Except as allowed by notes c and d in Condition 1, waste accepted must not contain total quantities of beryllium, hydrogenous material enriched in deuterium, or graphite above one percent of the total weight of the waste. The presence of the above materials will be determined by the generator, based on process knowledge, physical observations, or testing.
4. Waste packages must not contain highly water soluble forms of uranium greater than 350 grams of uranium-235 or 200 grams of uranium-233. The sum of the fractions rule will apply for mixtures of U-233 and U-235. Highly soluble forms of uranium include, but are not limited to: uranium sulfate, uranyl acetate, uranyl chloride, uranyl formate, uranyl fluoride, uranyl nitrate, uranyl potassium carbonate, and uranyl sulfate. The presence of the above materials will be determined by the generator, based on process knowledge or testing.

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5. Mixed waste processing of waste containing SNM will be limited to stabilization (mixing l waste with reagents), micro-encapsulation, and macro-encapsulation using low-density polyethylene.

6 Envirocare shall require generators to provide the following information for each waste stream:

l Pre-shioment i

l

1. Waste Description. The description must detail how the waste was generated, list the physical forms in the waste, and identify uranium chemical composition.
2. Waste Characterization Summary. The data must include a general description of how the waste was characterized (including the volumetric extent of the waste, and the number, location, type, and results of any analytical tes, ting), the range of SNM concentrations, and the analytical results with error values used to develop the concentration ranges.
3. Uniformity Description. A description of the process by which the waste was generated showing that the spatial distribution of SNM must be uniform, or other information supporting spatial distribution.
4. Manifest Concentration. The generator must describe the methods to be used to determine the concentrations on the manifests. These methods could include direct measurement and the use uf scaling factors. The generator must describe the uncertainty associated with sampling and testing used to obtain the manifest concentrations. i i

Envirocare shall review the above information and, if adequate, approve in writing this pre-shipment waste characterization and assurance plan before permitting the shipment of a waste stream. This willinclude statements that Envirocare has a written copy of all the information required above, that the characterization information is adequate and j consistent with the waste description, and that the information is sufficient to i demonstrate compliance with conditions 1 through 4. Where generator process knowledge is used to demonstrate compliance with Conditions 1,2,3, or 4, Envirocare )

shall review this information and determine when testing is required to provide additional information in assuring compliance with the conditions. Envirocare shall retain this l

information as required by the State of Utah to permit independent review.

At receiot Envirocare shall require generators of SNM waste to provide a written certification with each waste manifest that states that the SNM concentrations reported on the manifest do not exceed the limits in Condition 1, that the measurement uncertainty does not exceed the uncertainty value in Ccndition 1, and that the waste meets conditions 2 through 4.

7. Sampling and radiological testing of waste containing SNM must be performed in accordance with the Utah Division of Radiation Control license Condition 58.

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8. 'Envirocare shall notify the NRC, Region IV office within 24 hours2.777778e-4 days <br />0.00667 hours <br />3.968254e-5 weeks <br />9.132e-6 months <br /> if any of the above conditions are violated. A written notification of the event must be provided within 7 days.
9. Envirocare shall obtain NRC approval prior to changing any activities associated with the above conditions.

Need for the Proposed Action in May 1997, the State of Utah determined that Envirocare had exceeded the SNM possession limits in its State of Utah license. Consequently, NRC, Region IV conducted an inspection of the facility in June 1997. The findings of the inspection are discussed in an inspection report and demand for information dated May 21, 1998. As a result of the inspection, NRC issued a Confirmatory Order (Order) on June 25, 1997, which required Envirocare, in part, to reduce its possession of SNM and to submit a compliance plan (CP) to NRC for approval. As part of the approved CP, trucks containing SNM waste can proceed to the disposal cell (assuming the conditions stated in the Order apply) without counting the SNM waste in Envirocare's possession inventory. This waste is considered "in transit," under the exemption of 10 CFR 70.12, because the carrier is still present.

In a letter dated October 14,1997, the State of Utah informed NRC that SNM waste was being transferred from rail cars to trucks in the Salt Lake City rail yard and then taken to the Envirocare site either directly or after storage in transit at a transport facility. To evaluate this practice, the NRC and the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) conducted an inspection.

The inspection concluded that applicable NRC and DOT regulations were being followed. (The inspection is documented in a report dated April 21,1998.)

Before the Order and CP, rail shipments were transported directly to a rail siding adjacent to the site. Rail cars were staged on the siding until the waste could be moved onto the site within licensed limits. Subsequent to the Order and CP which, as noted, provide for trucks to proceed directly to the disposal cell without being counted in the SNM possession inventory, it has been l

operationally advantageous for Envirocare to receive SNM waste via truck. In addition, transfer

. from rail to truck in Salt Lake City is more economical for the shippers because rolling stock rental fees are reduced. Thus, the Order and CP may have led to a practice of transferring of SNM waste from rail cars to trucks in Salt Lake City. Some trucks and SNM waste are staged at a nearby induskial facility and do not go directly to the disposal site because of the SNM possession limit. Staff concludes that this process has resulted in a change in the mode of i transportation of waste to the site (i.e., more truck shipments), leading to a slightly higher probability of a transportation accident. Moreover, the increased waste handling has increased the possibility of container rupture and resultant spillage in a metropolitan area. In addition, SNM waste is being staged while in transit at nearby unlicensed industrial facility. Thus, the current practice - while conforming to applicable NRC and DOT regulations - might be l regarded as less safe and may be a direct result of conditions in the CP.

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To res'olve this issue, staff explored ways in w'-ich rail cars could be allowed to proceed directly l to the site. Staff considered that if the SNM waste was shipped in accordance vMh 10 CFR Part  ;

71, and applicable DOT regulations, that these conditions were sufficiently protective while the waste was on the rail cars, regardless of being located inside or outside the site boundary. Staff further evaluated whether concentration limits could be established to prevent an inadvertent l criticality. Considering that concentration limits could be established, an acceptable rationale, l therefore, exists for allowing above-ground storage of similar material in a comparable or more j dispersed configuration. This rationale, in the staffs view, supports NRC taking action to alleviate the regulatory constraint that appears to have led to the less than optimal practice, described above, for transporting SNM waste to Envirocare.

Environmentalimomets of the Proposed Action: Envirocare is licensed by the State of Utah, an NRC Agreement State, under a 10 CFR Part 61 equivalent license for the disposal of LLW. Envirocare is also licensed by Utah to dispose of mixed-radioactive and hazardous wastes. In addition, Envirocare has an NRC license (SMC-1559) to dispose of waste containing 11(e)2 byproduct material. NRC has prepared an environmentalimpact statement (EIS)

(NUREG-1476), SERs, and EAs for its licensing action. The State of Utah, in support of its licensing activities, has also prepared SERs. The proposed actions now under consideration would not change the potential environmental effects assessed in these documents.

The regulations regarding SNM possession in 10 CFR Part 150 set mass limits whereby a licensee is exempted from the licensing requirements of 10 CFR Part 70 and can be regulated by an Agreement State. The licensing requirements in 10 CFR Part 70 apply to persons possessing greater than critical mass quantities (as defined in 10 CFR 150.11). The principle emphasis of 10 CFR Part 70 is criticality safety and safeguarding SNM against diversion or sabotage. The NRC staff considers that criticality safety can be maintained by relying on concentration limits, under the specified conditions. These concentration limits are considered an alternative definition of quantities not sufficient to form a critical mass to the weight limits in 10 CFR 150.11; thereby, assuring the same level of protection.

Therefore, the NRC concludes that this proposed exemption will have no significant radiological or nonradiological environmental impacts.

Alternatives to the Proposed Action: The NRC staff considered two alternatives to the proposed action. One alternative to the proposed action would be to not grant the exemption (no action alternative); therefore, increased handling of SNM waste would continue to occur in Salt Lake City, Utah and at a nearby industrial site. Although the incremental dose increase to transportation workers and to the public may be small, it is greater than if the shipments continued to the site via rail. The current practice is considered less desirable.

Another alternative would be to grant the exemption without condition. This option would not provide sufficient protection of health, safety, and the environment.

Acencies and Persons Consulted: Officials from the State of Utah, Department of Environmental Quality, Division of Radiation Control were contacted about this EA for the proposed action and had no comments.

FINDING OF NO SIGNIFICANT IMPACT

< The environmental impacts of the proposed action have been reviewed in accordance with the requirements set forth in 10 CFR Part 51. Based upon the foregoing EA, the NRC finds that the proposed action of granting an exemption from NRC licensing requirements in 10 CFR Part 70 so that Envirocare may store SNM waste in rail cars under the conditions specified will not significantly impact the quality of the human environment.

9 Accordingly, the NRC has decided not to prepare an EIS for the proposed exemption.

Dated at Rockville, Maryland this ~/ day of MI4] 1999.

FOR THE NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION

/S/ John T. Greeves John T. Greeves, Director Division of Waste Management Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards i

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ENCLOSURE 3 t O

U.S. NUCLEAR REGUI.ATORY COMMISSION DOCKET 40 fl989 ENVIROCARE OF UTAH. INC.

SAFETY EVALUATION REPORT REGARDING THE PROPOSED EXEMPTION FROM REQUIREMENTS OF 10 CFR PART 70 1.0 Introduction 4

Envirocare o' Utah, Inc. (Envirocare) operates a low-level waste disposa! facility in Clive, Utah.

This facility is licensed by the State of Utah, an Agreement State, under a 10 CFR Part 61 equivalent licenn (UT 2300249). In 1988, Envirocare began accepting naturally occurring radioactive material (NORM) waste. In 1992, Envirocare began accepting very low activity, low-level waste (LLW) primarily generated during the decommissioning of nuclear facilities. Envirocare's State of Utah radioactive materials license (RML) has been amended to permit disposal of other types of LLW. Envirocare is also licensed by Utah to dispose of mixed radioactive and hazardous wastes (MW). In addition, Envirocare has a U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission license to dispose of waste containing 11(e)2 byproduct material. The MW and 11(e)2 byproduct material are disposed of in separate disposal cells from the LLW. The MW and LLW streams may contain quantities of special nuclear material (SNM).

Envirocare receives wastes by rail and truck. Separate storage and disposal facilities exist for the LLW and MW. Unlike other LLW disposal facilities, Envirocare's RML limits the concentrations of radionuclides in the waste. For mixtures of radionuclides, the sum-of-fraction rule applies. Envirocare's method of disposalis to remove the waste from its container or dump bulk waste into lifts and compact the material. Subsequent lifts of material are placed above completed lifts. The waste streams are divscse and vary from contaminated soils and debris from decommissioning facilities to dry active waste (DAW) and resins from operating facilities.

Relative to SNM, the RML permits a average concentration at time of disposal of 500 pCi/g for uranium-233 (U-233); 770 pCl/g for U-235; 10,000 pCi/g for plutonium-238 (Pu-238), Pu-239, Pu-240, and Pu-242; and 350,000 pCl/g for Pu-241. Envirocare submitted a license amendment request to the State of Utah on February 16,1999, to increase the license limits for U-233 to 75,000 pCi/g, and U-235 to 2,100 pCi/g, and to include Pu-236, Pu-243 and Pu-244 at 500 pCi/g. Envirocare also requested that U-235 be removed from the sum of the fractions requirement in license condition 15 of its RML.

In addition to disposing of mixed weste, Envirocare also has capabilities to treat mixed waste prior to disposal. This treatment typically includes chemically stabilizing hazardous constituents by mixing the waste with various reagents, micro-encapsulation, and macro- encapsulation. The applicable hazardous waste regulations require bench scale treatability studies prior to treating the bulk of the waste.

2.0 Proposed Action l

I Staff proposes issue an Order to Envirocare that would exempt it from the licensing requirements in 10 CFR Part 70. The exemption (Order) would permit Envirocare to possess SNM without regard for mass. Rather than relying on mass to insure criticality safety, a concentration limit is being applied, such that accumulations of SNM at or below this concentration limit would not pose a criticality safety concem.

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3.0 Evaluations in evaluating the safety of the proposed action, staff is relying on the State of Utah safety evaluations relative to SNM for safety other than t,riticality safety. The State of Utah evaluations are documented in a Safety Evaluation Report issued by the Utah Department of Environmental Quality, Division of Radiation Control, dated October 22,1998. Where the concentration limit of an isotope based on radiological concerns is lower than the limit based on criticality concerns, the lower limit was used.

Criticality Safety Currently, criticality safety is maintained at the site through compliance with the SNM mass limits

'in 10 CFR Part 150, which are incorporated into license condition 13.A of the RML. To allow Envirocare to increase the mass qua acN of SNM, staff proposes to shift the criticality safety basis from a mass based criteria to a concentration-based one. Therefore, staff developed concentration limits for each SNM isotope. Staff determined that several conditions in addition to a concentration limit would be required to Pssure Criticality safety.

Based on its analysis of the operations and waste forms at the Envirocare of Utah Clive site, staff concludes that waste processing and disposal operations can be conducted with sceptably low risk of nuclear criticality. The technical basis for this conclusion and the required conditions are presented below. These conditions would be included in an Order to Envirocare and would be incorporated by the State of Utah into its RML The detailed language of the conditions are presented in Section 5. Conceptually, the conditions are:

SNM isotope concentration limits (Condition 1);

bulk chemicallimits (Condition 2);

unusual moderator limits (Condition 3);

soluble uranium limits (Condition 4);

mixed waste processing limits (Condition 5);

waste characterization and certification requirements (Condition 6); and waste receipt sampling condition (Condition 7).

The basic approach is the specification of four sets of technical criticality safety limits, conditions 1 through 4; then the provision in condition 6 for a certification and waste characterization assuring that these limits will not be exceeded. The waste sampling plan of condition 7 provides for detection of erroneous shipment of waste not complying with the concentration limits.

Condition 5 limits mixed waste processing activities to those currently used by Envirocare.

CONCENTRATION LIMITS FOR SUBCRITICALITY in establishing the U-235 concentration limits, staff used criticality calculations in two studies prepared by Oak Ridge National Laboratories (ORNL), NUREG/CR-6505 Volumes 1 and 2. In addition to these studies, ORNL has performed similar criticality calculations for U-233, Pu-239, and mixtures of plutonium that will be documented in a NUREG/CR on emplacement criticality guidance. Staff also performed independent calculations, as described below, using the SCALE computer program.

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In the ORNL studies, silicon dioxide (SiO2 ) was used to represent the waste matrix. The SNM concentrations presented in the ORNL studies are expressed in grams of SNM isotope per gram of SiO2and assumed that unusual moderators are not present. The studies provide the neutron multiplication factor (k) for infinite media systems (k-infinity) over a range of SNM concentrations. . (A k-value greater than one would represent a critical condition.) The studies also provide dimensions and 1msal densities for infinite slabs and linear densities for cylinders, and diameter and minimum SNM mass for finite spheres corresponding to a k-effective of 0.g5 over a range of concentrations. Staff conservatively used the infinite media results in developing the concentration limits.

Evaluations by ORNL for a range of compounds also confirmed that silicon dioxide is likely to be the most reactive feasible waste matrix. Other likely soil or waste constituents, such as iron,

- aluminum, and calcium act as neutron absort>ers. Similarly the hydrogen in water acts as a neutron absorber more effectively than silicon for low concentrations of SNM in a waste matrix.

Disposal of pure bulk chemical compounds containing some enriched uranium would raise the question of whether there are chemical compounds more reactive than pure SiO2 . ORNL performed additional studies replacing the Si in the SiO2 matrix with other common elements and determined that beryllium, bismuth, carbon, helium, oxygen, fluorine, and magnesium produced more reactive systems. Of these elements, pure helium and oxygen are gases and would not be expected to be present in significant quantities in the waste. Beryllium and pure carbon (i.e.,

graphite) are unusual moderators and are limited in condition 2. Although magnesium, fluorine, carbon, and other oxide forms are present in earth materials and in fuel cycle waste, these chemicals are typically not present in bulk quantities or in " pure" form. The presence of bismuth is not anticipated to be significant in waste. To limit the presence of these chemicals from occurring in bulk quantities in pure form, Condition 2 was included to preclude this for waste shipped to Envirocare. Staff understands that for some waste streams Envirocare adds magnesium oxide as part of its mixed waste processing. For the general case,2C percent magnesium oxide was assumed, and the U-235 concentration values presented in the ORNL studies were reduced to reflect this magnitude of magnesium oxide. ,

in establishing operational concentration limits and considering that concentration will be the primary criticality control, staff reduced the suberitical limit to account for operational uncertainties. Part of the concem in establishing the operational concentration limit was based on how accurately generators could determine the concentration of the SNM in the waste.

Typically U 235 and other fissile isotopes are measured using gamma spectroscopy methods to l measure the activity of the isotope and/or daughter products. The uncertainties associated with  ;

this method are based on a number of factors including count time, type of detector, container geometry, density of the waste, distribution of SNM within the container, etc. Staff considers that a rea onable measurement uncertainty value (one-sigma) would be in the range of 15 percent. Staff used 30 percent (two-sigma) in calculating the operational limit to increase the i confidence level that the concentration of the waste based a measurement would not exceed the suberitical value. Other radiochemistry technioues may be used to quantify the concentration of these radionuclides. These techniques typically have lower measurement  :

uncertainty levels, but introduce sampling uncertainty. The measurement uncertainty levels are

- included in condition 1 and represent .15 percent of the maximum concentration value. A concentration value was used for the measurement uncertainty rather than a percentage value to allow greater flexibility for generators with waste having very low SNM concentrations.

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' NUREG/CR-6505 Volume 1 presents that pure U-235 (i.e.100% enriched) in a SiO2 matrix with no water present is the most reactive for low concentration U-235 infinite media systems. This case resulted in a concentration of 8.862e-4 g U-235/g SiO2 at a k-infinity of 0.95. This value of k-infinity is selected as the suberitical limit to account for uncertainties in the criticality calculations. Higher values of k-infinity would be considered to be possibly critical. This concentration correspohds to 1915 pCl U-235/g soil. The validity of the 1915 pCi 2"U/g limit for uranium enriched above 10 weight percent was confirmed by independent staff evaluations at 100% enrichment. Further, staff determined that this suberitical limit was not sensitive to variation in the soil density for infinite media systems. Assuming 20 giercent magnesium oxide and one percent unusual moderator (see UNUSUAL MODERATOR section for a detailed discussion), ORNL calculated a suberitical concentration of 7.88e-4 g U 235/g soil. As noted above, this subcritical limit was reduced to account for operational uncertainty; and a value of 1190 pCi/g was calculated.

In order to allow Envirocare greater flexibility, staff also established a concentration limit for 10 percent enriched uranium. The U-235 concentration limit for 10 percent enriched uranium was based on calculations reported in draft NUREG/CR-6505 Vol. 2. Table A.1 of that report shows that the optimally reactive condition is with a small amount of water added to the SiO2 matrix. A case at 0.0013463 g U-235/g SiO2obtained a k-infinite of 0.935; while at 0.0015476 g U-235/g

~ SiO 2 . k-infinite was 0.982. Interpolating to the selected suberiticality limit (k-infinite of 0.95), we obtain 0.0014 g U-235/g SiO2. To calculate the suberitical limit for 20 percent magnesium oxide and one percent unusual moderator, staff used the ratio of suberitical limits without magnesium oxide for 100 percent enrichment and 10 percent enrichment (i.e.,1.4e-3 divided by 8.862e-4).

Staff applied the same approach as above and calculated a value of 1900 pCi/g for uranium enriched to less than 10 weight percent.

Table 1 shows the conversion from activity of the SNM per gram of waste to grams of SNM per I gram of waste. The maximum concentrations in the second column are given in Curies per gram of waste rather than pCi/g as stated in the condition itself. The fourth column of Table 1 converts these concentrations to a mass ratio, that is, mass of SNM per mass o.f waste, by dividing by the specific activity. l 1

TABLE 1 .

I Radionuclide Maximum Specific Max Concentration Activity of Concentration I (Ci/g waste) Nuclide as Mass Ratio j (Ci/g nuclide) (g nuclide/ l g waste)  ;

<10% U-235 1.9e-09 2.16e-06 8.80e-04  !

210% U-235 1.19-09 2.16e-06 5.51e-04 U-233 7.5e-08 9.70e-03 7.28e-06 Pu-236 5.0e-10 5.32e+02 9.40e-13 Pu -238 1.0e-08 1.70e+01 5.88e 10 Pu-239 1.0e-08 6.20e-02 1.61e-07

'o O Pu-240 1.0e-08 2.30e-01 4.35e-08 Pu-241 3.5e-07 1.00e+02 3.50e-09 Pu 242 1.0e-08 3.90e-03 2.56e-06 Pu-243 5.0s-10 2.60e+06 1.90e-16 Pu-244 5.0e-10 1.78e-05 - 2.80e-05 Based on the additional work by ORNL, the subcritical (k-infinity of 0.95) concentration limit for U-233 is 0.00067 g U-233/g SiO2 . Again, staff used the same approach and calculated an operationallimit of 4.45e6 pCl/g. The U-233 concentration value set for radiological concems is ,

7.5e4 pCilg. The RML U-233 concentration is significantly lower than the value that would be acceptable for criticality safety and is therefore acceptable. ORNL also determined that the suberitical concentration limit for Pu-239 is 0.000399 g Pu-239/g SiO2 . Staff performed similar calculations for Pu-241 and obtained a suberitical concentration limit of 1.15e-3 g Pu-241/g SiO 2-Similar to U-233, the radiologically derived concentrations for Pu-239 and Pu-241 are significantly lower than the values that would be acceptable for criticality safety and are therefore acceptable.

Unlike the above isotopes, criticality concentration limits for the other plutonium isotopes in an infinite matrix of SiO2 have not been determined. Some of the common plutonium isotopes such as Pu-238, Pu-240, Pu-242 and Pu-244 are fissionable but not fissile. Non-fissile fissionable  !

materials require high energy neutrons to maintain a fission chain reaction; while, fissile material I (U-233, U-235, Pu-236, Pu-239, Pu-241,and Pu-243) can be fissioned by neutrons of any energy. To evaluate the criticality significance of these other plutonium isotopes, staff compared the minimum critical masses (typically optimally moderated spheres) of these isotopes with the minimum critical mass of Pu-239 and compared the mass-based radiological concentration limits of these isotopes with the suberitical concentration for Pu-239. Table 2 below illustrates this point. Because the minimum critical masses for the other plutonium isotopes are significantly higher than Pu-239 and the concentration limit of the other plutonium isotopes (based on radiological safety considerations) are significantly less than the suberitical concentration of Pu-239, staff concludes that the concentration limits for the other plutonium isotopes will not contribute significantly to criticality.

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TABLE 2 Nuclide Minimum CL(isotope)/

Critical Mass Mc(nuclide)/ Concentration Limit (CL) Suberitical (Mc) (grams) Mc(Pu-239) (g isotope /g waste) Concentration l (Pu239)

Pu-236 NA 9.40s 13 3.4e-09 Pu-238 4.00e+03 9.3 5.88e 10 2.1e-06 Pu 239 4.50e+02 1.0 1.61e 07 5.8e-04 l Pu-240 1.90e+04 42.2 4.35e 08 1.6e-04 l

Pu-242 5.60e+04 124.0 2.56e-06 9.2e-03 l
  • l Pu-243 NA 1.90e-16 6.8e-13 Pu-244 NA 2.80e-05 1.0e-01

- Data not provided in literature NA- Not applicable Staff also evaluated Envirocare's February 16,1999, amendment request to the State of Utah to remove U-235 from the sum of the fractions rule in condition 15 of the RML. Of the SNM, the U-235 concentrations are the only values that are a significant fraction of the subcritical limit. As discussed above, the U-233 and various Pu isotope concentration limits are based on radiological concems rather than criticality safety concems and are a small fraction of the suberitical limits. Therefore, from a criticality safety perspective, staff considers it acceptable to exclude U-235 from the sum of the fractions requirement in the RML UNUSUAL MODERATOR LIMITS The concentration values reported in NUREG/CR-6505 Volumes 1 and 2 are based on the assumption that unusual moderators are not present. Unusually effective neutron moderating materials, such as beryllium, graphite, or heavy water, could provide a more reactive matrix.

Previous evaluations have shown that the presence of large amounts of beryllium can permit criticality to occur at lower concentrations of SNM in soil. Therefore, limiting unusual moderators is required to assure the effectiveness of the SNM concentration limits in maintaining criticality safety. Because prohibiting unusual moderators could result in problems demonstrating compliance, staff decided to set a finite maximum limit on unusual moderators. In discussions with Envirocare, a limit of one percent of the SNM mass was selected as bounding value. ORNL performed additional calculations which included varying amounts of beryllium, graphite, and heavy water within the silicon dioxide waste matrix. As discussed above, this magnitude of unusual moderators was used to calculate the general case concentration limits.

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During the development of the exemption, Envirocare requested a concentration limit for U-235 without regard for the beryllium or magnesium oxide content. ORNL performed additional criticality analyses varying the beryllium and magnesium oxide content to calculate a subcritical ,

limit for U-235 above 10 percent enrichment. A suberitical limit of 1.06e-4 g U-235/g waste was the minimum value. This suberitical limit was reduced for operational uncertainty, and a limit value of 160 pCi/g was obtained. Envirocare also requested a limit for beryllium and magnesium oxide that would result in a U-235 concentration limit of 680 pCi/g for 10 percent enrichment or greater. ORNL performed additional criticality analyses and determined that the I associated sum of beryllium and magnesium should be less than 49 percent. These additional concentration limits are included in Condition 1. l 4

SOLUBLE URANIUM COMPOUNDS Staff examined mechanisms that could increase the concentration of the SNM in the waste. One of these mechanisms is that highly soluble uranium could be readily leached with water and concentrate. Highly soluble forms of uranium include, but are not limited to: uranium sulfate, uranyl acetate, uranyl chloride, uranyl formate, uranyl fluoride, uranyl nitrate, uranyl potassium carbonate, and uranyl sulfate. Staff considered that leaching or washing of soluble uranium from waste in containers could occur and collect in a corner of the container.

Staff calculated the maximum amount of U-235 that could be permissible at the maximum concentration (1300 pCi U-235/g) for a large intermodal container (70 yd3) assuming the density of the waste was 1.6 g/cm'. This value (51.6 kg of U-235) was compared with the minimum critical mass for U-235 (760 g). In order to insure criticality safety, the mass of soluble uranium should be a fraction of the minimum critical mass. Consistent with 10 CFR Part 150, staff selected a mass limit of 350 g of soluble U-235 or 200 g of coluble U-233 as being acceptable to insure suberiticality. For mixtures of U-233 and U-235, the sum of the fractions rule would apply.

Staff further recognizes that the mass of uranium will be limited by the consignment mass limits in 10 CFR Part 71.

PROCESSING OF WASTE CONTAINING URANIUM For mixed waste streams, Envirocare has the capability to treat this waste to meet the hazardous waste disposal criteria. Currently, Envirocare uses chemical stabilization, and micro-and macro-encapsulation. Staff evaluated the affect of these treatment technologies and determined that a condition was required to limit the mixed waste processing activities to those currently used by Envirocare. Should Envirocare desire to use new technologies, a request to the NRC in accordance with Condition 9 would be required.

Chemical stabilization is accomplished by mixing various chemical reagents with the waste.

Envirocare currently uses 55 chemicals in its stabilization process. These chemicals may be mixed singularly or in combination and in varying amounts. The end result is to immobilize hazardous constituents. In order to verify the effectiveness of the treatment process, bench scale testing is conducted in accordance with EPA procedures. Following a successful treatability study, the subject waste is treated in large scale mixers.

Staff evaluated the list of chemicals used in the stabilization process and determined that several of these chemicals could either mobilize (increase the solubility) or precipitate uranium (thus possibly increasing the uranium concentration). Staff considered prohibiting these chemicals from use with SNM waste. However, Envirocare indicated that this would be overly restrictive.

Envirocare stated that the stabilization occurred in absence of free liquids and while the mixer was operating. Therefore, the SNM would be homogeneously mixed in the waste and could not become more concentrated regardless of whether it was made more soluble. Envirocare further stated, that following stabilization, that the waste was stored in water tight containers so that even if the SNM was in a soluble form it would not be mobilized to change concentration. Staff determined that this argument was reasonable.

l Staff also evaluated the criticality significance of micro- and macro-encapsulation. Macro-encapsulation consists of covering a waste container in low-density polyethylene. Envirocare performs this operation on a variety of waste packages including B-12 and B-25 boxes, and 55-gallon and 85 gallon drums. Because polyethylene contains a substantial quantity of hydrogen and hydrogen is an effective neutron moderator, staff was concemed that this process could reduce the criticality safety at the site. Therefore, staff modeled single containers and arrays of containers using the KENO V.a module of the SCALE 4.4 computer code. Staff varied the density of the waste, water content of the waste, and concentration of the various SNM isotopes.

Based on these analyses, staff concluded that the concentration based on the infinite media system (condition 1) was more restrictive.

Micro-encapsulation consists of mixing waste with low-density polyethylene at varying percentages in a kinetic mixer. The molten waste-plastic mixtures are placed in molds the size of a B-25 box or into a 30 yd' roll-off container. Similarly, staff modeled single containers and arrays of containers varying the density of the waste, polyethylene percentage, and concentration of the various SNM isotopes. Based on these analyses, staff concluded that the concentration based on the infinite media system (condition 1) was also more restrictive.

ASSURING THAT WASTE DOES NOT EXCEED THE MAXIMUM CONCENTRATION LIMITS The analyses showing that the concentration limits on uranium isotopes assure suberiticality even in infinite amounts were performed using a uniform distribution of the uranium. A non-uniformity exceeding the critical concentration could be critical if large enough. Thus, it is necessary to assure that the waste meets these limits with a certain degree of uniformity. Staff developed a number of steps in order to assure that the waste uniformly meets the maximum concentration limits.

The first step would occur before any SNM waste is shipped. Envirocare currently requires generators to submit a pre-shipment waste characterization before any waste is shipped. Staff intends to augment the current proposal to promote increased emphasis on generators knowing the range and variability of the SNM concentrations in its wastes. The purpose of the pre-shipment waste characterization is to provide Envirocare with information that shows that the generator has sufficient knowledge of the range and variability of the SNM concentration.

Condition 5 provides detailed information that Envirocare shall require generators to submit as l

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part of this pre-shipment characterization. Envirocare shall review this information and determine if it is adequate to assure that the waste shipments will meet conditions 1 through 4.

In reviewing this information, Envirocare will need to rely on the generators description of the waste stream. Knowledge of the process by which the waste was generated and laid down may assure that the concentration varies smoothly throughout the volume with a maximum in a known location. It is then only necessary to measure the concentration at this maximum plus other measurements confirming the smooth variation. In other cases were a smooth variation in SNM concentration in the waste is not present, additional measurements and characterization will be needed. It is not necessary that each and every point of such waste be measured.

There is a size scale at which relative uniformity is needed. As an estimate of this size scale, staff considered a worst case scenario where a volume of waste complies with the concentration limit, on average over the whole volume, but in which the uranium is concentrated in one comer of a waste package. To protect against the scenario where 8 such comers are assembled together at emplacement, this mass of uranium in a comer needs to be less than 1/8 of a critical mass. For 100% enriched uranium, one-eighth of the minimum critical mass is 87.5 grams.

Using this mass and the concentration limit, staff determined that N uniformity of the waste can be assured not to exceed the concentration limit, on average, over a waste mass of 145 Kg, then safety can be assured. This uniformity criteria is included in Condition 1.

In addition to describing the waste and the characterization methods used, generators will be required to describe the methods th.J will be used to determine the concentrations reported on the manifest. Where the concentration of SNM is a small fraction of the concentration limit and characterization results indicate relatively small variation in that concentration, using scaling factors would be an appropriate method to determine SNM concentrations in individual waste containers. However, where the concentration of SNM approaches the concentration limit or the characterization results indicate large variations in SNM concentrations, using direct measurements on each package would be an appropriate method to determine SNM concentrations in individual waste containers.

The next step would occur at the time the waste is shipped. Envirocare shall require generators of SNM waste to provide a written certification with each manifest that states that the SNM concentrations and the uncertainty associated with determining those concentrations do not exceed the limits in Condition 1, and that the waste meets Conditions 2,3, and 4. M wm further emphasize the importance of accurately determining the SNM concentrations in the waste.

The final step would occur after Envirocare receives the waste. Envirocare currently performs periodic sampling and testing to verify concentrations of radionuclides in the waste using gamma spectroscopy for gamma emitters and other methods for non-gamma emitters. The frequency of this confirmatory testing and the procedures are outlined in Envirocare's " Waste Characterization Plan", Rev. April 3,1998. The radiological testing is required in license condition 58 of the RML To emphasize the continued importance of this periodic confirmatory testing, staff has included it as an Order condition. .

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1 4.0 Summary and Conclusion of Safety Evaluation Based on its analysis of the operations and waste forms at the Envirocare of Utah Clive site, staff concludes that waste processing and disposal operations can be conducted with

' acceptably low risk of nuclear criticality. Staff developed maximum concentration limits to l assure criticality safety and a set of conditions that will assure that the concentration limits are not exceeded. These conditions would be included in an Order to Envirocare and would be incorporated by the State of Utah into its RML. ,

5.0 Exemption Conditions The Order is contingent on Envirocare complying with the following the conditions:

l 1. Concentrations of SNM in individual waste containers must not exceed the following values at time of receipt: l l

l Radionuclide Maximum Measurement

! Concentration Uncertainty (PCi/g) (pCi/g)

U-235* 1900 285 1 U-235* 1190 179

(

U-235' 160 24 U-235' 680 102 U-233 75,000 11,250 Pu-236 500 75 Pu -238 10,000 1,500 Pu-239 10,000 1,500 l

Pu-240 10,000 1,500 l Pu-241 350,000 50,000 Pu-242 10,000 1,500 Pu-243 500- 75 Pu-244 500 75 a- for uranium below 10 percent enrichment and a maximum of 20 percent MgO of the weight of the waste b- for uranium at or above 10 percent enrichment and a maximum of 20 percent MgO of the weight of the waste c- for uranium at any enrichment with unlimited MgO or beryllium L

. . , e d- for uranium at any enrichment with sum of MgO and beryllium not exceeding 49 percent of the weight of the waste The measurement uncertainty values in column 3 above represent the maximum one-sigma uncertainty associated with the measurement of the concentration of the particular radionuclide.

The SNM must be homogeneously distributed throughout the waste. If the SNM is not homogeneously distributed, then the limiting concentrations must not be exceeded on average in any contiguous' mass of 145 kilograms.

2. Except as allowed by notes a, b, c, and d in Condition 1, waste must not contain " pure forms" of chemicals containing carbon, fluorine, magnesium, or bismuth in bulk quantities (e.g., a pallet of drums, a B-25 box). By " pure forms," it is meant that mixtures of the above elements such as magnesium oxide, magnesium carbonate, magnesium fluoride, bismuth oxide, etc. do not contain other elements. These chemicals would be added to the waste stream during processing, such as at fuel facilities or treatment such as at mixed waste treatment facilities. The presence of the above materials will be determined by the generator, based on process knowledge or testing.
3. Except as allowed by notes c and d in Condition 1, waste accepted must not contain total quantities or beryllium, hydrogenous material enriched in deuterium, or graphite above one percent of the total weight of the waste. The presence of the above materials will be determined by the generator, based on process knowledge, physical observations, or testing.
4. Waste packages must not contain highly water soluble forms of uranium greater than 350 grams of uranium 235 or 200 grams of uranium-233. The sum of the fractions rule will apply for mixtures of U-233 and U-235. Highly soluble forms of uranium include, but are not limited to: uranium sulfate, uranyl acetate, uranyl chloride, uranyl formate, uranyl fluoride, uranyl nitrate, uranyl potassium carbonate, and uranyl sulfate. The presence of the above materials will be determined by the generator, based on process knowledge or testing.
5. Mixed waste processing of waste containing SNM will be limited to stabilization (mixing waste with reagents), micro-encapsulation, and macro-encapsulation using low-density polyethylene.
6. Envirocare shall require generators to provide the following information for each waste stream:

Pre-shipment Waste Description. The description must detail how the waste was generated, list the physical forms in the waste, and identify uranium chemical composition.

Waste Characterization Summary. The data must include a general description of how the waste was characterized (including the volumetric extent of the waste,

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and the number, location, type, and results of any analytical testing), the range of SNM concentrations, and the analytical results with error values used to develop the concentration ranges.

3. Uniformity Description. A description of the process by which the waste was generated showing that the spatial distribution of SNM must be uniform, or other information supporting spatial distribution.
4. Manifest Concentration. The generator must describe the methods to be used to j- determine the concentrations on the manifests. These methods could include l direct measurement and the use of scaling factors. The generator must describe the uncertainty associated with sampling and testing used to obtain the manifest concentrations.

l Envirocare shall review the above information and, if adequate, approve in writing this l pre-shipment waste characterization and assurance plan before permitting the shipment

of a waste stream. This will include statements that Envirocare has a written copy of all I the information required above, that the characterization information is adequate and consistent with the waste description, and that the information is sufficient to demonstrate compliance with conditions 1 through 4. Where generator process knowledge is used to demonstrate compliance with Conditions 1,2,3, or 4, Envirocare shall review this information and determine when testing is required to provide additional
information in assuring compliance with the conditions. Envirocare shall retain this information as required by the State of Utah to permit independent review.

l.

l At receipt l

! Envirocare shall require generators of SNM waste to provide a written certification with l

each waste manifest that states that the SNM concentrations reported on the manifest do not exceed the limits in Condition 1, that the measurement uncertainty does not exceed the uncertainty value in Condition 1, and that the waste meets conditions ,

l 2 through 4.

7. Sampling and radiological testing of waste containing SNM must be performed in accordance with the Utah Division of Radiation Controllicense Condition 58.
8. Envirocare shall notify the NRC, Region IV office within 24 hours2.777778e-4 days <br />0.00667 hours <br />3.968254e-5 weeks <br />9.132e-6 months <br /> if any of the above l conditions are violated. A written notification of the event must be provided within 7 days.
9. Envirocare shall obtain NRC approval prior to changing any activities associated with the l above conditions.

1 i

. . . e, 6.0 References ANSI /ANS 8.15-1981 (R1995), " Nuclear Criticality Control of Special Actinide Elements," 1995 Envirocare of Utah, Inc., Letter to Tim Harris, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, "Re: Response to Special Nuclear Materials Exemption, January 4,1998 Draft," January 8,1999 Envirocare of Utah, Inc., Letter to William Sinclair, Utah Division of Radiation Control, "Re:

Request RML Amendment to increase Uranium-233 and Uranium-235 Concentration - License No. UT2300249," January 18,1999 Envirocare of Utah, Inc., Letter to William Sinclair, Utah Division of Radiation Control, "Re:

Additional Information - January 19,1999 Amendment Request - License No. UT2300249,"

February 16,1999 Kocker, D.C., " Radioactive Decay Data Tables," U.S. Department of Energy, DOE / TIC-11026, April 1981 Paxton, H.C., Pruvost, N.L., " Criticality Dimensions of Systems Containing U-235, Pu-239, and U-233," Los Alamos National Laboratory, July 1987 Torran, L.E. et al, "The Potential for Criticality Following Disposal of Uranium at Low-Level Waste Facilities," U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, NUREG/CR-6505, Volume 1, June 1997 Toran,' L.E. et al, Draft "The Potential for Criticality Following Disposal of Uranium at Low-Level Waste Facilities," U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, NUREG/CR-6505, Volume 2, August 1998 Utah Department of Environmental Quality, Division of Radiation Control, Radioactive Material License, UT 2300249, October 23,1998 I

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