ML030770814
| ML030770814 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Millstone  |
| Issue date: | 03/07/2003 |
| From: | Kacich R Northeast Utilities Service Co |
| To: | Chris Mckenney NRC/NMSS/DWM |
| McKenney C (415-6663) | |
| Shared Package | |
| ML030770830 | List: |
| References | |
| Download: ML030770814 (5) | |
Text
Northeast 107 Selden Street, Berlin, CT 06037 vo Utilities System Northeast Utilities Service Company P.O. Box 270 Hartford, CT 06141-0270 (860) 665-5000 March 7, 2003 Christepher McKenney System Performance Analyst (HP)
Environmental and Performance Assessment Branch Division of Waste Management Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards Mail Stop T-7J8 U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Washington, D.C. 20555-0001 Re: Comments on Draft Safety Analyses Related to Potential Disposal of Two Spent Fuel Rods at a Low-Level Radioactive Waste Facility
Dear Mr. McKenney:
I have enclosed Northeast Utilities' ("NU's") comments on the two draft safety analyses prepared by the NRC related to the potential inadvertent disposal of two spent fuel rods at a low-level radioactive waste facility. NU submits these comments in response to the Notice of Availability and Request for Public Comment on the safety analyses published in the Federal Register on January 6, 2003.
For the reasons discussed in the enclosed comments, NU has concluded that the draft NRC safety analyses properly establish that, if the rods were inadvertently disposed of at a LLRW waste facility, their presence poses no threat to the health and safety of the public or the environment, now or in the future. Accordingly, NU urges the Commission to issue final safety analyses consistent with the enclosed comments and the draft NRC safety analyses.
Ifyou have any questions regarding this submittal, please contact me at (860) 665-3141.
Sincerely, Richard M. Kacich Director, Special Projects Attachment
Attachment Millstone Nuclear Power Station, Unit No. 1 Comments on Draft Safety Analyses Related to the Potential Inadvertent Disposal of Two Spent Fuel Rods at a Low-Level Radioactive Waste Facility On January 6, 2003, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission ("NRC") published in the Federal Register a Notice of Availability for public comment two draft safety analyses prepared by the NRC related to the potential inadvertent disposal of two spent fuel rods at a low-level radioactive waste facility. One analysis was prepared for each of the two possible low-level radioactive waste facilities: the Hanford, Washington site and the Barnwell, South Carolina site. Northeast Utilities ("NU") has reviewed the draft safety analyses and has concluded that:
" The NRC has thoroughly considered and analyzed all of the short-term and long term health, safety, and environmental impacts associated with the potential inadvertent disposal of the two spent fuel rods at either Hanford or Barnwell;
" The NRC has correctly determined that the presence of the two fuel rods at either low-level disposal facility does not constitute a present or future risk to the public health and safety or to the environment; and
" The NRC has correctly concluded that, given the very low risk posed by the fuel rods to the present workers at Hanford and Barnwell and to future generations of the public, retrieval of the rods is not needed to protect public health and safety.
In the draft safety analyses, the NRC considered all of the factors relevant to the potential risk to the public health and safety and environment. Specifically, the NRC appropriately evaluated the radioactive material present in the two spent fuel rods, the current location and disposition of the suspected shipments at either Hanford or Barnwell, and the potential for a future ground-water release. Additionally, NRC considered each of the potential inadvertent intruder scenarios required by 10 CFR Part 61, "Licensing Requirements for Land Disposal of Radioactive Waste,"
including building a home, drilling a well, or growing a garden in the exposed waste.
As noted in the NRC's safety analyses, the current risk to worker health and safety from the missing fuel rods, if they were disposed of at either Hanford or Barnwell, is negligible. The potential shipments that may have contained the rods have been safely disposed of in deep (30
- 40 ft. at Hanford and 20 - 25 ft. at Barnwell) Class C trenches that have engineered barriers or have been backfilled with soil and will be covered with an engineered barrier before site closure. Additionally, the fuel rods do not introduce any new radionuclides to either low-level disposal site; nor do they add significantly to the inventories already disposed of, or to the inventories to be disposed of in future operations.
The NRC also notes that the potential disposal of the rods at either Hanford or Barnwell would not cause any significant increase in the risk to future generations or the environment. Most of the highly radioactive fission products in the rods have half-lives of equal to or less than 30 years. Therefore, due to the inherently stable nature of the ceramic and steel waste form, radiological decay will reduce the activities significantly before any potential long-term hazards, such as releases to ground water or inadvertent intrusion, could occur. Furthermore, as the NRC's analyses demonstrate, the small compact nature of the fuel rods, the depth of burial, and the large size of both waste disposal facilities, make it extremely unlikely that an inadvertent intruder would actually encounter the two spent fuel rods at either facility in any of the analyzed
scenarios. Even assuming that an intruder inadvertently were to encounter the waste (which could only occur while drilling a well at the exact location of the buried fuel rods), the NRC's postulated doses are far below the Part 61 public dose limit for releases of radioactive material.
NU also concurs with the NRC's overall conclusion that due to the very low risk posed by the rods to both the present workers at Hanford or Barnwell and future generations of the public, retrieval of the rods from either Hanford or Barnwell is not needed to protect public health and safety. The radioactive materials in the fuel rods are in a stable waste form and are not subject to significant degradation over many centuries. Furthermore, there is an extremely low probability of encountering these rods during any postulated intruder scenario and, even if encountered, the potential dose to an intruder would be well below public dose limits. For these reasons, retrieval of the two fuel rods from either Hanford or Barnwell would involve significant radiological and occupational challenges and risks that are far out of proportion to any potential benefit associated with exhumation. Moreover, exhumation would not only expose the workers to the radiological risk associated with handling the fuel rods, it would also expose them to the radiation being emitted from the Class C radioactive waste known to have been disposed of in the shipments targeted for exhumation.
One individual has submitted comments asserting that there is some contradiction between the NRC's safety analyses and the general prohibition against the disposal of Greater Than Class C waste ("GTCC") in near-surface disposal facilities, such as Barnwell. This individual does not base his position on health and safety considerations, but on the principle that GTCC waste materials simply should not be disposed of at Barnwell. This position is without merit for several reasons.
First, the regulatory issue is not as black and white as the commenter suggests. In fact, applicable NRC regulations make it clear that "[t]here may be some instances where waste with concentrations greater than permitted for Class C would be acceptable for near-surface disposal with special processing or design. These will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis." 10 C.F.R. 61.7 (b)(5) and 10 C.F.R. 61.58.
In reality, low-level radioactive waste sites have disposed of material that is, by definition, GTCC. For example, since 1971, before the adoption of the waste classification system in Part 61, Barnwell has been in operation, receiving various forms of radioactive waste. (See The NRC's Review of Low-Level Waste Disposal History, NUREG/CR 1759, Volume 1.) By 1980, when the NRC issued that report, Barnwell had disposed of over eleven million cubic feet of radioactive waste containing over one million curries of by-product material. In addition, over one thousand kilograms of special nuclear material had been disposed. (NUREG /CR 1759 page 3-50.) Clearly, this waste contained some waste that - under the current waste classification scheme -- would be classified as GTCC. These historical studies supported the regulatory approach to use site performance objectives as the means to ensure that site operations do not pose a risk to public health and safety. Part 61 reflects that same approach and the NRC properly used Part 61 in its analysis of the potential effect of the disposal of the missing rods. In fact, Part 61 has always recognized that there could be "hot spots" in buried waste. (See, e.g., 10 CFR 61.55(a)(8) and the Final Environmental Impact Statement on 10 CFR Part 61, page 5-33). For example, on January 17, 1995, the NRC issued updated guidance for implementing Part 61, in which the NRC included a Branch Technical Position on concentration averaging and encapsulation. Again, the fundamental requirement is the site's demonstrated compliance with the performance objectives stated in 10 CFR 61.41, which is the same measure used in the NRC's safety analyses of the missing fuel rods.
This guidance has been accepted by all burial sites, including Barnwell, to approve disposals of waste such as concentrated sealed sources which, because of their activity concentration,
exceed the limits for Class C waste. After carefully considering the waste form, its packaging, and the performance of the site under its state-issued license and Part VII of South Carolina Radioactive Material Regulation 61-63, disposal was permitted, in spite of the GTCC character of the waste. Additionally, disposal was permitted because, as here, the waste did not change the performance of the site under Part 61 of the Commission's regulations and because, as here, it did not present a risk to the health and safety of the public or the environment.
Additionally, Barnwell procedures explicitly permit the use of "waste averaging" (according to the guidance provided in NRC Branch Technical Position on Concentration Averaging, dated January 17, 1995) to determine the character of the waste. See. e.q , Bamwell Waste Management Facility Site Disposal criteria, Section 16.3. By using waste averaging, low-level radioactive waste sites can dispose of material that, on a piece-by-piece basis, contains greater than Class C concentrations of radioactive materials. For example, using waste concentration averaging, a utility disposed of the entire Trojan reactor vessel at the Hanford LLRW site, along with its highly radioactive internals, even though separate pieces of that vessel contained concentrations of radioactive materials that exceeded Class C limits. Again, the site had to demonstrate that the disposal did not jeopardize the site's performance objectives.
Moreover, the NRC has found instances in which material that remains after the clean-up of High Level Waste ("HLW") tanks could remain in near-surface burial. In reviewing the Department of Energy's plans to close the clean-up of HLW tanks at the Savannah River site, the NRC issued an advisory opinion to DOE in which it agreed that wastes that could not be removed from the tanks could be disposed of in near-surface burial, even though the waste exceeded the Class C limits. The NRC also adopted the same policy in determining the appropriate decommissioning criteria to be used in the West Valley Demonstration Project. In applying that policy, the Commission noted, "[s]ince 1969, the Commission has recognized the concept of waste incidental to reprocessing, concluding that certain material that otherwise would be classified as HLW need not be disposed of as HLW and sent to a geologic repository because the residual radioactive contamination after decommissioning is sufficiently low as not to represent a hazard to the public health and safety." So too, in the case of the fuel rods, even though they exceed concentration limits for Class C waste, the NRC's safety analyses establish that the radioactivity does not represent a threat, either currently or in the future, to the health and safety of the public or the environment.
Thus, the rigid regulatory approach advocated by this commenter is not required to assure the health and safety of the public, the protection of the environment, or compliance with applicable state and federal regulations.
This commenter also challenges the safety analyses' conclusions by claiming that the NRC based its findings on the small size of the fuel rods. The commenter asserts that the NRC concluded that the rods would have no adverse effect "because the inadvertent intruder would have only a small chance of encountering the prohibited material." That position fundamentally misstates the basis for the conclusion. The inadvertent intruder analysis performed by the NRC assumes that the inadvertent intruder actually encounters the fuel rods when the intruder drills a well and churns up pieces of the rods, and when the intruder digs a basement, builds a home, and farms on the land directly above the fuel rods. Even under these extraordinary, highly unlikely circumstances, and a host of other extremely conservative assumptions, the inadvertent intruder would still not be in danger. Thus, the NRC's finding of no present or future adverse impact on health and safety does not depend on the likelihood of encountering the rods.
Rather, the NRC's conclusion appropriately arises out of a well-founded analysis that is consistent with applicable regulations and NRC guidance documents.
In conclusion, the draft NRC safety analyses properly establish that, if the rods were inadvertently disposed of at either facility, their presence poses no threat to the health and safety of the public or the environment, now or in the future. NU urges the Commission to issue final safety analyses consistent with these comments and the draft analyses.