ML20210H571
| ML20210H571 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 07/29/1999 |
| From: | NRC |
| To: | |
| References | |
| REF-10CFR9.7 NUDOCS 9908040048 | |
| Download: ML20210H571 (104) | |
Text
. . UnitilNAL UNITED STATES OF AMERICA N'UCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Title:
BRIEFING ON IMPLEMENTATION OF THE LICENSE TERMINATION RULE AND PROGRAM ON COMPLEX DECMMISSIONING CASES PUBLIC MEETING l
i Location: Rockville, Maryland l
l Date: Thursday, July 29,1999 i
Pages: 1 - 71 0 (b g)\,
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- DISCLAIMER This is an unofficial transcript of a meeting of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission held on July 29, 1999, in the Commission's office at One White Flint North, Rockville, Maryland. The meeting was open to public attendance and observation. This transcript has not been reviewed, corrected or edited, and it may contain I inaccuracies.
The transcript is intended solely for general informational purposes. As provided by 10 CFR 9.103, it is not part of the formal or informal record of decision of the l
matters discussed. Expressions of opinion in this transcript do not'necessarily reflect final determination or beliefs. No pleading or other paper may be filed with the i Commission in any proceeding as the result of, or addressed to, any statement or argument contained herein, except as ;
the Commission may authorize.
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1
S- 1 1 UNITED STATES OF AMERIC4 2 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3 ***
4 BRIEFING ON ..
5 IMPLEMENTATION OF THE LICENSE TERMINATION RULE 6 AND PROGRAM ON COMPLEX DECOMMISSIONING CASES 7 ***
8 PUBLIC MEETING 10 Nuclear Regulatory Commission 11 One White Flint North i
12 Rockville, Maryland l 13 Thursday, July 29, 1999 14 15 The Commission met in open session, pursuant to i 16 notice, at 2:00 p.m., Greta J. Dicus, Chairman, presiding.
17 18 CCMMISSIONERS PRESENT:
29 GRETA J. DICUS, Chairman of the Commission 20 NILS J. DIAZ, Commissioner 21 EDWARD McGAFFIGAN, JR., Commissioner l
22 JEFFREY S. MERRIFIELD, Commissioner i i
23 l
24 25 l
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S- 2 1 STAFF AND PRESENTERS SEATED AT THE COMMISSION TABLE:
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2 ANNETTE L. VIETTI-COOK, f.ecretary of the Commission 3 STEPHEN G. BURNS, Deputy General Counsel 4 WILLIAM TRAVERS, EDO l
5 CARL PAPERIELLO, Director, Office of Nuclear Material 6 Safety and Safeguards 7 JOHN GREEVES, Director, Division of Waste Management, 8 NMSS 9 CHERYL TROTTIER, Chief, Radiation Protection, 10 Environmental Risk and Waste Management Branch, RES 11 LARRY CAMPER, Chief, Deconmissioning Branch, NMSS 12 ROBERT NELSON, Chief, Special Projects Section, 13 Decommissioning Branch, NMSS 14 15 16 17 18
- 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 IJUJ RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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S- 3 1 PROCEEDINGS 2 [2:00 p.m.]
3 CHAIRMAN DICUS: Good afternoon. I welcome you to 4 this briefing on behalf of my fellow Commissioners.
5 Today the NFC staff will update the Commission on 6 the status of the decommissioning program and the 7 remediation of sites listed in the Site Decommissioning 8 l Management Plan, otherwise known as the SDMP.
9 Today's briefing is the first part of a two-part 10 story on the progress being made in implementing the new 11 license termination rule. The story concludes tomorrow 12 morning when the NRC staff briefs the Commission at 9:30 on 13 its performance assessment program, which covers the areas 14 of site decommissioning, high level radioactive waste 15 disposal and low level radioactive waste disposal.
16 A sound and supportable performance assessment 17 capability is absolutely essential to the success of the 18 decommissioning program and the implementation of the new 19 rule.
20 Today, however, the Commission looks forward to 21 hearing more about the staff's decommissioning program and 22 the cleanup of our SDMP sites.
23 I understand that copies of the briefing charts 24 are available at the entrance to the meeting room.
25 I would like to also add that along with this ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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S- 4 1 briefing the staff had prepared a Commission information 2 paper, SECY-99-035, that provided an update of the 3 significant activities that have taken place in the area of 4 decommissioning. The staff's paper has been available on 5 NRC web site for several months.
6 Would any of my colleagues like to make any 7 opening statements?
8 Dr. Travers, would you please proceed.
9 MR. TRAVERS: Thank you, Chairman, and good 10 afternoon. As you indicated, the focus of our briefing 11 today is the status of the staff's implementation of the 12 license termination rule with a particular focus on the 13 status of the remediation of sites in the site 14 decommissioning management program or plan.
15 In addition, we want to address the status of 16 guidance development and st af f initiatives for continued 17 decommissioning program improvement.
18 I should point out that while the Office of 19 Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards has the overall 20 management responsibility for this program, significant 21 support is also provided from the Office of Nuclear 22 Regulatory Research, from the Office of Nuclear Reactor 23 Regulation, and the regions as well. Representatives of the 24 offices are here today, and as I understand it the regions 25 are observing this meeting with the Commission by video.
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S- 5 l
1 Present with me at the table are Carl Paperiello, 2 the Director of NMSS; John Greeves, who is going to be doing 3 most of the presentation, Director of Division of Waste 4 Management, NMSS; Cheryl Trottier, Chief of the Radiation 5 Protection, Environmental Risk and Waste Management Branch, 6 in Research; Larry Camper, who is the Chief of the 7 Decommissioning Branch in NMSS; and Bob Nelson, who is the 8 Section Chief of the Decommissioning Branch, NMSS.
9 Unless there are any questions, I will turn it 10 over to John Greeves, who is going to be doing the bulk of 11 the presentation.
12 MR. GREEVES: Good afternoon. As the Chairman 13 mentioned, this is sort of in two parts. The first part of 14 the discussion is going to focus pretty much on the sites 15 that we have been working on and trying to clarify the 16 status of those. Later today I will talk about 17 implementation of the license termination rule, where we are 18 in that process, and give some details.
19 Tomorrow we will identify the tools that have been 20 developed to implement these types of activities in an area 21 we refer to as performance assessment.
22 Chairman Dicus, you asked that we try and identify 23 any policy issues as we go through these briefings. I will 24 try and do that as I walk through the presentat ion and also 25 give some feedback on our interaction with various ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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S- 6
-1 stakeholders. :I am going to include some of that in the i
2 presentation.
3 [ Slides shown.]
4 MR. GREEVES: The first slide is the overview 5 slide. I'm.just going to go over the background for some of 6 the people in the audience who may not be familiar with the 7 program. .
8 I will go over the status of the sites. There are 97 a large number of sites that have been running through this 10- program. We have got some good stories to tell and we have ,
Il- .gnt some areas where we need to make some improvements, and 12 I will make that clear.
13 We will tal'k about what our strategy is in terms 14 of implementation of the license termination rule and some 15 initiatives in improvements that we have put together and 16- how we are coordinating across the offices. That is very 17 important.
18 I will f'inish up with our forward view and 19 identify what we see as some challenges.
20 .
John Hickey has been the chief of this branch and 12 1 recently he and Larry Camper traded places. John Hickey has 22- done this briefing in the past. I will do it this time, and 23 we can look forward to Larry Camper picking it up next time.
24' The second slide is the' background. I think the 25 Commissioners are pretty familiar with it. As you know, it ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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m S- 7 1 really goes back to the 1980s. Then-Congressman Synar had a 2 hearing and invited DOE, EPA, NRC and asked the hard 3 question: Where are we in setting these standards?
4 Chairman Carr was part of that hearing and promised that we 5 would make strides to go forward in this process.
6 Some of the things that were clear in that time 7 frame was the lack of timeliness. We had a number of sites 8 that were out there, including Apollo, Pennsylvania, which 9 is very recognized; UNC Wood River Junction; and, for 10 example, the Chevron Polling, New York, site. Progress just 11 wasn't being made on these sites. So that was one of the 12 issues.
13 Another was the evolving radiological criteria.
1 14 The staff was using guidance to evaluate these sites. We i 15 had some branch technical positions addressing the uranium 16 and thorium issues, and we were using Reg Guide 1.86 for 17 surface contamination. These were the tools that we had 18 available.
19 Financial assurance was a key issue. It was a big 20 concern for all of us. We had a number of licensees that 21 had a bankruptcy issue going on, and it really drove the 22 early process of the rulemaking. ,
l 23 Incomplete records. There were a nunber of sites j i
l 24 that there were just poor records on. We went back and 25 looked at a number of old sites, which actually put more i l
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-1 sites'on the list. So this was one of the drivers.
- 2' The last one on'this sheet is the lack of 3 finality. There was not a clear standard by any.of the 4 agencies as to what was the standard to hold the licensees 5 to by either EPA or NRC at that time.
, 6 The agency'took a plan of action to address these 7 issues. They started with the 1988 decommissioning.
8' procedures and financial assurance rule. This went part way 9' to addressing that issue. It. clearly addressed the 10 financial assurance issue, which.was one of the glaring
- 11. issues at the time.
. 12 'It' set a release referred to as unrestricted. It 13 did not address restricted release. Over time obviously we 14 'have dealt with that. -But that was what we had available in 15- 1988.
16 In 1990 we put in place the Site Decommissioning 17 Management Plan. At the time, we had on the order of,40 18 sites, and it set a priority for these difficult sites and 19 gave them high visibility within the Commission.
.:2 0 The Commission agreed to use, in an interim 21' fashion, the' criteria that the staff had been working on and 22 worked towards getting a final criteria in place.
23 As part of that process, in 1993 the Commission 24 put in place a re.cordkeeping rule to address that issue of 25 lack of recordkeeping. At that point in time all licensees ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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. 0-S- 9 L 1 were: responsible for keeping good records, keeping them in 2 one spot, and doing a good job of being able to record the
.3' history. This'was both for the materials and the. reactor 4 ' site. So this helped in that process.
5 In 1994 the timeliness rule was put in place.
6 This was also necessary. There was not a good mechanism to 7 force timely cleanup.
.8- With the timeliness rule put in place in 1994, it 9 set.upLa situation where if you wanted to stop your 10 operation or even if you had an area that had stopped for a 11 period of time,.it gave the staff a tool to decide that, 12 okay, you've stopped your operation in this area or this 13 building for 24 months; you owe us a decommissioning plan.
14 So that was a tool that was needed and was in place in 1994 15 and has been working effectively to move these things along.
l l16 In 1996 the reactor decommissioning rule set up a 17 process for the large reactor facilities to identify the 18 back end of that process and also requirements for interface 19 with the stakeholders.
20 The most recent one and the last one on the list 21 is the license termination rule. It was by any measure 22 probably the hardest one to work on and get in place, but 23 the Commission was successful in 1997 in getting that key 24 part to finish off the framework.
l I I will mention one of the concerns that we do bump 25 I
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- r 1 into in the community with the stakeholders, and that is, is 2 that final? Can we count on that? I think the Commission 3 is quite aware of what the nature of those concerns are, but 4 that is.one of them that we face in meetings with 5 stakeholders.
6 The next page is status of sites. There are a 7 large number of these. We have made significant progress.
8 Of the original 40-some sites, over half of those sites have 9 been dispositioned, and I think that is a real sign of 10 progress.
11 The number that are left. This is a little bit 12 busy. I'm going to give a little more background on each of 13 these categories.
14 We have already removed two this year and there 15 are 34 sites in various categories which I will be 16 explaining in the follow-up. The two that have already been 17 removed were Chemtron sites, one at Harvard Avenue and Bird 18 Avenue, and the Commission helped us out with that.
19 Actually, this set of sites is an example. It has 20 been a long process with those sites in Ohio. There was a 21 lot of public interaction, including the State of Ohio, in 22 those particular sites.
23 It's a success story from my vantage point. It 24 started, the first of these interactions, with kind of a 25 site-specific advisory board. We didn't call it that back ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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l 1' then. We called'it a regulators group, but a lot of the l
L 2 early experience the staff has in that arena of werking wlth l 3 other~stakeholders we can attribute to those two sites, and 4 the state worked very well with us.
5 There are 34 sites that are currently on the list.
l 6 You can see the summary here. As.I said, I'm going to l 7 deliver each of these categories in more detail. They are 8 sort of split up into what we call a grandfathering 9 category, which pretty much relies on things like soil 10 concentrations and the license termination rule, which is a l 11 dose-based criteria.
12 At the bottom you will see 11 sites. Those are 13 the more complicated sites, andIwillfinishoffgivingyoul 14 a little flavor of where we see that going.
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( 15 COMMISSIONER MERRIFIELD: Chairman, may I ask a 16 clarifying question?
17 CHAIRMAN DICUS: Okay.
l 18 COMMISSIONER MERRIFIELD: In the discussion of i 19 these different subtopics, I am wondering if for the benefit 20 of our' audience you can explain what you mean by removal, 21 whether that means clean, whether that means we are taking i
22 it out of the authority of the NRC and giving it to the 23 states; what decommissioning means. Is it clean or not 24 clean? That would be helpful as you explain your 25 presentation.
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r S- 12 p 1 MR. GREEVES: I will give a short presentation and 2 others can add to it.
3 For example, when we removed a site from the SDMP 4 plan, it means we terminated the license. It doesn't mean 5 the site is at background. When you look at the action plan 6 criteria and the license termination criteria, there is a 7 margin above background that is set up in those regulations 8 that is allowed to be left at the site. That's a key issue 9 on any site that we get involved with.
10 How much could you leave? You're not going to go 11 back to background, but how much above background would you 12 be leaving?
13 The clean answer to your original question is 14 removal means the license was terminated. It doesn't mean 15 that you can't go out there and sample and find some measure 16 of radioactivity.
17 COMMISSIONER MERRIFIELD: For the sake of 18 clarifying for the audience and for me too, when you say 19 it's terminated, does that mean that activities necessary to 20 prepare the site for its future use have been completed?
21 MR. GREEVES: I will ask others to help me, but to 22 me, when it's terminated it means that the NRC regulatory 23 responsibility is over. The future activities of many of 24 these sites is not clear. Most of these are going for 25 unrestricted use.
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1 S- 13 1 MR. BURNS: I understand it's release for 2 unrestricted use; our regulatory jurisdiction is terminated.
3 MR. GREEVES: In those cases we make the 4 conservative assumptions of people coming back on the site, 5 and if it's feasible, setting up a farm or something like 6 that. If it's not, then that particular scenario may not be 7- included.
8 Have I answered your question for the moment? It 9 doesn't look like it.
10 COMMISSIONER MERRIFIELD: I can ask further 11 questions later on.
12 CHAIRMAN DICUS: Yes. Let'r, go forward.
13 MR. PAPERIELLO: Maybe I can help. We know what 14 is going to happen at Chemtron, what is going to be the 15 future use of the land.
16 MR. GREEVES: My understanding is it will be a 17 park. For example, at Apollo, we don't know. Apollo was 18 released for unrestricted use. It's a prime piece of real 19 estate. The town fathers would like to redevelop that piece 20 of real. estate. However, there is a question in the minds 21 of local people: Am I going to have a problem if I reuse 22 this site?
23 Again, it goes back to that question I mentioned 24 earlier, th'e finality issue. Is there someone else who may 25 come in later and look for other issues?
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S- 14
- 1. CHAIRMAN DICUS: Okay. Go on. Thank you.
2 MR. GREEVES: I'm on page 5.
3 Of the two sites pending removal in 1999, for 4 example, one of them is a Pesses site. The Commission 5 1 helped us with this in terms of a decision recently to allow 6 material to go to waste control specialists. The site is 7 cleaned'up to the standard, and Region I in fact has a paper 8 developed for us to get up to the Commission to release that 9 site. I understand the paper is actually in my staff at the 10 present time.
11 The other one in 1999 was the Elkem Metals site.
12 We have done all that we can on that. We've got a couple of 13 outstanding issues from the licensee which just have not 14 come back into us.
15- The seven sites with approved decommissioning 16 plans. Three of those will transfer to Ohio, and these 17 include the BP Chemicals site, Horizons, and RMI. We talked 18 with Ohio. They understand the basis for our approved 19 decommissioning plan, and they have told us they are going
- 20 to honor those commitments as they are passed through, which 21 we felt very good about.
22 We have three sites projected for removal in 2000.
23 These would include the Dow site in Michigan, Permagrain in 24 Pennsylvania, and the AAR site in Michigan.
25 One site is projected for removal in 2002. This ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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, 4 S- 15 1 is an interesting case. This is the Parks Township site.
2 There are actually two sites there, one we refer to as the 3 shallow land disposal area. This particular one is the 4 operating site where they cleaned up equipment and did other 5 activities. The site was split and was subject to a hearing 6 process. This portion of the site we expect to make 7 progress on in 2002.
8 The next item is what we call the paper that 9 actually I believe is due to the Commission imminently on 10 extending the grandfathering deadline. The license 11 termination rule has built into it a date by which the 12 grandfathering approach would end, and it is August 20, 13 1999.
14 We have. worked very hard to work these sites off.
15 In spite of those efforts, it turns out we will not be able 16 to get all of the last few sites off the list by the 20th.
17 We are asking for an approach where we could extend that 18 approval process.
19 MR. TRAVERS: Timing is everything. I just signed 20 it out this. morning. So you should have it by this 21 afternoon.
22 CHAIRMAN DICUS: We have it.
23 COMMISSIONER DIAZ: We have it.
24 Would you mind summari=ing for this meeting what 25 the key components of that paper are.
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9- 16 1 MR. GREEVES: Larry.
2 MR. CAMPER: The rule currently calls for the 3 staff to approve the submitted plans by August 20, 1999. We 4 are finding for a number of reasons, such as timeliness of 5 responses from the sites and the need to have our EA EIS 6 group review all of these packages. Time for states to 7 review the EAs and things of that nature has caused some 8 delays.
9 As John pointed out, we are well along. We think 10 that most of these will be completed later this calendar 11 year. In the Commission paper we actually give you a 12 schedule that we are managing to.
13 We recognize that despite those efforts and 14 despite the fact that we are well along in the process, 15 there can be unforeseen things. So we are going to ask that 16 you grant through an order an exemption for one year, to 17 August 20, 2000, for us to complete the approval work.
18 There is a table showing you what our projected 19 schedule is. Although we are asking for the one year 20 exemption worst case scenario, our efforts show we will 21 complete them much faster than that.
22 MR. TRAVERS: If I've got this right, the date as 23 it w ,tablished was established to provide an initiative 24 for the facilities to get their plans in. I think our 25 judgment in arguing the approval of an exemption is that we ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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S- 17 1 believe good' faith has been made on their part to do just .
'2 that. So it's simply a matter of extending it out to give
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3= us some more time to deal with it.
4 CHAIRMAN DICUS: Thank you.
5 MR. GREEVES: The eights sites that would be 6- eligible under the grandfathering process include one of 7 them to transfer to Ohio. That is Northeast Ohio Sewer 8 District.
9 Seven, as Larry Camper identified, are actually 10 near completion. Most of these are uranium and thorium 11 sites, including sites such as Cushing, Lake City, Molycorp, 12 and Watertown GSA, which is a government site. All of these j 13 are described in the paper that Larry just mentioned. !
14 We have six sites'that are under review for the 15 license termination criteria. Examples of these would be 16 'two sites in Pennsylvania, Cabot in Reading and Revere, and i
17 Safety Li~ght. j 18 As far as the schedule,.one of those is projected I
19 to come off.in 2000. That is the 3M site. And five of them 20 are projected to make a decision approving a plan in 2001.
21 This would address the Eequoyah Fuels site, which the 22 Commission has seen in the past.
23 Another example is Walt: Mill with Westinghouse.
24 -Westinghouse is coming up with a bit of an innovative 25 approach. They actually may stay on this site for a long ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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S- 18 1 period of time, decades, and they are factoring decay time 2 ~into the evaluation. So the staff in the region are looking 3 at that.
4 The 11 sites that I mentioned with decommissioning
- 5. plans pending.
6 They'have an approved alternative schedule that is 7 different than the 24-month time frame that I addressed.
8 Implementation has been somewhat more dif ficul+
9 for these 11 difficult sites. They are typically the source 10 material sites. We have got some questions about an EIS 11 .versus an EA, and will probably be back to you on that.
12 An example is the Jefferson Proving Ground, which
- 13 contains live ordnance. It's a difficult process of. sorting
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14 out how do you clean up that kind of a site and what do you 15 do with it. I expect somewhere along the line we will be 16 back to you and talking about that one.
17 Another one is the B&W shallow land' disposal area, 18 which receives a lot of attention.
19 And Molycorp in Washington, Pennsylvania. We had 20 a meeting up there recent3y, and I believe there were 21 something like 300 people in attendance.
22 MR. BURNS: We also have a request for hearing 23 that has been referred to the Board.
24 MR. GREEVES: These are the ones that I will be 25 addressing towards the end of the presentation. It will be ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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3 4-S- 19 1 a challenge for Larry Camper and his staff to manage that 2 schedule. We'll talk more about it.
3 The next site is a concept of partial 4 decommissioning plans. A number of licensees have come in 5 and asked us can we partially treat our sites. For example, 6 Kaiser, Fansteel, and Molycorp. They are looking in some 7 cases for an early release, and they want to.use a 8 combination of the grandfathering criteria, and then for the 9 rest of the site later the license termination rule..
10 As Steve mentioned, there is a hearing request on 11 the Molycorp site. So we have that to work with. We have 12 worked with OGC on this. The concept is one we can work 13 with. OGC supports the process. We are nearing completion 14 on a couple of these.
15 This type of approval will allow these licensees 16 to make some progress and reduce some of the burdens on 17 them. It will allow them to clean up part of the site first 18 and address the rest of the site later. We see that as an 19 advantage, and will keep you posted as to how that plays 20' out.
21 At this point I'm going to switch gears to 22 implementation. We talked about the sites. Now we will 23 talk about implementing the staff requirements memorandum 24 that.you gave us regarding the license termination rule as a 25 follow-up to that.
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S- 20 1 As far as initiatives and improvements, we did put 2 out a draft guidance document. In August of last year 3 Research put out the Draft Guide 4006. It addresses the 4 'four fundamental issues that you have to work with in the 5 license termination rule:
6 The restricted release question.
7 How does ALARA work in this process?
8 The final survey, which is very important for both 9 the materials and the reactor licensees.
10 Then dose modeling. .How is the staff going to 11 address that?
12 Those four issues are in that document. It has c 13 been out there for sometime and we are asking for comment on 14 it.
15 Another sign of progress is in November of 3ast 16 year we put out a screening table. The regions asked us for 17 a tool that they can use to take care of some of the simple 18 licenses that, say, have a single nuclide. We were able to 19 come up with a screening table for beta and gamma nuclides.
20 It is based on a conservative approach and it is for 21 building only, but it's an early tool that we have put into 22 our capabilities.
23 We are developing and improved dose modeling 24 approach. Tomorrow Norm Eisenberg and company will be
- 25. giving you a complete briefing on that. We have been ANN'RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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S- 21 1 reducing some of the unnecessary conservatism and building 2 in a more realistic approach in the dose modeling 3 activities.
4 Both Research and NMSS have been working on these 5 dose modeling assessments. This is one of the things you 6 asked us to do in your staff requirements memorandum.
7 As far as these models, you will hear more about 8 it tomorrow. It's basically a graded approach. Licensees 9 can actually use that table. They will not have to hire a 10 consultant. They can choose to clean up to that level. A 11 lot of them can move out.
12 There is a screening level set of models that we 13 have been working with. Some licensees may choose to do
! 14 tha.t. In some cases they don't have to hire a consultant to 15 do that.
l l 16 Then there is the site-specific review.
17 I view this as kind of a graded process, depending 18 on the complexity of the site.
19 The standard review plan is under development. It 20 will document the staff procedures, how we intend to review 21 these sites, and what the acceptable approaches are, and 22 will support the 1997 license termination review. The 23 licensees are asking to see that document. I think we are 24 doing a good job of sharing that process with them.
25 We have been conducting a series of workshops. We ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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S- 22 l' have completed four already. They were in December, 2_ January, March, and recently one in June. We have one 3 scheduled August 18 and 19.
4 A focus will be the license termination plan for
-5 reactor. decommissioning. A lot of questions have been 6 raised in that arena. We felt it was worth a one-day 7- effort. We have coordinated that agenda with the 8 stakeholders. The states have been participating heavily in 9 these meetings. The licensees have provided a lot of input.
10- Department of Energy, EPA, NMSS, Research, and the technical 11 assistance contractors have all participated in these. It 12 has been a very successful approach.
13 We put a lot of this material up on our web site.
14 We have ten modules of the standard review plan that we put 15 up recently that we will be getting feedback on. The one 16 that is not there is the dose modeling piece. It's the most 17 difficult one to bring forward. We are working on that.
18 We also put out some guidance to the regions on 19 site-specific dose modeling. We put that up on the web. We 20 transparently want the licensees to see what guidance 21 headquarters was giving to the regions.
22 We have also participated in workshops sponsored 23 by EPRI and NEI. In May I personally went to the workshop 24 at Oyster Creek. I and my staff got a lot of out it and it 25 was a good feedback loop.
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S- 23 1 We have been coordinating, as you asked us, with 2 the Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste. They support our 3 approach here and they have been giving us good feedback.
4 We have enjoyed that.
5 Streamlining. Carl has made streamlining an 6 office requirement and approach. Across all the divisions I
7 we are putting in place a streamlined effort to, licensing.
8 We have improved procedures. We have set up a l 9 process where the expectation is we really'would prefer not 10 even to ask questions. We would like to have a good product 11 coming in and be able to write our evaluation. Short of 12 that, the goal is only one round of questions, not multiple 13 rounds of questions.
14 Spent Fuel Program has set a good standard for us 15 here, and we want to follow that approach. You need to know 16 what the schedules are. We are having the staff write their 17 safety evaluation early. That should be the vehicle that 1
18 helps you ask those questions. If you have got a hole in 19 your safety evaluation, okay, you have a question, but if 20 you don't have a hole in your safety evaluation, maybe you 21 don't need to ask that question. We are working on that in 22 all of the divisions.
23 The second item below streamlining is the pilot 24 program. We provided a paper, SECY-99-160. It actually 25 came up June 22 to the Commission to give you some feedback ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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-e q l
. . 1 S- 24 i 1 on how that project ic going. We had a handful of licensees 2 who wanted to take the decommissioning issue into their own 3 hands and run with it. We have five. I think now we are 4 down to three, as described in the paper.
5 We will inspect at the end: Did they meet the 6 committed criteria? This lowers the burden on the licensee.
7 He doesn't need to be interacting with us, and it allows my 8 staff time to work on the more difficult sites. We found 9 this to be useful. l 10 The last item is an integrated licensing and 11 inspection program. We are tracking the inspections on 12 these sites. We are tying the regions and headquarters 13 together. It's event driven. If something doesn't make 14 sense or there is not a lot going on, then we won't go out 15 and do that inspection.
16 Larry and his branch are responsible for working 17 with the regions on that. It does get revised as needed, 18 and.there is a uniform inspection procedure that is applied 19 for decommissioning these sites.
20 MR. CAMPER: Putting it in perspective, we had 21 done 18 of 36 sites by the end of June and some more are 22 taking place in July and August.
23 MR. GREEVES: On the next page, page 10, the 24 Commission asked us in the past how is the concept of the 25 Decommissioning Board going. I believe it's going well. We ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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S- 25 1 had what I will call a rough start. Any time you start 2 something up like this there are some inefficiencies.
3 We have the participation by NMSS. My deputy, Joe 4 Holonich, chairs the Board. We have representatives from 5 NRR, Research, and the regions. In fact, the regions are 6 quite interested in both these briefings. As Bill 7 mentioned, they are on the line today observing this 8 particuas_ set of briefings.
9 We started out with weekly meetings. That was 10 just too much. We have slimmed down to biweekly meetings, 11 and they seem to be much more efficient in that process.
12 We did a diagnostic about five months ago and took 13 notes on things that weren't going so well, and we cut those 14 out and improved upon part of the process.
15 A key for the Decommissioning Board is to monitor 16 the operating plan commitments. In each meeting we ask the 17 question: What are the near-term goals in the operating 18 plan and how are we doing?
39 We address inter-office issues, commission papers, 20 briefing slides. These briefing slides were provided to all 21 the offices in advance. We looked for comments. The 22 screening table I mentioned earlier. That one was to the 23 Board a number of times to make sure that it was a useful 24 tool for the regions.
25 Let me mention one last one, the entombment paper APN RlLEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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S- 26 1 which you received recently. That cuts across NRR, 2 Research, NMSS. We had several briefings at the 3 Encommissioning Board on that paper.
4 The last item is just efficiency improvements. I 5 think the Board helps us. facilitate the exchange across the 6 offices. We see, for example, reactor sites over time are 7 going-to migrate'from NRR to NMSS.
8 The licensees have actually expressed some concern 9 about this' process: I'm used to my project manager. Who
- 10. are these new people? NRR management and NMSS management, 11 when we go out to our stakeholders we try to explain what 12 our roles are and how that changes with time, and we're 13 going to get better with time. We are actually doing some 14 rotations between the offices that I think is going to help 15 this process. NRR and NMSS are also taking the training, 16 which actually affects both of us, which I think would go a 17 long way towards addressing some of those. concerns.
18 The last page. I sort of want to leave a flavor 19 or where we see us going.
20 We need to resolve these complex sites. I think 21 the next time we brief you a lot of these sites we talked 22 about on the front end will be behind us, for one reason or 23 another. The 11 sites I mentioned, the difficult sites, 24 they will still be with us. I've set a high expectation.
I 25 Larry Camper and I visit and talk about this. This is the t
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r S- 27 l
I challenge for Larry and his branch: The 11 sites, get on 2 ' top of those; what is the schedule and how can we address 3 those?'
4 In-the next briefing I would expect we would lay 5 out that schedule, tell you where we were, and if there was l
6 anything we needed some help on, we would mention that.
7 The third item here is integrate the materials and 8 reactor programs. Recentl'y you sent down a staff 9 requirements memorandum and asked for a coordinated report 10 next time, an annual report that is coordinated. So we 11 would be back with NRR reporting not only on thes2 11 sites, 12 but the reactor sites also that are part of the 13 decommissioning program.
14 I think the efficiency has been improved between 15 the offices. There are some challenges. The dose modeling 16 issue was a challenge. You are going to hear a lot about
-17 that tomorrow. We actually are getting a lot of input from 18 the licensees and the Department of Energy in terms of 19 things like input parameters.
20 The clearance rule. The clearance approach is i
21 used internationally. This is a topic that frequently comes 22 up at our meetings with various stakeholders. How that goes 23 will have an impact on what we do.
24 The restricted release cases. These are the most 25 difficult ones. We could expect hearings on these. They ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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S- 28 1 require the advisory groups. Lots of those groups are 2 forming, by the way. In some cases they are forming with 3 sites that dcn't require restricted release. The utilities 4 are enlightened in that they are actually forming these 5 groups for sites that are going to be cleaned up for 6 unrestricted use.
7 It's a good mechanism for feedback to the 8 community. The staff and the regions have been active in 9 that process.
10 The question of an EA and an EIS on these 11 restricted release sites is going to be a challenge for us.
12 The last one, which is the recent paper you 13 received, is on entombment. The staff recommended a 14 workshop. I understand it's scheduled for the middle of 15 December.
16 We need to address the question I started with in 17 response to one of the questions Commissioner Merrifield 18 asked. How much can you leave behind? That's a key 19 question.
20 Another one is greater than Class C waste. If 21 there is greater than Class C waste in the reactor, are they 22 going to cut it out? Are they going to leave it? And where 23 does that leave us with the statutes that are out there?
24 These are issues that I'd like to get some more information 25 in a workshop.
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S- 29 1 The compacts. We need to hear from them on what 2 is their view on entombment. It's a new concept. And how 3 many reactors wculd be interested in doing this.
4 I'm looking forward to a workshop environment for 5 these types of iscues with various stakeholders, and we will 6 be in a much better position to make any recommendations to 7 you over time.
8 With that, I would be happy to answer any 9 questions.
10 CRAIRMAN DICUS: Thank you. Let me start with a 11 few. Then I would like the other Commissioners to weigh in.
12 I'm sure they have several questions, and they have sat 13 patiently through a very nice presentation. I appreciate 14 that.
15 You mentioned these restricted release cases. How 16 many do you anticipate might want to come in for restricted
)
17 release? Do we have something of an idea of a number?
18 MR. GREEVES: We do. I think it's probably a 19 large fraction of the 11. They are going to have trouble 1
20 meeting a 25 millirem unrestricted release criterion. They 1
21 might be able to meet 40. ;
4 22 Nelson or Larry, can you help me with a better 23 estimate?
24 MR. NELSON: I think it'~s a good estimate. It's a 25 large fraction of the 11. In some of these cases we don't l
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i S- 30 1 even have the decommissioning plan in yet. Licensees are 2 still evaluating decc.mmissioning options. Some of them have 3 already set up advisory panels to get input. Then they need 4 to look at what restricted use mechanisms will be necessary 5 for their site. If it means government ownership or 6 control, then they need to interface with those agencies to 7 see whether they might be willing to do that.
8 All those factors are going to play into their 9 decisions. We don't know, but we anticipate a good number 10 of them will try to go that route because of the larger 11 volumes that they have on site.
12 CRAIRMAN DICUS: Thank you.
13 I want to ask a question about the decommissioning 14 pilot program. The answer to this question may be in 15 SECY-99-160. I must confess I haven't read it yet. The 16 past month has been a little busy.
17 The question has to do with the viability of the 18 pilot program. Given that there were five facilities in it 19 in the first place and two of those did not participate 20 ultimately and we only had the three that did participate, 21 did we really get some useful information out of this, or is 22 it going to be that helpful to us in the long term?
r 23 MR. GREEVES: I would like to have the staff l
24 follow me. It hasn't taken a lot of energy out of the staff 25 to do this. It was a good idea. Maybe I would like to have ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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S- 31 l
1 seen more than five, but you can't bring people to the table j 2 if they -- there is a little tentativeness out there about I
3 some of these things. j i
4: I think the real answer is, we are just going to 5 have to' wait a little bit longer. The three that are still l
6 'in the running,'if Westinghouse and Phillips come back into I
7 a future Commission briefing and say, you know, you saved me -
8 a bunch of time, process, your staff was back out here, we 9 committed to a' criteria, you inspected it at the end, that 10 has value to me.
11 You asked us to do this for-the simple sites. The 12 other licensees are watching this process. They may look at 13 this and say, I want some of that.
14 I.think the jury is still out.
15 CHAIRMAN DICUS: Carl.
16 MR. PAPERIELLO: I'd like to make'an observation.
17 John tended to get all the big bad sites. Obviously we 28 really decommission hundreds of sites every year, the 19 hospitals and all that.
I think what the pilot does for you 20 is find where is the threshold that there needs to be prior 21 NRC involvement in-planning the decommissioning, and where 22 because we know'frem experience and practice that the 23 licensee can do it, and then say, by the way, we are now -
24 ready to siiut down. Then we can go out. So I think it is 25 useful.
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S- 32 1- CHAIRMAN DICUS: That's good.
2 One final. question is on the Decommissioning 3- Management Board. You mentioned that you made some 4 observations or some things that you had dropped out or 5 approved.the activity of the board. I know you hired a 6 consultant at some point. Were these consultant findings?
7 Were these self-assessments? Or was it a mixture?
8 MR. GREEVES: We actually have a board for high 9 level waste also, which we have ment'ioned to you. This 10 particular consultant did a diagnostic of the high level 11 waste board. I enjoyed that process.
12 The high level waste board was actually more 13 mature at the time he did the diagnostic, and I said, well, 14 we need it here too; I can't afford to be inefficient.
15 It was the same consultant. It was a consultant 16 that Admin has available. The gentleman does a professional 17 job. He goes around and interviews the staff. He gives you 18 quality feedback. We value that. We want to do some 19 self-diagnostics. We did that, profited from it, and we are
. 20 implementing as much of that as we can.
21 Have I answered?
22 CHAIRMAN DICUS: Yes.
23 Commissioner Diaz.
24 COMMISSIONER DIAZ: I thank you for the very 25 thorough list of issues and characteristics. However, I i
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)
S- 33 1 ended up without a clear idea of what is the effectiveness l2' of the'present policies of the Commission in these different 3, areas. It seems like we enumerated very well what all the 4 things are. Or lack of effectivenecs.
'5 Sometimer you guys are very, very thorough and 6 don't realize that we don't have the insight of what is in 7 Ohio or in Kentucky and that we are looking at the overall 8 issues. I really think that we need to get the distinct 9 impression of what is the effectiveness of our policies. Do 10 we need to do something else? What time do we need to come 11 in?
12 We hear about complex sites and how complex they 13 are going to be. I don't know how complex is complex, what 14 are the issues that we are going to be facing and when do wo 15 need to face them.
16 From the policy viewpoint, it would be helpful to 17 me to get a better view of what the staff is dealing with 18 with the stakeholders, dealing with the sites from the 19 policy perspective rather than from the particular issue.
20 For example, in this case I heard several times 21 you have interaction with stakeholders. What is the 22 reaction of the stakeholders to our license termination 23 rule? What have they come up with? Do the people say this 24 is okay, or no, thisisnotokap?
25 MR. GREEVES: I got about four or five questions l
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S- 34 1 there.
2 COMMISSIONER DIAZ: The first was a statement for 3 lyou to consider. Don't.take it as a question. It will take 4 too much time. Specifically, what have.our stakeholders 5 been saying or doing regarding our license termination rule?
6 MR. GREEVES: The answer is mixed. I can give you 7 an example. The license termination rule involves,a large 8 spectrum of things you need to be doing. Let's just talk 9 about dose modeling, which you will hear more about 30 tomorrow.
11 Some of our stakeholders were quite_ concerned 12- about the conservatism built into cur dose modeling process.
13 We knew it was there. We were finding the same things they 14 were finding-. NEI, as I said, we go to workshops with them.
15 You are going to hear more about this tomorrow. They 16 identified problems with the models that we are using for 17 cesium and strontium. We identified the same models, and 18 those issues have been discussed extensively in the 19 workshops.
20 The states are another set of stakeholders. I 21 think they are quite happy to come into this environment, 22 because they are going to inherit a lot of these sites and 23 they are going to need to use some of the same tools. So 24 the states come to the workshops. 'My sense is I get a 25 better. response from the states in terms of a positive ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD, Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
S- 35 1 response about "thank you for putting these things into 2 place."
3 There is another set of stakeholders. They don't 4 like the rule. They want something like zero to be the 5 answer, and they come into the meetings and they express 6 that view.
7 So it's mixed. EPA comes to the meeting and 8 explains what they are doing in modeling space. It's what I 9 called mixed. We are trying to capture the best elements of 10 it in the standard review plan that honor the license 11 termination rule.
12 I hope I am being clear.
13 COMMISSIONER DIAZ: You're not. Mix is not hot, 14 not cold; it's somewhere in between?
15 MR. GREEVES: Yes. What I mean is, depending on 16 the stakeholder, you get a different reaction.
17 CHAIRMAN DICUS: A variety of views.
18 MR. PAPERIELLO: If you look on it as an 19 optimization problem, it's an optimization of resources, 20 financial resources to do the remediation; the dose
'21 criteria, with some people wanting it all the way to zero, 22 and the potential for restricted release, which a lot of 23 stakeholders don't want, at least living around the site.
24 That is why complex sites are complex sites.
25 There is not enough money to remove maybe 40 acres ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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r S- 36 1 of contaminated soil and move it to another part of the 2 United States. We would find under our rule that perhaps 3 construction of an onsite cell of two acres that a licensee 4 proposes meets the rule for restricted release of those two 5 acres. You now go and you have a community advisory 6 committee. A lot of people don't want that to happen. You 7 write EIS's. People comment on those. People obviously use 8 the full recourse of the law if people are going to take 9 action that they don't want. That's why you get into 10 complex sites. At the same time, there is the issue of how 11 much money is available to remediate the sites.
12 We got into the SDMP program and we got into these 13 sites many years ago because they tended to involve source 14 material. Many of them are people who use source material 15 for non-nucleer purposes, chemical purposes, metallurgical 16 purposes. They weren't in a nuclear industry. It was done 17 in the 1960s, 1970s, earlier than that. A lot of soil got 18 contaminated, and they were small businesses. There are no 19 financial resources to dig up many, many acres and move them 20 across the country.
21 That's the tension in this whole thing. I think 22 we created a reasonably good infrastructure now to preclude 23 it from happening in the futuce. In other words, we would 24 never allow somebody to get licensed and create the problem.
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S- 37 1 which there is not complete agreement on, but the 2 implementation is still difficult.
3 It's the three things. It's financial resources, 4 which are finite; the group of people who might decide the 5 only acceptable dose criteria is zero; and the issue of when 6 you are going to have to restrict a site release. These 7 things go into making a complex site complex.
8 COf 'NER DIAZ: It might be worthwhile for the 9 Commission to receive a clear iden* .fication of where these 10 issues lie.
11 MR. PAPERIELLO: Commissioner, that is exactly 12 what John promised you. I directed the staff that I needed 13 a detailed analysis of each of these sites with time lines 14 and what has to be done and where are the resources to do 15 it, including things like the EIS, and who has to agree.
16 MR. GREEVES: One of the good things about what we 17 are doing is we are making the process more predictable. We 18 are doing this in a transparent way. The licensees know 19 what to expect because we are showing them up front.
20 You asked about the tough policy. There is one 21 that comes back to me day in and day out. The rule helps.
22 The 1997 rule helps, but too often I have to go out and try 23 and address, will it hold? Will another agency come in here 24 behind you at some future date and undo this process?
25 Apollo is an example of that. It's a beautiful ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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S- 38 l' piece'of real estate sitting.there, but they are afraid to 2_ devslop it. They don't know whether it will hold.
3 .That's the one issue. If I could stop talking 4 about that, I could probably get a lot more work done.
5 COMMISSIONER DIAZ: Thank ycu.
6 CRAIRMAN DICUS: Commissioner McGaffigan.
7 COMMISSIONER.McGAFFIGAN: I have several. Let's 8 see-if I~can get them done in some finite amount of. time.
9 There is a backup slide 6 that I think refers to
, 10 the 11 sites. I notice two of them are in Ohio and going to f
11 get transferred. Three'are in Pennsylvania; two in 12- Oklahoma. That leaves very few left. All those states are 13 either about-to become an Agreement State at the end of 14 ' August or trying to be an Agreement State fairly soon.
15 How-do you envision the transition? I know you
. 16 have worked it out for Ohio. Advanced Medical Systems, 17 there.is a hearing.on that. I guess the whole thing is
'18 going to get transferred over to Ohio.
-19 I assume the Shieldalloy Metallurgical is just 20 going to go to Ohio and you will just turn over your files.
21 How do you schedule your work on the Pennsylvania
- 22. and Oklahoma sites and work with the potential future state 23 regulator?
24 In the case of Ohio they adopted our rule by 1
25; reference with one minor exception, that if it's above 25 l
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e e S- 39 1 millirems, they are going to maintain a license; if it's a 2 restricted-site above 25 millirems, they are going to 3 maint.ain a. license indefinitely until it can go to 4 unrestricted. We found that compatible.
5 Have you had discussions with Pennsylvania and 6 Oklahoma as to what their rule is going to be and how the 7 transition is going to be made?
8 MR. GREEVES: It's my understanding in Oklahoma 9 they are asking to leave, as Carl calls them, the big bad 10 sites with me.
11 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: They want to leave them 12 with you.
13 MR. GREEVES: They want to leave those sites with 14 me.. That answers part of the question.
15 I can tell you we are in dialogue with 13 Pennsylvania on all these sites. Nelson met with the 17 Pennsylvania contingent -- in fact, they are in the audience 18 -- recently on all these sites. It's my understanding they 19 are actually pushing off Nelson and company. This is not a 20 near-term thing for Pennsylvania.
21 MR. NELSON: Their Agreement State application has 22 been delayed, but they are very interested in these sites.
23 It turns out all of the Pennsylvania-sites are in my 24 section. We met with them. Region I and I met two weeks 25 ago. We gave them a rundown and went over each one of the ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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S- 40 1 sites in. great detail, both the SDMP sites and other sites 2- -undergoing decommissioning, terminated license sites.
3 We plan to have an ongoing dialogue with them.
4 They-have identified site coordinators for each one of our 5 sites and we have identified our site project managers to 6 them. It's going to be a real partnership effort here on 7 each one of these sites. We are not going to take any steps 8 without talking with them and consulting with them first.
9 So they are going to be an active player. I think that is 10 going to be very helpful.
11 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: You are talking about 12 your SDMP sites. I assume in the states that are already 13 Agreement States they have some fairly dirty sites too and 14 they have to deal with those sites. Is there any learning 15 that goes on back and forth between how individual states 16 that have sites that are either going to be restricted or 17 complex sites handle them and how we handle them?
18 MR. GREEVES: I can give you a partial answer. I 19 think the learning process is in large part done in these 20 workshops we are having. The Agreement States come to these 21 workshops. The CRCPD has a working group on cleanup. I 22 think Deborah Baugh is the chairman of that. She is coming 23 to the next meeting. She wants to sit in with me and go 24 over the status of these issues.
25 When they come to the meetings they share their ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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S- 41 1 technology with us. Recently New Jersey sent their document 2 in. We could learn something from that process. They are 3 not an Agreement State, but we can learn from the states.
4 So they have been heavily participating in this 5 type of work. They participate in the ISCORS format. I 6 can't tell you that they sit down with me once a year and go 7 over their -- they do not have an SDMP program, but we do 8- not sit down and meet and go over --
9 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: Is it fair to say that 10 in the states that are Agreement States there are sites like 11 these that they have to deal with on a state-by-state basis?
12 MR. GREEVES: Some of them went to Massachusetts 13 and some will go to Ohio. So yes is an answer. I'm less 14 familiar with the ones that originated in an Agreement 15 State, and they have not given me a call.
16 Nelson, have you gotten any calls?
17 MR. NELSON: No.
18 COMMISSIONER MERRIFIELD: If I could follow up on 19 your question. Do we keep track of how the states are doing
. 20 with these sites that we have transferred?
21 MR. NELSON: Not specifically in that we have an 22 after-transfer tracking system. We do look at their overall 23 decommissioning program as part of the IMPEP review. We do 24 look at their program, We don't specifically keep a log or 25 track specific sites that we have transferred. >
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S- 42 1 CHAIRMAN DICUS: Carl, could you follow up on that 2 with the IMPEP reviews?
3 MR. PAPERIELLO: I will follow up the state 4 programs to find out. I don't know what they do. We'll 5 find out.
6 MR. GREEVES: The state programs ask me to 7 participate in the IMPEP review. If they have an active 8 cleanup program like this, then we would send one of our 9 experienced people out on t?'at review. We just haven't had 10 a lot of visibility of it .
11 COMMISSIONER Mr .IGAN: Let me ask a similar 12 question. You were talking earlier about EPA and DOE coming 13 to your workshops. Do we go to theirs? DOE and EPA are 14 dealing with the dirtiest sites in the nation, namely, the 15 DOE facilities, and trying to figure out how to deal with i
16 restricted release and institutional controls. DOE 17 dom .ents use the term " controls in perpetuity" with regard 18 to Savannah River. So I imagine that there will be some 19 real learning we could do.
20 In Denver, I think John mentioned in passing we i
I 21 were involved in commenting on some sort of EPA is trying to 22 work with the radium site there.
23 There is a lot of learning we could do as to how EPA applies its dose modeling dealing with these complex DOE 24 l
25 sites and whether if we did a sanity check with our dose ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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S- 43 1 modeling we would get the same answer.
2 Is that happening? They are coming to our 3 meetings. Are we going to theirs?
4 MR. GREEVES: Let me give you a little bit of an S answer. One, EPA and DOE are on the ISCORS format. So Andy 6 Wallow comes to our ISCORS meetings and frequently we talk 7 about dose modeling issues and he brings the DOE experience.
8 In fact, I wrote him a letter not too long ago and told him 9 that we were aware that the department had some information 10 regarding resuspension factors and we would like to use 11 that. We use that avenue through ISCORS.
12 On occasion we go go these meetings that DOE has.
13 In fact, ANS is sponsoring a decommissioning meeting in 14 Knoxville in September. I was asked to be a plenary speaker 15 for that meeting, but all the other speakers are DOE program 16 people. That is mostly a DOE industry type meeting.
17 They recognize it's the same contractors doing the 18 work. They are doing the work for the Department of Energy 19 and they are doing the work for the commercial sector. So 20 they very much wanted an NRC presence in this meeting.
21 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: It strikes me that even 22 perhaps a lower level of detail would be interesting to know 23 about if you had the time and the resources, namely, how do 24 they apply at an individual complex site thel.r criteria, 25 their rules?
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S- 44 1 I believe almost every time you give up an SDMP 2 site you get a friendly letter from our friends at EPA 3 saying, well, how would it stack up against the license 4 termination rule, and what sort of modeling have you done if
-5 it is one of these grandfathered sites? I assume you answer 6 that in the same friendly way and provide them the 7 information.
8 We might want to be asking the same sort of 9 questions just to educate ourselves; rather than having 10 theoretical discussions at workshops about suspension 11 parameters, how is this applied in fact downtown Denver, at 12 Rocky Flats, or at Hanford or at Savannah River, or 13 whatever, just to be sure we understand it?
14 Again, on this line of questions, this gets even 15 worse in terms of resources, probably. I know the Chairman
.16 has been at international meetings. I keep reading in 17 Nucleonic,9 Week and other publications that the British are 18 decommissioning sites. They have the same Cold War era 19 facilities that we did. They were involved in the Manhattan 20 project and all the ensuing stuff. I'm sure we are ahead of 21 them in terms of this sort of transparent public process 22 with models and everything, but do they have anything to 23 offer us? I know the: French are doing the same thing.
24 MR. GREEVES: They are all a little bit different.
25 You got the. answer back from the UK that said they don't
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S- 45 1 have a standard. What they do is start cleaning facilities 2 up. I saw the answer you got. I'd love to ask them, how do 3 you price this out? If you don't know what you can leave 4 behind, how do you price it out?
5 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: For the audience, what 6 Mr. Greeves is referring to is a letter that we sent to the 7 UK when we were trying to decide on what the West Valley 8 criteria were because they were also decommissioning a 9 reprocessing plant at Dounreay. I could put that letter in 10 the public domain as an attachment to the meeting notes.
11 MR. GREEVES: What we saw in Rome in the meeting 12 the Chairman attended was lots of the Europeans are cleaning 13 up what sounds like a clearance criteria. They are just 14 cleaning up concrete rubble. They use the same word. It 15 might be a different language. They clean the concrete up 16 and then they send it to a landfill. Another country 17 doesn't allow disposal of concrete in a landfill. So they 18 do something else. But they are all doing something a 19 little bit different.
20 The Japanese have a clearance criteria and they 21 have a reuse criteria. They have three criteria. I can't 22 quite remember what they all were, but the first one is .
1 23 reuse. If we clean up a reactor site, it should be reused 24 for another reactor. That is one of their criteria.
25 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: That must not be a very ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. l Court Reporters 1025 Connec.icut e Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034 1 J
1
i S- 46 1 high criteria if it's going-to used as a reactor site.
2 MR. GREEVES: In Japan it might be.
3 CHAIRMAN DICUS: Carl.
4 MR. PAPERIELLO: I want to make an observation.
5 Actually, it is' going to kind form the basis for the 6 presentation I give to the international meeting after 7 Thanksgiving. This is not a textbook process. We talk 8 about realistic modeling. There are no textbooks that deal 9 with realistic modeling. They deal with screening. What 10 little bit is written is introduction to.
11 I think the staff here at the NRC -- and we are 12 working with DOE; we are working to a lesser extent with EPA 13 -- are writing the textbooks. I told the Commission 14 sometime ago when I looked at'the medical area, it was an 15 area for which there are textbooks. You can find AAPM 16 standards, all kinds of standards on how you run a nuclear 17 medicine department.
18 There really are no standards and no textbooks on 19 how -- we're helping develop it; DOE has done some -- you 20 model a site to calculate the dose in compliance with the 21 dose criteria. We have been developing survey methods, 22 analytical methods and modeling. We are on the frontier 23 here.
24 I think we have got a lot to learn from people, 25 but I think we also are actually teaching a lot of people.
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S- 47 ,
1 I wish it was simpler. It's not like we just set a limit 3 2 and then somebody opens up an engineering manual and the 3 manual tells you how you quantitatively get there.
4 I've done a lot of literature searching. I've ;
5 looked at the EPA web site on chemical modeling. I'm 6 convinced we are writing the book.
7 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: If I can get two more in 8 here.
9 COMMISSIONER MERRIFIELD: It makes me perhaps 10 wonder whether we should institute a time clock here, i
11 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: I'd be happy to wait for )
12 a second round.
13 CHAIRMAN DICUS: We will have time for a second 14 round.
15 COMMISSIONER MERRIFIELD: I have two quick ones.
16 You mentioned that there are some sites at which there are 17 site-specific advisory boards. That is not the case at all 18 of these complex sites?
19 MR. GREEVES: It would be the case at any site for 20 restricted release. The rule requires that. The point I 21 was making was that most of the utilities are going to 22 unrestricted release. They form these boards for purposes 23 of communication.
24 COMMISSIONER MERRIFIELD: We don't require it at 25 all of the complex sites?
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S- 48 1 MR. GREEVES: If it's a complex site ~that is 2 asking for a restricted release, the rule requires it.
3 COMMISSIONER MERRIFIELD: The answer to the 4 question is, no, we don't require it at all the sites.
5 MR. GREEVES: Right.
6~ COMMISSIONER MERRIFIELD: In an analogous 7 situation, I used.to deal with Superfund. All of the sites 8 have boards irrespective of whether the end point is
. unrestricted release.
~
9 I don't know if you have ever 10 considered doing that. There are many stakeholders who 11 notwithstanding the fact that the site will be cleaned up-12 their concerns are how you clean it up and the impact on the 13 community. I am wondering if any consideration has been 14 given to that.
15 MR. PAPERIELLO: I had a conversation with the EPA 16 Superfund people on that. The point is, though, not all the 17 chemical decommissionings are Superfund decommissionings. A 18 Superfund decommissioning is a very unique decommissioning.
19 EPA doesn't look for them; they are brought to the EPA's 20 attention. The reason why they have a site advisory board 21 is that'in part the decommissioning criteria are somewhat 22 nebul'ous.
23 I'm giving you my perception from the interactions 24 I had with Maine Yankee in Region I. So I probably know 25 enough just to be dangerous. They do it, but it's for a l
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i different reason. I mentioned earlier we do lots of 2 decommissionings. Somewhere along the line we would have to #
3 defi.ne a threshold for having a site advisory board. We did 4 do it in the rule when it was restricted release. That was l 5 the decision that was made in the past. I think we need to 6 remember that we have a lot of small licensees who l
7 decommission.
8 COMMISSIONER MERRIFIELD: I think the analogous 9 situation is with Superfund and RCRA. EPA has under.its 10 jurisdiction thousands of RCRA sites, a portion of those 11 scoring high enough on the hazardous ranking system, having 12 the right score for Superfund. There are approximately 13 1,400 of those. So Superfund is a much smaller subset than 14 10,000 RCRA sites.
15 I guess that creates a follow-up question. How do 16 we make a distinction between the sites that aren't complex?
17 How do we decide.what is complex and what is not? How do 18 sites come on this list?
19 MR. GREEVES: It is a bit of history. The 20 February paper we kind of got at a crossroads. We said l
21 we've got several criteria about how you get on the list.
22 Now that the decommissioning rule came into place there was i
23 this criteria for restricted release which didn't exist back j 24 in the early 1990s. So we said we've added that to the 25 criteria. If a licensee asks for restricted release, it ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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S- 50 1 goes on the list automatically.
2 The other criteria, if memory serves me, were 3 bankruptcy, if we have a site that is bankrupt; if we have a 4 site that has significant groundwater or soil contamination.
5 There are a couple of others. Maybe Nelson would be able to 6 help me. It is pretty significant. You have to have large 7 volumes of material.
8 Restricted is automatic. Today, if I get an 9 application for restricted release, then next year you would 10 see that site. It doesr.'t mean that it's a particular 11 problem, but it's worthy of a lot more attention. .
12 I think there are some 11 sites that aren't on 13 this list that are pretty significant to me that we actually 14 have a contractor looking at. The gradation is better 15 explained in the previous paper. It was the year-ago paper 16 where we defined what criteria it was for going on the list.
17 It included at least those three factors: restricted 18 release, soil contamination, groundwater contamination, 19 bankruptcy. I can probably do a better job later.
20 COMMISSIONER MERRIFIELD: Perhaps you can provide 21 that to us later on.
22 Again, harking back to my prior experience before 23 I came to the Commission, I am on the public record as 24 criticizing EPA on a number of scores on Superfund and RCRA.
25 I think one of.the things that they do well in that program ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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L S- 51 l 1 is keep track and have a good means of explaining where they L
l 2 are in the program, how many RCRA sites they have, how many 1
3 Superfund sites they have, where they are in the pipeline of l 4 cleaning up the Superfuna sites, those sites which have been I 5 identified and they have initiated the studies as to whether l
l 6 they are contaminated, whether they are currently conducting 7 remedial action, whether they made a record decision, l 8 whether the site has been cleaned up or whether it requires
! 9 institutional controls. They can make a presentation, and 10 do frequently, to Congress as to where they are in the 11 pipeline; of that 1,400 sites, how many of them fit each one
! 12 of the boxes.
13 I don't mean this as a criticism because I think 14 the staff probably in your heads and in your file cabinets 15 have a very good idea where all this stands. My concern is 16 that the information that has been provided to us today 17 doesn't give me a very good idea of where we are in terms of 18 the cleanup of these sites.
19 A couple of reasons for that, I think. One of 20 them is some of the terminology that we use. We refer to 21 some of these sites as the license being terminated. If you 22 say to a member of the public, well, we terminated three 23 licenses this year, they sort of scratch their head and say, 24' well, what does that mean? I s d't clean or is it not clean?
25 Is it open for unrestricted use or not? Are there ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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1 S- 52 1 institutional controls or not? .
1 2 The other. thing EPA does is they do a good 3 narrative job of having explanatory materials for any given i I
4 regien. You.have a little booklet and you can go in and it 5 will give you all the details on an~ individual site and 6 where it is and where they have been and the milestones. I 7' don't'know whether we have that kind of information. If we 8 do , I am hoping you can share it with me and the other 9 members of the Commission.
10 If we had.another congressional committee who 11 wanted us to come up and give an explanation about where we 12 are in the pipeline, how many sites are cleaned up, how many 13 are going to be cleaned up relatively soon, and the time 14 line for each of these 34 sites, based on at least the 15 information here I don't think I'd be very comfortable going 16 before Congress and trying to explain that.
17 Don't take this as a criticir. I think the staff 18 has it all in their heads and has it al in t'.uir file 19 cabinets. Just having it in a form which is useful for the 20 Commission to understand and be able to explain to the 21 public, this doesn't convince me you have it.
22 MR. PAPERIELLO- cfree with you 100 percent, and
'23 we are going to get it, inat was my reaction from 24 discussions I've had with the stafE over the past couple of 25 months,.that we need to have a good picture where every site ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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S- 53 1 lives; there are going to be obstacles, and we need to tell 2 you where the obstacles are going to be.
3 CCMMISSIONER MERRIFIELD: In point of fairness to 4 Carl, he and I had an earlier discussion on related issues 5 with some of the mining sites we have. I think we have the 6 same set of issues. Carl did commit to that earlier, and I l
7 appreciate the fact that you recognize it here as well. I 8 think that is very positive.
9 I have some more questions, but I am going to l
10- ' limit myself to this round and am willing to pass on to my 11 colleagues.
12 COMMISSIONER DIAZ: It just struck me that you 13 keep saying when you talk with stakeholders there is a group 14 that'says zero is what we want. Does EPA defend you in that 15 case and say, no, we would like to see 15?
16 MR. GREEVES: I think they visibly present their 17 view in the meetings. What we have all heard them say is 25 18 is not adequate and use 15. So I think that whole statement 19 is they are not looking for zero; they are looking for 15.
20 However, anybody who really understands the process and 21 examines things like the MCLs, their standards for coal 22 piles --'I don't want to get Carl started -- everybody knows 23 that 15-is probably in the middle of the numbers that they f 24 'really use.
COMMISSIONER DIAZ:
25 But it's not zero.
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i S- 54 3 MR. GREEVES: It's not zero.
2 COMMISSIONER MERRIFIELD: Commissioner, if I may 3 jump in for a second. EPA is different than this Commission )
4 in a lot of ways. One of the ways in which they are 5 different, and it is significant for me from a cleanup 6 standpoint, is their regional structure. !
7 In this agency we have a very strong consistency 8 between our regions and a very high level of coordination 9 and control between our headquarters here in Rockville and 10 our offices out in the regions.
11 EPA is not the same way. The regions within EPA 12 have an enormous degree of variability in terms of how they 13 conduct these cleanups. Having traveled to a number of 14 regions and looked at over 50 Superfund sites nationwide, I 15 will tell you that -- and there may be some impact in terms 16 of our dealings with EPA -- the kind of clean up that 17 individual companies will have dealing with EPA can vary 18 enormously. I'm not going to point out which ones, but some 19 regions are very inflexible. The numbers are the numbers 20 and that's it. Other regions are very flexible. You can 21 have in EPA two virtually identical sites that are treated 22 dramatically different.
23 I think this agency has done a lot better job of 24 that in coordinating and should be complimented for that 25 reason. This creates problems for our staff, because the ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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S- 55 1 interactions we might have with EPA Region I in New England 2 might be very different than the reactions we have with EPA 1 l
3 Region V or EPA Region VIII.
4 MR. GREEVES: EPA doesn't say zero. The )
I 5 Commission asked us to work with EPA on the mixed waste i l
l 6 proposal, which we are doing, and I think that could be a {
(
7 win-win. We are working together on that. That's not zero.
8 They are also working internationally on a clearance j 9 criteria. That's not zero. That's transparent.
10 COMMISSIONER DIAZ: That was my point. I 11 MR. GREEVES: When the hard questions come, we '
12 don't tend to rescue each other.
1 13 COMMISSIONER DIAZ: The bottom line is the zero 14 point is not realistic and all the federal agencies re&lize 15 it. At least there is an understanding that there has to be l 16 some realistic numbers that are used.
17 We keep talking about the complexities in the l 18 modeling. Since I've been here I've been hearing about the 19 complexities. I guess the staff is getting ready to put 20 some hands around the complexities of the modeling and will 21 give us an idea of how large the uncertainties are. In 22 other words, you don't have the answers but you know where
\
l l 23 the answers should lie in an envelope that.you can work 24 with.
25 MR. PAPERIELLO: We are going to be discussing ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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S- 56 1 that tomorrow in the performance assessment.
2 COMMISSIONER DIAZ: Thank you.
3 CHAIRMAN DICOS: Commissioner McGaffigan.
4 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: You keep mentioning 5 finality, and obviously we have a position on finality. You 6 mentioned the Apollo site a couple times. It was before my 7 time on the Commission, but we spent a lot of money, thanks 8 to the Congress, cleaning up that site. Or the taxpayers 9 and the licensee did.
10 How clean is the site? Why would there be any 11 question about finality there? I know that was done under 12 the old criteria, the reg guides, but can you guesstimate 13 how clean the site would be using millirems to average 14 member of a critical group per year?
15 MR. GREEVES: I don't want to speculate in the 16 middle of it being done. We moved a lct of stuff. We 17 actually moved more than the criteria. On and off I worked 18 on that site for a decade. I had a number of different jobs 19 and I kept cycling back to it. The criteria there was 30 20 picoeuries per gram.
21 I talked to Envirocare, the site that was 22 receiving the material removed, and they said it's averaging 23 15. They were cleaning up more than 30. So what was left 24 was probably considerably under 30. The site is not 25 occupied. The last time I was up there it was kind of a ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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e S- 57 1 green field, a park. When it gets reoccupied, which I'd 2 like to see in the' interest of the country, it will probably 3 be an. industrial area or something like that where people 4; will move in and out. Any dose would be quite low.
5 I. don't want to go much further. It is under a
.6 bit ofIcloud.
7 COMMISSIONER'McGAFFIGAN: We have this big dispute 8 with EPAlwe talked about at the congressional hearing, but 9 k how do you on an individual site get everybody to promise 10 it's. clean enough and we are not going to come in and invoke 11 :some additional authority and you can, town fathers, 12- redevelop the site? If I'm a town father in Pennsylvania, 13 knowing that there is this big national issue and they are.
14 .not running very fast to. solve it, how.do I get my local 15 issue resolved?
16 MR. GREEVES: Either EPA should put out their 17 general applicable standard or back off, in my view.
18 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: The financial assurance 19 issue. You mentioned that a long time ago we put out this.
20 financial assurance rule. How well has it performed?
21 We have these folks who are bankrupt or we have 22 these folks whose sureties turn out to be inadequate.
23 Have we taken enother look given the experience we 24 have had over the last decade with the actual cost of 25 cleanups and said what the size of the financial assurance ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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S- 58 1 needs to be? Have we thought about going back and imposing 2 whatever the results of that study -- we may be too high for 3 some classes of licensees; we may be too low for others. Is 4 there work to be done in that area?
5 MR. GREEVES: I can't give you a good answer. We 6 have experience. First, I would like to say it has been a 7 great asset to put that in there, because it gets 8 everybody's attention. They know up front financial 9 assurance is important. I like it in the rule.
10 Is $750,000 the right --
11 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: Is that what it says, 12 $750,000?
13 MR. GREEVES: Depending on your facility. It's a 14 graded approach. For the fuel fabrications facilities, I 15 think the first measure was like $750,000. That only lasted 16 a while, until you did a decommissioning plan. Of course 17 most of them at that point went up; $750,000 was too low 18 for, say, a fuel fabrication facility.
19 If the number is too high, you can come in with a 20 decommissioning plan. We will do a customized review, and 21 if $750,000 is the wrong number, then you do a plan. We 22 review it. If it's $500,000, we drop it down.
_3 I think it's working. I will take a note to go 24 back and see if there is more work to do in that area in 25 terms of refining the numbers.
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S- 59 1 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: I didn't know what the 2 numbers were in the rule because I haven't looked at it. It 3 strikes me the numbers we deal with on these complex sites 4 are in the millions or sometimes tens of millions. Being 5 able to recognize up front what is likely to be a complex 6 site, maybe we can't. Maybe it's the practices that were 7 conducted at the site. Somewhat more financial assurance 8 would have been useful for some of these sites.
9 COMMISSIONER DIAZ: I think we see the value of 10 each one of Commissioners looking at a different thing. The 11 specific questions of Chairman Dicus, Commissioner 12 Merrifield, and Commissioner McGaffigan is part of what I 13 said the first time. We need to get some information that 14 is specific. That will certainly make the briefing much 15 more complete for us. I think it is an important thing for 16 us to have.
17 COMMISSIONER MERRIFIELD: I agree.
18 MR. NELSON: One thing I might say about the 19 financial assurance without getting too far out of my box is 20 the $750,000 was in a sense a figure, a marker put on the 21 table. In a sense, one might say it is a grandfather or 22 grandmother provision. It has had problems. The ANS case, f
23 Commiss.*.oner McGaffigan, you mentioned. That is the 24 touchstone. The issues in that case relate to the j i
25 decommissioning assurance.
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m S- 60 1 What was supposed to happen is a realistic 2 estimate is supposed to be made with the decommissioning 3_ plan. The problem, I think, is this transition period from 4 getting beyond the $750,000 to the realistic estimates.
5 Then you are falling in a number of places, as I understand 6 it.
7 COMMICSIONER McGAFFIGAN: If you are Westinghouse 8 it's no big dealiat that point if you need $7 million 9 instead of $750,000. If that was the sole business, you are 10 bankrupt. We consistently run into, for some of these 11 complex sites, less than adequate resources at the end. I 12 don't know how predictable it would be.
13 MR. PAPERIELLO: That's what I meant by 14 prospective and retrospective. For people we licensed after 15 the rule went into effect, I think we are in reasonably good 16 shape. The problem is when the rule went into effect, 17 immediately money had to be on the table. Then with the 18 renewal they were supposed to follow the details of the 19 rule. You come up with a decommissioning plan and price it
. 20 out and then make sure y0u can pay for it.
21 What you have is these complex sites are sites 22 that were already bankrupt or out of business when the rule 23 went into effect, and then we had a number of people who are 24 in business p'ut up the $750,000. But once they did the 25 actual detailed plan and looked at the money, the money was ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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S- 61 )
l' enormous compared to the value of their business. That's 2 why.I say the retrospective is where you tend to have the 3 problems. I think prospectively we are in pretty decent 4 shape.
5 CHAIRMAN DICUS: Commissioner Merrifield.
6 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: Could I ask one more?
7 It's almost more a procedural point. We have mentioned a 8 . couple'of papers today.
t 9 On July 9 we had the stakeholder meeting and we 10 have gotten the summary of it. I went to part of it.
11 People talked about how we could do our business better.
12 One of the' points the stakeholders made from both industry 13 and the public interest groups is when we have meetings to 14 make sure there are adequate papers and all the papers 15 discussed are available. We have mentioned a couple today, 16 'one of which we just got, and the other of which is an 17 information paper that within days will wend its way to the 18 PDR on the optioh of entombment.
19 I think we probably would have been better off to 20 have made those publicly available even it was just coming 21 to us today so that we don't get the criticism that we are 22 talking about papers that we are not making available to the 23 public.
24 Of the four papers we discussed today, two are 25 available, one of which was quite sometime ago. These two ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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S- 62 1 are going to be available soon, but I think just 2 procedurally we would be better off if they were available 3 to the public.
4 CHAIRMAN DICUS: They will be availtble to the 5 public, both of them.
6 Commissioner Merrifield.
7 COMMISSIONER MERRIFIELD: A couple of quick 8 things. I will try to wrap this up. Commissioner 9 McGaffigan made some points relative to brownfields. We 10 talked about the Apollo site. The issue of brownfields and 11 providing an ability to get sites that are utilized back 12 into economic commerce is one which is very attractive to 13 Congress right now.
14 If we haven't already, and perhaps we have, 15 perhaps we should consider and have our counsel consider an 16 appropriate legislative package that may provide us with
.17 some authority to provide the legal assurances necessary to 18 help some of these~brownfields move forward. It has been an 19 important priority of the Clinton Administration. Congress, 20 1 both sides, Republican and Democrat, agree with it as well.
21 If there is an area there where we need to look at cases 22 such as Apollo, I think we should certainly consider it.
23 The second point I would make is on the state 24 sites I did ask the question: Do we keep track of the sites 25 which we formerly had responsibility for and have been ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, L7D.
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r S- 63 1 turned over the states? To be honest, I think if we were to 2 go up before Congress and were to be asked the questions, j 3 what's going on with those sites, an answer of, "well, we 4 are not really sure" isn't the right answer for Congress.
5 I would urge the Chairman to instruct the staff to 6 perhaps think about going back and getting that information 7 so that we can have a better analysis of how the state ,
8 cleanup programs are doing as it relates to state 9 authorization.
10 A quick question on resources. At those sites 11 where the companies are either bankrupt and insolvent or 12 where there are insufficient resources to clean up, do we 13 have a mechanism to obtain the money necessary to do what we 3 14 feel is necessary to protect public health and the 15 environment?
16 MR. GREEVES: The only mechanism that I have l
l 17 available to me is the funds.that are provided. I know of 18 no vehicle. Maybe OGC can help me. We did the issues paper 19 sometime ago. If we get to the end of the road and there 20 are no funds and there is work to be done, I don't know what l 21 the mechanism is.
22 Help me out, Steve.
23 MR. BURNS: I think the answer is no. The staff 24 does have a process in which they identify contacts in our 25 office to go through the bankruptcy process. Atlas is cne I
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e S- 64 What we do
~
1 of the higher profile, more recent examples.
'2 Lfrom'a governmental standpoint is we try to pus!- to the 3 ' front of the line and assertithat we have an administrative 4' claimLin terms of environmental protection that requires 5 payment'ou'tLof'the bankrupt estate before other claims and 6 other creditors are satisfied.
7 We don't have funds. I think we don't have 8 current: legislative authority for a fund that we would 9 expend and we do not ourselves undertake the cleanup effort, 10 for example', on a contractor basis. Again, using the Atlas 11 example,, one of the_ conceptions there is that you would
. 12 create a trust to which the funds from the estate would roll 13 into the trust and then the trustee on behalf of the trust 14 would be the regulated entity'that would carry it out. That 15 is the model under our current framework.
16 COMMISSIONER MERRIFIELD: As the staff under 17 Carl's direction puts together a better analysis of where we
' 18 are in the process, I would urge the Chairman to perhaps 19 instruct the staff to think about how we are going to deal 20 'with these sites. It may very well be we are going to have 21 some number of sites that there are no financial resources 22- but activities should be undertaken to protect public health 23 and the environment.
24 We may need to seek assistance from Congress, a 25 special appropriation perhaps., directing, for example, the t
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, S- 65 1 Army Corps of Engineers to take responsibility and to clean l
2 up those sites, to get them completed. I think we need to l
l 3 think where we are going to be when we get to that point. I 4 make that for the consideration of the Chairman.
5 MR. BURNS: The one other thing I would add is 6 that we speak to sister agencies like DOE or EPA. For 7 example, in the SupSrfund area some of our sites probably I
8 don't score very high. '
9 CHAIRMAN DICUS: Carl. 1 I
10 MR. PAPERIELLO: We do have a bankruptcy l
11 procedure.
12 MR. BURNS: Right.
13 MR. PAPERIELLO: Most of the time it's used for 14 n.aterial licensees like radiographers and well loggers that ;
15 have fairly hot sealed sources. It has been effective. We 16 get on top of it. Somebody has picked up the sources. DOE 17 has taken sources; cometimes the states have taken sources 18 or arranged for another licensee to take the sources. Where l
19 there are acute problems we have always had a way to deal )
l 20 with it.
21 Generally, when you have the kind of issues we 22 have here with diffuse source material you don't have an 1
23 acute hazard. It does not score on a Superfund. Up to now 24 there has been enough money around to have custodial care.
25 Maybe not remediate the site, but at least to have custodial I
ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. I i Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
S- 66 1- - care to make sure people dori't go on the site.
2 COMMISSIONER MERRIFIELD: I think as we move 3 towards closing out these issues we may want to think about 4- that.
5 My last. quick question. Today is the 29th of
'6 July. August _20'is the original deadline for the licensees 7- to meet the. requirements under the license termination rule.
8 'One could argue that it is somewhat late in the process to
.9 be asking the Commission to extend that date for an 110 additional year. I am wondering why the timing given the 11 fact that'there is so much left seemingly to accomplish.
12 MR. CAMPER: The commitment for the licensees, the 13 sites, was the 20th a' year ago. The 20 August time line is 14 for the staff. For some of the reasons I went through, a 15- lot of good faith' effort has:been made and we are well along 16 the way. When you see the Commission paper, it contains a 17 table that will give you the dates that we are working 18 toward. Many of them will be brought to closure in this 19 calendar year or in the first quarter of the next calendar 20 year.
'21 For such reasons as coordination of EA reviews 22 with the states or coordination with the EA EIS group within 23 NMSS to review these, the quality and the timing of l 24 responses from the licensees or sites, those kinds of things l
i 25 have' led to some delay, ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 K, Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
S- 67 1 While we believe that we will get these sites 2 completed according to the schedule we are presenting to
-3 you,,we also know that there will be times when something 4~ just might go awry;'we will just not be able to meet that 5 date. So we are saying as a backdrop, as a safeguard, we
'6- want to extend and provide an exemption with the one year,
,7 but it's really-affecting the date that we have.
8 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: As I understand, we are 9 not going to allow additional people to come in the door; 10 their day was a year ago, August 20, 1998. It's our review 11 period for what they sent in by August 20, 1998.
12 COMMISSIONER MERRIFIELD: Let me rephrase the 13 question a little differently. I wasn't as articulate as I 14 should have been.
15 At what point did we realize we internally weren't 16 going to meet this date? If we had known that a while back,
'17 had the Commission known sooner, we may have been able to 18 redirect some resources in order to get it accomplished 19 sooner. I don't mean to be smart about this, but seemingly 20 we have no other choice, no other course of action. The 1
21 Commission has been precluded from acting its will in some 22 other manner to make sure, if we wanted to, that we wanted 23 'you to meet this date.
24 MR. GREEVES: First, let me apologize for giving 25 you the paper late. We should have gotten it to you ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034 1 i
S- 68 1 earlier. You are right'on point.
2 To answer your question, we gave the Commission a 3 paper in February. If you read that paper, it says we are 4 on schedule. As of February we did not know that this would 5 be a problem. Between February and now we detected it, and 6, we have been working very hard on that paper for longer than 7 I'd like to talk about.
8 First, I'm sorry. I apologize for not getting it 9 up to you sooner. It was my goal to get it up to you sooner 10 and I didn't make it. Probably two months ago it was real 11 clear to me that we had a problem and we started working on 12 this paper. It's only a paper of a few pages, but it's 13 unbelievable the complexity of answering the question of, 14 well,.who does this apply to, who does it not apply to? Do 15 you have to do an order? Can you just give a license 16 condition? The paper has probably been rewritten, I don't 17 know how many times. All of that is where we are.
18 CHAIRMAN DICUS: I think you are identifying the 19 process problem together with the complexities of the 20 question.
21 COMMISSIONER MERRIFIELD: Chairman, I think the 22 staff is working real hard. Everybody around here that I 23 talk with in the staff is working hard. I think we 24 recognize this. I think the Commission is willing to be 25 flexible in order to help the staff where it's needed. An ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Repcrters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 l Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
S- 69 L 1 early warning of these things is helpful for us. It 2 certainly would make'me feel a little bit more in the 3 process in that regard. That's the reason for that line of 4 questioning.
l 5 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: One solution might be 6 that when the staff starts to work on a paper like this that 7 a TA note come up and says a problem has arisen; we don't 8 have all the details as to how to resolve it, but we intend 9 to write a policy paper asking for exemptions. They might 10 have been able to send that as a TA note two months ago and 11 then all these details that had to be worked out as to who 12 it applied to and all that they finally get to us on July 13 29, and that's okay because we had two months notice that it 14 was coming. That happens sometimes.
15 MR. TRAVERS: I think it's a fair comment. I 16 think we need to keep you apprised. Hopefully there won't 17 be many instances, but where there are and we can provide 18 you with an early indication, we ought to do it.
l 19 CHA7RMAN DICUS: Thank you.
l 20 Again, on behalf of the Commission and fellow 21 Commissioners I want to thank the staff for the briefing we 22 had today and for the discussions and the frankness and the 23 candidness of them. I think they have been very beneficial-24 and I think they have shown that we have made some real 25 improvements in our decommissioning program, our license ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 6
1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 l Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034 t
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S- 70 1" termination program,-but I think it's clear from.the 2' comments you've made and from the discussions that have gone 3- on on either-side of the table that we have to continue to
-4 make progress in identifying further issues that we need to 5 address. .
6 We have had successes at a number of the sites, 7 but we have sites that are problematic and success is not as 8 clear a path as we might hope that it would be.
9 I think you've heard today whatever mechanisms are 10 appropriate, whether it be a paper or whether we should 11' consider a briefing in the not too distant future to address 12 some of the issues, where are we with our policies?
Do our 13 policies and the programs that we have need to undergo some 14 sort of modification? Have we identified all the policy 15 issues that exist?
16 'I think it's clear that we do need additional 17 information on the sites, where the sites are, as pointed I 18 out, a scorecard, understanding them; perhaps more detailed 19 analysis.
20 .We clearly want the information from the Agreement 21 States. I think we will get in touch with state programs to 22 get the follow-up on where they are with sites that they may 23 have identified or sites that were turned over to them or 24- that we made 'them aware of. There are such sites such as 25 the-MP sites that the states do have.
-ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
S- 71 1 We heard very specific issues that were brought up 2 that we obviously need more detailed information on.
e 3 Perhaps we need to consider as we look at improving the 4 programs whether or not we need additional legislation to 5 deal with the sites and whether we need to take more 6 responsibility for the cleanup of these sites. Clearly 7 those are some legislative issues for the Commission to 8 wrestle with.
9 Again I want to thank you for the briefing, for 10 the work that you have put in. We will hear the rest of the 11 story on the dose modeling in the morning. It should be 12 another very interesting session.
13 Do my colleagues have any additional comments or 14 questions?
15 This briefing is adjourned. Thank you.
16 [Whereupon at 3 :45 p.m. the briefing was 17 concluded.)
18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
,n i
l 1
CERTIFI'CATE l l
This is to certify that the attached description of a meeting j i
of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission entitled: l
-TITLELOF MEETING: BRIEFING ON IMPLEMENTATION OF THE LICENSE TERMINATION RULE AND PROGRAM ,
ON COMPLEX DECOMMISSIONING CASES PUBLIC MEETING PLACE OF MEETING:- Rockville, Maryland l DATE OF MEETING: Thursday, July 29, 1999 I
i 1
was held as herein appaars, is a true and accurate record of the. meeting, and that this is the original transcript thereof taken stenographically by me, thereafter reduced to typewriting by me or under the direction of the court reporting company-Transcriber: Michael Paulug Reporter: Michael Paulus ;
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3 4 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION I
g S WASHINGTON, D.C. 20555 5 I L
' ,***+*/
CoMMISSIONEn January 14,1999 Ms. Joyce Bourman l Office of the Health and Safety Executive Room 4 NW Rose Court Southwark Bridge London, England SE19HS
Dear Ms. Boumian:
The purposa of this letter is to solicit infom1ation on whether the Health and Safety l i
Executive (HSE) has established through policy, rule or guidance decontamination and decommissioning (D&D) criteria generally applicable to HSE-licensed facilities that must l be met prior to termination of the license. In the absence of such generally applicable criteria, I would al'so be interested in knowing whether specific criteria applicable to the Dounreay facility exist.
I recently received three HSE documents including,TManaging for Safety at Nuclear {
installations," as well as the HSE audit of the Dounreay facility and the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority's response to the audit. I reviewed these documents in an effort to determine whether the HSE has D&D criteria in place or under development.
i As you may know, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) promulgated the
' license termination rule" (LTR) in; July 1997 which codifies NRC's criteria that must be l met before a license is terminated (copy enclosed). For example, section 20.1401 l requires that the potential dose to a member of the public from residual contamination l at a site that is released inr unrestricted use may not exceed 0.25 mSv (25 millirem) per l l
year (see page 39088). The LTR is applicable to most NRC-licensed facilities.
Currently, I and the other four NRC Commissioners are faced with the difficult decision of determining whether and how to apply the LTR to a highly contaminated site located ;
in the State of New York, referred to as West Valley. For your information, a copy of l the publicly-available paper submitted by NRC staff to the Commission for its consideration is enclosed: The Commission held a public meeting on January 12,1999 ,
to solicit input from the stakeholders involved with this site. The West Valley site has l i
many unique features, which require State and Federal regulatory oversight, not the
- least of which is the storage of high-level waste generated as a result of reprocessing l
-nuclear fuel in the late 1960s and early 1970s. To assist me in making such an important and possibly precedential decision for the United States, I am considering the l cleanup of the West Valley site in the context of other domestic sites and international sites such as the Dounreay f acility.
l e es ,
.B
7 L., ,
, 7 t
,I would greatly appreciate receiving any information "' ich describes the status of l
HSE's efforts to develop either generally applicable or site-specific D&D criteria that l must be met by HSE-licensed facilities, particularly the Dounreay facility, it would be most helpful if I received such information by February 15,1999. Please do not L hesitate to contact me directly or my Materials Technical Assistant, Ms. Janet Schlueter
. at 301-4151800 if you have questions or would like to discuss my request. Thank you for.your time and effort.
i.
. Sincerely, l
(QLD w lN .
Edward McGaffigan,Jr. )
i
Enclosures:
As stated i
l i
r I
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^
l
. POLICY ISSUE (Notation Vote)
October 30.1998 SECY-98-251 ,
FOR: The Commissioners J FROM: William D. Travers Executive Director for Operations
SUBJECT:
DECOMMISSIONING CRITERIA FOR WEST VALLEY PURPOSE:
To request Commission approval on proceeding with proposed decommissioning criteria for the West Valley Demonstration Project (WVDP) and West Valley site and to inform the Commission of potential alternatives that may be necessary to ensure acceptable long-term control and care of the site.
SUMMARY
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's (NRC's) responsibilities under the WVDP Act include prescribing decontamination and decommissioning criteria for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). NRC's proposed decommissioning criteria will be a significant component of an environmental impact statement (EIS) being prepwed jointly by DOE and the New York State Energy Research and Development Administration (NYSERDA) for decommissioning and closure of the site. NRC can also use the EIS to support its selection of criteria in accordance with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). The staff is proposing decommissioning criteria that are compatible with existing regulations and guidance. Once NRC proposes the criteria, DOE and NYSERDA can consider the environmentalimpacts associated with attainment of the criteria and complete the EIS. Meeting these proposed criteria may require the removal and offsite disposal of large quantities of high-activity wastes, and that action may be difficult due to high cost and lack of access to offsite disposal capacity. For this reason, DOE /NYSERDA may consider leaving the wastes onsite under indefinite institutional control.
Therefore, this paper also presents three regulatory attematives, regarding long-term control of the site, that may need to be addressed in light of the proposed criteria described in this paper.
CONTACT: Jack Parrott, NMSS/DWM (301) 415-6700 i
I I
auty zi, :==,
9
- z, Part 11 i
J Nuclear Regulatory m Commission 10 CFR Part 20, et al.
Radiological Criteria for License 1 Termination; Final Rule Radiological Criteria for License Termination: Uranium Recovery Facliities Proposed Rule
)*
- r. s,
HIcith G Safety Executive l
~ Sat;ty Pohey Directorate j
Nuctear and Hazarcous installations Pohey Division i
Mr E McGaffigan, Jnr i ;
Commissioner '
t US Nuclear Regulatory Commission t Washington DC 20555 USA -
Our file reference: NSP/18/104/96/1 ;
29 January 1999 !
Dear Mr McGaffigan Thank you for your letter (with enclosures) of 14 January 1999 asking for information on UK policy, rule or guidance on decontamination and decommissioning (D & D) criteria for nuclear licensed facilities.
You gave in your letter details of applicable HSE documents you already have, and I <
have pleasure in enclosing a copy of the paper ' HSE policy on decommissioning and i :
radioactive waste managemsnt at licence nuclear sites' written by one of my !
colleagues.
- i:
The information is still current and I hope it will be helpful to you. !
For your information, the UK has no site specific criteria for D & D.
l Yours sincerely Joyce Boorman (Mes)
Tel.~"171-717-6887 Fax. "171-717-6095
'~~ Email. joyce.boorman@ hse. gov.uk j I:\SPDE6VMB\USNRC'eAcGamgan.hvp I
Mr Nick Starting - Head of Division Rose Court,2 Southwark Bridge, London SE1 GHS Tel: 0171717 6000 Direct Line: 0171717 6863 Fax: 0171717 6095 g
HSE po icy on decommissioning anc i
radioactive waste management at
.icensed nuclear sites .~ -
M. Bacon Heahh and Safets E.tecutne. Saferv pohcv Directortue. Nuclear and Ha:ardous Inuallatums Divusum. tamdon.
England l
l l
l l
1 In the UK. radioactive waste management and decom- practice. His paper discusses HSE's policy in these missinntne um a licensed nuclear sue is regulated hv arcas as it hs developed smcc the publication of the the Health and Safety Erecunve. The same Icgniante Govemment's White Paper' in July 1995.
l framework used for operating nuclear power untmns ;
is also applied to radioactne waste management and Rcgulatory framcwork decommusummg acuvottes. This provides a conunnann Y The main legislation governing the safety ol. nuclear but fle.uhle wlety regome until there is no danger from g
iemt:mg radmunns. The regulawrv policy us discussed, taking man accumu the unpluatunn of the l995 White Paper reviewmg rmhnarnre waste management of the Nuclear nstallauons Act 1965 (as amended)(NIA65). Under NIA65 no site may be used Poli" for the purpose of installing, operatmg and subse.
For hath radioactive waste management and decom.
missummy the icy element of HSE policv n she nerd installation unless the operator holds a valid licence for strategic plannung. This should ensure that proh-from the Health and Safety Executive (HSE). HM lems are not all awed w hmid up and to demonstrate Chid inspector of Nuclear lustallations on behal( of that, taling into account all factors. the proposed HSE grants such licences, attached to which are condi-actions are the optunmn m terms of wfitv. There is a tions which require operators to make and implement presmnptum m HSE's pokcy towards dispawl of radm-adequate arranecments relevant to safety. Safety is the acute wane as soon as posstble where dispowl routes responsibility of the operator who has to satisfy HSE c.ust. Where long term 3rorage is necessary passtrely that this responsibit..y has been fully met. Other reg-safe forms are prefirred nrer tho3e requirmg con- '
ulations important to radioactive waste management tmuous monnorme or frequent unterventmn.
and decommissioning are the lomsing Radiations Reg-ulations 1985 which are also enforced by HSE at
" * 'i
introduction Ii'*"
Conditions attached to a site licence are essentially The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is respons- non-presenptive applying equally to decommissionmg ible for regulatmg most of the activities on nuclear and operating sites, and form part of a continuous licensed sites from construction through to eventual pmcess of regulation from ' cradle to grave'. HSE will clearance of the site. He mam exception to this is the expect operators to consider in a safety case the full authonzation of the discharl;c or disposal of radio- process, includmg the radioactive waste management active waste which is authonzed by the environment and decommissioning implications. Regulatory control agencies. Operational enforcement is carned out on is effected by means of licence condition requirements.
HSE's behalf by its Nuclear Installations in:pectorate. If satisfactory perfonnance is not achieved. the Inspec-Policy matters arc dealt with by its Safety Policy torate may take enforcement action in the interests of Directorate. of which the author is part. safety.
The policy of HSE in respect of radioactive waste tuanagement is denved from the requirements of legis- Safety cases lauon and from Government policy. It is also mformed A potential operator requires a licence from HSE to by national and mternational consensus views on best install and operate a nuclear installation. Once a 13
= bcence a granted activmes at the licensee m relauon Pohev ssues to the plant are subject to licence condiuons and Ansmg from the nauonal pokcy and considerauon cenam actions may be subject to the agreement or of HSE's funcuons in regulaung radioactive waste consent of HSE. As pan of this process the licensee management are ten policy usues. They cover:
must pmduce a safety case which will include the 1. Strategic plannmg of radioscuve waste man-identification of operstmg limits and conditions, safety agement.
mechanisms and maintenance requirements. Pans of 2. Site. specific waste strategics.
this safety case may be assewed by HSE if they decide 3. Conunuity of radioacuve waste management
% . that it ments it because of the hantds posed or for responsibilities throughout a licemee's penod of some other reason. Withm the safety case, the Licen- responsibility.
sees must address radioactive waste generation. pro- 4. Generanon of waste cessing and accumulanon facilities on site. The safety 5. Balance of risks to workers, the public and the case has to be updated throughout the life of the environment.
insta!!ation to take account of any changes to the 6. Segregation and characterization of wastes.
installation, and. penodically, to justify the contmued 7. Disposal of radioactive waste.
operation and ultimate life of. the installation. 8. Safe storage of radioacuve waste.
- 9. Retneval or transfer of stored waste.
Role of the environment agemies 10. Projected use of storage facilities.
The envimnment agencies have an interest in radio- These are addressed in the following sections.
active waste management aspects of the safety case.
Strategic planning of radioactive wasrc management
~ ' '
HSE consult with the environment agencies so that HSE requires licensees to undenske strategic plan.
j they can identify pomts on the licensee's programme ning for radioactive waste management. including the
- 4' when their agreement should be sought. A licensee has development of programmes for the disposal of waste also to obtam the envimnment agencies' authonntion
.a .
accumulated at nuclear sites within an appropnatt I" for discharges fmm the nuclear licensed site which is I'mC5C3IC-
- 4. an auditional reason for close consultation between Any pmgrammes for k @al of wastes wil HSE and the envimnment agencies. need to take account of the expected availability, ani h [- 11 should he noted that HSE is responsible for all requiremeius, of disposal faciliues and Govemmer aspects of the regulation of waste management on. policy on disposal of radioactive waste. Where du nuclear licensed sites but the regulation of disposal of posal facilities are not immediately available they wi radioactive waste under the Radioactive Substances gg ;g g gg
--,
- Act 1993 (RSA 1993) is the responsibility of the dipd Envmmment Agencies (EAsl. %ese are the Environ-ment Agency m England and Wales and the Scottish Sire.3pecific waste strategies Enuronment Protection Agency in Scotland. Close HSE requires licensees to develop a site speci:
liaison between the regulatory bodies u maintained strategy which provides for the management of under the terms of memoranda of understanding in radioactive waste on site. Ecre should he particu y
i addition to statutory consultation under the terms of the emphasis on the long-term safe management of wa Environment Act 1995. his consultation process was for which there is no authonzed disposal route.
set up 'o ensure that govemment policy could be ne strategy together with the safety cases (s) camN rat without the need for additional statutory associated facilitics should demonstrate that the fac powers and to ensure smooth and harmonious working ties are adequately safe. It should include arrangeme of the regulators, to ensure that such facilities will remain safe throu out the period in which they deal with waste and '
adequate facilities will be available to safely man Radioactive wace management waste until its ultimate disposal. The strategies sht ensure that waste management problems are not Since 1977. following a repon by the Royal Com- ated which cannot be resolved using current technit mission on Environmental Pollution (the ' Flowers or techniques which could be denved from ctu Repon') the primary responsibility for natienal radio- lines of development.
active waste policy lies with the Department of the Continuity of radioactive warre management Environment, in conjunction with the Welsh Office and responsibilities throughour a licensee's penod of Scottish Office. %e national policy on radioacuve responsibility waste management was reviewed in 1994/95 and the he management and disposal of radioactive '
conclusions of that review were set out in Review of Radioactive Waste Afanagement Policy (Cm 2919). may of necessity, be required after the operation <
i 14 i
~ - ' - " - " "
- al'acihty which gave nse to the waste has ceased. HSE expectcd. This should be done as cl se ID the pomt of will continue to make full use of its regulacry powers generauon as is reas:nably pracucable.
under HSW74 and NIAb5 to ensure that in such cases Iwensees manage radioscuve waste on ute in a manner Di2Posal of radioacnvc wasic acceptable to HSE through to the end of their penod of HSE requires that radioscuve waste is disposed of at responsibility undet NIA65. appropnate umes and in appropnate places. HSE uses its regulatory powers to ensure that licensees dispose Grneranun of wnArc of waste promptly, where there is a route for author-In line with the national pokey. HSE requires satety ized disposal in an appropnate manner. Such disposals cases for all nuclear faciliues to include a demonstra. will need to be in accordance with an authonzauon uun that granted under RSA93. The timing of disposal will be subject to the circumstances in each case but, in a wastes are not unnecessanly created and general. it is expected thrt where d'isposal facilitics are e that the generation and accumulation of waste has available, waste should be disposed of as soon as is been reduced as far as reasonably practicable. reasonably practicable.
Balance of nsks to workers, the public and the Safe storare of radioactise waste
'""""""'"' When it is necessary to store radioactive waste. HSE l HSE expects that radioactive waste management requires that, where it is practical and cost-effective to should take an appmpnately balanced account of the do so, it is stored in a passively, safe form and in a radiological nsks to workers and to the public includ- manner which facilitates retneval for final disposal.
ing potential doses from accidents. Risks to the A passively safe form is one in which the waste is environment will generally be considered to be accept- chemically and physically stable and stored in contain- )
able if the risk to the public is acceptable. He total ment and in a manner which minimites the need for detnment should he as low as is reasonably practicable safety mechanisms, maintenance, monitoring and i
( ALARP). human intervention, and which facilitates retrieval for l In addition to the standard optimization involving tinal dispmal. This applies to existing as well as future cost-henetit analysis and other social and economic facilities.
factors. HSE took for an appropriate balance, by three- Panicular attention should he given to preventing way opumization, between the protection of the public. the unauthorized dispersal of radioactive material. It is the environment and the workforce involved in waste the HSE position that. where justified on safety management. Both individual / critical group and col- grounds. on-site management of radioactive waste lective doses are expected to be addressed. Authoriza- should not be unduly constrained by the possible tion of radioactive waste disposal and discharge is the requirements for final disposal which may be many responsibility of the Environment Agencies and HSE decades into the future. Wherever possible, however, will consult with them on matters relating to dis- waste should be stored in a form which minimizes the charges. The International Commission for Radio- need for funher handling and processing pnor to logical Protection believe that the standard of disposal.
environmental control needed to protect man to the degree currently thought desirable will ensure that Retrieval or transfer of stored was:c other species are not put at risk. Hence, in the above, in order to facilitate waste handling while ensuring the focus is on the balance between public and worker that exposures of workers and the public to radiation exposure. are ALARP. HSE expects new waste storage facilities to be designed with retrieval and transfer in mind.
Segregarmn and characteritanon of wasics Where existmg facilities are to be modified to provided HSE requires that, where it is practical and cost- additional capacity, or storage for an extended penod.
effective to do so. radioactive waste should be segre- similar considerations should apply. New or modified gated and charactenzed in order to facilitate the overall storage facilities should be designed with retneval and safe management of conditioning, storage, retrieval transfer mechanisms installed or so that the fittmg of and subsequent disposal, such mechanisms prior to the need for retneval and transfer of waste can be achieved without undue delay i Characterization can be in terms of chemical and and while maintaming radiological risks to workers physical form. radiation type, half life, specific activ.
an1 members of the public at an acceptable level.
ity, radiotoxicity, combustibility, etc. Segregation of waste into appropnate streams, based on the storage Projected use of storage facilirics and disposal requirements of the material, should be addressed in the design stage and form an integral part Existing wasteforms and waste storage facilities of the waste management arrangements. Early and shoidd be kept under review through an appropriate maintenance and survedlance programme. His should I appropriate segregation and characterization is 15 t
mciude snens on their sonuiuon and suitabihty tot ments wnicn will ensute that decomminiomng can he continued use and seek to determine life. limiting undertaken at the appropnate time.
teatures. HSE would encourage as much openness as pouihie A tull safety review in substantiate the pmjected by licensees in the preparation of decommisuomng life, talmg account of modem standards and the strat- strategics m panicular taking on board discuutons py lor ulumste disposal. should he earned out penod. wah mterested entside panies. HSE will pmvide a ically. Attention should he paid to the pmvnion of pubhc explans:t$ of the hasn for its own decnions i muluple containment to prevent madvenent dnpersal about the strategies.
and in the availability of contmgency storage facilities The strategy should be kept under review by the where appropnate. licensee ta take account of, inter alia; Where necessary to mamtsin acceptable safety stan- ,
dards, waste retneval tollowed by re location, after
- availability of disposal routes for the radmactive !
conditmnmg of the waste, may be necessary. Wherc *2hlCh e availability of replacement plant (if necessary for conditionme of waste is undenaken this should avoid foreclosure'of waste management options unless justi, that being decommissioned lied on the gmunds of safety or, if safety is not
- the development of new technologies and prejudiced, on economic grounds. .
- expenence gained in decomminioning.
Retneval of waste fmm any storage facility should H H re wt ne.s strategy quingwn-he undertaken in such a manner as to limit radianon .
mally and will consult with the environment agencies.
doses as f.ar as reasonably practicahic. including, where As pan of that review. HSE will expect the licensees to appropnate, the use of. remote handling arrangements.
provide a repon on their pmgress towards decom-missioning and on their pmvisioning policies.
Decommissionmg Decommissioning is the set of actions taken at the l
N"" "r P antoperific derummiuloning pmgrammn end of a facility's economic life to take it permanently HSE will require licensees to preparc programmes out of service and subsequently make its site available and arrangements for decommissioning. Where appro-tur other purposes. It should be undertaken with ade. pnate. these will he appmved by HSE.
qvate regard for the health and safety of workers and The plant safety case as it evolves throughout the the public and protection of the environment. The life of the plant, starting at the design phase and Whne Paper' includes aspects of policy on decom- buhject to periodic review. should include provision for missmmng and gives regulators a duty to ensure that decommissioning. In panicular, for any new plant thel the regulatory tramework that it desenbes is pmperly licensee should prepare an outline decommissioning implemented in accordance with their statutory plan which shows that the design of the plant will powers. .
facilitate its safe decommissioning and dismantling l Decommissioning will be subject to the continuation Operating arrangements should also take due accounj of the same licensmg regime as that applied dunng the of the needs of decommissioning - panicularly wit [
preceding design construction, operation and shut the making and retention of adequate plam records. l down phases. A detailed decommissioning programme, desenbind the actions to be taken and the timescales. will h l Policy mun required at an agreed penud prior to the cessaion ol Ansine from the national strategy and consideration use of the plant. The expected outcome of such I of HSE's functions in regulating decommissioning are programme will be the removal and/or immobilizatio )
five policy issues. They cover; of the most active and potentially mobile radioactivit!
on a relatively short timescale. Funher actions shoul
- 1. Strategic planning for decommissionine. -
- 2. Site or plant-specific decommissioning f H w at appmpnate mtervals consistent with the haq ards they seek to address. Detailed arrangementi programmes.
induding safety cases and demonstration of an appry
- 3. Timine of decommissionine. ~
- 1. Prionties for decommissioning. puate management structure, will be required befol c mmencement f each phase of decommissioning.
- 5. Completion of decommissioning.
Strategic planning for decommissioning 11 ming of decommissioning in line with government policy. HSE expects licen- HSE will require the licensee to commence decor sees to produce a decommissioning strategy for their missioning at an agreed time. The timing of speci!
plants and sites. This should address the approach they decommissioning projects will be reviewed periot will take in deciding on actions to be taken in decom. cally and. if necessary in the interests of safety. H!
missioning plant under their control, and their timing. may require decommissioning to be corr.pleted it should also address the fmancial provision arrange- earlier timescale than originally planned.
16
HSEN pnmary mterests in deenmmisuomng n to IntIrn tiInal stand!rds and develIpments ensure the salety ot the plant /ute, workers and the public until the plant n hnally decommisuoned and to Radioactive waste management and decommisuon-ensure that the radioactive hazard has been removed, it mg should he undcrtaken to intemauonally acceptahic wdl seek to ensure that beensees take steps, as f ar as n standards. Where standards or guidance produced by reaumably practicable to reduce the radioactive inven- mternational consensus exist, such as those of IAEA.
tory and anociated hatard over an appropnate penod. HSE wdl take these inin account in aucumg the in general, the pmceu ot decomminionmg should be acceptahihty at programm s. HSE will mamtain undertaken as unm as it n reasonably pracucable to do awarenen of, and involvemem in, national and inter.
l so. The rate at which the work proceeds will he nauonal developments in the field of decomminioning determmed by and waste management.
e the ha/ards posed to the public, workers and the In order to carry out its responsibilities effectively, HSE wi maintain close .mvolvement wnh inter-envinmment trecogniting the benefits obtamable national and national hodies in appmpriate fields of from radioactive decayt e the availability of disposal mutes f.or the wastes technology. This will specilically include maintaining lose liaison w th the Depanment of the Envinmment and i and the environment agencies.
- subject to ensurine public salety - the t.mancial l
) implicatums ut proceeding on different timescales.
Where later stages of decommnsioning are to be Conclusions l deferred the initial stages should lead to a state of For both radioactive waste management and decom-pasuve safety not requiring immediate human inter-i vennon to maintain risks below an acceptaHe level. minioning the key element of IISE policy is the need for strategic planmng to ensere that pmblems are not i Pimnon for Jcrannmhun,ung allowed to build up and to demonstrate that. taking into llSli will require a systematic and pmgrenire account all tactors, the pmposed actions are the opti.
seducuan of the hazards presented by the plant or site, mum in terms of safety. There is a presumption in j
! IIS!! wdl pay special attention to tho,e plants which HSE's policy towards dispnal of radioactive waste as i are sonsidered to have large harards or high risk to soon as pnuble where dispnal routes exist. Where ensure timely decommasioning. long.ierm storage is necessary panively safe forms are
( prefe:Ted over those requiring continuous monitoring IlSE expects the decommissioning pmcess to he a senes of sequential stages. the end result 61'each stace or frequent intervention.
hemy a reduction in hatard. The prionty and extent hr The existing HSE strategy pmvides a tiexible yet each stage wdl. where appmpriate. require HSE agree. sulliciently powerful system of regulatory contml to ment and will be influenced by the hazard pned by deal with radioactive waste management and decom-l plant on the ute. In the case of plant with large harards misponmg on nuclear licensed sites. The regulatory ur high nsk the pnonly for action lo reduce the risk pouunn wdl continue to evolve together with govern-l l will he correspmdingly high. ment policy and international guidance as practical j
C,unplermn of decenntniuioning HSE will regulate, under NI A65, the safety of activ.
! ities on site. including decommissioning. unul it is able Reference j
! to advise that there has ceased to be any danger from i . ( ,n nd ym x .re..w , q . ,,s,,,,,c,, n. w.,,,,. ,,,,,,,,, ,.,,,,.,,, ,,, s,, y ionising radiation from anything on the site, nnat nawiminns tendon. ItMso. Im l
l l
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