112th ACNW Meeting U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, September 14, 1999

                       UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
                     NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
                  ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON NUCLEAR WASTE
                                  ***
               112TH ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON NUCLEAR WASTE

                        U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission
                        Two White Flint North
                        Room T-2B3
                        11545 Rockville Pike
                        Rockville, Maryland

                        Tuesday, September 14, 1999

         The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 11:00 a.m.
     MEMBERS PRESENT:
         JOHN GARRICK, Chairman, ACNW
         GEORGE W. HORNBERGER, Vice Chairman, ACNW
         RAY WYMER, Member, ACNW
     .                         P R O C E E D I N G S
                                                     [11:00 a.m.]
         DR. GARRICK:  Good morning.  The meeting will now come to
     order.  This is the first day of the 112th Meeting of the Advisory
     Committee on Nuclear Waste.  My name is John Garrick, Chairman of ACNW.
     Other members of the committee include George Hornberger and Ray Wymer.
         The entire meeting will be open to the public and during
     today's meeting we will discuss committee activities and future agenda
     items.  We will hear from NMSS representatives discuss how the NRC will
     use and integrate Decommissioning Standard Review Plan dose modeling.
     We will be provided with an overview of the DWM High Level Waste Program
     for the fiscal year 2000 operating plan.  We will continue to prepare
     for sessions with the local stakeholders to be held this fall in the Las
     Vegas, Nevada area and discuss possible ACNW reports on a white paper on
     near-field chemistry considerations and a report on joint ACRS/ACNW
     committee on NMSS's approach to risk-informed performance based
     regulation.
         Howard Larson is the Designated Federal Official for today's
     session.
         This meeting is being conducted in accordance with the
     provisions of the Federal Advisory Committee Act.  We have received no
     written statements from  members of the public regarding today's
     session.  Should anyone wish to address the committee, please make your
     wishes known to one of the committee's staff.
         It is requested that each speaker use one of the microphones
     and identify himself or herself and speak clearly and loudly so that he
     or she can be heard.
         Before proceeding with the first agenda item, I would like
     to cover some brief items of current interest.
         Our colleague, Dr. Charles Fairhurst, resigned as a member
     of the Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste effective July 31, 1999.
     This quick decision resulted from an opportunity to become more directly
     involved in some of the design activities associated with the Yucca
     Mountain project.
         Effective August 6th the Office of the EDO was realigned
     with Dr. Frank Miraglia to serve as Deputy EDO for Reactor Programs and
     Dr. Malcolm Knapp will serve as the Deputy EDO for Materials, Research
     and State Programs.  Reporting to Mal Knapp will be the Office Directors
     of NMSS, Research, and State Programs.
         It was announced on August 12th that Dr. Malcolm Knapp will
     leave the NRC in January.  Dr. Paperiello has been selected to succeed
     him as the Deputy EDO for Materials, Research and State Programs, and
     that will be effective September 20th, 1999.
         Succeeding Paperiello as Director of NMSS is William Kane,
     who is currently Associate Director for Inspection of Programs in the
     Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation.
         Lawyer-physicist Richard Meserve was nominated to the
     Nuclear Regulatory Commission and will be appointed Chairman once
     confirmed by the Senate.  This was announced by President Clinton on
     Friday.  If approved, Meserve will fill the seat vacated by Shirley
     Jackson, who left in July to become President of Rensselaer Polytechnic
     Institute.
         Meserve is a partner in the Washington, D.C. law firm of
     Covington & Burling and chairs National Academy of Sciences committees
     on subjects of interest to this committee.  Meserve received a Ph.D. in
     Applied Physics from Stanford University and a law degree from Harvard
     Law School.  He was a Law Clerk for Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun
     for a year in the mid-70s and was legal counsel to the President's
     Science and Technology Advisor during the Carter Administration.
         President Clinton nominated Ivan Itkin to head DOE's Nuclear
     Waste Program, which has been without a permanent Director for more than
     two years.  He has a Master's Degree in Engineering from NYU, a Ph.D. in
     Mathematics from the University of Pittsburgh, and from the 1950s to the
     early '70s he worked as a scientist for Westinghouse -- Bettis Atomic
     Laboratory -- designing and developing reactors for nuclear propulsion
     systems for the U.S. Navy.
         Finally, the NRC has named Mr. John D. Sieber to the
     Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards.  Mr. Sieber comes with a lot
     of experience in the utility business.  He has also served as a member
     and director of many organizations including the Electric Power Research
     Institute, Nuclear Electric Insurance, Limited, the Nuclear Energy
     Institute, and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers,
     and the Westinghouse Owners Group.
         With that, I think that unless there are any comments, we
     will proceed with our agenda and our opening topic is Decommissioning
     SRP Dose Modeling and I think Nick Orlando is going to lead off and will
     also introduce subsequent speakers.
         MR. ORLANDO:  Thank you, yes.  What we are going to talk to
     you about today is this is just a continuation of several of the
     briefings we have held for the ACNW over the past couple of years on the
     status of the development of our Standard Review Plan for
     Decommissioning.  As you can see by my slide there, I am going to speak
     a little bit today and then tomorrow I am going to come back and talk in
     a little bit more detail about some of the things that I have been
     specifically working on.
         Today Boby Eid is going to talk about dose modeling and Norm
     Eisenberg is also going to address some issues associated with dose
     modeling.
         To remind everybody, the purpose of the SRP was to
     evaluate -- or to enable the Staff to evaluate information submitted by
     licensees in a timely, efficient, cost-effective manner to make sure
     that all of the regulations are met.  The way we are setting the SRP up,
     it provides a description of the contents of each module in the
     decommissioning plan and then lays out acceptance and evaluation
     criteria, and as I say here on the slide, we will be using this SRP to
     evaluate decommissioning plans and other information submitted to
     support the license termination under the Licence Termination Rule.
         We have established several milestones in the SRP
     Development Plan that we shared with the ACNW way back when -- back in I
     guess it was late '98 or early '99.  We did establish the SRP Work
     Groups in September.  We developed the default tables -- actually Boby
     and the Dose Modeling Group developed the default tables for surfaces to
     replace the numbers in Reg Guide 1.86.  That was published in November
     of '98.  We finished our identification of the technical and policy
     issues requiring resolution in the SRP and briefed the ACNW at that time
     back in December.
         In June of this year we completed the development of most of
     the SRP modules.  I think in June we had all but about five of them out
     and on the Web.  We have a webside which there is a slide on that in a
     little bit.
         In July and August we completed developing the remaining --
     of the 16 modules we had all but the dose modeling module out and the
     dose modeling module has been separated into four submodules, of which
     two of them are completed and should be on the Web shortly and the final
     two, which get into the site-specific modeling for restricted and
     unrestricted use situations will be forthcoming and Boby will talk a
     little bit about that.
         Right now we are still shooting to -- I have one more module
     to complete, which I had hoped to have for you all today.  Unfortunately
     I did not get that done in time, what I call the "how to use" module.
     It lays out some of the things that I will talk about in my discussion
     tomorrow, but it gives sort of an overview of how to use the SRP and how
     we are incorporating our streamlined licensing action approach into the
     SRP.
         As far as the rest of the milestones here, the comment
     period for DG-4006 officially closed last month.  However, at the
     workshop that we held in August, Steve McGuire indicated that NRC would
     be receptive to taking comments for a few more months if people could
     get them in to us.  Some of the citizen groups that attended the last
     workshop asked for a couple of more months and Steve said yes.
         We are still intending to have the final Standard Review
     Plan done to coincide with the final Reg Guide, and that will be July of
     2000, so we are still on track there.
         To remind everybody and to kind of put a little bit of a
     context for what I am going to talk about -- what Boby and Norm are
     going to talk about today and what I am going to talk about tomorrow,
     the Commission back in July of '98 sent us an SRM and in there they said
     do certain things.
         Well, the first one was publish draft guidance.  We did
     that.  Provide the Commission with a timeline for developing the
     Standard Review Plan -- we did that.  We are in the process of
     developing the user-friendly SRP.  My understanding is that Howard has
     provided you with copies of the Standard Review Plan and I will talk
     about how that really is user-friendly a little bit tomorrow.
         We have included ACNW in the review and comment on the SRP.
     Boby is going to address the next three bullets on how to use the
     probabilistic approach and review the potential conservatism in the D&D
     code and test the D&D code on a complex site.
         Tomorrow what I would like to do is talk a little bit about
     how we have maintained a dialogue with the public during the comment
     period, how we are ensuring that the SRP incorporates the risk informed
     iterative approach in NUREG-1549, and discuss how the SRP is going to
     provide clear guidance on complying with ALARA.
         Having said all that, what I would like to do now is turn it
     over to Boby for a detailed discussion of some of the dose modeling
     issues, and then follow it up by Norm Eisenberg with some issues that
     has been working on.
         Unless you all have any questions now for me at this time?
         DR. GARRICK:  I failed to note that Ray Wymer will lead the
     discussion for the committee on this particular session.
         MR. LARSON:  What you are saying, though, Nick, is that all
     the viewgraphs from maintaining a dialogue, stakeholder input on, you
     will discuss tomorrow.
         MR. ORLANDO:  Yes, sir.
         MR. LARSON:  Okay.
         MR. ORLANDO:  Yeah, I gave you the whole package today as
     opposed to trying to give you two of them.
         DR. WYMER:  Other questions, John or George?
         DR. GARRICK:  No.
         DR. WYMER:  Why don't we then just proceed.
         MR. ORLANDO:  Thank you very much.
         MR. EID:  Before I start, I would like to mention that the
     work on the dose modeling module for the SRP is a collective effort of
     NMSS staff, Research staff, as well as work of contractors.  I would
     like to give credit for all of the staff from both offices and also for
     contractors.  There are lots of people participating in this activity I
     cannot mention by names, maybe you recognize those.  The title of the
     presentation I would like to give you today is about the Standard Review
     Plan and specifically about the activities and status of the dose
     modeling module.
         The presentation outline will include the status of the dose
     module.  Specifically, I will provide an outline of the dose modeling
     module and the appendices and outline of some of the completed
     activities.  Also, I will provide dose modeling SRP activities and those
     are under development.  They will lead to path forward in completion of
     the SRP.  Specifically, I will address the assessment of conservatism in
     DandD screen model and code.  This is an issue that was raised
     previously, and the development of new codes and associated reviews of
     these models and codes, evaluation of approaches and selection of
     parameters in dose modeling.  Then I will provide you an overview of the
     codes and models use and integration, about what these models can be
     used for, and how they will be integrated.  Then I will talk about the
     schedule for completion of the SRP dose module and the summary and
     conclusion.
         First of all, the outline of the SRP dose module, it will
     appear as within the SRP at large as a chapter, and under this chapter
     there will be sub-module, there will be sub-modules.  Those, they will
     include five sub-modules.  The first is dose modeling evaluation as
     generic dose modeling.  Then unrestricted release using screening
     criteria, unrestricted release using site-specific information,
     restricted release conditions, and release under alternative criteria.
     And those are consistent with the current decommissioning rule.
         Now, the technical details about the criteria for dose
     modeling, they will be included, what we call TBD, technical basic
     documents, they will be included as appendices in the SRP.  And dose
     will cover the criteria for conducting screening, when you conduct
     screening, what kind of screening analysis you do, and then the criteria
     for source term abstraction, how you try to examine your source term to
     be whether consistent with the model or not.  Then the criteria for
     modifying pathways, under what conditions you could eliminate pathways.
     Criteria for establishing conceptual models, how you establish
     conceptual models for your side, concerning the critical group receptor
     and concerning the source term that you have at the site.  And then the
     criteria for selecting dose modeling codes, and also provide generic
     description of those codes, the most common codes, specifically DandD,
     RESRAD, RESRAD-BUILD and SEDSS.
         Also, we will address the criteria for modifying parameters,
     how you change the parameters, then the criteria for treating
     uncertainty in dose modeling.
         Also, the dose modeling group, they were quite active in
     developing interim guidelines for dose modeling and dose modeling of
     test cases, as well as requested by the Commission.  So we developed the
     preliminary guideline for evaluating dose assessment in support of
     decommissioning.
         Also, we evaluated dose modeling for two test cases of
     onsite burials under the old 20.304, and we evaluated dose using RESRAD
     and DandD codes.
         In addition, we completed the evaluation of eight simple
     decommissioning cases using DandD with modification and doing some kind
     of changes to the source term and the input parameters.
         The staff also developed screening default tables.  As Nick
     mentioned, the first one it was for building surface contamination for
     beta and gamma emitters, then the screening tables of common
     radionuclides for superficial soil and based on specific radionuclide
     parameter values rather than on the collective or the whole default
     values for all radionuclides.
         Also, we are developing a screening table for alpha emitters
     for surface contamination, which is building surface contamination, and
     the technical work has been nearly completed.  We may need some peer
     review and we are intending to finalize it.  We intend for the
     superficial soil screening tables to develop an FRN by September, by the
     end of this month -- that is an optimistic schedule -- and also to
     develop the alpha surface contamination by October 30th.
         Regarding the write-up of the dose module, we decided to go
     ahead, to proceed with writing the structure of the dose module, which
     is included in the dose modeling evaluation, this is in Section 5.0; the
     unrestricted release using screening criteria Section 5.1; unrestricted
     release using site-specific information, Section 5.2; restricted release
     Section 5.3; and the alternative criteria.  And those, as you can see,
     they are consistent with the original sub-models that Nick told about.
         Also, the staff was quite active in coordinating with
     industry based on recommendation of our management and the Commission.
     We coordinated and participated in four public workshops to discuss
     specifically dose-modeling issues.  Those workshops, they were useful,
     we received lots of feedback.  We received information from the licensee
     for their sites.
         Also, coordinated with Research to establish website to
     address and respond to users' dose modeling issues.  There were some
     issues that were raised through the Internet and we tried to respond to
     those issues as much as we can.
         Then, also, we gave presentations at EPRI and NEI workshops
     and the Health Physics Society professional meeting.  Indeed, there was
     a special session about decommissioning and the dose modeling at the HPS
     latest meeting.
         Also, a paper is being planned to be delivered at the
     International Atomic Energy Agency professional meeting.
         The other activities that are under completion or we are
     developing include comparison of DandD Version 1.0.  We did compare
     Version 1.0 as the code is now, without any changes, against RESRAD and
     RESRAD-BUILD, and there is a NUREG being prepared by the contractor.
         Also, we conducted assessment of specific critical
     parameters, specifically, resuspension factors, soil to plant transfer
     factors and other factors, but the resuspension factor is one of the
     famous factors that was controversial and we spent lots of time on that.
         We conducted assessment of source term abstraction using
     DandD code, using test cases and using the interim guidance so we
     addressed the issue of source term abstraction.  If you have a source
     term at your site and it is different than the source term of the model,
     what kind of minor modification you could change considering the
     scenario.
         Also, assessment of DandD, Version 1.0, single default
     parameter set for all radionuclides, we looked into that issue.  And
     currently, as you know, the DandD, Version 1, it has a generic default
     value for all radionuclides, one set of default values, and a question
     whether this could be varied or not over conservative or not, where
     there is that issue.
         Then development of DandD, Version 2.0.  Based on the
     comments that we received from the previous bullet about the selection
     of the solution vector for to select single default parameters set for
     all radionuclides, the suggest was to develop DandD, Version 2.0, it
     will deal better with the uncertainties and the probabilistic approach
     for selection of parameters.
         Then we are currently working on the possibility to develop
     refined screening approach and this is if indeed Version 2.0 allows the
     selection of pathways, clearly, so one approach is to see if we can
     eliminate certain pathways for certain cases and develop what we call
     the refined screening approach based on elimination of pathways.
         Also, we will also work on to determine with alternate codes
     or models could be used for screening.  We are developed RESRAD and
     RESRAD-BUILD probabilistic, and one of the issues was we have DandD, it
     is probabilistic, the staff adopted the probabilistic approach, which I
     will be discussing.  And, therefore, the question is, if we have
     probabilistic codes like those and they are acceptable in their models,
     can we use them as alternative codes for screening?  It, again, is a big
     issue.  I will be addressing and talking to you, maybe also you will ask
     questions, so I will answer those during the questions.
         Other areas of development, development of -- those are
     codes that were developed in cooperation with the Research staff and
     NMSS staff, and the contractors, and they are currently under
     development.  Research has the lead in terms of project management for
     development of those codes.  We have development of RESRAD, RESRAD-BUILD
     probabilistic codes currently going on, development of DandD Version 2.0
     probabilistic code, which I just mentioned, development of Sandia system
     for environmental analysis, it is called SEDSS (SNL), it is under
     development.  And also there is other project which is carried out by
     PNNL regarding development of probabilistic hydrologic parameters.
         Again, the Research staff will present on September 15th at
     the ACNW, tomorrow, talking about the status and summary of these codes
     and models development.
         In addition, we conducted technical experts workshop and
     solicited licensees and interest groups' inputs, plus very heated
     discussion among the group itself.  And, finally, we endorsed the
     probabilistic approach for selection of codes and parameters and for
     treating those uncertainties.  The staff supported dose modeling group.
     Staff supported the selection of the mean dose value for site-specific
     analysis.  We spent lots of time wrestling with this issue.  And then,
     finally, for site-specific analysis, the staff supported selecting the
     mean dose.
         The staff would accept a deterministic approach for
     parameter selection, however, some licensees, they may do deterministic
     approach in dose analysis, and then we may accept the deterministic
     approach for parameter selection and dose modeling using conservative
     bounding analysis and sufficient characterization of data of the
     site-specific conditions.
         Now, I will give you an idea about the codes and the models
     they are developed or currently we are having, and where they can be
     used, what possibly can be used for the decommissioning sites.  That is
     what the staff believe in, at least from NMSS point of view, what we
     believe that those codes they can be used.
         First, I will talk about DandD code, Version 1.0, the
     current version without any modifications.  The current version has been
     used for generation of beta/gamma emitters for building surface
     contamination release levels.  So we did use it for a generation of
     building surface release levels for beta and gamma.  And we have FRN and
     the public actually they are using it.  Also, it has been used for
     simple decommissioning cases for screening analysis, however, there were
     some changes or minor modification to the source term and the parameter
     modification.  So it has been used for these simple cases.
         DandD model, now the model itself, using each radionuclide,
     not Version 1.0, but the model itself it was used, considering each
     radionuclide specific parameter, it is currently being used to generate
     default tables for superficial soil.
         DandD code, Version 1.0, with the code reconstruction of the
     PDF for resuspension factor, which I mentioned we are working on right
     now, we are about to complete.  That will be used to generate default
     tables for alpha emitters or building surface contamination release
     levels.  As you know, the alpha emitter surface contamination release
     levels are quite conservative right now and the question is, what can we
     do about, you know, the conservatism resuspension was the most sensitive
     factor.  We did reevaluation of the resupsension factor, and based on
     that, we think we could establish new default tables for building
     surface contamination of alpha emitters.
         The current approach in DandD, Version 1. 0, for selection
     of a single default parameter set for all radionuclides produces dose
     anomalies, and this issue also was raised by the licensees and by the
     users in the workshops.  We have analyzed the situation.  We tried to
     find where are the problems, and because of the selection, current
     selection of the default parameters, and we have an answer to that.
         Use of DandD, Version 1.0, be believe that it could be used
     in site-specific analysis.  It will be very limited, however, it could
     be used for screening analysis.
         Now, there is a Version 2.0, it is being developed, also
     along with SEDSS, actually, development, so it may also include some
     kind of probabilistic analysis using DandD model.  For DandD Version
     2.0, it will allow probabilistic modification of input parameters.
     Currently, they are a single set of default parameters and you cannot
     change it in a probabilistic fashion.  It will reduce excessive
     conservatism inherent in DandD version 1.0, because of the solution
     vector currently that I talked about.  It will modify certain default
     critical parameters.  Based on the dose modeling group discussion
     interaction with the contractor, we found that there are certain
     parameters, they are conservative, and they could be changed.
         It will enable smooth transition from screening to
     site-specific analysis because it is probabilistic.  It may allow
     selection or deletion of specific pathways.  We were told that, where
     pathways, they can be eliminated or modified using the newer version,
     2.0.  Also the version, however it will be limited due to the DandD
     model assumptions.  So the model assumptions, they are sufficiently
     conservative, or highly conservative, and the model is very simple.
     However, still, we are, you know, stuck with this model.
         Then it is expected to be used for screening and simple
     cases of site-specific analysis.
         As I said, we are developing, through other contractors and
     through Research for the RESRAD probabilistic NRC code version, because
     it is a specific version for NRC's use, and it would allow probabilistic
     analysis using RESRAD model.  Also, it will establish the distribution
     of parameters and facilitate review of level of conservatism of
     licensees' dose analysis.  When they licensees, they insist on using
     RESRAD on something, their dose analysis would be in a better position
     using RESRAD probabilistic to evaluate and assess what kind of
     selection, what kind of conservatism in the selection of the parameters
     and the conceptual model that it was used.
         Also, it will reduce unnecessary conservatism in DandD model
     because of flexibility.  You could change the source term.  The source
     term in DandD assumes that the contamination in the top 15 centimeter of
     the soil, whereas, RESRAD, it will have more flexibility because you
     could have different thicknesses, and also it will treat in different
     way the source term configuration, treatment of the cover, and the
     treatment of the unsaturated and the saturated zones.
         It is more suitable than DandD for complex modeling because
     simply, as I said, it deals differently in treating those kind of
     compartments.  It has a large existing user base.  It is one of the
     important things, many, many licensees, they are using RESRAD and they
     are telling us we won't use RESRAD.  That is another reason.  It has
     been extensively tested and benchmarked.
         RESRAD probabilistic NRC code version also is developed to
     allow probabilistic analysis using RESRAD-BUILD model.  RESRAD-BUILD
     model is a dynamic model to calculate to airborne concentrations,
     whereas the current model in DandD is a static, simple model.  The code
     allows for air inflow and source-term, allows for dilution of the
     radioactivity and the airborne contamination.  It uses resuspension rate
     rather than resuspension factor.  Resuspension factor is the ratio of
     concentration between the air and on the surface, whereas suspension
     rate actually deals with the rate that the material will be deposited,
     which is the fraction of the method that will be deposited on the
     surface.
         It is useful for site-specific and complex modeling of
     surface contamination.
         Other models and codes which we call it actually a system is
     called Sandia Environmental Decision Support System, SEDSS, is being
     developed that is actually a system of group of models and codes that
     are incorporated in this kind of code.  It is a system to incorporate
     screening and site-specific dose modeling analysis using decommissioning
     decision framework and 1549.  It is useful for making timely and
     cost-effective decisions regarding characterization, dose analysis,
     remedial actions, and license termination.
         It facilitates transition from screening to more complex
     dose analyses.  It is useful for sites requiring advanced, sometimes
     multidimensional groundwater modeling and offsite release situations,
     whereas the current models whether they are RESRAD or DandD, they handle
     onsite analysis, not offsite releases.
         The system needs to be user friendly.  That is what we are
     hoping, and also it needs to do more testing and evaluation to ensure
     that it will accommodate its use for decommissioning sites.
         Finally, I would like to talk about the schedule for
     completion of the SRP dose module.  We intend to complete the dose
     modeling section, all the sections, without the technical basis
     documents by November, by end of November, 1999, this year.  Also I
     intend to complete the technical basis documents by June 14th, by the
     middle of June, the year 2000, and now the specific date for completion
     of the technical basis documents -- that is important because in case
     you would like to look at the potential review by the ACNW to appreciate
     that is there, so we have in May for the operating criteria for
     conducting the screening, the criteria for source term abstraction -- it
     is in January, or middle of January, criteria for modification of
     pathways, hopefully by end of December, by the end of this year,
     criteria for establishing conceptual models, hopefully by November, the
     criteria for selecting computer codes -- this will be by mid-June,
     criteria for modifying parameters by middle of May, criteria for
     treating uncertainty by the beginning of March, and the completion of
     the overall SRP dose module by end of July, 2000.
         In summary, the Staff working on the dose modeling from both
     NMSS and Research made significant progress on analysis and resolution
     of dose modeling issues.
         The Staff conducted model comparison and assessment of
     conservatism in parameter selection and current dose modeling
     approaches.
         Also the Staff developed default tables and interim guidance
     to facilitate release of simple decommissioning sites.
         The Staff conducted dose modeling for test cases an simple
     decommissioning cases for evaluation modeling approaches.
         The Staff coordinated with stakeholders to exchanges ideas
     and experience in dose modeling through the workshops and through the
     Internet.
         The Staff is developing probabilistic codes and parameters
     in support of the risk-informed based approach.
         Also, the work on the dose module is proceeding according to
     the current task plan in spite of some difficulties -- some senior Staff
     left -- but we coped with all of these conditions and still we are on
     target to complete the dose module by July 31st, 2000.  Thank you.
         DR. WYMER:  Thank you.  I have several questions.
         I want to break it into two parts, so first let me ask what
     we talked about privately, what part of this do you want us to give you
     advise on?
         MR. EID:  I believe that there are certain issues that we
     struggled with I think it will be good for the ACNW to look at.  Some of
     those issues are for example the generic approach for screening, then in
     the probability analysis to select the mean value versus the 90th
     percentile, and in the screening analysis for the site-specific analysis
     we have achieved resolution on that but for screening analysis we said
     the Commission will look into the problem further, the possibility for
     using other models and codes.
         Also, I would like you to review all of -- if it is
     possible, depending on your time -- if you would take a look at the
     documents for dose here -- for the technical basis documents wherever it
     is possible, just -- you do not need to review everything, but to tell
     us about your ideas about it would be good.
         We would like to receive some kind of direction, so that is
     another area, but we know that your time does not allow it because you
     don't need to go back and then review all these models and codes and so
     on to come to some kind of conclusion to understand that.
         However, you know, taking a quick look at some of those
     things that they could be finished early also it could help the Staff.
         MR. McCONNELL:  Dr. Wymer?
         DR. WYMER:  Yes.
         MR. McCONNELL:  Keith McConnell.  I am with the NRC Staff.
     I think that it is our expectation that after the first of the year,
     once we are further along in some of these technical basis documents and
     have completed all the modules that we would come back to the committee
     and present that information in more detailed fashion, and that might
     assist your review.
         DR. WYMER:  I'm sure it would.
         MR. McCONNELL:  And also I think in past letters the
     committee has expressed concerns in a couple of areas, particularly I
     think conservatism in the dose modeling analysis, and I think we
     probably in those meetings that we have next year ought to assess your
     belief on how far we have come to addressing your concerns.
         DR. WYMER:  Okay.  Fine.
         MR. ORLANDO:  Dr. Wymer, this is Nick Orlando.  To back up
     what Keith said, one of the things I am going to request tomorrow, just
     as far as ACNW assistance, review of any of the other SRP modules that
     are out there would be welcome, and if the ACNW wants, we can arrange to
     come back in and talk about all of them or some of them at your request,
     so we can work next year to set that up and to have those kinds of
     briefings for you in detail.
         DR. WYMER:  Yes, that would probably be helpful.
         Let me ask now, John or George, do you have any comments?
         DR. GARRICK:  I think we have had some discussion on this
     before, but I guess ideally what you would like to have is a code that
     you could peel off layers of, depending upon the complexity of the
     problem you are analyzing.
         Is SEDSS moving in the direction of orchestrating the
     algorithms of DandD and RESRAD to provide that kind of modeling
     capability?
         MR. EID:  I believe maybe Bill Ott would like to talk about
     it or to comment on that.
         MR. OTT:  I am Bill Ott from the Office of Research.
         We will talk about this a little more tomorrow, but our
     vision of SEDSS is being able to handle all of these things, however
     SEDSS is going to be much more complicated code, so in the final
     analysis if somebody wants to do a screening calculation and they don't
     have a lot of expertise, they may want to try and run DandD because it
     will be much more simple to use.
         We anticipate having a toolbox of progressively more complex
     tools that anybody can dip into at the appropriate level and solve their
     problem.
         DR. WYMER:  George?
         DR. HORNBERGER:  I just have a couple of questions related
     to this issue of conservatism.
         When you were talking about DandD on one of your slides you
     say that DandD has excessive conservatism and actually you then said
     "but you are stuck with this model."
         How do you determine that it is excessive conservatism?
     What is your criterion?  What is your metric?
         MR. EID:  Well, I would call it highly conservative now.
     Conservatism depends how you define it.  Comparing to other codes
     currently that are used and accepted by the community, DOE, EPA and
     others, the numbers that you generate from DandD, they are very high.
     Now the conservatism -- you go back and take a look and see where is the
     problem, why is it indeed is conservative or is it just simply the
     assumptions.
         In the dose module analysis for screening we start with the
     conservative scenario.  That is the starting point.  In this assumption
     we assume that the individual living on the site is eating the crops,
     ingesting the food, having a fish farm, having a chicken farm, having
     dairy products, having corn, having wheat -- growing everything on that
     farm.  That is to start from, from the scenario.
         That is fair for the modeler because you cannot move forward
     without having this assumption.  You need to have this assumption for
     the scenario in order to move forward.
         This is in the latest documents we have.  Unfortunately we
     cannot change it.  This is the assumption of the scenario.
         Now when you move forward a little bit, you could go and
     say, okay, you have input parameters.  You will need to develop
     parameters for that model -- how these parameters were developed for
     that model, what kind of selection of parameters.
         The analysis was extensive the way the parameters were
     selected.  However, when it comes to the selection of single default
     sets for all radionuclides, so we are becoming now much more
     conservative.  In the beginning in the screening analysis we said, okay,
     the 90th percentile for selection of the four parameters.
         In the current code for many radionuclides you are not at
     the 90th percentile.  You are at the 99th percentile or it could be
     higher.  Therefore, if you look at the numbers for the screening
     analysis, using the single default sets for one single radionuclide and
     then go and run the code for the same radionuclide and look at the
     numbers, you will find those numbers currently by the current code you
     are about a factor of 10 higher than the codes using the same model,
     using the four parameters for that specific radionuclide.
         DR. HORNBERGER:  My impression was that DandD was a
     screening code, however, and am I to take it that you think that proper
     use of the screening code should give the same numbers as use of a code
     that is designed more to simulate a site-specific case?
         MR. EID:  No, I am really talking about selection currently
     of the solution vector and DandD Version 1.0.  That is what I am talking
     about.
         The way the solution vector to establish default parameters
     SIDS, single default parameter SIDS for all radionuclides produces very
     highly conservative values.
         DR. HORNBERGER:  But I guess my point --
         MR. EID:  If you run -- no, you do not have --
         DR. HORNBERGER:  Is this bad for a screening code?  That is
     what my question is.
         MR. EID:  Yes.
         DR. HORNBERGER:  It is?
         MR. EID:  Yes.  I believe it is overly conservative.  Yes.
         DR. HORNBERGER:  So the numbers are too high?  That is what
     you are saying?
         MR. EID:  The numbers, they are too high -- because when you
     go back and look at it, the default table generated for each specific
     radionuclide, you will find that there is an order of magnitude of
     one -- of ten excessive conservatism currently in the current code.
         DR. HORNBERGER:  So what you are saying is that way too many
     sites would fail to pass the screening test -- sites that should pass
     the screening test will not?  That is what you are saying?  That is your
     definition of what makes it so --
         MR. EID:  What I am saying is that there is most likely this
     will cause more burden on the users to have this as a starting point,
     which we know it is overly conservative.
         MR. McCONNELL:  Dr. Hornberger, if we could help out a
     little bit here.  I think the example perhaps might be the resuspension
     factor where the original resuspension factor, we found it in doses that
     were or concentrations that were down at detection levels, and through
     our work with the industry we found out that perhaps the resuspension
     factor originally used was too conservative based on data that exists in
     the industry and so we are now modifying that resuspension factor and
     coming out with a different table -- and I will turn it over to Cheryl.
         MS. TROTTIER:  I just want to try to avoid you wasting a lot
     of time on something that may not be a major issue.
         What Boby hasn't mentioned is that Version 2 will solve a
     lot of these problems and that is why we are going ahead with Version 2.
     The beta test version of Version 2 will be available this fall, so we
     anticipate by springtime our licensees and licensing staff will have
     Version 2 available.
         It is still a screening model.  It is still not intended to
     give you the same kind of doses that you might get from a model that
     uses site-specific data, but it will eliminate some of this excessive
     conservatism that the Staff has been concerned about.
         MR. EISENBERG:  Could I just add one thing?  To add a little
     numerical flavor.  We all understand that these models and codes have a
     lot of uncertainty, the databases have a lot of uncertainty, and so we
     are not talking about one percent or two percent of the value.  We are
     talking about one or two orders of magnitude.
         I think that is what Boby means when he says that it is
     excessively conservative.  It is well above the noise level and
     something that should be addressed.
         DR. HORNBERGER:  But you still -- you told me that you are
     solving a problem and I am trying to understand what the problem is,
     okay?  Now, Norm, what you just said is that the calculation is one or
     two orders of magnitude higher than what?  Higher than reality?  Higher
     than what you would get if you went out and did some measurements?  Or
     higher than produced by RESRAD?
         MR. EISENBERG:  All of the above.
         DR. HORNBERGER:  All of the above. Okay.  Where do you want
     a screening code to be?  Do you want it to be roughly equivalent to what
     you would get for RESRAD?  Is that your objective for a screening code?
         MR. EISENBERG:  I think that might be an ideal situation.
     What we are talking about is that if you run DandD, and then you run
     RESRAD with the same parameters, you will get a sizeable difference in
     many cases or in some cases.
         DR. HORNBERGER:  Is DandD always higher?
         MR. EISENBERG:  DandD is not always higher --
         DR. HORNBERGER:  I doubt that --
         MR. EISENBERG:  In some situations it certainly is, and you
     have to remember, and I will speak to this in a few minutes under my
     issues, but even though intuitively one would expect a screening code to
     have additional conservatism above and beyond what you would expect for
     a site-specific case, remember this is a risk-informed or probabilistic
     analysis where we have taken into account the distribution of parameters
     and since we have taken it into account, should it really be more
     conservative because the bottom line is it is a dose estimate.  We are
     obtaining a dose estimate by which people will make a decision.
         The licensee will decide to either submit their plan for
     termination based on no additional work or they will decide to spend
     additional money to do site characterization or cleanup, whereas the
     Staff will decide to release the site or not based on these dose
     calculations, so it is a dose calculation.
         The question is what is the appropriate level of
     conservatism for a dose calculation, especially in a probabilistic
     context.
         MR. EID:  I would like to say that we are not taking RESRAD
     as a target for us for screening.  I hope this is understood.
         DR. HORNBERGER:  Yes.
         MR. EID:  We are trying to have reasonable codes that they
     deal with screening analysis but reasonably conservative.  Now I am
     saying, currently for the code it has the four parameters SIDs for all
     radionuclides.  This approach is not a good approach.  That is what I am
     saying.
         If we analyze the values using the same code, the same
     model -- we are not changing the model here in this case -- I will give
     you two examples, the Strontium-90 and Cesium-137.
         If you take the single default sets for the specific
     radionuclide which is the most appropriate for that radionuclide, so the
     numbers would be different by one order of magnitude for both cesium and
     strontium.  The code is forcing selection of certain sensitive
     parameters currently in order to get very high dose above the 90th
     percentile, and Cheryl indicated that and she said this would be
     corrected in Version 2.0, so we will have a correction for that.  That
     is an example, okay?
         Now you say shall we use Version 1 or Version 2.0?
         DR. HORNBERGER:  No, that is not what I am asking.  That
     isn't what I am asking and I understand what you are saying.
         What I am asking is what leads you to have to go to Version
     2 -- and so you get a calculated dose that is an order of magnitude
     higher.  When we had the first presentation on DandD, my question was,
     okay, how many sites if you applied DandD are going to pass the
     screening, because that is the issue.  If you are being really
     conservative, and you are still -- this is supposed to be an easy tool.
     You apply it.  You are overly conservative.  You come in and say we
     don't exceed the dose limit.  It is a dose calculation.
         We can quibble, I don't think it is probabilistic, but a
     dose calculation -- if you are going to release, if you are going to
     allow safe sites to be released with an easy calculation, what is wrong
     with that?  Isn't that what a screening model is supposed to do?
         MR. McCONNELL:  Dr. Hornberger, I don't think we disagree.
     I think we agree that in essence a screening model needs to be
     conservative, but you could make it so conservative that nothing would
     be screened out.
         DR. HORNBERGER:  That's what I asked.
         MR. McCONNELL:  And that is what we are trying to do here --
         DR. HORNBERGER:  If no sites pass, that I understand.  You
     have to go to Version 2.
         MR. McCONNELL:  Right, and case -- in the examples that Boby
     has giving, strontium and cesium, and also with respect to the alpha
     emitters, we were in a position that in essence no sites with that
     contamination would pass the screen, and so we are trying to come up
     with kind of reasonable approaches to those problems, but in essence we
     agree with what you are saying.
         DR. HORNBERGER:  Okay.
         MR. EID:  And that is the source of complaints we received
     from the workshops from the licensees.  What is wrong with your numbers?
     You are off completely.  I made simple calculations and you are off
     completely.
         Another example is the resuspension factor.  Currently we
     have values.  They are much below the detection limits for the alpha
     emitters and we tried to investigate and discuss what is problem, the
     most sensitive part of the suspension factor that currently we are
     dealing with.
         DR. GARRICK:  Would you have done anything differently if
     you hadn't received a rather, as I understand it, strong reaction
     relative to the desire in a lot of users to continue using RESRAD?
         I got this sense the last time around that DandD was the
     tool and that RESRAD came back into the fold principally because of
     pressure from the users.  Is that incorrect?
         MR. EID:  I would say, you know, have a large base for the
     users is one of the reasons for the developing the code to help us in
     our review, but it was not really the reason or trying to say, well,
     developing RESRAD, the only reason.
         However, I would say, you know, that dealing with DandD, we
     realized from the beginning that there are some over-conservatisms in
     DandD, and we looked into the report submitted by SNL for the dose
     comparison using RESRAD and DandD and RESRAD-BUILD and we find some
     significant differences.
         We tried to see what are those differences, related to the
     model or related to the parameters.  The parameters were significant,
     yes, because the parameters are different we try to see if we can deal
     with the parameters, but currently the approach for dealing with the
     parameters is conservative.  It is highly conservative.
         Now when we try to put similar parameters, you reduce those
     kind of changes -- that kind of large differential between the codes.
     Now still there are some differences also in the models, so I would say
     yes, because we have in our model comparison we did recognize that there
     are some numbers that do not make much sense.
         DR. WYMER:  Maybe we ought to move on.  I suspect we have
     gotten as far as we are going to get on this point.
         Norm Eisenberg, I guess, is going to make the next
     presentation.
         MR. LARSON:  Ray, just one question.  I know Nick had said
     that you were going to address the use of DandD -- you know, the last
     item in the SRM, testing DandD in a complex decommissioning site, and
     use it as a pilot for developing the SRP --
         MR. EID:  Can you say that again?
         MR. LARSON:  Pardon?
         MR. EID:  Can you say that again, please?
         MR. LARSON:  Well, Nick's viewgraph, July 8th SRM, the last
     one was test the DandD code on a complex decommissioning site and use it
     as a pilot for developing the SRP, and he said you would address that.
         MR. EID:  It has been used for two test cases.  Mark, could
     you mention something about this, if you don't mind?
         MR. LARSON:  Complex site.
         MR. EID:  Excuse me?
         MR. LARSON:  Complex site.
         MR. EID:  Yes, it has been tested for two complex sites.  I
     don't know if I would call them complex but they are -- I don't know if
     they can be categorized as complex.
         MR. LARSON:  Mark?
         MR. THAGGARD:  Yes, the two test cases that Boby alluded to
     are not complex.  They are fairly simple sites, but we do have some work
     going on right now with Sandia is actually running the code on a very
     complex site, and that work hasn't been completed yet.
         It is due to be completed by the end of this calendar year,
     so we don't really have anything to report on that at this time.
         I am Mark Thaggard.
         DR. WYMER:  Norm, please.
         MR. EISENBERG:  Thank you, Boby.
         MR. EID:  Thank you.
         MR. EISENBERG:  If Dr. Hornberger took issue with what Boby
     said, he is going to love this.
         [Laughter.]
         MR. EISENBERG:  Okay.  I am Norman Eisenberg.  I work for
     the Division of Waste Management.  You have heard all this before this
     morning, so I am going to breeze through what the currently scheduled
     products are.  What I would like to do is talk about a set of issues
     that have come up in this dose modeling work.
         DR. GARRICK:  One thing I have noticed about this group is
     that each one of you have chosen a different corner in which to put the
     staple.
         [Laughter.]
         DR. GARRICK:  In your handouts.  I like yours the best, by
     the way.
         MR. EISENBERG:  Okay.  The Staff will try to respond to that
     input.
         MR. ORLANDO:  Is that a recommendation?
         DR. CAMPBELL:  Upper left.
         MR. EISENBERG:  Then I would like to talk about how these
     issues are planning to be resolved.  I will summarize the status and
     make some -- say what our recommendation is or what our conclusion is.
         This is rather large and complicated project.  As you know,
     we have the dose modeling chapter in the Standard Review Plan as one of
     the planned products.  We have the technical basis document, which will
     be an appendix to the Standard Review Plan but will contain a lot of the
     details about dose modeling.
         The finalized Regulatory Guides and NUREG reports that the
     Office of Research has responsibility for developing, we have already
     put out some default tables in the Federal Register for use by
     licensees.  There are planned to be more and of course we will have
     computer codes.
         Sorry, I have got to get my comments here.  There were two
     sources of issues.  I am sure the committee remembers that Dr.
     Paperiello had a session with you all, and one of the things he
     indicated was that there were a number of issues he had about
     decommissioning, especially about conservatism, that he wasn't sure
     whether the staff was as responsive as he would like.  We have discussed
     that extensively with him.
         He has seen a slightly different version of this same
     presentation that I am giving you, and he agreed that these are his
     issues, -- so the first set of issues you will see are Dr. Paperiello's
     issues -- that we correctly articulated them and that he also agreed
     that we should present them to you.
         Now, what we did is that we said how the staff is addressing
     these issues and how we are going about it.  And there were also in the
     staff discussions, which have been fairly extensive, as you can well
     imagine, a lot of other issues have come up that were not necessarily
     ones that Dr. Paperiello had but which are in a similar vein and are
     technical policy issues.  They are not really strictly technical issues.
     And so I have articulated some of those in this presentation also.
         So I think this is a nice presentation, discussion to kind
     of focus on some of these technical policy issues which should be
     fertile ground for the committee to perhaps get involved in.
         Now, to decide how to handle these, of course, we, as
     always, have limited resources, but there is a list of ways to handle
     them on this slide.  Some we will address directly in the Standard
     Review Plan.  And, in general, the issue, if it relates to screening,
     will not be necessarily addressed in the Standard Review Plan, but it
     will be addressed in the Standard Review Plan for site-specific
     analyses.  So that is perhaps the most direct thing.
         In other cases, we have put a mechanism to fix things or to
     address the issue in place in our user need letter to Research.  Now,
     let me hastily add that the Office of Research, on their own initiative,
     is moving ahead to address those issues, many of those issues on their
     own initiative, but it is nice I guess that we give this kind of
     agreement in writing.  So there are some things that we have down in the
     user need letter.
         Now, some of the activities in the user need letter will not
     be reached on the same schedule as when the Standard Review Plan is due
     out.  Some of the computer code development will take a little longer.
     So this spreads over a bigger region of time.
         As the committee also is aware, there is a Risk Assessment
     Task Force which has been working on how to do risk-informed regulation
     in the materials world for NMSS.  You have been briefed on that.  This
     task force is just getting up and started, and eventually will operate
     on an office-wide basis to handle a number of technical issues and
     policies issues, as well as specific decisions on an office-wide basis.
     So, some of these issues, it sounds like they really have implications
     for all materials regulation and should be properly addressed in that
     context.  So we are deferring some of these issues to them.  That group
     may be able to address them and may not, but it is kind of out of our
     hands in decommissioning.  We certainly would encourage them to address
     those issues.
         And then there is other things that, in order to address
     thoroughly and completely, you really need to go back and address some
     of the legacy documents.  Earlier, the earlier chapters of NUREG-5512,
     some of the items that were done for preparing for the rule, we are not
     currently planning to go back and address those.  So here you kind of
     have a sequence of ways that the staff is moving to address the issues
     which I will now go ahead and try to present to you.
         Okay.  So what are some of these issues?  Oh, and I have to
     say that the issues -- the way we are addressing them is in this column
     titled "BIN," that is the bin we are putting them in as to how we are
     addressing them.
         So one of the issues is, how do we eliminate exposure
     pathways when the site conditions or land-use patterns justify it?
     Well, for example, suppose your site overlies an aquifer which has got
     high solids content, dissolved solids or salty, which I guess is the
     same thing.  why wouldn't you turn off, say, drinking water and
     agricultural use of the water, and turn off those pathways, because
     people are not going to do it?
         Well, we will address it in both the Standard Review Plan,
     which would allow elimination of pathways with justification.  Of
     course, the licensees would have to justify and provide a basis for such
     a change, and the newer version of DandD, DandD-2, will have a rather
     easy, user-friendly way to turn off specific pathways.  So it is a
     two-pronged to address this issue.  So that is one example.
         A second issue is area factors, and especially how much food
     is obtained from a site that has a limited area.  If the area of a site
     is not large enough to produce the food that is indicated by the default
     assumptions in the code, that is, if it is only a few hundred square
     foot and it can't produce all the foodstuffs that are assumed in the
     code, and I think the code currently assumes 25 percent of the
     foodstuffs come from the contaminated site, then that assumption needs
     to be changed.  The percentage of foodstuffs from the contaminated site
     has to be lowered.  And this is something that we have asked in the user
     need letter, in fact, it specifies reducing the excess or unnecessary
     conservatism in the code, and this would be an example of that.
         DR. GARRICK:  Norm, let me ask something.
         MR. EISENBERG:  Yes.
         DR. GARRICK:  While we are on this business of eliminating
     pathways.  If a user or an applicant uses a bounding analysis to
     indicate that -- to justify that, for example, atmospheric pathways
     don't have to be considered, is that okay?  One of the things that is
     important in doing risk assessment work is to do analysis to require the
     scope of the risk assessment work, and if in that analysis you can, by
     simple bounding methods, demonstrate convincingly that a particular
     scenario cannot occur, then why waste a lot of time and effort trying to
     do a probabilistic analysis?  I never thought I would say that, but --
         MR. EISENBERG:  Well, good.
         DR. CAMPBELL:  You are on the record, John.
         MR. EISENBERG:  You are getting in with the Waste Management
     thinking.
         DR. GARRICK:  Right, right.  Yes.  So, does that option
     exist?  I mean you are not going to --
         MR. EISENBERG:  Well, I think what you are asking, and we
     have to always, when we talk about the modeling approaches, we have to
     remember that we think in terms of a sequence.
         DR. GARRICK:  Right.
         MR. EISENBERG:  And the first sequence is a screening
     analysis, and then there is a more detailed analysis.  And I think the
     staff would be very receptive to a licensee that, for example, ran the
     full -- all the pathways in the screening analysis, made a determination
     that, for example, the air dispersion pathway was negligible because in
     the nature of the radionuclides, or the nature of the source term, and
     then in the detailed site-specific analysis only treated groundwater
     contamination or direct radiation, or whatever other issue needed to be
     addressed.  I see no reason why the staff would have a problem with
     that.
         Now, I don't know if right now we have plans to specifically
     say that in the SRP, but it sounds like a good idea, that that is
     something we should say.
         DR. GARRICK:  Yes.  Yes.  Okay.  Thank you.
         MR. EISENBERG:  Okay.  So I think that is enough for area
     factors.  Another issue is the DandD code uses an infinite plane to
     approximate the dose from direct radiation.  Obviously, we are always
     dealing with a finite plane, so that is a case where we know the code is
     always conservative.  Now, you have to put a little footnote and say,
     well, you know, in some of these situations, if you are inside a
     building, you could get exposure from the walls and the ceiling if they
     happen to have contamination.  But it does seem to be a conservative
     approximation.  And, once again, that is something that would be
     addressed under the general category of removing unnecessary
     conservatisms in the DandD code.
         The next issue is the use of more realistic scenario and
     possibly do the dose calculation by factoring in probabilities of
     various scenarios.  Now, the whole approach to dose modeling for license
     termination has been in the mindset that you would use default bounding
     scenarios for the dose modeling, certainly on the screening basis, and
     so that we really couldn't do this without modifying the legacy
     documents.  However, for the Standard Review Plan, we certainly are
     going to say that if the land-use patterns or other factors that the
     licensee could substantiate would indicate that certain scenarios are
     eliminated, or that they can specify scenarios with a certain
     probability, we would certainly accept that kind of either elimination
     of scenarios, change of scenarios, or use of a more complete
     probabilistic analysis using the probabilities of the scenarios.  So
     that is why it is, again, a split response to that issue.
         You know one thing I probably should mention is the DandD
     code represents the models that are specified in NUREG-5512, and to
     change the models, we need to specify a rationale for the change and
     document the rationale somewhere.  We may not need to go all the way
     back to the legacy documents and change that, but we do -- I think we
     owe it to the whole public that we give our rationale for making these
     changes.  So some of this requires a little more work than might meet
     the first glance.
         The fish issue -- the fifth issue, it is a fish issue, is --
     Are the total amount of foods that are ingested reasonable?  And there
     is some indication that for some food types, whether they are vegetables
     or meats, some of the standard health physics assumptions would, if
     played out over a year, indicate that people are eating unreasonable
     quantities of particular kinds of foods, and, really, those assumptions
     need to be adjusted in the code.  Unless you are me, of course, who eats
     too much of everything, but that is --
         DR. GARRICK:  According to a recent study, our youth is
     eating too many french fries.
         MR. EISENBERG:  Okay.  So that is another issue and that
     would be addressed in the user need as taking care of unnecessary
     conservatisms.
         Okay.  Another issue is that, you know, we have for people
     exposed to naturally occurring radionuclides, or those from fallout, we
     have a lot of data.  There have been studies where cadavers have been
     autopsied and the actual uptake of these radionuclides by humans have
     been determined and shouldn't our dose modeling correspond to these
     essentially actual field experiments?
         And the problem appears to be with the exposure scenarios,
     that is, the resident farmer and the building occupancy scenarios are
     specified in various parts of 5512 and 1549, NUREG-1549, and so for
     screening, it is very hard to adjust these, so we really would need to
     go back and change the legacy documents.  It is clear that on average
     the exposures are not going to be as bad as for these scenarios that are
     specified in these documents, these assumptions.
         For site-specific, of course, that can be modified and the
     Standard Review Plan would allow changes in these scenarios and specify
     some criteria for the rationale that would need to be provided by the
     licensees.
         The next issue, the model would be validated and closer to
     measured results rather than conservative.  There is a note to this
     effect in the user need letter on addressing validation.
         Another issue is to make corrections for the resuspension
     factor and plant uptake.  Boby has already spoken about this and there
     are specific statements in the user need letter.  And there is
     continuing staff work on these two problems, and, as Boby mentioned, we
     have gotten quite a bit of help from workshop participants on those
     issues, especially the resuspension factor.
         Okay.  Three more.  We should a less conservative, more
     realistic groundwater model.  The model is specified in 5512.  It is
     very conservative, so we are not going to change it for screening, but
     for site-specific, we could employ a tool such as SEDSS and that is
     called for in the user need letter.
         The comparisons of the concentrations, the cleanup
     concentrations that we would have compared to other organizations and
     their cleanup concentrations, such as the EPA or the NCRP, once again,
     the problem stems back to the scenarios, and since they use different
     scenarios, they, of course, get different concentrations.  And so we
     would have to modify the legacy documents to get to that point.
         And then there is an issue which is somewhat controversial,
     which Dr. Paperiello likes to call "MARMOD," which is a multi-agency
     agreement on modeling for dose assessments.
         DR. GARRICK:  Yes.
         MR. EISENBERG:  Where all federal agencies, or the concerned
     federal agencies would agree on a single code for contaminant migration
     and dose demand, and that is also something that, again, would be
     inconsistent with what is currently specified and we would have to go
     back and perhaps modify some of the legacy documents.  So those are Dr.
     Paperiello's issues and our response to them.
         Now, I would like to talk about a few other technical policy
     issues, and these have come up in the context of the staff conducting
     this work on the Standard Review Plan.  First of all, should we use the
     mean for dose modeling decisions and consider perhaps a bound on a high
     percentile of the dose distribution, which is -- that distribution comes
     from considering parameter uncertainty?  We would have to modify the
     legacy documents for screening.
         Now, it sounds like Dr. Hornberger might have some problems
     with using the mean of the dose distribution for a screening decision,
     but maybe not.  But draft NUREG-1549 indicates that the choice of the
     default parameters should assure that the dose calculated for screening
     is very unlikely to be exceeded when you do a site-specific calculation.
     Now, I am not sure that that level of conservatism is needed for these
     kinds of decisions.
         Another problem is that margin, defense-in-depth,
     conservatism, et cetera, are all terms used to account for uncertainties
     in modeling, and these have been used for a long, long time in
     engineering and the physical sciences to make these decisions.  The
     question is, is as we move into a risk-informed environment, what role
     do these types of considerations have?
         And I don't know if you can see it, but I tried to draw a
     few pictures at the bottom of the page to try to illustrate the point.
     This also relates to the first point.  Suppose these are probability
     distributions of dose, and suppose we have a case where we have a dose
     limit.  Well, what is an acceptable relationship between the dose
     distribution and your dose limit?  I think everybody would agree that if
     your dose distribution is fully below the dose limit, it should be okay.
         Suppose it just bumps up against it.  Well, you know, for a
     lot of engineering systems, this is not okay.  You want actually some
     separation like there is here.  If you are building a bridge and you
     want to design it for 500 ton traffic, and you do your calculation and
     it is right at the limit, you generally say put in an order of magnitude
     -- not an order of magnitude, but a factor of two for safety, or some
     factor of safety, and you might want the bridge to be able to hold 10
     tons, not five tons.  So some people might have trouble with this one.
         Well, suppose a small fraction of the dose distribution
     falls over the limit.  Suppose 5 percent is over, so 95 percent is
     below.  Is that okay?  And then should we use the mean?  Suppose the
     mean of the distribution is at the limit, is that okay?  And I didn't
     draw, of course, the other example, which is suppose most of the
     distribution is above the limit.  I think a lot of people might have
     trouble with that one.
         But this is the kind of decision that needs to be made and
     there are a lot of things that go into this.  And I think one important
     thing that needs to be recognized is that if these distributions are
     based on uncertainty in parameters, you have not included all the
     uncertainties.  You have not included the uncertainties in the exposure
     scenarios.  You have not included the uncertainties in the models.  And
     if we know that both of those are conservative, not necessarily
     quantified to any degree, but we know that in general they are
     conservative, my feeling would be that we can move pretty far in this
     direction.  But this is a real issue I think for most of materials
     regulation.  Okay.
         DR. WYMER:  Well, Norm, all that says, though, that kind of
     plot, all it tells me is that there is a certain probability that the
     dose will exceed an acceptable limit.  It doesn't say how bad it will
     exceed it, how much.
         MR. EISENBERG:  Right.  Okay.  And let me say two things
     about that.  It doesn't say how the dose -- how likely it is that the
     dose will be exceeded.  What it says is, given your calculation and what
     you put into your calculation, what is the probability that the dose
     will be exceeded.  That doesn't necessarily correspond to what actually
     might happen.  That is the first thing.
         The other thing is that, if you look at Issue 1 under Other
     Issues, it says that in addition to limiting the mean of the
     distribution to be, say, below the dose limit, you would have a second
     limit.  This was done in the low level waste branch technical position.
     The mean had to be below 25 millirem.  The 95th percentile of the dose
     distribution had to be below 100 millirem.  So that kind of put a cap on
     the extreme values that you might get from this situation.  It would be
     a very low probability that you would get really high doses.  Of course,
     some of us would argue that is a very low probability that you would get
     very high doses from any of these situations unless some very strange
     things happened.
         Okay.  Which leads me into the third issue, which is, as the
     hazard and the likely consequences, that is sort of the mean dose,
     decrease, can the degree of assurance that the standard is met decrease?
     In other words, if we were talking the dose from a core melt and this
     limit was just below 500 rem, which is the LD 50 for direct exposure,
     and prompt fatality, you might want to make sure you are very far away
     from that.  But when this limit is 25 millirem, and when the likely
     consequences, or even the extreme consequences from these activities are
     lower, can we allow less certitude that we meet the limit?  This is a
     very interesting policy issue.
         Okay --
         DR. GARRICK:  Of course, one of the practices that makes
     sense is if your bounding analysis indicates that the margins are
     questionable, then you really need to go to a more complex model.  If
     you have to go to a more complex model, then why wouldn't you want to
     provide the curve to the decision-maker rather than monkey around with
     some central pendency parameter of the curve, because it is important --
     I think the low level waste people came close to doing it right --
         MR. EISENBERG:  Thank you.
         DR. GARRICK:  -- because they did establish some sort of a
     control on the distribution, whereas if you have got a situation where
     the distribution is -- the mean might be the same but in one case the
     distribution covers two orders of magnitude and the other case it covers
     ten, to me that is an entirely different piece of information with
     respect to decision-making.
         I think that has to be somehow accounted for.
         MR. EISENBERG:  Perhaps you bring up another issue, which is
     if we are going to do risk-informed regulation, can we communicate to
     the decision-makers within the agency and to our many publics -- the
     industry, the general public, other interested parties -- can we
     communicate a kind of a -- how should I put it -- some kind of reasoned
     approach to decision-making because that is after all what our
     regulations and our guidance states, or do we have to really put some
     limits that people can easily understand, that the 95th percentile will
     not be above a certain amount?  It is a question of how -- can we just
     say, well, we'll look at the distribution and we'll do the right thing?
     I am not sure that that is the spirit of what the agency is engaged in,
     that we really do need to tell the public how we are going to make these
     decisions.
         DR. GARRICK:  I agree.
         MR. EISENBERG:  So the question is how do we do that,
     especially when we are in this risk-informed context.
         DR. GARRICK:  Yes.
         MR. EISENBERG:  I think we agree.
         DR. GARRICK:  Yes.
         MR. EISENBERG:  Okay.  Two more issues.  It has been
     suggested that we establish a tier of analysis -- this relates to a
     previous issue -- a tier of analysis where you don't have to go in and
     modify, do a complete site-specific analysis or any type of
     site-specific analysis but if you have information which will modify the
     exposure pathways and you don't want to modify any of the other
     parameters you can go in, even though you know that if a site, for
     example, has some peculiarities or some conditions that would not allow
     certain pathways to be activated, it likely changes the parameters for
     other pathways.
         Given all that, should there be a tier of analysis that
     would allow changing the pathways but not changing any other parts of
     the analysis, and we are planning to do that in the Standard Review
     Plan.  Some of the earlier documents talk about screening analyses and
     site specific analyses and not kind of something that is in between
     which would allow a generic analysis in parameter space but a
     site-specific analysis in exposure pathway space.
         Finally, 1549 states a decision framework, and the decision
     framework -- I can show you a picture if you like -- but it is basically
     an approach where you do screening.  If you don't pass screening, then
     you have several options.  You can go to restrictive release.  You can
     go to remediation or you can do more site characterization, all of which
     options are, except restrictive release, but the other two would change
     your dose calculation.
         It also says, this statement I said before, that your
     screening calculation should provide a high degree of confidence that
     any site-specific analysis would provide a lower dose.  Well, what that
     does is it means that there is a real premium on doing a site-specific
     calculation.  That is one way to look at it, but another way to look at
     it is we are forcing some licensees to go ahead and do one of those
     alternatives when in fact a more realistic approach to dose modeling at
     the screening level would let them through and they could avoid that and
     they still would be not making a threat to public health and safety, so
     this bias towards more site characterization, that is not something that
     is within the NRC Staff's portfolio.
         Our job is to ensure public health and safety, not to be in
     the business of getting our licensees to do more site characterization.
     We always make decisions under uncertainty.  It is just a question of
     how much uncertainty.
         So those are the issues --
         DR. GARRICK:  We have a very tight schedule here, and are
     you going to be able to wrap it up in about five minutes now?
         MR. EISENBERG:  Yes.
         DR. GARRICK:  I realize that we are the problem as much as
     anything.
         MR. EISENBERG:  I'll breeze through it.
         The bottom line is most of these issues will be addressed in
     the Standard Review Plan or by research, by their own initiatives and
     also per the user need.  Some issues won't be addressed without a
     substantial increase in effort and time.
         We do not want to modify the legacy documents because we
     don't have the resources.  Although some of the site-specific analyses
     may be onerous for some licensees, it at least provides a path forward.
         We are not sure even if we do the fixes we are talking about
     how many licensees we are affecting and if it is a small number, the
     benefit to the total licensee base is not clear even though they all
     have to pay for it.
         Anecdotal data suggests that the screening approach will
     permit license termination at a substantial number of sites.
         So the Staff will reflect some of these policy decisions
     that were sort of indicated in the issues in the guidance and these are
     the forms of the guidance and the resolution of some issues will be
     deferred.
         DR. WYMER:  Thank you.  Is there one burning question?
         DR. GARRICK:  I heard a new term today -- "legacy
     documents."
         One of the impressions one might get here who is pushing for
     an accelerated effort in getting into a risk-informed mode of thinking
     here is that your decision to not change the legacy documents could be
     interpreted as a decision to not change anything and that all we are
     doing with a risk-informed approach is adding burden rather than
     reducing it, and that flies in the face of the PRA policy statement that
     says we ought to be reducing the burden.
         MR. EISENBERG:  I suppose there is a danger that that could
     be the impression, but in fact we are, I believe, fully embracing a
     risk-informed approach in our treatment of site-specific analyses and in
     other parts of the Standard Review Plan, and so it is a matter of
     practicality.  We could spend years refining the screening tool so that
     it would be perfect and we are not sure that the benefits would be
     warranted.  Of course the use of, possible use of other codes for
     screening, such as the RESRAD probabilistic may also provide another
     avenue that would help.
         I think some of these issues should be directed and in fact
     to anticipate a possible question, it would be good I think if the
     committee would comment on, one, whether these are the correct issues,
     and two, whether the Staff positions that we have taken are correct, and
     three, whether the pragmatic choices that we have made are feasible, and
     that gets to what Dr. Garrick was just asking -- you know, this may be a
     pragmatic decision but is it really going to get to where we need to go.
         DR. WYMER:  Other burning questions?
         DR. HORNBERGER:  Actually, I am just going to make a
     comment.  I won't even ask Norm a question, but I can't resist a
     comment.
         First of all, I certainly don't have any problem using a
     mean of a distribution in the screening analysis, but I guess what I
     often wonder about is how one goes about -- you said it just now --
     refining screening analyses to I think you used the words "a perfect
     screening tool."  I don't know what a perfect screening tool is, but
     just as an example of refining you mentioned that you wanted to look at
     the amount of food consumed, and I will just tell you a little anecdote.
         I was on a committee once at Oak Ridge and we were looking
     at an analysis like this for mercury ingestion.  They were looking at
     mercury from fish from the contaminated sediments in the streams there
     and the committee thought that it was really ridiculous.  They had the
     exposed individual eating something like three pounds of fish a week
     every week every year, and we said there is nobody that does that, but
     then of course we went to a public meeting and ran into a guy who -- not
     a very well-off person -- and he lived in a very modest shack right on
     the Clinch River and he ate one heck of a lot more fish than three
     pounds a week, according to him, and so we sort of changed our mind as
     to what was conservative and what wasn't.
         DR. WYMER:  And on that note, since we are going to spend
     tomorrow morning on the same general topic area and in light of our
     Chairman's statement that we need to cut this off, maybe we will wait
     until tomorrow to pursue some of the other questions.  I had a couple
     but they can wait.  Thanks.
         DR. GARRICK:  Thank you very much.  Unless there is further
     discussion, we'll adjourn for lunch.
         [Whereupon, at 12:35 p.m., the meeting was recessed, to
     reconvene at 1:20 p.m., this same day.].                   A F T E R N O O N   S E S S I O N
                                                      [1:19 p.m.]
         DR. GARRICK:  The meeting will come to order.  I guess Bill
     Reamer is going to lead off the discussion this afternoon.
         MR. REAMER:  With Keith McConnell.
         DR. GARRICK:  On operating plan overview for high level
     waste programs.
         MR. REAMER:  Do you have my package?  Do you have my slides?
         MR. LARSON:  No.
         [Pause.]
         DR. GARRICK:  This will be plenty of food in the next hour.
         MR. REAMER:  One is high level, the other is the low level
     waste branch technician position which you are interested in.  And I am
     on page 2, actually.
         I will talk a little bit about the FY '99 accomplishments,
     more from the sense of kind of picking up the thread of where we are in
     our activities.  I will also address kind of the context for our
     operating plan for FY 2000, meaning the goals and strategies from above
     that condition our planning.
         The third item is the high level program schedule that I
     will get to.  The fourth item, there are several slides, I will go over
     my FY 2000 priorities, but there are a couple of slides I have included
     that relate to the prioritizing process that we spent a good deal of
     time on in June with you.  And they are part of the package, but I don't
     intend to spend very much time on them unless you want to, but I am
     happy to spend however much time you want to.  And then I will close
     with what we see as the potential topics of interest for you.
         DR. GARRICK:  Okay.
         MR. REAMER:  So on three, if we pick up the thread in FY '99
     where we are working on our comments on the EPA standard, we have got
     our Part 63 out, proposed.  We have gotten our comments, we have held
     public meetings.  We are analyzing those comments, there are 700
     comments, it is a big job.  We have completed our comments on the
     viability assessment, given those to DOE.  More detailed comments we are
     giving to DOE in the Issue Resolution Status Reports, the last item on
     that slide.  Just above that, we have completed our 3.2 version of the
     TPA code, provided the user manual to DOE.
         We still intend to issue revisions of our Issue Resolution
     Status Report -- of each of the status reports this year with one
     exception, and performance assessment, we are going to defer that until
     later in the calendar year.
         DR. GARRICK:  Bill, in your public meetings, did you learn
     anything that might be important for us to have background on for our
     upcoming meeting out there?  Well, that is a very broad question.
         MR. OTT:  Yes.
         MR. REAMER:  You know, it is a process.  You don't just
     learn it all.  You kind of slowly kind of pick it up and understand that
     they are very concerned about the repository coming and they don't
     totally appropriate how NRC fits into the scenario.  And they really
     start from -- you have to kind of start from the beginning.  Of course,
     you have already had one meeting.
         DR. GARRICK:  Right.
         MR. REAMER:  But I have found that we -- we held meetings in
     March and went back in June, because many of the comments we heard in
     March were, who are you?  And what do you do?  And what is your role?
     And how are you going to help us?  And so in June we went back with very
     basic, like, you know, we are not the sponsor of this repository, but we
     are planning for the possibility of a license application that will site
     a repository right here.  You know, they are trying to lead people to
     understand how we could be doing all this work, at the same time not
     being kind of part of the DOE effort to site the repository at that
     location.
         DR. GARRICK:  I just wonder if there were any real hot
     buttons that came out that you think, if we knew about, we might be able
     to better prepare ourselves.
         MR. REAMER:  Keith, does anything occur to you?  You are now
     talking about specific comments that we heard?
         DR. GARRICK:  Yes.  Any issues or an aggregation of
     comments.
         MR. REAMER:  About Part 63.  Comments like, for example, how
     does the proposed 25 millirem all-pathway standard protect children?
     That is certainly a comment we heard a number of times.  What were some
     of the others?
         MR. McCONNELL:  Well, that was the one that I was going to
     recommend.  But I also I think there was -- it was outside the purview
     of Part 63, but there is a lot of interest in transportation issues, as
     you might expect, and probably have heard.
         At the first meeting I think we had a different audience to
     a certain extent than the second group of meetings than the first.  But
     in the first group of meetings, there were a number of comments on
     defense-in-depth, particularly from I think the State of Nevada, and how
     Part 63 embodied defense-in-depth.
         MR. REAMER:  I would be happy to kind of go back and look at
     our notes and lessons learned and kind of offline provide to your staff,
     you know, any other thoughts we have in this area.
         DR. GARRICK:  Yes, right.  I think maybe if Lynn could
     follow up on that and dig into it.
         MS. DEERING:  Yes, and I was at least several of those
     materials, so I have captured already some of those thoughts.
         DR. GARRICK:  Okay.  I sense some of this already in your
     questions.
         MS. DEERING:  Yes.  But I will talk with them.
         DR. GARRICK:  Thanks.
         MR. REAMER:  Okay.  Back on to Slide 4.  The top three items
     all relate to our kind of enhanced efforts in the QA area.  We are
     presented with a challenge in the QA area because of DOE's own
     difficulties in implementing their QA program, and we have addressed
     that through increased meetings with DOE on the QA topic at a
     management, senior -- very senior management level, established our own
     task force to more deeply probe, paid attention to our auditing, our
     observing of DOE QA audits.  We are going to be increasing the number of
     audits that we are observing, just trying to build confidence in this
     area.
         The fourth item, the DEIS review plan.  We have, of course,
     talked with you about that.  The review is well under way.
         And the next two items, we held the public meeting
     associated with your meeting a year ago.  Completed our procedural
     agreement with DOE and completed our outline on the Yucca Mountain
     review plan.
         Okay.  So that is the thread from '99.  The next three
     slides are what I call the context, the strategic context.  We start at
     the very top level on Slide 5, which is basically prevent adverse
     impacts to the environment, to the public health and the safety.  When
     we take that down to the high level waste program, we say to do this, we
     need to kind of get ready to handle a license application, establish our
     capability, identify issues that we think are important, provide
     feedback to the Department of Energy.
         Slide 7 states performance goals that we used in our FY 2000
     budget planning.  We had a planning, budgeting, performance, measures
     process that we went through in January and February for FY 2000.  The
     four performance goals in Slide 7 are what came out of that.  The areas
     where I think we found that we needed more effort are Number 2,
     stakeholder confidence.  You know, we are basically I think tracking
     many of the same concerns or interests in risk commission.  We are
     calling something maybe a little different, but we are still on the same
     path in a sense that you are on.  That was the main one, stakeholder
     confidence.  I think that is the thing I would mention on Slide 7.
         The next slide, I think perhaps you all have seen before, it
     is our program schedule.  It tries to, on the lefthand side, show the
     areas of interest in the program, the areas of attention in the program.
     And then we timeline it out.  There are a couple of places where I think
     I would like to update this.  I was looking at it last night, and I
     think maybe there have been some changes.  The fifth item down, where we
     are talking about the site recommendation, and we have the draft DOE
     site recommendation, I think that date really is November of 2000 when
     we expect that DOE will request our comments, rather than in FY 2000, it
     is going to be FY 2001.
         And the review DOE EIS, two items on down below that, if you
     can follow me, the NRC comments are now expected to be produced in
     February 2000 timeframe, and the final DOE EIS is more in the November
     2001 timeframe.
         And then my next to last line, the license application, we
     still carry the 2002 license application date, but you have probably
     seen the kind of informal statements we have seen, and so I am putting a
     question mark next to that 2002 date for the LA.
         Slide 9, 10 and 11 in your -- actually, 12, 9 through 12 are
     what we talked about in June, about how we prioritize, you know, how we
     are taking into account your recommendations that we use performance
     assessment to prioritize, that we never stop pushing the risk-informed,
     performance-based approach right on down from the regulation down into
     the review plan, down into the review.  And, you know, it needs to be --
     the third bullet, if we are going to prioritize, we need to do it in a
     way that people can see and understand.
         Ten and eleven just kind of describe the budget process.  We
     are pretty in the next to the last tick on Slide 11 right now and doing
     our FY 2000 Ops Plan based on our expectation of what Congress will
     produce in the way of a budget.  We don't have yet a signed budget.
         Slide 12 is a very brief summary of the prioritizing process
     that we talked about again in June.
         In Slide 13 a point that we really didn't get into in June
     that I think is worth mentioning here, before we get to the meat, which
     is what are you going to do in FY 2000 is that we really do see
     ourselves as transitioning from prelicensing to licensing.  We may stay
     in a prelicensing context.  Maybe that won't end in 2000 with the filing
     of an LA.  It might be 2003 but still this transition is happening.
         We are maturing in terms of our own capability.  It is time
     to start thinking more like in our regulatory mode where we expect that
     DOE will propose and we will dispose, and we are starting to get our
     framework into place.  We expect to have our rule done. We expect to be
     well along in our Yucca Mountain Review Plan in FY 2000, and we are
     looking to March as the date -- well, we are looking to March as
     approximately the date when we will have our review plan at least
     post-closure done in draft, and we will be interacting with you before
     that time as well on it.
         DR. HORNBERGER:  Bill, how will the Review Plan build on the
     IRSRs and how will it be different?
         MR. REAMER:  It will be different because it will pull
     together how we are going to do our review in the context of a Part 63,
     which the IRSRs really don't have that anchor point because we didn't
     have a Part 63.  We didn't have a regulation to -- we didn't have that
     top level framework, so it will be different in that sense.
         They will be the same in that they will bring in from the
     IRSRs the acceptance criteria and use them to anchor the Staff's review
     in each of the technical areas that are covered in the Review Plan.
         Slide 14 is again a reminder that as we enter -- it is a
     reminder to me, I think -- to keep reminding my staff as well that as we
     enter into the licensing mode we have a way that we regulate.  It is the
     licensee's responsibility to conduct the activities safely.  We are not
     out there independently guaranteeing safety.  We are out there
     rigorously reviewing what the applicant is proposing to do.  We are
     serving as a check on the applicant, and that is increasingly I think
     what you will hear from us and see from us as we move more into a
     licensing footing and away from a building our capability footing.
         DR. WYMER:  Just down there on the next to the last line you
     say the likely safety and safeguards benefits are the greatest.  That is
     as they are discerned by the NRC?
         MR. REAMER:  Right.  We want our review to be efficient.  We
     want our review to produce the best bang for the buck and we can't
     review everything.  We can't independently verify everything.  We really
     need to focus our review, our audit review on those areas where we think
     it matters.
         We start of course first with where DOE says it matters --
         DR. WYMER:  Okay.
         MR. REAMER:  -- and we make sure that we agree there, and
     then we say is that complete?  No, it is not complete. We think it
     matters in the following other respects.
         DR. WYMER:  That was the thrust of my question.  Thanks.
         MR. REAMER:  Okay -- and now what the briefing is about,
     what are we going to be doing, and this is impossible to read on the
     slide I'm sure but --
         DR. GARRICK:  You are beginning to be like an engineer here.
         MR. REAMER:  I take that as a compliment.
         [Laughter.]
         DR. HORNBERGER:  And I could say for a lawyer it is a
     compliment.
         [Laughter.]
         MR. REAMER:  I could start talking about Dr. Garrick's kids
     here in a minute, you know.
         Okay.  The column on the left are priorities.  You probably
     care about the FY 2000 column on the left.  The columns on the right are
     resources.  "C" stands for Center.  "NRC" stands for NRC -- I think you
     probably care about the FY 00, the farthest right column in terms of
     where we are putting our resources.
         The activities are kind of in the middle.
         The first item under the Key Technical Issues, as I
     mentioned, are development of our -- working on our performance
     assessment capability and also our IRSR in this area will be deferred.
         The second item down, in the EPA standard, there are really
     three items that we lump under that -- comments on the proposed 197;
     secondly our Part 63 activities; thirdly, something that I was realizing
     last night we haven't really talked too much about, which is DOE's
     siting guidelines for its site recommendation and we hear from DOE their
     plan to propose revised siting guidelines 10 CFR 963, to put that out as
     a proposed rule some time this fall.
         The Staff would expect to comment on those proposed
     guidelines.  DOE's expectation is that it want to be in a position to be
     able to finalize the guidelines some time next calendar year, probably
     maybe the middle, ideally, of the next calendar year, to get them in
     place so that come November of 2000 when they are coming forward with
     their site recommendation considerations report, you know, they can base
     it in their siting guidelines, 10 CFR 963 -- their revised siting
     guidelines, so that is an activity that is kind of hidden in the second
     item down.
         The next eight or so items are issue resolution key
     technical areas.  As I mentioned, generally what we try to do is issue a
     revision each year.  This year our revisions have focused mainly on the
     VA.  Next year you can bet that they are going to be focused on site
     recommendation and the documents related to site recommendation.
         Then we have a number of items that don't have priorities
     but I went through these anyway and highlight what are my high
     priorities.
         They are the DEIS, where we will be completing our review,
     QA.  Getting ready for site sufficiency is about three or four items
     down, called Sufficiency Comments. That basically means our comments on
     the site recommendation.  We need to be thinking about our -- you know,
     the nature of our review, the scope of our review, how we are going to
     apply the Yucca Mountain Review Plan in doing that review -- of course,
     the Yucca Mountain Review Plan right under the sufficiency comments and
     the public outreach.
         If we go to 14 we now have, presto, the topics for FY 2000.
     This is our suggestion of where we think you may be interested but you
     obviously have your own ideas -- the EPA standard, our follow-up to
     complete Part 63, the Yucca Mountain Review Plan.  We have said FY 99
     issue resolution status reports, but I think you really are more
     interested in progress on issue resolution as we went through in June in
     terms of closing issues, how we are we coming on closing issues, what is
     our path to resolution, do we have a path to resolution, the performance
     assessment items, sensitivity analysis, and the 4.0 version, which under
     our current plan will incorporate the results of our peer review.
         The peer review was conducted in July.  I think there is a
     report that is due very shortly.  I am kind of pulling together what the
     comments are, not an analytical report but more pulling together the
     peer comments.
         DR. HORNBERGER:  So the peer review panel didn't give you a
     report of their own?
         MR. McCONNELL:  No, they gave us individual reports and the
     Center is pulling together the comments.  There is an issue with respect
     to the FACA and so they provide individual reports.
         DR. HORNBERGER:  Yes, and we will get a copy of that when
     you get that?
         MR. McCONNELL:  Yes, we will get you a copy.
         MR. REAMER:  Okay.  The results of our review of the DEIS in
     terms of comments, defense-in-depth -- a topic which we know you are
     very interested in and comes forward in both the Part 63 and the Yucca
     Mountain Review Plan.
         Then two items that are not on here that I think probably
     should be are sufficiency comments -- in other words, getting ready for
     the site recommendation comments that by statute we have to make -- and
     Part 963, and the Staff comments on DOE's proposed rule when that is
     published.
         MR. LARSON:  Do you have dates for those so the committee
     can get a sense of if they are all going to happen in the next five
     months?
         MR. REAMER:  I think it is close to that.
         MR. LARSON:  Yes, that is what I thought.
         MR. REAMER:  I think their -- DOE's schedule is to try to
     get something cleared by OMB and out pretty quickly.
         MR. LARSON:  No, I meant on all of these.  You know, if we
     went through each one of these, like the first one, NRC staff comments
     on the proposed EPA, Yucca Mountain standard.  That is what, next month?
         MR. REAMER:  Yeah, we could -- is that on the calendar for
     next month?  Is that on our agenda?  It may well be the right time to do
     it, because I think that would be consistent with what we are working
     from.
         MR. LARSON:  No, but I just was -- just for the committee's
     information.
         MR. REAMER:  Yes.
         MR. LARSON:  As to the sequence or schedule of these.
         MR. REAMER:  Yes, okay.  So we are looking at October as a
     possibility to discuss our comments, assuming that there are comments
     that are out.  Proposed Part 63, I think is on for December.
         MR. LARSON:  November.
         MR. REAMER:  Oh, November.  Okay.
         MR. LARSON:  Isn't it November?
         MR. REAMER:  I may be -- I guess I am working from an
     outdated schedule.  Yucca Material review plan, I have that as December,
     is that right?  December?
         MR. McCONNELL:  I thought both were in November.
         MR. REAMER:  All right.  I am not going to look at the
     schedule anymore.  It is the wrong schedule.
         DR. HORNBERGER:  Get you in trouble.
         MR. REAMER:  I don't think we do have a date to talk about
     issue resolution with you, I am not aware of date.  I am not aware of a
     date with respect to performance assessment capability either,
     sensitivity analyses or the 4.0.  The DEIS, is that December?
         MR. LARSON:  November.
         MR. REAMER:  November.  I am perfect.  Let's see,
     defense-in-depth.
         DR. GARRICK:  I think in mathematics, we call this a
     singularity.
         MR. REAMER:  November.  Yeah, I think if I had said November
     for every one of these, I would have gotten them all right.
         DR. CAMPBELL:  So you are planning on a presentation on
     defense-in-depth in November?
         MR. McCONNELL:  Right.  But it is in the context of the
     Yucca Mountain review plan, because that is where we are first starting
     to put in some of the -- how we would review defense-in-depth, the more
     detailed information related to the requirements that are in the
     proposed Part 63.  So it is not as ominous as it sounds.  We are going
     to be talking about the Yucca Mountain review plan, but the emphasis is
     going to be on defense-in-depth.
         DR. HORNBERGER:  Good.
         MR. REAMER:  Sufficiency comments I thought at one point was
     on for January.
         MR. LARSON:  Yeah, January.
         MR. REAMER:  Okay.  got that one.
         MR. LARSON:  That keeps shifting.
         MR. REAMER:  And Part 963 I think is not on.  I think I will
     have to get back to you on that in terms of a date, because I am a
     little fuzzy on what DOE's schedule is.  For example, what is their
     comment period?  Is it 90 days, 180 days?  I am not sure about that.
     But that would help to condition when we would be ready with comments to
     discuss with you.
         MR. LARSON:  There has been a lot of discussion on why they
     are doing 963, but that's another issue.
         MR. REAMER:  I have heard, you know, and I don't know, maybe
     this is something independent, this is probably is something the
     committee may independently want to hear from, that a lot of changes
     have happened now in kind of the regulatory structure.  There is not a
     Part 60.  There is likely to be a Part 63, there is a now a 197 likely
     coming and their goal is to be consistent with that regulatory
     structure, and they may have the view that 960 needs to changed to
     achieve that, and their vehicle to do that is to put out a separate
     part.
         Do we want to move on to the low level waste BTP?
         DR. GARRICK:  Any questions on this?
         MR. REAMER:  Is this getting to what the committee wants to
     know?
         DR. GARRICK:  This is useful, yes.
         MR. REAMER:  Okay.
         DR. GARRICK:  This is something we certainly should do as
     much as we can, is to get a sense from NMSS and its divisions of where
     they might seek our advice.  So, we appreciate this.
         MR. REAMER:  Good.  Okay.  The next batch of slides deals
     with the branch technical position on performance assessment methodology
     for low level waste radioactive waste disposal facilities.  We have
     deferred activity for a couple of years in this area, I think basically
     because of resource limits, but we have picked it back up.  FY 2000 is
     our year to complete and hopefully be able to prepare a final branch
     technical position.
         We have already received public comments on the draft and we
     have analyzed those comments.  I am on Slide 2.  Analyze those comments
     and are preparing responses to them.
         We move to Slide 3, and we will talk about the schedule.
     Our schedule includes the possibility for a public meeting on the BTP
     early in calendar year 2000.  Meeting with you on the draft BTP in the
     spring.  Getting your comments, factoring them into our package and our
     thinking, and getting to the Commission with a draft final branch
     technical position approximately July 2000.
         MR. LARSON:  You have had a chance to look at the comments,
     the public comments.  Are there any surprises?
         MR. REAMER:  On the BTP?
         MR. LARSON:  Yes.
         MR. McCONNELL:  No, not really.  The one issue that comes to
     mind is the timeframe for doing the calculation and that is always a hot
     topic in low level waste.  So that was probably -- it wasn't a surprise,
     but where the emphasis is going to be.
         DR. CAMPBELL:  Are there any plans to coordinate the
     positions on how to handle dose values from a probabilistic type of
     analysis that, you know, we came up with for the low level waste
     performance assessment with what Norm described earlier, what they are
     debating, what you guys are debating right now for decommissioning?
         Is there a goal of trying to be consistent across low level
     waste and decommissioning or might those end up by being two different
     ways of interpreting dose use?
         MR. REAMER:  You know, I can't answer specifically I mean
     generally I wouldn't know why they would be inconsistent or different.
     Do you have a more specific question?
         DR. CAMPBELL:  Well, Norm gave a presentation earlier and
     drew several types of ways of interpreting a probabilistic distribution
     relative to a single value standard, discussed some of the debate going
     on, and mentioned --
         MR. REAMER:  About mean versus 95th --
         DR. CAMPBELL:  Mean versus 95th percentile versus all the
     distribution --
         MR. REAMER:  Doesn't the draft use mean?
         MR. McCONNELL:  Yes.  Well, you know, high level waste we
     are using the mean for compliance, the expected dose.  Low level waste
     BTP takes that position and that is the direction we are heading in
     decommissioning.
         One of the reasons all of these activities, dose modeling,
     decommissioning, low level waste BTP and the high level waste effort are
     combined into Bill's branch is so that there is the consistency applied
     across programmatic areas.
         DR. GARRICK:  We have already talked about some of it, but
     can you give us the highlights of the public comments on Part 63, or is
     that something we can't do yet?
         MR. REAMER:  I think we are not probably staffed to do it
     right today.  The November meeting I thought was going to be aimed at
     what we were calling kind of the really strategic issues, the major
     comments, the important comments.
         DR. GARRICK:  Do we sense there is going to have to be a
     major overhaul?
         MR. REAMER:  That is not my sense, no.
         MR. McCONNELL:  I don't believe so.  We are having to do
     some fine tuning and perhaps do a better job of explaining some things,
     particularly in the statement of considerations for Part 63.
         DR. GARRICK:  Yes.
         MR. McCONNELL:  But in general I don't think that there will
     be major revisions to Part 63.
         MR. REAMER:  The one exception might be there is a
     provision, provisions sections on performance confirmation, and my
     understanding is maybe we didn't -- we could do a better job of being
     performance based than we proposed and so we want to look at that.
         DR. GARRICK:  I was also thinking back at our meeting in
     Nevada last year where the Nevada people were extremely critical, and
     whether or not there was any repercussions from that that resulted in
     any new directions or major changes.
         I am thinking of the letter that was sent in to the Chairman
     by the Governor and various other communications that took place
     evidently.
         MR. REAMER:  There are several letters that have come.  Are
     we talking about transportation or are we talking about defense-in-depth
     and the subsystems?
         DR. GARRICK:  Well, I am talking about pieces and parts of
     63.
         MR. REAMER:  63, yes.
         MS. DEERING:  Excuse me, wasn't there the issue of not
     issuing the standard before EPA's standard, issuing your regulation
     before EPA's standard?  That was one of the things the --
         DR. GARRICK:  That was the timing --
         DR. HORNBERGER:  That was the major part of it, as I recall.
         MR. REAMER:  We still see the efficiency of completing the
     work that we have proposed, completing the work on the proposed Part 63,
     and I don't think we have been maybe as successful as we had hoped to be
     to really explain why that is, but it just seems to me to be pretty easy
     to understand, and I haven't done the job of explaining that we have a
     very limited time period to complete our rulemaking.
         If we can bite off a substantial portion of that and get it
     done, we help ourselves when it comes time to conform to that final EPA
     standard -- which is not final.
         I mean our obligation is to conform to the final standard,
     not to the proposed standard, so we need a final standard.  If we wait
     and put our rulemaking on hold until that point, I think we have a much
     larger job than if we complete those portions of the rule that we can
     complete now, with the understanding and commitment to conform that rule
     to the EPA standard when it is issue in final.
         DR. HORNBERGER:  If -- and this would be a really worst case
     scenario -- but if the draft EPA standard did become final, how big a
     job would it be to make Part 63 conform?
         MR. REAMER:  Well, I have two answers to that.
         One, we need to wait and see.
         DR. HORNBERGER:  I realize that.  I said it is a worst case
     scenario.  I was just curious.
         MR. REAMER:  We need to wait and see on what that standard
     is.  We haven't even filed our comments yet.
         DR. HORNBERGER:  Right.
         MR. REAMER:  And our hope is that EPA will read our comments
     or someone will read them and take them to heart and --
         DR. HORNBERGER:  That is our fondest hope too.
         [Laughter.]
         MR. REAMER:  In fact, we will have an individual protection
     standard rather than a groundwater standard that becomes the limiting
     rule.
         DR. HORNBERGER:  You don't have to give me the other answer.
     It was an unfair question.
         MR. REAMER:  Okay.  I will tell you this.  I think we will
     get it done in the statutory period.  The statute says we do it in a
     year and we will do it in a year.
         DR. CAMPBELL:  But by having the Part 63 finalized at that
     point, the task of revising Part 63 to make it consistent with and
     conform with whatever is EPA's standard is a lot easier than if you were
     having to start from scratch.
         MR. REAMER:  That's correct.  That is the message I think we
     haven't been terribly successful in getting to the people in Nevada who
     still distrust us and they distrust the federal government, they
     distrust the NRC, DOE, and it is really our job to try to gain that
     trust and to -- as I said, I think we begin by telling them what we are
     going to do and then we do it, and we listen to what they have to say
     and we respond.
         DR. WYMER:  Doesn't the fact that several sites have already
     sort of de facto adopted the 4 millirem standard, like Savannah River
     and Fernald, doesn't that really make your job extremely hard, to stick
     to 25, or almost impossible?
         MR. REAMER:  I am not intimately familiar with those sites
     and how they have in fact adopted it, and I don't know whether it is
     like what is being proposed or not, but what we are focusing on is what
     has been proposed, and what we are finding is a potentially very
     stringent limiting condition, so I guess we will make that apparent in
     our comments.
         DR. GARRICK:  What was the gist of the NRC response to the
     25 MR question during the public --
         MR. REAMER:  25 versus 15 or 25 as it --
         DR. GARRICK:  25, like the one you posed.
         MR. REAMER:  Is it protective of children?
         DR. GARRICK:  Yes, how does it protect our children?
         MR. REAMER:  Well, our response was that it is the standard
     that is recognized in all of our activities.
         It takes into account -- it is a standard focused on an
     adult but it takes into account all the factors that we think are
     appropriate to consider, and it is the same standard we apply
     everywhere.  It is the standard we are applying here.
         DR. WYMER:  That doesn't make it right, that just makes it a
     standard.  I mean, you know, that isn't really a good argument.
         MR. REAMER:  Well, we could go back, I guess, and revise our
     approach to regulating radiation.
         DR. WYMER:  Yes.
         MR. REAMER:  You know, if we are going to revise it for this
     activity, we had better revise it across the board.  It seems to me we
     are using Part 20, we are using Part 20 in many areas, and we can -- we
     periodically review Part 20 based on international developments, and if
     the international community moves towards focusing on the infant and
     children as the right surrogate for purpose of protection, then we will
     certainly consider that.  And generally, Part 20 conforms to
     international standards, international recommendations, so I think, you
     know, we would move to that approach.
         But for this one activity to depart and say, okay, for here
     we are going to handle it differently, it is not our approach.
         DR. HORNBERGER:  Isn't it true that the international
     standard, so to speak, focuses more on the 100 millirem, and says, well,
     okay, we will make it even safer and divide it by a factor of 4, and,
     therefore, I mean you still get a questions mark.
         MR. REAMER:  That's right.
         DR. HORNBERGER:  What are you doing to protect our children?
     But we are already down in the very low range.
         MR. REAMER:  That's correct.  The point is that the agency
     believes that 25 is protective.
         DR. HORNBERGER:  Right.
         MR. REAMER:  And it believes it in all of its activities,
     and that is the international sense.
         DR. HORNBERGER:  Presumably, that is based on studies, data?
         MR. REAMER:  Correct.
         MR. LARSON:  The LNT.
         DR. HORNBERGER:  The LNT, let's hope not.
         MR. LARSON:  How about waste confidence, is that going to
     come up this year?  Waste confidence, I see -- you know, it is on the
     Commission list for 2000.  What is it, after --
         MR. REAMER:  There is not really anything I can kind of
     report to you on that right now, Howard.
         MR. LARSON:  I mean it is not on your schedule either.
         MR. REAMER:  You know, it is on my issues, priorities and
     resources.  It is on my list.  It is something I need to --
         DR. LARKINS:  I think something is supposed to come back to
     the Commission in December, the first part of December on that.
         MR. REAMER:  I haven't lost it, but it is not one of my
     priorities right now.  I could -- I may be told differently.  It will
     probably be done this year.
         MR. LARSON:  Yes, okay.  But the resources allocated to it
     are minimal, like zero.
         DR. GARRICK:  That's pretty minimal.
         MR. REAMER:  That's right.  That is a placeholder for -- you
     know, that is what we plan for, but we may need to put some resources --
     we also plan for, you know, a draft license application and, you know,
     we have got a fair amount of resources planned there, too.  And my sense
     is there is not going to be a draft license application in FY 2000.
     This needs to be revised.
         MR. LARSON:  Years ago there was talk of the agency making
     up certain rulemakings it was going to propose and then it got out of
     that thought process.  And then I thought last year, or earlier this
     year, the agency thought it was worthwhile to have rulemakings on
     certain issues related to high level waste to shorten the -- are there
     any of those planned?  I guess there are none planned for 2000.
         MR. REAMER:  No.
         MR. LARSON:  Okay.
         MR. REAMER:  What we told the Commission, if I remember
     correctly, is that this was a way in which we might proceed in the
     future.
         MR. LARSON:  Yes.
         MR. REAMER:  We had no right candidates at that point, and
     there are none at this point either.
         DR. HORNBERGER:  What are the units on the numbers in this
     table?
         MR. REAMER:  Which numbers?
         DR. HORNBERGER:  Like 46 at the bottom right.
         MR. LARSON:  FTEs.
         DR. HORNBERGER:  Are they FTEs or are they millions of
     dollars?
         MR. REAMER:  FTE.
         DR. HORNBERGER:  You would rather they be millions of
     dollars?
         DR. GARRICK:  I guess up here is the millions of dollars, at
     the top, 18-1/2.
         DR. HORNBERGER:  Yes.
         DR. CAMPBELL:  What impact will Congressional action have on
     these budgets and what have you heard in terms of any bills making their
     way through Congress in terms of NRC's budget, and, in particular, the
     high level waste budget?
         MR. REAMER:  Yeah, the high level waste budget in both the
     Senate passed and the House passed version is pretty close to what we
     proposed.  DOE is the one who has got the problem.
         DR. CAMPBELL:  Yes.
         MR. REAMER:  They have a wide disparity between the House
     and the Senate has 355, the House has 281.  My impression is 355 doesn't
     get the license application in 2002, and the House version 281 means
     even more potential changes.  But now that is a DOE issue.  I am only
     kind of repeating what my understanding is.  Did that respond?
         DR. CAMPBELL:  Yes.
         DR. GARRICK:  Any other questions?
         [No response.]
         DR. GARRICK:  Thank you.
         MR. REAMER:  Okay.  Thank you.
         DR. HORNBERGER:  It was very useful.
         DR. GARRICK:  Yes, it really helps.
         MR. LARSON:  We should get decommissioning tomorrow.
         DR. HORNBERGER:  How does -- just looking at some of the
     things that are coming along, how does that tally with the schedule for
     calendar '00 that we talked about?
         MR. LARSON:  Well, if you have to do everything in November,
     you are going to have a busy November, December.
         DR. HORNBERGER:  Well, also, they have the low level BTP in
     the spring, and I am just trying to think, you know, we were talking
     about being on the road in the spring.
         MR. LARSON:  Yes, I guess at this point I wouldn't change
     anything, because what they are talking, finalizing it in July.
         DR. HORNBERGER:  No, no.  No, I know, I realize that.  So we
     just --
         MR. LARSON:  You may want to, when you are talking to the
     Commission, go into it.
         DR. LARKINS:  When it is appropriate, because sometimes they
     are mainly for information.
         MR. LARSON:  Trying to remain within the eight or nine
     meetings, the eight meetings a year.
         DR. HORNBERGER:  No, I don't want to say that.  I am going
     to try like hell to remain within the agency here.
         DR. GARRICK:  Okay.  Any other discussions?
         [No response.]
         DR. GARRICK:  Then I would suggest we adjourn this portion
     of our meeting.  And I think for our discussions later on, we don't need
     a reporter, do we?  Because we are going to go back to discuss reports
     when we get back.
         MR. MAJOR:  Risk communication but we do not need a
     recorder.
         DR. GARRICK:  But that is staff.  We do not need a recorder.
     So I think this adjourns today's session.
         [Whereupon, at 2:06 p.m., the meeting was recessed, to
     reconvene at 8:30 a.m., Wednesday, September 15, 1999.]