120th Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste (ACNW) Meeting, June 13, 2000
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON NUCLEAR WASTE
***
120TH ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON NUCLEAR WASTE (ACNW)
***
Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Two White Flint North
Room 2B3
11545 Rockville Pike
Rockville, MD 20852-2738
Tuesday, June 13, 2000
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:45
a.m.
MEMBERS PRESENT:
B. JOHN GARRICK, Chairman, ACNW
GEORGE M. HORNBERGER, Vice Chairman, ACNW
RAYMOND G. WYMER
MILTON LEVENSON
. C O N T E N T S
ATTACHMENT PAGE
Technical Report on Low-Level
Waste Performance Assessment 7
NRC's Draft Policy Statement on
Decommissioning Criteria for the
West Valley Demonstration Project
and West Valley Site 59. P R O C E E D I N G S
[10:45 a.m.]
CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Good morning. Our meeting will
come to order. This is the first day of the 119th meeting
of the Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste.
My name is John Garrick, Chairman of the ACNW.
Other members of the committee include George Hornberger,
Ray Wymer and Milt Levenson.
During today's meeting we will discuss committee
activities and future agenda items; review and comment on
the final draft version of the branch technical position on
low level waste performance assessment; hear and discuss the
results of public comments on a draft policy statement on
decommissioning criteria for the West Valley Demonstration
Project; and we will discuss plans for its own review of the
Yucca Mountain site suitability and licensing application
process, our task action plan.
Richard Major is the designated federal official
for today's initial 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. And, as usual, it is requested
that each speaker use one of the microphones, identify
themselves and speak clearly.
Before proceeding with the first agenda item, I
would like to cover a few items of interest. The committee
is very pleased to welcome Milt Levenson as a new member of
the committee. Milt was officially named to the Advisory
Committee on Nuclear Waste by Chairman Richard Meserve on
May 17th.
Also, we would like to welcome two new ACRS/ACNW
staffers, Magdalene Weston and Jenny Gallo. And we have
some changes in staff that we would like to acknowledge.
Unfortunately, we are going to have to say farewell to Lily
Gaskins, who has been a tremendous help to ACNW over the
past six years. Lily has accepted a position with the
Defense Intelligence Agency and we wish very well on her new
career change.
As you know, on April 25th, President Clinton
vetoed the High Level Nuclear Waste Bill. The bill approved
by the Senate in February and the House in March would have
provided for early receipt of civilian spent fuel at Yucca
Mountain in the year 2007. The bill would have also limited
EPA's authority to issue radiation standards, and the Senate
failed to override the veto in an early May vote.
The State of Utah has received an application from
Envirocare of Utah for Class B and C waste. The state will
review the site and report, first, to decide whether it is
acceptable before beginning a review of the application
itself.
The Rocky Mountain Compact, which is Nevada,
Colorado, New Mexico, expects to receive an application from
Waste Control Specialists for a disposal site in New Mexico,
across the Texas border from WCS's waste storage site. And
this application is expected to include waste Classes A, B
and C. Apparently, New Mexico is interested in the prospect
of an application being submitted.
We have a couple of other items we want to
mention. We are very pleased to announce that on June 22nd,
Theron Brown will be receiving the Commission's meritorious
award, Excellence Award for his outstanding contribution to
the Commission. As you all known, Theron is the gentleman
that makes possible all this audio-visual activity that we
carry on in these meetings, and we are pleased that he is
receiving this recognition.
I also want to note that on June 7th, the governor
of South Carolina signed into law the Atlantic Interstate
Low Level Radiation Waste Compact Implementation Act. I
don't know, Howard, if you want to make a comment or two on
what all that means, but you might want to.
MR. LARSON: No, not really. I did send to all
the members the notice, the three page notice from the Low
Level Waste Forum where, in addition, to indicating that
South Carolina, New Jersey and Connecticut are this compact,
there also is a gradual reduction in the quantities of waste
that they will receive over the next several years.
I guess I would like to say one thing, John. John
mentioned that there were two new members of the ACRS/ACNW
staff, one of them Mag Weston, who is principally working
with the ACRS, but she is today at Davis-Besse on a site
tour with many members of the ACRS, and the other is Jenny
Gallo, who is hiding over here, who many of you probably
have not seen since she came since your last meeting. Jenny
has helped Lynn out on a lot of things and will help us all
out in budgeting analysis, presentations, innumerable
things.
CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Is she tied to the California
Gallo family?
[Laughter.]
MR. LARSON: Do you want a free tour of the
winery, John?
CHAIRMAN GARRICK: All right.
MR. LARSON: I don't know.
CHAIRMAN GARRICK: I think that is -- do you have
anything you want to add to any of this?
[No response.]
CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Okay. The first item on our
agenda is low level waste branch technician position on
performance assessment. As all of you know, this has been a
major issue. It has been a difficult task in trying to
achieve a reason balance between the traditional ways of
doing performance assessment and the corporation in the
methods of a risk-informed approach. And I know that both
options are available as a result of the branch technical
position, and we are going to hear about that and a lot more
from Mark Thaggard.
Mark, do you want to introduce yourself and tell
us what you are going to tell us?
MR. THAGGARD: Okay. Can everybody hear me? I
might be a little loud.
Okay. My name is Mark Thaggard, I am a senior
analysis in the Division of Waste Management, and as Dr.
Garrick pointed out, this effort has been going on for quite
some time. And as I was talking to Andy Campbell before the
meeting, I am kind of like the last man standing on this.
There have been quite a few other people that have worked on
this effort in the past.
What I am going to be talking about today is the
technical report on low level waste performance assessment.
I have gone my phone number and e-mail address here in case
anyone has some follow-up questions.
The outline of my presentation, first of all, I
would like to go over the purpose of the presentation,
specifically, what we are hoping to get from the committee.
Provide some background information on development of the
document, and I think this may be kind of pertinent
considering the fact that the document has been around for a
number of years and I believe the last time we briefed the
ACNW was back in 1995. And, so, we have gotten a lot of new
members since that time.
Also, as part of the background, I would like to
talk a little bit about some of the attributes of the
performance assessment that is discussed in the document,
along with some positions that we have taken in the
document.
The primary purpose, I mean the primary thing that
I would like to cover today is the comments that we got on
the document and how we are proposing to respond to those
comments, along with the revisions that we are making to the
document. And then I would like to end with a brief
summary.
We plan to publish the document as a NUREG and
provide it to the Commission for information purposes. We
were directed by the Commission, and I will go into this in
a few minutes, but we were directed by the Commission a
while back to go out for public comments on the document, so
we feel obligated to go back to the Commission and let them
know how we are responding to the comments. So, we would
like to -- we would be very interested in any feedback we
can get from the committee on how we are addressing the
comments and also how we are proposing to change the
document in general.
Okay. Now, I would like to kind of walk through a
little bit of the history of the development of the
document. As most of you may recall, back in the late '80s
and the early '90s, there were a lot of activities going on
in the low level waste area. States were forming compacts.
Some states were actually in the process of licensing low
level waste disposal facilities, all in an effort to meet
some milestones within the Low Level Policy Amendment Act of
1985, which had 1993 and 1996 milestones.
In 1987, the NRC developed what we call the
performance assessment strategy, and that was actually
authored by John Steimer, who I see sitting in the back,
along with Lynn Deering.
We also contracted with Sandia National Laboratory
to develop what we called the performance assessment
methodology, which they documented in a series of NUREGs,
5453.
Now, as I indicated, -- let me flip this around.
As I indicated, back in the early '90s, we were having a lot
of activities in the low level waste area, and the
Commission became concerned at that time as to whether or
not, if we got a license application, whether or not we
would be able to review that application within 15 months,
as was called for in the Policy Amendment Act.
So, the Commission directed the staff through a
SRM to develop a plan for enhancing its performance
assessment capabilities in the low level waste area. And,
so, with SECY-92-060, the staff developed a plan for
enhancing its performance assessment capabilities and a key
component of that was development of some guidance on how to
conduct performance assessments. So, that is kind of where
we -- how we got started in this effort.
In the early '90s, the staff from NMSS and
Research, in what we called the Performance Assessment
Working Group, developed a preliminary draft for the
document. In parallel with that, we conducted a test case
analysis where we actually were trying to analyze a
hypothetical low level waste facility. This not only
allowed us to look at some of the assumptions and approaches
that we were proposing to put in the document, but it also
gave us a way to help enhance the staff performance
assessment capabilities.
After we developed a preliminary draft of the
document, we had public workshops. We also briefed ACNW at
that time. And, based upon the feedback we got from these
groups, we revised the document. And in 1996, we developed
a draft version of the document, went up to the Commission
with the draft and requested permission to go out and seek
public comments on the document.
In this SECY paper, we also identified four
regulatory positions that were taken in the document, and I
am going to go over those in a few minutes.
In a staff requirements memorandum in August of
''96, the Commission approved the staff request to go out
for public comments on the document. In addition, the
Commission asked the staff, prior to finalizing the
document, to come back to the Commission with additional
technical justification for truncating the performance
assessment analysis at 10,000 years. This was one of the
policy issues addressed in this SECY paper here.
The staff requirements memorandum also directed
the staff to seek public views on this issue of dose
discounting, which has to do deal with the current economic
cost of design and performance against future health risk.
This issue wasn't addressed in a document, but the
Commission for some reason asked staff to get public views
on it.
So, through a Federal Register Notice in 1997, we
went out, made announcement on the availability of the
document. Although it was like a 90 day time period for
getting comments, we are just getting around to finalizing
the document this fiscal year, because we have obviously had
some cutbacks in our low level waste program and, also, we
have had some other higher priority work.
I will point out that completing the document is
in the agency's performance plan for this fiscal year to be
completed, so it is important that we get it done this year.
And the last thing I would like to point out is
that our original plan was to finalize the document as a
branch technician position, and now we are planning to
simply publish it as a NUREG document.
MR. HORNBERGER: I understand all the difference
in the letters, Mark, but what does that last thing mean?
MR. THAGGARD: Branch technical position?
MR. HORNBERGER: Well, no, I mean I understand the
branch technical position and a NUREG. What is the
difference between publishing it as one and not the other?
MR. THAGGARD: A branch technical position carries
a little bit more weight to it. It is similar to like a
guidance document that basically laws out approaches that
the agency finds acceptable. Whereas, basically, anybody on
staff can develop a NUREG and state their position. So, the
positions in the document can be just the positions of the
Performance Assessment Working Group, they don't necessarily
have to be the position of the agency. Whereas, if it was a
branch technician position, it would be stating, you know,
we would be stating that these are the agency's positions.
So, I don't know if that gives you a flavor.
CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Well, does that really mean
then you are still undecided about what the position of the
branch is?
MR. THAGGARD: No, I think -- one of the reasons
for just publishing it as a NUREG is that, obviously, our
involvement in the low level waste area has been greatly
reduced over the years. And, so, there is really less of a
need to put out a document which -- I mean a document of the
stature of a branch technician position. However, there may
be some useful information in there that we can give the
Agreement States and some of the other people that are
involved in conducting performance assessment, and we
probably ought to share that information with those other
groups.
I don't know if this has anything to do with the
fact that positions are not clear. I mean, obviously, some
of these positions are policy issues and they have gone up
to the Commission once. And our plan was to go back to the
Commission -- I mean our plan is to go back to the
Commission again, but I don't know if that really weighs
into it. We can get into that some more if you want.
When we started developing the branch technical
position, one of the things that we did was we looked at
some of the approaches that were being used for doing
performance assessments and looked at some of the concerns
that we had with the approaches that were being used, and
tried to factor these into the document.
One of the clear concerns we had was that most of
the performance assessments that were being done at that
time, they were not done integrating the site
characterization and the designs, it was almost done as a
separate entity.
Another concern is that most of the site
characterization work focused primarily on the groundwater,
and in some cases it turned out the groundwater may not have
been that important of a pathway.
And, also, most of the performance assessments
done at that time, there was very little consideration given
to the treatment of uncertainty.
So, in developing the performance assessment
approach that is in the document right now, there are
certain attributes that I would like to discuss. First of
all, it is designed to look at long-term performance that is
post-closure. And, so, issues associated with inadvertent
intruder or dose to the public during operation, they are
not really covered under the performance assessment approach
that we are talking about here, although the document does
talk a little bit about the consideration of inadvertent
intruders.
The performance assessment approach in the
document is structured after the performance assessment
methodology that was laid out in those series of NUREGs
developed by Sandia National Laboratory. I apologize for
the quality of this. But, basically, what we have tried to
do in the document is each one of these areas here, we have
tried to address concerns or approaches of how to analyze
each of these technical areas. So, if you go through the
document, you will see a section on each of these technical
areas.
Another key aspect of the document -- I apologize,
I am flipping back and forth to page 8. Another key
consideration in the document is that the performance
assessment approach that we laid out calls for an iterative
process. Basically, what this means is that we are
suggesting that people start the assessment using the
available information that they have, develop their
conceptual models and their mathematical models, carry out
the analysis, and then do some sensitivity analysis. And
from those sensitivity analyses, they can identify the key
assumptions and parameters that are driving the analysis and
that can feed into their site characterization and their
design, and then they can update the analysis as necessary,
so it will be an iterative process. And this would allow an
integration of the site characterization and the design with
the performance assessment.
And the last thing, the last attribute I would
like to point out is that we obviously tried to cover the
issue of the treatment of uncertainty, which I am going to
talk about in a few minutes.
Okay. Now, I would like to talk briefly about the
four regulatory positions that are stated in the document.
As I indicated that SECY paper that we went up to the
Commission, we identified four policy positions. And I
would just like to touch upon what those are in the
document.
The first position has to do with the timeframe of
the analysis. If you look at 61.41, there is no definitive
timeframe as to over which the analysis should be carried
out. And, so, we tried to address this document, and our
position is that the analysis should be carried out 10,000
years, but if you have got peak doses beyond 10,000 years,
you should look at that information and use it, because it
might be able to help determine whether or not there is some
need for inventory limits or something of that nature. So,
it is a two part approach that has a 10,000 year compliance
period, with a qualitative evaluation beyond 10,000 years.
Another regulatory position had to do with the
consideration of future site conditions and processes. And
this concerns what assumptions should be made about the
condition of the site in the future. And our position in
the document is to use a "reference geosphere" and
"reference biosphere" based upon current site conditions.
CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Do you have any sense of what
fraction of the low level waste would have peak doses beyond
the 10,000 year compliance period?
MR. THAGGARD: No, I don't know if I have a
specific number. We did some analysis as part of the test
case, and we found that most of the peaks were occurring
within 10,000 years. Obviously, in some cases you are going
to see that if you have got, for example, large quantities
of uranium or some other transuranics, or if you are in an
arid environment, for example, you may get cases where --
but I don't know if I have a definitive number on that. But
in the analysis that we looked at, most of the peaks
occurred within 10,000 years.
CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Yes. The only reason for
asking the question, of course, is it is my understanding
that a lot more of the low level waste is contaminated with
uranium than we had ever envisioned, and that could play a
role in the peak dose calculation.
MR. THAGGARD: Yes, that is correct. And I see
Andy wanting to make a comment on that.
MR. CAMPBELL: Yes. We looked at different
timeframes and for the mobile radionuclides like iodine-129,
chlorine-36, tech-99, most of the doses occurred fairly
early.
CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Right.
MR. CAMPBELL: Basically, you have very little KD.
So, as soon as your cover has failed, and you get natural
infiltration, then you see a dose, and that usually occurs
within the first thousand years. You see doses later on
from things like radium put into a low level waste site. At
very long timeframes, you can see doses due to the in-growth
of daughters of uranium. But those in-growth doses don't
become, you know, don't begin to approach the limit until
you are a 100,000, 200,000, 300,000 years out.
CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Right.
MR. CAMPBELL: For the kind of inventory we did in
the test case, which was a few hundred curies of uranium.
CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Yes.
MR. THAGGARD: Yes. I think to answer your
question, though, I don't know what percentage of low level
waste sites have a higher percentage of uranium than we
originally anticipated.
CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Right.
MR. THAGGARD: I don't really have the answer to
that.
Another regulatory issue, regulatory position that
we took in the document has to do with the performance of
engineered barriers, and this relates to how long should we
assume that the barriers remain effective in terms of
isolating the waste. The position we took in the document
is that beyond the 500 years, the barriers should be assumed
to be degraded, however, structure stability and chemical
buffering could be considered to last longer than 500 years.
The last regulatory position dealt with the
treatment of sensitivity and uncertainty. And a couple of
questions that we tried to address is whether or not
deterministic or probabilistic analysis should be used. And
for probabilistic analysis, what part of the distribution
curve should be used to make the determination of
compliance?
The position we took in the document is that
either deterministic or probabilistic analysis could be
used. For deterministic analysis, the analysis should be
demonstrably conservative is the position that we took. And
for probabilistic analysis, the mean of the distribution
should be less than the performance objective and the 95th
percentile should be less than 100 millirem.
Okay. That is just to touch upon the four
regulatory positions in the document. Now, I would like to
go over some of the comments that we got on the document.
First, as an overview, we sent out over 200 copies of the
document in response to that Federal Register Notice, and we
only got comments from 17 different organizations. These
included Agreement States, Non-Agreement States, two federal
agencies and some other organizations such as NEI and some
of the low level waste disposal facility operators.
On balance, the comments that we got were somewhat
favorable. We got comments such as the document fulfills a
need, it is well written. It reinforces ongoing efforts,
and it provides helpful and useful guidance. So, on
balance, the comments we got were favorable.
The comments that we did receive focused primarily
on those four regulatory positions I just touched upon. We
also got some comments on the dose methodology, ALARA,
institutional controls and groundwater protection, and I
will go over these in a few minutes.
A key revision that we are going to make to the
document, as I pointed out at the beginning, is that we are
not going to publish the document as a branch technical
position but now our intention is to simply publish it as a
NUREG. So, the positions in the document are going to be
the positions of the Performance Assessment Working Group.
Okay. Now, I would like to touch upon some of the
key comments we got. First, the comments on the time of
compliance seemed to be a big issue. And we got, basically,
comments all over the place. Some commenters suggested that
a shorter time should be used, such as 500 years. We also
got comments that the 10,000 year compliance period that is
recommended is appropriate, it serves as a good balance
between these two. And then we got comments that the 10,000
year period was not long enough, that the dose should be
carried out to peak regardless of what time that is.
And our response is, right now is that we believe
that the 10,000 year compliance period is still appropriate
because it generally includes the period of time when the
waste is most hazardous. It is sufficiently long to allow
evaluation of the natural system, whereas, if you use a
shorter time, you are primarily look at an evaluation of the
performance of the engineered barriers. And, also, it is
consistent with the other regulations, not only NRC
regulations, but EPA's regulations. So, we feel that the
10,000 year compliance period is still appropriate.
Just to give you a little bit more information on
that, some of the rationale we came up with for developing
the 10,000 years is that we think that the time of
compliance should provide a good basis for distinguishing
between good sites and bad sites. And what I mean by that
is that -- one of the comments that we got on the document,
people suggested that, well, we should use a shorter time
period such as 500 years because there is so much
uncertainty in the analysis that we won't have much
confidence in the results beyond a fairly short period of
time.
And our position is that the goal of the analysis
is not to come up with a true prediction of what the doses
are going to be, but, you know, to test the robustness of
the facility. And, so, we don't necessarily have to get an
accurate estimate.
The other thing is that we think that the time of
compliance should allow us to look at multiple barriers,
whereas, if we were using a shorter time period such as 500
years, we would be primarily just looking at the performance
of the engineered system, whereas, if we allow a longer time
period, that allows us to evaluate the performance of the
natural setting. And, also, we believe that the time of
compliance should not arbitrarily limit the information to
decision-makers. And we think that the approach that we
have come up with, the approach that we have advocated in
the document allows us to do this, and this was also a
recommendation by the National Academy of Sciences of the
technical basis for Yucca Mountain.
Some other considerations for the use of the
10,000 years is we believe that, generally, PA calculations
are more reliable for estimating dose than estimating the
time of occurrence of the dose. And, so, you may wind up
having to do some complex analysis to demonstrate compliance
if you are relying on delaying the releases.
MR. HORNBERGER: Mark, do you have any basis for
that first bullet, or is that just the gut level feeling of
the working group?
MR. THAGGARD: I think it is the gut level
feeling. Although I think the genesis of this actually came
from some analysis that was done in the high level waste
program. I think they did a lot of analysis in there, and I
think this was the general conclusion that they were drawing
from their analysis.
Also, there was limited support for a shorter
compliance period such as a thousand years when EPA went out
for soliciting comments on their proposed 10,000 year
compliance period. A 10,000 year compliance period was -- I
mean a 10,000 year timeframe was also used by several of the
states in their assessments, and it was also used in the
draft EIS in developing the rule. So, those are just some
other considerations.
Okay. Now, to move on to another regulatory
position. We got comments on the position on the
performance of the engineered barriers. The general
comments that we got is that the assumed 500 year life is
arbitrary and without technical justification. We also got
comments that having a 500 year performance life would tend
to discourage research to improve barrier performance.
And our general response is that we think 500
years is appropriate because it allows, it generally allows
sufficient time for decay of the short-lived radionuclides,
which is primarily what the engineered barriers are designed
to protect us from. And, also, we reiterate the fact that
the document does allow people to assume longer time
periods, they just need to justify it. So, although we do
provide a 500 year timeframe in the document, people can use
longer timeframes if they can justify it.
And the other thing that I point out is that the
document reiterates the need that, no matter what time
period you use, whether it is less than 500 or beyond 500,
you need to provide a justification for it. And the simple
fact that the document reiterates the need for this
justification, we think that in itself should help continue
to encourage research into the performance of the barriers.
We also got comments on the position on future
site conditions. Some of the comments we got were that
uncertainties in human activity should be considered, use of
the "critical group" concept was not justified. And our
responses are that consideration of future human activities
we think is highly speculative, and there is really no
scientific or technical answer on that. The use of the
"reference biosphere" and "critical group" concept is
consistent with international opinion and practice.
We also got comments on the treatment of
uncertainty. Some of the general comments we got are that
use of the mean is not justified. Use of the mean is
appropriate, but it may be difficult to communicate to the
public. And we took that to mean that it may be difficult
for the public to accept. Also, we got comments that use of
probabilistic analysis in general could be an invitation to
failure.
And our response is the selection of the mean has
both policy and technical considerations, so, we can't just
give a technical reason for why we selected the mean,
although we believe that the use of the mean provides the
best estimate of the system performance. We think that the
approach that we have laid out for doing the performance
assessment in the document will help identify the sources of
uncertainty and that in itself should help build confidence
in the results.
CHAIRMAN GARRICK: I don't suppose you would want
to be so bold as to say that the use of the whole curve
provides the best estimate of the system performance.
MR. THAGGARD: Excuse me, did I miss --
CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Instead of a part of the curve.
Well, I am just needling you a little bit.
MR. THAGGARD: Okay.
CHAIRMAN GARRICK: I can't agree that the mean
provides the best estimate of the system performance. It is
the best estimate if you are going to have to lean on a
central tendency parameter.
MR. THAGGARD: Yes.
CHAIRMAN GARRICK: But the best estimate is to
tell a whole story, and the whole story is the whole curve.
MR. THAGGARD: Okay. The last point on this is
that the proposed approach that we are taking is consistent
with approaches that are being used in other program areas.
Okay. Now, those were some of the comments that
we got on the four regulatory positions. Now, I would like
to walk through some of the other comments that we received.
We got some comments on the fact that the document
recommends that people use the conventional TEDE calculation
in doing their dose analysis, whereas, the standard is based
on this ICRP whole body -- ICRP 2 whole body methodology.
And, so the, standard is a little bit outdated, and, so, we
got some comments on that.
And our response is that the Commission, as a
policy, the Commission generally considers the use of the
TEDE to be appropriate for evaluating against the ICRP 2
whole body methodology.
We also got a suggestion that the document needs
to provide guidance on how people should do ALARA,
demonstrate ALARA, because that is a requirement in the rule
And, so, we have included some discussion in the document to
spell out a little bit how people can do that in terms of
looking at the cost and benefits of various designs.
We got a comment on institutional controls and
that institutional controls should be maintained at the
disposal site as long as the waste remains hazardous. And
our response is that Part 61 obviously limits reliance on
institutional control to 100 years, but we think in most
cases they are going to probably be maintained much longer
than that.
CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Now, is hazardous greater than
25 mr, is that what you mean by hazardous?
MR. THAGGARD: Well, I am just restating what the
comment is, so you kind of have to leave it to your own
interpretation of how want to interpret that.
CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Okay.
MR. THAGGARD: That is what I would -- that is how
I would interpret it.
We also received comments from EPA that meeting
61.41 will not ensure compliance with the EPA's MCLs. And
our responses are that the comment, for the most part, is
beyond the scope of the document, since it deals with the
specific language in the rule. But we feel that the current
regulations provide adequate protection. MCLs were not
developed specifically for groundwater protection and MCLs
are based on an outdated modeling approach.
Some other comments that we received, we got some
suggestions that the test case analysis that we worked on
should be documented, because it could provide a useful
example. And our response is that, because of limited
resources and other priority work, the agency has decided
not to publish the document. However, it was presented as
part of a two day public workshop, so it was made available
to the public.
We also got a suggestion that the document should
advocate the use of peer reviews, and we kind of agree with
this suggestion, and, so, we have included some language in
the document encouraging the use of peer reviews and expert
elicitation.
We got a comment that the document should address
the issue of criticality. And as noted by the commenter, we
feel that there is an extremely remote possibility of this
occurring, because in most cases we think that appropriate
measures are going to be taken during site operation to
prevent this from happening. And, also, we note that the
agency is also planning to develop some additional guidance
on this.
Okay. Now, I would like to just touch upon some
of the key revisions we are planning to make to the
document. First of all, we have responded to every comment
that we got. As I indicated, we got 175 comments, depending
upon how you count them. We have developed a response to
each comment, although I have tried to summarize them here
today, and that is going to be included as an appendix to
the document.
We also felt that it would be important to include
the Commission's policy statement on the use of PRA methods,
and, so, we are going to include that as an appendix to the
document.
We got a couple of comments suggesting that we
provide additional information the performance of engineered
barriers and, so, we have included a bibliography on
engineered and natural barriers.
We have also revised the approach that we are
advocating on how to deal with the treatment of uncertainty,
and I am going to touch upon that in a few minutes. And, as
I indicated, we have provided some discussion in the
document on the Commission's position on the use of TEDE,
and we provided some information on how to demonstrate
ALARA, along with recommendations on the use of peer review
and expert elicitation. And throughout the document, we
have tried to provide additional clarification in some other
areas where we felt that was needed based upon the comments
that we got, including expanding the glossary.
And as the last bullet here, which you may not be
able to hardly see, notes, as I have stated before, our plan
is to publish the document now as a NUREG.
Okay. I would just to touch upon what we are
proposing to do with this approach on the treatment of
uncertainty. As I indicated before, in the previous
approach, we were advocating for probabilistic analysis that
the mean of the distribution should be less than 25 millirem
and the 95th percentile of the distribution should be less
than 100 millirem. That was the approach that we previously
advocated.
Now, we are advocating something slightly
different in that we are saying that the peak of the mean
dose as a function of time should be less than 25 millirem
and the plot of the upper 95th percentile should be less
than 100 millirem. And I will give you an example of this
in a minute.
Now, the reason for this change is not based upon
the comments that we got, but we feel that this approach is
generally consistent with the approach that is being used in
the high level waste program and, also, what we are
proposing in the decommissioning program. And, also, we
think that this provides better representation of risk to an
individual and, so, it should be a little it more in line
with the agency's risk-informed regulatory philosophy.
Okay. We look at these two curves here, this kind
of shows what we are doing. In the previous approach for
the treatment of uncertainty, what we were saying is that if
you take a look at the distribution of peak doses, the mean
of that distribution should be less than the 25 millirem,
and the 95th percentile of the distribution should be less
than 100 millirem.
The approach that we are advocating now is that
you take a plot of mean doses, these are mean doses at
individual times and if you plot those over time, that
should be less than 25 millirem. And if you take the 95th
percentile doses at time and plot that over time, that
should be less than 100 millirem. So, that is the approach
that we are advocating now.
Okay. It is not clear?
MR. HORNBERGER: It is clear, but I can't believe
that that is an approach used in high level waste. You are
taking the mean dose at time K.
MR. THAGGARD: Yes.
MR. HORNBERGER: From a variety of realizations.
MR. THAGGARD: Yes. And you are plotting that
over time.
MR. HORNBERGER: And you are plotting that over
time.
MR. THAGGARD: And you are taking the peak of
that.
MR. HORNBERGER: I think that I could -- it
wouldn't take me long to think of a pathological case that
would give you the nonsensical result. I'm sorry. Never
mind. Go ahead, Mark.
MR. THAGGARD: Okay.
MR. McCARTIN: Well, I guess, for high level
waste, I mean we are taking -- Tim McCartin, NRC staff. For
high level, I mean we are creating a mean dose curve that is
the summation of all the different realizations, and then
you are just taking the highest dose on that curve at each
-- at a particular instant in time, say, at 100 years, if
you did 100 realizations, you would have 100 estimates of
the dose.
MR. HORNBERGER: Yeah.
MR. McCARTIN: And you would take the mean. And
if you go to 200 years and do the same thing.
MR. HORNBERGER: Right. And Part 63 is based on
the peak of that curve?
MR. McCARTIN: Right. From a risk standpoint, you
are looking at -- previously, as Mark indicated, if you just
took the mean of the peaks, you would be averaging a peak
at, say, a 2,000 year dose with a 200.
MR. HORNBERGER: Right.
MR. McCARTIN: And then you don't -- in terms of
an individual risk, it wasn't a good reflection of
individual risk is why we went to the peak of the means.
CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Did you consider doing it in
CCDF form? Where you have probability as a parameter, and
each member of the family constitutes a percentile. So that
would be a nice way to do this, too, I would guess. We can
talk about that offline.
MR. McCARTIN: Okay.
MR. HORNBERGER: Let me make sure that the
difference between the previous approach and the proposed
approach are clear. The distribution that Mark is talking
about in the previous approach was really, say, you did
several hundred realizations, from each realization, you
would find the peak dose. Then you would take the mean of
that value and that is what you would compare to the Part 61
dose limit. As Tim pointed out in the --
MR. McCARTIN: And you are talking any account of
the time that that occurs?
MR. THAGGARD: That's correct.
MR. HORNBERGER: That's right. And the approach
that Tim is talking about, you take whatever, several
hundred realizations and you make a mean dose versus time
curve, and then pull the peak off of that, so there is a
significant difference between how you do it.
MR. McCARTIN: Yeah, I can understand the CCDF
approach quite clearly that John mentioned, but there is
something logically wrong to me doing the calculation the
way you just described and using that as a standard.
CHAIRMAN GARRICK: We need to pursue this further.
MR. HORNBERGER: Yes.
MR. THAGGARD: Okay. Now, I would just like to
summarize real quickly. As I stated, on balance, the
comments that we got on the documents were fairly favorable,
although I kind of gave you the bad side of the picture by
giving you the comments.
The positions in the document remain largely
unchanged, except with this treatment of uncertainty issue.
The other positions remain pretty much unchanged, although,
as I indicated, because we are going to publish the document
simply as a NUREG, these are going to reflect the views of
the Performance Assessment Working Group. And, as I
indicated, we revised the position on the treatment of
uncertainty to try to be more consistent with what is being
done in the other program areas.
We have responded to all the comments
individually, so, if you go to the document and look in that
appendix, you will see that we responded to each of the
comments. And then we just tried to provide additional
information as needed in the document to make it a little
bit clearer. So, that pretty much concludes that I had to
go over and I will try to answer your questions.
CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Well, let me go around the
committee. Milt, do you have some questions?
MR. LEVENSON: No.
CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Ray?
MR. WYMER: I have a comment. At a very high
philosophical level, I was struck by the very great
similarity, in general, in how this was treated and how the
high level waste in the Yucca Mountain repository is
treated. I mean the whole strategic approach was very
similar, with an outstanding exception, and it seems to me
sort of anomalous.
The exception is that you limit the lifetime of
barriers, without additional justification, to 500 years.
This is for low level waste. There is no such limit on the
high level waste repository. And it seems to me that it
would be more desirable for that situation to be reversed,
considering the hazard posed by the types of waste. So, I
wondered why you stuck the 500 years in there when it is not
there in the high level waste. It seems sort of
inconsistent.
MR. THAGGARD: Yeah. We got a lot of comments on
that, people suggesting that we shouldn't have any time
limit in there. One of the reasons for the 500 years is
because it is the general feeling that, for low level waste,
most of the hazard -- I mean most of the short-lived
radionuclides are going to be decayed after 500 years. And
that is primarily what the barriers are designed to protect
you for.
MR. WYMER: But that is no justification for
putting a 500 year limit on it. Anyway, that is an
observation.
And my second observation is -- okay, Tim.
MR. McCARTIN: Yeah. Tim McCartin. I mean we did
not impose a strict limit of 500 years. We thought after
500 years it would be increasingly difficult, with little
benefit. But there is not -- as Mark indicated, whatever
credit they -- likewise, we weren't giving 500 years credit
with no support. Whatever a licensee came in with, they
would have to defend. We only gave the idea that after 500
years, the benefit of taking credit for it would be fairly
diminished, because you would have to go to very long
periods then because, you know, the remaining hazard is
there for almost forever.
MR. WYMER: Really, the thrust of the comment had
to do with the difference between the high level waste and
the low level waste, as opposed to what you did for low
level waste.
MR. THAGGARD: Yeah, but you are probably looking
at a different type of barriers, too. I mean what we did in
coming up with the 500 year number is the engineers that
were involved in this effort, they looked at the different
type of engineering components that you are likely to see in
a low level waste site. And, quite frankly, it was their
expert opinion that they didn't think you could rely on
these any more than 500 years.
Now, if they looked at the type of components that
is in a high level waste program, they may have looked at
something -- I mean they may have come up with a different
number. Unfortunately, they have since retired, so, we
can't -- we can't get into that discussion with them.
MR. McCARTIN: Well, with respect to high level
waste, I mean, once again, DOE has the flexibility to come
and defend whatever number they come up with. We haven't
specified any minimum value. There is a difference in that
there is a -- the hazard level is higher for the high level
waste repository, and, so, they may -- there is
justification and merit in creating, obviously, a much
longer-lived container.
Low level waste, it was primarily earthen covers
and concrete. And so --
MR. WYMER: Yeah, I realize that. It just seems
to me you sort of set yourself up for a problem.
My second observation is you have managed to
destroy my confidence in the use of NUREG documents.
[Laughter.]
MR. THAGGARD: Okay. Well, at least I
accomplished something here today.
MR. HORNBERGER: Mark, following up on Ray's NUREG
versus BTP again, somewhere in here, in your presentation, I
can't find it right now, but you said that the positions
were going to be taken out of the document.
MR. THAGGARD: Well, what I said was that the
positions were going to be rephrased as being positions from
the Performance Assessment Working Group, as opposed to --
MR. HORNBERGER: But I mean you are still going
to --
MR. THAGGARD: Yeah, the positions are going to
still -- yeah.
MR. HORNBERGER: The position was going to still
be given that 10,000 years was the correct timeframe.
MR. THAGGARD: That's correct.
MR. HORNBERGER: And all the other things that you
mentioned.
MR. THAGGARD: That's correct.
MR. HORNBERGER: Okay. And do you give any
guidance in the BTP -- well, the NUREG, the NUREG for how
one would use the information on calculations beyond 10,000
years?
MR. THAGGARD: Yeah. I mean one example is, as I
indicated, maybe to possibly identify the need for inventory
limits. There may be some other --
MR. HORNBERGER: I mean what would lead you to
conclude that inventory limits were necessary?
MR. THAGGARD: Well, obviously, if you are getting
doses that is going to exceed the limit -- I mean the
standard, that may be something you need to take a look --
MR. HORNBERGER: Exceeding 25?
MR. THAGGARD: Yeah. I mean if you are getting
significant doses at that point, then you -- I don't know if
we specify a specific number in terms of --
MR. HORNBERGER: Yeah. Well, that was --
MR. THAGGARD: Yeah, I don't believe the document
does that.
MR. HORNBERGER: But I mean is the general gut
level feeling, again, of your group that if you calculated a
peak dose at 50,000 years of 100 millirem, that that would
be what would lead you to conclude that something was
needed? Or 26 millirems --
MR. THAGGARD: Yeah. We didn't really specify
that and maybe, you know.
MR. HORNBERGER: Well, I wasn't asking for -- I
mean I don't think you would want to specify a number, or
else it would become a de facto regulation.
MR. THAGGARD: Yeah.
MR. HORNBERGER: But I was just curious whether
you think guidance --
MR. THAGGARD: Well, I think the -- well, the
general intent was not to throw that information away, to
look at it. And, obviously, it is a qualitative decision,
so, I think the main emphasis is not to throw that
information away, to look at it. And if it tells you
something that you can use, to help you -- I mean help guide
you, you should take a look at it.
I don't know whether we had a particular number.
I mean maybe Andy can answer that because he wrote the
original position on that.
MR. CAMPBELL: I guess now I am the guy left
standing. There were a number of issues, and, in fact, the
committee had a working group on timeframe of compliance a
number of years ago, I believe in '96. We also, the
committee wrote a letter in '97 on low level waste time of
compliance. At the time we were putting this document
together, there were proposals to put very, very large
inventories of depleted uranium into a low level waste site.
And, of course, the doses, because it is depleted uranium,
don't become apparent till long timeframes.
And, so, Part 61 clearly provides for the
specification of an inventory limit, although it doesn't say
that you have to do that, but it provides for that
capability. And, so, there are scenarios in terms of what
kinds of waste and how much you are disposing that long
timeframes, you might very well want to look at them,
because the dose is not necessarily in the 25 millirem but
much, much higher range.
The other issue in terms of time of compliance for
the more mobile radionuclides, which tend to be the drivers
in terms of peak doses, the real concern about the
engineered barriers and why 500 years was kind of an
arbitrary number, I mean there are parts of the regulation
that, for example, in a BTP waste form requires a 300 year
lifetime for a Class B and C HIT, high integrity container.
There was a concern that -- how long do covers
perform? Well, in wet climates that may be driven by how
long it takes trees to establish themselves on the covers
and the roots to penetrate the multiple layers and so on.
The engineered vaults, the concrete vaults, we
were seeing proposals in DOE space for vault systems where
it was claimed that they would last, you know, 10,000 years
with no leakage. And, so, the 500 years was a judgment on
the part of the engineers to say, look, we don't exactly
know how long the cover is going to last, maybe a few
hundred years, maybe a little bit longer. We do know that
concrete vaults, when they start cracking, even a small
series of say 50 micron cracks, it doesn't take very many of
them before they are not a barrier to infiltration.
So, the key driver was how long you can keep water
out of the system. And if you push your timeframe to a
short enough period of time, essentially, you never analyze
what the potential dose is from the facility and what the
site will do for you. You essentially end up saying, well,
my engineered barriers are going to last, my cover is going
to last, you know, eight, 900 years, and if I have a 500
year period of performance, then I am done. Essentially, I
don't need to do a PA at that point, all I have to do is
make a demonstration my cover will last X hundred years.
And, so, that was another rationale in terms of looking at
these timeframes.
Clearly, you go way out in time, the value of a PA
becomes less and less because the uncertainties are just
getting larger. Did that help?
MR. McCARTIN: Tim McCartin, if I could add one
thing, Dr. Hornberger. If you look at how the -- the
qualitative look, I think is the right way to look at the
beyond. In terms of what kind of -- how you treat those
doses, I think it depends on how far out it is, et cetera.
But another way to look at it, if you are looking for any
quantitative feel for how the staff would perceive things, I
think if you look at the way the dose limit is met, we want
the mean to meet 25. The 95th percentile only has to be
below 100. And, so, clearly, we are allowing some doses of
realizations to be above 100 millirem. So, as you go out, I
think you get a sense that we aren't looking at -- we are
not going to give any number, but you can see that there are
doses that certainly could exceed 100 potentially.
MR. HORNBERGER: No, and, as you know, I would not
be in favor of stating a number that far out either. I
think what Andy just said helps in terms of the kind of
scenario that one would envision requiring inventory
control, where you have large amounts of depleted uranium.
I was more curious about whether you had that kind of
guidance, which is more qualitative.
CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Just a couple of questions of
clarification. When you talked uncertainty, you talked
pretty specific in terms of the peak of the mean dose as a
function of time should be less than 25 millirem, et cetera,
et cetera, and that as a function of time should be less
than 100 millirem for the 95th. How are you assessing the
relative contribution to uncertainty of modeling uncertainty
versus -- I can certainly -- certainly, there is a lot of
experience in addressing the issue of information
uncertainty. Where there is increased controversy is how
you quantify modeling uncertainty.
MR. THAGGARD: Yeah. In the document, we don't
really take a strong stance on advocating people quantifying
model uncertainty or, for that matter, even scenario
uncertainty, I mean.
CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Right.
MR. THAGGARD: So we are primarily looking at here
parameter uncertainty, although we think that, to some
extent, we may be looking at alternative conceptual models
based on some of the range of parameters that we are --
people are going to be using in the way these models are
constructed. But, so, to some degree, you may be having a
back-end way of calculating model uncertainty, but we don't
have really real guidance on --
CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Okay. So, most -- this is
referring mostly to information uncertainty?
MR. THAGGARD: It is mostly, yeah, information
uncertainty related to the parameters, so, it is primarily
parameter uncertainty.
CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Okay.
MR. THAGGARD: Although, as I indicated, for some
of the parameters and how the parameters may be treated in
the models and the range of the parameters, you may be
looking at the effects of different models to some extent.
CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Yeah. One of the things I
noticed in reading the draft, speaking of scenarios, there
was a footnote, in reference to analytical approaches, that
said, "Assigning probabilities to scenarios, which is
characteristic of some probabilistic approaches, is not" --
and "not" is in bold letters, the only bold letters that I
saw in the whole document -- "recommended by the staff for
low level waste performance assessment." That almost comes
on like it is a condemnation against scenario based risk
assessment, which is, in my opinion, the best way to do risk
assessments.
Does that mean that if a licensee came in with a
scenario based risk assessment, that it would be looked upon
negatively?
MR. THAGGARD: No, that is not the intent. And
maybe we need to look again at how that is worded. But the
idea was, I think there was a lot of concern, when we first
went out with the document, people were saying, well, you
know, when you start getting into things like scenario
uncertainty and things of that nature, that there is a
tremendous amount of uncertainty just in terms of trying to
assign probabilities to that. And I think there was some
concern that we didn't necessarily want to be putting people
in the position that they had to necessarily go into an
expert elicitation process just to come up with
probabilities for these scenarios and so forth.
So, that may have been the genesis for that
language. It is more in terms of trying to tell people that
they didn't necessarily have to do that. I don't think
there is any thought on the staff's part that we would look
disfavorable is somebody chose to go down that path.
CHAIRMAN GARRICK: I think it comes across in the
wrong way. I think if you were to turn it around and just
say that this need not necessarily include a propagation of
uncertainties through the scenarios, or the identification
of scenarios, because you do talk a lot in the report about
models, almost in the context that you substitute the word
"models" for "scenarios." And one could argue that all a
structured set of scenarios is is a model.
So, I think that one might get the wrong
impression from this, and we may want to comment on that.
MR. THAGGARD: Okay. Do you want to add something
on that, Mike? I mean I think that would be --
MR. LEE: Yeah. This is Mike Lee. We can work
with that language. That may not have been the best
language to select. But our concern was that we wanted to
remind the developer that in selecting the proposed disposal
site, they were to be reminded that they were to select
sites that were geologically quiescent. We didn't want --
we wanted to avoid situations where the developer would
start doing scenario analyses of a probabilistic nature to
drive his site selection process. We wanted to kind of get
out of that space, because that is contentious and certainly
inconsistent with what the regulations call for.
We are not adverse to them considering scenarios
that are consistent with the evolution of the site as part
of the performance assessment, but we didn't want to be
pushing them in that direction.
CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Well, of course, the kind of
scenarios that I am thinking of are assessment scenarios
that respond to the issue of what can go wrong with the
site. So, that is how I would answer the question, -- What
could go wrong? -- is with the structured set of scenarios.
MR. LEE: Right.
CHAIRMAN GARRICK: And, so, I would hope that this
wouldn't discourage people from --
MR. THAGGARD: Yeah, I don't think that was the
intent, and we can certainly look at the language there, to
tone that down.
CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Because it really almost looks
like a kind of condemnation, especially with the emphasis
put on it with the bold type on the word "not." So, okay.
Any other questions? Comments? Yes, Howard.
MR. LARSON: When do you plan to finalize it? I
gather that -- you know, has the document received a final
tech editor review?
MR. THAGGARD: No, it is --
MR. LARSON: You are satisfied with the writing?
When would the final document be available for the committee
to look at insofar as, you know, the way it is put together
and everything?
MR. THAGGARD: Probably, my guess would be late
summer, maybe in the fall some timeframe. Our plan is right
now we are still getting comments on the document, internal
-- I mean still going through an internal review. And once
it has finished that, then I don't think there will be a
problem with showing it to the committee.
I would like to touch upon one thing that Dr.
Wymer said about the fact that we are going to publish the
document as a NUREG. That shouldn't -- it is not really our
intent to necessarily diminish the recommendations in the
document. And I apologize if that is the impression I gave,
because I mean the ideal is that this was an agency, a group
of agency experts working on this. And people should be
able to take that and say, well, you know, this group of
agency experts looked at this, and these are the
recommendations that they came up with. This is the
information that they provided. And they should be able to
use that however they see fit. But it wouldn't necessarily
say that this is the overall agency's position, but people
should be able to recognize that this is a group of experts
from the agency and this is their position. And, so, I
think that should still carry a lot of weight. So, I didn't
mean to diminish the role of what we are trying to
accomplish here.
CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Okay. Thank you. Thank you
very much.
I guess, since we have a little time here, it
might be appropriate to raise the question with the
committee of what kind of response do we think this out to
have at this time. And can we give a response without the
committee members actually reviewing the document itself?
We can give a response on the basis of the presentation to
be sure. But some of the questions the committee is asking,
they are probably going to require a little digging into the
report.
Anybody have an opinion on how we should respond?
MR. WYMER: There are two or three things we could
respond to, they have already been brought up, having to do
with George's concerns about the meaning of these doses
interpretation. And I would like to comment, I think, too,
on the fact that I think having the low level waste document
and the high level waste document, I mean differently with
respect to what engineered barriers can mean, even allowing
that there is a flexibility, and that is allowed in the
language, a justification of a longer lifetime is certainly
within the scope, but to say for the low level waste there
is a 500 year limit with exceptions allowed, and then not to
say something comparable in the high level waste area, it
seems to me you are sort of setting yourself up for a
problem. And I think we might comment along those lines.
CHAIRMAN GARRICK: And I think we definitely --
maybe that is what you mean when you say the dose
calculation, but I think there is definitely a sense of
maybe we want to comment on the form of the results, the
actual form of the dose assessment results.
MR. LEVENSON: Do we recognize the difference
between Classes A, B and C?
CHAIRMAN GARRICK: I don't know. Tim.
MR. McCARTIN: There are slightly different rules,
primarily depth of burial for the different classes.
MR. LEVENSON: Integrity of containers.
MR. McCARTIN: Class B and C waste, Milt, is
required to have an intruder barrier that has a lifetime of
at least 500 years. Class B and C waste has to be put in
containers that have been -- essentially gone through a
topical report review by the NRC that shows that they will
have about a 300 year stability lifetime. There are some
other differences between Class A and Class B and C, but the
analyses done to support this document looked at a facility
that had both Class A and Class B and C. In fact, the
inventory was derived from manifest information and reports
about what was being disposed. Now, mind you, that was a
number of years ago, but the radionuclide content hasn't
changed that much, the volumes have changed.
MR. LEVENSON: Back then I think there was more
perception that a low level waste facility would maybe take
them all. We don't know what will have with Envirocare,
but, clearly, it is a facility that for some time has been
only Class A. So, I wondered whether this document
recognized the difference between a single category and some
of the general facilities.
MR. McCARTIN: Well, I mean in doing the
performance assessment, you certainly would tailor it to the
inventory you are expecting. Other than that, there is no
preclusion of having to have one class or three classes,
whatever.
MR. LARSON: As a NUREG, if it was an Agreement
State and they were going to put in a low level waste
disposal facility, and they felt that they needed no help
from anybody, what would be the impact of this document upon
them? I just -- for my own clarification. Do they have to
follow it or is it -- it is only whatever value they want to
use, right?
MR. THAGGARD: That's correct. I mean as a BTP,
they wouldn't necessarily have to follow it, and they can
use whatever approach they think is necessary.
CHAIRMAN GARRICK: One of the things that I was
struck by in the limited reading of the report was the
emphasis that was given to the distinction between
uncertainty analysis, sensitivity analysis and probabilistic
analysis. I am still wrestling a little bit with how you
address uncertainty analysis, say, out of context with the
probabilistic analysis. But maybe when I see what you have
done, I will understand that better.
I could make the same comment relative to
sensitivity analysis, because, to me, probability is the
language of uncertainty. And, so, if you are going to do a
reasonable job of uncertainty analysis, you have to do a
considerable amount of probabilistic type investigation.
And I hope that is all sorted out in the report.
MR. McCARTIN: Yeah, I guess -- Mark had limited
time to go through everything. But when we first went down
this approach of doing -- and it is a probabilistic
approach.
CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Right.
MR. McCARTIN: I mean most people would --
however, having said that, probabilistic in the terms that
your parameters have distributions and you are sampling
among those distributions, and each value has a certain
probability assigned to it. To the broader low level waste
community throughout the United States, we did not want to
-- there was a worry of confusing people with a
probabilistic approach with assigning probabilities to
scenarios in disruptive events, what is typically done in
high level waste. And, so, we tried to draw some
distinctions there. As Mark indicated, we aren't
recommending scenarios with probabilities, primarily because
the siting conditions preclude many of the disruptive events
from occurring at the site, except at a very low
probability, albeit, because it is sited properly.
But it was trying to -- to date, when we first
went down this way, this approach, people had been doing
single deterministic analyses, and to move over to this
approach, we wanted to make it clear that it wasn't the full
-- some people consider the high level waste approach
probabilistic, because you have scenarios with
probabilities. And, so, we were trying to bridge a wide
variety of capabilities to conduct different analyses and
experiences in doing PAs, and a lot of the people we talked
to aren't familiar with the high level waste program and
what that means, and, so.
CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Yeah. Well, as we have said
many times, this whole issue is a classic case of risk
communication, and our inability at times to do a reasonable
job of communicating what we mean. If we could ever get to
the point where we get across the message that by
probabilistic approaches, we don't mean something in place
of or instead of, we mean something in addition to, that,
essentially, by definition, we mean additional information,
when we go from deterministic to probabilistic methods.
And, obviously, in that structure, in that framework, it
would seem that it is a more saleable concept to say that
all we are really talking about here is getting additional
information, additional insights and additional
understanding of how much confidence we should really have
in these deterministic results.
I have found that when you deal with students and
the public in that context, with respect to the introduction
of probabilistic notions, it takes some of the fear out of
what you are trying to do. And, so, I think it is kind of a
classic case of risk communication that we have not really
been able to achieve and still represents one of our
challenges. So, I am always disturbed when I hear that
there is a fear of probability. That always signals to me
that we are not, you know, we are not doing a very good job
of telling them what we mean when we talk about that next
level of analysis, and that is what it really seems to me
should be, is just the next level of analysis. Because that
is the reaction you get.
You know, I once heard a utility executive say we
would never use probability as a basis for any decisions
that we make. Well, how nonsensical a statement that has to
be, because that is saying we only make decisions about
which we are 100 percent certain, and you never do that.
Never have that. So, you are using probability all the
time, implicitly as it may be.
Okay. Any other comments from staff or anybody in
the audience? Yes.
MR. LEE: In the spirit of communication, I think
at the beginning of the presentation, Mark noted that the
BTP is currently in concurrence and we expect to get it to
the Commission in July. And just to reinforce a point that
Mark made earlier, the hope and desire is that we, in
parallel with that concurrence, which we have recently met
with OGC and they have given us some comments and
recommendations which we are addressing, but we don't expect
the BTP to change substantively between now and when it goes
to the Commission.
MR. McCARTIN: You mean the NUREG.
MR. LEE: The NUREG, excuse me. Freudian slip.
But our hope and desire is that we get a letter -- in the
past, what the committee has done is it has sent a letter to
the Commission with its recommendation as to finalize the
document that the staff happens to be working on. In some
cases we have gotten that recommendation with no comment.
In other cases, we have gotten comments, and we welcome any
comments from the committee and we can work those out in
parallel with what we have to do to finalize the document.
CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Okay. Sounds like a real
challenge if we are going to get any letter out that will
have any impact on the submittal to the Commission.
MR. CAMPBELL: One comment here.
CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Yes.
MR. CAMPBELL: One of the things that I noted as I
read through the document is that there are a number of
references that have developed since the technical parts of
the document were written back in the mid '90s, and that
those references need to be updated, and there certainly
should be some effort -- there are a number of NUREG reports
and ACR reports that have come out since that was done, that
really need -- otherwise, the document appears to be very
dated, and that would be important to get into the document.
MR. LEE: We welcome those updates, Andy. When
can you get them to us?
MR. CAMPBELL: Well, I think there were a number
of people in Research that were involved in the document,
and that needs to come over to you guys as a list of things
that need to be changed, but it needs to be done soon.
Otherwise, the document will appear to be fairly dated.
MR. LEE: Well, as part of the finalization of the
document, we have redistributed the document to remaining
members of PAWG and I know -- including those members that
currently reside in Research, and I know they are working on
-- one individual in particular is getting us some new and
updated references, but any contribution any PAWG member
current, living, whatever, happens to make, we are more than
welcome to get that.
MR. McCARTIN: Living or not.
MR. LEE: That's right.
MR. McCARTIN: Comments from the beyond.
[Laughter.]
CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Actually, I think the report
will be very helpful to all parties, including states. And
as far as the analytical process that is involved, and I
suspect it will be an evolving NUREG as we update it and
learn more about how to do things.
Okay. Well, I think, unless there is additional
comment, we will adjourn for lunch.
[Whereupon, at 12:15 p.m., the meeting was
recessed, to reconvene at 1:30 p.m., this same day.]. A F T E R N O O N S E S S I O N
[1:30 p.m.]
CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Good afternoon. The meeting
will come to order. This afternoon, we're going to start
off talking about West Valley, and we are, in particular,
going to hear about some public comments on a draft policy
statement on decommissioning criteria for the West Valley
Demonstration Project.
Ray Wymer of the Committee is the lead on this
subject, so I'll let Ray introduce our speaker.
MR. WYMER: Okay, before I do, I'll make a few
comments, Jack. I hope I don't steal your thunder. I don't
think I will because I don't know enough to steal your
thunder.
[Discussion off the record.]
MR. WYMER: The West Valley site is a particularly
complex site with a lot of people in the act and a lot of
timing considerations with respect to when various things
kick in and various people gain and lose responsibility for
a license termination.
I don't know how many of you know that the West
Valley site is located within the Western New York Nuclear
Service Center, so-called, which is something over a
3300-acre site, and ore of less in the middle of that is a
200-acre site which DOE has responsibility for.
They're operating under the West Valley
Demonstration Project Act, a Congressional act, actually
that gives DOE responsibility for a segment, a piece of that
site.
The other parts of the site are also complex.
There is a five-acre site that's licensed by the NRC.
There is a 15-acre site where the waste disposal
activities are governed by the State of New York. There is
a memorandum of understanding between DOE and NRC that
governs this, completed in 1981 and governs the
interrelationships and the New York State Energy Research
and Development Authority has the responsibilities on the
site.
So, it turns out to be -- and there will probably
be incidental wastes associated with the site, which is
another whole issue. So, it turns out to be an
extraordinarily complicated issue.
I hope that Jack Parrot will explain all that,
elucidate it, and in particular, tell us about the
decommissioning criteria associated with the site. Jack,
please?
MR. PARROT: Okay, thank you. Good afternoon. My
name is Jack Parrot. I'm the NRC's Project Manager for
interaction with West Valley and the West Valley
Demonstration Project.
The focus of my presentation today was going to be
-- or is going to be on the draft policy statement that was
issued last December for the decommissioning criteria. But
before I go into that, I was just wondering what the
Committee would like to hear as far as background.
I don't want to just launch into where we are now
without a little bit of background if it's all right.
CHAIRMAN GARRICK: I think that would be
appropriate.
MR. PARROT: Okay. Briefly, the site, the West
Valley site, was the only commercial spent fuel reprocessing
site ever operated in the country.
It was licensed by the AEC in 1966. It processed
some 640 tons of spent fuel. Along with that were a number
of wastes produced, as you can imagine.
Also, next to the site in one corner of the site
is a state-licensed disposal area, licensed by the State of
New York, a pre-Part 61 disposal area that took some wastes
from the operational facilities at West Valley, in addition
to commercial wastes and waste from other government
facilities.
The reprocessing continued until about 1972, when
the operator of the site NFS, decided to shut down
operations, and no more reprocessing occurred.
And then in 1980, the West Valley Demonstration
Project Act was signed by President Carter. This Act
requires DOE to come onsite, solidify the high-level waste
that was produced from the spent fuel reprocessing,
transport it and dispose of it.
In addition, the Act required DOE to decontaminate
and decommission the tanks and project facilities and
materials used with the Project, two requirements prescribed
by NRC.
With the realization that the solidification
portion of the Project is almost complete, attention turned
to establishing decommissioning criteria in the late 1990s.
At about the same time, as you know, the license termination
rule was promulgated in 1997, so this led to the beginning
of prescribing the decommissioning criteria for West Valley.
The NRC's decommissioning criteria for West Valley
was issued on December 3rd of 1999, as a draft policy
statement by the Commission. Basically what it says is, to
apply NRC's license determination rule to the site as the
decommissioning criteria -- I'll go into a little bit more
detail in the next slide, but after the policy statement was
issued, we held a public meeting up at near the site on
January 5th, 2000.
At that meeting, we heard comments from the
public, DOE, NYSERDA, and other agencies and groups. We
received about 60 comments and questions at the public
meeting, and the written comment period closed on April 1st.
We received about 28 comment letters with about 200
individual comments.
Basically, the draft policy statement consisted of
three components of a process for prescribing the
decommissioning criteria:
First of all, it was to apply the NRC's license
termination rules to the decommissioning criteria for both
the West Valley Demonstration Project and for the portion of
the site that would remain under a license to NYSERDA.
As you know, the range of decommissioning criteria
range from an unrestricted release limit of 25 millirem per
year, and then if you want to apply institutional controls
to the site, you can do restricted releases up to a range of
between 100 and 500 millirem per year, if those restrictions
were to fail.
The next step in the process was for DOE and
NYSERDA to propose a preferred alternative and develop and
EIS to support that preferred alternative.
That's what they're working on actually right now,
and that our decommissioning criteria would fit into.
And then the final step described in the policy
statement was that the NRC would verify that the specific
criteria chosen for the site meets the range of the LTR, and
prescribes its use after considering the impacts in the EIS.
I should mention that NRC is a cooperating agency in this
EIS process.
And let me briefly contrast how this to a typical
licensing case: In a typical licensing case, we wouldn't
have to do the first step, because we would already have the
license termination rule to apply to all our licensees. So,
this is one way that the site is unique, is, we've got
actually -- do a two-step prescription.
Okay, first, we've got to say that the LTR applies
to the site, and then after they go through the process of
developing a decommissioning plan, specifically how the
criteria would be applied.
Okay, as I mentioned, we had a number of comments.
The Staff is currently evaluating and developing responses
to the comments.
The comments could fall into basically three broad
categories: A lot of the comments had to do with NRC's
process for finalizing these or prescribing these
decommissioning criteria.
A lot of the comments were more on the license
termination rule itself, the guidance and the implementation
license termination rules.
A number of comments were also on jurisdictional
cooperation with other agencies that are involved with the
site.
Let me briefly try to summarize some of the
comments here, some of the major comments.
There were a lot of comments, but I'll try to
summarize the major comments. DOE, their main comment
really focused on the process that we were going to use for
prescribing their criteria.
They felt that the prescription of the criteria
should happen after the EIS process is completed. The State
of New York had certain concerns -- and when I say the State
of New York, I'm including NYSERDA, the New York Department
of Environmental Control, and we also got some comments from
the New York State Attorney General's Office.
Their main concern seem to focus on not allowing
shifting of federal responsibility onto the state. They
also wanted us to consider the SDA, the state-licensed
burial ground that is in one corner of the site, in the
overall criteria, even though it's under a separate license.
And also they were concerned -- and this relates
back to the first comment -- that there be consistent
criteria, decommissioning criteria, for both the Project,
DOE's Project, and the eventual license.
EPA had similar comments they have made for other
decommissioning sites of NRC; that the license termination
rule may not be protective; that the groundwater needs a
separate protection; and that there should be coordination
with EPA for both the remediation of the hazards and the
radioactive contamination at the site.
We received a number of other comments, and some
of these other comments also were made by the agencies
described here, but because of the type of waste at this
site and the nature of the site, a lot of the other
commenters had concerned about relying on institutional
controls to control the dose from this site.
A lot of commenters believed that institutional
controls cannot be relied on at this site, and therefore
want all of the waste and material removed from the site,
eventually.
At the very least, a number of them wanted to get
a better idea of what was the definition of an institutional
control for NRC; does it include the use of engineered
barriers and to what extent?
A number of the other comments also had to do with
the SDA and the fact that that should be considered with the
overall criteria for the site.
And there were a number of comments on incidental
waste and the fact that a lot of them did not want DOE to be
able to reclassify any of the high-level waste that is at
the site into incidental waste.
This is our schedule for completing the policy
statement. Our plan is to respond to the comments and make
any revisions to the policy statement that is needed and to
get that to the Commission by August, the end of August;
To receive input from the Commission on that by
the end of October, and then to revise the policy statement,
as needed, and then publish it in the Federal Register by
the end of the year.
Briefly, I wanted to touch on some other
activities we've got going with West Valley. We're working
on a cooperation agreement with NYSDEC, the state
environmental control authority up there. They license the
SDA and they're also responsible for the hazardous waste
component on the rest of the site.
We're working on a Commission paper that sets out
some guidelines for interacting with stakeholders at the
site. Because of the sort of informal relationship we've
got with DOE at the site and the fact that the license is
actually in abeyance, and the other unique qualities, we
felt that we needed to set out specific guidelines of how we
were going to interact from here on out with the different
parties. As you mentioned, it's a very complicated
situation.
We're also reviewing a preliminary safety
evaluation report for a planned facility called the Remote
Handled Waste Facility. This is related to another one of
NRC's authorities at the site, and that is to review and
comment on safety evaluation reports for facilities that are
going to be built at the site.
And as I mentioned, we're a cooperating agency on
the EIS, and there will be upcoming, hopefully before the
end of the year, review of some technical sections of the
EIS, and the preferred alternative.
Our plan for interacting with the ACNW on West
Valley is to provide the Committee with the draft responses
to the comments we received, and the final policy statement
at the same time we submit it to the Commission for a
parallel review.
So, with that, that concludes my prepared
presentation.
MR. WYMER: I was reading through some of the
testimony that was given back in January. One of the things
that came out loud and strong was that the stakeholders and
the State of New York, the various agencies of the State of
New York, speaking generally, don't -- they don't really
care much about the formalities of who does what, or what
the license termination rule is or what they are responsible
for.
What they want is the site looked at holistically,
and they want the whole darn thing cleaned up, and forget
about the legal obligations for the moment. And that's sort
of their point of view; let's clean up the site as best we
can to protect the citizens of the State of New York.
So, the question I have then is, how broad a
brush, how broad a sweep is the NRC taking with respect to
license termination? Are they narrowly focused on the DOE
license which will kick in 2010, or are they concerned with
that, plus the NRC licensed little piece of the site, in
addition, or are they considering the whole thing and will
the EIS address the whole thing?
In other words, how broad a cut is NRC going to
take on this?
MR. PARROT: Okay, well, first of all, the EIS
that they're working on for the closure of the site does
consider the entire site, including the state-licensed
disposal area. The EIs is a joint project between DOE and
NYSERDA.
They are both lead agencies on the EIS, and they
are considering the whole site. Now, when we put the draft
policy statement out, we tried to take as broad a brush and
sweep as possible, given our limitations and the fact that
we don't license the entire site. Part of the site is
licensed by the state.
And that was what was pointed out in the policy
statement. We want the license termination rule to apply to
DOE's portion and the part of the site that's licensed by
NRC. And anything beyond that, for instance, the SDA, that
will have to be worked out with the proper authorities.
MR. WYMER: Okay, is it your view that the
Environmental Impact Statement effectively replaces the
project decommissioning plan?
MR. PARROT: No, no. The Environmental Impact
Statement needs to be done, and a preferred alternative
chosen, and what we'd like to see, I think, at NRC, is that
whatever the preferred alternative is, that it falls within
the range of the license termination rule.
But there still is a requirement that DOE and
NYSERDA will have to submit decommissioning plans which
will, hopefully, specifically point out how they intend to
meet the license termination rule.
MR. WYMER: And I have one final question. To
what extent will the NRC be involved in institutional
controls after the site is closed?
MR. PARROT: Well, only in a very general sense,
from the license termination rule, there would be, you know,
some requirement, if they do a restricted release, to have a
periodic recheck of the site.
Now, the specifics of that, it's too early to say
how that would work out.
MR. WYMER: NRC would probably accept the
responsibility for carrying out the periodic re-checks into
the indefinite future?
MR. PARROT: Well, to the extent that, yes, it
would be an NRC-licensed site, I imagine that it would be
either NRC or --
MR. WYMER: Those parts that are NRC-licensed.
MR. PARROT: Yes.
MR. NELSON: Excuse me, this is Bob Nelson,
Decommissioning Branch, NMSS. We would not -- we do not
envision a role in which NRC would be doing periodic
rechecks. If there are rechecks that need to be done, they
would have to -- the license termination rule does not
envision NRC physically doing those rechecks.
The license termination rule requires that
financial assurance be put in place, such that an
independent third party can do the rechecks. That's not
NRC, so --
MR. WYMER: That's all I have at the moment.
John, do you have any followup questions?
CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Well, I don't think I have very
much. But when you were summarizing the comments, with
respect to the State of New York, one of the comments was
that they wanted to be sure that there was no shifting of
federal responsibility to the state.
But isn't there a point beyond which that's what's
supposed to happen?
MR. PARROT: Yes. There will be a point where DOE
feels that they have satisfied their requirements under the
Act, the West Valley Demonstration Project Act, at which
point NYSERDA would take back the site and the license would
be renewed or pulled out of abeyance.
The question is, what is that point? And the
State of New York and DOE are actually in negotiations right
now over where that point is.
It's not real clear, and, you know, the Act
doesn't give a lot of definition of where that point is, but
they're in negotiations right now, I think, to work that
out.
CHAIRMAN GARRICK: What alternatives are being
considered for the final disposition of the site? Supposing
they can't do what Ray is indicating they want, namely,
complete cleanup of the site? What alternatives are under
consideration?
MR. PARROT: In the Draft EIS that they published
in 1996, they looked at range of various alternatives,
everything from cleaning up the site entirely to doing just
a minimal stabilization and leaving everything there.
Based on a lot of the presentations that I have
seen from DOE, they seem to be actively considering leaving
at least the structures of the process building and the high
level waste tanks there, and stabilizing them and using a
lot of engineered barriers, and also --
CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Does this include subsurface
barriers?
MR. PARROT: Yes. And it's the same thing for the
NRC-licensed disposal area, perhaps engineering a new cover
for the facility, but leaving it in place.
CHAIRMAN GARRICK: So, they're looking at
alternatives that vary from green fields to some degree of
stewardship?
MR. PARROT: Yes, and depending -- there is kind
of a mix they're looking at right now that some areas may be
able to be cleaned up completely, relatively easily, and
then some areas not. But again, they haven't established a
preferred alternative yet though.
CHAIRMAN GARRICK: How do you think the NRC is
going to respond to the EPA continued anxiety about the
license termination rule perhaps not adequately protecting
them?
MR. PARROT: My guess is that we will, as we've
done at other sites, decommissioning sites, say, well, this
is our criteria and we believe this to be protective.
CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Where does the state come down
on this?
MR. PARROT: Well, I think that they would like to
see a consistent message, because they are worried, of
course, that the site's decommissioned to NRC criteria, and
then EPA might come in and say, okay, we may apply CERCLA to
this site, and require different criteria.
So, I'm sure that they would like to see something
worked out beforehand.
CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Do you know, is there a
schedule in place yet for what happens beyond the issue of
this decommissioning criteria? What are the future events
and when are they likely to occur?
MR. PARROT: The future events would be that the
DOE and NYSERDA complete their EIS, establish a preferred
alternative and issue a record of decision.
The trouble is that the completion of that depends
on now these negotiations turn out between New York State
and DOE, and those aren't completed yet. So there is
something of an uncertainty there about when that will be
done.
And they're on the line. I don't know if you care
to ask them about that. But then the next step would be
then for DOE to submit to NRC, a decommissioning plan.
And then we would look at that, and because of the
unique relationship, we don't actually approve it; we review
it and comment on it. And then they would implement it.
CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Now, as far as the action from
this Committee, your final statement said that Staff will
provide ACNW with the draft response to comments and final
policy statement at the time of transmittal to the
Commission for parallel review. Is that the action you want
us to take, based on that review?
Or are you asking for something earlier than that?
MR. PARROT: I think that was the action we
anticipated, yes. We're still working through the comments,
and writing responses to those comments. It really won't be
ready until the time we give it to the Commission.
MR. WYMER: We haven't really come to the criteria
yet.
CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Go ahead.
MR. HORNBERGER: This is a fairly complex site, so
when DOE gets to developing a decommissioning plan, is there
anything in the policy statement that would offer them
guidance on how they would demonstrate that the plan was
successful; that is, is what is envisioned a probabilistic
performance assessment?
MR. PARROT: Yes, I believe we would use the same
kind of guidance that we would apply to any licensed site
that's decommissioning. And to the extent that that is a
probabilistic analysis, yes, we would like to see that.
And especially this site, with the amount of
uncertainty, it definitely would be important to consider
that, yes.
MR. LEVENSON: I have two questions: One is --
CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Put your mike down.
MR. LEVENSON: I have two questions: One is a
matter of catching up on history. The law setting up West
Valley as a demo project, did it mention at all, any role
for NRC at that time?
MR. PARROT: Yes. The roles that NRC is involved
with are prescribing the decommissioning criteria; also,
reviewing safety analysis reports for facilities that are
built at the site; a monitoring role, where, I guess you
could liken it to an inspection role where we send an onsite
person up there a few times a year, and review things and
write a report, but it's not an inspection report; it's a
monitoring report.
And, let's see, there's a role of -- I think
that's it.
MR. LEVENSON: But the act does specifically
exclude any activity of NRC with respect to the licensing of
the site until such time as DOE quits the site?
MR. PARROT: Right.
MR. LEVENSON: It was, of course, licensed by the
AEC up until that is done.
MR. PARROT: Right.
MR. LEVENSON: My other question, I guess, has
been answered, and that is, you have used the term -- like
for the new remote handled waste facility, you're going to
review and comment. So none of those new facilities will be
NRC-licensed; is that right?
MR. PARROT: Yes, until such time as the site
reverts to New York control and those facilities are still
there, then they would be licensed.
MR. WYMER: Well, as I look at the t.v. monitor, I
see a whole group of people off there in the State of New
York. I'd like to solicit questions of comments from that
group now.
SPEAKER: This is Melissa -- I'm the Director for
DOE here, and Paul -- . Paul is with the New York State
Energy Research and Development Authority.
I also want to mention we have a number of folks
from our staff, as well as a couple members of the Citizens
Task Force who wanted to sit in and listen to this as well.
Ray -- and McNeil. And what we were prepared to
do is just make some comments, some prepared comments, and
if you want to ask any questions of us, we'd be happy to
answer anything.
And really, all my comments really do, in terms of
the Department of Energy -- basically, we really appreciate
your involvement in this process, and we just want to sort
of reiterate the comments that we made on the draft policy
statement, if that would be okay.
MR. WYMER: Sure, go ahead.
SPEAKER: I'm just going to read this prepared
statement: The Department of Energy welcomes and
appreciates the involvement of the Advisory Committee on
Nuclear Waste in the process for developing decommissioning
criteria for West Valley.
The West Valley site is unique, and I think you've
pointed that out already, in terms of NRC-licensed sites and
the process for developing policy for West Valley should
consider the unique aspects of the site and be in compliance
with NEPA.
Based on the Advisory Committee's expertise and
experience in dealing with complex waste management issues,
the Committee is uniquely qualified to advise the Commission
on the development of the decommissioning policy that is
well founded in terms of risk considerations.
As indicated in DOE's formal comments on the draft
policy statement, the Department does not agree with the
NRC's current position of prescribing the license
termination rule for West Valley before the ongoing
site-specific closure Environmental Impact Statement is
completed.
Because of the unique and previously un-evaluated
waste management and environmental issues associated with
the former spent nuclear fuel reprocessing facility, DOE
does not believe that NRC has adequately enveloped the
potential disposition alternatives and impacts in any
generic Environmental Impact Statements that they have
completed or conducted to date.
Therefore, in order to comply with NEPA, the
environmental impacts of dispositioning facilities like
those at West Valley should be evaluated prior to developing
a policy on decommissioning.
DOE continues to endorse the process for
prescribing decommissioning criteria that is outlined in
SECY 98-251, and the memorandum of understanding that was
spoken of previously, between the Department of Energy and
NRC that was signed in 1981.
Both of these documents envisioned a sequence of
activities where DOE would first perform an analysis of
impacts and risks of potential disposition modes, and then
upon receipt of the analysis, the NRC would prescribe
decommissioning criteria.
This type of process is consistent with NEPA, and
essential for informed risk-based policymaking.
I just want to thank you again for your
involvement. We really think it's going to be value-added
to the process, and for your consideration of our comments.
MR. WYMER: Will that statement -- can it be made
available to this Committee -- that you've just read?
SPEAKER: Certainly. Yes, we can fax it to Jack.
MR. WYMER: Fine, if you can see that we get
copies, we'd appreciate that.
SPEAKER: Okay.
MR. WYMER: Thank you very much.
SPEAKER: I'm -- with the New York State Energy
Authority. And I'm sure Jack can share with you, the letter
that we provided to NRC and our comments on LTR. And there
is some background letters also.
I just want to say thank you that you're taking a
look at the West Valley decommissioning criteria. I think
it's very important.
I would suggest that you take a look at the
history of how the site got here, perhaps in an earlier
time, to help you understand the complexity -- help you
better understand the complexity of the issues that are
here.
Clearly, it may be likely that some materials have
to stay here at this site, at least over the long term, and
will require some monitoring and institutional control.
I think there's help that you can give in helping
to establish that kind of perpetual or long-term management
of the site, and would be very well warranted.
There are a number of comments that we do have.
Our last letter to NRC kind of spelled out a number of the
concerns that the state has regarding the future of the
site.
MR. WYMER: Thank you very much. Are there other
comments from other members of the group there in New York?
There was a hand raised.
SPEAKER: Yes, this is Ray -- of the West Valley
Citizen Task Force. I'm also a member of the citizens group
known as the Coalition on West Valley Nuclear Waste.
I would just like to disagree slightly or
partially with one point that was being discussed just
before you came to talk to us -- while you were talking
among yourselves and with Jack Parrot.
The question you were discussing was whether there
was any provision for NRC licensing involved in the West
Valley Demonstration Project Act that might involve DOE's
role.
And Jack Parrot and others, I think, said, no.
That's what I want to partially disagree with.
If you look at the West Valley Demonstration
Project Act -- I don't have it in front of me, but I believe
it's Section 2(a)(4), I think you will find the requirement
that any disposal of low-level or transuranic wastes be done
in accordance with applicable licensing requirements.
The Act does not specify what the licensing body
would be, but since DOE does not license its own facilities,
our presumption has always been that it would be either the
NRC or the New York State Department of Environmental
Conservation that would need to provide the applicable
licensing requirements for disposal of low-level or
transuranic wastes.
The way I understand it that means that if there
actually is onsite disposal of low-level or transuranic,
that would require licensing in accordance with the West
Valley Demonstration Project Act.
It's not been well defined or discussed very much,
but I think that that needs to be considered before
everything is done with this EIS process.
MR. WYMER: Okay, well, thank you very much. In
my reading of the minutes of the meeting that was held with
the Commissioners here last January, it came up that there
are legal gaps in area responsibility; that there are
certain parts of the responsibility that clearly belong to
DOE and certain parts to NRC, certain parts to the state,
but there are gray areas which are not clearly spelled out
legally, and these will either require agreements,
understandings, or litigation to eventually resolve them.
This may be one of those gray areas where it's
clear that something needs to be done, but it's not clear
who has responsibility for doing it.
SPEAKER: Yes, I think that's true. Thank you.
MR. WYMER: Are there any other questions or
comments from that end of the business? Go ahead.
SPEAKER: I was just going to say that I don't
think so.
MR. WYMER: Okay.
SPEAKER: I think we're finished here.
MR. WYMER: Thank you very much. Let us know if
you have any additional comments from either the Committee
or the Staff.
MR. LARSON: You said that you were going to write
responses to each of the comments you got. You're going to
do each individually, or you're going to combine them all?
I know there has been some discussion on the way the Staff
handles these.
MR. PARROT: My plan was to combine as many of the
comments as I can, summarize them as much as possible.
MR. LARSON: Then you wouldn't specifically
address the comments DOE or NYSEC or the West Valley
Coalition or anything, as an individual?
MR. PARROT: No.
MR. LARSON: Okay. I guess from what you said
that you did not want any comments, or it's almost
impossible for the Committee to give you any comments now,
since you wouldn't give them the final document until
August, I guess, but is there an intention to come in and
explain it to them later on?
It isn't in our schedule, I don't think, Rich.
MR. WYMER: It would be nice to have something
about the criteria, which we have not already had.
MR. LARSON: That's a logistics question for the
Committee.
CHAIRMAN GARRICK: And the question is, how do we
get involved in such a way that we can help you? We need to
see the criteria, and I guess that's the thing that you're
talking about making available simultaneously to the
Commission and to us?
MR. PARROT: Yes. The criteria -- I mean, the
criteria will be the criteria of the license termination
rule. Now, what's going to be described or explained in
this next document to the Commission is how that's going to
be applied at the site, given the unique features of this
site.
MR. WYMER: So it would be premature of us to
comment on the comments before we see the criteria on which
the comments will be made.
CHAIRMAN GARRICK: We haven't heard anything about
what the West Valley -- how the West Valley people view the
criteria; in other words, what are some of the trouble
spots, if any.
MR. PARROT: Well, I can give you what I
understand what, if they have a problem with it, what they
are. DOE mentioned in their comments that specifically this
NRC-licensed disposal area will not be able to meet the
license termination rule.
And the question is, where does that leave them if
there's a part of the site that can't meet the license
termination rule? You know, a number of questions come up:
Does that mean that DOE can't leave the site?
MR. WYMER: You're talking about that five-acre
lot?
MR. PARROT: Yes. Does that mean -- DOE has got
some questions about institutional control or permanent
license, perhaps, if that's what's needed.
MR. HORNBERGER: That's something then totally
different from the license termination.
MR. PARROT: Yes.
MR. HORNBERGER: That's not covered in the license
termination rule.
MR. PARROT: Right. You know, we're not --
CHAIRMAN GARRICK: This is on a much gander scale.
MR. PARROT: It may impact DOE's ability to meet
the requirements of the Act.
MR. HORNBERGER: But presumably then is this the
main conflict here as to whether it makes sense to have a
policy before you have the EIS, or wait for the EIS and then
develop the policy? Is this the sticking point?
MR. PARROT: Yes, that is -- maybe I could go back
to one of my slides here. Page 3.
SPEAKER: Jack?
MR. PARROT: Yes?
SPEAKER: I was just going to suggest that you
might want to provide the Advisory Committee with a copy of
our comments. It kind of describes that whole issue in
pretty good detail.
MR. WYMER: That's an excellent idea.
SPEAKER: I think the question surrounds if the
criteria actually apply to the whole site, the whole site.
You know, we're supposed to look at this as one picture that
includes the NDA and the SDA, and the license termination
rule includes those.
And those units must be considered in the
performance assessment that looks at the whole site. So
it's just not clear how it all might work out.
So our thinking was that, you know, if the
criteria were prescribed as draft criteria and incorporated
into the final Environmental Impact Statement, then you
could get a picture of truly how the criteria might apply to
this site, specifically, and to the preferred alternative.
And then NRC could finalize their criteria, after
which time, DOE and NYSERDA could issue their records of
decision.
SPEAKER: I think the other part of the issue is
that you've got to look into -- and you can do this by, as
you suggested, looking at the policy statement or the prior
staff requirements, and also the comments from the various
commenters.
There is the issue of having -- being sure that
there is the same set of criteria. NRC is tasked with
establishing decommissioning criteria under the Act, whereas
the state, as the licensee, would be held to the criteria of
the license termination rule, since this site was licensed
by a Part 50 license.
So it's very important that whatever happens,
whatever the criteria are that are established by the
Commission, that those criteria are the same for the
Department was well as for the state.
Nobody wants to have a situation where a facility
is decommissioned under the Act, and yet has to be cleaned
up again.
The NDA creates some challenges for that. The
SDA, as Jack as said, is regulated by the state, and will
have to be managed in the future, probably under a state
license.
And the NDA may also have that issue. There are
some materials in the NDA, for example, spent nuclear fuel
in a DOE facility, that raise some very unique challenges
for this site.
MR. WYMER: West Valley, when you fax us your
prepared comments, can you also fax us a list of people
sitting there in the audience with you, attendees?
SPEAKER: Certainly.
MR. WYMER: Thank you.
MR. PARROT: I was just going to say that based on
the comments, what this issue seems to boil down to is --
and, admittedly, it's somewhat ambiguous in the draft policy
statement -- is when exactly are the criteria prescribed?
Let me put this in terms of a licensee: Do we
prescribe their decommissioning criteria with the
promulgation of the license termination rule, or is it
prescribed when they send in their decommissioning plan and
we review and approve that? Then is there decommissioning
criteria prescribed?
When is it prescribed? I'm not saying I know the
answer yet, but --
MR. WYMER: We don't have a rhetorical answer.
Are there any other --
MR. LEVENSON: I have one comment. You said you
would like the ACNW --
MR. WYMER: Microphone. We can't get you.
MR. LEVENSON: Your last slide says you would like
the ACNW to review this policy statement in parallel with
the Commission. The schedule you have shows it going to the
Commission on August 1st. The ACNW does not have a meeting
in August. The September agenda is pretty full.
What did you have in mind about this?
MR. PARROT: Actually, the plan is to get to the
Commission by the end of August, and I think our thinking
was that any comments that you had on it would be given to
the Commission because they will be reviewing it at the same
time.
MR. WYMER: Sure, so we can do it a little later.
Well, are there any other questions, comments, gratuitous
remarks?
If not, why, thank you very much. This is
certainly and interesting --
SPEAKER: I'm sorry, I'd like to make one more --
SPEAKER: I'm sorry, Ray from the Citizens Task
Force wanted to make one additional comment.
SPEAKER: Let me just add one last point: There
has been some discussion of whether the issuance or
prescription of the criteria should precede or follow the
EIS that is being prepared by DOE and NYSERDA with NRC as a
cooperative agency on that.
I think part of the thinking on that is erroneous.
My concern is this; that DOE certainly, and, I think, to
some extent, NRC staff, view this EIS that's now in progress
as something that NRC can rely on to support its
decisionmaking with regard to criteria.
There are some substantial questions about that.
They mostly revolve around the question of whether, on the
one hand, the legal requirements have been met to comply
with the NEPA requirements on scoping, the proper degree of
involvement for an agency that really has decisions to make,
as opposed to exert advice to offer.
And on the other hand, there are the problems with
relying on West Valley EIS is that the West Valley EIS does
not really go into the major issues that NRC would have to
consider, namely, the durability of institutional controls.
That is a very tough question. As you probably
know, 10 CFR 61, the LTR, and various other NRC policies
have had to try to look at that question of the long-term
durability of institutional controls. For a site like this,
we're talking about thousands of years into the future.
The ongoing West Valley EIS looks at what happens
if institutional controls remain in place, and takes at
least a quick look at what happens if they fail.
But the important ethical and social questions of
how much dependence should be put on institutional controls,
that sort of serious discussion is absent from this EIS.
That's the sort of thing that NRC has traditionally grappled
with with regard to institutional controls.
So I question the idea that NRC will be that much
further ahead from a NEPA standpoint in waiting for answers
from the West Valley EIS. I don't think it provides the
sort of thing that NRC needs to make its decision, and I
don't think NRC has ever been involved as a full-fledged
party to this EIS.
Thank you.
MR. WYMER: Thank you very much.
CHAIRMAN GARRICK: It might be appropriate to ask
what has been the NRC's involvement, if any, in the EIS.
Has there been any kind of an exchange process?
MR. PARROT: The NRC became a cooperating agency
in the EIS in 1991. The draft EIS was issued in '96, and it
discussed four or five alternatives, but it did not have a
preferred alternative.
And NRC didn't have decommissioning criteria, but
we reviewed it anyway. I think we looked at it against the
criteria in Part 61. That was the best we could do at the
time.
And then since then, they've been working on
different sections of the updated EIS, and we've looked at
parts of those that have to do with more of the performance
of the site.
MR. WYMER: It's my understanding that as far as
responsibility for the EIS is concerned, it's DOE and New
York State.
MR. PARROT: Yes, they're the lead agencies, yes.
MR. WYMER: They have the responsibility?
MR. PARROT: Yes.
MR. WYMER: Okay, well, thank you, Jack. We'll let
you off the hot spot now. We want to thank the participants
from West Valley, and we look forward to receiving the
various pieces of information that you've said you would
send to us.
We'll continue to look at this issue.
SPEAKER: Thank you very much for allowing us to
participate by video conference as well. It was very
informational.
SPEAKER: Thank you.
MR. WYMER: I don't know, but the agenda says we
have a roundtable discussion of possible elements of an ACNW
report.
CHAIRMAN GARRICK: One of the things here that is
very important is to, of course, apply the NRC's license
termination rule as the decommissioning criteria. That
suggests that there was considerable study, was there not,
of the applicability of the rule to West Valley?
Obviously, you want your regulations to be
generic, to be general, but I'm sort of reminded a little
bit of Yucca Mountain where we have a high-level waste
regulation, and we decided it was not applicable because of
the uniqueness of Yucca Mountain.
Do we have a similar situation here?
MR. WYMER: The problem, John, is that there is
not "a" West Valley; there are West Valleys.
CHAIRMAN GARRICK: I know, I know. Well, I'm
talking about the complexity of the site, that's right. Are
we trying to force-fit something here that just was not a
part of the criteria that went into the development of the
license termination rule in the first place?
What kind of a problem do we have?
MR. NELSON: Well, I'll try. This is Bob Nelson,
Decommissioning Branch, NMSS.
I'll try to answer that. I think it's safe to say
that when the license termination rule was formulated, we
did not envision within the EIS that supported that rule,
this type of site, if you include all the elements at the
West Valley Project, including the NDA, in that.
And so -- but when the decision was made, at least
to propose using the license termination criteria rule at
the site, a lot of the logic elements that went into the
formulation of the license termination rule were still
there.
For example, what is the appropriate does limit
for an unrestricted release? At what point should you
require institutional controls?
Those types of questions seem to be rather
generic, and would be somewhat independent of, in my mind,
anyway, of the specifics at the site.
At what point do you require durable institutional
controls, so what should those institutional controls
consist of? Those types of questions, to me, anyway, are
generic and seem to apply to this site.
Why should you develop, for example, a different
unrestricted release criteria for West Valley?
Why should you change the upper limit for
institutional controls? There doesn't seem to be any
compelling reason to do that.
So, I think that the decision was that we had a
framework for decommissioning; there really didn't seem to
be a compelling reason to significantly alter that
framework, at least at the time the draft policy was
formulated.
So, in short, that's basically the logic and the
thinking. Was there an extensive detailed analysis done? I
don't think that would be correct to say that that's what it
was.
I think it was looking at the framework, and did
the framework appear to bound the elements at West Valley,
and the preliminary answer was yes.
MR. WYMER: Are there any other comments?
Questions?
I don't know what the possible elements would be
of a report, but we will have to think about that.
The issue is so complex, and there are so many
gray areas. For example, you have some of the problems here
that DOE has on its site with respect to closing out tanks.
That's sort of a novel area for the NRC to be getting into
and discussing what are you -- they've not closed out those
tanks, and those are clearly within the West Valley
Demonstration Project Act, because they're part of the
high-level waste associated with the reprocessing, with the
vitrification, and getting the high-level waste off the
site.
And so there is the whole idea of can you fill the
tanks with a friable grout, as is being proposed, say, at
Savannah River? Can you have incidental waste left on the
site? What are incidental wastes?
And so there are a lot of new issues here that
certainly were not contemplated in the license termination
rule.
CHAIRMAN GARRICK: It reminds me a little bit of
at Hanford you have a 460 square mile site, and it looks as
though the opportunities for decontamination are pretty
good, except for the 200 area.
MR. WYMER: Yes, that's very similar.
CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Those are the high-level waste
tanks. And so here you have 3300-plus acres, of which five
acres are high level waste?
MR. WYMER: No, it's an NRC-licensed waste
disposal area, mainly for the stuff that came out of the
reprocessing activities.
CHAIRMAN GARRICK: But it's basically the
equivalent of a high-level waste tank?
MR. WYMER: No, it's related to reprocessing, but
it's not the equivalent of the tanks, no.
CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Oh, okay.
MR. WYMER: That's my understanding that it's not,
certainly. And then there is the other state licensed
15-acre site, which is totally separate. But of the 3345
acres, I suspect that a lot of those are buffer and can
eventually be turned over totally green field and shrink the
site down substantially over time.
CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Well, that was the point I was
going to make. The opportunity for Hanford is maybe to go
to complete green field is one thing, but to go from 460
square miles maybe down to 20 square miles is very
reachable.
So what the equivalent of that here is from 3300
acres down to maybe 20 acres. I don't know what the amount
is.
MR. WYMER: But if the thrust of our report is to
comment on the decommissioning criteria, then clearly we
need some information about the criteria, and we need the
West Valley input with respect to their view on the
criteria. So it means we're not done with this topic with
respect to even formal --
MR. LARSON: I don't see how you could write a
letter on the final policy statement and the comments, which
is what the Staff has asked you to do, until you see them.
CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Well, one of the things that
would be helpful has already been suggested. That would be
for us to see the comments.
MR. WYMER: Then we could work backwards and
figure out what the criteria were.
CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Then when we get the comments
and we get the criteria, we can put it together.
MR. LEVENSON: I think what Howard said is a key
point. In August, we are going to get the draft policy
statement with the comments and replies to comments, and
there's only a little we can do before see that
documentation.
The other thing, as has been mentioned, this is a
very complex site with some highly fractured lines of
responsibility, and most of the members of this Committee
have their own opinions on many topics, but for a Committee
letter, we have to limit ourselves to those things that are
NRC responsibilities.
CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Right, right. But the comments
on the NRC criteria would be very relevant.
MR. WYMER: Maybe we ought to close it out for now
and revisit this after we've had a chance to review some of
the information that will be sent to us.
Thank you very much. We'll close out this topic.
Thank you for your participation from West Valley.
CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Thank you. Well, we've got two
choices. We can jump into the next topic, if the people are
here.
We'll take a break now, and then by the time the
break is over, the viewgraphs may be ready.
[Whereupon, at 2:30 p.m., the recorded portion of
the meeting was concluded.]
Page Last Reviewed/Updated Monday, October 02, 2017
Page Last Reviewed/Updated Monday, October 02, 2017