119th Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste (ACNW) Meeting, June 15, 2000
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON NUCLEAR WASTE *** 119TH ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON NUCLEAR WASTE (ACNW) Nuclear Regulatory Commission Two White Flint North Room 2B3 11545 Rockville Pike Rockville, MD 20852-2738 Thursday, June 15, 2000 The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 8:31 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 Regulatory Guides Review 326. P R O C E E D I N G S [8:31 a.m.] CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Good morning. The meeting will now come to order. This is the third day already of the 119th meeting of the Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste. The entire meeting will be open to the public. Today, we will meet with John Greeves, director of the division of waste management, to discuss items of mutual interest. We will also review and discuss two draft Reg. Guides, DG 1067, Decommissioning of Nuclear Power Reactors, and DG 1071, Standard Format and Content for Post Shutdown Decommissioning Activities Report. And we will probably be spending most of our time today continuing our preparation of ACNW reports. Richard Major is the designated federal official for the initial portion of today's meeting. This meeting is being conducted in accordance with the provisions of the Federal Advisory Committee Act. We have received no written statements or requests to make oral statements from members of the public regarding today's session, and should anyone wish to do so, please contact the committee's staff. And, also, if you participate, please use the microphone, identify yourself and speak clearly. Okay. Well, John, I think we are anxious to get an update. We know you have had a busy week. We have been a little bit tied up ourselves, so, we are anxious to talk a little bit about what is going on what we might do with it. MR. GREEVES: Good. Okay. Is this working? Good. All right. Good morning. I am going to go through the usual topics that we cover and I think serve both of us well. I had a couple of administrative ones. One first, we have had a little bit of a reorganization. I believe the committee is somewhat familiar with this. We moved one of our programs, the uranium recovery program, from the division of waste management to the fuel cycle safety safeguards group. And, in doing that, we had to make some adjustments in the staffing level within the three branches within the division. And, as a result of that, in fact, you should have a copy in front of you of the impact of that. As far as the decommissioning branch, the only change there, of course, Larry Camper is the branch chief and Robert Nelson is a section leader and both these individuals have been down to brief you in the past. A new section chief was selected for a vacant position, Scott Moore will be coming on a delayed basis. It is going to take about three months for him to make the transition. Scott is from the industrial, medical and nuclear safety division, and he is an experienced section leader. He has got a lot of experience with materials licensing and we look forward to adding that level of experience to the decommissioning group. The next branch is the environmental and performance assessment branch, which Tom Essig is the chief, and I believe Tom briefed you yesterday. Tom comes to us from NRR, he has got a strong background in health physics. He has been with us for a while, and I believe he may have been down to brief you in a meeting or two. This branch now has performance assessment and integration, and an environmental and low level waste project section. And poor Tom was limping along with two vacant sections, so, we are pleased to have filled both of those with people you are well familiar with, Sandra Wastler is the chief of the performance assessment integration section. You have known Sandy for a long time, and we are pleased to have her promoted to a section chief position. And then Charlotte Abrams, one of your own staff at one point in time, was chosen as chief of the environmental low level projects. So, you can look forward to interfacing with both of them. And then the high level waste branch, the result of the reorganization moved the performance assessment activities over into another branch to do a bit of a load leveling. Obviously, Bill Reamer is the branch chief there, and King Stablein and Dave Brooks, you are well familiar with. So, the branch is a little bit smaller and a little bit more manageable in the process. This is going to force, and which I see as a good thing, some integration issues, but, as you know, performance assessment actually serves all three of the program areas, high level waste, decommissioning, low level waste. So, we think this is a bit more efficient and Joe and I are looking forward to the opportunity to focus on a few less issues with uranium recovery, moving on. So, unless you have some questions, I just wanted to update you on where that was. MR. LARKINS: This is a bit of matrix now. MR. GREEVES: We have always operated as a matrix. Bill Reamer had the advantage of having a lot of the performance assessment horsepower in his branch and didn't have the matrix to cross. Decommissioning had the matrix over to that branch to get the work done for decommissioning. So, somebody is always matrixing, it is just a question of efficiency. How can you put these elements together, but carrying -- we basically have five programs, or had five programs in the decommissioning division, including uranium recovery, and each one of them has its set of minefields associated with it. It is very difficult to keep your eye on all that. I think it was a good decision to move uranium recovery off to fuel cycle, it is a Part 40 licensing activity. They do a lot of that already. I think it will help us have more focus and attention on the topics that remain within the division. CHAIRMAN GARRICK: John, just to give us a sense of the size of the operations, what is the approximate FTE or population of each of these branches? MR. GREEVES: Joe knows the numbers better than I do. MR. HOLONICH: Decommissioning has about 30 FTE associated with it. Environmental performance assessment is approximately 25 FTE, and high level waste has about 32 FTE in it. CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Thank you. MR. GREEVES: It is a little deceiving because you add all that up, you don't get over a hundred, but we have -- we actually over-hire some of these positions. So, how many people do we have when you count the number of -- MR. HOLONICH: The division FTE count is at around 90, including six at the director's office, and the division probably has somewhere about 100-102 in terms of staff on board. MR. GREEVES: And then you add to that the center staff. So, it is a rather large group of people for us to manage and that is without the uranium recovery program at this point in time. So, we are looking forward to a little bit tighter focus in that process. Okay. CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Thank you. MR. GREEVES: The second topic is your recent letter on your plan and priority issues. We have responded -- the Commission has responded to it. I just want to remark that when I read it, I was very pleased with it. It showed a lot of thought. Again, I was quite pleased with what I read there. It looks like we are pretty much in alignment in terms of the goals that we have in our plans and what you have, and I see that as a good mesh. You got the letter back from the EDO's office and I just wanted to comment that -- CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Well, I think one of the things we are learning is being more timely on getting input from the division and the office, so that we have a good information base to work from when we do the planning. I think we had maybe greater success at doing that this time around than ever. MR. GREEVES: We, too, are going through much the same process in putting these types of plans together, and you get better at it over time. So, I will just give you that feedback. So, like I say, I think your plans and ours are in alignment in terms of relative priorities. Just one thing, I am going to have to keep my eye on John Larkins now. He might be getting encouragement to look for more high level waste resources. MR. LARKINS: Well, actually, I looked at -- CHAIRMAN GARRICK: We do have to keep our eye on John. MR. GREEVES: I have got to put an eye on him. MR. LEVENSON: We did go through the list in there. We are going to respond to Carl's letter. But there are some things on here which were a little lower tier on our priorities, so, we may not be able to. We wanted to get some feedback and, so, we thought we should put the effort on some of the areas. I don't have my list in front of me, but we are going through all of them. MR. GREEVES: It may pay. You are here all the time. We could sit down and go over with you. But, as you know, there is a tension over the high level waste resources, they are a fixed set. So, I mean we can sit down and talk about it. MR. LARKINS: Well, some of these were not necessarily in the high level waste area, there were other things. MR. GREEVES: I recognize that. The high level waste one is the arena that, again, we are a bit concerned about the resources, because there is a fixed set of resources in that program area. MR. LARKINS: Well, we assumed we just send you the bill. MR. GREEVES: You can send all the bills you want. It is paying them that is a problem. [Laughter.] MR. GREEVES: Okay. The next item that I want to touch is decommissioning, and, you know, we cover it every time because it is one of your priority areas and one of my priority areas. We are pretty much at the end of a two-year run. The Commission put in place the rule on license termination and asked the staff to go out and develop the guidance and gave us pretty much a two-year run to put that together, and we are pretty close to the end of that. We had the last of a series of workshops on June 7th and 8th, earlier this month, on what we call the technical basis document. It is the guts of the dose modeling activities. It is an appendix to the standard review plan. That workshop focused on dose modeling activities and, with that, the staff plans to have a standard review plan pulled together in the July timeframe. I would commend that workshop to you, -- it was transcribed, as all our workshops are, -- as an excellent reference material. I understand you are pulling together an October working group to go over dose modeling issues. I think this workshop that was just completed on the 7th and the 8th is a very good reference material. It was well attended. EPA was in attendance, DOE, Nuclear Energy Institute, EPRI, many of the utilities were there, because they are focused on their license termination plan reviews. The fuel cycle community was there with many members, focused on the problems that they have. A lot of architect engineers. Corps of Engineers was a part of the group. Had a healthy contingent from the Agreement States and the Non-Agreement States, because they are going to be picking up a lot of the licensing activities over time. Also, Argonne National Lab, who is responsible for the development of the RESRAD code and my staff and Research. So, it was a very good discussion. There are still some debates, and there will continue to be, but I see that as healthy. So, I am not familiar with, you know, how much you were aware of that, but, to the extent you can, you might want to get that transcript and take a look at it. It is probably -- it has got -- I want to go back over it, it has got a number of topics that are still being debated in some part, and I think that is healthy. So, I urge you to take advantage of that. MR. LARSON: It was the intention to be there, and we were aware of the meeting and the topics, and had the agenda, and had several of the papers that were presented by the staff, but just for various reasons, people were unable to attend it. You say the transcript is available? MR. GREEVES: Yes. MR. LARSON: It is going to be on LICET ADAMS -- MR. GREEVES: As with all our meetings. MR. LARSON: Or is it going to -- is there another source, Joe? That's it, it is on ADAMS? MR. HOLONICH: I don't know. MR. LARSON: Okay. Nick would know, right? MR. GREEVES: Yes. MR. LARSON: Okay. MR. GREEVES: And Boby Eid is in the audience. Do you know the answer, Boby? MR. EID: I have a hard copy of the transcripts already. I will be glad to provide you a hard copy of that on loan basis. MR. LARSON: That will be terrific, and if you can give us two copies anyway, and Ray and I will study them. MR. GREEVES: And that will be one FTE per copy, right? [Laughter.] MR. GREEVES: A tough crowd. SPEAKER: We can make our own. MR. GREEVES: You have to get them first. Okay. Enough banter. Just a little topic associated with that, we did have the document up on the web by May 15th, so that people had a chance to look at it and come to the meeting, you know, armed with their questions. MR. LARSON: Nick sent that to us. MR. GREEVES: Okay. So, we asked for comments to be received by the 18th, because, as I said, our target is we want this thing pretty much wrapped up in a package in July, so, we received a number of comments at the meeting and, you know, we may be getting a few more. I talked about the large number of participants. I am really pleased to see that, because these are the people that are doing the work, and they come and they contribute, and we learn a lot in these meetings. The meeting also included a demonstration of advances we have made with both RESRAD and DandD in the meeting. It gave people a chance to see that process. And it ended up in a roundtable discussion, so, as you look at the transcript, I was able to sit in on the roundtable discussion and people kind of let their hair down and said, you know, this is the issues that I have, and a number of constructive comments about you are going in the right direction. So, it gives me a sense of feedback. Is this something that is value to the community? And the answer is yes, as you will see in the transcript. Just a little advertising in terms of what we can expect in terms of the code development. We have worked on a probabilistic DandD Version 2 that should be available in August. The same timeframe for the probabilistic update of RESRAD that Argonne is working on through Research for us. And, also, the probabilistic RESRAD-BUILD Version 3.0. All of those should be available in August. Following that, by October, the RESRAD and the RESRAD-BUILD user's manual and documentation should be available. And in December, the probabilistic DandD Version 2, site-specific dose analysis and associated documentation. So, that is kind of the schedule we are on to have these tools and their documentation available. If there are no questions about that? I think the workshop we just had, the one you had, or will have in October will be a nice lead into a November 7 and 8 workshop that we are planning to bring back the community that is actually working various plans in terms of the license termination rule. We have got a couple of volunteers, Rocket Dyne in California and Nuclear Fuel Services down in Tennessee will come in and kind of give us a rundown and we are going to look for other volunteers, too, to show exactly how are these tools being used. So, I just put on your calendar in terms of your staff participating in the November 7 and 8 workshop. Following the development of the standard review plan, we have had a number of requests to update the NMSS handbook for decommissioning. This is a handbook that describes to a project manager how to get his job done. How do I develop an EA? How do I put notices up about meetings? And how do I work with very simple cases and the very complex cases, which are what the standard review plan is focused on? The Agreement States are quite interested in this document. Actually, the version we have now predates the license termination rule, so, even some of the terminology needs to be updated. So, we intend to turn to that, and we are going to try and engage the states to see if they can help us. We have a good relationship with the Conference of Radiation Control Program Directors Decommissioning Subcommittee, and we are working with them on topics such as this, so, you can look forward to our development of the handbook. We believe that, as we have developed the standard review plan over the two years, it has been very useful to come to the committee and do briefings. We learn things, we develop a better technique as we make these presentations to you. Also, you have provided a series of comments to us on the standard review plan, and we think that the briefings and the comments have helped us perfect this document. Like a lot of review plans, we will be revisiting it over time. But we feel comfortable and we have enjoyed some of the comments we have gotten back from it. In April, the staff also finalized NUREG-1700, it is the standard review plan for evaluating nuclear power plant license termination plans. We liberally referenced the standard review plan for decommissioning in that document. We didn't want to duplicate that text, so, there is a lot of reference to the standard review plan that we are completing this summer. I am just going to keep moving. If you have got comments or questions, let me know. As far as decommissioning, let me focus a little bit on reactor decommissioning. I think, as you are aware, we have had three reactor license termination plans submitted, the first of which was Trojan, the second was Saxton and, mostly recently, Maine Yankee. Each of these activities included a public meeting and, for context, they varied in terms of extent of public involvement. I went to the Trojan meeting and there were like one or two people that attended that meeting. It was mostly the licensee, the NRC staff and, you know, we had some discussion, but it was on that level of interest. I mean we had, you know, EPA, other federal stakeholders participating. And then you compare that with the Maine Yankee public meeting. I was unable to attend that, but it was well attended, a lot of stakeholders and I think it went to like midnight. So, there was a lot of interest in that case. It gives you a flavor of the spectrum of activities associated with this. We also expect the Connecticut Yankee application in here soon, so, we will be busy working on these four programs. With regard to Maine Yankee, you are probably aware that the State of Maine recently passed legislation that does impact criteria associated with that site. The utility, Maine Yankee has committed to update their license termination plan with a revision and we are in the process of sorting that out and understanding what that would be. So, I just make you aware of that. We have also been supporting nuclear reactor regulation in their revision of the Generic Environmental Impact Statement for reactor decommissioning. This is a document that was put out, I believe, back in the '88 timeframe, and it needs to be updated. There is a series of public meetings that have been held around the country, Chicago, up in Boston the day after the Maine Yankee meeting, I believe Atlanta and San Francisco. And these also have been well attended, and we will look forward to the results of that. MR. GREEVES: The next point is the SECY Commission Management Program. Recently we submitted a Commission paper, SECY 0094, and we've also commend that that paper to you, and the original comprehensive report on the status of our decommissioning program. That's pretty much got everything that we've been working on for the past couple of years, and I would urge you to look at that in terms of a reference. The Staff does plan to remove three sites from the SD&P program this year. We've already gotten one. That's a lot, but that's pretty much what I was going to say on decommissioning. MR. LARKINS: There was a petition that came in, or letter that came in from NEI a couple of months ago that asked the Agency to take a look at integrating all of its rulemaking activities in the area of decommissioning, together, and to come up with an integrated rule, I guess, over the next two years. NMSS was involved with this on the reactor side? MR. GREEVES: That pretty much is a reactor issue. It's the fire issue, it's the safeguards, emergency planning. I am aware of it. I've sat through a briefing or two on it. I think that's something that probably somebody like Stew Richards or John Zwolinski would be best to fill you in on. In fact, I think Phil Ray is with you after this, and you might ask him. I'm not sure he's the right person, but we worked very closely with NRR, mostly on the license termination plan review. As far as operational issues, they're pretty much NRR's issues. MR. LARKINS: Okay. One other thing you may not be aware of: We are in the process of -- well, we've better defined the separation of responsibilities between the ACRS and the ACNW in the area of decommissioning and putting together a package that will probably go the Commission. I might want to ask you to take a look at it and make sure we have everything correct. MR. GREEVES: We'd enjoy doing that. Joe, let's make sure we follow up with John on that. CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Just to follow up on that a little bit, John, are you suggesting that maybe the consolidation of decommissioning activities into a decommissioning regulation or rule is applicable for reactors, but not necessarily applicable for non-reactor applications? MR. GREEVES: I'd almost like to think about that and talk to you another time. Just off the top of my head, I think the consolidation is a Part 50 issue. You would look into Part 50 and in various places you will see the decommissioning topic discussed, and I think the hitch was, is there a way to either separate that into a separate part, or put it within all one spot within Part 50. So that's my understanding of what that was supposed to be. But I'm not quite sure that was -- I think you were on to a different question. CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Yes. MR. GREEVES: You know, decommissioning affects all parts, and that's why you will see decommissioning language in Part 40, 30, 70, in fact, the timeliness requirement, which is -- a decommissioning artifact, is in all those parts. We want to make sure that all the licensees know that if they have an outdoor area that is contaminated, you just can't leave it that way. Even if they're going to operate for another 15 or 20 years, they need to get on that and clean it up within about a two-year timeframe. So, what I'd like to do is think about it and maybe talk to you separately, if you've got some ideas on that, but there is no notion on our part to try and consolidate and come up with a new Part for decommissioning materials facilities. CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Okay. MR. GREEVES: But maybe we could talk a little bit about it. I'm just not ready to do much more on it today. Is that fair? CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Yes. MR. LARSON: One other question, John. You know, when you started, you indicated that you were aware that the Committee had talked about having a working group on decommissioning-related things in October. And now you've been through a litany of various things that are in progress. Does that seem like a meaningful to time to do that, or would it be better a month or two later? I know it's always evolving, so -- MR. GREEVES: I learned about it yesterday, and my staff briefs me on what's going on. When I looked at it, I said, that sounds great to me. MR. LARSON: Okay. MR. GREEVES: As I said, I think you have a nice resource document in the June 7 and 8 meeting that we had. Collectively, we have a nice resource. And we are planning a meeting in November with our licensees to, you know -- where are you? How are you working these issues? So, I would benefit from the results of an October venue by the Committee, and I think our stakeholders would, too. So, it struck me as a good timeframe. The only thing I'll add -- and it really doesn't mean a lot -- is that there is already a lot of stuff in October. It's a popular month. Tom LaGuardia is having his usual thing. There is an IAEA activity, and there are like three things that I'm signed up for in October already. I don't have anything in September, but October, I've got three things on my calendar already. Have you picked a date? Maybe we could avoid some of these dates that -- basically they're going to attract your stakeholders away from your meeting, so I'll let you know of a couple of competing events in October. We can talk about dates. No, the timing is good for me. As soon as I saw it, I said, that's good. I think it will help our November meeting, okay? Now, we'll move on to low- level waste. Staff was down to brief you, Tom Essig and Jim Kennedy, Mr. Low-Level Waste, was the last resource we have on low-level waste issues. [Laughter.] CHAIRMAN GARRICK: How does that make you feel, Tom? [Laughter.] MR. GREEVES: Tom's a Branch Chief. He's got more than low-level waste issues, but he's finding ways to steal some additional resources to apply to the low level waste program. As you know, we owe the Commission our performance assessment document, and you were briefed on that, so we would plan on forwarding that, and if you see some hard spots in that, we need to know what they are, and talk about that soon because that document is scheduled to be completed this year. I'm sure that Tom and Jim told you, you know, about the status of what's going on in the states, which I think you're very well aware of. We help where we can and when asked, but, frankly, we don't get asked very often by the states anymore. In years past, two or three special things were going on and they asked for the staff support on it, and we're not getting a lot of requests recently. They're in and out, but not significant requests that require a lot of staff energy. CHAIRMAN GARRICK: But, John, isn't this because there's not much going on? MR. GREEVES: Well, there's things going on, but certainly the track record is that there are no new compact disposal facilities. The big thing that's going on, I guess, is the EnviroCare issue. CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Yes. MR. GREEVES: Will there be a license out there that passed one hurdle? And I think we talked about that the last time. And the next one is can they take B and C waste and, you know, the country is watching that process. And if the State of Utah wants our help on it, they'll ask, but so far it's been discussion but no substantive request for us to participate. I think we all recognize that the low level waste program isn't so much about Part 61 anymore; there are a lot of cross-cutting issues that I'm sure Tom and Jim mentioned to you, the concept of rubbelization is being looked at in various forms. Entombment is a topic, and there is a fair amount of interest in this, and I think we, collectively, are going to have to do something on this topic. I invite you to keep that on your radar screen. There is a stream of questions coming in about what we call low-end source material, TENORM, topics like that. The assured isolation proposal keeps cropping up, so that may get onto our plate later in the year. I don't have anything definite on that. So, we would look forward to your views on topics such as this. The mixed waste topic from time to time comes up, and particularly I expect that entombment will be a topic that either we're going to recommend we come back and talk to you about, or you'll pick it up yourself, depending on how that plays out. I just will say a postscript. The National Research Council asked us to participate in their study on low-level rad waste, the disposal challenge and opportunities ahead, and we are going to -- we have responded positively to that, and the Committee, I'm sure, is aware of that, so that's something we can keep our eye on. I think it's a nice leverage over our resources, too, for the Board on Radioactive Waste Management to delve into that, and I'm sure we'll be down briefing them from our perspective. MR. LARKINS: Quick question: I see your staff is doing some things with EPA on the mixed waste issue. Do you see a role or do you see any value in having the Committee involved in those? MR. GREEVES: There are two pieces, and one's just about done. That's the piece at the utilities, and everybody's -- that's a win/win for everybody, and I think you're aware of that one. The other piece is a RCRA facility, and it fell on a little bit of hard ground here recently, but it is the one that you should -- in fact, I'll be back when it warms back up, and discuss it with you, because it is a concept that basically is going to be a modeling approach and something that I think we could benefit from the Committee's view on it. Unfortunately, I think it's on hold right now. The EPA has resource issues associated with that. They're working all their other topics, so as that comes back on the burner, I think it is something that I will be giving you a heads-up on in terms of a timeframe of my expectations, and we probably want to engage you on it. It is an important topic and we would look forward to making some progress on that. MR. LARSON: You mentioned a couple of other topics that Tom and Jim Kennedy mentioned yesterday, and one was assured isolation. Do you have any sense as to when that would come up and be ripe for the Committee too look at? MR. GREEVES: I think that what that's going to take is a state coming in and saying we're serious, would you look at this and help us? So far, we have contractors, we have people coming in the door, and I think it's going to take a state with a we're serious, we're looking at it, would you please -- and the Commission, I believe, in letters in the past said that if somebody is serious about this, please come in and talk to us and show us the parameters. I know that it's being considered in states like Texas. It's being discussed in California, but there's no piece of paper coming in from either of those states, asking either the Staff or the Commission to look at it. MR. LARSON: You're right, the contractors have written things, but we haven't got any -- MR. GREEVES: Lots of visitors on that topic, but I think it takes a real stakeholder walking in the door, saying I've got one, and I want your assistance or you view on this. When that happens, we'll all know and we'll do the right thing. MR. LARSON: And another topic they mentioned yesterday was the entombment thing, as you said. MR. GREEVES: Yes. I fully expect that to be an agenda item. MR. LARSON: Do you have an idea on timing? MR. GREEVES: Could be late this summer. I can maybe visit with you separately. MR. LARSON: Okay. MR. GREEVES: I don't want to speculate in this meeting. I can actually do better with you separately, and I need to talk to Research about that, too. But it should be a planning wedge in terms of a topic. Okay, I have pretty much finished my low-level waste issues. I think the Committee is aware that I need to be upstairs at 9:15. What I'd like to do at this point is to ask Bill Reamer to run through the high-level waste issues, and I'll apologize if I get up and leave during the middle of it, if that would be acceptable. Bill? MR. REAMER: Okay, I'm Bill Reamer, NRC Staff. I think there are about a half a dozen items I can touch on for you in the high-level waste area. As to Part 63 and defense-in-depth, there's not really any change to report to you on that. The Staff's paper was given to the Commission on April 12th. Of course, the Commission also has the Committee's letter. And we're really basically awaiting Commission action on that paper. In addition, publicly, EPA has said that they hope to issue their final Yucca Mountain standards sometime this summer. That's really the best information I have on the standard, the EPA standard. CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Later this summer? MR. REAMER: Later this summer. CHAIRMAN GARRICK: They don't talk about weeks or even months. They now talk about seasons. [Laughter.] MR. LARKINS: Yes, but it's this year. MR. REAMER: Right. Yucca Mountain Review Plan, the Rev O post-closure only version was given to the Commission at the same time as the Part 63 paper in April. We, the Staff, are now devoting our efforts to Rev 1, which would be a complete review plan, that is, pre-closure, post-closure, administrative, and general information items. Of course, there is Commission direction to the Staff to work with the Committee on Rev 1 in terms of assuring that the review plan is risk-informed and performance-based. And so we will be interacting with you on that quite a lot. That's good for us. MR. LARKINS: Bill, that's on a pretty tight schedule. MR. REAMER: Yes, it is. MR. LARKINS: You're talking about September, as I recall. So once we get into it, we'll have to sort of see if we're going to be able to keep pace. MR. REAMER: Yes. Rev 1, remember, is a version to publish for public comment; it's not like the last, the final, the end-all/be-all, so we're on a tight time schedule for this phase. But I think there's also a time after this phase to continue to interact with you and the other stakeholders who are interested in that document. I'd move on to the Department of Energy site recommendation and the NRC requirement to provide comments on the sufficiency of certain information for inclusion in a possible license application. The Staff is close to completing its preliminary strategy document. We're building on the briefing and the structure that we presented in March to the Committee. We're putting it into words. Our plan is to have a preliminary strategy document complete and to the Commission by the end of this month. We also have a milestone of completing our final guidance, which would be a further elaboration of the strategy, how we would plan to review and prepare, review the technical basis documents, the technical documents that support the Department of Energy's site recommendation documents that we're all getting right now. Our review guidance, our plan is to complete that by the end of September, and provide it to the Commission at that time. I think we have a meeting with you in October, if I remember correctly, on that guidance -- September, okay, thanks. The Department of Energy's siting guidelines were provided in draft final form to the Commission in May, May 4. The Staff's milestone is to complete its review of the draft final guidelines and provide the Commission with the Staff's recommendation by the end of June. We will meet that milestone. There are two requests to the Commission, one from Robert Lux of the State of Nevada, Agency for Nuclear Projects; another from Mr. Bradshaw on Nye County, requesting that the Commission have a concurrence process analogous to the concurrence process that was used in 1984 for the original siting guidelines. That involved public comment, as well as, I think, a couple of public meetings. I believe the Commission is planning to respond to those letters in the near future. I don't have any information on what the response will be. The key technical issue, closure, closing key technical issues as a goal before any license application. We had the technical exchange that you received the report on in April 25 and 26. We're scheduled to brief you in July on that topic. I'd be very interested in any guidance that you would like to give us as to what you'd like to hear in that briefing. And so we would be very interested in that. Also, we recently completed a technical exchange with the Department of Energy on a particular KTI, the total system performance assessment. That was earlier this month. The next item would be pre-closure. We're very interested in working on our capability in this area, which is not quite up to where we are in post-closure. Of course, the Department of Energy's focus right now is on site recommendation, and we need to be consistent with their emphasis, so we are providing more resources internally to work on our capability in this area. We did have a meeting with the Department of Energy on May 31 on their pre-closure design, and, of course, you had your briefing on that earlier in this meeting. And that pretty much covers the status of things in the high-level waste area. Any questions? MR. LARKINS: Bill, I think that at some point, the Committee would be interested in taking a look at the performance confirmation work that the Department is doing. Do you right now have any plans to do anything, or comment on what the Department is doing in the near-term? MR. REAMER: Not immediate plans. We're -- I think at various times, we've had tentative plans to meet on that topic. But it's not one of our priority items. On the other hand, we understand the Committee's interest, so we'd do what we could to support that. Your December meeting, is that right, is where you're -- MR. LARKINS: Well, actually we were thinking about having the Department in in July. MR. REAMER: In July, okay. Were you also looking for something from us in December? Do I have that right? MR. LARKINS: Not that I recall. MR. REAMER: Okay. Well, maybe the July meeting can give a little more orientation to the Committee's interests, and we can adapt to that. MR. LARKINS: The other thing is that we're trying to sort through this mass of documents that are starting to come in, the PMRs, the AMRs, and everything else, and establish some priorities for reviewing and actually developing a framework for or strategy for reviewing some of these things. At some point we'd probably like to get some feedback on your agreement or disagreement on some of the Department's priorities. MR. REAMER: I think that would be a good idea. That's clearly part of our working on the site recommendation and the sufficiency comment process. We'd be happy to engage in that. That would be good for us. MR. LARKINS: Especially since we're all limited in resources. MR. REAMER: Absolutely. CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Bill, is there anything coming out of the DOE siting guidelines that would constitute bigger issues than anticipated, or surprises or what have you? MR. REAMER: Basically at this point, I'd say, no, not to my knowledge. We're at the beginning of the process, however. There are requests pending before the Commission that relate to important procedural issues to stakeholders. You know, a number of comments were received by the Department of Energy on the guidelines, but with respect to your specific question, do I see issues, no, subject to what I said about the procedural questions. CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Are there questions from the Committee? Staff? [No response.] CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Okay, I think we appreciate the update. If there are no further questions, we will move to the next item, if they're here. You're going to -- the next item on our agenda, if the people are here, is to review Draft Regulatory Guides DG1067 and DG1071, et cetera. I guess Philip Ray was going to do that presentation. Is he here? [No response.] CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Okay, all right. MR. LEVENSON: If we've got a couple of minutes, I'd like to propose -- CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Microphone. MR. LEVENSON: -- next year's meeting -- CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Oh, that's a good idea. It has been suggested, because some of the Committee members have to do two-year planning with respect to some of their activities, that we look at least into half of next year as far as ACNW's schedule is concerned. Is that a possibility? Can we do that? You've got to give me two minutes to get my calendar, too. [Recess.] CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Ray Wymer, I'd like you to lead the discussion on the Draft Regulatory Guides. DR. WYMER: Well, we are very interested, at least I am, in particular, in this topic, and especially the decommissioning of nuclear power reactors, since that's one of my assigned areas of responsibility. So I will be very interested to hear what you have to say. So without any further ado, let's commence. CHAIRMAN GARRICK: We would encourage you to introduce yourselves, et cetera, so that it gets on the record. MR. RAY: All right. Good morning. My name is Philip Ray. I'm a Project Manager with the Decommissioning Section in the Division of Licensing, Project Management in NRR. To my right is the Decommissioning Section Chief, Dr. Michael Masnik. For my presentation this morning, I'd like to discuss the decommissioning process as described in the final Regulatory Guide entitled Decommissioning of Nuclear Power Reactors, and then after questions, I'd like to discuss the post-shutdown decommissioning activity report as described in the final Regulatory Guide entitled Standard Format and Content for Post-Shutdown Decommissioning Activities Report. On July 29th, 1996, a final rule amending the regulations on decommissioning procedures was published in the Federal Register. This rule clarifies the regulations for decommissioning nuclear power facilities. The final rule reflects the experience and knowledge gained during the actual facility decommissioning, industry and government-sponsored workshops, and conferences on decommissioning. The rule clarifies ambiguities in the previous regulations; reduces unnecessary requirements; provides additional flexibility; and codifies procedures and terminologies that have been used on a case-by-case basis. I would now like to quickly go through the decommissioning process, and describe the steps: The beginning of the process is when the licensee determines to permanently cease power operation. In accordance with the regulations, a licensee who has determined to permanently cease operations is required to submit written certification to the NRC within 30 days of the decision or requirement to permanently cease operations. Once the fuel has been permanently removed from the reactor vessel to a spent fuel pool, in conformance with the facility's technical specification, and a certification of this event has been received and docketed by the NRC, the Part 50 license will no longer authorize operation of the reactor or allow the movement of fuel within the reactor vessel. This certification entitles the licensee to a feed reduction, and eliminates the obligation to adhere to certain regulatory requirements needed only during reactor operation. Examples include monitoring the vessel for pressure and temperature shock, and containment leak rate testing. The power reactor license -- for power reactor licensees, the regulation states that decommissioning must be completed within 60 years of permanent cessation of operation. In accordance with the regulations, prior to or within two years following permanent cessation of operations, the licensee is required to submit a post-shutdown decommissioning activities report known as the PSDAR. The PSDAR will include a description of a licensee's planned decommissioning activities, with a schedule for the accomplishment of significant milestones and an assessment of the expected costs. Although these activities in support of decommissioning may occur within the two years prior to submission of the PSDAR, no major decommissioning activities, per the regulations, may be performed within 90 days after the NRC receives the PSDAR. The purpose of the 90-day period is to allow sufficient time for the NRC Staff to examine the PSDAR, to publish notification of receipt of the PSDAR in the Federal Register, to hold a public meeting in the vicinity of the facility to discuss the licensee's plan for decommissioning, and to conduct any necessary safety inspections prior to the initiation of major decommissioning activities. I will discuss the PSDAR in more detail when addressing the second Regulatory Guide. Major decommissioning activities, as defined by the regulations, any activity that results in permanent removal of major radioactive components, permanently modifies the structure of the containment, or results in dismantling components for shipment containing greater than Class C waste. The regulation states that the licensee shall not perform any decommissioning activities that 1) forecloses release of the site for possible unrestricted use; 2) results in any significant environmental impact not previously reviewed; or, 3) results in there no longer being reasonable assurance that adequate funds will be available for decommissioning. This point in the decommissioning process is where the guidance of this Regulatory Guide ends. I will spend a few minutes going through the remainder of the decommissioning process. No later than two years into decommissioning, the regulation requires the licensee to submit a detailed site-specific cost estimate. There are a number of cost estimates required by the regulations related to plant decommissioning. There is a requirement under 50.75(f)(2) for the licensee to submit a preliminary cost estimate, five years prior to permanent shutdown. In addition, there is a requirement for the licensee to submit an estimate under 50.82(a)(4)(i() of expected costs that is contained in the PSDAR. Also, there is a requirement under 50.82(a)(8)(iii) for the licensee to submit a site-specific cost estimate. And finally, there is the requirement in 50.82(a)(ii)(f) for the licensee to submit an updated site-specific estimate for the remaining decommissioning activities to be submitted in the license termination plan. Draft guidance for these various estimates have been prepared and is in the concurrence chain. You should have the opportunity to review these draft guides in the next several months. The licensee is also required under 10 CFR 50.54(b)(b), to submit a program describing how the licensee intends to manage and provide funding for the management of all irradiated fuel at the reactor site following permanent cessation of operation until title and possession of the fuel is transferred to the Secretary of Energy. The licensee must submit this program for staff review and approval, two years following permanent cessation of operations. Licensees must apply for a termination of their license. An application for termination of the Part 50 license must include a license termination plan known as an LTP. The LTP must be a supplement to the final safety analysis report or equivalent, and must be submitted at least two years prior to the expected termination of the license as scheduled in the PSDAR. This LTP will be reviewed and approved as an amendment to the license. The NMSS staff has published both a final Standard Review Plan and a standard format and content guide for the LTP. This concludes the presentation on this Regulatory Guide, and I'll now take any questions. DR. WYMER: Did you say that there was a 60-year period? MR. RAY: Yes, that is correct; you have 60 years from the time you shut down permanently to decommission the facility. DR. WYMER: That seems like an incredibly long time. MR. RAY: It does seem that way. MR. MASNIK: There are, of course, some reasons for that. One of the options that the licensee has is to put the plant in long-term storage. What that gains, of course, is, you take advantage or radioactive decay. If you compare that to the rest of the world, in Europe, they typically are talking about a 100-year period of time. They seem to have a little bit more confidence about things being around for longer periods of time than we do. So, 60 years is a somewhat arbitrary number, but interestingly enough, it has not been questioned, either by the industry or the public over the years. DR. WYMER: That is interesting, yes. MR. LEVENSON: The 60 years is to complete it all. Are there any requirements for what needs to be done in an interim period? Once they've completely de-fueled it, can they just close the door and let it sit there for 60 years, or are there some interim levels of cleanup or what have you, that have to be done? MR. MASNIK: There are requirements. They would maintain a license. There are requirements for monitoring, maintaining a safe, stable condition at the facility. Once you get past the two-year mark, and they comply with the PSDAR and the cost estimates, the licensees can then place this plant in a safe, stable condition, and essentially do almost nothing for 60 years. Now, there's always routine maintenance, there's infiltration of water, there is processing. We have several facilities in that condition. LaCrosse is one of them, TMI-2 is another. DR. WYMER: The requirements for the spent fuel that you've taken out of the reactor -- MR. MASNIK: The interesting thing is that when these regulations were being developed in the 80s, there was no consideration of spent fuel because spent fuel was not going to be a problem. And that was because it was all going to be taken from the facility. So as a result, these regulations don't reflect storage of the spent fuel, but spent fuel storage, of course, is found in a different part of the regulations, and what we're finding the licensees are doing is that they're building ISFSIs and transferring the spent fuel into dry storage. And some of them are doing it under a general license, some of them are doing it under a site-specific license. It really is not a problem, in that there is typically a five-year period after the plant shuts down before we could even put the fuel, or the licensee could put the fuel into dry storage. In that time, there's a lot of other activities that occur during the decommissioning process, and it doesn't cause problems from the standpoint of the decommissioning process. DR. WYMER: And there are no problems because of having to plan five years in advance, and then two years in advance. The shutdown people don't find that a problem? MR. MASNIK: Well, you know, we haven't had much experience in this because all of the plants that we have, have prematurely shut down. So, the five-year, the preliminary cost estimate that's supposed to be submitted five years in advance, we have actually never received one because the plants have shut down and we've actually gone to site-specific. Most utilities have -- I would venture to say that all utilities have some sort of a site-specific cost estimate for decommissioning, even though they're not required to submit it until two years after they permanently cease operations. And that's primarily because of the energy regulatory bodies within the states within which they reside have required it. DR. WYMER: Do you have a pretty good sense of what reactors are queuing up to come in to you for decommissioning? MR. MASNIK: You mean plants that are anticipating shutdown? DR. WYMER: Yes. MR. MASNIK: We thought we used to, and we were actually pretty good at predicting them about three or four years ago. But recently, we've kind of -- our experience has indicated that we're not quite as good as we thought we were at predicting. We have not had a plant shut down for a couple of years now, and the general consensus is that we probably won't see a plant shutting down for a couple of years, at least. CHAIRMAN GARRICK: A lot of this is being brought about by the consolidation of ownership of the plants, and a change in the whole infrastructure, if you will, of the operations companies, operating companies. And do you -- I think most of us were quite confident a few years ago that there were would be very few license renewals, whereas now that picture has changed quite considerably. So, that's going to have, I guess, an impact at least on the level of your activity. What if de facto dry storage becomes the preferred option for high-level waste storage for the next 100 years? How does that change things? How would that change things? MR. MASNIK: It certainly would not affect the process, because the process that we have here is for the balance of the plant, and that's what our focus is on, the radiological decontamination of the facility. What we're finding is that licensees are building ISFSIs on the site. We're going from a 1,000 acres to 8,000 acre sites that the licensee has ownership. If they pursue decommissioning and they decommission the facility, they can release lot of that property and ultimately, you know, we're talking about maybe 10 or 15 acres of area that would have to remain under a license for the 100-year period. But there is no conflict between dry storage and decommissioning activities. The licensees have de-conflicted that reasonably well. DR. WYMER: Some of these sites have a couple of reactors on them. You might shut one reactor down and leave another one running, and then actually decommission one. But there are things that are in common between the reactors. Does the -- do the regulations specifically address this, or is it just sort of handled as it comes along? MR. MASNIK: We've had that experience at several facilities. San Onofre Nuclear-1 is one; TMI is an example, and Millstone, also. During the period of time after the licensee declares permanent cessation of operations, there is generally -- well, there's not generally; there is a top-down review of the facility, and an effort on the part of the licensee to identify shared systems, and then to isolate those. Typically what happens is, they're isolated from the shutdown reactor, and they could go so far as to build redundant systems at the other two facilities so that they can take the facilities related to the shut-down reactor out of service. DR. WYMER: But this situation is not specifically addressed, and you don't think it needs to be addressed? MR. MASNIK: No, it's not, no. DR. WYMER: Are you going on to the rest of the viewgraphs then? MR. MASNIK: Yes. MR. LARSON: Is there any -- I know that EPA every now and then says they're interested in being involved in decommissioning, but that's more in the license termination process than in the process you're talking about here, and the same with the states; is that correct? MR. RAY: They are interested in, and we do keep in contact with them during the decommissioning process, but as far as being involved in a regulatory sense, they haven't been; they have just been very cooperative, and we let them know what's going on. MR. LARSON: The Committee has heard about the Maine Yankee situation and the 25 and the 15 and the 4, and the state and the law. MR. RAY: That's license termination. MR. LARSON: That's the part that's beyond. MR. MASNIK: One thing that we are doing is we're updating the generic environmental impact statement for decommissioning, which looks at the entire process from start to finish, and we've been working very closely with EPA on that. They have been attending our meetings, our scoping meetings, and we've had several meetings with them, so we're trying to get their input into the process. MR. CAMPBELL: Just a point of information, the Committee was in the UK and France a month ago, and we got a presentation on it from EDF on what they're doing in France. They were thinking about 25-50 years storage for -- I think they have nine reactors in shutdown and undergoing decommissioning. Now they're looking at decommissioning all nine of them in the next 25 years. So rather than long-term storage, they're actually going to green-fields, or the plan is at this point to go to green-field in that period of time. By 2026, they'll have all nine in third stage decommissioning. MR. MASNIK: I know. I've toured a number of facilities in England and Wales that have been put into long-term storage. MR. CAMPBELL: Yes, England is still using and still considering long-term storage. DR. WYMER: Please continue. MR. RAY: I'd like to continue with the next final Regulatory Guide entitled Standard Format and Content for Post-Shutdown Decommissioning Activities Report. According to the regulation, the licensee is prohibited from performing any major decommissioning activities until 90 days after the NRC has received the licensee's PSDAR submission, and until the certifications of permanent cessation of operation and permanent removal of fuel from the reactor vessel has been submitted. For a quick overview, the purpose of the PSDAR is to: 1) Inform the public of the licensee's planned decommissioning activities; 2) Assist in the scheduling of NRC resources necessary for the appropriate oversight activities; 3) Ensure the licensee has considered the cost of the planned decommissioning activities and considered the funding for the decommissioning process; and, 4) Ensure the environmental impacts of the planned decommissioning activities are bounded by those considered and existing environmental impact statements. A PSDAR should include a description of the licensee's planned activities for decommissioning. The purpose of the description is to inform the NRC and the public of the planned decommissioning by providing a general overview of the proposed decommissioning activities, and identifying specific activities to be accomplished or performed. The licensee should describe in general terms, the method or combination of methods selected for decommissioning. For example, long-term storage followed by decontamination and dismantlement known as safe-store, or prompt decontamination and dismantlement known as decon, or partial decontamination and dismantlement followed by long-term storage and then final decontamination and dismantlement. The purpose of the schedule is to provide information to the NRC and the public on the anticipated timing of decommissioning events, as well as to allow the NRC to scheduled resources necessary for appropriate oversight activities described in the Planned Activities section of the PSDAR, so that the reader understands the sequence of events, as well as the timing of the events. The level of detail of the schedule will depend upon the timing of the activities and will assist NRC in determining the degree of necessary oversight required. The schedule for major activities in the near-term should be given to the nearest month and year. The activities that will follow a storage period of at least five years may be scheduled to the closest year. The PSDAR should include an updated estimate of the expected decommissioning costs. The updated cost estimate required by 10 CFR 50.82(a)(4)(i) may be one of the following: The amount of decommissioning funds estimated to be required pursuant to the regulations as currently reported on a calendar year basis at least once every two years to the NRC; A site-specific cost estimate that is based on the activities and schedules discussed in the first two sections of the PSDAR; And an estimate based on actual costs at similar facilities that have undergone similar decommissioning activities; Or a generic cost estimate. The PSDAR should include a discussion of the reasons for concluding that the environmental impacts associated with the site-specific decommissioning activities will be bounded by previously issued environmental impact statements. Prior to preparing the PSDAR, the licensee should evaluate the potential environmental impacts associated with the site-specific decommissioning activities, including those activities listed in the Planned Decommissioning Activities section of the PSDAR. The potential environmental impacts associated with the decommissioning should be compared with similar impacts given in the final environmental impact statement known as FES, for the plant, or as supplemented in the GEIS on decommissioning, the site-specific environmental assessment, and the GEIS on radiological criteria for license termination. If significant environmental impacts are identified that have not been considered in the plant-specific FES, or in the GEIS on decommissioning, and on radiological criteria for license termination, the licensee is prohibited by regulations form undertaking the activity that will result in such an impact, without first complying with 10 CFR Part 51. The licensee must submit a supplement to its environmental report that relates to the additional impacts covered under this regulation. MR. RAY: Upon receipt of the PSDAR, the NRC will docket the PSDAR and place a notice regarding its receipt in the Federal Register to solicit comments on the PSDAR from the public, pursuant to the regulations. A copy of the PSDAR will be made available to the public at the public document room and other electronic medium. The NRC will schedule a public meeting in the vicinity of the site to discuss planned activities and to hear public comment. A number of factors could cause the NRC to find the PSDAR deficient. These factors are directly related to the topics included in the PSDAR, as discussed. The NRC could find the PSDAR deficient in the following circumstances: The licensee's plan for decommissioning could not be completed as described. The schedule included in the decommissioning process, that could not be completed within 60 years of the permanent cessation of operation, as required. The licensee's decommissioning plan, as presented in the PSDAR, included a decommissioning process that could not be completed for the estimated cost using the generic guidelines and the GEIS, and using previously facility decommissioning costs, or if the estimated costs were less than the amount estimated by the method in the regulations. The PSDAR included activities that would endanger the health and safety of the public by proposing activities that do not comply with the NRC's health and safety regulations, or would result in a significant detrimental impact to the environment that would not be bounded by the current Environmental Impact Statements. According to the regulations, the licensee must notify the NRC in writing, with a copy to the affected states, before performing any significant decommissioning activities that could be considered to be inconsistent with or a significant schedule change from the list of planned decommissioning activities or schedules described in the PSDAR. Changes to the PSDAR may be in the form of a written letter to the NRC, or may be an actual revision to the PSDAR. Changes that result in any type of environmental impact not bounded by previous issued Environmental Impact Statements would need a supplement to the environmental report. This concludes my presentation for today and we will take any further questions. DR. WYMER: Are there any questions? John. CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Well, one of the priorities of this committee is to look at things, look at regulatory activities from the point of view of implementing risk-informed, performance-based practices. How do you see RIPB entering into the decommissioning process? MR. MASNIK: Well, first of all, what we are describing here is a process, and it is primarily a notification process. CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Yes. MR. MASNIK: And where we see, of course, the risk base would be perhaps in the inspection program or in that area. There also are a number of rulemakings that are going to be coming forth over the next couple of years. We are going to reevaluate the regulations that govern the different types of decommissioning. For example, in the area of emergency preparedness, how the regulations would be relaxed over time. And we are attempting to do this in a risk-informed manner. These particular Reg. Guides, though, talk about the process, which is really just outlining the steps for the paper, and it is primarily a notification process. CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Yeah, I was looking at the PSDAR descriptors you have here. They are mostly discuss, describe, schedule, cost estimates, et cetera, and trying to envision what is changing here, if anything, as a result of this transition in regulatory philosophy. And I think that, you know, until we see some of the documentation, of course, we can't speak to it very specifically. But, at the same time, one of the places where this usually gets started is in the guidance, is in the guidance documentation. A lot of the guidance documents, further activities, other licensing activities do include specific reference to methods, techniques of implementing a form of risk-informed analysis. And I was just curious, I was looking for your expertise to tell me where are the opportunities in decommissioning. MR. RICHARDS: I am Stu Richards, I am the branch chief in NRR for this area. Just to get in my two cents on it, one area I think we can pursue to address your question is, if you go back in time, I think previously, before 1996, utilities had to come in with a decommissioning plan on the front end, and we asked for a lot of detail, and then we had to approve it. And then in 1996, the Commission elected to go to what appears to me to be a performance-based approach where we said, in order to terminate the license, here is the criteria, the 25 millirem all pathways in ALARA, and how you get there is largely up to you. The PSDAR is not a document that the staff reviews and approves, it is a fairly small document, I guess it runs 12 to 25 pages. It provides an informational outline of how a utility intends to proceed. It is used to inform the staff of their intentions. It is also used to inform the local public of what they intend to do. But they are free to change their approach. They can go from SAFSTOR into decommissioning and dismantlement if they want to. So, actually, the process is fairly performance-based because they have a lot of latitude, as long as they can get to that 25 millirem ALARA. So, I think, from where we were probably five, six years ago, we have gone a long ways towards being performance-based in decommissioning. CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Yeah. You could interpret that change in the PSDAR as being driven by adopting a performance-based perspective, and a direction in making the process a little simpler. What is done now in the way of safety analysis with respect to decommissioning? Have there been any changes there? MR. MASNIK: One of the -- well, first of all, the '96 regulations require an updating of the FSAR, and they maintain what they call a DSAR. CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Yes. MR. MASNIK: Or decommissioning safety analysis report. We also process a number of amendments to the license once a plant shuts down. Probably the most significant is top to bottom review and approval of their technical specifications. So, there is a significant safety review at that time. There are also other amendments for operator licensing, for example, is another one. There is probably between seven and ten that come in during the first two years that relax some of the requirements, and those, of course, have an associated safety analysis with them. CHAIRMAN GARRICK: From the utilities' perspective, it seems that one of the biggest question marks that they are facing is, of course, what to do with the low level waste, and rubbleization is an option that is under some consideration, and could be greatly affected by changes in the standard such as the Maine Yankee example. So, when you talk to the reactor operators, they identify this as the big pain in the neck in terms of being able to control costs and being able to have -- being able to fix schedules. From the perspective of regulation, what do you see as the gorillas in the process? MR. MASNIK: Well, clearly, disposal of the low level waste is going to be a problem in the next couple of years. CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Same problem. MR. MASNIK: And maybe even after that. With the agreement down at Barnwell, that is going to have some effect. And what we are seeing now is a state by state position on disposal of low level waste, and we find that that clearly is going to affect the total cost of the decommissioning effort. Rubbleization, you know, is an option that was proposed by Maine Yankee. We, NMSS, prepared a Commission paper on that and, basically, have said that we would consider this on a case-by-case basis. I think it is going to be probably, without a clearance rule, it is going to be one of the most significant issues that the industry has to face. CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Yeah, I think this is a real problem. Do you have any evidence at all to indicate that other states may follow the lead of Maine, for example, of taking the NRC requirements and just adding additional safety margin to those requirements? Because that could really ratchet this into a nightmare. MR. MASNIK: I see that in some states and others, not. We are at a point now where we have several license termination plans in-house for review in NMSS, and we are seeing a slightly different approach on each of them, depending on where they are located. We have some indication that we will continue to see that for some time. I don't know, Robert, if you wanted to add to that. DR. WYMER: Identify yourself. MR. NELSON: Bob Nelson, chief of the facilities decommissioning section, NMSS. We have three license termination plans in-house now, Trojan, Maine Yankee, Saxton. We are expecting Connecticut Yankee very shortly. They all have, as has been stated, a different approach, and all are at various stages in the process, actually, of cleaning up. And to some degree, the question on low level waste not only depends on the state that they are in, but, also, where they are at the present time. For example, Trojan, most everything has been cleaned up at this point, and, of course, they have access to the Northwest Compact. So, low level waste doesn't appear to be a real problem there. And they are going to repower the site, a portion of it, so, they are leaving a lot of buildings standing. Saxton, on a case, is going to basically tear everything down, but they prefer to do that after the license is terminated. Maine Yankee, we are going to see a revision to their license termination plan in the near future, but their plan is to leave some concrete on-site. So, there is a mixed bag of approaches. And I think we will continue to see that, depending on where the state is -- where the utility is located, what state it is in, and whether there are other state regulations that exist or that the utility voluntarily decides to try to meet. CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Thank you. DR. WYMER: George, any questions, comments? I have one that maybe is a little bit off the wall. The goal is to decommission down to 25 MR per year or less, with an override of ALARA on top of that. It is not inconceivable, to me at least, that some of the reactor sites won't make that, in which case you get into some license termination considerations. How do you handle this interface, if you can't get down to -- if they find out they really can't get down to those levels? MR. RICHARDS: This is Stu Richards. As far as I know, I think we anticipate all the reactor sites making 25 ALARA. There might be some question on materials sites, I have heard that from NMSS. But as far as reactor sites go, we don't think that is going to be a problem. MR. MASNIK: And the industry doesn't either. I mean they are reasonably confident that they can get down to that. DR. WYMER: They are sanguine and that comes from the word "blood." Okay. Any other staff questions? MR. LARSON: The Reg. Guide talks about, you know, DECON, SAFSTOR and ENTOMB and says entombment really doesn't look good for too many people. And, yet, John Greeves just finished talking to the committee saying that, well, we are reevaluating entombment. MR. RAY: Right. MR. LARSON: And yesterday we heard that maybe -- actually, throw concrete and other things in here. Although, if I look at entombment definition in here, it says "involves encasing radioactive structures in long-lived substance such as concrete," but that doesn't sound like what they are talking. I guess you are really in the process of reevaluating entombment and what it means, and the definition. Yeah. And that would address one of John Garrick's comments on low level waste disposal, et cetera. And there is no -- is there a timeframe on that? MR. MASNIK: Well, the Generic Environmental Impact Statement which we are working on, which we are hoping to get out by the end of this year, at least the draft form, will address entombment options. And I am sure, as you know, that it is not just encasing it in concrete. MR. LARSON: No, I mean that -- MR. MASNIK: There are a lot of other options that are being considered. MR. LARSON: And, you know, we realize that NEI has come into the -- has written a letter and asked that the process be expedited. I guess there has not been an official response from the agency on that yet. Or has there? MR. MASNIK: You know, we are kind of shared on our responsibilities. MR. LARSON: Right. MR. MASNIK: And I am not aware of it, but I don't know, Robert, do you know anything about it? MR. NELSON: No, I don't. MR. MASNIK: Okay. DR. WYMER: Well, if there are no further questions, we thank you for the presentation. MR. RAY: Thank you. CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Okay. Unless there are -- well, do you want to talk a little bit about whether there is a basis for a letter here, or a report? DR. WYMER: It doesn't seem like it to me, just off the top, without giving it a lot of thought. CHAIRMAN GARRICK: What is the feeling of the staff here? Are they -- MR. MAJOR: The EDO, just stating you have no objection to these Reg. Guides going forth. They are fairly procedural in nature. DR. WYMER: Yeah, that is that reason I say I don't see a letter. MR. MAJOR: There is nothing in the notebook that has these margins. I think it is the near the end of the last -- CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Right. So what you are suggesting here is we do something similar to what we are doing on sufficiency? DR. WYMER: Where is the Larkins? MR. LARSON: It is three pages from the end of the notebook. DR. WYMER: Three pages from the end. MR. LARSON: And, of course, as Rich's description and the summary point out, you know, it has already come to the committee years ago, and you said you didn't have any objection for sending it out for draft comments. And the comments that have been received back from industry and everybody has said, you know, we really don't have any problems with what has been issued. So, if you wrote a letter now saying you have got some problems with this, -- DR. WYMER: It looks like the letter is already written, it is just in draft. You might as well send it on, it seems to me, since these are procedural and we don't really get into this. CHAIRMAN GARRICK: There is very little technical. MR. LEVENSON: One suggestion I might offer is, in order to try to reaffirm the fact that this committee is principally technical, is to include some wording which says that these guides are principally procedural and not technical in content and, therefore, the committee has no objection, et cetera. CHAIRMAN GARRICK: To their issuance. MR. LARSON: But you don't want -- I mean I guess the only thing in making that comment is, are you sending a message to the staff that we don't want to look at anything that is not technical? MR. LEVENSON: No. MR. LARSON: Because, you know, this is -- as you know, in some other things, they have come in to the committee on things before that have been purely procedural and, yet, it is a process on the reactor side that almost everything that has to do with the reactors or Reg. Guides or anything should come and be reviewed. DR. WYMER: I would be inclined to go with just what is written here. MR. LARSON: And I am not disagreeing with you, I am just saying that that is -- that is a question you have got to get back from. DR. WYMER: Yeah. CHAIRMAN GARRICK: All right. So, let's put closure on it and say we accept his proposed letter. But I know what you are saying, Milt. DR. WYMER: And that is our philosophy, all right. CHAIRMAN GARRICK: It is our practice to want to address the technical issues. MR. LARSON: Another thing that the ACRS has decided at the last couple of meetings is that, because of just what I described, there is a practice on the reactor side that almost everything since 1954 that is related to reactors has come to the ACRS. But they are saying, you know, we have got a lot of things going on now. There is a lot of reactors that are asking for license extensions. And they see like eight of these coming up and they are actually going to form two subcommittees to look at license extensions for next year, are in the process of doing that. So, 25 or 30 percent of their time is just going to be involved in only license extensions for 20 years or so. CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Keep them out of mischief. MR. LARSON: The chairman has said, well, maybe we want to be more selective in where we spend our time. Maybe we don't even have the luxury to spend an hour or two just looking at Reg. Guides that are purely procedural. So, I am only bringing that up as a question to look at as these things come to you, because you are going to see more and more and more of them over the next -- MR. HORNBERGER: Yeah. I mean I suppose my reaction to Milt's suggestion was, yeah, we should do that and, if, in fact, we are asked whether we wanted to look at purely procedural things, I would argue that we would want to be very selective, that, in fact, spending 45 minutes or an hour takes 45 minutes or an hour that we could be doing something else. MR. LARSON: Well, the process is they come to the staff and we should look at them and make a recommendation as to whether we think it is worth your time. In this particular one, since decommissioning is a major thing, it probably was worth some time. MR. HORNBERGER: Fair enough. No, that is fine. That's right. And that is fine. So, if staff makes that, you know, if you have made that decision, that is fine. MR. LARSON: Well, we don't make any decision. DR. WYMER: I thought it was worthwhile to hear this, even though it was purely procedural. I am glad I heard it. CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Okay. MR. LARSON: You want technical or not? CHAIRMAN GARRICK: No, no. We are going to -- we are accepting the letter as written. And with that, I would like to declare a recess for 15 minutes, and we will come back and plan our letter writing session. As a matter of fact, I think what I would like to say about that is that we have a meeting of a couple of the members that starts at 10:45 and runs through lunch. The other members, I would encourage to review, study the letters that have been written and to continue the work on the reports that they are working on such that we can get a pretty good running start at 1:00. So, we will take a 15 minute break, reconvene. MR. LARKINS: Before you break, I just had a call from SECY about potential dates for Commission meetings. And the only open dates they have right now are like -- well, not open dates, dates when everybody is going to be here, all the commissioners would be. October 24th or 25th, which is the week right now after our meeting, and November 17th, which is the time you are scheduled to be in San Antonio. CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Well, 24-25, there is a meeting here that I just got a letter on regarding WASH-1400. MR. LARKINS: The water reactor safety meeting. CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Yeah, the water reactor safety. MR. LARKINS: Right. Yeah. CHAIRMAN GARRICK: And some activities related to WASH-1400, 25th anniversary, that I am involved in. But I think my involvement is the 23rd, so it would work out fine to have it either the 24th or 25th, for me. DR. WYMER: Between those two, the 24th would be preferable for me because I have -- MR. HORNBERGER: So, this would be like a day that we would come in in addition to. For me, it would have to be the 24th. I cannot schedule any Mondays, Wednesdays or Fridays other than those I am already committed to. MR. LARKINS: Okay. CHAIRMAN GARRICK: So let's see if we can pull it off. MR. LARKINS: See if we can lock it in on the 24th. CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Yes. MR. LARKINS: I don't think you want to do anything with changing the San Antonio meeting. CHAIRMAN GARRICK: No. No. No, you know, -- MR. HORNBERGER: But if we don't change the San Antonio meeting, I am not going to be there. MR. LARKINS: Oh, that's right. Yeah, we were exploring it. What did you -- MR. HORNBERGER: Well, we were going to check to see, I think it hinged on whether that was when they were having their management review down there. And if they were, then we had to do it at that time. But, again, I just wanted to reiterate my warning that, depending upon what happens at GSA, I simply will not be able to make that. MR. LARKINS: Is it a necessity that we have it during the management review at San Antonio? MR. LARSON: No, the only reason it was scheduled then was it was thought that they were going to be nice to the staff. They wouldn't have to have separate presentations of ACNW. And they were already preparing presentations, we would there, and it wouldn't take up any more additional time, other than just separate meetings that you wanted to have. MR. LARKINS: But there emphasis may be different than the committee's emphasis. So, I mean, I don't think it is critical. MR. CAMPBELL: In terms of preparation, they are going to have a similar preparation, so, they will have viewgraphs, for example,, that would do double duty. But the management reviews that I have seen tend to me -- oh, here are the projects the center is proposing to do the next year. They don't necessarily represent the projects they are actually working on or have the same level of focus. For example, you get a tech exchange. MR. LARSON: Yeah, it is just NMSS staff time. MR. CAMPBELL: Right. They will all be down there in that same time. CHAIRMAN GARRICK: What happened, what are you saying, what is in your notes about what we decided on this? We have already had this discussion. MR. HORNBERGER: It is fine. We don't need to have it. CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Yeah. MR. HORNBERGER: That's fine, I agree. CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Okay. So, we are shooting for October 24th for the Commission meeting. Okay. Let's take -- MR. LARKINS: Go back and call them right now. CHAIRMAN GARRICK: Yes. Let's take a 15 minute break. [Whereupon, at 10:21 a.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