[Federal Register Volume 76, Number 17 (Wednesday, January 26, 2011)]
[Notices]
[Pages 4739-4741]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2011-1611]
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NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
[NRC-2011-0022]
Notice of Public Meeting and Request for Comments on the
Potential Revision of the Branch Technical Position on Concentration
Averaging and Encapsulation
AGENCY: Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
ACTION: Notice of Public Meeting and Request for Comments on Issues
Related to the Revision of the Branch Technical Position on
Concentration Averaging and Encapsulation.
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SUMMARY: The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) plans to conduct
a public meeting on February 24, 2011, in Rockville, Maryland, to
solicit input on issues associated with revising the Branch Technical
Position (BTP) on Concentration Averaging and Encapsulation (CA BTP).
Revising the BTP was ranked as a high priority in NRC's strategic
assessment of its low-level radioactive waste regulatory program (SECY-
07-0180). Since then, NRC has focused on blending of low-level
radioactive waste (LLRW), one of eight major areas in the CA BTP. In
SECY-10-0043, the staff provided the Commission with an analysis of
issues related to LLRW blending. In the Staff Requirements Memorandum
(SRM) for SECY-10-0043, the Commission directed the staff to revise the
blending position in the CA BTP to be risk-informed and performance-
based. With this decision, the staff is in a position to update the
entire CA BTP, not only addressing blending, but also the remainder of
the CA BTP topics that address mathematical averaging of radioactivity
concentrations. The staff is holding a public meeting to obtain
comments from stakeholders on how the CA BTP could be revised to be
more aligned with the NRC's position of risk-informed performance-based
regulations.
DATES: Members of the public may provide feedback at the transcribed
public meeting or may submit written
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comments on the issues discussed in this notice. Comments on the issues
and questions presented in this notice and discussed at the meeting
should be postmarked no later than April 15, 2011. Comments received
after this date will be considered if it is practical to do so. NRC
plans to consider these stakeholder views in the development of a
revised draft CA BTP. The staff expects to issue a draft for public
comment later this year.
Written comments may be sent to the address listed in the ADDRESSES
section. Questions about participation in the public workshops should
be directed to the facilitator at the address listed in the ADDRESSES
section. Replies should be directed to the points of contact listed in
the FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT section.
The public meeting will be held on February 24, 2011, from 8:00
a.m. to 5:00 p.m. at the Legacy Hotel, 1775 Rockville Pike, Rockville,
Maryland 20852.
The agenda for the public meeting will be noticed no fewer than ten
(10) days prior to the meeting on the NRC's electronic public workshop
schedule at http://www.nrc.gov/public-involve/public-meetings/index.cfm. Please refer to the SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION section of
this notice for questions that will be discussed at the meeting. The
supplemental information below also contains a copy of a preliminary
draft of a revised CA BTP. The official CA BTP is available in the
Agencywide Documents Access and Management System (ADAMS) under
ML033630732. Please refer to this version as NRC's official CA BTP
document.
As a first step in revising the CA BTP, the staff has prepared a
preliminary draft for review by stakeholders. This draft is meant to
serve as a starting point for NRC's efforts to revise the document.
This version does not revise the basic positions in the CA BTP to make
them more risk-informed. Rather, it clarifies language, defines terms,
and is reorganized so that stakeholders can more efficiently review the
document (ADAMS ML103430088).
In 2009, the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) sent a report
to the NRC entitled, ``Proposed Modification to the NRC Branch
Technical Position on Concentration Averaging and Encapsulation.'' The
EPRI report provided comments on the CA BTP. The staff has no position
at this time on the EPRI report, and will consider it along with all
other comments received from stakeholders in developing a revised draft
of the CA BTP. The revisions suggested in this report are likely to be
discussed in the upcoming workshop.
ADDRESSES: You may submit comments by any one of the following methods.
Please include Docket ID NRC-2011-0022 in the subject line of your
comments. Comments submitted in writing or in electronic form will be
posted on the NRC Web site and on the Federal rulemaking Web site,
regulations.gov. Because your comments will not be edited to remove any
identifying or contact information, the NRC cautions you against
including any information in your submission that you do not want to be
publicly disclosed.
The NRC requests that any party soliciting or aggregating comments
received from other persons for submission to the NRC inform those
persons that the NRC will not edit their comments to remove any
identifying or contact information, and therefore, they should not
include any information in their comments that they do not want
publicly disclosed.
Federal rulemaking Web site: Go to http://www.regulations.gov and
search for documents filed under Docket ID NRC-2011-0022. Address
questions about NRC dockets to Carol Gallagher, telephone: 301-492-
3668, e-mail: [email protected].
Mail comments to: Cindy Bladey, Chief, Rules, Announcements and
Directives Branch (RADB), Division of Administrative Services, Office
of Administration, Mail Stop: TWB-05-B01M, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory
Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001, or by fax to RADB at 301-492-
3446.
You can access publicly available documents related to this notice
using the following methods:
NRC's Public Document Room (PDR): The public may examine and have
copied for a fee publicly available documents at the NRC's PDR, Room
O1-F21, One White Flint North, 11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville,
Maryland 20852-2738.
NRC's Agencywide Documents Access and Management System (ADAMS):
Publicly available documents created or received at the NRC are
available electronically at the NRC's Electronic Reading Room at http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html. From this page, the public can gain
entry into ADAMS, which provides text and image files of NRC's public
documents. If you do not have access to ADAMS or if there are problems
in accessing the documents located in ADAMS, contact the NRC's PDR
reference staff at 1-800-397-4209, 301-415-4737, or by e-mail to
[email protected]. The EPRI report is available electronically under
ADAMS Accession Number ML090230211 and ML090230195.
Federal rulemaking Web site: Public comments and supporting
materials related to this notice can be found at http://www.regulations.gov by searching on Docket ID: NRC-2011-0022.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Maurice Heath, Office of Federal and
State Materials and Environmental Management Programs, U.S. Nuclear
Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001; telephone: 301-415-
3137; e-mail: [email protected].
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
I. Background
To provide protection of individuals from inadvertent intrusion
into a waste disposal facility (a requirement in 10 CFR 61.42),
radioactive waste proposed for near-surface disposal must be
classified, based on its hazard to the intruder, to ensure its
suitability for such disposal. ``Licensing Requirements for Land
Disposal of Radioactive Waste,'' 10 CFR Part 61, establishes a waste
classification system based on the concentration of specific
radionuclides contained in the waste. The regulation also states, in 10
CFR 61.55(a)(8), that ``The concentration of a radionuclide [in waste]
may be averaged over the volume of the waste, or weight of the waste if
the units [on the values tabulated in the concentration tables] are
expressed as nanocuries per gram''.
The NRC initially developed a technical position on radioactive
waste classification in May 1983 (ADAMS ML033630755). That technical
position paper described overall procedures acceptable to NRC staff
that could be used by licensees to determine the presence and
concentrations of the radionuclides listed in 10 CFR 61.55, and thereby
classify waste for near-surface disposal.
In 1995 the NRC staff published the CA BTP. The 1995 version
expanded and further defined Section C.3 of the 1983 BTP dealing with
concentration averaging. In 2007 the NRC staff performed a Strategic
Assessment of the NRC Low-Level Waste Regulatory Program. The staff
informed the Commission, in SECY-07-0180, that it would update the CA
BTP and that it was a high priority task. The staff stated the CA BTP
would be revised to use risk-informed approaches.
In 2010 the NRC staff responded to the Commission's request to
provide options for the NRC's policy on the blending of low-level waste
(SECY-10-0043). LLRW blending is one of eight topic areas in the CA
BTP. The Commission, in the SRM for SECY-10-0043, adopted the staff's
recommendation to revise the blending
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position contained in the CA BTP. The Commission agreed with the
staff's approach to revise the blending guidance to be risk-informed
and performance-based, which supports the agency's regulatory goals.
With this direction from the Commission, the staff is initiating
revisions to the entire CA BTP to include the Commission's new position
on blending, as well as to consider risk-informed, performance-based
approaches for the remainder of the CA BTP.
II. Questions Related to Branch Technical Position
This section identifies questions associated with revising the CA
BTP. These questions are not meant to be a complete or final list, but
are intended to initiate discussion. These questions will help to focus
the discussion at the public meeting. All public feedback will be
considered in developing a draft for later public review and comment.
1. NUREG-1854, ``NRC Staff Guidance for Activities Related to U.S.
Department of Energy Waste Determinations--Draft Final Report for
Interim Use,'' issued August 2007,'' contains extensive guidance for
site-specific evaluations of intruder protection. The approach in the
NUREG was endorsed by NRC's Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste and
Materials, which also recommended that the staff evaluate a broader
application of the new concentration averaging methodology to wastes
other than ``waste incidental to reprocessing.'' How could approaches
in that guidance be used in revising the CA BTP?
2. Part 61 limits the disposal of Cs-137 to 4,600 Ci/m\3\, yet the
CA BTP guidance for disposal of discrete Cs-137 sources recommends a
limit of 30 Ci in 0.2 m\3\ (150 Ci/m\3\). Given the large disparity
between the CA BTP guidance and Part 61, and given the need to dispose
of large Cs-137 sources, should NRC consider revising the 30 Ci in 0.2
m\3\ recommendation found in the CA BTP?
3. The rulemaking for unique waste streams (see SECY-08-0147 and
the SRM-SECY-08-0147) will protect the inadvertent human intruder by
requiring a site- and waste-specific assessment. The current CA BTP
defines acceptable practices for applying the 61.55 tables, to insure
that inadvertent human intruder is protected (as intended in the draft
and final Environmental Impact Statement for Part 61). Given the NRC's
move towards site- and waste-specific analyses to demonstrate
protection of the intruder--is the CA BTP necessary, or could it be
eliminated?
4. The volume over which waste concentrations are averaged has a
significant effect on waste classification. The current CA BTP
addresses averaging over a waste package. Others have suggested that
averaging occur over the volume of waste that an inadvertent intruder
would be exposed to, or the volume of a disposal trench. What are the
pros and cons of these approaches?
5. For blending homogeneous waste types, the NRC will be requiring
a site- and waste-specific intruder analysis, so as to be risk-informed
and performance-based. In requiring a site- and waste-specific analysis
for homogeneous waste types, the NRC is moving away from the CA BTP's
``factor of 10 rule'' for individual contributors to a mixture of
homogeneous waste types. Should NRC also move away from the ``factor of
10 rule'' for non-primary gamma emitters and away from the ``factor of
1.5 rule'' for primary gamma emitters?
6. What limits on the types of LLW that can be blended should be
specified in the CA BTP? Specifically, should blending of cartridge
filters and sealed sources to form homogeneous mixtures be addressed in
the CA BTP?
7. In the Commission's October 13, 2010, decision on LLRW blending,
it stated that ``* * * [Greater than Class C] GTCC waste is a Federal
responsibility and * * * should not be made into a State
responsibility, even if the waste has been blended into a lower
classification.'' What unique guidance will GTCC waste require in the
BTP, given this direction? For example, when should waste be
classified? (Waste is currently not required to be classified until it
is shipped for disposal).
8. How should NRC consider heterogeneity in waste concentrations in
the site-specific intruder analysis? Does there need to be guidance on
how to interpret intruder analysis results with respect to waste
heterogeneity?
9. 10 CFR 61.55(a)(8), allows for averaging of waste concentrations
in determining the classification of waste. Such averaging should
continue to protect an inadvertent intruder in a waste disposal
facility, one of the four performance objectives in 10 CFR Part 61.
How do other programs for managing and disposing of waste
treat protection of an inadvertent intruder?
Do they allow for averaging, and if so, what are the
constraints?
Could or should NRC harmonize its approach with these
other programs? If so, would changes need to be made to NRC
regulations, or could they be made in guidance?
Dated at Rockville, Maryland this 20th day of January 2011.
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Gregory F. Suber,
Acting Deputy Director, Environmental Protection and Performance
Assessment Directorate, Division of Waste Management and Environmental
Protection, Office of Federal and State Materials and Environmental
Management Programs.
[FR Doc. 2011-1611 Filed 1-25-11; 8:45 am]
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