The state of Colorado is restricting disposal of technologically enhanced naturally occurring radioactive materials (TENORM) waste within its borders while it advances potential legislation to regulate the material.
Under Colorado’s 1963 Radiation Control Act the state is prohibited from developing regulations for managing TENORM prior to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency taking the same action – which has yet to happen. The state Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) wants to change the decades-old law to allow for creation of TENORM rules.
“We have been authorized to develop language for a bill to modify the Colorado Radiation Control Act to allow CHPHE to promulgate regulations covering TENORM. We do not have a sponsor at this time,” Warren Smith, department community involvement manager, said by email Tuesday.
In an email to stakeholders this week, the agency said language in the planned bill would eliminate the requirement in the Radiation Control Act that the state wait on EPA to take action and instead authorize the Colorado Board of Health to institute regulations on disposal of naturally occurring radioactive materials “at any time.”
“The revised language would allow CDPHE to work with stakeholders to develop regulations which would allow some low levels of NORM and TENORM to be managed without radioactive materials licensing,” the agency said.
If the law is updated, CDPHE would work with stakeholders to prepare TENORM rules, including those covering management and disposal of the material, Joe Schieffelin, manager of the department’s Solid Waste and Materials Management Program, wrote in a Nov. 7 letter to solid waste landfill owners and operators, oil and gas operators, and other parties.
Meanwhile, the department is modifying the state’s 2007 interim policy on management of TENORM. To start, “and until future notice,” waste from oil and gas exploration and production that could have elevated concentrations of TENORM cannot be disposed of in state landfills that do not have direct approval and designation for such waste, Schieffelin stated.
The Environmental Protection Agency designates TENORM as naturally occurring radioactive materials “that have been concentrated or exposed to the accessible environment as a result of human activities such as manufacturing, mineral extraction, or water processing.”
Only three landfills in Colorado are currently designated for disposal of TENORM waste, each with specific radionuclide limits: Pawnee Waste in Weld County, Clean Harbors Deer Trail in Adams County, and Waste Connections Southside Landfill near the city of Pueblo. However, there is concern that other solid waste landfills could unintentionally be receiving high-concentration TENORM waste from energy exploration and production activities.
The CDPHE prohibition on disposal of high-concentration TENORM applies “unless and until each waste is sampled and tested on a per shipment basis or in a representative and statistically-valid manner consistent with the guidelines provided in Attachment B and found to contain TENORM at levels less than the administrative release levels found in the Interim Policy: combined Ra226+228 < 3 pCi/g, natural uranium <30 pCi/g and natural thorium < 3 pCi/g, each above background,” according to the Schieffelin’s letter, a follow-up to a letter from the state agency that was sent to stakeholders in May and rescinded in July.
Wastes covered under the restriction include solid and liquid tank bottoms, filter socks, filter press cake or sludge, discarded pipe and flow line segments, and various residual materials.
Exploration and production waste suspected of having high TENORM levels must be treated as if that is the case until proven otherwise, Schieffelin said. Waste that exceeds administrative release levels in the TENORM policy could then be shipped out of state or to one of the three designated landfills. Waste below the administrative release levels is not considered TENORM and can be left at a significant number of the state’s 64 landfills, Smith said.
Three additional landfill operators are readying to apply for designation for disposal of TENORM waste, and more are expected, according to Smith. There is no timeline for review of the applications, he said.
