There’s no need for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to change existing regulations surrounding disposal of very low-level nuclear waste, according to the results of a three-year agency scoping study published this month.
The study, which began in 2018, was commissioned because of the “anticipated increase of early nuclear power plant closures,” NRC wrote Tuesday in a press release. Decommissioning of the four nuclear plants scheduled to close this year could produce large amounts of very-low level waste — an informal term for the least-radioactive category of nuclear waste, including contaminated equipment and building materials.
Despite the rash of scheduled closures, NRC staff “plans to continue with the current regulatory framework” governing very low-level waste, said the scoping study published June 1. The existing approach “provides adequate protection of public health and safety while providing licensees with flexibility under a risk-informed, performance-based framework,” NRC’s press release reads.
Over the course of the study, commission staff examined the current regulatory framework for disposal of very low-level waste and consulted with the government and private sector to determine alternatives to existing regulations. As it stands, very low-level waste disposal is governed by Part 20 and Part 61 under Title 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations. Staff didn’t come up with any new recommendations that would “meaningfully improve upon the current approach,” the study said.
The study’s goals included cooperating with other government agencies to establish consistent regulation of VLLW and defining the conditions in which the material could be sent for disposal at Resource Conservation and Recovery Act Subtitle C hazardous waste sites.
The results of the scoping study were supposed to be released in April, according to commission low-level waste project chief Stephen Koenick, who made that projection back in March at the Waste Management Symposium. The project was placed on hold in 2019 while NRC examined a separate approach for amending very low-level waste disposal regulations.
