NRC ADVISORY BOARD URGES 1,000-YEAR PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE IN PART 61 RULE

A Nuclear Regulatory Commission advisory board recommended in a letter to commissioners late last week that a new rule be changed to require low-level radioactive waste sites to analyze disposal out to 1,000 years, rather than the 10,000 years currently in the draft version. The Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards said requiring site-specific analyses with a minimum period of performance of 10,000 years “increases regulatory burden without sufficient justification.” The review board also took issue with specific projections included in staff’s analysis. “Introducing significant uncertainties to the performance analyses through speculation on human activities, waste and site performance, and earth processes for millenia is unlikely to improve either our decision making process or our understanding of the safety decisions regarding near surface LLW disposal,” the ACRS board wrote.

 

The ACRS also said that in place of staff’s complex inadvertent intrusion analysis scenario, sites should be required to analyze their intruder protection elements—such as depth of disposal, waste form stability, barriers, and long-term stability of the site—to meet requirements. And, in addition, ACRS recommended that, “Previously disposed wastes should not be subjected to additional compliance evaluations.” The rulemaking, begun in 2009 to address disposal of large quantities of depleted uranium, is set to be sent to NRC commissioners for consideration any day. If they approve of the draft, it will then be published as a proposed rule in the Federal Register in fall or winter 2013 for public comment. The final rule is expected in late 2014.