Jeremy L. Dillon
RW Monitor
10/2/2015
A commissioner with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Thursday pondered to whether the body should add transuranic waste to the current 10.CFR.61 rulemaking changes.
Commissioner Jeffrey Baran during a NRC hearing on the agency’s low-level radioactive waste business line inquired as to whether the commission would be more prudent to add the waste stream to the current rulemaking process. “If NRC were to set Greater Than Class C and transuranic waste disposal standards through a rulemaking, does it make sense from your point of view to re-propose the Part 61 rule and include these topics in the rulemaking, or should we keep the two separate? What are the pros and cons of addressing the GTCC and TRU waste issues in the ongoing rulemaking?” Baran asked.
At last month’s RadWaste Summit in Summerlin, Nev., many within the low-level waste industry said they feared the commission would add the waste stream to its current rulemaking for Part 61 regulations on land disposal of radioactive waste, potentially adding an additional two or three years to the rule process. Baran’s question could indicate a growing preference by the commission for adding the new waste stream.
“Is there a safety issue that we need to address, is there a security issue that we need to address right now, that if we delayed finished the rule would it be detrimental? To the best of my knowledge the answer to that question is no,” Catherine Haney, director of the NRC Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards, said in response to Baran. “It is feasible that we would step back and include the Greater than Class C and criterion standards in that rulemaking, and then move forward at that time. Either way is possible. Staff’s prepared to do whichever approach the commission directs. I do worry that it may take us a little while to develop some of those standards, because to date staff has not been working on those standards. The regulatory framework is there, and we would start with a performance assessment and move down from there. But we would want to take the methodical look at what are the best standards.”
Haney estimated that should the commission direct staff to add the GTCC and TRU waste considerations to the rulemaking, it would take the staff six months to a year to reintroduce a proposed Part 61 rule. But should the commission want a more technical basis for its addition, more time might be needed. “Now, whether the commission would want a technical basis, whether you would want a rulemaking plan, of course if we get into those, developing a rulemaking plan, first going to the commission, that would take longer,” Haney said. “But when I say the more than six less than 12, I’m really focused on what would it take for the technical staff to sit down and come up and strategize on what those criteria should be.”
Waste Control Specialists’ desire to amend its license to accept Greater-Than-Class C radioactive waste at its Andrews, Texas, facility has helped kicked off this new focus on GTCC and TRU waste disposal. The NRC staff said in a SECY paper released at the end of July that for WCS to accept GTCC and GTCC-like waste, the commission would need to clarify its regulations on the disposal of transuranic waste. The current definition of low-level waste does not identify TRU waste; therefore, the NRC would need to initiate a rulemaking “to develop a regulatory basis to determine whether TRU waste with concentrations greater than 100 nCi/gm can be disposed of using near-surface disposal,” according to the staff paper.
That would be accomplished by updating a portion of Part 61. Some now argue, particularly with GTCC disposal as a national need, that it would prove efficient and beneficial to tack on the TRU waste question to the ongoing Part 61 update.
The proposed revision of the Part 61 system is the latest iteration of the NRC’s Site Specific Assessment (SSA) rulemaking, begun in 2009 to address disposal of large quantities of depleted uranium. The proposed Part 61 rulemaking contains all of the commission’s direction from last year regarding the three-tiered approach, which includes a time of compliance of 1,000 years, a protective assurance analysis from the end of compliance period through 10,000 years, and a qualitative analysis stretching beyond 10,000 years to evaluate long-term risks.
