The Nuclear Regulatory Commission pushed back publication of new supplemental rules for Part 61 low-level radioactive waste disposal to early 2019, the independent federal agency said this week.
Previously, the commissioned planned to publish the new supplemental rules this summer.
“The staff encountered some complexities in implementing the changes required in the supplemental rule, so the target time frame has been pushed back to early next year,” Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) spokesman David McIntyre wrote in a Thursday email.
The 35 year-old section of federal law establishes procedures, criteria, and terms and conditions for licensing long-term, near-surface and above-ground storage of low-level radioactive waste.
The revision is intended to address the impact of storing depleted uranium and other waste streams that were not dealt with in the original rule.
Three companies operate the nation’s four low-level radioactive waste disposal facilities: EnergySolutions, in Clive, Utah, and Barnwell, S.C.; Waste Control Specialists, in Andrews County, Texas; and US Ecology, at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state.
Those four states are all NRC agreement states, which assume some authority from the agency to license and regulate byproduct materials.
Following a 2017 comment period on NRC’s draft Part 61 rule, the commission dictated five distinct changes that could impact the figures in the analysis.
Among the mandates: Commissioners directed staff to reinstate a “case by case basis,” essentially grandfathering, to enact the new requirements only on sites that would dispose of large amounts of depleted uranium; and to limit the compliance period to 1,000 years.
