The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is giving stakeholders an additional 60 days to comment on a document that could lay the groundwork for an update to regulations on disposal of Greater-Than-Class C (GTCC) low-level radioactive waste.
The public comment period for the draft regulatory basis had been scheduled to close on Sept. 20. But the agency, in a Federal Register notice published on Sept. 13, extended the date to Nov. 19 following requests from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) and several other parties.
Seven comments had been posted online as of Friday, mostly those requesting additional time to comment. In two public events the NRC has held to date on the draft document, an Aug. 22 webinar and an Aug. 27 meeting in Austin, Texas, the speakers were primarily skeptics of the potential regulatory update and opponents of GTCC waste disposal in the state.
“My name is Robert Singleton, and if you have any doubt on which category to put me in, put me down as a no,” according to one participant at the Austin event. “As a matter of fact, you can create a separate category for, Oh God, please no. That’s the category I will be in.”
Greater-Than-Class C, per the NRC, is any low-level waste with radionuclide concentrations higher than the maximum for Class C low-level waste that make it largely unsuitable for near-surface disposal.
Under existing regulations, Greater-Than-Class C waste must be disposed of in a geologic repository unless the NRC approves a specific request for alternative disposal. Today, the United States does not have a repository for this waste type and the agency has never received an application for another means of disposal.
The Department of Energy is responsible for disposal of GTCC and the similar GTCC-like waste. Including waste yet to be generated, the total U.S. stockpile is expected to grow to about 12,000 cubic meters. The waste type encompasses activated metals from nuclear power reactors, sealed sources, waste from manufacturing of radioisotope products, and material from DOE’s West Valley Demonstration Project cleanup in New York state.
The July 22 draft regulatory basis addressed the GTCC waste types that could be safely placed in a near-surface facility for permanent disposal and potential regulatory updates for that to happen.
Agency staff determined that 15 of 17 GTCC waste streams identified by the Department of Energy could be suitable for near-surface disposal – within 30 meters of the surface – largely under existing licensing requirements for land disposal of radioactive waste. That would represent about 80% of the total volume of the waste.
Within the 15 waste streams, 14 could be regulated by NRC agreement states, which assume responsibility for licensing and regulatory oversight of most radioactive materials within their borders, agency staff said.
In the draft document, staff cited three avenues for addressing the regulatory situation, without recommending any particular one: keeping the existing rules; issuing a new guidance, which would not update current regulations but could help parties file future applications for disposal by means other than a geologic repository; and a full rulemaking to develop regulations specifically for placing GTCC waste in a low-level radioactive waste facility.
As of this week, there was no available schedule for the commission to select an option.
The NRC has been studying the matter since 2015, after receiving a query from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality regarding its authority to license a disposal facility for GTCC and GTCC-like waste. That question from the state had itself been spurred by interest from Dallas-based Waste Control Specialists in taking on the material at its Andrews County low-level waste disposal facility.
In a 2016 environmental impact statement (EIS), the Energy Department designated generic commercial disposal facilities – such as the Waste Control Specialists site – and/or the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico as its preferred means of disposal. It appeared to narrow that preference down further in a 2018 environmental assessment to Waste Control Specialists. The company changed owners last year but remains interested in the GTCC waste disposal business.
However, some form of congressional action in support of that disposal avenue would be necessary before DOE can move ahead. To date, Congress has not taken that step. Texas law would also have to change before the state could house the waste.
No matter which regulatory approach the NRC takes, an organization that potentially wants to operate a GTCC waste disposal facility would still have to apply to the federal agency or the appropriate regulator for an agreement state, Tim McCartin, an NRC senior performance assessment adviser, noted during both the webinar and Austin event.
“Any application, any licensee would need to justify and explain and describe what inventory they would disposing,” he said during the webinar. “And that’s an important part of the analysis that would be presented in any application for near surface disposal of Greater-than-Class C waste.”
Among the concerns raised by several speakers in Texas was the NRC staff determination that an applicant for near-surface disposal of GTCC waste be able to bury the material at least 5 meters underground and deploy a barrier to prevent “inadvertent intrusion” for at least five centuries. But that might not be long enough, particularly given the ongoing oil and gas drilling in the region, they suggested.
“I mean, this stuff has half lifetimes of tens of thousands of years. It has reactions that create daughter products that can go on for a heck of a long time,” Austin resident Al Braden said. “And the idea that you’re modeling that some poor settler might come and dig a foundation in only 500 years is just astonishing.”
In response, McCartin noted that 500 years would be the minimum time frame for the barrier to function, but indicated that something like a 10,000-year barrier would not be reasonable. “But if you met the regulatory limits, say, at 500 years, generally for most of these radionuclides, it would be easier to meet it at 10,000 years, because a lot more has decayed away.”
Participants at both sessions also raised concerns about what the Energy Department’s reinterpretation of the definition of high-level radioactive waste might mean for disposal of GTCC waste.
In June, the Energy Department formally said it had determined that the legal definition of high-level waste means not all wastes from spent fuel reprocessing are highly radioactive, and in certain situations could be sent to disposal sites for low-level radioactive waste.
“How might this basis be affected by the new high-level waste definition interpretation by DOE, which could result in a larger volume of GTCC-like waste than was analyzed in the EIS?” Jeff Burright, a nuclear waste remediation specialist for the Oregon Department of Energy, asked during the webinar.
Burright suggested that some waste generated from DOE’s Hanford Site in Washington state could be considered GTCC waste under the new interpretation, including material vitrified at the Waste Treatment Plant set to begin operations by 2023.
There, McCartin reaffirmed that NRC staff prepared the draft regulatory basis separate from “any potential change of definition,” but that any near-surface disposal would have to meet the applicable regulations. “For sake of discussion, let’s say there was a change in the definition and there was another 4,000 cubic meters of potential GTCC or GTCC-like that could be considered. I would say, well, it could be considered. But as we did in our Reg Basis, when you analyze it, it may be allowable, it may not be.”
Comments on the GTCC waste disposal draft regulatory basis can be submitted at the federal rulemaking website, regulations.gov, Docket ID NRC-2017-0081; by email to [email protected]; by fax to Secretary, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 301-415-1101; by mail to Secretary, U.S. Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001, ATTN.: Rulemakings and Adjudications Staff; or in person to NRC headquarters at 11555 Rockville Pike in Rockville, Md.
