The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Monday opened a public comment period on a new finding that most Greater-Than-Class C (GTCC) low-level radioactive waste could be disposed of via near-surface facilities.
Stakeholders have until Sept. 20 to submit comments on the draft regulatory basis issued last week by NRC staff, according to a filing in the Federal Register.
No comments had been posted as of Friday.
Greater-Than-Class C is any low-level radioactive waste with radionuclide concentrations exceeding the limit for Class C material as classified by the NRC. It is generated by commercial and government nuclear activities, encompassing activated metals, sealed sources, and other waste types.
Current federal regulations only allow for geologic disposal of GTCC waste, unless the NRC commissioners approve a specific request for another means of disposal. As of now, there is no repository that can accept the material type and the commission has never received such an application.
In the draft regulatory basis, agency staff said 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 cover more than 8,900 cubic meters of current and future waste, such as activated metal from commercial nuclear reactors, waste from production of plutonium-238, and exhumed material from the Energy Department’s West Valley Demonstration Project nuclear cleanup in upstate New York. The two exceptions – sealed sources for neutron irradiators and select remote-handled waste from West Valley – would represent another 2,340 cubic meters that would have to go into geologic disposal, according to NRC staff.
Of those 15 waste streams suitable for near-surface disposal, 14 could be regulated by agreement states to the NRC, staff said. Agreement states assume much, though not all, of the authority for licensing and regulation of radioactive materials that would otherwise fall to the NRC.
The draft regulatory basis offers three options for addressing the regulatory framework, without recommending any one: simply sustaining 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.
The Energy Department is legally responsible for disposal of this waste type. It has indicated its preferred method would be to ship it to the Federal Waste Facility operated by Waste Control Specialists (WCS) on its West Texas disposal complex. However, it is waiting on action from Congress before issuing a record of decision that would formalize its approach. That direction has not yet come down from Capitol Hill.
There are four licensed commercial facilities in the United States for disposal of low-level radioactive waste, all in NRC agreement states: South Carolina, Texas, South Carolina, and Washington.
Only Waste Control Specialists, both before and after its January 2018 sale from holding company Valhi Inc. to private equity J.F. Lehman & Co., has publicly expressed its interest in the disposal stream. On Monday, WCS President and Chief Operating Officer David Carlson declined to comment on the NRC staff document: “I think we’ll stay off that for the moment.”
Any future applicant for near-surface disposal of GTCC waste should be required to meet several requirements, according to NRC staff. Those would include: delivering, with the application, documentation showing its ability to safeguard any “inadvertent intruder” from harm; burying GTCC waste at least 5 meters below ground; and deploying or building a barrier to inadvertent intrusion that would be good for no less than five centuries.
Comments on the draft regulatory basis can be submitted via www.regulations.gov, Docket ID NRC-2017-0081; via email to [email protected]; by fax to Secretary, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 301-415-1101; by mail to Secretary, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001, ATTN: Rulemakings and Adjudications Staff; or in person to NRC headquarters at 11555 Rockville Pike in Rockville, Md.
The agency is specifically asking for responses to eight questions, including: Does the draft regulatory basis fail to identify any GTCC waste characteristics that should be taken up in considering near-surface disposal; are there issues left out of the staff report that would strengthen public or occupational safety in GTCC waste disposal; what, if any, more cost-effective options on disposal that should be considered.
