The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is seeking input on the draft regulatory analysis that will lay out updated cost and benefit figures for its revised Part 61 rule on low-level radioactive waste storage.
The draft analysis was issued in September 2016 alongside NRC staff’s draft final rule package. The commission itself last month directed a set of “substantive revisions” that would be featured in a supplemental proposed Part 61 update.
The 35-year-old Part 61 rule establishes procedures, criteria, and terms and conditions for long-term storage of low-level radioactive waste, which is now only provided at four sites around the country. The revision process is intended to address the impacts on storage of depleted uranium and other waste streams that were not directly addressed in the original rule.
Toward that, the draft rule sets a number of requirements, including development of site-specific waste acceptance criteria and technical analyses for compliance with public radiation dose limits. It also set a compliance period of 1,000 years, or 10,000 years for sites with significant amounts of long-lived radionuclides.
The draft analysis estimated that licensees on average would incur a $1.13 million implementation expense and a $1.33 million operations expense based on the rule. The total cost to the licensees was projected at $4.5 million for implementation and $5.3 million for operations.
However, the commission’s September order on changes to the draft rule directed staff to “be informed by broader and more fully integrated, but reasonably foreseeable costs and benefits to the U.S. waste disposal system.” Based on that mandate, staff is requesting comment on bettering the approach and cost data featured in the draft final regulatory analysis in the finished document.
Comments can be submitted at regulations.gov, Docket ID NRC-2011-0012; by email to [email protected]; by fax, to Secretary, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, at 301-415-1101; or by mail, to Secretary, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, D.C. 20555-0001.
A separate NRC notice is expected next year requesting input on the updated proposed rule.
