The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is in the final stages of revising its draft guidance on reviews of requests for alternative disposal of very low-level radioactive waste.
As part of the process, the document is available for public comment through Dec. 18.
Very low-level waste, or low-activity waste, is not an official designation, but rather refers to material with naturally occurring radionuclides or some other form of “residual radioactivity.” This waste form — from nuclear power plants, hospitals, medical research sites, and other locations — is considered safe enough to be deposited in hazardous or municipal solid waste landfills, rather than at the four designated U.S. disposal sites for low-level radioactive waste.
The regulator receives three to four applications annually for alernative disposal, primarily from the waste generators, NRC spokesman David McIntyre said.
The draft document is intended to finalize an interim staff guidance from 2009 that set out procedures for disposal requests in operational areas including preparing an environmental assessment, developing safety and technical evaluation reports, and coordinating with state regulators and operators of the disposal sites.
“[T]he purpose of this draft revision to the guidance is to improve the alternative disposal process by providing more clarity, consistency, and transparency to the process,” according to the NRC’s Oct. 19 notice in the Federal Register. “In addition, this draft revision to the guidance also clarifies the meaning of disposal relative to 10 CFR 20.2002 authorizations to include recycling and reuse of materials.”
Added McIntyre: “[S]taff’s intent all along was to update the guidance based on operational experience in reviewing the requests. Also, staff wanted to include recycle and reuse, which has been approved in the past with certain conditions, but has not been addressed in the guidance.”
Comments can be submitted at regulations.gov, Docket ID NRC-2017-0198; or by mail to May Ma, Office of Administration, Mail Stop: OWFN-2-A13, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001.
The NRC hopes to issue the final guidance by the first quarter of 2018.
The San Onofre Community Engagement Panel will hear updates about decommissioning of the shuttered nuclear power plant, including a special presentation from the U.S. Navy, at its quarterly meeting next week.
The Department of the Navy owns the land San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) rests upon, and about 300 square miles in the vicinity around it. That 300-square-mile reservation is known as Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton.
Tom Caughlan, regional Marine Corps liaison officer and panel member, will present to the panel. He is expected to outline the Navy’s role as land owner in plant decommissioning, including the 85-acre easement for the nuclear plant itself. Caughlan will also present decommissioning details connected to the adjacent Mesa property SONGS used for warehouse and plans to restore the land for military training.
The meeting is scheduled from 5:30-8:30 p.m. Pacific time on Nov. 2 in Laguna Hills, California. The meeting can be watched live at www.songscommunity.com.
SONGS is being prepared for decommissioning after being permanently closed in 2013 due to problems with its steam generators. An AECOM-EnergySolutions team has been selected as general contractor for decommisioning.
Wood and AREVA Projets SAS said Wednesday they had partnered to win a contract to extract 50 metric tons of radioactive waste from a French nuclear facility and prepare it for storage.
The low- and medium-level, short-lived waste is magnesium cladding generated by processing of natural uranium-graphite-gas fuels at three former reactors at the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission’s research facility at Marcoule, according to an AREVA press release.
The waste has been held at Marcoule for over five decades, Wood said in its own release.
The value of the contract was not immediately made public. It includes project management, safety case, design, commissioning, and six months of operations.
Wood’s work will involve designing a remote-controlled robot arm to extract waste elements from the storage silo and to design a manufacturing unit for encapsulation. The waste would ultimately be placed in a geologic repository.
Operations are expected to last five years, the companies said. The value of the contract is not being made public.
AREVA Projets is the engineering branch of New AREVA, a nuclear fuel-cycle business formed in the restructuring of French nuclear giant AREVA.
Wood is a venerable U.K. project and technical services firm that earlier this month completed the acquisition of Amec Foster Wheeler.
