Jeremy L. Dillon
RW Monitor
2/28/2014
As the industry and state regulators evaluate the recently issued 10 CFR Part 61 Staff Requirements Memorandum from the NRC Commissioners, the biggest concern arising from the Commissioner’s direction focuses on how the staff will divide what goes into the actual rule and what goes into the guidance document. The SRM contained a new three-tiered approach to evaluate performance assessment of a site including a time of compliance of 1000 years, a protective assurance analysis from the end of compliance period through 10,000 years and a qualitative analysis stretching beyond 10,000 years to evaluate long-term risks. “Something I will keep an eye on is that this SRM is quite detailed, and the question is how much does the staff put in guidance versus in the actual rulemaking,” an industry executive told RW Monitor this week. “If you go back and look at the proposed rulemaking that went up to the Commission, there was a red-line, strike-out version of that put out. There is a whole lot of material in that version that is going to have to change because of what the Commission did say, and a concern is: what’s the split between how much goes into guidance and how much goes into the actual rule?”
Another industry executive also pointed out the importance of the guidance document. “There are a lot of references in the vote sheets to the importance of the guidance to accompany this rule,” an industry executive also told RW Monitor. “I’ve never seen that much reference to guidance, and the guidance is going to be really important here. Guidance is guidance, it’s not a rule, but generally speaking, unless you have a good reason to veer from guidance, you have a hard time doing it. This is going to be the most important guidance document they have ever written, as far as I am concerned. The rule will be a few things, but the guidance will be hundreds of pages.”
Overall, though, many in the industry are pleased with what the saw in the SRM. One industry executive called it “reasonable” while another said it was “workable.” EnergySolutions and Waste Control Specialists, owners of the disposal sites that would be affected by this rulemaking, agreed that this worked. “We are generally pleased with the policy and direction of the SRM,” EnergySolutions spokesman Mark Walker said. Dan Shrum, senior vice president of regulatory affairs at EnergySolutions, had been a vocal advocate in the process of reducing the time of compliance down to 1000 years. From WCS’s perspective, this does not change much, as Texas already required a performance assessment out to peak dose, WCS spokesman Chuck McDonald said, but it supported the NRC’s decision-making. Scott Kirk, WCS vice president for licensing and corporate compliance, had voiced his support for the previous 10,000 time of compliance.
States’ Perspective
From the states’ perspectives, the question on the SRM had to do with the Compatibility ‘B’ assigned to the most significant portions of the revised rule. Compatibility categories refer to the degree the Agreements States must adopt the rulemaking. In the case of Compatibility ‘B,’ the second most stringent category, the states must adopt most of what the NRC rules. “It’s a little pre-mature for Utah to determine our stance on going to Category B,” said Rusty Lundberg, director of Utah’s Division of Radiation Control. “It obviously takes away some of the flexibility that the states were looking for throughout this process, but it also provides some consistency if that’s what they are looking for.”
Both Washington and South Carolina found no problem with the Compatibility ‘B’ distinction. “We had gone through our performance assessment back when we did our environmental impact statement that came out in May of 2004, and previous to actually releasing that we have been in a lot of conversations with the NRC staff about what is the regulatory compliance period,” said Earl Fordham, Washington’s deputy director of the Office of Radiation Protection. “At that time they did not have anything in rule, so they were looking at something around 10,000 years so we used 10,000 years in our analysis. I think the Category B is doable. We need to have some consistency among the four sited states. A Category B is not going to hurt us out here in Washington.” South Carolina issued a similar statement. “DHEC recognizes the complexity of the proposed revisions to Part 61 and appreciates the efforts and input of the NRC Commissioners and staff, as well as the Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards in giving due diligence to this process,” said Lindsey Evans, spokesman for the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control. “DHEC supports the Compatibility Category B designation.”
