In coming weeks the NRC Commissioners will be intervening in staff’s ongoing Site Specific Assessment Rulemaking effort, Commissioner William Magwood confirmed yesterday, potentially directing the NRC staff to reconsider a handful of controversial provisions, including a recommendation to institute a 20,000-year period of performance. On the sidelines of a Commission meeting yesterday, Magwood told RW Monitor that there are “ongoing discussions” about the path forward and “there should be something coming out in the next few weeks.” At the meeting, the Commission heard from the Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards’ Mike Ryan, who outlined the panel’s opposition to the SSA rulemaking and reiterated concerns that the 20,000-year period of performance and the intruder scenario staff is proposing are both overly strict and not risk-informed. Magwood, too, has previously expressed concerns with the rulemaking, especially the 20,000-year period of performance. “It’s hard to imagine how you could analyze that far out,” Magwood said at the RadWaste Summit Sept. 7. “My personal view is that, rather than a compliance period of 20,000 years we can look at a shorter compliance period but have an analysis period going out to peak dose. It’s much more qualitative … I don’t think I want to say exactly what that would look like [but it] could be tailored to fit the need.” He added, “I’m not rejecting what the staff is putting forward, I think it’s well-thought out and reasoned, but I do want to consider a different approach.”
Notably, though, not all the Commissioners are in agreement in wanting the staff to change their recommendations. “Where the Commission has been in the past is we have an immediate interest in disposing of this material, while we have sites,” NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko said at the meeting yesterday. “We’re pretty far down the line now, and we have an approach that protects public health and safety.”