NRC’S JACZKO: POTENTIAL PART 61 REVISION NOT A PRESSING NEED

Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Gregory Jaczko yesterday made clear that he does not consider low-level radioactive waste issues, including work on updating the 10 CFR Part 61 waste classification tables, to be a particularly pressing matter. The anniversary of the nuclear disaster at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant, and what the U.S. is doing to develop and enforce safeguards as a result of that event, dominated the first day of the NRC’s Regulatory Information Conference yesterday, and when asked about whether enhancing U.S. disposal options by updating Part 61 could be a part of the response Jaczko said, “there’s probably some enhancements to be made if we were to update those regulations, but it doesn’t appear right now that there is a real need to dramatically change our program.” Updating Part 61’s 30-year old assumptions “is a very important issue,” Jaczko said, and “It will provide ultimately some more modern and enhanced way to look at low level waste disposal. But in the same time, right now there is sufficient capacity to deal with Class A, B and C waste for the foreseeable future in the various sites that we have now.”