SRM FOR PART 61 TO BE ISSUED ‘SOON’

The Staff Related Memorandum related to the revision of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s 10 CFR Part 61 waste classification system should be issued “soon,” NRC Chairman Allison Macfarlane said yesterday at the Platts 10th Annual Nuclear Energy Conference. For the SRM to be issued, all five commissioner’s votes need to be in. “Sometime soon,” Macfarlane said. “You know, with five of us voting, everyone has different schedules.” The proposed revision of the Part 61 system is the latest iteration of the NRC’s Site Specific Assessment (SSA) rulemaking, begun in 2009 to address disposal of large quantities of depleted uranium. The NRC staff’s previous draft rulemaking would require low-level radioactive waste disposal sites to perform a site-specific analysis to prove their site was protective of public health and safety for 10,000 years, down from a period of compliance of 20,000 years of previous drafts. The draft rulemaking also previously called for a two-tier analysis with the first period covering 10,000 years and the second period covering long-lived isotopes.