Official Transcript of Proceedings NUCLEAR REGULATORY
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Official Transcript of Proceedings NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Title: Public Workshop 2 on Unique Waste Streams - Depleted Uranium Docket Number: (n/a) Location: Salt Lake City, Utah Date: Thursday, September 24, 2009 Work Order No.: NRC-3054 Pages 1-282 NEAL R. GROSS AND CO., INC. Court Reporters and Transcribers 1323 Rhode Island Avenue, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 234-4433 1 1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2 + + + + + 3 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 4 + + + + + 5 PUBLIC WORKSHOP 2 ON 6 UNIQUE WASTE STREAMS - DEPLETED URANIUM 7 + + + + + 8 THURSDAY, 9 SEPTEMBER 24, 2009 10 + + + + + 11 SALT LAKE CITY MARRIOTT UNIVERSITY PARK 12 480 WAKARA WAY 13 SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH 84108 14 PARTICIPANTS: 15 CHIP CAMERON, Moderator, NRC 16 BEATRICE BRAILSFORD, Program Director, Snake River 17 Alliance 18 PATRICE M. BUBAR, NRC/FSME 19 PETER C. BURNS, Henry Massman Professor of Civil 20 Engineering, University of Notre Dame 21 TISON AMEDEN CAMPBELL, Office of General Counsel, NRC 22 LARRY W. CAMPER, Director, Division of Waste 23 Management, NRC 24 STEVE COWNE, Director, Quality and Regulatory Affairs, 25 LES NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 2 1 DIRK DUNNING, Chemical Engineer, Oregon Department of 2 Energy 3 DAVID W. ESH, Senior Systems Performance Analyst, NRC 4 DANE FINERFROCK, Director, Division of Radiation 5 Control, Utah Department of Environmental 6 Quality 7 CHRISTOPHER J. GROSSMAN, Systems Performance Analyst, 8 NRC 9 SUSAN JABLONSKI, Director, Radioactive Materials 10 Program, Texas Commission on Environmental 11 Quality 12 SCOTT KIRK, Waste Control Specialsts 13 DAVID C. KOCHER, SENES Oak Ridge 14 GREG KOMP, Senior Health Physicist, U.S. Army Safety 15 Office 16 MARTY LETOURNEAU, DOE Office of Compliance 17 THOMAS E. MAGETTE, Senior Vice President, Nuclear 18 Regulatory Strategy, Energy Solutions 19 KELLI A. MARKHAM, NRC 20 CHRISTEPHER A. McKENNEY, Chief, Performance Assessment 21 Branch, Office of Federal and State Materials 22 and Environmental Management Programs, NRC 23 STEVE NELSON, Professor, Brigham Young University 24 VANESSA PIERCE, Executive Director, HEAL Utah 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 3 1 DAN SHRUM, Senior Vice President, Regulatory 2 Compliance, Energy Solutions 3 DREW THATCHER, Division of Environmental Health, 4 Office of Radiation Protection, Washington 5 Department of Health 6 CHRISTOPHER THOMAS, Policy Director, HEAL Utah 7 STEPHEN WEBB, Distinguished Member of the Technical 8 Staff, Sandia National Laboratories 9 DUNCAN WHITE, NRC/FSME 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 4 1 A G E N D A 2 FACILITATOR OPENING COMMENTS ...................... 5 3 Chip Cameron, NRC 4 ISSUE 1.5: MODELING OF URANIUM GEOCHEMISTRY 5 IN A SITE-SPECIFIC ANALYSIS ...................... 12 6 Christopher Grossman, NRC/FSME 7 ISSUE 1.6: MODELING OF RADON IN THE ENVIRONMENT 8 IN A SITE-SPECIFIC ANALYSIS ...................... 39 9 Christopher Grossman, NRC/FSME 10 BREAK ............................................ 70 11 ISSUE 2: UNIQUE WASTE STREAMS .................... 76 12 David Esh, NRC/FSME 13 LUNCH ........................................... 121 14 ISSUE 3: AGREEMENT STATE COMPATIBILITY .......... 122 15 Duncan White, NRC/FSME 16 BREAK ........................................... 180 17 ISSUE 4: LONG-TERM RULEMAKING: WASTE 18 CLASSIFICATION .................................. 180 19 Larry Camper, NRC/FSME 20 ISSUE 5: OTHER CONSIDERATIONS ................... 207 21 Patrice Bubar, NRC/FSME 22 PUBLIC COMMENTS ................................. 247 23 ADJOURN 24 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 5 1 P R O C E E D I N G S 2 (8:44 a.m.) 3 MR. CAMERON: Good morning, everyone. 4 Welcome back to the second day of our Workshop on the 5 NRC rulemaking on establishing site-specific 6 performance assessment criteria for the disposal of 7 depleted uranium, and other unique waste streams. I 8 heard a lot of good discussion yesterday, and I'll do 9 a quick summary of some of the points that I heard 10 later on, before we get to the first substantive 11 session. But we have several items on the agenda 12 today, as well as some parking lot issues that we'll 13 want to finish up with, if we don't address them 14 during the normal course of business today. And I'll 15 just give you a list of some of the parking lot issues 16 that we have. And our court reporter, Mike, said that 17 we probably need a whole parking structure now, not 18 just a lot. 19 At any rate, the availability of the 20 regulatory analysis for comment was brought up. The 21 regulatory analysis is part of the NRC rulemaking 22 package. And we'll see if we can get some 23 clarification on that today. There was a point about 24 ground water. Ground water pathway is redundant. 25 David brought that up. Peter had a different view. NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 6 1 I'm not sure that we ventilated that discussion. And 2 if it's important to do so, we will, and I hope you'll 3 let me know about that. 4 There was a point about the oxidizing 5 reduction environment. I don't know if we really 6 devoted much time to that. This is more of a 7 question, does the TEDE, Total Effective Dose 8 Equivalent, okay, does that include Radon? And, 9 David, you're saying? 10 (Off mic comment.) 11 MR. CAMERON: Okay. That's the question. 12 We'll see if we can answer that. 13 There is a whole issue of validating 14 models. And, as you'll remember, Dave talked about, 15 and I think Drew also talked about support for models, 16 in addition to validation. The first two sessions we 17 have today are going to be on modeling, so we'll get 18 to that. 19 There was an issue brought up from the 20 audience about, basically, environmental justice. 21 Where does that get considered in these types of 22 rulemaking efforts? And, classically, it's done as 23 part of the NEPA analysis, but I'm not sure how much 24 we get into that in an environmental assessment, as 25 opposed to an environmental impact statement. So, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 7 1 that's in the parking lot, and I'm hoping that our 2 lawyers and technical staff can talk about -- can 3 confer, and we can get some answers on that. 4 What are the implications of a stricter 5 NRC rule? And, Vanessa, this is a point that you 6 brought up yesterday, and I'm not sure that I captured 7 it exactly, as what happens if there's a stricter NRC 8 rule in terms of the state approaches? But when we get 9 to other considerations today, any issues like that, 10 and if I didn't characterize it correctly, I'm sorry, 11 but if you can just bring that up when we get to the 12 other considerations that Patty Bubar is going to tee 13 up for us. And that will also get to the concern that 14 we heard a lot about yesterday, which is, what happens 15 in the interim, before the NRC rule? What are the 16 Agreement States doing? And that's going to be a big 17 topic for the other considerations agenda item. 18 Someone thought it would be important to 19 clarify, and I believe it was Tom, clarify the nature 20 of Part 61. And, at some point today, we should have 21 some discussion on that. And, Tom, at some time 22 during the day when you think it's appropriate, or 23 when we get to other considerations, if you could just 24 put a finer point on that aspect of it. 25 So, those are some of our parking lot NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 8 1 issues. And we also have the regulatory guidance 2 versus rule issue. As you remember, we said we were 3 going to entertain comments on what should be in the 4 rule, what should be in the guidance, as we went 5 through each section, but we also said that we would 6 come back and have a general session on that, after 7 people had time to reflect on the discussion 8 yesterday. And, perhaps, we should start with that, 9 finish it off, drive a stake through its heart this 10 morning before we get to the modeling thing. 11 For those of you in the audience, we will 12 be going out periodically for comments on the agenda 13 items that have been discussed. We do have a session 14 at the end of the day where we're going to go to the 15 audience for any comments that you might want to 16 express, any concerns, and if there are people here 17 who do have that type of comment, if during the break 18 this morning they could talk to me, and I could figure 19 out some timing issues with them, that would be 20 helpful.