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Transcript of Second Meeting on Draft Interpretive Rule for VLLW Disposal Activities, July 1, 2020, Pages 1-91

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Transcript of Second Meeting on Draft Interpretive Rule for VLLW Disposal Activities, July 1, 2020, Pages 1-91 Official Transcript of Proceedings NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Title: Second Meeting on Draft Interpretive Rule for VLLW Disposal Activities Docket Number: (n/a) Location: teleconference Date: Wednesday, July 1, 2020 Work Order No.: NRC-0939 Pages 1-91 NEAL R. GROSS AND CO., INC. Court Reporters and Transcribers 1323 Rhode Island Avenue, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 234-4433 1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION + + + + + SECOND MEETING ON DRAFT INTERPRETIVE RULE FOR VLLW DISPOSAL ACTIVITIES + + + + + WEDNESDAY, JULY 1, 2020 + + + + + The Public Meeting convened via teleconference and webinar at 12:30 p.m. EDT, Brett Klukan, Facilitator, presiding. NRC STAFF PRESENT: MARLAYNA DOELL, NMSS/DUWP/LLWPB TRISH HOLAHAN, NMSS/DUWP ADAM SCHWARTZMAN, NMSS/DUWP/RTAB BRETT KLUKAN, Region I ALSO PRESENT: DIANE D'ARRIGO DAVID CARLSON MICHEL LEE HAAKON WILLIAMS NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 2 MARVIN LEWIS MARY JANE WILLIAMS ERIC EPSTEIN MARTIN O'NEILL TAYLOR ALTENBERN KEVIN KAMPS RICH JANATI JAN BOUDART CONRAD MILLER DONNA GILMORE MICHAEL CALLAHAN ELLEN THOMAS IMORA DURAN MARIA CAINE JILL MCMANUS LARRY CAMPER DAN SHRUM JAN BOUDART KAY CUMBOW NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 3 P R O C E E D I N G S 12:33 p.m. OPERATOR: Welcome and thank you for standing by. I would like to inform all participants that your lines have been placed on a listen-only mode until the question-and-answer session of today's call. Today's call is being recorded. If anyone has any objection, you may disconnect at this time. I would now like to turn the call over to Marlayna Doell. Thank you. You may begin. MS. DOELL: Hi. Thank you, Amanda. Good afternoon and thank you for joining us today. My name is Marlayna Doell. I'm a project manager in the NRC's low-level waste and projects branch, and I'm here today with Trish Holahan, the director of my division which is the Decommissioning, Uranium Recovery, and Waste Programs Division in the Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards. I'm also joined by Adam Schwartzman who is a risk analyst in the Risk and Technical Analysis Branch of Trish's division, as well as several other members of the NRC staff. In addition, the open portion of the meeting will be facilitated by Brett Klukan from our regional office in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania. So I would like to thank Brett for NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 4 lending a hand today. As always, I want to kick off with a few important items about the Webex meeting before we get started. The first is that this is an NRC Category 3 public meeting which means that the staff will make a brief presentation on the proposed interpretive rule and then open the line to comments or feedback on this topic. At the end of the presentation if you want to make a verbal comment, Brett or the bridge line operator will give instructions on how to place your call in the comment queue. As a reminder, we are asking for comments on the proposed interpretive rule, including the five questions in the original Federal Register notice which we'll also go through during the presentation. But we also want to encourage everyone to continue to submit formal comments between now and the end of the comment period on July 20th. While we will be addressing some of the overall questions we have been hearing since the proposed interpretive rule was published in March, we are primarily in feedback collection mode today and will not be able to respond to specific questions one-on-one in the time frame of this meeting. We would ask that anyone making comments attempt to limit NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 5 their statements to a time frame that Brett will set based on the meeting participation. We will provide an opportunity for a second round of comments as time allows, but we want to make sure that everyone has the opportunity to speak. The second is in order to successfully capture verbal comments and as the operator already noted, this meeting is being recorded so that the statements made today can be transcribed. So please make sure you clearly state your name and, if you wish, company or affiliation before starting your comments. You can also provide written comments at any time through the Webex interface using the Q&A dial up box or chat window. Simply type in your comments which you should be able to locate in the menu at the -- oh, into either window which you should be able to locate in the menu at the bottom of your screen. I will electronically mail receipt of these comments and ensure they are captured as part of the record. Finally, I would ask that we all be patient and a little flexible during today's meeting given the virtual nature of our current situation. Please forgive any delays in changing the slides or NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 6 pauses between speakers or any of the usual background noises that I believe we've all come to live with over the last several months. We're attempting to confer from several individual locations. But we're hoping that this transition will go as smoothly as possible. Should there be a technical issue with the Webex, the bridge line should not be affected and the meeting slides should by now be available as an attachment to the meeting notice on the NRC's public website or on the public website that describes the proposed interpretive rule itself. So if something were to happen, we should be able to continue the meeting in the new format as needed. Hopefully, this will not be the case, but it can't hurt to be prepared. Also, a reminder to members of the NRC staff that we are on an open line as speakers. So please be mindful of the mute and unmute function of your phone as neither I nor the operator have control over the open portion of the bridge line. With that, I will say thank you again for joining us and turn the meeting over to our first presenter, Trish Holahan, to kick us off. DR. HOLAHAN: Thank you, Marlayna. Once NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 7 again, I'm Trish Holahan, Director of the Division of Decommissioning, Uranium Recovery, and Waste Programs with the NRC in the Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards. I'm pleased to be here to discuss our recent proposal to provide an alternative way to consider a licensee's desire to provide some forms of very low-level waste or VLLW in hazardous municipal waste landfills instead of one of the four licensed facilities that currently accept low-level radioactive waste. Before we begin, I want to note up front that this proposed change will not release the nation's radioactive waste from regulatory oversight or allow waste to be disposed of in an unregulated facility or permit any disposed VLLW from being reused in any way. Disposals under this proposal will be permanent, and the change would create an alternative procedure for the disposal of very low-level waste that aligns with our current regulatory framework for the disposal of low-level radioactive waste while protecting public health and safety and the environment. As Marlayna mentioned, we are looking forward to your feedback but will not be able to provide individual responses to comments made today. NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 8 We will be taking all of your feedback into consideration as we move forward on making decisions regarding this proposed interpretive rule. Next slide, please. This is the second public meeting on this topic. The first meeting occurred on March 30th, 2020. Based on your comments, on April 3rd, we extended the comment period to July 20th. So we'd appreciate any written comments by then. To enhance public participation opportunities, we also scheduled a second meeting. Consistent with our public participation policy, we issued the meeting announcement on our public meeting website on June 16th. So the purpose of today's meeting is to continue to discuss the NRC staff's proposed approach to very low-level waste disposal under the interpretation of 10 CFR 20.2001 outlined in the Federal Register notice issued on March 6th and to collect your feedback on the proposed interpretive rule. Before we dive into details, I thought it would be helpful to cover what an interpretive rule actually means. For the NRC, an interpretive rule is a rule or statement that advises the public of the NRC's NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 9 construction or interpretation of its regulations and it's not legally binding.
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