[Federal Register Volume 59, Number 55 (Tuesday, March 22, 1994)]
[Unknown Section]
[Page 0]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 94-6641]


[[Page Unknown]]

[Federal Register: March 22, 1994]


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NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
[Docket 70-925; License SNM-928]

 

Finding of No Significant Impact and Opportunity for a Hearing 
Amendment of Special Nuclear Material; Cimarron Corp., Crescent, OK

    The U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is considering the 
amendment of Special Nuclear Material License SNM-928 for the Cimarron 
Corporation located near Crescent, Oklahoma.

Summary of the Environmental Assessment

Identification of the Proposed Action

    The proposed action is an amendment of License SNM-928 to allow the 
disposal of uranium-contaminated soil on the site of the Cimarron 
Corporation's Uranium Plant near Crescent, Oklahoma. From 1965 to 1975, 
Kerr-McGee Corporation, Cimarron Corporation's parent company, produced 
uranium fuel for nuclear reactors at the Cimarron facility. The Uranium 
Plant has been inactive since 1975, and Kerr-McGee is engaged in 
decommissioning the Plant and neighboring facilities on the Cimarron 
site. Approximately 11,000 cubic meters (400,000 cubic feet) of soil 
around the Uranium Plant were contaminated with spilled uranium during 
the years of operation.
    As part of site decommissioning, Kerr-McGee has requested 
authorization to collect the contaminated soil and dispose of it in a 
burial cell on another part of the Cimarron site. The contaminated soil 
that would be buried on the site contains low-enriched uranium in 
concentrations between 30 and 250 picocuries of total uranium per gram 
of soil (pCi/g). The soil to be buried does not contain long-lived 
uranium daughters or any other radioactive isotopes at concentrations 
significantly above background levels. The NRC regulation that applies 
to this request is 10 CFR 20.2002 (formerly 10 CFR 20.302), Method for 
Obtaining Approval of Proposed Disposal Procedures. NRC policy on 
onsite disposal of uranium-contaminated soil pursuant to 10 CFR 20.302 
is described in the ``Branch Technical Position on Disposal or Onsite 
Storage of Thorium or Uranium Wastes from Past Operations'' (the BTP) 
(46 FR 52061, October 23, 1981). The proposed disposal will conform to 
Option 2 of the BTP and will constitute a principal step toward site 
decommissioning and license termination.

Need for the Proposed Action

    A large amount of soil around the Cimarron Uranium Plant has been 
contaminated with low-enriched uranium. If the contamination is left 
where it is, within 0.3 to 0.6 meters (1 to 2 feet) of the surface, it 
is likely that 'people using the site in the future will be exposed to 
unnecessary radiation.
    While Kerr-McGee has not yet requested license termination, it is 
the NRC staff's understanding that they will do so and that they plan 
to request that the site be released without restrictions on its future 
ownership or use. The overall condition of the Cimarron site, including 
its suitability for unrestricted release, will be the subject of a 
future licensing action and a separate Environmental Assessment. If 
there is to be unrestricted release of the site, however, it would be 
better for the present extent of uranium contamination not to be left 
in the surface soil around the Uranium Plant. Whether or not the 
Cimarron site is ultimately released for unrestricted use, removal of 
the surface contamination will be an improvement in the condition of 
the site.

Environmental Impacts of the Proposed Action

    There will be minimal environmental impacts associated with the 
actual moving of the contaminated soil. It will only be moved from one 
part of the site to another, 400-500 meters away. The soil is mildly 
radioactive and will be handled with routine health physics precautions 
for the workers. Measures will be taken to minimize dust while handling 
the soil, and measurements will be made to confirm that significant 
quantities of uranium-bearing dust are not blown off the site. Site-
specific calculations done for the Environmental Assessment have shown 
that the potential radiation dose to the nearest resident from the 
earthmoving will be a cumulative committed effective dose equivalent of 
no more than 0.67 mrem, which is much smaller than the annual dose due 
to natural background radiation, and less than the 25 mrem per year 
used by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as the dose limit for 
maximally exposed individuals in unrestricted areas around uranium fuel 
cycle facilities (40 CFR part 190).
    Once the soil is buried, potential environmental impacts could 
result from leaching of the uranium from the disposal cell, erosion of 
the burial site cover, or human activities on the site that disturb the 
burial. Each of these possibilities is considered in detail in the 
Environmental Assessment that supports this Finding.
    The buried contaminated soil will be covered with at least 1.2 
meters (4 feet) of clean soil. The cover will protect site users from 
direct exposure to radiation and will prevent direct inhalation of 
resuspended contaminated soil and the uptake of uranium by crops or 
other vegetation. The susceptibility of the burial site cover to 
erosion has been closely evaluated. The cover will not be prone to 
gullying or sheetwash erosion because of its location on a ridge top 
and because the contaminated soil will be placed in a trench excavated 
from relatively solid rock.
    The prospect that uranium will leach into the local groundwater has 
also been carefully reviewed. The Environmental Assessment contains 
details on the conceptual model used to analyze the proposed burial 
cell and its surroundings, and a computer simulation of the movement of 
water from the burial cell to the nearest drinking water aquifer. The 
top of the nearest aquifer is 9 meters (30 feet) below ground, about 6 
meters (20 feet) below the bottom of the buried uranium. Much of the 
uranium that will be buried is not soluble and will not be transported 
away from the burial cell by groundwater in any case. The soluble 
portion of the uranium will move slowly down toward the aquifer as 
rainwater infiltrates the burial cell. Due to interactions with the 
soil, the dissolved uranium will move much more slowly than the 
groundwater itself. After 1,000 years, a commonly used cutoff time, the 
uranium concentration in the groundwater would still be at natural 
background levels. (Background uranium concentrations in the local 
shallow groundwater are mostly between 1 and 2 pCi/L.)
    The possibility of future human intrusion into the buried soil 
cannot be totally excluded. If a future site owner were to remove the 
1.2 meters (4 feet) of soil cover or regrade the site generally or dig 
into the buried soil in the course of construction activities, the 
value of the cover would be at least partly eliminated. Calculations 
done by the NRC staff to support contaminated soil burials such as this 
one have shown that a physical intrusion into buried contaminated soil 
would not result in an excessively high dose to the intruder as long as 
the concentration of uranium in the soil is kept below the limits 
discussed in the Environmental Assessment. Based upon the average 
concentration of uranium that the licensee expects to dispose of in the 
burial cell, the total effective dose equivalent to an intruder is 
expected to be under 7 millirem. In order to have the potential for 
exposures as low as reasonably achievable and to reduce the likelihood 
of intrusion, the NRC staff will require that notice be placed in the 
land title recording the exact location and amount of buried 
contaminated soil, and that cairns be placed to mark the corners of the 
burial area. This notification is not to be considered a restriction on 
the sale or future use of the site.

Conclusion

    There will be no significant environmental impact or adverse effect 
on human health or safety from the permanent disposal of between 11,000 
and 14,000 cubic meters (400,000 and 500,000 cubic feet) of uranium-
contaminated soil on the Crescent, Oklahoma, site. The NRC staff 
recommends that Kerr-McGee Corporation be authorized to conduct this 
burial under the conditions and restrictions described in the 
Environmental Assessment and summarized below. The major conditions and 
restrictions are: 1. That Kerr-McGee determines that all buried soil 
conforms to the uranium concentration and lung-fluid solubility limits 
defined in the Environmental Assessment (in abridged form, that the 
concentration of uranium be between 30 and 100 pCi/g if the uranium is 
soluble in lung-fluid, with a concentration as high as 250 pCi/g 
allowed if the uranium can be shown to be completely insoluble in lung-
fluid using a method approved by the NRC); and
    2. That Kerr-McGee takes the steps described in the Environmental 
Assessment (such as placing a water-impermeable barrier across the 
vehicle access trench entering the disposal cell) to improve the 
drainage characteristics of the burial cell.
    It will also be required that the title to the Cimarron property be 
amended to explain that low-level radioactive waste is buried on the 
site, to show exactly where the burial cell is located, and to document 
the quantity and identity of the buried waste.

Alternatives to the Proposed Action

    Leaving the soil where it is would increase the risk of unnecessary 
radiation exposure to future users of the site if the site is 
eventually released for unrestricted use. Kerr-McGee has not yet 
applied for termination of the license, but they have expressed their 
intention of doing so and have declared that unrestricted release of 
the site is their objective. The majority of the contamination under 
consideration is in the top 0.3 to 0.6 meters (1 to 2 feet) of soil 
around the Uranium Plant.
    If left there, it would be more prone to disturbance by future 
users of the site than if it were buried under 1.2 meters (4 feet) of 
clean cover. In areas cleaned to 30 pCi/g or less, it is estimated 
using the BTP scenario that the average radiation exposure from the 
enriched uranium will be reduced by more than half.
    Transporting the contaminated soil away from the Cimarron site is a 
possible alternative, but would be very expensive in light of the large 
volume of soil. As explained in detail in the Environmental Assessment, 
shipment of the soil to a commercial low-level waste burial ground 
would cost approximately one hundred times as much as onsite disposal 
(around $10,000,000 versus $100,000). As stated by NRC's ``Action Plan 
to Ensure Timely Cleanup of Site Decommissioning Management Plan 
Sites'' (57 FR 13389; April 16, 1992), soil contaminated with low 
concentrations of uranium can be disposed of by onsite burial and that 
such burial does not preclude ultimate release of the site for 
unrestricted use. The licensee is required to show that the uranium 
concentration in the soil falls into a specific range and that onsite 
disposal is preferable to other options. A cost differential of one 
hundred times is a strong basis for the licensee to consider onsite 
burial preferable to shipment to a commercial burial ground.

Agencies and Persons Consulted

    The NRC staff has consulted with the Oklahoma State Department of 
Health, the agency responsible for radiological safety issues in the 
state of Oklahoma. The Oklahoma State Department of Health wrote the 
portion of the Environmental Assessment dealing with the potential 
nonradiological hazards of the proposed disposal.
    Oak Ridge Associated Universities has provided support to the NRC 
on topics related to the validation of Kerr-McGee's radiological survey 
methods.

Finding of No Significant Impact

    The NRC staff has prepared an Environmental Assessment for the 
proposed amendment of Special Nuclear Material License SNM-928. On the 
basis of this assessment, the NRC staff has concluded that the 
environmental impacts that could be created by the proposed action 
would not be significant and do not warrant the preparation of an 
Environmental Impact Statement. Accordingly, it has been determined 
that a Finding of No Significant Impact is appropriate.
    The Environmental Assessment and other documents related to this 
proposed action are available for public inspection and copying at the 
NRC Public Document Room located at the Gelman Building, 2120 L Street, 
NW., Washington, DC.

Opportunity for a Hearing

    Any person whose interest may be affected by the issuance of this 
amendment may file a request for a hearing. Any request for hearing 
must be filed with the Office of the Secretary, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory 
Commission, Washington, DC 20555, within 30 days of the publication of 
this notice in the Federal Register; be served on the NRC staff 
(Executive Director for Operations, One White Flint North, 11555 
Rockville Pike, Rockville, MD 20852); on the licensee (Cimarron 
Corporation, P.O. Box 25861, Kerr-McGee Center, Oklahoma City, OK 
73124); and must comply with the requirements for requesting a hearing 
set forth in the Commission's regulation, 10 CFR part 2, subpart L, 
``Informal Hearing Procedures for Adjudications in Materials Licensing 
Proceedings.''
    These requirements, which the requestor must address in detail, 
are:
    1. The interest of the requestor in the proceeding;
    2. How that interest may be affected by the results of the 
proceeding, including the reasons why the requestor should be permitted 
a hearing;
    3. The requestor's areas of concern about the licensing activity 
that is the subject matter of the proceeding; and
    4. The circumstances establishing that the request for hearing is 
timely, that is, filed within 30 days of the date of this notice.
    In addressing how the requestor's interest may be affected by the 
proceeding, the request should describe the nature of the requestor's 
right under the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, as amended, to be made a 
party to the proceeding; the nature and extent of the requestor's 
property, financial, or other (i.e., health, safety) interest in the 
proceeding; and the possible effect of any order that may be entered in 
the proceeding upon the requestor's interest.

    Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 15th day of March 1994.

    For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Robert C. Pierson,
Chief, Licensing Branch, Division of Fuel Cycle Safety and Safeguards, 
Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards.
[FR Doc. 94-6641 Filed 3-21-94; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 7590-01-M