[Federal Register Volume 61, Number 155 (Friday, August 9, 1996)]
[Notices]
[Pages 41597-41600]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 96-20313]
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DEFENSE NUCLEAR FACILITIES SAFETY BOARD
Board Policy on Board Oversight of Department of Energy
Decommissioning Activities at Defense Nuclear Facilities
AGENCY: Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board.
ACTION: Notice of Board adoption of policy guidance.
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SUMMARY: The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board has unanimously
[[Page 41598]]
adopted a policy statement which establishes procedures that the Board
will use in carrying out its oversight responsibilities for
decommissioning activities at Department of Energy defense nuclear
facilities.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:
Robert M. Andersen, General Counsel, Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety
Board, 625 Indiana Avenue, NW., Suite 700, Washington, DC 20004-2901,
(202) 208-6387.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: This policy statement describes the
decommissioning phase of a Department of Energy defense nuclear
facility and identifies the Board's safety oversight responsibilities
for decommissioning activities.
Policy Statement (PS-3)
Congress directed the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board
(Board) to oversee Department of Energy (DOE) practices at defense
nuclear facilities that could adversely affect public health and safety
during any stage in the life cycle of those facilities, from design,
construction, and operation through decommissioning. The Board's
objective during decommissioning is identical to its objective during
any other phase of a facility's life cycle: to ensure that DOE provides
adequate protection of worker and public health and safety at defense
nuclear facilities. Congress specifically tasked the Board with
reviewing and evaluating:
The content and implementation of the standards relating to the
design, construction, operation, and decommissioning of defense
nuclear facilities of the Department of Energy (including all
applicable Department of Energy orders, regulations, and
requirements) at each Department of Energy defense nuclear facility.
The Board shall recommend to the Secretary of Energy those specific
measures that should be adopted to ensure that public health and
safety are adequately protected. 42 U.S.C. 2286a(a)(1) (emphasis
added).
Thus, the Board's principal oversight function during the
decommissioning phase of a facility is to ensure that appropriate
nuclear safety rules, orders, and procedures are developed by DOE and
then put in practice while the facility is being taken out of service.
An unambiguous definition of ``decommissioning'' is essential to
understanding the Board's responsibilities for safety oversight during
this phase, and to establishing effective cooperation and/or processes
for transition to external regulation by other federal and state
agencies having statutory responsibilities for final cleanup and site
restoration activities that the term decommissioning also encompasses.
As used in the Board's enabling statute, decommissioning is a broad
term that encompasses activities leading up to environmental
restoration, including deactivation, decontamination, final process
runs, removal of special nuclear material, residues, and wastes, and
other activities necessary to ensure adequate protection of public
health and safety. Under the Atomic Energy Act (AEA), decommissioning
begins when operation ceases, and ends when source material, byproduct
material, and special nuclear material (``AEA materials''), as well as
radioactive materials related to the defense mission, such as tritium,
have been adequately removed from a facility. When completed properly,
these actions taken to remove radioactive materials obviate the need
for continued Board oversight to ensure adequate protection of worker
or public health and safety from radiological hazards.
This definition of decommissioning is broader than that currently
used administratively by DOE. DOE segments the period following
operation into a deactivation phase and a decommissioning phase. The
DOE Office of Environmental Management separates the deactivation phase
from other functions commonly associated with operations, and defines
it as:
The process of placing a facility in a safe and stable condition
to minimize the long-term cost of a surveillance and maintenance
program that is protective of workers, the public, and the
environment until decommissioning is complete. Actions include the
removal of fuel, draining and/or de-energizing of nonessential
systems, removal of stored radioactive and hazardous materials and
related actions. As the bridge between operations and
decommissioning, based upon facility-specific considerations and
final disposition plans, deactivation can accomplish operations-like
activities such as final process runs, and also decontamination
activities aimed at placing the facility in a safe and stable
condition. Decommissioning Resource Manual, DOE/EM-0246, Sec. 3.3.
DOE distinguishes deactivation from decommissioning activities for
administrative purposes including budget determinations and delineation
of various responsibilities within DOE. The Board believes that DOE's
functional description of what takes place during deactivation is
useful, but also recognizes that deactivation is a continuation and
completion of the operations which are necessary to accomplish
decommissioning. The Board's inclusion of deactivation as a part of
decommissioning is consistent with Nuclear Regulatory Commission and
International Atomic Energy Agency policies on decommissioning.
DOE defines decommissioning more narrowly as only those activities
which take place:
After deactivation and includes surveillance and maintenance,
decontamination and/or dismantlement. These actions are taken at the
end of life of the facility to retire it from service with adequate
regard for the health and safety of workers and the public and
protection of the environment. The ultimate goal of decommissioning
is unrestricted release or restricted use of the site.
* * * * *
Surveillance and Maintenance is a program established during
deactivation and continuing until phased out during decommissioning
to provide in a cost effective manner for satisfactory containment
of contamination; physical safety and security controls; and
maintenance of the facility in a manner that is protective of
workers, the public, and the environment. Id. Sec. 3.3.
To avoid confusion, the Board refers to surveillance and
maintenance which occurs during decommissioning as ``decommissioning
surveillance and maintenance'' to distinguish between the routine
surveillance and maintenance activities that occur during normal
operations. Nuclear safety organizations generally consider operations
to be ended and decommissioning initiated once reactor fuel has been
removed from a nuclear reactor, for nonreactor facilities,
decommissioning begins with the removal of radioactive process
materials.
The Board's interest in decommissioning activities follows the risk
to worker or public health and safety from exposure to radioactive
materials at or near defense nuclear facilities. DOE's separation of
activities into such categories as decontamination, surveillance and
maintenance, and demolition may be descriptive and useful to DOE.
However, labels or designation applied to the different activities
within the decommissioning phase of a facility do not determine the
scope of the Board's duties. The Board retains oversight responsibility
and interest so long as residual quantities and states of radioactive
materials are sufficient to require continued Board oversight in the
interests of public and worker safety. Given this condition, the Board
will continue to exercise its oversight jurisdiction to ensure that
standards applicable to the DOE activity, including DOE safety orders,
rules, and other requirements, are sufficient to provide adequate
protection to the worker or public health and safety, and are
implemented by DOE and its contractors in accordance with a safety
management
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plan that does, in fact, provide such adequate protection.
The Board's concern for safety at a facility diminishes as
radioactive materials are withdrawn and the facility is removed from
service. The Board is ready to work with the federal and state
regulatory agencies also involved in these decommissioning activities
to effect a coordinated, integrated decommissioning effort. Together
with this policy statement, the Board is endorsing and issuing Board
technical report, DNFSB/TECH-12, prepared by senior staff entitled,
``Regulation and Oversight of Decommissioning Activities at Department
of Energy Defense Nuclear Facilities.'' That document elaborates upon
the issues discussed in this policy statement and fully describes the
type of cooperative arrangement the Board envisions with other federal
and state regulators.
The Board's oversight responsibility for decommissioning activities
focuses primarily on the health and safety aspects of the facility and
materials within the facility. To a lesser extent, the Board involves
itself with protection of the environment surrounding the facility
which is subject to substantial regulation by other agencies.
Specifically, the Board is concerned if the immediate environment
contains or can be contaminated with radioactive materials from a
facility under the Board's jurisdiction, and can possess a sufficient
concentration of radionuclides to pose a potential threat to worker and
public health and safety. Similarly, the Board is concerned if the
environment poses a nonradiological hazard which can cause an undue
risk to worker and public health and safety as a result of its
proximity to a defense nuclear facility. The Board's environmental
interest is greatest if the materials originated with DOE defense
nuclear facility activities and exposure to the materials could result
in undue harm to workers or the public. The Board's interest is shared
with other regulatory agencies where the contaminants result (1) from a
release, bringing Comprehensive Emergency Response, Compensation, and
Liability Act (CERCLA) or Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA)
requirements into play, along with United States Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) or state regulation of removal and remediation
activities, or (2) from activities under a RCRA permit. In such cases,
the Board is prepared to work in an advisory or assist role with
federal or state agencies having statutory responsibility for forcing
corrective or remedial measures.
The Board shares oversight responsibility with other regulatory
agencies for other facilities containing or contaminated with
radioactive materials mixed with RCRA hazardous waste. RCRA mixed waste
has two components: a RCRA hazardous waste (which excludes AEA
materials) and a radioactive waste. Such facilities are subject to
regulation by EPA and state agencies with environmental
responsibilities. Treatment, storage, and disposal of the hazardous
waste component must meet RCRA requirements and is regulated by the
EPA, or the state when authorized by EPA. Treatment, storage, and
disposal of the radioactive component must meet AEA requirements and is
regulated by DEO subject to Board oversight. Thus, the Board has a
primary interest in the radioactive component, but must share its
responsibility for oversight of the mixed waste with the regulator of
the hazardous component. If the mixed waste is scheduled for treatment
and disposal without separating the two components, the treatment and
disposal facilities must meet both the hazardous waste laws and those
pertaining to radioactive waste.
Board oversight of public health and safety practices at a defense
nuclear facility does not end until decommissioning has been completed.
However, it does diminish as the inventory of radioactive materials is
reduced. This policy statement is designed to provide guidance
pertaining to the Board's interpretation of its statutory role in
decommissioning activities. The Board will be structuring future Board
reviews and oversight of the decommissioning process at defense nuclear
facilities accordingly. The policy statement recognizes that the Board
shares responsibility for public health, safety, and environmental
issues with state agencies and EPA during decommissioning at defense
nuclear facilities. In the delineation of the Board's responsibilities
and interest, the Board's objective is to facilitate a smooth
transition of Board oversight to state and federal regulation as a
defense nuclear facility passes through operational and decommissioning
phases to state and EPA-regulated final cleanup, demolition, and
environmental restoration activities.
John T. Conway,
Chairman.
Dated: August 5, 1996.
Robert M. Andersen,
General Counsel.
Appendix--Transmittal Letter to the Secretary of Energy
DEFENSE NUCLEAR FACILITIES SAFETY BOARD
625 Indiana Avenue, NW, Suite 700, Washington, D.C. 20004, (202) 208-
6400
August 1, 1996.
The Honorable Hazel R. O'Leary,
Secretary of Energy, 1000 Independence Avenue, SW, Washington, DC
20585-1000
Dear Secretary O'Leary: Enclosed for your consideration are two
documents just issued by the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board
(Board) related to safety oversight of decommissioning activities at
Department of Energy (DOE) defense nuclear facilities: Board Policy
Statement No. 3, entitled ``Policy Statement on Board Oversight of
Department of Energy Decommissioning Activities at Defense Nuclear
Facilities'' and a Board technical report, DNFSB/TECH-12,
``Regulation and Oversight of Decommissioning Activities at
Department of Energy Defense Nuclear Facilities.'' Together these
documents examine the various definitions of decommissioning in use
by nuclear organizations, delineate the Board's oversight
responsibilities for decommissioning activities at defense nuclear
facilities, and review the roles of federal and state regulators for
aspects of decommissioning, including environmental cleanup and
final restoration.
The Board believes these documents are important because they
provide structure and guidance for continuing Board safety oversight
of the decommissioning phase, which encompasses an expanding number
of activities throughout the defense nuclear complex. As DOE's
mission continues to evolve, and an emphasis is placed on
decommissioning, waste processing, and environmental restoration, it
becomes increasingly important that the Board and other federal and
state regulators cooperate to provide a smooth transition from
oversight of Atomic Energy Act nuclear materials to regulation of
environmental restoration and cleanup. DNFSB/TECH-12 outlines the
principles for cooperation and efficient, nonduplicative, oversight
and regulation of decommissioning activities. These principles were
incorporated in the 1996 Memorandum of Understanding entered into by
DOE, the Board, the United States Environmental Protection Agency,
and the State of Colorado for decommissioning activities at the
Rocky Flats Environmental Technology Site, near Denver, Colorado. As
recently acknowledged by the Senate Armed Services Committee,
similar arrangements could result in efficient and effective
oversight and regulation of the decommissioning phase at other
defense nuclear facilities throughout the complex.
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Sincerely,
John T. Conway,
Chairman.
Enclosures
c: Mr. Mark B. Whitaker, Jr.
[FR Doc. 96-20313 Filed 8-8-96; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 3670-01-M