[Federal Register Volume 70, Number 114 (Wednesday, June 15, 2005)]
[Proposed Rules]
[Pages 34699-34700]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 05-11799]


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 Proposed Rules
                                                 Federal Register
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 This section of the FEDERAL REGISTER contains notices to the public of 
 the proposed issuance of rules and regulations. The purpose of these 
 notices is to give interested persons an opportunity to participate in 
 the rule making prior to the adoption of the final rules.
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  Federal Register / Vol. 70, No. 114 / Wednesday, June 15, 2005 / 
Proposed Rules  

[[Page 34699]]



NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION

10 CFR Part 20

[Docket No. PRM-20-26]


James Salsman, Receipt of Petition for Rulemaking

AGENCY: Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

ACTION: Petition for rulemaking; notice of receipt.

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SUMMARY: The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is publishing for 
public comment a notice of receipt of a petition for rulemaking, dated 
May 6, 2005, which was filed with the Commission by James Salsman. The 
petition was docketed by the NRC on May 13, 2005, and has been assigned 
Docket No. PRM-20-26. The petitioner requests that the NRC amend its 
regulations to modify exposure and environmental limits of heavy metal 
radionuclides.

DATES: Submit comments by August 29, 2005. Comments received after this 
date will be considered if it is practical to do so, but the Commission 
is able to assure consideration only for comments received on or before 
this date.

ADDRESSES: You may submit comments by any one of the following methods. 
Please include the following number PRM-20-26 in the subject line of 
your comments. Comments on petitions submitted in writing or in 
electronic form will be made available for public inspection. Because 
your comments will not be edited to remove any identifying or contact 
information, the NRC cautions you against including any information in 
your submission that you do not want to be publicly disclosed.
    Mail comments to: Secretary, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 
Washington, DC 20555-0001, ATTN: Rulemakings and Adjudications Staff.
    E-mail comments to: [email protected]. If you do not receive a reply e-
mail confirming that we have received your comments, contact us 
directly at (301) 415-1966. You may also submit comments via the NRC's 
rulemaking Web site at http://ruleforum.llnl.gov. Address questions 
about our rulemaking Web site to Carol Gallagher (301) 415-5905; e-mail 
[email protected]. Comments can also be submitted via the Federal eRulemaking 
Portal http://www.regulations.gov.
    Hand deliver comments to: 11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland 
20852, between 7:30 a.m. and 4:15 p.m. Federal workdays. (Telephone 
(301) 415-1966).
    Fax comments to: Secretary, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission at 
(301) 415-1101.
    Publicly available documents related to this petition may be viewed 
electronically on the public computers located at the NRC's Public 
Document Room (PDR), O1 F21, One White Flint North, 11555 Rockville 
Pike, Rockville, Maryland. The PDR reproduction contractor will copy 
documents for a fee. Selected documents, including comments, may be 
viewed and downloaded electronically via the NRC rulemaking web site at 
http://ruleforum.llnl.gov.
    Publicly available documents created or received at the NRC after 
November 1, 1999, are available electronically at the NRC's Electronic 
Reading Room at http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html. From this 
site, the public can gain entry into the NRC's Agencywide Document 
Access and Management System (ADAMS), which provides text and image 
files of NRC's public documents. If you do not have access to ADAMS or 
if there are problems in accessing the documents located in ADAMS, 
contact the NRC Public Document Room (PDR) Reference staff at 1-800-
397-4209, 301-415-4737 or by e-mail to [email protected].

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Michael T. Lesar, Chief, Rules and 
Directives Branch, Division of Administrative Services, Office of 
Administration, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 
20555-0001, Telephone: 301-415-7163 or Toll Free: 800-368-5642.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

Background

    The NRC has established standards for protection against ionizing 
radiation resulting from activities conducted by licensees and has 
issued these standards in the regulations codified in 10 CFR part 20. 
These regulations are intended to control the receipt, possession, use, 
transfer, and disposal of licensed material by its licensees. Licensed 
material is any source, byproduct, or special nuclear material 
received, possessed, used, transferred, or disposed of under a general 
or specific license issued by the NRC.
    Appendix B to part 20 lists the Annual Limits on Intake (ALIs) and 
Derived Air Concentrations of radionuclides for occupational exposure, 
effluent concentrations, and concentrations for release to sewerage.

The Petitioner's Discussion

    The petitioner believes that the current regulations allow more 
soluble compounds than insoluble compounds. The petitioner states that 
the regulations were designed to address only the radiological hazard 
of uranium, and not the heavy metal toxicity, which is known to be 
about six orders of magnitude worse. The petitioner asserts, in 
practice, that the soluble compounds are far more toxic than the 
insoluble compounds. The petitioner states that this should indicate 
that the long half-life uranium isotope regulation standards need to be 
completely revised.
    The petitioner states that in the current regulations, an annual 
inhalation of more than two grams of uranium is allowed. The petitioner 
states that because the LD50/30 of uranyl nitrate (which has 
considerably less uranyl ion per unit of mass than uranium trioxide) is 
2.1 mg/kg in rabbits, 12.6 mg/kg in dogs, 48 mg/kg in rats, and 51 mg/
kg in guinea pigs and albino mice, two grams of UO3 seems very likely 
to comprise a fatal dose for a 200 pound human (Gmelin Handbook of 
Inorganic Chemistry, 8th edition, English translation (1982), vol. U-
A7, pp. 312-322).
    The petitioner believes that these values seem much too high. He 
believes that they were derived to avoid immediate kidney failure only, 
without regard to reproductive toxicity. The petitioner does not 
believe they were derived with sufficient care to avoid allowing lethal 
exposures. The petitioner states that the explicit limit to 10 mg/day 
of soluble uranium compounds (or about half a gram per year) in 10 CFR 
20.1201(e) seems likely

[[Page 34700]]

to allow substantial kidney damage and certain reproductive toxicity.
    The petitioner states that a urine study performed (see http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve& db=pubmed&dopt= 
Abstract& list--uids=12943033) calculates an average initial lung 
burden of 0.34 milligrams elemental uranium for those with isotopic 
signatures consistent with exposure to depleted uranium in what he 
believes were symptomatic exposure victims. The petitioner believes 
that this study is flawed, as it assumes a uranium compound biological 
half-time of 3.85 years in the lungs. The petitioner states that the 
primary mode of uranium toxicity involves much greater solubility. The 
petitioner believes that monomeric uranium trioxide will turn out to be 
absorbed more rapidly in the mammalian lung than uranyl nitrate, 
because of its monomolecular gas nature, and not merely about as 
rapidly as the studies of granular uranium trioxide by P.E. Morrow, et 
al., indicate (``Inhalation Studies of Uranium Trioxide,'' Health 
Physics, vol. 23 (1972), pp. 273-280). The petitioner states that even 
Class D may not be appropriate for monomolecular uranium trioxide gas.
    The petitioner believes the correct way to determine these values, 
to account for the reproductive toxicity, is probably to measure 
resulting mutations of mammalian peripheral lymphocytes, such as was 
done in this study of Gulf War veterans (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd= Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt= Abstract&list--
uids=11765683).

The Petitioner's Request

    The petitioner requests that the NRC revise its regulations in 10 
CFR part 20 that specify limits for ingestion and inhalation 
occupational values, effluent concentrations, and releases to sewers, 
for all heavy metal radionuclides with nonradiological chemical 
toxicity hazards exceeding that of their radiological hazards so that 
those limits properly reflect the hazards associated with reproductive 
toxicity, danger to organs, and all other known nonradiological aspects 
of heavy metal toxicity. The petitioner states that many of these 
limits consider the radiological hazard of certain chemically toxic 
radionuclides with slight radiological dangers (e.g., Uranium-238), 
without regard to their greater nonradiological hazard. The petitioner 
notes that this petition does not request increasing the permissible 
quantities given by any of those limits specified. The petitioner also 
states that, for example, the soluble forms of Uranium-238 compounds, 
which are more toxic if inhaled than the insoluble compounds, are 
allowed in greater quantities than their insoluble compounds. Other 
examples may include, but are not necessarily limited to, Uranium-232, 
Plutonium-239, and other long half-life isotopes of the heavy metal 
elements. The petitioner also requests that the classification for 
uranium trioxide within Class W, given in the Class column of the table 
for Uranium-230 in Appendix B to 10 CFR part 20, be amended to Class D 
in light of P.E. Morrow, et al., ``Inhalation Studies of Uranium 
Trioxide'' (Health Physics, vol. 23 (1972), pp. 273-280), which states: 
``inhalation studies with uranium trioxide (UO3) indicated that the 
material was more similar to soluble uranyl salts than to the so-called 
insoluble oxides * * * UO3 is rapidly removed from the lungs, with most 
following a 4.7 day biological half time.''
    The petitioner also requests that monomeric (monomolecular) uranium 
trioxide gas, as produced by the oxidation of U3O8 at temperatures 
above 1000 Celsius, be assigned its own unique solubility class if 
necessary, at such time in the future that its solubility 
characteristics become known (R.J. Ackermann, R.J. Thorn, C. Alexander, 
and M. Tetenbaum, in ``Free Energies of Formation of Gaseous Uranium, 
Molybdenum, and Tungsten Trioxides,'' Journal of Physical Chemistry, 
vol. 64 (1960) pp. 350-355: ``gaseous monomeric uranium trioxide is the 
principal species produced by the reaction of U3O8 with oxygen'' at 
1200 Kelvin and above).

Conclusion

    The petitioner requests that 10 CFR part 20 be revised in 
accordance with the proposed revisions as set forth above.

    Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 9th day of June 2005.

    For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Annette Vietti-Cook,
Secretary of the Commission.
[FR Doc. 05-11799 Filed 6-14-05; 8:45 am]
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