[Federal Register Volume 71, Number 104 (Wednesday, May 31, 2006)]
[Notices]
[Pages 30967-30968]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: E6-8347]


-----------------------------------------------------------------------

NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION

[Docket No. PROJ0734, PROJ0735, PROJ0736, POOM-32]


Notice of Availability of Draft Standard Review Plan for 
Activities Related to U.S. Department of Energy Waste Determinations, 
NUREG-1854

AGENCY: U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

ACTION: Notice of availability of draft Standard Review Plan for public 
comment.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

SUMMARY: The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is issuing a 
draft Standard Review Plan (SRP) for activities related to U.S. 
Department of Energy (DOE) waste determinations, for public comment. 
The draft SRP provides guidance to the NRC staff in evaluating non-
high-level waste determinations developed by DOE for the Savannah River 
Site, Idaho National Laboratory, the Hanford site, and the West Valley 
Demonstration Project for certain wastes that are a result of the 
reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel. The draft SRP provides elements the 
NRC staff should review to determine whether there is reasonable 
assurance that the appropriate criteria can be met for determining that 
waste is incidental to reprocessing and can be managed as low-level 
waste. The draft SRP also provides information about the role of the 
NRC in the waste determination process and the NRC monitoring 
activities under the Ronald W. Reagan National Defense Authorization 
Act for Fiscal Year 2005 (NDAA). The draft SRP does not set forth 
regulatory requirements for NRC or for DOE, and compliance with the 
draft SRP is not required.

DATES: The public comment period on the draft SRP begins with 
publication of this notice and continues for 60 days. Written comments 
should be submitted as described in the ADDRESSES section of this 
notice. Comments submitted by mail should be postmarked by that date to 
ensure consideration. Comments received or postmarked after that date 
will be considered to the extent practical.

ADDRESSES: Members of the public are invited and encouraged to submit 
comments to the Chief, Rules and Directives Branch, Mail Stop T6-D59, 
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001. Please 
note Docket Nos. PROJ0734, PROJ0735, PROJ0736, and POOM-32 when 
submitting comments. Comments will also be accepted by e-mail at 
[email protected] or by fax to (301) 415-5397, Attention: Anna Bradford.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Ms. Anna Hajduk Bradford, Senior 
Project Manager, Environmental and Performance Assessment Branch, 
Division of Waste Management and Environmental Protection, Office of 
Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory 
Commission, Rockville, MD 20852. Telephone: (301) 415-5228; fax number: 
(301) 415-5397; e-mail: [email protected].

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

I. Background

    In October 2004, the NDAA was enacted. Section 3116 of the NDAA 
gave the NRC new responsibilities with respect to DOE waste management 
activities for certain ``incidental'' waste resulting from the 
reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel within the States of South Carolina 
and Idaho. These responsibilities include consultation with DOE on the 
determination of whether waste is high-level waste (HLW), as well as 
monitoring of DOE's disposal actions for these wastes. The concept 
behind incidental waste is that some material, resulting from the 
reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel, does not need to be disposed of as 
HLW in a geologic repository because the residual radioactive 
contamination, if properly isolated from the environment, is 
sufficiently low that it does not represent a hazard to public health 
and safety. Consequently, incidental waste is not considered to be HLW, 
but instead is low-level waste. DOE uses technical analyses that are 
documented in a waste determination to evaluate whether waste is 
incidental or HLW. A waste determination provides DOE's analysis

[[Page 30968]]

as to whether the waste will meet the applicable incidental waste 
criteria.
    Prior to passage of the NDAA, DOE would periodically request the 
NRC to provide technical advice for specific waste determinations. The 
staff reviewed DOE's waste determinations to assess whether they had 
sound technical assumptions, analyses, and conclusions with regard to 
meeting the applicable incidental waste criteria. Because the enactment 
of the NDAA is expected to increase the number of waste determinations 
submitted to the NRC for review, the NRC has decided to develop the 
draft SRP. The draft SRP provides guidance to the NRC staff on how to 
conduct a technical review of a waste determination, as well as how to 
conduct monitoring activities under the NDAA, and will help ensure 
consistency across different reviews and different reviewers. Because 
the technical aspects of the NRC's waste determination reviews are 
expected to be similar for all four sites, regardless of whether the 
site is covered by the NDAA, the draft SRP will addresses reviews for 
the Savannah River Site, Idaho National Laboratory, Hanford, and West 
Valley.
    In November 2005, the NRC held a public scoping meeting in 
Rockville, MD, to obtain public input on the scope of the SRP. In 
addition, the NRC published a Federal Register notice (FRN) on November 
2, 2005, announcing the scoping meeting and stating that written 
comments on the scope of the SRP would be accepted until November 25, 
2005 (70 FR 66472). The transcript of the scoping meeting is publicly 
available in the NRC's Agencywide Document Access and Management System 
(ADAMS) under accession number ML053400050. Written comments were 
received on the proposed scope of the SRP from the Savannah River Site 
Citizens Advisory Board (ML053620166), the South Carolina Department of 
Health and Environmental Control (ML053630035), and the Washington 
State Department of Ecology (ML053630034) and are publicly available in 
ADAMS.
    In December 2005, the NRC published a FRN issuing draft interim 
guidance for performing concentration averaging for waste 
determinations (70 FR 74846). The FRN was issued due to high 
stakeholder interest in obtaining the guidance as soon as practicable 
due to the ongoing development of waste determinations. The draft 
interim guidance was open for public comment until January 31, 2006. 
Comment letters were received from the State of Idaho Department of 
Environmental Quality (ML060370015), the State of Washington Department 
of Ecology (ML060370019), the State of Oregon Department of Energy 
(ML060370016), Washington Closure Hanford (ML060480401), the Natural 
Resources Defense Council (ML060370017), and members of the public 
(ML061030268) and are publicly available in ADAMS. These comments will 
be considered along with comments received on the draft SRP. As 
discussed in the December FRN, the concentration averaging guidance is 
included in this draft SRP and is again open for public comment. Only 
minor editorial changes have been made to the text of the guidance.
    The final SRP will be issued after the NRC staff takes into 
consideration any public comments received, as appropriate.

II. Further Information

    The draft SRP may be accessed on the Internet at http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/nuregs/staff/ by selecting 
``NUREG-1854.'' It is also available electronically at the NRC's 
Electronic Reading Room at http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html. 
From this site, you can access the NRC's ADAMS, which provides text and 
image files of NRC's public documents. Recent documents related to 
reviews of NRC waste determinations can be found in ADAMS under Docket 
Numbers PROJ0734, PROJ0735, PROJ0736, and POOM-32. 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 Reference staff 
at 1-800-397-4209, 301-415-4737 or by e-mail to [email protected].
    The draft SRP is also available for inspection at the Commission's 
Public Document Room, U.S. NRC's Headquarters Building, 11555 Rockville 
Pike (first floor), Rockville, Maryland. Upon written request and to 
the extent supplies are available, a single copy of the draft SRP can 
be obtained for a fee by writing to the Office of the Chief Information 
Officer, Reproduction and Distribution Services Section, U.S. Nuclear 
Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001; or by e-mail to 
[email protected]; or by fax at (310) 415-2289.

    Dated at Rockville, Maryland this 23rd day of May, 2006.

    For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Larry Camper,
Director, Division of Waste Management and Environmental Protection, 
Office of Nuclear Materials Safety and Safeguards.
 [FR Doc. E6-8347 Filed 5-30-06; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 7590-01-P