[Federal Register Volume 74, Number 228 (Monday, November 30, 2009)]
[Notices]
[Pages 62606-62609]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: E9-28507]


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NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION

[NRC-2009-0520]


Notice of Public Meeting and Request for Comment on Blending of 
Low-Level Radioactive Waste

AGENCY: Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

ACTION: Notice of Public Meeting and a Request for Comment on Issues 
Related to Blending of Low-Level Radioactive Waste.

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SUMMARY: The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) plans to conduct 
a public meeting on January 14, 2010, in Rockville, MD, to solicit 
input on issues associated with blending of low-level radioactive waste 
(LLRW). Since the closure of the LLRW disposal facility at

[[Page 62607]]

Barnwell, South Carolina on June 30, 2008 to out-of-compact generators, 
the issue of blending of LLRW has received increased attention from 
stakeholders, industry, and Agreement States, especially blending that 
results in a change in the classification of the waste, as defined by 
the radionuclide concentrations in 10 CFR part 61.55. Blending, as 
defined here, refers to mixing of LLRW of different concentrations. It 
does not involve mixing radioactive waste with non-radioactive waste, 
(i.e., dilution) and concerns only disposal in a licensed facility, not 
release of radioactivity to the general environment.
    Blending is not prohibited or explicitly addressed in NRC 
regulations. In addition, while NRC staff guidance discourages blending 
in some circumstances, it also recognizes that some blending--including 
blending that lowers the classification of a waste--may be appropriate 
in others. However, the closure of the Barnwell facility to LLRW 
generators in 36 States means that there is no disposal option for 
Class B or C LLRW generated in these States; LLRW generators have been 
storing Class B and C LLRW onsite since the closure of Barnwell. The 
lack of a disposal pathway for Class B and C LLRW from these generators 
has increased interest in blending to reduce the radioactivity 
concentrations of wastes that might otherwise be classified as B or C 
waste. A disposal pathway exists for Class A waste, which means that 
Class A waste does not have to be stored at licensees' sites. While 
some blending of LLRW resulting in reduced waste classification has 
occurred in the past, the scale of blending being considered since the 
closure of Barnwell is potentially much larger than current practice.
    On October 8, 2009, NRC Chairman Gregory B. Jaczko directed the 
staff to prepare a vote paper for the Commission to consider issues 
related to blending of LLRW, including the following:
     Issues related to intentional changes in waste 
classification due to blending, including safety, security, and policy 
considerations.
     Protection of the public, the intruder, and the 
environment.
     Mathematical concentration averaging and homogeneous 
physical mixing.
     Practical considerations in operating a waste treatment 
facility, disposal facility, or other facilities, including the 
appropriate point at which waste should be classified.
     Recommendations for revisions, if necessary, to existing 
regulations, requirements, guidance, or oversight related to blending 
of LLW.
    The staff is holding a public meeting to obtain additional 
information on these and other related issues. Stakeholder views will 
be presented in the vote paper that the staff prepares for the 
Commission.

DATES: Members of the public may provide feedback at the transcribed 
public meeting or may submit written comments on the issues discussed 
in this notice. Comments on the issues and questions presented in this 
notice and discussed at the meeting should be postmarked no later than 
January 29, 2010. Comments received after this date will be considered 
if it is practical to do so. NRC plans to consider these stakeholder 
views in the development of a vote paper for the Commission's 
consideration. Written comments may be sent to the address listed in 
the ADDRESSES Section. Questions about participation in the public 
workshops should be directed to the facilitator at the address listed 
in the ADDRESSES Section. Members of the public planning to attend the 
workshops are invited to RSVP at least ten (10) days prior to each 
workshop. Replies should be directed to the points of contact listed in 
the FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT section.
    The public meeting will be held in Rockville, Maryland on January 
14, 2010, from 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. at: The Legacy Hotel & Meeting 
Centre, The Georgetown Room, 1775 Rockville Pike, Rockville, MD 20852, 
240-283-1116.
    The final agenda for the public meeting will be noticed no fewer 
than ten (10) days prior to the meeting on the NRC's electronic public 
workshop schedule at http://www.nrc.gov/public-involve/public-meetings/index.cfm. Please refer to the SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION section for 
questions that will be discussed at the meeting.

ADDRESSES: You may submit comments by any one of the following methods. 
Please include Docket ID NRC-2009-0520 in the subject line of your 
comments. Comments submitted in writing or in electronic form will be 
posted on the NRC Web site and on the Federal rulemaking Web site 
Regulations.gov. 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.
    The NRC requests that any party soliciting or aggregating comments 
received from other persons for submission to the NRC inform those 
persons that the NRC will not edit their comments to remove any 
identifying or contact information, and therefore, they should not 
include any information in their comments that they do not want 
publicly disclosed.
    Federal Rulemaking Web site: Go to http://www.regulations.gov and 
search for documents filed under Docket ID NRC-2009-0520. Address 
questions about NRC dockets to Carol Gallagher 301-492-3668; e-mail 
[email protected].
    Mail comments to: Michael T. Lesar, Chief, Rulemaking and 
Directives Branch (RDB), Division of Administrative Services, Office of 
Administration, Mail Stop: TWB-05-B01M, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory 
Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001, or by fax to RDB at (301) 492-
3446.
    Questions regarding participation in the public meeting should be 
submitted to the facilitator, Francis Cameron, by mail to Mail Stop 
O16-E15, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001, 
by telephone at 240-205-2091, or by e-mail at [email protected].

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Brooke Traynham, Office of Federal and 
State Materials and Environmental Management Programs, U.S. Nuclear 
Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001; telephone 404-729-
3366; e-mail [email protected].
    The public may examine and have copies for a fee, publicly 
available documents at the Public Document Room, One White Flint North, 
11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland. Publicly available documents 
created or received at 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 Documents Access and Management System 
(ADAMS), which provides text and image files of NRC's public documents. 
If you do not have access to ADAMS, contact the Public Document Room at 
1-800-397-4209, 301-415-4737, or by e-mail at [email protected].
    Existing NRC guidance on blending of LLRW is contained in the NRC's 
1995 ``Final Branch Technical Position on Concentration Averaging and 
Encapsulation'' (CA BTP), Section 3.1 (ADAMS Accession No. 
ML033630732). The staff has recently issued several letters that 
describe NRC's position on blending of LLRW that should also be useful 
to interested persons. These include letters to EnergySolutions (ADAMS 
Accession No. ML092170561),

[[Page 62608]]

Studsvik (ADAMS Accession No. ML092930251), and Waste Control 
Specialists (ADAMS Accession No. ML092920426). Multiple meetings are 
being scheduled for the week of December 14, 2009, to better understand 
the positions of these three companies on blending of LLRW. Additional 
information on these meetings will be posted on the NRC public web site 
in the near future at http://www.nrc.gov/public-involve/public-meetings/index.cfm. The public is invited to participate. Chairman 
Jaczko's October 8, 2009, memorandum to the staff on blending of LLRW 
can be found in ADAMS (Accession No. ML093070605).

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

I. Background

    On June 30, 2008, the Barnwell disposal facility closed to most 
LLRW generators in the U.S. Now, only generators in the Atlantic 
Compact--the States of South Carolina, Connecticut, and New Jersey--are 
able to dispose of their waste at that facility, and generators in 36 
States must store their Class B/C waste onsite until a new disposal 
option becomes available.\1\ In the meantime, the EnergySolutions' 
disposal facility in Clive, Utah, remains available for Class A waste 
disposal by these generators that lost access to the Barnwell facility 
for their Class B/C wastes.
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    \1\ Generators in the Northwest Compact (WA, ID, MT, HI, AK, OR, 
WY, and UT) and Rocky Mountain Compact (CO, NM, and NV) can dispose 
of their LLRW at a commercial disposal facility in Hanford, WA.
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    To help mitigate the impact of Barnwell's closure, industry is 
exploring the blending of LLRW that would otherwise be Class B and C 
into a homogeneous Class A mixture that could be disposed of as Class A 
waste. Such blending would eliminate the need for indefinite onsite 
storage of these wastes, while furthering the goal of permanent waste 
disposal. Not all LLRW can be blended into a homogeneous mixture 
suitable for disposal as Class A waste: irradiated reactor components, 
reactor pressure vessels, and other types of solid waste are not 
amenable to blending. Other reactor waste streams, particularly ion 
exchange resins, which account for about half of the volume of Class B 
and C waste generated each year, can be blended into a homogeneous 
mixture with a relatively uniform concentration of radioactivity, and 
some of these Class B and C resins could be blended with resins having 
radioactivity concentrations well below the Class A limits to produce a 
Class A final mixture.
    Blending, as the staff uses the term in this context, is the mixing 
of LLRW having different concentrations of radionuclides to form a 
relatively homogeneous mixture for disposal in a licensed facility. The 
concentration of the resulting mixture is total radioactivity in the 
mixture divided by its volume or weight.
    Blending may be done for a variety of reasons: (1) To consolidate 
wastes from a number of different sources within a plant for reasons of 
operational efficiency; (2) to reduce radiation exposures to workers; 
and (3) to lower the waste classification of some of the waste by 
averaging its concentration over a larger volume. Because it is more 
efficient to combine wastes in a single tank in a facility, licensees 
may also mix certain wastes such as ion exchange resins that are 
removed from various locations in their plants, rather than 
characterize and classify individual batches of resins. Blending may 
also be performed to keep radiation exposures to workers as low as 
reasonably achievable, since the doses from a mixture of two or more 
streams of LLRW with different radiation levels may result in a 
combined mixture that has lower radiation levels. Waste disposal may 
also be facilitated by blending. For example, if two batches of waste 
are blended together, they may meet the waste acceptance criteria for a 
specific disposal facility, but the higher concentration batch by 
itself would not. With respect to waste class reduction, it may result 
from mixing for operational reasons or efforts to reduce worker 
exposures, or could be performed solely for the purposes of reducing 
the classification to enable prompt disposal, rather than storage.
    A particular topic of interest to some stakeholders is blending 
that reduces the classification of the waste. Waste classification is 
one of the requirements in NRC's LLRW disposal regulations in 10 CFR 
part 61. 10 CFR part 61 establishes the procedures, criteria, and terms 
and conditions for the issuance of licenses for the disposal of LLRW. 
Four performance objectives, including protection of an inadvertent 
intruder into the waste disposal site, define the overall level of 
safety to be achieved by disposal.\2\ Intruder protection is provided 
in part by the waste classification concentration limits in 10 CFR 
61.55, which are designed to ensure that an inadvertent intruder does 
not receive an unsafe exposure to radiation. Any blended LLRW must meet 
the concentration limits in the waste classification tables. If batches 
of waste were not blended into a relatively homogeneous final mixture, 
hot spots above the concentration limits for a particular waste class 
might expose an inadvertent intruder to unacceptable levels of 
radiation. Any blended waste must also not affect a facility's ability 
to meet the other performance objectives in 10 CFR part 61.
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    \2\ The others are protection of the general population from 
releases of radioactivity; protection of individuals during the 
operation of the facility (as opposed to after the facility is 
closed), and stability of the disposal site.
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    Waste classification is also addressed in NRC's regulations in 10 
CFR part 20 specifying requirements for the preparation of shipping 
papers for LLRW. 10 CFR part 20, Appendix G, Section III.A allows waste 
generators to defer classifying waste until the time that waste is 
ready for disposal and does not require generators to classify waste 
before it is shipped from a generator to a processor. In practice, 
generators often classify waste before it is shipped for disposal, even 
though waste classification need not occur until the waste is ready for 
disposal. As noted above, the 10 CFR 61.55 waste classification tables 
are based on protection of an inadvertent intruder into waste at a 
disposal facility at some future time after the disposal facility is 
closed. The classification of the waste in accordance with 10 CFR 61.55 
is not directly related to the safety of the waste at intermediate 
points in its management.
    While recognizing that some blending is unavoidable and even 
desirable for efficiency or dose reduction purposes, NRC has 
historically discouraged blending to lower the waste classification, 
while acknowledging that it is appropriate in some circumstances. The 
maxim ``dilution is not the solution to pollution'' appears to have 
been a factor in developing agency positions that discourage, but do 
not prohibit, the mixing of wastes. Dilution can increase the amount of 
waste by mixing clean and contaminated materials together, and may 
enable the mixture to be released to the general environment where 
members of the public will be exposed to the hazard, however small. 
Blending, as defined in this FRN, involves the mixing of higher and 
lower concentrations of contaminated materials, not clean materials, 
and disposal in a licensed disposal site, not release to the general 
environment. Thus, the undesirable characteristics of dilution are not 
present in this kind of blending, while safety and efficiency may be 
improved by selection of appropriate criteria to be applied to such 
blending. Some LLRW

[[Page 62609]]

stakeholders have noted that there may be potential adverse impacts 
from and issues with blending, particularly large scale blending. For 
example, blending can be contrary to volume reduction principles.\3\ 
Waste with Class B and C concentrations of radionuclides is often 
processed to reduce its volume. If this waste were instead mixed with 
Class A wastes, these reductions in volume would not be achieved. 
Blending may also be viewed by some as equivalent to disposing of Class 
B or C waste in a Class A disposal facility. The purpose of the public 
meeting and NRC's solicitation of public comments is for NRC to better 
understand these impacts and issues.
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    \3\ NRC issued a ``Policy Statement on Low-Level Waste Volume 
Reduction'' on July 16, 1981, which encourages licensees to reduce 
the volume of waste for disposal. See July 16, 1981, Federal 
Register Notice, 46 FR 51100.
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    NRC's 1995 CA BTP recommends limits on blending of LLRW by applying 
a ``factor of 10'' rule, whereby the concentrations of batches of LLRW 
to be mixed must be within a factor of 10 of the average concentration 
of the final mixture. The safety benefit of the ``factor of 10'' rule 
is unclear for final mixtures that are homogeneous, since any 
concentrated materials that go into a mixture are blended down to lower 
concentrations that are relatively uniform over the volume of the 
material. By placing limits on the amount of mixing, however, the 
``factor of 10'' rule furthers the agency's policy that discourages 
mixing to reduce waste classification. It should be noted that some 
waste class reduction could occur when waste is mixed in accordance 
with the ``factor of 10'' rule, since some of the waste classes of some 
radionuclides differ by a ``factor of 10.'' The mixing constraint in 
the CA BTP specifies that batches of greater than a factor of 10 
difference in concentration can be mixed. The CA BTP also includes in 
an appendix with staff responses to public comments received on an 
earlier draft of the CA BTP. The appendix states that wastes should not 
be intentionally mixed solely to lower the waste classification. The 
staff positions in the CA BTP itself do not contain this guidance, 
however.
    The CA BTP allows important exceptions from the ``factor of 10'' 
rule when operational efficiency or worker dose reductions can be 
demonstrated, and one of the current industry blending proposals relies 
on these exceptions to conduct expanded blending operations. Although 
not explicitly stated, the CA BTP positions appear to be based on a 
combination of practical considerations in the operation of a facility, 
whereby wastes are routinely combined or mixed for operational 
efficiency and ALARA reasons, and NRC's general position that 
discourages mixing for the purposes of reducing the waste class. These 
two objectives are not fully compatible, but the CA BTP attempts to 
provide positions that balance them.
    NRC guidance for other programs similarly discourages blending, 
while recognizing that it may be appropriate in some circumstances. In 
a document for the decommissioning program, ``Consolidated 
Decommissioning Guidance'' (NUREG-1757, Volume 1, Revision 2), NRC 
staff states that mixing of soils to meet the waste acceptance criteria 
of an offsite disposal facility ``should not result in lowering the 
classification of the waste.'' As a practical matter, contaminated 
soils from sites undergoing decommissioning are rarely Class B/C 
concentrations. At the same time, the guidance allows for blending to 
reduce the classification of the waste from licensable material that 
must be disposed of in a licensed disposal facility to exempt material 
suitable for disposal in landfills. This decommissioning guidance also 
recognizes that mixing of clean and contaminated soils may be 
appropriate under certain very limited circumstances to meet the dose 
standard in 10 CFR part 20, subpart E.

II. Questions Related to Blending of LLRW

    This section identifies questions associated with blending of LLRW 
that results in lower waste classification of components of the 
mixture. These questions are not meant to be a complete or final list, 
but are intended to initiate discussion. These questions will help to 
focus the discussion at the public meetings. All public feedback will 
be used in developing options for NRC consideration.
    1. What safety and security considerations are associated with 
blending of LLRW, particularly large scale blending that result in a 
change in waste classification?
    2. What are the practical considerations in operating a facility 
that bear on blending of LLRW?
    3. What policy issues are raised by blending of LLRW that lowers 
the waste classification?
    4. What are the potential blending policies/positions that NRC 
could take and the advantages and disadvantages of each?
    5. How should NRC implement a position on blending of LLRW (i.e., 
by rulemaking, guidance, policy statement or other means)?
    6. If a rule were to be promulgated, what compatibility category 
should it be; i.e., how strictly must Agreement States follow any NRC 
rule?
    7. NRC regulations only require waste to be classified when it's 
ready for disposal. What advantages or disadvantages might there be to 
classifying it earlier?
    8. If blended waste could not be attributed to the original 
generator of the waste, what issues does this raise that NRC should 
address, if any?
    9. What would be a risk-informed, performance-based approach to 
addressing blending?
    10. Given that Agreement States are not required to adopt NRC's 
guidance on blending, how are different States addressing this issue? 
What are the advantages and disadvantages of these approaches?
    11. NRC is budgeting resources to initiate a long-term rulemaking 
to revise the waste classification system. How might alternative waste 
classification systems be affected by blending?
    12. What oversight might be needed to ensure that blending is 
performed appropriately?
    13. What other issues should NRC staff consider in developing 
options for Commission consideration related to blending?

    Dated at Rockville, Maryland this 23rd day of November, 2009.

    For The Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Gregory F. Suber,
 Acting Deputy Director, Environmental Protection, and Performance 
Assessment Directorate, Division of Waste Management, and Environmental 
Protection, Office of Federal and State Materials, and Environmental 
Management Programs.
[FR Doc. E9-28507 Filed 11-27-09; 8:45 am]
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