[Federal Register Volume 78, Number 188 (Friday, September 27, 2013)]
[Notices]
[Pages 59729-59731]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2013-23611]


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NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION

[NRC-2012-0218]


Final Comparative Environmental Evaluation of Alternatives for 
Handling Low-Level Radioactive Waste Spent Ion Exchange Resins From 
Commercial Nuclear Power Plants

AGENCY: Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

ACTION: Final report; issuance.

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SUMMARY: The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is issuing the 
Final Comparative Environmental Evaluation of Alternatives for Handling 
Low-Level Radioactive Waste Spent Ion Exchange Resins from Commercial 
Nuclear Power Reactors (Final Report).

ADDRESSES: Please refer to Docket ID NRC-2012-0218 when contacting the 
NRC about the availability of information regarding this document. You 
may access publicly-available information related to this action by the 
following methods:
     Federal Rulemaking Web site: Go to http://www.regulations.gov and search for Docket ID NRC-2012-0218. Address 
questions about NRC dockets to Carol Gallagher; telephone: 301-287-
3422; email: [email protected]. For technical questions, contact 
the individual listed in the FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT section of 
this document.
     NRC's Agencywide Documents Access and Management System 
(ADAMS):
    You may access publicly available documents online in the NRC 
Library at http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html. To begin the 
search, select ``ADAMS Public Documents'' and then select ``Begin Web-
based ADAMS Search.'' For problems with ADAMS, please contact the NRC's 
Public Document Room (PDR) reference staff at 1-800-397-4209, 301-415-
4737, or by email to [email protected]. The Final Report is 
available in ADAMS under Accession No. ML13263A276.
     NRC's PDR: You may examine and purchase copies of public 
documents at the NRC's PDR, Room O1-F21, One White Flint North, 11555 
Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland 20852.
     NRC's Blending of Low-Level Radioactive Waste Web site: 
The Final Report is available online, at http://www.nrc.gov/waste/llw-disposal/llw-pa/llw-blending.html.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Mr. Stephen Lemont, Office of Federal 
and State Materials and Environmental Management Programs, U.S. Nuclear 
Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001; telephone: 301-415-
5163; email: [email protected].

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

Background Information

    In the Final Report, the NRC staff identifies and compares 
potential environmental impacts of six alternatives for managing low-
level radioactive waste (LLRW) spent ion exchange resins (IERs) 
generated at commercial nuclear power plants (NPPs). This comparative 
environmental evaluation has been conducted consistent with Option 2 in 
the NRC staff's paper for the Commission, SECY-10-0043, ``Blending of 
Low-Level Radioactive Waste,'' April 7, 2010 (ADAMS Accession No. 
ML090410246), which identified policy, safety, and regulatory issues 
associated with LLRW blending, provided options for an NRC blending 
position, and proposed that the NRC staff revise the Commission 
position on blending to be risk-informed and performance based. Option 
2 of SECY-10-0043 was approved by the Commission in the October 13, 
2010, Staff Requirements Memorandum, SRM-SECY-10-0043, ``Staff 
Requirements--SECY-10-0043--Blending of Low-Level Radioactive Waste'' 
(ADAMS Accession No. ML102861764) and instructed staff on addressing 
blending in the rulemaking setting; this is not a licensing action.
    Additionally, in consideration of stakeholder concerns expressed 
regarding potential environmental impacts associated with the blending 
of certain LLRW, as documented in the NRC's Official Transcript of its 
January 14, 2010, ``Public Meeting on Blending of Low-Level Radioactive 
Waste'' (ADAMS Accession No. ML100220019), in SECY-10-0043, Option 2, 
the NRC staff also proposed that ``. . . disposal of blended ion 
exchange resins from a central processing facility would be compared to 
direct disposal of the resins, onsite storage of certain wastes when 
disposal is not possible and further volume reduction of the Class B 
and C concentration resins.'' The Final Report addresses this 
comparison of IER waste handling alternatives. The six alternatives 
evaluated in the report include the four identified by the NRC staff in 
SECY-10-0043, plus two additional alternatives that represent 
variations on the disposal of blended ion exchange resins from a 
central processing facility and volume reduction of the Class B and C 
concentration resins alternatives. The assumptions and methodologies 
used in the staff's evaluation and the evaluation results are 
documented in the report. Additional information regarding the Final 
Report is presented in the ``Final Report Overview'' section of this 
document.
    On September 20, 2012 (77 FR 58416), the NRC staff published a 
notice in the Federal Register requesting public comments on the Draft 
Comparative Environmental Evaluation of Alternatives for Handling Low-
Level Radioactive Waste Spent Ion Exchange Resins from Commercial 
Nuclear Power Plants (Draft Report) (ADAMS Accession No. ML12256A965). 
The 120-day public comment period ended on January 18, 2013. The NRC 
received comments from six commenters in response to the notice, 
including one governmental agency, four nongovernmental organizations, 
and one member of the general public. Appendix B of the Final Report 
presents all of the comments received and the staff's response to each 
of those comments. The Final Report has been prepared in consideration 
of all the comments received, and includes revisions to the Draft 
Report based on some of these comments.

Final Report Overview

    In the comparative environmental evaluation presented in the Final 
Report, the alternatives are described and potential environmental 
impacts of the alternatives are: (1) Identified for a range of resource 
or impact areas (e.g., air quality, ecological resources, public and 
occupational health, transportation, waste management, water 
resources); and (2) compared in terms of their relative potential 
effects on human health and the environment. For reasons discussed in 
the report, the six alternatives are generic and not location-specific, 
and the comparative environmental evaluation of the alternatives is 
largely qualitative. An exception is that potential transportation 
impacts are assessed both quantitatively and qualitatively.
    Furthermore, the evaluation is based on conservative, often 
bounding assumptions regarding the alternatives and various aspects of 
the analysis. This approach is consistent with the assessment of 
generic, non-location-specific alternatives, for which exact data and 
information would not be

[[Page 59730]]

available. Consequently, the staff used its professional knowledge, 
experience, and judgment to establish reasonable technical 
considerations, estimations, and approximations with regard to how the 
alternatives were described, would be implemented, and would 
potentially affect human health and the environment. The NRC staff also 
took care not to underestimate potential environmental effects and 
instead worked to bound the possible range of outcomes in most cases. 
Thus, the potential impacts of the six alternatives, if implemented in 
actual practice, would be expected to be of lesser magnitude than 
described in the report.
    Ion exchange resins are powdered or small, bead-like materials used 
at commercial NPPs to capture radioactive contaminants dissolved in 
water used in plant operations. Over time, the IERs lose their ability 
to remove the contaminants from the water and the resins become 
``spent'' and must be removed and replaced. The NRC defines three 
classes of LLRW--Class A, Class B, and Class C--in its regulations in 
Sec.  61.55 of Title 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations (10 CFR), 
``Waste classification.'' Of the three classes, Class A LLRW is the 
least hazardous and Class C is usually the most hazardous and contains 
the highest activity. Disposal facilities for LLRW are licensed to 
accept one or more of these classes of waste. Waste that exceeds the 
Class C limits is not generally acceptable for near-surface disposal. 
Licensees do not allow IERs to exceed the Class C limits, and waste at 
greater-than-Class C limits is not considered in the Final Report. 
Spent IERs are managed as LLRW, and are classified as Class A, Class B, 
or Class C when shipped for disposal, depending on the concentrations 
and radioactivity levels of radionuclides present.
    Currently, there are four licensed, operating LLRW disposal 
facilities in the United States. One of these facilities is licensed to 
dispose of, and could accept, Class A LLRW from all 50 states. Two 
facilities are licensed to dispose of Class A, B, and C LLRW, but can 
accept these wastes only from a limited number of states. Finally, the 
fourth facility can accept Class A, B, and C LLRW from Texas and 
Vermont and from individual generators outside the Texas compact on a 
case-by-case basis and subject to annual limits. As a result, all 65 
U.S. commercial operating NPPs (which currently include 104 operating 
nuclear reactors at 65 NPP locations) can dispose of their Class A LLRW 
spent IERs, and potentially have access to a disposal facility for 
their Class B and C LLRW spent IERs at this time. Note, however, that 
the scope of the evaluation presented in the Final Report was 
established at an earlier time when the majority of NPPs had no access, 
or limited access, to Class B and C disposal.
    LLRW processing and waste disposal companies are exploring 
alternatives for managing Class B and C concentration spent IERs. One 
of these alternatives is to use a centralized processing facility to 
blend small volumes of higher-activity Class B and C concentration 
spent IERs with larger volumes of low activity Class A concentration 
spent IERs to produce Class A waste. Potential environmental impacts of 
this alternative, as compared to potential impacts of the other 
alternatives, are described in the report.
    Specifically, the six alternatives evaluated in the Final Report 
are:
     Alternative 1A--Direct disposal of blended Class A, B, and 
C spent IER LLRW from a central processing facility where mechanical 
mixing would be used to blend the spent IERs to produce Class A waste;
     Alternative 1B--Direct disposal of blended Class A, B, and 
C spent IER LLRW from a central processing facility where thermal 
processing would be used to blend the spent IERs to produce Class A 
waste;
     Alternative 2--Direct disposal of the Class A, B, and C 
spent IER LLRW (without blending);
     Alternative 3--Direct disposal of the Class A spent IERs, 
with long-term onsite storage of the Class B and C concentration spent 
IERs at the NPPs (including construction to expand the existing waste 
storage facilities at the NPPs), followed by disposal of the Class B 
and C spent IERs at the end of the long-term storage period;
     Alternative 4A--Direct disposal of the Class A spent IERs, 
with volume reduction (by thermal processing) of the Class B and C 
concentration spent IERs, followed by long-term storage of the volume-
reduced Class B and C concentration spent IERs (including construction 
of a storage facility at an existing LLRW disposal site), and then 
disposal at the end of the long-term storage period; and
     Alternative 4B--Direct disposal of the Class A spent IERs, 
with volume reduction (by thermal processing) of the Class B and C 
concentration spent IERs, then disposal of the volume-reduced Class B 
and C spent IERs.
    As mentioned earlier, the comparative environmental evaluation is 
based on a number of assumptions. For example, the baseline for the 
evaluation is current land use. This means that, with the exception of 
the construction of the long-term waste storage facilities considered 
in Alternatives 3 and 4A, the evaluation assumes that no new spent IER 
handling, processing, and disposal facilities will be constructed and, 
therefore, does not revisit the impacts of construction of any of these 
facilities. In addition, the evaluation assumes that these facilities 
operate under licenses from the NRC or an Agreement State, and that all 
activities conducted in the alternatives would be in compliance with 
all applicable Federal, State, and local legal and regulatory 
requirements.
    Additionally, each alternative is considered individually in the 
evaluation (i.e., each alternative is assumed to be implemented at the 
exclusion of all the other alternatives). There is no mix of 
alternatives, and all spent IERs generated at all 65 NPPs are assumed 
to be managed under each alternative. The NRC staff recognizes that 
Agreement State requirements and other factors could prevent some NPPs 
from using some alternatives, and that in actual practice, all spent 
IERs generated at all 65 NPPs would not be managed under any single 
alternative. Therefore, the assumption that all spent IERs are managed 
under each alternative results in conservative estimates of the 
potential impacts of each alternative.
    The assumptions used in this evaluation, such as those previously 
described, are reasonable and consistent with SECY-10-0043, Option 2, 
which established the basis for the comparative environmental 
evaluation.
    The potential environmental effects of the six alternatives were 
evaluated for the following resource or impact areas: Air quality, 
ecological resources, historic and cultural resources, noise, public 
and occupational health, soil, transportation, waste management, and 
water resources. The following resource and impact areas were 
eliminated from detailed consideration for reasons discussed in the 
report: Accidents and other off-normal conditions, environmental 
justice, geology and minerals, land use, socioeconomics, and visual and 
scenic resources. In addition, to the extent practicable, the 
evaluation of potential environmental impacts identifies and accounts 
for generally accepted impact mitigation measures in each resource or 
impact area that would typically be employed in general industry 
practice. In accordance with the standard of significance that has been 
established by the NRC for assessing environmental impacts, using the 
standards of the Council on Environmental Quality's regulations in 40 
CFR 1508.27 as a basis, each impact for each alternative was assigned 
one of the following three significance levels:

[[Page 59731]]

     Small. The environmental effects are not detectable or are 
so minor that they would neither destabilize nor noticeably alter any 
important attribute of the resource.
     Moderate. The environmental effects are sufficient to 
noticeably alter, but not destabilize important attributes of the 
resource.
     Large. The environmental effects are clearly noticeable 
and are sufficient to destabilize important attributes of the resource.
    The evaluation concludes that the potential environmental impacts 
of all six alternatives in all resource and impact areas would be 
Small, with the exception of potential impacts on historic and cultural 
resources from construction of long-term waste storage facilities in 
Alternatives 3 and 4A, which could be Small to Moderate. Reasons for 
the mostly Small impacts, by resource or impact area, are discussed in 
the report.

    Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 20th day of September 2013.

    For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Aby Mohseni,
Deputy Director, Environmental Protection and Performance Directorate, 
Division of Waste Management and Environmental Protection, Office of 
Federal and State Materials and Environmental Management Programs.
[FR Doc. 2013-23611 Filed 9-26-13; 8:45 am]
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