[Federal Register Volume 79, Number 180 (Wednesday, September 17, 2014)]
[Notices]
[Pages 55834-55835]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2014-22230]



[[Page 55834]]

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NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION

[NRC-2014-0173]


Acute Uranium Standards for Integrated Safety Analyses

AGENCY: Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

ACTION: Draft interim staff guidance; request for comment.

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SUMMARY: The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is soliciting 
public comment on its draft Interim Staff Guidance (ISG) Acute Uranium 
Exposure Standards. Fuel cycle facilities are required to submit 
Integrated Safety Analysis (ISA) summaries which include ``proposed 
quantitative standards.'' These standards are used to determine when 
acute chemical exposure events analyzed in the ISA result in high or 
intermediate consequences. The NRC has developed an ISG document that 
identifies uranium intake quantities the staff finds acceptable for 
classifying uranium exposure events analyzed in ISAs.

DATES: Submit comments by December 1, 2014. Comments received after 
this date will be considered if it is practical to do so, but the 
Commission is able to ensure consideration only for comments received 
before this date.

ADDRESSES: You may submit comments by any of the following methods 
(unless this document describes a different method for submitting 
comments on a specific subject):
     Federal Rulemaking Web site: Go to http://www.regulations.gov and search for Docket ID NRC-2014-0173. 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.
     Mail comments to: Cindy Bladey, Office of Administration, 
Mail Stop: 3WFN-06-44M, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, 
DC 20555-0001.
    For additional direction on accessing information and submitting 
comments, see ``Obtaining Information and Submitting Comments'' in the 
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION section of this document.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: James Hammelman, Office of Nuclear 
Material Safety and Safeguards, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 
Washington DC 20555-0001; telephone: 301-287-9108, email: 
[email protected].

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

I. Obtaining Information and Submitting Comments

A. Obtaining Information.

    Please refer to Docket ID NRC-2014-0173 when contacting the NRC 
about the availability of information for this action. You may obtain 
information related to this action, which the NRC possesses and is 
publicly available, by any of the following methods:
     Federal Rulemaking Web site: Go to http://www.regulations.gov and search for Docket ID NRC-2014-0173.
     NRC's Agencywide Documents Access and Management System 
(ADAMS): You may obtain publicly available documents online in the 
ADAMS Public Documents collection 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 
draft ISG for Acute Uranium Standards is available in ADAMS under 
Accession No. ML14148A403.
     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.

B. Submitting Comments.

    Please include Docket ID NRC-2014-0173 in the subject line of your 
comment submission, in order to ensure that the NRC is able to make 
your comment submission available to the public in this docket.
    The NRC cautions you not to include identifying or contact 
information in comment submissions that you do not want to be publicly 
disclosed in your comment submission. The NRC will post all comment 
submissions at http://www.regulations.gov as well as enter the comment 
submissions into ADAMS, and the NRC does not routinely edit comment 
submissions to remove identifying or contact information.
    If you are requesting or aggregating comments from other persons 
for submission to the NRC, then you should inform those persons not to 
include identifying or contact information that they do not want to be 
publicly disclosed in their comment submission. Your request should 
state that the NRC does not routinely edit comment submissions to 
remove such information before making the comment submissions available 
to the public or entering the comment into ADAMS.

II. Background.

    Fuel cycle facilities regulated under Part 70 of Title 10 of the 
Code of Federal Regulations (10 CFR), Subpart H, are required to submit 
ISA summaries which include ``proposed quantitative standards'' as 
required by 10 CFR 70.65(b)(7). These standards are used to determine 
when acute chemical exposure events analyzed in the ISA result in high 
or intermediate consequences as defined in 10 CFR 70.61.
    In ISAs that the NRC staff reviewed prior to 2008, the staff 
evaluated licensee-proposed standards identifying high and intermediate 
acute uranium exposure events. Some licensees proposed 40 milligram 
(mg) uranium intake for defining high consequence events based on 
International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) methodology 
while other licensees proposed 75 mg uranium intake based in ICRP 68 
methodology. Both were accepted by the NRC staff for use in the 
licensee's ISAs. All licensees proposed 30 mg uranium for defining 
intermediate consequence events which were accepted by the staff. In 
December 2008, the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) submitted a report on 
acute uranium toxicity and requested that the NRC consider the uranium 
toxicity information in the report and provides guidance on uranium 
exposure standards that can be used in facility ISAs. The NRC staff 
reviewed the original NEI report and a revised version submitted in 
2009 and also conducted an independent technical review of information 
on the chemical toxicity of uranium. The NRC staff found particularly 
useful information on acute uranium toxicity in studies conducted by 
the Royal Society and the U.S. Army, and the National Research Council 
review of the U.S. Army study. This information provided a basis for 
the staff identification of uranium renal concentrations that are 
expected to lead to physiological effects comparable to those described 
as high and intermediate in 10 CFR 70.61. Based on its review of the 
uranium toxicity literature, including the NEI reports, NRC staff has 
identified acute uranium intake quantities that it considers acceptable 
for classifying acute worker uranium exposure events analyzed in ISAs 
as either high or intermediate consistent with the definitions in 10 
CFR 70.61. These quantities are identified in the interim staff 
guidance. The information from the ISG will be incorporated into the 
next revision of

[[Page 55835]]

NUREG-1520, ``Standard Review Plan for the Review of a License 
Application for a Fuel Cycle Facility'' (ADAMS Accession No. 
ML101390110).

    Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 10th day of September, 2014.

    For The Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Marissa G. Bailey,
Director, Division of Fuel Cycle Safety and Safeguards, Office of 
Nuclear Material and Safeguards.
[FR Doc. 2014-22230 Filed 9-16-14; 8:45 am]
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