Low-Level Radioactive Waste: Disposal Availability Adequate in	 
the Short Term, but Oversight Needed to Identify Any Future	 
Shortfalls (09-JUN-04, GAO-04-604).				 
                                                                 
Low-level radioactive waste (LLRW) management concerns persist	 
despite enactment of the LLRW Policy Act of 1980, as amended,	 
which made states responsible for providing for disposal of most 
LLRW. It also enumerated guidance and oversight responsibilities 
for DOE and NRC. When GAO last reported on LLRW disposal, in	 
1999, the only existing facility accepting the more highly	 
radioactive types of LLRW (known as class B and C waste) from	 
most states was expected to be full within 10 years. In this	 
context, GAO examined (1) changes in LLRW conditions since 1999, 
(2) recent annual LLRW disposal volumes and potential future	 
volumes, (3) any current or anticipated shortfalls in disposal	 
availability, and (4) potential effects of any such shortfall.	 
-------------------------Indexing Terms------------------------- 
REPORTNUM:   GAO-04-604 					        
    ACCNO:   A10431						        
  TITLE:     Low-Level Radioactive Waste: Disposal Availability       
Adequate in the Short Term, but Oversight Needed to Identify Any 
Future Shortfalls						 
     DATE:   06/09/2004 
  SUBJECT:   License agreements 				 
	     Licenses						 
	     Public health research				 
	     Public Health Service facilities			 
	     Radioactive waste disposal 			 
	     Radioactive wastes 				 

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GAO-04-604

United States General Accounting Office

  GAO	Report to the Chairman, Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, U.S.
                                     Senate

June 2004

LOW-LEVEL RADIOACTIVE WASTE

Disposal Availability Adequate in the Short Term, but Oversight Needed to
                         Identify Any Future Shortfalls

                                       a

GAO-04-604

Highlights of GAO-04-604, a report to the Chairman, Committee on Energy
and Natural Resources, U.S. Senate

Low-level radioactive waste (LLRW) management concerns persist despite
enactment of the LLRW Policy Act of 1980, as amended, which made states
responsible for providing for disposal of most LLRW. It also enumerated
guidance and oversight responsibilities for DOE and NRC. When GAO last
reported on LLRW disposal, in 1999, the only existing facility accepting
the more highly radioactive types of LLRW (known as class B and C waste)
from most states was expected to be full within 10 years. In this context,
GAO examined (1) changes in LLRW conditions since 1999, (2) recent annual
LLRW disposal volumes and potential future volumes, (3) any current or
anticipated shortfalls in disposal availability, and (4) potential effects
of any such shortfall.

The Congress may wish to consider directing NRC to report if LLRW disposal
and storage conditions change enough to warrant congressional
intervention. GAO also recommends that DOE halt dissemination of its
on-line LLRW database as long as it has internal control weaknesses and
other shortcomings. NRC disagreed that it was the most appropriate entity
to prepare this report. DOE disagreed that it should halt dissemination of
LLRW information despite known problems with its database. GAO remains
firm in its suggestion to the Congress and in its agency recommendation.

www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-04-604.

To view the full product, including the scope and methodology, click on
the link above. For more information, contact Robin Nazzaro, (202)
512-3851, [email protected].

June 2004

LOW-LEVEL RADIOACTIVE WASTE

Disposal Availability Adequate in the Short Term, but Oversight Needed to
Identify Any Future Shortfalls

GAO identified several changes in LLRW disposal availability and federal
agency oversight since its 1999 report that have had or might have
significant impacts on LLRW management by the states. For example, while
one disposal facility plans to close to most states and new options are
evolving that may counteract this shortfall, federal guidance and
oversight of LLRW management has virtually ended.

Annual LLRW disposal volumes increased 200 percent between 1999 and 2003,
primarily due to LLRW shipped to commercial disposal by DOE. GAO
identified this increase using data from the three commercial disposal
facility operators because GAO determined that data from the national LLRW
database, maintained by DOE to assist the LLRW community in managing LLRW,
were unreliable. The uncertain timing and volume of future waste shipments
from DOE and nuclear utilities make it difficult to forecast disposal
needs for all classes of LLRW.

At current LLRW disposal volumes, disposal availability appears adequate
until at least mid-2008 for class B and C wastes. There are no expected
shortfalls in disposal availability for class A waste. If disposal
conditions do not change, however, most states will not have a place to
dispose of their class B and C wastes after 2008. Nevertheless, any
disposal shortfall that might arise is unlikely to pose an immediate
problem because generators can minimize, process, and safely store waste.
While these approaches are costly, GAO did not detect other immediate
widespread effects. NRC places no limit on stored waste and presently does
not centrally track it. However, as LLRW storage volume and duration
increase in the absence of reliable and cost-effective disposal options,
so might the safety and security risks.

Lowering Radioactive Waste into a Concrete Barrier at a Commercial
Disposal Facility

Contents

  Letter 1

Results in Brief 4
Background 7
Since 1999 LLRW Disposal Availability and Federal Oversight Have

Changed 10
Annual LLRW Disposal Volumes Have Increased, but Future

Volumes Are Uncertain 13
LLRW Disposal Availability Appears Adequate Until Mid-2008 18
Any LLRW Disposal Shortfall After Mid-2008 Unlikely to Pose

Immediate Problem 19
Conclusions 24
Recommendations for Executive Action 24
Matters for Congressional Consideration 24
Agency Comments and Our Evaluation 25

Appendix I Overview of Existing Commercial LLRW Disposal

Facilities 27

Barnwell Disposal Facility 28
Envirocare Disposal Facility 31
Richland Disposal Facility 35

Appendix II LLRW Legislative Options

Appendix III Scope and Methodology

Appendix IV	Comments from the Department of Energy 46
GAO Comment 48

Appendix V	Comments from the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission 49

GAO Comments 52

  Figures

Figure 1: Conceptual Flow Diagram of Radioactive Sources from
Production to Disposal 8

Figure 2: State LLRW Compacts and Unaffiliated States 10 Figure 3:
Location of Three Commercial LLRW Disposal Facilities 27 Figure 4:
Delivery of a Large Reactor Vessel to the LLRW Trench at

the Barnwell Disposal Facility 31 Figure 5: Rail Unloading Facility
Associated with Class A Bulk

Waste Disposal at the Envirocare Disposal Facility 35 Figure 6: LLRW
Disposal Trench at the Richland Disposal Facility 39

Abbreviations

AEC Atomic Energy Commission
DOE Department of Energy
EPA Environmental Protection Agency
LLRW Low-level radioactive waste
MIMS Manifest Information Management System
NRC Nuclear Regulatory Commission

This is a work of the U.S. government and is not subject to copyright
protection in the United States. It may be reproduced and distributed in
its entirety without further permission from GAO. However, because this
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copyright holder may be necessary if you wish to reproduce this material
separately.

United States General Accounting Office Washington, DC 20548

June 9, 2004

The Honorable Pete V. Domenici
Chairman
Committee on Energy and Natural Resources
United States Senate

Dear Mr. Chairman:

The management of low-level radioactive waste (LLRW) by the states has
continued to be a concern despite two-decade-old federal legislation
addressing the need for disposal. Under the LLRW Policy Act of 1980, as
amended (the Act), each state is responsible for providing for disposal of
LLRW generated within the state, either by itself or in cooperation with
other states, with the exception of waste produced by the Department of
Energy (DOE) and the nuclear propulsion component of the Department
of the Navy. While not responsible for this federal waste, an LLRW
disposal facility is allowed to accept it. LLRW is an inevitable byproduct
of
nuclear power generation and of government, industrial, academic, and
medical uses of radioactive materials. LLRW includes items such as rags,
paper, liquid, glass, metal components, resins, filters, and protective
clothing that have been exposed to radioactivity or contaminated with
radioactive material. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has
divided the wastes covered by the Act into categories of increasing levels
of hazard exposure, beginning with Class A, followed by B and C.1

The aim of the Act was to provide for more LLRW disposal capacity on a
regional basis and to more equitably distribute responsibility for the
management of LLRW among the states. As an incentive for states to
manage waste on a regional basis, the Congress consented to the
formation of interstate agreements, known as compacts, and granted
compact member states the authority to exclude LLRW from other
compacts or unaffiliated states.2 DOE and NRC were given responsibilities

1Class A, B and C wastes for near surface disposal are defined in 10
C.F.R. S: 61.55. DOE is responsible for the disposal of a fourth category
of LLRW, known as greater-than-class C waste, and the waste owned and
generated by the department.

2Generators of LLRW located in compact or unaffiliated states that do not
have their own disposal facility can contract with a disposal facility in
another compact if this compact allows them to do so.

to help guide and oversee implementation of the Act. DOE was to provide
both financial and technical assistance to states and interstate compacts
to develop disposal facilities, in addition to reporting annually to the
Congress on management of LLRW by the states. Technical assistance was to
include, among other things, providing guidance on waste disposal site
selection, waste reduction methods, and transportation practices, as well
as establishing a computerized database to assist the states and DOE in
monitoring the management of LLRW. NRC's enumerated tasks included
preparing licensing standards for disposal facilities, and granting
individual waste generators emergency access to a regional or other
nonfederal disposal facility if necessary to eliminate any immediate and
serious threat to the public health and safety or for the common defense
and security. In addition to these responsibilities, NRC is responsible
under the Atomic Energy Act for licensing, among other things, the
possession and disposal of radioactive materials, and for inspecting
licensees to ensure safe and secure use of these materials. Under the
Atomic Energy Act, NRC can enter into agreements with states, known as
Agreement States, to discontinue its regulatory responsibilities with
respect to byproduct, source, and certain quantities of special nuclear
materials. These responsibilities relinquished to states include licensing
LLRW disposal facilities.3

There are currently three licensed commercially operated LLRW disposal
facilities. Each of these disposal facilities operates under different
access and licensing restrictions. The commercial facility near Barnwell,
South Carolina, is allowed to accept all classes of LLRW from the three
member states of the Atlantic Compact, as well as waste from 36 other
states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico.4 The commercial
facility near Richland, Washington, is allowed to accept all classes of
LLRW, but only from the 11 member states of the Northwest and Rocky
Mountain Compacts. And, the commercial facility operated by Envirocare of
Utah, which, like the Richland facility, is located in the Northwest
Compact, is allowed to accept class A waste from all states except those
in the Northwest Compact. (See app. I for an overview of existing
commercial LLRW disposal facilities.)

3There are currently 33 Agreement States including all three states in
which commercial LLRW disposal facilities are located.

4Under the Act, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico have the same
responsibilities as the states.

When we last reported on LLRW disposal in 1999, we found that states were
not developing new disposal facilities and that within 10 years the only
facility available to waste generators in most states for their class B
and C wastes could be full.5 Our report noted that this situation raised
questions about the willingness of the states, under authorities granted
to them in the Act, to develop new facilities. Our report also assessed
options that the Congress could take to deal with a disposal shortfall if
there were no change in conditions. (See app. II for a discussion of
legislative options.) In this context, you asked us to report on (1) any
changes in LLRW conditions since our 1999 report, (2) recent LLRW annual
disposal volumes and potential future volumes, (3) any current or
anticipated shortfalls in LLRW disposal availability, and (4) potential
effects of any such shortfall.

To conduct our work, we interviewed regulators and disposal operators in
the states that have or are proposing LLRW disposal facilities. We also
spoke with representatives from DOE, NRC, a nuclear power association,
environmental groups, LLRW generators, Department of Defense executive
agent for LLRW, and an independent nonprofit association of LLRW
stakeholders. We obtained disposal volume data directly from the three
commercial facility operators and compared these data with information
contained in DOE's online national LLRW database. This comparison and
other analyses were used to assess the usefulness and reliability of this
database in estimating disposal volumes. We also reviewed applicable laws
and regulations, including the Atomic Energy Act, as amended, and the LLRW
Policy Act, as amended. Finally, to identify any potential effects of a
disposal shortfall, we sought information from groups likely to know about
such effects: state and compact officials, and those engaged in the
practice, science, or technology of radiation safety. Specifically, we
surveyed officials from all compacts and unaffiliated states, and sent a
separate e-mail questionnaire to the approximately 2,000 subscribers of
the Radsafe Listserv for radiation safety officers. We also placed a
notice in the Health Physics Society newsletter, which has a circulation
of about 6,000, and asked for volunteers to answer the same questions that
we had sent to the Radsafe Listserv subscribers. Our work was conducted in
conformance with generally accepted government auditing standards between
August 2003

5U.S. General Accounting Office, Low-Level Radioactive Wastes: States Are
Not Developing Disposal Facilities, GAO/RCED-99-238 (Washington, D.C.:
Sept. 17, 1999).

  Results in Brief

and May 2004. (See app. III for further information on the scope and
methodology of our review.)

Since our September 1999 report, we identified several changes that have
had or might have significant effects on LLRW disposal availability and
federal oversight. The changes that might have implications for long-term
disposal availability include South Carolina's decision to close the
Barnwell disposal facility to noncompact states by mid-2008, issuance of a
license to Envirocare to accept class B and C wastes pending approval by
the Utah legislature and governor, Texas legislation to allow the
licensing of a new disposal facility in that state, and a federal
appellate court ruling against Nebraska for reneging on its compact
obligations to build a new disposal facility, which might prompt the state
to reconsider development of a facility. Regarding changes in federal
agency guidance and oversight of LLRW management by the states, DOE no
longer has specific appropriated funds to support a National Low Level
Waste Management Program, and the requirement that DOE report to the
Congress on LLRW conditions terminated effective May 2000. Further, in the
late 1990s, NRC decreased its direct involvement in LLRW management
because no new disposal sites were being developed that would involve NRC
licensing or the provision of technical assistance to state agencies that
would license such a facility.

Annual LLRW disposal volumes have increased in recent years; however, the
timing and level of future volumes needing disposal are uncertain.
According to data provided by the three commercial LLRW disposal facility
operators, disposal volumes grew to about 12 million cubic feet in 2003,
an increase of 200 percent over 1999. Class A waste accounted for 99
percent of the disposal volume. The recent increases in disposal volumes
are attributed to shipments of class A waste associated most with cleaning
up DOE sites and some decommissioning waste from nuclear power plants;
about 78 percent of the class A waste in 2003 came from DOE. We relied on
data from these operators because the online national LLRW database
maintained by the department lacked data on DOE waste shipped to
commercial disposal facilities, it was not up to date, and it had other
deficiencies. For example, some of the deficiencies in the database
included discrepancies between amounts of waste disposal operators claimed
they disposed and that which DOE recorded as accepted, and erroneous
attribution of waste generation to states from which it did not originate.
Notwithstanding problems obtaining complete and reliable LLRW data,
uncertainties will remain regarding the timing and volume of

LLRW needing disposal in the future, which will largely depend on the
disposal decisions made by DOE and nuclear utility companies.

There appears to be enough disposal availability to serve the nation's
needs at least until mid-2008, when generators in many states might lose
disposal access for their class B and C wastes. Disposal availability for
class A waste is not a problem in the short or longer term. According to
Envirocare, which accepted 99 percent of the nation's class A waste in
2003, the disposal facility can take 20 years or more of such waste under
its current license. Capacity at the Barnwell and Richland facilities,
which are licensed to accept all three classes of LLRW, is more than
sufficient to serve the needs of the states within the compacts served by
these facilities. However, there are an additional 36 states that
currently rely on Barnwell as their only disposal option for their class B
and C wastes. While there appears to be available space at Barnwell to
meet their anticipated disposal needs in the short term, South Carolina
has enacted legislation to terminate noncompact states' access to this
facility after mid2008. Unless South Carolina changes its position, or
additional disposal capacity is made available, there will not be disposal
options for class B and C wastes generated within these states in the
longer term.

If after 2008, there are no new disposal options for class B and C wastes,
licensed users of radioactive materials can continue to minimize waste
generation, process waste into safer forms, and store waste pending the
development of additional disposal options. While NRC prefers the disposal
of LLRW, on-site storage is allowed as long as the waste remains safe and
secure. Since September 11, 2001, both the public's concern with and its
perception of risk associated with radioactive release, including that
from stored LLRW, have increased. However, should an immediate and serious
threat exist from any specific location of stored waste, NRC has the
authority under the Act to override any compact restrictions and allow
shipment of the waste to a regional or other nonfederal disposal facility
under narrowly defined conditions. While use of waste minimization
techniques and storage can alleviate the need for disposal availability,
they can be costly. For example, one university recently built a $12
million combined hazardous and radioactive waste management facility of
which two-thirds is devoted to the processing and temporary storage of
class A waste. Apart from the cost of managing LLRW, the survey we
conducted of state and compact officials and the responses to questions we
sent to two other LLRW stakeholder groups did not uncover any widespread
national impacts if LLRW generators were to face limited or no disposal
options in the short term. For example, given the opportunity to inform us
of any concerns regarding the lack of a disposal

option for LLRW, only 14 of the 2,000 radiation safety officers surveyed
responded, and only 1 of these respondents raised a concern. In addition,
a 2001 National Research Council report concluded that it would take 10 to
20 years before the lack of an LLRW disposal option might adversely impact
biomedical research or clinical practice.

Although no shortfall in disposal availability appears imminent,
uncertainties about future access to disposal facilities remain, such as
the development of new disposal options and the increased safety and
security risks associated with longer-term storage of LLRW. Therefore,
continued federal oversight of disposal availability and the conditions of
stored waste is warranted. However, as a result of decreased federal
oversight and a national LLRW database with known shortcomings, there is
no central collection of information to monitor this situation. Given that
NRC is the federal agency responsible for overseeing the use, storage, and
disposal of radioactive materials, and DOE's changed role in LLRW
management, we believe that NRC is now the most appropriate agency to
report to the Congress on LLRW conditions. Recognizing the deficiencies in
the national LLRW database, we recommend that the Secretary of Energy halt
dissemination of information from it as long as these deficiencies
persist. Considering the need for federal oversight, the Congress may wish
to direct NRC to report to it if LLRW disposal and storage conditions
should change enough to warrant consideration of new legislation to ensure
safe, reliable, and cost-effective disposal availability.

DOE and NRC commented that we provided an accurate summary of current LLRW
disposal conditions and potential issues that may be encountered in the
future. DOE disagreed with our recommendation pertaining to its national
online LLRW database. However, in doing so, DOE did not address our
concerns about internal control weaknesses and other shortcomings in the
database. We stand by our recommendation to DOE because we believe that it
is inappropriate to disseminate information that is known to be incomplete
and unreliable. NRC disagreed with our suggestion that the Congress
consider directing it to gather information and to report on LLRW disposal
and storage conditions. In commenting on our draft report, NRC provided
information on data gathering actions already in place or planned that
would adequately ensure the safety and security of radioactive materials,
including the storage of LLRW as an alternative to its disposal. Given
these actions and the concerns of NRC with the regulatory cost of
complying with any new data gathering requirements, such as additional
rulemaking, we eliminated our suggested congressional directive in this
regard. However, we maintain that NRC is now the most appropriate agency
to report to the

Background

Congress if LLRW disposal and storage conditions should change enough to
warrant congressional intervention. We incorporated technical changes in
this report where appropriate based on detailed comments provided by the
agencies.

The disposal of LLRW is only the end of the radioactive material life
cycle that spans its production, use, processing, interim storage, and
disposal. In general the cycle starts with procurement of the
radioisotopes that have medical, industrial, agricultural, and research
applications. The isotopes come in either sealed or unsealed sources.
While a metal container shields a sealed source, unsealed sources remain
accessible in a glass vial or other type of container. Common uses of this
radioactive material are in radiotherapy, radiography, smoke detectors,
irradiation and sterilization of food and materials, gauging, and
illumination of emergency exit signs. In the course of working with these
materials, other material, such as protective clothing and gloves, pipes,
filters, and concrete that come in contact with them will become
contaminated. The nuclear utility industry generates the bulk of this LLRW
through the normal operation and maintenance of nuclear power plants, and
when these plants are decommissioned. Once these materials have served
their purpose, they are recycled or become LLRW. LLRW can be processed by
those licensed to use these materials or by specialized companies to
reduce the volume and sometimes the radioactivity level of the waste
before it is either put into a licensed interim storage or a disposal
facility. After a period of storage, some LLRW can decay to the point that
it is safe for disposal in regulated landfill sites. During the life
cycle, there will also be some loss of radioactive materials. Figure 1
diagrams the life-cycle process for radioactive materials.

Figure 1: Conceptual Flow Diagram of Radioactive Sources from Production
to Disposal

Back in the 1960s, the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) began to encourage
the development of commercial LLRW disposal facilities, as a substitute
for ocean disposal, to accommodate the increased volume of commercial
waste that was being generated. Six such disposal facilities were
licensed, two of which, the facility in Richland, Washington, licensed in
1965, and in Barnwell, South Carolina, licensed in 1971, remain open today
to accept class A, B and C wastes.6 Each of these facilities is located
within the boundaries of or adjacent to a much larger site owned by DOE.
The third facility, operated by Envirocare of Utah, is about 80 miles west
of Salt Lake City. The state initially licensed the Envirocare facility in
1988 to accept naturally occurring radioactive waste. In 1991, Utah
amended the license to permit the disposal of some LLRW and the Northwest
Compact

6Under the auspices of the AEC, four other commercial disposal facilities
were licensed in the 1960s, including facilities in Nevada, Kentucky, New
York, and Illinois.

agreed to allow Envirocare to accept these wastes from noncompact states.
By 2001, the facility was allowed to accept all types of class A waste.

Despite estimates by a nuclear industry association that expenditures may
now have reached approximately $1 billion on various facility development
efforts, no new commercial LLRW disposal facility has been developed since
passage of the Act, except for the Envirocare facility, which was not
developed at the instigation of the compact in which it exists. In our
1999 report, we found that the impetus to develop new disposal facilities
was dampened by a combination of factors that included significant
decreases in LLRW generation, available capacity at the three existing
facilities to meet national disposal needs, and rising costs of developing
disposal facilities. Development costs were a concern because these costs
and operating costs would need to be covered by the disposal fees placed
on uncertain and perhaps limited LLRW generated within a compact.
Developing new LLRW disposal facilities also encountered public and
political resistance in states designated to host these facilities. There
are presently 10 compacts comprised of 43 states; the Appalachian,
Atlantic, Central, Central Midwest, Northwest, Midwest, Rocky Mountain,
Southeast, Southwestern, and Texas compacts. There are also 7 unaffiliated
states, as well as the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. A graphic of
the state LLRW compacts and unaffiliated states is provided in figure 2.

Figure 2: State LLRW Compacts and Unaffiliated States

Since 1999 LLRW We identified a number of important changes that have
occurred since our

1999 report that have had or might have significant effects on future
Disposal Availability disposal availability for these wastes and federal
oversight of LLRW and Federal Oversight management by the states. The
following changes that might have

implications for long-term disposal availability include:

  Have Changed

o  	In 2001, South Carolina legislation restricted the use of the Barnwell
disposal facility to only generators in the three-member Atlantic compact
after mid-2008. Presently, this facility is the only disposal option for
the class B and C wastes generated in 36 other states and the District of
Columbia and Puerto Rico. Approaching the threshold of capacity at
Barnwell is not a new concern. In the past, the state legislature has
changed its position on restricting access to this facility, both closing
and reopening the facility to noncompact member states over the years.

o  	In 2001, Envirocare received a license from the state regulatory
authority to accept class B and C wastes pending approval by the Utah
legislature and governor. Currently, the state has imposed a moratorium on
approving the use of this license until February 2005, after a review of
the recommendations of a hazardous waste regulation and policy task force.
The legislative task force was set up to conduct a two-year study of how
facilities in Utah that accept radioactive waste or radioactive materials
for processing or reprocessing compare to other facilities in terms of
competitive fees and tax structure. The task force is expected to issue
its final report by November 2004. Granting approval for Envirocare to use
its class B and C wastes license to accept these wastes nationally might
eliminate any shortfall in disposal availability for class B and C wastes
resulting from restricted access to the Barnwell disposal facility.

o  	In 2003, Texas legislation designated a geographic area in the state
as acceptable for a new LLRW disposal facility, and the state regulator
developed a license application process for this facility. If a facility
license is granted, the facility operator will be allowed to accept all
classes of LLRW, as well as DOE site cleanup wastes. It has taken Texas
two decades to garner the political support to move forward with
developing a new disposal facility that would be privately operated
instead of through a public entity. Access, however, may be granted only
to generators in selected states outside of the Texas Compact. On the
other hand, if access is granted nationally, the Texas disposal facility
might eliminate any shortfall in disposal availability for class B and C
wastes resulting from restricting access to the Barnwell disposal
facility.

o  	In 2004, a federal appellate court ruling has renewed discussions in
Nebraska about building a disposal facility for the 5-member state Central
Compact. The Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit affirmed a federal
district court decision that Nebraska, as a designated host state, is
liable for $151 million in damages for reneging on its obligations to the
Central Compact to build a disposal facility by denying a license
application for reasons not related to the merits of the application.7
While Nebraska may

appeal this decision to the U.S. Supreme Court, the appeals court decision
might encourage Nebraska to reconsider building a disposal facility and
affect the decisions of other states that have prior obligations to build
new disposal facilities for their respective compacts.8

7Entergy Arkansas, Inc. v. Nebraska, 226 F. Supp. 2d 1047 (D. Neb. 2002),
aff'd, 358 F.3d 528 (8th Cir. 2004).

8In addition to the Nebraska litigation, the states of California and
North Carolina are also in litigation over the development of new disposal
facilities.

The remaining changes affect federal agency guidance and oversight of LLRW
management by the states.

o  	In 2001, DOE significantly diminished its involvement in guiding and
overseeing LLRW management by the states. DOE's reporting requirement on
LLRW management, as originally required by the Act,9 terminated effective
May 2000.10 The department's last report to the Congress covered the 1998
LLRW management situation. DOE's technical assistance activities under the
Act have also essentially ended after a period of shifting emphasis and
decline. According to a DOE Inspector General's report, starting in 1996,
the department shifted its technical assistance to states and compact
regions from developing LLRW disposal facilities to providing assistance
on, among other things, tracking and storing waste.11 The report found
that the department's shift in technical assistance was a reaction to the
states' inability to overcome barriers to disposal site selection. The
funding level for the program in the late 1990s was about $4 million
annually. In fiscal year 2000, the Congress did not appropriate funds for
DOE's National Low-Level Waste Management Program, with the exception of
about $600,000 to maintain the online LLRW national database, known as the
Manifest Information Management System (MIMS), that was a component of
this program. Since then, DOE has not received appropriated funds
specifically to support a National Low-Level Waste Management Program.12
Instead, according to DOE, it has requested

and has been appropriated funds each fiscal year to purchase and maintain

the MIMS database, although not as an identifiable line item in its
budget.

o  	Since the late 1990s, NRC has decreased its direct involvement in LLRW
management by the states because no new disposal sites were being
developed and Agreement States have taken on more of these
responsibilities. However, the perceived security risks of stored LLRW
have heightened since 2001 because of the potential to use some of this
material in radioactive dispersal devices, sometimes known as "dirty
bombs." While NRC has set no time limits on the storage of LLRW, as long

9This requirement was originally codified at 42 U.S.C. S:2021(g).

10See, Pub. L. No. 104-66, S: 3003 (1995), as amended. See note under 31
U.S.C.A. S: 1113.

11Office of Inspector General. National Low-Level Waste Management
Program, DOE/IG0462 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Energy, Office
of Inspector General, Office of Audit Services, February 2000).

1242 U.S.C. S: 2021g(a) provides that DOE shall provide assistance to
carry out the Act "to the extent provided in appropriations acts."

as it is safe, it prefers disposal. Agency officials told us that
implementation of the Act has not resulted in reliable and cost effective
disposal options for generators. They added that while storage is
presently safe, they are concerned about the future safety and security of
the increasing volumes of LLRW stored by thousands of licensees who have
decided not to pay high disposal fees today, and who might not have
disposal options for class B and C wastes in the future. NRC is in the
process of conducting vulnerability studies of both reactor and
radioactive materials licensees, including those with LLRW storage and
disposal. According to agency officials, the result of these assessments
will include recommendations for graded approaches to security enforcement
based on the overall risk of particular facilities. In addition, NRC has
surveyed the states to determine if new regulations should be developed
for assured isolation facilities. The Commission decided to defer further
rulemaking in this area and to review the need for future action annually,
including the potential need for rulemaking and or regulatory guidance for
long-term storage of LLRW. The Commission also directed NRC staff to
participate, as resources allow, in the Conference of Radiation Control
Program Directors' development of a suggested State regulation for control
of radiation in assured isolation facilities. Notwithstanding these
actions, NRC officials told us that the agency does not centrally track
disposal availability or the volume and duration of stored LLRW.

  Annual LLRW Disposal Volumes Have Increased, but Future Volumes Are Uncertain

Annual LLRW disposal volumes have increased significantly in recent years,
primarily the result of cleaning up of DOE sites and decommissioning
nuclear power plants. We chose to rely on disposal volume data from the
three commercial disposal facility operators because the MIMS database
does not include DOE waste volumes sent to commercial disposal, it is not
as up to date, and it has other deficiencies. Future disposal volumes
remain uncertain and will depend largely on waste disposal decisions by
DOE and nuclear utility companies.

    LLRW Disposal Volumes Increased Significantly since 1999

Since the beginning of 1999, disposal volumes have steadily increased to
over 12 million cubic feet in 2003, an increase of over 200 percent. Class
A waste accounted for 99 percent of this volume. Data from disposal
facility operators indicate that annual disposal volumes for class A waste
tripled, going from about 4 million cubic feet in 1999 to nearly 12
million cubic feet by 2003. The class A waste disposed of at Envirocare
represented 99 percent of the total volume in 2003, and about 78 percent
of this waste came from DOE. According to the disposal facility operator,
DOE has increased its shipment of waste to the facility from initially
about 36,000

cubic feet in 1994 (6.6 percent of the class A waste disposed) to almost
9.3 million cubic feet in 2003 (77.8 percent of the class A waste
disposed). In contrast, disposal volumes of class B waste declined 47
percent, from about 23,500 cubic feet in 1999, to about 12,400 cubic feet
in 2003. Class C waste disposal volumes were more volatile, changing as
much as 107 percent in a single year. The total annual disposal volume of
class C waste alternately rose and fell between 1999 and 2003, with the
annual total reaching over 20,000 cubic feet in 1999, falling as low as
about 11,000 cubic feet in 2002, then rising over 23,000 cubic feet in
2003. Of the total class B and C wastes disposed of in 2003, 99 percent
went to Barnwell. Overall annual changes in disposal volume were driven by
shipments of class A wastes, which are generated primarily by cleanup of
DOE sites. Class B and C waste disposal volumes were affected by
commercial nuclear power plant decommissioning activities, but these
classes of waste represented slightly less than 0.5 percent of total
volume of disposed waste between 1999 and 2003.

    Concerns about Usefulness and Reliability of National LLRW Database

We chose not to use MIMS, which DOE maintains and operates for the LLRW
community and public, to determine recent disposal volumes or to use other
information in this database to analyze sources of LLRW by state, compact,
and generator type because of shortcomings in its usefulness and
reliability. Instead, we relied on data supplied to us by the three
commercial disposal operators for our analysis because it includes DOE
waste volumes sent for commercial disposal, it is more up to date, and
because it is the primary source data input into the national LLRW
database.

Even though DOE ships large quantities of LLRW to a commercial disposal
facility, this useful information is not captured in MIMS. Other types of
useful information, such as storage of waste and volume of waste
reduction, are also not collected in this database.13 The consensus among
the compact and unaffiliated state officials we surveyed was that they
could more effectively regulate and monitor LLRW in their compacts and
states if MIMS offered more comprehensive and reliable data. Despite these
shortcomings, these officials have sometimes used MIMS data as a
convenient source of information for public, media, and stakeholder

13This information was not included, but would have been useful in
preparing DOE's annual reports to the Congress on LLRW management by the
states. (The reporting requirement was eliminated, effective May 2000, by
Pub. L. No. 104-66, S: 3003, as amended.)

inquiries, as a means of monitoring LLRW within their compact or region,
and as an external check on the LLRW interstate shipment data reported to
compact and state regulators by the disposal operators.

We also identified shortcomings in the reliability of the MIMS database.
We identified inconsistencies between what the disposal facility operators
claimed had been disposed of at their facilities and what was recorded in
this database. For example, the volumes of LLRW reported to us by
Envirocare for 1999 to 2003 totaled 10.4 million cubic feet, compared to
the 15.7 million cubic feet that was reported in MIMS.14 There were also
problems with other kinds of data in MIMS. States and compacts have
identified discrepancies that undermine the data's usefulness,
particularly regarding the state-specific information on the origins of
waste. For example, Tennessee, which is the base of operations for
companies that transport and process the waste from generators in other
states prior to disposal, reports that it is erroneously recorded in MIMS
as the state of origin of this waste.

The data DOE puts into MIMS comes from the three commercial LLRW disposal
facility operators in electronic format. DOE pays each operator varying
amounts of money to extract data from the records accompanying shipments
of LLRW that provide information on the volume, radioactivity level,
source, and other information about the waste. These records are called
manifests and NRC requires their use to track shipment of radioactive
materials. The disposal operator then transmits some of this information
to DOE for entry into MIMS. Each disposal facility operator is responsible
for ensuring the validity of these data, but DOE's contracts with these
operators leave to them what steps, if any, should be taken to validate
the data. DOE takes no responsibility for verifying the accuracy of the
data supplied by the disposal facility operators. Furthermore, while DOE
takes some steps to ensure that it accurately uploads operatorsupplied
data into MIMS, it does not perform other systematic quality checks on the
data, such as "reasonableness" checks, cross tabulations, or exceptions
reports. As a result, we determined that the lack of consistent and
comprehensive internal controls, such as controls over information
processing, undermine our confidence in the data output in MIMS for

14We excluded the LLRW shipped to Envirocare by DOE in this comparison
because the MIMS database does not record any DOE waste disposed of at
commercial facilities.

several types of information, including sources of waste coming from
states, compacts, and generator types.15

    Uncertainties Surround Projecting Future LLRW Disposal Volumes

Notwithstanding problems obtaining reliable and complete LLRW disposal
data, uncertainties remain concerning the timing and volume of LLRW
needing disposal in the future, which largely will depend on the disposal
decisions made by nuclear utility companies and DOE, as well as on
possible changes in regulatory standards for what constitutes LLRW. The
pace of nuclear power plant decommissioning has been slower than expected.
Nuclear utility industry officials and federal officials told us that
beyond the few nuclear power plants now being decommissioned, only a small
number of plants are expected to be decommissioned in the next 20 years or
more. The economics of electricity generation make it desirable for most
utilities to keep their existing nuclear power plants running, in some
cases even making investments to upgrade and extend the operating life of
the reactors. Moreover, the nuclear power industry has aggressively
minimized the amount of LLRW it produces, both in absolute volume and in
decreasing the amount of the more radioactive class B and C wastes by, for
example, changing some kinds of filters more often before radioactivity
concentrates at higher levels.

Recent DOE experiences cleaning up its sites underscore how difficult
making useful projections can be. Officials at DOE told us that such
projections for sites now being cleaned up have not proven very accurate,
and have tended to significantly overestimate waste volumes that would
require disposal as LLRW. There are several reasons cited for this
difficulty: records from "legacy" sites-former nuclear weapons production
sites that DOE is cleaning up-have not proven to be reliable; the decay
rate of known buried radioactive wastes have often been higher than
expected so wastes that were expected to need disposal as LLRW can instead
be legally classified as radioactive waste mixed with nonradioactive but
hazardous wastes and sent to less expensive disposal facilities;
contractors have become more innovative and skilled in sorting and
segregating hazardous and mixed wastes from LLRW so that a higher
percentage of wastes can be disposed of as hazardous or mixed wastes
rather than LLRW; and some debris and material from site cleanup

15Controls over information processing that DOE could require in its
contracts with disposal facility operators would include, for example,
edit checks of data entered, accounting for transactions in numerical
sequences, comparing file totals with control accounts, and controlling
access to data, files, and programs.

projected to be LLRW has no appreciable radioactivity when generated and
can therefore be disposed in sanitary landfills or other non-LLRW disposal
facilities. Moreover, there are some indications that the volume of DOE
cleanup waste likely to be sent to commercial LLRW disposal facilities is
currently at or near a peak and will soon rapidly decline as cleanup at
some DOE sites winds down and as cleanup activity shifts to other DOE
sites that have considerable on-site disposal capacity. As a result, DOE
officials expect the use of commercial LLRW disposal facilities to start
declining after 2006 and to stay comparatively low until another
anticipated spike in 2014. DOE officials stressed, however, that "high
confidence numbers" are not yet available because the department is still
in the process of reorganizing and developing new baselines for its
accelerated cleanup projects, and it does not have a management system in
place to develop corresponding waste projections.

Potential changes to the threshold at which waste is classified as LLRW
that is currently under consideration could also affect the amount of
waste needing disposal in the future. The National Research Council and
the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are separately studying this
issue and considering possible changes that might affect the future
management of LLRW. The National Research Council is studying the issue
because members of its Board on Radioactive Waste Management are concerned
that the statutes and regulations that govern LLRW management may be
overly restrictive; in some cases, leading to excessive costs and other
burdens on the waste generator and, in other cases, possibly leading to an
exaggeration of the potential risks posed by these materials. EPA is
examining its existing waste regulations and has begun the process of
soliciting public comment as it considers new rulemaking in this area.
Specifically, EPA is exploring an option with NRC to establish a
regulatory framework that allows some of the lower activity radioactive
waste to be disposed of at non-LLRW disposal facilities.16 Finally, and in
a similar vein, there has been discussion by government and industry LLRW
stakeholders of harmonizing U.S. standards with prevailing international
standards for LLRW under consideration by the International Atomic Energy
Agency. Such a change could prompt consideration by U.S. regulators to
raise the threshold at which the radioactivity of waste would trigger
regulation as LLRW, and would allow for lower activity LLRW to be disposed
of under other regulatory regimes.

1668 Fed. Reg. 65120 (November 18, 2003).

  LLRW Disposal Availability Appears Adequate Until Mid2008

There appears to be enough disposal availability to serve the nation's
needs at least until mid-2008, when many states might lose disposal access
for their class B and C wastes. Disposal availability for class A waste
does not pose a problem under current conditions. According to Envirocare
representatives, their disposal site, which accepted over 99 percent of
the nation's class A waste in 2003, has enough capacity to accept this
waste at the current volume levels for more than 20 years. The Richland
facility has about 21 million cubic feet of capacity remaining for all
classes of waste, which is more than enough to accommodate the LLRW coming
from the 11 states in the Northwest and Rocky Mountain compacts until the
expected closure of this facility in 2056. The Barnwell disposal facility
has about 2.7 million cubic feet of remaining capacity, most of which has
been set aside for waste from generators in the Atlantic Compact until
2050. Barnwell also appears to have enough disposal capacity to continue
accepting class B and C wastes from other states until mid-2008, when it
is scheduled to close to all but the three Atlantic compact states.
According to the Director of Disposal Services at Chem-Nuclear Systems,
the operator of the Barnwell facility, there should be enough space at the
facility to accommodate the typical 20,000 to 25,000 cubic feet of class B
and C wastes accepted at this facility in recent years. This
representative told us that many generators have already contracted to
dispose of their B and C wastes in the short term, and any generator
outside of the Atlantic Compact anticipating a need to dispose of these
wastes could still contract for the necessary space until mid-2008.

A number of factors support the likelihood that disposal space for class B
and C wastes will be available at Barnwell until mid-2008, if disposal
volumes do not exceed anticipated levels. Based on current space
commitments at this disposal facility under conditions of the volume caps
set by the South Carolina legislature, there remains a range of 24,500 to
44,500 cubic feet of uncommitted space until 2008.17 The amount of space
available depends on whether Atlantic Compact generators use all of their
set-aside space through 2008. In addition, utilities are likely to take
more aggressive efforts to ensure sufficient space for class B and C
wastes at

17The South Carolina legislature has established annual caps on the amount
of LLRW that can be disposed of at Barnwell. The caps diminish to 35,000
cubic feet per year by mid-2008 and at that point the cap remains at
35,000 per year for Atlantic Compact waste alone. The annual cap is
comprised of (1) a volume amount set aside for generators in the Atlantic
Compact, (2) committed amounts attributable to generators outside the
compact that have contracts with the disposal operator, and (3)
uncommitted amounts that can be used to accommodate additional waste.

Barnwell. Industry officials said utilities might consider several
initiatives and conditions that could alleviate the diminishing disposal
availability for class B and C wastes. For example, utilities could send
class A waste to Envirocare rather than Barnwell to save the remaining
space at Barnwell for class B and C wastes. In addition, utilities might
increase waste reduction efforts and storage.

After 2008, disposal availability for the class B and C wastes generated
in the 36 states outside the Northwest, Rocky Mountain, and Atlantic
compacts is more uncertain. Disposal availability for these states will
depend on a number of possibilities including extending access to Barnwell
beyond mid-2008, or creating new disposal options for these classes of
waste. The Barnwell facility has opened and closed to noncompact member
states before and it could happen again. Given the difficulties of
attracting class A waste to Barnwell because of the high disposal fees,
and the fairly consistent level of class B and C wastes shipped to this
site each year, the facility might not even reach its volume cap of 35,000
cubic feet per year after 2008. In addition, the set-aside of 2.2 million
cubic feet for Atlantic Compact generators through 2050 may be negotiated
downward, freeing up additional space at this disposal facility. There is
also some possibility that new disposal options will become available in
the future that could alleviate any disposal crisis for class B and C
wastes. We mentioned these disposal options in the previous section on
changes since 1999 in LLRW disposal availability and federal oversight.
Finally, regardless of the outcome, representatives of the Nuclear Energy
Institute, the policy organization of the nuclear energy industry, said
that utilities, the greatest generator of class B and C wastes, have the
ability to store these wastes on site if they have no disposal option.

If after mid-2008, there are no new disposal options for class B and C
wastes, licensed users of radioactive materials can continue to minimize
waste generation, process waste into safer forms, and store waste pending
the development of additional disposal options. These approaches, however,
can be costly, with a higher financial burden on some licensees than
others. Notwithstanding these business costs, we did not detect other
effects of any shortfalls in disposal availability that might have wider
implications.

  Any LLRW Disposal Shortfall After Mid2008 Unlikely to Pose Immediate Problem

    LLRW Minimization and Storage Can Lessen Effects of any Disposal Shortfall

The licensed users of radioactive materials that must eventually dispose
of their LLRW have employed a variety of techniques to both minimize and
process this waste to reduce its volume prior to storage and eventual
disposal.18 These techniques include substitution of nonradioactive
materials for radioactive materials, separation of radioactive materials
from nonradioactive materials, recycling, compaction, dilution, and
incineration. For example, it is reported that most large research
institutions make concerted efforts to find suitable and appropriate
alternatives to the use of radioactive materials. One university official
told us that such efforts have reduced LLRW generation at his institution
by 30 percent in the last 5 years. The Electric Power Research Institute
is encouraging nuclear utilities to use vendor volume reduction programs
for resins, the single largest component of class B and C wastes, to
reduce volume. Some licensees have used processors to super-compact class
A waste to achieve up to a 5,000 percent reduction in volume, or to reduce
this waste to ash through incineration, albeit increasing the
concentration of radioisotopes.

In addition to minimization of LLRW, licensees can decide to store this
waste when no disposal option is available to them. In order to obtain a
license to possess radioactive materials, entities must demonstrate the
technical capability to safely manage them. Various reasons are given for
storing waste, including allowing short-lived radioactive materials to
decay to innocuous levels to avoid the need for disposal in a more
expensive LLRW facility, the prohibitively high cost of disposal for some
licensees, and concerns about the potential liability of sending the waste
to a disposal site. Universities and biomedical companies generally rely
on storage for decay for their LLRW, although finding space within large
research institutions in urban settings is more difficult. The high cost
of LLRW disposal can also pose financial problems for some licensees. Over
the last 25 years, disposal costs have risen from $1 per cubic foot of
LLRW to over $400 per cubic foot, with projections of well over $1,000 per
cubic foot in the future. For some LLRW, the Barnwell disposal facility
now charges $1,625 per cubic foot. These disposal costs can reach hundreds
of millions of dollars for utility companies that are decommissioning
their nuclear power plants. NRC reported to us that the cost to fully

18According to the NRC there are approximately 21,600 entities licensed by
either NRC or an Agreement State to use radioactive materials, about 75
percent use either sealed sources, which can be returned to the
manufacturer or small amounts of radioactive materials that decay rapidly
leaving little or no residual radioactive contamination requiring clean up
or disposal.

decommission a plant can run as high as $675 million. Finally, some
licensees will not send their LLRW to disposal facilities because they are
concerned that the mixing of their waste with other waste might draw them
into litigation if the disposal site should ever require cleanup under the
Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of
1980, as amended (commonly referred to as Superfund).

While NRC policy favors disposal rather than storage over the long-term,
since the mid-1990's, the Commission has allowed on-site storage of LLRW
without a specified time limit as long as it is safe. The Commission took
this approach in part because LLRW can be stored and the states were not
developing any new disposal facilities. According to the agency, NRC and
Agreement State license and inspection programs help ensure the safe
management of stored LLRW. However, some licensees are concerned that a
fire, flood, or an earthquake might cause an unintended radioactive
release. If an emergency ever should arise from stored LLRW, NRC has
authority under the Act to override any compact restrictions to allow
shipment of LLRW to a regional or other nonfederal disposal facility, if
necessary under narrowly defined conditions, to eliminate an immediate and
serious threat to the public health and safety or to the common defense
and security.19 Since September 11, 2001, the perception of the risks
posed by potential use of stored LLRW by terrorists has increased. A
recent report found that at least a few radioisotopes of greatest security
concern are classified as LLRW.20 According to the report, while
radiological dispersal devices, such as a dirty bomb, are not weapons of
mass destruction, they could cause mass disruption, dislocation, and
adverse financial consequences associated with decontamination and
rebuilding. NRC officials told us that as the volume and duration of
stored LLRW increases so might the safety and security risks.

    LLRW Minimization and Storage Can Be Costly

While waste minimization and storage can alleviate the need for disposal,
they can be costly. The licensees that we interviewed provided many
examples of the high cost of managing LLRW. For example, one university

19The narrowly defined conditions are pursuant to 10 C.F.R., Part 62. The
alternatives that must be explored by the person making the request
include storing at the site of generation or at a licensed facility,
purchasing disposal capacity, or requesting disposal at a federal LLRW
disposal facility.

20Ferguson, Charles, Tahseen Kazi, and Judith Perera. Commercial
Radioactive Sources: Surveying the Security Risks (Monterey, CA: Center
for Nonproliferation Studies, Monterey Institute of International Studies,
January 2003).

recently built a $12 million combined hazardous and radioactive waste
management facility of which two-thirds is devoted to the processing and
temporary storage of class A waste. And, a medical center official took us
to a small (12' x12') LLRW interim storage and processing room that cost
the institution about $150,000 to construct to meet stringent health and
environmental standards. There are also costs associated with operating
storage facilities. Representatives from one university system told us
that about $100,000 is spent annually to maintain its interim storage
building in a remote area of the state. Added to the cost of building and
operating a storage facility is the cost of securing it. Such costs have
been accounted for in higher utility rates, university overhead charges,
drug prices, and medical treatments. These costs of doing business are
more difficult for some entities to absorb than others. For example,
representatives from several biotechnology companies told us that the
industry, particularly the smaller start-up companies, are not prepared
for the financial cost of storing and securing LLRW.

    No Other Widespread Effects Detected of Shortfall in LLRW Disposal
    Availability

Notwithstanding the cost of minimizing and storing LLRW, we did not detect
widespread national impacts on LLRW generators that have resulted or might
result from any disposal shortfalls. In an effort to identify any such
effects, we initially asked some questions on our survey of compact and
unaffiliated state LLRW officials regarding documented effects on LLRW
generators of any restricted disposal availability. Virtually no citations
were provided or current concerns raised. We then sought information from
a broader constituency in a further attempt to find evidence of such
effects. We collaborated with medical researchers at the University of
Texas to seek information from two overlapping groups involved in LLRW
management: the approximately 2,000 subscribers of the RadSafe Listserv, a
listserv for radiation safety officers, and the approximately 6,000
members of the Health Physics Society, a scientific and professional
organization whose members specialize in occupational and environmental
radiation safety.21 We sought information on any known cases where there
have been or might be adverse effects on research activities and clinical
practice stemming from costs or difficulties related to the storage and
disposal of LLRW. Specifically, we e-mailed questionnaires asking if these
factors have caused or might cause a

21These surveys of RadSafe Listserv subscribers and Health Physics Society
members are not considered scientific sample surveys because the
self-selected respondents came from a nonprobability sample of a largely
unknown list of people.

discontinuance or disapproval of any research or clinical endeavors to
RadSafe Listserv subscribers and placed a notice in the Health Physics
Society's newsletter asking for volunteers to answer the same questions we
sent to the listserv subscribers. We obtained an extremely low response
rate to these questions-14 responses from listserv subscribers and 6 from
Health Physics Society members. Because these were nonprobability sample
surveys the results are not generalizable and can only be used for
anecdotal purposes. Of these respondents, only two said that the
difficulties associated with LLRW had adversely affected research or
clinical practice. Several respondents cited the challenges of dealing
with LLRW, but also noted that they work around the difficulties through
waste minimization, including substituting nonradioactive materials for
radioactive materials when possible, and on-site storage as needed. The
survey results provided no evidence of any widespread effects on research
activities and clinical practice stemming from costs or difficulties
related to the storage and disposal of LLRW in the last 5 years.

We also had limited success in identifying published reports on the
possible effects that lack of LLRW disposal options might have on waste
generators. We identified a report supported by DOE that surveyed LLRW
generators in Michigan during a period when they had no disposal
alternative from 1990 to 1995. The survey found that storage costs were
actually a small cost for most businesses, and that few broader
socioeconomic effects were noted.22 Another report reviewed the potential
impact of LLRW management policies on biomedical research in the United
States. The 2001 National Research Council report concluded that the
central issue was the cost of managing LLRW, and not access to disposal
facilities.23 The report found that it would take 10 to 20 years before a
lack of LLRW disposal options might have an adverse effect on biomedical
research or medical care. However, the report cautioned that if use of
radioisotopes increases or the use of longer half-life radioisotopes
increases in the future, the system of LLRW storage, monitoring,
inspection, and disposal might not be adequate to meet the needs of this
expansion.

22Stupka, Richard, Barbara Lewis and James Langsted, Case Study of
Michigan Low-Level Radioactive Waste Generators (Denver, CO: Dames &
Moore, DOE Programs Group, September 1993).

23National Research Council, The Impact of Low-Level Radioactive Waste
Management Policy on Biomedical Research in the United States (Washington,
D.C.: National Academy Press, 2001).

Conclusions

Recommendations for Executive Action

  Matters for Congressional Consideration

Although no shortfall in disposal availability appears imminent,
uncertainties remain about future access to disposal facilities. Even with
the prospect of new disposal options, there is no guarantee that they will
be developed or be available to meet national needs for class B and C
wastes disposal. While LLRW generators have options available to mitigate
any future disposal shortfall, including storing waste, storage is costly
and it can lead to increased safety and security risks. Therefore,
continued federal oversight of disposal availability and the conditions of
stored waste is warranted.

Federal oversight is necessary to oversee disposal availability and the
conditions of stored waste. However, DOE and NRC have reduced their
oversight of LLRW management by the states. DOE's involvement is now
limited to maintaining its online national LLRW database, which has
internal control weaknesses and other shortcomings. At the same time, DOE
has become the largest LLRW generator shipping to commercial disposal
facilities and thus has become a part of the system on which it was
initially supposed to report. NRC's involvement with LLRW management has
similarly decreased because no new disposal facilities were being
developed, and an increasing number of Agreement State agencies have taken
over many responsibilities for overseeing radioactive material use,
storage, and disposal. As a result of this decreased federal oversight and
a national LLRW database with known deficiencies, there is no central
collection of information to monitor disposal availability and the
conditions of stored LLRW.

Given that NRC is the federal agency responsible for overseeing the use,
storage, and disposal of radioactive materials, and DOE's changed role in
LLRW management, we believe that NRC is now the most appropriate agency to
report to the Congress on LLRW conditions.

We recommend that the Secretary of Energy halt dissemination of
information contained in the online national LLRW database as long as the
database has internal control weaknesses and shortcomings in its
usefulness and reliability.

The Congress may wish to consider directing NRC to report to it if LLRW
disposal and storage conditions should change enough to warrant
congressional evaluation of alternatives to ensure safe, reliable and cost
effectiveness of disposal availability.

  Agency Comments
  and Our Evaluation

We provided a draft of this report to DOE and NRC for their review and
comment. DOE's written comments are reproduced in appendix IV. DOE agreed
with our assessment that disposal availability is adequate for the near
future. DOE disagreed with our recommendation to halt dissemination of
information in its national LLRW database. DOE stated that our report did
not adequately characterize the usefulness of MIMS, and that removal of
the national LLRW database without an alternative would evoke criticism
from states and regional compacts and would not fulfill the requirement in
the Act to maintain such a database. Our recommendation did not call for
removal of this database. Instead, we recommended halting dissemination of
information in this database as long as the database has internal control
weaknesses and shortcomings in its usefulness and reliability. This action
might only temporarily restrict access to the online national LLRW
database. DOE did this for about 2 months in late 2003 and early 2004 to
correct system problems with MIMS. With regard to the usefulness of MIMS,
our report noted that state and compact officials use MIMS to respond to
public inquiries and to monitor LLRW; however, the consensus among the
officials we surveyed was that they could more effectively regulate and
monitor LLRW if MIMS offered more comprehensive and reliable data. DOE did
not address our concerns about internal control weaknesses and other
shortcomings in the database. We stand by our recommendation to DOE
because we believe that it is inappropriate to disseminate information
that is known to be incomplete and unreliable.

NRC's written comments are reproduced in appendix V. NRC commented that we
provided an accurate summary of current LLRW disposal conditions and
potential issues that may be encountered in the future. NRC disagreed with
our suggestion that the Congress consider directing it to gather
information necessary to monitor the adequacy of LLRW disposal
availability and the safety and security of stored waste, and to report to
the Congress on significant changes in LLRW disposal and storage
conditions. In commenting on our draft report, NRC provided information on
data gathering actions already in place or planned that it contends would
adequately ensure the safety and security of radioactive materials,
including stored LLRW, which is an alternative to disposal. Given these
actions and the concerns of NRC with the regulatory cost, such as new
rulemaking, associated with gather information on LLRW disposal and
storage conditions, we eliminated this suggested congressional directive.
In regard to our reporting suggestion, NRC commented that it believes that
such monitoring and reporting, if necessary, would fall within the
responsibility of DOE as was previously recognized by the Act. However, as
our report noted, the Congress

eliminated DOE's reporting responsibilities under the Act and no longer
specifically appropriates funds to support a National Low-Level Waste
Management Program. Given the need for continued federal oversight of LLRW
conditions, we maintain that NRC is now the most appropriate agency to
report to the Congress if LLRW disposal and storage conditions should
change enough to warrant congressional intervention.

We incorporated technical changes in this report where appropriate based
on detailed comments provided by the agencies.

As agreed with your office, we will make copies of this report available
to others upon request. In addition, the report will be available at no
charge on the GAO Web site at http://www.gao.gov.

If you or your staff have any questions about this report, please contact
me at (202) 512-3841 or Dan Feehan, Assistant Director, at (303) 572-7352.
Major contributors to this report include Doreen Feldman, Curtis Groves,
Alan Kasdan, Thomas Laetz, Cynthia Norris, Daniel Semick, Richard
Shargots, and Kevin Tarmann.

Sincerely yours,

Robin M. Nazzaro Director, Natural Resources and Environment

Appendix I: Overview of Existing Commercial LLRW Disposal Facilities

There are currently three commercial disposal facilities operating in the
country, two of which were part of the group of six facilities established
back in the 1960s. The facilities in Barnwell, South Carolina, and
Richland, Washington, are the only ones that remain open today. Each of
these facilities is located adjacent to or within the boundaries of a much
larger site owned by DOE. The third facility is located outside of Salt
Lake City, Utah. Figure 3 shows the location of three commercial disposal
facilities.

        Figure 3: Location of Three Commercial LLRW Disposal Facilities

Appendix I: Overview of Existing Commercial LLRW Disposal Facilities

Barnwell Disposal 	The Barnwell disposal facility was opened in 1969, but
the actual license to use about 17 acres of land for shallow burial of
LLRW in Barnwell County,

Facility 	South Carolina, was issued in 1971. This commercial site is
located near the much larger Savannah River Site owned by DOE. In 1976,
the site was expanded to its present size of 235 acres with an original
capacity to hold 30.6 million cubic feet of all classes of radioactive
waste and some other types of waste.

                              Compact Affiliation

South Carolina is the current host state for the Atlantic Compact; the
compact comprises South Carolina, Connecticut, and New Jersey. South
Carolina was originally in the 8-member Southeast Compact that was
ratified by the Congress in 1985. However, in 1995, the state withdrew
from this compact to become an unaffiliated state primarily because
another member of the compact, North Carolina, had failed to develop a new
disposal facility as planned by 1992. In 2000, the state joined the
Northeast Compact. The name of the Northeast Compact was later changed to
the Atlantic Compact to better characterize the geographic affiliation of
the three member states. During the history of South Carolina as a compact
state and an unaffiliated state, the state legislature has only restricted
national access to the Barnwell disposal facility for one year, between
July 1994 and June 1995, excluding some temporary access restrictions
placed on Michigan between 1990 and 1995, and North Carolina between 1995
and 2000.

                                State Regulators

Three state regulatory entities have roles and responsibilities associated
with the operation of the Barnwell disposal facility. The South Carolina
Budget and Control Board owns the land that is set aside for the LLRW
disposal, and it will assume responsibility for the site after it closes.
Among other responsibilities, this board approves the disposal rates and
authorizes the import of out-of-compact waste to Barnwell. In conjunction
with the South Carolina Public Service Commission, the board determines
allowable operating costs that can be charged by the operator. The
operator is reimbursed for these operating costs and is allowed a 29
percent margin above most of these costs. As South Carolina is an
Agreement State, the Department of Health and Environmental Control has
licensing and technical regulatory authority over Barnwell.

Disposal Operator	Chem-Nuclear Systems has operated the Barnwell disposal
facility continuously since it opened. In 2000, this company became a
subsidiary of Duratek, Incorporated, which had purchased the owner of
Chem-

      Appendix I: Overview of Existing Commercial LLRW Disposal Facilities

Nuclear Systems, Waste Management Nuclear Services. According to company
officials, there are about 100 Duratek employees at the Barnwell facility,
of which 60 to 70 deal with the disposal operations and retain the
Chem-Nuclear Systems name. About 10 years ago there were about 350
employees at Barnwell, when disposal intake was higher.

                               Current Conditions

The Barnwell disposal facility is reaching its capacity. About 102 acres
of the 235-acre site has been filled, with about 13 acres left for
disposal. According to company officials, there is about 2.7 million cubic
feet of space remaining. The vast majority of this remaining space, about
2.2 million cubic feet, has been set aside for the decommissioning of the
12 nuclear power plants in the three state compact region. The
decommissioning waste is anticipated at about 12,000 cubic feet per
facility annually, beginning around 2031 and lasting for about 20 years.
Each facility is expected to produce much more LLRW, but much of this
waste will likely be shipped to Envirocare of Utah.

The Barnwell disposal facility is planned for closure to out-of-compact
waste by mid-2008. In 2001, the South Carolina legislature imposed volume
caps on the amount of waste that could be accepted at Barnwell. Between
2001 and 2008, the facility is allowed to accept decreasing levels of
waste until it reaches a steady state level of 35,000 cubic feet in 2008.
State officials told us that the legislature set the cap at 35,000 cubic
feet to provide revenues sufficient to cover operating costs and all other
obligations; however, at current disposal rates, the breakeven volume
intake might be as low as 20,000 cubic feet annually. These caps were
based on an earlier task force report that provided a "road map'" for
discontinuing South Carolina's national role in providing disposal and
ensuring that capacity would remain to serve the future needs of South
Carolina generators.

Barnwell has the highest disposal rates among the three commercial
disposal facilities. In part, the rates have increased over the years with
the additions of special fees, taxes, and surcharges. Noncompact
generators have increasingly paid far more to dispose their waste than
generators within the compact states, especially South Carolina
generators, that receive a 33 percent rebate on their disposal fees. The
2003 rate for compact generators does not exceed about $400 per cubic foot
for any class of waste, whereas for noncompact waste coming from
processors with importation agreements, it is set at $1,625 per cubic
foot. The most sizeable increase in disposal fees came in 1995, when South
Carolina imposed a $235 per cubic foot tax on the LLRW accepted by
Barnwell. In

Appendix I: Overview of Existing Commercial LLRW Disposal Facilities

fiscal year 2002, of the approximately $34 million in gross disposal
receipts from waste coming to Barnwell, about $11.6 million went to the
operator, and most of the remaining 66 percent went to the state,
primarily to support education programs.

Notwithstanding the existing caps on the volume of waste that can be
accepted at Barnwell through mid-2008, there are some indications that the
legislature may reconsider its position on these caps. First, there has
been a shortfall in the volume of waste that has actually come to Barnwell
in the last 3 years. Company officials told us that this shortfall is
60,592 cubic feet. Negotiations are taking place to determine if this
shortfall can be added to the cap levels over the next several years to
make up the difference. Second, two utilities that had committed space at
Barnwell have decided not to send a reactor vessel and several steam
generators to this facility. This would free up even more space, if it
were made available. Finally, other space might become available if prior
allocation commitments to the 12 nuclear power plants in the Atlantic
Compact are revised downward, given changes in how to manage the
decommissioning of nuclear power plants. The Electric Power Research
Institute is working with utilities on reducing their space needs at
Barnwell. Figure 4 shows the delivery of a large reactor vessel to the
LLRW trench at the Barnwell disposal facility.

Appendix I: Overview of Existing Commercial LLRW Disposal Facilities

Figure 4: Delivery of a Large Reactor Vessel to the LLRW Trench at the
Barnwell Disposal Facility

Since 1988, Envirocare has operated a 540-acre disposal facility 80 miles
west of Salt Lake City. The facility is located in Tooele County within a
100-square mile hazardous waste zone that includes two hazardous waste
incinerators, the Army's nerve gas storage site, and the Army's Dugway
Proving Grounds. Prior to the low-level waste disposal site, DOE used the
area for the disposal of uranium mill tailings. Much of the waste disposed
at Envirocare comes from cleanup of commercial and government facilities.
Also, Envirocare is the only commercial disposal facility to accept mixed
waste, which is a combination of radioactive and hazardous waste. In 2003,
Envirocare took about 99 percent of the nation's class A waste.

  Envirocare Disposal Facility

Compact Affiliation 	While Utah is part of the Northwest Compact, which
includes seven other states, it is not the host state for the compact's
LLRW disposal facility.

Appendix I: Overview of Existing Commercial LLRW Disposal Facilities

Originally, Utah approved Envirocare's operation for accepting naturally
occurring radioactive material-large volume, low activity low-level
radioactive wastes. In 1991, recognizing that the Northwest Compact
planned to exercise its exclusionary authority at the beginning of 1993,
Utah and Envirocare sought a resolution from the Compact that would allow
this disposal facility to continue to accept these specific types of
low-level waste once the compact exercised its exclusionary authority.24
Realizing that proposed disposal facilities in other states and compacts
were not designed to take wastes of such large volume, the Northwest
Compact adopted a resolution and order that allowed continued access to
Envirocare by those states that met the milestone requirements of the
Act.25 In 1995, the resolution and order were amended to include a
provision that states and compacts in which low-level waste is generated,
including the Northwest Compact, must authorize any shipment of this waste
to Envirocare. This was done to ensure that states and compacts maintain
control over the disposition of LLRW generated within their state or
compact. The resolution and order was also amended to delete the provision
regarding the statutory milestone requirements since those milestones were
no longer relevant. According to the executive director of the Northwest
Compact, the compact retains the right to modify or rescind this
authorization at any time. In 1998, Utah issued a license amendment for
Envirocare to accept all types of class A low-level waste. To date, the
Northwest Compact has not approved sending LLRW generated within the
compact states, including Utah, to the Envirocare disposal facility.

                                State Regulators

The Utah Department of Environmental Quality has licensing and regulatory
authority for the Envirocare facility. Envirocare's license has been
amended at least 10 times to allow more types of radioactive waste
including in 1991 when the state permitted disposal of low-level waste, in
1995 when Envirocare became the only commercial disposal facility

24The Low Level Radioactive Waste Policy Amendments Act of 1985 gave
compacts the ability to exclude waste outside each compact's regional
boundaries.

25One milestone, for example, set a deadline of January 1, 1992, for
states and compacts to submit a license application for disposal
facilities in their respective regions. Another milestone required that if
a state did not have a viable disposal facility by January 1, 1996, a
state or state(s) in a compact must take title to the waste when requested
by generators. However, in 1992, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that this
provision was unconstitutional. New York v. United States, 505 U.S. 144
(1992).

Appendix I: Overview of Existing Commercial LLRW Disposal Facilities

licensed for mixed waste, and in 2001 when Utah approved an amendment for
Envirocare to accept all types of class A waste.26

On July 9, 2001, the Utah Department of Environmental Quality approved
Envirocare's license application to accept class B and C wastes. Appeals
were filed and on February 10, 2002, the department affirmed the approval.
In March 2003, the Governor of Utah signed a bill placing a moratorium on
any acceptance of class B or C wastes through February 15, 2005, and
requiring legislative and gubernatorial approval for acceptance of these
wastes. Enactment of the bill also created a task force composed of 16
state legislators to study radioactive waste, hazardous waste, and
commercial solid waste issues in the state, including state policy and an
evaluation of fees and taxes imposed on these wastes. The task force will
issue a report with specific recommendations by November 30, 2004, on,
among other things, whether the state should accept class B and C wastes.

                               Disposal Operator

Envirocare, a privately owned company, has operated the disposal facility
since its inception in 1988. The company said it has about 400 employees
and about 250 employees are directly involved with low-level radioactive
waste operations. Unlike the Barnwell and Richland sites, Envirocare owns
the disposal site land. NRC normally requires institutional ownership of
disposal sites in post-closure.27 However, at the inception of a license
for the disposal facility in Utah the state's Department of Environmental
Quality established a national precedent when it exempted the site from
rules requiring institutional ownership. At the time, Utah regulations
contained a section compatible with NRC's rule that disposal from other
persons would be permitted only on land owned by the federal or state
government. Nevertheless, Utah did not have legislative authority to own
land used for disposal of LLRW. While the private entity is allowed to own
the land indefinitely, the state requires that Envirocare carry a surety
fund,

26Allowing all types of class A waste includes containerized class A
waste, which is shipped, received, and disposed in remotely-handled sealed
containers. By contrast, bulk waste is generally removed from its shipping
containers and is "contact-handled" in a process that typically involves
compacting the waste in 12-inch layers over the disposal area. Unlike the
Barnwell and Richland commercial disposal sites, waste at Envirocare is
placed in broad, shallow cells that are designed to finish above-grade.
These disposal cells are constructed using native clay and rocks as liner
and cap materials.

27According to NRC, Utah exempted Envirocare from the requirement that the
federal or state government own the disposal site land.

Appendix I: Overview of Existing Commercial LLRW Disposal Facilities

currently about $40 million for low level and other wastes, for eventual
site closure, decommissioning, and long-term stewardship. Utah will
receive the funds if Envirocare should become unable to perform site
closure and decommissioning.

                               Current Conditions

The disposal site has the capacity for more than 20 years of disposal
under its current license. According to Envirocare officials, at the
beginning of March 2004 the disposal facility had 58.9 million cubic feet
of class A waste. The officials anticipate that the disposal facility will
accommodate more than 20 years of waste for several reasons, such as a
reduction in the annual disposal of waste at Envirocare.

Envirocare typically has a contract condition requiring that its
commercial disposal rates not be disclosed. While disposal rates are
available for DOE waste, they are not reflective of disposal rates for
other LLRW generators. According DOE officials, DOE receives a more
favorable disposal rate than generally available to other LLRW generators
because DOE can obtain discounted rates from Envirocare given the large
volumes of waste it has for disposal and that it can use its own disposal
facilities. DOE represents more than half of Envirocare's business. DOE's
contract with Envirocare, which expires June 29, 2004, includes disposal
rates ranging from a minimum of about $5.25 per cubic foot for soil to a
minimum of about $14.80 per cubic foot for debris.28 Most DOE waste is
shipped to Envirocare in bulk containers. According to DOE officials,
Envirocare's rail access and closer proximity to DOE sites east of Utah
provide a disposal cost advantage over using DOE disposal facilities.

Envirocare is subject to fees and taxes on waste disposal. The legislature
raised fees and taxes in 2003 after a citizens' initiative to
substantially increase the fee and tax structure failed. The state levies
a fee of 15 cents per cubic feet of waste and $1 per curie for radioactive
waste. These funds are used to offset program costs for oversight. In
addition, each generator pays a fee to the state ranging from $500 to
$1,300 for a generator site access permit. These funds as well as a $5,000
fee paid by each broker are for state oversight of the disposal facility.
In addition, the state imposes a fee ranging from 5 percent to 12 percent
of gross receipts of the disposal operator as general tax revenue to be
used in a manner determined by the

28The contract has 4 additional option years. New contacts and revisions
may require that additional taxes be included.

      Appendix I: Overview of Existing Commercial LLRW Disposal Facilities

state legislature. The amount is based on the type of waste and whether
the source is from a government or nongovernmental generator. In addition,
as of 2002, Envirocare is required to pay the state a perpetual care fee
of $400,000 per year. Also, Tooele County imposes a 5 percent fee on the
operator's gross receipts. In recent years the operator has provided the
county about $4 million annually. Those funds are general tax revenue for
the county. According to the disposal operator, on average, Envirocare
provides 25 percent of the county's budget. Figure 5 shows the rail
unloading facility for disposal of class A bulk waste at the Envirocare
facility.

Figure 5: Rail Unloading Facility Associated with Class A Bulk Waste
Disposal at the Envirocare Disposal Facility

Richland Disposal 	The Richland disposal facility was opened in July 1965.
It is situated in Benton County, Washington, approximately 23 miles
northwest of the city

Facility 	of Richland, near the center of DOE's 560 square mile Hanford
reservation on 100 of the 1,000 acres of land leased by the State of
Washington from the federal government in 1964 for 100 years. The state
had hoped to

Appendix I: Overview of Existing Commercial LLRW Disposal Facilities

attract other nuclear-related businesses to the site as part of an
economic development strategy for the Richland-Kennewick-Pasco region. In
1993, DOE exercised its right under the terms of the lease to reclaim the
900 acres that remained unutilized.

                              Compact Affiliation

Washington is the current host state for the Northwest Interstate Compact
on Low-Level Radioactive Waste Management. Besides Washington, the
original members of the compact are Alaska, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana,
Oregon, and Utah. The Northwest Compact was established in 1981 and
ratified by the Congress in 1985. An eighth state, Wyoming, joined the
compact in 1992. Also in 1992, the Rocky Mountain Compact, comprised of
Colorado, Nevada, and New Mexico, reached agreement with the Northwest
Compact and the state of Washington to send up to 6,000 cubic feet of LLRW
to the Richland disposal facility annually, plus a 3 percent per annum
growth factor. The Northwest Compact did so because the Rocky Mountain
Compact expected generation of only a relatively small volume of LLRW once
the decommissioning of its only nuclear power plant (Fort St. Vrain in
Colorado) was completed. Since 1993, the Richland disposal facility has
been open to LLRW only from generators in the 11 states of the Northwest
and Rocky Mountain compacts. Regardless of the state of origin, Richland
may accept naturally-occurring and acceleratorproduced radioactive
material, which is not addressed by the compact. The Richland facility
accepted nonradioactive hazardous and mixed wastes until 1985.

                                State Regulators

Three state regulatory bodies have roles and responsibilities associated
with the operation of the Richland disposal facility: the Department of
Health, the Department of Ecology, and the Washington Utilities and
Transportation Commission. The Department of Health exercises primary
regulatory responsibility over the disposal facility. It issues licenses
to the facility operator and regulates radioactive materials. A Department
of Health inspector examines each shipment of waste prior to disposal to
ensure compliance with the requirements of the U.S. Department of
Transportation, the NRC, and the State of Washington. The Department of
Ecology has primary program responsibility. It issues individual permits
for radioactive waste disposal to generators, serves as the site landlord,
and monitors the activities of the Northwest Compact. The Washington
Utilities and Transportation Commission approves the disposal fees on an
annual basis. Fees are set at a rate estimated by the facility operator,
US Ecology, to produce enough revenue to cover all costs of operating the
facility and provide a 29 percent profit. As an integral part of the fee

Appendix I: Overview of Existing Commercial LLRW Disposal Facilities

setting process, the operator polls site users to obtain their projections
for how much waste they plan to ship in the coming year. These estimates
are the basis on which fees are set.

Disposal Operator	The private, for-profit contractor, US Ecology
Incorporated, a subsidiary of Boise, Idaho-based American Ecology
Corporation, and its corporate antecedents, has operated the Richland
disposal facility since it opened. According to company officials, there
are currently 18 US Ecology employees working at the Richland facility, in
addition to 4 administrative staff.

                               Current Conditions

The Richland facility has much unused capacity to accept LLRW. According
to state regulators and company officials, the remaining capacity at
Richland is approximately 21 million cubic feet. To date the facility has
disposed of approximately 13.9 million cubic feet of LLRW in 20 trenches.
About 95 percent of the waste received is class A. There has been a
significant decline in disposal volumes since 1993, when the Northwest
Compact placed restrictions on the origin of the waste that the Richland
disposal facility could accept. In the 5 years preceding these
restrictions, the average annual amount of LLRW waste disposed was 395,000
cubic feet. In the 11 years since Richland began excluding waste from
outside the Northwest and Rocky Mountain Compacts, the average amount of
waste disposed annually is about 142,000 cubic feet, though individual
years have been as high as 282,000 and as low as 61,000. At the current
rates of disposal, fewer than 10 more trenches will be filled, or
approximately 60 percent of the total available disposal capacity, when
the facility is expected to close in 2056, 7 years before the state lease
on the land expires.

Disposal fees and other assorted fees for LLRW or naturally-occurring and
accelerator-produced radioactive material waste at Richland are lower than
the Barnwell disposal facility, but generally higher than those charged by
Envirocare of Utah. Unit costs for disposal are calculated on a declining
volume scale. That is, the lower the volume of waste disposed in a given
year the higher the unit costs of disposal must be in order to reach the
annual, state-approved revenue requirement. Generators pay a number of
fees and surcharges to the State of Washington and US Ecology on each
cubic foot they dispose at Richland. The state charges a site use permit
fee that varies according to volume. For example, fees for waste disposed
between March 1, 2004, and February 28, 2005, range from $425 for up to 50
cubic feet to $14,840 for 2,500 cubic feet and more. Nuclear utilities and

Appendix I: Overview of Existing Commercial LLRW Disposal Facilities

brokers pay flat annual site use permit fees of $42,400 and $1,000,
respectively. The state also imposes other fees and taxes to support local
economic development, state agency expenses directly related to the
regulation and operation of the facility, and for the Perpetual Care and
Maintenance Fund. Unlike the other two commercial LLRW disposal
facilities, none of these fees or taxes go directly to the state's general
revenue fund. The facility also pays a business and occupation tax.

In addition to the state fees, generators also pay US Ecology's disposal
charges, which are based on an annual revenue requirement authorized by
the Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission. All LLRW disposed
at Richland is assessed charges based on access, volume, shipment(s),
container(s), and exposure. For example, based on a projected disposal
volume of 50,000 cubic feet of LLRW in 2004 and an annual revenue
requirement of approximately $5.4 million, the site operator charges
average approximately $108 per cubic foot. The surcharges assessed by the
state on disposed waste would generate another $325,000 for local
government ($6.50 per cubic foot), $450,000 to cover the regulatory costs
of the Washington Department of Health ($9.00 per cubic foot), and at
least $230,000 in site use permit fees to cover the regulatory costs of
the Washington Department of Ecology and the administrative expenses of
the Northwest Compact. The sum of these fees, charges, and surcharges paid
by generators to the state and US Ecology in 2004 is expected to total
approximately $6.4 million. These associated fees increase the average
cost of disposal of LLRW to approximately $128 per cubic foot. This
average is calculated based on the expectation that 95 percent of the
waste disposed will be class A; typical class B and C waste disposal costs
per cubic foot would be higher than this average as activity and other
surcharges, which could be considerable, would apply.

There is a strong desire to control the origin, and therefore the volume
and nature of the waste disposed at Richland. The State of Washington was
a lobbying force behind passage of the Act that allowed compacts to
restrict access to disposal facilities. The state and US Ecology have
agreed in concept to a new clause in the sublease agreement, which is
expected to be renewed in 2005, providing for termination of the sublease
if federal law eliminates the Northwest Compact's restrictive authority on
waste importation. This policy is also reflected in the host state
agreements with the Northwest Compact and indirectly with the Rocky
Mountain Compact. Terminating the sublease would effectively shut down the
disposal facility. Figure 6 shows the LLRW disposal trench at the Richland
disposal facility.

Appendix I: Overview of Existing Commercial LLRW Disposal Facilities

Figure 6: LLRW Disposal Trench at the Richland Disposal Facility

                     Appendix II: LLRW Legislative Options

The inability of states to develop any new regional disposal facilities
since passage of the Low-Level Waste Policy Act (the Act) and occasional
shortfalls in disposal availability have perpetuated debate about the need
for further congressional intervention. GAO reported on the status of
commercial LLRW disposal in 1995 and 1999. In our last report, we assessed
three management options to address concerns about limited or no disposal
access for generators of LLRW. While we acknowledged that LLRW could be
stored for decades or even longer in assured isolation facilities, we
noted that storage would only postpone, not replace, the need for
disposal. The three options were (1) allowing the compact system under
existing federal legislation to adapt to the changing LLRW situation, (2)
repealing the existing federal legislation to allow market forces to
respond to the changing LLRW situation, and (3) using DOE disposal
facilities for commercial waste. The changes that occurred since our 1999
report affect the viability of these options in various ways, particularly
the status quo option to maintain the existing compact system if no
disposal options are available for class B and C wastes after mid-2008.

  Retain the Compact Approach

Proponents of retaining the compact approach cite the degree of control
that states exercise over LLRW management and flexibility in meeting
changing circumstances. For example, facing declining waste volumes and
satisfactory access to existing disposal facilities, states and compacts
were able to avoid building expensive facilities that were not needed. In
addition, an existing non-LLRW disposal facility was allowed to accept
high volume, low-activity radioactive wastes nationally, even though it
was located in a state that already had access to a licensed LLRW disposal
facility. Further, under the compact system states were allowed to move
from one compact to another or to become unaffiliated, and two compacts
decided to share one disposal facility. And, most recently, the state
regulator in Texas will begin accepting license applications to develop a
new disposal facility that might be open in early 2008.

Opponents of the compact approach point out that, despite all of this
flexibility, not one compact has successfully developed a new disposal
facility for LLRW despite spending millions to do so. Even the proposed
disposal facility in Texas is moving through the approval process having
never formed a Texas LLRW disposal compact commission. In 1999, we
estimated that collectively, the states and compacts had spent about $600
million in trying to develop these facilities. Nuclear industry
association officials estimate that expenditures may now have reached
approximately $1 billion. Some of these additional costs are associated
with ongoing litigation in California, Nebraska, and North Carolina
regarding the failure

                     Appendix II: LLRW Legislative Options

of these states to fulfill their host state obligations to build LLRW
disposal facilities after expenditures had been made to do so. In
addition, there are certainly opportunity costs associated with this
expenditure, and there may be an incalculable loss of advancement in
nuclear research and medicine because the cost of disposal or lack of
options may have diminished the desire to use radioactive materials. This
option to maintain the status quo, as discussed in our 1999 report, may no
longer be tenable if there are no assured safe, reliable, and
cost-effective disposal options put forward to address a potential
shortfall in disposal availability for class B and C wastes after
mid-2008.

  Repeal the Compact Legislation

Opponents of the compact system have called for repealing the LLRW Policy
Act because of the unsuccessful attempts to develop new regional LLRW
disposal facilities, coupled with authority under the Act to restrict
access to existing commercial facilities that otherwise have disposal
capacity. Eliminating access restrictions would allow commercial disposal
operators to better adapt and respond to changing market conditions. And,
repeal of the legislation could create a national LLRW disposal market
that might lead to more competition and lower disposal fees.

It would probably be difficult to build enough political support to repeal
the LLRW Policy Act, however, given no imminent national crisis in the
short term, and some states would likely resist opening their disposal
facilities nationally. Even if the Congress repealed the Act, it would not
necessarily affect the existence of each compact consented to prior to
repeal. This would mean that a compact provision prohibiting the
acceptance of waste for disposal from outside the compact region would
continue in effect. However, under the Act, each compact must provide that
the Congress may withdraw its consent every 5 years after the compact has
taken effect.29 Apart from congressional action, states with privately
managed disposal facilities could decide not to renew the disposal
operators' leases located on state-owned land. In addition, states that
are concerned about the extent to which they would be able to restrict
access to a commercial disposal facility within their borders might erect
administrative barriers to developing such a facility.

2942 U.S.C. S:2021d(d). In addition, under the terms of the statutes
providing congressional consent to the compacts, the Congress may alter,
amend, or repeal each statute providing consent after 10 years. Even
without these provisions, the Congress could pass specific legislation
withdrawing its consent at any time because a previous Congress cannot
bind a future one.

                     Appendix II: LLRW Legislative Options

  Use DOE Disposal Facilities for Commercial Waste

The capping of disposal volumes through mid-2008 at Barnwell and
restrictions on access to only Atlantic Compact member states after this
time have heightened interest in having DOE open its disposal facilities
to at least some commercial LLRW. Access might be allowed on an interim
basis, as requested in the past by California generators, or permanently.
According to NRC officials, the Act established a compact system that has
not provided reliable and cost-effective disposal options to generators of
LLRW, forcing many of them to store their waste. Establishing federal
responsibility for disposal of at least the class B and C wastes would be
similar to federal responsibilities for greater-than-class C waste,
transuranic, and high-level waste. This approach would also be consistent
with the management approaches taken by some European countries.

Similar to the commercial disposal facilities in Richland and Barnwell
that are operated by private companies on state-leased land, contractors
manage and operate the two principal DOE disposal facilities on federal
land.30 These two DOE disposal facilities in Nevada and Washington accept
waste that exists on site, as well as from other department sites across
the country. Each of these facilities has enormous capacity to accept
LLRW. In 1999, about 171 million cubic feet of space was available at
these two sites, with DOE estimating that it would only use less than 30
million cubic feet for its cleanup waste. This estimate may even be lower
given the increasing volume of DOE waste that is being sent to a
commercial disposal facility.

In the past, DOE disposal facilities have not been considered appropriate
repositories for commercial waste, but commercial facilities were viewed
as appropriate for receiving DOE waste. The federal government has
encouraged the development of private LLRW disposal facilities since the
early 1960s when the volumes of waste were increasing at the same time as
the cost of disposal in the ocean. As an interim measure, the AEC allowed
such waste to be disposed of at its own facilities at the Idaho National
Engineering Laboratory and at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory until
commercial disposal facilities became available. As an incentive, in 1963,
the AEC instructed its sites without disposal facilities to use commercial
facilities for unclassified waste disposal.

30As discussed in appendix I, US Ecology operates the Richland commercial
disposal facility on land that the federal government has leased to the
State of Washington for 100 years.

Appendix II: LLRW Legislative Options

The proposed use of DOE facilities for commercial waste disposal would
require resolution of a number of issues and may require legislation.
These issues include whether DOE is presently authorized to accept
commercially generated LLRW waste at its disposal sites. While previous
AEC sites accepted commercial waste for a short time, it is not clear
whether DOE currently has such authority. Another issue to be resolved is
who (for example, generators, states, or DOE) would be responsible for
paying the additional cost for disposing of commercial waste at DOE
facilities and whether DOE would be allowed to keep any funds it receives.
(Funds received by an agency normally must be paid into the U.S. Treasury,
unless federal legislation authorizes the agency to retain the funds.) An
additional issue concerns the potential licensing and regulation of a DOE
facility that accepts commercial waste. The NRC and Agreement State
regulations that govern commercial facilities do not apply to DOE disposal
facilities or the wastes that are shipped to these facilities.

Shifting waste to DOE facilities might also have the adverse effect of
eliminating the financial viability of commercial disposal facilities and
possibly putting DOE disposal facilities in competition with private
facilities. However, one option might be to commercialize the DOE facility
in Nevada by leasing at least some of the existing disposal site to the
state, as is done in Washington for the commercial facility on DOE's
Hanford site. Nevertheless, given the significant excess capacity at DOE
disposal facilities, there might not be any incentive to develop new
commercial disposal facilities. Without any new disposal facilities, most
waste would be shipped to Nevada and Washington, which have objected in
the past to having to accept a disproportionate burden of LLRW disposal.

                      Appendix III: Scope and Methodology

To obtain information on changes in LLRW management conditions since our
1999 report, we interviewed regulators and disposal operators in states
that have commercial disposal facilities or are considering opening one.
We visited the Barnwell disposal facility and met with disposal site
operators and state and Southeast Compact officials. In Texas, we met with
state regulators and legislative staff. We interviewed DOE and NRC
officials, and representatives of the nuclear power industry, the
Department of Defense executive agent for LLRW, and several environmental
groups. We also interviewed generators and waste processors in California,
Texas, Maryland, and Tennessee that were suggested to us by various LLRW
stakeholders in the course of this review. In addition, we met several
times with members and officers from an independent nonprofit association
of LLRW stakeholders, including obtaining feedback from this association
on our preliminary findings during a March 2004 meeting. Finally, we
reviewed applicable laws and regulations, including the Atomic Energy Act,
as amended, and the LLRW Policy Act, as amended.

In gathering information on recent annual disposal volumes, we relied on
data provided to us by the three commercial disposal facility operators
because, in contrast to MIMS data, these data included DOE waste and they
were current through 2003. We also determined that MIMS data had other
shortcomings in its reliability that hindered its usefulness for other
types of analysis, such as sources of waste by state and generator type.
These and other concerns prompted us to more closely examine the
department's internal controls over this database. In doing so, we
reviewed DOE documents and written and oral DOE responses to our questions
about the structure, development, and management of these data. We also
interviewed, and in some cases surveyed, users of MIMS regarding their
assessment of the database's reliability. While we did not independently
verify the reliability of the data obtained from the disposal facility
operators, we relied on these data for our analysis for the reasons stated
and because they are the primary source data input into the national LLRW
database. To gather available data and analysis on projected future
disposal volumes, we interviewed a spectrum of LLRW stakeholders,
including state regulators, disposal facility operators, waste processors,
compact officials, and DOE officials. We also reviewed documents from the
EPA, the National Research Council, and the International Atomic Energy
Agency to obtain information relating to the current management of LLRW.

To obtain information on any current or anticipated shortfalls in LLRW
disposal availability, we interviewed state regulators, compact officials,

Appendix III: Scope and Methodology

and disposal site operators in South Carolina, Utah, and Washington, and
reviewed the planning documents they provided to us. This review allowed
us to estimate how much disposal capacity remains at each of the
commercial disposal facilities given current disposal volumes accepted at
each facility and other factors, such as licensing agreements and compact
restrictions on disposal access to these facilities. We also reviewed
relevant state legislation and other activities pertaining to the
regulation of the disposal facilities in these states, monitored
activities in Texas, which is accepting applications for a new disposal
facility, and tracked the effects of LLRW disposal litigation between the
Central Compact and Nebraska.

To determine the effects, if any, on LLRW generators of any shortfalls or
other difficulties associated with the disposal of this waste, we
initially relied on the interviews that we had with representatives from
biotechnology companies, environmental groups, hospitals, LLRW processors,
and nuclear power plants. We also used our survey of compact and
unaffiliated state officials to identify any documented adverse effects
when generators had limited or no disposal option for their LLRW. This
research led us to collaborate with the University of Texas Health Science
Center in Houston on two nonscientific sample surveys of radiation safety
officers and Health Physics Society members to identify any actual (since
1999) or potential adverse effects on biomedical research and clinical
practice resulting from costs or difficulties related to the storage and
disposal of LLRW. The E-mail survey of radiation safety officers was
conducted through the approximately 2,000 subscribers to the Radsafe
Listserv. The approximately 6,000 members of the Health Physics Society, a
scientific and professional organization whose members specialize in
occupational and environmental radiation safety, were invited to
participate in a survey through a notice in the Society's monthly
newsletter, Health Physics News. These surveys are considered
nonscientific sample surveys of self-selected respondents from a
nonprobabilistic sample of a largely unknown list of people, and there is
overlap in affiliation between the samples. Our work was conducted between
August 2003 and May 2004 in conformance with generally accepted government
auditing standards.

Appendix IV: Comments from the Department of Energy

Note: GAO comment supplementing those in the report text appear at the end
of this appendix.

See comment 1.

Appendix IV: Comments from the Department of Energy

Appendix IV: Comments from the Department of Energy

  GAO Comment

The following is GAO's comment on the Department of Energy's letter dated
May 20, 2004.

1. 	DOE disagreed with our recommendation to halt dissemination of
information in its national LLRW database. DOE stated that our report did
not adequately characterize the usefulness of MIMS, and that removal of
the national LLRW database without an alternative would evoke criticism
from states and regional compacts and would not fulfill the requirement in
the Act to maintain such a database. Our recommendation did not call for
removal of this database. Instead, we recommended halting dissemination of
information in this database as long as the database has internal control
weaknesses and shortcomings in its usefulness and reliability. This action
would prevent user access to DOE's online database. With regard to the
usefulness of MIMS, our report noted that state and compact officials use
MIMS for various purposes; however, the consensus among the officials we
surveyed was that they could more effectively regulate and monitor LLRW if
MIMS offered more comprehensive and reliable data. DOE did not address our
concerns about internal control weaknesses and other shortcomings in the
database. We stand by our recommendation to DOE because we believe that it
is inappropriate to disseminate information that is known to be unreliable
and incomplete.

Note: GAO comments supplementing those in the report text appear at the
end of this appendix.

See comment 1.

           Page 49 GAO-04-604 Low-Level Radioactive Waste Management

                                 See comment 2.

                                 See comment 3.

                                 See comment 3.

                                 See comment 3.

                                 See comment 4.

           Page 50 GAO-04-604 Low-Level Radioactive Waste Management

                                 See comment 3.

           Page 51 GAO-04-604 Low-Level Radioactive Waste Management

Appendix V: Comments from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission

  GAO Comments

The following are GAO's comments on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's
letter dated May 25, 2004.

1. 	We disagree with NRC's suggestion that GAO commence a study to explore
alternative options to the current LLRW management system. Given current
disposal availability through mid-2008, and uncertainties about future
disposal availability, we believe that such an evaluation by us is not
needed at this time. As long as NRC places no time limits on LLRW storage
and provides assurance that it is safe and secure, any shortfalls in
disposal capacity would be manageable in the short-term.

2. 	We disagree with NRC's position that it would be outside its mission
to report to the Congress on changes in disposal availability and the
conditions of stored waste. As the federal agency with statutory
responsibility to protect public health and safety and promote the common
defense and security, NRC is responsible for overseeing the use, storage,
and disposal of radioactive materials. NRC and Agreement State agencies
already have license and inspection programs in place to monitor the
safety and security of stored waste. NRC is the agency that developed the
manifest that is the only mechanism available to track LLRW nationally.
According to NRC, it has also begun to establish an interim database for
sealed sources, some of which become LLRW, that may lead to establishing a
National Source Tracking System. As such, we believe that NRC is the most
appropriate agency to determine when the safety and security of stored
LLRW are approaching a level of risk that might warrant congressional
assessment of legislative options to ensure disposal availability for all
LLRW, and to consider disposal costs as a factor behind storing LLRW even
if disposal options are available. In our opinion, DOE is no longer the
most appropriate agency to oversee states' management of LLRW given that
it has become the major user of commercial disposal facilities since
establishment of the Act, as amended, and that the Congress eliminated its
reporting responsibilities under the Act.

3. 	We agree with NRC that there is no need for a congressional directive
to require that NRC gather additional information necessary to monitor
disposal availability and the safety and security of stored waste. In
commenting on our draft report, NRC provided information on data gathering
actions already in place at or planned by NRC to adequately ensure the
safety and security of radioactive materials, including stored LLRW. Given
these actions and the concerns of NRC with the regulatory cost of
complying with our suggested actions, such as

Appendix V: Comments from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission

additional rulemaking, we eliminated our suggested congressional action in
this regard.

4. 	We are not in a position to independently judge if LLRW is or is not
an attractive target for terrorists. We do point out in our report that
one study found that a few radioisotopes of greatest security concern are
classified as LLRW. More importantly, this cited study noted that while
use of these materials in radiological dispersal devices, such as a dirty
bomb, are not weapons of mass destruction, they could cause mass
disruption, dislocation, and adverse financial consequences associated
with decontamination and rebuilding. Interviews we conducted with
generators of LLRW also identified other threats posed by the
unintentional dispersal of radiological materials that could be caused by
fires, floods, and earthquakes that have raised public concerns and the
perception of risk.

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