Draft Report for Comment: “Documentation and Applications of the Reactive Geochemical Transport Model RATEQ,” NUREG/CR-6871, 35743-35744 [E5-3200]
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Federal Register / Vol. 70, No. 118 / Tuesday, June 21, 2005 / Notices
Nuclear Management Company, LLC,
Docket Nos. 50–266 and 50–301, Point
Beach Nuclear Plant, Units 1 and 2,
Town of Two Creeks, Manitowoc
County, Wisconsin
Date of application for amendments:
October 15, 2004.
Brief description of amendments: The
amendments revised Technical
Specifications related to the reactor
coolant pump flywheel inspection
program by increasing the inspection
interval to 20 years.
Date of issuance: June 6, 2005.
Effective date: As of the date of
issuance and shall be implemented
within 45 days.
Amendment Nos.: 218, 223.
Facility Operating License Nos. DPR–
24 and DPR–27: Amendments revised
the Technical Specifications.
Date of initial notice in Federal
Register: March 29, 2005 (70 FR
15945).
The Commission’s related evaluation
of the amendments is contained in a
Safety Evaluation dated June 6, 2005.
No significant hazards consideration
comments received: No.
Nuclear Management Company, LLC,
Docket Nos. 50–282 and 50–306, Prairie
Island Nuclear Generating Plant, Units
1 and 2, Goodhue County, Minnesota
Date of application for amendments:
October 15, 2004.
Brief description of amendments: The
amendments revise Technical
Specifications related to the reactor
coolant pump flywheel inspection
program by increasing the inspection
interval to 20 years.
Date of issuance: June 7, 2005.
Effective date: As of the date of
issuance and shall be implemented
within 90 days.
Amendment Nos.: 170, 160.
Facility Operating License Nos. DPR–
42 and DPR–60: Amendments revised
the Technical Specifications.
Date of initial notice in Federal
Register: March 15, 2005 (70 FR
12748).
The Commission’s related evaluation
of the amendments is contained in a
Safety Evaluation dated June 7, 2005.
No significant hazards consideration
comments received: No.
Pacific Gas and Electric Company,
Docket Nos. 50–275 and 50–323, Diablo
Canyon Nuclear Power Plant, Unit Nos.
1 and 2, San Luis Obispo County,
California
Date of application for amendments:
September 23, 2004, and its
supplements dated December 21, 2004,
and April 7, 2005.
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22:07 Jun 20, 2005
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Brief description of amendments: The
amendments increase the current
minimum emergency diesel generator
fuel oil inventory required to be
maintained onsite to support the use of
low-sulfur fuel oil required by
California Air Resources Board.
Date of issuance: May 25, 2005.
Effective date: As of the date of
issuance, and shall be implemented
within 90 days from the date of
issuance.
Amendment Nos.: Unit 1—181; Unit
2—183.
Facility Operating License Nos. DPR–
80 and DPR–82: The amendments
revised the Technical Specifications.
Date of initial notice in Federal
Register: January 4, 2005 (70 FR 402).
The December 21, 2004, and April 7,
2005, supplemental letters provided
additional clarifying information, did
not expand the scope of the application
as originally noticed, and did not
change the staff’s original proposed no
significant hazards consideration
determination.
The Commission’s related evaluation
of the amendments is contained in a
Safety Evaluation dated May 25, 2005.
No significant hazards consideration
comments received: No.
Tennessee Valley Authority, Docket
Nos. 50–327 and 50–328, Sequoyah
Nuclear Plant, Units 1 and 2, Hamilton
County, Tennessee
Date of application for amendments:
June 5, 2003, as supplemented by letters
dated June 3 and October 26, 2004.
Brief description of amendments: The
amendments authorize changes to the
Updated Final Safety Analysis Report
(UFSAR) for both units, to acknowledge
credit for possible operator action to
ensure that the containment design
pressure is not exceeded in the event of
a high energy line break inside
containment with a consequential
failure of the station control and service
air system inside containment.
Date of issuance: May 24, 2005.
Effective date: As of the date of
issuance and shall be implemented as
part of the next UFSAR update made in
accordance with 10 CFR 50.71(e).
Amendment Nos.: 302 and 292.
Facility Operating License Nos. DPR–
77 and DPR–79: Amendments authorize
changes to the UFSAR.
Date of initial notice in Federal
Register: June 24, 2003 (68 FR 37584).
The supplemental letters provided
clarifying information that was within
the scope of the initial notice and did
not change the initial proposed no
significant hazards consideration
determination.
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35743
The Commission’s related evaluation
of the amendments is contained in a
Safety Evaluation dated May 24, 2005.
No significant hazards consideration
comments received: No.
Union Electric Company, Docket No.
50–483, Callaway Plant, Unit 1,
Callaway County, Missouri
Date of application for amendment:
October 27, 2004.
Brief description of amendment: The
amendment revised Technical
Specification 3.7.3, ‘‘Main Feedwater
Isolation Valves (MFIVs),’’ to add the
main feedwater regulating valves
(MFRVs) and the associated MFRV
bypass valves (MFRVBVs). In addition,
the allowed outage time, or completion
time, for inoperable MFIVs is extended.
Date of issuance: May 31, 2005.
Effective date: This amendment is
effective as of its date of issuance, and
shall be implemented prior to entry into
Mode 3 in the restart from the upcoming
Refueling Outage 14 (fall 2005).
Amendment No.: 167.
Facility Operating License No. NPF–
30: The amendment revised the
Technical Specifications.
Date of initial notice in Federal
Register: December 7, 2004 (69 FR
70722).
The Commission’s related evaluation
of the amendment is contained in a
Safety Evaluation dated May 31, 2005.
No significant hazards consideration
comments received: No.
Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 10th day
of June, 2005.
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Ledyard B. Marsh,
Director, Division of Licensing Project
Management, Office of Nuclear Reactor
Regulation.
[FR Doc. E5–3138 Filed 6–20–05; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 7590–01–P
NUCLEAR REGULATORY
COMMISSION
Draft Report for Comment:
‘‘Documentation and Applications of
the Reactive Geochemical Transport
Model RATEQ,’’ NUREG/CR–6871
Nuclear Regulatory
Commission.
ACTION: Notice of availability and
request for comments.
AGENCY:
Background
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory
Commission (NRC) uses environmental
models to evaluate the potential release
of radionuclides from NRC-licensed
sites. In doing so, the NRC recognizes
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21JNN1
35744
Federal Register / Vol. 70, No. 118 / Tuesday, June 21, 2005 / Notices
that, at many sites, groundwater-related
pathways could contribute significantly
to the potential dose received by
members of the public. Consequently,
consistent with its mission to protect
the health and safety of the public and
the environment, the NRC uses
contaminant transport models to predict
the locations and concentrations of
radionuclides in soil as a function of
time. Through this notice, the NRC is
seeking comment on documentation of
a subsurface transport model developed
for the NRC by the U.S. Geological
Survey (USGS) for realistic transport
modeling at sites with complex
chemical environments.
Because many radionuclides
temporarily attach, or adsorb, to the
surfaces of soil particles, their mobility
is reduced compared to that of
compounds that move with the
groundwater without interacting with
solid surfaces. As a result, most
subsurface-transport models used by the
NRC and its licensees estimate the
effects of the anticipated interactions
between radionuclides and solids in the
ground. Toward that end, these
subsurface-transport models use a
‘‘distribution coefficient,’’ which is
assumed to be constant and reflects the
proportion of radionuclide in the
groundwater compared to the
radionuclide associated with the solids
in the ground. These distribution
coefficients are widely used, and
consequently, the relevant literature
documents ranges of their values for
various soil types and radionuclides.
However, the documented ranges can be
very large because the chemical
reactions that cause radionuclides to
attach to solids are very sensitive to
water chemistry and soil mineralogy. As
a result, uncertainties in the parameters
used to characterize the adsorption of
radionuclides in soils have been
identified as a major source of
uncertainty in decommissioning,
uranium recovery, and radioactive
waste disposal cases evaluated by the
NRC.
Surface-complexation and ionexchange models offer a more realistic
approach to considering soilradionuclide interactions in
performance-assessment models. These
models can also account for variable
chemical environments that might affect
such interactions. The subject report,
prepared for the NRC by the USGS,
describes the theory, implementation,
and examples of use of the RATEQ
computer code, which simulates
radionuclide transport in soil and
allows the use of surface-complexation
and ion-exchange models to calculate
VerDate jul<14>2003
22:07 Jun 20, 2005
Jkt 205001
distribution coefficients based on actual
site chemistry.
The RATEQ code will help the NRC
staff define realistic site-specific ranges
of the distribution coefficient values
used to evaluate NRC-licensed sites. In
site-remediation cases, such as
restoration of the groundwater aquifer in
and around uranium in-situ leach
mining facilities, the RATEQ code can
aid in the estimation of restoration costs
by estimating the volume of treatment
water needed to restore sites to
acceptable environmental conditions.
Solicitation of Comments: The NRC
seeks comments on the report and is
especially interested in comments on
the value of the report to users who run
the RATEQ code and are familiar with
the types of complex chemical
environments that complicate many
remediation projects.
The NRC will consider all
written comments received before
September 30, 2005. Comments received
after September 30, 2005, will be
considered if it is practical to do so, but
the NRC staff is able to ensure
consideration only for comments
received on or before this date.
Comments should be addressed to the
contact listed below.
Availability: An electronic version of
the report is available in Adobe Portable
Document Format at https://
www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doccollections/nuregs/contract/cr6871/
cr6871.pdf and can be read with Adobe
Acrobat Reader software, available at no
cost from https://www.adobe.com. The
report and the computer files for the test
cases discussed therein are available at
https://wwwrcamnl.wr.usgs.gov/rtm.
Hard and electronic copies of the report
are available from the contact listed
below.
DATES:
Dr.
John D. Randall, Mail Stop T9C34, U.S.
Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 11545
Rockville Pike, Rockville, MD 20852,
telephone (301) 415–6192, e-mail
jdr@nrc.gov.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:
Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 10th day
of June, 2005.
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Cheryl A. Trottier,
Chief, Radiation Protection, Environmental
Risk & Waste Management Branch, Division
of Systems Analysis and Regulatory
Effectiveness, Office of Nuclear Regulatory
Research.
[FR Doc. E5–3200 Filed 6–20–05; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 7590–01–P
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NUCLEAR REGULATORY
COMMISSION
Draft Report for Comment:
‘‘Consideration of Geochemical Issues
in Groundwater Restoration at
Uranium In-Situ Leach Mining
Facilities,’’ NUREG/CR–6870
Nuclear Regulatory
Commission.
ACTION: Notice of availability and
request for comments.
AGENCY:
Background
Some mining processes use fluids to
dissolve (or leach) a mineral without the
need to remove physically the ore
containing the mineral from an ore
deposit in the ground. In general, these
‘‘in-situ’’ leach mining operations at
uranium mines are considerably more
environmentally benign than traditional
mining and milling of uranium ore.
Nonetheless, the use of leaching fluids
to mine uranium may contaminate the
groundwater aquifer in and around the
region from which the uranium is
extracted. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory
Commission (NRC) requires licensees to
restore the aquifer to established waterquality standards following the
cessation of in-situ leach mining
operations.
The NRC also requires licensees to
ensure that sufficient funds will be
available to cover the cost of
decommissioning their facilities. For
these uranium mines, restoration
generally consists of pumping specially
treated water into the affected aquifer
and removing the displaced water—and
thereby the undesirable contaminants—
from the system. Because groundwater
restoration can represent approximately
40 percent of the cost of
decommissioning a uranium leach
mining facility, a good estimate of the
necessary volume of treatment water is
important to estimate the cost of
decommissioning accurately.
The subject report, prepared for the
NRC by the U.S. Geological Survey,
summarizes the application of a
geochemical model to the restoration
process to estimate the degree to which
a licensee has decontaminated a site
where a leach mining process has been
used. Toward that end, this report
analyzes the respective amounts of
water and chemical additives pumped
into the mined regions to remove and
neutralize the residual contamination
using 10 different restoration strategies.
The analyses show that strategies that
used hydrogen sulfide in systems with
low natural oxygen content provided
the best results. On the basis of those
findings, this report also summarizes
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]]>Agencies
[Federal Register Volume 70, Number 118 (Tuesday, June 21, 2005)]
[Notices]
[Pages 35743-35744]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: E5-3200]
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Draft Report for Comment: ``Documentation and Applications of the
Reactive Geochemical Transport Model RATEQ,'' NUREG/CR-6871
AGENCY: Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
ACTION: Notice of availability and request for comments.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Background
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) uses environmental
models to evaluate the potential release of radionuclides from NRC-
licensed sites. In doing so, the NRC recognizes
[[Page 35744]]
that, at many sites, groundwater-related pathways could contribute
significantly to the potential dose received by members of the public.
Consequently, consistent with its mission to protect the health and
safety of the public and the environment, the NRC uses contaminant
transport models to predict the locations and concentrations of
radionuclides in soil as a function of time. Through this notice, the
NRC is seeking comment on documentation of a subsurface transport model
developed for the NRC by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) for
realistic transport modeling at sites with complex chemical
environments.
Because many radionuclides temporarily attach, or adsorb, to the
surfaces of soil particles, their mobility is reduced compared to that
of compounds that move with the groundwater without interacting with
solid surfaces. As a result, most subsurface-transport models used by
the NRC and its licensees estimate the effects of the anticipated
interactions between radionuclides and solids in the ground. Toward
that end, these subsurface-transport models use a ``distribution
coefficient,'' which is assumed to be constant and reflects the
proportion of radionuclide in the groundwater compared to the
radionuclide associated with the solids in the ground. These
distribution coefficients are widely used, and consequently, the
relevant literature documents ranges of their values for various soil
types and radionuclides. However, the documented ranges can be very
large because the chemical reactions that cause radionuclides to attach
to solids are very sensitive to water chemistry and soil mineralogy. As
a result, uncertainties in the parameters used to characterize the
adsorption of radionuclides in soils have been identified as a major
source of uncertainty in decommissioning, uranium recovery, and
radioactive waste disposal cases evaluated by the NRC.
Surface-complexation and ion-exchange models offer a more realistic
approach to considering soil-radionuclide interactions in performance-
assessment models. These models can also account for variable chemical
environments that might affect such interactions. The subject report,
prepared for the NRC by the USGS, describes the theory, implementation,
and examples of use of the RATEQ computer code, which simulates
radionuclide transport in soil and allows the use of surface-
complexation and ion-exchange models to calculate distribution
coefficients based on actual site chemistry.
The RATEQ code will help the NRC staff define realistic site-
specific ranges of the distribution coefficient values used to evaluate
NRC-licensed sites. In site-remediation cases, such as restoration of
the groundwater aquifer in and around uranium in-situ leach mining
facilities, the RATEQ code can aid in the estimation of restoration
costs by estimating the volume of treatment water needed to restore
sites to acceptable environmental conditions.
Solicitation of Comments: The NRC seeks comments on the report and
is especially interested in comments on the value of the report to
users who run the RATEQ code and are familiar with the types of complex
chemical environments that complicate many remediation projects.
DATES: The NRC will consider all written comments received before
September 30, 2005. Comments received after September 30, 2005, will be
considered if it is practical to do so, but the NRC staff is able to
ensure consideration only for comments received on or before this date.
Comments should be addressed to the contact listed below.
Availability: An electronic version of the report is available in
Adobe Portable Document Format at https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-
collections/nuregs/contract/cr6871/cr6871.pdf and can be read with
Adobe Acrobat Reader software, available at no cost from https://
www.adobe.com. The report and the computer files for the test cases
discussed therein are available at https://wwwrcamnl.wr.usgs.gov/rtm.
Hard and electronic copies of the report are available from the contact
listed below.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Dr. John D. Randall, Mail Stop T9C34,
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 11545 Rockville Pike, Rockville, MD
20852, telephone (301) 415-6192, e-mail jdr@nrc.gov.
Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 10th day of June, 2005.
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Cheryl A. Trottier,
Chief, Radiation Protection, Environmental Risk & Waste Management
Branch, Division of Systems Analysis and Regulatory Effectiveness,
Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research.
[FR Doc. E5-3200 Filed 6-20-05; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 7590-01-P
