Comparative Environmental Evaluation of Alternatives for Handling Low-Level Radioactive Waste Spent Ion Exchange Resins From Commercial Nuclear Power Plants, 58416-58419 [2012-23205]
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Federal Register / Vol. 77, No. 183 / Thursday, September 20, 2012 / Notices
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NUCLEAR REGULATORY
COMMISSION
[NRC–2012–0218]
Comparative Environmental Evaluation
of Alternatives for Handling Low-Level
Radioactive Waste Spent Ion Exchange
Resins From Commercial Nuclear
Power Plants
Nuclear Regulatory
Commission.
ACTION: Draft report; request for
comment.
AGENCY:
Notice is hereby given that
the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory
Commission (NRC or the Commission)
is issuing for public comment the Draft
Comparative Environmental Evaluation
of Alternatives for Handling Low-Level
Radioactive Waste Spent Ion Exchange
Resins from Commercial Nuclear Power
Reactors.
DATES: Please submit comments by
January 18, 2013. Comments received
after this date will be considered if it is
practical to do so, but the NRC is able
to assure consideration only for
comments received on or before this
date.
ADDRESSES: You may access information
and comment submissions related to
this document, which the NRC
possesses and are publically available,
by searching on https://www.regulations.
gov under Docket ID NRC–2012–0218.
You may submit comments by any of
the following methods:
• Federal Rulemaking Web site: Go to
https://www.regulations.gov and search
for Docket ID NRC–2012–XXXX.
Address questions about NRC dockets to
Carol Gallagher; telephone: 301–492–
3668; email: Carol.Gallagher@nrc.gov.
• Mail comments to: Cindy Bladey,
Chief, Rules, Announcements, and
Directives Branch (RADB), Office of
Administration, Mail Stop: TWB–05–
B01M, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory
Commission, Washington, DC 20555–
0001.
• Fax comments to: RADB at 301–
492–3446.
For additional direction on accessing
information and submitting comments,
see ‘‘Accessing Information and
Submitting Comments’’ in the
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION section of
this document.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:
Stephen Lemont, Office of Federal and
State Materials and Environmental
Management Programs, U.S. Nuclear
Regulatory Commission, Washington,
DC 20555–0001; telephone: 301–415–
5163; email: Stephen.Lemont@nrc.gov.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
SUMMARY:
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Federal Register / Vol. 77, No. 183 / Thursday, September 20, 2012 / Notices
I. Accessing Information and
Submitting Comments
A. Accessing Information
Please refer to Docket ID NRC– NRC–
2012–0218 when contacting the NRC
about the availability of information
regarding this document. You may
access information related to this
document by any of the following
methods:
• Federal Rulemaking Web site: Go to
https://www.regulations.gov and search
for Docket ID NRC– NRC–2012–0218.
• NRC’s Agencywide Documents
Access and Management System
(ADAMS): You may access publiclyavailable documents online in the NRC
Library at https://www.nrc.gov/readingrm/adams.html. To begin the search,
select ‘‘ADAMS Public Documents’’ and
then select ‘‘Begin Web-based ADAMS
Search.’’ For problems with ADAMS,
please contact the NRC’s Public
Document Room (PDR) reference staff at
1–800–397–4209, 301–415–4737, or by
email to pdr.resource@nrc.gov. The
ADAMS accession number for each
document referenced in this notice is
provided the first time that a document
is referenced. In addition, for the
convenience of the reader, the ADAMS
accession numbers for these documents
are provided in Section II, ‘‘Availability
of Documents,’’ of this document.
• NRC’s PDR: You may examine and
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B. Submitting Comments
Please include Docket ID NRC– NRC–
2012–0218 in the subject line of your
comment submission, in order to ensure
that the NRC is able to make your
comment submission available to the
public in this docket.
The NRC cautions you not to include
identifying or contact information that
58417
you do not want to be publicly
disclosed in your comment submission.
The NRC will post all comment
submissions at https://www.regulations.
gov as well as enter the comment
submissions into ADAMS, and the NRC
does not routinely edit comment
submissions to remove identifying or
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If you are requesting or aggregating
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inform those persons not to include
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Your request should state that the NRC
does not routinely edit comment
submissions to remove such information
before making the comment
submissions available to the public or
entering the comment submissions into
ADAMS.
II. Availability of Documents
ADAMS Accession
No.
Document title
ML12256A965 ...........
Draft Comparative Environmental Evaluation of Alternatives for Handling Low-Level Radioactive Waste Spent Ion Exchange Resins from Commercial Nuclear Power Plants.
SECY–10–0043, ‘‘Blending of Low-Level Radioactive Waste,’’ April 7, 2010.
SRM–SECY–10–0043, ‘‘Staff Requirements—SECY–10–0043—Blending of Low-Level Radioactive Waste,’’ October 13,
2010.
Official Transcript of Proceedings, ‘‘Public Meeting on Low-Level Radioactive Waste, Rockville, Maryland,’’ January 14,
2010.
ML090410246 ............
ML102861764 ............
ML100220019 ............
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III. Further Information
In the draft report, the NRC staff
identifies and compares potential
environmental impacts of six
alternatives for managing low-level
radioactive waste (LLRW) spent ion
exchange resins (IERs) generated at
commercial nuclear power plants
(NPPs). This comparative environmental
evaluation has been conducted
consistent with Option 2 in the NRC
staff’s paper for the Commission, SECY–
10–0043, ‘‘Blending of Low-Level
Radioactive Waste,’’ April 7, 2010
(ADAMS Accession No. ML090410246),
which identified policy, safety, and
regulatory issues associated with LLRW
blending, provided options for an NRC
blending position, and proposed that
the NRC staff revise the Commission
position on blending to be risk-informed
and performance based. Option 2 of
SECY–10–0043 was approved by the
Commission in the October 13, 2010
Staff Requirements Memorandum,
SRM–SECY–10–0043, ‘‘Staff
Requirements—SECY–10–0043—
Blending of Low-Level Radioactive
Waste’’ (ADAMS Accession No.
ML102861764).
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Additionally, in consideration of
stakeholder concerns expressed
regarding potential environmental
impacts associated with the blending of
certain LLRW, as documented in the
NRC’s Official Transcript of its January
14, 2010, ‘‘Public Meeting on Blending
of Low-Level Radioactive Waste’’
(ADAMS Accession No. ML100220019),
in SECY–10–0043, Option 2, the NRC
staff also proposed that ‘‘* * * disposal
of blended ion exchange resins from a
central processing facility would be
compared to direct disposal of the
resins, onsite storage of certain wastes
when disposal is not possible and
further volume reduction of the Class B
and C concentration resins.’’ The
purpose of the draft report is to address
this comparison of IER waste handling
alternatives. The six alternatives
evaluated in the draft report include the
four identified by the NRC staff in
SECY–10–0043, plus two additional
alternatives that represent variations on
the disposal of blended ion exchange
resins from a central processing facility
and volume reduction of the Class B and
C concentration resins alternatives. The
assumptions and methodologies used in
the staff’s evaluation and the evaluation
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results are documented in the draft
report. Additional information regarding
the draft report is presented in Section
IV, ‘‘Draft Report Overview,’’ of this
document.
IV. Draft Report Overview
In the comparative environmental
evaluation presented in the draft report,
the alternatives are described and
potential environmental impacts of the
alternatives are: (1) identified for a range
of resource or impact areas (e.g., air
quality, ecological resources, public and
occupational health, transportation,
waste management, water resources);
and (2) compared in terms of their
relative potential effects on human
health and the environment. For reasons
discussed in the draft report, the six
alternatives are generic and not
location-specific, and the comparative
environmental evaluation of the
alternatives is largely qualitative. An
exception is that potential
transportation impacts are assessed both
quantitatively and qualitatively.
Furthermore, the evaluation is based
on conservative, often bounding
assumptions regarding the alternatives
and various aspects of the analysis. This
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Federal Register / Vol. 77, No. 183 / Thursday, September 20, 2012 / Notices
approach is consistent with the
assessment of generic, non-locationspecific alternatives, for which exact
data and information would not be
available. Consequently, the staff used
its professional knowledge, experience,
and judgment to establish reasonable
technical considerations, estimations,
and approximations with regard to how
the alternatives were described, would
be implemented, and would potentially
affect human health and the
environment. The NRC staff also took
care not to underestimate potential
environmental effects and instead
worked to bound the possible range of
outcomes in most cases. Thus, the
potential impacts of the six alternatives,
if implemented in actual practice,
would be expected to be of somewhat
lesser magnitude than described in the
draft report.
Ion exchange resins are small, beadlike materials used at commercial NPPs
to capture radioactive contaminants
dissolved in water used in plant
operations. Over time, the IERs lose
their ability to remove the contaminants
from the water and the resins become
‘‘spent’’ and must be removed and
replaced. The NRC defines three classes
of LLRW—Class A, Class B, and Class
C—in its regulations in section 61.55 of
Title 10 of the Code of Federal
Regulations (10 CFR), ‘‘Waste
classification.’’ Of the three classes,
Class A LLRW is the least hazardous
and Class C is the most hazardous.
Disposal facilities for LLRW are licensed
to accept one or more of these classes
of waste. Waste that exceeds the Class
C limits is not generally acceptable for
near-surface disposal. Licensees do not
allow IERs to exceed the Class C limits,
and waste at greater-than-Class C limits
is not considered in this report. Spent
IERs are managed as LLRW, and are
classified as Class A, Class B, or Class
C when shipped for disposal, depending
on the concentrations and radioactivity
levels of radionuclides present.
Currently, there are four licensed,
operating LLRW disposal facilities in
the United States. One of these facilities
is licensed to dispose of, and can accept,
Class A LLRW from most states. The
other three facilities are licensed to
dispose of Class A, B, and C LLRW, but
can accept these wastes only from a
limited number of states, although one
of these facilities may receive approval
to import LLRW from additional states
in the future. As a result, all U.S.
commercial NPPs (which currently
include 104 operating nuclear reactors
at 65 NPP locations) can dispose of their
Class A LLRW spent IERs, but more
than 40 of the 65 operating NPPs do not
currently have access to a disposal
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facility for their Class B and C
concentration spent IERs. Given this
situation, LLRW processing and waste
disposal companies are exploring
alternatives for managing Class B and C
concentration spent IERs.
One of these alternatives is to use a
centralized processing facility to blend
small volumes of higher-activity Class B
and C concentration spent IERs with
larger volumes of low activity Class A
concentration spent IERs to produce
Class A waste. Potential environmental
impacts of this alternative, as compared
to potential impacts of the other
alternatives, are described in the draft
report.
Specifically, the six alternatives
evaluated in the draft report are:
• Alternative 1A—Direct disposal of
blended Class A, B, and C spent IER
LLRW from a central processing facility
where mechanical mixing would be
used to blend the spent IERs to produce
Class A waste;
• Alternative 1B—Direct disposal of
blended Class A, B, and C spent IER
LLRW from a central processing facility
where thermal processing would be
used to blend the spent IERs to produce
Class A waste;
• Alternative 2—Direct disposal of
the Class A, B, and C spent IER LLRW
(without blending);
• Alternative 3—Direct disposal of
the Class A spent IERs, with long-term
onsite storage of the Class B and C
concentration spent IERs at the NPPs
(including construction (expansion) of
the waste storage facilities at the NPPs),
followed by disposal of the Class B and
C spent IERs at the end of the long-term
storage period;
• Alternative 4A—Direct disposal of
the Class A spent IERs, with volume
reduction (by thermal processing) of the
Class B and C concentration spent IERs,
followed by long-term storage of the
volume-reduced Class B and C
concentration spent IERs (including
construction of a storage facility at an
existing LLRW disposal site), and then
disposal at the end of the long-term
storage period; and
• Alternative 4B—Direct disposal of
the Class A spent IERs, with volume
reduction (by thermal processing) of the
Class B and C concentration spent IERs,
then disposal of the volume-reduced
Class B and C spent IERs.
As mentioned earlier, the comparative
environmental evaluation is based on a
number of assumptions. For example,
the baseline for the evaluation is current
land use. This means that, with the
exception of the construction of the
long-term waste storage facilities
considered in Alternatives 3 and 4A, the
evaluation assumes that no new IER
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handling, processing, and disposal
facilities will be constructed and,
therefore, does not revisit the impacts of
construction of any of these facilities. In
addition, the evaluation assumes that
these facilities operate under licenses
from the NRC or an Agreement State,
and that all activities conducted in the
alternatives would be in compliance
with all applicable Federal, State, and
local legal and regulatory requirements.
Additionally, each alternative is
considered individually in the
evaluation (i.e., each alternative is
assumed to be implemented at the
exclusion of all the other alternatives).
There is no mix of alternatives, and all
spent IERs generated at all 65 NPPs are
assumed to be managed under each
alternative. The staff recognizes that
Agreement State requirements and other
factors could prevent some NPPs from
using some alternatives, and that in
actual practice, all spent IERs generated
at all 65 NPPs would not be managed
under any single alternative. Therefore,
the assumption that all spent IERs are
managed under each alternative results
in conservative estimates of the
potential impacts of each alternative.
The assumptions used in this
evaluation, such as those previously
described, are reasonable and consistent
with SECY–10–0043, Option 2, which
established the basis for the comparative
environmental evaluation. These
assumptions are also necessary to place
all six alternatives on a relatively equal
footing, which helps avoid bias in the
results of the evaluation.
The assessment of potential
environmental effects of the six
alternatives evaluated the following
resource or impact areas: Air quality,
ecological resources, historic and
cultural resources, noise, public and
occupational health, soil, transportation,
waste management, and water
resources. The following resource and
impact areas were eliminated from
detailed consideration for reasons
discussed in the draft report: Accidents
and other off-normal conditions,
environmental justice, geology and
minerals, land use, socioeconomics, and
visual and scenic resources. In addition,
to the extent practicable, the evaluation
of potential environmental impacts
identifies and accounts for generally
accepted impact mitigation measures in
each resource or impact area that would
typically be employed in general
industry practice. In accordance with
the standard of significance that has
been established by the NRC for
assessing environmental impacts, using
the standards of the Council on
Environmental Quality’s regulations in
40 CFR 1508.27 as a basis, each impact
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Federal Register / Vol. 77, No. 183 / Thursday, September 20, 2012 / Notices
for each alternative was assigned one of
the following three significance levels:
• SMALL. The environmental effects
are not detectable or are so minor that
they would neither destabilize nor
noticeably alter any important attribute
of the resource.
• MODERATE. The environmental
effects are sufficient to noticeably alter,
but not destabilize important attributes
of the resource.
• LARGE. The environmental effects
are clearly noticeable and are sufficient
to destabilize important attributes of the
resource.
The evaluation concludes that the
potential environmental impacts of all
six alternatives in all resource and
impact areas would be SMALL, with the
exception of potential impacts on
historic and cultural resources from
construction of long-term waste storage
facilities in Alternatives 3 and 4A,
which could be SMALL to MODERATE.
Reasons for the mostly SMALL impacts,
by resource or impact area, are
discussed in the Draft Report.
Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 12th day
of September, 2012.
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Andrew Persinko,
Deputy Director, Environmental Protection
and Performance Assessment Directorate,
Division of Waste Management and
Environmental Protection, Office of Federal
and State Materials and Environmental
Management Programs.
[FR Doc. 2012–23205 Filed 9–19–12; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 7590–01–P
NUCLEAR REGULATORY
COMMISSION
[NRC–2012–0167]
Guidelines for Preparing and
Reviewing Licensing Applications for
Instrumentation and Control Upgrades
for Non-Power Reactors
Nuclear Regulatory
Commission.
ACTION: Draft NUREG; request for public
comment.
AGENCY:
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory
Commission (NRC or the Commission)
is requesting public comment on
Chapter 7, Instrumentation and Control
Systems, augmenting NUREG–1537,
Part 1, ‘‘Guidelines for Preparing and
Reviewing Applications for the
Licensing of Non-Power Reactors:
Format and Content,’’ for
instrumentation and control upgrades
and NUREG–1537, Part 2, ‘‘Guidelines
for Preparing and Reviewing
Applications for the Licensing of NonPower Reactors: Standard Review Plan
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SUMMARY:
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and Acceptance Criteria,’’ for
instrumentation and control upgrades.
This draft chapter of NUREG–1537, Part
1 and Part 2, provides revised guidance
for preparing and reviewing
applications to amend a facility
operating license for I&C upgrades.
DATES: Comments may be submitted by
December 4, 2012. Comments received
after this date will be considered, if it
is practical to do so, but the
Commission is able to ensure
consideration only for comments
received on or before this date.
ADDRESSES: You may access information
and comment submissions related to
this document, which the NRC
possesses and are publically available,
by searching on https://
www.regulations.gov under Docket ID
NRC–2012–0167. You may submit
comments by any of the following
methods:
• Federal Rulemaking Web site: Go to
https://www.regulations.gov and search
for Docket ID NRC–2012–0167. Address
questions about NRC dockets to Carol
Gallagher; telephone: 301–492–3668;
email: Carol.Gallagher@nrc.gov.
• Mail comments to: Cindy Bladey,
Chief, Rules, Announcements, and
Directives Branch (RADB), Office of
Administration, Mail Stop: TWB–05–
B01M, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory
Commission, Washington, DC 20555–
0001.
• Fax comments to: RADB at 301–
492–3446.
For additional direction on accessing
information and submitting comments,
see ‘‘Accessing Information and
Submitting Comments’’ in the
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION section of
this document.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Mr.
Duane A. Hardesty, Office of Nuclear
Reactor Regulation, U.S. Nuclear
Regulatory Commission Washington, DC
20005–0001; telephone: 301–415–3724;
email: duane.hardesty@nrc.gov.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
I. Accessing Information and
Submitting Comments
A. Accessing Information
Please refer to Docket ID NRC–2012–
0167 when contacting the NRC about
the availability of information regarding
this document. You may access
information related to this document by
any of the following methods:
• Federal Rulemaking Web site: Go to
https://www.regulations.gov and search
for Docket ID NRC–2012–0167.
• NRC’s Agencywide Documents
Access and Management System
(ADAMS): You may access publicly-
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58419
available documents online in the NRC
Library at https://www.nrc.gov/readingrm/adams.html. To begin the search,
select ‘‘ADAMS Public Documents’’ and
then select ‘‘Begin Web-based ADAMS
Search.’’ For problems with ADAMS,
please contact the NRC’s Public
Document Room (PDR) reference staff at
1–800–397–4209, 301–415–4737, or by
email to pdr.resource@nrc.gov. The draft
Chapter of NUREG–1537 are located in
ADAMS as follows: Part 1, Chapter 7
(ADAMS Accession No. ML12254A024)
and Part 2, Chapter 7 (ADAMS
Accession No. ML12254A017).
• NRC’s PDR: You may examine and
purchase copies of public documents at
the NRC’s PDR, Room O1–F21, One
White Flint North, 11555 Rockville
Pike, Rockville, Maryland 20852.
B. Submitting Comments
Please include Docket ID NRC–2012–
0167 in the subject line of your
comment submission, in order to ensure
that the NRC is able to make your
comment submission available to the
public in this docket.
The NRC cautions you not to include
identifying or contact information in
comment submissions that you do not
want to be publicly disclosed. The NRC
posts all comment submissions at
https://www.regulations.gov as well as
entering the comment submissions into
ADAMS, and the NRC does not edit
comment submissions to remove
identifying or contact information.
If you are requesting or aggregating
comments from other persons for
submission to the NRC, then you should
inform those persons not to include
identifying or contact information in
their comment submissions that they do
not want to be publicly disclosed. Your
request should state that the NRC will
not edit comment submissions to
remove such information before making
the comment submissions available to
the public or entering the comment
submissions into ADAMS.
The NRC is issuing this notice to
solicit public comment on Chapter 7,
Instrumentation and Control System,
augmenting NUREG–1537, Part 1,
‘‘Guidelines for Preparing and
Reviewing Applications for the
Licensing of Non-Power Reactors:
Format and Content,’’ for
Instrumentation and Control upgrades
and NUREG–1537, Part 2, ‘‘Guidelines
for Preparing and Reviewing
Applications for the Licensing of NonPower Reactors: Standard Review Plan
and Acceptance Criteria,’’ for
Instrumentation and Control upgrades.
After the NRC staff considers public
comments, it will make a determination
regarding issuance of the final NUREG.
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]]>Agencies
[Federal Register Volume 77, Number 183 (Thursday, September 20, 2012)]
[Notices]
[Pages 58416-58419]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2012-23205]
=======================================================================
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
[NRC-2012-0218]
Comparative Environmental Evaluation of Alternatives for Handling
Low-Level Radioactive Waste Spent Ion Exchange Resins From Commercial
Nuclear Power Plants
AGENCY: Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
ACTION: Draft report; request for comment.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
SUMMARY: Notice is hereby given that the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory
Commission (NRC or the Commission) is issuing for public comment the
Draft Comparative Environmental Evaluation of Alternatives for Handling
Low-Level Radioactive Waste Spent Ion Exchange Resins from Commercial
Nuclear Power Reactors.
DATES: Please submit comments by January 18, 2013. Comments received
after this date will be considered if it is practical to do so, but the
NRC is able to assure consideration only for comments received on or
before this date.
ADDRESSES: You may access information and comment submissions related
to this document, which the NRC possesses and are publically available,
by searching on https://www.regulations.gov under Docket ID NRC-2012-
0218. You may submit comments by any of the following methods:
Federal Rulemaking Web site: Go to https://www.regulations.gov and search for Docket ID NRC-2012-XXXX. Address
questions about NRC dockets to Carol Gallagher; telephone: 301-492-
3668; email: Carol.Gallagher@nrc.gov.
Mail comments to: Cindy Bladey, Chief, Rules,
Announcements, and Directives Branch (RADB), Office of Administration,
Mail Stop: TWB-05-B01M, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington,
DC 20555-0001.
Fax comments to: RADB at 301-492-3446.
For additional direction on accessing information and submitting
comments, see ``Accessing Information and Submitting Comments'' in the
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION section of this document.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Stephen Lemont, Office of Federal and
State Materials and Environmental Management Programs, U.S. Nuclear
Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001; telephone: 301-415-
5163; email: Stephen.Lemont@nrc.gov.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
[[Page 58417]]
I. Accessing Information and Submitting Comments
A. Accessing Information
Please refer to Docket ID NRC- NRC-2012-0218 when contacting the
NRC about the availability of information regarding this document. You
may access information related to this document by any of the following
methods:
Federal Rulemaking Web site: Go to https://www.regulations.gov and search for Docket ID NRC- NRC-2012-0218.
NRC's Agencywide Documents Access and Management System
(ADAMS): You may access publicly-available documents online in the NRC
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for each document referenced in this notice is provided the first time
that a document is referenced. In addition, for the convenience of the
reader, the ADAMS accession numbers for these documents are provided in
Section II, ``Availability of Documents,'' of this document.
NRC's PDR: You may examine and purchase copies of public
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B. Submitting Comments
Please include Docket ID NRC- NRC-2012-0218 in the subject line of
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make your comment submission available to the public in this docket.
The NRC cautions you not to include identifying or contact
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If you are requesting or aggregating comments from other persons
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publicly disclosed in their comment submission. Your request should
state that the NRC does not routinely edit comment submissions to
remove such information before making the comment submissions available
to the public or entering the comment submissions into ADAMS.
II. Availability of Documents
------------------------------------------------------------------------
ADAMS Accession No. Document title
------------------------------------------------------------------------
ML12256A965...................... Draft Comparative Environmental
Evaluation of Alternatives for
Handling Low-Level Radioactive Waste
Spent Ion Exchange Resins from
Commercial Nuclear Power Plants.
ML090410246...................... SECY-10-0043, ``Blending of Low-Level
Radioactive Waste,'' April 7, 2010.
ML102861764...................... SRM-SECY-10-0043, ``Staff
Requirements--SECY-10-0043--Blending
of Low-Level Radioactive Waste,''
October 13, 2010.
ML100220019...................... Official Transcript of Proceedings,
``Public Meeting on Low-Level
Radioactive Waste, Rockville,
Maryland,'' January 14, 2010.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
III. Further Information
In the draft report, the NRC staff identifies and compares
potential environmental impacts of six alternatives for managing low-
level radioactive waste (LLRW) spent ion exchange resins (IERs)
generated at commercial nuclear power plants (NPPs). This comparative
environmental evaluation has been conducted consistent with Option 2 in
the NRC staff's paper for the Commission, SECY-10-0043, ``Blending of
Low-Level Radioactive Waste,'' April 7, 2010 (ADAMS Accession No.
ML090410246), which identified policy, safety, and regulatory issues
associated with LLRW blending, provided options for an NRC blending
position, and proposed that the NRC staff revise the Commission
position on blending to be risk-informed and performance based. Option
2 of SECY-10-0043 was approved by the Commission in the October 13,
2010 Staff Requirements Memorandum, SRM-SECY-10-0043, ``Staff
Requirements--SECY-10-0043--Blending of Low-Level Radioactive Waste''
(ADAMS Accession No. ML102861764).
Additionally, in consideration of stakeholder concerns expressed
regarding potential environmental impacts associated with the blending
of certain LLRW, as documented in the NRC's Official Transcript of its
January 14, 2010, ``Public Meeting on Blending of Low-Level Radioactive
Waste'' (ADAMS Accession No. ML100220019), in SECY-10-0043, Option 2,
the NRC staff also proposed that ``* * * disposal of blended ion
exchange resins from a central processing facility would be compared to
direct disposal of the resins, onsite storage of certain wastes when
disposal is not possible and further volume reduction of the Class B
and C concentration resins.'' The purpose of the draft report is to
address this comparison of IER waste handling alternatives. The six
alternatives evaluated in the draft report include the four identified
by the NRC staff in SECY-10-0043, plus two additional alternatives that
represent variations on the disposal of blended ion exchange resins
from a central processing facility and volume reduction of the Class B
and C concentration resins alternatives. The assumptions and
methodologies used in the staff's evaluation and the evaluation results
are documented in the draft report. Additional information regarding
the draft report is presented in Section IV, ``Draft Report Overview,''
of this document.
IV. Draft Report Overview
In the comparative environmental evaluation presented in the draft
report, the alternatives are described and potential environmental
impacts of the alternatives are: (1) identified for a range of resource
or impact areas (e.g., air quality, ecological resources, public and
occupational health, transportation, waste management, water
resources); and (2) compared in terms of their relative potential
effects on human health and the environment. For reasons discussed in
the draft report, the six alternatives are generic and not location-
specific, and the comparative environmental evaluation of the
alternatives is largely qualitative. An exception is that potential
transportation impacts are assessed both quantitatively and
qualitatively.
Furthermore, the evaluation is based on conservative, often
bounding assumptions regarding the alternatives and various aspects of
the analysis. This
[[Page 58418]]
approach is consistent with the assessment of generic, non-location-
specific alternatives, for which exact data and information would not
be available. Consequently, the staff used its professional knowledge,
experience, and judgment to establish reasonable technical
considerations, estimations, and approximations with regard to how the
alternatives were described, would be implemented, and would
potentially affect human health and the environment. The NRC staff also
took care not to underestimate potential environmental effects and
instead worked to bound the possible range of outcomes in most cases.
Thus, the potential impacts of the six alternatives, if implemented in
actual practice, would be expected to be of somewhat lesser magnitude
than described in the draft report.
Ion exchange resins are small, bead-like materials used at
commercial NPPs to capture radioactive contaminants dissolved in water
used in plant operations. Over time, the IERs lose their ability to
remove the contaminants from the water and the resins become ``spent''
and must be removed and replaced. The NRC defines three classes of
LLRW--Class A, Class B, and Class C--in its regulations in section
61.55 of Title 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations (10 CFR), ``Waste
classification.'' Of the three classes, Class A LLRW is the least
hazardous and Class C is the most hazardous. Disposal facilities for
LLRW are licensed to accept one or more of these classes of waste.
Waste that exceeds the Class C limits is not generally acceptable for
near-surface disposal. Licensees do not allow IERs to exceed the Class
C limits, and waste at greater-than-Class C limits is not considered in
this report. Spent IERs are managed as LLRW, and are classified as
Class A, Class B, or Class C when shipped for disposal, depending on
the concentrations and radioactivity levels of radionuclides present.
Currently, there are four licensed, operating LLRW disposal
facilities in the United States. One of these facilities is licensed to
dispose of, and can accept, Class A LLRW from most states. The other
three facilities are licensed to dispose of Class A, B, and C LLRW, but
can accept these wastes only from a limited number of states, although
one of these facilities may receive approval to import LLRW from
additional states in the future. As a result, all U.S. commercial NPPs
(which currently include 104 operating nuclear reactors at 65 NPP
locations) can dispose of their Class A LLRW spent IERs, but more than
40 of the 65 operating NPPs do not currently have access to a disposal
facility for their Class B and C concentration spent IERs. Given this
situation, LLRW processing and waste disposal companies are exploring
alternatives for managing Class B and C concentration spent IERs.
One of these alternatives is to use a centralized processing
facility to blend small volumes of higher-activity Class B and C
concentration spent IERs with larger volumes of low activity Class A
concentration spent IERs to produce Class A waste. Potential
environmental impacts of this alternative, as compared to potential
impacts of the other alternatives, are described in the draft report.
Specifically, the six alternatives evaluated in the draft report
are:
Alternative 1A--Direct disposal of blended Class A, B, and
C spent IER LLRW from a central processing facility where mechanical
mixing would be used to blend the spent IERs to produce Class A waste;
Alternative 1B--Direct disposal of blended Class A, B, and
C spent IER LLRW from a central processing facility where thermal
processing would be used to blend the spent IERs to produce Class A
waste;
Alternative 2--Direct disposal of the Class A, B, and C
spent IER LLRW (without blending);
Alternative 3--Direct disposal of the Class A spent IERs,
with long-term onsite storage of the Class B and C concentration spent
IERs at the NPPs (including construction (expansion) of the waste
storage facilities at the NPPs), followed by disposal of the Class B
and C spent IERs at the end of the long-term storage period;
Alternative 4A--Direct disposal of the Class A spent IERs,
with volume reduction (by thermal processing) of the Class B and C
concentration spent IERs, followed by long-term storage of the volume-
reduced Class B and C concentration spent IERs (including construction
of a storage facility at an existing LLRW disposal site), and then
disposal at the end of the long-term storage period; and
Alternative 4B--Direct disposal of the Class A spent IERs,
with volume reduction (by thermal processing) of the Class B and C
concentration spent IERs, then disposal of the volume-reduced Class B
and C spent IERs.
As mentioned earlier, the comparative environmental evaluation is
based on a number of assumptions. For example, the baseline for the
evaluation is current land use. This means that, with the exception of
the construction of the long-term waste storage facilities considered
in Alternatives 3 and 4A, the evaluation assumes that no new IER
handling, processing, and disposal facilities will be constructed and,
therefore, does not revisit the impacts of construction of any of these
facilities. In addition, the evaluation assumes that these facilities
operate under licenses from the NRC or an Agreement State, and that all
activities conducted in the alternatives would be in compliance with
all applicable Federal, State, and local legal and regulatory
requirements.
Additionally, each alternative is considered individually in the
evaluation (i.e., each alternative is assumed to be implemented at the
exclusion of all the other alternatives). There is no mix of
alternatives, and all spent IERs generated at all 65 NPPs are assumed
to be managed under each alternative. The staff recognizes that
Agreement State requirements and other factors could prevent some NPPs
from using some alternatives, and that in actual practice, all spent
IERs generated at all 65 NPPs would not be managed under any single
alternative. Therefore, the assumption that all spent IERs are managed
under each alternative results in conservative estimates of the
potential impacts of each alternative.
The assumptions used in this evaluation, such as those previously
described, are reasonable and consistent with SECY-10-0043, Option 2,
which established the basis for the comparative environmental
evaluation. These assumptions are also necessary to place all six
alternatives on a relatively equal footing, which helps avoid bias in
the results of the evaluation.
The assessment of potential environmental effects of the six
alternatives evaluated the following resource or impact areas: Air
quality, ecological resources, historic and cultural resources, noise,
public and occupational health, soil, transportation, waste management,
and water resources. The following resource and impact areas were
eliminated from detailed consideration for reasons discussed in the
draft report: Accidents and other off-normal conditions, environmental
justice, geology and minerals, land use, socioeconomics, and visual and
scenic resources. In addition, to the extent practicable, the
evaluation of potential environmental impacts identifies and accounts
for generally accepted impact mitigation measures in each resource or
impact area that would typically be employed in general industry
practice. In accordance with the standard of significance that has been
established by the NRC for assessing environmental impacts, using the
standards of the Council on Environmental Quality's regulations in 40
CFR 1508.27 as a basis, each impact
[[Page 58419]]
for each alternative was assigned one of the following three
significance levels:
SMALL. The environmental effects are not detectable or are
so minor that they would neither destabilize nor noticeably alter any
important attribute of the resource.
MODERATE. The environmental effects are sufficient to
noticeably alter, but not destabilize important attributes of the
resource.
LARGE. The environmental effects are clearly noticeable
and are sufficient to destabilize important attributes of the resource.
The evaluation concludes that the potential environmental impacts
of all six alternatives in all resource and impact areas would be
SMALL, with the exception of potential impacts on historic and cultural
resources from construction of long-term waste storage facilities in
Alternatives 3 and 4A, which could be SMALL to MODERATE. Reasons for
the mostly SMALL impacts, by resource or impact area, are discussed in
the Draft Report.
Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 12th day of September, 2012.
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Andrew Persinko,
Deputy Director, Environmental Protection and Performance Assessment
Directorate, Division of Waste Management and Environmental Protection,
Office of Federal and State Materials and Environmental Management
Programs.
[FR Doc. 2012-23205 Filed 9-19-12; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 7590-01-P
