NRC NEWS

 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION

 2443 Warrenville Road

 Lisle IL 60532

 Web Site: http://www.nrc.gov E-mail: opa3@nrc.gov

No. III-04-042 July 13, 2004

CONTACT: Jan Strasma (630) 829-9663 

Viktoria Mitlyng (630) 829-9662 

NRC TO HOLD PUBLIC MEETING JULY 21 ON DECOMMISSIONING PLANS 

FOR THORIUM-CONTAMINATED SITES NEAR BAY CITY, MICHIGAN

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff will hold a public meeting July 21 in Bay City,

Mich., to discuss its cleanup and decommissioning requirements for two nearby sites which have low

levels of thorium, a naturally occurring radioactive material.

The meeting will be at 7 p.m. EDT in the Bay City Community Center, 800 John F. Kennedy

Drive, Bay City. 

The sites, which are located at Kawkawlin, contain thorium contamination that resulted from

the production of a magnesium-thorium metal alloy by a company that has gone out of business.

One 3-acre site is part of the Tobico Marsh State Game Area, owned by the Michigan

Department of Natural Resources. It was formerly known as the Hartley and Hartley Landfill. A

second 3-acre site is owned by S. C. Holdings.

“The purpose of this meeting is to explain the NRC’s process for reviewing the

decommissioning plans for the two sites,” said Daniel Gillen, Deputy Division Director in the NRC’s

Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards. “We are seeking the views of the public on what

issues they believe should be covered during our review.”

The meeting will include presentations by the NRC staff on its decommissioning requirements

and by both the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and S. C. Holdings on the

decommissioning plans for their sites. Following these presentations, members of the public may

comment and ask questions about the plans. The time for the individual comments may be limited by

the time available.

The thorium-contaminated waste material at the two sites is encapsulated with a clay cover and

walls to prevent the movement of groundwater through the wastes. Other hazardous chemical wastes

are also present at the sites. There are no immediate radiological hazards at the sites.

The plans for decommissioning the two sites were submitted to the NRC in November 2003 for

the S. C. Holdings site and January of this year for the state-owned site. The ultimate goals of the

decommissioning activities are to release the state-owned site for recreational uses and the S. C.

Holdings site for industrial purposes.
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The decommissioning plans submitted for the two sites and related documents are available in

the NRC’s Public Electronic Reading Room at http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams/web-based.html 

The documents may be located using accession numbers assigned to each document. For the

state site, the accession numbers are: ML040790356 which contains the January 30, 2004 application

for license amendment and the decommissioning plan, and ML041110650 which contains the April 22,

2004 NRC acceptance review letter. The accession numbers for the documents related to the S.C.

Holdings site are ML033430565, ML033430567, ML033430568 and ML033430570 which contain the

November 23, 2003, application for license amendment and the DP, and ML040570438 contains the

March 1, 2004, NRC acceptance review letter.

Additional information on the NRC’s decommissioning program for sites containing

radioactive materials is available online at: http://www.nrc.gov/materials/decommissioning.html

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