NRC NEWS

 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 

 Office of Public Affairs, Region I

 475 Allendale Road, King of Prussia, Pa.

www.nrc.gov

 

No. I-06-048 August 28, 2006

Contact: Diane Screnci, 610/337-5330 E-mail: opa1@nrc.gov

Neil Sheehan, 610/337-5331

NRC TO DISCUSS PROPOSED TERMINATION OF LICENSE

FOR NUCLEAR MATERIALS SITE IN MANCHESTER TOWNSHIP, N.J., ON SEPT. 8TH

NRC staff will hold a meeting on Friday, Sept. 8, to discuss the agency’s plan to terminate the

radiological materials license for a site in Manchester Township (Ocean County), N.J. The agency is

also proposing to release the site for unrestricted use. The property is located on Route 70 and owned

by Heritage Minerals, Inc.

The meeting is scheduled for 10 a.m. at the Manchester Township Municipal Complex, at 1

Colonial Drive in Manchester. Directions to the facility can be found at:

http://manchestertownshipnj.org/court.htm . The meeting will be facilitated by the township’s mayor,

Michael Fressola. Members of the public are invited to attend and ask questions regarding the

proposed actions.

The site had been used for mining and processing local monazite ores to extract heavy minerals. 

ASARCO, Inc., started operations at the site in 1973, followed by Heritage Minerals, which began

work there in 1987 and ceased processing activities in August 1990. The processing of the ores

resulted in a waste pile containing natural thorium and uranium – both radioactive – in sufficient

quantities to require an NRC license.

While the site is almost 7,000 acres in size, the mining and processing operations occurred on

approximately 287 acres. The NRC-licensed area is less than 1 acre in size.

In March 2005, Heritage Minerals, Inc., completed the activities described in its approved

decommissioning plan and requested that its NRC license be terminated and the site released for

unrestricted use. The two mill buildings on the NRC-licensed portion of the property have been

demolished, with only the concrete pads remaining. In addition, stockpiled licensed material has been

disposed of and the ground beneath the pile and pockets of licensed materials excavated and removed.

Radiation surveys conducted by the company demonstrate that these areas meet the license

termination criteria for unrestricted release. NRC staff evaluated the company’s surveys and performed

independent confirmatory measurements. In addition, the staff calculated radiation doses that could be

received under various uses of the NRC-licensed portion of the site. Based on these calculations, using
a conservative realistic scenario, land use by a suburban resident would result in the highest potential

dose. This analysis shows that the potential dose for individuals living on the site would be an

additional 40 millirems per year above background radiation. For comparison purposes, an average

American is exposed to about 360 millirems of radiation each year from both natural and manmade

sources. (A millirem is a measure of exposure to radioactivity.)

In this case, the radiation dose limit for a member of the public is 100 millirems per year. That

level, which is in addition to the dose an individual receives from background radiation, is considered

safe.

The NRC staff has prepared an Environmental Assessment as part of its review of the proposed

license termination. A copy is available in the NRC’s Agencywide Documents Access and

Management Systems (ADAMS) under accession number ML062350098. ADAMS is accessible via

the agency’s web site at: http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html . Help in using ADAMS is

available by contacting the NRC’s Public Document Room at 1-800-397-4209 or 301-415-4737, or by

e-mail at PDR@NRC.GOV .

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