United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission

Office of Public Affairs

Washington, DC 20555

Phone 301-415-8200 Fax 301-415-2234

Internet:opa@nrc.gov

No. 97-106 FOR IMMEDIATE

RELEASE

(Monday, July 21, 1997)

FO

NRC SEEKS PUBLIC COMMENTS ON RADIOLOGICAL CLEANUP CRITERIA

R URANIUM MILLS

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is seeking public comments

on permissible radiation levels when a uranium or thorium mill or

in-situ leach facility shuts down permanently and the license is

terminated.

Uranium mills use uranium ore extracted by either open pit

or deep mining. The rock is then crushed and sent through a

mill, where extraction processes concentrate the uranium into a

yellowcake. The remainder of the crushed rock is placed in a

tailings pile.

With the in-situ leach mining process, wells are drilled

into rock formations containing uranium ore. Water, with added

oxygen and sodium bicarbonate, is injected down the wells to

mobilize the uranium in the rock so that it is picked up and

pumped to the surface, where a processing plant separates the

uranium.

Mills are not subject to recently approved radiological

cleanup criteria for license termination for other NRC-licensed

facilities. This is because there are unique complexities

associated with decommissioning of the mills and leach facilities

that could cause practical problems in applying the criteria of

the overall cleanup rule.

Specifically, applicable cleanup standards issued by the

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) already exist for soil

cleanup of radium at uranium and thorium mills and in situ leach

facilities. The EPA standards would result in about a 60-

millirems-per-year radiation dose from radium, excluding radon (a

radioactive gas formed by radioactive decay of radium). Applying

the NRC overall rule's 25-millirems-per-year cleanup criteria for

unrestricted release of a facility would result in some small

areas of the site (places where other radioactive materials, such

as uranium or thorium, are of more concern than radium) being

cleaned up to a dose lower than that from the rest of the site.
The Commission is considering various regulatory approaches

regarding the cleanup standard for mills and in situ leach

facilities. One approach would be to develop a separate standard

for other radioactive materials that is consistent with the dose

resulting from the radium standard already in place. Another

would be to develop a separate standard for all radioactive

materials, including radium, that would be different from either

the NRC overall cleanup rule or the EPA radium standard.

Interested persons are invited to submit comments on these

and any other appropriate options by October 6. They may be

mailed to the Secretary, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission,

Washington, DC 20555-0001, Attention: Rulemakings and

Adjudications Staff, or submitted electronically as described in

a Federal Register notice published today.

The overall cleanup criteria for license termination for

NRC-licensed facilities other than uranium and thorium mills and

in situ leach facilities were announced in an NRC press release

on May 21 and were published in the Federal Register today in

final form.

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