Official Transcript of Proceedings

NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION

Title: ACRS Radiation Protection and Nuclear Materials Subcommittee

Docket Number: n/a

Location: Rockville, Maryland

Date: June 23, 2011

Work Order No.: NRC-969 Pages 1-145

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Court Reporters and Transcribers

1323 Rhode Island Avenue, N.W.

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DISCLAIMER

UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION’S 

ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON REACTOR SAFEGUARDS

The contents of this transcript of the proceeding of the United States Nuclear 

Regulatory Commission Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards, as reported 

herein, is a record of the discussions recorded at the meeting. 

This transcript has not been reviewed, corrected, and edited, and it may contain 

inaccuracies. 
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1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

2 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION

3 + + + + +

4 ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON REACTOR SAFEGUARDS

5 (ACRS)

6 + + + + +

7 REACTOR PROTECTION AND NUCLEAR MATERIALS 

8 SUBCOMMITTEE

9 + + + + +

10 THURSDAY

11 JUNE 23, 2011

12 + + + + +

13 ROCKVILLE, MARYLAND

14 + + + + +

15 The Subcommittee met at the Nuclear 

16 Regulatory Commission, Two White Flint North, Room 

17 T2B3, 11545 Rockville Pike, at 8:30 a.m., Michael 

18 Ryan, Chairman, presiding.

19

20 SUBCOMMITTEE MEMBERS PRESENT:

21 MICHAEL T. RYAN, Chairman

22 JOHN D. SIEBER 

23 JOHN W. STETKAR

24
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1

2

3 NRC STAFF PRESENT:

4 DEREK WIDMAYER, Designated Federal Official

5 DEBORAH JACKSON

6 PRIYA YADAV

7 CHRIS McKENNEY

8 ANDREW CARRERA

9 DAVID ESH

10 DREW PERSINKO

11 LISA LONDON

12

13 ALSO PRESENT:

14 JIM LIEBERMAN, Talisman International *

15 JOHN GREEVES

16

17 * Present via telephone bridgeline

18

19

20

21

22

23

24
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1

2

3

4 T-A-B-L-E O-F C-O-N-T-E-N-T-S

5 Introduction, Dr. Michael Ryan, ACRS...............5

6 Staff Opening Remarks, Debbie Jackson, DILR........6

7 LLW Disposal Site-Specific Analysis Rulemaking:

8 Background: Commission Direction, 2009 DU Workshops, 2010 

9 Draft Proposed Rule: Technical Basis, Summary 

10 of Draft Rule Text, Andrew Carrera,

11 DILR........................................19

12 Discussion: Intruder Analysis Requirement, Period of Perf 

13 Break

14 Overview of May 18, 2011, Public Meeting and Path 

15 Forward, Drew Persinko, FSME......................92

16 Public Comment...................................102

17 Subcommittee Discussion, Dr. Michael Ryan, 

18 ACRS.............................................109

19

20

21

22

23

24
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1

2 P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S

3 8:29 a.m.

4 CHAIR RYAN: The meeting will now come 

5 to order. This is a meeting of the Advisory 

6 Committee on Reactor Safeguards Subcommittee on 

7 Radiation Protection and Nuclear Materials. I'm 

8 Michael Ryan, Chairman of the Subcommittee.

9 ACRS members in attendance are John 

10 Stetkar and Jack Sieber at the moment. I think we 

11 will be joined shortly by Dennis Bley and/or Howard 

12 Ray.

13 The purpose of this meeting is to hold 

14 discussions with the NRC staff on proposed 

15 rulemaking language to amend 10 CFR 61 to add site16 specific analyses for LLW disposal. The technical 

17 basis for the rulemaking language will also be 

18 discussed.

19 The subcommittee will gather 

20 information, analyze relevant issues and facts, and 

21 formulate proposed positions and facts as 

22 appropriate. The subcommittee plans on proposing a 

23 letter report on this matter for consideration for 

24 the full committee at the July full committee 
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1 meeting.

2 Derek Widmayer is the designated federal 

3 official for this meeting.

4 A transcript of the meeting is being 

5 kept and will be made available on the web. It's 

6 requested that speakers first identify themselves 

7 and speak with sufficient clarity and volume so they 

8 can be readily heard.

9 We have not received any requests for 

10 members of the public to provide comments. However, 

11 I understand there are several folks on the 

12 bridgeline who will be listening in on today's 

13 proceedings.

14 Would the folks on the bridgeline please 

15 introduce yourselves.

16 (No Response.)

17 CHAIR RYAN: Nobody is there yet. Thank 

18 you.

19 MR. LIEBERMAN: Jim Lieberman.

20 CHAIR RYAN: Good morning, Jim. And 

21 you're with?

22 MR. LIEBERMAN: I'm with Talisman 

23 International.

24 CHAIR RYAN: All right. Thank you.
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1 Anybody else? 

2 We will now proceed with the meeting and 

3 I call upon Debbie Jackson, Deputy Director of the 

4 Division of Intergovernmental Liaison Rulemaking in 

5 FSME to open the proceedings.

6 Welcome.

7

8 MS. JACKSON: Good morning. Thank you, 

9 Dr. Ryan. I'll be opening the staff's presentation 

10 today on the Part 61. We are here today to provide 

11 an update of the progress that the staff has done on 

12 Part 61, solicit the subcommittee's feedback, and 

13 input on technical issues that have arisen during 

14 the rulemaking process.

15 We are also going to tell you what we 

16 heard at the May 18th public meeting and summarize 

17 at a high level the public comments that were 

18 received from the public comment period that closed 

19 on June 18th.

20 The FSME staff previously discussed Part 

21 61 rulemaking with you, the ACRS Subcommittee, on 

22 December 16, 2009, and most recently with the ACRS 

23 full committee on March 4th through the 6th of 2010.

24 We received Commission direction. The 
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1 staff has submitted several Commission papers on 

2 regulatory issues pertaining to Part 61 and has 

3 received direction from the Commission to proceed 

4 forward with a rulemaking to require site-specific 

5 performance assessment prior to disposal of 

6 significant quantities of DU and blended waste.

7 Why are we doing a rulemaking? To 

8 address emerging regulatory issues with low-level 

9 waste disposal. When the original Part 61 

10 regulations were developed, there was a set of 

11 conditions that were analyzed by the staff at that 

12 particular time. These included certain existing 

13 defined volumes and concentrations of radioactive 

14 waste.

15 However, those conditions are changing 

16 and low-level waste disposal facilities are 

17 currently faced with disposing waste of types that 

18 were not considered in the original rule. 

19 One significant parameter that was 

20 considered put ultimately did not make the way into 

21 Part 61 at that time was uranium, particularly large 

22 quantities of depleted uranium. There has also been 

23 significant changes in the ways in which nuclear 

24 power industry has managed its waste in the 
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1 emergence of a concept known as blending.

2 Today we have four staff presenters. 

3 Priya will discuss the background of Commission 

4 direction, 2009 DU workshops. Andrew will discuss 

5 the draft proposed rule and the summary of the 

6 proposed rule language. David Esh will discuss the 

7 intruder analysis requirement and period of 

8 performance proposal. Last we'll have Drew Persinko 

9 who will discuss the public meeting for May 18th and 

10 a summary of the public comments.

11 With that, Priya.

12 MS. YADAV: My name is Priya Yadav. I'm 

13 a project manager in the Division of Waste 

14 Management and Environmental Protection. I'm going 

15 to give you sort of a background presentation today 

16 describing kind of how we got to where we are today. 

17 Then Andy will go info specifics on the rule 

18 language. Then Dave will go into specifics on the 

19 intruder assessment, period of performance, and also 

20 some specifics on the guidance document that we're 

21 working on in conjunction with this rulemaking.

22 This is an overview of my presentation. 

23 I just plan to give a little bit of background, 

24 talk about some recent activities, go a little bit 
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1 into the comments that we got from the 2009 

2 workshops that we had, and also the comments we 

3 received from you from your letter received in March 

4 2010, and just describe how those comments kind of 

5 fed into the approach that our rulemaking working 

6 group has taken thus far.

7 As Debbie touched on, the two emerging 

8 issues that we've been handling are both large 

9 quantities of depleted uranium that were not 

10 previously envisioned. Then also industry is 

11 contemplating large-scale blending of waste so 

12 blended-waste streams. Both of these emerging 

13 issues are incorporated kind of into the discussion 

14 we are going to talk about today.

15 We wrote two SECY papers on these 

16 topics. This is a summary of the SRMs that we

17 received on the topic. For depleted uranium we were 

18 directed to complete a limited rulemaking that 

19 requires a site-specific analysis for large 

20 quantities of DU. This analysis will have to 

21 demonstrate meeting performance objectives prior to 

22 disposal of large quantities of DU. We were 

23 directed to specify criteria needed for this 

24 analysis and then also develop supporting guidance.
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1 On the blending front we were directed 

2 to incorporate the blending issue into this 

3 rulemaking for DU. This rulemaking that we're 

4 talking about today is sort of an umbrella to cover 

5 both of these emerging issues.

6 Just a summary of our recent activities 

7 to implement these two SRMs. In 2009 we had the 

8 Unique Waste Streams workshops. We had one in 

9 Bethesda and one in Salt Lake City, Utah. We had 

10 round tables at each of these locations where we had 

11 a broad range of stakeholders. We had 

12 representatives. We had generators like DOE and 

13 LES. We had representatives from industry like 

14 Energy Solutions and WCS.

15 We had academics. Dr. Ryan was there. 

16 We had professors from various universities. We had 

17 public interest groups like HEAL and IEER were in 

18 attendance, and then also Agreement State 

19 regulators, South Carolina, Utah, Texas, and 

20 Washington were all there.

21 Over two days we covered a variety of 

22 technical topics, some of which we'll talk about 

23 today. It was very useful for us to get kind of a 

24 broad range of viewpoints that informed our 
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1 rulemaking approach. After those meetings we came 

2 to brief you in December and March and we received 

3 your letter that I'll kind of summarize a little bit 

4 later. 

5 We got two requests at the public 

6 workshop which directed our next two activities 

7 here. We got a request to issue some guidance 

8 before we were able to share draft guidance along 

9 with the proposed rule so we issued inner guidance. 

10 We issued a letter to Agreement States, basically a 

11 summary of existing guidance relevant to reviewing 

12 performance assessment.

13 We also had a request to get more 

14 details on the screening model that was developed 

15 for the DU SECY paper so Dave led a public workshop 

16 in June where he demonstrated our GoldSim model and 

17 stateholders got to ask questions about details of 

18 the model.

19 All of those activities informed our 

20 regulatory basis document and this document is 

21 basically our rationale for why we think Part 61 has 

22 to be changed, changes we want to make to Part 61. 

23 It described the existing regulatory framework, 

24 talks about issues, describes the interactions I 
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1 just talked about and then also considers 

2 alternatives.

3 Most recently we had a public meeting on 

4 May 18th where stakeholders were invited to comment 

5 on the regulatory basis document on the proposed 

6 rule language which you'll hear about from Andy. 

7 Then also the Period of Performance Technical 

8 Analysis Paper.

9 We had approximately 50 people attend 

10 and we had a good representation from industry. We 

11 had Energy Solutions, WCS, EPRI. We had a couple 

12 regulators on the phone. We had Utah and South 

13 Carolina were in the phone. We had one public 

14 interest group, at least; State Broker Alliance was 

15 on the phone. 

16 There was a lot of time for public 

17 comment. Then we also had a written comment period 

18 that just completed June 18th. So far we've seen 13 

19 sets of comments and Drew will go into more detail 

20 and kind of give a summary of some of the comments 

21 we've received. 

22 All of this is available on the site23 specific analysis website if you want specific 

24 details from the transcript and meeting summary, the 
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1 slides that were presented. Also the proposed rule 

2 language in the Technical Analysis Paper.

3 I just wanted to go over kind of the key 

4 points that we took from the workshop that helped 

5 informed our approach. First, we heard from most 

6 stakeholders at the workshop that it was important 

7 to them that we identify a period of performance in 

8 the rule. 

9 They felt like without something 

10 identified in the rule, agreement state regulators 

11 were adopting various approaches and holding their 

12 licensees to different approaches. Most 

13 stakeholders wanted to be held to kind of the same 

14 standard so they were looking for us to identify 

15 more details in the rule that they could be judged 

16 against, that their analyses could be judged 

17 against.

18 Similarly, they asked to include a dose 

19 limit for intruder protection in 61.42, again, so 

20 that their intruder analyses are judged to the same 

21 dose limit.

22 Also, another major theme that we heard 

23 was that there was no need to define waste streams 

24 in particular, or to specify different requirements 
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1 for so-called unique waste streams like large 

2 quantities of DU, but rather to require that a 

3 performance assessment be conducted for all 

4 radionuclides disposed of at the facility. 

5 This performance assessment would 

6 identify specific requirements for specific waste 

7 streams. There is no need to separate out something 

8 that is "unique" that wasn't necessarily captured in 

9 the Part 61 to EIS because you have one method to 

10 kind of treat all waste streams.

11 On the creative performance issue we 

12 basically heard opinions from the whole gambit. 

13 Stakeholders think that 10,000 years was too long 

14 basically because uncertainties increased at the 

15 longer time frame so modeling became a little more 

16 difficult. Then we had stakeholders that thought 

17 the uncertainties were manageable and that 10,000 

18 years was a sufficient time frame.

19 We had some stakeholders that believed 

20 we had to go further than 10,000 years basically 

21 because activity for DU has not peaked yet and 

22 activity is still increasing after 10,000 years, so 

23 some stakeholders thought somewhere between 10,000 

24 and peak might be the right answer. Then there were 
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1 stakeholders that thought how could you evaluate 

2 anything less than peak dose. 

3 If the dose keeps increasing, you need 

4 to evaluate out to peak dose. Basically out of the 

5 room of individuals involved we had kind of the 

6 whole range of opinions so we knew this wasn't going 

7 to be an easy solution for us to come up with.

8 CHAIR RYAN: I think I recall one was 

9 even less than 10,000.

10 MS. YADAV: Yes. 10,000 years was too 

11 long. Right.

12 CHAIR RYAN: So it was all of that.

13 MS. YADAV: Exactly.

14 CHAIR RYAN: Not just 10,000 and up but 

15 less.

16 MS. YADAV: Exactly. 

17 Then we received your letter from ACRS 

18 after we briefed you in March. Hopefully after we 

19 go through kind of our presentations today you'll 

20 see how we tried to incorporate as many 

21 recommendations as we could into either our 

22 rulemaking language or the guidance document.

23 Specifically you recommended that we 

24 require risk-informed site-specific, realistic 
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1 performance assessments that we clearly articulate 

2 the standards that applications will be reviewed 

3 against. Give some guidance on uncertainties and 

4 base scenarios on realistic assumptions for release 

5 from transport. And then treat the proximity of 

6 members of the public, their location in a 

7 probabalistic and risk-informed fashion.

8 Also you recommended to terminate doses 

9 over a period of performance determined on a case10 by-case site-specific basis rather than including a 

11 specific number in the regulations. Then you 

12 recommended also that our guidance include a variety 

13 of topics here, climatic conditions, depth of 

14 disposal, talk about cover technologies, limited 

15 water infiltration and human intrusion.

16 We tried to take kind of a range of all 

17 the opinions we got at the workshop, looked at your 

18 letter and tried to fashion an approach. This is 

19 kind of to give you context for what you're hear in 

20 Andy's presentation which is the specifics of the 

21 Gold language. This is the approach that we started 

22 with trying to take into account all the comments 

23 that we got from all our stakeholder interactions.

24 Our approach is to require a performance 
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1 assessment for radionuclides and then discuss the 

2 site-specific scenarios to use, reasonably 

3 foreseeable scenarios, all that in guidance. Talk 

4 about uncertainties, talk about the mechanisms for 

5 release and transport, all of that in guidance.

6 We decided to require an intruder 

7 assessment for all radionuclides basically to ensure 

8 that the same analysis is done for, for example, 

9 large quantities of DU as was done for the waste 

10 classification tables in Part 61 DESI. By requiring 

11 intruder assessment, that basically ensures the same 

12 analysis is done for all radionuclides.

13 We decided to include the dose limit of 

14 500 millirem in the rule language in the performance 

15 objective for the intruder. The increased dose 

16 limit kind of compared to the 25 millirem dose limit 

17 for the general public takes into the account the 

18 decreased NRC's belief that there is a decreased 

19 likelihood of intrusion and that it's unlikely 

20 although possible so there's an increased dose limit 

21 that we are recommending of 500 millirem. Then 

22 similar to the performance assessment we plan to 

23 discuss the use of site-specific scenarios and 

24 guidance.
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1 For the period of performance we decided 

2 to define a specific period of performance in the 

3 regulation but try to allow for some flexibility 

4 through the compatibility category. We hope to 

5 recommend a compatibility category that Agreement 

6 States can be more stringent than what we are 

7 recommending so they can be more stringent than 

8 20,000 years for example. That allows some 

9 flexibility on a case-by-case basis.

10 Also for period of performance we plan 

11 to clarify in the guidance kind of a risk-informed 

12 performance base implementation of this 20,000 years 

13 and say for less complex sites with shorter lived 

14 and predominance of shorter-lived radionuclides that 

15 a lower level of effort is expected in your analysis 

16 than the site that, for example, 80 percent large 

17 quantities of DU. In our guidance we have kind of a 

18 graded level of effort and try to go into detail 

19 about what level of detail is expected for this 

20 period of performance.

21 That kind of just gives you context of -

22 -

23 CHAIR RYAN: Just a quick question on 

24 the 20,000 years. If I understood you right, you 
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1 said it has to be a minimum of 20 but somebody else 

2 could pick a bigger number.

3 MS. YADAV: Yeah. That is the 

4 compatibility we are recommending. That has not yet 

5 been assigned. I still has to go to the 

6 Compatibility Board and all that. Our preliminary 

7 recommendation is also based on feedback we got from 

8 Agreement States is to allow some flexibility in 

9 20,000.

10 CHAIR RYAN: Some flexibility and pick 

11 any number you want are two different things.

12 MS. YADAV: No. It can be more 

13 stringent than 20,000 years.

14 CHAIR RYAN: Up to the sky's the limit?

15 MS. YADAV: Yes.

16 MR. WIDMAYER: Would you introduce 

17 yourself, please?

18 MR. McKENNEY: Chris McKenney, 

19 Performance Assessment Branch Chief. Our working 

20 group member for the session, which Andy will list 

21 in the next slides, is the State of Texas. Of 

22 course, they have a peak dose currently in the 

23 regulation so they wanted to reinforce the fact that 

24 they didn't want to change the regulations and have 
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1 the flexibility to still require a peak analysis for 

2 their disposal sites.

3 CHAIR RYAN: Okay. So I guess that 

4 seems to be your potential friction point where 

5 there is a requirement with the NRC. It may or may 

6 not apply based on whether people have it apply or 

7 not.

8 MR. McKENNEY: That's the standard issue 

9 with compatibility.

10 CHAIR RYAN: Okay, but that's a 

11 complicated one.

12 MS. YADAV: That is, and we have 

13 actually received comments on both sides of that. 

14 Industry wants it to be Compatibility A so that 

15 everybody has to do 20,000, but the Agreement State 

16 feedback is that they want flexibility.

17 CHAIR RYAN: Okay. That's something to 

18 think about. Thank you. We'll learn more about 

19 that later.

20 MR. CARRERA: Thank you, Dr. Ryan. 

21 Thank you staffing members of the ACRS, as well as 

22 the participants. My name is Andrew Carrera and I 

23 work in the Division of Intergovernmental Liaison 

24 and Rulemaking. I'm also the Part 61 rulemaking 
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1 project manager. Today I will be providing you with 

2 a brief high-level summary of the Part 61 

3 preliminary proposed ruling.

4 Next slide, please. With the 

5 Commission's directions to proceed forward with the 

6 Part 61 rulemaking as you previously heard from the 

7 previous presentation, the staff completed a 

8 regulatory basis document that outlined the 

9 objectives of the proposed rulemaking. The 

10 rulemaking process began in October of 2010.

11 Interdisciplinary rulemaking team 

12 working group representing different offices across 

13 the NRC was formed. This rulemaking team also 

14 included an individual representing both the 

15 Organization of the Agreement States as well as the 

16 Conference of Radiation Control Program Directors. 

17 That is what Chris McKenney has previously referred 

18 to as an Agreement Statement member on the team.

19 Next slide, please. The rulemaking team 

20 developed the objective and purpose of the rule, and 

21 that is to specify site-specific analysis 

22 requirements to demonstrate compliance with 

23 performance objectives in 10 CFR Part 61. And to 

24 strengthen and clarify system regulation to reduce 
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1 ambiguity and facilitate implementation and align 

2 requirements with the current health and safety 

3 standards of Part 20.

4 Next slide, please. To achieve the 

5 objectives and purpose of the rulemaking, the 

6 rulemaking team proposed the following approaches to 

7 the Part 61 rulemaking, and that is the rulemaking 

8 should be waste-stream neutral as Priya mentioned 

9 earlier. It should contain site-specific analysis 

10 requirements, and it should include other changes to 

11 support the implementation of the site-specific 

12 analysis requirement.

13 Now talking to the waste-stream neutral 

14 approach as was mentioned before. As you know, 

15 recently large quantities of depleted uranium, 

16 blended waste came into consideration for disposal 

17 at commercial low-level waste disposal facilities.

18 CHAIR RYAN: Just so everybody is clear, 

19 tell everybody what DU blended waste means. It 

20 means blended with what and how much? Give us some 

21 --

22 MR. CARRERA: These are mostly waste 

23 from reactor, resins, Class A waste.

24 MR. ESH: This is Dave Esh. It's 
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1 basically when you take some higher-class waste 

2 blended with a lower-class waste make the 

3 combination down to a lower class in waste.

4 CHAIR RYAN: All right. So and --

5 MR. ESH: Maybe it takes some amount of 

6 Class B waste and you combine it with a Class A 

7 waste at low concentrations and bring the total 

8 concentration down below the A limit. 

9 CHAIR RYAN: With the idea being the 

10 final product material, whatever that is, is what 

11 you classify for disposal.

12 MR. ESH: Yes, with the idea being that 

13 the performance of your facility is going to be 

14 defined by, of course, the quantities and 

15 concentrations of the material you dispose of but 

16 it's not going -- the overall performance is not 

17 going to be that smart to know, okay, I have 

18 difference performance. If you mix these two 

19 quantities together as opposed to you put them in 

20 there and you haven't mixed them.

21 CHAIR RYAN: Again, that gets to, I 

22 think, a key point that concentration is a 

23 convenient metric for transportation, health physics 

24 calculations and so forth, but it really isn't as 
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1 convenient for the real metric extractional release 

2 from inventory for low-level waste disposal.

3 MR. ESH: Yeah.

4 CHAIR RYAN: So fractional release from 

5 inventory is kind of the right metric in my mind for 

6 assessing disposal site performance but how you get 

7 to that fractional release from inventory this is 

8 part of this conversation.

9 MR. ESH: And we can discuss that 

10 further. There are definitely areas -- there are 

11 definitely parts of the analysis where I agree 

12 completely with you, and then there's some others 

13 where concentration does come into play and we can 

14 talk about that.

15 CHAIR RYAN: Okay, great. 

16 MEMBER SIEBER: How do you deal with 

17 heterogeneity of the mixture?

18 MR. ESH: I think maybe we can talk 

19 about that maybe after my presentation and cover the 

20 intruder assessment, but it's a very good question. 

21 The heterogeneity is a hard problem. I can talk 

22 about how it's handled now but then with this new 

23 requirement, it introduces -- the new requirement 

24 for the intruder assessment could introduce some 
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1 issues associated with heterogeneity.

2 MEMBER SIEBER: Okay. Thanks. Thank 

3 you very much. 

4 CHAIR RYAN: Sorry. Go ahead.

5 MR. CARRERA: Thank you, Dr. Ryan. That 

6 is also ensuring that in the future all the 

7 previously unanalyzed new waste streams coming into 

8 consideration for disposal for these types of 

9 facilities. To better address these waste streams 

10 and any other potential new waste streams the 

11 working group determined that the proposed rule 

12 should use a waste stream neutral approach rather 

13 than trying to address each of these new waste 

14 streams in a separate rulemaking. 

15 This approach is meant to reduce the 

16 need for future rulemaking that would be necessary 

17 to address any new and unanalyzed waste streams. 

18 With that in mind, the staff is proposing to amend 

19 Part 61 to require low-level waste disposal facility 

20 to conduct site-specific analysis. The purpose of 

21 the site-specific analysis will be to demonstrate 

22 compliance with the performance objectives for Part 

23 61 and to enhance the safe disposal of low-level 

24 waste.
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1 As you can see, the site-specific 

2 analysis on the slide includes performance 

3 assessment using newly defined period of performance 

4 to demonstrate protection of members of the public 

5 from releases of radioactivity. It also includes 

6 intruder assessment using newly defined period of 

7 performance as well as the dose limit, as Priya 

8 mentioned previously, to demonstrate protection of 

9 inadvertent intruder.

10 Also, it includes a long-term analysis. 

11 That is determine whether additional limitation and 

12 disposal of some long-lived waste at existing 

13 facilities -- I'm sorry -- determines whether 

14 additional limitation of disposal of some long-lived 

15 waste stream disposal facilities may be needed.

16 Also it include site-specific analysis 

17 that would be required to be updated for any waste 

18 to be disposed of that do not fall within the bounds 

19 of the existing site-specific analysis and would be 

20 required to be updated and included with any 

21 application to amend the license for closure. 

22 I will go into great detail in the site23 specific analysis in the rest of the presentation. 

24 The staff also proposed other supporting changes as 
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1 part of the programs to facilitate the 

2 implementation of the proposed rule.

3 Next slide, please. Performance 

4 Assessment Part 61 currently requires licensees to 

5 prepare analysis to demonstrate that the low-level 

6 waste disposal facility meets the requirements and 

7 objectives of Section 61.41 which ensures protection 

8 of the general population from releases of 

9 radioactivity.

10 This analysis is currently called a 

11 technical analysis instead of a performance 

12 assessment. It does not contain a period of 

13 performance associated with the analysis.

14 The proposed rule that the staff came up 

15 with would split the current section 61.41 into two 

16 subparagraphs. Specific requirement for performance 

17 assessment and revision to include the use of TEDE 

18 dose methodology would be added to Subparagraph (a). 

19 The specification for period of performance to 

20 estimate peak annual dose up to 20,000 years would 

21 be added to Subparagraph (b).

22 CHAIR RYAN: One of the questions on the 

23 20,000 years that I would like to get to, maybe 

24 later David when you're up, I struggle with what 
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1 radionuclides are in the inventory at 10,000 years 

2 versus 20,000 years that really factor in a 

3 performance assessment. Why this different period 

4 is necessary. Hopefully we can cover that.

5 MR. ESH: We will.

6 MR. CARRERA: And Dave will talk about 

7 that.

8 CHAIR RYAN: I just wanted to put a 

9 place holder there for that.

10 MR. CARRERA: Thank you. 

11 Next slide, please. Intruder 

12 assessment. Part 61 currently does not require a 

13 licensee to perform an intruder dose assessment to 

14 demonstrate compliance with Section 61.42 

15 performance objectives for protection of inadvertent 

16 intruder.

17 Unlike requirements of Section 61.41 no 

18 dose limit is currently associated with the 

19 requirements for protection of inadvertent intruder. 

20 Instead, the safety of an inadvertent intruder is 

21 ensured by the waste classification system and 

22 dispose of requirements imposed for each class of 

23 waste.

24 The proposed rule was split, Section 
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1 61.42, into two subparagraphs (a) and (b). Specific 

2 requirement for licensees to prepare intruder 

3 assessment as well as an annual dose limit of 500 

4 millirem TEDE would be added to Subparagraph (a). 

5 The 500 millirem TEDE dose limit can actually count 

6 from the technical basis that the staff used during 

7 the original development of Table 1 and 2 of Section 

8 61.55 which is the driver of the waste 

9 classification system.

10 The specifications for period of 

11 performance to estimate peak annual dose up to 

12 20,000 years will also be added to Subparagraph (b). 

13 Dave will also talk to staff's technical basis for 

14 recommending the intruder assessment as well as 

15 20,000 period performance in his slides.

16 Next slide, please. Long-term analysis. 

17 The staff determined that there should be a 

18 requirement to consider uncertainties associated 

19 with disposal long-lived waste streams and it's 

20 necessary to ensure the protection of the general 

21 population and intruder from these toxic wastes.

22 Long-term analysis would also help to 

23 determine whether limitations on the disposal of 

24 some low-level waste at certain sites are needed. 
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1 The proposed long-term analysis, which would be 

2 added to a new Section 61.13(e), and low-dose limit 

3 will apply to the results of the analysis but the 

4 analysis would need to be included as an indication 

5 of the long-term performance of the disposal 

6 facility.

7 CHAIR RYAN: Just a couple of quick 

8 questions that we'll follow up on. Peak annual 

9 dose. Do you really mean exactly that, peak annual 

10 dose, or peak annual dose committed in a year of 

11 intake? We're using committed doses. Right?

12 MR. ESH: Yes.

13 CHAIR RYAN: Okay. So I just wanted to 

14 make sure I'm not going back to annual doses. 

15 That's really a little different. A dose in a given 

16 year wouldn't necessarily be whatever number you 

17 calculated. That's the 50-year committed dose from 

18 that particular year of intakes. Is that right?

19 MR. McKENNEY: This is Chris McKenney. 

20 Yes, it is. It could also be read as peak dose per 

21 year because of the way you use TEDE peak. TEDE 

22 dose per year because of the fact --

23 CHAIR RYAN: Total effective dose 

24 equivalent calculated for a year of exposure.
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1 MR. McKENNEY: Right.

2 CHAIR RYAN: I would just offer the 

3 comment that clarity of language is probably 

4 necessary to ensure it doesn't miscommunicate. 

5 Anyway, thanks.

6 MR. CARRERA: Thank you, Dr. Ryan.

7 MEMBER SIEBER: Somewhere back in 

8 ancient memory I had the recollection that some 

9 waste streams like depleted uranium increase 

10 specific activity as time goes on. Is that correct?

11 MR. ESH: Yes. Basically the depleted 

12 uranium through the process of its production most 

13 of the progeny, the daughter radionuclides, are 

14 removed. You end up with kind of almost pure 

15 uranium waste form, primarily U-238, more than 99.7 

16 percent, something like that. Then small 

17 percentages of uranium 235 and uranium 234.

18 MEMBER SIEBER: A scattering of fission 

19 products because there is spontaneous fission going 

20 on.

21 MR. ESH: You would have --

22 MEMBER SIEBER: That increases as you go 

23 out.

24 MR. ESH: Primarily how it works is as 
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1 you go out in time, then Mother Nature says, "I'm 

2 going to put all those daughters back again."

3 MEMBER SIEBER: Oy vey.

4 MR. ESH: Come building in. Uranium is 

5 very, very long-lived so they don't build in for a 

6 very long time but they eventually come back in.

7 MEMBER SIEBER: My question is if you go 

8 back 20,000 years, well back past cavemen, if you go 

9 out 20,000 years was that number chosen because of 

10 the building of specific activity? For example, if 

11 I do a little math in my head, if I go out 50,000 

12 years, that could be maybe double what it was at 

13 20,000.

14 MR. ESH: Yeah. I'll talk about it.

15 MEMBER SIEBER: So what is the basis for 

16 the 20,000 and how does it relate to the fact that 

17 specific activity is increasing in some waste 

18 streams.

19 MR. ESH: It's a good comment. I'll 

20 talk about it in detail. The in-growth 

21 characteristics associated with the depleted uranium 

22 waste stream was one of the considerations that we 

23 used in recommending that number. We'll talk about 

24 it in detail. 
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1 MEMBER SIEBER: It seems to me the curve 

2 flattens off somewhere.

3 MR. ESH: It does around 2 million or 

4 so. It's around 2 million that it flattens out. 

5 It's more complicated than just the pure 

6 radiological characteristics because in performance 

7 assessment was have to take into account how the 

8 progeny that come in how they are released and 

9 transported and their propensity to cause dose. 

10 Hazard and risk are two different things in this 

11 context.

12 MEMBER SIEBER: Transport is different.

13 MR. ESH: Transport is different from 

14 progeny.

15 MEMBER SIEBER: The tails and the 

16 daughters of -- the fission-product daughters.

17 MR. ESH: Exactly, yes.

18 MEMBER SIEBER: And they come out at 

19 different rates and go different distances in the 

20 environment.

21 MR. ESH: Yes.

22 MEMBER SIEBER: I hate to say it but 

23 this is a pretty complicated proposition.

24 MR. ESH: It is probably much more 
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1 complicated. Hopefully people will understand after 

2 we're done today. It's more complicated than they 

3 anticipated when they sat down this morning.

4 MEMBER SIEBER: Yeah, and there is a 

5 fair amount of chemistry involved in addition to 

6 radiochemistry.

7 MR. ESH: Yes. Definitely.

8 MEMBER SIEBER: And that has to do with 

9 soil characteristics ground water, water table 

10 flows, all the chemistry that is involved in that. 

11 Anyway, I've gotten interested in seeing how you 

12 addressed all those things. It appears that you've 

13 addressed them one way or another. The question is 

14 --

15 MR. ESH: We tried to. Whether you 

16 believe we did appropriate we'll find out but we 

17 tried to take into account those things.

18 MEMBER SIEBER: You have to make a lot 

19 of approximations and assumptions because you have 

20 to write a rule. If you write a bounding rule, you 

21 can't do anything.

22 MR. ESH: Yes, exactly. We recognize 

23 that.

24 MEMBER SIEBER: Well, I do too. We'll 
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1 see as we go on. Thank you.

2 CHAIR RYAN: Thank you. 

3 MR. CARRERA: Next slide, please. Site4 specific update analysis. Currently Section 61.28 

5 and 52 do not have requirements for updated site6 specific analysis. An updated site-specific 

7 analysis requirement is needed to provide greater 

8 assurance of compliance with performance of chapters 

9 in Part 61 and to enhance the safe disposal of low10 level waste.

11 Next slide, please.

12 CHAIR RYAN: So just in practical terms, 

13 that really is an update for any new site 

14 performance assessment that is done up-front has to 

15 be maintained and finalized at the period of closure 

16 so that any learning that has gone on during the 

17 period of operation is included in the long term 

18 analysis.

19 MR. CARRERA: Yes, exactly.

20 CHAIR RYAN: Okay. Great.

21 Next slide, please. The staff also 

22 proposed an amendment to Part 61. That would 

23 include additional new definition in Section 61.2 

24 and concepts in Section 61.7 to facilitate the 
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1 implementation of the site-specific requirements.

2 CHAIR RYAN: Definitions are great but I 

3 could probably suggest that -- I'm going to guess 

4 you could write a NUREG guidance document on every 

5 one of those. Is there any thought to how you are 

6 going to do that?

7 MR. ESH: Yes. In parallel with the 

8 rulemaking I'll talk about that we are developing a 

9 guidance document. It's pretty extensive. We talk 

10 about these topics in a decent amount of detail. At 

11 some point in the future it would probably be useful 

12 for you to see and for us to get your feedback on.

13 CHAIR RYAN: That would be great. 

14 Getting that into guidance, I think, with real 

15 clarity is what you expect will be very helpful. 

16 Thank you.

17 MR. CARRERA: That's all I have today. 

18 Thank you for your time. I would like to reserve 

19 the rest of my time for the main attraction.

20 CHAIR RYAN: Any other questions from 

21 members for Andy? John?

22 MEMBER SIEBER: Not yet.

23 CHAIR RYAN: Not yet. Okay.

24 Dave, I noticed yours is the thickest 
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1 package.

2 MR. ESH: Yes. Everybody has had their 

3 coffee already. I have a lot of ground to cover. 

4 I'm going to talk about some of the technical issues 

5 that we faced in this rulemaking. A little bit of 

6 background on me. I've worked in Performance 

7 Assessment at NRC for, I think, about 12 years now 

8 on low-level waste performance assessments, complex 

9 decommissioning sites, waste incidental to 

10 reprocessing, and high-level waste. 

11 I have a bachelor's degree in physics 

12 and nuclear engineering, a masters degree in nuclear 

13 engineering with minors in geoscience and civil 

14 engineering. I Ph.D.'ed in environmental 

15 engineering. My primary interest area, at least 

16 prior to coming to NRC, and still at NRC is in the 

17 materials area, especially the durability of 

18 materials. I'm going to talk about some difficult 

19 issues. It would be great if we could get your 

20 feedback and maybe some clarity on some of the 

21 topics.

22 These are the non-controversial topics 

23 that I will cover today; intruder assessment, period 

24 of performance, and our guidance document, as I 
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1 mentioned. Let's start off with one of Dr. Ryan's 

2 favorites, the intruder assessment.

3 This intruder assessment -- I should be 

4 clear on this first bullet here. It's a new 

5 requirement for intruder dose assessment. The 

6 existing regulation 61.42 has requirements to meet 

7 waste classification and segregation requirements 

8 and intruder barriers. That's the mechanism that 

9 NRC chose to try to protect an intruder.

10 Whenever the regulation was developed in 

11 the '80s they said, "We can take two approaches. We 

12 can either have licensees do some sort of intruder 

13 calculation of concentrations they could take at a 

14 site. That would be a site specific process. Or 

15 NRC could do that sort of calculation and define the 

16 concentrations that they would apply to sites.

17 At that time they said, "We think there 

18 is going to be a whole lot of low-level waste sites 

19 so maybe NRC should do those calculations and then 

20 impose the resulting concentrations on all 

21 licensees." In order to do that they had to select 

22 a site to do that calculation from and they selected 

23 a human site which I think is protective but I could 

24 also is not risk informed. Does it make sense to 
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1 apply the concentrations that limit your risk to the 

2 intruder for a humid site to a more arid site? I 

3 would say probably not.

4 In fact, in an arid site you worry about 

5 different pathways than you worry about for a human 

6 site. You are much more concerned about some of the 

7 airborne pathways than you are the water pathways. 

8 Anyway, NRC went through this process and they did 

9 inverse calculations that we referred to. 

10 They took a unit concentration of waste, 

11 they calculated the dose that they get from that for 

12 some different intruder scenarios, and then they 

13 said, "We are going to assign a limit to protect 

14 intruders. Nominally we'll pick 500 millirem." 

15 Then they calculated the concentration that would 

16 produce 500 millirem.

17 After some modification those are the 

18 concentrations that ended up in the tables but that 

19 is the general process of what NRC was doing with 

20 intruder protection.

21 MEMBER STETKAR: Dave, just because I 

22 don't have a lot of historical background sitting in 

23 on this subcommittee, is there any basis for the 500 

24 millirem or --
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1 MR. ESH: The 500 millirem was picked at 

2 the time for two reasons. It was picked because 

3 that was the public dose limit. Also they thought 

4 about this problem and they said, "We have 

5 institutional controls that we impose for a period 

6 of up to 100 years. 

7 Then after that our strategy could be 

8 perpetual control and maintenance and somebody is 

9 hanging around the site. A fence is up and they 

10 repair the fences and they take that whole approach. 

11 Or it could be that we develop requirements to 

12 allow people to then leave the site and that the 

13 site no longer poses risk to people. 

14 They chose the alternate path in the 

15 framework. They said, "Okay, we don't believe that 

16 people are going to use these sites in the future 

17 but we can't guarantee you so we'll impose this 

18 intruder requirement to handle that part of the 

19 problem." That philosophy that Priya expressed 

20 about it's unlikely but possible is reflected in 

21 that dose limit of 500 millirem. The public dose 

22 limit is 25. The intruder dose limit is 500. 

23 If you were trying to say this is a 

24 probably of 1 and I think it's going to happen, I 
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1 think you would imply the same dose limit to either 

2 of those receptors. Just because the definition of 

3 a site boundary on one side or the other to impose a 

4 different limit.

5 MEMBER STETKAR: That's what I'm just 

6 trying to understand. It's some sort of ad hoc. 

7 pseudo risk informed.

8 MR. ESH: Yeah. I mean, the argument at 

9 the highest level is does that whole scenarios even 

10 make sense. In the course of this rulemaking it was 

11 a limited scope rulemaking. We felt like that would 

12 be a policy change to say do you even need that 

13 requirement because not all waste management 

14 programs have a requirement like that. EPA does not 

15 do intruder analyses for their hazardous waste 

16 disposal.

17 MR. WIDMAYER: Okay, Dave. I have to 

18 interrupt for a second. The philosophy that you 

19 just explained as far as the intruder protection 

20 lasting X number of years and the fact that NRC 

21 didn't want to protect the facility for a real long 

22 period of time was because the waste was going to 

23 decay. That's a big different that we have in this 

24 particular case.
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1 MR. ESH: I agree with that. This is 

2 where the issue of long-lived waste comes in because 

3 it doesn't have the characteristics of the waste 

4 that does decay.

5 MR. WIDMAYER: Is that the reason they 

6 felt that the site didn't need to be protected for X 

7 number of years. It was part of the justification 

8 for why --

9 MR. ESH: That's a good justification. 

10 I mean, if you're only trying to protect it for some 

11 period of time and the waste has characteristics 

12 that you're losing that activity, then you don't 

13 need to worry about what happens after that material 

14 is decayed. There are a lot of things like that I 

15 mean to say and hopefully I don't miss too many of 

16 them.

17 MR. McKENNEY: Dave, one other question. 

18 This is Mr. McKenney. We did go out on a DEIS and 

19 ask about different limits for the intruder 

20 analysis. It wasn't just -- we picked a public dose 

21 and then just went with it. We asked about larger 

22 ones like 5,000. Then after Part 20 changed and the 

23 dose limits changed for the public dose after a 

24 request for rulemaking change on Part 51 and said 
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1 that 500 is still good and we did not need to revise 

2 the waste classification table down to 100.

3 MEMBER STETKAR: Okay. Thanks.

4 MR. ESH: So moving on with intruder 

5 assessment, it is a regulatory construct. I think 

6 you described it well. I explained the reason why 

7 it's there. 

8 MEMBER STETKAR: I just wanted a little 

9 background.

10 MR. ESH: It's used in a lot of 

11 different programs. When you look internationally a 

12 lot of programs use something like it and they may 

13 define it somewhat differently but the concept is 

14 usually there.

15 I think I've covered most of these 

16 things already or we have covered in the 

17 presentations.

18 The last bullet is probably something I 

19 need to talk about, though. What we are 

20 recommending is reasonably foreseeable land use 

21 scenarios impacted by the time frame and the change 

22 in the natural site conditions. What does that 

23 mean? Well, Chris Grossman developed our chapter 

24 and our guidance document on intruder assessment. 
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1 I think he did a very good job outlining 

2 how you go about defining some intruder scenarios. 

3 The things that he talks about in there is that it 

4 is practical to consider local practices, and I 

5 think he calls them cultural practices, but it's 

6 more like what is your current land use there. 

7 If your facility is sited in an 

8 industrial area and it all industrial activity 

9 around it, it's probably a good assumption that some 

10 sort of activity in the immediate future after your 

11 control period is likely going to be some form of 

12 industrial activity too.

13 As you go out in time, though -- that's 

14 the problem here and in the period of performance. 

15 As you go out in time, though, you have issues about 

16 how likely is it that that activity is persisting. 

17 That is an issue that comes up. 

18 We also talk about considering the state 

19 of the waste. I know this is an issue that you've 

20 talked about before, Dr. Ryan. Is it reasonable to 

21 assume all your waste is unrecognizable and, 

22 therefore, somebody puts a garden in and does 

23 gardening activity.

24 If you can provide a basis that your 
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1 waste is recognizable and you can condition your 

2 scenario appropriately, then we think that's 

3 appropriate but you can't do it without basis. You 

4 need basis for it but if you want in an activated 

5 metal, activated stainless steel and you argue that 

6 the stainless steel is going to remain stainless 

7 steel for a significant period of time, yeah, but it 

8 seemed pretty unreasonable to do a gardening 

9 scenario for that material. That's reflected in 

10 there, too. Then this issue of site conditions. 

11 All sites are not created equal. Some sites current 

12 practices may differ considerably from other sites. 

13

14 We think it is appropriate to consider 

15 site conditions but you have to be cautious about 

16 that because site conditions -- if that is allowing 

17 you to use or causing you to use a scenario that 

18 results in much lower dose than some of these 

19 default type scenarios that have been used in the 

20 past, you want to ensure that those conditions are 

21 durable and persistent as the conditions can change 

22 over time pretty significantly as the environment 

23 changes.

24 MEMBER SIEBER: What about mining 
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1 activities and things like that?

2 MR. ESH: There is a siting criteria 

3 that you try to avoid siting a facility in an area 

4 with natural resources that are exploitable but you 

5 can't necessarily total avoid that because that is 

6 partly based on what are the economics of recovery 

7 today which may differ considerably sometime in the 

8 future.

9 In our scenarios when we are looking at 

10 default scenarios, we tend to look at some sort of 

11 residential construction scenario because even as 

12 you go out long periods of time we expect people are 

13 still going to be living in houses and they are 

14 still going to be building houses.

15 They are also still going to need water. 

16 Most of us are on public water systems, I'm sure, 

17 but some people still use wells. Wells are kind of 

18 getting phased out as we go and more people get on 

19 public water systems but, you know, it's probably 

20 reasonable somebody could put in a well somewhere 

21 inadvertently.

22 In terms of resource exploration we kind 

23 of ask people to look at are resources being 

24 actively exploited in that region today, then that 
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1 is probably a scenario you might want to consider in 

2 your analysis for your facility. 

3 If your facility is in the area where 

4 you have shale resources and there is natural gas 

5 exploration today, then somebody could put a natural 

6 gas well for your facility. You should understand 

7 what the risk is if that would happen. That's kind 

8 of how we are recommending this intruder assessment 

9 is done.

10 We did hear about on May 18th from some 

11 of our stakeholders, primarily representing 

12 industry. I think part of what caused the problem 

13 was in our definition where we said occupies in that 

14 first bullet up there. When I looked at that I 

15 could see how it could be misinterpreted. They were 

16 interpreting that as you have to build a house on 

17 the facility and analyze that somebody has built a 

18 house. 

19 What we're saying is no, you don't have 

20 to analyze that somebody has built a house. This is 

21 more accesses the disposal site. The future land 

22 use is going to be determined by things like records 

23 and markers and government workers not making errors 

24 and all those sorts of things that are fairly 
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1 complex and a whole different field of study. 

2 You can't ensure that somebody isn't 

3 going to -- you have to probably look at it that 

4 somebody can possibly use the site but they don't 

5 have to use it necessarily, especially in the near6 term, in the most disruptive way possible. 

7 As you go out in time it becomes a much 

8 harder problem because then you are looking at 

9 population growth and economics and all sorts of 

10 things to determine whether cities come and go and 

11 the problem becomes much more challenging. Probably 

12 need to be a little more conservative in your 

13 scenario selection.

14 CHAIR RYAN: Dave, how much influence do 

15 you think depth of burial would have on the intruder 

16 scenario?

17 MR. ESH: The depth of burial can have a 

18 big influence primarily -- if you're analyzing, say, 

19 resident scenario, the way that is usually done is 

20 we assume a foundation is put in to a depth of 

21 nominally three meters. If you put your waste with 

22 a one-meter cover, then you potentially dig up two 

23 meters of waste by the area of your foundation and 

24 put that into the environment. It's a lot more 
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1 material you put into the environment.

2 If you put it deeper than that and, say, 

3 you're looking at a driller, installing a drill, a 

4 water well of eight inches, 12 inches, that's a lot 

5 less material that you are going to be potentially 

6 disturbing and extracting. 

7 We do feel that disposal depth is one 

8 way to mitigate impacts to intruders. That concept 

9 is throughout the waste management program and that 

10 is the reason why high-level waste goes deep in the 

11 ground and low-level waste is more shallow in the 

12 ground.

13 CHAIR RYAN: But even in a low-level 

14 waste case you could do other things like has been 

15 done like intruder barriers and other things that 

16 cause a return on a drill bit that says there is 

17 something wrong here.

18 MR. ESH: And we cover that in the 

19 guidance, too. We believe if you can develop 

20 intruder barriers and demonstrate that they are 

21 going to prevent some sort of activity or 

22 disturbance, sure, go ahead and do that.

23 CHAIR RYAN: I think the other part of 

24 the intruder is the inadvertent intruder. At some 
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1 point an intruder becomes advertent which is doing 

2 it on purpose and he knows what he's doing. I think 

3 the whole idea of ought to be exploring and thinking 

4 what exactly is an inadvertent intruder from an 

5 explorer who has an intention to look for something 

6 a little different and unique and them, I guess in 

7 my mind anyway, takes on an obligation to be 

8 responsible for that intrusion.

9 MR. ESH: Yeah. At some point that 

10 person would be accepting the responsibility of the 

11 risk that they are undertaking. It's like today 

12 whenever people go and try to steel copper wires and 

13 they get electrocuted, well, you probably shouldn't 

14 have been trying to steel a copper wire. 

15 The NRC took a similar approach 

16 regarding advertent intrusion. Back in the 

17 development of the regulation they said, "Look, we 

18 aren't providing criteria to protect from advertent 

19 intrusion." And we're taking that same approach 

20 here.

21 CHAIR RYAN: I think it would be helpful 

22 if that was explicitly brought forward in the new 

23 language.

24 MR. WIDMAYER: Is there a requirement 
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1 for intruder barrier now?

2 MR. ESH: There are requirements for 

3 intruder barrier, either intruder barrier or adapt 

4 for a Class C waste.

5 MR. WIDMAYER: Okay. And how long are 

6 the intruder barriers suppose to last now?

7 MR. ESH: You have to demonstrate that 

8 it last for 500 years for Class C waste or have deep 

9 enough disposal.

10 MR. WIDMAYER: Okay. So how -- what 

11 does the demonstration in your change -- how long do 

12 you have to demonstrate performance for the new 

13 intruder barrier?

14 MR. ESH: We don't specify a period you 

15 have to demonstrate the barrier performance for but 

16 we provide guidance on the things you need to supply 

17 to demonstrate how long you want to demonstrate it 

18 for.

19 MR. WIDMAYER: I'm assuming it's longer 

20 than 500 years.

21 MR. ESH: If somebody chooses to try to 

22 use an intruder barrier to mitigate the intruder 

23 risk, yes. The problem is whenever we do --

24 whenever we say we want to do risk-informed 
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1 regulation it's like you have to provide some 

2 flexibility. You have to balance the flexibility 

3 with the requirements and I think that's what we are 

4 trying to do here.

5 Let's more on to the period of 

6 performance. This is going to be a little bit long 

7 and I'll try not to race through it too much. A 

8 little bit of background. The period of performance 

9 is one of the many important elements in the safety 

10 evaluation of low-level waste. It's not the only 

11 one. There are all sorts of things that go into 

12 determining the safety of a waste disposal facility 

13 but it is important. I would argue it's especially 

14 important for long-live waste.

15 What we found is that different 

16 approaches are used in the U.S. and internationally 

17 for low-level waste. It's interesting that the 

18 European communities are much more comfortable going 

19 out to longer time frames than it seems in the U.S. 

20 I don't know if that's a cultural thing because 

21 they've been around a lot longer or what but it 

22 seems like that is probably the case.

23 We have diverse views among 

24 stakeholders. That's probably the world's largest 
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1 understatement. As Priya covered they range from a 

2 thousand years to peak which for something like 

3 depleted uranium could be out at 2 million so it's a 

4 very broad range.

5 As she indicated, the stakeholders were 

6 very clear in 2009. They said, "Put this in the 

7 regulation. Give a common playing field for all of 

8 us." We heard that feedback and that's greatly 

9 factored into our decision of the approach that we 

10 took.

11 Some background from NRC. This issue 

12 has been talked about for almost 20 years, a long 

13 time. There's a lot of ACNW letters on the topic 

14 saying all sorts of things. I put some excerpts in 

15 the backup slides so you didn't have to dig them up 

16 but feel free to dig up the letters and put them all 

17 together and see what you think of them.

18 One important thing is the ACNW 

19 communicated some basic principles to us in '97 and 

20 I think there is a 1997 letter and I'm going to talk 

21 about those on the next two slides.

22 We do have very little Commission 

23 direction in this area. We have one SRM in '96 

24 where they said provide a basis for truncating the 
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1 period of performance at 10,000 years. That's the

2 only real guidance we got from the Commission on 

3 this topic as far as I could find. If somebody else 

4 knows of something else, great. Send it my way.

5 During this time the period of 

6 performance was being discussed for both high-level 

7 waste and low-level waste we had this performance 

8 assessment working group which was looking at all 

9 sorts of issues around low-level waste performance 

10 assessment. At the end of that process in 2000 it 

11 originally started off as a Branch Technical 

12 Position. 

13 In the end it got issued as a NUREG. 

14 They recommended 10,000 years with longer-term 

15 impacts and a site environment assessment. What we 

16 refer to this is a two-tiered approach and that two17 tiered approach is exactly what you see the ACNW 

18 recommended in 1997. I think the staff 

19 recommendation in 2000 and the ACNW principles that 

20 they discussed in '97, they were both using this 

21 kind of common approach.

22 So what do these two tiers look like? 

23 Well, first of all, it says consider the site24 specific characteristics. Site-specific 
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1 characteristics that's easier said than done. 

2 Hopefully I'll shed some light on that to you. I 

3 have provided the full text on the backup slides of 

4 the 1997 letter just so you don't have to dig it up 

5 and you can tell me if I misinterpreted or 

6 mischaracterized something. 

7 The main elements of Tier 1 are shown 

8 here on the slide. The first is no less than the 

9 time for the more mobile radionuclides to produce 

10 peak dose. All right. That sounds great. Great 

11 principle. I think I can understand it. When you 

12 take that and try to convert that principal to 

13 practice, it gets very difficult. I have a 

14 complicated table towards the back of the 

15 presentation where I'll talk about that in detail.

16 The problem is even mobile radionuclides 

17 when you move from a shallow humid site to a deep 

18 arid site you can have travel times that change 

19 between hundreds of years and tens of thousands of 

20 years. Then you throw in geochemistry on top of it. 

21 You have things that move very, very slowly in the 

22 environment and things that move very quickly. 

23 You throw those two things together. If 

24 I was trying to say how do I convert this no less 
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1 time for the more-mobile radionuclides to produce 

2 peak dose, that's going to be a very broad range of 

3 values as I look at it across the country which is 

4 what this regulation has to apply to.

5 MEMBER SIEBER: Do you take into account 

6 the radionuclide composition?

7 MR. ESH: In what way? What do you 

8 mean?

9 MEMBER SIEBER: Well, different decay 

10 rates for different nuclides.

11 MR. ESH: Oh, yes. Of course.

12 The second element that was mentioned 

13 here was no longer than the time period over which 

14 scientific extrapolations can be convincingly made. 

15 Everybody interprets that one differently. What 

16 does that mean? Some people will say a thousand 

17 years you failed this, that you can't convincingly 

18 make it a thousand years. Other people are more 

19 comfortable out at much longer times. With this 

20 advice they are good principles and then when you 

21 try to convert them it becomes tough.

22 The last element here really isn't a 

23 principal about how you pick the period of 

24 performance but it's more about, okay, you have to 
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1 recognize that performance assessment is providing 

2 information but at some point you have to say does 

3 that information support my case or my decision that 

4 I'm trying to make and those can be two different 

5 things. You may need to recognize sometimes your 

6 facility isn't meeting the criteria that you're 

7 trying to meet. That's well expressed, I think, in 

8 the approach that we took.

9 Then the second tier has elements about 

10 the robustness of the facility.

11 CHAIR RYAN: I'm sorry. Just back on 

12 that last one, doesn't that really kind of get --

13 I'm interpreting old language from my predecessors 

14 but it seems to me that when you have now 

15 sophisticated computer modeling for science and 

16 monitoring and you are trying to figure out does the 

17 monitoring and the modeling jive and make sense and 

18 does it tell me that we're okay or really okay or 

19 not so okay, that's what that really kind of 

20 addresses to me. Do you think that's a fair --

21 MR. ESH: I think that is a fair 

22 characterization, yes.

23 CHAIR RYAN: Back when some of these 

24 items were written when 61 was promulgated, modeling 
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1 a site was a very simplistic pencil-and-paper 

2 exercise as opposed to a sophisticated groundwater 

3 model that we use today.

4 MR. ESH: We have to be cautious that 

5 just because we can do sophisticated calculations 

6 doesn't mean that they have value or doesn't mean 

7 that they represent reality. In some cases you can 

8 learn a lot more from doing something very simple 

9 than you probably can from the complex evaluation.

10 The other principals expressed were 

11 about what do you do for the second part of the 

12 calculation. This is a very long turn. They said 

13 look at the robustness of the facility over the 

14 range of external processes and events that may 

15 affect the performance of the facility. We agree 

16 with that completely. That's a great thing to do. 

17 How is the facility and site going to perform over 

18 the long term.

19 Then the middle tier, this evaluation 

20 will ensure that no significant changes in the dose 

21 from the disposal site will occur. I think that's 

22 good. You want to understand that, okay, it isn't 

23 just a matter of I'm meeting the criteria because of 

24 the criteria, but I'm meeting the criteria and I 
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1 have a good decision that I'm making here.

2 The problem is if we went to apply 

3 something like this is how do we define 

4 significance. Is it a factor of two change? A five 

5 change? A hundred or a thousand? Is it relative? 

6 Is it absolute? I think that is a difficult 

7 question to answer so I'm going to talk about the 

8 approach that we took to try to avoid this defining 

9 significance at these very long times.

10 Then also the estimates of the peak dose 

11 beyond the time of compliance qualitatively compared 

12 to the dose standard. It's along the same lines as 

13 the point above.

14 So the general objectives when we went 

15 through this process is we said these are things 

16 that we want to accomplish. We want to provide 

17 protection to the present and future generations. 

18 The difficulty is how do you define that protection 

19 to the future generations when you consider soci20 economics and uncertainty that becomes a very hard 

21 problem, I think, as you were talking about earlier.

22 Consider uncertainties in the process. 

23 At a minimum we want to communicate long-term 

24 impacts. Regardless of what the regulatory boundary 
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1 could be for the compliance period, we think you 

2 should be transparent with your stakeholders. 

3 What's happening at those longer times? What is the 

4 best you can say about it now? They deserve to get 

5 that information and they can then voice their 

6 opinion about it. 

7 It doesn't mean that you have to take 

8 drastic actions because of it but at a minimum they 

9 deserve that information. Many stakeholders that we 

10 talked with they can have some very good insights 

11 and some very good value even on these long-term 

12 hard things. Then we also want to facilitate 

13 decision making. If we can't make decisions, then 

14 what's the point of the whole exercise.

15 So the period of performance selection 

16 process we did a literature review. We looked at 

17 what people consider when they are trying to address 

18 this problem. They generally look at the 

19 characteristics of the waste. They will look at the 

20 analysis frameworks and what are all the 

21 requirements that you are imposing on the problem, 

22 not just, say, a period of performance.

23 They talk about uncertainties. In the 

24 performance assessment process we generally focus on 
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1 the middle two; natural and engineering. We try to 

2 limit too much speculation about the societal 

3 uncertainties. We do that by constraining some 

4 areas and being reasonably conservative with the 

5 scenarios we pick. 

6 We generally ignore technology and I'll 

7 show you on a conceptual figure coming up why I 

8 think we really can't factor the technology in the 

9 regulatory decisions that we make but it's another 

10 level of confidence that I think we should gain from 

11 the risk that people may be exposed to some time in 

12 the future.

13 Then the really hard part that is likely 

14 to give you the technical equivalent of an ice cream 

15 headache is the socio-economic considerations. 

16 That's how you factor in transgenerational equity 

17 and discounting. It's a really hard problem and I 

18 would save it's a really hard coupled problem. It's 

19 not linear. There's feedback mechanisms. It's 

20 really challenging.

21 Dr. Sieber.

22 MEMBER SIEBER: Could you just expand 

23 what you're talking about a little bit for me?

24 MR. ESH: Yes. I have a slide from the 
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1 group NAPA.

2 MEMBER SIEBER: That talks about it?

3 MR. ESH: Yes, that talks about it. 

4 You'll see from the principals or elements that they 

5 list what that means.

6 MEMBER SIEBER: Right. Thanks.

7 MR. ESH: So waste characteristics. If 

8 I had one thing to do over from when we started this 

9 process is I wouldn't have made the figure on the 

10 left because I think it's caused a lot of problems. 

11 The figure on the left was designed to show 

12 depleted uranium is somewhat or a lot different than 

13 some of the characteristics of typical commercial 

14 low-level waste. The depleted uranium is kind of 

15 flat. It does nothing and then you get this 

16 ingrowth of the daughters we talked about.

17 The commercial low-level waste has a 

18 rapid drop-off in activity and you're down to a 

19 percent or fractions of percent by hundreds of years 

20 type of thing. The problem with this is that 99 

21 percent of the waste that drops off real rapidly is 

22 not causing you any risk in your performance 

23 assessment. Those are all decaying in place. 

24 It's the cobalt-60s of the world and the 
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1 other short-lived things. You get this rapid drop2 off in the total activity in the facility, but the 

3 performance assessment is about looking at what is 

4 the risk from what is remaining after things have 

5 decayed. Yes, you want to ensure that 

6 the risk is lower from the short-lived things that 

7 decay in place, but the performance assessment then 

8 has to characterize what's the risk from what's 

9 remaining. So when you are selecting a period of 

10 performance, it has to consider how am I going to 

11 distinguish when the risk from what is remaining is 

12 okay and when it's not okay. It needs to allow you 

13 to do that.

14 If we look at this previous figure here, 

15 you see the low-level waste drops off pretty 

16 rapidly. High-level waste drops off pretty rapidly, 

17 too. At 1,000 years you may have 1 percent of that 

18 total activity high-level waste left. Does that 

19 mean you should select a thousand-year performance 

20 period for high-level waste? No. The performance 

21 assessment is based on analyzing what is left, not 

22 necessarily what you started with.

23 CHAIR RYAN: David, one area that maybe 

24 you'll cover and maybe it's a new question but I 
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1 keep struggling with mill tailings. You put that on 

2 the surface and cover it up.

3 MR. ESH: Yeah.

4 CHAIR RYAN: There's a lot of uranium in 

5 mill tailings.

6 MR. ESH: The difference is mill 

7 tailings -- most of the ore in the U.S., for 

8 instance, is low-grade so it's a fraction of a 

9 weight percent uranium that they are dealing with. 

10 Those tailings are also at very low concentrations 

11 of uranium but they do have the daughters present 

12 right now. You're talking about, say, radium-226 in 

13 the hundreds to a thousand picocuries type 

14 concentrations of those daughters present in the 

15 tailings right now. 

16 For the depleted uranium you may be 

17 talking about 80 weight percent uranium. It's a 

18 vastly different concentration of materials you're 

19 talking about. The quantities are large of mill 

20 tailings, the concentration is low. Depleted 

21 uranium potentially the quantity is large and 

22 concentration is high so they are a little bit 

23 different, or a lot different I would say. A lot 

24 different technically. One is a lot harder to 
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1 analyze.,

2 CHAIR RYAN: But, by the same token, on 

3 the surface of the ground and buried in the ground 

4 is really different, too.

5 MR. ESH: On the surface of the ground 

6 but we do protect them with engineered covers that 

7 are designed using Reg. Guide 3.64 to mitigate the 

8 flux, the radon flux from the tailings. Groundwater 

9 protection is included in that. I try to minimize 

10 infiltration. I think the technology has been

11 evolving to try to achieve the protection from mill 

12 tailings. Early practices were pretty poor. I 

13 think current practices are much better.

14 MR. WIDMAYER: Can you go back to the 

15 cracked-egg diagram?

16 MR. ESH: Yeah.

17 MR. WIDMAYER: You were talking about --

18 this is helping me figure out what your period of 

19 performance needs to be and you said performance 

20 assessment. Is it both of them, performance and 

21 intruder assessment, or are you just talking about 

22 the performance assessment right now?

23 MR. ESH: Well, in the proposed 

24 rulemaking we applied the period of performance to 
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1 both criteria. We talked about that and we said 

2 does it make sense to apply it to only one and not 

3 the other. We ended up with we think it makes more 

4 sense to apply it to both. The challenge is in the 

5 intruder assessment it's more conditioned by the 

6 human behavior aspect of it. 

7 Both of them are going to be determined 

8 by human behaviors but the performance assessment is 

9 conditioned by how much are people eating, growing, 

10 drinking, how long are they living in their house, 

11 etc. The intruder assessment depending on what the 

12 intruders are doing you have to factor in their 

13 actual disturbance activity which I think is more 

14 uncertain than how much food people are eating and 

15 how much water they're drinking and those type of 

16 things.

17 MR. WIDMAYER: There might be some 

18 legitimacy in rethinking whether you want to apply 

19 the 20,000 years to both of the assessments.

20 MR. ESH: Yes. It's a good comment. 

21 It's something we thought about. This is where we 

22 ended up but it may be a good argument to be made to 

23 reconsider that.

24 CHAIR RYAN: Now known as the Egg 
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1 Diagram

2 MR. WIDMAYER: Cracked-Egg Diagram.

3 CHAIR RYAN: Cracked-Egg Diagram.

4 MR. ESH: The Esh Cracked-Egg Diagram.

5 (Laughter.)

6 CHAIR RYAN: Ten and 20,000 years 

7 doesn't seem to be a big difference on that diagram.

8 MR. ESH: If you look at just purely the 

9 waste characteristics on either the left or the 

10 right, I can see where you come from with that 

11 opinion. Waste characteristics is -- if you were 

12 purely basing this on waste characteristics, then I 

13 would say you need to go out probably much longer 

14 for this type of material. You can look at the 

15 curve on the right and see when you're talking 10 or 

16 20 you still have a long way to go on the waste 

17 characteristics.

18 The interesting thing, though, is 

19 because the depleted uranium has most of the 

20 daughter products removed, say in 1,000 years you're 

21 off by three orders of magnitude between where you 

22 are at 1,000 and where you end up at the end. At 

23 20,000 years you are pretty close to an order of 

24 magnitude, a factor of 10. 
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1 I think I can get in front of a 

2 stakeholder and explain uncertainty and argue that 

3 I'm not doing something that is unproductive to them 

4 by being within a order of magnitude but I have a 

5 hard time doing that when I'm off by three orders of 

6 magnitude. There is a lot of uncertainties in these 

7 problems. The waste characteristics, decay and in8 growth, is something we know pretty well. That 

9 should be --

10 CHAIR RYAN: So 10,000 to 20,000 is 

11 really the attempt to reduce uncertainty by 

12 accounting for in-growth of daughter products?

13 MR. ESH: It accounts for some in14 growth. There's multiple elements to it and 

15 hopefully I'll explain those to you.

16 CHAIR RYAN: Okay. Very good. Let's go 

17 on. In addition to looking at the decay of low18 level waste and high-level waste, we also looked at 

19 it another way. We looked at the inventories that 

20 have actually been disposed of. We did this using 

21 the DOE MIMS database which they keep track of the 

22 actual disposals at four different sites starting in 

23 like basically the '80s, different times in the 

24 '80s. 
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1 You can look up specific isotopes or 

2 total volume and curies. It's a useful tool. It 

3 does have some limitations because in some sites 

4 like in Richland there are large quantities of 

5 activity and some isotopes that occurred prior to 

6 the MIMS database so you need to use it with 

7 caution.

8 In addition we got information on 

9 uranium disposals from Agreement State regulators in 

10 2009 and those don't necessarily match the MIMS 

11 database. In most cases the MIMS database is lower 

12 than what the Agreement State regulators provided to 

13 us.

14 What did we do in this analysis? We 

15 estimated the reduction factor that is needed to 

16 reduce the waste concentration to a groundwater 

17 concentration that would produce 25 millirem TEDE to 

18 try to do an apples-to-apples comparison of isotopes 

19 and see what's been disposed of and how far do you 

20 need to have things happen in the performance 

21 assessment to get it down to where you need to.

22 The performance assessment is that 

23 process to verify that you are going to achieve 

24 those reductions through sorption, solubility, 
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1 dispersion, dilution, all the processes that happen 

2 from waste disposal to a person being exposed to

3 concentrations of that waste.

4 MEMBER SIEBER: How do you deal with the 

5 changes in groundwater chemistry?

6 MR. ESH: Yeah. Well, I'll talk about 

7 that. Let's talk about this slide first and the 

8 next slide. Remind me to come back to it if I 

9 forget.

10 MEMBER SIEBER: All right.

11 MR. ESH: So what does this look like? 

12 This is a slide of what has actually been disposed 

13 of at four sites; Barnwell, Clive, Richland, and 

14 Beatty, doing that calculation of what's in the 

15 waste compared to what ends up in the water.

16 What I want to highlight on here is a 

17 number of things. First, some of the waste actually 

18 disposed of is already below what you wanted to get 

19 to in the water just doing this simple calculation. 

20 That's a good thing. You say, okay, the risk is 

21 minimal for those isotopes. 

22 What you also see is that you have some 

23 higher concentrations of short-lived waste. I 

24 didn't put all the short-lived radionuclides on here 
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1 because it wasn't necessary. I just put a few 

2 examples. I put strontium-90, I put americium-241. 

3 This is part of the reduction factor versus half4 life. This is a line of strontium-90 disposals of 

5 the four sites. This is a line of americium-241 

6 disposals at the four sites, so on and so forth.

7 Well, you have this kind of behavior 

8 where the reduction factor that you need is lower 

9 for the long-lived waste than it is for the short10 lived waste. That's good because you have 

11 increasing technical challenges you move this way. 

12 If you need big reductions and you have long-lived 

13 waste, that is a much harder problem than if you 

14 need small reduction of long-lived waste or big 

15 reduction of short-lived waste. 

16 Big reduction of short-lived waste you 

17 can achieve with engineer barriers, intruder 

18 barriers, confidence in the properties of concrete 

19 over hundreds of years. There's lots of things you 

20 can do to mitigate these short-lived radionuclides. 

21 The long-lived ones become much harder. 

22 What was interesting is that uranium-238 

23 and thorium-232 kind of stand out that there already 

24 are thousands of curies of each of these in all four 
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1 of these disposal facilities. It's not anywhere 

2 near large quantities of depleted uranium. Large 

3 quantities of depleted uranium you are moving up 

4 another couple orders or magnitude beyond where you 

5 are here. 

6 But our rulemaking has to cover blended 

7 waste which is stretching you in the direction in 

8 the short-lived radionuclides and has to cover large 

9 quantities of depleted uranium which is stretching 

10 you out in this direction on the long-lived waste. 

11 So my argument is we need to make sure that the 

12 technical requirements in the regulation allow us to 

13 distinguish when this is okay and when it's not okay 

14 for a particular site. 

15 They need to be able to distinguish 

16 between when the action is okay and when it's not. 

17 The period of performance is one thing that can 

18 influence that. If you picked a very short period 

19 of performance just from the engineering in the 

20 facility, you may have 500 years of performance of a 

21 concrete vault and nothing gets out. Then your 

22 concrete vault fails and your radionuclides start 

23 leeching into the environment and transported 

24 through your aquifer and they shut off at year 1300. 
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1

2 Well, if you had a thousand-year period 

3 of performance, you just never show that. If there 

4 is no requirement to show it, people won't, and if 

5 there is no requirement to have some transparency in 

6 those longer-term impacts. Our argument is that 

7 these regulatory requirements that we are specifying 

8 are necessary given the direction the Commission 

9 gave us.

10 Now, it's more complicated than this. 

11 This is just waste concentration water 

12 concentration. These are only parent radionuclides, 

13 not the whole decay chain. It's only a water 

14 pathway. We have lots of pathways in performance 

15 assessment. We have decay chains.

16 The next slide was an attempt to 

17 consider geochemistry. Okay? What we did is we 

18 took the ratios in that base calculation on the 

19 previous slide for one site, and we modified them by 

20 the geochemistry. We said let's take a geometric 

21 mean distribution coefficient for each element and 

22 we'll use that as a proxy for some sort of 

23 geochemical effect that is going to reduce your 

24 impacts.
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1 What you see is something like thorium 

2 which has a much lower solubility limit and higher 

3 Kd drops quite a bit and it's kind of more in line 

4 with everything else then. Uranium drops less. 

5 Uranium compared to thorium is more 

6 soluble, lower distribution coefficient, more mobile 

7 in their environment, especially under oxidizing 

8 conditions. The challenge comes, 1) in reducing 

9 conditions. Uranium can be practically immobile and 

10 insoluble. Most of our disposal sites, though, are 

11 in oxidizing environments is the issue.

12 MEMBER SIEBER: It's a good thing. 

13 Otherwise the mining industry would be out of 

14 business.

15 MR. ESH: Yes. They couldn't recover 

16 their uranium.

17 I've bonded on here this impact of the 

18 geochemistry and then you still have this idea that 

19 large quantities of depleted uranium are really 

20 standing out here so with different types of blended 

21 waste forms that would be standing out,

22 One of my colleagues said since I went 

23 to Penn State I should draw the Esh hockey stick on 

24 here since Penn State is known for hockey sticks. 
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1 MR. WIDMAYER: To go along with the 

2 cracked egg.

3 MR. ESH: So we talked about 

4 uncertainty. This is a conceptual figure. I don't 

5 want to spend a lot of time on it because there are 

6 some important things surrounding our recommendation 

7 for 20,000 years I need to cover. One of the 

8 important things I want to recognize that I 

9 mentioned earlier is this idea of -- well, two 

10 things. 

11 Technology. In our assessments we don't 

12 include what happens with technology. Technology 

13 changes more rapid than anything else in the 

14 problem. If you think about like radon and the risk 

15 from radon, radon wasn't even known over 100 years 

16 ago. 

17 It was identified. Today for radon in 

18 your house when you buy a new house, some places 

19 require you to have it tested. It's always an 

20 option and you can put conditions on your contract 

21 that put a mitigation system in to prevent your 

22 exposure from radon. 

23 Maybe it's my scientist and engineer 

24 coming out in me but this gives me a lot of 
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1 confidence that all things said and done, I think 

2 technology can give you an extra level of protection 

3 that you can't convert that into a regulatory 

4 requirement per se. If we want to sorry about 

5 defense in depth, that gives me some confidence.

6 Then this issue of, okay, waste 

7 characteristics and depleted uranium and what 

8 happens out at very long times, well, very long 

9 times you have to start thinking about extreme 

10 national events; super volcano, meteorite impact, 

11 all the things that are going to really mess up the 

12 world. Are those people going to be worried about 

13 waste disposal when those events are happening?

14 Even on a shorter time frame I would say 

15 think about 1918 and the flu pandemic. Three 

16 percent of the world's population died in 1918 so if 

17 you are calculating a risk, .03. We are way, way 

18 down there at 25 millirem on risk to people, so does 

19 it make sense to extend an analysis approach of like 

20 a 25 millirem limit out to those very long times?

21 During the little ice age, especially in 

22 some of the European countries, 10 to 30 percent of 

23 the population died in some years from famine and 

24 disease and everything that went on. This issue 
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1 that Dr. Sieber mentioned about the complexity of 

2 the problem, I say that's totally there. The 

3 problem is much more complex as you start thinking 

4 out over these long time frames and really what 

5 you're doing to try to do a risk calculation.

6 So socio-economic. What does that mean? 

7 Well, the National Academy of Public Administration 

8 recognized these intergenerational decision making. 

9 They said it involves a number of variables. While 

10 we haven't formally adopted these variables, we 

11 think they are pretty good. They are pretty much in 

12 alignment with what we would use for a waste 

13 disposal decision.

14 Some of the things they recognize here 

15 is, "Every generation has obligations of the trustee 

16 to protect the interest of the future generation." 

17 Okay. "No generation should deprive future 

18 generations of an opportunity of a quality of life 

19 comparable to its own." I think that is a very good 

20 element or consideration to have but what does that 

21 mean? Right? I mean, when are you 

22 depriving a future generation of the quality of life 

23 comparable to what you have? Does that mean if you 

24 don't set a dose limit of 25 millirem out for all 
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1 time that you are violating this principal? I would 

2 argue because of the risk associated with the 25 

3 millirem you have a ways to go before you would 

4 violate this criteria. 

5 The approach that we came up with for 

6 period of performance we think is in alignment with 

7 these principals. Something like the last bullet is 

8 really important. Of course you wouldn't want to do 

9 something that adds irreversible harm or 

10 catastrophic consequences. We have enough 

11 requirements in place that I think we could achieve 

12 that.

13 The other really challenging thing is in 

14 this third bullet, this, "Near-term concrete hazards 

15 have priority over long-term hypothetical hazards." 

16 What does that mean in a performance assessment 

17 when you have these uncertainties increasing over 

18 time? You have to spend a lot more of today's 

19 resources to manage those uncertainties of the long 

20 time than you do to protect the near-term which is 

21 more concrete an objective.

22 Is that in alignment with this number 3 

23 if I have to devote a whole bunch of resources to 

24 those uncertainties in the long-time? I don't know. 
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1 We've thought about all this and went through it in 

2 detail and our recommendation is based on some of 

3 these considerations.

4 So we considered five options. We had a 

5 no change. That is basically what's done now. The 

6 regulation doesn't specify a period of performance. 

7 We just let people interpret it and go through all 

8 this complicated stuff themselves and come up with 

9 what they believe.

10 We considered a peak-dose approach. The 

11 Committee in 2000 when they wrote a letter on NUREG 

12 1573 that was one thing they mentioned at the end is 

13 consider a previous recommendation about peak dose 

14 because at that time there was a lot of argument 

15 about the staff recommending 10,000 and a number of 

16 licensees or Agreement States wanted 500 and there 

17 was a big debate and brouhaha over it. 

18 The Committee said, "Just get out of 

19 that. Just do peak dose and be done with it." The 

20 problem is do you really want to do peak dose given 

21 the uncertainty as I talked about there? I don't 

22 know.

23 Option No. 3 was regulatory precedent so 

24 that's the two tiers and that's pretty much what the 
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1 ACNW recommended to us and the Performance 

2 Assessment Working Group came up with. Then we came 

3 up with maybe a new approach which would be three 

4 tiers. 

5 What that would allow us to do is to 

6 have a shorter compliance period that is 

7 quantitative where you can be more confident about 

8 the results. An intermediate period that is more 

9 uncertain but you still apply a limit to and you're 

10 talking about semi-quantitative type of evaluations 

11 there, and then a very long-term period where maybe 

12 you don't have a dose limit or you have some high 

13 metric and it's more a qualitative evaluation.

14 The problem we saw with this option No. 

15 4 is then we'd have to get agreement between two 

16 boundaries and three limits. Even with the two-tier 

17 approach we have to get agreement with one boundary 

18 and two limits. It's a much bigger change from what 

19 is done now. Maybe in the long run that is 

20 something to consider.

21 We also looked at what is done with 

22 industrial metals because industrial metals are 

23 handled a lot differently than things that are 

24 radioactive so it doesn't make sense to do 
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1 radioactive things different than industrial metals.

2 MEMBER STETKAR: Dave, are you going to 

3 -- my background is risk assessment. Are you going 

4 to talk about some of the stakeholder feedback you 

5 got on Option 4?

6 MR. ESH: I don't know if we've heard 

7 much feedback from stakeholders on Option 4. They 

8 all got wrapped around the axle and I was hearing 

9 about the number on Option 3. I don't know that 

10 they looked at it in much detail. I thought Option 

11 4 was the most eloquent and that's because I 

12 developed it.

13 (Laughter.)

14 MR. WIDMAYER: It seemed like the 

15 background document the staff maybe was thinking 

16 they preferred Option 4. Maybe that's just because 

17 you wrote the background document or --

18 MR. ESH: I think technically Option 4 

19 has a good basis for it, but from a practical 

20 standpoint we realized in a limited rulemaking 

21 that's a big jump.

22 MEMBER STETKAR: I am interested if you 

23 got that kind of kickback from the stakeholders. I 

24 don't think we heard virtually anything from the 
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1 stakeholders.

2 MR. WIDMAYER: The jump you're taking is 

3 big enough. I don't know what would be --

4 MR. ESH: Maybe the point is if it's big 

5 then who cares if it's very big.

6 CHAIR RYAN: Just to recall, the 10,000 

7 and 20,000 difference is really that extra decay in 

8 that period. It really reduces the --

9 MR. ESH: There are three elements to 

10 it. One is that, yes. 

11 So we did develop some rating factors. 

12 Those are discussed in the paper. I'm not going to 

13 go over them. We tried to be more quantitative 

14 about it than just a guy sitting in a room and 

15 picking a number. We assign some relative high, 

16 medium, and low values for those rating factors and 

17 the paper discusses this, what assigned to them and 

18 why.

19 Then ultimately, as I alluded to, we 

20 ended up on Option 3 we said this regulatory 

21 precedent and the two-tiered approach we think makes 

22 a lot of sense. It gives us kind of the best 

23 balance between all these factors and the 

24 stakeholder views that we've heard. Maybe given 
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1 some more time and some more discussions and 

2 interaction with stakeholders we could do something 

3 a little more eloquent.

4 So what did our recommendation look 

5 like? It has two tiers just like we talked about, a 

6 compliance period of no less than 20,000. This 

7 language is in the period of performance paper. 

8 It's not necessarily the language in the draft text 

9 of the regulation.

10 A compliance period of no less than 

11 20,000 years with a peak annual dose limit of 25 

12 millirem TEDE. And then a requirement to calculate 

13 the peak annual dose that occurs after 20,000 years 

14 with no dose limit applied to that. 

15 A requirement to provide analyses that 

16 demonstrate how the facility was designed to 

17 mitigate long-term impacts. We also put in language 

18 associated with uncertainties and long-live waste 

19 and inventory limits they may need to set to manage 

20 the uncertainties.

21 We thought that was important because in 

22 the SRM that the Commission gave to us that was one 

23 thing they were clear on, "You shouldn't be 

24 developing requirements for kindergarten that 
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1 everybody passes. These requirements are first year 

2 MIT that some people, or sites, aren't going to make 

3 it for this problem. You need to make sure the 

4 requirements are equivalent of the first year of MIT 

5 and not the equivalent of kindergarten."

6 So our basis for the 20,000 years, as 

7 we've talked about, the first thing is that the 

8 near-surface disposal is not geologic disposal. 

9 That was one concerned that came up early in our 

10 working group process is that people are going to 

11 look at this and say, "Why do you have 20,000 years 

12 for low-level waste? It's less dangerous than high13 level waste and you have 10,000 years for high-level 

14 waste." 

15 That's a good comment. We didn't end up 

16 with 10,000 years for high-level waste. We started 

17 there and we ended up at effectively a million year 

18 compliance period for high-level waste and that's in 

19 the U.S. Internationally they tend to all be pretty 

20 far out there on their periods of performance much 

21 more so than what we're talking about here. 

22 The key point is that the stability 

23 issues are different for near-surface disposal and 

24 geologic disposal. That's part of why you go to 
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1 geologic disposal because of the stability issues. 

2 In near surface we have natural cycling of the 

3 climate. Right now we are in an interglacial 

4 period. It's been warm for about 10,000 years plus 

5 or minus a few thousand. Past interglacial 

6 periods have lasted anywhere from 5,000 to 25,000 

7 years. It's going to get colder sometime in the 

8 future and you're going to have the affects 

9 associated with the climate change.

10 MEMBER SIEBER: It's been 21 so far in 

11 this geologic period.

12 MR. ESH: Twenty-one of those cycles. 

13 It's not like this is not known that we are going to 

14 have these cycles. If we pick 10,000 years, the 

15 problem with that is it's right in the middle 

16 possibly of this transition. The technical staff's 

17 argument is either try to get before it or get after 

18 it. 

19 The reason why we said let's go out and 

20 get after it is because that would give you an 

21 incentive to dispose of your long-lived waste in 

22 more stable sites. The regulation says a corner 

23 stone of disposal is stability so why wouldn't we 

24 want to set criteria that allow us to try to 
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1 distinguish between more stable sites and less 

2 stable sites. 

3 It was interesting the feedback that we 

4 got on our proposal from the stakeholders. 

5 Generally the people that were presenting the 

6 northern states hated the proposal and the people 

7 that represented the southern states were okay with 

8 it. That tells me it's probably pretty good but 

9 this is my interpretation.

10 So that's one aspect, what's going on with stability 

11 of your system and how you are going to distinguish 

12 when you have a good site and a not-so-good site 

13 from the stability standpoint. 

14 The second one was the radiological 

15 characteristics that we talked about. At 20,000 

16 years you're not capturing the peak of where this 

17 material goes to, but certainly you can make the 

18 argument better than the shorter values, At 10,000 

19 you're off by roughly a factor of 30. At 20,000 

20 you're close to an order of magnitude. 

21 Like I said, it's more complicated than 

22 just looking at the decay in ingrowth curves. You 

23 have to look at the dose impact and the 

24 transportability, etc., of the daughter species. 
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1 It's more complicated than just looking at the 

2 ingrowth. This 20,000 value better captures both 

3 the decay in ingrowth and the transport 

4 characteristics. I have a complicated slide that 

5 I'm going to walk you through on that.

6 When you go out to very long times you 

7 are running this battle of what does this mean in 

8 the context of the uncertainties you're dealing 

9 with. Not just the uncertainties from this waste 

10 disposal but this is in a much more bigger global 

11 problem of uncertainties that you are going to be 

12 dealing with, many of which I would argue are much 

13 more significant than the uncertainties from waste 

14 disposal.

15 But I think you have to be able to make 

16 that argument to stakeholders is, "Look, I have a 

17 way to distinguish between a good and a bad site. I 

18 have requirements that are going to allow me to 

19 determine when I need to put limitations on long20 live waste, and I have transparency of the 

21 information that I'm going to provide to you in this 

22 process."

23 So this is probably the first time 

24 you've had a derivative and a title I'm sure. What 
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1 I'm going to try to convey here is this issue of the 

2 transport characteristics. When the Performance 

3 Assessment Working Group in NUREG 1573 recommended 

4 10,000 years, they were analyzing just this box down 

5 here in the corner. Their analyses were based on 

6 human conditions and what I would call a shallow 

7 site.

8 What they said is if we look at 10,000 

9 years, everything that is above heading to the 

10 northeast on the diagonal here, everything on this 

11 side of the diagonal it's going to show up in our 

12 performance assessment calculations generally. 

13 This table is showing the impact of 

14 changing the performance period from 10,000 to 

15 20,000 or 50,000. It's time to answer this question 

16 of is there an improvement to switching from 10,000 

17 to longer values when I look at radionuclide 

18 transport.

19 The problem becomes complicated when you 

20 consider that you can have a range of possible 

21 disposal -- I mean, this is the depth of the 

22 unsaturated zone. You can have a very broad range 

23 of depths of the unsaturated zone which can result 

24 in very long transport times. And you can have 
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1 variability in the climate conditions ranging from 

2 arid sites to humid sites.

3 I would argue that 20,000 years starts 

4 capturing more of the things that are going to 

5 arrive, especially uranium which was the direction 

6 the Commission gave us in this rulemaking and some 

7 other things like neptunium, iodine, technetium, 

8 tritium, chlorine in these deep arid condition. 

9 Our regulatory criteria have to apply to 

10 all the sites. To me this says, okay, it makes more 

11 sense to push out longer. The interesting thing was 

12 when you went out to, say, 50,000 you weren't 

13 necessarily capturing a lot more. There were some 

14 things that move so slow that they don't even show 

15 up at 50,000 years.

16 The other challenge with both this and 

17 the stability issue is if you say, "Let's just 

18 define it on a site-specific basis. Dave, you're 

19 telling me there's all this variability here so why 

20 does it make sense to try to apply a number for all 

21 these different sites?" 

22 No. 1, we have to have something that is 

23 legally enforceable for us and we get into this 

24 issue of it has to be in the regulation or policy 
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1 statement or otherwise people can pick and choose 

2 what they want to do or interpret it differently.

3 CHAIR RYAN: Just on that point, Dave --

4 sorry to interrupt but couldn't you have both? 

5 Couldn't you have a period of performance unless 

6 otherwise demonstrated by the applicant?

7 MR. ESH: Yeah, I think you could do 

8 that. Yeah. I would have to think about it.

9 CHAIR RYAN: That might be a way to 

10 think about the fact that there are unique things. 

11 You've explained it very, very well all morning but 

12 this really kind of nails it down that, you know, 

13 we've got arid, semi-arid, humid, shallow, moderate, 

14 deep and that covers, as you well know better than I 

15 do, a very broad range of potential sites.

16 MR. ESH: Yeah.

17 CHAIR RYAN: If you could say, "Here's a 

18 period unless otherwise proven," you have the 

19 alternative to say, "I can prove a different 

20 performance period." 

21 MR. ESH: Yeah.

22 CHAIR RYAN: Or, "I'm going to take 

23 credit for the longer performance period," perhaps 

24 at some other particular site. That might be a way 
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1 to recognize the flexibility here and the 

2 variability.

3 MR. ESH: The Law of Unintended 

4 Consequences runs rampant in this.

5 CHAIR RYAN: Back to that ice cream 

6 headache.

7 MR. ESH: Yes. So if I said, okay, I'm 

8 going to set a period and I'm going to allow just a 

9 site-specific determination, a period of performance 

10 based on my transport characteristics, well then 

11 this deep arid site may say, "I need 50,000 years 

12 before these things show up." 

13 If I pick a shallow humid site, then 

14 maybe I need 300 years before these things show up. 

15 Well, why would you want to essentially encourage 

16 people to be choosing sites with lesser performance 

17 over sites with more performance because of this 

18 requirement. I think you could have that happen. 

19 You could have the same thing happen 

20 based on how you interpret site stability and the 

21 requirements for site stability. We want to enhance 

22 disposal in sites that are stable and do have long 

23 transport times, not in sites that are unstable and 

24 have sort transport times.
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1 CHAIR RYAN: I think it can lead that 

2 flexibility so people could address that. Here's a 

3 minimum requirement and there is an alternative to 

4 this minimum requirement and lay out some technical 

5 regulatory language that allows them to get to that. 

6 That would an extremely valuable addition.

7 MR. ESH: Yeah. You know, this writing 

8 regulatory language or guidance is much more 

9 challenging than people -- people that haven't done 

10 it don't recognize how challenging it is. It's a 

11 bit like fusion. You're trying to confine Jello 

12 with strings and that's a hard problem.

13 Our second tier after we get through the 

14 point of the first tier and the boundary that we 

15 select for it, as we say, in the second tier we're 

16 not putting a dose limit to that. We that that's in 

17 agreement with what ACNW had recommended to us in 

18 the past. But we are ensuring that, 1) you 

19 communicate those results and that you give them to 

20 your decision makers and your decision makers can 

21 factor them into how they make their decisions.

22 We think that allows them to be placed 

23 in the proper context. They can talk about some of 

24 these things, about uncertainty and other impacts 
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1 and net benefits and all those sorts of things that 

2 you don't necessarily get into in a radiological 

3 licensing decision within the actual framework.

4 We think it's better aligns with the 

5 long-term decision making and other programs such as 

6 disposal of industrial metals and better aligns 

7 those impacts with the uncertainties. Not this 

8 argument of the uncertainties of waste disposal are 

9 so large and, therefore, you should allow it, but 

10 the uncertainties associated with waste disposal are 

11 swamped by the uncertainties -- other uncertainties 

12 that affect how people live and the risks they are 

13 exposed to. 

14 When people make this argument to me 

15 that the numbers are meaningless at long time, I 

16 just stop listening. In performance assessment you 

17 have to be able to demonstrate that this action that 

18 you want to take doesn't result in a risk to 

19 somebody. Just to throw up your hands and say, "I 

20 don't know what the impact is," well, then maybe you 

21 shouldn't be taking the action. 

22 You better have some basis and there 

23 better be some meaning for those numbers you 

24 produced. I would say what this usually comes from 
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1 is not enough data and not enough model support for 

2 the calculations. There are some good PAs out 

3 there, especially some that I've seen 

4 internationally that have a lot of model support and 

5 a lot of data and I can guarantee you that those 

6 numbers, even at long times, have some meaning to 

7 them. It's when you don't have much information to 

8 support your calculations is where you're in 

9 trouble.

10 Priya talked about this. We recognize 

11 that the ACRS had said to us, "Don't put it in the 

12 regulation." All our other stakeholders said, "Do 

13 put it in the regulation." We said, "How do we 

14 manage this? Can we make something that works?" 

15 What we decided on is we needed to put some minimum 

16 standard in the regulation that would apply to 

17 everybody, would allow for some flexibility and be 

18 smart about it.

19 So the guidance document has a section 

20 that talks about if you don't have short-lived 

21 waste, run the crank out on your numbers but make 

22 the argument if I only have short-lived waste. It 

23 poses no impact as I go out in time. 

24 If you don't have low concentrations of 
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1 long-live waste, do some sort of simple calculation 

2 like what I presented back on the inventory analysis 

3 for something else and say, "This material doesn't 

4 pose a risk regardless of what happens to it out at 

5 those longer times." So we allow for people to be 

6 smart about their problem. Whether they choose to 

7 or not, that's their choice. But we do also allow 

8 for going longer for high concentrations of long9 live waste. 

10 We talked about this and you had some 

11 comments on it, Dr. Ryan. Our Agreement State 

12 regulators said they wanted that flexibility. 

13 Whether that's the right thing to do or not I guess 

14 that will come out in the process. The other thing 

15 we communicate is our expectations for the long-term 

16 analysis.

17 Now, guidance I'll go through very 

18 quickly before I over-time. 

19 MEMBER SIEBER: Let me ask a question on 

20 two slides, the last one slide 29. You made a 

21 comparison with disposal of industrial metals. What 

22 characteristics are you talking about here?

23 MR. ESH: Well, basically in the 

24 disposal of industrial metals they use a 
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1 prescriptive design process and say put it in this 

2 type of facility. Then they have control for a 

3 certain period of time. Then they have a re4 evaluation of whether they need to do something more 

5 at the end of the control period but they aren't 

6 projecting out to very long times what may happen 

7 with that material, what if somebody lives on the 

8 site. 

9 I've seen some analyses in the 

10 literature that various researchers have done of the 

11 risk if you did an intruder analysis of some of 

12 these types of facilities. They are talking about 

13 risk of like .3 to 1, basically much higher levels 

14 than what we are expressing here in our regulatory 

15 framework so we have to take that into account. 

16 There's a lot more of those, too.

17 MEMBER SIEBER: You're talking about 

18 things like mercury?

19 MR. ESH: Yeah. Heavy metals, mercury.

20 MEMBER SIEBER: Okay.

21 MR. ESH: You know, people will describe 

22 those infinitely persist. Well, some of them kind 

23 of infinitely persist but many of them are affected 

24 by biological processes that they don't necessarily 
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1 infinitely persist. They have effective like 

2 chemical half-lives of tens to hundreds of thousands 

3 of years.

4 MEMBER SIEBER: Okay. Thank you.

5 MR. ESH: Yes. Guidance. Guidance is 

6 being developed. We'll issue it in parallel with 

7 the proposed rule for public comment. The approach 

8 we took is to supplement existing guidance. There 

9 is a lot of guidance out there. What we would love 

10 to do is consolidate it all and make one big set of 

11 volumes and guidance on all the topics associated 

12 with. 

13 You can go to one place and get 

14 everything you need. We would love to do that in a 

15 future rulemaking. That will be a very big effort. 

16 We have Priya, Chris Grossman, and myself working 

17 part-time on guidance. That is a little bit more 

18 than a three-person part-time effort.

19 MR. WIDMAYER: And the working groups 

20 and meetings and stuff that you talk about, these 

21 people that were reacting to your rulemaking 

22 language they did not have this guidance?

23 MR. ESH: They do not have the guidance, 

24 no. It's in draft form right now. It's about 150 
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1 pages or so. I don't think we have it in a form 

2 that is ready to be publicly distributed.

3 CHAIR RYAN: This is general guidance on 

4 all five of those, six of those?

5 MR. ESH: It's the guidance on all six 

6 of these. In the backup slides I broke it down 

7 further to have all the subtopics under these main 

8 topics that we're covering in the guidance. We 

9 covered many of the things that you expressed in the 

10 letter to us on March 18th that provide guidance on. 

11 A few of them we didn't, though. 

12 Like in the area of waste packaging and 

13 disposal technology, we have guidance on engineer 

14 barriers generally but we didn't provide guidance on 

15 waste packaging and disposal technology because we 

16 haven't received necessary proposals of different 

17 things that people wanted to do in that area. 

18 We felt like we would kind of be 

19 shooting in the dark as to what people want to do or 

20 what they want to propose in that area for low-level 

21 waste disposal. Generally low-level waste disposal 

22 facilities don't use an awful lot of engineering. 

23 The engineering is used to control the short-lived 

24 radionuclides. The site is suppose to control the 
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1 risk from the long-lived radionuclides. 

2 I think that's all I have.

3 MR. McKENNEY: Derek and Dave, the 

4 guidance is expected to be published along with 

5 proposed rule for public comment. That's the 

6 current way of rulemaking. Much like the fact that 

7 we didn't have a Statements of Consideration nor the 

8 rest of the regulatory analysis or anything else 

9 published as part of the draft text that we put out 

10 on May 6, the guidance will be also be available at 

11 the time of 

12 the proposed rule.

13 MR. WIDMAYER: I understand. It would 

14 certainly be helpful to the stakeholders to have the 

15 guidance.

16 MR. McKENNEY: But that is exactly why 

17 it's going to be published with the proposed rule 

18 when the formal comment period is actually 

19 occurring.

20 MR. ESH: The rule text is -- it's a big 

21 effort but it's an effort involving a lot more 

22 people than the guidance document. The guidance 

23 document is a longer effort and a bigger task. We 

24 couldn't get the guidance document out in the same 
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1 period for this extra discussion and interaction on 

2 the rule text.

3 I do want to recognize the working 

4 group. I think we've had very good interactions in 

5 our working group. Everybody gets along great and 

6 we've had lots of productive discussions. We've had 

7 very little swearing, primarily me. Some blows have 

8 been thrown, primarily by OGC, but none have been 

9 landed.

10 CHAIR RYAN: Very good. We're scheduled 

11 for a 15-minute break at this point which we'll take

12 and we'll reconvene at 10:35. Thank you.

13 (Whereupon, at 10:18 a.m. off the record 

14 until 10:34 a.m.)

15 CHAIR RYAN: We will go ahead and get 

16 started. Without further ado, Drew, you're next.

17 MR. PERSINKO: My name is Drew Persinko. 

18 I'm the Deputy Director in the Division of Waste 

19 Management and Environmental Protection. Early this 

20 morning Priya talked about the comments we received 

21 back in 2009 before the draft proposed rule language 

22 was written.

23 What I'm going to talk about now briefly 

24 is I'm going to talk about recent comments we 
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1 received on the draft proposed rule language and the 

2 technical analysis supporting the 20,000 year period 

3 of performance, the comments that were received at a 

4 public meeting held on May 18th. Also we received 

5 subsequent written comments.

6 I would like you to keep in mind that 

7 this is really only a preliminary review of the 

8 comments. Although the transcript has been 

9 available for a few weeks, the written comments were 

10 received basically the period of performance -- I 

11 mean, the comment period closed on the 18th but we 

12 didn't receive the comments until probably Monday 

13 close of business roughly. 

14 We gave it a cursory review as to the 

15 kind of comments we received. I'm going to try to 

16 present that to you to give you a flavor of the 

17 comments we received. As you'll see, to no 

18 surprise, I guess, there is a wide spectrum of 

19 opinions.

20 We had a public meeting on May 18th and 

21 it was an opportunity to discuss the draft proposed 

22 rule text and the technical analysis supporting the

23 period of performance. We were seeking the 

24 documents that I mentioned. The proposed rule text, 
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1 and the technical analysis were made publicly 

2 available. They are publicly available in ADAMS and 

3 on our website.

4 We were seeking early initial public 

5 reaction to these documents. The rule has not yet 

6 gone to the Commission. The rule has not been 

7 published as a proposed rule. We were just getting 

8 early, early comments on it. Following the meeting 

9 we accepted written comments. As I said, the 

10 process closed on June 18th. The regulations can be 

11 reviewed at the regulations.gov website.

12 When you look at the comments we 

13 received, both the ones that we discussed on the 

14 18th and the cursory review of our written documents 

15 -- the written comments rather. If you look at 

16 them, I think they can be roughly categorized into 

17 six bins right now.

18 As we get into the documents and we 

19 analyze the comments further maybe we'll find more 

20 bins, but right now I think they'll fall into about 

21 six bins. The first bin has to do basically with 

22 Part 61 framework that we used. We received some 

23 comments along the lines basically saying maybe this 

24 isn't the correct approach to DU disposal. 
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1 Several stakeholders questioned whether 

2 we should be developing a separate regulatory 

3 requirement and criteria just for DU because of the 

4 uniqueness of DU. Other commentors recommended that 

5 the staff should not even consider near-surface 

6 disposal for uranium. Another comment said staff 

7 should require a minimum depth of disposal.

8 Second grouping of comments had to do 

9 with the 20,000 year period of performance. This 

10 mirrored the 2009 comments. Basically we received 

11 comments that were in favor of shorter PoP's such as 

12 1,000 years or maybe 10,000 years. And we received 

13 comments that suggested longer PoP's up to peak 

14 dose. One comment we received thought that the 

15 20,000 PoP was a good number.

16 (Laughter.)

17 Third major comment grouping had to do 

18 with how we treated future system states. What I 

19 mean by that, that included looking into the future 

20 to project what's going to happen down the road in 

21 the future and that had to do with topics such as 

22 climate change, changing in lake levels. 

23 Most stakeholders agreed that it's 

24 important to account for future system states and 
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1 account for that in the modeling parameters, but 

2 they cautioned us that this is an area having a lot 

3 of uncertainty. They wanted to make sure that staff 

4 was mindful to avoid unnecessary speculation and to 

5 limit the future system states to those that are 

6 reasonably foreseeable. We are working, as Dave 

7 said, in our guidance document.

8 Another grouping had to do with the 

9 intruder assessment requirement that Dave spoke 

10 about. We received comments along the lines that 

11 the changes we made are unnecessarily restrictive 

12 and they impose significant new requirements. 

13 Some stakeholders suggested that we 

14 employ a risk-informed performance-based philosophy 

15 such that the intrusion scenario really cannot be --

16 you shouldn't assume a probability of 1 to occur and 

17 assume that the intruder would strike the hottest 

18 radiological area in the disposal cell. 

19 Yet, we had other stakeholders 

20 suggesting that, yes, a probably of 1 is the right 

21 number for such a scenario. Some stakeholders took 

22 issue with the 500 millirem exposure. We had some 

23 stakeholders suggesting that the lower limit should 

24 be used such as 100 millirem or 25 millirem.
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1 MR. WIDMAYER: Nobody suggested a higher 

2 number?

3 MR. PERSINKO: I don't remember seeing a 

4 higher number but they took issue with the 

5 uncertainty and the risk-informness of it but at 

6 this point I don't remember seeing a higher number.

7 We received a number of comments, as 

8 mentioned earlier, on the compatibility designations 

9 for the proposed rule. I think we proposed C. I 

10 think we had one comment that said B, there would be 

11 a B category. There was a discussion on this at the 

12 May 18th meeting.

13 I would just like to note that we will 

14 make a recommendation as to what it should be but it 

15 gets reviewed by a compatibility panel here at the 

16 NRC involving Agreement State people at the NRC and 

17 they make the final decision as to what it should 

18 be.

19 CHAIR RYAN: With a range of 

20 recommendations?

21 MR. PERSINKO: The one I recall, I 

22 remember one of the comments said it should be a B 

23 recommendation rather than a C. I think B captures 

24 the -- it's not verbatim. C is it should be at 
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1 least as restrictive, I believe. B is it captures 

2 the concepts but it doesn't have to have exactly the 

3 same language I believe. I remember that comment. 

4 That's the ones I remember.

5 CHAIR RYAN: The panel will make the 

6 determination for the benefit of all.

7 MR. PERSINKO: Correct. We make a 

8 recommendation but it's the compatibility panel that 

9 makes the final decision.

10 CHAIR RYAN: Do they have the benefit of 

11 all the input you receive?

12 MR. PERSINKO: I believe they will.

13 CHAIR RYAN: Okay. I just wanted to 

14 understand that

15 MS. YADAV: Lisa, if you want to clarify 

16 that.

17 MS. LONDON: I'm sorry. This is Lisa 

18 London. I'm from Office of General Counsel. Just 

19 to clarify, on B it's actually and essentially 

20 identical and it's to encompass transboundary 

21 edification. C is to meet the essential objectives 

22 of a program and to ensure that there aren't 

23 implications, conflicts, or gaps in a program.

24 CHAIR RYAN: Okay. That's helpful. 
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1 Thank you. The other question I had does the panel 

2 that makes the decision have the benefit of the 

3 comments that have been received?

4 MS. LONDON: I believe they do, yes.

5 CHAIR RYAN: Okay. Thank you.

6 MR. PERSINKO: Okay. Of course, the 

7 last category "other." There are a lot of comments 

8 that really didn't fit into one of the above 

9 categories. They sort of made these stand-alone 

10 comments. Just to give you a little bit of flavor 

11 of that, there was some discussion about NRC 

12 harmonizing its low-level waste regulations with 

13 other government agencies such as DOE. 

14 There was one comment suggesting we 

15 should be using organ dose instead of TEDE as our 

16 limits. There was a comment that DU should not be 

17 Class A waste. Then there was comments along the 

18 lines that the definition of long-lived waste was 

19 not what it should be so they just didn't fall into 

20 any category and there are a number of those. Like 

21 I said, we just really got the written comments and 

22 some of them are quite long.

23 What I would like to do now is I have 

24 some concluding remarks and then path forward. I 
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1 would like to say that we believe that the staff 

2 followed the direction that it was given by the 

3 Commission. The Commission in its SRM 08-017 told 

4 us to do a limited scope rulemaking, to revise Part 

5 61, to specify a requirement for the disposal of 

6 large quantities of DU, and the technical 

7 requirements for such an analysis. 

8 In that SRM the staff also directed the 

9 staff not to alter the waste classification of DU 

10 and to conduct a public workshop for all effective 

11 stakeholders which we did in 2009 that Priya spoke 

12 about earlier. They were told to conduct the public 

13 workshop and from that, as Dave spoke about, we also 

14 heard at that workshop that we should have a PoP.

15 As far as the path forward, we'll spend 

16 the next several weeks looking over the comments and 

17 trying to dissect the comments and try to review 

18 them further. What we would like to do is after we 

19 meet with the full committee and hear the comments 

20 from the subcommittee and what the full committee 

21 has to say, we would like to review the 

22 recommendations from the committees and the 

23 stakeholder comments that we receive, and then we 

24 would decide what path forward we should take, do we 
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1 need to adjust the rule in any way before we go 

2 forward with it. We still are going to access what 

3 we need to do to the rule before we send it out.

4 CHAIR RYAN: I really don't anticipate 

5 during the full committee meeting session that we 

6 would have a draft letter for consideration by the 

7 full committee and hopefully would finish that full 

8 committee letter during that meeting. Just as a 

9 planning item that's how we hope it will be.

10 MR. WIDMAYER: What kind of time frame 

11 are you working to try to get all this done?

12 MR. CARRERA: We are anticipating to 

13 send up a proposed rule package to the Commission 

14 October 14.

15 MR. PERSINKO: So, anyway, that 

16 concludes the brief review of the comments we 

17 received. As I said, we received them fairly 

18 recently, as of Monday, and we are still looking 

19 through them but it gives you a flavor of --

20 CHAIR RYAN: What total number of 

21 comments did you receive?

22 MR. PERSINKO: We had 15 sets of 

23 comments.

24 CHAIR RYAN: Fifteen sets.
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1 MR. PERSINKO: I think it was 15, 14, 

2 something like that.

3 CHAIR RYAN: Okay.

4 MR. PERSINKO: Individual comments, few, 

5 I don't know. Some had four or five comments in 

6 there. Others had maybe more.

7 MS. YADAV: Energy Solutions and DOE 

8 each had 23 pages of comments.

9 MR. CARRERA: And Dr. Ryan, I just sent 

10 you the sets of comments we received yesterday.

11 CHAIR RYAN: That will be great.

12 MEMBER SIEBER: That will be good.

13 MR. PERSINKO: With that I would just 

14 like to basically open it up and hear the 

15 subcommittees thoughts on what we presented today 

16 and about the staff's work, answer any questions you 

17 may have.

18 CHAIR RYAN: I think we've had one other 

19 request for a member of the public to make comment 

20 and we'll now have a few minutes allowed for that.

21 MR. GREEVES: I thank the subcommittee 

22 for allowing me to speak. My name is John Greeves.

23 CHAIR RYAN: Who do you represent?

24 MR. GREEVES: I represent myself. Not 
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1 to say I haven't given advice to others but today 

2 I'm representing myself. Dr. Ryan, as you are 

3 aware, we have a long history on the subject. I'll 

4 be brief and I look forward to the comments that the 

5 subcommittee has and the full committee.

6 I just want to emphasize that many 

7 significant improvements -- the proposed language 

8 does include many significant improvements and the 

9 proposed Part 61 provides clarifications which have 

10 been long needed. This has been around a long time. 

11 The site-specific performance assessment frankly 

12 had been doing that and it just needs to be in the 

13 regulation, modern dose assessments, specifying 

14 limits. These are all things I've agreed with and 

15 I'm on record with letters to the Commission and 

16 others.

17 I especially support the two-tier 

18 concept for a compliance period and an evaluation 

19 period. All these things are included in the 

20 proposed language all to the good. There are some 

21 areas that I have some concerns with. In the space 

22 of time I'm going to just identify those.

23 There are a few significant staff 

24 proposals that I think are problematic. The most 
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1 glaring of which is the 20,000-year compliance 

2 period. There is no precedent for a 20,000-year 

3 compliance period. The high-level waste standard 

4 for all sites are 10,000 years. Trying to get both 

5 the applicant and the regulator to focus on a 

6 20,000-year period to do an assessment leads to 

7 ambiguity. 

8 The results are going to be difficult 

9 for any regulator to implement. We've got multiple 

10 regulators that are going to have to touch this 

11 thing. It's going to be a problem for both of them. 

12 I think 20,000 years is a wrong number. I admit 

13 there's some right numbers but it certainly isn't 

14 20,000. It's less than that. I know I have some 

15 precedence, either 1,000 or 10,000 or less than 

16 that.

17 A second problem area, and it's been 

18 mentioned here today. The staff noted it on their 

19 slides. They had comments from others on it, this 

20 language. Once you write it in a language it 

21 becomes the Bible. Guidance is difference but this 

22 notion for the intruder to occupy the site, the 

23 language literally says the intruder occupies the 

24 site. 
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1 It goes further. In the proposed rule 

2 it articulates agriculture, dwellings, resource 

3 exploration. When you put that language right into 

4 the rule, it's also incumbent upon some regulator to 

5 require that to happen. Even if you look at it and 

6 recognize it, nobody is going to do agriculture 

7 here. There are no resources. 

8 Anyhow, I think that language is 

9 problematic. The staff targeted it on their slides. 

10 I would propose replacing that in several places in 

11 the rule with "have access to." "Access to" 

12 hopefully allows a regulator and an applicant to 

13 demonstrate what that access is and how to either 

14 defend it or not read it.

15 Elsewhere related to that in the 

16 proposed language it says, "The intruder engages in 

17 activities on site." I think an insertion of 

18 language of "reasonably foreseeable." You'll find 

19 this language "reasonably foreseeable." It's strewn 

20 throughout staff guidance everywhere. It needs to 

21 be in the rule "reasonably foreseeable activities" 

22 to just make sure that is the standard. So those 

23 are the two problematic areas.

24
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1 Sort of a different topic but it's on 

2 the list is the compatibility level. The public 

3 learned on May 18th the staff at least had in mind 

4 to propose the flexibility on compatibility for the 

5 performance objectives. Frankly, I've worked in 

6 this business for decades. 

7 I was shocked to see them consider 

8 having the performance objectives flexible. Those 

9 performance objectives are the backdrop of all the 

10 rest of the rule. The language, the history, all 

11 indicates that the Commission itself strongly 

12 recommends strict compatibility for those

13 performance objectives. They should be identical. 

14 There is so much opportunity for other people who 

15 will implement this regulation. To create and 

16 invent ways to not honor those performance 

17 objectives I think would be a bad approach.

18 Also, those performance objectives are 

19 targeted within legislation. The Commission, the 

20 staff is obligated to implement those performance 

21 objectives. I don't see how you can make them 

22 flexible. I think that would be a strong point to 

23 keeping the performance objectives whatever the 

24 identical compatibility is. Frankly, people do not 
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1 understand the Bs, the Cs, the Ds but they know what 

2 identical is.

3 Another point the staff mentioned this 

4 morning, they got comments about harmony within the 

5 federal government. Apparently I read them but 

6 you've got comments from the Department of Energy. 

7 I heard their comments on May 18th as an observer. 

8 Since I retired from NRC seven, eight years ago I've 

9 had a chance to work with the Department of Energy 

10 on their responsibilities for low-level waste 

11 disposal. 

12 It's been difficult to work with one 

13 standard for DOE and another standard for NRC, and 

14 it's going to be even worse when DOE standard is 

15 1,000 years for compliance if there were to be a 

16 20,000 year NRC period of compliance. I highly 

17 recommend harmony within the federal government on a 

18 number. Not 20,000, but maybe it's not a 1,000 

19 either. Whatever it is harmony would be a high 

20 recommendation.

21 Also, having worked with the Department 

22 on a number of low-level waste sites, I've come to 

23 understand the benefit of having a waste acceptance 

24 criteria that is derived from a site-specific 
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1 performance assessment. This rule clearly is going 

2 to require a site-specific performance assessment. 

3 I would recommend that the rule be clued 

4 language allowing use of a waste-acceptance criteria 

5 based on that site-specific performance assessment 

6 and use that as a way to address waste streams 

7 coming into the site and take advantage of this 

8 notion of having a site-specific performance 

9 assessment and not relying on generic tables that 

10 were done for humid sites 30 plus years ago. I just 

11 emphasized the high points. I would be happy to 

12 answer any questions about these and thank you for 

13 your time.

14 CHAIR RYAN: Thank you very much. Thank 

15 you.

16 MEMBER SIEBER: Appreciate it.

17 CHAIR RYAN: Let's see, John. Is there 

18 anybody else on the bridgeline?

19 MR. LIEBERMAN: Can I make a comment?

20 CHAIR RYAN: Yes. Let us who you are, 

21 please? 

22 MR. LIEBERMAN: So --

23 CHAIR RYAN: What is your name, please?

24 MR. LIEBERMAN: Say again?
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1 CHAIR RYAN: We need to know who you 

2 are. What is your name?

3 MR. LIEBERMAN: Oh, Jim Lieberman and 

4 I'm with Talisman. I worked with Jack Greeves on a 

5 number of issues that I agree with and comments that 

6 John made. I would also add the site-specific 

7 analyses should be updated periodically to make it 

8 more of a living document because things change over 

9 time and that is the only addition I would make to 

10 John's comment.

11 CHAIR RYAN: Okay. Just to be sure we 

12 got your comment, Jim, the phone connection is not 

13 exactly perfect. Would you mind repeating what you 

14 want to make updatable over time?

15 MR. LIEBERMAN: I would suggest that the 

16 forms assessment and the intruder assessment be 

17 updated for a period of, say, five years to reflect 

18 changes in waste stream and performance estimates 

19 technology.

20 CHAIR RYAN: So the performance 

21 assessment and intruder assessment should be set up 

22 such that they are updatable as a function of time. 

23 That's your comment.

24 MR. LIEBERMAN: Exactly. Thank you.
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1 CHAIR RYAN: Thank you. Anything else, 

2 Jim?

3 MR. LIEBERMAN: No, that's it.

4 CHAIR RYAN: All right. Are there any 

5 other individuals on the bridgeline who want to make 

6 a comment? 

7 Okay. We'll go around to others. Jack.

8 MEMBER SIEBER: Well, I would like to 

9 state right off the bat that it's a very complex 

10 subject. It doesn't limit itself to a tremendous 

11 amount of scientific rigor. On the other hand, I 

12 think the staff did a tremendous job of taking a 

13 complex subject that Doug Mott had, specific 

14 boundaries, and making it understandable in this 

15 session. I think they have done an excellent job 

16 and I congratulate them for the work they have done.

17 As I go through it I note that the staff 

18 has chosen the two-tier approach. If I were to give 

19 myself technical permitting, I would go for the 

20 uncertainty-informed approach which is a three-tier 

21 approach. Then what I think about if I got assigned 

22 to the job of doing it that I would have a tough 

23 time doing that. 

24 I consider going to a two-tier approach 
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1 compromise between perhaps the better method that 

2 would be impossible to perform to a method that I 

3 don't like quite as much but is a practical method 

4 that can be used. I'm sort of up in the air about 

5 where we ought to be but right now my tendency is to 

6 agree with the staff that if you want a practical 

7 rule you probably have to go with the two-tier 

8 approach.

9 I think the issue of the 20,000 years is 

10 a little on the arbitrary side. I see the basis for 

11 why the staff has chosen that number. Personally if 

12 in the review of public comments for further 

13 thinking on the part of the staff, or direction from 

14 on high or, perhaps, in the next building some 

15 additional or some change would be made to that, I 

16 would be amenable to considering what that change 

17 is. 

18 Right now 20,000 years from the layout 

19 of all the factors does not seem unreasonable to me. 

20 On the other hand, I could probably make a judgment 

21 on those same factors that come up with a shorter 

22 period of time. That remains an open issue as far

23 as I'm concerned. 

24 I think from the intruder standpoint and 
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1 the activities that they undertake and the 

2 motivation, I think we are probably better off not 

3 trying to guess what the intruder is going to do and 

4 stick with what the staff proposes in that area. 

5 Basically those are the three big points that I 

6 have.

7 I do have a question. I did not see any 

8 place where you talked about a minimum depth of 

9 disposal. Is that correct?

10 MR. ESH: Yeah, that's correct. I 

11 appreciate your comments. I think you have pretty 

12 much summarized the technical staff's thinking as we 

13 went through this process in trying to derive what 

14 we thought should be the requirement. I think we 

15 are in great agreement there.

16 We don't have a minimum depth 

17 requirement proposed right now. We did have a 

18 public comment along those lines that maybe you 

19 should have one. The thinking is when you did the 

20 regulation in the early '80s you put a depth 

21 requirement in there for a certain type of waste or 

22 an intruder barrier, one or the other. 

23 So if you have a material now like 

24 uranium that causes trouble with radon, in 
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1 particular, why wouldn't you do a depth requirement 

2 for that? That was a good comment. I hadn't even 

3 like thought -- I hadn't even pulled the string on 

4 that one. That was a good comment that I saw.

5 MEMBER SIEBER: That is basically my 

6 same comment. It seems to me that if I were a 

7 citizen with just basic knowledge of radiation and 

8 environmental factors, it would seem to me that I 

9 would want some new depth. The more difficult 

10 question is trying to decide what that new depth 

11 should be and what it's based on because I think it 

12 depends on the nuclides in the waste. 

13 It depends on groundwater transport. It 

14 depends on the amount of moisture that hits the 

15 ground. You are going to need -- if you decide that 

16 you need a minimum depth, it's going to have to be a 

17 performance-based definition as to what that depth 

18 should be. That's going to be individual and 

19 specific to each site. If I were to find the best20 of-all rules, that is something I would consider.

21 MR. ESH: Part of the reason why we 

22 didn't have a depth requirement is because we are 

23 also operating in this spectrum of quantity and 

24 concentration. You may not need a certain depth of 
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1 cover if you have limited concentrations of uranium, 

2 for instance. Your normal cover that you use for 

3 your facility may be sufficient.

4 MEMBER SIEBER: For example, mill 

5 tailings.

6 MR. ESH: Exactly. And you can achieve 

7 it through two different methods. You can achieve 

8 protection of that material, say, if you're trying 

9 to mitigate radon through increased depth and 

10 especially ensuring the moisture content or the 

11 liquid saturation of that cover above the material. 

12 Or you can use a material such as a clay radon 

13 barrier or other type of radon barrier. 

14 The problem becomes when you go out in 

15 time, you know, we've sponsored -- NRC has sponsored 

16 some research by Craig Benson at the University of 

17 Wisconsin on the performance of engineering systems 

18 over time, especially covers. He does a fantastic 

19 job analyzing systems and understanding how they 

20 work. 

21 I think if people want to get pointed in 

22 someone's direction about how to analyze an 

23 engineering problem, I would point them in that 

24 direction. When he's done analysis of how covers 
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1 perform over time, when they're shallow the 

2 performance can change pretty rapidly. 

3 Mother Nature says, "I don't like it 

4 that you've tried to put in these materials that I 

5 didn't have originally and they are dissimilar from 

6 my natural environment," and just starts beating on 

7 them with all sorts of processes and the properties 

8 of those materials changed. For a clay radon barrier 

9 you have to ensure you have sufficient depth of it 

10 by itself so that the properties of that barrier 

11 doesn't change.

12 MEMBER SIEBER: The interesting thing is 

13 you talked about the ice age. I suspect we are due 

14 for one if you ignore some other climate change 

15 theories along the way. Where I live you can 

16 actually count shorelines on the mountainsides. 

17 I've been able to count 19 but somebody told me 

18 there's 21. 

19 There is a tremendous topographical 

20 change when these ice flows go past and they can 

21 carve out a channel. For example, where I live that 

22 channel runs 175 miles to the north. It goes up 

23 into Canada and comes back down and forms the 

24 Columbia River. You can actually walk a pathway out 
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1 to the Pacific Ocean. It's pretty far 

2 inland. It's 500 miles inland. A lot of things can 

3 happen during these glacial stages. They occur in a 

4 periodicity in this eon of about 20,000 years. 

5 Putting something 10 feet under the surface, to me 

6 that can disappear in two weeks.

7 MR. ESH: I think we recognize that. 

8 The issue we struggled with is that in some more 

9 northern states the impacts are likely to be pretty 

10 severe. Whereas in some more southern states they 

11 might be more moderate.

12 MEMBER SIEBER: But the rule has got to 

13 recognize that you've got to use different 

14 approaches depending on where you are.

15 MR. ESH: We get into this issue, 

16 though, of do you want to -- does your requirement 

17 want to enhance putting material into the more 

18 stable sites versus the less stable sites when you 

19 analyze those changes.

20 One comment that you had made earlier I 

21 don't know if you want to go back to was regarding 

22 heterogeneity, waste heterogeneity. I don't think I 

23 came back to that.

24 MEMBER SIEBER: No, you didn't. It's 
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1 still a question in my mind.

2 MR. ESH: Okay. So the issue is right 

3 now if you do a residential intruder scenario, for 

4 instance, what is generally assumed is they put in 

5 an excavation for a foundation and they exhume 

6 material. The activity is dispersed throughout that 

7 volume that is exhumed with the assumption of it's 

8 unrecognizable at the time that event happens. 

9 You say it's uniformly distributed. You 

10 take that material out. You dilute it with maybe 

11 clean materials or covered materials that were on 

12 top. Then you calculate the risk associated with 

13 that scenario.

14 That works okay. Then you develop the 

15 waste classification tables that have single 

16 concentrations in them basically embedding these 

17 assumptions about waste distribution in the 

18 calculation and in those single numbers that are in 

19 the table.

20 With a move to site-specific intruder 

21 analysis the issue you can get wrapped around is 

22 what is the distribution of activity within my 

23 waste. If I say I'm interested in -- I put the 

24 waste deeper and I might have a drilling scenario. 
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1 The drilling scenario is going to be -- the results 

2 are going to be more sensitive to the heterogeneity 

3 of the waste than a scenario that homogenizes the 

4 results.

5 I don't think you would want somebody 

6 because of this hypothetical intruder scenario and 

7 they do a drilling analysis and they say, "We don't 

8 know where they are going to drill. Let's see what 

9 happens when they hit the bad spot." 

10 They drill and hit the bad spot and you 

11 get a bad result. So then they say, "Let's put it 

12 shallower because then we can assume it's mixed up 

13 and we get a lower result." How is that protecting? 

14 That's backwards. You don't want to do that.

15 CHAIR RYAN: Part of the problem is when 

16 you think about the inventory, whether it's 

17 concentration based on or total quantity based on. 

18 I think there is some room to think about the idea 

19 that a fractional release from the inventory is 

20 really what we're driving and controlling that long21 term case. That's really, as you just 

22 pointed out, very different than when an intruder 

23 goes in and takes a chunk of shiny stuff that 

24 happens to be a radiated stainless steel and makes a 
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1 mantelpiece out of it. I think it's important to 

2 think about that scenario maybe in a little 

3 different way. Do we recognize it or do we not 

4 recognize it, how deep is it, how much we bring up. 

5 what we use it for. That's something maybe we ought 

6 to think about exploring in a little bit more detail 

7 and not just accept.

8 MEMBER SIEBER: I think there are some 

9 lessons learned from the work going on by DOE in 

10 Richland. They have found some surprises in the 

11 waste remediation and I did, too.

12 CHAIR RYAN: Jack, they are advert 

13 intruders. They are not inadvertent. They know 

14 what they're digging into. They just don't know how 

15 much. MEMBER SIEBER: They don't 

16 know exactly where. On the other hand, there's some 

17 significant stuff there. My impression was I was 

18 surprised that there was some higher than I expected 

19 specific activities in concentrations. But I was 

20 also surprised when you look at the hydrology, and 

21 the boreholes and measurements that were made, that 

22 it had not travelled further than it did. 

23 That sort of tempered my thoughts about 

24 how all this works. On the other hand I think that 
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1 there are some insights that can be gained just by 

2 looking at the work that Richland did that is now 

3 going on in waste remediation to get some insights 

4 as to what the uncertainties really are and how we 

5 should account for them. Now, taking that 

6 admittedly very limited experience and trying to 

7 turn that into a rule that covers everything I think 

8 is going to be --

9 MR. ESH: That's a tough challenge. In 

10 our guidance document plus we're revising our Branch 

11 Technical Position on concentration averaging and we 

12 are trying to make sure the two are consistent and 

13 integrated. We are dealing with this issue of waste 

14 heterogeneity. We have approaches that we are 

15 recommending about how you handle that problem and 

16 it does not involve, I don't believe, assuming the 

17 worst spot is hit by the guy that is drilling the 

18 well, for instance.

19 MEMBER SIEBER: Right.

20 MR. ESH: It involves some consideration 

21 of the distribution of waste and the distribution of 

22 results that you would get from doing an activity on 

23 the site. And it does take consideration of the 

24 fact that the whole disposal site is not going to be 
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1 waste.

2 MEMBER SIEBER: That's right.

3 MR. ESH: You have cells and 

4 uncontaminated areas in between, a buffer zone 

5 around the facility. We are allowing consideration 

6 of all the real features of the site, not just that 

7 you hit waste.

8 MEMBER SIEBER: It will actually look 

9 like Hanford the way it was laid out. It's laid out 

10 that way.

11 You had a comment?

12 MR. McKENNEY: Yes. Actually I would

13 like to remind the Committee that we are going to be 

14 coming and talking about the Branch Technical 

15 Position in a few months. Because we just changed 

16 the schedule, that's when we are going to get into 

17 how from a waste generator standpoint how do you 

18 assess and how much do you need to assess 

19 heterogeneity.

20 As Dave just said, there's two aspects 

21 of the waste problem. Of course, what can you 

22 accept to the site and what's the heterogeneity 

23 going to allow in your site. But then from an 

24 individual shipper's point of view how did they 
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1 comply to make sure that the site doesn't get out of 

2 whack. 

3 Our Branch Technical Position on 

4 concentration averaging is for the generator and 

5 that's for looking at the generator point of view of 

6 how they would fill a barrel and how to classify the 

7 barrier. They actually deal with the heterogeneity. 

8 That issue is on a future committee session. 

9 We just haven't actually -- I think 

10 right now it's on for October 4th so we'll be 

11 getting back into that issue specifically from the 

12 generator's point of the guidance. Maybe near that 

13 time we'll have our other dragons from this sort of 

14 play show how they are --

15 MEMBER SIEBER: I would hate to depend 

16 on the transportation rules to limit my total 

17 burials as far as a lack of heterogeneity. I think 

18 everybody gives the point that those are sort of the 

19 things I'm concerned about. 

20 Frankly, I'm glad you are not exactly at 

21 the proposed rulemaking stage because I think we all 

22 need a rule thinking to get the words right so that 

23 we don't make it excessively restrictive and, 

24 therefore, impractical and not solve the problem 
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1 because not very many things works like that you can 

2 do in that area and in some other areas. 

3 On the their hand, there is a limit as 

4 to how much the cost is reasonable to be able to 

5 dispose of waste in a manner that does not generate 

6 a lot of harm to the public.

7 CHAIR RYAN: The bill for disposal 

8 includes two things; the cost and the taxes. The 

9 taxes outweigh the cost.

10 MEMBER SIEBER: Right. Okay. That sort 

11 of summarizes my comments.

12 CHAIR RYAN: Thank you, Jack.

13 MEMBER SIEBER: I can make this brief 

14 because I know I'll get another chance.

15 CHAIR RYAN: John.

16 MEMBER STETKAR: Thanks. If I were 

17 going to vote, I would vote for Option 4. I'll just 

18 make that statement.

19 CHAIR RYAN: Okay.

20 MEMBER STETKAR: I'll just keep it 

21 brief. I do think there might be some merit in 

22 considering something that Dr. Ryan mentioned, that 

23 within the context of the rule rather than 

24 specifying a fixed -- I don't care whether it's 
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1 10,000 or 20,000 fixed duration of the performance 

2 period that there is perhaps some fixed value 

3 specified in the rule as let's call it a backstop 

4 for lack of another terminology. 

5 The allowance within the rule to 

6 demonstrate another acceptable performance period 

7 which gets more into the sort of risk-informed 

8 performance-based process. It makes writing the 

9 guidelines, the appropriate regulatory guides, in 

10 terms of how do you demonstrate that is a bit more 

11 difficult but, indeed, it doesn't block everyone 

12 into that one size fits all regardless of the 

13 inventory, regardless of the site characteristics, 

14 regardless of the depth of disposal types of issues. 

15

16 I think that's the only comment I would 

17 make right now. I'm not sure quite now to handle 

18 the intruder scenario. As I said, I would 

19 personally prefer Option 4 which would handle the 

20 intruder scenario holistically under that context.

21 CHAIR RYAN: John, well said. I second 

22 that John seconded my comment.

23 On this slide, which is the differential 

24 slide, I think that's a very important one if we 
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1 could maybe get that out. I was very taken by the 

2 fact that this really is kind of the guidance we can 

3 think about with radionuclides and different 

4 environments in one picture. 

5 The idea that comes to my mind which I 

6 think about probably more often than intruder 

7 scenario is the fraction release from inventory 

8 under whatever the disposal system is. At the end 

9 of the day that is the principal protection 

10 criteria. It's what is the fractional release from 

11 the inventory over the performance period. 

12 This is really a good way to think about 

13 it. A paper on the French disposal system looks at 

14 exactly this kind of fractional release from the 

15 inventory based on all the features. They end up 

16 with an inventory limit as the license criteria. 

17 Not a period of performance because that is part of 

18 the calculation. 

19 I think that thought is worth thinking 

20 about because a dry site and a deep disposal depth 

21 probably could take more material than a humid 

22 eastern site near a coastal area. I offer that as a 

23 different way to think about this. It's not 

24 inconsistent with particularly this strategy. Maybe 
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1 that's a way to think about unifying things. 

2 We talk about the need to use these 

3 tools to derive an inventory limit appropriate for 

4 your setting of waste characteristics, packaging, 

5 disposal technology, cover technology, and 

6 geohydrology. You have represented, I think, very 

7 well here in terms of what becomes important at what 

8 period of time. Does that make sense to you?

9 MR. ESH: Yes. I guess I would ask, 

10 though, if you were using this fractional release 

11 rate concept, I mean, don't you still have to relate 

12 it to some period of time or do you just say flatly 

13 the fractional release rate has to be .01 or 

14 whatever the number is regardless of time?

15 CHAIR RYAN: I think you develop that 

16 release rate into some exposure scenario so you take 

17 that into whatever environmental media to expose 

18 theoretical people you want which is not uncommonly 

19 done and not the way it's done now for those kinds 

20 of uses on the contaminated water. I just tag that 

21 into the same kind of assessment there. No luck 

22 with the dose assessment but it's a little bit 

23 different than what we talked about so far.

24 MR. ESH: I'll have to think about it, 
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1 of course. When you pull the string on it, my 

2 expectation is you still eventually butt up against 

3 this issue of how long were you trying to do this 

4 for. The one advantage I do see of it, as you are 

5 probably well aware, concentration isn't everything. 

6 Some process say it's concentration matters and in 

7 others it doesn't. 

8 If you have a solubility limit, your 

9 fractional release rate is not sensitive to your 

10 concentration above the solubility limit. If your 

11 system would just keep putting out material at the 

12 flux rate multiplied by the solubility limit, those 

13 are the curies per year or grams per year or 

14 whatever, grams per meter square per year that comes 

15 out of your system, that's rolled up in a fractional 

16 release rate metric. 

17 Whereas if you are trying to make 

18 decisions based on concentrations, sometimes it does 

19 impact the results and sometimes it doesn't. If you 

20 have materials that aren't solubility limited, then, 

21 of course, it makes a big difference in what you see 

22 at a receptor location if you have a concentration 

23 that is 1,000 times less or 1,000 times more. Send 

24 water through and the peak comes out, it's dispersed 
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1 as it travels, and you end up with a bigger peak at 

2 the receptor.

3 CHAIR RYAN: I know some good examples 

4 where the solubility is so high it's just whatever 

5 the water does it's going to show up.

6 MR. ESH: For low-level waste you have 

7 some things that are not necessarily infinitely 

8 soluble but very soluble, the technetiums and 

9 chlorines in the world under typical conditions. 

10 Then you have some that are kind of moderately 

11 soluble I would call them, the uraniums and the 

12 neptuniums of the world. And you have some that are 

13 very insoluble; the thoriums, for instance. 

14 I think americium is way down the list 

15 under most conditions. The problem is you have 

16 heterogeneity and conditions, too. The geochemistry 

17 can be both variable from site to site spatially and 

18 temporally. I have hydrangeas in my yard that 

19 change color based on whether the soil is acidic or 

20 basic and they get pink hydrangeas when the soil is 

21 a certain way and then they turn to blue when it's 

22 the other way. I forget whether it's acid based or 

23 base acid.

24 I think the idea that I'm trying to get 
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1 across is that the concentration tables as they 

2 exist now I'm not sure exactly what those numbers 

3 were all based on at this point. I would have to go 

4 back and restudy the old EISs and so forth. 

5 I think we have an opportunity to 

6 rethink should some things be based on the 

7 concentration limit or the quantity disposal of it 

8 in the context of a PA. Sometimes it's very 

9 confusing when you think about just concentration. 

10 Some of those are based on a physics assessment. 

11 It's not necessarily proposed assessments once 

12 disposed.

13 MR. ESH: Primarily, I mean, we have 

14 Table 1 and Table 2, short-lived radionuclides and 

15 long-lived radionuclides. The concentrations that 

16 are in those tables a number of scenarios were 

17 evaluated with them. Primarily they were derived 

18 from different variants of intruders scenarios. 

19 But the regulation is very clear that 

20 you may need to specify imitations on your long21 lived other species based on your 61.41 analyses 

22 especially. The concept of you need to do an 

23 analyses and that analyses should determine if you 

24 need some limitation on what you take. 
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1 DOE uses a much shorter period of 

2 performance and I would argue it's too short for a 

3 lot of the long-lived things they are dealing with. 

4 But their process of how they go about it and using 

5 the analysis to set some concentration limits that 

6 particular facility can take, I think that has a lot 

7 of merit. We have talked about --

8 CHAIR RYAN: It's an inventory thing. 

9 It's not really just concentration.

10 MR. ESH: It's a product of 

11 concentration and quantity. You can take like, for 

12 instance, you may --

13 CHAIR RYAN: Which gives you the volume 

14 you can take.

15 MR. ESH: You may be able to take small 

16 quantities of high concentration. If the pathway 

17 that that material is affecting in, say, a water 

18 pathway, you can take small amounts of high 

19 concentration or high amounts of low concentration.

20 CHAIR RYAN: So, in essence, the 

21 inventory is what's being regulated.

22 MR. ESH: The inventory is what's being 

23 regulated but for some pathways and scenarios like 

24 if you are basing some limitations on a disturbance 
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1 calculation, it gets much more driven by the 

2 concentrations within that disturbance volume. 

3 Concentration within whatever the disturbance volume 

4 is for that scenario.

5 CHAIR RYAN: Of course, if you have some 

6 other feature like that for burial or other barriers 

7 that prevent that or mitigate that then, again, you 

8 are back to fractional release from the inventory.

9 MR. ESH: Yeah.

10 CHAIR RYAN: I think trying to translate 

11 everything in a concentration can be a little bit 

12 confusing sometimes, but also it doesn't really give

13 the ability to analyze in a rigorous and consistent 

14 way what happens if you really are driven by 

15 fractional release from inventory due to water 

16 intrusion. That's just something to think about.

17 MR. ESH: I think many times in practice 

18 they aren't looking at -- the disposal facilities 

19 that are operating that way they are keeping track 

20 of just total curies of whatever isotope it is and 

21 seeing when it meets their total curie number 

22 because they did an analyses over some volume and 

23 they said, "We can take X curies in this volume." 

24 Then they just track how many curies come in until 
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1 they reach their limit for that volume and then, 

2 "Okay. I can't take anymore of those." I'm 

3 agreeing with you.

4 CHAIR RYAN: In the French case that is 

5 how they determined the critical radionuclides is 

6 what's the one we can take the least of. 

7 MR. ESH: Yeah. I think they do also 

8 use an intruder analysis in their process. As far 

9 as I understood, they have like an inventory limit 

10 that they take and then they also have a package 

11 limit that they take. My guess is the package limit 

12 is being driven by an intruder calculation of some 

13 sort. The total inventory limit is driven by their 

14 other calculations that they've done. 

15 MR. PERSINKO: The only thing I wanted 

16 to say is I'm not disagreeing with you whatsoever 

17 but I think we also were told by the Commission do a 

18 limited scope rulemaking. We have comments right 

19 now saying, "You went way beyond limited scope." I 

20 don't know where that line is.

21 CHAIR RYAN: We certainly appreciate 

22 that but we are unencumbered technically.

23 MR. PERSINKO: Maybe you can convey that 

24 to other folks, too.
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1 CHAIR RYAN: Anything else?

2 MR. McKENNEY: The rule as it stands 

3 already in the concept section does state that there 

4 probably will have to be an inventory limit 

5 especially for mobile radionuclides which we are 

6 changing with the text right now in the new rule to 

7 add the concept of also other long-lived 

8 radionuclides may also need to be limited by 

9 inventory limits rather than just reliance on the

10 concentrations.

11 In addition, in the guidance sections 

12 that Dave has been working on, we do have a section 

13 in that one on how to use inventory limits 

14 establishing that. As you said, the PA is not the 

15 only way you could maybe do either package or 

16 inventory lists because package limits could also be 

17 based off your handling technology for each health 

18 physics, especially for your strong gamma emitters. 

19 You could possibly take a lot of heavy gamma 

20 emitters but there is no way you could get into the 

21 ground without --

22 CHAIR RYAN: 10,000 radionuclides the 

23 package is not a problem.

24 MR. McKENNEY: Right.
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1 CHAIR RYAN: For hardware. That could 

2 be handled quite well.

3 MR. McKENNEY: Yes. It all depends on 

4 the site facilities, site design, and everything 

5 else like that. There could be some combinations 

6 where one site that's fine and one site because of 

7 it you don't want to do that. And also in our regs 

8 we put out we also put a section again on consider 

9 inventory limits on the radionuclides that are 

10 controlling the Performance Assessment.

11 MR. WIDMAYER: According to the schedule 

12 I can talk for an half an hour.

13 CHAIR RYAN: According to me you can't.

14 MR. WIDMAYER: Okay.

15 CHAIR RYAN: But go ahead.

16 MR. WIDMAYER: Yeah, we'll stop you at 

17 an appropriate time.

18 CHAIR RYAN: Thank you very much for 

19 your comments.

20 MR. WIDMAYER: When I reviewed a lot of 

21 your materials, or all your materials, the voice of 

22 Gary Roles kept coming up in my head. For those of 

23 you who don't know, he's one of the godfathers of

24 the analysis for Part 61. He was always telling me, 
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1 "Derek, this intruder is not a real person." Now we 

2 have gradually moved over the years to where this 

3 intruder you are actually needing to protect this 

4 intruder so he's turning more into a real person.

5 The first thing that came to my mind as 

6 far as how do we put these two things together and 

7 come to a solution. The depth of burial was the 

8 first thing that I thought of where you are 

9 protecting the intruder as a real person by putting 

10 it below where ne intrudes without having to do all 

11 of these fancy calculations.

12 That having been said, I think I also 

13 agree with John Greeves' comments that if you really 

14 need to leave flexibility, not put depth of disposal 

15 in, that some of the words that he suggested 

16 probably are good as far as providing some way to 

17 reduce the uncertainty on the analysis. That was 

18 all I really had to say.

19 CHAIR RYAN: Okay. That's great. You 

20 have a half hour to go.

21 Any other comments?

22 MEMBER SIEBER: I just think that the 

23 technical issues, I think, are difficult enough here 

24 because there is a fair amount of uncertainty and we 
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1 are looking far out in time. The actual drafting of 

2 the rule is equally important to get the language 

3 exactly right. I encourage the same diligence for 

4 drafting the rule as the staff has put toward 

5 developing technical understanding of what is going 

6 on. Perhaps you understand what I mean.

7 MR. ESH: And we may not be there yet 

8 but if you had the pleasure of being in a working 

9 group you would see that we did exercise that 

10 diligence. When this issue first came up I was 

11 like, "I can write the rule language this 

12 afternoon."

13 MR. WIDMAYER: I guess the Performance 

14 Assessment Working Group that took them like 10 

15 years to write the NUREG document, that kind of

16 gives you some indication of how much fun you are 

17 having.

18 MR. ESH: It took quite some time for 

19 them to produce that document. The working group 

20 had weekly multi-hour meetings talking about rule 

21 text, revising it, going back and forth trying to 

22 think of unintended consequences, the whole thing. 

23 Hopefully when we get to some proposed draft 

24 language that gets put out publicly, we are 99 
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1 percent of the way where we wanted to try to get to.

2 MEMBER SIEBER: All I'm saying is that 

3 the drafting of the rule is not the easiest part of 

4 the job.

5 MR. ESH: It is not. I agree with you.

6 CHAIR RYAN: One of the other questions 

7 that I want to just revisit and make sure I have my 

8 understanding right is the 20,000-year basis. I 

9 think you said a number of how much additional 

10 radioactive material is captured by going from 

11 10,000 to 20,000 years. Could you just revisit that 

12 one more time?

13 MR. ESH: When we looked at it, we said, 

14 okay, there is this perception that NRC has a rich 

15 policy of using 10,000 years. The reality is that 

16 NRC has not used 10,000 years for a single licensing 

17 decision yet. It's in Part 60, of course. It was 

18 originally in Part 63 and there are still two phases 

19 in there. There is still 10,000 years in it. 

20 In our low-level waste program I believe 

21 Washington is the only state that used 10,000 years 

22 so I have to give kudos to Drew Thatcher. Our other 

23 Agreement States picked all different values so if 

24 you want to say what is our policy on low-level 
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1 waste, our policy on low-level waste is it's not 

2 defined. Agreement States pick it. 

3 Whenever we looked at that we looked at what the 

4 working group recommended. As I indicated on this 

5 slide, they looked at radionuclide transport 

6 characteristics and they looked at one box at that 

7 table, the shallow humid box, in making their 

8 recommendation. 

9 We looked at that in a little more 

10 detail. This was done probabilistically, I forget, 

11 25 elements or so, nine different conditions. 

12 You're talking about 225 sets of horse tail plots 

13 that this table is condensed from. When you say 

14 it's complicated, yes, it's very complicated. We 

15 looked at the transport characteristics. 

16 We looked at the decay and ingrowth and 

17 we looked at the stability issue. I think those 

18 three components are getting at different parts of 

19 the risk assessment. This is getting at like 

20 groundwater transport. The waste characteristics is 

21 more important, I would say. 

22 It does affect this part of the 

23 calculation but it's also important for like the 

24 intruder or disturbance type calculations that you 
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1 have captured waste characteristics. Essentially an 

2 air pathway for materials like uranium that produces 

3 radon. Then we have this issue about near-surface 

4 stability which is associated with 61.44, the 

5 performance objective on maintaining stability at a 

6 site. 

7 We looked at the performance objectives 

8 and how these different technical variables could 

9 affect that and all of them pretty much pointed in 

10 we should take a step up in the longer direction if 

11 you wanted to consider the technical features. 

12 Your specific question on the 

13 radiological characteristics, basically at 10,000 

14 you're off by about a factor of 30 from where you 

15 are at 10,000 and where it peaks out. When you go 

16 to 20,000 you gain an extra factor of like 2.3 or 

17 something like that so it gets you down close to an 

18 order of magnitude. Not quite there but you are 

19 pretty close to it. 

20 I think we have to recognize that when 

21 you're talking to stakeholders they are going to 

22 say, "How are you protecting me from this material?" 

23 Well, the waste characteristics is something that 

24 we know pretty well. I don't want to over-simplify 
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1 it though. As I tried to indicate a couple times, 

2 you can't solely just look at the gain and ingrowth 

3 curves. It's a more complicated calculation.

4 CHAIR RYAN: I understand that but I 

5 just wanted you to repeat that because I think that 

6 is an important reason that justifies your thinking 

7 that 20 is a better number than 10.

8 MR. ESH: I think, as you've indicated, 

9 Dr. Sieber, you could go through all this 

10 information I could see how somebody would come up 

11 with 10 as opposed to 20. I can also see how they 

12 could come up with 50. Personally, I don't see how 

13 you could come up with a 1,000. I think that is not 

14 being reasonable considering the characteristics of 

15 the material you're dealing with.

16 I also don't see when you think about 

17 the uncertainty context and what's going to be 

18 affecting people and society outside of radioactive 

19 waste how you can go to a million or billion or 

20 peak, whatever it is. I mean, I think we lose site 

21 of that we have to pay for this. 

22 There is no free money. Somebody gets 

23 charged for these requirements and these activities 

24 that we in place. I pay for it and so do you and so 
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1 does everybody in the room. When you look at 

2 nuclear things, especially nuclear waste disposal, 

3 the dollars spent per life saved or person protected 

4 is off the charts compared to some other things. 

5 We at least should take that into our 

6 thinking. Whether we drastically change our 

7 approach because of it, that would be a different 

8 story. We should at least acknowledge that whenever 

9 we are trying to develop our requirements and what 

10 approaches we recommend.

11 MR. WIDMAYER: So, Dave, I was 

12 intimately involved in development of DOE Order 

13 435.1 and all of their analysis and methodologies. 

14 We didn't spend 10 years working on the performance 

15 assessment that we included in there, just three 

16 years. 

17 There were some folks, you know, 

18 intimately involved in disposal of DOE that felt 

19 like 1,000 years for compliance was absurd. I 

20 understand where you're coming from but we stuck 

21 with 1,000 years because at least some people 

22 thought as a measure of compliance there is some 

23 reasonability associated with doing a calculation of 

24 1,000 years. Anything after 1,000 years they felt 
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1 there was too much uncertainty. You didn't want to 

2 provide that as your measure of compliance.

3 MR. ESH: I think --

4 MR. WIDMAYER: Well, just to finish, I 

5 was intrigued with Option 4 as far as what you might 

6 be able to stick with and you can stay with 1,000 

7 years as your compliance period, justify why 1,000 

8 years. Then all these other arguments that you're 

9 talking about is the reason you want to go beyond 

10 1,000 years. It gives you a notion as to how much 

11 things cost. Maybe you adjust things that we don't 

12 spend all the resources and all those arguments.

13 CHAIR RYAN: I guess I'm still rattling 

14 it around in my head but the important point is what 

15 requirement you attach to whatever number you pick, 

16 whether 1,000, 10,000, or 20,000. What does an

17 applicant have to do to satisfy that numerical, 

18 whatever is around that numerical requirement. Is 

19 it to do a calculation? 

20 Is it to have very high degrees of 

21 certainty? Is it to look at something like this 

22 sort of analysis that says we think things are in 

23 the right direction and below the line on the d/d 

24 Esh curve from now on. So what I have to do to 
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1 demonstrate that I'm okay with whatever the number 

2 is critical. The language that ultimately ends up 

3 in the rule and the guidance that follows behind it 

4 I think is the important part of all this.

5 MR. ESH: I think part of the issue is 

6 that the decision makers on these problems what 

7 certainty. They want an easy decision. In some 

8 ways some of these types of problems are not going 

9 to be amenable to an easy decision. I think it is 

10 practical to think you can generate some future 

11 impacts even at some longer times and say, "I 

12 believe that the range of impacts is going to be one 

13 to 100," or whatever the case may be. "Some 

14 distribution over a couple orders of magnitude and 

15 here is why I think that is a suitable decision." I 

16 don't think we can get to the point of saying that 

17 the result is 23.7.

18 CHAIR RYAN: Oh, no. I don't think so 

19 either. What I'm trying to get at is risk is 

20 likelihood. We talked a lot about what's the 

21 consequence but we really haven't focused on how we 

22 give guidance on how to figure out the likelihood.

23 MR. ESH: One thing I think I forgot to 

24 mention in my talk is part of this issue, especially 
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1 for low-level waste, low-level waste is the first 

2 step in the waste management process. It's not the 

3 last step. Okay? You have other alternatives to go 

4 further down the line if you need to to manage the 

5 material. 

6 When we talk about uncertainties and 

7 results at long time and whether they are meaningful 

8 or not, in many areas of life that we operate in, I 

9 think if we were faced with try to decide if there 

10 is a risk to us or a safety impact and said, "That's 

11 really uncertain," we probably wouldn't take that 

12 action or we would take some sort of protective 

13 action. We wouldn't just charge and have them with 

14 the action because we say, "Well, we have a lot of 

15 uncertainty."

16 CHAIR RYAN: Basically it will still 

17 come down to a different metric. What is the 

18 likelihood and if I'm not happy with the likelihood 

19 I calculated, or the uncertainty in the likelihood, 

20 I have to do things. I'll get back to the 

21 analytical side to maybe reduce the uncertainty of 

22 the likelihood and then decide if I'm happy or 

23 unhappy with that likelihood.

24 MR. ESH: Part of the issue is, I think, 
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1 sometimes in performance assessment when we are 

2 trying to generate a single metric output to, say, 

3 the peak mean dose from a probabilistic analysis is 

4 X or it's below whatever our limit is, I'm not sure 

5 if that's the right thing that we should be doing. 

6 CHAIR RYAN: I agree.

7 MR. ESH: Maybe we should be generating 

8 the range of outcomes and say, "This is the range of 

9 outcomes," and they may not be averageable. You may 

10 be representing -- depending whether it's 

11 representing variability or uncertainty, you 

12 shouldn't be reducing that range of output to a 

13 single number. It's not a number that makes sense. 

14

15 It's like if you have a river and the 

16 river is six inches deep the whole way across and 50 

17 feet deep at the other side and you say, "On average 

18 the river is nine inches deep. Our send my toddler 

19 across it." Well, you probably shouldn't do that.

20 CHAIR RYAN: Again, I know this is a 

21 hard question but to get back to this analysis, it 

22 basically kind of categorizes what things are 

23 important and what things aren't to these various 

24 scenarios and then how we can deal with that over 
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1 time. 

2 Adding how we can deal with it over time 

3 is real important to understanding what does a 

4 10,000 or 20,000-year calculation mean. We are 

5 forced to assume some regularity of the environment, 

6 you know, averaging for the nine-inch depth. There 

7 is no way around it so we are going to be faced with 

8 those uncertainties that we have to somehow wrestle 

9 with. I guess I would offer to you 

10 the thought that having guidance on how to wrestle 

11 with those uncertainties it will be an acceptable 

12 methodology. It will be very, very important to add 

13 to this effort to give people that guidance.

14 MS. YADAV: We absolutely have draft 

15 guidance written on how to handle uncertainties and 

16 the time frame, how to do the long-term analysis 

17 beyond the 20,000 year compliance period. We have 

18 all that that we're working on.

19 CHAIR RYAN: Just 10 to 20. Let's not 

20 talk about beyond 20 yet. I think the details of 

21 that guidance hopefully will give people the answer 

22 to, "What do you want? What do you want from the 

23 applicant."

24 MS. YADAV: Right.
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1 CHAIR RYAN: And then how detailed does 

2 it have to be and what does it need to assess. I 

3 think that is very important guidance to make this 

4 workable. MS. YADAV: Yes. Maybe we 

5 need a session after the guidance is more complete 

6 on specific details in the guidance.

7 CHAIR RYAN: Right.

8 MR. WIDMAYER: Speaking of which, do you 

9 still want to bring the group to the full committee 

10 meeting in July for a letter report or do you want 

11 to have another meeting before you do a letter 

12 report?

13 CHAIR RYAN: Let's think about that. 

14 MEMBER STETKAR: We certainly need a 

15 letter report probably by the September meeting to 

16 bring it up to the Commission.

17 MR. WIDMAYER: Right. You said October 

18 21st?

19 MS. YADAV: Yes.

20 MR. WIDMAYER: I know that you talked 

21 before about the October meeting. You talked before 

22 about whether you want to come again after you do an 

23 analysis of the comments and see if you change 

24 course or --
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1 MR. PERSINKO: We thought after we're 

2 here with this full committee we would then kind of 

3 regroup and decide where we need to go.

4 MR. WIDMAYER: My concern with that is 

5 we need a four-hour session with the full committee.

6 CHAIR RYAN: Let's maybe just take that 

7 as an action item and think it over.

8 MR. WIDMAYER: As it stands right now 

9 you guys are suppose to come back for the July full 

10 committee meeting.

11 CHAIR RYAN: Quite frankly, I think the 

12 July full committee meeting is not a bad idea 

13 because it gives the full committee the chance to 

14 digest stuff that they probably haven't seen in 

15 detail until then and then have a follow-up activity 

16 after that.

17 MR. WIDMAYER: Okay. They need some 

18 guidance on what to reduce their presentation to for 

19 the full committee.

20 CHAIR RYAN: We will deal with that --

21 MR. WIDMAYER: Off line?

22 CHAIR RYAN: -- as we prepare for that 

23 meeting.

24 MR. WIDMAYER: Okay. We could have Dave 
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157

1 come and use five slides and go from there.

2 CHAIR RYAN: That's not going to happen.

3 MR. ESH: I think I just talked about 

4 inappropriately reducing information.

5 (Laughter.)

6 CHAIR RYAN: Anything else? So we've 

7 got a scheduling action we'll take up and go from 

8 there. Anything else, Jack?

9 MEMBER SIEBER: No thanks. Well done.

10 CHAIR RYAN: John?

11 MEMBER STETKAR: Nothing.

12 CHAIR RYAN: All right. With that we'll 

13 close the meeting. Thank you all very much for a 

14 very informative morning.

15 (Whereupon, at 11:45 a.m. the meeting 

16 was adjourned.)

17

18

19

20

21
10 CFR Part 61:

Site-Specific Analyses for Demonstrating 

Compliance with Subpart C Performance 

Objectives

Deborah Jackson, Deputy Director

Division of Intergovernmental Liaison and Rulemaking

Office of Federal and State Materials and Environmental 

Management Programs

Deborah.Jackson@nrc.gov, (301) 415-7278

Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards

Meeting of the Radiation Protection and Nuclear 

Materials Subcommittee

June 23, 2011
Why are we here

today:

2

• Provide update of Part 61 rulemaking and solicit input on 

certain technical issues

• ACRS briefing

– December 2009 and March 2010

• Commission directions

– Proceed with a rulemaking to require a site specific 

performance assessment prior to the disposal of significant 

quantities of DU and blended waste 
Why are we doing a 

rulemaking:

• Emerging regulatory issues in LLW disposal

– Discrepancies from original 10 CFR Part 61 assumptions

• Disposal sites are currently faced with disposing of waste types that 

were not considered at that time

– Uranium enrichment

• More than 1 million metric tons of depleted uranium (DU) require 

disposal

– Industry innovation to address Class B & C LLW

• Industry contemplating large-scale blending

3
Today’s topics and 

presenters:

4

Topic Presenter

Background: Commission Direction, 2009 DU Workshops, 

2010 ACRS Letter

Priya Yadav, 

DWMEP

Draft Proposed Rule: Summary of Preliminary Proposed 

Rule Language

Andrew Carrera, 

DILR

Discussion: Intruder Analysis Requirement, Period of 

Performance Proposal

David Esh, 

DWMEP

Overview of May 18, 2011, Public Meeting and Summary of 

Public Comments

Drew Persinko, 

DWMEP
10 CFR Part 61:

Background of the Site-Specific Analysis 

Rulemaking 

Priya Yadav

Division of Waste Management and 

Environmental Protection

Office of Federal and State Materials and Environmental 

Management Programs

Priya.Yadav@nrc.gov, (301) 415-6667

Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards

Meeting of the Radiation Protection and Nuclear 

Materials Subcommittee

June 23, 2011
2

Overview

• Background

• Recent Activities

• Comments

• Working Group Approach
3

Staff Requirements 

Memorandums

• SRM-SECY-08-0147:

– Require site-specific analysis for disposal of large quantities of DU 

– Meet performance objectives

– Specify criteria needed for analysis

– Develop supporting guidance

• SRM-SECY-10-0043:

– Incorporate blending issue into the existing rulemaking for DU

DU + Blending
4

Recent Activities

• 2009 Unique Waste Streams Workshops

– Workshop 1: September 2-3, 2009

• Approximately 75 people attended in Bethesda, MD

• Transcripts: ML092580469 and ML092580481

– Workshop 2: September 23-24, 2009

• Approximately 90 people attended in Salt Lake City, Utah 

• Transcripts: ML092890511 and ML092890516

• ACRS Briefings 

– Subcommittee on Radiation Protection and Nuclear Materials: 

December 16, 2009 

– 570th meeting ACRS: March 4-6, 2010
5

Recent Activities

• Interim guidance, April 13, 2010 

– Letter to Agreement States

• “Summary of Existing Guidance That May be Relevant 

for Reviewing Performance Assessments Supporting 

Disposal of Unique Waste Streams” (ML100250501)

• Public Workshop, June 24, 2010

• Demonstrated GoldSim application of screening model 

supporting SECY-08-0147

• Approximately 30 people attended

• Summary (ML101790484)
6

Recent Activities

• “Technical Basis for Proposed Rule to Amend 10 CFR 

Part 61 to Specify Requirements for the Disposal of 

Unique Waste Streams, Including Large Quantities of 

Depleted Uranium”, April 2011, (ML111040419):

– Describes existing regulatory framework

– Identifies regulatory issues

– Outlines basis for requested change

– Stakeholder interactions

– Alternatives considered
7

Recent Activities

• May 18, 2011 Public Meeting:

– Approximately 50 people attended in Rockville, MD

– Similar presentations by staff

– Ample time for public comments

– Comments received until June 18, 2011

– Visit the Site-Specific Analysis Website:

• http://www.nrc.gov/about-nrc/regulatory/rulemaking/potentialrulemaking/uw-streams.html

• Transcript (ML111570329), Meeting Summary (ML111600030), 

Proposed Rule Language, Period of Performance Technical 

Analysis Paper 
8

2009 Workshop Comments

• Identify period of performance in the rule (i.e., a specific 

number) so that all licensees are held to the same 

requirement

• Revise the performance objective for intruder protection 

(§61.42 ) to specify the dose limit for the assessment

• Specify a requirement in the rule to conduct a 

performance assessment for all waste streams disposed

– No need to define “unique waste streams” or specify different 

requirements than other waste disposed
9

2009 Workshop Comments: 

Period of Performance

• Broad range of opinions

– 10,000 years is too long

– 10,000 years is sufficient

– More than 10,000 years but less than peak

– Evaluation to peak dose is needed
ACRS Letter

• Letter to Chairman, March 18, 2010

– Recommendations:

• Risk-informed, Site-specific, realistic performance 

assessments

• Articulate standards applications will be reviewed against

• Quantification of uncertainties

• Treat proximity of potentially exposed members of the 

public in a probabilistic and risk-informed fashion

• Base scenarios on:

– Realistic assumptions for release and transport, fate of the DU 

– Realistic likelihood of intrusion

– Range of site-specific conditions

10
ACRS Letter 

(continued)

• Letter to Chairman, March 18, 2010

– Recommendations:

• Determine doses over a timeframe determined on a caseby-case site-specific basis

• Guidance should include:

– Quantities, physical, and chemical forms of disposed DU 

– Waste packaging and disposal technology

– Site-specific properties that influence mobilization and transport

– Local climatic conditions

– Depth of disposal

– Cover technologies that limit infiltration and intrusion 

11
Working Group Approach

• Require performance assessment for all radionuclides

– Discuss reasonably foreseeable scenarios in guidance

• Require intruder assessment for all radionuclides

– Ensure similar analysis as done for §61.55 tables

– Likelihood of intrusion considered by dose limit

– Discuss use of generic or site-specific scenarios in 

guidance

• Define a specific time period for period of performance

– Recommend compatibility category to allow for flexibility on 

case-by-case basis

– Clarify in guidance a graded level-of-effort is expected 

for less complex sites with shorter-lived 

radionuclides

12
10 CFR Part 61: 

Preliminary Proposed Rule Language

Andrew Carrera

Division of Intergovernmental Liaison and Rulemaking

Office of Federal and State Materials and Environmental 

Management Programs

Andrew.Carrera@nrc.gov, (301) 415-1078

Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards

Meeting of the Radiation Protection and Nuclear 

Materials Subcommittee

June 23, 2011
Working group

Office Working Group Members

FSME/DILR/RB-A Andrew Carrera, Gary Comfort

FSME/DILR/RB-B Jeffrey Lynch

FSME/DWMEP/EPPAD Priya Yadav, Mike Lee, James Kennedy

FSME/DWMEP/EPPAD Christopher Grossman, David Esh

FSME/DWMEP/ERB-A Stephen Lemont

ADM/DAS/RADB Angella Love-Blair

OGC Lisa London, Tison Campbell

NRR Shawn Harwell

OIS Kristen Benney

NMSS Greg Chapman

OAS/CRCPD Devane Clark

2
Purpose of the Rule

• Specify site-specific analyses requirements.

• Strengthen and clarify existing regulations to reduce 

ambiguity and facilitate implementation.

• Better align the requirements with current health and 

safety standards.

3
Proposed Amendments to 

Part 61 Regulations

• Waste-Stream Neutral:

1. Site-specific-analyses requirements would apply to all wastes

• Site-Specific Analyses: 

1. Performance assessment

2. Intruder assessment

3. Long-Term analysis

4. Update analyses at facility closure

• Other Supporting Changes:

1. New definitions, concepts, and long-term analysis

2. Use of total effective dose equivalent (TEDE)

4
Site-Specific Analyses: 

Performance Assessment

• § 61.41 Protection of the general population from 

releases of radioactivity.

Revised requirements:

§ 61.41(a)—Revised to include TEDE.

§ 61.41(b)—Added requirement to demonstrate compliance 

with a performance assessment for 20,000 years.

5
Site-Specific Analyses: 

Intruder Assessment

• § 61.42 Protection of inadvertent intruders.

Revised requirements:

§ 61.42(a)—Added annual dose of 500 mrem TEDE.

§ 61.42(b)—Added requirement to demonstrate compliance 

with a intruder assessment for 20,000 years.

6
Site-Specific Analyses:

Long-Term Analysis

• § 61.13 Technical analyses.

New requirements:

§ 61.13(e)(1)—Discuss how the design of the facility 

considers the potential long-term radiological impacts, consistent 

with available data and current scientific understanding. 

§ 61.13(e)(2)—Calculate the peak annual dose that would 

occur 20,000 or more years after site closure. No dose limit 

applies to the results of these analyses.

7
Site-Specific Analyses:

Updated Analyses

• § 61.28 Contents of application for closure.

New requirement:

§ 61.28(a)(2)—Submit revised analyses for § 61.13 using the 

details of the final closure plan and waste inventory.

• § 61.52 Land disposal facility operation and disposal 

site closure.

New requirement:

§ 61.52(a)(12)—Dispose of waste consistent with the 

description provided in § 61.12(f), and the technical analyses 

required by § 61.13.

8
Other Supporting 

Changes

• § 61.2 Definitions.

New definitions: 

intruder assessment, long-lived waste, and performance 

assessment.

• § 61.7 Concepts.

New concepts: 

intruder assessment, performance assessment, and long-term 

analysis.

9
Thank you
1

10 CFR Part 61:

Technical Issues for the Low-Level

Waste Rulemaking

David W. Esh

Division of Waste Management and 

Environmental Protection

Office of Federal and State Materials and Environmental 

Management Programs

David.Esh@nrc.gov, (301) 415-6705

Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards

Meeting of the Radiation Protection and Nuclear 

Materials Subcommittee

June 23, 2011
2

Main Topics

• Intruder Assessment

• Period of Performance

• Guidance 
3

Intruder Assessment
4

• New requirement for an intruder assessment.

• Necessary because the Commission directed the staff 

not to alter the waste classification system.

• Waste classified under 61.55(a)(6) could represent an 

unanalyzed condition from an intruder protection 

perspective.

• Intruder assessment has three parts: waste classification 

and segregation, intruder barriers, and intruder dose 

assessment.

Intruder Assessment
5

Intruder Assessment

• Regulatory construct.

• Intruder assessment is supported by a variety of groups 

(IAEA, ICRP, NCRP).

• Evaluate potential exposure of inadvertent intruders after 

institutional control period (100 years).

• Dose limit of 500 mrem TEDE reflects NRC belief that 

exposures are unlikely, albeit possible, and impacts will 

be limited to a few individuals.

• Reasonably foreseeable land use scenarios, impacted 

by timeframe and change in natural site conditions.
6

Intruder Assessment

Intruder assessment is an analysis that:

(1) Assumes that an inadvertent intruder occupies the site at any 

time during the compliance period after institutional controls are 

removed and engages in activities (e.g., agriculture, dwelling 

construction, and resource exploration) that might unknowingly expose 

the inadvertent intruder to radiation from the waste; 

(2) Examines the capabilities of intruder barriers to inhibit contact 

with the waste by an inadvertent intruder or to limit the inadvertent 

intruder’s exposure to radiation; and

(3) Estimates the potential annual total effective dose equivalent, 

considering associated uncertainties, to an inadvertent intruder 

engaging in activities that might unknowingly expose the inadvertent 

intruder to radiation from the waste.
7

Period of Performance
8

Background

• Period of performance is one of many important 

elements in the safety evaluation of low-level waste 

(LLW) disposal.

• Different approaches are used in the US and 

internationally for LLW.

• Diverse views among stakeholders.
9

NRC Background

• The Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste (ACNW) 

commented on the period of performance on numerous 

occasions (since 1994).

• ACNW communicated basic principles (see next slide).

• Commission direction (SRM-96-103).

• NUREG-1573: Performance Assessment Working 

Group (PAWG) recommended 10,000 years with longerterm impacts in site environmental assessment.
10

ACNW Principles*

• Two tiers:

- No less than time for more mobile radionuclides to 

produce peak dose. 

- No longer than a time period over which scientific 

extrapolations can be convincingly made. 

- If the disposal system fails to meet the standard during 

the specified time period, ameliorating actions should be 

required or the site should be rejected. 

* Full text provided on backup slides

Consider site-specific characteristics
11

ACNW Principles*

- Evaluate robustness of the facility over the range of 

external processes and events that may affect the 

performance of the facility over long time periods. 

- This evaluation also will ensure that no significant 

changes in the dose from the disposal site will occur.

- Estimates of the peak dose from the facility beyond the 

time of compliance are qualitatively compared with the 

dose standard. 

* Full text provided on backup slides
12

General Objectives

• Provide protection to present and future 

generations

• Consider uncertainties

• Communicate long-term impacts

• Facilitate decision making
13

Period of Performance 

Selection Process

• Literature review:

- Characteristics of waste

- Analysis framework

- Uncertainties (societal, natural, engineering, 

technology)

- Socioeconomic considerations 

(transgenerational equity, discounting)
14

Waste Characteristics

0

20,000

40,000

60,000

80,000

100,000

120,000

140,000

160,000

0 200,000 400,000 600,000 800,000 1,000,000

Time (yr)

Ra-226 (pCi/g)

Assumptions:

No losses of material

Pure depleted uranium (100 wt.%)

50% disposal packing efficiency

10,000 years

? ?

This 99% of the waste does 

not cause risk from disposal
15

Waste Characteristics - HLW

From NUREG-1538
16

LLW Inventory Analysis –

Rulemaking Context

• Look at actual inventories disposed (use DOE MIMS 

database).

• Estimate the reduction factor needed to reduce the 

waste concentration to a groundwater concentration that 

would produce 25 mrem TEDE.

• Performance assessment is the process to verify that 

the necessary reductions will be achieved (sorption, 

solubility, dispersion, dilution).

• The next two slides are not PA results.
17

LLW Inventory Analysis

1.E-03

1.E-02

1.E-01

1.E+00

1.E+01

1.E+02

1.E+03

1.E+04

1.E+05

1.E+06

1.E+07

1.E+08

1.E+09

1.E+00 1.E+02 1.E+04 1.E+06 1.E+08 1.E+10

Reduction Factor to achieve 25 mrem

Half life (yr)

Barnwell

Clive

Richland

Beatty

Sr90

Large

Quantities

DU

U238 Th232

Increasing

Challenge

Blended

Sr90
18

1.E-03

1.E-02

1.E-01

1.E+00

1.E+01

1.E+02

1.E+03

1.E+04

1.E+05

1.E+06

1.E+07

1.E+08

1.E+09

1.E+00 1.E+02 1.E+04 1.E+06 1.E+08 1.E+10

Reduction Factor to achieve 25 mrem

Half life (yr)

Base

Geochem-mod

Sr90 Large

Quantities

DU

U238

Th232

Increasing

Challenge

Blended

Sr90

LLW Inventory Analysis
19

Uncertainty
20

Socioeconomic

• National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA) 

recognized that intergenerational decision-making involves a 

number of variables (NAPA 1997)*

1) Every generation has obligations as trustee to protect the interests of 

future generations.

2) No generation should deprive future generations of the opportunity of a 

quality of life comparable to its own.

3) Each generation’s primary obligation is to provide for the needs of the 

living and succeeding generations. Near-term concrete hazards have 

priority over long-term hypothetical hazards.

4) Actions that pose a realistic threat of irreversible harm or catastrophic 

consequences should not be pursued unless there is some 

countervailing need to benefit either current of future generations.

• Discounting

* NRC has not formally adopted
21

Options Considered

1) No Change

2) Peak Dose

3) Regulatory Precedent (two tiers)

4) Uncertainty Informed Approach – three tiers, 

Compliance, Assessment, Performance (CAP)

5) Industrial Metals
22

Rating Factors

• Protectiveness of Public Health and Safety—The level of protection afforded to 

current and future generations. A low rating does not mean that the option considered 

does not provide adequate protection of public health and safety; a low rating means 

that on a relative basis that option could provide less protection than other options.

• Consistency with Intergenerational Principles—The degree to which the option would 

account for the intergenerational decision making principles listed in this section. 

Ratings were assigned based on the ability of the option to satisfy all five principles.

• Consistency with Current NRC Policy—The degree of consistency with current NRC 

policy with respect to assignment of a period of performance in waste disposal and 

decommissioning activities.

• Treatment of Uncertainty—The rigor with which the option considers uncertainty. The 

consideration of uncertainty has technical and socioeconomic components.

• Facilitate Regulatory Decision Making—The degree to which the option will allow 

regulatory decisions to be formulated, explained, and understood.
23

Rating Factors

Option #

Protectiveness 

of Public Health 

and Safety

Consistency with 

Intergenerational 

Principles

Consistency 

with Current 

NRC Policy

Treatment of 

Uncertainty

Facilitate 

Regulatory 

Decision 

Making

1 L to H L to H H M L to H

2 H L to H M L to H L

3 M to H M H L to M M to H

4 H M to H L to M H H

5 H H L L H

Table I Assessment of Decision Variables for Period of Performance Options Evaluation
24

Recommendation

• Option #3 – Regulatory Precedent (two-tiered 

approach with elements selected for the problem)

• Option #3 provides the best balance considering all 

factors and stakeholder views (at the current time)
25

• A compliance period of no less than 20,000 years, with a peak 

annual dose limit of 25 mrem TEDE.

•A requirement to perform a calculation of peak annual dose that 

occurs after 20,000 years as an indicator of long-term facility 

performance. No dose limit would apply to this analysis.

•A requirement to provide analyses that demonstrate how the 

facility was designed to mitigate long-term impacts.

•Associated changes to the regulations to highlight the 

uncertainties associated with disposing of long-lived waste and 

that limitations on the disposal of those materials may be 

needed to properly manage the uncertainties.

Recommendation
26

Basis for 20,000 years

• Near-surface disposal is not geologic disposal – the 

stability issues are much more challenging.

• Natural cycling of climate is known/expected.

• A value of 10,000 years is more likely to be in the 

period of climate transition.

• Including climate cycling within the compliance period 

will encourage disposal of long-lived waste at more 

stable sites.
27

Basis for 20,000 years

• While 20,000 years does not capture peak risk for all 

wastes, it captures more than shorter values. Possibly 

within 10x for depleted uranium.

• A value of 20,000 years better captures radionuclide 

transport characteristics (compared to 10,000 years).

• Diminishing returns for longer periods (affected by 

increasing uncertainty).
28

d(Radionuclide Transport)

d(Period of Performance)

Depth 

(Horizontal) Shallow Moderate Deep

Climate 

(Vertical)

Arid Se, Sn, Eu, 

Nb, Mn, Fe

U, Np, C, Sr, I Tc, H, Cl

U, Np, C, Sr, I, 

Semi-arid Pu, Ac, Co, Pa Se, Sn, Eu, 

Nb, Mn, Fe

U, Np, C, Sr, I

Humid Pu, Ac, Co, 

Pa, Zr, Th, Cs

Pu, Ac, Co, Pa Se, Sn, Eu, 

Nb, Mn, Fe

1 Ra, Pb, and Am were not influenced under any of the nine conditions

more

mobile

less

mobile

Sites with slow

water flow

Sites with fast

water flow
29

Basis for No Dose Limit

for Second Tier

• Impacts can be better placed in proper context (NRC 

would complete environmental analysis of impacts for 

disposal licensing actions taking place in non-Agreement 

States).

• Approach better aligned with long-term decision making 

in other programs (e.g. disposal of industrial metals).

• Impacts better aligned with uncertainties.

Basis for No Dose Limit

for Second Tier
30

• Risk-informed, performance-based guidance:

- Would allow flexibility for short-lived waste or low 

concentrations of long-lived waste.

- Would allow to go longer for high-concentrations 

of long-lived waste.

• Expectations for long-term analysis.

Guidance on 

Period of Performance
31

Guidance
32

Guidance

• Guidance is being developed and will be issued in 

parallel with the proposed rule for public comment.

• Guidance will supplement existing guidance.

• Main topics:

i. General Technical Analyses

ii. Performance Assessment Modeling Issues

iii. Intruder Assessment

iv. Stability Assessment

v. Long-term Analyses

vi. Other Considerations
33

Backup
34

NRC Background - Backup

• From the ACNW, June 3, 1994: ―The committee believes that there is significant 

uncertainty about the required time frame for PA. The presently used arbitrary 

numerical values (e.g., 10,000y) lack bases in either standards or regulations.‖

• From the ACNW, June 28, 1995:―.. We believe the application of peak dose 

calculations to be an important issue...‖ 

• From the ACNW, June 7, 1996: 

―The maximum climate change is not predictable with our present science, but all 

evidence from extrapolations indicates that the principle effect will occur prior to ca. 

20,000 years.‖

―On the basis of currently available information, the ACNW anticipates that the 

appropriate compliance period will be somewhat greater than the present standard of 

10,000 years.‖(for Yucca Mountain) 

―The time span for the compliance period should be no shorter than an estimate of the 

anticipated time it takes for potential radionuclide contaminants to reach the nearest 

critical group and no longer than a time period over which scientific extrapolations can 

be convincingly made.‖
35

NRC Background - Backup

• SRM-96-103 ―The staff should provide to the Commission the 

technical basis used to support the truncation of the performance 

assessment at 10,000 years..”

• SECY-00-0182 ―...therefore, PAWG is not recommending that the dose 

calculations be truncated at 10,000 years, if doses are still increasing 

at 10,000 years.” 

• NUREG-1573 – PAWG recommended 10,000 years for LLW 

performance assessment and a qualitative consideration of longerterm impacts in the site environmental assessment.

• From the ACNW, March 18, 2010: Don’t specify a period of 

performance in the regulation (case by case basis).
36

• This time span should be no shorter than an estimate of the 

anticipated time it takes for the more mobile radionuclides to 

produce a peak dose to the critical group and no longer than a 

time period over which scientific extrapolations can be 

convincingly made. This time period should be determined on 

the basis of site-specific characteristics of the entire disposal 

system using modeling, analog studies, and results from 

laboratory and in situ experiments. If the disposal system fails 

to meet the standard during the specified time period, 

ameliorating actions should be required or the site should be 

rejected. 

ACNW Principles – LLW 

(Pomeroy, 1997)
37

ACNW Principles - LLW

• The time period of compliance must be defined in concert 

with the reference biosphere and the critical group. Thus, 

the regulations also must include requirements and 

guidance for defining the latter on a facility-specific basis 

using known site characteristics and effects of long-term 

processes that are technically supported. 

• In certain cases, the calculated time of compliance 

should be replaced with a maximum time of compliance 

such that uncertainties in performance assessment can be 

reasonably bounded. 
38

ACNW Principles - LLW

• The second part of the compliance regulation is designed to 

be used in evaluation of the robustness of the facility over the 

range of external processes and events that may affect the 

performance of the facility over long time periods. This 

evaluation also will ensure that no significant changes in the 

dose from the disposal site will occur in the near term after 

the calculated time of compliance. Estimates of the peak 

dose from the facility beyond the time of compliance are 

qualitatively compared with the dose standard. This part 

should not become a de facto regulation. 
39

NRC Guidance

Outline (Draft)
40

Main Topics

1. Introduction – Background, purpose, and regulatory 

framework.

2. General Technical Analyses Considerations:

i. Scope of analysis (FEPs)

ii. General elements (data uncertainty, model 

support, integration, etc.)

iii. Period of performance

iv. Dosimetry

v. Uncertainty

vi. Peer review, expert judgment and elicitation
41

Main Topics

3. Performance Assessment Modeling Issues:

i. Source term

a. Inventory

b. Wasteform

c. Geochemistry

d. Release mechanisms

ii. Radionuclide transport

a. Groundwater transport

b. Surface water transport

c. Atmospheric transport

d. Biotic transport
42

Main Topics

4. Inadvertent Intrusion

i. Waste classification and segregation requirements

ii. Adequate barriers to intrusion

iii. Inadvertent intrusion assessment

iv. Institutional controls

5. Site Stability Analyses

i. Disruptive processes

ii. Technical assessment

iii. Engineered barriers
43

Main Topics

6. Long-Term Analyses

i. Guidelines for long-term isolation

ii. Scope of long-term analyses

iii. Analyses for long-lived waste

iv. Barrier and component analyses

7. Other Considerations

i. Inventory limits

ii. Mitigation

iii. Insignificant quantities

8. Use of Other NRC Guidance Documents
10 CFR Part 61:

Preliminary Summary of Stakeholder 

Comments

Drew Persinko, Deputy Director

Division of Waste Management and 

Environmental Protection

Office of Federal and State Materials and Environmental 

Management Programs

Andrew.Persinko@nrc.gov, (301) 415-7479

Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards

Meeting of the Radiation Protection and 

Nuclear Materials Subcommittee

June 23, 2011
May 18th Public Meeting

• Opportunity to Discuss Draft Proposed Rule Text and 

Technical Analysis Supporting Definition of Period of 

Performance

• Sought Initial Stakeholder Reaction to Draft Proposed 

Rule Text

– Public Meeting

– Public Comment period ended June 18

– 15 sets of written comments submitted thus far

– Public comments are being reviewed

1
Initial Stakeholder 

Comments

• Part 61 Framework for Addressing DU

• 20,000-year Period of Performance

• Treatment of Future System States

• Intruder Assessment Requirement 

2
Initial Stakeholder 

Comments (continued)

• NRC/Agreement State Compatibility

• Other 

3
Next Steps / Conclusion

• Staff Intends to Review All Stakeholder Comments 

• Concluding Remarks

4