NRC ISSUES GUIDANCE ON TREATMENT OF URANIUM

FILTERED FROM LOCAL WATER SYSTEMS AND OTHER FACILITIES

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has issued guidance allowing uranium recovery 

facilities to accept, process and dispose of certain ion-exchange resins used to remove naturally 

occurring uranium from municipal water systems.

The guidance states that the NRC considers certain resins “equivalent feed” – if they are 

essentially identical to material already processed at the facility – rather than “alternative feed” that 

would require a license amendment to accept and process. 

This guidance can help community water systems comply with regulations issued in 2003 by 

the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, placing a limit of 30 micrograms of uranium in drinking 

water. The transport, treatment and disposal of the uranium-loaded resins can be a significant cost –

according to the EPA, as much as 50 percent of operating costs for smaller community water 

systems.

These treatment resins are chemically and physically essentially the same as ion-exchange 

resins already used at uranium recovery facilities and would be processed in the same way. The 

NRC staff has determined that uranium recovery facilities should be permitted to accept these resins 

as equivalent feed without the need for a license amendment, provided the processing remains 

within the scope of the facilities’ existing safety and environmental reviews.

“This is a win-win situation, benefitting our national interest by recovering valuable uranium 

while helping community water systems purify drinking water,” said Mark Satorius, director of the 

NRC’s Office of Federal and State Materials and Environmental Management Programs. “The 

ability to reuse the resins provides an economic benefit to the treatment facilities by reducing 

operating costs and the amount of resin requiring disposal.”

The guidance also allows mine dewatering operations to dispose of uranium-loaded resin in 

the same way – by sending them to a uranium recovery facility for processing – rather than 

disposing of them in a landfill. In a similar fashion, uranium-loaded resin from another licensed 

uranium recovery facility can also be treated as equivalent feed if it meets the criteria outlined in the 

guidance.

Once the uranium is recovered, the spent resins may be disposed in uranium mill tailings 

impoundments or as low-level radioactive waste, or they may be returned to the water treatment 

facility for reuse in stripping uranium from municipal water supplies. 

NRC NEWS

U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION

Office of Public Affairs Telephone: 301/415-8200

Washington, D.C. 20555-0001

E-mail: opa.resource@nrc.gov Site: www.nrc.gov

Blog: http://public-blog.nrc-gateway.gov

No. 12-048 May 8, 2012
The guidance is contained in Regulatory Issue Summary 2012-06: NRC Policy Regarding 

Submittal of Amendments for Processing of Equivalent Feed at Licensed Uranium Recovery 

Facilities, and is available on the NRC website. Draft guidance was published for public comment 

Oct. 12, 2011.

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