PROGRAM EVALUATION OF 

CHANGES TO THE DECOMMISSIONING PROGRAM

September 2003

U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission

Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards

Washington, DC 20555-0001

Contact: Robert L. Johnson NMSS/DWM

(301) 415-7282
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PROGRAM EVALUATION OF CHANGES TO THE DECOMMISSIONING PROGRAM

Contents

Executive Summary........................................................................................................... 3

Acronyms............................................................................................................................ 4

1. Introduction.......................................................................................................................5

2. Background...................................................................................................................... 5

3. Program Evaluation Objectives, Scope, and Methods...................................................... 6

4. Results..............................................................................................................................7

4.1 Evaluations of Overall Program Effectiveness.....................................................7

4.1.1 Strategic Plan and Annual Performance Plan Measures.......................7

4.1.2 Key Program Accomplishments............................................................8

4.1.3 OMB PART Questions....................................................................... 10

4.2 Evaluations of Individual Changes/Improvements............................................ 12

4.2.1 Regulatory Framework Improvements............................................... 12

4.2.2 Decommissioning Process Improvements......................................... 12

4.2.4 Stakeholder Communication Improvements....................................... 13

4.3 Evaluations by Independent Groups..................................................................13

4.4 Near-Term Goals and Challenges.................................................................... 14

4.4.1 Near-Term Goals............................................................................... 14

4.4.2 Challenges..........................................................................................14

5. Recommendations..........................................................................................................15

6. Conclusions.....................................................................................................................18

Attachment 1: Evaluation to Identify Potential Improvements to the Decommissioning Program

using Questions from OMB’s Performance Assessment Rating Tool (PART)

Attachment 2: Evaluations of Individual Changes/Improvements

Attachment 3: Independent Evaluations
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Executive Summary

Under the Government Performance Results Act of 1993 (GPRA), Federal agencies are

required to schedule, conduct, and report on program evaluations in selected areas. The U.S.

Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s (NRC’s) Strategic Plan for FY 2000-2005 identified a

program evaluation entitled Changes to the Decommissioning Process to be conducted in FY

2003. The NRC staff completed its evaluation in FY 2003 and this report summarizes the

results including: background, objectives, scope, methods of evaluation, results, and

recommendations. The attachments to this report provide the detailed evaluations. 

The objectives of the Decommissioning Program Evaluation are to: 1) evaluate the

effectiveness of NRC’s Division of Waste Management (DWM) Decommissioning Program; 2)

evaluate individual program changes/improvements; and 3) recommend future improvements. 

The scope of this program evaluation is limited to the regulation of decommissioning of nuclear

materials facilities and fuel cycle facilities included on the Site Decommissioning Management

Plan (SDMP) and complex site list during the FY 2001–FY 2003 time period. Also included

within the scope of the program evaluation are those activities related to power reactor

decommissioning that DWM was responsible for before the transfer of all power reactor

decommissioning from the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation (NRR) to the Office of Nuclear

Materials Safety and Safeguards (NMSS) during FY 2003. 

A variety of different methods were used by the staff to evaluate the effectiveness of the overall

program and each of the individual improvements to the program. The staff evaluated overall

program effectiveness with: 1) NRC’s Strategic Plan measures and targets; 2) NMSS Operating

Plan accomplishments; and 3) the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Program

Assessment Rating Tool (PART). The staff used the PART questions as an independent

methodology to systematically and comprehensively evaluate its program to identify areas of

the program’s effectiveness that might need further improvement. The staff also evaluated the

effectiveness of 18 specific changes/improvements that were made to the program during the

FY 2001–FY 2003 evaluation period. Independent reviews by the Commission and the

Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste (ACNW) were also used and add objectivity to the 

staff evaluations.

The Decommissioning Program has been effective at meeting the Agency’s strategic and

performance measures and removing sites from the SDMP list after completion of

decommissioning and license termination. The program also has effectively used many types

of self assessments and program changes to improve the regulatory framework,

decommissioning processes, internal program management processes, and public involvement. 

The staff believes these improvements have been useful and those that are ongoing should

continue to be used. 

Although significant improvements have been completed, future improvements would be

beneficial. In particular, the recommendations in the License Termination Rule (LTR) Analysis

to resolve the LTR policy issues, when implemented as directed by the Commission, offer

potentially significant future improvements for the program. To complement these

recommended regulatory and policy improvements, this Program Evaluation makes additional

recommendations that primarily would improve internal program management. These

recommendations include:
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1) Establish a comprehensive decommissioning program perspective.

2) Implement the new Consolidated Decommissioning Guidance.

3) Improve staff availability and efficient utilization.

 4) Expand management reviews of all decommissioning sites.

5) Compare and evaluate NRC’s Decommissioning Program to similar programs.

6) Revise annual Budget measures and targets.

7) Consider using incentives to facilitate licensee decommissioning.

8) Document and implement a continual improvement plan.

For many of these ongoing and future improvements, however, immediate efficiencies should

not be expected. In fact, in the near-term more resources might be needed for persistent and

diligent implementation of the LTR Analysis and Program Evaluation improvements by NRC

staff and licensees before actual efficiencies can be eventually achieved. Furthermore,

because of the uncertainty that the decommissioning challenges present, future efficiencies

could be offset or difficult to measure because of new issues that might emerge.

Because of the persistent challenges facing the Decommissioning Program as well as the high

cost to licensees for decommissioning, the staff believes that its near-term goal should be to

continue improving the efficiency and timeliness of decommissioning activities at all

decommissioning sites without impacting safety or public confidence. 

Therefore, the recommendations from both the LTR Analysis and this Program Evaluation

should be given the priority, time, and resources to be implemented effectively during FY 2004-

FY 2005. After this period of persistent and diligent implementation, the program’s

effectiveness should be reevaluated in FY 2006 to support the scheduled evaluation of the

Decommissioning Program using OMB’s PART.

Acronyms

ACNW Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste

BPI Business Process Improvement

DOE U.S. Department of Energy

DP Decommissioning Plan

DWM Division of Waste Management

EPA U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

GPRA Government Performance Results Act

LTP License Termination Plan

LTR License Termination Rule

MOU Memorandum of Understanding

NMSS Office of Nuclear Materials Safety and Safeguards

NRC U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission

NRR Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation

OMB Office of Management and Budget

PART Program Assessment Rating Tool

PBPM Planning, Budgeting, and Performance Management

RES Office of Research

SDMP Site Decommissioning Management Plan
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1. Introduction

Under the Government Performance Results Act of1993 (GPRA), Federal agencies are

required to schedule, conduct, and report on program evaluations in selected areas. NRC’s

Strategic Plan for FY 2000-2005 identified a program evaluation entitled Changes to the

Decommissioning Process to be conducted in FY 2003. The NRC staff completed its

evaluation in FY 2003 and this report summarizes the results including: background, objectives,

scope, methods of evaluation, results, and recommendations. The attachments to this report

provide the detailed evaluations. 

2. Background

NRC regulates the decontamination and decommissioning of materials and fuel cycle facilities,

power reactors, research and test reactors, and uranium recovery facilities, with the ultimate

goal of license termination. Approximately 300 materials licenses are terminated each year by

the NMSS. Most of these license terminations are routine, and the sites require little, if any,

remediation to meet NRC’s regulatory criteria for unrestricted use. Within NMSS, DWM is

responsible for the Decommissioning Program that regulates the decommissioning and

termination of licenses for 26 materials and fuel facility sites that are not routine and, therefore,

are identified on the SDMP and complex sites lists. In addition, during FY 2003, DWM’s

Decommissioning Program became responsible for the decommissioning of 13 additional

power-reactors after the spent fuel has been removed from the reactor vessel, and certain

regulatory and safety milestones have been met. This responsibility was transferred from the

Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation (NRR) to DWM in FY 2003. NRR remains responsible

for all stages of research-and test-reactor decommissioning and oversight of the initial stages of

power-reactor decommissioning. NMSS’s Division of Fuel Cycle Safety and Safeguards is

responsible for decommissioning of uranium recovery facilities. Finally, the Office of Research

(RES) provides substantial research support to decommissioning, and DWM also provides

environmental reviews for NMSS’s facility decommissioning.

Key activities conducted by DWM’s Decommissioning Program include: resolution of policy

issues; guidance development; licensing activities of SDMP and complex decommissioning

sites and power reactor sites (e.g., reviews of decommissioning plans (DP s) for materials sites

and license termination plans (LTPs) for power reactors); confirmatory radiological surveys,

financial assurance reviews; and oversight of the West Valley Demonstration Project. The

Regions support DWM’s Decommissioning Program by inspecting the ongoing

decommissioning activities of both materials and power reactor sites and providing project

management for a few sites. The status of DWM’s Decommissioning Program and other NRC

decommissioning activities are given in the annual updates to the Commission for 2001, 2002,

2003 (SECY-01-0156, SECY-02-0169, and SECY-03-0161). 

NRC’s primary regulations used for decommissioning include the criteria for license termination

in the License Termination Rule (LTR) in 10 CFR 20, Subpart E. This regulation was finalized

in 1997. Other regulations in 10 CFR Parts 30, 40, 50, 70, and 72 provided additional

requirements for decommissioning related to DP s, timeliness of decommissioning, financial

assurance, and recordkeeping. Guidance is provided in NMSS’s Consolidated

Decommissioning Guidance (NUREG-1757) and the Standard Review Plan for Evaluating

Power Reactor License Termination Plans (NUREG-1700, Rev. 1). 
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3. Program Evaluation Objectives, Scope, and Methods

3.1 Objectives and Scope

The objectives of this program evaluation are to: 1) evaluate the effectiveness of DWM’s

Decommissioning Program; 2) evaluate individual program changes/improvements; and 3)

recommend future improvements. 

The scope of DWM’s Decommissioning Program and this program evaluation is limited to the

regulation of decommissioning of nuclear materials facilities and fuel cycle facilities included on

the SDMP and complex site list during the FY 2001–FY 2003 time period. Also included within

the scope of the program evaluation are those activities related to power reactor

decommissioning that DWM was responsible for before the transfer of most power reactor

decommissioning from NRR during FY 2003. Furthermore, this program evaluation does not

include other non-NMSS decommissioning activities such as the regulation of decommissioning

of research- and test-reactors or uranium recovery facilities. Finally, the supporting research

and environmental review activities are also not included in the scope of this NMSS program

evaluation. 

3.2 Methods

A variety of different methods were used by the staff to evaluate the effectiveness of the overall

program and each of the individual improvements to the program. The staff evaluated overall

program effectiveness with: 1) NRC’s Strategic Plan measures and targets; 2) NMSS Operating

Plan accomplishments; and 3) the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Program

Assessment Rating Tool (PART). The staff used the PART questions as an independent

methodology to systematically and comprehensively evaluate its program to identify areas of

the program’s effectiveness that might need further improvement. The PART questions provide

a consistent approach to rating programs across the Federal government. The 31 questions for

a regulatory program address the following four elements of a program: purpose/design;

strategic planning; management; and results/accountability. For the purpose of identifying

areas of improvement, the staff decided that following the OMB guidance for addressing the

questions with a Yes or No and the “high standard” for Yes would be an effective approach to

identify areas of potential improvement. Therefore, this evaluation is not a formal Agency

PART evaluation of the Decommissioning Program, and did not involve the scoring or full

documentation of evidence required by a formal Agency PART. A formal Agency PART for the

Decommissioning Program is scheduled for FY 2006.

The staff also evaluated the effectiveness of 18 specific changes/improvements that were made

to the program during the FY 2001–FY 2003 evaluation period. These improvements included

a wide variety of self assessments of major program activities such as licensing, inspections,

laboratory analyses, guidance, financial assurance, and implementation of the regulations. 

Where possible the staff relied on evidence from Agency documents for its evaluations. In

addition, interviews were conducted with over 15 NRC project managers responsible for

implementing activities within the Decommissioning Program. These interviews provided

information for qualitative evaluations that involved identifying: accomplishments, outcomes 
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relative to the Agency’s four performance goals, and lessons learned that were considered in

recommending future improvements. Methods to quantify the effectiveness of improvements

are not available and may be difficult to develop for decommissioning.

Independent reviews by the Commission and the Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste

(ACNW) were also used and add objectivity to the staff evaluations. The Commission is

independent from the staff and provides general oversight of the program, while ACNW, as an

independent advisory committee to the Commission, reviews selected high priority staff

regulatory products and technical issues. 

4. Results

4.1 Evaluations of Overall Program Effectiveness

4.1.1 Strategic Plan and Annual Performance Plan Measures 

Detailed program results for all the Agency measures are reported in NRC annual performance

and accountability reports for FY 2001 and FY 2002. These results are summarized below

along with preliminary results for FY 2003 for those measures that are applicable to the

Decommissioning Program. 

The Decommissioning Program has met all four strategic goal measures. These four

measures have been established to determine the program’s success in meeting its strategic

goal to “Prevent significant adverse impacts from radioactive waste to the current and future

public health and safety and the environment, and promote the common defense and security.”

These top-level, outcome measures define NRC’s success in overseeing decommissioning and

consist of: 1) no deaths from acute radiation exposure; 2) no events resulting in significant

radiation exposure; 3) no release of radioactive waste causing an adverse impact on the

environment; and 4) no losses, thefts, diversions, or radiological sabotage of special nuclear

material or radioactive waste. 

In addition to the strategic goal, NRC has four performance goals that pertain to the

Decommissioning program: 1) maintain safety, protection of the environment, and the common

defense and security; 2) increase public confidence; 3) make NRC activities and decisions

more effective, efficient, and realistic; and 4) reduce unnecessary regulatory burden on

stakeholders. For the first performance goal, the Decommissioning Program met all of its

measures regarding radiation overexposures; breakdowns of physical protection; radiological

releases; and handling of radioactive waste and materials. For the second goal, the program

met its only measure of implementing the public outreach activities described in the

decommissioning communication plans. For the third goal, the program met its measure by

completing the following key process improvements: Consolidated Decommissioning

Guidance; focused the Regional inspection program; phased review of DP s for restricted

release sites; and guidance for LTP reviews. Finally, there were no measures for the fourth

performance goal that were applicable to the Decommissioning Program. 

The annual output measure in the NRC’s Budget for the Decommissioning Program is to

remove one site from the SDMP list each year after completion of remediation and license

termination. The Decommissioning Program has met this measure by removing the following
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sites from the SDMP each year: Cabot Revere in FY 2001; Lake City Army Ammunition Plan in

FY 2002; and GSA Watertown in FY 2003. 

4.1.2 Key Program Accomplishments

The key program accomplishments and associated outcomes are summarized below for each

of the Agency’s four performance goals. These accomplishments demonstrate the productivity

of the Decommissioning Program and progress toward achieving each of the performance

goals. Many of these accomplishments resulted in improvements to the 

Decommissioning Program. 

Maintain Safety

1) Completed cleanup and decommissioning at 3 sites, reducing the number of complex sites

undergoing decommissioning from 29 to 26.

2) Continued ongoing decommissioning oversight activities at 26 SDMP and complex materials

sites and 15 power reactor sites (after the FY 2003 transfer of power reactors from NRR to

NMSS). Key activities include reviews of licensee DP s and LTPs, inspections of licensee

decommissioning activities, confirmatory radiological surveys, reviews of licensee final status

survey reports, and preparations of safety evaluation reports.

2) Completed the Decommissioning Criteria for the West Valley Demonstration Project at the

West Valley Site; Final Policy Statement, which was required under the 1980 West Valley

Demonstration Project Act for NRC to establish the criteria to be used for remediation and

decommissioning of this site.

3) Completed the LTR Analysis of implementation issues and recommended solutions for the

Commission’s decision. The recommended improvements could make regulations and

guidance more risk informed and efficient as well as make some provisions viable (i.e.,

restricted release and alternate criteria). Such changes should facilitate the decommissioning of

existing complex decommissioning sites. In addition, the recommended improvements would

resolve financial and licensee operational problems at future sites and reduce or mitigate the

potential for future decommissioning funding shortfalls (i.e., prevent future legacy sites).

4) Published the NMSS Consolidated Decommissioning Guidance that consolidated

approximately 80 existing guidance documents into three volumes, improved the risk-informed

implementation of the guidance, and enhanced guidance based on lessons learned and

comments from stakeholders.

5) Improved the risk-informed implementation of the LTR and reduced unnecessary

conservatism by: describing the risk-informed process in the consolidated guidance; grouping

sites by relative risk; developing the risk-informed graded approach for institutional controls; 

developing and applying a probabilistic dose assessment computer code with parameter

distributions; recommending to the Commission an approach for selecting more realistic

exposure scenarios; and using risk ranking to prioritize inspections.
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6) Completed the Terminated License Review Project, conducted since 1990, that resulted in

reviewing about 37,000 terminated license files to determine the potential for residual

radioactivity above the LTR’s unrestricted release limit. The project identified 42 sites where

further cleanup was needed. By the end of FY 2003, 30 of these sites have been cleaned up

and cleanup is underway or planned for the remaining 12. 

Increase Public Confidence

1) Conducted a decommissioning workshop to explain decommissioning guidance and specific

issues and obtain feedback from licensees and stakeholders.

2) Involved stakeholders in preparing the Consolidated Decommissioning Guidance by involving

State representatives on the writing and review team, including guidance prepared by the

Nuclear Energy Institute and reviewed by the staff, and seeking public comments on the 

draft guidance.

3) Published a best practices report on public involvement with decommissioning sites and held

a training session for licensees and other stakeholders.

4) Developed communication plans for the Decommissioning Program and each site

undergoing decommissioning that identifies specific stakeholders and gives planned

communication activities and schedules.

5) Continued noticed and open meetings with licensees and provided publically available

meeting summaries. Used public meeting feedback forms to evaluate the effectiveness of 

each meeting. 

5) Improved coordination and collaboration with other Federal agencies (U.S. Environmental

Protection Agency (EPA), U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)), and interagency working groups

(e.g., the Interagency Steering Committee on Radiation Standards and the Environmental

Council of States Long-Term Stewardship subcommittee) to share knowledge, develop

solutions to common problems, and avoid dual regulation. 

6) Increased interactions with international groups to share regulatory cleanup expertise and

experience and seek solutions to common problems.

Make Activities More Effective, Efficient, and Realistic

1) Completed transfer of power reactor decommissioning from NRR to NMSS, which resulted in

consolidating most power reactor decommissioning activities in a single organizational unit

along with decommissioning of materials sites. This transfer further concentrates the staff’s

decommissioning skills which should improve the efficiency and consistency of dealing with 

decommissioning issues.

2) Continued to implement the rebaselining and streamlining of the decommissioning processes

(e.g., expanded acceptance reviews, phased reviews, early and ongoing consultations, in

process confirmatory surveys).
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3) Conducted many self assessments and lessons learned studies to improve the

Decommissioning Program: LTR Analysis, Licensing Business Process Improvement (BPI),

Region Lab evaluation, Region inspection efficiency, Reactor decommissioning transfer, and a

pilot study for decommissioning simple sites without a DP. 

4) Completed the Program Evaluation of Changes to the Decommissioning Program, which

comprehensively evaluated the effectiveness of many improvements made during the past

three years and integrated the lessons learned into recommendations for additional

improvements.

5) The Program Evaluation, LTR Analysis, and other self assessments conducted over the past

three years demonstrates a culture that uses self assessments and lessons learned to seek

program improvement. 

6) Implemented the Agency’s Planning, Budgeting, and Performance Management (PBPM)

process by developing tools for operating plan preparation, tracking and reporting performance,

as well as budget development.

Reduce Unnecessary Regulatory Burden on Stakeholders

1) Completed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between NRC and EPA regarding

consultation and finality of decommissioning and began implementation of the MOU, which is

expected to improve interagency communication and coordination and avoid potential for dual

regulation and impacts on licensees.

2) Evaluated staff reviews of DP s and LTPs to identify lessons learned by staff and licensees

and published the results in a Regulatory Issue Summary for licensees and stakeholders. 

These lessons learned are expected to improve implementation of the staff’s guidance and

facilitate preparation of high quality DP s and LTPs by licensees.

3) Completed a financial analysis of sites and developed a process to aggressively take action

to reduce the risk of licensee funding shortfalls and avoid requesting Federal funding of

cleanup. 

4) Continued to conduct reviews to assure sufficiency of licensee financial assurance to avoid

decommissioning funding shortfalls.

4.1.3 OMB PART Questions

Of the 31 PART questions for regulatory programs, the staff concluded that 19 questions were

considered effective, and, therefore, no improvements are needed. Improvements could be

made to eight questions and improvements are already underway for four other questions to 

achieve OMB’s high standard for effectiveness. Attachment 1 provides detailed results in a

matrix of the PART questions, staff answers, and recommendations. A summary is provided

below for each of the four program areas addressed by the PART questions.

Purpose and Design. Of the five questions for this program area, the Decommissioning

Program is considered effective for three. Improvements are already underway for the
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remaining two questions. The Decommissioning Program has a clear purpose and addresses

the specific problem of regulating decommissioning and license termination of contaminated

NRC licensed sites. Furthermore, program resources are considered effectively targeted. 

Improvements are underway and need to be completed to avoid duplication with other

regulatory programs (i.e., implementation of the MOU with EPA to avoid dual regulation with

EPA) and to resolve major flaws (i.e., implementation issues identified in the staff LTR Analysis

for institutional controls/restricted release, realistic exposure scenarios, and preventing future

legacy sites)

Strategic Planning. Of the nine questions for this program area, the Decommissioning Program

is considered effective for six. The program has outcome measures and targets, short-term

performance measures, and its budget is tied to its goals. Improvements are needed for three

questions that address ambitious annual targets, regular independent evaluations of the

program, and explaining how regulations contribute to achieving goals . 

Program Management. Of the eleven questions for this program area, the Decommissioning

Program is considered effective for eight and improvements are needed for three. The staff

concluded that managers are held accountable; funds are obligated and expended; there is

strong Agency financial management; the program collaborates and coordinates with related

programs; the staff seek the views of affected parties; there is adequate regulatory impact

analyses; and regulations allow maximizing net benefits. Improvements are needed for:

collecting site performance information; procedures to measure and achieve efficiencies; and

regular systematic reviews of regulations. 

Program Results. 

Of the six questions for this program area, the Decommissioning Program is considered

effective for two questions, effective to a large extent for two other questions, and effective to a

small extent for the remaining two questions. Thus, some improvement is needed for four

questions. The staff concluded that the Decommissioning Program has demonstrated progress

in achieving its goals and has met all of the Agency strategic and performance goals and

measures. To a large extent it has qualitatively demonstrated improved efficiency and cost

effectiveness but improvements would be needed develop a system to track and analyze staff

FTE expenditures in order to better reallocate resources and attempt to measure efficiencies

and cost effectiveness. For comparisons to other programs, the Decommissioning Program is

effective to a large extent by comparing issues shared by similar programs. However,

improvement could be made by comparing the staff’s lessons learned using the LTR with the

Agreement States who are required to implement the LTR for decommissioning sites in their

States. For independent evaluations, the program is effective to a small extent with limited

reviews done by the Commission and the ACNW for selected topics; however, there are no

periodic reviews of the overall program by a independent group outside of NRC. Such reviews

might be considered; however, they may not be cost effective, and technically capable review

groups may be difficult to arrange. Finally, the program seeks to maximize the net benefit of its

actions through it management and by using a risk-informed and performance based approach. 

However, recently completed guidance for this approach needs to be fully implemented by both

staff and licensees, and the staff needs to further prioritize its work and consider the feasibility

of methods to measure cost effectiveness for site decommissioning.
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4.2 Evaluations of Individual Changes/Improvements

The staff evaluated the 18 individual changes/improvements and detailed results are given in

Attachment 2. These changes are summarized below.

4.2.1 Regulatory Framework Improvements

The key improvements to the regulatory framework consist of revising and consolidating

guidance, making available more realistic dose modeling tools, and seeking resolution of key

implementation issues for the LTR. 

The staff completed several guidance improvements. The first is the NMSS Consolidated

Decommissioning Guidance, which was a three-year effort to consolidate approximately 80

existing guidance documents into a three volume set with clearer guidance grouping sites by

risk and referencing appropriate sections of the guidance. Guidance was added regarding

flexibility, risk-informed approach, more realistic dose modeling, and partial site release. In

addition to the Consolidated Decommissioning Guidance, the staff also revised the guidance for

reviewing power reactor LTPs, including a cross-reference to the technical guidance in the

Consolidated Decommissioning Guidance. The staff also used another form of guidance for

licensees by publishing a Regulatory Issue Summary of lessons learned from the first four

power reactor LTPs reviews and DP s reviews of materials sites. 

Dose modeling is a primary assessment tool that both licensees and the NRC staff use to

determine if the dose criteria for license termination in the LTR have been met. Concerns have

been raised regarding unnecessary conservatism in dose assessments. As a result the staff

made the following improvements: 1) recommended an approach for selecting more realistic

exposure scenarios; 2) implemented the probabilistic RESRAD computer codes developed by

RES; 3) implemented default parameter distributions for use in conducting sensitivity analyses;

and 4) developed new guidance for the flexible and risk-informed approaches to dose modeling. 

These improved computer codes and guidance address primary sources of conservatism. 

Thus, licensees have tools available that allow greater flexibility and can reduce the cost and

time needed for decommissioning. 

The staff also evaluated key policy issues (e.g., restricted release, realistic scenarios, changes

to prevent future legacy sites) that were identified from implementing the LTR and

recommended options to resolve the issues for the Commission’s consideration. The

Commission’s direction may result in future rulemaking and revised guidance for licensing

reviews, inspections, and enforcement. The staff’s recommendations have the potential for

facilitating the decommissioning of existing sites by addressing key challenges these sites must

address. In addition, the recommendations for changes in financial assurance and licensee

operations should reduce or mitigate the potential for future “legacy” sites that may not have the

financial ability to complete decommissioning. 

4.2.2 Decommissioning Process Improvements 

The staff continued to implement changes to streamline the decommissioning processes used

by both the staff and licensees. In particular, early and ongoing consultations before DP s and

LTPs are submitted together with expanded acceptance reviews of DP s and LTPs and phased
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reviews of DP s for restricted release sites contribute to more efficient preparation of plans by

licensees that are of higher quality. Completing an MOU with EPA is intended to enhance

communications, avoid dual regulation, and achieve finality of decommissioning. 

The staff also conducted a variety of self assessment that resulted in improvements to internal

management and administrative processes. For example, power reactor decommissioning

responsibilities in NRR and NMSS were evaluated and consolidated into DWM’s

Decommissioning Program during FY 2003. The staff also completed a financial analysis of

sites and developed an approach to take aggressive actions to reduce the risk of licensee

funding shortfalls. The staff conducted a review of the most cost effective and efficient options

for conducting laboratory analyses of radiological samples and decided to cease all NRC

laboratory operations conducted by the Regional offices and rely on a contractor for sample

analysis. Assessments were conducted of inspection procedures for the decommissioning of

both materials sites and power reactors. Techniques such as risk ranking were used to revise

inspection guidance that prioritizes inspections activities and make more efficient use of limited

inspection resources. Finally, the staff conducted the first phases of a Licensing BPI

assessment of decommissioning and an evaluation of OMB PART questions to identify

recommendations for future improvements. 

4.2.4 Stakeholder Communication Improvements

The staff conducted four stakeholder workshops on the decommissioning process and issues,

pilot program lessons learned, plans for the Consolidated Decommissioning Guidance

development, and guidance for effective public involvement in decommissioning. The staff

also developed and implemented a Communication Plan for Regulation of Decommissioning

and site-specific communication plans for each decommissioning site. Conducting the

decommissioning workshops and communication plans increased the attention and importance

of effective stakeholder involvement. This guidance also provided knowledge and tools for the

staff and licensees to use. Site-specific plans help focus the staff on the appropriate

stakeholders and their needs. The staff expects that these planning efforts, when implemented

over time, will improve stakeholder understanding of the decommissioning regulatory process

and issues as well as provide more opportunities for stakeholders to give input to the process. 

Opportunities were also provided for active stakeholder involvement in developing regulatory

guidance. This involvement brought stakeholder experience and perspective to complement

the staff’s experience. Finally, communication, cooperation, and information sharing with

Federal agency stakeholders on key regulatory issues was enhanced as were interactions with

international groups to share regulatory cleanup experience and seek solutions to common

issues.

4.3 Evaluations by Independent Groups

The Commission and the ACNW, that provides technical advise to the Commission, are the two

groups independent from the staff who have provided reviews of the Decommissioning

Program.

During the evaluation period the staff continued it process of annual reports and briefings on

the status of the program to the Commission. Likewise, the Commission continued to provide

its regular oversight of the overall program and policy level issues affecting the program based
14

on the staff’s annual reports as well as other staff reports. The most significant result from the

Commission’s oversight during the evaluation period that impacts the effectiveness of the

overall Decommissioning Program was the Commission’s direction for the staff to conduct an

analysis of LTR implementation issues and recommend options to resolve the issues for

Commission consideration. The Commission’s direction in response to the staff analysis and

recommendations, will result in many future improvements to the program as described in

SECY-03-0069.

The staff briefed the ACNW on six high priority decommissioning issues during the evaluation

period. No major concerns about these issues or how the staff was addressing them were

raised to the Commission by the ACNW. Specific comments were provided for the Commission

to consider when it finalized the West Valley Policy Statement. 

4.4 Near-Term Goals and Challenges 

The staff used the results of this program evaluation to identify near-term goals and recognize

challenges to future improvement.

4.4.1 Near-Term Goals

Generally, decommissioning sites do not present a serious radiological hazard because of the

low concentrations of radionuclides contaminating these sites. However, most material sites

have large volumes of soil contaminated with long-lived radionuclides and in some cases

groundwater is also contaminated. Decommissioning these sites, therefore, can be complex

and costly. Therefore, the first near-term goal is to continue improving the efficiency and

timeliness of decommissioning activities at all decommissioning sites without impacting safety

or public confidence. A second goal is to minimize or mitigate future decommissioning

problems for operating licensed sites. 

4.4.2 Challenges

The staff recognizes that the nature of licensee sites, the decommissioning activities, LTR

requirements, and the external environment that affects decommissioning combine to present a

variety of challenges to efficient and timely decommissioning. Recognizing these challenges is

an important step in targeting future improvements. Licensee and other external challenges are

described below.

1) Complex sites with difficult issues. Implementing the LTR at the remaining

materials and power reactor decommissioning sites is expected to be complex with

emerging, difficult policy, technical, and public involvement issues that must be

addressed in a consistent and efficient manner.

2) Dynamic and uncertain environment. The changing and uncertain nature of

decommissioning complex sites can detract from efficient and timely decommissioning. 

Unexpected changes can occur resulting from new issues, new information, or changes

in cleanup methods as decommissioning progresses.
15

3) Limited licensee resources or incentive. Some licensees or former licensees have

limited resources or incentive to complete decommissioning. Some licensees or former

licensees are in bankruptcy or are financially weak, while delaying or minimizing

decommissioning costs might be attractive to others. In addition, because

decommissioning is not typically a revenue generating activity, licensees may not be

motivated to perform decommissioning as aggressively as the staff would prefer.

4) Limited licensee capability and experience. There is limited licensee capability or

experience implementing the LTR and using the fundamental analytical tools of

decommissioning such as dose modeling or radiological surveys. Furthermore, there is

limited understanding or experience implementing the new Consolidated

Decommissioning Guidance or LTR recommendations for restricted release and realistic

scenarios. Licensees typically only decommissioning once at the end of a facilities

operational life. Therefore, decommissioning is a new and unfamiliar activity that is

different from operating the facility.

5) Stakeholder concerns. Licensees are required to obtain and demonstrate

consideration of the views of a wide variety of stakeholders that might be affected by

site decommissioning. These groups can raise significant concerns and often have

strong views or even objections to aspects of decommissioning. Such concerns often

gain high visibility or even political attention. Time and effort will be needed by both

licensees and staff to address stakeholder issues when they are raised. 

Challenges can also be internal to NRC, such as the following:

1) Organizational inefficiencies. Multiple organizations involved with aspects of

decommissioning require greater communication and coordination. Furthermore,

consistently and efficiently addressing key policy and technical issues can be difficult to

achieve. 

2) Limited staff experience. At this time and until training is provided, there is limited

staff experience implementing the Consolidated Decommissioning Guidance and some

of the LTR issues. Lessons learned need to be better shared among staff.

3) Limited staff resources. There are limited staff resources and competing priorities

within the Decommissioning Program, with other DWM programs, and with unbudgeted

work. Limitations in critical disciplines such as health physics, dose modeling,

hydrogeology have the greatest impact on licensing review schedules.

5. Recommendations

The following recommendations have been made to help achieve the near-term goals. These

recommendations are based on the staff’s lessons learned, considering the challenges

described above, and the OMB PART questions that need improvement. Where there is an

OMB PART question addressed by a recommendation, its number is given in parenthesis. 
16

1) Establish a Comprehensive Decommissioning Program Perspective

a) Redefine the objectives and scope of the Decommissioning Program for all

decommissioning sites and subsume the SDMP sites.

b) Redefine the roles of organizations involved with the Comprehensive

Decommissioning Program (DWM, Regions, other NRC Divisions, Commission). No

longer require Commission approval role for removing sites from the SDMP list.

c) Consider centralizing DP project management and review for complex materials sites.

d) Define and manage all decommissioning sites using a graded approach to prioritize,

allocate, and track both licensing and inspection activities and resources in both

Headquarters and all the Regions. The graded approach could be based on sitespecific risk insights and decommissioning challenges (see types of licensee and

external challenges identified in section 4.2.2).

2) Implement the new Consolidated Decommissioning Guidance tailored to staff and

licensee needs. Emphasize key topics such as using flexibility, risk informed

approaches, and realistic dose modeling (PART Q 4.RG1)

a) Develop case histories and lessons learned as examples of flexibility, risk

informed approaches, realistic dose modeling, and prioritization of sites/activities 

using risk;

b) Train staff in DWM, Regions, other divisions on the Consolidated Guidance and key

topics tailored to their decommissioning roles, sites, and decommissioning phase. 

Share lessons learned and case studies for implementing the guidance at specific sites,

especially for issues cross cutting many sites (realistic scenarios, restricted release,

engineered barriers, use of risk insights):

d) Conduct frequent and in-depth consultations with individual licensees to

implement guidance and share lessons learned/case studies tailored to specific sites.

e) Establish a Decommissioning Lessons Learned Page on the Decommission Web

site to share among all licensees site-specific lessons learned; issues, and example

case studies. 

3) Improve staff availability and efficient utilization 

a) Reorganize/reassign/add staff so that the Decommissioning Program and specific

sites have sufficient resources, especially for critical disciplines (e.g., health physics,

dose modeling, hydrogeology)

b) Improve the resource tracking process and system to allocate budgeted

resources and then track actual staff resource expenditures for individual sites/projects. 

Use the new process to support management decisions to reallocate resource loading
17

to respond to emerging issues, changing licensee schedules, and approved unbudgeted

work. (PART Q 3.4, 4.3)

c) Establish a baseline for decommissioning costs for specific sites and explore the

feasibility of a method to measure efficiency and cost effectiveness (PART Q 3.4, 4.3)

4) Expand management reviews of all decommissioning sites among all NRC

organizations involved with existing and future decommissioning (PART Q 3.1)

a) Coordinate and review information from Headquarters and Regions for existing

decommissioning sites to monitor progress, consistency, and efficiency of resolving 

common policy and technical issues

b) Coordinate and review information with currently operating licensed sites to identify

and resolve conditions or events that could complicate future decommissioning 

5) Compare and evaluate NRC’s Decommissioning Program to similar programs (PART Q

2.6, 4.4, 4.5)

a) Share decommissioning lessons learned among NRC and Agreement States.

b) Consider options and feasibility for an independent review of NRC’s

Decommissioning Program (e.g., American Society of Mechanical Engineers,

Agreement States, others).

6) Revise annual Budget output measures and targets, to be outcomes that are

representative of expected key accomplishments for the year, including improvements 

(PART Q 2.4)

7) Consider using incentives to facilitate licensee decommissioning, where appropriate. 

Evaluate options for potential incentives such as staff dose modeling for licensees or assigning

special high priority for staff reviews under conditions such as bankruptcy.

8) Document and implement a “continual improvement” plan that systematically and

periodically reevaluates and adjusts the program, includes the following initial phases: (PART Q

1.3, 1.4, 2RG1, 3RG3)

a) Plan and budget the recommended new Program Evaluation improvements

using the Agency’s PBPM process during the next budget cycle and determine which

recommendations to implement and the appropriate schedule;

b) Implement the new Program Evaluation improvements and Commission

directed LTR Analysis improvements during FY 2004-FY2005;

d) Reevaluate the program and LTR in FY 2006 to support the scheduled OMB PART

for the Decommissioning Program; and 

e) Plan future reevaluations.
18

6. Conclusions

The Decommissioning Program has been effective at meeting the Agency’s strategic and

performance measures and removing sites from the SDMP list after completion of

decommissioning and license termination. The program also has effectively used many types

of self assessments and program changes to improve the regulatory framework,

decommissioning processes, internal program management processes, and public involvement. 

The staff believes these improvements have been useful and those that are ongoing should

continue to be used. 

Although significant improvements have been completed, future improvements would be

beneficial. In particular, the recommendations in the LTR Analysis to resolve the LTR policy

issues, when implemented as directed by the Commission, offer significant future

improvements for the program. To complement these recommended regulatory and policy

improvements, this Program Evaluation makes additional recommendations that primarily would

improve internal program management such as prioritization of staff work, expanded

management reviews of site progress as well as ensuring the effective implemention of the

Consolidated Decommissioning Guidance. 

For many of these ongoing and future improvements, however, immediate efficiencies should

not be expected. In fact, in the near-term more resources might be needed for persistent and

diligent implementation of the LTR and Program Evaluation improvements by NRC staff and

licensees before actual efficiencies can be eventually achieved. Furthermore, because of the

uncertainty that the decommissioning challenges present, future efficiencies could be offset or

difficult to measure because of new issues that might emerge.

Because of the persistent challenges facing the Decommissioning Program as well as the high

cost to licensees for decommissioning, the staff believes that the staff’s near-term goal should

be to continue improving the efficiency and timeliness of decommissioning activities at all

decommissioning sites without impacting safety or public confidence. 

Therefore, the recommendations from both the LTR Analysis and this Program Evaluation

should be given priority, time, and resources to effectively implement during FY 2004--2005. 

After this period of persistent and diligent implementation, the program’s effectiveness should

be reevaluated in FY 2006 to support the scheduled evaluation of the Decommissioning

Program using OMB’s PART.
ATTACHMENT 1

EVALUATION TO IDENTIFY POTENTIAL IMPROVEMENT TO THE 

DECOMMISSIONING PROGRAM USING QUESTIONS FROM OMB’S 

PERFORMANCE ASSESSMENT RATING TOOL (PART)
2

EVALUATION TO IDENTIFY POTENTIAL IMPROVEMENT TO THE 

DECOMMISSIONING PROGRAM USING QUESTIONS FROM OMB’S 

PERFORMANCE ASSESSMENT RATING TOOL (PART)

1. INTRODUCTION

The staff used the questions from the Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB’s)

Performance Assessment Rating Tool (PART) as an independent methodology to

systematically and comprehensively evaluate its program to identify areas of the program that

could be improved in order to satisfactorily address the PART questions. 

The PART questions were designed to provide a consistent approach to rating programs

across the Federal government. According to OMB’s PART guidance, “the PART is a

diagnostic tool that relies on objective data to inform evidenced-based judgments and to assess

and evaluate programs across a wide range of issues related to performance” (OMB, 2003). 

The 31 questions for a regulatory program address the following four elements of a program:

purpose/design; strategic planning; management; and results/accountability. 

2. METHOD OF EVALUATION

As mentioned above, the staff used the PART questions as one tool in it Program Evaluation to

identify areas of improvement. Therefore, this evaluation is not a formal Agency evaluation of

the PART for the Decommissioning Program, and did not involve the scoring or full

documentation of evidence required by a formal Agency PART. A formal Agency PART for the

Decommissioning Program is scheduled for FY 2006.

For the purpose of identifying areas of improvement, the staff decided that following the OMB

guidance (OMB, 2003, Attachment C) for addressing the questions with a Yes or No and the

“high standard” for Yes would be an effective approach to identify areas of potential

improvement. According to OMB guidance, questions in Section I through III are scored in a

Yes/No format. Section IV can be answered in a four-level scale (Yes, Large Extent, Small

Extent, and No) to reflect partial achievement of goals and evidence of results. It should be

recognized that under the OMB guidance, a program with a No answer for Sections I through III

can be complying with the question and even making efforts to improve, but may not have

reached the high standard of performance that OMB is seeking. Therefore, further

improvement might be needed to reach the OMB standard. For some questions, improvements

for the Decommissioning Program are underway but not completed, but for other questions,

new improvements are recommended. 

Sections I through III

1) Yes: high level of performance–no improvement

2) No: less than high level of performance–improvement needed 
3

Improvement underway but not completed

New improvement recommended to reach OMB standard

Section IV

1) Yes: high level of performance–no improvement

2) Large extent: less than yes and performs to a large extent–improvement needed

3) Small extent: less than yes performs to a small extent–improvement needed

4) No: little or not performance–improvement needed 

3. EVALUATION RESULTS

Of the 31 PART questions for regulatory programs, the staff concluded that 19 questions were

considered effective, and, therefore, no improvements are needed. Improvements could be

made to eight questions and improvements are already underway for four other questions to

achieve OMB’s high standard for effectiveness. The attached matrix provides detailed results

for each PART question and recommendations. A summary is provided below for each of the

four program areas addressed by the PART questions.

Purpose and Design. Of the five questions for this program area, the Decommissioning

Program is considered effective for three. Improvements are already underway for the

remaining two questions. The staff considered the Decommissioning Program has a clear

purpose and addresses the specific problem of regulating decommissioning and license

termination of contaminated NRC licensed sites. Furthermore, program resources are

considered effectively targeted. Improvements are underway and need to be completed to

avoid duplication with other regulatory programs (i.e., NRC/EPA Memorandum of

Understanding for consultation to avoid dual regulation) and to resolve major flaws (i.e.,

implementation issues identified in the staff’s LTR Analysis for institutional controls/restricted

release, realistic exposure scenarios, and preventing future legacy sites)

Strategic Planning. Of the nine questions for this program area, the Decommissioning Program

is considered effective for six. The staff considered that the program had long term outcome

measures and targets, short-term performance measures, and its budget was tied to its goals. 

Improvements are needed for three questions that address ambitious annual targets, regular

independent evaluations of the program, and explaining how regulations contribute to achieving

goals . 

Program Management. Of the eleven questions for this program area, the Decommissioning

Program is considered effective for eight and improvements are needed for three. The staff

considered that: managers are held accountable; funds are obligated and expended; there is

strong Agency financial management; the program collaborates and coordinates with related

programs; the staff seek the views of affected parties; there is adequate regulatory impact

analyses; and regulations allow maximizing net benefits. Improvements are needed for:
4

collecting site performance information; procedures to measure and achieve efficiencies; and

regular, systematic reviews of regulations. 

Program Results. 

Of the six questions for this program area, the Decommissioning Program is considered

effective for two questions, effective to a large extent for two other questions, and effective to a

small extent for the remaining two questions. Thus, some improvement is needed for four

questions. The staff concluded that the Decommissioning Program has demonstrated progress

in achieving its goals and has met all of the Agency strategic and performance goals and

measures as reported in NRC’s annual performance and accountability reports. To a large

extent it has qualitatively demonstrated improved efficiency and cost effectiveness but

improvements would be needed to develop a system to track and analyze staff FTE

expenditures in order to better reallocate resources and attempt to measure efficiencies and

cost effectiveness. For comparisons to other programs, the Decommissioning Program is

effective to a large extent by comparing issues shared by similar programs. However,

improvement could be made by comparing the staff’s lessons learned using the LTR with the

Agreement States who are required to implement the LTR for decommissioning sites in their

States. For independent evaluations, the program is effective to a small extent with limited

reviews done by the Commission and the ACNW for selected topics; however, there are no

periodic reviews of the overall program by a independent group outside of NRC. Such reviews

might be considered; however, they may not be cost effective, and technically capable review

groups may be difficult to arrange. Finally, the program seeks to maximize the net benefit of its

actions through its management and by using a risk-informed and performance based

approach. However, recently completed guidance for this approach needs to be fully

implemented by both staff and licensees, and the staff needs to prioritize its work more based

on risk and consider the feasibility of methods to measure cost effectiveness for site

decommissioning.

4. REFERENCE

Office of Management and Budget, Completing the Program Assessment Rating Tool (PART)

for the FY 2005 Review Process, Budget Procedures Memorandum No. 861, May 5, 2003.

U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Performance and Accountability Report Fiscal Year

2001, NUREG-1542, Vol. 7.

U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Success Through Safety, Performance and

Accountability Report Fiscal Year 2002, NUREG-1542, Vol. 8.
5

EVALUATION RESULTS OF QUESTIONS FROM 

OMB’S PROGRAM ASSESSMENT RATING TOOL

Decommissioning Program Evaluation, FY 2001-2003

Answers to PART Questions

PART Question YES

No improvement

LARGE EXTENT

Improvement needed

or underway

SMALL EXTENT

Improvement needed

or underway

NO

Improvement

needed or

underway

1. PURPOSE AND DESIGN

1.1 Purpose clear U

1.2 Addresses a problem U

1.3 Not duplicative U underway

1.4 Free of major flaws U underway

1.5 Effectively targeted U

2. STRATEGIC PLANNING

2.1 Long-term outcome measures U

2.2 Ambitious targets for long-term measures U

2.3 Annual performance measures U

2.4 Ambitious annual performance targets U needed

2.5 Partners work to goals U

2.6 Regular independent evaluations

conducted

U needed

2.7 Budget tied to goals U

2.8 Correct strategic planning deficiencies U

2.RG1 Regulations tied to goals U needed

3. PROGRAM MANAGEMENT

3.1 Collect timely performance information U needed

3.2 Federal managers held accountable U

3.3 Funds obligated and expended U

3.4 Procedures to measure and achieve

efficiencies

U needed

3.5 Collaborate/coordinate with related

programs

U
6

3.6 Strong financial management U

3.7 Address management deficiencies U

3.RG1 Seek views of affected parties U

3.RG2 Adequate regulatory impact analyses U

3.RG3 Systematically review regulations U needed

3.RG4 Regulations allow maximizing net

benefits

U

4. PROGRAM RESULTS/ACCOUNTABILITY

4.1 Demonstrated progress in achieving

goals

U

4.2 Achieves annual goals U

4.3 Demonstrate improved efficiency, cost

effectiveness

U needed

4.4 Comparison to other programs U needed

4.5 Independent evaluations indicate

effectiveness

U

underway/needed

4.RG1 Maximizes net benefit U

underway/needed

TOTALS 19 2 2 8

Question Recommendation

1.3 Implement the NRC/EPA Memorandum of Understanding

1.4, 2RG1, 4.5 Implement the Commission direction regarding the LTR recommendations

2.4 Develop a few new annual output measures

2.6, 4.4, 4.5 Explore independent evaluation and compare LTR lessons learned with Agreement States

3.1 Expand management reviews of HQ sites progress to include Regions

3.4, 4.3 Develop new approach/system to track FTE expenditure and baseline for individual sites

3RG3 Develop a continual improvement plan to systematically and periodically review the program and regulations

4.RG1 Implement new Consolidated Decommissioning Guidance, including flexible and risk-informed approaches. 

Implement a risk informed prioritization of activities and site work.
1

ATTACHMENT 2

EVALUATIONS OF INDIVIDUAL CHANGES/IMPROVEMENTS
2

EVALUATIONS OF INDIVIDUAL CHANGES/IMPROVEMENTS

This attachment provides the detailed evaluations of 18 individual changes/improvements. 

Each evaluation consists of: 1) a description of the change/improvement; 2) the status and

plans for future implementation; 3) accomplishments/outputs; 4) benefits/outcomes for the

Agency’s performance goals; 5) lessons learned; and 6) references. The 18 evaluations are

listed below in three groups and the matrix summarizes the benefits relative to the Agency’s

performance goals.

Contents

Matrix of program changes/improvements and benefits............................................................3

Regulatory framework improvements .......................................................................................5

Decommissioning guidance consolidation and risk informed review..............................6

More realistic dose modeling.........................................................................................9

Power reactor license termination plan review process...............................................14

Regulatory Issue Summary on lessons learned .........................................................16

Terminated License Review Project............................................................................18

Resolution of institutional control issues......................................................................21

License Termination Rule analysis..............................................................................25

Decommissioning process improvements ..............................................................................28

Rebaselining and streamlining improvements..............................................................29

Business process improvement for decommissioning licensing...................................32

Phased review of decommissioning plans for restricted release sites..........................35

Pilot program for decommissioning non-complex sites.................................................37

Transfer of sites to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania..............................................39

Inspection efficiency and cost reduction for materials sites..........................................40

Transfer of power reactor decommissioning responsibility/budget model.....................42

Financial assurance and decommissioning funding activities.......................................45

Regional laboratory evaluation.....................................................................................48

NRC/EPA memorandum of understanding for consultation..........................................51

Stakeholder communication and involvement improvements ..................................................53

Stakeholder/public outreach improvements ............................................................... 54
3

MATRIX OF DECOMMISSIONING PROGRAM CHANGES THAT BENEFIT

NRC STRATEGIC PLAN PERFORMANCE GOALS 

Type of change

Description of specific change/improvement

NRC Stragegic Plan Performa

Benefits to achieving performa

Maintain Safety Increase Public 

Confidence

More Ef

Efficien

Realistic

Regulatory Framework Improvements1. Decommissioning guidance consolidation U U 

2. More realistic dose modeling U U 3. Power reactor license termination plan review process U U 4. Lessons learned Regulatory Issue Summary U U5. Terminated License Review Project U U 

6. Resolution of institutional control issues UU 7. License Termination Rule analysis U U UDecommissioning Process Improvements1. Rebaselining and streamlining U 2. Business process improvement for decommissioning licensing U3. Phased review of decommissioning plans for restricted release sites U 4. Pilot program for decommissioning non-complex sites
Type of change

Description of specific change/improvement

NRC Stragegic Plan Performa

Benefits to achieving performa

4

5. Transfer of sites to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania6. Inspection efficiency for materials sites U7. Transfer of power reactor decommissioning responsibility/budet model U 8. Fianancial assurance and decommissioning funding activities 9. Regional laboratory evaluation U 10. NRC/EPA memorandum of understanding for consultation Stakeholder Communication and Involvement Improvements1. Stakeholder/public outreach U 
5

REGULATORY FRAMEWORK IMPROVEMENTS
6

DECOMMISSIONING GUIDANCE CONSOLIDATION AND

RISK INFORMED REVIEW OF GUIDANCE

1. DESCRIPTION OF CHANGE/IMPROVEMENT

The Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards (NMSS) Decommissioning Guidance

Consolidation project involved review and consolidation of approximately 80 existing NMSS

decommissioning guidance documents, decommissioning technical assistance requests,

decommissioning licensing conditions, and all decommissioning generic communications issued

over the past several years. The project also involved review and changes to make the

guidance more risk informed. 

2. STATUS AND PLANS FOR FUTURE IMPLEMENTATION

The NMSS Decommissioning Guidance Consolidation project was initiated during FY 2001 and

completed by the end of FY 2003. Business Process Reengineering (BPR) techniques were

used to develop the documents and manage the review and concurrence process with selfmanaged teams consisting of NRC Headquarters and Regional staff. Development of each

volume also involved stakeholders. An initial public meeting was held to explain the project. 

State representatives were involved on both writing and review teams, and industry (Nuclear

Energy Institute) worked with staff on questions and answers that were incorporated into

volume 2. Finally, each volume was published as a draft for public comment and comment

responses were included in the final reports. 

The three-volume NUREG resulting from this project is intended for use by both NRC staff and

licensees but is also available for the Agreement States and the public. It replaces NUREG1727 (NMSS Decommissioning Standard Review Plan) and NUREG/BR-0241 (NMSS

Handbook for Decommissioning Fuel Cycle and Materials Licensees). 

Volume 1 of this NUREG series focuses on the decommissioning process for materials

licensees and the content of decommissioning plans (DP s). Topics addressed include: 

1) applicable regulations, guidance, and references; 2) the decommissioning process; 3)

radiological criteria for decommissioning; 4) definition of seven decommissioning groups based

on complexity and risk of the range of materials facilities; 5) description of licensee and NRC

actions needed for each of the seven groups; and 6) the type and level of detail of facility

information to be addressed in licensee DP s.

Volume 2, provides guidacne for characterization, radiological surveys, and determination of

radiological criteria. Specifically, chapter 1 describes the iterative approach to

decommissioning and decision making framework. Chapter 2 contains new guidance

describing the flexibility available in demonstrating compliance and the risk-informed approach

in decommissioning that allows, for example, the level of complexity and rigor of analysis

conducted for a given site to be commensurate with the level of risk posed by the site. Chapter

3 also provides new guidance on cross-cutting issues such as engineered barriers,

transparency and traceability of analyses, and the Data Quality Objectives process. Finally,
7

Chapters 4-6 and Appendices on radiological surveys, dose modeling, and ALARA analysis

have been taken directly from the existing guidance in NUREG-1729 with only minor editing.

Finally, Volume 3 provides guidance on timeliness, record keeping, financial assurance, and

bankruptcy. Timeliness includes when to initiate decommissioning, extensions or alternative

schedules, and completion of decommissioning. Record keeping includes information for

decommissioning plans, record disposition at license termination, NRC staff record retention

requirements. Financial assurance includes topics such as cost estimates and financial

assurance mechanisms, while bankruptcy describes the bankruptcy review team and

procedures for drawing on financial instruments. 

This project was complete by the end of FY 2003 with the publication of volumes 2 and 3 in final

report form. The next step is implementation with the NRC staff and then licensees. In

addition, Commission direction regarding the staff’s LTR Analysis recommendations could

result in new guidance being prepared in FY 2004-2007 for some of the issues. Other revisions

may result from implementation experience.

3. ACCOMPLISHMENTS/OUTPUTS

The key accomplishments are the publication of draft reports for public comment and final

reports for the following three volumes of Consolidated NMSS Decommissioning Guidance,

NUREG-1757.

Volume 1: Decommissioning Process for Materials Licensees;

Volume 2: Characterization, Survey, and Determination of Radiological Criteria; and

 Volume 3: Financial Assurance, Record Keeping, and Timeliness 

4. BENEFITS/OUTCOMES TO THE DECOMMISSIONING PROGRAM

The benefits to the Decommissioning Program achieving the applicable NRC Strategic Plan

goals and strategies (shown below in italics) that result from the consolidated guidance project

are discussed below.

1.0 Maintain safety, protection of the environment, and the common defense and security

2.0 Increase Public Confidence

3.0 Make NRC activities and decisions more effective, efficient, and realistic.

4.0 Reduce unnecessary regulatory burden on stakeholders.

Consolidation of about 80 separate existing guidance documents into the single three volume

NUREG improves the regulatory framework by allowing easier access to relevant guidance by

all parties. Since each group will have access to the same guidance, the expected results are

more complete licensee documents that are expected to expedite the approval process for both

applicants and staff reviewers. The grouping of sites and cross referencing to sections of the
8

guidance that are relevant to each group provides a clearer “roadmap” for a wide variety of

licensees to use. New guidance has been added to explain the risk-informed and flexible

implementation of the LTR, which can be used to improve the focus of both staff and licensees

commensurate to the level of risk, thus improving staff efficiency and reducing unnecessary

regulatory burden on licensees. Guidance was expanded and enhanced in some key areas

where existing guidance was either not available or insufficient (e.g., risk-informed and flexible

approach, partial site release, and engineered barriers). Finally, the public and other

stakeholders will have a clearer understanding of NRC’s decommissioning process and

requirements. 

5. LESSONS LEARNED

Two lessons have resulted from this project. First, guidance will continue to evolve based on

both licensee and staff review experience and lessons learned in areas where there has been

little implementation experience. Second, the stakeholders involvement in the writing and

review teams brought a perspective to compliment the staff’s regulator views.

6. REFERENCES

Consolidated NMSS Decommissioning Guidance, Decommissioning Process for Materials

Licensees, Final Report, NUREG-1757, Vol. 1, Rev. 1, September 2003. 

Consolidated NMSS Decommissioning Guidance, Characterization, Survey, and Determination

of Radiological Criteria, Final Report, NUREG-1757, Vol. 2, September 2003.

Consolidated NMSS Decommissioning Guidance, Financial Assurance, Recordkeeping, and

Timeliness, Final Report, NUREG-1757, Vol. 3, September 2003.

Results of License Termination Rule Analysis, SECY-03-0069, May 2, 2003.
9

MORE REALISTIC DOSE MODELING

1. DESCRIPTION OF CHANGE/IMPROVEMENT

Dose modeling is a primary assessment tool that both licensees and the NRC staff use to

demonstrate compliance with the dose criteria in the License Termination Rule (LTR), 10 CFR

Part 20, Subpart E. Experience with licensee DP s and license termination plans (LTPs)

under the LTR has raised issues and concerns by both the staff and the licensees, regarding

unnecessary excessive conservatism that has been inherent in the dose assessment

methodology. Unnecessary conservatism in dose modeling can have negative impacts on

licensee decommissioning, such as higher than necessary cleanup costs. This evaluation

summarizes many improvements that have been made during the FY 2001-2003 evaluation

time period to make dose modeling more realistic by minimizing unnecessary excessive

conservativism. 

2. STATUS AND PLANS FOR FUTURE IMPLEMENTATION

During the three-year evaluation period of FY 2001-2003, the staff improvements made dose

modeling more realistic by: 1) making recommendations to the Commission for selecting

realistic exposure scenarios; 2) improving computer codes/models for probabilistic analysis

including incorporation of uncertainties and variability for important parameters; 3) providing

guidance on the flexibility and risk-informed approaches for modeling; and 4) developing

realistic parameters and a parameter data base. 

Selecting realistic exposure scenarios

The staff’s LTR Analysis in SECY-03-0069 noted that the main policy-related concern with dose

modeling is the selection of future land use scenarios for the 1,000 year assessment time

period. It has been a common perception that licensees are required to base remediation and

site release on the generally very conservative residential-farmer exposure scenario. To clarify

this misperception, the Consolidated Decommissioning Guidance in NUREG 1757, volume 2,

provided guidance for the option of alternate site-specific scenarios instead of assuming a

default resident farmer scenario. However, the current guidance for alternate scenarios would

require analyzing anything that could potentially occur at a site over the next 1,000 years. 

Using this guidance, most sites would continue to use the resident farmer as a default scenario,

thereby, dose assessments for some sites might remain overly conservative. As a result the

staff further evaluated this policy issue as part of the LTR Analysis in SECY-03-0069. These

evaluations resulted in recommending to the Commission an option to make exposure

scenarios more realistic by using the reasonable foreseeable land use option. This option

would allow licensees to assume reasonable foreseeable (e.g., a few decades and possibly up

to 100 years) land use for the 1,000 year analysis time period to demonstrate compliance with

the dose criteria. Furthermore, as part of a risk-informed approach, less likely scenarios, such

as the resident farmer scenario, also could be analyzed for information purposes and to risk

inform the staff’s decision making.

 
10

Improving computer codes and incorporating uncertainties into the codes

A second improvement was the development and implementation by NRC’s Office of Research

(RES) and NMSS of a probabilistic version of the computer codes RESRAD, version 6, and

RESRAD-BUILD version 3.0 which allow more realistic modeling than previously available from

codes that were overly conservative. Probabilistic RESRAD and RESRAD-BUILD codes allow

distributions of parameters to be used in these codes that represent the variability of a

parameter across the site and, therefore, is more realistic than selecting a single value to

represent the site. In addition, the probabilistic RESRAD code also provides a more useful tool

for conducting sensitivity analyses so that licensees can focus on the more important

parameters for a site. Specifically, licensees can use the results of sensitivity analyses to focus

their site data collection or, if appropriate, use already available default parameter distributions. 

NMSS implemented these probabilistic codes through referencing in the staff guidance and

conducting training for Headquarters and Regional staff on these codes.

The probabilistic versions of the RESRAD and RESRAD-BUILD codes described above also

provided licensees with default parameter distributions based on nation-wide data that reflect

parameter uncertainties. These default parameter distributions, although conservative, are

intended only for conducting sensitivity analyses and not site-specific dose modeling. However,

as mentioned above, sensitivity analyses are useful to focus on those parameters that are

impacting the dose results and would benefit from site-specific data to achieve more realistic

dose results. Similarly, parameters can be identified that do not affect the dose assessment

results and can therefore be less critical in the dose impact analysis. 

Providing guidance

The Consolidated Decommissioning Guidance, volume 2 was completed in FY 2003. Chapters

2 and 3 of this volume were added to describe the flexible and risk-informed approaches that

licensees can use to implement the LTR and how these approaches can contribute to a more

realistic dose modeling. For example, discussions were added regarding: grouping of sites by

potential risk; flexibility in methods used to demonstrate compliance; and elimination of

insignificant radionuclides or pathways as contributors to dose. 

In addition to revising NRC guidance, the staff also contributed to the multi-agency radiological

laboratory analytical protocols manual (MARLAP). This is a collaborative effort involving EPA,

DOE, the National Institute for Standards and Technology, The U.S. Geological Survey, the

U.S. Department of Defense, and the Food and Drug Administration. The purpose of MARLAP

is to develop guidance on performance based approaches for radiological analyses. This work

is ongoing and should be completed in early FY 2004.

Developing realistic parameters and parameter data base

The staff strived to develop realistic parameters to resolve excessive conservatism in screening

and site-specific deterministic analysis. For example, NMSS staff developed draft NUREG1720 addressing the resuspension factor parameter. In addition, staff participated in

development of template parameter files for the newly developed RESRAD/RESRAD-BUILD

models. These template files are useful tools for users to reduce excessive conservatism in the

initial stage of dose analysis. Further, NMSS/RES staff participate, through the Interagency
11

Steering Committee on Radiation Standards (ISCORS) cleanup sub-committee, in the ongoing

development of an electronic data-base for parameter selections. 

Future activities

As for the future, some of the improvements noted above will continue with follow up actions,

such as those need to implement eventual Commission direction regarding the staff’s

recommendations in the LTR Analysis for more realistic scenarios. In addition, the improved 

codes and Consolidated Decommissioning Guidance for dose modeling will need to be

implemented through training of the staff and consultations with individual licensees. Use of

successful case studies, examples, and lessons learned would be useful to include in training

the staff and licensee consultations. Implementation experience and feedback will help identify

further dose modeling and guidance improvements that would benefit licensees. The LTR

Analysis, Attachment 6, included the commitment to continue improving dose modeling for

decommissioning, including guidance, pursuing computer model improvements and

development, and improving the state of knowledge on individual parameters and processes. 

This will be achieved largely by implementing the results of ongoing research being conducted

by NRC’s Office of Research, such as assessing uncertainty and selecting the appropriate

conceptual models, RESRAD Offsite code, and a code for assessing complex sites by providing

for running different calculational codes (FRAMES). 

3. ACCOMPLISHMENTS/OUTPUTS

The key accomplishments are as follows:

1) Recommended an approach to the Commission for selecting more realistic exposure

scenarios;

2) Developed and implemented the probabilistic RESRAD and RESRAD-BUILD computer

codes;

3) Implemented default parameter distributions for use in conducting sensitivity analyses;

4) Developed guidance for the flexible and risk-informed approaches to dose modeling.

5) Evaluated and developed realistic key input parameters and parameter data-base. 

4. BENEFITS/OUTCOMES TO THE DECOMMISSIONING PROGRAM

The benefits to the Decommissioning Program achieving the applicable NRC Strategic Plan

goals and strategies (shown below in italics) that result from the improvements to more realistic

dose modeling are discussed below.

1.0 Maintain safety, protection of the environment, and the common defense and security.

3.0 Make NRC activities and decisions more effective, efficient, and realistic

4.0 Reduce unnecessary regulatory burden on stakeholders
12

An initial outcome from the staff’s improvements is the availability of improved computer codes

and guidance for licensees to use in demonstrating compliance with the LTR dose criteria and

the NRC staff for conducting reviews. These improvements have addressed the primary

sources of conservatism in dose modeling. Thus, licensees have tools available that allow

greater flexibility and can reduce decommissioning cost and schedules in some cases when

less data need to be collected or less justification and reviews are needed for parameters. 

However, actual understanding and use of these tools and approaches by licensees as well as

their benefit to achieving more effective, efficient, and realistic decommissioning depends on

the staff working with licensees to effectively implement these codes and guidance. Future

evaluations of these tools and guidance by licensees may help identify actual outcomes. 

5. LESSONS LEARNED

Although there are benefits to using more realistic dose modeling approaches, these

approaches can be less efficient and more costly to both licensees and NRC staff than

conservative assumptions that bound uncertainties and are simpler to justify. This is due to: 

1) a generally higher degree of licensee justification and NRC staff discussion and review; and

2) greater challenge to understand and use the more advanced codes. Further, more realistic

assumptions may not always be needed to demonstrate compliance with the dose criteria of the

LTR. Thus, it should be recognized that in some cases, licensees may decide to use more

conservative and less realistic approaches if they can demonstrate compliance with the 

dose criteria. 

The Consolidated Decommissioning Guidance primarily consolidated existing guidance,

including that from the NMSS Decommissioning Standard Review Plan for Decommissioning in

NUREG-1727 and was not intended to develop new technical guidance for using the recently

developed probabilistic codes. Furthermore, there has been little staff or licensee experience in 

implementing these new codes. As a result, until future guidance can be prepared,

consultations between the NRC staff and licensees about successful cases histories for using

probabilistic codes can be very useful for licensees. Staff interactions with Connecticut Yankee

and with Kirtland Air Force base are good examples for use of probabilistic RESRAD codes to

demonstrate compliance with the LTR. 

6. REFERENCES

NMSS Decommissioning Standard Review Plan, NUREG-01727, September 2000. 

Consolidated NMSS Decommissioning Guidance, Characterization, Survey, and Determination

of Radiological Criteria, draft report for comment, NUREG-1757, Vol. 2, September 2002.

Results of License Termination Rule Analysis, SECY-03-0069, Attachment 6, Realistic

Exposure Scenarios May 2, 2003.

User’s Manual for RESRAD Version 6, Environmental Assessment Division, Argonne National

Laboratory, ANL/EAD-4, July 2001.
13

User’s Manual for RESRAD-BUILD Version 3, Environmental Assessment Division, Argonne

National Laboratory, ANL/EAD/03-1, June 2003.

Consolidated NMSS Decommissioning Guidance, Characterization, Survey, and Determination

of Radiological Criteria, draft report for comment, NUREG-1757, Vol. 2, September 2002.

Results of License Termination Rule Analysis, SECY-03-0069, Attachment 6, Realistic

Exposure Scenarios May 2, 2003.

Re-evaluation of Indoor Resuspension Factor for the Screening Analysis of Building Occupancy

Scenario for NRC’s License Termination Rule, Draft NUREG-1720, June 2002. 
14

POWER REACTOR LICENSE TERMINATION PLAN REVIEW PROCESS

1. DESCRIPTION OF CHANGE/IMPROVEMENT

This evaluation addresses the revision of the Standard Review Plan for Evaluating Nuclear

Power Reactor License Termination Plans (NUREG-1700). This improvement is included

within the scope of the NMSS Decommissioning Program because NMSS was responsible for

power reactor LTP reviews during the FY 2001-FY 2003 evaluation time period. 

2. STATUS AND PLANS FOR FUTURE IMPLEMENTATION

The Standard Review Plan (SRP) was first published in April 2000 as NUREG-1700 to provide

guidance to the staff on the streamlined review process, the table of contents that identified

areas of review for an LTP, and acceptance criteria for each area of review. This SRP was

revised and published in April 2003 as NUREG-1700, Rev. 1. Revisions were made to avoid

duplication and achieve consistency with the NMSS Consolidated Decommissioning Guidance

(NUREG-1757) by referencing applicable sections of NUREG-1757 for additional guidance. 

Thus, NURGEG-1700, Rev. 1 provides the principle framework for the review of an LTP and

links to more detailed guidance in NUREG-1757, particularly volume 2 on determination of

radiological criteria and conducting radiological surveys. 

3. ACCOMPLISHMENTS/OUTPUTS

The key accomplishment was publication of the revised SRP as NUREG-1700, Rev. 1.

4. BENEFITS/OUTCOMES TO THE DECOMMISSIONING PROGRAM

The benefits to the Decommissioning Program achieving the applicable NRC Strategic Plan

goals (shown below in italics) that result from the revision of this SRP are discussed below: 

1.0 Maintain safety, protection of the environment, and the common defense and security

3.0 Make NRC activities and decisions more effective, efficient, and realistic.

4.0 Reduce unnecessary regulatory burden on stakeholders

The outcome of the revised LTP is to improve the consistency of decommissioning guidance for

power reactors and materials sites and avoid duplication with other staff guidance. Revised

guidance will benefit licensee preparations of LTPs and the staff reviews of these submittals. 

5. LESSONS LEARNED

None.
15

6. REFERENCES

Standard Review Plan for Evaluating Nuclear Power Reactor License Termination Plans,

NUREG-1700, April 2000.

Standard Review Plan for Evaluating Nuclear Power Reactor License Termination Plans,

NUREG-1700, Rev, 1, April 2003.

NMSS Consolidated Decommissioning Guidance, NUREG 1757, Vol. 1, Rev. 1; Vol 2, and Vol.

3, September 2003.

NRC Regulatory Issue Summary 2002-02: Lessons Learned Related to Recently Submitted

Decommissioning Plans and License Termination Plans, January 16, 2002.
16

REGULATORY ISSUE SUMMARY 

LESSONS LEARNED FROM DECOMMISSIONING PLANS AND 

LICENSE TERMINATION PLANS

1. DESCRIPTION OF CHANGE/IMPROVEMENT

In 1997, the NRC issued the LTR for termination of licenses. This new regulation requires

licensees to submit different information than had been previously required for DPs and LTPs. 

In FY 2002, the NRC completed a review of DPs and LTPs recently submitted by licensees

under the new regulation. As a result of the review, the NRC found common areas in licensee

plans that, if more completely addressed, would improve the quality of their submittals,

eliminate requests for additional information, and improve the efficiency and timeliness of NRC

reviews. The results of the staff’s review were published as a Regulatory Issue Summary (RIS)

entitled Lessons Learned Related to Recently Submitted Decommissioning Plans and License

Termination Plans, and was published on January 16, 2002.

2. STATUS AND PLANS FOR FUTURE IMPLEMENTATION

Publication of the RIS on January 16, 2002, completed this improvement. No future work is

planned; however, the lessons learned in the RIS are often presented and discussed with

industry groups and licensees. 

3. ACCOMPLISHMENTS/OUTPUTS

The accomplishment was identifying and describing lessons learned from staff reviews of DPs

and LTPs and publishing the results in a RIS that is available to all licensees and stakeholders.

4. BENEFITS/OUTCOMES TO THE DECOMMISSIONING PROGRAM

The benefits/outcomes to the Decommissioning Program achieving the applicable NRC

Strategic Plan goals (shown below in italics) are discussed below.

3.0 Make NRC activities and decisions more effective, efficient, and realistic

The RIS published lessons learned regarding what the regulatory framework (regulation and

guidance) requires to be submitted in DPs and LTPs. Therefore, the RIS has improved the

implementation of the regulatory framework, which should result in higher quality submittals that

will be more efficient for the staff to review.

4.0 Reduce unnecessary regulatory burden on stakeholders

One outcome was that licensees were informed of lessons learned from staff reviews. The LTR

requires different information to be submitted than had been previously required. As a result of

the review, the NRC found common areas in licensee plans that, if more completely addressed,

would eliminate requests for additional information and improve the quality and timeliness of
17

NRC reviews. Therefore, the staff believes that by providing lessons learned, licensees will

have a clearer and more complete understanding of the information to be submitted. As a

result, licensees should be able to more efficiently prepare higher quality DPs and LTPs.

5. LESSONS LEARNED

The NRC staff are in the unique position of reviewing the DP s and LTPs submitted by many

licensees and addressing many types of sites. As a result, issues or problems that are

common to many licensees can be identified and lessons learned developed by the staff. 

Providing these lessons learned to licensees can help them more efficiently and effectively

address common issues and prepare higher quality future submittals. 

6. REFERENCES

NRC Regulatory Issue Summary 2002-02: Lessons Learned Related to Recently Submitted

Decommissioning Plans and License Termination Plans, January 16, 2002.

Performance and Accountability Report, Fiscal Year 2002, NUREG-1542, vol. 8, pp. 64-65.

2002 Annual Update–Status of Decommissioning Program, Attachment 1 Decommissioning

Program Activities, SECY-02-0169, pp. 1-2.
18

TERMINATED LICENSE REVIEW PROJECT

1. DESCRIPTION OF CHANGE/IMPROVEMENT

In 1989 the General Accounting Office(GAO) issued a report which raised concerns about

NRC’s criteria and procedures used for the decommissioning of formerly licensed sites. As a

result, in 1990, the NRC decided to undertake a review of terminated materials licenses to

assure that previously licensed facilities were properly decontaminated and posed no threat to

public health and safety. 

Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) was contracted to conduct the Terminated License

Review Project to review all materials licenses terminated by the NRC or its predecessor

agencies, from inception of material regulation. The purpose of the review was to: (1) identify

sites with potential for meaningful residual contamination, based on information in the license

documentation; and (2) identify sealed sources with incomplete or no accounting that could

represent a public hazard. ORNL identified approximately 675 loose material licenses and 565

sealed source licenses that required further review. 

The NRC Regional offices performed a follow-up review, or transferred responsibility for the

follow-up review to the appropriate Agreement State. The Regional staff completed their followup review during FY 2001. As a result, 42 sites were found to have residual contamination in

excess of the NRC’s criteria for unrestricted release. 

ORNL was also responsible for developing the Terminated License Tracking System, a webbased database for the NRC to document the evaluation and closure process for, in excess of 

37,000, terminated license files. This data base will also be use to track the 300-400 licenses

terminated each year by NRC. 

2. STATUS AND PLANS FOR FUTURE IMPLEMENTATION

The staff officially completed the Terminated License Review Project on September 26, 2001,

with the publication of the Final report on Results of Terminated License Reviews. Future work

for this project is limited to making the data base available to the public, maintaining the data

base, and updating each year with terminated licenses that have been completed during the

past year.

3. ACCOMPLISHMENTS/OUTPUTS

The key accomplishments of the License Termination Review Project are as follows:

1) Reviewed every AEC/NRC license through the present (greater than 37,000) to

determine the potential for residual radioactivity above NRC’s unrestricted release

criterion in the LTR;
19

2) Identified over 1200 sites with residual radioactivity above the unrestricted release

criterion where further review was needed by staff from NRC’s Regional offices;

3) Identified 42 sites where further cleanup of residual radioactivity was needed out of

the over 1200 sites reviewed by the Regions; and 

4) Developed the Terminated License Tracking System, which is a data base that

documents closure of all terminated licenses. The data base provides a complete

inventory of all achieved information regarding material licenses. This tracking system

is in the process of being made available to the public on the NRC web site.

Although not part of the Terminated License Review Project, oversight of cleanup under the

NRC’s Decommissioning Program at all 42 sites is either completed or ongoing. By the end of

FY 2003 cleanup at 30 of the 42 sites will have been completed and cleanup is continuing at

the remaining 12 sites.

4. BENEFITS/OUTCOMES TO THE DECOMMISSIONING PROGRAM

The benefits to the Decommissioning Program achieving the applicable NRC’s Strategic Plan

goals and strategies (shown below in italics) that result from the Terminated License Review

Project are discussed below.

1.0 Maintain safety, protection of the environment, and the common defense and security.

While the Terminated License Review Project was not triggered by an operational event, it was

triggered by concerns raised by the GAO that some formerly licensed sites with terminated

NRC licenses were either not cleaned up sufficiently or there was insufficient documentation to

demonstrate acceptable cleanup. Thus, this project addressed potential safety concerns

expressed by stakeholders. One of the outcomes or benefits of this project was that sites

where additional cleanup was necessary were identified so that appropriate cleanup would be

completed to maintain safety.

2.0 Increase public confidence

The Terminated License Review Project addressed and resolved stakeholder concerns about

cleanup of formerly terminated licensed sites . In addition the project upgraded the

documentation, where needed, to be able to demonstrate acceptable completion of cleanup. 

The project also provides the documentation in a tracking system/database and makes it

available to stakeholders on NRC’s web site. This will help ensure that stakeholders, now and

in the future, have access to site cleanup information. Maintaining access to this information

will help ensure finality of cleanup by minimizing the potential for unnecessary additional

cleanup in the future, due to inadequate documentation. Thus, the availability of this database

should reduce unnecessary costs to our stakeholders in the future. Maintaining access to data

base will also improve confidence that NRC’s regulatory activities have successfully achieved

complete and safe cleanup at all terminated licensed sites.

4.0 Reduce unnecessary regulatory burden on stakeholders.
20

The outcomes that benefit the performance goal, Increase public confidence, described above

also will reduce unnecessary burden on stakeholders.

5. LESSONS LEARNED

Based on completion of this project the staff has the following lessons learned:

1) The review showed that documentation of license termination since 1985 has been

very effective, because very few site files since 1985 had to be revisited. 

2) Although the staff did identify 42 sites which required remediation, this number

represents approximately 0.1% of the licenses terminated and reviewed.

3) The review also demonstrated the importance of establishing sufficient

documentation to ensure finality of cleanup and license termination and help prevent

unnecessary future cleanup or the cost of repeating a similar review of the documents in

the future.

4) Continued support of the tracking system/data base will be worth the investment to

reduce the potential of future cleanup or repeating the review.

6. REFERENCES

Evaluation of Terminated Nuclear Material Licenses: A Report of Identified Sites and Sealed

Source Licenses, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, NUREG/CR-6592, February 1999.

Evaluation of Terminated Licenses Parts 30, 40, and 70: The Terminated License Tracking

System, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, NUREG/CR-6669, March 2001.

2002 Annual Update–Status of Decommissioning Program, SECY-02-0169, September 18,

2002.

Final Report on Results of Terminated License Reviews, Memorandum from J.T. Buckley to

L.W. Camper, September 26, 2001.
21

RESOLUTION OF INSTITUTIONAL CONTROL ISSUES

1. DESCRIPTION OF CHANGE/IMPROVEMENT

Legally enforceable and durable institutional controls are required by the LTR in 10 CFR Part

20, Subpart E for those sites seeking license termination with restricted release or alternate

criteria. In 1997, at the time the LTR was finalized, the Statements of Consideration noted that

DOE was authorized to take ownership and long-term control of NRC licensed sites seeking

restricted release if DOE agreed to such transfers. NRC licensees have had difficulty arranging

either DOE or other institutional controls. As a result, the staff has worked on many options

described below to resolve this issue. 

2. STATUS AND PLANS FOR FUTURE IMPLEMENTATION

The staff raised the institutional control issue to the Commission in August 2000 (SECY-00-

0180) and recommended resolving the issue by seeking an agreement/memorandum of

understanding (MOU) with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) for transfer of NRC licensed

sites upon license termination to DOE for long-term control as authorized under Section 151(b)

of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. This recommended option was one of the options that the

staff believed could facilitate remediation of some decommissioning sites in non-Agreement

States. In December 2000, the Commission approved the staff’s recommendation to seek an

MOU with DOE and notify the Commission if the MOU is not feasible so other options could be

considered. In response to the Commission’s direction, the staff worked with DOE on a draft

MOU during FY 2001 until DOE put work on hold pending resolution of numerous DOE policy

issues related to its Long-Term Stewardship Program. As a result, in a November 2001,

Chairman Meserve wrote a letter to Secretary Abraham encouraging DOE to complete the

MOU. In January 24, 2002, Under Secretary Card responded to the Chairman and indicated

that NRC, DOE, U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) and the Office of Management and

Budget work to resolve this issue. The staff reported this status to the Commission in January

2002 (SECY-02-0008). Subsequently, periodic coordination meetings were held between

senior NRC and DOE managers and the staff monitored DOE’s evolving plans to change its

Long-Term Stewardship Program. Initial plans focused on the potential transfer of the program

to DOI or another Federal land management agency; however, eventually DOE decided not to

pursue this option. The staff reported this status to the Commission in October 2002 (SECY02-0177), and concluded that efforts to seek an MOU had not been successful. Subsequently,

DOE began considering retaining responsibility for long-term stewardship of its sites in a new

and separate office within DOE. This new Office of Legacy Management was announced and

included in the President’s FY 2004 budget submitted to Congress in February 2003. During

FY 2003 staff monitored DOE preparations for this new office and in July 2003 senior

management from NMSS and DOE EM agreed to schedule a meeting with the DOE director of

the Office of Legacy Management.

In a parallel effort to monitoring changes to DOE’s Long-Term Stewardship Program, and as a

result of uncertainty in the DOE MOU and the continued need for some NRC licensed sites to

consider restricted release, the Commission directed the staff in June 2002 (SRM-SECY-01-
22

0194) to conduct an analysis and recommend options to make the restricted release/alternate

criteria provisions of the LTR more available for licensee use. The staff provided and initial

analysis in October 2002 (SECY-02-0177) and a final analysis in May 2003 (SECY-00-0069). 

The final analysis recommended options for Commission consideration that would involve an

NRC role in institutional controls. While these recommended options are a significant departure

from one of the goals of the LTR of no NRC role after remediation and license termination, they

would provide an immediately available and certain resolution of the institutional control issues

and thus would result in the viability of the restricted release and alternate criteria provisions of

the LTR. As of September 2003 the staff has not received direction from the Commission

regarding the staffs’ recommendations. The staff also noted that it would continue to monitor

DOE’s progress toward establishing an Office of Legacy Management in FY 2004 and

reevaluate the potential for future site transfer to DOE.

The future status of this potential improvement depends on the Commission’s direction in

response to the staff’s analysis and recommendations in SECY-03-0069.

3. ACCOMPLISHMENTS/OUTPUTS

The key accomplishments of the staff’s efforts to resolve the institutional control issues are as

follows: 

1) Signed an Agreement in Principle with DOE to develop MOU for a decision process

for NRC and DOE to make decisions regarding potential transfer or ownership and

control of NRC licensed sites to DOE under Section 151(b) of NWPA;

2) NRC and DOE staff prepared a draft MOU;

3) NRC staff recommended options to the Commission in SECY-03-0069, other than the

DOE MOU, to resolve the institutional control issues. Staff also made progress with a

former licensee on a pilot study to develop a legal agreement and restrictive covenant

that would establish the necessary institutional controls with NRC monitoring their longterm effectiveness.

4. BENEFITS/OUTCOMES TO THE DECOMMISSIONING PROGRAM

Outcomes that will benefit the Decommissioning Program are dependent on the Commission’s

decision and direction regarding the staff’s recommended options that have the potential for

resolving the institutional control issue. As noted in SECY-03-0069, the staff believes that the

recommended options could have the following outcomes with respect to achieving the

applicable NRC Strategic Plan goals (shown in italics): 

1.0 Maintain safety, protection of the environment, and the common defense and security.

Provisions of the LTR for restricted release and alternate criteria would become viable by

implementing the options for an NRC role. In addtion, viable new options for an NRC role in

institutional controls offer greater assurance of long-term protection for future generations.
23

2.0 Increase Public Confidence

Resolving the institutional control issues using an options involving NRC should increase public

confidence because continuous Federal Government involvement would be more protective of

future generations because of continuous Federal government involvement. 

4.0 Reduce unnecessary regulatory burden on stakeholders.

Viable new options will be available soon for restricted release and alternate criteria provisions

of the LTR so that licensees can make decommissioning decisions and plans with more

confidence and avoid unnecessary and costly delays.

5. LESSONS LEARNED

Based on the activities conducted for this potential improvement, the staff has the following

lessons learned:

1) Relying on another agency for resolving NRC issues is tenuous. Staff should strive to

develop NRC solutions;

2) During the time period that the staff has worked to resolve this issue, many

decommissioning sites stopped considering restricted release due to the ongoing

uncertainty and lack of clear solution; and

3) Given the few sites considering restricted release at this time, and ongoing

uncertainly about a DOE option, the staff’s recommendations to the Commission in

SECY-03-0069 may be the most efficient and effective options available. 

6. REFERENCES

Issues and Funding Options to Facilitate Remediation of Decommissioning Sites in NonAgreement States, SECY-00-0180, August 23, 2000.

Staff Requirements-SECY-00-0180-Issues and Funding Options to Facilitate Remediation of

Decommissioning Sites in Non-Agreement States, December 19, 2000.

NRC/DOE Agreement in Principle for Transfer of NRC Restricted Release Sites to DOE as

Authorized under Section 151(b) of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, March 16, 2001.

Letter from Chairman Meserve to Secretary Abraham, November 2, 2001.

Status Report on Developing a Memorandum of Understanding with the U.S. Department of

energy for a Decision Process Regarding Potential Site Transfers under Section 151(b) of the

Nuclear Waste Policy Act, SECY-02-0008, January 14, 2002.

Letter from Undersecretary Card to Chairman Meserve, January 24, 2002.
24

Staff Requirement-SECY-01-0194–AAR Manufacturing Group, inc., and Proposed Use of

Unimportant Quantities of Source Material in 10 CFR 40.13(a) as Decommissioning Criteria,

June 18, 2002.

Initial Analysis and Plan for Addressing License Termination Rule Issues, SECY-02-0177,

October 1, 2002.

Results of the License Termination Rule Analysis, SECY-03-0069, May 2, 2003.
25

LICENSE TERMINATION RULE ANALYSIS

1. DESCRIPTION OF EVALUATION

The Commission directed the staff in a June 2002 SRM for SECY-01-0194 to conduct an

analysis of LTR issues, emphasizing resolution of the institutional control issues and with the

goal of making the LTR provisions for restricted release and alternate criteria more available for

licensee use. The SRM also identified other important LTR implementation issues impacting

the decommissioning of sites. The staff’s analysis resulted in recommendations to the

Commission that could lead to future regulatory actions that would resolve the issues and

improve the program. 

2. STATUS AND PLANS FOR FUTURE IMPLEMENTATION

On October 1, 2002, the staff provided the Commission with an initial analysis that described

the scope of each issue and the staff’s plans for evaluation (SECY-02-0177). The following 

issues were identified: institutional controls and restricted release/alternate criteria; relationship

between the LTR release limits and other release limits; realistic exposures scenarios; and

measures to prevent future legacy sites. 

The results of the staff’s analysis of LTR issues were provided on May 2, 2003, in SECY-03-

0069. Particular emphasis was given to recommendations to resolve the restricted release and

alternate criteria issue, and an update to DOE’s changes to its long-term stewardship policy and

management. The staff also evaluated other LTR implementation issues dealing with the

relationship of the LTR release limits to other release limits, realistic exposure scenarios, and

measures to prevent future legacy sites. Plans for future evaluations were identified for a new

issue on intentional mixing. The staff’s evaluations considered a wide range of relevant

information and experience from other NRC programs and regulations, as well as external

sources, such as the EPA; DOE; Agreement States; and National Research Council reports. 

Similarly, extensive coordination among NRC staff was conducted to gain further information

and perspective, as well as to identify interrelationship among the individual issues. The staff’s

evaluations also identified options to resolve the issues, evaluated their pros and cons, and

used these results to recommend specific options for Commission consideration and eventual

direction. The staff also recommended a variety of regulatory actions for Commission

consideration to implement the recommended options including: 1) a rulemaking for measures

to prevent future legacy sites; 2) revised guidance to support the rulemaking and to clarify

restricted release, on-site burials, and realistic exposure scenarios; 3) revised inspection

procedures and enforcement guidance to enhance monitoring, reporting, and remediation to

prevent future legacy sites; and 4) a Regulatory Issue Summary to inform a wide range of

stakeholders about the LTR analysis of each issue, Commission direction, and actions planned

to resolve each issue. For the new issue on intentional mixing only planned evaluations were

given in SECY-03-0069, and the results of these evaluations will be provided to the

Commission in Fall 2003.
26

The staff expects to receive Commission feedback and direction in the Fall of 2003 for follow up

actions regarding the staff’s recommendations.

3. ACCOMPLISHMENTS/OUTPUTS

The key accomplishments are as follows:

1) Completed an initial analysis and plan for addressing LTR issues (SECY-02-0177).

2) Completed the results of the LTR analysis including evaluations and

recommendations to resolve each issue (SECY-03-0069).

 4. BENEFITS/OUTCOMES TO THE DECOMMISSIONING PROGRAM

The benefits to the Decommissioning Program achieving the applicable NRC Strategic Plan

goals (shown in italics) that result from the LTR Analysis are discussed below.

1.0 Maintain safety, protection of the environment, and the common defense and security.

3.0 Make NRC activities and decisions more effective, efficient, and realistic.

4.0 Reduce unnecessary regulatory burden on stakeholders.

The outcomes of the staff’s recommendations affect both existing and future decommissioning

sites. For existing decommissioning sites, particularly the complex sites with long-lived

radionuclides, many recommendations should facilitate decommissioning activities of both the

NRC staff and licensees by addressing key challenges these sites must address. Consistent

use of more realistic exposure scenarios could result in more economical decommissioning,

while maintaining safety. Furthermore, this recommendation could also result in fewer sites that

might need to use the restricted release or alternate criteria. For those few sites, however, that

might still need to use the restricted release or alternate criteria provisions of the LTR, viable

options for restricting use are recommended, thus improving the regulatory framework. 

For future decommissioning sites, specific changes to the regulatory framework are

recommended for financial assurance, licensee operations and reporting, and on-site disposal,

that should reduce or mitigate the potential for future “legacy” sites that may not have the

financial ability to complete decommissioning. Together, these outcomes contribute to the

Commission’s preference for license termination, with unrestricted release, which results in the

greatest opportunity to return the site to productive use.

5. LESSONS LEARNED

Although the LTR appears to be a straight forward regulation, the issues that have been

surfaced by the staff and licensees attempting to implement the LTR are very complex. Due to

the limited number of sites that will decommission in the future and their diversity, it may take

several years to identify and resolve all the potential issues associated with the LTR. As such,

staff should focus on implementing the LTR within the current framework and not attempt to

identify further improvements until the current efforts are fully realized.
27

6. REFERENCES

Initial Analysis and Plan for Addressing License Termination Rule Issues, SECY-02-0177,

October 1, 2002.

Results of the License Termination Rule Analysis, SECY-03-0069, May 2, 2003.
28

DECOMMISSIONING PROCESS IMPROVEMENTS
29

REBASELINING AND STREAMLINING IMPROVEMENTS

1. DESCRIPTION OF CHANGE/IMPROVEMENT

This is an evaluation of the effectiveness of the Rebaselining and Streamlining improvements

that were started in FY 2000 to achieve a more efficient Decommissioning Program. 

The objective of Rebaselining was to develop and implement a comprehensive integrated plan

for successfully bringing Site Decommissioning Management Plan (SDMP) and complex

decommissioning sites to closure. Site status summaries are maintained, and updated

monthly, for each SDMP and complex site. These summaries describe the status of each site

and identify the technical and regulatory issues impacting removal of the site from the SDMP, or

completion of decommissioning. The staff also developed and maintains Gantt charts for each

site, which are updated quarterly, to guide the management of decommissioning activities. The

Gantt charts identify all major decommissioning activities and schedules for completion. 

The objectives of Streamlining include: a) assuming more proactive consultations with

licensees undergoing decommissioning; b) expanding the acceptance review process, to

include a limited technical review, to reduce the need for additional rounds of staff questions; c)

ensuring that institutional controls and financial assurance requirements are adequate before

beginning a technical review of the decommissioning plan; d) implementing other procedures,

e.g., focused site visits to reduce the number of requests for additional information; e)

conducting in-process/side-by-side confirmatory surveys; and f) relying more heavily on

licensees’ quality assurance programs rather than conducting large-scale confirmatory surveys.

2. STATUS AND PLANS FOR FUTURE IMPLEMENTATION

In the 2000 Update (SECY-00-0094) the staff reported that it had developed and started to use

its Rebaselining and Streamlining improvements in September 1999. These improvements

have been continuously used during FY 2000 and the FY 2001-FY2003 evaluation time period. 

To ensure implementation of these improvements, they were incorporated into the staff’s

regulatory guidance documents and the Decommissioning Branch Operations Manual and

management regularly reminds staff of the importance of using these new tools. In addition,

the staff’s quarterly Operating Plan reviews are used to track the staffs’ updates to site

summaries and Gantt chart schedules for each site. 

 

3. ACCOMPLISHMENTS/OUTPUTS

The key accomplishment was the continued use of these improvements over the FY 2001-FY

2003 evaluation time period and incorporation of these improvements into regulatory guidance,

internal operating procedures, and the quarterly Operating Plan reviews.
30

4. BENEFITS/OUTCOMES TO THE DECOMMISSIONING PROGRAM

The benefits to the Decommissioning Program achieving the applicable NRC Strategic Plan

goals (shown below in italics) that result from Rebaselinging and Streamlining improvements

are discussed below.

3.0 Make NRC activities and decisions more effective, efficient, and realistic.

4.0 Reduce unnecessary regulatory burden on stakeholders

The outcomes of these process changes, particularly the proactive consultations, expanded

acceptance reviews, and side-by-side confirmatory surveys have been successful at identifying

and resolving issues sooner and reducing potential delays in the decommissioning process.

5. LESSONS LEARNED

The following lessons learned were obtained from interviews of the staff project managers who

have been using these improvements over the past three years.

1) Although the changes have made work more efficient and effective, it is often difficult to see

the results because new issues often emerge that must be addressed and may remove any

efficiencies previously gained; 

2) Although the improvements should increase efficiency, there is no available system to

analyze staff FTE expenditures or a baseline of historical expenditures that is necessary to

measure efficiencies; 

3) Gantt chart schedules are effective for management and tracking by clearly defining the

steps in the decommissioning process and schedules and changes to the schedules. However,

the Gantt charts do not facilitate the decommissioning process or speedup the process;

4) “Phased decommissioning” to cleanup highest risk areas first, may be necessary if a

licensee has severe funding limitations. NRC will focus on a few key decision points and the

final survey and use in process inspections of activities.;

5) Recognize that the phased review for institutional controls is not the same approach for all

restricted release sites, but it should be tailored to site specific conditions and sequenced into

steps, based on the issues at the site;

6) More aggressive and frequent interactions with licensees might be needed by the NRC

project manager or NRC management to motivate licensees who are passive and not making

acceptable progress;

7) If multiple rounds of requests for additional information (RAIs) are not successful, more

intense consultations might be needed to discuss and resolve each issue. Experience has

shown that consultations can be adjusted to meet the needs of the licensee and as a tool to

achieve progress, if needed. However, such an approach requires more staff time and may be

difficult to forecast;
31

8) Use proactive consultations and encourage frequent interactions. If needed, use weekly

calls and weekly written informal progress reports that include work completed and planned for

next week.

9) Frequent verbal consultations and side-by-side confirmatory radiological surveys are

particularly useful ways to avoid delays in decommissioning schedules because verbal

communications and confirmation of correct understanding is immediate and does not depend

on much slower exchanges of written information. 

10) A central data base/web site/process to capture and share lessons learned and sites

summaries would be useful. Consider a Decommissioning Lessons Learned web site to post

useful references on common issues and solutions. 

11) Consider appropriate ways to offer incentives to licensees to facilitate completion of

decommissions. Example incentives to evaluate include: a) special consultations such as for

dose modeling instructions or demonstrations; b) staff identification of acceptable options for

licensee consideration; c) dose modeling by the staff; d) accelerated licensing reviews for high

priority sites; e) flexibility in the decommissioning process, such as phased decommissioning,

when severe financial conditions limit a licensees ability to complete decommissioning.

6. REFERENCES

Decommissioning Branch Operations Manual

Status of Decommissioning Program, SECY-00-0094, April 25, 2000.

2001 Annual Update–Status of Decommissioning Program, SECY-01-0156, August 17, 2001. 

2002 Annual Update–Status of Decommissioning Program, SECY-02-0169, September 18,

2002. 
32

 BUSINESS PROCESS IMPROVEMENT INITIATIVE FOR THE

DECOMMISSIONING LICENSING PROCESS 

1. DESCRIPTION OF CHANGE/IMPROVEMENT

A Business Process Improvement (BPI) initiative for the decommissioning process is being

performed to identify improvement opportunities that increase efficiency and effectiveness

without reducing safety. The “NMSS Business Process Improvement (BPI) Methodology,

Version 1.2, dated October 2002 was used as a guide in performing this BPI initiative. This

methodology uses a five step process: plan, assess, improve, implement and measure. For

planning and assessment steps of this initiative, a contractor, with BPI expertise, was used by

NRC. In the assessment step, the contractor conducted facilitated meetings and documented

the “As-Is” or current process. The facilitated meetings and subsequent documentation

focused on information provided by DWM management and staff including: a representative

group of technical staff, project managers, and supervisors with decommissioning experience

and responsibility for a range of program activities. Activities in the assessment included:

creating “As-Is” process workflow maps to diagram the existing process; discussing a “picture

of success”; brainstorming and targeting improvements; prioritizing preliminary improvements;

categorizing preliminary improvement opportunities into near-term “quick hits” and long-term

suggestions; and describing the potential benefits of the improvements. 

At the end of the assessment step, it is anticipated that all NMSS divisions will share ideas and

findings to identify commonalities in the processes in individual divisions that would result in

office-wide improvements. Finally, the improve, implement, and measure steps will be

performed in the future by the NRC staff, with minimal assistance from contractors.

2. STATUS AND PLANS FOR FUTURE IMPLEMENTATION

During FY 2003, the BPI assessment step for decommissioning licensing was conducted and

consisted of two facilitated sessions to review the process and identify opportunities for

improvements in both efficiency and effectiveness areas. These sessions resulted in identifying

both short-term and long-term improvement opportunities. Examples include: 

Short-term/quick hit improvement opportunities

Project management (PM) improvements such as training, early team

formation/assignments, schedule reviews early and improve resource planning to

minimize conflicts

Staff training on LTR analysis results for more realistic scenarios

More proactive and regular pre-submittal licensee consultations

Bi-weekly discussions with the Office of the General Counsel on status of its

legal review actions
33

Streamline the Technical Assistance Request (TAR) procedure

Use the draft Safety Evaluation Report to develop and collect RAIs for all

technical areas and submit as one RAI

Additional staff environmental review training

Long-term improvement opportunities

Hire additional technical staff

Empower staff at lower-levels and with less management involvement

Prioritize projects

Eliminate Commission papers for SDMP site removal

Focus reviews and licensee consultations on high risk issues

These initial results will be shared and compared with results from other licensing programs

within in NMSS in early FY 2004. 

3. ACCOMPLISHMENTS/OUTPUTS

The key accomplishments include completing an assessment of the decommissioning licensing

process and identifying short-term and long-term improvement opportunities for future study. 

One of the short-term suggestions for improving the TAR process has already been

implemented by the staff.

4. BENEFITS/OUTCOMES TO THE DECOMMISSIONING PROGRAM

3.0 Make NRC activities and decisions more effective, efficient, and realistic.

The licensing BPI represents a more formal methodology for conducting a self assessment to

seek ideas to improve the licensing program. Several short-term and long-term improvement

ideas, if implemented would contribute to both efficiency and effectiveness of staff licensing

activities. Many of these ideas have been incorporated into the recommendations of the

Program Evaluation.

5. LESSONS LEARNED

The BPI methodology was a useful way to systematically evaluate the components of the

licensing process and resulted in many improvement opportunities, some of which have also

been suggested by other self assessments. 

Some suggestions, such as the need for empowerment and improved project management,

and prioritization of work, are reoccurring themes or are already topics being evaluated by

NMSS. 
34

The use of a facilitator focused the large group, contributed to collaboration, and stimulated

brainstorming. Future assessments involving many staff members might benefit from using a

facilitator.

 

6. REFERENCES

NMSS Business Process Improvement (BPI) Methodology, Version 1.2, October 2002.
35

PHASED REVIEW OF DECOMMISSIONING PLANS FOR 

RESTRICTED RELEASE SITES

1. DESCRIPTION OF CHANGE/IMPROVEMENT

This improvement was proposed by the staff during the FY 2002 Budget development process

as an efficiency in both the decommissioning reviews and Environmental Impact Statement

(EIS) development. Since institutional controls and related financial assurance are two of the

most challenging issues to review and resolve, these issues would be reviewed as the first

phase of the decommissioning plan review. Only after these issues are resolved will the

remaining safety review and preparation of the environmental impact statement (EIS) begin. 

Resolving these issues could affect the content of the decommissioning plan and EIS, thus the

efficiency of the staff and licensee work on these tasks will be improved by avoiding premature

reviews of submittals that might be changed significantly. 

2. STATUS AND PLANS FOR FUTURE IMPLEMENTATION

The phased review process was initiated in FY 2001 for complex decommissioning sites

proposing restricted release and implemented by Section 13.4.2 of the Consolidated Guidance, 

(NUREG-1757, vol. 1). The status of implementation of the phased review at specific sites was

summarized in Attachment 1 of the staff’s License Termination Rule Analysis (SECY-03-0069). 

Implementation of the approach has been tailored for each of the sites based on their particular

issues and stage in developing a decommissioning plan. The staff plans on continuing to use

the phased review approach tailored to specific site needs.

3. ACCOMPLISHMENTS/OUTPUTS

The key accomplishments are as follows:

1) Included the phased approach in the staff’s decommissioning guidance; and

2) Implemented the phased approach at three decommissioning sites.

4. BENEFITS/OUTCOMES TO THE DECOMMISSIONING PROGRAM

The benefits/outcomes to achieving the applicable NRC Strategic Plan goals (shown below in

italics) are discussed below.

3.0 Make NRC activities and decisions more effective, efficient, and realistic.

4.0 Reduce unnecessary regulatory burden on stakeholders.

The potential outcome from the staff’s developing and implementing the phased approach is

greater efficiency in licensee preparation and staff review of decommissioning plans. 

Furthermore, higher quality decommissioning plans are anticipated. Because the process is
36

ongoing for the licensees where it is being used, the final outcome is not yet known, but

interactions among the staff and licensees have been constructive and appear to be useful. 

5. LESSONS LEARNED

The staff’s implementation of the phased approach has resulted in the following lessons

learned:

1) The staff has applied the phased review approach in a flexible manner by tailoring it

to the needs of each site; 

2) Tailoring the phased review has revealed that the institutional controls and financial

assurance might not be the only issues that should be resolved early. Thus, the

concept of addressing key issues early before the full review of the decommissioning

plan and EIS are started can be applied to other issues as well, such as data quality,

scenarios, and dose modeling results. Resolving these issues could form the basis of a

licensees decision between either unrestricted release or restricted release; 

3) Tailoring the phased review also has shown that it can be applied at different times--

during the early stages of decommissioning plan development or even after a

decommissioning plan has been rejected by the staff and the licensee begins to revise

deficient sections.

4) Although the phased review approach can be useful, the approach has some

limitations that must be recognized. First, the staff should not give the impression that it

is approving or concurring on a licensees approach. Rather, the staff is providing early

feedback that the direction or approach the licensee is taking would lead to accepting

the DP for detailed technical review and not rejecting the DP. Second, phasing the

review can fragment the review, thus, the staff’s feedback is preliminary and may not be

based on all the information that would eventually be available in the DP. Finally, the

phased review should not add more formal steps that could delay the licensees

schedule for submitting a DP.

6. REFERENCES

Consolidated NMSS Decommissioning Guidance, Decommissioning Process for Materials

Licensees, Vol. 1, Rev. 1, NUREG-1757, p. 13-5

Results of the License Termination Rule Analysis, SECY-03-0069, May 2, 2003, Attachment 1.
37

PILOT PROGRAM FOR DECOMMISSIONING NON-COMPLEX SITES

1. DESCRIPTION OF CHANGE/IMPROVEMENT

In the Staff Requirements Memorandum (SRM) dated March 31, 1997, the Commission

directed the staff to carry out a Decommissioning Pilot Program. The primary objective of the

pilot program was to evaluate a performance-oriented decommissioning approach applied to a

few volunteer, non-complex sites (e.g., sites without sub-surface soil contamination,

groundwater contamination, or on-site burial pits). Under this approach, the participating

licensees simply provided their residual contamination goals to NRC and began

decommissioning without first obtaining NRC approval of a DP that is required by the License

Termination Rule (LTR) in 10 CFR 20 Subpart E. 

2. STATUS AND PLANS FOR FUTURE IMPLEMENTATION

On June 30, 1998, the Commission approved the staff’s proposed plan to implement the pilot

program (SRM-SECY-98-135). The 2001 and 2002 annual updates to the Decommissioning

Program (SECY-01-0156 and SECY-02-0169) described the status of the pilot program. Of the

five sites that initially volunteered to participate, three of the facilities completed

decommissioning under the pilot. The other two sites had to withdraw from the pilot due to

discovery of subsurface soil and groundwater contamination that required more complex

remediation and a DP. In December 2001, the staff informed the Commission of the final

status of the pilot program. As a result of this evaluation, the staff does not intend to expand

the pilot program in the future.

3. ACCOMPLISHMENTS/OUTPUTS

The key accomplishments are as follows:

1) Completed the decommissioning of three non-complex sites under the pilot program;

and

2) Completed an evaluation of the pilot program results.

4. BENEFITS/OUTCOMES TO THE DECOMMISSIONING PROGRAM

The pilot program explored a different and potentially more efficient performance-based

approach to the decommissioning of non-complex sites. Although the pilot program showed

that performance-based decommissioning for non-complex sites can be done safely for certain

qualified licensees (i.e., financial ability, technical ability, committed management, and

dedicated/qualified decontamination and decommissioning teams in place), the results did not

support a decision to expand the use of this approach, for a variety of reasons. One major

reason is that few decommissioning sites, if any, remain that could meet the non-complex

criteria (i.e., minimal contamination, no subsurface soil or groundwater contamination, and no

burial areas). 
38

5. LESSONS LEARNED

The pilot program provide site-specific experience and insights for conducting decommissioning

of non-complex sites using the flexibility within the LTR and guidance. The staff also found that

many licensees are not aware of the inherent flexibility in the NRC’s Decommissioning Program

that provides them with the opportunity to build decommissioning programs that fit their own

sites’ needs and allows for efficient and timely decommissioning. Therefore, information

regarding flexibility should continue to be provided to licensees and other stakeholders. 

6. REFERENCES

2001 Annual Update–Status of Decommissioning Program, SECY-01-0156, August 17, 2001. 

2002 Annual Update–Status of Decommissioning Program, SECY-02-0169, September 18,

2002. 

Consolidated Decommissioning NMSS Guidance, Decommissioning Process for Materials

Licensees, NUREG-1757, Vol. 1, Rev. 1, September 2003.

Consolidated Decommissioning NMSS Guidance, Characterization, Survey, and Determination

of Radiological Criteria, NUREG-1757, Vol. 2, September 2003.
39

TRANSFER OF SITES TO THE COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA

1. DESCRIPTION OF CHANGE/IMPROVEMENT

During the program evaluation time period of FY 2001-2003, the staff was anticipating the

transfer of many NRC licensed complex decommissioning sites to the Commonwealth of

Pennsylvania when it became an Agreement State. As noted in SECY-00-0094, the staff was

assuming in April 2000 that as many as 10 sites could be transferred to Pennsylvania in or

before 2002 when Pennsylvania was planning on becoming an Agreement State. However, as

plans changed for Pennsylvania, the staff changed its assumption in August 2001, that the

transfer would occur by FY 2004 (SECY-01-0156). The potential transfer by FY 2004 affected

the staff’s plans and resource estimates because, at this time, nine complex sites could have

had their licenses terminated or transferred to Pennsylvania by the end of FY 2003. These nine

sites represented about one third of the complex decommissioning sites the staff was

addressing. Because the potential transfer would be a major change, it was included in this

Program Evaluation. In addition, careful planning and coordination with Pennsylvania would be

needed for such a major change to be efficient and effective for both NRC and Pennsylvania. 

2. STATUS AND PLANS FOR FUTURE IMPLEMENTATION

Pennsylvania has delayed its plans for becoming an Agreement State, and, therefore, the

transfer of decommissioning sites from NRC to Pennsylvania has not occurred. Because

Pennsylvania’s current plans are uncertain, the staff assumes that it will continue work on the

sites at least through the end of FY 2006. 

3. ACCOMPLISHMENTS/OUTPUTS

Not applicable

4. BENEFITS/OUTCOMES TO THE DECOMMISSIONING PROGRAM

Not applicable

5. LESSONS LEARNED

The potential transfer of a large number of sites to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania

illustrates an example of a major planning uncertainty for the Decommissioning Program that

could impact future resource loading.

6. REFERENCES

2001 Annual Update–Status of Decommissioning Program, SECY-01-0156, 

August 17, 2001, p. 5.
40

INSPECTION EFFICIENCY AND COST REDUCTION FOR MATERIALS SITES

1. DESCRIPTION OF CHANGE/IMPROVEMENT

As a follow up to the budget process, future inspection efficiencies to achieve resource

reductions were targeted for materials sites. Staff from Headquarters and the Regions

evaluated the inspection programs and experience at materials sites in each of the Regions to

determine how to increase efficiency of individual inspections and achieve the targeted

resource reductions in the budget.

2. STATUS AND PLANS FOR FUTURE IMPLEMENTATION

NRC staff from Headquarters and the Regions conducted an evaluation that was completed

and documented in April 11, 2001. The Regions indicated that they have sufficient flexibility

within the existing guidance to implement various efficiencies on the Regional level.

As a result, the following approaches to inspection efficiency were agreed to:

1) Linking inspections to the licensee’s on-site activities, so that inspectors can make

side-by-side observations and measurement during licensee-conducted surveys;

2) Interacting with the licensees to ensure complete and appropriate submittals; 

3) Conducting inspections only at sites that are actively being remediated;

4) Inspecting “smarter,” and as a consequence, reducing on-site inspection time and

limiting the scope and depth of inspections to examining key decommissioning activities. 

The staff also completed an informal check of implementation in February 2002, and confirmed

that implementation is ongoing. 

3. ACCOMPLISHMENTS/OUTPUTS

The key accomplishment of the staff’s effort to improve the efficiency of inspections are:

1) Headquarters and Regions worked together, compiled inspection experience from

each Region, and documented agreed to approaches to achieve inspection efficiency. 

2) Approaches for inspection efficiency were also documented in the Consolidated

Decommissioning Guidance.

4. BENEFITS/OUTCOMES TO THE DECOMMISSIONING PROGRAM

The benefits to the Decommissioning Program achieving the applicable NRC Strategic Plan

goal (shown below in italics) that result from inspection efficiencies are discussed below.
41

3.0 Make NRC activities and decisions more effective, efficient, and realistic.

The Region’s inspection experience was used to compile a list of many inspection approaches

that the Regional inspectors can use to make future inspections of materials sites more efficient

and more effectively focused on key decommissioning activities. 

5. LESSONS LEARNED

While efficiencies were identified and implemented for specific inspections, resource reductions

for the overall inspection program will not occur due to the increased need and work load for

material site inspections. Overall, the staff learned that resource reductions for the inspection

programs could have a negative effect on the Decommission Program, and as a result, 

resource reallocations were made consistent with the increasing work load. Finally, early “inprocess” inspections can prevent small problems from becoming large problems. Therefore,

resource reductions early in the decommissioning process should be avoided because this

could lead to larger and more costly problems later in decommissioning. 

6. REFERENCES

Decommissioning Inspection Efficiency and Cost Reduction, Memorandum from J.T. Greeves

to M.J. Virgilio, April 11, 2001.

Consolidated NMSS Decommissioning Guidance, Decommissioning Process for Materials

Licensees, NUREG 1757, Vol. 1, Rev. 1, September 2003.
42

TRANSFER OF POWER REACTOR DECOMMISSIONING RESPONSIBILITY AND

DECOMMISSIONING REACTOR BUDGET MODEL

1. DESCRIPTION OF CHANGE/IMPROVEMENT

During FY 2003 the existing delineation of responsibility for NRC’s regulation of power reactor

decommissioning was realigned. This resulted in defining the transfer of responsibility for

project management of decommissioning power reactors from NRR to NMSS earlier in the

decommissioning process than had been defined in a 1995 Memorandum of Understanding

(MOU) between NRR and NMSS. Resources for Headquarters project management and

Regional inspection were evaluated as part of this realignment and adjustments were made to

reflect recent experience and more risk informed insights. In accordance with the realignment,

a phased process was used to transition the project management responsibility for the

decommissioning of 13 of the 15 NRR power reactors to NMSS by the end of January 2003.

2. STATUS AND PLANS FOR FUTURE IMPLEMENTATION

The March 10, 1995, MOU delineated the responsibilities for power reactor decommissioning

between NRR and NMSS. In accordance with the MOU, NRR along with the appropriate

Region, had responsibility for project management and inspection oversight for a power reactor

undergoing decommissioning until the spent fuel was permanently removed from the spent fuel

pool. Once the spent fuel was permanently transferred from the spent fuel pool, the facility was

transferred to NMSS, and NMSS assumed responsibility for project management, and along

with the appropriate Region, inspection oversight.

As a result of the 1995 MOU, NRR maintained regulatory oversight of 15 decommissioning

power reactors for many years after the reactors ceased operation. These plants are either in

long-term safe storage or actively working toward license termination. Thus, these 15 plants

have more in common with decommissioning materials licensees temporarily storing and

disposing of radioactive waste than operating power reactor.

To take advantage of NMSS’ regulatory expertise in overseeing decommissioning and waste

storage facilities, the staff of both NRR and NMSS developed changes to the process to

transfer project management responsibility earlier in the decommissioning process from NRR to

NMSS. This “road map” will ensure that a decommissioning power reactor will be in a safe,

stable condition before being transferred from NRR to NMSS and that it is safely shut down and

defueled. It also ensures that the plant is in a condition that minimizes any reactor-related

regulatory or safety issues that may arise during and after the transfer of the facility to NMSS.

The decision to realign responsibilities was based on the following activities that have been

undertaken over the last few years: 1) an interoffice working group that evaluated the

decommissioning inspection program and its associated budget; 2) a Decommissioning

Management Board to facilitate interoffice coordination, communication, and operating strategy;

and 3) insights gained from annual decommissioning counterpart meetings. 

Project management responsibility of the current decommissioning power reactors was

transferred by shifting 13 of the 15 NRR power reactors to NMSS under a phased approach. 
43

The staff informed the Commission on November 8, 2002, of these changes to the transfer

process and the phased approach to transfer the existing decommissioning power reactors.

(SECY-02-0198). The transfer was completed in January 2003.

The transfer of 13 plants from NRR to NMSS also required realignment of both Headquarters

and Regional resources. Headquarters project management resources remained constant. 

Regional inspection resources estimates were reduced as part of a reevaluation and refocusing

of inspections at these facilities. To align the inspection effort with budgeted resources, an

Inter-Office/Inter-Region Inspection Program Review working group was formed to review the

Inspection Manual Chapter 2561 and scope of the core inspections being performed. The

review resulted in revising the guidance to ensure consistency and reduce the differences in

resource allocation among similar plants. This was accomplished through developing six

categories describing the status of plant decommissioning and that are consistent with relative

risk. These categories serve as a guides for resource allocation. The review also scored each

of the inspection objectives in the Inspection Manual Chapter relative to NRC’s performance

goals. The inspection objectives with the highest score receive the highest priority and are

included in the core program while lower scoring objectives receive less emphasis and are

considered discretionary. Finally, the hours assigned to each inspection objective were

reviewed and revised.

3. ACCOMPLISHMENTS/OUTPUTS

The key accomplishments are as follows:

1) Transferred the project management responsibility for 13 of 15 power reactors

currently in decommissioning from NRR to NMSS; 

2) Developed a process, or “road map”, to transfer plants from NRR oversight to NMSS

in the future; and

3) Agreed to revised resource estimates for project management and inspections and

revised the core inspection requirements using risk ranking.

4. BENEFITS/OUTCOMES TO THE DECOMMISSIONING PROGRAM

The benefits to the Decommissioning Program achieving the applicable NRC Strategic Plan

goal (shown below in italics) that result from the transfer of power reactor decommissioning are

discussed below.

3.0 Make NRC activities and decisions more effective, efficient, and realistic.

The key outcome of realignment of power reactor decommissioning is the elimination of the

need for redundant licensing project managers and consolidation into one office of the staff

working on commercial nuclear power reactor decommissioning. This improvement in

efficiency and effectiveness can be achieved without affecting licensees. Realignment of

responsibilities also maximizes the decommissioning review capability of NMSS and allows

NRR to focus its resources on activities associated with operating reactors.
44

5. LESSONS LEARNED

None at this time.

6. REFERENCES

IMC 2561, Decommissioning Power Reactor Inspection Program, Change in Core Inspection

Requirements, memorandum from B. Boger and J. Greeves to G. Pangburn, D. Collins, M.

Dapas, and D. Chamberlain, October 17, 2002.

Changes in Staff Regulatory Oversight of Decommissioning Commercial Nuclear Power

Reactor Plants, SECY-02-0198, November 8, 2002.
45

FINANCIAL ASSURANCE AND DECOMMISSIONING FUNDING ACTIVITIES

1. DESCRIPTION OF CHANGE/IMPROVEMENT

This evaluation addresses two improvements related to financial assurance and sufficiency of

licensee decommissioning funding. Both improvements are intended to mitigate potential

shortfalls in licensee funding for site decommissioning that could lead to the need for Federal

funding. The first improvement addresses individual existing decommissioning sites with

inadequate financial assurance and funding limitations. The second improvement focuses on

resolving general types of financial risks to minimize financial assurance problems at both

exiting and future decommissioning sites. 

2. STATUS AND PLANS FOR FUTURE IMPLEMENTATION

Existing Sites with Inadequate Financial Assurance

SECY-00-0180 provided an initial response in 2000 to the Commission request to evaluate the

potential need for Federal funding of formerly licensed sites in non-Agreement States and

currently licensed sites undergoing decommissioning. In 2002, as a follow up to 

SECY-00-0180, the staff provided the Commission with the results of a more detailed financial

analysis of 15 existing decommissioning sites with inadequate financial assurance (SECY-02-

0079). For each site this analysis identified: 1) potential remediation costs; 2) the amount of

financial assurance; 3) the capability of the responsible party to fund the cost of remediation

from assets outside of financial assurance; and 4) the possibility of another agency (State or

Federal) directing remediation if the NRC decides to pursue Congressional funding for site

cleanup. This analysis concluded that only one site lacked adequate financial assurance and

is incapable of funding site remediation. Fourteen other sites were identified that have

inadequate financial assurance and varying degrees of capability for funding remediation. This

study also recommended that the Commission should not seek a Congressional appropriation

at this time. Rather, the staff recommended implementing a new aggressive regulatory posture

for these sites and bring the sites to closure without Federal funding. 

Subsequently, the Commission approved and the staff has implemented the aggressive posture

for the 15 sites. In October 2003, the staff will give the Commission a progress report and path

forward for the 15 decommissioning sites. The staff plans on continuing the aggressive

regulatory posture and maintaining proactive interactions with the sites in the future. 

Resolving Financial Risks for Existing and Future Sites

NRC staff experience applying the financial assurance regulations has resulted in many

lessons-learned that can be applied to improve the regulations and reduce the risks to

decommissioning financial assurance. Based on this experience, the staff identified the

following risks in the LTR Analysis (SECY-03-0069) that could cause shortfalls in

decommissioning funding: 1) restricted release assumption causes underestimation of

decommissioning costs; 2) operational indicators of increasing costs; 3) unavailability of funds
46

in bankruptcy; 4) inadequate financial disclosure; 5) reaching assets after corporate

reorganization; 6) investment losses reducing trust account balances; and 7) increased

decommissioning cost due to accidental release. For each of these financial risks, the staff

evaluated options and made recommendations for both existing and future licensees. If

approved by the Commission, these recommendations could be implemented using a

rulemaking, new guidance, inspection and enforcement guidance, and informing stakeholders. 

3. ACCOMPLISHMENTS/OUTPUTS

The key accomplishments are as follows:

1) Financial analysis and recommendation of aggressive regulatory posture for 15 sites

in SECY-02-0079.

2) Commission approval and staff implementation of aggressive regulatory posture at 

15 sites; and

3) Identified types of financial risks for both existing and future decommissioning sites

and recommended to the Commission regulatory actions to mitigate risks in SECY-03-

0069.

4. BENEFITS/OUTCOMES TO THE DECOMMISSIONING PROGRAM

The benefits to the Decommissioning Program achieving the applicable NRC Strategic Plan

goal (shown below in italics) that result from the financial assurance improvements are

discussed below.

4.0 Reduced unnecessary regulatory burden on stakeholders

One outcome is that the staff is implementing a more aggressive regulatory posture to resolve

the financial problems of existing individual decommissioning sites (“legacy” sites). 

Implementation will continue until decommissioning is completed at these sites without the need

for Federal funding of decommissioning. Decommissioning should be payed for by the

licensees or owners and thus Federal funding of decommissioning will not be necessary.

Similarly, the recommended regulatory actions to address general financial risks are the first

step toward an eventual outcome of strengthening NRC’s regulations for financial assurance to

effectively reduce financial risks that could cause shortfalls in decommissioning funding, thus

minimizing the potential for future “legacy” site that might need Federal funding. 

5. LESSONS LEARNED

The staff has the following lessons learned:

1) The more aggressive posture for existing sites illustrates how the staff has evaluated

sites for financial risks and prioritized its licensing activities and resources to focus on

resolution of problems at individual sites. This is a risk informed, graded approach to
47

staff licensing reviews based on financial risk that is a useful way to allocate staff

resources to use them effectively to solve decommissioning problems.

2) “Legacy” sites ned special attention with regard to financial information. The standard 

approach is not adequate for these sites.

3) Non-licensed sites pose a special “financial risk” because of their lack of financial

assurance.

6. REFERENCES

Issues and Funding Options to Facilitate Remediation of Decommissioning Sites in NonAgreement States, SECY-00-0180, August 23, 2000.

Financial Analysis and Recommendations to Facilitate Remediation of Decommissioning Sites

in Non-Agreement States, SECY-02-0079, May 13, 2002.

Initial Analysis and Plan for Addressing License Termination Rule Issues, SECY-02-0177,

October 1, 2002.

Results of the License Termination Rule Analysis, SECY-03-0069, May 2, 2003.
48

REGIONAL LABORATORY EVALUATION

1. DESCRIPTION OF CHANGE/IMPROVEMENT

In 1995, the DWM evaluated the analytical needs of NRC and determined the necessary level

of regional and contract laboratory support based on the projected type and number of samples

and cost effectiveness of sample analysis. In a report to the Deputy Executive Director for

Nuclear Material Safety, Safeguards and Operational Support (EDO), dated May 14, 1996,

(Transition Plan) NMSS recommended that NRC: (1) maintain the fixed and mobile laboratory

capabilities in Regions I and III; (2) maintain minimal analytical capabilities (analysis of smear

samples) in Regions II and IV; (3) continue the contract with the Oak Ridge Institute for Science

and Education (ORISE) for complex radiochemical analytical support; and (4) establish

laboratory traceability to the National Institute of Science and Technology (NIST) and

participate in the DOE quality assurance (QA) program for regional and contract laboratories. 

However, the report also states that maximum efficiency would occur with one centralized NRC

laboratory, but the best transition would be to evaluate the efficiency of two regional

laboratories before further consolidation. The report also states that the cost effectiveness of

the fixed and mobile labs should be reevaluated to see if additional streamlining is appropriate

in the future.

In 1997, NMSS directed DWM to develop a QA program for the regional laboratories, to assure

that the laboratories provide analytical services and measurements that are of known quality,

thoroughly and verifiably documented, and defensible in support of regulatory decisions. On

August 6, 1998, NMSS issued Policy and Procedures Letter 1-64, requesting that the Regions

implement the Quality Assurance Manual for Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards,

Revision 2, dated August 4, 1998 (NMSS QA Manual). In addition, NMSS/DWM entered into a

contract with DOE’s Radiological Environmental Sciences Laboratory (RESL) to conduct QA

audits of the Regional and ORISE laboratories and to conduct inter-laboratory comparison tests

to NIST traceable standards. In accordance with the NMSS QA Manual, RESL conducted

annual audits of the Regional and ORISE laboratories through 2001.

In FY2001, the DWM conducted a review of the Decommissioning Program to identify ways to

improve efficiency and reduce costs. DWM re-evaluated the cost effectiveness of maintaining

fixed and mobile laboratories in the Regions and a laboratory options paper was prepared for

management consideration. Headquarters and Regional management discussed the various

laboratory consolidation options, and a cost comparison was prepared for the following options:

(1) consolidate NRC laboratories into a single laboratory in Region 1 with no analytical

capabilities in other Regions; (2) consolidate NRC laboratories into a single laboratory in Region

1 with limited analytical capabilities (screening) in other Regions; and (3) cease all NRC

laboratory operations and rely on ORISE for sample analysis.

Factors considered in the analysis included; the cost of maintaining a fixed and mobile

laboratory, the costs for sample analysis in the Regions and at ORISE, FTE’s required to run

and maintain a Regional laboratory, and the costs associated with conducting QA audits at the

laboratories. As a result of the review, the staff determined that it was possible to improve
49

efficiency and reduce Decommissioning program costs by ceasing Regional laboratory

operations associated with analyzing environmental samples from sites undergoing

decommissioning and, instead, relying on the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education

(ORISE) and Environmental Measurements Laboratory (EML) for analytical capability. 

Therefore, the regional and mobile laboratories were permanently shutdown.

2. STATUS AND PLANS FOR FUTURE IMPLEMENTATION

The Regional laboratories were permanently shutdown in 2002. Currently, there are no plans to

re-open the Regional laboratories. ORISE will continue to provide analytical services and

measurements in support of DWM and the Regions.

3. ACCOMPLISHMENTS/OUTPUTS

The key accomplishments are as follows:

1) Conducted an in-depth review, including a cost analysis, of the most cost effective

and efficient option for conducting laboratory analyses or radiological samples and

decided to cease all NRC laboratory operations and rely on ORISE for sample analysis. 

2) Closing the Regional laboratories resulted in making four FTE available for reprogramming to other higher priority decommissioning activities. Cost savings of

approximately $435K were realized when compared to maintaining mobile and fixed

laboratory capability in Region I, with screening capability in Regions II and III.

4. BENEFITS/OUTCOMES TO THE DECOMMISSIONING PROGRAM

The benefits to the Decommissioning Program achieving the applicable NRC Strategic Plan

goals (shown below in italics) that result from the Regional Laboratory evaluation are discussed

below.

3.0 Make NRC activities and decisions more effective, efficient, and realistic.

The management assessment of the Regional laboratories resulted in a significant increase in

decommissioning program efficiency. As a result of the analysis, DWM was able to reprogram

the laboratories 4 FTE’s to other higher priority decommissioning activities. Laboratory funding

was reprogrammed to the ORISE contract to cover the costs associated with the increased

volume of samples to be analyzed.

4.0 Reduce unnecessary regulatory burden on stakeholders.

One of the major benefits resulting from the management assessment of the Regional

laboratories was a significant decrease in the costs associated with the analyzing samples

taken from material licensees during inspections and confirmatory surveys, thereby reducing

costs to the licensees.
50

5. LESSONS LEARNED

NA

6. REFERENCES

U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Performance and Accountability Report, Fiscal Year

2001, NUREG-1542, vol. 7, pp. 50-51.
51

NRC/EPA MEMORANDUM OR UNDERSTANDING FOR

CONSULTATION AND FINALITY ON DECOMMISSIONING AND DECONTAMINATION OF 

CONTAMINATED SITES

1. DESCRIPTION OF CHANGE/IMPROVEMENT

Some nuclear facilities have the potential to be regulated by both NRC and EPA upon

decommissioning. For example, a site that has completed decommissioning under NRC’s

licensing regulations might still be subject to EPA clean-up actions if EPA determines that the

decommissioning criteria were not protective. The House Appropriations Committee in 1999

noted that while it has been EPA’s long-standing policy to defer to the NRC for cleanup of

NRC’s licensed sites, stakeholders have raised concern regarding the authority and finality of

NRC licensing decisions, the duration and costs of site cleanup, and the potential future liability

of parties associated with affected sites. Therefore, the House Appropriations Committee

encouraged both agencies to enter into a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) which clarifies

the circumstances for EPA’s involvement at NRC sites when requested by NRC. 

2. STATUS AND PLANS FOR FUTURE IMPLEMENTATION

On October 9, 2002, NRC and EPA completed an MOU on “Consultation and Finality on

Decommissioning and Decontamination of Contaminated Sites.” The MOU establishes a basic

framework for the relationship of the agencies in order to facilitate decision-making. It

continues a basic policy of EPA deferral to NRC decision-making in the decommissioning of

NRC-licensed sites except in certain circumstances, and establishes the procedures to govern

the relationship between the agencies when those circumstances arise.

Immediately after signature of the MOU, NRC and EPA staffs completed a number of outreach

activities, including issuing press releases and holding a public meeting. Subsequently, NRC

staff completed a review of currently decommissioning NRC sites, to determine which sites are

likely to meet or exceed the criteria outlined in the MOU. Having completed this initial review of

NRC sites, staff is currently prepared to begin site-specific consultation with EPA under 

the MOU. 

3. ACCOMPLISHMENTS/OUTPUTS

The key accomplishment of the staff’s efforts are as follows:

1) Signed an MOU on October 9, 2002.

4. BENEFITS/OUTCOMES TO THE DECOMMISSIONING PROGRAM

The benefits/outcomes to the Decommissioning Program achieving the applicable NRC

Strategic Plan goal (shown below in italics) are discussed below.
52

4.0 Reduce unnecessary regulatory burden on stakeholders

The completion of the MOU should facilitate consultation between EPA and NRC, which can

improve decision-making on decommissioning. This improvement could minimize the potential

for dual regulation and resulting increase in the cost of decommissioning without a

commensurate increase in the level of protection.

5. LESSONS LEARNED

Because the MOU does not fully meet the intent of the House Appropriations Committee, NRC

will continue to seek legislation that would eliminate the possibility of dual regulation of Atomic

Energy Act contaminants for all decommissioning licensees.

6. REFERENCES

Memorandum of Understanding between the Environmental Protection Agency and the Nuclear

Regulatory Commission, Consultation and Finality on Decommissioning and Decontamination

of Contaminated Sites, October 9, 2002.

House Committee Appropriations Report, 106-286, August 3, 1999.
53

STAKEHOLDER COMMUNICATION AND INVOLVEMENT IMPROVEMENTS
54

STAKEHOLDER/PUBLIC OUTREACH IMPROVEMENTS

1. DESCRIPTION OF CHANGE/IMPROVEMENT

Staff of the NMSS Decommissioning Program interact with the stakeholders in several ways

including public meetings at individual sites, stakeholder workshops, special plans and reports,

stakeholder participation in guidance development, and staff participation in national and

international conferences and meetings. During the FY 2001-FY 2003 evaluation period,

several improvements were made to these public interactions as described below.

2. STATUS AND PLANS FOR FUTURE IMPLEMENTATION

Public meetings

The staff continued its long-standing Agency procedure for making all of its meetings with

licensees public, giving advanced notice, and providing publically available meeting summaries. 

In addition, the staff implemented an Agency improvement to use public meeting feedback

forms (NRC Form 659) to obtain written evaluations of the meetings from the public. Staff

project managers and staff responsible for tracking public meetings review the feedback forms

and if major concerns are identified, these are discussed with management. The actions

associated with each public meeting are tracked in the staff Operating Plan and reviewed by

management to assure that procedures are being implemented. 

Stakeholder workshops

On November 8-9, 2000, staff sponsored a workshop on decommissioning. The purpose was

to provide a forum for industry and non-industry stakeholders to discuss, with NRC staff, NRC’s

processes and procedures for managing the decommissioning of nuclear facilities, as well as

current issues facing the staff, and licensees, as they implement NRC’s License Termination

Rule (LTR). To ensure that both industry and non-industry stakeholders were represented at

the workshop, staff invited representatives from the nuclear industry, various public interest

groups, and other Federal and State agencies with responsibilities for regulating the use of

radioactive material, to participate in the roundtable discussions. Approximately 130

individuals attended the workshop. 

Other public meetings were held to gather input from stakeholders on important activities. On

November 1, 2000, NRC staff held a public meeting on the Pilot Program to discuss lessons

learned among participants, industry, and State representatives. Another meeting was held on

June 1, 2001, to discuss the staff’s plans for the NMSS Consolidated Decommissioning

Guidance project. The staff explained the scope of the project, the business process redesign

techniques to be used, coordination with industry efforts to standardize guidance, and ways to

receive stakeholder input. The meeting was attended by representatives of licensees, industry

groups, public interest groups, and a State agency. Another meeting was held on September

4, 2002, to discuss guidance on effective public involvement (see description in next section).
55

Development of plans and guidance 

In March 2001, the staff completed development of a Communication Plan for Regulation of

Decommissioning consistent with the May 1, 2000, Agency guidance. The Plan provides

guidance for developing specific communication plans for sits undergoing decommissioning as

well as specific activities associated with the regulation of decommissioning. The Plan

discusses several topics pertinent to developing site-specific communication plans including:

cross cutting considerations; identification of stakeholders; applications of communications

tools and techniques; and example costs of implementing the communication plan. The Plan

was distributed to all NRC staff working in the decommissioning program in June 2001, and

training sessions on the implemention of the Plan were conducted in late summer 2001. 

Further guidance was prepared in November 2001 and an example site-specific communication

plan was given to the staff in January 2002.

Subsequent to the guidance and training for the Communication Plan for Regulation of

Decommissioning, the staff prepared and began implementing site-specific communication

plans for all Site Decommissioning Management Plan and complex sites and the 13 power

reactors transferred from NRR to NMSS in FY 2003. These plans are useful tools to ensure

that the staff are identifying and reaching the appropriate stakeholders and to help staff focus

on messages NRC wants to convey. Each plan includes: 1) history and background of the site;

2) list of stakeholders; and 3) planned communication activities and schedules.

The staff also initiated a study by the U.S. Institute for Environmental Conflict Resolution

(USIECR) to further enhance public participation in the decommissioning process. This study

resulted in a “best practices” report that gives guidance to both staff and licensees for public

involvement in general, with specific application to restricted-use decommissioning of NRClicensed facilities. The guidance was based, in part, on information obtained from stakeholders,

at NRC licensed sites, who have experience with public involvement concerning radioactive

contamination. This project also resulted in establishing a list of qualified and independent

public involvement facilitators who could assist NRC licensees in obtaining public involvement. 

Based on this study, NRC then had USIECR conduct a workshop in September 2002 to discuss

best practices with licensees, NRC staff, and Agreement State regulators.

Stakeholder participation in NRC guidance development

In 2001, the staff began an effort with the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) to develop a shared

view of acceptable generic approaches for dealing with several license termination issues while

ensuring that the requirements of the LTR will be met. This shared view should provide

opportunities for standardized approaches of developing, reviewing, approving, and

implementing License Termination Plans for the decommissioning of power reactors. Some of

the issues also are applicable to DP s for materials sites. In an effort to clarify existing

guidance associated with the LTR, NRC and NEI adopted an approach whereby the NEI

License Termination Task Force generated questions and answers and submited them to NRC

for review. Approved questions and answers have been included in the NMSS Consolidated

Decommissioning Guidance and published in September 2003. 

Stakeholders were invited to participated in the NMSS Consolidated Decommissioning

Guidance project to provide a perspective on stakeholder perceptions and understanding of the
56

development and implementation of NRC guidance. Representatives from States contributed

both on the writing teams and review teams. 

Staff participation in national and international conferences and meetings

Staff participate in a variety of symposia and meetings sponsored by a variety of societal and

private groups involved with aspects of decommissioning. Examples include Waste

Management annual conferences, American Nuclear Society conferences, and Health Physics

Society meetings. Papers presented and informal discussions at these meetings help

communicate to the technical, regulator, and industry representatives NRC’s decommissioning

regulations, issues, and lessons-learned, as well as providing the opportunity to compare staff

experience with similar programs.

Staff also improved communication, collaboration, and information sharing among Federal

agencies though committee involvement such as ISCORS and the Environmental Council of

States Long-Term Stewardship subcommittee. 

Staff also increased its involvement in a variety of international decommissioning activities such

as: 1) technical assistance to the international community; 2) participation in international

regulatory organizations; 3) hosting foreign assignees; 4) bilateral technical exchanges; and 5)

participation in international symposia.

Future activities

The staff will continue to implement the improvements described above. The staff also plans

on enhancing the information on the NRC Decommissioning Webpage by posting

decommissioning site summaries and site-specific communication plans

3. ACCOMPLISHMENTS/OUTPUTS

The key accomplishments are as follows:

1) Conducted four stakeholder workshops on the decommissioning process and issues,

pilot program lessons learned, plans for the Consolidated Decommissioning Guidance

development, and guidance for effective public involvement in decommissioning;

2) Developed and implemented a Communication Plan for Regulation of

Decommissioning and site-specific communication plans for each power reactor and

SDMP/complex site; 

 

3) Developed guidance for enhanced public involvement for decommissioning and

established a list of qualified and independent facilitators for licensees to use. Held

training for stakeholders and staff; 

4) Involved stakeholders in the writing and review of the Consolidated Decommissioning

Guidance; and

5) Continued to participate in national and international conferences and meetings.
57

4. BENEFITS/OUTCOMES TO THE DECOMMISSIONING PROGRAM

The benefits to the Decommissioning Program achieving the applicable NRC Strategic Plan

goals (shown below in italics) that result from the improvements to public outreach are

discussed below.

2.0 Increase Public Confidence

Conducting the decommissioning workshops and developing communication plans increased

the attention and importance toward effective stakeholder involvement. This guidance also

provided knowledge and tools for the staff and licensees to use. Site-specific plans help focus

the staff on the appropriate stakeholders and their needs. The staff expects that these planning

efforts, when implemented over time, will improve stakeholder understanding of the

decommissioning regulatory process and issues as well as provide more opportunities for

stakeholders to give input to the process. Project managers have noted that comments from

stakeholders on Form 659 are generally positive with respect to NRCs’ efforts to notice public

meetings and be responsive to stakeholders. The bulk of negative comments usually have to

do with the inconviences of getting through NRC security for public meetings held at NRC

Headquarters. 

Exchange of regulatory information and lessons learned both nationally and internationally

provides opportunities to collaborate on issues of common interest and seek more effective

solutions.

 

4.0 Reduce unnecessary regulatory burden on stakeholders

The outcome of staff activities included providing opportunities for stakeholders to be actively

involveed in developing regulatory guidance. This involvement brought user experience and

perspective to complement the staff’s experience. The staff also sought stakeholder feedback

at workshops on the LTR and decommissioning process.

5. LESSONS LEARNED

Effective stakeholder involvement involves many types of activities and significant resources

because of the diversity of stakeholders involved with decommissioning. The benefits from the

resources expended are not always immediately apparent or measurable. As a result these

activities can conflict with high priority site-specific activities that have more immediate and

tangible benefits. 

6. REFERENCES

Communication Activities, Memorandum from Travers to staff, May 1, 2000.

Regulation of Decommissioning Communication Plan, March 26, 2001.

2001 Annual Update–Status of Decommissioning Program, SECY-01-0156, August 17, 2001. 
58

2002 Annual Update–Status of Decommissioning Program, SECY-02-0169, September 18,

2002. 

Guidance for Developing Site-Specific Communications Plans, Note from Camper to

Decommissioning Branch staff, November 30, 2001.

Example Site-Specific Communication Plan, Note from Camper to Decommissioning Branch

staff, January 17, 2002.
ATTACHMENT 3

INDEPENDENT EVALUATIONS
2

INDEPENDENT COMMISSION REVIEWS OF

THE OVERALL DECOMMISSIONING PROGRAM

1. DESCRIPTION OF ACTIVITY

The staff has provided annual reports and briefings to the Commission for many years because

of the importance of making progress with the decommissioning of the Site Decommissioning

Management Plan (SDMP) sites. Consistent with Commission direction, the 2000 annual

report, expanded the scope of previous SDMP reports into a comprehensive overview of the

agencies decommissioning activities within the Office of Nuclear Material Safety and

Safeguards (NMSS), Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research (RES), and the Office of Nuclear

Reactor Regulation (NRR). The annual updates described the progress made in each

program area. The comprehensive report includes: 1) summaries of decommissioning activities

for material facilities, fuel cycle facilities, reactors, and uranium mill tailings facilities; 

2) guidance and rulemaking activities; 3) issues requiring Commission attention; and; 4) major

decommissioning documents. 

In addition to the annual Commission paper, the staff also provides an annual briefing to the

Commission, highlighting accomplishments and issues important to decommissioning. The

briefings also provide an opportunity for the Commission and staff to have a open dialogue on

questions or concerns the Commission my have with the program. In response to the annual

reports and briefings, the Commission has the opportunity to provide direction to the staff

regarding decommissioning activities. In addition, the Commission can provide direction to the

staff at anytime on issues that affect the overall program, such as its request for the staff to

conduct a comprehensive analysis of the implementation issues for the License Termination

Rule (LTR) (SRM-SECY-01-0194). 

Although not included here, the Commission also reviews and responds to specific policy or site

issues that the staff provides for consideration. Examples of these are described in evaluations

of other improvements in this Program Evaluation (i.e., institutional controls, financial assurance

and funding, and NMSS-NRR reactor decommissioning program transfer). 

2. STATUS AND PLANS FOR FUTURE IMPLEMENTATION

During the evaluation time period from FY 2001 to FY 2003 the staff provided three annual

reports and two annual briefings. A third Commission briefing is scheduled for October 2003. 

The staff expects that the annual reports and briefings will continue in the future as requested

by the Commission. 
3

3. ACCOMPLISHMENTS/OUTPUTS

The key staff accomplishments are as follows:

1) Three annual Commission papers (SECY-01-0156, SECY-02-0169, and SECY to be

published) have refined the staff’s documentation and reporting of the program’s

progress in a format acceptable to the Commission.

2) Two annual Commission briefings with a third scheduled for October 2003.

The Commission made no significant redirection to the overall decommissioning program

resulting specifically from the annual reports and briefings. 

However, an accumulation of status reports in the annual reports, specific site status, and the

staff’s status report to the Commission on a Memorandum of Understanding with DOE to

resolve the institutional control/restricted release issue, resulted in the Commission’s giving the

staff significant direction during this evaluation time period that affected the overall program. 

The Commission directed the staff to conduct a comprehensive evaluation of the LTR

implementation issues and recommend resolutions for Commission consideration (SRM-SECY01-0194, SECY-02-0177, and SECY-03-0069) so that progress could be made at some sites. 

 

4. BENEFITS/OUTCOMES TO THE DECOMMISSIONING PROGRAM

Important outcomes from the annual reports and briefings to the Commission are:

1) An established and formal process involving all levels of the staff for annual 

accountability of program performance to the highest level of the Agency. Such

communications help achieve alignment within the Agency on the progress and direction

for the program; 

2) An effective and regular oversight process that is independent from the staff, focuses

on the overall program performance and policy level issues affecting the program, and

has the authority to direct staff changes to the program; and

3) The direction from the Commission to conduct the LTR Analysis created the

opportunity to recommend regulatory actions that could improve the Decommissioning

Program.

5. LESSONS LEARNED

Annual reports and briefings have been a useful tools for the staff to annually assess its overall

decommissioning program performance through all levels of the staff, publically report results to

the Commission level, and receive Commission feedback/alignment on the program’s

performance and direction. 

6. REFERENCES

2001 Annual Update–Status of Decommissioning Program, SECY-01-0156, August 17, 2001.
4

2002 Annual Update–Status of Decommissioning Program, SECY-02-0169, September 18,

2002.

2003 Annual Update–Status of Decommissioning Program, SECY-03-0161, September 15,

2003.
5

REVIEWS BY NRC’S ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON NUCLEAR WASTE

1. DESCRIPTION OF ACTIVITY

The Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste’s (ACNW’s) mission is to provide the Commission

with independent and timely technical advice on nuclear materials and waste management

issues to support the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) in conducting an efficient

and effective regulatory program that enables the Nation to use nuclear materials in a safe

manner for civilian purposes. Decommissioning is one of the NRC’s programs within the scope

of the ACNW activities and Decommissioning Options is one of the priority topics listed in

ACNW action plans for the evaluation time period.

The ACNW is independent of the NRC staff and reports directly to the Commission. As an

advisory committee, the ACNW is structured to provide a forum where experts representing

many technical perspectives can provide independent advice that is factored into the

Commission’s decision making process. 

In carrying out its mission, the ACNW undertakes studies and activities including holding public

meetings where the staff and others make presentations on selected high priority issues. Staff

documents are provided in advance of the presentations for ACNW review. As a result of these

studies and presentations, ACNW prepares letters to the Commission when it has comments

and advice. Some presentations may not result in a letter if the Committee does not have

concerns to raise to the Commission. Thus, the ACNW performs independent technical

reviews of the staff’s Decommissioning Program for selected high priority topics. If concerns

are identified, a comment letter is provided to the Commission and the staff. 

2. STATUS AND PLANS FOR FUTURE EVALUATIONS

During the evaluation time period from FY 2001-2003, Decommissioning was listed as a priority

topic for ACNW attention. Accordingly, the staff made presentations on six key

decommissioning topics: 1) draft West Valley Policy Statement; 2) institutional controls; 3)

lessons learned from preparing License Termination Plans; 4) decommissioning status of the

Sequoyah Fuels site; 5) NRC/EPA Memorandum of Understanding related to decommissioning;

and 6) License Termination Rule Analysis. Additional topics on Risk Task Group activities and

Entombment are related to decommissioning but not within the scope of this Program

Evaluation.

Of the six topics, the two topics on lessons learned and the LTR Analysis provided the staff’s

analysis of a broad range of current decommissioning issues and how the staff is addressing

these issues. The other topics addressed key decommissioning products (the West Valley

Policy Statement and the NRC/ EPA MOU) and a case study to illustrate a complex

decommissioning site and associated modeling work under the LTR. 

ACNW’s Action Plan for FY 2003-2004 continues to list Decommissioning as a priority topic and

presentations on specific issues will be scheduled in the future. 
6

3. ACCOMPLISHMENTS/OUTPUTS

During the three-year evaluation period, the staff briefed the ACNW on six high priority

decommissioning topics. No major concerns were raised to the Commission. Specific

comments were provided for the Commission to consider when it finalized the West Valley

Policy Statement. Furthermore, the Decommissioning topics were not raised in the three

annual briefings provided to the Commission by the ACNW.

4. BENEFITS/OUTCOMES TO THE DECOMMISSIONING PROGRAM

Important outcomes from the periodic briefings and reviews by ACNW are:

1) High priority decommissioning products and issues are independently reviewed by a

committee of highly qualified technical members with broad regulatory,

decommissioning, and waste management experience. Independent reviews increase

the quality of important staff regulatory products;

2) Diverse and broad experience and views can provide additional ideas for the staff to

consider in resolving difficult decommissioning issues. 

5. LESSONS LEARNED

Although decommissioning is one of ACNW’s high priority topics, most of ACNW’s attention

has and will continue to be focused on NRC’s high-level waste licensing for the potential

geologic repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. Therefore, the relatively lower level of ACNW

effort available for independent review of the decommissioning program or its key issues likely

will remain about the same as the past few years.

6. REFERENCES

Comments on NRC Draft Policy Statement on Decommissioning Criteria for the West Valley

Demonstration Project and West Valley Site, letter from Garrick to Chairman Meserve,

November 1, 2000.

A Compilation of Reports of The Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste July 2000-June 2001,

NUREG-1423, Volume 11, September 2001.

A Compilation of Reports of The Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste July 2001-June 2002,

NUREG-1423, Volume 12, August 2002.