15190 Federal Register / Vol. 60, No. 55 / Wednesday, March 22, 1995 / Proposed Rules

(2) The geologic repository operations

area shall be designed to include onsite

facilities and services that ensure a safe

and timely response to emergency

conditions and that facilitate the use of

available offsite services (such as fire,

police, medical, and ambulance service)

that may aid in recovery from

emergencies.

(f) Utility services. (1) Each utility

service system that is important to

safety shall be designed so that essential

safety functions can be performed,

assuming occurrence of the design basis

events.

(2) The utility services important to

safety shall include redundant systems

to the extent necessary to maintain, with

adequate capacity, the ability to perform

their safety functions.

(3) Provisions shall be made so that,

if there is a loss of the primary electric

power source or circuit, reliable and

timely emergency power can be

provided to instruments, utility service

systems, and operating systems,

including alarm systems, important to

safety.

(g) Inspection, testing, and

maintenance. The structures, systems,

and components important to safety

shall be designed to permit periodic

inspection, testing, and maintenance, as

necessary, to ensure their continued

functioning and readiness.

(h) Criticality control. All systems for

processing, transporting, handling,

storage, retrieval, emplacement, and

isolation of radioactive waste shall be

designed to ensure that nuclear

criticality is not possible unless at least

two unlikely, independent, and

concurrent or sequential changes have

occurred in the conditions essential to

nuclear criticality safety. Each system

must be designed for criticality safety

assuming occurrence of design basis

events. The calculated effective

multiplication factor (keff) must be

sufficiently below unity to show at least

a 5 percent margin, after allowance for

the bias in the method of calculation

and the uncertainty in the experiments

used to validate the method of

calculation.

(i) Instrumentation and control

systems. The design shall include

provisions for instrumentation and

control systems to monitor and control

the behavior of systems important to

safety, assuming occurrence of design

basis events.

(j) Compliance with mining

regulations. To the extent that DOE is

not subject to the Federal Mine Safety

and Health Act of 1977, as to the

construction and operation of the

geologic repository operations area, the

design of the geologic repository

operations area shall nevertheless

include such provisions for worker

protection as may be necessary to

provide reasonable assurance that all

structures, systems, and components

important to safety can perform their

intended functions. Any deviation from

relevant design requirements in 30 CFR,

Chapter I, Subchapters D, E, and N will

give rise to a rebuttable presumption

that this requirement has not been met.

(k) Shaft conveyances used in

radioactive waste handling. (1) Hoists

important to safety shall be designed to

preclude cage free fall.

(2) Hoists important to safety shall be

designed with a reliable cage location

system.

(3) Loading and unloading systems for

hoists important to safety shall be

designed with a reliable system of

interlocks that will fail safely upon

malfunction.

(4) Hoists important to safety shall be

designed to include two independent

indicators to indicate when waste

packages are in place and ready for

transfer.

14. In § 60.132, paragraph (c)(1) is

revised to read as follows:

§ 60.132. Additional design criteria for

surface facilities in the geologic repository

operations area.

* * * * *

(c) Radiation control and

monitoring—(1) Effluent control. The

surface facilities shall be designed to

control the release of radioactive

materials in effluents so as to meet the

performance objectives of § 60.111(a).

* * * * *

15. In § 60.133, the introductory text

of paragraph (g) and paragraph (g)(2) are

revised to read as follows:

§ 60.133 Additional design criteria for the

underground facility.

* * * * *

(g) Underground facility ventilation.

The ventilation system shall be

designed to:

* * * * *

(2) Assure the ability to perform

essential safety functions assuming

occurrence of design basis events; and

* * * * *

16. A new undesignated center

heading and § 60.136 are added to read

as follows:

Preclosure Controlled Area

§ 60.136 Preclosure controlled area.

(a) A preclosure controlled area must

be established for the geologic

repository operations area.

(b) The geologic repository operations

area shall be designed so that, for

Category 2 design basis events, no

individual located on or beyond the

nearest boundary of the preclosure

controlled area will receive the more

limiting of a total effective dose

equivalent of 0.05 Sv (5 rem), or the sum

of the deep-dose equivalent and the

committed dose equivalent to any

individual organ or tissue (other than

the lens of the eye) of 0.5 Sv (50 rem).

The eye dose equivalent may not exceed

0.15 Sv (15 rem), and the shallow dose

equivalent to skin may not exceed 0.5

Sv (50 rem). The minimum distance

from the surface facilities in the geologic

repository operations area to the

boundary of the preclosure controlled

area must be at least 100 meters.

(c) The preclosure controlled area

may be traversed by a highway, railroad,

or waterway, so long as appropriate and

effective arrangements are made to

control traffic and to protect public

health and safety.

17. In § 60.183, paragraph (b) is

revised to read as follows:

§ 60.183 Criminal penalties.

* * * * *

(b) The regulations in part 60 that are

not issued under sections 161b, 161i, or

161o for the purposes of section 223 are

as follows: §§ 60.1, 60.2, 60.3, 60.5, 60.6,

60.7, 60.8, 60.15, 60.16, 60.17, 60.18,

60.21, 60.22, 60.23, 60.24, 60.31, 60.32,

60.33, 60.41, 60.42, 60.43, 60.44, 60.45,

60.46, 60.51, 60.52, 60.61, 60.62, 60.63,

60.64, 60.65, 60.101, 60.102, 60.111,

60.112, 60.113, 60.121, 60.122, 60.130,

60.131, 60.132, 60.133, 60.134, 60.135,

60.136, 60.137, 60.140, 60.141, 60.142,

60.143, 60.150, 60.151, 60.152, 60.162,

60.181, and 60.183.

Dated in Rockville, Maryland, this 15th

day of March, 1995.

For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

John C. Hoyle,

Secretary of the Commission.

[FR Doc. 95–6872 Filed 3-21–95; 8:45 am]

BILLING CODE 7590–01–P

NUCLEAR REGULATORY

COMMISSION

10 CFR Part 60

[Docket No. PRM–60–3]

Disposal of High-Level Radioactive

Wastes in Geologic Repositories

AGENCY: U.S. Nuclear Regulatory

Commission.

ACTION: Partial grant/partial denial of

petition for rulemaking.

SUMMARY: In a petition for rulemaking

(PRM–60–3) submitted by the U.S.
Federal Register / Vol. 60, No. 55 / Wednesday, March 22, 1995 / Proposed Rules 15191

Department of Energy (DOE), the U.S.

Nuclear Regulatory Commission was

requested to establish specific dose

criteria for design basis accidents at a

high-level radioactive waste repository.

NRC hereby grants in part, and denies

in part, the specific proposals of the

petitioner.

ADDRESSES: Copies of the petition for

rulemaking, the public comments

received, and NRC’s letter to the

petitioner are available for public

inspection or copying, for a fee, in the

NRC Public Document Room, 2120 L

Street, NW (Lower Level), Washington,

DC 20555.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Dr.

Richard Weller, Office of Nuclear

Material Safety and Safeguards, U.S.

Nuclear Regulatory Commission,

Washington, DC 20555, telephone (301)

415–7287.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

DOE submitted a petition for

rulemaking on April 19, 1990. On July

13, 1990 (55 FR 28771) NRC published

a notice of receipt of the petition for

rulemaking. The comment period

expired on October 11, 1990. The

petition requested that the Commission

amend 10 CFR part 60 to prescribe

certain numerical accident-dose criteria

to be applied at the boundary of a

‘‘preclosure control area.’’

Under DOE’s proposal, the definition

of ‘‘important to safety,’’ in 10 CFR 60.2,

would be changed to apply a reference

dose limit at the preclosure-control-area

boundary, instead of the present

unrestricted-area boundary; further, the

definition would be amended to add a

statement ‘‘All engineered safety

features shall be included within the

meaning of the term ‘important to

safety.’’’ The petition also proposed that

performance objectives of 10 CFR

60.111 would be revised to incorporate

an explicit accident dose limit, at the

preclosure control area boundary, of

0.05-Sv (5-rem) effective dose

equivalent, or 0.5-Sv (50-rem)

committed dose equivalent. DOE

indicated its intention that this limit

would apply to direct irradiation and

inhalation pathways, alone, and not to

ingestion of contaminated foodstuffs.

The phrase ‘‘at all times’’ would be

deleted from 10 CFR 60.111(a), to clarify

that the performance objective for the

period of operations does not apply to

exposure from accidents. Finally, the

petition proposed adding new

definitions, to 10 CFR 60.2, for the terms

‘‘preclosure control area,’’ ‘‘committed

dose equivalent,’’ ‘‘committed effective

dose equivalent,’’ and ‘‘effective dose

equivalent,’’ to support the application

of the accident dose criteria described

above.

For a fuller statement of the petition

for rulemaking, see the Federal Register

notice cited above.

In response to NRC’s publication of

notice of receipt of the petition,

comments were received from: DOE;

Edison Electric Institute and the Utility

Nuclear Waste and Transportation

Program (EEI/UWASTE); Intertech

Consultants, on behalf of Lincoln

County, Nevada, and the City of

Caliente, Nevada; and an anonymous

‘‘Concerned U.S. Citizen.’’ The

Commission, having now considered

the petition and comments, grants the

petition in part and denies the petition

in part, and to that end, the Commission

is publishing, concurrently with this

notice, a notice of proposed rulemaking.

Under the proposed rule, accidentdose criteria would be applied at the

boundary of a newly defined

‘‘preclosure controlled area,’’ as

recommended by DOE. Further, in

response to the petition, the term

‘‘important to safety’’ would be

redefined, though not in the form

suggested by DOE. The Commission is

also proposing to adopt the petitioner’s

request that the phrase ‘‘at all times’’ be

deleted from the performance objective

that applies to preclosure operations. In

all other respects, the petition is denied.

The reasons for the action, insofar as

it both grants and denies parts of the

petition, are set out at length in the

statement of considerations

accompanying the proposed rule.

Dated in Rockville, Maryland, this 15th

day of March, 1995.

For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

John C. Hoyle,

Secretary of the Commission.

[FR Doc. 95–6878 Filed 3–21–95; 8:45 am]

BILLING CODE 7590–01–P