Nuclear Security: DOE Needs Better Information to Guide Its Expanded Recovery of Sealed Radiological Sources
Published: 2005-09-22T00:00:00

Fast Facts:

Highlights:
section_title: Why GAO Did This Study
paragraphs: Concerns remain over the control of sealed radiological sources, widely used in many industrial and medical devices and applications. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), the Department of Energy (DOE), and states have responsibilities for ensuring the safe and secure use and eventual disposal of these sources as low-level radioactive wastes. DOE must ensure disposal availability for greater-than-class C (GTCC) waste; states must do so for non-GTCC waste, that is, classes A, B, and C waste. NRC and DOE also collaborate to identify and recover unwanted sources that are not safe or secure. GAO examined DOE's (1) efforts to recover unwanted sources and develop a GTCC waste disposal option, (2) actions to recover and dispose of non-GTCC source waste, and (3) ability to identify sources for recovery and disposal.
section_title: What GAO Found
paragraphs: DOE has increased emphasis on its source recovery project and begun the process of identifying disposal options for GTCC waste. DOE transferred project responsibilities to another office that has given the project higher priority and accelerated DOE's recovery efforts. DOE exceeded an earlier goal for recovering sources and has now collected over 10,800 of them. This recovery has been facilitated by additional project funding support and DOE's resolving a shortage of storage space for certain sources. In May 2005, DOE issued a notice of intent to prepare an environmental impact statement to assess GTCC waste disposal options; however, DOE has not yet determined when a disposal site might be made available. DOE has expanded the scope of its recovery effort to include non-GTCC waste from sealed radiological sources, a change that could increase DOE expenditures. DOE recovered and commercially disposed of 443 of these sources from a bankrupt firm, at a cost to DOE of about $581,000. Given that unwanted sources in storage present higher vulnerabilities, DOE might need to recover more of them in the future if the commercial disposal site that currently accepts this non-GTCC waste from most states ceases to do so as planned in 2008. Lacking a commercial disposal option, DOE anticipates storing this waste, rather than disposing of it at DOE sites, because, among other reasons, it does not want to undermine the responsibility the Congress gave the states to provide disposal availability for non-GTCC waste. DOE lacks information that would assist its efforts to identify and recover unwanted sealed radiological sources that may pose a safety and security risk. DOE has useful information on the sources in its possession, including recovered sources. However, DOE does not know how many sources might need recovery and how much disposal capacity is needed for GTCC waste. NRC is developing a national source tracking system that would not be useful for DOE's source recovery efforts because it is only designed to track individual sources with high radioactivity. According to DOE, nearly all of the sites where it has recovered sources contained individual sources with lesser radioactivity than would be tracked by NRC, but their combined radioactivity posed enough of a risk to warrant their recovery by DOE.

section_title: Letter
paragraphs: The regulatory control and tracking of sealed radiological sources in the  possession of academic, government, industrial, medical, and utility  entities that are licensed to use them in devices and applications continues  to evolve. These sources contain radioactive material encapsulated, or  sealed, in metal to prevent its dispersal. The small size and portability of  sealed radiological sources, however, make them susceptible to misuse,  improper disposal, and theft. If some types of sealed radiological sources  fell into the hands of terrorists, they could be used in fabricating crude but  potentially dangerous radiological weapons, commonly called dirty bombs.  In general, a dirty bomb is produced by packaging explosives, such as  dynamite, with radioactive material, which would be dispersed when the  bomb was activated.
There are an estimated 2 million devices containing sealed radiological  sources in use throughout the United States, and as many as one-quarter of  them, or up to 500 thousand, may no longer be needed. However, only some  of these sources are considered particularly attractive for producing dirty  bombs because, among other things, they contain more concentrated  amounts of certain nuclear material, such as americium-241, cesium-137,  plutonium-238, and strontium-90. Depending on the type, form (e.g., solid  or powder), amount, and concentration of the radioactive material  dispersed in a malevolent act, the released material could cause radiation  sickness for people nearby as well as significant economic costs and  serious social disruption associated with the evacuation and subsequent  cleanup of the contaminated area. Even without an intentional act, the  inadvertent loss of a sealed radiological source can also lead to radiation  exposure, high decontamination costs, and public panic. For example, in a  1983 incident, a Texas company sold a cancer treatment machine  containing a sealed radioactive source to a clinic in Mexico. The device was  subsequently stolen, and the source was accidentally melted with other  metals to form steel reinforcing rods that were imported into the United  States and eventually used to build 37 homes and businesses. The steel  rods were encased in concrete and thus were naturally shielded, but the  incident caused public concern, costly decontamination, and increased  regulatory inspections.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and the Agreement States are  responsible for regulating the use of sealed radiological sources and other  radioactive materials, from creation to disposal, in a way that ensures the  public health and safety. They do so through a combination of regulatory  requirements, licensing, inspection, and enforcement. Under the Atomic  Energy Act of 1954, NRC also is responsible for issuing rules, regulations,  or orders to promote the common defense and security. As we reported in  August 2003, NRC and the Agreement States disagreed about the  appropriate state role in the regulation of sealed radiological source  security. According to NRC, it and the Agreement States are currently  working together to implement increased regulatory requirements on  licensees that possess sealed radiological sources that are of security  concern.
After a licensee determines that a sealed radiological source is no longer  useful, the source can be returned to the manufacturer or supplier,  transferred to another licensee, stored to allow for a natural decrease in  radioactivity, or sent to a commercial waste disposal facility. Once the  source is packaged for disposal, the disposal container is put into a waste  class. NRC defines the four types of low-level radioactive waste (i.e., waste  not classified as high-level waste, such as spent fuel from nuclear power  plants) as classes A, B, C, and greater-than-class C (GTCC). The type of  radionuclide (e.g., americium-241) and the concentration of radioactivity  (often measured in curies per gram), are considered in determining the  waste class of the radioactive material, which carries progressively more  stringent requirements for disposal from class A to GTCC waste. Non- GTCC waste, including classes A, B, and C waste (e.g., contaminated soil,  laboratory equipment, exit signs containing tritium, and some sealed  radiological sources) generally can be disposed of by shallow burial at  existing commercial low-level radioactive waste disposal sites. However,  GTCC waste (e.g., activated metals, sealed radiological sources, and other  highly radioactive waste) will generally require a different type of disposal.  Under the Low-Level Radioactive Waste Policy Act of 1980, as amended,  the states and federal government were given separate responsibilities for  providing disposal availability for these wastes. States were made  responsible for providing disposal availability for non-GTCC waste, and the  Department of Energy (DOE) was given the responsibility of providing  disposal for GTCC waste. Non-GTCC waste must be disposed of in a facility  licensed by either NRC or an Agreement State, but only NRC can license a  facility for GTCC waste. As an incentive for states to manage waste on a  regional basis, the Congress consented to the formation of interstate  agreements, known as compacts, and granted compact member states the  authority to exclude low-level radioactive waste from other compacts and  unaffiliated states.
Even though states have not developed any new disposal sites for low-level  radioactive waste since passage of the act, we reported in June 2004, that  disposal availability for non-GTCC waste was adequate in the short term,  but that federal oversight was needed to identify any future shortfalls.
There are currently three commercial disposal sites that collectively serve  the nation’s non-GTCC waste disposal needs. A shortfall in disposal  availability for the higher radioactive non-GTCC waste (classes B and C  waste), however, could occur by mid-2008, if South Carolina follows  through with plans to restrict access to its Barnwell disposal site to only  the 3 member states of the Atlantic Compact. This restriction would mean  that licensees in the 36 states that are currently allowed to use this disposal  site would be denied access to it, and under current conditions, they would  have no alternative option to dispose of their higher radioactive non-GTCC  waste. Regarding GTCC waste disposal, we reported in April 2003 that  DOE had not made progress toward providing for the permanent disposal  of GTCC waste because doing so was not a priority at the time.
Given the lack of disposal options for GTCC waste and the public health,  safety, and national security concerns about unwanted sealed radiological  sources at licensee sites around the country, DOE, in collaboration with  NRC, has been recovering, taking title of, and storing sources—primarily at  its Los Alamos National Laboratory. DOE has been taking these actions  through its Off-Site Source Recovery Project, which has been operated by  Los Alamos National Laboratory personnel since the late-1990s. In June  1999, NRC and DOE entered into a memorandum of understanding  describing their respective roles and responsibilities for addressing the  problem of unwanted and uncontrolled sealed radiological sources, often  referred to as “orphan sources.” This memorandum formalized agreements  reached between these agencies in 1992 to have DOE begin recovering and  storing unwanted sealed radiological sources because DOE had yet to  develop a disposal site for GTCC waste. Since then, DOE has routinely  recovered, from licensees that request such a collection, sealed  radiological sources that when packaged for disposal would be classified  as GTCC waste. Many of these unwanted sources, such as plutonium-239,  were originally derived from defense programs and loaned to colleges and  universities that no longer want them. DOE, at the request of NRC, also  recovers sources that are in the possession of licensees that are no longer  able to ensure their safety and security. In our April 2003 report, we found  that while DOE’s source recovery project had collected more than 5,000  sources, the project faced the following three problems that could hinder  future recovery efforts: questionable long-term commitment to the  program of DOE’s Office of Environmental Management, inadequate  storage capacity that meets the higher security requirements for sealed  radiological sources containing plutonium-239, and DOE’s inability to store  sealed radiological sources containing strontium-90 and cesium-137.
In this context, we examined (1) the status of DOE’s efforts to recover  unwanted sealed radiological sources and to develop a disposal option for  GTCC waste, (2) DOE actions taken to recover and dispose of non-GTCC  waste from sealed radiological sources, and (3) the extent to which DOE  can identify unwanted sealed radiological sources for recovery and  disposal.
To conduct our work, we reviewed pertinent information in existing  databases and published reports and interviewed officials from federal and  state agencies, professional organizations, and representatives from  entities that are licensed to possess sealed radiological sources. More  specifically, we examined DOE’s efforts to recover unwanted sealed  radiological sources and the databases maintained by DOE and NRC to  inventory some of these materials. We assessed the reliability of these data  and determined that they were sufficiently reliable for the purposes of this  report. We also used structured interviews of licensees and commercial  waste brokers that possess unwanted sealed radiological sources and  reviewed their waste forms to obtain an understanding of how these  materials are classified, and what challenges might be faced if there is no  disposal option availability for them in the future. We excluded some  radioactive wastes from our review because the radioactive materials are  already under higher security, such as at nuclear power plants and DOE  facilities, or because they present a lower security risk, such as class A  waste. We conducted our review between June 2004 and September 2005 in  accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. A  more detailed description of our methodology is provided in appendix I.
subsections: section_title: Background
paragraphs: The loss of control of sealed radiological sources can arise from their  abandonment, misplacement, or theft. In such cases, there is a risk of either  the inadvertent or intentional malevolent human exposure to radioactive  materials in these sources. Figure 1 shows a graphic representation of the  ways in which the loss of control of sealed radiological sources can occur.
Since September 11, 2001, international and U.S. agencies have taken  additional steps to increase the safety and security of radioactive materials,  particularly sealed radiological sources. Between 2002 and 2003, the  International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) held various meetings and  conferences to discuss how the agency’s Code of Conduct on the Safety  and Security of Radioactive Sources might be revised in light of new  security concerns. One result of these gatherings was the development of a  categorization scheme for sealed radiological sources in terms of the  potential risks associated with their malevolent uses. The first three of the  five source categories identified by IAEA, which are considered to pose the  most significant risk to individuals, society, and the environment, are listed  in an annex to the Code of Conduct. The Code of Conduct recommends that  IAEA member states establish a national registry that tracks, at a minimum,  the first two source categories. Table 1 contains a listing of the  radionuclides and their curie levels that are presented in the IAEA Code of  Conduct.
In May 2003, a DOE/NRC interagency working group—which was formed  to address security concerns over the radioactive materials that could be  used in a radiological dispersal device—issued a report that, among other  things, recommended that actions be taken to develop a national threat  policy based on vulnerability assessments, a national source tracking  system, and an integrated national strategy for disposing of unsecured  sealed radiological sources. Following this DOE/NRC report, NRC  adopted the nonlegally binding IAEA Code of Conduct as a basis for (1)  determining which licensees may need additional protective measures for  the sealed radiological sources in their possession and (2) defining the  scope of a national source tracking system. NRC found that the curie  thresholds for radionuclides in the sources identified by the DOE/NRC  interagency working group were similar enough to the Code of Conduct  categories to warrant adoption of the IAEA source categorization scheme  to better align domestic and international efforts to increase the safety and  security of sealed radiological sources.
NRC and DOE have since engaged in separate efforts to (1) assess the  vulnerability of facilities that contain sealed radiological sources within  their jurisdictions, (2) promulgate new security measures, and (3) begin  systematically tracking some of these sources. According to NRC officials,  NRC has been working with the Agreement States since January 2002, and  with licensees since September 2002, using a risk informed approach to  enhance the regulatory requirements applicable to high-risk radioactive  material. In June 2003 and January 2004, NRC issued its first set of  protective measures to large irradiators and device manufacturers and  distributors, respectively. In January 2004, NRC and the Agreement States  began to consider the need for additional protective measures for other  licensees. This process has involved several iterations of vulnerability  assessments of licensee sites that have devices or use applications  containing IAEA categories 1 and 2 sources, such as teletherapy, gamma  knife, well-logging devices, and self-shielded irradiators. On September 6,  2005, NRC announced that over approximately the next 90 days, affected  licensees will receive orders from the agency spelling out increased  controls for certain radioactive materials. Over the same period, individual  Agreement States will issue their licensees legally binding requirements  essentially identical to NRC’s orders. Materials covered by these  requirements will be consistent with the IAEA Code of Conduct. Regarding  source tracking, in November 2003, NRC, with the assistance of the  Agreement States, identified and initially surveyed approximately 2,600  entities licensed to possess IAEA categories 1 and 2 sources. The resulting  interim inventory will supplement other information NRC intends to use in  developing a national source tracking system. Regarding DOE efforts, DOE  officials told us that various department offices have been involved in  developing, reviewing, and issuing domestic and international guidance  related to the security of sealed radiological sources. Moreover, DOE has  established its own source tracking system—that is, the Radioactive  Source Registry and Tracking System—which, among other things,  includes the unwanted sealed radiological sources that DOE has recovered  from licensees.
In addition to securing and tracking sealed radiological sources, IAEA and  NRC support the disposal of unwanted sources and other radioactive  waste. IAEA contends that although waste may be safely stored for  decades, as long as institutional controls are maintained, progress must be  made toward permanent disposal. According to the Director General for  Energy and Transport, European Commission, “the sources at greatest risk  of being lost from regulatory control are disused (unwanted) sources held  in local storage at the user’s premises waiting for final disposal or return to  manufacturer.” In response to an international joint convention  addressing spent nuclear fuel and radioactive waste management, IAEA  set forth the elements of an effective national legal and organizational  structure that would provide for the safe and secure management of  radioactive waste by appropriate national authorities. One of the key  indicators of such a structure is that “the amount of waste in storage  awaiting disposal should depend only upon operational  considerations…and should not include a backlog due to an inability  (technical, financial, organizational, etc.) to reduce the backlog.” NRC  also supports the disposal of low-level radioactive waste but has placed no  time limits on storage, as long as the radioactive material is safe and  secure. NRC contends that it is acceptable to allow some licensees to store  a backlog of sources in instances where a disposal option for this waste is  not available to them.
In August 2005, the President signed into law the Energy Policy Act of 2005,  which, among other things, addressed the safe disposal of GTCC waste and  nuclear facility and materials security. The act requires DOE to prepare  plans for the continued recovery of sealed radiological sources and to  report on its efforts to develop a GTCC waste disposal site. Other  provisions call for NRC to issue regulations establishing a mandatory  tracking system for radiation sources in the United States and to chair a  task force on radiation source protection and security. The task force,  comprised of NRC, DOE and other federal agencies, in consultation with  other groups, is to evaluate and provide recommendations relating to the  security of radiation sources in the United States from potential terrorist  threats, including acts of sabotage or theft or the use of radiation sources in  a radiological dispersal device.
section_title: DOE Has Increased Emphasis on Its Source Recovery Project and Begun Assessing Options for Disposing of GTCC Waste
paragraphs: DOE has placed increased emphasis on its source recovery project and has  begun to assess disposal options for GTCC waste. DOE has realigned its  source recovery project within NNSA to more effectively respond to both  domestic and international threats posed by unwanted sealed radiological  sources. Further, DOE has accelerated its recovery efforts, surpassing an  earlier source recovery goal, and has made progress in resolving a storage  space shortage at its facilities that has slowed the recovery of certain  unwanted sealed radiological sources. Finally, DOE has begun preparing an  environmental impact statement to assess possible disposal options for  GTCC waste. However, difficulties in estimating current GTCC waste  storage and future waste volumes, especially from sealed radiological  sources, will complicate this effort. Further, DOE has not yet determined  when a permanent GTCC waste disposal facility will be available.
subsections: section_title: DOE Transferred Responsibility for the Source Recovery Project to NNSA
paragraphs: To better respond to the security threats posed by unwanted sealed  radiological sources both within the United States and abroad, in October  2003, DOE realigned management responsibilities for its source recovery  project from the Office of Environmental Management to NNSA. This  realignment was, in part, a response to a recommendation to the Secretary  of Energy that we made in our April 2003 report that the priority given to its  Off-Site Source Recovery Project be commensurate with the threat posed  by some unwanted sealed radiological sources. Subsequently, NNSA  established the Nuclear and Radiological Threat Reduction Task Force,  under the Office of Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation, to unite all of the  department’s radiological threat reduction efforts. One of the principal  missions of this task force is to identify; secure; and store, on an interim  basis, radioactive materials that could be used as a radiological weapon. In  May 2004, DOE announced the creation of the Global Threat Reduction  Initiative, which further elevated the importance of the task force and  DOE’s recovery of sealed radiological sources. This initiative was later  institutionalized in the Office of Global Radiological Threat Reduction,  with a domestic component, the U.S. Radiological Threat Reduction  Program, and an international component, the International Radiological  Threat Reduction Program. The Off-Site Source Recovery Project was  subsumed under the U.S. Radiological Threat Reduction Program, but the  program retained Los Alamos National Laboratory personnel to continue  the source recovery effort.
section_title: DOE Accelerated Its Efforts to Recover Unwanted Sealed Radiological Sources
paragraphs: DOE accelerated the recovery of unwanted sealed radiological sources  beginning in late 2002. As we reported in April 2003, DOE’s ability to meet  planned recovery activities was largely facilitated by supplemental  congressional funding and by the urging of NRC to accelerate recovery  efforts in light of the events of September 11, 2001. In August 2002, the  Congress provided an additional $10 million to DOE’s Off-Site Source  Recovery Project to recover 5,000 unwanted sealed radiological sources  over the following 18 months. Between October 1, 2002, and March 31,  2004, DOE recovered 5,529 of these sources, exceeding its recovery goal  and more than doubling the number of sources previously recovered since  1996. As of June 7, 2005, DOE had recovered 10,806 of these sources.  According to the source recovery project leader, the bulk of the remaining  excess and unwanted sealed radiological sources in the United States  should be recovered in the next 2 years. Table 2 contains a summary of  DOE-recovered sealed radiological sources, by radionuclide, as of June 7,  2005.
DOE has maintained its source recovery project efforts through annual and  supplemental appropriations. In our April 2003 report, we recommended  that the Secretary of Energy ensure that adequate resources be devoted to  covering the costs of recovering and storing unwanted sealed radiological  sources as quickly as possible. In a September 2004 congressional hearing,  the director of DOE’s Office of Global Radiological Threat Reduction  testified that the department had increased funding for the source recovery  project and had committed funds for continuing these efforts. The  director stated that the fiscal year 2004 program budget was $1.96 million,  not including about $3.49 million that was added to the budget to respond  in part to unexpected requests from NRC to recover sources of security  concern. In fiscal year 2005, the source recovery project budget was  increased to $5.6 million; for fiscal year 2006, DOE has requested $12.8  million, in part, to better fund the expanded scope of the U.S. Radiological  Threat Reduction Program. The source recovery project leader has  estimated an average recovery cost of $3,000 per source, on the basis of the  initial 10,000 sources recovered, not including commercial disposal costs  for certain sources.
DOE plans to continue recovering unwanted sealed radiological sources, at  least until a GTCC waste disposal site is available. In our April 2003 report,  we recommended that the Secretary of Energy develop a plan to ensure the  continued recovery and storage of unwanted sealed radiological sources  until a GTCC waste disposal site is available. We reported that DOE used  several sources of information and made three key assumptions when  projecting the anticipated need to recover 14,309 sources between fiscal  years 1999 and 2010. The assumptions were that (1) a permanent disposal  site for the sources would be available by fiscal year 2007; (2) the Off-Site  Source Recovery Project would continue to recover sources from certain  holders of sources during a transition period from fiscal years 2007 through  2010; and (3) after fiscal year 2010, all unwanted sealed radiological  sources would be shipped by their owners to a disposal site, and the Off- Site Source Recovery Project would cease operations. However, according  to the manager of DOE’s U.S. Radiological Threat Reduction Program,  these assumptions are no longer used by the department because the lack  of a firm date for when a GTCC waste disposal site will be available means  that DOE cannot determine when it will cease recovering unwanted sealed  radiological sources from licensees. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 requires  DOE to submit a plan to the Congress that ensures the continued recovery  and storage of unwanted sealed radiological sources that pose a security  threat until a permanent GTCC waste disposal facility is available. Further,  this DOE manager told us that source recovery project personnel may still  be needed to help some licensees to meet the packaging requirements of  any future GTCC waste disposal facility.
section_title: DOE Has Made Progress in Resolving a Storage Space Shortage That Has Slowed Recovery of Some Sealed Radiological Sources
paragraphs: DOE has taken actions to address the storage space shortage that has  prevented the recovery of certain types of unwanted sealed radiological  sources. We reported in April 2003 that DOE had inadequate storage  capacity to meet the higher security needs for recovered sealed  radiological sources containing plutonium-239, and lacked a means for  temporarily storing sources containing strontium-90 and cesium-137. We  recommended, among other things, that the Secretary of Energy take  immediate action to provide storage space for these sources at a secure  DOE facility. According to the director of DOE’s Office of Global  Radiological Threat Reduction, as of September 2004, DOE had developed  sufficient storage space at the Los Alamos National Laboratory and the  Nevada Test Site to recover more than 260 plutonium-239 sealed  radiological sources registered by licensees for collection. According to the  source recovery project team leader, DOE’s plan has been to recover over  100 remaining plutonium-239 registered sources, representing  approximately 60 drums of waste; ship them to the Nevada Test Site; and  then incrementally transfer them to the Los Alamos National Laboratory as  space is made available from the shipment of the existing stored  plutonium-239 sources to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New  Mexico. WIPP will only accept sources that are shipped from Los Alamos.  Implementation of this plan, however, has been delayed pending final  approvals to ship these sources between locations.
Additional progress has been made in addressing the storage issues that  relate to unwanted strontium-90, cesium-137, and some cobalt-60 sealed  radiological sources. According to the source recovery project team leader,  DOE has recovered a strontium-90 radioisotopic thermoelectric generator  that was owned by the department and used as a remote power supply and  disposed of the generator at the Nevada Test Site. DOE also has recovered  six of these devices that were commercially owned and is storing them at  the Los Alamos National Laboratory, pending approval for disposal as  waste. Regarding the cesium-137 sealed radiological sources, the source  recovery project has recycled 5 large cesium-137 irradiators to commercial  firms. DOE has also contracted to recover the remaining 14 registered  irradiators by the end of fiscal year 2005. Moreover, the team leader told us  that the source recovery project plans to collect 221 cobalt-60 sources from  a university this summer and to dispose of them at the Nevada Test Site as  DOE-owned nuclear material.
section_title: DOE Is Preparing an Environmental Impact Statement for GTCC Waste Disposal Options, but Estimating Storage and Future Waste Volumes Will Be Difficult
paragraphs: DOE has begun to take action to identify a suitable location for the disposal  of GTCC waste, but producing useful estimates of the current storage and  future generation of this waste will be difficult. We reported in April 2003  that DOE had not made progress toward providing for a permanent  disposal facility for the nation’s GTCC waste, and that it was unlikely to  provide such a facility by fiscal year 2007 because developing a disposal  site for this waste was considered a low priority within the department. We  recommended that the Secretary of Energy initiate a process to develop a  permanent disposal facility for GTCC waste, including empowering an  office to take on this responsibility. In September 2004, DOE took a first  step in this direction by transferring responsibility for assessing disposal  options for GTCC waste from its Office of Environment, Safety, and Health  to its Office of Environmental Management. With this authority and the  heightened need to take action, on May 11, 2005, the Office of  Environmental Management published an advance notice in the Federal  Register of its intent to prepare an environmental impact statement (EIS)  for GTCC waste disposal. DOE now anticipates that the actual notice of  intent to prepare the EIS will be issued in the fall of 2005, followed by  public meetings to further define the scope of the EIS and to identify  significant issues to be addressed. The DOE document manager for the EIS  told us that after the notice of intent is issued, the process of preparing the  EIS could take 2 years. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 requires that, within  1 year, DOE report to the Congress on the estimated costs and a proposed  schedule to complete both the EIS and a record of decision for a permanent  disposal facility for GTCC waste. Moreover, before DOE makes a final  decision on the long-term disposal alternative or alternatives to be  implemented, this act requires DOE to prepare a report to the Congress  describing all alternatives under consideration, including  recommendations for ensuring the safe disposal of GTCC waste, and then  to await action by the Congress. Therefore, it is not possible for DOE to  determine when a permanent disposal facility will be available for GTCC  waste.
In his September 2004 congressional testimony, the director of DOE’s  Office of Global Radiological Threat Reduction, stated that the EIS for  GTCC waste disposal will include an analysis of waste inventories, long- term disposition alternatives, and resource requirements—as well as an  assessment of legislative, regulatory, and licensing requirements.  According to the director, the broad scope of the EIS should enable DOE to  consider any new or existing site, facility, and disposal method for GTCC  waste. Possible locations and disposal options include commercial, DOE,  or other governmental facilities and private land. The disposal methods  examined will range from deep geologic disposal to enhanced near-surface  disposal, depending on the type of GTCC waste.
In completing the EIS, DOE plans to inventory the GTCC waste in storage  at licensee and DOE facilities as well as estimate the waste expected to be  generated in the future. According to the DOE document manager for the  EIS, the department will obtain information on nuclear utility and DOE  GTCC waste that is currently in storage and will estimate future volumes  over the next 30 to 50 years on the basis of a representative sample of some  nuclear power plants that are being decommissioned, and from existing  DOE databases. For nonutility licensees, the information on the storage  and projected generation of GTCC waste will be more speculative. This  official said that DOE has selected a contractor to update the estimates  made in a 1994 DOE report that the department now considers outdated.  DOE asked the contractor to begin with the methodology used in the 1994  report to estimate current GTCC waste storage and to project future  generation of these wastes by nonutility licensees, rather than attempt to  survey all NRC and Agreement State licensees that might possess these  radioactive materials.
Attempting to obtain information on nonutility licensee storage of GTCC  waste that can be used to estimate future generation of GTCC waste from  sealed radiological sources will be especially difficult. Of the three types of  GTCC waste, the second largest volume behind activated metals is from  sealed radiological sources. Uncertainties surround producing these  estimates, such as (1) how to determine the quantities of unwanted sealed  radiological sources in storage and (2) how much waste and what class of  waste might be generated once these sources are packaged for disposal.  One estimating problem is that there is currently no standard process by  which licensees declare their sealed radiological sources as disused  (unwanted). According to an NRC official, sealed radiological sources  would not be considered waste, even if they are stored unused by a  licensee, until the licensee has determined that they are no longer useful. In  addition, sealed radiological sources that are no longer useful may be  returned to the source manufacturer or allowed to decrease in radioactivity  concentration while in storage so that they can be disposed as a lower level  waste class. Because licensees typically do not declare their disused  (unwanted) sources as waste until they are packaged and ready for  shipment to a waste broker or disposal site, it will be difficult for DOE to  project when this type of waste might need disposal in a GTCC waste  disposal facility.
Another uncertainty in estimating the future quantities of GTCC waste is  that the volume of waste generated by a small sealed radiological source is  determined by the size of its disposal container and not by the size of the  source or number of sources in the container. Disused sources are typically  placed in 30-gallon or 55-gallon disposal drums. The number of sources put  into one drum and the packing materials used are affected by the  acceptance criteria of the disposal site. Figure 2 shows a sequence of  photographs depicting source recovery project personnel removing a 5- curie, plutonium-239/beryllium source and repackaging it into a 55-gallon  drum especially designed to meet the acceptance criteria at WIPP. Source  recovery project personnel told us that these drums cost between $5,000  and $6,000 each. The sealed radiological source held in pliers in the first  photograph is clearly a fraction of the size of the 55-gallon disposal drum.
Figures 3 through 5 show photographs that illustrate the scale of sealed  radiological sources relative to their devices as well as how the sources or  their devices are packaged into more traditional disposal drums.
Yet another uncertainty in projecting the future volume of GTCC waste  from sealed radiological sources is that different types of radionuclides can  comprise the sources used in a device, and, depending on the radionuclide  used, the age of the source, and how the source is packaged for disposal,  the device can fall into different classes of waste. For example, as shown in  table 4 in appendix II, six different radionuclides can be used as the source  in an industrial radiography device. Further, the sources that can be used in  this industrial radiography device can produce non-GTCC and GTCC  waste, depending in part on how much radioactivity remains in the source  when it is disposed of and how the source is packaged. For example, a 5- curie, cesium-137 sealed radiological source that is used in a device might  fall into a GTCC waste class when packaged if little of the source is  depleted; but once it becomes unwanted and then packaged in a 55-gallon  disposal drum with nonradioactive filler material, it might fall into the non- GTCC waste class because its radioactivity, as averaged over the entire  volume of the drum, would be lower.
section_title: DOE Expanded the Scope of Its Source Recovery Project to Include Non-GTCC Waste, Which Could Increase Project Expenditures
paragraphs: DOE has expanded its source recovery efforts to include all sealed  radiological sources that could present a threat, a change that could  increase project expenditures. DOE’s source recovery project now  includes, among other activities, the recovery and commercial disposal of  non-GTCC waste from unwanted sealed radiological sources that pose a  health, safety, security, or environmental threat. The recovery and  commercial disposal of more of these types of sealed radiological sources  from licensees that cannot afford to dispose of them today, in addition to  the recovery of higher radioactive sources, is likely to increase DOE  project expenditures. Further, DOE may need to recover even more non- GTCC waste from unwanted sealed radiological sources in the future if  licensees in many states lose access to the only commercial low-level  radioactive waste disposal site where they can currently dispose of higher  radioactive non-GTCC waste (classes B and C waste). This increased  recovery of non-GTCC waste from sealed radiological sources will place  greater demands on source recovery project expenditures because of  impediments to DOE’s recouping recovery costs from licensees that could  otherwise cover their source disposal costs if there were disposal  availability. In the absence of access to commercial disposal, DOE  anticipates the need to indefinitely store the recovered non-GTCC waste  until a commercial disposal option becomes available. DOE’s current  policy does not include using DOE sites to permanently dispose of this  waste because, among other reasons, it does not want to undermine the  authority the Congress gave to the states to provide disposal availability for  non-GTCC waste.
subsections: section_title: DOE Has Recovered and Commercially Disposed of Some Non-GTCC Waste
paragraphs: The expanded scope of the source recovery project now includes, among  other activities, the collection and commercial disposal of non-GTCC waste  from unwanted sealed radiological sources that pose a health, safety,  security, or environmental threat. Responsibility for the safe management  and disposal of these radioactive materials is normally held by those  entities that NRC or the Agreement States license to possess and use these  materials. However, in some cases, licensees are unable to (1) ensure the  safe and secure use of these materials or (2) cover the disposal costs of  their unwanted sealed radiological sources. For example, according to the  source recovery project leader, at the request of NRC, DOE commercially  disposed of its first significant quantities of non-GTCC waste during fiscal  year 2004. Source recovery project personnel collected 443 unwanted  sealed radiological sources (containing cesium-137, cobalt-60, or radium- 226) from a bankrupt firm in Pennsylvania and commercially disposed of  most of them at the Barnwell, South Carolina, disposal site. In commenting  on a draft of this report, DOE provided examples of other non-GTCC waste  from sealed radiological sources that it had recovered.
Under the expanded scope of the source recovery project, DOE has  developed a priority scheme for deciding which sources to recover and  when to do so. According to the director of DOE’s Office of Global  Radiological Threat Reduction, DOE has been working with the  Department of Homeland Security and other agencies, in addition to NRC,  to determine the sources that should receive the highest priority for  recovery, including those that when disposed of would not be considered  GTCC waste. In addition, the manager of DOE’s U.S. Radiological Threat  Reduction Program told us that DOE and NRC are also in the process of  revising the 1999 memorandum of understanding that defined the  responsibilities of each agency with respect to the problem of unwanted  and uncontrolled sealed radiological sources to better reflect current DOE  recovery practices. The source recovery project leader provided us with an  initial priority ranking scheme for recovering sources that is used by DOE,  as well as some other factors that DOE considers. The initial ranking  involves combining three factors into an overall risk ranking for each  licensee site that contains sealed radiological sources. These factors  include the level of security over the source at a licensee site, the total  quantity of radioactive material present, and the quantity of radioactive  material in any single sealed radiological source to a licensee site. Other  factors that DOE considers when prioritizing sources at recover include the  opportunity of recovering additional unwanted sealed radiological sources  that source recovery personnel may discover during their visit at a licensee  site. For example, the source recovery project leader told us that if team  members come across vulnerable sealed radiological sources of lesser  radioactivity at a location where they are recovering higher radioactive  sources, they will collect them as well.
section_title: Recovery of More Non- GTCC Waste from Sealed Radiological Sources Could Increase Project Expenditures Because DOE Cannot Recoup Recovery Costs
paragraphs: DOE has already incurred additional expenses to recover and  commercially dispose of non-GTCC waste from unwanted sealed  radiological sources. It cost DOE approximately $581,000 to recover  hundreds of these sources that had accumulated at a bankrupt firm in  Pennsylvania and to commercially dispose of them. The Barnwell disposal  site received 15 of the 16, 55-gallon and 30-gallon drums of this non-GTCC  waste and charged DOE a $1,650 per-cubic-foot disposal fee. For example,  the disposal fee and container cost for just 1, 55-gallon disposal drum  holding 130 of the recovered cesium-137 sealed radiological sources cost  DOE about $21,000, not including labor, transport, and other costs.  Additional DOE recovery of non-GTCC waste from licensees that currently  need to store their sources and other waste because they do not want to or  cannot pay these high disposal fees may be necessary in the future.  According to the deputy director of DOE’s Office of Global Radiological  Threat Reduction, because of the cost involved, encouraging those  licensees that have sealed radiological sources to dispose of them properly  has proven difficult, particularly with entities that only have a few sources.  NRC can impose fines as high as three times the cost of commercial  disposal on a licensee that fails to properly dispose of radioactive  material. However, a senior NRC official has publicly acknowledged the  difficulty that licensees with only a few unwanted sources have in finding a  cost-effective means for disposing of them.
DOE is currently impeded from recouping more of its recovery and storage  costs for GTCC waste as well as any non-GTCC wastes that it may need to  recover. Regarding GTCC waste, since DOE issued its 1987 report on how it  planned to address its responsibilities under the Low-Level Radioactive  Waste Policy Act of 1980, as amended, no specific action has been taken to  identify a different method of funding the source recovery project, other  than through the appropriations process. According to the manager of  DOE’s U.S. Radiological Threat Reduction Program, DOE has been unable  to establish a standard fee for recovering unwanted sealed radiological  sources from licensees because existing cost recovery mechanisms require  the department to know both the number of years that these sources will  be stored and the cost of their disposal before setting a fee, which is not  currently possible. Regarding non-GTCC waste, the sources recovered to  date were primarily from a commercial firm that had gone bankrupt and  did not have the necessary funds to cover the cost of disposing of its  sources. DOE had to cover the recovery and commercial disposal costs  because there was no other source of funding. One of the reporting  requirements for the task force on radiation source protection and security,  required under the Energy Policy Act of 2005, is to provide  recommendations for appropriate regulatory and legislative changes for  the establishment of, or modification to, a national system (including user  fees and other methods) to provide for the proper disposal of sealed  radiological sources under the act.
section_title: DOE May Need to Recover and Dispose of More Non- GTCC Waste If Licensees Have No Disposal Option, Further Increasing Demands on Project Expenditures
paragraphs: In the future, DOE may have to recover more non-GTCC waste from sealed  radiological sources if licensees that are forced to store their unwanted  sources because they have no access to a disposal site. As we reported in  June 2004, if South Carolina follows through with plans to restrict access to  the Barnwell disposal site to only the three member states of the Atlantic  Compact by mid-2008, and if no disposal alternative for the more highly  radioactive non-GTCC waste (classes B and C waste) is developed,  licensees in 36 states that are presently allowed to use this site will need to  store more of their unwanted radioactive materials. Although NRC does  not place time limits on the storage of radioactive materials as long as they  are safe and secure, greater quantities and longer periods of storage,  particularly of unwanted sealed radiological sources, will likely increase  safety and security risks. In January 2002, NRC sent a letter to DOE  requesting that the source recovery project take actions to recover  registered unwanted sealed radiological sources because the possession  and storage of these sources with no GTCC waste disposal outlet  represented a potential health and safety threat. Regarding non-GTCC  waste from unwanted sealed radiological sources, the manager of DOE’s  U.S. Radiological Threat Reduction Program told us that DOE will likely  need to increase the recovery of these sources if licensees have no  commercial disposal option for this waste. Domestic and international  experts contend that the lack of disposal availability for unwanted sealed  radiological sources can increase their risk of abandonment,  misplacement, and theft. For example, the Health Physics Society stated  that the lack of a GTCC and non-GTCC waste disposal option for unwanted  sealed radiological sources that pose security and public health concerns  will continue to increase the number of orphan sources. Further, IAEA has  reported that disused (unwanted) sources represent the largest pool of  vulnerable and potential orphan sources. If DOE were to begin recovering  more non-GTCC waste from unwanted sealed radiological sources, even  greater demands will be placed on DOE recovery project resources if DOE  cannot recoup some of its recovery costs from licensees. While DOE is  justified in covering the recovery and commercially disposal cost of the  non-GTCC waste it has collected from licensees that could not afford to  dispose of it themselves, the department may be able to recoup some of its  costs in the future from licensees that could afford the cost of disposal if it  were commercially available.
It is difficult to estimate the budgetary impact on DOE if there were a need  to increase the recovery of unwanted sealed radiological sources from  licensees that have no access to a commercial disposal site for their higher  radioactive non-GTCC waste. One reason for this situation is the lack of  information on the number of sources in storage that might need DOE  recovery. As we reported August 2003, there is no national database on the  quantities of sealed radiological sources in storage. Moreover, there is no  national database that tracks the storage of any low-level radioactive  waste. Given the lack of national data on how much waste is generated  annually, the disposal data from low-level radioactive waste disposal  operators can only provide an indication of the quantity of disused or  unwanted sealed radiological sources and other waste that might need  storage each year in the absence of disposal availability. Nevertheless, we  found that between 2001 and 2004, the Barnwell disposal site disposed of,  on average, 31,150 cubic feet of the higher radioactive non-GTCC waste  (classes B and C waste), of which about 588 cubic feet, or about 2 percent  of the total, was derived from disused sealed radiological sources.  Approximately one-half of the sealed radiological source waste (about 56  percent) came from private industry, followed by government agencies  (about 25 percent), colleges and universities (about 11 percent), and  medical waste (about 4 percent). If DOE recovered, took title of, and  commercially disposed of all non-GTCC waste from sealed radiological  sources that are sent to the Barnwell disposal site annually, it might cost  DOE approximately $1 million a year just to cover the disposal cost at the  current $1,700 cubic foot disposal fee rate. However, until DOE has better  information on the number of sources that may need to be recovered and  future disposal costs, including recovery, packaging, transport, and other  costs, it will be difficult to accurately estimate future costs of recovering  non-GTCC waste.
section_title: Lack of Commercial Disposal Availability Could Heighten Interest in Using DOE Sites for Disposal
paragraphs: If licensees lose access to commercial disposal sites for their higher  radioactive non-GTCC waste in the future, DOE will likely have to recover  more of this waste from unwanted sealed radiological sources, which could  heighten interest in using DOE sites for disposal of these wastes. The  manager of DOE’s U.S. Radiological Threat Reduction Program told us that  although DOE is not legally prohibited from permanently disposing of, at  DOE sites, the recovered non-GTCC waste for which it has taken title, it  would not want to do so. This DOE manager said that on the basis of  current policy, DOE would indefinitely store any recovered non-GTCC  waste from unwanted sealed radiological sources at its sites until  commercial disposal is available or DOE receives other congressional  guidance. The DOE manager provided three reasons to justify this current  policy. First, DOE does not want to undermine the responsibility given by  the Congress to the states to provide disposal availability for non-GTCC  waste under the Low-Level Radioactive Waste Policy Act of 1980, as  amended. Second, DOE is not allowed to compete with commercial waste  companies for the disposal of non-GTCC waste. Finally, DOE does not want  to dispose of the relatively small quantity of recovered non-GTCC waste at  its sites because this might set a precedent for disposing of all non-GTCC  waste that does not have a commercial disposal pathway. However, in lieu  of storing this non-GTCC waste, this DOE manager suggested that DOE  could, under emergency access provisions, approach the regulatory bodies  that have jurisdiction over commercial disposal sites to obtain disposal  access. Despite DOE’s current policy regarding what it would do in the  future with recovered non-GTCC waste if there were no commercial  disposal availability, there have been calls to consider using DOE sites for  the disposal of this waste. Our June 2004 report discussed some issues  that would need to be resolved to use DOE sites for this waste, including  the feasibility of DOE’s accepting all non-GTCC waste, the responsibility  for paying for the disposal of this waste, and the licensing and regulatory  responsibilities covering its disposal.
section_title: DOE Lacks Information to Better Identify Unwanted Sealed Radiological Sources That May Need Recovery
paragraphs: DOE lacks information that would assist in its efforts to identify and  recover unwanted sealed radiological sources that pose a safety or security  risk. Although DOE maintains an inventory of recovered sealed  radiological sources and sources registered for future recovery, neither  DOE nor any other government agency has centrally tracked the number of  sources in the United States or the number of unwanted sources in storage  at licensee sites across the country. Under the current regulatory structure,  NRC and Agreement states only know the authorized uses and maximum  quantities allowed for each licensee, not what they actually possess. As a  result, DOE has no means of determining the actual number of sealed  radiological sources that may require recovery in the future. NRC is  currently developing a national source tracking system to, among other  things, identify the possession and movement of some high-risk sealed  radiological sources. However, as presently designed, this tracking system  lacks information that DOE might find useful in planning and budgeting for  the recovery of unwanted sealed radiological sources and their eventual  disposal.
subsections: section_title: DOE Has Information on Sealed Radiological Sources Already Recovered and Limited Information on Those to Be Recovered
paragraphs: The source recovery project maintains its own inventory of sealed  radiological sources that have been recovered and are in storage, and those  that licensees or NRC have asked DOE to recover. According to the source  recovery project team leader, the accuracy of the information on a sealed  radiological source in this inventory improves from when a licensee  initially registers the source; to when source recovery personnel have  follow-up conversations with the licensee to clarify the recovery request  for the source; to when the source recovery project team actually visits the  site to physically inspect the source, record its serial number, and package  it for disposal. The source recovery project team leader told us that the  information on sources initially registered is less accurate because the  licensee may not know anything about their source, or a licensee might  inadvertently provide incorrect information about the source, such as its  radionuclide and radioactivity concentration. Once recovered, the  information in the source recovery project inventory includes the type of  radionuclide, serial number, size, radioactivity concentration, and method  of packaging for storage or disposal. The source recovery project team  leader told us that this inventory is designed to assist in administrative  planning, scheduling and prioritizing recoveries, tracking shipments, and  documenting storage or disposal locations.
Information on the recovered sealed radiological sources in DOE’s  possession is then integrated into DOE’s Radiological Source Registry and  Tracking System. This departmentwide inventory system was established  in November 2003, in response to a recommendation of the DOE/NRC  Interagency Working Group on Radiological Dispersal Devices. The  tracking system is managed by DOE’s Office of Plutonium, Uranium, and  Special Materials Inventory and maintained at Sandia National  Laboratories. DOE designed its system to help (1) monitor the safety and  security of all DOE-owned sealed radiological sources that meet a certain  threshold size and radioactivity concentration and (2) provide information  on the potential threat they pose. In addition to descriptive information on  the type of sealed radioactive source and its location within the DOE  complex, this tracking system also records data on the source’s status— such as whether the source is in active use; is inaccessible and, thus, not  being used; is in storage for potential future use; or is packaged and  awaiting final disposal.
section_title: DOE Cannot Determine How Many Unwanted Sealed Sources May Need Recovery
paragraphs: Because neither DOE nor any other government agency has centrally  tracked the number of sealed radiological sources in the United States at  any given time or the number of unwanted sources held by NRC and  Agreement States licensees, DOE has few available means of estimating the  quantities of sources that may need recovery in the future. Under the  current regulatory structure, NRC and the Agreement States only have  information on the authorized uses and maximum quantities of radioactive  materials licensees are allowed to possess, although each licensee is  responsible for maintaining inventories of its individual sources. Further,  the source recovery project inventory contains only information that  licensees have voluntarily provided to DOE on their unwanted sealed  radiological sources and more limited voluntary registration of sources that  may require recovery in the future. The information on sealed radiological  sources that NRC provides to DOE for scheduling recovery only captures  those sources that NRC or Agreement States are aware of that need  recovery and does not include sources that licensees may possess that are  unwanted. Consequently, neither of these methods for obtaining  information provides the kind of data that DOE can use to estimate future  quantities of sealed radiological sources that may need recovery. According  to the manager of DOE’s U.S. Radiological Threat Reduction Program,  because the source recovery project has no information on the number of  sources in current use or in storage, DOE is limited in its ability to provide  useful estimates of the quantities of sealed radiological sources that DOE  might need to recover in the future.
section_title: The Proposed National Source Tracking System Is Not Designed to Collect Some Information That Could Be Useful to DOE
paragraphs: NRC plans to develop a national source tracking system that will register  certain sealed radiological sources possessed by licensees and/or DOE. In  November 2003, NRC, in cooperation with the Agreement States, contacted  2,600 entities licensed to possess IAEA categories 1 and 2 sources in an  effort to capture for the first time national data on the actual type,  quantities, and current ownership of these sources. Over 99 percent of  these licensees voluntarily reported information back to NRC, but only  about one-half of them reported that they possessed these sources. NRC  has already conducted a follow-up survey of a portion of these licensees,  and other surveys are planned leading up to an implementation of the  national source tracking system in 2007. Although licensees are requested  to volunteer information for these interim surveys, NRC issued a proposed  rule in July 2005 that would, among other things, require licensees to  provide an inventory of their sealed radiological sources; annually verify  and reconcile their actual inventory with the information registered in the  system; and report certain transactions, such as the date of manufacture,  transfer, or disposal of their sealed radiological sources. The Energy Policy  Act of 2005 requires that NRC issue regulations, within 1 year, establishing  this mandatory tracking system that shall be coordinated with systems  established by the Department of Transportation to track the shipment of  radiation sources. Such a tracking system must, among other things,  provide for the reporting of required information through a secure Internet  connection.
As presently designed, NRC’s national source tracking system will  inventory and monitor primarily IAEA categories 1 and 2 sources—the  minimum required under the 2004 IAEA Code of Conduct—despite support  from IAEA and DOE for tracking additional source categories and other  information. In its July 2003 technical document detailing the  methodology behind the IAEA source categorization scheme, IAEA  suggested that member states consider the combined radioactivity of  aggregated sealed radiological sources in one location for the purpose of  categorizing these sources on the basis of their potential to cause harm to  human health. Using this methodology, the accumulation of enough  individual IAEA category 3 sources in close proximity to one another  would yield concentrations of radioactive material equivalent to a single  IAEA category 2 source. For example, storing 15 well-logging devices in  close proximity (each well-logging device typically contains a 2-curie,  cesium-137 source, which is an IAEA category 3 source) would be  equivalent to having a 30-curie, cesium-137 source in this location, which is  an IAEA category 2 source.
Almost all of the unwanted sealed radiological sources recovered by DOE  would fall into categories below IAEA categories 1 and 2 and, therefore,  would not have been registered in the national source tracking system as  presently designed. According to the manager of DOE’s U.S. Radiological  Threat Reduction Program, over 90 percent of the sites where DOE has  recovered sealed radiological sources had quantities of lesser radioactive  sources that when aggregated were equivalent to an individual IAEA  category 2 source and, thus, posed enough of a safety and security risk to  warrant their recovery. This recovery has been justified despite the fact  that the total curie level of all the recovered IAEA category 3 sources was  only about 15 percent of the curie level of the relatively few recovered  categories 1 and 2 sources, and without regard to whether the sources  might or might not have been located in close proximity at each of the  licensee sites. In a 2004 technical document, IAEA suggested that it would  be beneficial from both a safety and security viewpoint for all disused or  unwanted sealed radiological sources to be identified and to undergo  proper disposition. According to IAEA, the quality of a country’s national  registry of radioactive sources will be a prime indicator of the probability  of there being vulnerable and orphan sources. History has shown that many  accidents involving orphan sources come about because sources that are  no longer in use are eventually forgotten, with subsequent loss of control  years later. Table 3 shows a breakdown of the sealed radiological sources  that DOE has recovered, by their IAEA source category, as of June 7, 2005.  As shown in the table, about 98.5 percent of these sources fall below  category 2 and, therefore, would not have been tracked in the proposed  national source tracking system.
In the proposed rule to implement a national source tracking system, NRC  states that it does not plan to include IAEA category 3 sources in the  registry at this time, but that it may consider doing so in the future because  licensees possessing a large quantity of IAEA category 3 sources could  present a security concern. Although NRC contends that reliable tracking  of the accumulation of IAEA category 3 sources will be difficult and might  pose a potential burden on licensees, NRC is seeking comments on the  inclusion of these sources in its tracking system. NRC stated in its notice of  intent that one way to address the accumulation of sources of concern  would be to lower the threshold for source tracking to include all IAEA  category 3 sources, since a source level tracking system cannot include  aggregation of sources because the sources may move in and out of the  tracking system with the change of ownership. However, in commenting on  a draft of this report, NRC stated that in lieu of the inclusion of category 3  sources in the proposed national source tracking system at this time, its  new security orders for licensees possessing IAEA categories 1 and 2  sources do, where appropriate, address aggregation of any sources below  these two categories, such that the net result could reach the category 2  threshold in a given physical location. Nevertheless, it does not appear that  these new security orders would apply to licensees that do not possess  IAEA categories 1 and 2 sources but still have large accumulations of IAEA  category 3 or lesser source categories.
The national source tracking system, as designed, also would not collect  other information that DOE might find useful in budgeting and planning for  source recovery and future disposal needs for GTCC waste. Recent IAEA  technical guidance states that it is important to capture information on the  frequency of use of the source in a national registry of sealed radiological  sources—for example, whether the source is actually being used or  whether it is being stored securely. DOE already inventories such  information on sources in its possession in its Radioactive Source Registry  and Tracking System. DOE initially requested that NRC collect information  on licensees’ disposal plans in its interim survey, including whether the  licensees were planning to have DOE recover their sources. NRC included  this question in its first survey of licensees but has decided to drop it in  subsequent surveys and in the design of the tracking system, because of the  low response rate to this question and because its security regulations  currently do not require licensees to report this information. However, NRC  is contemplating adding a feature to the design of its anticipated national  source tracking system that would capture information on the long-term  storage of some sealed radiological sources, although it would be voluntary  for licensees to provide this information.
The Energy Policy Act of 2005 requires NRC to chair an interagency task  force on radiation source protection and security. Within 1 year of its  creation, the task is to prepare a report to the Congress and the President  providing recommendations for a list of additional radiation sources that  should be required to be secured as well as any necessary modifications to  the national source tracking system. In addition, the task force is also  charged with making recommendations in this report regarding the  creation of, or modification to, procedures for improving, among other  things, the security of stored sources, including periodic audits or  investigations by NRC to ensure that these sources are properly secured  and can be fully accounted for.
section_title: Conclusions
paragraphs: DOE and NRC have important roles and responsibilities in ensuring the  safety and security of radiological sealed sources. The recently enacted  Energy Policy Act of 2005, among other things, adds new requirements for  both agencies, including the creation of a task force on radiation source  protection and security, chaired by NRC, and continued recovery by DOE  of unwanted sources until it provides a disposal site for GTCC waste. The  responsibilities for DOE may expand further if licensees in most states lose  access to the only disposal site for their higher radioactive non-GTCC  waste by mid-2008. Specifically:   Loss of access would increase the quantities of non-GTCC waste in  storage that could necessitate more recovery of this waste by DOE.  This, in turn, might lead to increased costs for DOE’s source recovery  efforts. However, how much additional funding will be necessary for  this effort would be difficult to ascertain for several reasons, including  uncertainties regarding the quantity of non-GTCC waste that might need  collection.
These increased recovery and disposal costs will be incurred by DOE  unless other mechanisms are adopted to recoup these costs, especially  from those licensees that would be able to cover them if commercial  disposal were available.
The increasing quantities of non-GTCC waste that will not have a  commercial disposal pathway could heighten interest in using DOE sites  for the disposal of this waste.
The lack of information to track the number and status of sealed  radiological sources that may require recovery and disposal in the  future, limits DOE’s ability to effectively plan and budget for its recovery  and disposal efforts and to monitor the performance of its source  recovery project.
section_title: Recommendations for Executive Action
paragraphs: We recommend that the Secretary of Energy and the Chairman of the  Nuclear Regulatory Commission, in collaboration with the Task Force on  Radiation Source Protection and Security, evaluate and report on   the cost implications of a potential expansion of DOE’s recovery and  disposal of non-GTCC waste from sealed radiological sources,  options for DOE to recoup these costs from licensees that may have no  commercial waste disposal options,  the feasibility of disposing of this waste at DOE sites, and  how a national source tracking system can be designed and  implemented to improve DOE’s ability to identify and track sealed  radiological sources that may need DOE recovery and disposal.
section_title: Agency Comments and Our Evaluation
paragraphs: We provided a draft of this report to DOE and NRC for their review and  comment. DOE’s written comments are reproduced in appendix III. DOE  stated that it generally supports the recommendations contained in this  report. More specifically, DOE commented that we had correctly reported  the department’s position with respect to recouping recovery and disposal  costs; however, the department expressed some concern that charging fees  or recouping costs from licensees may inhibit them from registering  sources, leaving these excess sources at risk. We acknowledge in the report  that DOE should cover the recovery, storage, and disposal costs of  unwanted sealed radiological sources that were previously owned by DOE.  We also acknowledge the need for DOE to cover these costs in cases where  sources posing a health, safety, security, or environmental threat are  recovered from licensees that do not have the financial means to ensure  their proper disposal. Nevertheless, given the possibility that, in most  states, there may not be a commercial disposal option available to  licensees for their higher radioactive non-GTCC waste after mid-2008, we  continue to believe that DOE and NRC should evaluate approaches to  recoup recovery and disposal costs from licensees that could otherwise  afford to cover these costs if a commercial disposal option were available.  DOE also stated that, in addition to the non-GTCC sealed source waste that  we stated it recovered and disposed, it had also recovered other sources  that fall into this waste class. We added a reference to these other sources  in the report. Regarding using DOE sites for non-GTCC waste disposal, the  department commented that we appropriately noted its current policy and  statutory responsibilities that prohibit the use of department facilities for  this purpose. DOE stated that it would continue to identify potential  commercial treatments or disposal options for any additional non-GTCC  waste that is recovered. Finally, DOE concurred with our assessment that  the proposed national source tracking system should be improved to assist  the department in identifying and recovering unwanted sources from  outside the department that pose a potential safety and security risk. DOE  stated that its Office of Security is working with other elements of the  department and NRC in developing requirements to ensure that these  unwanted sources are adequately tracked.
NRC also provided written comments to a draft of this report, which are  reproduced in appendix IV. NRC stated that overall our report was well  written and balanced. While NRC did not specifically agree or disagree with  our four recommendations, its letter raised seven issues regarding the  proposed national source tracking system.  1. NRC stated that its tracking system would provide some information  useful to DOE. We agree that the national source tracking system might  provide some information useful to DOE in its recovery of IAEA  categories 1 and 2 sources. However, since we found that only 1.5  percent of the sources recovered by DOE as of June 7, 2005, were in  these two categories, it appears that the national source tracking  system would yield little, if any, practical benefits to DOE. 2. NRC stated that requiring the reporting of certain information that our  report asserts DOE would find useful, such as frequency of source use,  could be extremely burdensome on licensees and NRC and would yield  little, if any, practical benefits. NRC provided no support for this  contention or for why it cannot overcome these burdens as it has done  in justifying the reporting requirements proposed for licensees  possessing IAEA categories 1 and 2 sources. In addition, NRC stated in  its notice of proposed rulemaking for the national source tracking  system that most licensees already have systems in which information  on sources is maintained, and that NRC’s tracking system is designed to  ease the reporting burden for these licensees. As to the comment on the  practical benefit of tracking the use of high-risk radioactive materials,  our report notes that the most vulnerable sources to abandonment,  misplacement, and theft are those that are unwanted and in storage.  Therefore, it seems reasonable to attempt to collect some information  on frequency of source use, particularly if the storage of sources were  to increase in the future in the absence of a commercial disposal option  for the higher radioactive non-GTCC waste.  3. NRC commented that our report did not accurately characterize some  issues involving IAEA category 3 sources, mainly regarding our claim  that IAEA-TECDOC-1388 suggested that category 3 sources be tracked.  NRC claimed that the IAEA document did not make this suggestion and  provided some passages from the document to support its position. We  believe that NRC’s comments in this regard reflect a narrow view of the  guidance provided by IAEA. For example, in IAEA’s discussion of  disused (unwanted) sources in this technical document, it clearly  suggests a need to identify these sources and to gather information on  their frequency of use. “Disused sources represent the largest pool of vulnerable and potential orphan sources.  History has shown that many accidents involving orphan sources come about because  sources that are no longer in use are eventually forgotten, with subsequent loss of control  years later. To this end, it is beneficial from both a safety and security viewpoint for all  disused sources to be identified  and to undergo proper disposition….  Licensees are discouraged from proper disposal of disused sources by the cost involved, by  the bureaucracy of doing so, or by the lack of an available disposal option…. It is clear that  information needs to be gathered by those developing a national strategy regarding the  status of at least all  Category 1, 2 and 3 sources on the licensee’s  inventory or national registry so that appropriate decisions can be made regarding them.  Generally, this will involve asking the licensee or owner of the source about its frequency of  use .”
4.
In support of its decision not to track IAEA category 3 sources at this  time, NRC drew attention to its other regulatory efforts, especially its  new security orders for some licensees that possess IAEA categories 1  and 2 sources. NRC stated that, where appropriate, these security  orders address aggregation of any sources (IAEA category 3 sources  and below) such that the net result could reach the category 2 source  threshold in a given physical location. Despite these security orders,  NRC’s source tracking system would not include IAEA category 3  sources and below. However, NRC stated in its notice of proposed  rulemaking for the national source tracking system, that it is seeking  comments on the inclusion of IAEA category 3 sources in the registry  because licensees possessing large quantities of these sources could  present a security concern.  5. NRC pointed out that, as we reported, the actions it is taking to track  IAEA categories 1 and 2 sources are consistent with the IAEA Code of  Conduct and the Energy Policy Act of 2005. However, NRC failed to  mention, as we do in our report, that this legislation also directs NRC to  chair an interagency task force to provide a report, within 1 year, to the  Congress and the President with recommendations for, among other  things, additional radiation sources that should be required to be  secured as well as any modifications necessary to the national source  tracking system. We believe that our report provides ample support for  areas where NRC, in collaboration with DOE and other federal  agencies, might consider modifying the design of the national source  tracking system to better assist DOE in planning and budgeting for the  recovery and disposal of unwanted sealed radiological sources.  6. NRC commented that it does not matter that almost all of the sources  that DOE has recovered are below IAEA categories 1 and 2 sources  because, according to NRC, the greatest risk from a source is its  radioactivity level. The radioactivity of an individual source is clearly  one measure of its potential safety and security risk. However, as our  report notes, DOE’s recovery efforts, often at the request of NRC, are  not solely dictated by the radioactivity of an individual source, but  more broadly the health, safety, security, or environmental threat posed  by the aggregated radioactivity of many unwanted sources that are  typically in storage at licensee sites around the country. Our report also  notes that unwanted sources in storage tend to be the most vulnerable  to abandonment, misplacement, and theft despite requirements that  licensees keep track of the radioactive materials they possess. Some of  the lesser radioactive sources are frequently found by DOE to be kept  in quantities where their aggregated radioactivity would be equivalent  to an IAEA category 2 source that would present a security concern.  These lesser radioactive sources also may be more susceptible to  inadvertent loss, which has already led in some cases to radiation  exposure, high decontamination costs, and public panic. IAEA  acknowledged in its Code of Conduct that its categorization of high-risk  radiological sources is based on health effects and does not fully take  into account the range of impacts that could result from accidents or  malicious acts involving radioactive sources. 7. NRC stressed in its comments that DOE, through its representatives on  NRC working groups and committees developing the national source  tracking system, has had the opportunity to provide input on the design  of the system and the potential usefulness of the system to assist its  source recovery efforts. Regardless of DOE’s opportunities to provide  input to NRC, DOE officials raised concerns to us during the course of  our work about the usefulness of NRC’s source tracking system.  Furthermore, in commenting on our draft report, DOE stated that there  is a need for a more rigorous national-level tracking capability to assist  the department in identifying and recovering unwanted sources.
We incorporated technical changes in this report, where appropriate, on  the basis of detailed comments provided by both agencies.
We will send copies of this report to the appropriate congressional  committees. We will make copies available to others upon request. In  addition, the report will be available at no charge on the GAO Web site at  http://www.gao.gov.
If you or your staff have any questions about this report, please contact me  at ((202) 512-3841 or at aloisee@gao.gov. Contact points for our Offices of  Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found on the last page  of this report. GAO staff who made major contributions to this report are  listed in appendix V.
section_title: Scope and Methodology
paragraphs: In our review, we examined (1) the status of the Department of Energy’s  (DOE) efforts to recover unwanted sealed radiological sources and develop  a disposal option for greater-than-class C (GTCC) waste, (2) DOE actions  taken to recover and dispose of unwanted non-GTCC waste from sealed  radiological sources, and (3) the extent to which DOE can identify and  track unwanted sealed radiological sources for recovery and disposal. To  better understand these issues, we met with officials at DOE, the National  Nuclear Security Administration, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission  (NRC), and we visited the office of DOE’s source recovery project at Los  Alamos National Laboratory and observed laboratory personnel recovering  unwanted sealed radiological sources from a university. We also  interviewed officials at nonfederal organizations, including the Health  Physics Society, the Organization of Agreement States, and the Conference  on Radiation Control Program Directors (CRCPD), as well as some  recognized experts in the field. We also met with representatives from  commercial entities that are licensed to possess high-risk radioactive  sources and state regulatory officials in California and Ohio.
More specifically, to examine the status of DOE efforts to recover  unwanted sealed radiological sources and develop a disposal option for  GTCC waste, we interviewed DOE officials from the U.S. Radiological  Threat Reduction Program, Office of Environmental Management, and  Office of Security. We reviewed applicable statutes, regulations, and agency  guidance as well as relevant DOE and NRC studies, reports, documents,  and agency plans. We obtained information from the source recovery  project inventory database to determine the number and type of sources  recovered as of June 7, 2005. To determine the reliability of these data, we  first asked officials a series of data reliability questions that addressed  areas such as data entry, data access, quality control procedures, and data  accuracy and completeness. We also inspected data records, reviewed  manuals and documents relating to DOE data collection and verification  methods, and interviewed DOE officials. We asked follow-up questions as  necessary. In consultation with a GAO expert in research methodology, we  analyzed the officials’ responses for relevant weaknesses in data reliability  that would make their data unusable for our analysis and reporting  purposes. On the basis of these efforts, we determined that these data were  sufficiently reliable for summarizing volumes of recovered sealed  radiological sources.
We also sought a better understanding of how sealed radiological sources  are classified as waste. We developed a structured interview guide to  collect information from commercial waste brokers that possess GTCC and  non-GTCC waste from sealed radiological sources. This interview guide  asked questions on areas such as the wastes these brokers often collect  and the potential waste classes of common types of sealed radiological  source devices. Because the practical difficulties of developing and  administering a structured interview guide may introduce errors—resulting  from how a particular question is interpreted, for example, or from  differences in the sources of information available to respondents in  answering a question—we included steps in the development and  administration of the structured interview guide for the purpose of  minimizing such errors. We pretested the instrument with three  commercial waste brokers by telephone and modified it as appropriate to  reflect questions and comments received during the pretests.
To determine which commercial waste brokers to interview, we first used a  list of commercial waste brokers compiled by CRCPD’s National Orphan  Radioactive Material Disposition Program. This list contained 18 waste  brokers that met the CRCPD criteria of being in good standing with CRCPD  and serving more than 1 million customers, serving non-DOE customers, or  serving more than one state. However, because this list is not  comprehensive and there is no single source listing of commercial waste  brokers, we also asked each broker we interviewed for the names of  additional brokers who could provide useful information or insights into  these issues. We continued this expert referral technique until the  references we received became repetitive. In all, we used our structured  interview guide to interview a nonprobablility sample of 12 commercial  waste brokers in various geographical locations. We then used the results  of these structured interviews to create a table summarizing common  sealed radiological sources devices and their potential waste class (see  app. II). We shared preliminary drafts of this table with experts at DOE and  NRC and with leading scientists in the field of sealed radiological source  security from nonfederal organizations, such as the Monterrey Institute of  International Studies and the Low-Level Waste Forum. We received and  incorporated their comments as appropriate on the structure and contents  of the table. On the basis of this process, we determined that these data  were sufficiently reliable for the purposes of this report.
To examine the actions DOE has taken to recover and dispose of unwanted  sealed radiological sources, we interviewed source recovery project  personnel and officials from the U.S. Radiological Threat Reduction  Program. We also conducted interviews with representatives from  nonfederal entities, including the Monterrey Institute of International  Studies, the Health Physics Society, CRCPD, the National Research  Council, and the Council on Foreign Relations. We discussed with these  agency officials and representatives the likelihood of DOE’s needing to  recover more non-GTCC waste from unwanted sealed radiological sources  in the future if the Barnwell, South Carolina, disposal site restricts access  for licensees in 36 states by mid-2008 as planned. To obtain a better  understanding of how much non-GTCC waste might be stored if licensees  in these states are denied disposal access for this waste, we gathered  information on the quantity of non-GTCC waste disposed at the two  commercial disposal sites that can accept classes B and C waste in  Richland, Washington, and Barnwell, South Carolina, between 2001 and  2004. To determine the reliability of these data, we first asked disposal  operators a series of data reliability questions that addressed specific  areas, such as data entry, data access, quality control procedures, and data  accuracy and completeness. We added follow-up questions as necessary. In  consultation with a GAO expert in research methodology, we analyzed their  responses for relevant weaknesses in data reliability that would make their  data unusable for our analysis and reporting purposes. On the basis of  these efforts, we determined that these data were sufficiently reliable for  summarizing volumes of disposed waste at these disposal sites.
To determine the extent to which DOE can identify and track unwanted  sealed radiological sources for recovery and disposal, we interviewed DOE  and NRC officials regarding the scope, capabilities, and limitations of their  existing databases for tracking these sources. We reviewed past estimates  of the number of sealed radiological sources in the United States, including  the scope and methodologies used to create these estimates. To examine  NRC efforts to develop a national source tracking system for certain sealed  radiological sources, we interviewed NRC and DOE officials who  participated in the system’s initial formulation. We reviewed planning and  management documents, including related NRC submissions to the Office  of Management and Budget, NRC’s business case analyses, and the  proposed rule for implementing a national source tracking system. We also  reviewed the survey instrument NRC used to populate the interim  database. Finally, we interviewed state officials from Illinois, New York,  Ohio, and Oregon to determine whether any states currently track sealed  radiological sources and gathered these officials’ views on the need for a  national source tracking system.
We conducted our review between June 2004 and September 2005 in  accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards.
section_title: Selected Sealed Radiological Source Devices and Their Potential Waste Classes
paragraphs: Table 4 presents selected common devices that utilize sealed radioactive  sources and the NRC waste classes in which sources from these devices  might be disposed. This table shows the variability in the possible sources  used in devices, their relative risks according to the International Atomic  Energy Agency (IAEA) categorization scheme, and the range of waste  classes associated with the sources that could be used in these devices.  The radionuclides and the ranges of radioactivity listed next to each device  are presented for illustrative purposes—each device might use one of these  radionuclides in one or more sources. The IAEA source category  corresponds to each radionuclide and radioactivity range, based on an  IAEA technical document, as noted. The potential waste classes are  associated with each device and not with the specific radionuclides that  might be in these devices. In other words, not all radionuclides that could  be used in a source within a device produce the range of waste classes  associated with the device.
section_title: Comments from the Department of Energy
section_title: Comments from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission
section_title: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments
subsections: section_title: GAO Contact
section_title: Staff Acknowledgments
paragraphs: In addition to the person named above, Casey Brown, Ryan Coles, John  Delicath, Daniel Feehan, Doreen Feldman, Susan Iott, Thomas Laetz,  Cynthia Norris, Anthony Padilla, Judy Pagano, Leslie Pollock, and Barbara  Timmerman made key contributions to this report.