Opinion ID: 492030
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: the high level waste environmental standards

Text: 18 The HLW environmental standards have two parts. Subpart A, 40 C.F.R. Sec. 191.01-.05 (1986), entitled Environmental Standards for Management and Storage, sets individual exposure limits from radiation releases during the management, interim storage, and preparation for disposal of the radioactive wastes. Subpart A requires that the management and storage of HLW during this phase be conducted in such a manner as to provide reasonable assurances that the total annual exposure to any individual member of the public shall not exceed a stated limit (25 millirems to the whole body, 75 millirems to the thyroid, and 25 millirems to any other critical organ), 40 C.F.R. Sec. 191.03. Subpart A also allows the EPA to issue alternative standards for waste management and storage operations at DOE disposal facilities that are not regulated by the NRC (i.e., DOE defense-related facilities), 40 C.F.R. Sec. 191.04. 19 Subpart B, 40 C.F.R. Sec. 191.11-.18 (1986), entitled Environmental Standards for Disposal, is intended to ensure long-term protection of public health and the environment from releases of radiation after the HLW has been stored in the chosen manner. Although this subpart was developed having in mind storage at underground repositories, the standards are said to apply also to any other disposal method that may be chosen. 1 20 Subpart B comprises four different types of environmental standards. The first type is the general containment requirements, 40 C.F.R. Sec. 191.13. These require that nuclear waste disposal systems be designed to provide a reasonable expectation, based on performance assessment, that the cumulative releases of radiation to anywhere in the accessible environment, for 10,000 years after disposal, shall not exceed certain designated levels. 2 21 The term accessible environment is defined as the atmosphere; land surfaces; surface waters; oceans; and all of the lithosphere that is beyond the controlled area. 40 C.F.R. Sec. 191.12(k). The lithosphere, as defined, includes the entire solid part of the earth below the surface, including any ground water contained within it. 40 C.F.R. Sec. 191.12(j). The controlled area is the surface and underground area (and any ground water found therein) immediately surrounding the repository that encompasses no more than 100 square kilometers and extends horizontally no more than 5 kilometers in any direction from the disposed waste. 40 C.F.R. Sec. 191.12(g). 22 These definitions taken together show that the general containment requirements limit the total, cumulative releases of radiation, for 10,000 years, anywhere in the environment, outside the controlled area. Within the controlled area itself, the general containment requirements are inapplicable and, therefore, they place no limits on radiation releases. 23 An example of how the general release limits apply is found in the limits for uranium. The repositories must be designed to give reasonable assurance that for the radionuclide uranium (and all its isotopes) the total radiation release, over a 10,000-year period, to the entire accessible environment (including any ground water) must be less than 100 curies (per 1,000 metric tons of heavy metal waste disposed of). 3 Similar limits are established for other radionuclides, e.g., Americium-241, -243; Plutonium-238, -239, -240, -242. See Table of Release Limits for Containment Requirements, 40 C.F.R. Part 191, Appendix A (1986). 24 According to the EPA, the above general containment requirements constitute the principal protection mechanism of the HLW environmental standards. If cumulative releases are within these levels, overall adverse health effects upon the general population will be low. The EPA estimates that the general containment requirements limit population risks from the disposal of these wastes to no more than the midpoint of the range of estimated risks that future generations would have been exposed to if the uranium ore used to create the wastes had never been mined. 50 Fed.Reg. 38,072, col. 1 (Sept. 19, 1985). 25 The second type of environmental standard found in Subpart B is the assurance requirements, 40 C.F.R. Sec. 191.14. These are a kind of practical backup to the cumulative release requirements just mentioned. 26 The assurance requirements provide, among other things, that active institutional controls over disposal sites be maintained for as long a period of time as is practicable after disposal. 40 C.F.R. Sec. 191.14(a). (Active institutional controls include actions like controlling public access to a site, performing maintenance operations and cleaning up releases.) Other facets of the assurance requirements are as follows: that disposal arrangements be monitored in the future to detect deviations from expected performance, 40 C.F.R. Sec. 191.14(b); that there be permanent markers, records and archives (so-called passive institutional controls) to indicate to future generations the presence and location of the dangerous waste, 40 C.F.R. Sec. 191.14(c); that disposal systems not rely on just one type of barrier to isolate waste, but rather employ both engineered and natural barriers, 40 C.F.R. Sec. 191.14(d); that repository sites be selected that avoid areas where it is reasonable to expect future exploration for scarce or easily accessible resources, 40 C.F.R. Sec. 191.14(e); that disposal systems be such that, for a reasonable time after disposal, most of the radioactive waste can be removed, 40 C.F.R. Sec. 191.14(f). 27 The assurance requirements are applicable only to disposal facilities that are not regulated by the NRC (i.e., certain DOE national defense-related facilities) because in its comments on the originally proposed rule, the NRC objected to inclusion of the assurance requirements, arguing that they transcended the EPA's authority to set generally applicable environmental standards. The NRC felt that the assurance requirements were not environmental standards at all but rather were simply ways of ensuring compliance with environmental standards. Since it is the NRC's responsibility to make sure that the repositories comply with the different regulations, the NRC saw the EPA's assurance requirements as an intrusion upon the NRC's jurisdiction. The agencies ultimately resolved the dispute by (1) making the EPA's assurance requirements applicable only to facilities not licensed by the NRC, and (2) by having the NRC modify its regulations where necessary to incorporate the essence of the EPA's assurance requirements. See 50 Fed.Reg. 38,072, col. 3. 28 When the EPA published a first draft of its standards, Subpart B only included the two standards so far described (general containment requirements and assurance requirements). See Proposed Rule, 40 C.F.R. Part 191, 47 Fed.Reg. 58,196 (Dec. 29, 1982). The EPA at first believed that these two proposed standards--aimed to keep the total radiation release over a 10,000-year period below specified safe limits--would suffice. Later, however, it was persuaded to add so-called individual protection requirements, to deal with the possibility that radioactivity might be concentrated in specific areas. Release limits designed to protect individuals were thought necessary because, while overall releases to the environment as a whole would be within tolerable limits, particular individuals might end up being exposed to excessively large doses of radiation: for example, radiation from waste eventually released into, and concentrated in, ground water that is in the immediate vicinity of a repository. The EPA explained that 29 Since ground water generally provides relatively little dilution, anyone using such contaminated ground water in the future may receive a substantial radiation exposure (e.g., several rems per year or more). This possibility is inherent in collecting a very large amount of radioactivity in a small area. 30 See 50 Fed.Reg. 38,077, col. 3. Therefore, after the notice and comment period, two additional provisions, the individual protection requirements, and the ground water protection requirements, were added to Subpart B of the final rule. These were mainly intended to protect individuals located near a repository who might be exposed to contamination emanating from the site. 31 The individual protection requirements, 40 C.F.R. Sec. 191.15, require that disposal systems be designed to provide a reasonable expectation that, for 1,000 years after disposal, the annual radiation exposure to any member of the public in the accessible environment shall not exceed 25 millirems to the whole body or 75 millirems to any organ. The standard requires that in assessing the anticipated performance of a repository, all potential so-called pathways of radiation releases from the repository must be considered. The term potential pathway represents the expected scenario of how the released radioactivity will travel from the repository to the accessible environment and ultimately to individuals. There are various possible pathways which could result in exposures to individuals. These possible pathways include, for example, direct releases via seepage to the land surface and then to food crops ingested by man; or similar releases travelling to a river or to an ocean and then to fish which man would ingest; or releases to ground water that is used for drinking. See Background Information Document for Final Rule at Chapter 7. 32 As discussed above, the Agency was concerned about individual exposures especially because of the possibility that radiation might be released to and become concentrated in ground water, some of which might permeate even the rock surrounding a repository and might find its way, in time, to supplies of ground water beyond the site. Since ground water contaminated by seepage from the site might be used for drinking water, the individual protection requirements expressly require that in determining whether a repository will comply with the annual exposure limits, the assessments must assume that individuals consume all their drinking water (two liters per day) from any significant source of ground water 4 outside of the controlled area. This express requirement places an indirect limit on releases to ground water outside of the controlled area (the controlled area being, as already described, the area occupied by the repository and a specified surface and below-ground area surrounding the repository, see definition supra ). 33 The fourth section of Subpart B is the special source ground water protection requirements, 40 C.F.R. Sec. 191.16. The term ground water protection requirements is somewhat misleading. The provision does not protect ground water generally but only ground water of a very special type within or very near controlled areas. Thus these requirements apply only to Class I ground waters, as defined by the EPA's Ground-Water Protection Strategy, 5 that also meet the following three conditions: 34 (1) They are within the controlled area or near (less than five kilometers beyond) the controlled area; (2) they are supplying drinking water for thousands of persons as of the date that the Department [of Energy] selects the site for extensive exploration as a potential location of a disposal system; and (3) they are irreplaceable in that no reasonable alternative source of drinking water is available to that population. 35 See 40 C.F.R. Sec. 191.12(n). 36 The radiation concentration limits set by this rule are similar to the maximum radiation concentration limits established under the Safe Drinking Water Act, 42 U.S.C. Secs. 300f-j, for community water systems. See 40 C.F.R. Part 141. As with the individual protection requirements, the ground water protection requirements will apply only for the first 1,000 years after disposal. 37 Class I ground waters 6 are defined as ground waters that are highly vulnerable to contamination because of local hydrological characteristics and that are also either irreplaceable (i.e., there is no reasonable alternative source of drinking water) or vital to a particularly sensitive ecological system. Environmental Protection Agency, Ground-Water Protection Strategy at 5-6 (August 1984). 38 The ground water protection requirements thus apply to an extremely narrow category of ground water found within, or within five kilometers of, the repository site. The Agency explained that the ground water protection requirements provision is necessary and adequate to avoid any significant degradation of this important ground water resource. See 50 Fed.Reg. 38,074 (Sept. 19, 1985). The practical effect of these requirements seems less to provide ongoing regulation than simply to deter the choosing of a site containing ground water of this especially valuable kind upon which thousands of persons already depend. If this were the real purpose, however, the EPA did not say so in so many words.