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Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 87 / Friday, May 7, 2021 / Notices Need for Proposed Action The need for the proposed action is to authorize an appropriate method of disposal for surplus wastewater containing radioactive material currently stored or expected to be generated at the shutdown VY power reactor in Vernon, VT. The wastewater is generated as a result of ongoing demolition activities including reactor vessel segmentation and removal. The USEI facility in Grand View, Idaho has the capability to receive and process the wastewater, solidify it with clay and disposed of it as a soil-like waste.
Environmental Impacts of the Proposed Action The NRC staff has reviewed the evaluation performed by the licensee to demonstrate compliance with the 10
CFR 20.2002 alternate disposal criteria.
Under these criteria, a licensee may seek NRC authorization to dispose of licensed material using procedures not otherwise authorized by NRC
regulations. The licensees application must include a description of the waste containing the licensed material, including the physical and chemical properties important to risk evaluation, and the proposed manner and conditions of disposal. The application must also include an analysis and evaluation of pertinent environmental information and the nature and location of any other potentially affected licensed and unlicensed facilities.
Finally, the licensees supporting analysis must show that the radiological doses arising from the proposed 10 CFR
20.2002 disposal will be as low as reasonably achievable and within the 10
CFR part 20 dose limits.
Based on this analysis, NorthStar concludes that the dose equivalent for the maximally exposed individual, which includes workers involved in the transportation and placement of this waste, will not exceed a few mrem per year. The standard of a few millirem per year mrem/yr to a member of the public is set forth in NRC Regulatory Issues Summary 200408, Results of the License Termination Rule Analysis. The USEI workers are treated as members of the public because the USEI site, while permitted by the State of Idaho under RCRA to accept certain radioactive materials, is not licensed by the NRC.
The NRC staff evaluated activities and potential doses associated with waste handling and disposal as part of the review of this 10 CFR 20.2002 request.
The NRC staff notes that the evaluation of the transport dose to the public is not required per the most recent revision to
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the Guidance for the Reviews of Proposed Disposal Procedures and Transfers of Radioactive Material under 10 CFR 20.2002 and 10 CFR 40.13a.
Therefore, the NRC staff did not review the transport dose during their review of this 20.2002 request. The NRC staff evaluation is documented in a Safety Evaluation Report SER. The NRCs SER found that the licensees projected doses to individual USEI workers have been appropriately estimated and are demonstrated to meet the NRCs alternate disposal requirement of not more than a few mrem/yr to any member of the public.
The licensee also performed a radiological assessment of the potential dose to the general public from the USEI
RCRA facility after its closure. They evaluated a post-closure dose to a member of the public, the intruder construction scenario, the intruder well drilling scenario, and the intruder driller occupancy scenario. The NRC
guidance on the review of 20.2002
requests notes that a licensee can take credit for a thick cover to eliminate exposure scenarios involving intrusion into the waste, such as eliminating a basement excavation scenario if a cover is thicker than 3 m, because excavations are typically less than 3 m. Since the USEI cover is expected to be 6 m thick, the NRC staff concluded in the SER that the intruder construction scenario is not likely at the USEI site and that all of the other results for potential dose to the general public were not more than a few mrem/yr. The NRC staffs independent review of the post-closure and intruder scenarios described in the SER confirmed that the maximum projected dose over a period of 1,000
years is also within a few mrem/yr.
The proposed action and attendant exemption of the disposal site from further AEA and NRC licensing requirements will not significantly increase the probability or consequences of accidents, and there is no significant increase in occupational or public radiation exposure at the off-site disposal facility. In general, the sorts of activities associated with the proposed action at the VY facility are bounded by the environmental analyses in the NRCs Generic Environmental Impact Statement on Decommissioning of Nuclear Facilities, NUREG0586, Supplement 1, Volume 1 2002 which discusses the processing of contaminated liquids, and the removal and transportation of radioactively contaminated material from decommissioning power reactor sites.
This EA incorporates by reference and tiers from NUREG0586, Supplement 1, Volume 1. Additionally, the NRC staff
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determined that the proposed action i.e., undertaking does not involve the development or disturbance of additional land so is not the type of activity that would have the potential to cause effects on historic properties, and would have no effect on endangered or threatened species or their critical habitat not already evaluated in the Post Shutdown Decommissioning Activities Report PSDAR for Vermont Yankee and revised PSDAR.
Environmental Impacts of the Alternatives to the Proposed Action As an alternative to the proposed action, the NRC staff considered the noaction alternative, under which the staff would deny the disposal request. The denial of the request would result in the wastewater being transported to a licensed low-level radioactive waste processing and disposal facility that is authorized to take this wastewater. All other factors would remain the same or similar. Therefore, the environmental impacts of the proposed action and the no-action alternative are similar, and the no-action alternative is accordingly was not further considered.
Agencies and Persons Consulted The NRC provided a draft of this EA
and draft of the NRC SER for this proposed action to the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality and the Vermont Department of Public Service for review on December 22, 2020, for a 30-day review. The State of Idaho Department of Environmental Quality IDEQ responded by letter dated January 12, 2021. The IDEQ had no technical comments but had one concern that the US Ecologys SiteSpecific Dose Assessment methodology documents were not available for review. The State of Vermont Department of Public Service responded by letter dated January 29, 2021 and identified items for further clarification concerning the safety evaluation: 1 the dose from the cross country transportation of the contaminated wastewater from VY to the USEI facility;
2 the dose from multiple rail tank cars containing contaminated wastewater being marshalled in one location in transit or at the USEI facility; 3 the number of railcar shipments that would be needed to transport the 7.57 million liters 2,000,000 gal of contaminated wastewater from VY to the USEI facility and the potential impact that would have on the dose estimates; and, 4 if this request would be sufficient to complete the disposal of the any remaining wastewater from VY, specifically any generated from the final decontamination of the structures
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