The Disposition Dilemma Controlling the Release of Solid Materials from Nuclear Regulatory Commission-Licensed Facilities (2002) / Chapter Skim
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2 The Regulatory Framework
2 The Regulatory Framework
Pages 33-54
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From page 33... ...
That is, they prescribe the use of a particular control technology rather than establishing an acceptable exposure level. Calculating the health risks associated with a radioactively contaminated object involves a two-step process.
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From page 34... ...
34 THE DISPOSITION DILEMMA to achieve acceptable levels of public health protection, and promotes consistency among different regulations. Risk-based standards are meant to be responsive to public policy decisions on widely acceptable levels of risk and are presumed to be rationally based on carefully conducted estimates of dose and risk.
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From page 35... ...
existing guidance document concerning release of solid materials with surface contamination from regulatory control, developed in the 1970s, is based on the decontamination survey practices that were in use at that time (see Box 2-2~. Some environmental laws, such as specific provisions in the Clean Air Act, base regulations on the "best available control technologies." In this approach to regulation, the focus is not on risk, which is difficult to estimate and even harder to defend, but on promoting the use of the most advanced technologies and fostering their further development.
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From page 36... ...
The inherent uncertainty associated with these
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From page 37... ...
As an illustration of how critical groups are used, one critical group considered by the EPA is represented by an operator of an industrial lathe made with radioactively contaminated cast iron. This is a relatively high-dose scenario because of the time spent next to the radioactive object, as well as its size and proximity.
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From page 38... ...
Conversely, if simplifying assumptions minimize or underestimate potential risks, the assessment will err toward inadequate control to protect health and safety. If uncertainty distributions or ranges for the input assumptions are available, analysts can perform studies, using methods such as Monte Carlo simulations, to obtain estimates of the uncertainties in the dose calculations or other predictions from the analysis (see Chapter 5 for further discussion)
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From page 39... ...
, special nuclear materials (e.g., plutonium) , and byproduct materials (e.g., most radioactive material including common radioactive wastes)
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From page 40... ...
Regulatory Practices and Controls Title 10 (Energy) of the Code of Federal Regulations establishes licensing requirements for all practices using nuclear materials under the jurisdiction of the USNRC and agreement states.
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From page 41... ...
This AEC guidance for permitting clearance of radioactive materials dates back more than 25 years, to the initial preparation of Regulatory Guide 1.86. The Table I guidance had been in informal use for some time before 1974 and apparently was based on the detection limits of the instruments available at that time, not on an assessment of risk.4 Table I contains guidance on clearance standards for surfaces such as floors, walls, structural materials, and equipment; it contains no standards for volume contamination.
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From page 42... ...
Consistent with this statute, the proposed BRC policy attempted to set general criteria for allowable individual dose and collective doses resulting from authorized releases of radioactively contaminated materials from licensed activities. The BRC proposal was intended to be an overarching approach that would establish specific quantitative standards for site releases at license termination, unrestricted release of waste materials, and consumer or industrial product uses of radioactive materials, as well as other standards.
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From page 43... ...
In response to these criticisms, the USNRC placed a moratorium on the proposed BRC policy while it attempted to build public consensus for it. That effort failed, and Congress formally revoked the BRC policy in the Energy Policy Act of 1992.
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From page 44... ...
As part of its response to the concerns expressed at these meetings, the Commission requested that a study be undertaken by the National Academy of Sciences. COMPARATIVE ASSESSMENT OF EXISTING REGULATIONS IN THE UNITED STATES There are numerous regulations in the United States governing releases of radioactively contaminated materials and facilities.
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From page 45... ...
For other licensees (including nuclear reactors, manufacturing facilities, larger educational or health care facilities, including laboratories) materials generally fall into one of three groups based on its location or use in the facility: · Clean or unaffected areas of a facility, from which areas the solid materials would likely have no radioactive contamination; Areas where licensed radioactive material is used or stored, from which areas materials can become contaminated although the levels would likely be low to none; and Material used for radioactive service in the facility or located in contaminated areas or areas where contamination can occur, from which materials generally have levels of contamination that would not allow them to be candidates for release unless they are decontaminated.
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From page 46... ...
release of solid materials with surface residual radioactivity at reactors, (2) release of surface-contaminated solid materials possessed by a materials licensee (i.e.
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From page 47... ...
These agreements constitute a discontinuance of USNRC's authority, not a delegation; a state assumes the USNRC's authority over selected radioactive materials (specifically, byproduct materials, source materials, or special nuclear materials in quantities not sufficient to form a critical mass)
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From page 48... ...
The USNRC has extensive arrangements and procedures for communicating and interacting with the agreement states, especially to ensure that agreement state regulations are compatible with USNRC regulations. For some USNRC requirements, such as basic radiation protection standards or those that have significant implications for interstate commerce or related activity (sometimes referred to as "transboundary implications")
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From page 49... ...
DOE Standards on Clearance of Solid Materials DOE's standards for surface contamination are set forth in Order DOE 5400.5,9 which incorporates Table I, the surface-activity standards, from USNRC's Regulatory Guide 1.86. At about the same time as the issuance of Regulatory Guide 1.86, the regulatory staff at the AEC were asked to develop solid release standards for volume-contaminated materials from modification of the uranium enrichment plants (see Chapter 5 for a discussion of NUREG-0518~.
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From page 50... ...
, which permits a 10 mrem/yr dose to the reasonably maximally exposed individual from airborne emission of radioactive materials (40 CFR Part 61~. The basis for this standard includes multiple exposure pathways, including exposure from airborne plumes, inhalation, and ingestion of foods on which radioactive materials have been deposited.
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From page 51... ...
This issue has become increasingly important with the erosion of regulatory controls at nuclear facilities in the countries of the former Soviet Union. A number of incidents have occurred in the United States and elsewhere in which radioactive materials have been discovered in scrap metal loads at steel mills and, less frequently, have contaminated the metal used to fabricate consumer products as in the Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, incident in 1983 (Lubenau, 1998~.
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From page 52... ...
State regulations remain limited and vary greatly from state to state (CRCPD, 1997~. STAKEHOLDER INVOLVEMENT As noted earlier, the current evaluation of clearance of solid materials by the USNRC is not the first time it has attempted to update and formalize guidance for unrestricted releases of SRSM.
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From page 53... ...
Even before Congress acted, the USNRC issued a moratorium on the BRC policy in July 1991 (56 Federal Register 36068-36069; July 30, 1991~; after the Energy Policy Act was signed into law, the USNRC rescinded the policy in August 1993. The BRC policy was defeated largely by the efforts of these public interest groups, which successfully used the political arena to expand the controversy over the issue and to make the issue salient to a large number of stakeholder groups and other interested parties.
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From page 54... ...
Finding 2.3. For clearance of surface-contaminated solid materials, the clearance practices regulated by the USNRC and agreement states are based on the guidance document Regulatory Guide 1.86, which is technology based and has been used satisfactorily in the absence of a complete standard since 1974.
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