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The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will hold a public meeting on July 31 in Rockville, Maryland, to discuss criteria it is developing for determining when risk information should be used in the regulation of nuclear waste and materials.
The meeting will be held in the auditorium of the agency's Two White Flint North building, 11545 Rockville Pike, from 9:00 a.m. to noon, and from 1:30 to 4:30 p.m.
NRC officials will discuss two case studies in which the criteria under development were tested by applying them to the storage of the Three Mile Island Unit 2 spent fuel debris at a dry cask storage facility in Idaho, and to the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Kentucky. In particular, the case studies looked at how risk information was used to address earthquake concerns at these facilities. The case studies were part of an overall effort by the NRC's Office of Nuclear Materials Safety and Safeguards to examine the feasibility of using risk information in its regulation of waste and materials.
The July 31 meeting is the latest in a series of public meetings the NRC has held to discuss how risk information is being used to regulate nuclear materials and waste. Previous meetings were held in Rockville, Maryland, on February 9 to discuss regulation of gas chromatographs, static eliminators and fixed gauges, and on May 11 to discuss reactor decommissioning and radioactive materials transportation regulations, respectively. In addition, on June 13, NRC held a public meeting in Denver, Colorado, to discuss the use of risk information in regulating uranium milling.
The NRC's case study approach, the draft screening criteria, and the case study areas under consideration are described in the "Plan for Using Risk Information in the Materials and Waste Arenas: Case Studies" published in the Federal Register on November 7, 2000. The document also is available at the NRC web site. Additional information about the meeting is available from Marissa Bailey at (301) 415-7648 or by e-mail at: MGB@NRC.GOV.
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