Your "All Agreement States" letter of April 20, 1978 provided information regarding proposed legislation which would give NRC authority to directly regulate uranium mill tailings as licensed materials and would correspondingly require Areement States to follow the "minimum national criteria" concerning such regulation. This matter has been reviewed by the State's nuclear materials control agencies. Although New York has not licensed a uranium milling operation and does not at this time anticipate receiving any license applications for that purpose, it nevertheless supports the MRC efforts to close the apparent regulatory gap relating to such materials. In fact, by letter dated September 20, 1977 (copy attached) New York specifically supported the recommendation of the NRC NARM Task Force (NUREG-0301) that NKC seek legislative authority to regulate naturally occurring and accelerator produced radioactive material which would include uranium mill tailings. In regard to the proposed requirement that Agreement States meet "minimum national criteria" for regulating uranium mill tailings, New York believes that such Agreement State regulatory requirements should be compatible with those developed by NRC as they currently are in other areas. In the past, however, compatibility has been maintained by the terms of "Agreement". The proposed enactment of a legislative mandate for that purpon, raiver some probing questions regarding the NRC-vs-Agrement State responsibility in this area. The NHC Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards apparently feels that the regulation of mill tailings is of a serious enough nature to recessitate à legislator mandate for Agreement Status to meet "minimum rational criteria". However, the same reasoning can be used to argue that uranium mill tailings (and, perhaps to be consistent. uranium mill operations) should be subject to exclusive Federal jurisdiction. While ther is no New York consensus on this point at this time, one radiological control agency has made such a recommendation. The reasons given for the recommendation are quite similar if not identical to the reasons cited by NMSS for mandating that Agreement States meet "minimum national criteria". These include: long term hazard and potential necessity for perpetual care and maintenance; lack of uniformity of Agreement State requirements for environmental assessments; and need to avoid past problems now requiring costly remedial action. It should also be recognized that one of the provisions sought in the proposed legislation, namely that tailings be disposed of only on State or Federally owned land, has also been applied in the past to low-level waste burial facilites. Both an NRC Task Force (NUREG-0217) and a U. S. DOE Task Force (Deutch Report DOE/ER-004/D) have recommended that commercial low-level waste burial facilities be owned and controlled by the Federal government. If the NMSS claim that uranium tailings sites constitute long term low-level burial facilities has merit, then the exclusive Federal responsibility recommended by the NRC and DOE Task Force must be considered. New York recommends that NRC thoroughly consider the questions of State-vs-Federal regulation of uranium tailings in its deliberations on the proposed legislation. Thank you for providing the opportunity to comment on this matter. TKD/JPS:mfh cc: Dr. Francis J. Bradley Thomas J. Cashman Sherwood Davies Wayne Kerr Dr. Leonard R. Solon Sincerely, Joh Lant T. K. DeBoer, Director Technological Development Programs NEW YORK STATE ENERGY OFFICE September 20, 1977 Secretary of the Commission U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Attention: Docketing and Service Branch Dear Sir: The NMC Task Force Review entitled "Regulation of Naturally Occurring and Accelerator-Produced Radioactive Materials" (NARM) NUFIG-C3C!, has been reviewed by the cognizant New York radioactive material regulatory agencies. New York concurs with the findings of the Task Force regarding the need for uniform regulation of NARM and heartily endorses its recommendation that the NRC sex legislative authority to regulate such material. We appreciate being given the opportunity to comment on this report. I would like to talk to you today about the role of the agency on which I serve as a Commissioner, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, in regulating uranium milling operations the extraction of uranium from its ore. Our responsibility is to protect the public's health and safety and the environment and our chief concern here is the disposition of the discards, or "tailings," of the milling operation. We are being increasingly forceful in requiring improved practices for the management of these wastes. As some of you may be affected by this, I thought you might like to hear about what the Commission is doing in this area. Tailings I do not have to tell this audience about the importance of uranium as a nuclear fuel nor, I suspect, is there nuch new I could tell you about the technology of its extraction. But for the non-expert among you let me state the basic facts: A large nuclear power reactor consumes several thousand tons of uranium over a thirty-year lifetime. extract that amount of uranium from its ore several million tons of ore have to be processed in uranium mills. The tailings, a sand-like waste material containing almost all of the original ore, are deposited near the mills. ΤΟ |