Mr. DUNLOP. They bought it from the construction company that bought it for fill dirt and was not disallowed that opportunity by the State.

Mr. LUJAN. For $25 an acre, I imagine?

Mr. DUNLOP. No, I do not know what their purchase price was. This was one of the reasons why I think the development-and the Marriott bill and Evans bill correctly stated that the site should be condemned and owned by the State so that there is no windfall profit.

Mr. LUJAN. Only to the State?

Mr. DUNLOP. Except in the Evans bill that windfall profit is to the Federal Government, and it could be in the order of $1 million. Mr. LUJAN. Would you agree if the Federal Government paid for the removal, the land ought to be owned by them?

Mr. DUNLOP. I think the proceeds from it could be. As you know, in the West we are not interested in the Federal Government owning any more of our land. I would be willing to give them the profits from the land.

Mr. LUJAN. You mean sell it to private industry?

Mr. DUNLOP. And reimburse the Federal Government.

Dr. GIBBONS. You mentioned that there would be buildings built there and proceeds would be received. Had this federally caused pile not been there in the past 20 years, this area would be built up a long time ago and we would have realized taxes from the property. There is no way the State could ever recover those losses. Mr. LUJAN. Why do you think Mr. Richards and Mr. Mensch bought this property?

Dr. GIBBONS. Mr. Richards states he was told, as were many people years ago, he could develop on that. He is a land developer, also sells bottled water.

Mr. LUJAN. My point is that, if we remove the tailings it is going to become valuable; that is why they bought it. I am in the real estate business also. You know, I would go over there right now and give him $25 an acre if Uncle is going to clean it up for me. I am just saying everybody ought to put up a little bit; everybody who is going to benefit from this ought to put up a little bit. Dr. GIBBONS. That is in the bill, to make sure nobody benefits excessively from it.

Mr. MURPHY. I might request the gentleman, now that session has commenced, we have a few questions that the Chair, Mr. Udall, wanted to submit to you. We will ask staff to give both Utah and Colorado representatives the questions and ask if you could submit those answers to us in writing as soon as conveniently possible. With that, thank you very much, gentlemen, for participating. Mr. Marriott.

Mr. MARRIOTT. Would you bear with me just 1 minute. Just to delay 1 minute. I see Dr. Vernon Rogers in the audience for Ford, Bacon & Davis, who did all of the individual site assessments. I just wondered if he would like to submit a written statement for the record at this point and if I could just simply ask him one question. That is, do you see any reason to question the existence of other sites that we have not addressed in this bill, the 22 sites?

STATEMENT OF DR. VERNON ROGERS, FORD, BACON & DAVIS

Dr. ROGERS. It is my opinion that we do have knowledge of all of the sites in the inactive mill tailings program of this type. Dr. Liverman recognized and acknowledged that there were other sites, under a different program with different circumstances attached to them, that the Department of Energy is proceeding to investigate and to handle in another manner. There were one or two sites that have not been included in the phase II program, the inactive mill tailings program, at the present time, but that all of these sites are known for various reasons on these others.

Mr. MARRIOTT. I thank you.

Mr. MURPHY. If you would submit anything to us you have, Doctor, it would be most helpful. Thank you very much.

The meeting is adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 12:04 p.m., the subcommittee adjourned.]

URANIUM MILL TAILINGS CONTROL

TUESDAY, JUNE 27, 1978

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND THE ENVIRONMENT, COMMITTEE ON INTERIOR AND INSULAR AFFAIRS, Washington, D.C. The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:50 a.m., in room 1324, Longworth House Office Building, Hon. James Weaver, presiding.

Mr. WEAVER. The Subcommittee on Energy and the Environment will be in session.

This is the subcommittee's second day of hearings on legislation to remedy hazards created by uranium mill tailings. I hope that we can focus today on some issues in the legislation before us which I think need clarifying.

The bills take different approaches toward who or what government-ought to take title to tailings piles after stabilization measures have been completed. Due to the exceedingly long-term nature of the hazard involved with these materials, a proper and responsible agent should be designated as owner to insure that tailings receive appropriate maintenance.

Along these same lines, the subcommittee is interested in assuring that adequate authority exists for regulatory enforcement of standards designed to control the radiological and other hazards in the tailings.

We have witnesses today eminently qualified to address these concerns. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the General Accounting Office both have several years experience with regulation and oversight of uranium mill tailings. We will begin with the regulator, Chairman Joseph Hendrie of the NRC.

Dr. Hendrie, I welcome you to the hearing and look forward to your testimony.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Joseph M. Hendrie may be found in the appendix.]

STATEMENT OF DR. JOSEPH M. HENDRIE, CHAIRMAN, U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION

Chairman HENDRIE. Mr. Chairman, thank you for this opportunity to comment on the legislative proposals to deal with the disposal of uranium mill tailings at inactive ore processing sites.

Before I discuss the Commission's views on the bills now before the subcommittee, I think it would be useful to describe briefly the nature of the potential health hazard associated with uranium mill tailings piles. As a result of many years of uranium ore processing, about 140 million tons of tailings have now accumulated at milling (75)

32-331 - 78 - 6

sites in the Western United States. Unlike high-level radioactive waste from the back end of the nuclear fuel cycle, which contains products of the fission reaction, mill tailings contain only naturally occurring radioactive elements, in small quantities. The radioactive decay of these elements leads to production of radon, a radioactive gas with a half-life of about 4 days, which can diffuse from a tailings pile into the atmosphere and subsequently expose persons to radiation far away from the pile. The increased exposure compared to exposure from radon already in the atmosphere from other sources is exceedingly slight, but this increase is in effect permanent. This is because radon production in mill tailings continues for times on the order of 100,000 years, so the tailings pile becomes a perpetual source injecting a small amount of radon into the atmosphere, unless some action is taken to keep the radon from escaping.

The health effects of the radon production are tiny as applied to any one generation, but the sum of these exposures can be made large by counting far into the future, large enough in fact to be the dominant radiation exposure from the nuclear fuel cycle.

Mr. WEAVER. I don't wish any conversation in the room while the hearing is being conducted. Anyone who does will be asked to leave.

Chairman HENDRIE. Thank you, sir.

Whether it is meaningful to attach significance to radiation exposures thousands of years in the future, or conversely, whether it is justifiable to ignore them, are questions without easy answers. The most satisfactory approach is to require every reasonable effort to dispose of tailings in a way that minimizes radon diffusion into the atmosphere.

Historically, the NRC and its predecessor agency have not had regulatory jurisdiction over uranium mill tailings after mill operations are terminated because the tailings are not themselves licensable material. Regulatory control over tailings is exerted indirectly as part of the Commission's licensing authority over source materials. Therefore, after operations had ceased at the 22 inactive sites being considered and all licensable quantities of source material removed, the Regulatory staff had no further role. In addition, during the 1950's and early 1960's when operations at the sites were phased out, the AEC did not consider that the tailings posed a significant health and safety problem. With the advent of NEPA in 1970, additional authority was provided that enabled operating uranium mill licenses to be conditioned to require proper disposition and stabilization for environmental reasons after operations had ceased. Under this authority, NRC has obtained commitments from currently licensed active uranium mill operators for proper long-term disposition of mill tailings.

The role of the NRC in the evaluation of the 22 inactive sites has been only peripheral. Studies of the inactive mill tailings were initiated as a result of 1974 hearings held by the Subcommittee on Raw Materials of the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy. Through these hearings, Congress assigned responsibility for the studies to the operating arm of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) and its successor ERDA, now the Department of Energy, with a supporting role by EPA and involved States. NRC has concentrated its mill