Low-Level Waste Seminar

By Ken Greer

My overall observation was that the LLW Seminar was a success from the viewpoint that DOE representatives received frequent and specific input from the attendees, and the attendees were able to present their viewpoints to Site-Specific Advisory Board (SSAB) staff from all of the cities located near DOE facilities which are and will generate, treat, store, and dispose of LLW.

Even though some of the representatives from sites did debate whether the assumptions were representative of the expectations of the participants, I suggest that most of the objectives were accomplished. The main DOE objective that is not met is the issuance by DOE Headquarters (HQ), of the Complex-Wide Programmatic Statement and Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for treatment, transport, and disposal of LLW. I suggest a letter be issued by the LOC to DOE-HQ and DOE-Oak Ridge, requesting that the EIS, in whatever format or title that DOE determines is appropriate, be issued by December 1998. Issuance by DOE of an LLW EIS as soon as possible will allow Oak Ridge facilities to move forward in obtaining Nevada Test Site (NTS) certifications for shipment of LLW to NTS, and will allow any special interest groups to challenge the EIS in federal court, if that is the pathway chosen by a special interest group. A newly appointed DOE Secretary may not be pleased, but should be receptive to letters received from numerous SSABs, which suggest expediting the DOE decision process for LLW transport and disposal. Regardless, the SSABs must present the public's preferences, in writing, to DOE to support a record of decision docket that encourages DOE to issue LLW decisions without delay. As is normally done, members of the Tennessee Congressional delegation should be copied on any letter sent to DOE-HQ.

Of the five committees, I participated on the committee considering barriers and suggestions on environmental and safety considerations. The main topics that the committee focused on were:

Lack of Clear Definition and Characterization of LLW throughout the DOE complex, including the subset of mixed LLW;
Clear goals required for minimization of LLW;
Communication required to educate the public of cumulative risks of LLW activities, worker safety and training needs, emergency response training, and LLW shipment scheduling and routing between DOE facilities; and
Emphasis placed that all applicable sites generating and accepting LLW should be proactive in acquiring all relevant environmental permits from state and federal agencies.

Marty Littorno, DOE-HQ, emphasized to me that mixed LLW (i.e., wastes having chemically hazardous and radioactive contamination), are considered by HQ staff as a subset of LLW. I offered to assist Marty and/or Helen Belencan as a technical advisor or stakeholder on any LLW or mixed LLW committees that HQ utilized for development of national policy.

The process in which each SSAB and local oversight representative helped evaluate and rank the suggestions developed by the working groups was informative. Despite the debate within our SSAB and LOC group, I found the process educational while providing us with a perspective of how Oak Ridge representatives evaluate and prioritize each issue on the list of suggestions.

Seventeen suggestions were developed by the five small groups. I suggest that the messages provided to DOE-HQ, during the SSAB comment session and throughout the seminar, were that the stakeholders are extremely anxious for progress to be made by DOE-HQ on issuing a system-wide LLW EIS, they want the initiation of LLW shipments to be allowed between facilities, and they wanted their suggestions to be utilized by DOE-HQ managers, with frequent feedback provided to SSAB members by high-level DOE-HQ managers. It will be interesting to observe whether DOE-HQ utilizes the SSAB comments, or at least provides a written response to each of the major SSAB concerns, in the near future. The major reasons that public interest groups could be successful in future litigation against DOE for LLW decisions are:

DOE does consider and address stakeholder and public comments received;
DOE does not follow the requirements of NEPA for major federal projects; and
DOE does not provide adequate time for stakeholders and the public to provide comments on DOE's LLW system-wide activities?

I provide no suggestions concerning the often-repeated request that DOE move away from self-regulation status concerning LLW, except that neither EPA or NRC has the budget, staff, or interest in regulating an additional waste category that has not been authorized by Congress to be a proper task of either federal agency. The Heart of America Northwest lobby group should present its suggestions for LLW management to Congress, not DOE. The federal courts can only review litigation from the viewpoint of whether each federal regulatory agency is properly executing the tasks that are delegated to the agency by Congress via a regulatory act. Courts cannot create new agency responsibilities that are not outlined in a regulatory act passed by Congress, or that are not delegated by the Executive branch to a specific agency.

Other reports

Al Brooks
Susan Kaplan
Fay Martin

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