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Title: Implementation Guide for the Revised Branch Technical Position on Concentration Averaging and Encapsulation - 16021

Conference ·
OSTI ID:22837935
;  [1]
  1. DW James Consulting LLC, 855 Village Center Dr., no. 330, North Oaks, MN 55127 (United States)

As a result of the research begun in 2007 to better understand the bases of the Branch Technical Position (BTP) on 'Concentration Averaging and Encapsulation' and 10 CFR 61 'Licensing Requirements for Land Disposal of Radioactive Waste', EPRI identified three regulatory initiatives that could be pursued to enhance disposal options for the industry. These initiatives directly follow the NRC strategic assessment. The first was to revise the BTP to allow broader blending of compatible waste types. The second was to examine how 10 CFR 61.58 'Alternative requirements for waste classification and characteristics' could be used to allow for an alternative disposal criterion based on site-specific hydro-geological characteristics and end land use scenarios. And, the third is to develop a technical basis for risk informed disposal regulations in anticipation of a 10CFR 61 rulemaking. By the summer of 2015 these initiatives had been broadly addressed and resulted in the NRC issuing Revision 1 to the BTP in February of 2015. Revision 1 of the BTP (BTP 2015) is a significant re-write of the draft issued in May 2012 and a significant improvement over the 1995 BTP (BTP 1995). The NRC has altered many of the positions in the interest of clarification. The development of an Implementation Guide for applying BTP 2015 to industry-specific waste streams that is vetted and supported by a EPRI sponsored working group consisting of industry participants (including utilities, disposal sites, NRC and Agreement State representatives and industry experts) will ensure compliant and consistent application during waste generation, packaging, processing and disposal activities. The Implementation Guide will provide for a comparison to previous BTP guidance and provide clarification and common understanding of the key concepts contained within the revised BTP. These include averaging constraints, hot spots, waste streams, waste types, discrete items, blending, solidification, encapsulation and alternative approaches. EPRI plans to publish the BTP Implementation Guide in the second quarter of 2016 and it will be available to the public. (authors)

Research Organization:
WM Symposia, Inc., PO Box 27646, 85285-7646 Tempe, AZ (United States)
OSTI ID:
22837935
Report Number(s):
INIS-US-19-WM-16021; TRN: US19V1128083290
Resource Relation:
Conference: WM2016: 42. Annual Waste Management Symposium, Phoenix, AZ (United States), 6-10 Mar 2016; Other Information: Country of input: France; 11 refs.; available online at: http://archive.wmsym.org/2016/index.html
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English