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SECY-98-025

February 17, 1998

PURPOSE:

On December 11, 1997, the Commission sent a staff requirements memorandum (SRM) (Enclosure 1) in response to SECY-97-242, "Update on the Site Decommissioning Management Plan (SDMP)." In that SRM, the Commission directed the staff to provide the current schedule for developing the regulatory guidance for implementing the final rule on radiological criteria for license termination which the Commission issued on July 21, 1997. The purpose of this memorandum is to respond to that request by providing a discussion of the actions underway to prepare the regulatory guide, the current status of the guide, and a revised schedule.

BACKGROUND:

On December 9, 1996, the Commission directed the staff to provide it with a final rule package on radiological criteria for license termination by the end of February 1997, and to provide it with regulatory guidance documents within 1 year of submitting the final rule to the Commission. In response, on February 21, 1997, the staff sent to the Commission SECY-97-046, "Final Rule on Radiological Criteria for License Termination" (subsequently resubmitted on March 28, 1997, as SECY-97-046A).

Based on its review of SECY-97-46A, the Commission approved, in an SRM dated May 21, 1997, the final rule revising 10 CFR Part 20 to include specific radiological criteria for license termination, subject to incorporation of several specific comments. The Commission also directed the staff to arrange for publication of the rule in the Federal Register. The final rule was published in the Federal Register on July 21, 1997. One of the comments in the May 21, 1997, SRM directed the staff to submit guidance documents to the Commission for review and approval by February 21, 1998.

DISCUSSION:

Activities Undertaken To Develop Guidance

To meet the February 21, 1998, due date, the staff decided to prepare the regulatory guide in four principal modules as follows:

In addition, the staff has sought, and is continuing to seek input from the public and other Federal agencies on each of the modules as it is developed. Specifically, the following activities have been carried out to date in development of the guide:

Status of Regulatory Guide and Basis for the Current Schedule

Each of the guide sections described above presents complexities regarding the implementation of the rule requirements ranging from providing guidance on acceptable deed restrictions for institutional controls to selecting parameters to describe the behavior of an average member of the critical group for dose calculations. Specific information on the development of each module is described below:

As discussed above, significant progress has been made, and we estimate that the following schedule can be met:

To accelerate development of the interim guidance, a concurrent review by all offices will be undertaken. It is expected that several meetings will be held with NMSS and OGC staff during February and March to discuss the guide and to facilitate incorporation of NMSS and OGC comments, as well as those comments received at the public workshops of January 26, February 18, and February 19, 1998. NMSS will review the documents to confirm their utility and clarity. The staff notes that, while this review is sufficient, in the past, NMSS has, on occasion, also reviewed the models themselves. However, resource constraints prevent this detailed review for this product.

This schedule allows for incorporation and inclusion of public input in an interactive manner by holding public workshops and placing the draft guide on the web during development of the guidance (a process that was not envisioned in the original February 1998 schedule). To gain a better understanding of the impact that the guidance may have on licensees, the staff intends to publish these documents as interim guidance, and to specifically request comment from licensees and the public as they begin to implement the rule. This comment period would be for up to 1 year following publication, at which point, we would make any necessary revisions and publish the guidance in final form.

Enclosure: As stated

IN RESPONSE, PLEASE
REFER TO M971029B

December 11, 1997

This is to advise you that the Commission has not approved the staff's proposal to phase out use of the SDMP terminology. The staff should continue to issue the SDMP report. If the staff would like to transition the SDMP program into a comprehensive decommissioning management program to encompass all sites, a detailed transition plan should be provided for Commission approval. The information should include the status of the guidance documents that would be needed after the transition. The staff should also address how the concerns identified in the May 1989 General Accounting Office report entitled, "NRC's Decommissioning Procedures and Criteria Need to Be Strengthened," and those identified during the August 3, 1989, Congressional hearing were resolved.

The staff's description should include, but not be limited to, the following information:

• the impact of the License Termination Rule on the branch technical position that the staff has been developing to screen SDMP sites
• the status of existing guidance and documents, such as the preliminary hazards analysis, Reg. Guide 1.86, and other documents (see for example Attachment 2 to SECY-97-242) when the transition from SDMP to the License Termination Rule is complete
• how sites for which the screening process had already begun will be handled under the License Termination Rule and how sites already released from the SDMP list will measure up to the new criteria contained in the rule in view of the grandfather provisions of the License Termination Rule
• an evaluation of whether the issues identified by the Congress in hearings on site decommissioning which the SDMP was intended to address have been satisfactorily resolved

• the current schedule for developing the associated regulatory guidance for the License Termination Rule
• the resource savings achieved by consolidating the various radiological laboratories in the Regions

The staff should continue to consult with the Commission in cases where a license issued to an SDMP site is proposed to be terminated for unrestricted use and the site does not comply with the release standards identified in the license termination rule.

SECY NOTE: THIS SRM WILL BE MADE PUBLICLY AVAILABLE UPON ISSUANCE. SECY-97-242 WAS RELEASED TO THE PUBLIC AT A COMMISSION BRIEFING ON OCTOBER 29, 1997.