Petty Bureaucrats, Rad Waste DIS and Incin.

[10525kfb@ibm.cl.msu.edu (Kristin Erickson)]

Hi, Troops!

About the petty bureaucrats, (and/or fat a-- bean counters in the board
room), this response may provide a solution to some of your problems.  We
avoided these types of problems at Michigan State by completely rewriting
our broad license in 1990, and did not tie down any documents we frequently
revise or would present problems if tied down.  Examples are training
outlines, rad manual, survey forms, etc.  We discussed this with Region III
and provided the information requested with these words in our license "To
be used as information only, not to become part of our license".  This has
worked very well and served both the NRC's need to see our docs, and our
need not to be bound to each word, so that if we change one comma or word,
we have to amend our license.  If you want more specific information, email
me and I'll try to help.

Another topic of discussion, which several of you are inquiring about is
decay in storage and incineration (we dispose of about 3,000 cu. ft of
solid rad waste per year, all the normal broad license nuclides).  We have
been doing both at Michigan State for many years, have no compliance
problems, no storage problems, no mixed waste problems and and very low
cost (¾ $20,000 per year and  one technician's wages).  I have extensive
information on this program, and have spoke at numerous DOE Low Level
Radioactive Waste workshops on Michigan's experiences and solutions to the
problems we are all facing.

We incinerate 14C, 3H, 32P, 33P, 35S, 125I, 51Cr, 45Ca, and a few exotic
nuclides.  All are decayed in storage prior to incineration.

A new piece of information:  Region III inspectors told me during
inspection last week that you can DIS nuclides with ¾120 day half lives,
and I have seen licenses allowing 5 half lives decay and dispose.    

If you would like information on license writing, planning, management,
validation of tag amounts, training, computer tracking (we designed and had
a programmer do a very elegant database for us and it works beautifully),
ash monitoring or anything else, let me know.  Anyone who wants more
information may have it free of charge.  If many of you wish it, I will
post on this board.   

Good luck with all these interesting (har har) challenges.  Some times I
think we all belong to the Radiation Mutual Masochist's Society; because
most of us LIKE this stuff, and even get off on it!!  <grin>

Regards,

Kristin

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Kristin Erickson, Radiation Safety Officer
Office of Radiation, Chemical and Biological Safety
C124 Research Complex-Eng.
Michigan State University
East Lansing, Michigan 48824
Telephone: (517) 355-5008   Fax: (517)353-4871   Email: 10525kfb@msu.edu
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