NRC Decom Rule-WashPost Article

[Duane Schmidt <DWS2@nrc.gov>]

The following article is from this morning's (5/22/97) Washington Post. Yes, the last
paragraph is as written in the article, though the EPA actually does not recommend a
"minimum" of 4 mrem. I downloaded this from the Post's web site
(www.washingtonpost.com).

WashPost>>>>>
NRC to Ignore EPA Urging on Radiation Levels

Associated Press
Thursday, May 22 1997; Page A15
The Washington Post 

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will allow radiation levels at the sites of
dismantled nuclear power plants to be higher than the level recommended by the
Environmental Protection Agency.

The NRC, in announcing its rule yesterday, also did not set radiation levels in ground
water, which the EPA had urged the agency to do.

With a growing number of operating licenses expected to expire in the coming
decade, the nuclear industry has been awaiting federal standards that would direct
how clean reactor sites must be left, once a plant is dismantled.

There are 19 reactor licenses scheduled to expire over the next 15 years. Many
utilities, however, are likely to mothball closed power plants for a number of years
before dismantling them.

The NRC said that radiation levels at unrestricted reactor sites -- land that would be
free for any uses -- must be decontaminated so the property "will be as far below 25
millirems per year as is reasonably achievable." By comparison, a person receives
2.5 millirems during a cross-country airline flight. Exposure from natural radiation is
about 300 millirems per year, according to the NRC.

The EPA had urged the NRC to adopt a 15 millirems-a-year maximum and had
recommended that the agency establish a requirement for a minimum of 4 millirems
contamination in ground water.

# Copyright 1997 The Associated Press
<<<<<

Duane Schmidt
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission
e-mail: dws2@nrc.gov

standard disclaimer