Critical Comments on the US EPA Standard 40 CFR 191

This paper is about the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) &quot;Environmental Standards for the Disposal of Spent Nuclear Fuel, High-Level and Transuranic Wastes, &quot; 40 CFR 191. These standards regulate the disposal of radioactive wastes in geologic repositories. Currently, two repository sites are under investigation: the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) site, located near Carlsbad, New Mexico, may become the repository for defense-generated transuranic waste (TRU); and the Yucca Mountain site, located near Las Vegas, Nevada, may become the repository for spent reactor fuel and a small amount of reprocessing waste (hereinafter called high-level radioactive waste or HLW). The paper was written for readers who have an interest in 40 CFR 191 but do not have the time or inclination to ponder the technical details.<br><br>Since their inception in 1982, the standards have been criticized by, among others, the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board, the Edison Electric Institute, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste, the National Academy of Sciences, the national laboratories and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). Despite repeated appeals, the EPA still maintains that a geologic repository can be proven to cause no more than 1,000 fatalities to 10 billion people in 10,000 years. No industry on earth aspires to such a lofty goal; nor is such a goal even measurable.<br><br>This paper continues the criticism but from a slightly different perspective. To reach a more general audience, our style, tone and analogies differ from what one may find in a purely technical document. We concentrate almost entirely on the containment requirements at 40 CFR 191.13. These requirements limit the probabilities with which a repository s release can exceed a certain number of curies. This paper refers to the containment requirements in a less precise but simpler way; we call them &quot;release limits, &quot;standards &quot; or &quot;rule. &quot; Finally, we examine the financial losses should the Yucca Mountain or WIPP sites fail to comply with the standards. Past reviews alluded to these losses but did not fully examine them.<br><br>We had just finished a preliminary draft of this paper when Congress passed the Energy Policy Act of 1992 (P.L. 102-486). It directs the EPA to &quot;prescribe the maximum annual effective dose equivalent to individual members of the public from releases to the accessible environment from radioactive materials stored or disposed of in the repository [at Yucca Mountain] &quot; (Section 801(a)(1)). The law also directs the EPA to consult the National Academy of Sciences on, among other topics, whether institutional controls would prevent humans from breaching the repository s engineered and natural barriers.<br><br>While encouraging, the law does not specify dose limits. The law promises an objective debate over the feasibility of trying to predict whether humans may disturb a repository. At the same time the law introduces a new debate over the feasibility of institutional controls that would prevent disturbances. Given these uncertain outcomes, we felt compelled to complete this paper. Perhaps our arguments will convince those who will review the EPA s rulemaking that the standards should be less stringent and that it would be far more difficult to predict human activities than to prevent them.<br>