Final 40 CFR 40 Ruling on Environmental Radiation Protection Standards for Management and Disposal of Spent Nuclear Fuel , High-Level and Transuranic Radioactive Wastes

The disposal and siting of hazardous and radioactive wastes has created numerous problems for decision-makers in the field of waste management. The social/political problems have proven to be some of the most difficult to solve. Public knowledge of the presence of hazardous and radioactive waste sites has grown considerably in recent years. Over the same period, the process of choosing new disposal sites has attracted a great deal of publicity.

The Clinch River MRS Task Force was appointed in July 1985 by the Roane County Executive and the Oak Ridge City Council to evaluate the Monitored Retrievable Storage (MRS) facility proposed by the Department of Energy to be constructed in the Roane County portion of Oak Ridge. After several months of study, numerous public meetings, site visits to relevant facilities, and careful evaluation of the integrated MRS concept, it is the considered opinion of the Task Force that the facility could be safely build and operated in Roane County/Oak Ridge.

The Director, Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management (OCRWM), Department of Energy (DOE), has identified the Clinch River Breeder Reactor site, the DOE Oak Ridge Reservation and the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) Hartsville Nuclear Plant site as preferred and alternative sites, respectively, for development of site-specific designs as part of the proposal for construction of an integrated Monitored Retrievable Storage (MRS) Facility. The proposal, developed pursuant to Section 141(b) of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982, will be submitted to Congress in January 1986.

The Crystalline Repository Project (CRP) of the Department of Energy's Civilian Radioactive Waste Management Program is responsible for identifying sites which could be considered by the Department for construction and operation of the second deep geologic repository for permanent disposal of high-level radioactive waste. The CRP is currently evaluating exposed and near surface crystalline rock bodies in three geographic regions in an effort to identify potentially suitable rock bodies for continued evaluations and eventual field investigations.

Press Release - Three potential candidate sites for a facility to handle, package and temporarily store spent nuclear fuel have been identified by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). If approved by Congress, the facility would receive spent fuel from commercial nuclear power plants nationwide and package it for delivery to a permanent repository for final disposal.

Department of Interior Comments on Environmental Assessments for Nuclear Waste Repositories at the Deaf Smith and Swisher County Sites, Texas