&EPA
                      Unrted States
                      Environmental Protector
                      Agency
                        Air Ana Radiation
                        (6602-J)
4G2-F-93-QG8
December 1993
ENVIRONMENTAL
FACT  SHEET
Final Amendments To Environmental Radiation
                            For The                   And
            Of                    Fuel,  High-level And
Transuranic                            (40CFR Part 191)
        INTRODUCTION

              The Environmental Protection Agency -
        (EPA) regulates the release of radioactivity
        from the management, storage, and disposal of
        spent nuclear fuel and other radioactive wastes
        in order to protect public health and the
        environment from the harmful effects of ~
        radiation exposure. On December 3, 1993,
        the EPA Administrator signed the amendments
        to its 40 CFR Pan 191 radioactive waste
        standards.  "Hie standards     limits on
              of radiation from the management,
        storage, and disposal of spent nuclear fuel and
        high-level and transuranie radioactive wastes.

              Sources of spent nuclear fuel include
        fuel discharged from commercial nuclear
        power     and nuclear defense production
        reactors,  High-level radioactive waste is
        created when spent nuclear fuel is reprocessed
        in order to recover unflssiotted uranium and
        plutonium for use in weapons programs.
        Current plans envision it     mixed with a
             form of glass. Most transuranie waste
        consists of     that have become
        contaminated during activities         with
        the production of nuclear weapons, e.g., rags,
        equipment, tools, md contaminated organic or
        inorganic

              These         will apply to the
                   storage, and disposal of
        radioactive     at the Waste Isolation Pilot
        Plant, which the Department of Energy is
        developing in  New Mexico, They will not
        apply, however, to disposal of radioactive
        waste at the proposed Yucca Mountain,
                            Nevada repository, according to the Waste
                            Isolation Pilot Plant Land Withdrawal Act.
                            Yucca Mountain will be addressed in a
                            separate set of standards as required by the
                            Energy Policv Act of 1992.

                                  The amendments address only two
                            disposal provisions of a larger set of standards
                            for the management, storage, and disposal of
                            radioactive wastes.  The Agency originally
                            issued the entire set of standards in 1985,
                            Following a legal challenge to the standards,
                            the court directed EPA to reconsider the
                            disposal provisions. The court left the
                            provisions dealing with management and
                            storage of the wastes intact,

                                  The disposal standards consist of four
                            requirements that are designed to set limits on
                            the      of radiation that may result from
                            the disposal of the wastes. The four types of
                            requirements are;  Containment Requirements;
                            Assurance Requirements; Individual Protection
                            Requirements; and  Ground Water Protection
                            Requirements.

                            THE

                                  In the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant Land
                            Withdrawal Act of 1992      LWA),
                            Congress        all disposal       that
                            the court had not found fault with, i.e., all but
                            the Individual Requirements and the Ground
                            Water Protection Requirements; EPA's
                            amendments       only those two disposal
                            provisions.

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