EPA402-R-97-013
October 1997
Docket A-93-02
Item III-B-2
COMPLIANCE APPLICATION REVIEW DOCUMENTS
FOR THE CRITERIA FOR THE CERTIFICATION
AND RE-CERTIFICATION OF THE
WASTE ISOLATION PILOT PLANT'S
COMPLIANCE WITH THE
40 CFR PART 191 DISPOSAL REGULATIONS:
PROPOSED CERTIFICATION DECISION
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Office of Radiation and Indoor Air
Washington, D.C. 20460
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Introduction
The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) is a potential permanent repository for transuranic
radioactive waste that is being constructed by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) near
Carlsbad, New Mexico. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is required by Section
8(d) of the WIPP Land Withdrawal Act (WIPP LWA) of 1992 (Pub. L. 102-579, as amended by
the 1996 WIPP LWA Amendments, Pub. L. 104-201) to evaluate whether the WIPP will comply
with subparts B and C of 40 CFR part 191 — known as the "disposal regulations" — and to issue
or deny a certification of compliance. DOE is required by the WIPP LWA to submit an
application to EPA that will be the basis of EPA's evaluation of whether a certification of the
WIPP's compliance with the disposal regulations should be issued. DOE submitted this
application on October 29, 1996, as announced by EPA in an Advance Notice of Proposed
Rulemaking on November 15, 1996 (61 FR 58499). DOE may not begin to emplace transuranic
waste for disposal at the WIPP until such time as EPA has issued a final certification of
compliance and all other requirements of section 7(b) of the WIPP Land Withdrawal Act have
been satisfied.
EPA's Compliance Criteria at 40 CFR part 194 implement and interpret the radioactive
waste disposal regulations at 40 CFR part 191 expressly for the WIPP. These criteria are the
measures against which EPA determines whether the WIPP will comply with the disposal
regulations. In the event that the WIPP is opened to receive waste, the Compliance Criteria also
apply to the periodic recertification by EPA of the WIPP's continued compliance with the disposal
regulations, as established by section 8(f) of the WIPP Land Withdrawal Act. The Secretary of
Energy must submit documentation of the WIPP's continued compliance with the disposal
regulations to the Administrator of EPA every five years after the initial receipt of transuranic
waste for disposal at the WIPP, until the end of the decommissioning phase.
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About This Document
This document is composed of twenty one Compliance Application Review Documents
(CARDs). The CARDs contain separate, individual analyses; they have been bound together
solely for convenience. Pages are numbered so that readers may identify the CARD they are
reading. For example, page 23-100 is page 100 of CARD 23, page 24-22 is page 22 of CARD
24, etc. There is a CARD for each section of the Compliance Criteria for which EPA conducted
an independent analysis (e.g., CARD 23 discusses the requirements of 40 CFR 194.23, Models
and Computer Codes). These sections are listed below:
194.14 Content of Compliance Application
194.22 Quality Assurance
194.23 Models and Computer Codes
194.24 Waste Characterization
194.25 Future State Assumptions
194.26 Expert Judgment
194.27 Peer Review
194.31 Applicability of Release Limits
194.32 Scope of Performance Assessments
194.33 Consideration of Drilling Events in
Performance Assessments
194.34 Results of Performance Assessments
194.41 Active Institutional Control s
194.42 Monitoring
194.43 Passive Institutional Controls
194.44 Engineered Barriers
194.45 Consideration of the Presence of
Resources
194.46 Removal of Waste
194.51 Consideration of Protected
Individual (combined with 194.52)
194.52 Consideration of Exposure
Pathways
194.53 Consideration of Underground
Sources of Drinking Water
194.54 Scope of Compliance Assessments
194.55 Results of Compliance Assessments
The purpose of the CARDs is to explain the technical basis for EPA's compliance
determination for each of the Compliance Criteria. Taken as a whole, the CARDs are analagous
to the Background Information Document usually provided for EPA rulemakings. All CARDs
follow the same format. For each criterion (e.g., 40 CFR 194.14(a)(l)), a CARD contains: (1) a
background section (if appropriate); (2) an abstract; (3) an explanation of EPA's criteria for
determining DOE's compliance with the requirement; (4) a review of DOE's approach to
demonstrating compliance; and (5) a discussion of EPA's compliance review and the basis for
EPA's proposed compliance decision. Each CARD also contains a list of references and EPA's
responses to public comments that pertain to the subject in question. These public comments
were solicited by EPA in an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, published in the Federal
Register on November 15, 1996.
Where more than one CARD addresses the same topic, EPA has not attempted to
reproduce all relevant information in multiple CARDs. Instead, the CARDs indicate when a
reader should refer to another CARD for certain information. Certain CARDs are supported by
EPA Technical Support Documents that contain more detailed information concerning specific
compliance issues. The CARDs contain references to these Technical Support Documents, as
well as to EPA audit reports and other materials contained in EPA's Air Docket A-93-02.
in
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Certain CARDs also refer to documents that are not kept in Docket A-93-02. A memorandum
explaining how such documents may be obtained is located in Docket A-93-02 as Item III-B-1.
This memorandum includes an attachment that lists all references cited by EPA in CARDs and
Technical Support Documents. Finally, the list below identifies the item numbers of several
frequently referenced documents that may be found in EPA dockets.
40 CFR Part 194 Final Rule: Docket A-92-56, Item V-A-1
40 CFR Part 194 Response to Comments Document: Docket A-92-56, Item V-C-1
40 CFR Part 194 Compliance Application Guidance Document: Docket A-93-02, Item II-B-29
DOE Compliance Certification Application (CCA): Docket A-93-02, Item II-G-01
IV
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List of Abbreviations
AEA Atomic Energy Act
ANPRM Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking
ASME American Society of Mechanical Engineers
ASTP Actinide Source Term Program
BID Background Information Document
BIR Baseline Inventory Report
BLM Bureau of Land Management
CA Compliance Assessment
CAG Compliance Application Guidance
CAO Carlsbad Area Office
CARD Compliance Application Review Document
CCA Compliance Certification Application
CCDF Complementary cumulative distribution functions
CERCLA Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act
CFR Code of Federal Regulations
CH-TRU Contact-handled transuranic waste
DOE U.S. Department of Energy
DOT U. S. Department of Transportation
DQO Data quality objective
EATF Engineered Alternatives Task Force
EEG Environmental Evaluation Group
EPA U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
FEIS Final Environmental Impact Statement
FR Federal Register
HLW High-level radioactive waste
HSWA Hazardous and Solid Waste Amendments
ICRP International Commission on Radiological Protection
INEEL Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory
LANL Los Alamos National Laboratories
LHS Latin hypercube sampling
LLNL Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
LLW Low-level radioactive waste
LWA Land Withdrawal Act
MCL Maximum contaminant level
MOU Memorandum of Understanding
NACEPT National Advisory Council on Environmental Policy
NAS National Academy of Sciences
NAS-NRC National Research Council
NDA Nondestructive Assay
NMAG New Mexico Attorney General
NMED New Mexico Environment Department
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NPRM
NRC
ONWI
ORNL
PA
PAVT
PDF
PRP
QA
QAO
QAP
QAPD
QAPP
QAPjP
RCRA
RFETS
RH-TRU
RTC
RTR
SAR
SDWA
SKI
SNL
SRS
SWDA
IDS
TRU
TRU QAPD
TSCA
TSD
UMTRCA
USDW
USGS
VE
VOC
WAC
WID
WIPP
WTAC WIPP
WTWBIR
Notice of Proposed Rulemaking
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Office of Nuclear Waste Isolation
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Performance assessment
Performance Assessment Verification Test
Performance Demonstration Program
Peer Review Panel
Quality assurance
Quality assurance objective
Quality assurance program
Quality Assurance Program Description
Quality Assurance Program Plan
Quality Assurance Project Plan
Resource Conservation and Recovery Act
Rocky Flats Environmental Technology Site
Remote-handled transuranic waste
Response to Comments Document
Real time radiography
Safety Analysis Report
Safe Drinking Water Act
Swedish Nuclear Power Inspectorate
Sandia National Laboratories
Savannah River Site
Solid Waste Disposal Act
Total dissolved solids
Transuranic
Transuanic Waste Characterization Quality Assurance Program Document
Toxic Substances Control Act
Technical Support Document
Uranium Mill Tailings Radiation Control Act
Underground source of drinking water
U.S. Geological Survey
Visual examination
Volatile organic compound
Waste Acceptance Criteria
Waste Isolation Division
Waste Isolation Pilot Plant
Technical Support Contractor
WIPP Transuranic Waste Baseline Inventory Report
VI
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