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 ------- ------- 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. ------- ------- 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 ------- 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 ------- 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 ------- 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 ------- |