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Commissioners Fight to Keep Safer Radioactive Waste Disposal Rules

4/24/2020

 
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For four years, the Board of County Commissioners of Richland County (Duane Mitchell, Loren H. Young, and Shane Gorder) have been in the fight to protect us from the risks of radioactive waste material. The material is called TENORM, an acronym meaning "technologically enhanced naturally occurring radioactive material." In our area, the very great bulk of this material is a solid waste produced in oil and gas development.

The agency that regulates disposal of TENORM in Montana is the Department of Environmental Quality. The DEQ began ordinary administrative rulemaking procedures in 2016 to establish rules regulating the disposal in Montana of TENORM waste. Its first set of proposed rules were far looser that neighboring North Dakota. That raised concern about attracting dumping of North Dakota radioactive waste at high levels of radioactivity.

A great deal of public comment was presented to the DEQ. The citizen participation persuaded DEQ to make a major rewrite. DEQ invited and received input from a great variety of people through a host of various channels. It truly became quite a process. Our Commissioners tracked it every step of the way and participated at the key moments when the process provides opportunity. The Commissioners made written comments. Commissioner Shane Gorder and I traveled to Helena to provide oral testimony before a DEQ hearings examiner.

The rewritten proposed rules were much better. We still asked for some additional improvements. The DEQ continued to listen and they made every change we requested. Some of the key changes we supported are:
  • The amendment to establish a maximum disposal site acceptance concentration of 50 pCi/g for all TENORM waste, rather than 200 pCi/g.
  • The amendment to establish a disposal site gate screening level of 100 microroentgen per hour (µR/hr), excluding background, rather than 200 µR/hr.
  • The amendment to require that a TENORM waste management system stop accepting TENORM waste in the event the total effective dose equivalent (TEDE) contributed by the TENORM waste management system exceeds 100 millirem per year (mrem/y), excluding background radiation, for a hypothetical member of the public who is at the boundary continuously with no shield for a year, and to continue non-acceptance of TENORM waste until the exceedance has been remedied.
The Commissioners made the following statement in a written public comment dated March 2, 2020:​
The Board agrees with the multiple rationales of the department for reducing the maximum acceptance concentration to 50 pCi/g and reducing the gate screening level to 100 µR/hr. The Board lays special stress on providing consistency with how neighboring states, particularly North Dakota, are regulating or plan to regulate TENORM waste. Richland County shares a border with the State of North Dakota. Interstate commerce between Richland County and North Dakota is vigorous. Allowing a maximum acceptance concentration above the 50 pCi/g that North Dakota allows would make Richland County a magnet for dumping hot loads from North Dakota suspected of being above the North Dakota maximum acceptance concentration. Reducing the maximum acceptance concentration to the same level as North Dakota helps prevent Richland County from becoming a target for dumping the worst TENORM waste.
​The Department exhibited exemplary sensitivity to the safety interests of local government. For example, I requested an addition to the spill reporting requirements, as follows:
​A person who spills TENORM waste and a person who transports TENORM waste for processing or disposal that is spilled for any reason during transport shall as soon as practically possible report the spill to the county coordinator of disaster and emergency services for the county where the spill occurs.
This will allow local DES to alert local government responders that they are responding to a TENORM area. Responders such as EMTs, fire fighters, deputy sheriffs, and DES personnel would have no other way of knowing since there is no requirement that TENORM be placarded in transportation. The Department listened, assimilated the comment and explanation, and they responded with an amendment to the proposed rules.

The Commissioners had everything going our way, but then suddenly this week, somehow an item got placed on the agenda of the Environmental Quality Council for April 27, 2020.

That is short notice.

The agenda items says, verbatim:​
​2:10 p.m. Proposed radioactive waste rule
   •  Background -- DEQ
   •  EQC options -- Joe Carroll, EQC attorney
   •  Public comment
   •  Questions/discussion -- EQC
   •  Committee action, if any
That is vague. What is happening, and how did that get onto the agenda? Talk to different people who have been involved these past four years and you will hear different answers. It looks like it could be an attempt by someone to derail the administrative rulemaking process, paralyze that process, and open Montana to new radioactive waste sites where hot loads of radioactive waste from out of state would be dumped, escaping the tighter regulations of the states where the waste originates.

It will be interesting and quite important to see how the hearing before the EQC unfolds this coming week. The Commissioners maintain their vigil and are still in the fight. They have filed a written public comment and have signed up for links to the video conference of the hearing that would let them make oral public comment should that become necessary.

Following is a copy of the public comment they have filed with the Environmental Quality Council dated April 21, 2020.
Following is a copy of the public comment the Commissioners filed March 2, 2020 before the DEQ supporting the DEQ's responsive improvement of the proposed rules.
Following is a copy of the draft agenda that tells you the email address to make your own comment, and how you can connect into the hearing to listen and, should you chose, make oral public comment.

Presenting with DES Coordinator Debra Gilbert at Emergency Management Forum

5/18/2019

 
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Debra Gilbert, Disaster and Emergency Services Coordinator, and I were privileged to be presenters at the Emergency Management Forum in Helena at the beginning of this month.
 
The Forum is organized by the Montana Department of Military Affairs, Disaster and Emergency Services Division. It brings together people working in a wide variety of organizations and roles to provide disaster and emergency services. There were people from all across Montana, from state agencies, from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, from the North Dakota DES, from private relief agencies, and from industry.
 
The Forum was held for 3 days. Debra and I presented on Day 2. The theme of that day was Mutual Aid. I presented a paper that I wrote for the Forum titled, “Guide to Montana Mutual Aid Statutes .” Montana has over a dozen mutual aid statutes, and this has been a source for confusion and obstacles in achieving mutual aid during disasters and emergencies. My presentation surveyed the many statutes and simplified the process of using the right statute in the right way to make mutual aid happen.
 
Debra led a panel discussion on mutual aid, “Neighbors Helping Neighbors.” The discussion was of a very practical, rubber-meets-the-road nature and engaged the Forum with actual real-world examples. The session was especially helpful because, like so many when they first take on DES positions in county government, at first she says she had little idea what she was supposed to do. She charted a course for digging in, discovering the role, forming networks, and making mutual aid happen.
 
Unlike many such meetings, this Forum was productive in that we accumulated a list of action points and projects to pursue. Debra and I are working on interstate mutual aid agreement templates which can be so important to our own county because we are right on the border with North Dakota. We also learned the value of assembling an inventory of disaster and emergency assets for ourselves and to share with neighboring counties and the state DES.

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