Uranium or Thorium Mill Tailings

Any waste not classified as spent fuel, high-level waste, transuranic waste, or uranium or thorium mill tailings... 

The similarities are of the following kinds. First, neither classification system includes a general class of exempt waste. Second, neither classification system is comprehensive, because the classification system for radioactive waste distinguishes between fuel-cycle and NARM waste and the classification system for hazardous chemical waste excludes many potentially important wastes that contain hazardous chemicals. Third, any waste must be managed and disposed of in a manner that is expected to protect public health and the environment. In addition, the approach to disposal of hazardous chemical waste under RCRA, which emphasizes monitoring of releases from disposal facilities and an intention to maintain institutional control over disposal sites for as long as the waste remains hazardous, is applied to disposal of uranium or thorium mill tailings under AEA. 

EPA regulations developed under AEA specify that operations and closure at uranium or thorium mill tailings sites must conform to RCRA requirements on hazardous waste. These requirements acknowledge the presence of hazardous chemicals in mill tailings, especially heavy metals. 

Some wastes are defined by exclusion (i.e., by what they are not), not on the basis of their properties or associated risks. Low-level radioactive waste is defined as waste that is not high-level waste, spent fuel, transuranic waste, or uranium or thorium mill tailings. Because the excluded wastes are defined by their source, rather than their properties, the definition of low-level waste is not based on properties of the waste and wastes in this class can vary from essentially innocuous to highly hazardous over long time frames. 

The radiation paradigm also is applied to other situations including cleanup of sites contaminated with uranium or thorium mill tailings, mitigation of indoor radon, remediation of elevated levels of naturally occurring radionuclides other than radon, and responses to radiation accidents. In these applications, the maximum acceptable risk has a value in the range of about 10 1 to 10 3 (Kocher, 1999). 

Radioactive wastes that arise from operations of the nuclear fuel cycle are divided into five classes, called spent nuclear fuel, high-level waste, transuranic waste, low-level waste, and uranium or thorium mill tailings. At the present time, NARM wastes are not formally divided into different classes (see Section 4.1.2.4). The division of all radioactive waste into fuel-cycle and NARM waste and the division of fuel-cycle waste into five classes constitutes the basic classification system for radioactive waste in the United States. 

In Clause (A), the byproduct material defined in Section 11(e)(2) of AEA (1954) essentially is uranium or thorium mill tailings. LLRWPAA contains a similar definition, except transuranic waste is not excluded. Thus, the two laws differ in regard to whether transuranic waste is distinct from low-level waste. 

Management and disposal of most uranium or thorium mill tailings are governed by the Uranium Mill Tailings Radiation Control Act of 1978 (UMTRCA, 1978). This Act is concerned with the control and stabilization of mill tailings for protection of public health and the environment. It addresses (1) remedial actions at inactive uranium or thorium processing sites or on properties in the vicinity of... 

Utah, which has a radioactive waste disposal license and a RCRA permit from the state, accepts large volumes of mixed waste containing low concentrations of radionuclides that resembles uranium or thorium mill tailings. 

The previous section mainly considered the considerable impacts of dual regulation of mixed waste on management and disposal of mixed low-level waste. High-level waste, transuranic waste, and uranium or thorium mill tailings also may be subject to dual regulation under AEA (1954) and RCRA (1976). This Section briefly considers the impacts of dual regulation on these wastes. 

Most uranium or thorium mill tailings presumably could be classified as low-hazard waste, but only under conditions of perpetual institutional control over near-surface disposal sites. In the absence... 

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