September 10, 2009, Introduced by Reps. Haines, Kowall, McMillin, Rick Jones, Agema, Wayne Schmidt, Tyler, DeShazor, Proos and Bolger and referred to the Committee on Appropriations.
A bill to amend 1987 PA 204, entitled
"Low-level radioactive waste authority act,"
by amending section 2 (MCL 333.26202), as amended by 1994 PA 434.
THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF MICHIGAN ENACT:
Sec. 2. As used in this act:
(a) "Authority" means the low-level radioactive waste
authority established in section 3.
(b) "Candidate site" means a site designated by the authority
as a possible host site pursuant to section 11.
(c) "Carrier" means a person authorized pursuant to part 137
who is engaged in the transportation of waste by air, rail,
highway, or water.
(d) "Commissioner" means the head of the authority.
(e) "Compact" means a contractual, cooperative agreement among
2 or more states to provide for the disposal of low-level
radioactive waste that is reflected by the passage of statutes by
the participating states.
(f)
"Department" means the department of public health natural
resources.
(g) "Director" means the director of public health.
(h) "Disposal" means the isolation of waste from the biosphere
by emplacement in the disposal site or as otherwise authorized in
section 13709(3) of part 137, MCL 333.13709.
(i) "Disposal site" means a geographic location in this state
upon which the disposal unit and any other structures and
appurtenances are located, the property upon which any monitoring
equipment is located, and the isolation distance from the disposal
unit to adjacent property lines.
(j) "Disposal unit" means the portion of the disposal site
into which waste is placed for disposal.
(k) "Generator" means any person licensed as a generator by
the nuclear regulatory commission and authorized pursuant to part
137 whose act or process results in the production of waste or
whose act first causes waste to become subject to regulation under
part 137 or federal law.
(l) "Groundwater" means water below the land surface in a zone
of saturation.
(m) "Host site" means the candidate site that is designated by
the commissioner as the location for the disposal site in this
state.
(n) "Host site community" means the municipality that is
designated by the commissioner as the host site.
(o) "Institute" means the international low-level radioactive
waste research and education institute.
(p) "Institutional control" means the continued surveillance,
monitoring, and care of the disposal site after site closure and
stabilization
to insure ensure the protection of the public health,
safety, and welfare, and the environment until the contents of the
disposal site no longer have a radioactive content that is greater
than the natural background radiation of the host site as
determined during its site characterization.
(q) "Local monitoring committee" means a committee established
pursuant to section 14 to represent a candidate site.
(r) "Low-level radioactive waste" or "waste" means radioactive
material that consists of or contains class A, B, or C radioactive
waste
as defined by 10 C.F.R. CFR
61.55, as in effect on January
26, 1983, but does not include waste or material that is any of the
following:
(i) Owned or generated by the department of energy.
(ii) Generated by or resulting from the operation or closure of
a superconducting super collider.
(iii) Owned or generated by the United States navy as a result
of the decommissioning of vessels of the United States navy.
(iv) Owned or generated as a result of any research,
development, testing, or production of an atomic weapon.
(v) Identified under the formerly utilized sites remedial
action program.
(vi) High-level radioactive waste, spent nuclear fuel, or
byproduct material as defined in section 11(e)(2) of the atomic
energy
act of 1954, chapter 1073, 68 Stat. 922, 42 U.S.C. USC 2014.
(vii) Contains greater than or equal to 100 nanocuries per gram
of transuranic elements.
(viii) Contains concentrations of radionuclides that exceed the
limits established by the nuclear regulatory commission for class C
radioactive
waste as defined by 10 C.F.R. CFR
61.55, as in effect
January 26, 1983.
(ix) Classified as naturally occurring or accelerator-produced
radioactive materials known as N.A.R.M. waste.
(x) Waste that after December 22, 1987 is determined by the
nuclear regulatory commission to be waste that is beneath
regulatory concern, or B.R.C. waste as defined by the nuclear
regulatory commission, unless the department and the authority
concur with this designation.
(s) "Low-level radioactive waste management fund" or "fund"
means the fund created in section 20.
(t) "Manifest" means a form provided or approved by the
department that is used for identifying the quantity; composition,
including the class, curie count, and radioactive nuclides; origin;
routing; and destination of waste from the point of generation to
the point of processing, collection, or disposal.
(u) "Municipality" means a city, village, township, or Indian
tribe.
(v) "Operation" means the control, supervision, or
implementation of the actual physical activities involved in the
acceptance, storage, disposal, and monitoring of waste at the
disposal site, the maintenance of the disposal site, and any other
responsibility pertaining to the disposal unit and the disposal
site.
(w)
"Part 137" means part 137 of the public health code, Act
No.
368 of the Public Acts of 1978, being sections 333.13701 to
333.13741
of the Michigan Compiled Laws 1978 PA 368, MCL 333.13701
to 333.13741.
(x) "Performance assessment" means an analysis of the
potential pathways for release of waste to the environment and the
potential impacts of a release during the transportation of
radioactive waste to the disposal site and during the handling and
disposal of waste at the disposal site, including, but not limited
to:
(i) A description of the potential pathways for radioactive
nuclide migration beyond the boundaries of the disposal site during
the operation of the site and if there is a release.
(ii) A description of the potential pathways for radioactive
nuclide migration beyond the packaging boundaries if a release
occurs during transportation.
(iii) An analysis of safety factors pertaining to the
transportation of waste.
(iv) The identification of the potential impacts to air,
surface water, and groundwater quality, and vegetation, animals,
and humans, or any other living thing beyond the boundaries of the
disposal site.
(v) A description of potential mechanisms for radioactive
release, including, but not limited to, mechanical failure,
structural failure, and human error.
(y) "Person" means an individual, partnership, cooperative,
association, corporation, receiver, trustee, or assignee.
(z) "Postclosure observation and maintenance" means the
surveillance, monitoring, and maintenance of the disposal site
after it has been closed and continuing through site closure and
stabilization and institutional control.
(aa) "Release" means any intentional or unintentional
spilling, leaking, pumping, emitting, emptying, discharging,
injecting, escaping, leaching, dumping, disposing, or placing of
waste into the environment, except in compliance with all of the
following:
(i) Part 137 and the rules promulgated under part 137.
(ii) The rules promulgated under part 135 of the public health
code,
Act No. 368 of the Public Acts of 1978, being sections
333.13501
to 333.13536 of the Michigan Compiled Laws 1978 PA 368,
MCL 333.13501 to 333.13536.
(iii) A permit or license issued pursuant to federal law, if the
person who is responsible for the release holds such a permit or
license.
(iv) A permit or license issued pursuant to part 137, if the
person who is responsible for the release holds such a permit or
license.
(v) The rules promulgated under this part.
(bb) "Remedial actions" means those actions taken in the event
of a radioactive release or threatened release into the environment
to prevent or minimize the radioactive release so that it does not
migrate and cause significant danger to the present or future
public health, safety, or welfare, or to the environment. Remedial
action includes, but is not limited to, actions at the location of
the release such as storage, confinement, perimeter protection
which may include using dikes, trenches, and ditches, clay cover,
neutralization, dredging or excavation, repair or replacement of
leaking containers, collection of leachate and runoff, efforts to
minimize the social and economic harm of processing, provision of
alternative water supplies, and any required monitoring to assure
that the actions taken are sufficient to protect the public health,
safety, and welfare, and the environment.
(cc) "Site characterization" means the site specific
investigation of a candidate site undertaken pursuant to section
12.
(dd) "Site closure and stabilization" means the actions taken
at the disposal site during the time period after the closure of
the disposal unit during which on-site low-level radioactive waste
is disposed in accordance with part 137, equipment is dismantled,
decontaminated, removed for reuse or disposed of, and radioactive
residues are removed from, or properly isolated on, the disposal
site in preparation for transfer of ownership of the disposal site
to the federal government.
Enacting section 1. This amendatory act does not take effect
unless Senate Bill No. 807 or House Bill No.____ (request no.
04046'09) of the 95th Legislature is enacted into law.