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Home My WebLink AboutDRC-2015-007771 - 0901a0688059482bDiv of Waste Management and Radiation Control ENERGYFUELS NOV - 2 2015 Energy Fuels Resources (USA) Inc. 225 Union Blvd. Suite 600 Lakewood, CO, US, 80228 303 974 2140 www.energvfuels.com October 29, 2015 Sent VIA E-MAIL AND OVERNIGHT DELIVERY Mr. Scott Anderson Director of Division of Waste Management and Radiation Control State of Utah Department of Environmental Quality 195 North 1950 West P.O. Box 144880 Salt Lake City, UT 84114-4880 Re: Follow-up to Discussion Regarding Licensee-to-Licensee Transfer of Source Material at Energy Fuels Resources (USA) Inc.'s ("EFRI's") White Mesa Mill, State of Utah Radioactive Materials License No. UT1900479 Dear Mr. Anderson: This letter is a follow-up to discussions between EFRI and the Division of Waste Management and Radiation Control ("DWMRC") regarding EFRI's intent to receive yellowcake slurry from Energy Fuels' Nichols Ranch In-Situ Recovery ("ISR") Project ("Nichols Ranch") located in Wyoming (U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission ("NRC") License No. SUA-1597 held by EFRI's affiliate Uranerz Energy Corporation) for final processing at the White Mesa Mill (the "Mill"). Under the intended activity, yellowcake slurry will be transferred from Nichols Ranch to the Mill pursuant to 10 CFR 40.51 and the Mill's License as a licensee-to-licensee transfer of source material. The purpose of this letter is to advise DWMRC of this activity and to provide details on the mode of transportation, receipt and processing at the Mill, and disposal of 1 le.(2) byproduct material, as described below. Transportation The Nichols Ranch processing facility is located in the Pumpkin Buttes Mining District of the Powder River Basin in Johnson and Campbell Counties, which is approximately 700 miles by road to the Mill. Yellowcake slurry will be transported from Nichols Ranch to the Mill by truck and trailer using a Uranium Slurry Hauling System (U.S. Pat. No. 4,395,052). The trucks will travel on State roads and interstate highways, using the same or similar routes as the trucks that currently transport 1 le.(2) byproduct material from Nichols Ranch for disposal at the Mill under the Mill's existing License condition 10.5. Letter to S. Anderson October 29, 2015 Page 2 of 4 Each shipment of yellowcake slurry is expected to contain approximately 20,000 to 24,000 pounds of yellowcake (as uranium oxide or U3O8 equivalent). As part of the intended activity, the Mill would receive approximately 15 to 25 shipments of yellowcake slurry per year, which is equivalent to approximately 300,000 to 600,000 pounds of dried, packaged yellowcake (as U308 equivalent) per year. The Mill is currently licensed to produce up to 4380 tons (approximately 8,000,000 pounds) of yellowcake per year. An average truck shipment of dried yellowcake from the Mill, typically contains 40 drums or up to 19 tons of yellowcake (as U3O8 equivalent). At full operation, the Mill will ship approximately 210 truckloads of dried yellowcake product to the conversion facility per year. At recent operation levels of approximately one million pounds of yellowcake (as U3O8 equivalent) per year, the Mill has shipped approximately 26 truckloads of dried yellowcake per year. The number of trucks (15 to 25 per year) associated with transporting the yellowcake slurry will be much less (approximately 85 times less) than the number of trucks required to transport the quantity of ore needed to produce the same mass of yellowcake slurry. Further, the number of trucks (8 to 16 per year) required to transport the dried, packaged yellowcake from the Mill would be the same as required to transport dried yellowcake produced from processing natural ores or any other feed material from the Mill. Existing regulations (e.g., 10 CFR 71 and 49 CFR 171-189) regulate the shipment of source material, including the shipment of yellowcake slurry between Nichols Ranch and the Mill. The NRC has concluded that "The effects of accidents involving wet yellowcake would be considerably less than those involving yellowcake dust.... because the material would be incapable of becoming airborne as dry dust.... Sufficient statistical data are not available for a quantitative analysis of the consequences of such an accident. However, the consequences would likely be considerably lower than those estimated for the shipment of dry concentrate." NUREG-1508, Final Environmental Impact Statement to Construct and Operate the Crownpoint Uranium Solution Mining Project, Crownpoint, New Mexico page 4-70 (see also NUREG-0706, Final Generic Environmental Impact Statement on Uranium Mining page 7-11, and NUREG-6733, A Baseline Risk-Informed, Performance-Based Approach for In Situ Leach Uranium Extraction Licensees pages 4-55 and 5-6, for similar statements by the NRC). As the number of slurry trucks (15 to 25 per year) combined with the number of additional yellowcake product trucks (8 to 16 per year for a total of 23 to 41 per year) required to transport the produced yellowcake product to the conversion facility, combined with the current operations of approximately 26 truckloads of dried yellowcake per year, will be well within the number of yellowcake product trucks contemplated for the Mill at full operation of approximately 210, the transportation of yellowcake slurry to the Mill and resulting yellowcake product from the Mill will fall well within the safety and environmental review envelope previously analyzed for the Mill. 2 Letter to S. Anderson October 29, 2015 Page 3 of 4 Receipt The first paragraph and Conditions 6, 7, and 8 of the Mill License allow EFRI to "transfer, receive, possess and use" "Natural Uranium" in "Any" form with an "Unlimited" quantity at any one time. Receipt of yellowcake slurry would be a licensee-to-licensee transfer of source material to the Mill under 10 CFR 40.51(5) because the Mill is "authorized to receive such source or byproduct material" under terms of the Mill License, which is "a specific license or a general license or their equivalents issued by the Commission or an Agreement State;" as required by that regulation. Processing Upon receipt, EFRI plans to feed yellowcake slurry directly into the Mill at the Precipitation and Thickening stage of the process circuit. Should the yellowcake slurry need to be stored at the Mill prior to processing, it would remain in the shipment containers (i.e., slurry tanks) and be stored on the Ore Storage Pad. Once the yellowcake slurry is added to the process circuit, final processing will not result in any changes from the process conditions or configurations that are already in use at the Mill. Further, the processing of yellowcake slurry from Nichols Ranch, which will result in a maximum production amount of approximately 600,000 pounds of yellowcake per year, will not cause the Mill to exceed the License production limit of 4380 tons (approximately 8,000,000 pounds) of yellowcake per year. Disposal As the yellowcake slurry will be transferred and received at the Mill as a licensee-to-licensee transfer of source material for further processing into dried, packaged yellowcake, the wastes associated with processing of the yellowcake slurry are considered 1 le.(2) byproduct material and will be disposed of in the Mill's tailings cells. The NRC has concluded that source material may be transferred from one licensee to another as part of the uranium milling process and that the wastes generated at each licensed facility qualify as 1 le.(2) byproduct material.1 . 1 The NRC has concluded that drying and packaging yellowcake in these types of circumstances is uranium milling and that the resulting wastes are 1 le.(2) byproduct material. In Staff Requirements - SECY—02—0095 - Applicability of Section lle.(2) of the Atomic Energy Act to Material at the Sequoyah Fuels Corporation Uranium Conversion Facility, a copy of which has been provided to DRC in the past, NRC concluded that wastes generated at the front end of the Sequoyah Fuels Corporation conversion facility ("SFC") that resulted from the further concentration and purification of yellowcake that it had received from uranium mills can be classified as 1 le.(2) byproduct material. In that decision, the Commission accepted NRC Staff's position that "The staff has not found it necessary to label the feed for each step of the milling process as "ore" as the basis for classifying the waste from that step as 1 le.(2) byproduct material. When yellowcake underwent additional concentration at the front end of SFC, it was a continuation of uranium milling, i.e., another step of the milling process. Thus, that part of the processing at a conversion facility fulfills the "extraction or concentration" terms of lle.(2) byproduct material" (see Policy Issue (Notation Vote) SECY-02-0095, page 3). The Nichols Ranch facility does not have a drying and packaging circuit, and therefore must send its yellowcake slurry to the Mill or to another licensed facility to perform this final stage of uranium milling. As indicated by NRC Staff, and 3 Letter to S. Anderson October 29, 2015 Page 4 of 4 Conclusions The yellowcake slurry can be received at the Mill as a licensee-to-licensee transfer of source material under 10 CFR 40.51(5) and the existing Mill License. The yellowcake slurry can be fed directly into the Mill's process circuit and processed utilizing existing equipment into dried, packaged yellowcake with no changes to the Mill's process conditions or configurations needed. All wastes generated from the processing of yellowcake slurry can be disposed of in the Mill's tailings cells as 1 le.(2) byproduct material. As the processing of yellowcake slurry does not conflict with any requirements in the Mill License and is consistent with the safety and environmental review envelope previously analyzed for the Mill, an amendment to the License is not required. Please let me know if you have any questions or require any further information regarding the foregoing. You can reach me at 303-389-4132 or Kathy Weinel at 303-389-4134. ENERGY FUELS RESOURCES (USA) INC. Scott A Bakken Sr. Director, Regulatory Affairs ec: David C. Frydenlund Harold R. Roberts William Paul Goranson Kathy Weinel David E. Turk adopted by the Commission, "[the Office of the General Counsel] has advised the staff that the definitions of uranium milling and 1 le.(2) byproduct material are process-related definitions and not restricted to a particular location of activity nor the physical characteristic of a material" (see Policy Issue (Notation Vote) SECY-02- 0095, footnote 2). In fact, NRC Staff noted a number of circumstances where uranium mills in the past each performed a part only of the uranium milling process and then shipped the resulting produced material or concentrates to another licensed facility for further milling. NRC Staff noted that "[e]ach of these mills and several others accomplished only a portion of the milling process at dispersed locations but were all licensed operations at one time" (see Policy Issue (Notation Vote) SECY-02-0095, Attachment 5: Uranium Milling Activities at Sequoyah Fuels Corporation, page 2). Drying and packaging the Nichols Ranch yellowcake slurry at the Mill is therefore another step of the uranium milling process, and all wastes associated with such milling are classified as 1 le.(2) byproduct material and can be disposed of in the Mill's tailings cells. Sincerely, 4