| Marvin Resnikoff, Technical Testimony New Mexico Environment Department
Marvin Resnikoff, Ph.D. Public, parties and Madam Hearing Officer, my name is Marvin Resnikoff and I am testifying on behalf of Citizen Action. Before I give a short commercial message, I wanted to say how humbled and grateful I feel towards the members of the public who have given excellent testimony here yesterday and today. I have been to many public hearings and the statements were truly exceptional. I am the Senior Associate at Radioactive Waste Management Associates, a national firm that provides consultation in radioactive waste and radiation exposure matters, and an international consultant in radioactive waste management issues. I have undergraduate and graduate degrees, including a doctorate, from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor in Physics, focusing in nuclear physics, and I was a Fulbright Scholar researching particle physics in Chile. Over my nearly forty-year career I have provided consultant assistance on a variety of radioactive waste issues, including assessments of dry cask design, high-level nuclear waste transportation accident risk, radiation dose exposure reconstruction, and nuclear power plant decommissioning. We have been involved in every proposed low-level waste facility in the U.S., and also several Superfund sites. In the interests of full disclosure, I should mention that we are conducting a dose reconstruction study at the Homestake Mill west of Albuquerque, and I have worked for the AG's office on issues involving transportation to the WIPP facility. I was appointed by Secretary, now Governor, Richardson to a Blue Ribbon Panel on Alternatives to Incineration of Transuranic Waste. In addition, we have served as peer reviewers for a Fate and Transport study at Brookhaven National Laboratory regarding plutonium in Peconic Bay. We have also peer reviewed a risk assessment study of Los Alamos laboratory. Finally, we released a book on groundwater contamination at Department of Energy facilities, not including Sandia, this past March. My resume was attached to the submitted NOI. Issues The issues I will address today are listed below. In the process of addressing these matters, I will also discuss some of the points raised by Sandia and NMED, since they have discussed our report in their presentations.
I am not a lawyer, but in my view, if a landfill is closed and is not going to be re-opened, then a closure plan is what Sandia should submit. Other waste landfills at Sandia have had closure plans. And many landfills in the DOE complex, similarly old, have had closure plans. In my opinion the streamlined Corrective Measures approach is not an appropriate way to deal with the Mixed Waste Landfill, which is in fact closed and should be required to comply with closure regulations and not merely the interim groundwater standards and truncated risk assessment required for Corrective Measures. A truncated risk assessment does not consider a future residential dose. It is my understanding that Sandia feels that a closure plan is not required, but discretionary, since the landfill was closed prior to the promulgation of regulations requiring a closure plan. That is, Sandia believes it has the legal right not to submit a closure plan. But, in my opinion, legal right and doing the right thing are not the same. The waste has always been hazardous, and the landfill was closed in 1988, after the promulgation of RCRA regulations. NMED has puzzled over this question (Memo, N Persampieri, NMED, to S Dinwiddle, NMED, May 5, 1998) and believes it could require a closure plan Let me put this another way. I find the matter quite perplexing. For the radioactive portion, DOE now has a dose limit for the public of 25 mrem/year from a closed facility and 100 mrem/year for an operating facility. These are the regulations Sandia considers applicable today, not the 500 mrem/year limit in effect previous to 1988. Sandia thus acknowledges the applicability of current regulations for radioactive waste, but not for RCRA hazardous waste. Again, I am not a lawyer, but this is just not right. According to the CMS, the streamlined Corrective Measures approach taken by Sandia can be used for the following:
1) "'Low-risk' facilities where environmental problems are relatively small, and where releases present minimal exposure concerns. I disagree that the MWL is a "low-risk" facility. Although releases of radioactivity to the environment may be minimal at the present time, the extremely long hazardous lives of these materials make it unlikely that releases will never occur or that the site may not have other uses, such as for residences. It is impossible to assure that these releases, when they do occur, will present "minimal exposure concerns," particularly as the landfill contents are not known. If significant levels of contamination were to reach groundwater the populace relying on it would be left without a safe water source in an arid area with growing water shortages. Further, once groundwater becomes contaminated, a large volume of earth between the landfill and groundwater, the vadose zone, will also have become contaminated. In addition, the trend is towards increasing development near the landfill. The MWL is on the southern edge of Albuquerque, a growing city. The MWL is directly south of an area designated "semi-urban" and east of a "major transit center" and a "proposed major activity center". It is 5 miles away from the Albuquerque International Sunport (airport) and approximately two miles from the Journal Amphitheater, a 20,000 seat concert venue. Finally, aside from potential releases, one part of the landfill has direct gamma dose rates of 50 mrem/hour. This is not low risk. 2) Sandia has also argued that a streamlined approach is permissible when remedies are highly protective and consistent with remedial objectives. However, although Sandia is presently guarding the site, it is impossible to predict in the long-term how well administrative controls will be able to protect the site from accidents: a wayward plane landing, misguided digging, inquisitive children, etc. If the public were to be exposed to the waste at the landfill, the consequences could be high. As has already been pointed out by Sandia, some of the pits have high gamma dose rates. Pit 35 has very high direct gamma rates at the surface, 50 millirem per hour (mrem/h). Pit 36 has direct gamma rates of 6 mrem/h; Pit SP-4 has surface direct gamma readings of 0.5 mrem/h. Therefore in my opinion the facility should not be considered "low-risk", or that release of this waste to the environment present "minimal exposure concerns." Considering the risk of exposure, the proposed remedy should not be considered "highly protective." 3) Sandia has also argued that a streamlined approach could be used if straightforward remedial solutions that have proven effective in similar situations are being proposed. Again I disagree and for a similar reason. The solution to the waste problem at the MWL is not "straightforward" as SNL states in the CMS, nor have any of the proposed remedies "proven effective in similar situations." The fact is other landfills at Sandia and at locations with similar hydrology, such as the Beatty, Nevada landfill have leaked. In my view only an excavation strategy will prove effective, as will be discussed later. 4) Sandia has also argued that a streamlined approach is warranted when phased remedies are being proposed where the nature of the environmental problem dictates development of a remedy in phases with follow-up studies as appropriate to deal with remaining remedial needs at the facility. The truth of the matter is that the proposed remedy is not a phased approach and in fact interferes with future options.. If excavation were to be the future approach, the locations of pits and trenches below the proposed landfill cover would have to be identified and a large amount of earth would have to be removed. If a phased approach were in mind then a temporary cover, such as a storage roof to prevent rainfall, would suffice..
Risk Assessment Inadequate The risk assessment in the CMS is inadequate. It fails to consider a sufficiently long-term scenario. The risk assessments for non-excavation alternatives are based on present-day conditions only, denying the possibility that the leakage of waste that has occurred since 1959 might continue over the next several thousand years. The risk assessment was based on soil measurements presented in other documents, including the 1996 Phase 2 RFI. Since Sandia/DOE alleges that no radiological contaminants other than tritium were measured in these boreholes, the concentrations of radiological contaminants measured in surface soil during facility closure were used for plutonium and uranium isotopes. Over the long-term, drums and containers will degrade, and additional contaminants will be released. The MWL inventory includes IX resins, which are not solid but contain water;. For commercial reactors, the IX resins are generally 50% water. Water will accelerate container degradation. It is unscientific to claim that further releases from the MWL are not possible, without additional and convincing analysis. Wastes in the MWL were buried in a variety of forms-some in metal containers, polyethylene bags, fiberboard drums, wooden crates, and cardboard boxes. Obviously these containers will continue to degrade and additional radionuclides may be released into the soil. (CMS, p. 18) A full fate and transport study should have been carried out by Sandia. The Phase 2 report and the CMS make no attempt to estimate future leakage from the landfill. Nor do the reports attempt to assess what risk these future releases would present to the environment and the public. The CMS admits that its risk assessment "does not consider risk posed by organic, inorganic, or radiological constituents present in the MWL inventory that have not been released into the environment." (CMS, p. I-11) Groundwater has been found to be contaminated underneath the MWL. Further groundwater contamination is a strong possibility. Groundwater contamination has occurred at other places within Sandia (chemical waste landfill) as well as in other locations with similarly deep aquifers and dry climates (Beatty, Nevada). Again, Sandia is employing a short-term approach rather than a closure approach. Sandia uses the RESRAD program to analyze the risk of the MWL. I cannot recall a risk assessment we have analyzed where the inputs to this software are not presented. We have reviewed many such risk assessments and run the program ourselves. But as best as we can tell, as reported on p. I-34 and p. I-35, at least for excavation workers and perhaps for future industrial workers, the waste inventory was homogenized in 55,000+ cubic yards of soil, and the worker exposures were determined by assuming contact with this huge volume of soil. RESRAD requires a homogeneous landfill. But, this is not the way a landfill, like the MWL, would be exhumed. These pits would be exhumed using techniques employed at low-level waste landfills. That is, workers would be kept at a distance from the high gamma sources and remote technologies would be used, so worker exposure would be far less than assumed by Sandia. That is, the dose rates to excavation workers would be far below Sandia's estimates. This analysis needs to be redone. But it is not clear what the dose to a future resident might be since Sandia has not carried out the analysis. But if exhumation removed some of these high gamma sources, future residents would not be exposed to the gamma sources and the risk would be reduced. The risk assessment was also based on data that was improperly interpreted. The Phase 2 RFI report dismisses as laboratory mistakes several soil measurements that show high concentrations of radioactivity, the measurements showing extremely low concentrations were not similarly dismissed. (Phase 2 RFI report, p. 4-144) The report claims that the laboratories performing the radioactivity analysis were new to the laboratory protocols and did not produce accurate results. In several cases, samples showing high concentrations of radionuclides were retested and showed lower levels, although the samples initially showing low levels generally were not checked to see if retesting would show higher levels. It is inappropriate to selectively discard data points because of claims of laboratory error. If Sandia believed that the lab testing methods were unreliable, they should have tossed all the samples from that lab, not just the high measurements. The risk assessments for all non-excavation alternatives assume that there is very low uncertainty involved in these Corrective Actions. (CMS, p. I-49) The risk assessments do not consider risks that will occur after institutional controls are removed, claiming that this will never occur. In my opinion, this is a serious mistake. In several cases I have considered (such as the Lake Ontario Ordnance Works Site in upstate New York, U mining sites in Eliot Lake, Canada and Karnes County, Texas), institutional controls have been lost in a short time period and waste facilities emitting radioactivity have been breached; unauthorized individuals have gained access to radioactive sites. We cannot be completely sure that unauthorized individuals, such as inquisitive children, will not be exposed in the future to radioactivity at the site. With increasing budget constraints, there is the likelihood that institutional controls may be removed or weakened. As we move further away from cold war days when the production of nuclear weapons was so important, the impetus for funding burial ground oversight will further decline. The risk assessments should have calculated risk to an individual living on the site after ICs are no longer in force. The models used for analysis of risk from contaminated groundwater do not seem to consider the effect that chemical form and contaminant mixing in soil might have on contaminant transport rates. There may be a synergistic effect. The presence of both VOC's and water will influence how deep each will migrate in the aqueous phase, but they seem to have been modeled as if they were inhabiting different blocks of soil. The influence that VOC's would have on the solubility of radionuclides was not discussed. The differences in solubility of various radionuclides, depending on their chemical form and the chemical environment of surrounding soil, were also not discussed. The groundwater assessment concludes that risk from groundwater is zero without completing an adequate assessment of contaminant transport through soil. Groundwater Contamination However, the greatest problem with the modeling is that the Phase 2 RFI is misleading about the disposal of liquids at the landfill and the extent to which contamination has reached groundwater. It states: "Disposal of free liquids was not allowed at the MWL", (CMS study, p. 16) although it admits that in 1967 271,000 gallons of reactor coolant water were dumped in Trench D in 1967. This produced an underground mound of water in TA3. In fact, the prohibition against free liquid disposal was not put into effect until 1975. A Sandia memo obtained through a FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) request by Citizen Action revealed that 12,556,970 gallons and 6,586,000 gallons of reactor cooling water were released in Technical Areas 3 and 5, respectively, in the time period 1963-1971. The Mixed Waste Landfill is within Technical Area 3, which also contains the Chemical Waste Landfill, about 1.5 km from the MWL. Technical Area 5 covers a very small area bordering the northeast corner of Technical Area 3. In addition to this large water volume, other FOIA documents recently received by Citizen Action reveal that it was not until 1975 that SNL required liquid wastes to be solidified before being placed in the MWL. (SNL Project Document Plan 92-24, Site Health and Safety Plan Form.) Tritium at the Beatty, Nevada landfill, with a hydrologic setting similar to the MWL, has reached the aquifer, 357 feet below the surface, and has also moved off-site, within a 35-year period (Contamination at the Beatty, Nevada, Radioactive Waste Disposal Facility. Committee to Bridge the Gap, Los Angeles, CA, 1996, p.5). While some water (700,000 gallons) was buried with radioactive waste, by far the greatest amount (37 million gallons of rainfall) infiltrated the site from precipitation. This is despite the fact that this site receives only 6 inches of precipitation annually, compared with 9.3 inches annual precipitation in the Albuquerque area (Sandia claims 8.5 inches). The Beatty example shows that we simply cannot assume that contamination at the MWL will not reach groundwater. There is clear evidence of groundwater contamination at other SNL locations not far from the MWL. These are disturbing both because they further prove that groundwater contamination should be considered a concern for the MWL, and because the plumes emanating from these sites might affect contaminant transport in the vadose zone below the MWL. TCE contamination in groundwater has been found at the Chemical Waste Landfill, within Technical Area 3, about 1.5 km from the MWL. Ethylbenzene has also been measured in this groundwater. (SNL/NM Site-Wide Environmental Impact Statement, p. 4-36) TCE contamination has also been found at Technical Area 5, about 800 feet from the MWL, at 3-4 times the MCL. It is believed that the TCE migrated to groundwater in the aqueous phase. (ibid, p.4-34) Nitrates are present in this groundwater at levels above the MCL. (ibid, p.4-36) Groundwater has also become contaminated with nitrates at the Lurance Canyon Burn Site at the eastern part of Kaufmann Air Force Base. Waste Characterization Incomplete Complete waste characterization is absolutely necessary for an accurate and realistic risk assessment. The waste characterization presented by Sandia/DOE is incomplete and does not correspond to the measured gamma readings at the site as well as FOIA documents obtained by Citizen Action. A complete inventory allows one to estimate the hazardous life of the landfill, the useful life of containers, and the potential radiation dose to future residents and therefore should guide the feasible remediation alternatives. To understand the full present and future potential hazard, Sandia needs to provide the full radiological and toxic chemical inventory of both the landfill's classified and unclassified sections. This is necessary both to determine what "corrective measure" should be taken to protect the public and environment around the landfill, and to effectively and safely complete that action. The NMED did a "very partial review" of the contents of the classified area of the landfill and said it "checked with records" of what SNL said was buried there. But this is not possible based on gamma readings measured at the site. Pit 35 has very high direct gamma rates at the surface, 50 millirem per hour (mrem/h). What accounts for these high direct gamma readings? Pit 35 contents are listed as 686 kg depleted uranium (DU) and 203 Ci tritium. Neither of these materials account for high gamma readings. Pit 35 also contains neutron generator tubes and targets and neutron activated brass. These materials may have high Co-60 and Nb-94 concentrations that may account for high survey results, but Sandia's documents have no further information. Nb-94 has a long half-life, 20,000 years. It is not clear how an hour irradiation in a reactor could activate metals to produce such high gamma dose rates. Knowing the source of Pit 35 contents and how the radionuclides were generated, Sandia could develop additional information about pit contents. It is important to mention that Pit 35 contents were shielded with lead and buried in cement. Similarly, Pit 36 has direct gamma rates of 6 mrem/h, but the pit contents were listed as 673 kg DU and 13 kg lithium, which would not produce such high gamma rates. The pit also contains neutron generator tubes and targets, rings from reactor fuel elements and 4 55-gallon drums containing fission product contaminated waste. The curie content of these materials is not listed. Pit SP-4 has surface direct gamma readings of 0.5 mrem/h. This high gamma dose is likely due to Co-60 and Nb-94 from nuclear reactor vessel plates from a decommissioned nuclear reactor, but the curie content again is not listed. Trench A contains 17 55-gallon drums containing mixed fission products in demineralizer resins. But the exact curie content of mixed fission products is not listed. Each trench and pit in the MWL contains similar mysteries. The presence of these fission products, and particularly the presence of activation products and actinides, such as Pu-239, indicates that the MWL will remain hazardous essentially forever. It must be assumed that bomb test materials from NTS contain Pu-239. According to a report by Professor Eric Nuttall that is based on FOIA documents, canisters containing melted spent nuclear fuel residuals were buried at the MWL. Some of the material originated from tests of damaged fuel that were conducted at the Annular Core Research Reactor (ACRR) at Sandia after the accident at Three Mile Island in 1979. (Nuttall, Eric, Ph.D., "Sandia Mixed Waste Landfill/Nuclear Spent Fuel Disposal". 2003) Other spent fuel came from the STAR program, which also involved the use of fuel irradiated in the ACRR reactor. A partial collection of documents obtained under the FOIA concerning the disposal of the irradiated reactor nuclear materials (IRNM) was recently released to Citizen Action. The document, "SNL Site Team Report on Assessment of Vulnerablilities of DOE Storage of Irradiated Reactor Fuel and other Reactor Irradiated Nuclear Materials, October 1993" acknowledges the IRNM were disposed of in yard holes in various locations at SNL; however, the actual inventories of these yard holes have not been made available. By law, this material must be excavated and removed to a geologic repository, even if the material is not high-level waste. From the FOIA materials (Memo, J Peace, Sandia to M Jackson, Sandia, 2/20/1997), I found it curious that some canisters were carefully spaced apart in holes in the pits when they were disposed, but other canisters were simply thrown into the pits. Careful spacing is a clue that perhaps fuel was contained in the canisters and Sandia was attempting to prevent the fuel from going critical. I have no evidence for this, but the matter should be checked. Further, some of the canisters themselves, even if they do or do not contain nuclear fuel, may be so activated that they constitute greater than class C low-level waste. At commercial reactors around the country, this type of activated non-fuel metals, such as bottom reactor plates, are separately stored and must not be disposed in near-surface landfills. In my opinion, this material should be exhumed from the mixed waste landfill since it appears to be either high-level waste or greater than class C low-level waste. Preferred Alternative Not Protective The preferred corrective measure in the CMS, the Vegetation Layer, is an inappropriate corrective action for the MWL. It will potentially allow migration of waste constituents and potential exposure of the local population. Risks from the Vegetation Layer will be much greater than was determined by the risk assessment in the CMS. The Vegetation Layer will require much maintenance than the cost assessment of the CMS estimates. This problem also exists for several other CMS alternatives. The Vegetation Layer will do nothing to prevent water already present in the landfill from continually leaching into soil below. Further, irrigation may be necessary initially for vegetation to grow and may increase the rate of contaminant transport. Fertilizers may also be necessary; these contain chelating agents that will increase the mobility of contaminants. I am aware that Sandia believes it can institute a permanent cover without the use of fertilizer and irrigation, but their evidence was not provided as an exhibit so that it could be studied by Citizen Action, so we are left with hearsay evidence. Increased evapotranspiration from the vegetation may also draw contaminants upwards through the soil. The vegetation layer will not prevent microorganisms and burrowing animals from reaching the waste and spreading it. It will not prevent plant roots from absorbing and transporting radionuclides. Scientists have determined that these are areas of concern. (Hakonson, 2002. Review of Sandia National Laboratories/New Mexico Evapotranspiration Cap Closure Plans for the Mixed Waste Landfill. Available on the Citizen Action website at http://www.radfreenm.org/pages/indie-review.htm, accessed March 2004) None of these factors were considered in the CMS risk assessment. These pathways would have increased the calculated risk to residents. The Vegetation Layer requires that institutional controls (ICs) be maintained for thousands of years. However, according to federal regulations, for the purpose of risk assessments, ICs may only be assumed for 100 years. (10 CFR 61.59(b)) Once IC's are removed, residents or industry could drill for construction or wells could strike depleted uranium, causing explosions and fires that would disperse radioactive materials. The vegetation layer also requires that monitoring and maintenance activities continue for thousands of years. In the cost estimations, only 30 years of monitoring and maintenance are included despite the long-term hazard. If the vegetation layer is found to fail and contaminants spread further from the landfill, future remediation would be extremely expensive. These failings are also true of other non-excavation alternatives. The CMS does not honestly present the long-term costs of these alternatives. Why Excavation Is Preferred Risks to human health from the MWL can only be reduced to acceptable levels over the long term through immediate or eventual excavation of the most dangerous wastes. If the waste is to be excavated in the future, the landfill should be temporarily covered in a way that will not preclude excavation. The costs of future excavation will be significantly less than the CMS calculated. Since ICs cannot be assumed to continue indefinitely, the most dangerous wastes at the MWL should be immediately or eventually exhumed. My concern about exhumation at some later time is that the money may not be available, even though it may be preferable to delay excavation until shorter-lived wastes have decayed, reducing costs and risks to workers. Sandia witnesses have pointed out that Co-60 is of concern and that 10 half-lives, or 50 years would reduce the contamination by a factor of 1000. If excavation is to take place in the year 2039, the landfill should be covered before excavation in order to minimize rainwater infiltration and the likelihood of intrusion. I believe there are several potentially acceptable temporary covers, such as a simple structure. In my opinion, a vadose zone monitoring system should be implemented immediately with monitoring continued through 2039. In 2039 or before, the landfill areas that are known or suspected to contain highly radioactive, long-lived waste (either greater than class C low-level waste or high-level waste) would be excavated. This would require the full disclosure of the landfill contents as described above. The high-level waste and activated canisters could be transported to a geologic repository, and the remaining long-lived waste would be placed in on site engineered bunkers. The cost determined in the CMS for the future excavation alternative is unreasonably high, as it includes excavation and on-site retrievable storage activities that may be unnecessary. It is not clear why various partial excavation alternatives are only assessed for an immediate excavation scenario, and not for a future excavation scenario. Only long-lived waste need be excavated, hence the volumes should be considerably smaller than those assumed by Sandia. Total cost for this alternative given in the final report (after responses to the NMED notice of deficiency) was about $236 million. This includes $169 million in transportation and disposal costs, including $158 million in costs for shipping and disposing of 23,486 cubic yards of mixed waste at $6,739 per cubic yard (as well as a $5 million cost for shipping boxes which is mistakenly repeated in excavation costs discussed below). These costs can be compared to the costs listed for a partial excavation with off-site disposal scenario: about $22 million for shipping and disposal of 32,147 cubic yards of low-level waste and $18 million for 2,626 cubic yards of mixed waste. I fail to see how, under a future excavation scenario, more waste will require off-site disposal than under an immediate excavation scenario. It is unnecessary to dispose of all wastes off-site; only the most dangerous and long-lived wastes will require off-site disposal. Even if less hazardous wastes are disposed of off-site, as is shown for the partial excavation scenario, costs for their transportation and disposal are much lower. Thus, the shipping and disposal costs of the future excavation alternative will be closer to $30 million than $158 million, and the total transportation and disposal costs will be around $36 million rather than $169 million. The $236 million total cost for future excavation also includes $48 million for excavation and characterization, as well as about $5 million for shipping boxes and $5 million for loading the wastes into the shipping boxes. It also includes $24,059,274 for a classified soil storage warehouse and a classified waste storage warehouse totaling 64,585 square yards. It is not clear why Sandia states that so much warehouse space will be necessary in addition to the large volume of waste being shipped offsite. Unless soil contamination is much more extensive than we have been led to believe, storage of such a large volume of soil (the soil storage warehouse is planned to be 53,100 yd2 in area) would not be necessary. Storage of so much waste at once should also not be necessary: the landfill will be excavated in stages, and shipments offsite and replacement of less hazardous wastes into an onsite standard landfill should proceed continuously. As there are only approximately 11,000 cubic yards of waste in the MWL (although this does not include contaminated soils), it is not credible to require 64,585 square yards of storage space. Frankly it looks like Sandia is cooking the books, exaggerating the costs of excavation. Costs given for all immediate excavation alternatives are completely unreasonable. Most of the excess cost can be accounted for by the fact that waste characterization costs are given as $1000/yd3 for soils and $10,000/yd3 for debris, ten times as high as the costs for the future excavation alternative. Recent advances in on-site waste characterization technology may even reduce these costs below those cited for the future excavation alternative. (Kalb et al., Accelerated Site Technology Deployment Cost and Performance Report: Comparability of ISOCS Instrument In Radionuclide Characterization at Brookhaven National Laboratory. March, 2001. See particularly Table 6-4.) The off-site disposal alternative cost assessment also includes costs for warehouses capable of storing huge amounts of wastes, although only small storage areas would be needed to hold wastes before shipment. These alternatives also include the costs for off-site disposal of large amounts of wastes, although in all likelihood only a small proportion of the waste would require off-site disposal and the rest could be simply replaced or put in a conventional or RCRA-approved landfill onsite. Sandia Preferred Alternative Not Consistent With Federal Regulations I understand that Sandia believes that permanent closure regulations are not required. But since the MWL will not be reopened, this is really a closure exercise we are engaged in, but a closure exercise with a truncated or limited risk assessment. If this were considered a closure hearing, implementation of the Vegetation Layer as recommended by the CMS would not be consistent with federal regulations. This alternative will not comply with the requirements of Section 40 CFR 265.111: "The owner or operator must close the facility in a manner that: (a) Minimizes the need for further maintenance, and (b) controls, minimizes or eliminates, to the extent necessary to protect human health and the environment, post - closure escape of hazardous waste, hazardous constituents, leachate, contaminated run - off, or hazardous waste decomposition products to the ground or surface waters or to the atmosphere..." 40 CFR 265.121(a)(3) states that a facility operating under an "enforceable document" must comply with "The requirements of 40 CFR 264.91 through 264.100". One of the requirements for corrective action in these sections is that it "must be initiated and completed within a reasonable period of time considering the extent of contamination" (40 CFR 264.100(e)(3)). Considering that ICs must be maintained for thousands of years for a vegetation layer, the "correction action" will essentially never be completed. In addition, the vegetation layer will not be in compliance with sections 40 CFR 264.310(a)(1) and 265.310 (a)(1), which state that the landfill cover must be designed and constructed to "provide long - term minimization of migration of liquids through the closed landfill..." Conclusion
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