Management of Commercially Generated Radioactive Waste - U.S. ...

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5.4 ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS RELATED TO REPOSITORY CONSTRUCTION AND OPERATION
Environmental impacts related to repository construction are those estimated for con-
struction of surface facilities and mining of the entire repository, whereas those for oper-
ation are associated with waste emplacement, backfilling and decommissioning of surface
facilities. Additional details are presented in DOE/ET-0029.
5.4.1 Resource Commitments
Land use commitments for single conceptual repositories in the four geologic media are
summarized in Table 5.4.1 for both spent fuel and reprocessing wastes. Other resource com-
mitments are tabulated in Table 5.4.2 for spent fuel repositories and in Table 5.4.3 for
reprocessing waste repositories. The same size (areal extent) of repository (800 ha) is
postulated for each rock type; however, thermal criteria (heat loading of rock) allow spent
fuel containers to be stored closer together in granite and basalt than in salt and shale,
thus greater quantities of high-level waste can be stored in granite and basalt repositories
for a given area than in salt and shale repositories.(a)
TABLE 5.4.1. Land Use Commitments For Construction of 800-ha Single Geologic
Repositories
Land Use Salt & Shale Granite & Basalt
Surface facilites, ha
Spent fuel repository 180 280
Reprocessing waste 180 220
repository
Access roads and 8 8
railroads, ha
Mineral and surface 800 800
rights, ha (fenced
restricted area)
Additional land on which 3,200 3,200
only subsurface
activities will be
restricted, ha
Land use conflicts will be highly site specific; however, most restrictions on surface
use of land need not continue after repository closure. Thus, most uses of the land could
resume after decommissioning of the surface facilities.
Water used during construction of a repository will range from about 1 x 105 to
5 x 105 m 3 (depending on geologic medium) over the 7-yr construction period. As long as
water can be supplied from rivers such as the R River in the midwest reference environment
(Appendix F), water use will represent a small fraction (0.001) of the average river flow
(a) Note, however, that waste emplacement has not been optimized in an engineering sense for
this generic Statement.