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

3.17
nue impacts can be provided in a generic study and no such estimates are prepared in this
Statement.
A baseline population from the start of construction of a facility until scheduled
decommissioning is projected. Work force requirements for the project are compared with the
availability of workers already living in the area. Workers not available within commuting
distance of the site will immigrate. The impact of their presence in the local area is
increased to the extent that they either induce secondary growth in the local economy or
bring family dependents with them. The total influx of new people to an area can equal
three or four times the number of primary workers hired from outside the area. The model
distributes the total new population to the site county and surrounding counties on the
basis of county size, distance to the work site and availability of housing.
A generic assessment of the socioeconomic impacts incorporates the assumption that a
variety of sites are potential candidates. Since the potential sites may differ consider-
ably in terms of their distinguishing characteristics (especially population size, composi-
tion and distribution, industrial composition of the labor force, and availability of social
services), the potential effects of project development on a number of alternative sites
must be examined. In order to emphasize that the reference sites used in this analysis are
hypothetical, they are simply labeled Midwest, Southeast, and Southwest. Each reference
site consists of a single county. The region within which the county is located is defined
as the aggregation of all counties falling substantially within a 50-mile radius of the
site. The forecasting model allocates immigrants to these counties, then focuses upon the
new population residing in the site county and upon the demands it places upon the county
for social services. The objective of this generic analysis is to provide a range of prob-
able socioeconomic impacts and to illustrate how variation in site characteristics and vari-
ations in construction and operating requirements with different disposal media combine to
produce demographic and economic pressures upon local areas. Whether or not these pressures
become translated into actual net socioeconomic impacts depends upon how each community
responds in terms of the capacity of the service system to absorb new demands, the willing-
ness of the community to adjust to pressure for change, and the availability of mitigating
strategies to the community.
3.2.7 Basis for Accident Analysis
The accident analysis procedure for this Statement involves several steps. First,
potential accidents are identified for each waste management function and alternative tech-
nology. Next, accidents are divided into four categories based on considerations of their
potential to expose plant workers to significant radiation levels and/or release radio-
active material to the environment. Accidents in each severity category are then grouped
by similar release characteristics. Finally, the largest potential accident release
category/accident severity group is selected for environmental consequence analysis. In
all, 207 possible accident types were examined for the waste management system with 116 of
these having potential for offsite releases of radioactive material. Forty-six (46) of the
releases were analyzed for environmental impacts.