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Decommissioning (continued from pg 2) around the property, signs telling people what the area was used for, and markers at the corner of each disposaltrench. Thetrenchmark- ers will tell how many cubic feet, how many total curies, and what type oflow-level radioactive waste was disposed of in each trench. The decommissioning period is expected to last three to five years, and the Authority will ac- complish most of the work within the first 18 months. The remain- ing time will be used to maintain the trench caps and to regrade them as settlement occurs. The monitoring systems will continue to monitor the site using a sched- ule for sampling and analysis similar to that used when the site was operating. The site will be transferred to the Texas Department of Health after decommissioning is com- pleted. They will monitor the site for at least 100 years under a custodial care program.
Earthquake (continued from pg 1) The three-unit San Onofre nuclear power station in southern California also reported no dam- age from the quake, as did the Rancho Seco nuclear plant near Sacramento, which has been shut down since June. Engineered barriers performed well during the earthquake, de- spite high levels of ground shak- ing, demonstrating that adverse conditions can be overcome with proper engineering. The proposed Texas low-level radioactive waste disposal sitewillbedesignedusing massive underground concrete can- isters.
Texas Low-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Authority 7701 North Lamar Blvd., Suite 300 Austin, Texas 78752
Please inform us!
Definitions 1. Background (Natural) Ra- diation - the radiation that is always present in the environ- ment and is produced by natu- ral sources such as cosmic rays, radioactive elements in the ground, building materials, and the human body. 2. Decommissioning - the proc- ess of closing down and putting into a safe state a nuclear reac- tor or a radioactive waste dis- posalsite after its usefullife has come to an end. 3. Half-Life - the time required for half the atoms of a radioac- tive substance to disintegrate or to decay to another nuclear form; hence the time to halve its ra- dioactive strength. 4. Radiation - the process in which atoms and molecules un- dergo internal change, result- ing in giving off energy.