BILL NUMBER: SB 208	INTRODUCED
	BILL TEXT


INTRODUCED BY   Senator Kuehl

                        FEBRUARY 13, 2003

   An act to add Section 114716 to the Health and Safety Code,
relating to radiation.


	LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST


   SB 208, as introduced, Kuehl.  Radiation: contamination.
   (1) The existing Radiation Control Law requires the State
Department of Health Services, among other things, to issue licenses,
and prohibits the state department from issuing a license to receive
radioactive material for disposal on land unless specified
requirements are satisfied.  Existing law prohibits any person from
burying, throwing away, or disposing of radioactive waste except in a
manner that will result in no significant radioactive contamination
of the environment.
   This bill would require the department to direct a person who owns
a site, as defined to mean all parcels of land that comprise the
Santa Susana Field Laboratory in Ventura County, for which the
department determines that a partial or full reactor meltdown has
occurred, to use thorough and rigorous monitoring of the site using
best available technology, equipment, and methodology, as specified.

   The bill would prohibit a person from selling, transferring, or
leasing that site, for which the department has made that
determination, for any subsequent land use unless the site cleanup
meets specified radiation dose standards.  The bill would require
that a person who removes material from that site that has
radioactive contamination above background to transfer the material
to a disposal facility specifically licensed for that type of waste.

   Vote:  majority.  Appropriation:  no.  Fiscal committee:  yes.
State-mandated local program:  no.


THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA DO ENACT AS FOLLOWS:


  SECTION 1.  Section 114716 is added to the Health and Safety Code,
to read:
   114716.  (a) The department shall require a person who owns a
site, for which the department determines that a partial or full
reactor meltdown has occurred on that site, to use thorough and
rigorous monitoring of the site using best available technology,
equipment, and methodology, to provide a high assurance that any
residual contamination is identified.  The monitoring of the site
shall be consistent with those measures provided in the United States
Environmental Protection Agency's September 2001 Draft Scoping
Document for Development of Workplan for a Soil Radiation Survey of
Santa Susana Field Laboratory Area IV.  The department shall require
the monitoring measures at the site to consist of at least 80 percent
of the amount of surface and subsurface soil samples identified in
that document.
   (b) No person shall sell, transfer, or lease a site for which the
department has made the determination specified in subdivision (a)
for any subsequent land use unless the site cleanup meets the
radiation dose standards provided in Section 15 of the "Guidance for
Cleanup of Radioactivity on Closing Military Bases for Unrestricted
Public Use of Property" issued by the Radiological Health Branch of
the department on April 5, 1994.
   (c) If any person removes material removed from a site for which
the department has made the determination specified in subdivision
(a) and the material has radioactive contamination above background,
the material shall be transferred to a disposal facility specifically
licensed for that type of waste by any of the following:
   (1) The department, pursuant to Chapter 8 (commencing with Section
114960).
   (2) The Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
   (3) A state that has entered into an agreement pursuant to Section
2021 of Title 42 of the United States Code.
   (4) An authorized disposal site at a Department of Energy
facility.
   (d) For purposes of this section, the following definitions apply:

   (1) "Background" means the local level of radioactivity from
nature of like materials without enhancement by human activity, plus
the local levels of fallout from nuclear weapons testing and the
local deposition of fallout from past nuclear accidents located
elsewhere in the world, including, but not limited to, the nuclear
accident in Chernobyl.
   (2) "Partial or full reactor meltdown" means an event at a nuclear
reactor that results in more than 2 percent of the fuel elements
experiencing any melting of fuel or cladding or fuel-cladding
eutectic.
   (3) "Site" means all parcels of land that comprise the Santa
Susana Field Laboratory in Ventura County.