2010-1197. Draft Regulatory Guide: Issuance, Availability

AGENCY:

Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

ACTION:

Notice of Issuance and Availability of Draft Regulatory Guide, DG-8037, Information Relevant to Ensuring that Occupational Radiation Exposures at Medical Institutions Will be as Low as is Reasonably Achievable.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:

Mohammad Saba, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001, telephone: [phone] or e-mail to [e-mail].

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

I. Introduction

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is issuing for public comment a draft guide in the agency's “Regulatory Guide” series. This series was developed to describe and make available to the public such information as methods that are acceptable to the NRC staff for implementing specific parts of the NRC's regulations, techniques that the staff uses in evaluating specific problems or postulated accidents, and data that the staff needs in its review of applications for permits and licenses.

The draft regulatory guide (DG), entitled, “Information Relevant to Ensuring that Occupational Radiation Exposures at Medical Institutions Will be as Low as is Reasonably Achievable,” is temporarily identified by its task number, DG-8037, which should be mentioned in all related correspondence. DG-8037 is a proposed Revision 2 of Regulatory Guide 8.18, dated October 1982.

This guide is directed specifically toward medical licensees and recommends methods that the staff of the NRC considers acceptable to maintain occupational exposures as low as is reasonably achievable (ALARA) in medical institutions. In a medical institution, certain persons other than employees are exposed to radiation from licensed radioactive material. These persons include visitors, as well as patients other than those being treated with radioactive material. This guide addresses the protection of these individuals. The content of this guide is also applicable to veterinary medical institutions, insofar as specific diagnostic or therapeutic procedures are performed. Similar protection practices are applicable for keeping employee and visitor exposures ALARA, whether the patients are animal or human.

II. Further Information

The NRC staff is soliciting comments on DG-8037. Comments may be accompanied by relevant information or supporting data and should mention DG-8037 in the subject line. Comments submitted in writing or in electronic form will be made available to the public in their entirety through the NRC's Agencywide Documents Access and Management System (ADAMS).

ADDRESSES:

You may submit comments by any one of the following methods. Please include Docket ID NRC-2010-0018 in the subject line of your comments. Comments submitted in writing or in electronic form will be posted on the NRC website and on the Federal rulemaking Web site Regulations.gov. Because your comments will not be edited to remove any identifying or contact information, the NRC cautions you against including any information in your submission that you do not want to be publicly disclosed.

The NRC requests that any party soliciting or aggregating comments received from other persons for submission to the NRC inform those persons that the NRC will not edit their comments to remove any identifying or contact information, and therefore, they should not include any information in their comments that they do not want publicly disclosed.

Federal Rulemaking Web site: Go to http://www.regulations.gov and search for documents filed under Docket ID NRC-2010-0018. Address questions about NRC dockets to Carol Gallagher 301-492-3668; e-mail [e-mail].

Mail comments to: Michael T. Lesar, Chief, Rulemaking and Directives Branch (RDB), Office of Administration, Mail Stop: TWB-05-B01M, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001, or by fax to RDB at [phone].

You can access publicly available documents related to this notice using the following methods:

NRC's Public Document Room (PDR): The public may examine and have copied for a fee publicly available documents at the NRC's PDR, Room O1 F21, One White Flint North, 11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland.

NRC's Agencywide Documents Access and Management System (ADAMS): Publicly available documents created or received at the NRC are available electronically at the NRC's Electronic Reading Room at http://www.nrc.gov/​reading-rm/​adams.html. From this page, the public can gain entry into ADAMS, which provides text and image files of NRC's public documents. If you do not have access to ADAMS or if there are problems in accessing the documents located in ADAMS, contact the NRC's PDR reference staff at 1-800-397-4209, 301-415-4737, or by e-mail to [e-mail]. DG-8037 is available electronically under ADAMS Accession Number ML091940170 . In addition, electronic copies of DG-8037 are available through the NRC's public Web site under Draft Regulatory Guides in the “Regulatory Guides” collection of the NRC's Electronic Reading Room at http://www.nrc.gov/​reading-rm/​doc-collections/​.

Federal Rulemaking Web site: Public comments and supporting materials related to this notice can be found at http://www.regulations.gov by searching on Docket ID: NRC-2010-0018.

Requests for technical information about DG-8037 may be directed to the NRC contact, Mohammad Saba at [phone] or e-mail to [e-mail].

Comments would be most helpful if received by March 19, 2010. Comments received after that date will be considered if it is practical to do so, but the NRC is able to ensure consideration only for comments received on or before this date. Although a time limit is given, comments and suggestions in connection with items for inclusion in guides currently being developed or improvements in all published guides are encouraged at any time.

Regulatory guides are not copyrighted, and Commission approval is not required to reproduce them.

Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 12th day of January 2010.

For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Andrea D. Valentin,

Chief, Regulatory Guide Development Branch, Division of Engineering, Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research.