2015 Mississippi Code
Title 57 - PLANNING, RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT
Chapter 49 - NUCLEAR WASTE STORAGE AND DISPOSAL
§ 57-49-3 - Definitions

Unless the context otherwise requires, the words defined in this section shall have the following meaning when found in this chapter:

(a) "Department" and "board" shall mean the Department of Environmental Quality.

(b) "Committee" shall mean the nuclear waste technical review committee.

(c) "Concurrence" shall mean an incremental process involving an increase in public confidence and the development of a technical, social and political consensus that the nuclear waste management program can be accomplished with minimal risks to public health and safety and with acceptable socioeconomic costs.

(d) "Consultation" shall mean the sharing of information on planned nuclear waste programs and activities and the right of others to review, comment and offer recommendations on such activities.

(e) "Council" shall mean the nuclear waste policy advisory council.

(f) "Federal Department of Energy" shall mean the federal Department of Energy or any successor agency, including contractors or subcontractors thereto, which is assigned responsibility for the long-term or temporary storage or permanent disposal of high-level radioactive waste and transuranic waste.

(g) "High-level radioactive waste" shall mean (a) fuel that is withdrawn from a nuclear reactor after irradiation and which is packaged and prepared for storage and/or disposal, or highly radioactive waste resulting from reprocessing irradiated nuclear fuel, including both the liquid waste which is produced directly in reprocessing and any solid material into which the liquid waste is transformed, and which is packaged for storage and/or disposal; or (b) other highly radioactive material that the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission, consistent with existing law, determines by rule requires permanent isolation.

(h) "Transuranic waste" shall mean waste material containing alpha-emitting radioactive elements having an atomic number greater than ninety-two (92) in concentrations greater than ten (10) nanocuries per gram.

(i) "Densely populated area" shall mean any area in which more than five hundred (500) people reside within a five-mile radius of the outer boundary of a proposed site of a permanent repository for the disposal of radioactive waste.

(j) "State-chartered public interest group" shall mean any nonprofit organization chartered by the state. No organization shall have a direct financial interest in the outcome of the decisions of the council, or be directly related to state or federal government, nor shall an electric utility corporation or its subsidiaries be included in said term.