[Federal Register Volume 69, Number 219 (Monday, November 15, 2004)]
[Notices]
[Pages 65659-65660]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 04-25258]


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NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION

[Docket No. 030-34325]


Notice of Availability of Environmental Assessment and Finding of 
No Significant Impact for License Amendment for Release of Facility for 
Unrestricted Use for the Department of Veterans Affairs Chicago Health 
Care System Lakeside Campus--Medical Sciences Building, Chicago, IL

AGENCY: Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

ACTION: Notice of availability.

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FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: William Snell, Senior Health 
Physicist, Decommissioning Branch, Division of Nuclear Material Safety, 
Region III, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 2443 Warrenville Road, 
Lisle, Illinois 60532; telephone: (630) 829-9871; fax number: (630) 
515-1259; e-mail: [email protected].

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

I. Introduction

    The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is issuing a license 
amendment to Material License No. 03-23853-01VA issued to the 
Department of Veterans Affairs (DVA) (the licensee), to authorize 
release of its Chicago Health Care System, Lakeside Campus--Medical 
Sciences Building in Chicago, Illinois for unrestricted use, and has 
prepared an Environmental Assessment (EA) in support of this amendment 
in accordance with the requirements of 10 CFR part 51. Based on the EA, 
the NRC has concluded that a Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI) 
is appropriate. The amendment will be issued following the publication 
of this notice.

II. EA Summary

    The purpose of the proposed amendment is to allow for the release 
of the licensee's Chicago, Illinois facility for unrestricted use. The 
DVA has occupied the Chicago Health Care System, Lakeside Campus--
Medical Sciences Building since 1978, and during that period was 
authorized to use byproduct, source, and special nuclear material for 
medical diagnosis, therapy, and research. The Chicago, Illinois 
facility is a permittee under the DVA NRC Master Material License (MML) 
Number 03-23853-01VA, and on October 1, 2004, requested the NRC release 
the facility for unrestricted use. The approval is consistent with a 
March 17, 2003, Letter of Understanding (LOU) between the NRC and DVA 
for DVA permittees. The LOU requires the DVA to submit for NRC review, 
permittee requests for the release of buildings for unrestricted use 
where radioactive materials with a half-life greater than 120 days were 
used. The DVA identified four isotopes with half-lives greater than 120 
days that it used in the Medical Sciences Building: hydrogen-3, carbon-
14, sodium-22, and chlorine-36. The DVA has conducted surveys of the 
facility and provided information to the NRC to demonstrate that the 
site meets the licensee termination criteria in subpart E of 10 CFR 
part 20 for unrestricted release.
    The staff has prepared an EA in support of the proposed license 
amendment. Based on its review, the staff determined there were no 
radiological or non-radiological environmental impacts associated with 
the action since no radiological remediation activities were required 
to complete the proposed action. The staff has determined that the 
proposed action is administrative and/or procedural in nature and will 
not affect listed species or critical habitat. Likewise, NRC staff has 
determined that the proposed action is not the type of activity that 
has the potential to cause effects on historic properties because it is 
an administrative and/or procedural action.

III. Finding of No Significant Impact

    The staff has prepared an EA in support of the proposed license 
amendment to release the site for unrestricted use. The staff has found 
that the radiological environmental impacts from the proposed amendment 
are bounded by the impacts evaluated by NUREG-1496, Volumes 1-3, 
``Generic Environmental Impact Statement in Support of Rulemaking on 
Radiological Criteria for License Termination of NRC-Licensed 
Facilities'' (ML042310492, ML042320379, and ML042330385). The staff has 
also found that the non-radiological impacts are not significant. On 
the basis of the EA, NRC has concluded that there are no significant 
environmental impacts from the proposed amendment and has determined 
not to prepare an environmental impact statement.

IV. Further Information

    Documents related to this action, including the application for 
amendment and supporting documentation, are available electronically at 
the NRC's Electronic Reading Room at http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html. From this site, you can access the NRC's Agencywide 
Document Access and Management System (ADAMS), which provides text

[[Page 65660]]

and image files of NRC's public documents. The ADAMS accession numbers 
for the documents related to this notice are: the DVA letter dated 
October 1, 2004 (Accession No. ML042920457); the Final Status Survey 
Report, VA Chicago--Lakeside Campus, Medical Sciences Building, 
September 9, 2004 (Accession No. ML042920463); and the EA summarized 
above (Accession No. ML043010491). Please note that on October 25, 
2004, the NRC terminated public access to ADAMS and initiated an 
additional security review of publicly available documents to ensure 
that potentially sensitive information is removed from the ADAMS 
database accessible through the NRC's web site. Interested members of 
the public may obtain copies of the referenced documents for review 
and/or copying by contacting the Public Document Room pending 
resumption of public access to ADAMS. The NRC Public Documents Room is 
located at NRC Headquarters in Rockville, MD, and can be contacted at 
(800) 397-4209, (301) 415-4737 or by e-mail to [email protected].
    These documents may also be viewed electronically on the public 
computers located at the NRC's PDR, O 1 F21, One White Flint North, 
11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville, MD 20852. The PDR reproduction 
contractor will copy documents for a fee.

    Dated in Lisle, Illinois, this 4th day of November 2004.

    For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission,
Kenneth G. O'Brien,
Chief, Decommissioning Branch, Division of Nuclear Materials Safety, 
Region III.
[FR Doc. 04-25258 Filed 11-12-04; 8:45 am]
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