[Federal Register Volume 74, Number 107 (Friday, June 5, 2009)]
[Notices]
[Pages 27052-27054]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: E9-13027]
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NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
[NRC-2008-0420]
Notice of Availability of Final Generic Environmental Impact
Statement for In-Situ Leach Uranium Milling Facilities
AGENCY: Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
ACTION: Notice of availability.
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SUMMARY: Notice is hereby given that the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory
Commission (NRC), with the cooperation of the Wyoming Department of
Environmental Quality, Land Quality Division, is issuing a final
Generic Environmental Impact Statement (GEIS) that assesses the
potential environmental impacts of the construction, operation, aquifer
restoration, and decommissioning at an in-situ leach (ISL) uranium
milling facility located in particular regions of the western United
States. The rationale for developing the GEIS is that ISL facilities
use the same or very similar technology, such that the potential
environmental impacts associated with the technology could be assessed
on a generic (programmatic) basis. In this way repetitive reviews of
certain of these impacts could be avoided, thus focusing NRC's
evaluation on unique issues of concern for each ISL license
application.
The NRC anticipates that it will receive numerous new license
applications for ISL uranium milling within the next several years. NRC
will use the GEIS to provide a starting point for the staff's National
Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) analyses for site-
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specific license applications for new ISL facilities. Additionally, the
NRC staff plans to use the GEIS, along with applicable previous site-
specific environmental review documents, in its NEPA analysis for
applications to renew or otherwise amend operations at existing NRC-
licensed ISL facilities. In these analyses, NRC would evaluate the
site-specific data to determine whether relevant sections of the GEIS
could be incorporated by reference into the site-specific environmental
review. Additionally, NRC would determine which GEIS impact conclusions
can be adopted in the site-specific review and whether additional data
and analysis is needed to determine the potential impacts for a
specific environmental resource area. NRC will prepare a Supplemental
Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) on a license application for a
new ISL facility. NRC will prepare an Environmental Assessment (EA),
SEIS, or Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for license renewals or
amendments to ISL facility applications.
ADDRESSES: The GEIS may be accessed on the Internet at http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/nuregs/staff/ by selecting
``NUREG-1910.'' Additionally, the NRC maintains an Agencywide Documents
Access and Management System (ADAMS), which provides text and image
files of the NRC's public documents. The GEIS and its appendices may
also be accessed through the NRC's Public Electronic Reading Room on
the Internet at: http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html. If you
either do not have access to ADAMS or if there is a problem accessing
documents located in ADAMS, contact the NRC Public Document Room (PDR)
reference staff at 1 (800) 397-4209, 1 (301) 415-4737 or by e-mail to
[email protected].
Information and documents associated with the GEIS are also
available for public review through the NRC Public Electronic Reading
Room on the Internet at http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html and at
the NRC's Web site for the GEIS, http://www.nrc.gov/materials/uranium-recovery/geis.html. Both information and documents associated with the
Final GEIS also are available for inspection at the Commission's PDR,
NRC's Headquarters Building, 11555 Rockville Pike (first floor),
Rockville, Maryland. For those without access to the Internet, paper
copies of any electronic documents may be obtained for a fee by
contacting the NRC's PDR at 1-800-397-4209. The GEIS and related
documents may also be found at the following public libraries:
Albuquerque Main Library, 501 Copper NW., Albuquerque, New Mexico
87102, 505-768-5141.
Mother Whiteside Memorial Library, 525 West High Street, Grants, New
Mexico 87020, 505-287-4793.
Octavia Fellin Public Library, 115 W Hill Avenue, Gallup, New Mexico
87301, 505-863-1291.
Natrona County Public Library, 307 East Second Street, Casper, Wyoming
82601, 307-332-5194.
Carbon County Public Library, 215 W Buffalo Street, Rawlins, Wyoming
82301, 307-328-2618.
Campbell County Public Library, 2101 South 4J Road, Gillette, Wyoming
82718, 307-687-0009.
Weston County Library, 23 West Main Street, Newcastle, Wyoming 82701,
307-746-2206.
Chadron Public Library, 507 Bordeaux Street, Chadron, Nebraska 69337,
308-432-0531.
Rapid City Public Library, 610 Quincy Street, Rapid City, South Dakota
57701, 605-394-4171.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Mr. James Park, Project Manager,
Environmental Review Branch, Division of Waste Management and
Environmental Protection, Office of Federal and State Materials and
Environmental Management Programs, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission,
Washington, DC 20555. Telephone: (301) 415-6935; e-mail:
[email protected].
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The Atomic Energy Act (AEA) and the Uranium
Mill Tailings Radiation Control Act of 1978 (UMTRCA) authorize NRC to
issue licenses for the possession and use of source material and
byproduct material. The statutes require NRC to license facilities that
meet NRC regulatory requirements that were developed to protect public
health and safety from radiological hazards. ISL uranium milling
facilities must meet NRC regulatory requirements in order to obtain
this license to operate. Under the NRC's environmental protection
regulations in Title 10, Part 51 of the Code of Federal Regulations (10
CFR part 51), which implements NEPA, issuance of a license to possess
and use source material for uranium milling requires an EIS or a
supplement to an EIS.
To help fulfill this requirement, the NRC staff and its contractor,
the Center for Nuclear Waste Regulatory Analyses, in cooperation with
the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality (Land Quality
Division), prepared the GEIS. The GEIS was prepared to assess the
potential environmental impacts associated with the construction,
operation, aquifer restoration, and decommissioning of an ISL facility
in four specified geographic areas of the western United States (U.S.).
The intent of the GEIS is to determine which impacts would be
essentially the same for all ISL facilities and which ones would result
in varying levels of impacts for different facilities, thus requiring
further site-specific information to determine the potential impacts.
As such, the GEIS provides a starting point for its NEPA analyses for
site-specific license applications for new ISL facilities, as well as
for applications to renew or amend existing ISL licenses.
The NRC is expecting numerous license applications for new ISL
uranium milling facilities in the next several years. ISL milling
facilities recover uranium from low grade ores that may not be
economically recoverable by other methods. In this process, a leaching
agent, such as oxygen with sodium bicarbonate, is added to native
groundwater for injection through wells into the subsurface ore body to
dissolve the uranium. Before ISL operations can begin, the portion of
the aquifer designated for uranium recovery must be exempted by EPA as
an underground source of drinking water in accordance with the Safe
Drinking Water Act (40 CFR 146.4). The leach solution, containing the
dissolved uranium, is pumped back to the surface and sent to the
processing plant, where ion exchange is used to separate the uranium
from the solution. The underground leaching of the uranium also frees
other metals and minerals from the host rock. Operators of ISL
facilities are required to restore the groundwater affected by the
leaching operations and decommission the facility when operations have
ceased. The milling process concentrates the recovered uranium into the
product known as ``yellowcake,'' which is then shipped to uranium
conversion facilities for further processing in the overall uranium
fuel cycle.
The proposed Federal action identified in the GEIS is to grant an
application to obtain, renew, or amend a source material license for an
ISL facility. In reviewing a license application for a new ISL
facility, NRC will use the GEIS as starting point for its site-specific
environmental reviews. NRC will evaluate site-specific data and
information to determine if the applicant's proposed activities and the
site characteristics are consistent with
[[Page 27054]]
those evaluated in the GEIS. NRC will then determine which sections of
the GEIS can be incorporated by reference and which impact conclusions
can be adopted in the site-specific environmental review, and whether
additional data or analysis is needed to determine the environmental
impacts for a specific resource area. Additionally, the GEIS provides
guidance in the evaluation for certain impact analyses (e.g.,
cumulative impacts, environmental justice) for which the GEIS did not
make impact conclusions. No decision on whether to license an ISL
facility will be made based on the GEIS alone. The licensing decision
will be based, in part, on a site-specific environmental analysis that
makes use of the GEIS.
The GEIS also addresses the no-action alternative. Under this
alternative, NRC would deny the applicant's or licensee's request for a
new ISL facility. As a result, the license applicant may choose to
resubmit the application to use an alternate uranium recovery method or
decide to obtain the yellowcake from other sources. A licensee whose
license renewal application is denied would have to commence shutting
down operations in a timely manner. Denials of license amendments would
require the licensee to continue operating under its previously
approved license conditions. The no-action alternative serves as a
baseline for comparison of the potential environmental impacts.
Conventional mining/milling and the heap leach process are two
other methods of uranium recovery. However, inasmuch as the suitability
and practicality of using these alternative milling methodologies
depends upon site-specific conditions, a generic discussion of
potential environmental impacts associated with these methodologies in
the GEIS is not appropriate. Accordingly, the GEIS does not contain a
detailed analysis of alternative milling methodologies to the ISL
process. A detailed analysis of reasonable alternative milling
methodologies that can be applied at a specific site will be addressed
in the NRC's site-specific environmental review for individual ISL
license applications.
The GEIS is structured in the following manner. The NRC staff began
by identifying four uranium milling regions in the western U.S. to use
as a framework for discussions in the document. Two regions are found
in Wyoming, one in New Mexico, and a final region encompasses portions
of Nebraska, South Dakota, and Wyoming.
Next, the GEIS provides a description of the ISL process and
addresses the construction, operation, aquifer restoration, and
decommissioning activities for an ISL facility. Financial assurance is
also discussed, whereby the ISL licensee or applicant establishes a
bond or other financial mechanism prior to operations to ensure that
sufficient funds are available to complete aquifer restoration,
decommissioning, and reclamation activities for the site.
Then, the GEIS describes the affected environment in each uranium
milling region, using the environmental resource areas and topics
identified through public scoping comments on the GEIS and from NRC
guidance to its staff found in NUREG-1748, ``Environmental Review
Guidance for Licensing Actions Associated With NMSS Programs,'' issued
by NRC in 2003.
Finally, the GEIS provides an evaluation of the potential
environmental impacts of constructing, operating, aquifer restoration,
and decommissioning at an ISL facility in each of the four uranium
milling regions. Impacts are examined for the following resource areas:
Land use
Transportation
Geology and soils
Water resources
Ecology
Air Quality
Noise
Historical and cultural resources
Visual and scenic resources
Socioeconomic
Public and occupational health
Following the discussion of potential environmental impacts, the
GEIS addresses cumulative impacts; environmental justice; practices,
measures, and actions to mitigate potential impacts; environmental
monitoring activities; and the consultation process with Federal and
tribal entities.
To document its review of the potential environmental impacts for a
new ISL facility, NRC will prepare an SEIS. NRC's decision to prepare
an SEIS is a change to its previously stated position (72 FR 54947;
September 27, 2007) that allowed for the possibility of NRC preparing
an EA on a new ISL license application. NRC's decision to prepare an
SEIS will more clearly meet the requirement for completing an EIS for
new ISL facilities and considers public comments received on the draft
GEIS. The NRC will follow the public participation procedures outlined
in 10 CFR part 51, which can include requests for public input on the
scope of the SEIS and requires public comment on the draft SEIS.
For applications to renew or amend existing ISL licenses, NRC will
conduct an environmental review, consistent with the provisions in 10
CFR part 51. This review may be an EA, SEIS, or an EIS. The NRC
previously stated in the Federal Register on September 27, 2007 (72 FR
54947) that all draft EAs prepared for ISL facility license
applications would be available for public comment. This statement was
made in anticipation that NRC would be preparing EAs for applications
for new ISL facilities. As noted, based on public comments NRC received
on the draft GEIS, NRC has decided to prepare an SEIS for new license
applications. The NRC will follow the public participation procedures
outlined in 10 CFR part 51, which require public comment on the draft
SEIS. The NRC may make a draft EA and accompanying Finding of No
Significant Impact (FONSI) available for public comment. The decision
to submit a draft EA for public comment would take into account the
provisions in 10 CFR 51.33 concerning the similarity of the proposed
actions to actions normally requiring preparation of an EIS and the
precedent setting nature of the proposed action. Additionally, the NRC
may consider the level of public interest and the contentious nature of
the proposed action in determining whether to publish a draft EA/FONSI
for public comment. The NRC staff would address public comments
received on the draft EA/FONSI in the staff's final environmental
review document. This approach is consistent with NRC regulations.
Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 29th\\ day of May 2009.
For The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Patrice M. Bubar,
Deputy Director, Environmental Protection and Performance Assessment
Directorate, Division of Waste Management and Environmental Protection,
Office of Federal and State Materials and Environmental Management
Programs.
[FR Doc. E9-13027 Filed 6-4-09; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 7590-01-P