[Federal Register Volume 74, Number 237 (Friday, December 11, 2009)]
[Notices]
[Pages 65806-65808]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: E9-29553]
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
[NRC-2009-0364]
Notice of Availability of Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact
Statement for the Moore Ranch ISR Project in Campbell County, WY,
Supplement to the Generic Environmental Impact Statement for In-Situ
Leach Uranium Milling Facilities
AGENCY: Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
ACTION: Notice of availability.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
SUMMARY: Notice is hereby given that the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory
Commission (NRC) is issuing for public comment a Draft Supplemental
Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) for the Moore Ranch ISR Project
in Campbell County, Wyoming, Supplement to the Generic Environmental
Impact Statement for In-Situ Leach Uranium Milling Facilities. By
letter dated October 2, 2007, Energy Metals Corporation, a wholly-owned
subsidiary of Uranium One (Uranium One), submitted an application to
the NRC for a new source material license for the proposed Moore Ranch
ISR Project, located in the Power River Basin in Campbell County,
Wyoming. Uranium One is proposing to recover uranium from the Moore
Ranch site using the in-situ leach (also know as the in-situ recovery
[ISR]) process.
The Atomic Energy Act of 1954, as amended by the Uranium Mill
Tailings Radiation Control Act of 1978, authorize the NRC to issue
licenses for the possession and use of source material and byproduct
material. These statutes require that NRC license facilities, including
ISR operations, are licensed in accordance with NRC regulatory
requirements to protect public health and safety from radiological
hazards. Under the NRC's environmental protection regulations in the
Code of Federal Regulations, Title 10, Part 51 (10 CFR Part 51), that
implement the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA),
preparation of an environmental impact statement (EIS) or supplement to
an EIS (SEIS) is required for issuance of a license to possess and use
source material for uranium milling (see 10 CFR 51.20(b)(8)).
In June 2009, the NRC staff issued NUREG-1910, ``Generic
Environmental Impact Statement for In-Situ Leach Uranium Milling
Facilities'' (herein referred to as the GEIS). In the GEIS, NRC
assessed the potential environmental impacts from the construction,
operation, aquifer restoration, and decommissioning of an ISR facility
located in four specific geographic regions of the western United
States. The proposed Moore Ranch Project is located within the Wyoming
East Uranium Milling Region identified in the GEIS. The Moore Ranch
Draft SEIS both supplements and incorporates by reference relevant
portions of the GEIS, and uses site-specific information from the
applicant's license application and other independent sources to
fulfill 10 CFR 51.20(b)(8) requirements.
DATES: The public comment period on this draft SEIS begins with
publication of this notice and continues until February 1, 2010.
Written comments should be submitted as described in the ADDRESSES
section of this notice. The NRC will consider comments received, or
postmarked, after that date to the extent practical.
ADDRESSES: Comments may be submitted by any one of the following
methods. Please include Docket ID NRC-2009-0364 in the subject line of
your comments. Comments submitted either in writing or in electronic
form will be posted on the NRC Web site and on the Federal rulemaking
Web site: http://www.regulations.gov. Because comments will not be
edited to remove either identifying or contact information, the NRC
cautions against including any information in your submission that you
do not want 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
[[Page 65807]]
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-2009-0364. Comments may
be submitted electronically through this Web site. Address questions
about NRC dockets to Carol Gallagher 301-492-3668; e-mail
[email protected].
Mail comments to: Michael T. Lesar, Chief, Rulemaking and
Directives Branch (RDB), Division of Administrative Services, Office of
Administration, Mail Stop: TWB-05-B01M, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory
Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001, or by fax to RDB at (301) 492-
3446. Comments may also be submitted electronically to the following
address: [email protected].
Publicly available documents related to this notice can be accessed
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,
Public File Area 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 either do not have access to ADAMS or if there are
problems 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
[email protected]. The ``Environmental Impact Statement for the
Moore Ranch ISR Project in Campbell County, Wyoming--Supplement to the
Generic Environmental Impact Statement for In-Situ Leach Uranium
Milling Facilities'' is available electronically under ADAMS Accession
Number ML093350050.
The draft SEIS for the Moore Ranch ISR Project also may be accessed
via the internet at http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/nuregs/staff/ by selecting ``NUREG-1910.'' The draft SEIS will be
Supplement 1 to NUREG-1910. Additionally, a copy of the SEIS will be
available at the following public library: Campbell County Public
Library, 2101 South 4J Road, Gillette, Wyoming 82718, 307-687-0009.
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-2009-0364.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: For information on the environmental
review process related to the draft SEIS for the Moore Ranch Project,
please contact Behram Shroff, Project Manager, Division of Waste
Management and Environmental Protection (DWMEP), Mail Stop T-8F5, U.S.
Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001, by phone at 1
(800) 368-5642, extension 0666. For general or technical information
associated with the safety and licensing of uranium milling facilities,
please contact Stephen Cohen, Team Lead, Uranium Recovery Branch,
DWMEP, Mail Stop T-8F5, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington,
DC 20555-0001, by phone at 1 (800) 368-5642, extension 7182.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The Atomic Energy Act of 1954, as amended by
the Uranium Mill Tailings Radiation Control Act of 1978, authorizes NRC
to issue licenses for the possession and use of source material and
byproduct material. These statutes require NRC to license facilities in
accordance with NRC regulatory requirements to protect public health
and safety from radiological hazards. ISR uranium facilities must meet
NRC regulatory requirements to obtain this license to operate. Under
the NRC's environmental protection regulations in 10 CFR Part
51.20(b)(8), which implements NEPA, issuance of a license to possess
and use source material for uranium milling requires either 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), issued NUREG-1910, ``Generic Environmental Impact Statement
for In-Situ Uranium Milling Facilities'' (the GEIS) in June 2009. The
GEIS assessed the potential environmental impacts associated with the
construction, operation, aquifer restoration, and decommissioning of an
ISR facility located in four specific geographic areas of the western
United States (U.S.). The proposed Moore Ranch ISR Project is located
in one such region, the Wyoming East Uranium Milling Region. The GEIS
evaluated the range of potential impacts in the four geographic regions
and evaluated whether the potential impacts would be essentially the
same for all ISR facilities or whether site-specific information and
analysis would be required to determine the potential impacts. As such,
the GEIS provides a starting point for NRC's NEPA analyses for site-
specific license applications for both new ISR facilities and to renew
or amend the applications for existing ISR licenses.
By letter dated October 2, 2007, Energy Metals Corporation, a
wholly-owned subsidiary of Uranium One (Uranium One), submitted an
application to the NRC for a source material license for the Moore
Ranch ISR Project, located in southwest Campbell County, in south-
central Wyoming, about halfway between the Towns of Wright located 40
km (25 mi) to the northeast and Midwest-Edgerton located 39 km (24 mi)
to the southwest. The City of Gillette, Wyoming is located
approximately 85 km (53 mi) to the northwest, and the City of Casper,
Wyoming is located approximately 85 km (53 mi) to the southwest of the
proposed site. Planned facilities associated with the proposed Moore
Ranch ISR Project include a central plant with uranium processing
capabilities; two wellfields with injection, production, and monitor
wells, header houses, pipeline to connect the wellfields to the central
plant, and a network of access roads. The proposed license area
consists of approximately 2,879 ha (7,110 ac) of remotely located
private land, with about 14 percent of the surface rights being
administered by the State of Wyoming. The U.S. Department of Interior,
Bureau of Land Management does not administer surface rights for any
portion of the proposed license area.
ISR facilities recover uranium from low grade ores that may not be
economically recoverable by other methods. In the ISR process, a
leaching agent (called a lixiviant), such as oxygen and sodium
bicarbonate, is added to native groundwater for injection through wells
into the subsurface ore body to dissolve the uranium. Before ISR
operations can begin, the portion of the aquifer designated for uranium
recovery must be exempted by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA) from being an underground source of drinking water in accordance
with the Safe Drinking Water Act (as implemented by EPA at 40 CFR
146.4). The injected solution now containing the dissolved uranium, is
pumped back (recovered) to the surface and sent to a processing plant,
where ion exchange is used to separate the uranium from the solution.
The ISR process also frees other metals and minerals from the host
aquifer. As a result, operators of ISR facilities are required to
restore the groundwater affected by operations. In the processing
plant, the recovered
[[Page 65808]]
uranium is concentrated into the product known as ``yellowcake,'' which
is then shipped to a uranium conversion facility for further processing
in the overall uranium fuel cycle.
In this draft SEIS, the NRC staff assessed the potential
environmental impacts from the construction, operation, aquifer
restoration, and decommissioning of the proposed Moore Ranch ISR
Project. In so doing, the NRC staff evaluated site-specific data and
information from the Moore Ranch ISR Project to determine if the Moore
Ranch site characteristics and Uranium One's proposed activities were
consistent with that evaluated in the GEIS. NRC staff then determined
which relevant sections of the GEIS and impact conclusions could be
incorporated by reference. The NRC staff also determined if either
additional data or analysis was needed to determine the potential
environmental impacts on a specific environmental resource area. The
NRC staff documented its conclusions and determinations in the draft
SEIS.
In addition to the action proposed by Uranium One, the NRC staff
also addressed the no-action alternative in the draft SEIS. Under this
alternative, NRC would deny Uranium One's request to construct and
operate an ISR facility at the Moore Ranch ISR Project. The no-action
alternative serves as a baseline to compare the potential environmental
impacts.
The NRC staff also considered other alternatives but eliminated
them from detailed analysis. Conventional mining/milling and
conventional mining/heap leach processing are two potential methods of
uranium recovery at the Moore Ranch ISR Project. However, given the
recognized more substantial environmental impacts of conventional
mining (whether by open pit or underground techniques) and conventional
milling or heap leach processing, these alternatives were not further
considered. The NRC staff also evaluated alternative lixiviants (acid-
and ammonia-based), alternative waste disposal methods, and an
alternative site location within the proposed area. For reasons
discussed in the draft SEIS, these alternatives also were eliminated
from further consideration.
This draft SEIS is being issued for public comment. The public
comment period on the draft SEIS begins with publication of this notice
and continues until February 1, 2010. Written comments should be
submitted as described in the ADDRESSES section of this notice. The NRC
will consider comments received or postmarked after that date to the
extent practical.
Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 4th day of December 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. E9-29553 Filed 12-10-09; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 7590-01-P