[Federal Register Volume 75, Number 233 (Monday, December 6, 2010)]
[Notices]
[Pages 75704-75705]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2010-30488]
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NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
[Docket No. 30-36974; NRC-2010-0374]
Notice of Availability of Draft Supplement to the Environmental
Assessment for the Proposed Pa'ina Hawaii, LLC Irradiator in Honolulu,
HI
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) is issuing and publishing for public comment a Draft
Supplement to the Environmental Assessment (EA) for the irradiator
proposed by Pa'ina Hawaii, LLC (Pa'ina). On June 23, 2005, Pa'ina
submitted an application to NRC requesting a license to possess and use
byproduct material in connection with a proposed underwater irradiator.
NRC completed the Final EA and Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI)
for this action on August 10, 2007, and subsequently issued a license
to Pa'ina on August 17, 2007. The license authorizes Pa'ina to possess
and use byproduct material (sealed sources) in a commercial underwater
irradiator to be located adjacent to Honolulu International Airport on
Palekona Street near Lagoon Drive. NRC is issuing this Draft Supplement
to the EA in response to a decision of the Atomic Safety and Licensing
Board (Board) from the NRC's Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel
(ASLBP). As directed by the Board, this Draft Supplement addresses the
following three areas: (1) Environmental impacts of accidents that
might occur during the transport of cobalt-60 sources to and from
Pa'ina's irradiator, (2) electron-beam technology as an alternative to
cobalt-60 irradiation, and (3) alternative sites for Pa'ina's
irradiator.
DATES: The public comment period on the Draft Supplement begins on the
date of publication of this notice and ends on January 6, 2011. Written
comments should be submitted as described in the ADDRESSES section of
this notice. Comments submitted by mail should be postmarked by January
6, 2011, to ensure consideration. Comments received or postmarked after
January 6, 2011 will be considered to the extent practical, but the
Commission is able to assure consideration only for comments received
on or before this date.
ADDRESSES: You may submit comments by any one of the following methods.
Please include the Docket ID NRC-2010-0374 in the subject line of your
comments. 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.
Electronic Mail: Comments may be sent by electronic mail to the
following address: [email protected].
Federal Rulemaking Web site: Go to http://www.regulations.gov and
search for documents filed under Docket ID NRC-2010-0374. 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: Cindy Bladey, Chief, Rules, Announcements, and
Directives Branch (RADB), Division of Administrative Services, Office
of Administration, Mail Stop: TWB5-B01M, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory
Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001, or by fax to RADB at 301-492-
3446.
Comments submitted 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.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Johari Moore, Project Manager,
Environmental Review Branch A, Division of Waste Management and
Environmental Protection, Office of Federal and State Materials and
Environmental Management Programs, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission,
Rockville, Maryland 20852. Telephone: 301-415-7694; fax number: 301-
415-5369; e-mail: [email protected].
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
I. Introduction
By letter dated August 17, 2007, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory
Commission (NRC) issued Materials License No. 53-29296-01 to Pa'ina
authorizing possession and use of byproduct material (sealed sources)
in a commercial underwater irradiator to be located immediately
adjacent to Honolulu International Airport on Palekona Street near
Lagoon Drive. Also on August 17, 2007, NRC published a Notice of
Availability in the Federal Register for the EA and FONSI prepared in
support of this licensing action (72 FRN 46249). On September 4, 2007,
Concerned Citizens of Honolulu filed contentions challenging the NRC
staff's analysis in the Final EA. In an August 27, 2009 decision, the
Board found that the staff needed to supplement the Pa'ina EA in order
to address (1) environmental impacts of accidents that might occur
during the transport of cobalt-60 sources to and from Pa'ina's
irradiator, (2) electron-beam technology as an alternative to cobalt-60
irradiation, and (3) alternative sites for Pa'ina's irradiator. The
Board's findings on these issues were affirmed in a July 8, 2010
decision by the NRC's Commission. In the Draft Supplement issued today,
the NRC staff addresses each of the issues identified by the Board.
[[Page 75705]]
II. Summary of Draft Supplement to the EA
Pa'ina's license authorizes it to use byproduct material (sealed
radioactive sources) in a pool irradiator to be located adjacent to
Honolulu International Airport, Honolulu, Hawaii. The irradiator would
be used for the production and research irradiation of food, cosmetic,
and pharmaceutical products. Pa'ina's license request was previously
noticed in the Federal Register on August 2, 2005 (70 FR 44396), with a
notice of an opportunity to request a hearing.
The staff prepared an EA in support of its review of the license
application. The staff considered impacts to areas such as public and
occupational health, transportation, socioeconomics, ecology, water
quality, and the effects of aircraft crashes and natural phenomena.
The staff has prepared a Draft Supplement to the EA as directed by
the Board. In the first area identified by the Board, the staff found
that accidents occurring during the transport of cobalt-60 to or from
Pa'ina's proposed irradiator will not cause a significant impact to the
environment. This is due primarily to the very low likelihood cobalt-60
will be released from a shipping package. The low likelihood of release
is due to several factors, including the small number of cobalt-60
shipments to Pa'ina's irradiator and the stringent safety requirements
for the design of cobalt-60 shipping packages. In the second area
identified by the Board, the staff found that the environmental impacts
of an electron-beam irradiator will be small for each resource area.
The staff also found that the impacts will not be significantly
different than those associated with construction and operation of a
cobalt-60 irradiator. In the third area identified by the Board, the
staff found that impacts associated with construction and operation of
a cobalt-60 irradiator at alternative sites will be small and will not
be significantly different than those at the proposed site. In
particular, the staff found that aircraft crashes involving the
alternative sites will have no significant impact on public health and
safety. The staff also found that environmental impacts from
earthquakes, tsunamis, and hurricanes at the alternative locations will
be small.
III. Further Information
Publicly available documents created or received at the NRC,
including the Draft Supplement to the EA, the August 10, 2007, EA, and
the Pa'ina license 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, the public can
access the NRC's Agencywide Document Access and Management System
(ADAMS), which provides text and image files of NRC's public documents.
The ADAMS accession number for the Draft Supplement to the EA is
ML103220072. The ADAMS accession numbers for the August 10, 2007, EA
and the August 17, 2007, license are ML071150121 and ML072320269,
respectively. If you do not have access to ADAMS or if there are
problems in accessing the documents located in ADAMS, contact the NRC
Public Document Room (PDR) Reference staff at 1-800-397-4209, 301-415-
4737 or by e-mail to [email protected]
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. In addition, documents relating to
the administrative litigation associated with Pa'ina's application may
be found in the Electronic Hearing Docket maintained by the NRC's
Office of the Secretary at http://ehd1.nrc.gov/EHD/.
Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 29th day of November, 2010.
For the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
David Skeen,
Acting 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. 2010-30488 Filed 12-3-10; 8:45 am]
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