[Federal Register Volume 76, Number 101 (Wednesday, May 25, 2011)]
[Notices]
[Pages 30397-30399]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2011-12960]


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NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION

[Docket No. 72-0009; NRC-2010-0188]


Notice of Availability of Environmental Assessment and Finding of 
No Significant Impact for the License Amendment for the Fort St. Vrain 
Independent Spent Fuel Storage Installation

AGENCY: Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

ACTION: Notice of availability.

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FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Jean Trefethen, 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, 
Washington, DC 20555. Telephone: 301-415-5137; Fax: 301-415-5369; e-
mail: [email protected].

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: 

I. Introduction

    The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is considering an 
application dated November 10, 2009, from the U.S. Department of Energy

[[Page 30398]]

(DOE) for the renewal of the Special Nuclear Materials (SNM) License 
SNM-2504 for the Fort St. Vrain (FSV) Independent Spent Fuel Storage 
Installation (ISFSI) located in Platteville, Colorado. If granted, the 
renewed license will authorize DOE to continue to possess and store 
spent fuel and associated radioactive wastes at the FSV ISFSI. License 
SNM-2504 expires on November 30, 2011. This renewal, if granted, will 
extend the term of license SNM-2504 to November 30, 2031.
    The NRC has prepared an Environmental Assessment (EA) as part of 
its review of this proposed license renewal in accordance with the 
requirements of 10 CFR part 51. Based on the EA, the NRC has determined 
that a Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI) is appropriate. The NRC 
is also conducting a safety evaluation of this action, pursuant to 10 
CFR part 72. The results of the safety evaluation will be documented in 
a separate Safety Evaluation Report. If DOE's request is approved, the 
NRC will issue a renewed license following the publication of this EA 
and FONSI.

II. EA Summary

    The proposed licensing action is to renew license SNM-2504 for an 
additional 20 years to authorize the continued operation of the FSV 
ISFSI in Platteville, Colorado. If approved, DOE will be allowed to 
possess and store spent fuel and associated radioactive wastes at the 
FSV ISFSI until November 30, 2031.
    The FSV ISFSI uses a Modular Vault Dry Storage (MVDS), which is a 
contained shield system designed for 40 years of interim storage of the 
FSV High Temperature Gas Cooled Reactor (HTGR) fuel. The FSV reactor 
was built and operated during the 1970s and 1980s. It was permanently 
shut down in 1989 and decommissioned. Some of the spent fuel is in dry 
storage at DOE's Idaho National Engineering Laboratory (INEL) facility. 
Facilities were not made available at INEL to store all the spent fuel 
and associated radioactive waste from the FSV reactor. Renewal of 
materials license SNM-2504 is needed for further safe storage of spent 
fuel at the FSV ISFSI.
    The NRC has prepared an EA as part of its review of the proposed 
license renewal. The NRC staff considered the following environmental 
resource areas in its evaluation: Air quality; noise; land use; water 
use and quality; socioeconomics; historic, archaeological, and cultural 
resources; threatened and endangered species; scenic and visual; waste 
management; transportation; and public and occupational health and 
safety.
    The environmental impacts of these resource areas were determined 
to be the small. The proposed license renewal request does not require 
altering the site footprint nor does it change the operating processes 
of the existing facility. The proposed action will not adversely affect 
Federal- or state-listed threatened or endangered species. Public and 
occupational radiological dose exposures have been and are expected to 
be below 10 CFR part 20 regulatory limits. Cumulative impacts over the 
20-year renewal period were also evaluated and determined to be small. 
Therefore, the NRC staff concludes that the proposed action will not 
result in a significant effect on the quality of the human environment.
    NRC staff consulted with other agencies regarding the proposed 
action, including regional Native American Tribes, the Colorado 
Department of Public Health and Environment, the Colorado Historical 
Society, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The consultations 
ensured that the requirements of Section 7 of the Endangered Species 
Act and Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act were met 
and provided the designated State liaison agency the opportunity to 
comment on the proposed action.

III. Finding of No Significant Impact

    On the basis of the EA, the NRC staff concludes that renewal of 
license SNM-2504 for the FSV ISFSI will not significantly affect the 
quality of the human environment. Therefore, pursuant to 10 CFR 51.31 
and 51.32, an environmental impact statement is not warranted for the 
proposed action, and a FONSI is appropriate.

IV. Further Information

    Documents related to this action, including the application for 
renewal of SNM-2504 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 and image files of NRC's public documents. The ADAMS 
accession numbers for the documents related to this notice are:

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                   Document                       ADAMS accession No.
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DOE License Renewal Application..............                ML093230788
NRC letter to DOE--Request for Additional                    ML103260338
 Information (RAI)...........................
DOE letter to NRC--Response to RAI...........                ML110380111
Annual Radiological Environmental Monitoring         ML070650337 (2007),
 Reports (2007, 2008, 2009)..................        ML080590359 (2008),
                                                      ML090560534 (2009)
NRC letter to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.                ML102880322
Letters from U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service            ML110380119(DOE),
 to DOE and NRC..............................           ML103340416(NRC)
NRC letter to Colorado Historical Society....                ML102880361
Letters from Colorado Historical Society to            ML110380132(DOE),
 DOE and NRC.................................           ML110590901(NRC)
NRC letters to Colorado Department of Public    ML102880196, ML110420186
 Health and Environment......................
Letters from Colorado Department of Public      ML103260293, ML111110258
 Health and Environment to NRC...............
Letter to Colorado State Historic
 Preservation Officer from NRC.
Letter from Colorado State Historic                    ML110380132(DOE),
 Preservation Officer to DOE and NRC.........           ML110590901(NRC)
NRC Tribal Consultation Letters To:
    Northern Cheyenne........................                ML103140530
    Southern UTE Indian......................                ML103140298
    Three Affiliated Tribes..................                ML103140358
    Standing Rock Sioux......................                ML103140316

[[Page 30399]]

 
    Northern Arapaho.........................                ML103140496
    Rosebud Sioux............................                ML103140281
    San Ildefonso Pueblo.....................                ML103140114
    Santa Clara Pueblo.......................                ML103140261
    Apache Tribe of Oklahoma.................                ML103140072
    Crow Creek Sioux.........................                ML103140181
    Crow Nation..............................                ML103140202
    Kiowa Tribe of Oklahoma..................                ML103140282
    Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma................                ML103140470
    Shoshone.................................                ML103140227
    Fort Sill Apache.........................                ML103140247
    Jicarilla Apache Tribal Council..........                ML103140269
    Ute Mountain Ute.........................                ML103140378
    Pueblo of Santa Ana......................                ML103140174
    Comanche Tribal Business Committee.......                ML103140149
    Zuni Pueblo..............................                ML103140574
    Pueblo de Cochiti........................                ML103140531
    Ohkay Owingeh............................                ML103140570
    Oglala Sioux.............................                ML103140548
    Cheyenne & Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma....                ML103130533
    Mescalero Apache.........................                ML103140458
    Letter from Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma to                 ML110550709
     NRC.....................................
1972 AEC Environmental Statement Related to                  ML110590923
 Operation of the FSV NGS....................
1991 NRC Final Environmental Assessment                      ML062710252
 Related to Construction of FSV ISFSI........
2011 NRC Final Environmental Assessment for                  ML111110339
 the License Renewal for FSV ISFSI...........
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    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].
    These documents may also be viewed electronically on the public 
computers located at the NRC's Public Document Room (PDR), O1 F21, One 
White Flint North, 11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville, MD 20852. The PDR 
reproduction contractor will copy documents for a fee.

    Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 16th day of May, 2011.

    For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Andrew Persinko,
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. 2011-12960 Filed 5-24-11; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 7590-01-P