[Federal Register Volume 79, Number 21 (Friday, January 31, 2014)]
[Notices]
[Pages 5468-5469]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2014-02043]
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NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
[NRC-2012-0277]
Proposed Dewey-Burdock Project in Fall River and Custer Counties,
South Dakota, for In-Situ Leach Uranium Milling Facilities
AGENCY: Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
ACTION: Final supplemental environmental impact statement; issuance.
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SUMMARY: Notice is hereby given that the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory
Commission (NRC) published the Final Supplemental Environmental Impact
Statement (SEIS) (NUREG-1910, Supplement 4) for the Dewey-Burdock In-
Situ Uranium Recovery (ISR) Project. By letter dated August 10, 2009,
Powertech USA, Inc. (Powertech) submitted an application to the NRC for
a new source materials license for the Dewey-Burdock ISR Project, which
Powertech proposes to be located in Fall River and Custer Counties,
South Dakota. Powertech is proposing to recover uranium from the Dewey-
Burdock Project site using the in-situ recovery process.
ADDRESSES: Please refer to Docket ID NRC-2012-0277 when contacting the
NRC about the availability of information regarding this document. You
may access publicly-available information related to this action by the
following methods:
Federal Rulemaking Web site: Go to http://www.regulations.gov and search for Docket ID NRC-2012-0277. Address
questions about NRC dockets to Carol Gallagher; telephone: 301-287-
3422; email: [email protected]. For technical questions, contact
the individual listed in the FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT section of
this document.
NRC's Agencywide Documents Access and Management System
(ADAMS): You may access publicly available documents online in the NRC
Library at http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html. To begin the
search, select ``ADAMS Public Documents'' and then select ``Begin Web-
based ADAMS Search.'' For problems with ADAMS, please contact the NRC's
Public Document Room (PDR) reference staff at 1-800-397-4209, 301-415-
4737, or by email to [email protected]. The ADAMS accession number
for each document referenced in this notice (if that document is
available in ADAMS) is provided the first time that a document is
referenced. The ``Final SEIS (NUREG-1910, Supplement 4) is available in
ADAMS under Accession Nos. ML14024A477 and ML14024A478.
NRC's PDR: You may examine and purchase copies of public
documents at the NRC's PDR, Room O1-F21, One White Flint North, 11555
Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland 20852.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Ms. Haimanot Yilma, Office of Federal
and State Materials and Environmental Management Programs, U.S. Nuclear
Regulatory Commission, Washington DC, 20555-0001; telephone: 301-415-
8029, email: [email protected].
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Under the NRC's environmental protection
regulations in part 51 of Title 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations
(10 CFR), 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 May 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 construction,
operation, aquifer restoration, and decommissioning of an ISR facility
located in four specific geographic regions of the western United
States. The proposed Dewey-Burdock ISR Project is located within the
Nebraska-South Dakota-Wyoming Uranium Milling Region identified in the
GEIS. This final SEIS supplements the GEIS and incorporates by
reference relevant portions from the GEIS, and uses site-specific
information from the applicant's license application and other
independent sources to fulfill the requirements in 10 CFR 51.20(b)(8).
The final SEIS was prepared in response to an application submitted
by Powertech by letter dated August 10, 2009. The applicant proposes
the construction, operation, aquifer restoration, and decommissioning
of an in-situ recovery facility to recover uranium.
The final SEIS was prepared by the NRC and its contractor, the
Center for Nuclear Waste Regulatory Analyses (CNWRA), in cooperation
with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM), in compliance with NEPA,
and the NRC's regulations for implementing NEPA (10 CFR part 51).
The proposed Dewey-Burdock project will be located approximately 21
km [13 mi] north-northwest of Edgemont, South Dakota, in northern Fall
River and southern Custer Counties. The proposed facility would
encompass approximately 4,282 hectares (ha) (10,580 acres [ac]), which
consists of two contiguous mining units: the Burdock Unit and the Dewey
Unit.
The final SEIS is being issued as part of the NRC's process to
decide whether to issue a license to Powertech pursuant to 10 CFR part
40. In this final SEIS, the NRC staff has assessed the potential
environmental impacts from the construction, operation, aquifer
restoration, and decommissioning of the proposed Dewey-Burdock project.
The NRC staff accessed the impacts of the proposed action and its
alternatives on land use; historical and cultural resources; visual and
scenic resources; climatology, meteorology and air quality; geology,
minerals and soils; water resources; ecological resources;
socioeconomics; environmental justice; noise; traffic and
transportation; public
[[Page 5469]]
and occupational health and safety; and waste management. Additionally,
the final SEIS analyzes and compares the benefits and costs of the
proposed action. In preparing this final SEIS, the NRC staff also
considered, evaluated, and addressed the public comments received on
the draft SEIS published on November 26, 2012 (77 FR 70486). Appendix E
of final SEIS captures the public's comments and the NRC's responses.
In doing so, the NRC staff evaluated site-specific data and
information from the Dewey-Burdock ISR Project to determine if
Powertech's proposed activities and the site characteristics were
consistent with those evaluated in the GEIS. The NRC then determined
which relevant sections of, and impact conclusions in, the GEIS could
be incorporated by reference. The NRC staff also determined if
additional data or analysis was needed to assess the potential
environmental impacts for a specific environmental resource area. The
NRC documented its assessments and conclusions in the final SEIS.
In addition to the action proposed by Powertech, the NRC staff
addressed the no-action alternative, as well as alternative wastewater
disposal options under the proposed action. All the alternatives were
analyzed in detail. The no-action alternative serves as a baseline for
comparison of the potential environmental impacts of the proposed
action.
After weighing the impacts of the proposed action and comparing the
alternatives, the NRC staff, in accordance with 10 CFR 51.911(d), sets
forth its recommendation regarding the proposed action. Unless safety
issues mandate otherwise, the NRC staff recommends that the proposed
action be approved (i.e., the NRC should issue a source material
license for the proposed Dewey-Burdock ISR Project).
The final SEIS for the proposed Dewey-Burdock project may also be
accessed on the internet at http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/nuregs/staff/ by selecting ``NUREG-1910'' or on the NRC's
Dewey-Burdock ISR Project Web page at http://www.nrc.gov/materials/uranium-recovery/license-apps/dewey-burdock/dewey-burdock-app-docs.html. Additionally, a copy of the final SEIS will be available at
the following public libraries:
Edgemont Public Library, 412 2nd Avenue, Edgemont, SD 57735.
Rapid City Public Library, 610 Quincy Street, Rapid City, SD 57701-
3630.
Custer County Library, 447 Crook Street, Custer, SD 57730.
Weston County Library, 23 West Main Street, Newcastle, WY 82701.
Hot Springs Public Library, 145 N. Chicago Street, Hot Springs, SD
57747.
Oglala Lakota College Library, P.O. Box 310, Kyle, SD 57752.
Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 24th day of January 2014.
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Christepher McKenney,
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. 2014-02043 Filed 1-30-14; 8:45 am]
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