[Federal Register Volume 84, Number 27 (Friday, February 8, 2019)]
[Notices]
[Pages 2935-2937]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2019-01642]


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NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION

[Docket No. 40-8907; NRC-2019-0026]


United Nuclear Corporation (UNC) Church Rock Project

AGENCY: Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

ACTION: Intent to prepare an environmental impact statement (EIS) and 
conduct a scoping process; request for comment.

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SUMMARY: The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) received a 
license application by letter dated September 24, 2018, from United 
Nuclear Corporation (UNC). By this application, UNC is requesting 
authorization to amend its license (SUA-1475) to excavate approximately 
1 million cubic yards (CY) of mine spoil from the Northeast Church Rock 
Mine Site and dispose of it at the existing mill site in Church Rock, 
New Mexico (the proposed action). The NRC staff will prepare an EIS to 
document the potential environmental impacts from the proposed action 
and reasonable alternatives. As part of the EIS development process, 
the NRC is seeking comments on the scope of its environmental review.

DATES: Comments must be filed by April 19, 2019. Comments received 
after this date will be considered, if it is practical to do so, but 
the Commission is able to ensure consideration only for comments 
received on or before this date.

ADDRESSES: You may submit comments by any of the following methods:
     Federal Rulemaking Website: Go to http://www.regulations.gov and search for Docket ID NRC-2019-0026. Address 
questions about Docket IDs in Regulations.gov to Krupskaya Castellon; 
telephone: 301-287-9221; email: [email protected]. For 
technical questions, contact the individual listed in the FOR FURTHER 
INFORMATION CONTACT section of this document.
     Mail comments to: Office of Administration, Mail Stop: 
TWFN-7-A60M, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-
0001, ATTN: Program Management, Announcements and Editing Staff.
     Email comments to: [email protected].
    For additional direction on obtaining information and submitting 
comments, see ``Obtaining Information and Submitting Comments'' in the 
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION section of this document.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Ashley Waldron, Office of Nuclear 
Material Safety and Safeguards, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 
Washington, DC 20555-0001; telephone: 301-415-7317; email: 
[email protected].

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

I. Obtaining Information and Submitting Comments

A. Obtaining Information

    Please refer to Docket ID NRC-2019-0026 when contacting the NRC 
about the availability of information regarding this document. You may 
obtain publicly-available information related to this action by the 
following methods:
     Federal Rulemaking Website: Go to http://www.regulations.gov and search for Docket ID NRC-2019-0026.
     NRC's Agencywide Documents Access and Management System 
(ADAMS): You may obtain publicly-available documents online in the 
ADAMS Public Documents collection at http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html. To begin the search, 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]. In addition, for the convenience of 
the reader, instructions about obtaining materials referenced in this 
document are provided in a table in Section VII of this notice 
entitled, Availability of Documents.
     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.
     Project web page: Information related to the UNC Church 
Rock project can be accessed on the NRC's project web page at: https://www.nrc.gov/info-finder/decommissioning/uranium/united-nuclear-corporation-unc-.html.

B. Submitting Comments

    Please include Docket ID NRC-2019-0026 in your comment submission. 
Written comments may be submitted during the scoping period as 
described in the ADDRESSES section of the document.
    The NRC cautions you not to include identifying or contact 
information that you do not want to be publicly disclosed in your 
comment submission. The NRC posts all comment submissions at http://www.regulations.gov as well as entering the comment submissions into 
ADAMS. The NRC does not routinely edit comment submissions to remove 
identifying or contact information.
    If you are requesting or aggregating comments from other persons 
for submission to the NRC, then you should inform those persons not to 
include identifying or contact information that they do not want to be 
publicly disclosed in their comment submission. Your request should 
state that the NRC does not routinely edit comment submissions to 
remove such information before making the comment submissions available 
to the public or entering the comment submissions into ADAMS.

II. Background

    By letter dated September 24, 2018, UNC, a wholly owned, indirect 
subsidiary of General Electric (GE) submitted an application to amend 
its license SUA-1475. UNC is seeking to move approximately 1,000,000 CY 
of mine spoils from the Northeast Church Rock Mine Site (Mine Site) 
onto the Church Rock Mill Site (mill site) in McKinley County, New 
Mexico.
    The NRC staff has completed an acceptance review of UNC Church Rock 
license amendment application. By email dated January 4, 2019, the NRC 
notified UNC that the staff determined the application contains 
sufficient information for the NRC to conduct a detailed technical 
review (ADAMS Package Accession No. ML18360A424).

[[Page 2936]]

The applicant's environmental report (ER) can be found under ADAMS 
Accession No. ML18267A387.
    The purpose of this notice is to: (1) Inform the public that the 
NRC staff will prepare an EIS as part of its review of UNC Church Rock 
license amendment application in accordance with title 10 of the Code 
of Federal Regulations (10 CFR) Part 51 ``Environmental Protection 
Regulations for Domestic Licensing and Related Regulatory Functions,'' 
and (2) provide the public with an opportunity to participate in the 
environmental scoping process as defined in 10 CFR 51.29. In addition, 
as outlined in 36 CFR 800.8, ``Coordination with the National 
Environmental Policy Act,'' the NRC plans to coordinate compliance with 
Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act in meeting the 
requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA). 
The NRC staff also will document its compliance with other applicable 
Federal statutes, such as the Endangered Species Act, in the EIS.

III. Environmental Review

    The EIS prepared by the NRC staff will examine the potential 
environmental impacts of the proposed action. The NRC staff will 
evaluate the potential impacts to various environmental resources, such 
as air quality, surface and ground water, transportation, geology and 
soils, and socioeconomics. The EIS will analyze potential impacts of 
UNC's proposal on historic and cultural resources and on threatened and 
endangered species. Additionally, the economic, technical, and other 
benefits and costs of the proposed action and alternatives will be 
considered in the EIS.
    The NRC staff will also conduct a safety review to determine UNC's 
compliance with NRC's regulations, including 10 CFR part 20, 
``Standards for Protection Against Radiation'' and 10 CFR part 40, 
``Domestic Licensing of Source Material.'' The NRC staff's findings 
would be published in a safety evaluation report.

IV. Church Rock Mill Site

    The NRC's Federal action is to either grant or deny UNC's license 
amendment request. If the NRC approves UNC's request, then UNC could 
proceed with the proposed project--as described in its application and 
summarized here.
    UNC proposes to excavate approximately 1,000,000 CY of mine spoils 
from the Northeast Church Rock Mine site (mine site) onto the adjacent 
Church Rock Mill Site (mill site). Both the mine and mill sites are 
located in McKinley County, New Mexico. The former uranium-ore 
processing mill is licensed under NRC license SUA-1475. A byproduct 
material tailings impoundment currently exists within the mill site. 
Both the mine and mill sites are listed on the National Priorities List 
under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and 
Liability Act (CERCLA, also called Superfund). This license amendment 
is part of the proposed remediation and disposal of mine site waste. 
Waste that meets the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) action 
levels for cleanup [2.24 picocuries per gram (pCi/g) of radium-226 and 
230 mg/kg natural uranium or less] would be moved from the mine site 
and placed within the footprint the existing tailings impoundment on 
the mill site. Any waste that contains 200 pCi/g or more of radium-226 
or 500 mg/kg of total uranium would be segregated and transported to an 
offsite licensed facility for disposal and therefore would not be 
placed at the mill site. Construction of a cover between the underlying 
tailings and the mine spoils is proposed as well as a cover over the 
final mine waste surface.

V. Alternatives To Be Evaluated

    The EIS will analyze the environmental impacts of the proposed 
action, the no-action alternative, and reasonable alternatives. A brief 
description of each is provided below.
    No-Action Alternative--The no-action alternative would be to deny 
the license application. Under this alternative, the NRC would not 
issue the license amendment and UNC would not be authorized to accept 
the waste from the Northeast Church Rock Mine site. This alternative 
serves as a baseline for the comparison of environmental impacts of the 
proposed action and the reasonable alternatives.
    Proposed Action--The proposed Federal action is to issue a license 
amendment to UNC authorizing the company to amend its license SUA-1475 
to move mine waste from the Northeast Church Rock Mine site onto the 
mill site for disposal.
    Alternatives to the Proposed Action--Other alternatives not listed 
here may be identified during scoping or through the environmental 
review process.

VI. Scope of the Environmental Review

    The NRC staff is conducting a scoping process for the UNC Church 
Rock EIS, which begins on the day this notice appears in the Federal 
Register. In accordance with 10 CFR 51.29, the NRC seeks public input 
to help the NRC determine the appropriate scope of the EIS, including 
significant environmental issues to be analyzed in depth, as well as 
those that should be eliminated from detailed study because they are 
peripheral or are not significant. The NRC staff is planning to publish 
information related to this action in newspapers serving communities 
near the Church Rock site requesting information and comments from the 
public. Additionally, the NRC is planning to hold public scoping 
meetings to receive comments in person in accordance with 10 CFR 51.26. 
The dates, times, and locations for the meetings will be provided on 
NRC's public web page at: https://www.nrc.gov/pmns/mtg.
    After the close of the scoping period, the NRC staff will prepare a 
concise summary of its scoping process, the comments received, as well 
as the NRC's responses. The Scoping Summary Report will be included in 
NRC's draft EIS as an appendix and sent to each participant in the 
scoping process for whom the staff has an address or email address.
    The UNC Church Rock EIS will address the potential impacts from the 
proposed action. The anticipated scope of the EIS will consider both 
radiological and non-radiological impacts associated with the proposed 
project and its alternatives. The EIS will also consider unavoidable 
adverse environmental impacts, the relationship between short-term uses 
of resources and long-term productivity, and irreversible and 
irretrievable commitments of resources. The following resource areas 
have been tentatively identified for analysis in the EIS: Land use, 
transportation, geology and soils, water resources, ecological 
resources, air quality and climate change, noise, historical and 
cultural resources, visual and scenic resources, socioeconomics, public 
and occupational health, waste management, environmental justice, and 
cumulative impacts. This list is not intended to be exhaustive, nor is 
it a predetermination of potential environmental impacts. The EIS will 
describe the NRC staff's approach and methodology undertaken to 
determine the resource areas that will be studied in detail and the NRC 
staff's evaluation of potential impacts to those resource areas.
    The NRC encourages members of the public, local, State, Tribal, and 
Federal government agencies to participate in the scoping process. 
Written comments may be submitted during the scoping period as 
described in the ADDRESSES and SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION section of 
this document. Participation in the scoping process for the UNC Church 
Rock EIS does not entitle participants to

[[Page 2937]]

become parties to any proceeding to which the EIS relates.
    In addition to requesting scoping comments through this Federal 
Register notice, the NRC staff also intends to reach out to interested 
stakeholders, including other Federal and State agencies and Indian 
Tribes. The NRC staff seeks to identify, among other things, all review 
and consultation requirements related to the proposed action, and 
agencies with jurisdiction by law or with special expertise with 
respect to any environmental impact involved. The NRC invites such 
agencies to participate in the scoping process and, as appropriate, 
cooperate in the preparation of the EIS.
    The NRC staff will continue its environmental review of UNC Church 
Rock license amendment application, and with its contractor, prepare a 
draft EIS and, as soon as practicable, publish it for public comment. 
The NRC staff plans to have a public comment period for the draft EIS. 
Availability of the draft EIS and the dates of the public comment 
period will be announced in a future Federal Register notice. The final 
EIS will include NRC's responses to public comments received on the 
draft EIS.

VII. Availability of Documents

    The documents identified in this Federal Register notice are 
accessible to interested persons by the means indicated in either the 
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION section of this notice or in the table below.

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                         Document                                            ADAMS accession No.
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UNC Church Rock license amendment application and ER        ML18267A235 (Package).
 (September 2018).                                          ML18267A387.
NRC's acceptance of the application for docketing and       ML18360A424 (Package).
 detailed review.
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    Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 5th day of February, 2019.

    For the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Michael F. King,
Director, Division of Fuel Cycle Safety, Safeguards, and Environmental 
Review, Office of Nuclear Material Safety, and Safeguards.
[FR Doc. 2019-01642 Filed 2-7-19; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 7509-01-P