[Federal Register Volume 66, Number 45 (Wednesday, March 7, 2001)]
[Notices]
[Pages 13794-13797]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 01-5509]
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NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Notice of Intent To Prepare an Environmental Impact Statement for
the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility
AGENCY: United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
ACTION: Notice of Intent (NOI).
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SUMMARY: The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) announces its
intent to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for
construction, operation and deactivation of a proposed Mixed Oxide
(MOX) Fuel Fabrication Facility (Facility) to be constructed at the
Department of Energy's (DOE) Savannah River Site (SRS) in South
Carolina. The EIS is being prepared pursuant to the National
Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and will examine the potential
environmental impacts of manufacturing MOX fuel from surplus weapons
plutonium. The MOX fuel is eventually planned to be used in two
existing domestic commercial reactors, thus helping to ensure that
plutonium produced for nuclear weapons and declared excess to national
security needs is converted to forms that are inaccessible and
unattractive for nuclear weapons.
TENTATIVE DATES; FUTURE NOTICES OF OPPORTUNITY FOR HEARINGS: The public
scoping process required by NEPA begins with publication of this NOI in
the Federal Register and continues until May 21, 2001. Written comments
submitted by mail should be postmarked by that date to ensure
consideration. Comments mailed after that date will be considered to
the extent practical. However, this May 21 date, and the proposed
meeting dates listed below, are subject to change for the following
reasons. The NRC is presently conducting its initial administrative
acceptance review of the construction authorization request (CAR)
regarding the MOX Facility.
[[Page 13795]]
Following the acceptance review (if the CAR is acceptable), a detailed
technical review of the CAR begins. The CAR was submitted to the NRC on
February 28, 2001, by DCS (a consortium formed by Duke Engineering &
Services, COGEMA, Inc., and Stone and Webster), the engineering firm
which, if NRC grants approval, would build the MOX Facility. The
acceptance review of the CAR is expected to take 30 days to complete.
If the CAR is accepted and formally docketed, the EIS scoping process
will continue. If, for any reason, the CAR is not accepted and formally
docketed, the scoping process will be suspended, and a notice
postponing the meetings listed below will be published in the Federal
Register. Additionally, if the CAR passes the acceptance review, a
notice of opportunity for hearing regarding the CAR will be published
in the Federal Register.
DCS plans to submit to the NRC a separate license application
requesting authority to operate the MOX Facility. This DCS request,
which would also be subject to the NRC's acceptance review procedures,
is expected in the summer of 2002. If this request is accepted and
formally docketed, another notice of opportunity for hearing regarding
operating authority would then be published in the Federal Register.
NRC will conduct public scoping meetings to assist it in defining
the appropriate scope of the EIS, including the significant
environmental issues to be addressed. NRC plans to hold scoping
meetings in April 2001. Please note that meeting attendees will be
requested to participate in the scoping process through small working
groups within the larger meeting setting. (See Section entitled Scoping
Meeting Format, below, for more details.) To effectively plan for this
type of meeting, NRC staff will need to know how many participants to
expect. If you do plan to attend any or all of the meetings, please
help us by registering ahead of time. Contact information for
registration is provided below in the section ``Addresses.'' The
meeting dates, times and locations are listed below. Prior to the
Scoping Meetings, NRC staff will be available to informally discuss the
MOX project and answer questions in an ``open house'' format.
April 17, 2001
North Augusta Community Center,
496 Brookside Drive,
North Augusta, SC
Scoping Meeting Time: 7 p.m. to 10 p.m.
Open House Time: 5:30 p.m. to 7 p.m.
April 18, 2001
Coastal Georgia Center,
305 Martin Luther King Boulevard,
Savannah, GA
Scoping Meeting Time: 7 p.m. to 10 p.m.
Open House Time: 5:30 p.m. to 7 p.m.
ADDRESSES: To register for a meeting, to provide comments or
suggestions on the scope of the EIS, or to make requests for special
arrangements to enable participation at scoping meetings (e.g., an
interpreter for the hearing impaired), please contact: Tim Harris at
(301) 415-6613 or Betty Garrett at (301) 415-5808.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: For general or technical information
associated with the license review of the MOX Facility, please contact:
Tim Johnson at (301) 415-7299 or Drew Persinko at (301) 415-6522. For
general information on the NRC NEPA process, please contact: Jennifer
Davis at (301) 415-5874 or Tim Harris at (301) 415-6613.
Availability of Documents for Review: Information and documents
associated with the MOX project, including the DCS Environmental Report
submitted in December 2000, and the CAR, may be obtained from the
Internet on NRC's MOX web page: http://www.nrc.gov/NRC/NMSS/MOX/index.html (case sensitive). In addition, documents are available for
public review through our electronic reading room: http://www.nrc.gov/NRC/ADAMS/index.html. Documents may also be obtained from NRC's Public
Document Room at U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Public Document
Room, Washington, DC 20555.
DCS states that some of the detailed technical material in the CAR
is confidential information which should be withheld from public
disclosure. DCS has submitted an affidavit with its CAR, in support of
its confidentiality statement. Until the NRC makes a determination as
to whether the information at issue can be properly withheld, the
publicly available copy of the CAR will be an edited version.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
Background
In January 2000, the DOE issued its Record of Decision (ROD) for
the Surplus Plutonium Disposition Final EIS [65 FR 1608]. The
fundamental purpose of the DOE program is to ensure that plutonium
produced for nuclear weapons and declared excess to national security
needs is converted to forms that are inaccessible and unattractive for
nuclear weapons. In its ROD, DOE announced that it had decided to use
two approaches for the disposition of surplus weapons plutonium, and
that the facilities would be located at its SRS. The first approach is
immobilization of approximately 8.4 metric tons of surplus plutonium.
The immobilization will consist of placing the weapons-grade plutonium
into canisters that will be filled with vitrified glass from the SRS
high-level waste tanks. The second approach will convert up to 25.6
metric tons of surplus plutonium into MOX nuclear reactor fuel. (The
scoping process discussed in this notice is focused on this second
approach.) A third facility to disassemble the plutonium pits (the
current form) and convert the recovered plutonium into plutonium
dioxide suitable for disposition will also be located at SRS, but will
not be reviewed by NRC and is not included in this scoping meeting.
The DOE has selected DCS to provide the MOX fuel fabrication and
reactor irradiation services. DCS submitted its Environmental Report
for MOX fuel fabrication to NRC on December 19, 2000. DCS submitted its
CAR to NRC on February 28, 2001. NRC will evaluate the potential
environmental impacts associated with MOX fuel fabrication in parallel
with the review of the CAR. This evaluation will be documented in draft
and final Environmental Impact Statements in accordance with NEPA and
NRC's implementing regulations at 10 CFR Part 51.
MOX Fuel Fabrication at SRS (New Construction)
The MOX Facility, if licensed, would produce completed MOX fuel
assemblies for use in two domestic, commercial nuclear power reactors.
Feed materials would be plutonium dioxide from the pit conversion
facility at SRS, and uranium dioxide made from either the DOE stockpile
of depleted uranium hexafluoride from another DOE site, or another
source selected by DCS and approved by DOE. MOX fuel fabrication
involves purification of the plutonium dioxide to remove other metals
present in the weapons pit; blending the plutonium dioxide with
depleted uranium dioxide; pressing the mixed oxide into pellets;
sintering the pellets; loading the pellets into fuel rods; and
assembling the fuel rods into fuel assemblies. Once assembled, the fuel
assemblies would be transported to a domestic, commercial reactor for
use. (The McGuire and/or the Catawba nuclear power plants near
Charlotte, NC, have been tentatively selected.) Following irradiation
to generate electric power, the MOX fuel would be removed from the
reactor, and managed at the reactor site as spent nuclear fuel.
[[Page 13796]]
Final disposition would be at a geologic repository in accordance with
the Nuclear Waste Policy Act.
Purpose and Need for Agency Action
On October 17, 1998, Congress amended Section 202 of the Energy
Reorganization Act, giving licensing authority to the NRC regarding any
MOX Facility to be built (42 U.S.C. 5842(5)). Accordingly, in order for
DCS to construct and operate the MOX Facility, it must be licensed/
authorized by the NRC. Such action would be a major federal action,
thus requiring NRC, pursuant to NEPA, to prepare an EIS for
construction, operation and deactivation of the MOX Facility. The EIS
will consider facility-specific environmental impacts (an earlier EIS
prepared by DOE addressed generic impacts) associated with constructing
and operating the MOX Facility. The EIS prepared by NRC will also
consider indirect effects from MOX fuel fabrication, such as
transportation to the domestic, commercial reactors, MOX fuel use in
those reactors, and eventual spent fuel disposal.
Alternatives To Be Evaluated
No Action--Do Not Issue Construction Authorization for MOX Fuel
Fabrication Facility at SRS
Alternative 1--Issue Construction Authorization for MOX Fuel
Fabrication Facility at SRS
Note that NRC is limited to issuing or denying the construction
authorization and/or license to operate the MOX Facility at SRS. The
DOE has already decided to pursue the two disposition approaches for
surplus weapons plutonium, and has already decided to site the MOX
Facility at SRS. These decisions will not be revisited by NRC. Other
alternatives not listed here may be identified through the scoping
process.
Environmental Impact Areas To Be Analyzed
The following areas have been tentatively identified for analysis
in the EIS. This list is neither intended to be all inclusive, nor is
it a predetermination of potential environmental impacts. The list is
presented to facilitate comments on the scope of the EIS. Additions to,
or deletions from this list may occur as a result of the public scoping
process.
Health and Safety: potential public and occupational
consequences from construction, routine operation, transportation, and
credible accident scenarios;
Waste Management/Pollution Prevention: types of wastes
expected to be generated, handled, and stored; pollution prevention
opportunities and the potential consequences to public safety and the
environment;
Hazardous Materials: handling, storage and use; both
present and future;
Background Radiation: cosmic, rock, soil, water, and air
and the potential addition of radiation;
Water Resources: surface and groundwater hydrology, water
use and quality, and the potential for degradation;
Air Quality: meteorological conditions, ambient
background, pollutant sources, and the potential for degradation;
Earth Resources: physical geography, topography, geology
and soil characteristics;
Land Use: plans, policies and controls;
Noise: ambient, sources, and sensitive receptors;
Ecological Resources: wetlands, aquatic, terrestrial,
economically and recreationally important species, and threatened and
endangered species;
Socioeconomic: demography, economic base, labor pool,
housing, transportation, utilities, public services/facilities,
education, recreation, and cultural resources;
Natural Disasters: floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, and
seismic events;
Cumulative Effects: impacts from past, present and
reasonably foreseeable actions at, and near the site(s);
Indirect Effects: transportation to the domestic,
commercial reactors, MOX fuel use in those reactors, and eventual spent
fuel disposal;
Unavoidable Adverse Impacts;
Natural and Depletable Resources: requirements and
conservation potential; and
Environmental Justice: any potential disproportionately
high and adverse impacts to minority and low-income populations.
Alternatives other than those presented in this document may
warrant examination, and new issues may be identified for evaluation.
Scoping Meetings
One purpose of this NOI is to encourage public involvement in the
EIS process, and to solicit public comments on the proposed scope and
content of the EIS. NRC will hold public scoping meetings in the SRS
vicinity to solicit both oral and written comments from interested
parties.
Scoping is an early and open process designed to determine the
range of actions, alternatives, and potential impacts to be considered
in the EIS, and to identify the significant issues related to the
proposed action. It is intended to solicit input from the public and
other agencies so that the analysis can be more clearly focused on
issues of genuine concern. The principal goals of the scoping process
are to:
Ensure that concerns are identified early and are properly
studied;
Identify alternatives that will be examined;
Identify significant issues that need to be analyzed;
Eliminate unimportant issues; and
Identify public concerns.
Scoping Meeting Format
Traditionally, scoping meetings begin with agency speakers, then
attendees make oral comments. The scoping meetings for the MOX Facility
will follow a different structure, which was recommended by the Council
on Environmental Quality in its ``Memorandum for General Counsels, NEPA
Liaisons and Participants in Scoping,'' dated April 30, 1981.
``* * * The first part of the meeting is devoted to a discussion of
the proposal in general, covering its purpose, proposed location,
design, and any other aspects that can be presented in a lecture
format. A question and answer period concerning this information is
often held at this time. Then . . . the next step is to break . . .
into small groups for more intensive discussion. At this point, * * *
numbers held by the participants are used to assign them to small
groups by sequence, random drawing, or any other method. Each group
should be no larger than 12, and 8-10 is better. The groups are
informed that their task is to prepare a list of significant
environmental issues and reasonable alternatives for analysis in the
EIS. These lists will be presented to the main group and combined into
a master list, after the discussion groups are finished.''
A member of the NRC staff, or NRC contractor staff will be part of
each group to answer questions and listen to the participants'
concerns. The agency person will not lead the group discussions, but
will serve as the recording secretary for each group. This will ensure
he/she is listening to group views. Each group will choose a member to
lead the group discussions.
In addition to the group discussions, participants will be able to
express their oral views to a recording secretary in five minute
blocks. NRC encourages those providing oral comments to also submit
them in writing. Comment cards will also be available for anyone who
prefers to submit their comments in written form.
[[Page 13797]]
Scoping Comments
Written comments should be mailed to: Michael T. Lesar, Acting
Chief, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Rules & Directives Branch,
Division of Administrative Services, Office of Administration, Mail
Stop T6D59, Washington, DC 20555.
Comments will also be accepted by e-mail. Interested parties may e-
mail their comments to [email protected]. Comments will be accepted by fax at
301-415-5398, Attention: Tim Harris.
NRC will make the scoping summaries and project-related materials
available for public review through our electronic reading room: http://www.nrc.gov/NRC/ADAMS/index.html. The scoping meeting summaries and
project-related materials will also be available on the NRC's MOX web
page: http://www.nrc.gov/NRC/NMSS/MOX/index.html (case sensitive).
The NEPA Process
The EIS for the MOX Facility will be prepared according to the
National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, the Council on Environmental
Quality's Regulations for Implementing the Procedural Provisions of
NEPA (40 CFR Parts 1500-1508), and NRC's NEPA Regulations (10 CFR Part
51).
The draft EIS is scheduled to be published in February 2002. A 45-
day comment period on the draft EIS is planned, and public meetings to
receive comments will be held approximately three weeks after
distribution of the draft EIS. Availability of the draft EIS, the dates
of the public comment period, and information about the public meetings
will be announced in the Federal Register, on NRC's MOX web page, and
in the local news media when the draft EIS is distributed. The final
EIS, which will incorporate public comments received on the draft EIS,
is expected in September 2002.
Signed in Rockville, MD, this 1st day of March 2001.
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Charlotte E. Abrams,
Acting Chief, Environmental and Performance Assessment Branch, Division
of Waste Management, Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards.
[FR Doc. 01-5509 Filed 3-6-01; 8:45 am]
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