Notice of Availability of Environmental Assessment and Finding of No Significant Impact for License Amendment for Molycorp, Inc.’s Facility in Washington, PA, 11277-11278 [05-4401]

Agencies

• NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION

[Federal Register Volume 70, Number 44 (Tuesday, March 8, 2005)]
[Notices]
[Pages 11277-11278]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 05-4401]


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NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION

[Docket No. 040-08778]


Notice of Availability of Environmental Assessment and Finding of 
No Significant Impact for License Amendment for Molycorp, Inc.'s 
Facility in Washington, PA

AGENCY: Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

ACTION: Notice of availability.

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FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Tom McLaughlin, Project Manager, 
Decommissioning Directorate, Division of Waste Management and 
Environmental Protection, Office of Nuclear Material Safety and 
Safeguards, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-
0001; Telephone: (301) 415-5869; fax number: (301) 415-5398; e-mail: 
tgm@nrc.gov.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

I. Introduction

    The NRC is considering issuance of a license amendment to Molycorp, 
Inc. (Molycorp or licensee) for Materials License No. SMB-1393, to 
authorize an alternate decommissioning schedule for its facility in 
Washington, Pennsylvania. NRC has prepared an Environmental Assessment 
(EA) in support of this action in accordance with the requirements of 
10 CFR Part 51. Based on the EA, the NRC has concluded that a Finding 
of No Significant Impact (FONSI) is appropriate. The amendment will be 
issued following the publication of this Notice.

II. EA Summary

    The purpose of this proposed action is to allow the licensee to 
decommission its facility in a phased approach which will take longer 
than the two year period identified in the approved decommissioning 
plan (DP). 97Following an extensive supplemental characterization 
study, Molycorp found that there is a large volume of contaminated 
material in the subsurface. Molycorp will excavate the contaminated 
soils and transport them off-site to an NRC approved facility. 
Molycorp's proposed alternate decommissioning schedule shows that all 
decommissioning activities will be completed by the end of 2007. 
Molycorp's request is contained in a letter to NRC dated October 22, 
2004.
    An earlier, and more extensive, Environmental Assessment (EA) was 
prepared for License Amendment No. 5, in support of the NRC staff 
evaluation of Molycorp's final DP. The NRC staff determined that all 
steps in the proposed decommissioning could be accomplished in 
compliance with the NRC public and occupational dose limits, effluent 
release limits, and residual radioactive material limits. In addition, 
the staff concluded that approval of the decommissioning of the 
Molycorp Washington, PA, facility in accordance with the commitments in 
NRC license SMB-1393 and the final DP would not result in a significant 
adverse impact on the environment. The proposed action does not change 
the impacts analyzed in detail in the EA prepared for License Amendment 
No. 5.
    If the NRC approves the license amendment, the authorization will 
be documented in an amendment to NRC License No. SMB-1393. However, 
before approving the proposed amendment, the NRC will need to make the 
findings required by the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, as amended, and 
NRC's regulations. These findings will be documented in a Safety 
Evaluation Report in addition to the EA.

III. Finding of No Significant Impact

    The staff has prepared the EA (summarized above) in support of 
Molycorp's proposed alternate decommissioning schedule. The NRC staff 
has concluded that there will be no adverse environmental impacts 
associated with granting Molycorp an alternate decommissioning 
schedule. The impacts associated with this proposed action do not 
differ significantly from the impacts evaluated in the EA for approval 
of the DP in License Amendment No. 5. On the basis of the EA, the NRC 
has concluded that the environmental impacts from the action are 
expected to be insignificant and has determined not to prepare an 
environmental impact statement for the action.

[[Page 11278]]

IV. Further Information

    Documents related to this action, including the application for 
amendment and supporting documentation, are available electronically at 
the NRC's Electronic Reading Room at https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/
adams.html. From this site, you can access the NRC's Agency-wide 
Document Access and Management System (ADAMS), which provides text and 
image files of NRC's public documents. The ADAMS accession number for 
the documents related to this notice are: Molycorp's letter to NRC 
dated October 22, 2004, ML043090063; EA prepared for License Amendment 
No. 5, ML003735909; EA prepared for this action, ML050330004; 
Molycorp's final DP, ML010540178; Federal Register Notice for Amendment 
No. 7, ML050030165. 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 pdr@nrc.gov.
    Any questions should be referred to Thomas McLaughlin, Division of 
Waste Management and Environmental Protection, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory 
Commission, Washington DC 20555, Mailstop T-7E18, telephone (301) 415-
5869, fax (301) 415-5397.

    Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 18th day of February, 2005.

    For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Daniel M. Gillen,
Deputy Director, Decommissioning Directorate, Division of Waste 
Management and Environmental Protection, Office of Nuclear Material 
Safety and Safeguards.
[FR Doc. 05-4401 Filed 3-7-05; 8:45 am]
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