Notice of Availability of Draft Generic Environmental Impact Statement for In-Situ Leach Uranium Milling Facilities, 43795-43798 [E8-17246]

Agencies

• NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION

[Federal Register Volume 73, Number 145 (Monday, July 28, 2008)]
[Notices]
[Pages 43795-43798]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: E8-17246]


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NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION


Notice of Availability of Draft Generic Environmental Impact 
Statement for In-Situ Leach Uranium Milling Facilities

AGENCY: Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

ACTION: Notice of availability of Draft Generic Environmental Impact 
Statement for Uranium milling facilities.

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SUMMARY: Notice is hereby given that the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory 
Commission (NRC), with the cooperation of the Wyoming Department of 
Environmental Quality, Land Quality Division, is issuing for public 
comment a Draft Generic Environmental Impact Statement (Draft GEIS) 
that identifies and evaluates on a programmatic basis, the potential 
environmental impacts from the construction, operation, aquifer 
restoration, and decommissioning at in-situ leach (ISL) uranium milling 
facilities located in particular regions of the western United States. 
The Draft GEIS addresses environmental issues common to ISL milling 
facilities to aid in making more efficient environmental reviews of 
individual site-specific ISL license applications.
    The NRC anticipates that nearly 75 percent of new license 
applications for uranium milling received by the agency within the next 
several years will propose use of the ISL process. By addressing common 
issues associated with environmental reviews of ISL facilities, the NRC 
will use the GEIS to provide a starting point in the staff's National 
Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) analyses for site-specific license 
applications for new ISL facilities. Additionally, the NRC staff plans 
to use the GEIS, along with applicable previous site-specific 
environmental review documents, in its NEPA analysis for the restart or 
expansions of existing ISL facilities. In its review of individual ISL 
license applications, the NRC would evaluate the site-specific data to 
determine whether relevant sections of the GEIS could be incorporated 
by reference into the site-specific environmental review. Additionally, 
the NRC would determine whether aspects of the site and/or the 
applicant's proposed activities are consistent with those evaluated in 
the GEIS or are such that additional analysis in specific topic areas 
would be required. As such, the subsequent site-specific NEPA reviews 
(i.e., either environmental assessments or environmental impact 
statements) will tier from the analyses of common issues evaluated in 
the GEIS and address the unique attributes of individual sites.
    To encourage broad participation in the preparation of the GEIS, 
the NRC staff has scheduled a series of public meetings in potentially 
affected regions of the four states (Wyoming, South Dakota, Nebraska, 
and New Mexico) where uranium milling companies have indicated to the 
NRC their desire to pursue uranium recovery using the ISL process. The 
purpose of these meetings will be for the NRC staff to present an 
overview of the Draft GEIS and to accept oral and written public 
comments on the Draft GEIS from interested members of the public. The 
meeting dates, times, and locations are listed below:
    Meeting Date: August 25, 2008, 7 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.
    Meeting Location: Holiday Inn Hotel & Convention Center, 305 N. 
27th Street, Spearfish, SD 57783, Phone (605) 642-4683.
    Meeting Date: August 27, 2008, 7 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.
    Meeting Location: Chadron State College, Student Center Ballroom, 
1000 Main Street, Chadron, NE., 69337, Phone (308) 432-6380.
    Meeting Date: August 29, 2008, 7 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.
    Meeting Location: Weston Senior Center, 627 Pine Street, Newcastle, 
WY 82701, Phone (307) 746-4903.
    Meeting Date: September 8, 2008, 7 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.
    Meeting Location: Best Western Inn & Suites, 3009 West Highway 66, 
Gallup, NM, Phone (505) 722-2221.
    Meeting Date: September 9, 2008, 7 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.
    Meeting Location: Best Western Inn & Suites, 1501 East Santa Fe 
Ave., Grants, NM, 87020, Phone (505) 287-7901.
    Meeting Date: September 11, 2008, 7 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.
    Meeting Location: Hilton Albuquerque, 1901 University Boulevard 
NE., Albuquerque, NM, Phone (505) 884-2500.
    Meeting Date: September 23, 2008, 7 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.
    Meeting Location: Best Western Ramkota Hotel, 800 N. Poplar, 
Casper, WY, Phone (307) 266-6000.
    Meeting Date: September 25, 2008, 7 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.
    Meeting Location: Best Western Tower West Lodge, 109 North U.S. 
Highway 14 &16, Gillette, WY, 82716, Phone (307) 686-2210.
    For each meeting, members of the NRC staff will be available for 
informal discussions with members of the public from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. 
The formal meeting and associated NRC presentation will begin at 7 p.m. 
For planning purposes, those who wish to present oral comments at a 
particular meeting are encouraged to pre-register no later than one 
week (7 days) prior to the meeting by contacting either Tarsha Moon of 
the NRC at 1-800-368-5642, extension 7843 or Antoinette Walker-Smith of 
the NRC at 1-800-368-5642, Extension 6390. Interested persons also may 
register to speak at the meetings. Depending on the number of speakers 
for a meeting, each speaker may be limited in the amount of time 
allocated for their comments so that all speakers will have an 
opportunity to offer comments.
    The NRC will issue a Final GEIS after considering both oral and 
written public comments on the Draft GEIS.

DATES: The public comment period on the Draft GEIS begins with 
publication of this notice and continues until October 7, 2008. Written 
comments should be submitted as described in the ADDRESSES section of 
this notice. The NRC will consider comments received or postmarked 
after that date to the extent practical.

ADDRESSES: Members of the public are invited and encouraged to submit 
comments on the Draft GEIS to the Chief, Rulemaking, Directives, and 
Editing Branch, Mailstop: T6-D59, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 
Washington, DC 20555-0001. The NRC encourages comments submitted 
electronically to be sent to NRCREP.Resource@nrc.gov. Please include 
``Uranium Recovery GEIS'' in the subject line when submitting written 
comments.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: For general information on the NRC's 
NEPA process, or the environmental review process related to the Draft 
GEIS, please contact James Park, Project Manager, Division of Waste 
Management and Environmental Protection (DWMEP), Mail Stop T-8F5, U.S. 
Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC, 20555-001, by phone at 1 
(800) 368-5642, extension 6935. For general or technical information 
associated with the safety and licensing of uranium milling facilities, 
please contact William Von Till, Branch Chief, Uranium Recovery Branch, 
DWMEP, Mail Stop T-8F5, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, 
DC 20555-0001, by phone at 1 (800) 368-5642, extension 0598.
    The NRC maintains an Agencywide Documents Access and Management 
System (ADAMS), which provides text and image files of the NRC's public 
documents. The Draft GEIS and its appendices may be accessed through 
the NRC's Public Electronic Reading Room on the internet at: https://
www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html, under the accession numbers 
ML082030184 and ML082000997 for Volumes 1 and 2, respectively, of the 
Draft GEIS. If you either do not have access to ADAMS or if there is a 
problem accessing documents located in ADAMS, contact the NRC Public 
Document Room (PDR) reference staff at 1 (800) 397-4209, 1 (301) 415-
4737 or by email to PDR.Resource@nrc.gov.
    Information and documents associated with the Draft GEIS are also

[[Page 43797]]

available for public review through the NRC Public Electronic Reading 
Room on the Internet at https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html and at 
the NRC's Web site for the GEIS, https://www.nrc.gov/materials/fuel-
cycle-fac/licensing/geis.html. Both information and documents 
associated with the Draft GEIS also are available for inspection at the 
Commission's Public Document Room, U.S. NRC's Headquarters Building, 
11555 Rockville Pike (first floor), Rockville, Maryland. For those 
without access to the Internet, paper copies of any electronic 
documents may be obtained for a fee by contacting the NRC's Public 
Document Room at 1-800-397-4209. The draft GEIS and related documents 
may also be found at the following public libraries:

Albuquerque Main Library, 501 Copper NW., Albuquerque, New Mexico 
87102, 505-768-5141.
Mother Whiteside Memorial Library, 525 West High Street, Grants, New 
Mexico 87020, 505-287-4793.
Octavia Fellin Public Library, 115 W Hill Avenue, Gallup, New Mexico 
87301, 505-863-1291.
Natrona County Public Library, 307 East Second Street, Casper, Wyoming 
82601, 307-332-5194.
Carbon County Public Library, 215 W Buffalo Street, Rawlins, Wyoming 
82301, 307-328-2618.
Campbell County Public Library, 2101 South 4J Road, Gillette, Wyoming 
82718, 307-687-0009.
Weston County Library, 23 West Main Street, Newcastle, Wyoming 82701, 
307-746-2206.
Chadron Public Library, 507 Bordeaux Street, Chadron, Nebraska 69337, 
308-432-0531.
Rapid City Public Library, 610 Quincy Street, Rapid City, South Dakota 
57701, 605-394-4171.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: In cooperation with the Wyoming Department 
of Environmental Quality (Land Quality Division), the NRC staff and its 
contractor, the Center for Nuclear Waste Regulatory Analyses, prepared 
this draft GEIS to facilitate the NRC staff's environmental review of 
new ISL uranium milling license applications. The NRC staff will use 
the GEIS to ensure a consistent approach in conducting the reviews and 
to focus the staff's efforts on unique site characteristics that will 
be addressed in the site-specific environmental evaluations as part of 
ISL application reviews. The Draft GEIS was prepared in compliance with 
the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the NRC's regulations 
for implementing NEPA (10 CFR Part 51).
    The NRC staff published a Notice of Intent to prepare the GEIS, in 
the Federal Register on July 24, 2007 (72 FR 40344). The public scoping 
comment period for the GEIS closed on November 30, 2007. The NRC staff 
has prepared a summary report of the comments received, and this report 
is available through the NRC Public Electronic Reading Room on the 
Internet at https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html, under the 
accession number ML081560476.
    The NRC is expecting numerous license applications for in-situ 
leach (ISL) uranium milling facilities in the coming 2-3 years. This 
Draft GEIS is intended to address the common issues associated with 
environmental reviews of such milling facilities located in specific 
regions of the western United States. Due to environmental issues 
common to ISL milling facilities, the NRC staff is addressing these 
common issues in a programmatic manner to aid in a more efficient 
environmental review for each individual license application, if and 
when these applications are submitted.
    ISL milling facilities recover uranium from low grade ores that may 
not be economically recoverable by other methods. In this process, a 
leaching agent, such as oxygen with sodium bicarbonate, is added to 
native ground water for injection through wells into the subsurface ore 
body to dissolve the uranium. The leach solution, containing the 
dissolved uranium, is pumped back to the surface and sent to the 
processing plant, where ion exchange is used to separate the uranium 
from the solution. The underground leaching of the uranium also frees 
other metals and minerals from the host rock. Operators of ISL 
facilities are required to restore the ground water affected by the 
leaching operations. The milling process concentrates the recovered 
uranium into the product known as ``yellowcake'' 
(U3O8). This yellowcake is then shipped to 
uranium conversion facilities for further processing in the overall 
uranium fuel cycle.
    In the Draft GEIS, the proposed action is the construction, 
operation, aquifer restoration, and decommissioning at an ISL uranium 
milling facility in each of four identified regions in the western U.S. 
Implementation of the proposed action would require the issuance of an 
NRC license under the provisions of 10 CFR Part 40. The GEIS also 
addresses the no-action alternative. Under this alternative, the NRC 
would not approve new ISL license applications in the four regions and 
so new ISL uranium milling facilities would not constructed nor 
operated in those regions. The no-action alternative serves as a 
baseline for comparison of the potential environmental impacts.
    Conventional mining/milling and the heap leach process are two 
other methods of uranium recovery. However, inasmuch as the suitability 
and practicality of using these alternative milling methodologies 
depends upon site-specific conditions, a generic discussion of these 
methodologies is not appropriate. Accordingly, the Draft GEIS does not 
contain a detailed analysis of alternative milling methodologies to the 
ISL process. A detailed analysis of such alternative milling 
methodologies that can be applied at a specific site will be addressed 
in the NRC's site-specific environmental review for individual ISL 
license applications.
    The Draft GEIS is structured in the following manner. The NRC staff 
began by identifying four uranium milling regions in the western U.S. 
to use as a framework for discussions in the document. Two regions are 
found in Wyoming, one in New Mexico, and a final region encompasses 
portions of Nebraska, South Dakota, and Wyoming.
    These regions were identified based on several considerations, 
including:
     Past and existing uranium milling sites are located within 
States where the NRC has regulatory authority over uranium recovery;
     Potential new sites are identified based on the NRC's 
understanding of where the uranium recovery industry has plans to 
develop uranium deposits using ISL technology; and
     Locations of historical uranium deposits within portions 
of Wyoming, Nebraska, South Dakota, and New Mexico.
    Additionally, in defining these regions, the NRC considered aspects 
of the affected environment (e.g., regional ground water 
characteristics, regional demographics) such that potential future ISL 
milling sites within each region would more likely share those aspects 
for the purpose of evaluating potential environmental impacts. 
Therefore, the NRC considers that these regions reasonably bound the 
geographic scope of the Draft GEIS for describing the affected 
environment and for assessing potential environmental impacts within 
each region.
    Next, the Draft GEIS provides a description of the ISL process and 
addresses the construction, operation, aquifer restoration, and 
decommissioning at an ISL facility. Financial assurance is also 
discussed, whereby the ISL licensee or applicant establishes a bond or 
other financial mechanism prior to operations to ensure that sufficient 
funds are available to

[[Page 43798]]

complete aquifer restoration, decommissioning, and reclamation 
activities.
    Then, the Draft GEIS describes the affected environment in each 
uranium milling region, using the environmental resource areas and 
topics identified through public scoping comments on the GEIS and from 
NRC guidance to its staff found in NUREG-1748, ``Environmental Review 
Guidance for Licensing Actions Associated With NMSS Programs,'' issued 
by the NRC in 2003.
    Finally, the Draft GEIS provides an evaluation of the potential 
environmental impacts of constructing, operating, aquifer restoration, 
and decommissioning at an ISL facility in each of the four uranium 
milling regions. In essence, this involves placing an ISL facility with 
the characteristics described previously within each of the four 
regional areas and describing and evaluating the potential impacts in 
each region separately. Impacts are examined for the following resource 
areas:
     Land use.
     Transportation.
     Geology and soils.
     Water resources.
     Ecology.
     Air quality.
     Noise.
     Historical and cultural resource.
     Visual and scenic resources.
     Socioeconomic.
     Public and occupational health.
    Following the discussion of potential environmental impacts, the 
Draft GEIS addresses cumulative impacts; environmental justice; 
practices, measures, and actions to mitigate potential impacts; 
environmental monitoring activities; and the consultation process with 
federal and tribal entities.
    As stated previously, the NRC is accepting comments on the Draft 
GEIS. Following the end of the public comment period, the NRC staff 
will publish a Final GEIS that addresses, as appropriate, the public 
comments on the Draft GEIS. The NRC expects to publish the Final GEIS 
by June 2009.

    Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 21st day of July, 2008.

    For the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Patrice M. Bubar,
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. E8-17246 Filed 7-25-08; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 7590-01-P