Nuclear Regulatory Commission March 2011 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

Notice is hereby given that the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has published a Final Supplement to the Environmental Assessment (EA) for the irradiator proposed by Pa'ina Hawaii, LLC (Pa'ina). On June 23, 2005, Pa'ina submitted an application to NRC requesting a license to possess and use byproduct material in connection with a proposed underwater irradiator. NRC completed the Final EA and Finding of No Significant Impact for this action on August 10, 2007, and subsequently issued a license to Pa'ina on August 17, 2007. The license authorizes Pa'ina to possess and use byproduct material (sealed sources) in a commercial underwater irradiator to be located adjacent to Honolulu International Airport on Palekona Street near Lagoon Drive. NRC is issuing this Final Supplement to the EA in response to a decision of the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board (Board) from the NRC's Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel. As directed by the Board, this Final Supplement addresses the following three areas: (1) Environmental impacts of accidents that might occur during the transport of cobalt-60 sources to and from Pa'ina's irradiator, (2) electron-beam technology as an alternative to cobalt-60 irradiation, and (3) alternative sites for Pa'ina's irradiator. In the first area identified by the Board, the staff finds that accidents occurring during the transport of cobalt-60 to or from Pa'ina's proposed irradiator will not cause a significant impact to the environment. This is due primarily to the very low likelihood cobalt-60 will be released from a shipping package. The low likelihood of release is due to several factors, including the small number of cobalt-60 shipments to Pa'ina's irradiator and the stringent safety requirements for the design of cobalt-60 shipping packages. In the second area identified by the Board, the staff finds that the environmental impacts of an electron-beam irradiator will be small for each resource area. The staff also finds that the impacts will not be significantly different than those associated with construction and operation of a cobalt-60 irradiator. In the third area identified by the Board, the staff finds that impacts associated with construction and operation of a cobalt-60 irradiator at alternative sites will be small and will not be significantly different than those at the proposed site. In particular, the staff finds that aircraft crashes involving the alternative sites will have no significant environmental impacts. The staff also finds that environmental impacts from earthquakes, tsunamis, and hurricanes at the alternative locations will be small. Publicly available documents created or received at the NRC, including the Final Supplement to the EA, the August 10, 2007 EA, and the Pa'ina license 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, the public can access the NRC's Agencywide Document Access and Management System (ADAMS), which provides text and image files of NRC's public documents. The ADAMS accession numbers for the Final Supplement to the EA and related documents are provided in the table below: