Department of Energy September 8, 2005 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

DOE has prepared a Supplement Analysis (SA) pursuant to DOE regulations implementing the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) at 10 CFR 1021.314. The SA addresses DOE's proposal to ship approximately 37 cubic meters (1,307 cubic feet [ft\3\]) of transuranic (TRU) waste from the Battelle Columbus Laboratory West Jefferson site near Columbus, Ohio, to the Savannah River Site (SRS), a DOE site near Aiken, South Carolina, or to Waste Control Specialists, LLC (WCS), a commercial facility in Andrews, Texas. The waste was generated as part of the cleanup of the West Jefferson site and consists of approximately 12 cubic meters of Contact Handled (CH) TRU waste and approximately 25 cubic meters of Remote Handled (RH) TRU waste. For purposes of analysis, DOE assumed that at SRS, the CH-TRU waste would be characterized and transported to WIPP for disposal, and the RH-TRU waste would be stored for up to 5 years; at WCS, the CH-TRU and RH-TRU waste would be stored for up to 5 years. The waste would be maintained in a safe, secure manner until it can be processed and disposed of at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad, NM. The Battelle West Jefferson facility is privately owned; however, as part of the closeout of its nuclear materials research contract, DOE is assisting in the remediation of the site. Contract terms specify that all radioactive waste generated during the facility cleanup is ``DOE-owned'' for the purposes of disposal. The TRU waste must be shipped off-site by December 31, 2005, as Battelle's Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) license will expire at that time. In the final Waste Management Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (WM PEIS, DOE/EIS-0200, May 1997), DOE analyzed the potential environmental impacts of the management (treatment and storage) of TRU waste at DOE sites. The Record of Decision for the Department of Energy's Waste Management Program: Treatment and Storage of Transuranic Waste (63 FR 3629 (1998)) (TRU Waste ROD) documented DOE's decision that, except for the Sandia National Laboratory, which would ship its waste to Los Alamos National Laboratory, each DOE site that generated or will generate TRU waste will prepare and store its TRU waste on the site until it can be disposed of at WIPP. DOE noted that in the future, it may decide to ship TRU waste from sites where it may be impractical to prepare the waste for disposal to sites where DOE has or will have the necessary capability. The sites that could receive such shipments of TRU waste are the Idaho National Laboratory near Idaho Falls, Idaho; the Oak Ridge Reservation, near Oak Ridge, Tennessee; SRS; and the Hanford site, near Richland, Washington. Based on the SA, DOE has determined that a supplement to the WM PEIS or a new EIS is not needed. DOE plans to issue an amended Record of Decision (ROD) under the Waste Management Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (WM PEIS) for this waste no sooner than 30 days from the publication of this Notice.