National Nuclear Security Administration November 28, 2005 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

Pursuant to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) of 1969, as amended (42 U.S.C. 4321 et seq.), the Council on Environmental Quality's (CEQ) and the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) regulations implementing NEPA (40 CFR Parts 1500-1508 and 10 CFR Part 1021, respectively), the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), an agency within the DOE, announces its intent to prepare a Site-Wide Environmental Impact Statement (SWEIS) for the Y-12 National Security Complex (Y-12) located at the junction of Bear Creek Road and Scarboro Road in Anderson County, Tennessee, near the city of Oak Ridge, Tennessee. NNSA has determined that one or more of the proposals to be evaluated would be a major federal action that could significantly affect the quality of the human environment; therefore, in accordance with the DOE regulations implementing NEPA, preparation of a new SWEIS is appropriate. The new SWEIS will evaluate new proposals as well as update the analyses presented in the original SWEIS (DOE/EIS-0309) issued in November 2001 (66 FR 56663, November 9, 2001). In its 2002 Record of Decision (ROD) (67 FR 11296, March 13, 2002), DOE announced its decision to continue operations at Y-12 and to construct and operate two new facilities: (1) The Highly Enriched Uranium Materials Facility (HEUMF) and (2) the Special Materials Complex (SMC). The HEUMF is currently under construction. The SMC was subsequently cancelled due to changing mission requirements and replaced by a smaller facility that pertains to purification only (Supplement Analysis for Purification Facility, Site-Wide Environmental Impact Statement for the Y-12 National Security Complex, DOE/EIS-0309/SA-1, August 2002), and the installation of two new pieces of equipment to allow reuse of parts rather than construction of a facility to manufacture new parts. The No Action Alternative for the new SWEIS is the continued implementation of the 2002 ROD, as modified by actions analyzed in subsequent NEPA reviews. Three action alternatives are proposed for consideration in the new SWEIS in addition to the No Action Alternative. Each alternative includes the No Action Alternative as a baseline. The three alternatives differ in that one includes a new fully modernized manufacturing facility optimized for safety, security and efficiency; another consists of upgrading the existing facilities to attain the highest level of safety, security and efficiency possible without construction of new facilities; and the third consists of operating the current facilities until they are no longer viable followed by deactivation of those facilities and cessation of the associated operations.