National Nuclear Security Administration October 18, 2011 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is issuing this Amended Record of Decision (AROD) for the Nuclear Facility portion of the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Building Replacement (CMRR) Project at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in Los Alamos, New Mexico. After completing an EIS, NNSA issued a ROD for the CMRR Project on February 3, 2004, deciding to construct a two-building, partially above-ground, CMRR Facility in Technical Area-55 (TA-55) at LANL. This new facility would replace the aging 60-year-old Chemistry and Metallurgy Research (CMR) Building at LANL, and would ensure the ability to continue to perform analytical chemistry and materials characterization operations using plutonium and other actinides in a safe, secure manner in support of NNSA mission activities. As the CMRR Project planning and design process has progressed over the past 8 years, the first building of the two-building CMRR Facility (the Radiological Laboratory/Utility/Office Building, also known as the RLUOB) has been constructed. During this same time period, primarily as a result of efforts to better understand the seismic environment at the selected construction site in TA-55, several design considerations and ancillary support requirements were identified for the CMRR Nuclear Facility (CMRR-NF) that had not been anticipated in 2003. These design considerations and additional ancillary support requirements were not analyzed in the 2003 CMRR EIS. To address this new information, NNSA recently completed a supplemental environmental impact statement, Final Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement for the Nuclear Facility Portion of the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Building Replacement Project at Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico (the CMRR-NF SEIS). The CMRR-NF SEIS analyzes the potential environmental impacts of proposed construction changes to the CMRR-NF to address site seismic and safety considerations, as well as newly identified ancillary construction support requirements, such as additional equipment storage areas, soil storage areas, additional transportation needs, and worker parking areas under the Modified CMRR-NF Alternative and compares these impacts to those identified for the construction project selected in the 2004 ROD (No Action Alternative) and for continued operation of the existing CMR facility. NNSA has considered this analysis as well as comments submitted by the public on the Draft and Final CMRR-NF SEIS and has decided to select the Modified CMRR-NF Alternative for constructing and operating the CMRR-NF portion of the CMRR Project. NNSA will select the appropriate Excavation Option (Shallow or Deep) for implementing the construction of this building after initiating final design activities, when additional geotechnical and structural design calculations and more detailed engineering analysis will be performed to support completing the facility design.