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Generic Environmental Impact Statement For Uranium Milling Facilities

• Background
• Alternatives To Be Evaluated
• Environmental Impact Areas To Be Analyzed
• Scoping Meetings
• Scoping Comments
• The National Environmental Policy Act Process
• Current Schedule
• Related Information

Background

The NRC expects numerous license applications for in-situ leach (ISL) uranium milling facilities in 2008 through 2010. This generic environmental impact statement (GEIS) addresses common issues associated with environmental reviews of such facilities located in the western United States. By addressing environmental issues common to ISL milling facilities in this review, the NRC staff will aid in a more efficient environmental review for each separate license application, if and when such an application is submitted.

ISL milling facilities recover uranium from low grade ores that may not be economically recoverable by other methods.

One alternative to ISL milling is the conventional uranium milling process that extracts uranium from mined ore.

The GEIS will focus on the construction, operation, and decommissioning of ISL mills and also assess alternative methods of uranium recovery. The hardrock mining associated with conventional uranium milling is regulated by other entities such as the U.S. Bureau of Land Management and various state agencies.

For more information on the uranium fuel cycle, please see Regulating Nuclear Fuel, NUREG/BR-0280.

Alternatives To Be Evaluated

No action. Neither build nor license potential uranium milling facilities. Under this alternative the NRC would not approve future license applications. This alternative serves as a baseline for comparison of the potential environmental impacts.

Proposed action. Construct, operate, and decommission an ISL uranium mill. Implementation of the proposed action would require the issuance of an NRC license under the provisions of 10 CFR Part 40.

Other alternatives. Construct, operate, and decommission a conventional mill.  Other alternatives not listed in this notice may be identified through the scoping process.

Environmental Impact Areas To Be Analyzed

The NRC identified the following resource areas for analysis in the GEIS.  The areas listed are tentative and may be changed on completion of the public scoping process.  The examples under each resource area are not intended to be all inclusive, nor is this list an indication that environmental impacts will occur. The list is presented to aid in commenting on the scope of the GEIS.

• Public and occupational health.  Public and occupational consequences from construction, routine operation, transportation, and credible accident scenarios (including natural events), and decommissioning;
• Waste management.  Types of waste expected to be generated, handled, stored, and subject to re-use or disposal;
• Land use.   Land use plans, policies and controls;
• Transportation.  Transportation modes, routes, quantities, and risk estimates;
• Geology and soil.  Physical geography, topography, geology, and soil characteristics;
• Water resources.  Surface and ground water hydrology, water use and quality, and the potential for degradation;
• Ecology.  Wetlands, aquatic, terrestrial, economically and recreationally important species, and threatened and endangered species;
• Air quality.  Meteorological conditions, ambient background, pollutant sources, and the potential for degradation;
• Noise.  Ambient noise, sources, and sensitive receptors;
• Historical and cultural resources.  Historical, archaeological, and traditional cultural resources;
• Visual and scenic resources.  Landscape characteristics, man-made features and view shed;
• Socioeconomics.  Demography, economic base, labor pool, housing, transportation, utilities, public services and facilities, education, recreation, and cultural resources;
• Environmental justice.  Potential disproportionately high and adverse impacts to minority and low-income populations; and
• Cumulative effects.  Effects from past, present, and reasonably foreseeable future actions at and near the site.

Scoping Meetings

The public scoping process required by the National Environmental Policy Act begins with publication of a notice of intent (NOI).  The NRC staff published its NOI for the preparation of the GEIS in the Federal Register on July 24, 2007 (72 FR 40344).

Scoping is an early and open process designed to do the following.

• Determine the range of actions, alternatives, and potential impacts to be considered in the GEIS;
• Identify public concerns;
• Identify the significant issues related to the proposed action for future analysis;
• Solicit information from the public and other agencies so that the analysis can be more clearly focused on issues of genuine concern;
• Ensure that concerns are identified early and are properly studied;
• Identify alternatives that will be examined; and
• Eliminate unimportant issues.

The NRC is encouraging public involvement in the GEIS process and is soliciting public comments on the proposed scope and content of the GEIS.

As part of the GEIS process, the NRC has held three public scoping meetings to solicit both oral and written comments from interested parties.  During these meetings, the NRC staff briefly described NRC's role and mission, the NRC's environmental review process, and the goals of the meeting. The rest of each meeting was set aside for attendees to make oral comments.

The meeting dates, times and locations are listed below. The following links on this page are to documents in Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF). See our Plugins, Viewers, and Other Tools page for more information. For successful viewing of PDF documents on our site please be sure to use the latest version of Adobe.

Scoping Comments

Members of the public and interested parties are encouraged to submit comments electronically either by our comment form (in the form, select Uranium Recovery GEIS as the document category) or by e-mail to nrcrep@nrc.gov. You may also mail comments to the Chief, Rules Review and Directives Branch, Mail Stop T-6 D59, U.S. Please refer to the Uranium Recovery GEIS when submitting comments. Written comments submitted by mail should be postmarked by November 30, 2007 to ensure consideration. Comments mailed after that date will be considered to the extent possible.

The NRC will prepare a scoping summary report of public comments. The scoping summary report and project-related materials will be available at the NRC Public Web Site and also on this web site.

The National Environmental Policy Act Process

The GEIS will be prepared according to National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and NRC's NEPA implementing regulations contained in 10 CFR Part 51.  The steps in the process will be as follows.

• Complete the scoping process;
• Publish a draft of the GEIS (currently scheduled for April 2008);
• Receive comments on the draft GEIS;
• Hold public meetings about 3 weeks after the draft is published; and
• Publish the final GEIS (expected by January 2009), addressing, as appropriate, public comments received on the draft.

Current Schedule

To be determined.

Related Information

• Uranium Milling
• Fact Sheet on Uranium Mill Tailings
• Nureg 1748 "Environmental Review Guidance for Licensing Actions Associated with NMSS Programs"

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Thursday, November 15, 2007