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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 use the GEIS to 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. 

The GEIS focuses on the construction, operation, and decommissioning of and ground water restoration at ISL mills.

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

Alternatives To Be Evaluated

No action. Not construct nor operate potential ISL 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 and conduct ground water restoration at 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.

Environmental Impact Areas To Be Analyzed

Based on the scoping process, the NRC has identified the following resource areas for analysis in the GEIS.  The examples under each resource area are not intended to be all inclusive, nor is this list an indication that environmental impacts will occur.

• 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 has solicited public comments on the proposed scope and content of the GEIS.

As part of the GEIS process, the NRC 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 provided comments on the scope of the GEIS.  These comments were provided at the public scoping meetings, as well as in writing, submitted either electronically or by regular mail.  The scoping comment period closed on November 30, 2007; however, comments received after that date were considered to the extent possible.

The NRC has prepared a scoping summary report of the public comments received.

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;
• Hold public meetings on the draft GEIS;
• Receive public comments on the draft GEIS; and
• Publish the final GEIS, addressing, as appropriate, public comments received on the draft.

Current Schedule

The NRC published a draft GEIS for public comment on July 28, 2008 (73 FR 43795).  The public comment period on the draft GEIS closes on October 7, 2008. 

To aid the public in providing comments on the draft GEIS, the NRC has scheduled a series of public meetings.  The meeting dates, times, and locations are provided below.

Members of the public are invited and encouraged to submit comments on the Draft GEIS to the Chief, Rulemaking, Directives, and Editing Branch, Mailstop: T6-D59, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, D.C.  20555-0001. The NRC encourages comments submitted electronically to be sent to NRCREP.Resource@nrc.gov.  Please include “Uranium Recovery GEIS” in the subject line when submitting written comments.

The NRC expects to issue the final GEIS by June 2009.  The Final GEIS will address, as appropriate, the public comments received on the Draft GEIS.

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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Tuesday, July 29, 2008