[Federal Register Volume 59, Number 79 (Monday, April 25, 1994)]
[Unknown Section]
[Page 0]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 94-9906]
[[Page Unknown]]
[Federal Register: April 25, 1994]
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE
Department of the Navy
Finding of No Significant Impact--Short-Term Storage of Naval
Spent Fuel; Final Determination
SUMMARY: The Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program has prepared an
Environmental Assessment of short-term storage of Naval spent nuclear
fuel at shipyards. The preferred alternative is the ``No Action''
alternative. Under this alternative, Naval spent fuel removed from
nuclear powered ships would be retained in specially designed shipping
containers at five shipyards: Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery,
Maine; Norfolk Naval Shipyard in Portsmouth, Virginia; Newport News
Shipbuilding in Newport News, Virginia; Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in
Bremerton, Washington; and Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard in Pearl Harbor,
Hawaii. Naval spent fuel also would remain in the Surface Support Barge
at Newport News Shipbuilding. The Department of Energy (DOE), with the
Navy as a cooperating agency, is preparing an Environmental Impact
Statement on longer-term storage of all DOE spent fuel, including Naval
spent fuel. The time period evaluated in the short-term storage
Environmental Assessment is the period through implementation of the
Record of Decision for the DOE Environmental Impact Statement.
The Environmental Assessment discusses alternatives to the
preferred alternative and evaluates the environmental impacts of both
the preferred and other alternatives. The Environmental Assessment
concludes that the environmental impact of any of the alternatives
would be very small. Therefore, there is no basis for determining that
any of these alternatives would be environmentally preferable to
others. The No Action alternative, which is the preferred alternative,
would allow all shipyard work, including refueling and defueling of
nuclear powered ships, to continue unimpeded by the short-term
accumulation of Naval spent fuel.
The Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program provided a draft of this
Environmental Assessment to officials of Virginia, Maine, New
Hampshire, Washington, and Hawaii for review and comment. Letters were
received from Congressman Norm Dicks of Washington and Mr. T.R. Strong
of the State of Washington Department of Health, both of whom agreed
that the No Action alternative is appropriate, and Mr. Brian Choy of
the State of Hawaii Office of Environmental Quality Control, who had no
comment.
Based on the analysis in the Environmental Assessment, the Naval
Nuclear Propulsion Program concluded that the preferred alternative was
not a major Federal action significantly affecting the quality of the
human environment, within the meaning of the National Environmental
Policy Act of 1969, (42 U.S.C. 4321 et seq.) and issued a Finding of No
Significant Impact. In accordance with the Council on Environmental
Quality regulations which allow agencies to determine circumstances
under which public review of Finding of No Significant Impact are
appropriate, the Program made this Finding available for public comment
for a period of 30 days.
Sixty-eight comment letters were received. The comments contained
in these letters and the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program responses are
presented in a new Appendix 5 to the Environmental Assessment. The
Appendix has been placed in libraries near the shipyards or mailed
directly to commenters not located near a shipyard. A summary of the
comments and the responses have been included at the end of this
notice.
FINAL DETERMINATION: After reviewing and analyzing the comments
received, the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program has concluded that the
Finding of No Significant Impact remains valid and the proposed action
is not a major Federal action significantly affecting the quality of
the human environment, within the meaning of the National Environmental
Policy Act (NEPA) of 1969, (42 U.S.C. 4321 et seq.). Therefore, the
Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program has determined that preparation of an
Environmental Impact Statement is not required.
ADDRESSES AND FURTHER INFORMATION: Persons requesting copies of the
Finding of No Significant Impact for short-term storage of Naval spent
fuel or the Environmental Assessment should contact Ms. Lisa Megargle,
Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program, Code NAVSEA O8U, Naval Sea Systems
Command, 2521 Jefferson Davis Highway, Arlington, VA 22242-5160 (703-
603-6126). Persons desiring to review the Environmental Assessment at a
public library should contact the Public Information Office at
Portsmouth (207-438-1260), Norfolk (804-396-9550), Puget Sound (206-
476-7111), or Pearl Harbor (808-474-0272) Naval Shipyards.
Dated: April 13, 1994.
B. DeMars,
Admiral, U.S. Navy, Director, Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program.
Dated: April 13, 1994.
Michael P. Rummel,
LCDR, JAGC, USN, Federal Register Liaison Officer.
Summary of Public Comments on the Environmental Assessment and Proposed
Finding of No Significant Impact and Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program
All of the comment letters and the responses to the comments are
contained in Appendix 5 to the Environmental Assessment. The most
frequent comments and the response to them are summarized below:
Comment: The shipyards should not be considered for storage of
Naval spent fuel due to proximity to population centers, or proximity
to the ocean or bodies of water.
Response: Under the National Environmental Policy Act, the Naval
Nuclear Propulsion Program is required to consider the full range of
reasonable alternatives, including the alternative of taking no action.
The analysis in the Environmental Assessment demonstrated that the
environmental impact of any of the alternatives would be very small.
This analysis took into consideration population data and nearby bodies
of water. Therefore, the Program did not eliminate shipyard locations
from consideration based on these characteristics.
Comment: Other locations should be considered.
Response: For short term storage, the shipyards provide both the
physical requirements for storage such as a rail siding or a storage
pad, as well as the administrative and support functions needed to
safely store spent fuel. These administrative and support functions
include physical security, radiological monitoring, and emergency
response capability. It would not be practical to provide these
administrative and support functions at other sites in the brief time
frame in question. Thus, such alternatives were not ``reasonable''
within the meaning of the Council on Environmental Quality regulations
implementing the National Environmental Policy Act.
Comment: The Program should conduct an Environmental Impact
Statement of nationwide scope on spent fuel issues.
Response: As discussed in the Environmental Assessment, the Navy is
a cooperating agency pursuant to the National Environmental Policy Act
in the DOE's comprehensive Environmental Impact Statement on spent
nuclear fuel management, including Naval spent fuel.
Comment: Temporary storage can last longer than planned. The
Environmental Assessment should evaluate the impact if another
alternative is not available in June 1995. The DOE Environmental Impact
Statement and Record of Decision are unlikely to be completed by June
1995. Litigation over the sufficiency of this Environmental Impact
Statement could delay implementation. An alternative allowing removal
from the shipyards might not be selected. Some of the alternatives to
be evaluated in the DOE Environmental Impact Statement would require
further site specific National Environmental Policy Act reviews, which
would prevent prompt implementation.
Response: As discussed in the Environmental Assessment, the Navy is
cooperating with the DOE in a comprehensive Environmental Impact
Statement on spent nuclear fuel management, including Naval spent fuel.
This Environmental Impact Statement will evaluate alternatives for
spent nuclear fuel management until a permanent repository is
available. The Idaho Federal District Court Order, as modified by the
Court acceptance of the agreement among the Navy, DOE, and Idaho,
requires the DOE Environmental Impact Statement to be complete and a
Record of Decision issued by June 1995. Some of the alternatives which
are being evaluated in the DOE Environmental Impact Statement will
allow routine Naval spent fuel shipments to be resumed promptly.
Therefore, it is by no means certain that storage at shipyards will be
extended. The environmental impact of all of the alternatives being
considered in the DOE Environmental Impact Statement will include any
transitional impacts. Thus, the scope of this Environmental Assessment
properly is limited to evaluation of alternatives for short term
storage while the DOE's Environmental Impact Statement is being
prepared. It would be inappropriate for the Naval Nuclear Propulsion
Program to speculate about the outcome of the DOE Environmental Impact
Statement or what action the Federal Government might take.
Comment: Department of Energy sites should be considered for short
term storage.
Response: Section 2.4 of the Environmental Assessment discussed why
the Department of Energy sites could not be made available within the
short term and thus are not ``reasonable'' alternatives. Several
Department of Energy sites are being evaluated for long term storage of
Naval spent fuel in the Department of Energy Environmental Impact
Statement on spent nuclear fuel management.
Comment: The Environmental Assessment does not adequately assess
whether containers designed for shipping would be suitable for the
different conditions of storage.
Response: As described in the Environmental Assessment, the
extremely rugged shipping containers were designed to withstand severe
transportation accidents such as collisions, falls of bridges, fires,
and immersion in water. Comparatively speaking, storage is much less
taxing on the structural integrity of the containers. Nevertheless, the
EA thoroughly evaluated the risks of potential accidents which could
happen during storage. The shipping containers, in fact, are
overdesigned for storage. Containers designed for transportation
provide protection for severe accidents in excess of what could be
reasonably expected to occur during storage.
Comment: The Environmental Assessment should consider earthquakes.
Response: The physical forces that an earthquake could subject a
shipping container to are much less than those involved with the
transportation accidents that the containers were designed to
withstand. For example, one of the severe accidents which shipping
containers are designed to withstand is a fall of 30 feet onto an
unyielding surface (equivalent to a fall of 60 feet onto a reinforced
concrete surface). Such a fall would subject a container to shock over
100 times greater than that of a severe earthquake. In practical terms,
steel structures far less strong than the massive shipping containers
fare well in actual earthquakes. Therefore, there is no need to
evaluate the potential for an earthquake to damage a shipping
container.
Comment: The Environmental Assessment underestimated the impacts of
severe accidents.
Response: The Environmental Assessment evaluated a range of
hypothetical accidents which could occur during storage. The most
severe accident evaluated in the Environmental Assessment was an
aircraft crash with the potential for breach of the shipping
containers. While extremely unlikely, this is the accident with the
greatest potential to damage the shipping containers during storage.
The accident analyses were based on realistic evaluation of what could
happen to Naval spent fuel in shipping containers during the
hypothetical accidents. Naval spent fuel is rugged, metallic,
nondispersible material, and it would be unreasonable to conclude that
any significant fraction of it could be released to the atmosphere by
any of the accidents considered. Even if the shipping container were to
be breached by a large part from an airplane (which is unlikely given
the massive nature of the shipping containers), the Naval spent fuel
would remain in or near the container. There is no mechanism for
grinding up the fuel and injecting it into the air. The long term
application of very high heat, such as might be generated by a confined
fire with a gasoline truck, would be necessary to drive some fission
products off from exposed Naval spent fuel. Such a fire is not credible
in the shipyard environment. The shipyard fire department is readily
available to extinguish any fire quickly. Thus, the accident analyses
in the Environmental Assessment are conservative.
[FR Doc. 94-9906 Filed 4-22-94; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 3810-AE-M