Finding of No Significant ImpactShort-Term Storage of Naval Spent Fuel; Final Determination

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]

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