[7590-01] 

NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 

[NRC-2010-0143] 

Notice of Availability of Draft Environmental Impact Statement for the Proposed 

International Isotopes Fluorine Extraction Process and Depleted Uranium Deconversion 

Plant in Lea County, New Mexico 

AGENCY: U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. 

ACTION: Draft environmental impact statement; request for comment. 

SUMMARY: Notice is hereby given that the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is 

issuing for public comment the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the Proposed 

Fluorine Extraction Process and Depleted Uranium Deconversion Plant. By letter dated 

December 30, 2009, International Isotopes Fluorine Products, Inc. (IIFP), a wholly-owned 

subsidiary of International Isotopes, Inc., submitted a license application, which included an 

Environmental Report that proposes the construction, operation, and decommissioning of a 

fluoride extraction and depleted uranium deconversion facility to be located in Lea County, New 

Mexico (the “proposed action”). 

 This Draft EIS is being issued as part of the NRC’s process to decide whether to issue a 

license to IIFP, pursuant to Title 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations (10 CFR) Part 40, to 

build and operate the proposed depleted uranium deconversion facility. Specifically, IIFP 

proposed to deconvert depleted uranium hexafluoride (DUF6) into uranium oxide compounds for 

long-term disposal. 

 The NRC staff will hold a public meeting on February 2, 2012, to present an overview of 

the licensing process and the contents of the Draft EIS, and to accept oral and written public 

comments on the Draft EIS. The meeting will take place at the Lea County Event Center, 5101 
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Lovington Highway in Hobbs, New Mexico. For 1 hour prior to the public meeting, the NRC staff 

will be available to informally discuss the proposed IIFP project and answer questions in an 

‘‘open house’’ format. This ‘‘open house’’ format provides for one-on-one discussions with the 

NRC staff involved with the preparation of the Draft EIS. The Draft EIS public meeting will 

officially begin at 5:30 p.m. The meeting will include the following agenda items: (1) a brief 

presentation of NRC’s roles and responsibilities and the licensing process; (2) a presentation 

summarizing the contents of the Draft EIS; and (3) an opportunity for interested government 

agencies, Tribal governments, organizations, and individuals to provide comments on the draft 

EIS. The public meeting will be transcribed by a court reporter, and the meeting transcript will 

be made publicly available at a later date. 

 Persons wishing to provide oral comments at the public meeting may register in advance 

by contacting Ms. Antoinette Walker-Smith at 800-368-5642, ext. 6390 no later than January 26, 

2012. Those who wish to present comments may also register at the meeting. Individual oral 

comments may have to be limited by the time available, depending upon the number of persons 

who register. Written comments can also be provided at the meeting, and should be given to an 

NRC staff person at the registration desk at the meeting entrance. If special equipment or 

accommodations are needed to attend or present information at the public meeting, the need 

should be brought to the attention of Ms. Antoinette Walker-Smith at 800-368-5642, ext.6390, 

no later than January 26, 2012, to provide NRC staff with adequate notice to determine whether 

the request can be accommodated. Please note that comments do not have to be provided at 

the public meeting and may be submitted at any time during the comment period, as described 

in the DATES section of this notice. Any interested party may submit comments on the Draft 

EIS for consideration by NRC staff. Comments may be submitted by any of the methods 

described in the ADDRESSES section of this notice. 

DATES: The public comment period on the Draft EIS begins on the date of publication of the 
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U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Federal Register (FR) Notice of Filing and ends on 

February 27, 2012. To ensure consideration, comments on the Draft EIS and the proposed 

action must be received or postmarked by February 27, 2012. The NRC staff will consider 

comments received or postmarked after that date to the extent practical. 

 The NRC will conduct a public meeting in Hobbs, New Mexico. The meeting date, 

location, and time are listed below: 

Meeting Date: Thursday, February 2, 2012. 

Meeting Location: Lea County Event Center, 5101 Lovington Highway in Hobbs, New 

 Mexico. 

Informal Open House Session: 4:30 – 5:30 p.m. 

Draft EIS Comment Meeting: 5:30 – 8:30 p.m. 

ADDRESSES: Please include Docket ID NRC-2010-0143 in the subject line of your comments. 

For additional instructions on submitting comments and instructions on accessing documents 

related to this action, see “Submitting Comments and Accessing Information'' in the 

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION section of this document. You may submit comments by 

any one of the following methods: 

• Federal Rulemaking Web Site: Go to http://www.regulations.gov and search for 

documents filed under Docket ID NRC-2010-0143. Address questions about NRC dockets to 

Carol Gallagher, telephone: 301-492-3668; e-mail: Carol.Gallagher@nrc.gov. 

• Mail comments to: Cindy Bladey, Chief, Rules, Announcements, and Directives 

Branch (RADB), Office of Administration, Mail Stop: TWB-05-B01M, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory 

Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001. 

• Fax comments to: RADB at 301-492-3446. 

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: 
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Submitting Comments and Accessing Information 

 Comments submitted in writing or in electronic form will be posted on the NRC Web site 

and on the Federal rulemaking Web site, http://www.regulations.gov. Because your comments 

will not be edited to remove any identifying or contact information, the NRC cautions you against 

including any information in your submission that you do not want to be publicly disclosed. 

 The NRC requests that any party soliciting or aggregating comments received from other 

persons for submission to the NRC inform those persons that the NRC will not edit their 

comments to remove any identifying or contact information, and therefore, they should not 

include any information in their comments that they do not want publicly disclosed. 

 You can access publicly available documents related to this document using the 

following methods: 

• NRC's Public Document Room (PDR): The public may examine and have copied, 

for a fee, publicly available documents at the NRC’s PDR, O1-F21, One White Flint North, 

11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland 20852. 

• NRC's Agencywide Documents Access and Management System (ADAMS): 

Publicly available documents created or received at the NRC are available online in the NRC 

Library at http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html. From this page, the public can gain entry 

into ADAMS, which provides text and image files of the NRC's public documents. If you do not 

have access to ADAMS or if there are problems in accessing the documents located in ADAMS, 

contact the NRC’s PDR reference staff at 1-800-397-4209, 301-415-4737, or by e-mail to 

pdr.resource@nrc.gov. The “Draft Environmental Impact Statement for the Proposed Fluorine 

Extraction Process and Depleted Uranium Deconversion Plant in Lea County, New Mexico” is 

available electronically under ADAMS Accession Number ML12001A000. 

• Federal Rulemaking Web Site: Public comments and supporting materials related 
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to this notice can be found at http://www.regulations.gov by searching on Docket ID NRC-2010-

0143. 

 The Draft EIS for the proposed Fluorine Extraction Process and Depleted Uranium 

Deconversion Plant also may be accessed on the internet at www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doccollections/nuregs/staff/ by selecting “NUREG-2113.” Additionally, a copy of the Draft EIS will 

be available at the following public library: 

 Hobbs Public Library 

 509 North Shipp 

 Hobbs, NM 88240 

 575-397-9328 

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: For information about the environmental review 

process or the Draft EIS for the proposed Fluorine Extraction Process and Depleted Uranium 

Deconversion Plant, please contact Asimios Malliakos, Project Manager, Environmental Review 

Branch, Division of Waste Management and Environmental Protection (DWMEP), Mail Stop T-8 

F5, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC, 20555-001, by phone at 301-415-

6458. For general or technical information associated with the safety and licensing of uranium 

deconversion facilities, please contact Matthew Bartlett, Project Manager, Conversion, 

Deconversion and Enrichment Branch, Division of Fuel Cycle Safety and Safeguards (FCSS), 

Mail Stop E-2 C40, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001, by 

phone at 301-492-3119. 

 The Draft EIS was prepared in response to an application submitted by IIFP by letter 

dated December 30, 2009. The application proposes to construct, operate, and decommission 

a fluorine extraction and depleted uranium deconversion facility to deconvert commercially 

generated depleted DUF6 to DUO2 for long-term stable disposal as low-level waste. The 
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fluoride extraction and depleted uranium deconversion facility would be located 14 miles west of 

Hobbs, New Mexico. 

The Draft EIS was prepared by the NRC and its contractor, Straughan Environmental 

Services, Inc. in compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, as amended 

(NEPA), and the NRC’s regulations for implementing NEPA (10 CFR Part 51). 

 The site is located 22.5 kilometers (km) (14 miles [mi]) west of Hobbs, New Mexico. The 

proposed tract of land (IIFP site) occupies 259 ha (640 ac), and the proposed facility would 

occupy an estimated 16 ha (40 ac) of the tract, not including roadways and other infrastructure 

improvements. 

The Draft EIS is being issued as part of the NRC’s process to decide whether to issue a 

license to IIFP, pursuant to 10 CFR Part 40. In this Draft EIS, the NRC staff has assessed the 

potential environmental impacts from the preconstruction, construction, operation, and 

decommissioning of the proposed IIFP facility. If a license is granted, the IIFP facility would 

include a commercial plant to produce specialty fluoride gas products for sale and DUO2 for 

disposal. IIFP would own the facility and be responsible for its operation and performance. 

The NRC staff published a Notice of Intent to prepare an Environmental Impact 

Statement for the proposed IIFP facility and to conduct a scoping process in the Federal 

Register on July 15, 2010 (75 FR 41242). The NRC staff accepted comments through 

August 30, 2010. The NRC staff issued a Scoping Summary Report in November 2010 

(ADAMS Accession Number: ML102871105). 

The NRC staff assessed the impacts of the proposed action on land use, historical and 

cultural resources, visual and scenic resources, climatology, meteorology and air quality, 

geology, minerals and soils, water resources, ecological resources, socioeconomics, 

environmental justice, noise, traffic and transportation, public and occupational health and 

safety, and waste management. 
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Additionally, the Draft EIS analyzes and compares the benefits and costs of the proposed 

action. Based on the preliminary evaluation in the Draft EIS, the NRC environmental review 

staff has concluded that the environmental impacts that would result from the proposed action 

and associated preconstruction activities on the physical environment and human communities 

would mostly be small, with the exception of small to moderate impacts on climatology, 

meteorology, and air quality associated with vehicle emissions and temporary fugitive dust 

released to the air during construction. 

 In addition to the action proposed by IIFP, the NRC staff addressed the no-action 

alternative and also a reasonable range of alternatives to the proposed action, including 

alternative sites for an IIFP facility, alternative technologies, shipment of the U.S.-generated 

DUF6 to overseas facilities, and the four U.S.-based enrichment companies to construct and 

operate their own deconversion facilities. These alternatives were eliminated from further 

analysis due to economic, environmental, or other reasons. The proposed action and the noaction alternative were analyzed in detail. The no-action alternative serves as a baseline for 

comparison of the potential environmental impacts of the proposed action. 

 This DEIS is being issued for public comment. The public comment period on the Draft 

EIS begins with publication of this notice and continues until February 27, 2012. Written 

comments should be submitted as described in the ADDRESSES section of this notice. The 

NRC will consider comments received or postmarked after that date to the extent practical. 

 Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 5th day of January, 2012. 

 FOR THE NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 

 Andrew Persinko, Deputy Director 

 Environmental Protection and 

 Performance Assessment Directorate 

 Division of Waste Management 

 and Environmental Protection 

 Office of Federal and State Materials 

 and Environmental Management Programs