NRC, U.S. ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS ISSUE FINAL ENVIRONMENTAL 

IMPACT STATEMENT FOR NEW REACTORS AT COMANCHE PEAK SITE

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), 

Fort Worth District, have completed the Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) for the 

Combined Licenses (COL) for the proposed Comanche Peak Nuclear Power Plant Units 3 and 4. 

The NRC concludes in the FEIS that there are no environmental impacts that would preclude 

issuing the COLs for construction and operation of the proposed reactors at the site, near Glen 

Rose, Texas. The USACE will use the information in the FEIS in making its federal permit 

decision in accordance with the Clean Water Act and Rivers and Harbors Act of 1899.

The FEIS will be available on the NRC’s website. The NRC staff, in cooperation with 

USACE, gathered comments from the community near the site in January 2009 during the 

environmental scoping process. The agencies issued a draft EIS in August 2010 and met with the 

local community again in September 2010 for additional comments.

The FEIS, with the NRC’s conclusions, is also available via the NRC’s electronic 

document database, ADAMS, by entering accession numbers ML11131A001 and 

ML11131A002 in the ADAMS search engine. In addition, the Somervell County Library (at 108 

Allen Drive in Glen Rose) and the Hood County Library (at 222 North Travis St. in Granbury, 

Texas) will have hardbound and electronic copies of the FEIS available for public inspection.

The NRC’s publishing of the FEIS is only part of the overall Comanche Peak COL 

review. The agency staff continues to compile its final safety evaluation report (SER), which will 

include recommendations from the NRC’s Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards, an 

independent group of nuclear safety experts. The NRC’s five Commissioners must also conduct 

a mandatory hearing regarding whether the staff’s review supports the findings necessary to 

issue the COLs. All of these items must be completed before the NRC can reach a final decision 

on the COL application.

Luminant Generation has applied for a license to build and operate two U.S. Advanced 

Pressurized-Water Reactors (US-APWR) adjacent to the existing Comanche Peak nuclear power 

plant, approximately 5 miles north of Glen Rose. Luminant submitted the application in

September 2008, and supplemented the report in November 2009. The US-APWR is a large 

pressurized-water reactor with a design output of approximately 1,500 MWe. The US-APWR’s

designer, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, filed an application on Dec. 31, 2007, to certify the 

NRC NEWS

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No. 11-082 May 16, 2011
design. More information regarding the NRC’s review of the US-APWR is available on the 

NRC’s website.

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