45656 Federal Register / Vol. 74, No. 170 / Thursday, September 3, 2009 / Notices 

http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doccollections/. Electronic copies are also 

available in ADAMS (http:// 

www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html), 

under Accession No. ML091200294. 

In addition, regulatory guides are 

available for inspection at the NRC’s 

Public Document Room (PDR) located at 

11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville, 

Maryland. The PDR’s mailing address is 

USNRC PDR, Washington, DC 20555– 

0001. The PDR can also be reached by 

telephone at (301) 415–4737 or (800) 

397–4205, by fax at (301) 415–3548, and 

by e-mail to pdr.resource@nrc.gov. 

Regulatory guides are not 

copyrighted, and Commission approval 

is not required to reproduce them. 

Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 25th day 

of August 2009. 

For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. 

Andrea D. Valentin, 

Chief, Regulatory Guide Development Branch, 

Division of Engineering, Office of Nuclear 

Regulatory Research. 

[FR Doc. E9–21280 Filed 9–2–09; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 7590–01–P 

NUCLEAR REGULATORY 

COMMISSION 

[Docket No. 40–9068; NRC–2008–0391] 

Lost Creek ISR, LLC; Lost Creek InSitu Recovery Project; New Source 

Material License Application; Notice of 

Intent To Prepare a Supplemental 

Environmental Impact Statement 

AGENCY: Nuclear Regulatory 

Commission. 

ACTION: Notice of Intent (NOI). 

SUMMARY: Lost Creek ISR, LLC (LCI) 

submitted an application for a new 

source material license for the Lost 

Creek In-Situ Recovery (ISR) Project to 

be located in Sweetwater County, 

Wyoming, approximately 70 miles 

southeast of Lander, Wyoming and 

approximately 40 miles northwest of 

Rawlins, Wyoming. The application 

proposes the construction, operation, 

and decommissioning of ISR, also 

known as in-situ leach, facilities and 

restoration of the aquifer from which the 

uranium is being extracted. LCI 

submitted the application for the new 

source material license to the U.S. 

Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) 

by a letter dated March 31, 2008. A 

notice of receipt and availability of the 

license application, including the 

Environmental Report (ER), and 

opportunity to request a hearing was 

published in the Federal Register on 

July 10, 2008 (73 FR 39728). The 

purpose of this notice of intent is to 

inform the public that the NRC will be 

preparing a site-specific Supplemental 

Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) 

to the Generic Environmental Impact 

Statement for In-Situ Leach Uranium 

Milling Facilities (ISR GEIS) for a new 

source material license for the Lost 

Creek ISR Project, as required by 10 CFR 

51.26(d). In addition, as outlined in 36 

CFR 800.8, ‘‘Coordination with the 

National Environmental Policy Act,’’ the 

NRC plans to use the environmental 

review process as reflected in 10 CFR 

Part 51 to coordinate compliance with 

Section 106 of the National Historic 

Preservation Act. 

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: For 

general information on the NRC NEPA 

or the environmental review process 

related to the Lost Creek ISR Project 

application, please contact the NRC 

Environmental Project Manager, Alan B. 

Bjornsen, at (301) 415–1195 or 

Alan.Bjornsen@nrc.gov. 

Information and documents 

associated with the Lost Creek ISR 

Project, including the license 

application, are available for public 

review through our electronic reading 

room: http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/ 

adams.html and on the NRC’s Lost 

Creek Site Web page: http:// 

www.nrc.gov/info-finder/materials/ 

uranium/apps-in-review/lost creek-newapp-review.html. Documents may also 

be obtained from NRC’s Public 

Document Room at the U.S. Nuclear 

Regulatory Commission Headquarters, 

11555 Rockville Pike (first floor), 

Rockville, Maryland. 

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: 

1.0 Background 

LCI submitted the application for the 

new source material license to the NRC 

for ISR facilities by a letter dated March 

31, 2008. A notice of receipt and 

availability of the license application, 

including the ER, and opportunity to 

request a hearing was published in the 

Federal Register on July 10, 2008 (73 FR 

39728). No requests for hearing were 

submitted. 

The NRC originally planned to 

document this environmental 

evaluation in draft and final 

Environmental Assessments (EAs). 

However, during the development of the 

final ISR GEIS, NRC decided to prepare 

an SEIS that will tier off of the ISR GEIS 

for applications to license new ISR 

facilities. This environmental evaluation 

for the Lost Creek ISR Project will now 

be documented in draft and final SEISs 

instead of an EA. While NRC regulations 

do not require scoping under 10 CFR 

Part 51 for SEISs, NRC staff met with 

Federal (Bureau of Land Management— 

Cheyenne, Casper, Rawlins; Bureau of 

Indian Affairs—Fort Washakie; Fish & 

Wildlife Service—Rawlins), State 

(Wyoming Department of 

Environmental Quality—Cheyenne, 

Lander; State Engineer’s Office; 

Wyoming Department of Game & Fish— 

Lander; Governor’s Planning Office; 

State Historic Preservation Office) and 

local government agencies (Sweetwater 

County Planning Department; 

Sweetwater County Engineers’ Office; 

Fremont County Planning Department; 

Town of Bairoil) and public 

organizations (Lander Chamber of 

Commerce; Wyoming Community 

Development Authority) in January of 

2009 as part of a site visit to gather sitespecific information to assist in the 

preparation of the Lost Creek ISR Project 

environmental review. NRC also 

contacted potentially interested Tribes 

and local public interest groups via email and telephone to gather additional 

information. 

The NRC has begun evaluating the 

potential environmental impacts 

associated with the proposed ISR 

facility in parallel with the review of the 

license application. This environmental 

evaluation will be documented in draft 

and final SEISs in accordance with 

NRC’s NEPA implementing regulations 

contained in 10 CFR Part 51. The NRC 

is required by 10 CFR 51.20(b)(8) to 

prepare an Environmental Impact 

Statement (EIS) or a supplement to an 

EIS for the issuance of a license to 

possess and use source material for 

uranium milling. The ISR GEIS and the 

site-specific SEIS fulfills this regulatory 

requirement. The purpose of the present 

notice is to inform the public that the 

NRC staff will prepare a site-specific 

supplement to the ISR GEIS (NUREG– 

1910) as part of the review of the 

application. 

2.0 Lost Creek ISR Facilities 

The facilities, if licensed, would 

include a central processing plant, 

accompanying wellfields, and ion 

exchange columns. The process 

involves the dissolution of the watersoluble uranium from the mineralized 

host sandstone rock by pumping 

oxidants (oxygen or hydrogen peroxide) 

and chemical compounds (sodium 

bicarbonate) through a series of 

production and extraction wells. The 

uranium-rich solution is transferred 

from the production wells to the central 

processing plant for uranium 

concentration using ion exchange 

columns. Processing is conducted in the 

central processing plant to produce a 

yellowcake slurry that will be 

transported to another ISR facility for 

final processing into a dry yellowcake. 


pwalker on DSK8KYBLC1PROD with NOTICES
Federal Register / Vol. 74, No. 170 / Thursday, September 3, 2009 / Notices 45657 

3.0 Alternatives To Be Evaluated 

No-Action—The no-action alternative 

would be not to issue the license. Under 

this alternative, the NRC would not 

approve the license application for the 

proposed ISR facility. This serves as a 

baseline for comparison. 

Proposed action—The proposed 

Federal action is to issue a license to use 

or process source material at the 

proposed ISR facility. The license 

review process analyzes the 

construction, operation, and 

decommissioning of ISR facility and 

restoration of the aquifer from which the 

uranium is being extracted. The ISR 

facility would be located in Sweetwater 

County, Wyoming, approximately 70 

miles southeast of Lander, Wyoming 

and approximately 40 miles northwest 

of Rawlins, Wyoming. The applicant 

would be issued an NRC license under 

the provisions of 10 CFR Part 40. 

Other alternatives not listed here may 

be identified through the environmental 

review process. 

4.0 Environmental Impact Areas To 

Be Analyzed 

The following areas have been 

tentatively identified for analysis in the 

SEIS: 

• Land Use: Plans, policies, and 

controls; 

• Transportation: Transportation 

modes, routes, quantities, and risk 

estimates; 

• Geology and Soils: Physical 

geography, topography, geology, and 

soil characteristics; 

• Water Resources: Surface and 

groundwater 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, sources, and 

sensitive receptors; 

• Historical and Cultural Resources: 

Historical, archaeological, and 

traditional cultural resources; 

• Visual and Scenic Resources: 

Landscape characteristics, manmade 

features and viewshed; 

• Socioeconomics: Demography, 

economic base, labor pool, housing, 

transportation, utilities, public services/ 

facilities, and education; 

• Environmental Justice: Potential 

disproportionately high and adverse 

impacts to minority and low-income 

populations; 

• Public and Occupational Health: 

Potential public and occupational 

consequences from construction, 

routine operation, transportation, and 

credible accident scenarios (including 

natural events); 

• Waste Management: Types of 

wastes expected to be generated, 

handled, and stored; and 

• Cumulative Effects: Impacts from 

past, present, and reasonably 

foreseeable actions at and near the 

site(s). 

This list is not intended to be all 

inclusive, nor is it a predetermination of 

potential environmental impacts. 

5.0 The NEPA Process 

The SEIS for the Lost Creek ISR 

Project will be prepared pursuant to the 

NRC’s NEPA Regulations at 10 CFR Part 

51. The NRC will continue its 

environmental review of the application 

and as soon as practicable, the NRC and 

its contractor will prepare and publish 

a draft SEIS. NRC currently plans to 

have a 45-day public comment period 

for the draft SEIS. Availability of the 

draft SEIS and the dates of the public 

comment period will be announced in 

the Federal Register and the NRC Web 

site: http://www.nrc.gov. The final SEIS 

will include responses to public 

comments received on the draft SEIS. 

Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 25th day 

of August 2009. 

For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. 

Patrice M. Bubar, 

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. 

[FR Doc. E9–21285 Filed 9–2–09; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 7590–01–P 

NUCLEAR REGULATORY 

COMMISSION 

[NRC–2009–0386] 

Notice of Availability of Revised Fuel 

Cycle Oversight Process 

AGENCY: Nuclear Regulatory 

Commission. 

ACTION: Request for public comment on 

revision of the NRC’s fuel cycle 

oversight program. 

SUMMARY: 

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission 

(NRC) is proposing significant revisions 

to its processes for overseeing the safety 

and security of fuel cycle facilities. The 

NRC plans to develop a revised 

oversight process for fuel cycle facilities 

that is more risk-informed, and 

performance-based, resulting in more 

objective, predictable, and transparent 

results of licensee or certificate holder 

assessments. (This notice will use 

‘‘licensees’’ throughout, but in doing so 

the intent is also to include ‘‘certificate 

holders.’’) Current oversight consists 

mainly of inspections, enforcement and 

periodic assessments based on 

inspection findings. NRC staff intends 

that any revised oversight would not 

establish any new regulatory 

requirements. Rather, revised oversight 

would improve inspection and 

assessment so that NRC conclusions 

would be more closely based on risk 

and more understandable to members of 

the public. Revised oversight could 

potentially add objective measures of 

performance, called performance 

indicators, with criteria for measuring 

acceptable performance. However, 

development of performance indicators 

may not be part of the initial revision to 

the oversight process. Inspections 

would focus in areas of highest risk that 

are not well-measured by performance 

indicators and on validating 

performance indicator information. 

Assessments would be based on more 

objective criteria. Supplemental 

inspections (those above and beyond the 

number and type of inspections normal 

for a well-performing plant) of licensees 

whose performance shows indications 

of decline, would also be based on 

objective criteria. These principles are 

currently applied by the NRC in the 

oversight of power reactor safety and 

security and is outlined in ‘‘Reactor 

Oversight Process,’’ NUREG–1649, 

(Agencywide Documents Access and 

Management System [ADAMS] 

Accession No. ML070890365). 

Since 1999, the NRC has undertaken 

several initiatives to examine and 

improve the NRC’s oversight process for 

fuel cycle facilities, including those 

licensed or certified under Title 10 of 

the Code of Federal Regulations (10 

CFR) Part 40 (Domestic Licensing of 

Source Material), Part 70 (Domestic 

Licensing of Special Nuclear Material), 

and Part 76 (Certification of Gaseous 

Diffusion Plants). Although previous 

efforts resulted in some revisions to 

inspection and assessment procedures, 

current NRC oversight could be 

improved by more fully incorporating 

into inspection and assessment the risk 

insights of licensees’ integrated safety 

analyses, where applicable (the 

requirement to perform an integrated 

safety analysis apply only to 10 CFR 

Part 70 licensees). Integrated safety 

analyses establish safety controls based 

on analyses of potential hazards at a 

facility. 


pwalker on DSK8KYBLC1PROD with NOTICES