54384 Federal Register / Vol. 75, No. 172 / Tuesday, September 7, 2010 / Notices 

• Present reasonable alternatives 

other than those presented in the draft 

EIS; and/or 

• Provide new or additional 

information relevant to the assessment. 

Next Steps 

After this comment period ends, we 

will analyze the comments and address 

them in the form of a final CCP and final 

EIS. 

Public Availability of Comments 

Before including your address, phone 

number, e-mail address, or other 

personal identifying information in your 

comment, you should be aware that 

your entire comment—including your 

personal identifying information—may 

be made publicly available at any time. 

While you can ask us in your comment 

to withhold your personal identifying 

information from public review, we 

cannot guarantee that we will be able to 

do so. 

Dated: August 24, 2010. 

Hugh Morrison, 

Acting Deputy Director. 

[FR Doc. 2010–22160 Filed 9–3–10; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 4310–55–P 

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR 

Bureau of Land Management 

[LLWY930000–L51100000–GN0000– 

LVEMK10CW370; WYW140590] 

Notice of Intent To Prepare an 

Environmental Impact Statement for 

the Gas Hills Uranium Project, Fremont 

and Natrona Counties, WY 

AGENCY: Bureau of Land Management, 

Interior. 

ACTION: Notice of Intent. 

SUMMARY: Pursuant to the National 

Environmental Policy Act of 1969, as 

amended, (NEPA) and in response to a 

proposal filed by Power Resources Inc., 

doing business as Cameco Resources 

(Cameco), the Bureau of Land 

Management (BLM), announces its 

intention to prepare an Environmental 

Impact Statement (EIS) and to solicit 

public comments regarding issues and 

resource information for the proposed 

Gas Hills in situ recovery (ISR) Uranium 

Project (the Project), Fremont County 

and Natrona County, Wyoming. The 

project is a uranium exploration and 

development project. 

DATES: This notice initiates the public 

scoping process. The BLM can best 

consider public input if comments and 

resource information are submitted 

within 45 days of publication of this 

notice. To provide the public with an 

opportunity to review the proposal and 

project information, the BLM will host 

public meetings in Lander, Riverton, 

and Casper, Wyoming. The BLM will 

announce the dates, times, and locations 

for these meetings at least 15 days prior 

to each event. Announcements will be 

made by news release to the media, 

individual letter mailings, and posting 

on the project Web site listed below. 

ADDRESSES: Written comments or 

resource information may be mailed to: 

Bureau of Land Management, Lander 

Field Office, Attn: Kristin Yannone, 

Project Manager, P.O. Box 589, Lander, 

Wyoming 82520. Comments may be 

submitted electronically at: 

Gas_Hills_Uranium_EIS_WY@BLM.gov. 

Project information and documents will 

be available on the project Web site at: 

http://www.blm.gov/wy/st/en/info/ 

NEPA/lfodocs/gashills.html. 

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION: For 

information or to add your name to the 

project mailing list, contact Kristin 

Yannone, Project Leader, at 307–332– 

8448. 

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The Gas 

Hills Uranium Project is generally 

located in: 

Sixth Principal Meridian, Wyoming 

T. 32 N., R. 80 and 90 W. 

T. 33 N., R. 80 and 90 W. 

This is an area of historic uranium 

mining development, the earliest of 

which dates back to the 1950s. This area 

lies in the eastern part of Fremont 

County and the western part of Natrona 

County, approximately 50 road miles 

east of Riverton, Wyoming, and 

approximately 85 road miles west of 

Casper, Wyoming, in the Gas Hills 

Mining District, in which little to no 

actual mining activity has taken place 

since the 1980s. 

The Project area covers approximately 

8,538 surface acres (approximately 13 

square miles) of mixed ownership 

including 7,940 acres of Federal surface, 

161 acres under State ownership, and 

394 acres of private lands. 

Approximately 8,006 acres of Federal 

mineral estate is included in the Project 

area. While the Project area contains 

Federal surface and mineral estate 

under the jurisdiction of both the BLM 

Lander and BLM Casper field offices, 

the Lander Field Office will serve as the 

lead office for coordinating the 

environmental analysis. The Project is 

permitted by the Wyoming Department 

of Environmental Quality—Land 

Quality Division (LQD) under Permit to 

Mine No. 687 and is licensed by the 

U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission 

under Source Materials License SUQ– 

1548. Cameco also controls mining 

claims outside of the approved mining 

permit boundary for which future 

exploration and development are 

planned. 

In August 2008, as required by the 

surface management regulations 

contained in 43 CFR subpart 3809, 

Cameco submitted a Plan of Operations 

to the BLM describing their intent to 

develop their claims in the area with an 

ISR mining operation, which would 

affect more than a total of 640 acres over 

the life of the mine. For more 

information about the ISR process, the 

reader is referred to the Nuclear 

Regulatory Commission’s Generic EIS of 

In-Situ Leach Uranium Milling 

Facilities (2009) available at: http:// 

www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doccollections/nuregs/staff/sr1910/; 

particularly Chapter 2. The BLM 

anticipates impacts from the ISR 

mining. The environmental analysis 

will consider the activities conducted 

under the Plan of Operations submitted 

to the BLM. 

The purpose of the proposed Project 

is to explore for and identify mining 

reserves and extract approximately 1 

million to 2.5 million pounds of 

uranium per year over an anticipated 

project life of 25 years. The Project will 

use ISR mining methods and will be 

operated as a satellite facility to the 

Cameco Smith Ranch-Highland uranium 

ISR mine operating in Converse County, 

Wyoming. An existing large building 

will house the site’s central processing 

facilities. The surface disturbance will 

be limited to the construction of water 

wells, buried water pipelines, singlelane gravel access roads, and small 

buildings for well-head manifold 

control equipment known as header 

houses. 

The ISR mining recovery method uses 

chemicals to remove the uranium 

minerals from the host rock in place and 

does not require physically removing 

and crushing ore-bearing rock. It does 

not use large earth-moving equipment 

and does not create large volumes of 

waste rock or tailings. The ISR 

methodology utilizes a solution 

consisting of oxygen and carbon dioxide 

or bicarbonate mixed with water, which 

is injected via conventional water wells 

into uranium ore-bearing rock 

formations in the subsurface. The 

solution dissolves the uranium minerals 

from the rock formations into the 

circulating groundwater and the 

resultant uranium-bearing groundwater 

is recovered by pumping at recovery 

wells located adjacent to the injection 

wells. Before ISR operations can begin, 

the portion of the aquifer designated for 

uranium recovery must be exempted as 

an underground source of drinking 


wwoods2 on DSK1DXX6B1PROD with NOTICES_PART 1
Federal Register / Vol. 75, No. 172 / Tuesday, September 7, 2010 / Notices 54385 

water in accordance with the Safe 

Drinking Water Act. The groundwater 

containing uranium is then processed 

through an ion-exchange facility where 

the uranium is precipitated onto a resin 

bead media. The water is recharged with 

solvent and used in the further recovery 

of uranium. Any excess water no longer 

needed is evaluated for its constituents 

and properly disposed of via 

evaporation or an approved disposal 

well. The resin beads containing 

uranium will then be transported to the 

Cameco Smith Ranch-Highland facility 

for processing into uranium yellowcake. 

After the uranium has been removed, 

the resin bead media will be returned to 

the Project site for re-use. The distance 

one-way from the Gas Hills to Smith 

Ranch-Highland is approximately 140 

road miles. 

The Project activities will include the 

drilling of exploratory boreholes; 

installation of monitoring wells, 

injection wells, and production wells; 

construction of uranium processing and 

waste water treatment facilities; and 

development of new and improvement 

of existing access roads within 

separately defined potential uranium 

recovery areas known as mine units. 

Surface-disturbing and interimreclamation activities will be performed 

sequentially to minimize the amount of 

surface disturbance at any one time. 

Surface disturbance within a mine 

unit will not occur all at once but is 

phased over several years, depending on 

the uranium production rate and the 

availability of mine construction 

equipment and personnel. Cameco 

estimates that of the approximately 

1,205 acres that will be disturbed over 

the 25-year life of the Project, 

approximately 50 acres (4 percent of the 

total acreage) each year will be 

disturbed, undergo interim reclamation, 

and subsequently be returned to wildlife 

habitat that meets BLM and State of 

Wyoming reclamation standards. Final 

surface reclamation is also required by 

regulatory agencies and assured by 

bonds. Final reclamation includes 

plugging and abandoning all mining 

wells, removing header houses and 

buried piping, and re-grading and 

seeding the disturbed surface. After 

vegetation has been re-established, the 

mine unit surface will be returned to its 

pre-mining use of livestock grazing and 

wildlife habitat. Cameco estimates that 

the long-term post-mining footprint will 

be negligible because the ISR mining 

method does not require removal of 

rock. 

Restoration of groundwater to premining quality and final surface 

reclamation within a mine unit is also 

a sequenced, phased process. When 

uranium production from a mining unit 

is no longer feasible economically, 

groundwater production wells will be 

switched to groundwater restoration. 

Restoration is accomplished through a 

combination of methods, including 

reinjection of treated groundwater, 

bioremediation, and addition of 

reducing chemicals that make the 

uranium insoluble and clean the 

groundwater. Once Cameco has restored 

the groundwater within a mine unit to 

pre-mining quality, as required and 

monitored by regulatory agencies and 

assured by financial bonds, final surface 

reclamation will be implemented. 

Groundwater sampling data suggests 

that mining unit groundwater quality is 

generally marginally potable but does 

exhibit certain parameters, including 

radionuclides, which exceed primary or 

secondary maximum contaminant levels 

for drinking water standards. 

Cameco estimates that the Project will 

employ a mix of full-time personnel and 

temporary contractors throughout the 

life of the mine. During the construction 

of each mine unit, approximately 15 to 

20 full-time employees plus 50 drilling 

contractors will be employed. During 

mining operations, approximately 30 

full-time employees plus approximately 

22 installation contractors will be 

required. It is likely that the majority of 

employees will live in Riverton and the 

remainder in Casper. The Project is 

projected to provide an economic 

benefit through a variety of taxes paid 

to Federal, State, and local governments, 

including employee income, severance, 

property, and sales taxes. The proposed 

action is in conformance with the 

Lander Resource Management Plan/ 

Final Environmental Impact Statement 

(LRMP/Final EIS) and Record of 

Decision (ROD), 1987, and the Casper 

Resource Management Plan (CRMP/EIS) 

and ROD, 2007. During the preparation 

of the EIS, interim exploration and 

development will be subject to 

development guidelines and decisions 

made in applicable NEPA documents, 

including the CRMP, 2007 and the 

LRMP, 1987. The EIS for the Project will 

analyze the environmental 

consequences of implementing the 

proposed action and alternatives to the 

proposed action, including a No Action 

alternative. Other alternatives that may 

be considered in detail could include, 

for example, drilling surface densities, 

reclamation schedule adjustments, or 

perhaps a pace of development different 

from those of the proposed action. 

Your input is important and will be 

considered in the environmental 

analysis process. All comment 

submittals must include the 

commenter’s name and street address. 

Comments, including the names and 

addresses of the respondent, will be 

available for public inspection at the 

above offices during normal business 

hours, Monday through Friday, except 

Federal holidays. All submissions from 

organizations or businesses, and from 

individuals identifying themselves as 

representatives or officials of 

organizations or businesses, will be 

made available for public inspection in 

their entirety. 

Before including your address, phone 

number, e-mail address, or any other 

personal identifying information in your 

comment, please consider that your 

entire comment—including your 

personal identifying information—may 

be publicly available at any time. 

While you can ask us in your 

comment to withhold from public 

review your personal identifying 

information, we cannot guarantee that 

we will be able to do so. 

Donald A. Simpson, 

State Director. 

[FR Doc. 2010–22174 Filed 9–3–10; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 4310–22–P 

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR 

Geological Survey 

Announcement of National Geospatial 

Advisory Committee Meeting 

AGENCY: U.S. Geological Survey, 

Interior. 

ACTION: Notice of meeting. 

SUMMARY: The National Geospatial 

Advisory Committee (NGAC) will meet 

on September 22–23, 2010 at the 

American Institute of Architects 

Building, 1735 New York Avenue, NW., 

Washington, DC 20006. The meeting 

will be held in the Gallery Room. The 

NGAC, which is composed of 

representatives from governmental, 

private sector, non-profit, and academic 

organizations, was established to advise 

the Chair of the Federal Geographic Data 

Committee on management of Federal 

geospatial programs, the development of 

the National Spatial Data Infrastructure, 

and the implementation of Office of 

Management and Budget (OMB) 

Circular A–16. Topics to be addressed at 

the meeting include: 

—Geospatial Platform. 

—Place-Based Policies Initiative. 

—Geospatial Metrics. 

—FGDC Update. 

—Geospatial Program Updates. 

—NGAC Subcommittee Reports. 

The meeting will include an 

opportunity for public comment on 

September 23. Comments may also be 


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