NUREG-1910 Supplement 2 Environmental Impact Statement for the Nichols Ranch ISR Project in Campbell and Johnson Counties, Wyoming Supplement to the Generic Environmental Impact Statement for In-Situ Leach Uranium Milling Facilities Final Report U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Office of Federal and State Materials and Environmental Management Programs Q AVAILABILITY OF REFERENCE MATERIALS IN NRC PUBLICATIONS NRC Reference Material Non-NRC Reference Material As of November 1999, you may electronically access Documents available from public and special technical NUREG-series publications and other NRC records at libraries include all open literature items, such as NRC=s Public Electronic Reading Room at books, journal articles, and transactions, Federal http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm.html. Register notices, Federal and State legislation, and Publicly released records include, to name a few, congressional reports. 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NUREG-1910 Supplement 2 Environmental Impact Statement for the Nichols Ranch ISR Project in Campbell and Johnson Counties, Wyoming Supplement to the Generic Environmental Impact Statement for In-Situ Leach Uranium Milling Facilities Final Report Manuscript Completed: January 2011 Date Published: January 2011 Prepared by: U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Office of Federal and State Materials and Environmental Management Programs ABSTRACT The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) issues licenses for the possession and use of source material provided that proposed facilities meet NRC regulatory requirements and would be operated in a manner that protects public health and safety and the environment. Under the NRC environmental protection regulations in the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR), Title 10, Part 51, which implement the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA), issuance of a license to possess and use source material for uranium milling, as defined in 10 CFR Part 40, requires an environmental impact statement (EIS) or a supplement to an EIS. In May 2009, NRC issued NUREG–1910, the Generic Environmental Impact Statement for In-Situ Leach Uranium Milling Facilities (GEIS). In the GEIS, NRC assessed the potential environmental impacts from the construction, operation, aquifer restoration, and decommissioning of an in-situ leach uranium recovery facility [also known as an in-situ recovery (ISR) facility] located in four specified geographic regions of the western United States. As part of this assessment, NRC determined which potential impacts would be essentially the same for all ISR facilities and which would result in varying levels of impact for different facilities, thus requiring further site-specific information to determine potential impacts. The GEIS provides a starting point for the NRC NEPA analyses for site-specific license applications for new ISR facilities, as well as for applications to amend or renew existing ISR licenses. By letter dated November 30, 2007, Uranerz Energy Corporation (Uranerz), referred to herein as the applicant) submitted a license application to NRC for a new source material license for the Nichols Ranch ISR Project. The proposed Nichols Ranch ISR Project would be located in Campbell and Johnson Counties, Wyoming, which is in the Wyoming East Uranium Milling Region identified in the GEIS. The NRC staff prepared this Supplemental EIS (SEIS) to evaluate the potential environmental impacts from the applicant proposal to construct, operate, conduct aquifer restoration, and decommission an ISR uranium milling facility at the proposed Nichols Ranch ISR Project. This SEIS describes the environment potentially affected by the proposed site activities, presents the potential environmental impacts resulting from reasonable alternatives to the proposed action, and describes the applicant environmental monitoring program and proposed mitigation measures. In conducting its analysis in this SEIS, the NRC staff evaluated site-specific data and information to determine whether the applicant’s proposed activities and site characteristics were consistent with those evaluated in the GEIS. NRC staff then determined relevant sections, findings, and conclusions in the GEIS that could be incorporated by reference, and areas that needed additional analysis. Based on its environmental review, the NRC staff recommends that, unless safety issues mandate otherwise, the source material license be issued as requested. Paperwork Reduction Act Statement This NUREG contains and references information collection requirements that are subject to the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (44 U.S.C. 3501 et seq.). Existing requirements were approved by the Office of Management and Budget, approval numbers 3150-0014, 3150-0020, and 3150-0021. Public Protection Notification NRC may not conduct or sponsor, and a person is not required to respond to, a request for information or an information collection requirement unless the requesting document displays a currently valid OMB control number. iii CONTENTS Section Page ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................................... iii CONTENTS .................................................................................................................................. v FIGURES .................................................................................................................................... xvi TABLES ..................................................................................................................................... xvii EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ............................................................................................................xix ABBREVIATIONS/ACRONYMS .............................................................................................. xxxv SI* (MODERN METRIC) CONVERSION FACTORS .............................................................. xxxix 1 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................ 1-1 1.1 Background ........................................................................................................ 1-1 1.2 Proposed Action ................................................................................................. 1-1 1.3 Purpose and Need for the Proposed Action ....................................................... 1-1 1.4 Scope of the Supplemental Environmental Analysis .......................................... 1-3 1.4.1 Relationship to the GEIS ........................................................................ 1-3 1.4.2 Public