The Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration does not think it needs to conduct additional environmental study of the next-generation Uranium Processing Facility being built at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Tennessee.
That is the preliminary conclusion of the semiautonomous civilian steward of the nation’s nuclear weapons programs, expressed Monday in a 69-page supplement to a site-wide environmental impact statement it completed in 2011.
In essence, the agency said Monday, the existing environmental impact statement covered all the conceivable environmental effects from the facility, even though the massive plant’s design changed since the agency started the original study.
The document NNSA released Monday is open for public comment through June 20, after which the agency would issue a final, formal record of decision.
Last year, a group of environmental groups sued the NNSA in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, alleging the agency broke federal environmental law when it changed the design for the Uranium Processing Facility to three main buildings from one. The groups argued the change required the NNSA to prepare a separate environmental impact statement.
The lawsuit was transferred to the U.S. District Court for Eastern Tennessee and is scheduled to go to trial Nov. 5, 2019. However, the NNSA and the environmental groups want Judge Pamela Reeves to instead decide the case by ruling on a motion for summary judgment: a procedural tack that could resolve the dispute more quickly than a trial.
