The Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Friday it will prepare a full environmental impact statement (EIS) on Westinghouse’s application to renew the license for its Columbia Fuel Fabrication Facility in South Carolina.
The EIS would replace a draft environmental assessment and finding of no significant impact issued last October by the federal regulator. The agency changed course after receiving new data in March from Westinghouse’s site investigations of its property, according to a press release.
“Based on the NRC’s independent evaluation of the new data as part of the EA process, the NRC decided it could no longer conclude that renewal of the license would result in a finding of no significant impact,” the release says. “As a result, the NRC will proceed with an EIS.”
The South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control (SCDHEC) in February received data from groundwater monitoring wells and other sources around the Westinghouse property. It forwarded the findings to the NRC the following month.
The EIS process will begin with a notice in the Federal Register, the NRC said. The agency has not yet finalized its schedule, spokesman Roger Hannah said by email Monday.
The operations license for the 51-year-old nuclear fuel production facility expires on Sept. 30, 2027. Westinghouse in 2014 applied for a 40-year renewal, which would take it into 2067.
The Department of Health and Environmental Control in April asked the NRC to prepare a full EIS on for relicensing. The environmental impact statement would go deeper than the assessment on the need for an action, alternatives to that action, and its environmental effects.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission previously withdrew a June 2018 environmental assessment on the license application after a series of accidents at the 550,000-square-foot facility, including a July 2018 equipment leak that deposited uranium into its subsurface.
