Press Release-11-082, NRC, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Issue Final Environmental Impact Statement for New Reactors at Comanche Peak Site

Press Release-11-082: NRC, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Issue Final Environmental Impact Statement for New Reactors at Comanche Peak Site

ML111360257
Person / Time
Site:	Comanche Peak
Issue date:	05/16/2011
From:	Office of Public Affairs
To:
References
+reviewedsrm2 Press Release-11-082
Download: ML111360257 (2)

Text

NRC NEWS U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs Telephone: 301/415-8200 Washington, D.C. 20555-0001 E-mail: opa.resource@nrc.gov Site: www.nrc.gov Blog: http://public-blog.nrc-gateway.gov No.11-082 May 16, 2011 NRC, U.S. ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS ISSUE FINAL ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT STATEMENT FOR NEW REACTORS AT COMANCHE PEAK SITE The Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE),

Fort Worth District, have completed the Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) for the Combined Licenses (COL) for the proposed Comanche Peak Nuclear Power Plant Units 3 and 4.

The NRC concludes in the FEIS that there are no environmental impacts that would preclude issuing the COLs for construction and operation of the proposed reactors at the site, near Glen Rose, Texas. The USACE will use the information in the FEIS in making its federal permit decision in accordance with the Clean Water Act and Rivers and Harbors Act of 1899.

The FEIS will be available on the NRCs website. The NRC staff, in cooperation with USACE, gathered comments from the community near the site in January 2009 during the environmental scoping process. The agencies issued a draft EIS in August 2010 and met with the local community again in September 2010 for additional comments.

The FEIS, with the NRCs conclusions, is also available via the NRCs electronic document database, ADAMS, by entering accession numbers ML11131A001 and ML11131A002 in the ADAMS search engine. In addition, the Somervell County Library (at 108 Allen Drive in Glen Rose) and the Hood County Library (at 222 North Travis St. in Granbury, Texas) will have hardbound and electronic copies of the FEIS available for public inspection.

The NRCs publishing of the FEIS is only part of the overall Comanche Peak COL review. The agency staff continues to compile its final safety evaluation report (SER), which will include recommendations from the NRCs Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards, an independent group of nuclear safety experts. The NRCs five Commissioners must also conduct a mandatory hearing regarding whether the staffs review supports the findings necessary to issue the COLs. All of these items must be completed before the NRC can reach a final decision on the COL application.

Luminant Generation has applied for a license to build and operate two U.S. Advanced Pressurized-Water Reactors (US-APWR) adjacent to the existing Comanche Peak nuclear power plant, approximately 5 miles north of Glen Rose. Luminant submitted the application in September 2008, and supplemented the report in November 2009. The US-APWR is a large pressurized-water reactor with a design output of approximately 1,500 MWe. The US-APWRs designer, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, filed an application on Dec. 31, 2007, to certify the

design. More information regarding the NRCs review of the US-APWR is available on the NRCs website.

News releases are available through a free listserv subscription at the following Web address:

http://www.nrc.gov/public-involve/listserver.html. The NRC homepage at www.nrc.gov also offers a SUBSCRIBE link. E-mail notifications are sent to subscribers when news releases are posted to NRCs website.