FEIS Vol 3, Part 4: Chap 10 Cumulative Impacts

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10. CUMULATIVE IMPACTS

10 (3)
Comment - 16 comments summarized
Commenters said that the EIS did not adequately account for the cumulative impacts from past, present, and future transport of all radioactive and hazardous materials to the repository, to the Nevada Test Site, and to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico. Some said that the cumulative impacts from all these waste shipments should have been integrated into one risk model, especially considering that the Nevada Test Site is a preferred alternative for the disposal of the Nation’s low-level and mixed low-level radioactive waste and other hazardous materials. Commenters stated the routes that would be used to transport waste to Yucca Mountain are the same routes being used to carry transuranic wastes to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico. Others said that all this waste transport is a violation of the principle of informed consent for citizens traveling the Nation’s highways. Some said that DOE has also failed to inform emergency responders and state transportation departments of potential problems by not integrating accident and risk data from the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant and Yucca Mountain. Some said that the cumulative impacts from waste transport would be particularly adverse to residents of Nye and Clark Counties, Nevada.

Response
Section 8.4 of the EIS describes the cumulative impacts of past, present, and reasonably foreseeable shipments of radioactive materials throughout the nation and in Nevada. Table 8-58 lists the collective worker-dose and general-population dose (in person-rem), and traffic fatalities, from these actions between 1943 and 2047 (including mixed low-level radioactive waste). The table includes shipments of low-level waste to the Nevada Test Site (this includes the designation of the Nevada Test Site as a regional DOE low-level waste disposal site); shipments of transuranic waste to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico; and shipments of spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste to various storage and disposal sites throughout the nation.

The Department is not aware of the specific "informed consent" principle to which the commenters refer. Transportation of hazardous materials requires informing the appropriate government agencies and adhering to requirements of the Federal Government and affected state governments, which act to protect the public. Further, transport vehicles must have special placards to identify hazards that might be on board the transport vehicle; these placards are visible to other drivers on the highways. In addition, public documents, such as this EIS, inform the public of potential risks that might accompany transportation activities.

Section 180(c) of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, as amended (this EIS refers to the amended Act as the NWPA), requires DOE to provide technical assistance and funds to states for training of public safety officials of appropriate units of local government and Native American tribes through whose jurisdictions the Department would transport spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste. The training shall cover procedures required for safe routine transportation of these materials, as well as procedures for dealing with emergency response situations. If there was a decision to proceed with the development of a repository at Yucca Mountain, shipping routes would be identified approximately 5 years before shipments begin and Section 180(c) assistance would be made available approximately 4 years prior to shipments through a jurisdiction. See Section M.6 of the EIS for a discussion of the DOE Section 180(c) Policy and Procedures.

The Price-Anderson Act establishes a system of financial protection (compensation for personal injury and property damage, including loss of use of property) for the public in a nuclear accident, regardless of who causes the damage. See Section M.8 of the EIS for a discussion of the Price-Anderson Act.

10 (91)
Comment - 12 comments summarized
Commenters said that the EIS did not examine (or did not examine adequately) the cumulative impacts to groundwater from the repository and from past, present, and future activities at the Nevada Test Site. Some noted that DOE had detonated nuclear explosions below the water table and that plutonium had migrated more than a mile from these detonations via colloids. According to some, plutonium migration might be more extensive, but DOE has gathered little information about groundwater conditions on the Nevada Test Site and groundwater flow between the Test Site and Yucca Mountain. Some wanted to know why DOE has not examined the groundwater system on the Test Site with the same vigor that it has examined groundwater conditions at Yucca Mountain.

Response
Chapter 8 of the EIS discusses the cumulative impacts from the repository, along with the impacts of past, present, and reasonably foreseeable activities in the region. Section 8.3.2.1 describes the impacts to groundwater from past underground testing at the Nevada Test Site. Section 8.3.2.1 also discusses the movement of plutonium from underground test sites by binding with colloids, which is believed to account for this movement. Since issuing the Draft EIS, the Department has revised the analyses of impacts associated with the Nevada Test Site. Section 8.3 of the Final EIS includes updated estimates of future impacts to groundwater from activities on the Test Site. These estimates indicate that the potential dose to a receptor from groundwater from the Nevada Test Site is much less than 1 millirem per year, and the Department does not believe that adverse impacts would result from this small dose alone or combined with long-term releases from a repository at Yucca Mountain.

When DOE prepared the Draft EIS, it used the best available information to estimate cumulative impacts. While some data were available for the groundwater system at the Nevada Test Site, these data were not as complete as those available for the groundwater system between the repository and populated areas to the south. This is why the EIS analysis could not apply the same rigor to areas on the Nevada Test Site north of the repository compared to areas south of the repository. To compensate for this imbalance in available information, the EIS used a very conservative approach to bound estimated impacts. In other words, the Department believes that potential impacts associated with the Nevada Test Site were overestimated. This type of conservative analysis is designed to account for uncertainties by assuming very conservative values for parameters and not taking credit for possible mitigating effects. For example, the regional groundwater flow model developed by the U.S. Geological Survey for the repository program (DIRS 100131-D’Agnese et al. 1997) indicates that some groundwater from the Nevada Test Site flows southward toward the Amargosa Desert in the vicinity of Yucca Mountain. However, the actual transport times and groundwater pathways from potential radionuclide contaminants on the Test Site are not clearly known. Although very unlikely to occur, the Department assumed, for purposes of analysis in the Draft and Final EIS, that contaminants from the Nevada Test Site would move through identical pathways and have identical transport times as the material from the repository because this would provide an upper, bounding estimate of the possible impact to groundwater from the repository and the Nevada Test Site.

The qualitative calculation of the cumulative groundwater impacts from the Nevada Test Site and from a repository at Yucca Mountain indicates that the potential cumulative peak dose would be well below the regulatory limits in 40 CFR Part 197 (see Section 8.3.2.1.1). Moreover, this cumulative peak-dose would occur only in the unlikely event that the peak radiological concentrations from the Nevada Test Site and from Yucca Mountain occurred at the same time in the future and in the same location, which is unlikely.

10 (104)
Comment - 20 comments summarized
Commenters said that the EIS did not examine the cumulative impacts from all Federal and non-Federal actions and policies in the affected area. Agencies and organizations cited included the DOE, the Department of Defense, the Forest Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Bureau of Land Management, the National Park Service, the Timbisha-Shoshone Tribe (with regard to the acquisition of trust lands), and the Clark County/Las Vegas Valley Water District. Others focused specifically on Nye County, stating that the EIS did not consider the cumulative impacts from the repository withdrawal, along with the millions of acres of Federal land already withdrawn for national parks, forests, wildlife refuges, and defense purposes in and near Nye County. Some said that the many separate resource-planning documents prepared by these and other agencies have not been coordinated among the agencies and have had, and will continue to have, cumulative impacts on the residents of Nye County through a variety of lost opportunities. Others said that residents of Nye County have been disproportionately affected by these Federal actions, citing lost opportunities due to the many land-use restrictions that have been imposed in Nye County, including what some commenters contend is a stated policy of the National Park Service and the Bureau of Land Management to protest local water-right applications in southern Nye County.

Response
Chapter 8 of the EIS discusses the potential impacts of the proposed repository, along with the impacts from past, present, and reasonably foreseeable future actions in the affected area. In preparing this chapter, the Department reviewed many documents to determine where there was potential for cumulative impacts. These documents included resource plans by land management agencies, EISs, environmental assessments, strategic plans, records of tribal meetings, and other documents prepared by Federal, state, local, and private organizations. The analyses and results described in Chapter 8 considered only those impacts from activities that have the potential to coincide in time and space with impacts from the repository. Based on some of the comments received by the Department on the Draft EIS and the Supplement to the Draft EIS and more recent information on activities at the Nevada Test Site, DOE modified several analyses in the Final EIS. DOE believes that the Final EIS analyzes the appropriate range of past, present, and reasonably foreseeable future actions that could contribute to cumulative impacts.

The Department understands that large tracts of land have been withdrawn from public use in southern Nevada and adjoining parts of California for reasons of national defense and environmental protection. Section 8.2.1 of the Final EIS includes a more detailed discussion of potential cumulative impacts from these land withdrawals. While it is true that land in Nevada has been withdrawn for national defense and environmental protection, other lands have passed out of the public domain. For instance, the Southern Nevada Public Land Management Act allows the Bureau of Land Management to sell public lands to promote responsible and orderly development.

The opposition to a water-appropriation application by an agency is not an environmental impact associated with the availability of water resources. This is because the filing of a protest does not determine the outcome of the water-application process. The Nevada State Engineer is independent of the Federal Government.

10 (242)
Comment - 3 comments summarized
Commenters said that nuclear weapons are still being tested at the Nevada Test Site and that this needs to be included in the cumulative impacts assessment. Others cited a high likelihood for a resumption of nuclear weapons testing at the Nevada Test Site, citing the recent failure of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in Congress. Some stated that the Draft EIS did not contemplate a resumption of weapons testing, but that the 1986 environmental assessment of Yucca Mountain did, stating that workers would not be allowed in the underground repository during planned weapons tests for safety reasons.

Response
Since 1992, there has been a moratorium on nuclear testing. Even though the Nevada Test Site must maintain the ability to resume testing, the Department does not believe that a resumption of testing is a reasonably foreseeable action. Therefore, it was not included in the analyses in Chapter 8 of the EIS. Nevertheless, a recent evaluation of impacts from a resumption of underground testing at the Nevada Test Site (DIRS 103273-Walck 1996) concluded that the only impact such testing would pose on the repository would be ground motion from the energy released by the detonations. DOE has determined that such effects would not exceed the seismic design criteria for the repository. In other words, the design-basis earthquake for the repository would generate stronger ground motions than would underground nuclear detonations on the Nevada Test Site. Because DOE has designed the repository to survive the design-basis earthquake with minimal damage, ground motion from the resumption of underground testing would be unlikely to result in substantial damage to the surface or underground facilities at Yucca Mountain.

Section 8.3.2.1.1 of the EIS describes the cumulative impacts of past nuclear weapons testing based on information in the Final Environmental Impact Statement for the Nevada Test Site and Off-Site Locations in the State of Nevada (DIRS 101811-DOE 1996). As stated in that EIS, DOE continues to perform tests at the Nevada Test Site including dynamic, hydrodynamic, and other tests as well as a small number of subcritical experiments using special nuclear materials. The Department has revised Chapter 8 to include a more complete description of these activities so the public and decisionmakers have a clear understanding of the potential cumulative impacts.

10 (258)
Comment - 27 comments summarized
Commenters said that the EIS failed to examine the cumulative health effects to people in Nevada from all past, present, and future exposures to radiation. Some said that residents of counties in eastern Nevada have been repeatedly exposed to radiation, beginning with fallout from above-ground nuclear testing and from DOE’s failure to contain atmospheric releases during underground testing. Others said that residents are still being exposed through hiking, hunting, farming, and continuing fallout. Commenters said that DOE must evaluate the cumulative health effects (higher risk of latent cancers) of weapons testing, along with the health effects from the transport of all radioactive materials through communities in eastern Nevada, including the effects of accidents. Others wanted to know what the impacts would be to current residents who were exposed to these past sources, as well as to residents who are genetically related to people who have been repeatedly exposed to radiation. Others wanted to know whether DOE examined the cumulative health effects to selected groups of people (pregnant women, children, elderly people, ethnic groups, etc.) from repeated exposure to radiation from all manmade and natural sources of radiation.

Response
As part of its analysis of cumulative impacts in Chapter 8, the Department quantified, where possible, the total radiation dose that local residents have received. The Department calculated the total risk to the population based on the conservative assumption that radiation risks from different exposures are additive.

With respect to person-specific exposures, the Department cannot account for each resident’s past exposure to radiation. To do so would require accounting for person-specific lifestyles and habits, such as the frequency of cross-country airline flights, past residences in locations that might have substantially higher or lower cosmic radiation, and the frequency and nature of medical diagnostic tests and treatments. Instead, the Department used population risk factors (5 ´ 10^-4 latent cancer fatality per person-rem for the public and 4 ´ 10^-4 latent cancer fatality per person-rem for workers) based on the recommendations of the International Commission on Radiological Protection (DIRS 101836-ICRP 1991). These factors account for the variety of individuals in the population, including differences in risk due to age. An estimate of impacts to specific groups of people (such as pregnant women, children, the elderly, and certain ethnic groups) was not made because such estimates would have greater uncertainty. The doses that have been calculated thus far for downwind residents have uncertainty associated with them that would tend to overshadow differences in risk to the various groups cited. The use of the average risk factors adequately covers all groups within the population and gives a reasonable estimate of the risk to the group as a whole.

Section 8.3.2.1 of the EIS describes the activities on the Nevada Test Site that could contribute to cumulative impacts with the proposed repository. Section 3.1.8.2 estimates the annual radiation dose to a hypothetical individual in Springdale, Nevada (located eight miles north of Beatty), from airborne radioactive materials released during past testing of nuclear weapons at the Nevada Test Site. Since issuing the Draft EIS, DOE has revised the analyses of impacts associated with the Nevada Test Site. Sections and 8.2.2.2 and 8.4.2.7 now include information on radiation exposure from past nuclear weapons testing, and Section 8.3 includes updated estimates of future impacts to groundwater and air resources from activities on the Test Site. In addition, Section 8.4.2.7 incorporates the human health impacts from the transportation activities discussed in Section 8.4 (for example, Table 8-58 describes radiological and nonradiological impacts from waste transport between 1943 and 2047). Section 8.3 estimates the long-term future impacts to groundwater from potential migration of radiological and hazardous contaminants from the repository, the Nevada Test Site, and the Beatty low-level waste site.

As indicated in Section 3.1.8.2, DOE made quantitative estimates of the offsite doses from releases from past weapons testing at the Nevada Test Site. In response to public comments, Appendix J of the Final EIS contains maps showing routes used in analyzing impacts, and estimates radiological and nonradiological impacts for each state. This is in addition to the route maps that were in the Draft EIS (see Section 2.1.3.2 for national maps and Section 2.1.3.3 for Nevada maps).

Readers interested in more information about the effects of past testing of nuclear weapons should refer to the National Cancer Institute Study Estimating Thyroid Doses of I-131 Received by Americans From Nevada Atmospheric Nuclear Bomb Tests (DIRS 152469-Institute of Medicine and National Research Council 1999).

10 (335)
Comment - EIS000056 / 0001
The proposed repository is predicted to leak additional radioactive contamination into the aquifers in the southwestern portion of the Nevada Test Site...water that is currently potable will be contaminated if the DOE’s Performance Assessment is correct. This will result in a significant adverse impact on the water resources that must be mitigated.

Response
DOE recognizes that some radionuclides or potentially toxic chemicals would eventually enter the environment outside the repository. However, modeling of the long-term performance of the repository shows that the combination of natural and engineered barriers at the site would keep such a release small enough to pose no serious impact to the health and safety of people or the environment. The releases would be well below the radiation protection standards established by the Environmental Protection Agency for a repository at Yucca Mountain [40 CFR Part 197].

The U.S. Geological Survey regional flow model (DIRS 100131-D’Agnese et al. 1997) suggests that some of the water from the Nevada Test Site flows southward toward the Amargosa Valley in the vicinity of Yucca Mountain. However, the actual transport times and groundwater pathways from potential radionuclide contaminants on the Site are not clearly known at this time. A "qualitative" calculation of the combined impact from the Nevada Test Site and Yucca Mountain in Section 8.3.2.1.1 indicates that the potential cumulative peak dose would be well below the Environmental Protection Agency’s regulatory limits. This combined peak dose would occur only in the unlikely event that the peak concentrations from the Test Site and Yucca Mountain occurred at the same time and same location. See Sections 3.1.4.2.1, 5.4, and 8.3.2.1.1 of the EIS for more information.

10 (380)
Comment - EIS000044 / 0002
The results of Nye County’s water resource evaluations found that the direct impacts of water withdrawals for the proposed repository will be limited to a localized lowering of water levels that was not deemed to be significant. However, the evaluation did find that the predicted leakage from the repository and the cumulative impacts of the proposed repository will indeed be significant and that mitigating measures must be implemented. The Draft Yucca Mountain EIS is inadequate with regard to its evaluation of impacts on water resources and corresponding mitigation and must be revised extensively.

The cumulative impacts on water resources will include the direct and indirect impacts of 1) the total radiological burden that will be imposed on Nye County; 2) the impacts of federal land withdrawals on water resource availability: 3) the impacts of federal policies regarding nuclear weapons testing, waste disposal, and environmental protection; and 4) the water resource use and management practices on both private and federal lands in the County.

The Department of Energy, through their selection of a reduced region of influence, limited their analysis to only the direct impacts of their water withdrawals from a single basin while ignoring documented impacts that occur over a much broader region. Further, the Department ignored other federally prepared reports that detailed the direct, indirect, and cumulative impacts of Department of Defense, Energy, and the Interior actions over the same region. This approach is inconsistent with the CEQ [Council on Environmental Quality] guidance for considering cumulative impact assessment under NEPA [National Environmental Policy Act] and with 40 CFR 1508.25.

All the Yucca Mountain EIS says with regard to cumulative impacts is that the potential impacts to groundwater would be small and limited to the immediate vicinity of the land disturbances associated with the action and that some minor incremental risk would occur from drinking the groundwater down gradient of the repository at some distant time in the future.

This approach is inconsistent with statements in the Draft EIS:

"The general path of water that infiltrates through Yucca Mountain is south toward Lathrop Wells, into and through the area around Death Valley Junction in the lower Amargosa Valley. Natural discharge of groundwater from beneath Yucca Mountain probably occurs farther south at Franklin Lake Playa." Vol. I, p. 5-23.

"The implementation of the proposed action could potentially affect the water supply in Death Valley National Park, which is downgradient from Yucca Mountain" Vol. II, Appendix C, page C-9.

The region of influence evaluated for cumulative impacts cannot be smaller than the region over which impacts are expected to occur. Thus, the Department’s approach is inconsistent with the letter and intent of NEPA, CEQ guidance, and other federal documents including the EIS for the Nevada Test Site, and the Special Nevada Report.

If the Department of Energy chooses to continue to ignore the local perspective by not evaluating the impacts identified in the Nye County document and by other federal agencies, then it is imperative that Nye County’s perspective be clearly documented in the EIS as an opposing viewpoint.

Response
Chapter 8 of the EIS analyzes reasonably foreseeable cumulative impacts to water resources from a repository at Yucca Mountain. The region in which the cumulative impacts could occur includes the entire groundwater flow system south of Yucca Mountain described in Section 3.1.4.2.1 of the EIS, as well as areas to the north on the Nevada Test Site that could contribute impacts to this groundwater flow system. In other words, the region examined for cumulative impacts is larger than the region examined for impacts from just the repository. In relation to short-term impacts to water resources, Section 8.2.3 describes the cumulative impacts from the Proposed Action and from additional inventories of nuclear waste. As stated in Section 8.2.3.2.2, no other Federal, non-Federal, or private actions in the affected area during the short term would have cumulative impacts with the Proposed Action, with one exception; cumulative impacts to groundwater resources from water demands of the Yucca Mountain Repository, along with groundwater demands from activities on the Nevada Test Site. Impacts to downgradient users in the Amargosa Desert from cumulative water demands for the repository and the Test Site, however, would be small compared to impacts from local pumping in the Amargosa Desert. With regard to long-term cumulative impacts to groundwater resources (those that could occur 10,000 years after closure of the repository), the Department limited the scope to cumulative impacts from the repository along with impacts from the Nevada Test Site and the Beatty low-level radioactive waste site (see Section 8.3).

The first cited quote in the comment, from Section 5.3 of the EIS, is accurate. A fraction of the groundwater might flow through fractures in the relatively impermeable Precambrian rocks in the southeastern end of the Funeral Mountains toward spring discharge points in the Furnace Creek area of Death Valley. Sparse potentiometric data indicate that a divide could exist in the Funeral Mountains between the Amargosa Desert and Death Valley. Such a divide would limit discharge from the shallow flow system, but not necessarily affect the deeper carbonate flow system that might contribute discharge to the Furnace Creek area. Even if part of the flow from Yucca Mountain mixed into the carbonate pathway that supplies the Furnace Creek springs, it would be too little to have a noticeable effect on the chemistry of the springs. Considering the small fraction of water that would infiltrate though the repository area (approximately 0.3 percent or less) compared to the total amount of water flowing through the basin and the large distances involved [more than 60 kilometers (37 miles) from the source], any component of the flow from Yucca Mountain in this very long and complicated flowpath would be diluted to such an extent that it would be indistinguishable.

The second quote in the comment is consistent with the Department’s conclusion that some minor incremental risk would occur from ingesting groundwater downgradient of the repository at some distant time in the future. The main point of Appendix C is to summarize interactions with organizations that have an interest in, or authority over, land that the Proposed Action could affect, such as the National Park Service, which manages the Devils Hole Protective Withdrawal and Death Valley National Park. DOE and National Park Service officials held discussions during which time the Department addressed Park Service concerns about water use for repository construction and operation.

Finally, DOE did consider planning and other documents from Federal, state, and local agencies in determining future actions that are reasonably foreseeable that could have impacts that are cumulative with the Proposed Action. With regard to the Special Nevada Report (DIRS 153277-SAIC 1991), Section 8.2 of the Final EIS describes this report and the reasons why DOE did not use the analysis in that report.

10 (421)
Comment - EIS000071 / 0019
Nye County, by virtue of its location, characteristics and overwhelming federal presence has been disproportionately impacted by past, present and continuing federal action.

Nye County must receive just equity offsets, mitigation and compensation from the United States to mitigate the cumulative impacts of these past, present actions and the proposed repository should it go forward.

Nye County’s analysis and evaluations arrange direct, indirect cumulative and direct cumulative have been identified in areas of land use, water resources, lost economic opportunity, perceived risks, stigma and others.

Nye County believes that these impacts, although adverse and significant, can be mitigated through various measures.

Response
Impacts of the Proposed Action, along with other past, present, and reasonably foreseeable actions that are spatially and temporally related to impacts of the proposed repository, are discussed throughout Chapter 8 of the EIS. These other actions include, among others, activities at the Nevada Test Site, the Beatty waste-disposal site, and Nellis Air Force Range (now called the Nevada Test and Training Range).

Based on its method of analysis in Chapter 8, the Department believes that it has accounted for all past, present, and reasonably foreseeable actions in Nye County that could meaningfully contribute to cumulative impacts with the repository.

After the Draft EIS was published, the Department reviewed the activities in the region of influence that could contribute to cumulative impacts. Chapter 8 of the Final EIS includes a more detailed discussion of cumulative impacts related to projected water use for the repository and water availability and water rights issues in Nye and surrounding counties.

The Department is not considering mitigation of cumulative impacts that are unrelated to the proposed repository.

Section 116 (c) of the NWPA establishes a procedure, unrelated to this EIS, by which affected units of local government, such as Nye County, can report effects from the proposed repository to DOE. Affected units of local government can receive impact assistance upon agreement with DOE on the nature and severity of the impacts. Section 116(c) commits DOE to participate in this procedure and to provide assistance consistent with direction from Congress.

10 (437)
Comment - EIS000080 / 0008
You’re looking at radioactivity and the risks associated with exposure to radioactivity. There’s a little thing out here called toxicity and you only look at the toxicity of the non-radioactive constituents.

The radioactive constituents also have a toxicity and a risk associated with that toxicity, so if you want to look at the total risk to Amargosa Valley over the coming decades, you’ve got one, the risk of the naturally occurring uranium in the water up north of [U.S.] 95; two, the risk of the migration of tritium and other contamination off of the Nevada Test Site; three, the toxicity of the materials on the Test Site; four, any contributions from radionuclides coming from Yucca Mountain; and five, the toxicity of those.

The EIS does not cover all of those. It only looks at the radioactivity from Yucca Mountain and it needs to be revised to incorporate the entire suite of what is out there.

Response
The five items mentioned in the comment are characterized in Section 3.1.8.2 of the EIS and various sections in Chapter 8, particularly Section 8.3.2.

DOE realizes that radionuclides have chemical properties that could present an additional toxicity risk. For this reason, the Department considered the chemical toxicity of radionuclides in the screening criteria used for the long-term performance assessment, as discussed in Section I.3.2 of the EIS. Section 8.3 discusses the cumulative impact to groundwater of long-term releases from the Nevada Test Site and the proposed repository.

10 (475)
Comment - EIS000069 / 0007
Once this material arrives, we will have it here forever. We suggest that this document does not adequately address the issue of cumulative impacts that this county, Nye County has had to bear from a number of federal agencies; not just a nuclear community, but we have huge presence with federal land management agencies, national parks, National Fish and Wildlife, Bureau of Indian Affairs and other federal agencies, all of them wanting to come to Nye County and manage the resources and none of them talking to each other. The United States must deal with this issue in a fair and equitable way and must deal effectively with the actual as well as the perceived risks.

Response
Based on available information, DOE analyzed the potential cumulative impacts to current and future populations surrounding the proposed repository at Yucca Mountain. Chapter 8 of the EIS contains this information. The Department realizes that, as in other communities in our country, many activities take place in Nye County. Not all of these activities, however, have had or would have cumulative impacts with the proposed repository.

During scoping for the EIS, DOE received comments on the need to address perception-based and stigma-related impacts that could arise from the construction and operation of a repository, and from the transportation of spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste. In considering these comments, DOE recognized that nuclear facilities could be perceived to be either positive or negative, depending on the underlying value systems of the individual forming the perception. Perception-based impacts would not necessarily depend on the actual physical impacts or risks from repository operations or transportation. Further, people do not consistently act in accordance with negative perceptions, so the connection between public perception of risk and future behavior would be uncertain or speculative at best. For these reasons, DOE determined that including analyses of perception-based and stigma-related impacts in the Draft EIS would not provide meaningful information.

However, in light of the comments received on the Draft EIS on this subject, DOE examined relevant studies and literature on perceived risk and stigmatization of communities to determine whether the state of the science in predicting future behavior based on perceptions had advanced sufficiently since scoping to enable DOE to quantify the impact of public risk perception on economic development or property values in potentially affected communities. Of particular interest were those scientific and social studies carried out in the past few years that relate directly to either Yucca Mountain or to DOE actions such as the transportation of foreign research reactor spent nuclear fuel. DOE also reevaluated the conclusions of previous literature reviews such as those conducted by the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board and the State of Nevada, among others. DOE has concluded that:

While in some instances risk perceptions could result in adverse impacts on portions of a local economy, there are no reliable methods by which such impacts could be predicted with any degree of certainty.

Much of the uncertainty is irreducible.

Based on a qualitative analysis, adverse impacts from perceptions of risk would be unlikely or relatively small.

While stigmatization of southern Nevada can be envisioned under some scenarios, it is not inevitable or numerically predictable. Any such stigmatization would likely be an aftereffect of unpredictable future events, such as a serious accident, which might not occur. As a consequence, DOE addressed but did not attempt to quantify the potential for impacts from risk perceptions or stigma in this Final EIS. See Section 2.5.4 and Appendix N for more information.

10 (524)
Comment - EIS000105 / 0001
The cumulative impacts on water resources will include the direct and indirect impacts of the total radiological burden that will be imposed on Nye County, the impacts of federal land withdrawals on water resource availability, the impacts of federal policies regarding nuclear weapons testing, waste disposal and environmental protection and the water resource use and management practices on both private and federal land in the county.

The Department of Energy limited their cumulative analysis to the Jackass Flats hydrographic basin and limited their analysis to only the direct impacts of their water withdrawals from that basin.

This approach is inconsistent with the CEQ [Council on Environmental Quality] guidance for considering cumulative impact assessment under NEPA [National Environmental Policy Act].

Response
In general, the analysis of cumulative impacts in Chapter 8 followed the process recommended in the Council on Environmental Quality’s handbook Considering Cumulative Effects Under the National Environmental Policy Act (DIRS 103162-CEQ 1997). This process included the identification, through research and consultation, of Federal, non-Federal, and private actions with possible effects that would be coincident with those of the Proposed Action on resources, ecosystems, and human communities.

Chapter 8 of the EIS analyzes reasonably foreseeable cumulative impacts to water resources. In relation to short-term impacts to water resources, Section 8.2.3 describes the cumulative impacts from the Proposed Action and from additional inventories of nuclear waste. As stated in Section 8.2.3.2.2, no other Federal, non-Federal, or private actions in the affected area during the short term would have cumulative impacts with the Proposed Action, with one exception; cumulative impacts to groundwater resources from water demands by the Yucca Mountain Repository, along with groundwater demands from activities on the Nevada Test Site. Impacts to downgradient users in the Amargosa Desert from cumulative water demands for the repository and the Nevada Test Site, however, would be small compared to impacts from local pumping in the Amargosa Desert.

In relation to long-term cumulative impacts to groundwater resources (those that could occur 10,000 years after closure of the repository), the Department determined that the analysis of cumulative impacts from the repository should include impacts from the Nevada Test Site and the Beatty low-level radioactive waste site (see Section 8.3). In addition to considering cumulative radiological impacts to the Jackass Flats hydrographic basin, DOE also considered the primary discharge point for groundwater flowing beneath Yucca Mountain, which it believes to be Franklin Lake Playa. Groundwater reaching this area could, over the long term, contain small amounts of radioactive and hazardous materials from the repository, the Nevada Test Site, and the Beatty low-level waste site, as described in Section 8.3.2 of the EIS. Furthermore, the EIS recognizes that some groundwater reaching this far might bypass Franklin Lake Playa and continue to Death Valley, and that a very small amount of this groundwater beneath the Amargosa Desert might flow toward springs in the Furnace Creek Wash area of Death Valley. DOE expects that impacts to people and the environment of Death Valley would be negligible.

DOE has revised Sections 8.2.1 and 8.2.3.2 of the EIS to further explain potential cumulative impacts of land withdrawals on water resources. In relation to policies on weapons testing, the EIS uses information from the Expanded Use Alternative in the Nevada Test Site EIS (DIRS 101811-DOE 1996), which allows for weapons testing under a "supreme national interest." Several sections of the EIS discuss the impacts of waste management; for example, Section 8.2.12 discusses the management of waste generated at the repository, and Section 8.4 discusses impacts of waste transportation.

10 (893)
Comment - EIS000410 / 0001
I do not believe that a reasonable conclusion can be drawn from a study which does not include a comparison study of the radiation which already exists. While I am no physicist, it would be hard to convince me that the radiation from over 110 above-ground tests and 1,100 underground tests (+/- a few hundred) set off in shafts which were 5,000 to 15,000 feet deep over a period of 30 years has not already contaminated the ground and the water in unimaginable proportions for miles around.

I believe that the following questions need to be answered before your department can come to a reasonable conclusion - and inform the public of what already exists at Yucca Mountain and surrounding area:

Exactly how many nuclear tests were conducted, both above and below ground, and their exact proximity to population and water.

The depth of underground tests, and how they have already affected the water table.

Quantify the radiation which exists there now, both above and below ground, its potential life expectancy, comparing it to the proposed waste dump.

Conditions which exist from the testing which would affect workers at the project.

A complete public airing of all information concerning the detonations at the site, including any information considered classified by the military, insofar as radioactive contamination is concerned - I do not believe the military or DOE has the right to keep that sort of information secret.

Response
DOE described past activities at the Nevada Test Site in the Final Environmental Impact Statement for the Nevada Test Site and Off-Site Locations in the State of Nevada (DIRS 101811-DOE 1996). Chapter 8 of the repository EIS discusses the cumulative impacts of the repository along with past, present, and reasonably foreseeable future actions at the Nevada Test Site, Nellis Air Force Base, the Beatty low-level radioactive waste disposal site, and other non-Federal actions in the affected area (see Table 8-1). Section 8.3.2.1 describes possible impacts to groundwater quality from activities on the Nevada Test Site, including past weapons testing.

The five specific questions raised by the commenter are addressed to varying degrees in DIRS 101811-DOE (1996) and in Section 8.3.2.1 of the EIS. In brief, 821 underground and 100 atmospheric detonations have been conducted at the Nevada Test Site. The areas where these tests were conducted are shown on Figure 3-2 of the EIS and Figure 4-22 of DIRS 101811-DOE (1996). Many underground tests were conducted near and below the water table; contaminant migration from these points of detonation has been negligible. Total radioactivity is estimated to be more than 300 million curies, as cited in Table 8-55 of the EIS. Some of this material is long-lived, some is short-lived, but it will be there for the long term, not unlike the material that would be placed in the proposed repository. There are no known "conditions" caused by weapons testing that would affect workers at Yucca Mountain. Finally, DOE is obligated to comply with laws of the United States regarding the release of classified information.

10 (981)
Comment - EIS000242 / 0002
Nye County has found that the Department of Energy has not adequately addressed the cumulative impacts, that the proposed repository on the resources, ecosystems, or the human communities of Nye County.

The impacts of past federal actions, including the existing residual contamination from the conduction of more than 900 nuclear tests at the Nevada Test Site, have sacrificed the groundwater resources under more than 250 square miles of Nye County.

The withdrawal of lands from public use for the Nevada Test Site for the Nevada test and training range, part of the Nellis Range Complex, and the federal management of millions of acres of national parks, forests, and wildlife refuges have resulted in lost opportunities from those lands for the residents of the county.

Because of its location and characteristics, Nye County and its residents have been disproportionately impacted by past and present federal actions. Yucca Mountain will significantly add to these impacts, yet this draft EIS portrays to the decision maker that the Yucca Mountain Project is just another casual federal action with no more impact than clearing a road through a forest. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Response
Chapter 8 of the EIS analyzes a reasonable range of past, present, and reasonably foreseeable future actions that could contribute to cumulative impacts. In preparing this chapter, DOE reviewed many documents to determine where there was potential for cumulative impacts. These documents included resource plans, EISs, environmental assessments, tribal meeting records, and other documents prepared by Federal, state, local, and private organizations.

Section 8.3.2.1.1 of the EIS discusses the potential long-term impacts on groundwater from past weapons testing at the Nevada Test Site. This analysis does not show that groundwater resources have been sacrificed underneath Nye County.

10 (1119)
Comment - EIS000225 / 0005
The document fails to address the broad scope of impacts on the 1,500 people who live spread over 200 square miles in the area. There needs to be further examination of cumulative impacts such as existing subsurface contamination at the nearby Nevada Test Site, disposal of low-level radioactive waste in the county and other federal uses of land by such agencies as the Defense Department, the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management.

Response
Chapter 8 of the EIS discusses the impacts of the repository along with the impacts from past, present, and reasonably foreseeable future actions that could affect this area. In preparing this chapter, DOE reviewed many documents to determine where there was potential for cumulative impacts. These documents included resource plans, EISs, environmental assessments, strategic plans, consultation documents, tribal meeting records, and other documents prepared by Federal, local, and private organizations. The analyses and results described in Chapter 8 consider only those activities with a potential for cumulative impacts with the repository.

10 (1135)
Comment - EIS000270 / 0020
Factors that give rise to public concerns about and opposition to approval of the Yucca Mountain site include:

Failure to account for additive sources of contamination from nearby areas, including but not limited to spread of radioactivity and hazardous materials or wastes from the Nevada Test Site and Nellis Air Force Base, or for future potential additional pollution sources in adjoining areas.

Response
Chapter 8 of the EIS describes the cumulative impacts from a repository, along with past, present, and reasonably foreseeable future actions at the Nevada Test Site, Nellis Air Force Base, the Beatty low-level radioactive waste disposal site, and other non-Federal actions in the affected area (see Table 8-1). In preparing Chapter 8, DOE reviewed many documents to determine the potential for cumulative impacts. These documents included Federal resource management plans, reports provided by the State of Nevada, environmental impact statements and assessments, and records of tribal meetings. Except for some factual changes and clarifications that have been included in the Final EIS, DOE believes that the Draft EIS adequately characterized the cumulative impacts associated with the proposed repository.

10 (1168)
Comment - EIS000119 / 0010
Federal agencies, including the DOE, the BLM [Bureau of Land Management], US Forest Service, the National Park Service, the United States Air Force, the United States Navy, the Bureau of Indian Affairs and US Fish and Wildlife Service have repeatedly failed to fulfill their obligations under NEPA [National Environmental Policy Act] by refusing to acknowledge such impacts [cumulative] in their NEPA reviews and provide the mitigation measures that are appropriate.

Nye County’s analyses and evaluations identified a range of direct and indirect cumulative impacts in areas such as transportation, land use, water resources, lost economic opportunity and others.

The county believes that these are adverse and significant impacts and that they must be mitigated through various measures.

With the cessation of nuclear weapons testing in 1992, Nye County has made substantial efforts to plan for its economic future in the US 95 corridor.

The EIS does not recognize these plans and it does not reflect an obligation by DOE to ensure that this proposal will not thwart those plans.

Nye County by virtue of its location, characteristics and its overwhelming federal presence has been disproportionately impacted by past, present and continuing federal actions.

Nye County must receive just equity offsets, mitigation, and compensation from the United States to mitigate the cumulative effects of these past and present actions and the proposed repository should it go forward.

Response
Impacts of the Proposed Action, along with other past, present, and reasonably foreseeable actions that are spatially and temporally related to impacts of the repository, are discussed throughout Chapter 8 of the EIS. These other actions include, among others, activities at the Nevada Test Site, the Beatty waste-disposal site, and Nellis Air Force Range. Based on its method of analysis in Chapter 8, the Department believes that it has accounted for all past, present, and reasonably foreseeable actions in Nye County that could meaningfully contribute to cumulative impacts with the repository.

After publishing the Draft EIS, DOE reviewed activities in the region of influence and updated information in the Final EIS where appropriate. Chapter 8 of the Final EIS includes a more detailed discussion of cumulative impacts related to water use at the repository and water availability and water rights issues in Nye and surrounding counties.

The Department is not considering mitigation of cumulative impacts that are unrelated to the proposed repository.

10 (1723)
Comment - EIS000578 / 0001
I’d like to convey my concerns about what I think is a huge void in this whole Environmental Impact Statement, and that is the fact of addressing what’s already there. I think it’s important to know that. I don’t think any of us would be here if it wasn’t for the fact that that place had about 1500 or so, give or take a hundred, nuclear bombs blown up down there, and it’s my opinion that the place is probably the most irradiated place on the planet now.

My concern is that there have been I think 1200 underground tests down there. We’re all concerned about the water tables. I know a person personally who helped drill some of the holes they blew the bombs off in. They were a mile deep. If they didn’t get through three or four water tables by then, I think we’re dreaming.

So what I would like to know is if any tests or any environmental study has ever been done to figure out what is there now, and is this study being done so we’ll know relatively, I mean, how much more could we screw up the place versus what is already there.

Nobody ever talks about it. I very rarely hear anything about this in the news, in the media. I have been to a couple of these meetings. Nobody really ever talks about that.

I think we have got military and that entity of government not transmitting information to you folks who I think need it. And I would like to know because I think that the place is already contaminated. I’m not in favor particularly of having any more come there, but my concern is knowing what’s already there.

I think we have got our heads buried in the sand when it comes to knowing anything at all about what’s there already. And I don’t know how we can even approach this particular study without knowing what already exists there, and I don’t think you can make a rational decision about anything until we know, and just as a citizen, I’d like to know.

Response
DOE described past activities at the Nevada Test Site in the Final Environmental Impact Statement for the Nevada Test Site and Off-Site Locations in the State of Nevada (DIRS 101811-DOE 1996). Section 8.3.2.1 of the Draft EIS discussed the activities at the Nevada Test Site and acknowledged the potential for large amounts of radioactivity as a potential long-term impact. In the Final EIS the Department has updated the information based on more recent analyses of the potential long-term impacts from these activities.

In 1998, the Department published Accelerating Cleanup: Paths to Closure (DIRS 107294-DOE 1998) and has continued to update that report with supplemental information to present the status of cleanup efforts in the DOE complex. The report estimated a total cost of less than $3 billion (DIRS 107294-DOE 1998) for all projects at the Nevada Test Site. In addition to cleanup and remediation activities, this estimate includes subsurface monitoring and surveillance of the sites for up to 100 years (DIRS 107294-DOE 1998).

The Department is continuing environmental restoration at the Nevada Test Site and is studying and monitoring groundwater contamination of the underground test areas. No long-term plans for remediating the underground test areas have been developed.

10 (1777)
Comment - EIS000392 / 0002
Cumulative effects: The DEIS fails to examine all of the past and reasonably foreseeable actions discussed for cumulative impacts. Specifically the impacts of low level radioactive waste transportation to the Nevada Test Site (NTS) are ignored. Issues such as land withdrawal, water resources, cultural resources, socioeconomic impacts and environmental justice have received inadequate analysis.

Response
Section 8.4 of the EIS discusses the cumulative impacts of waste transport to a repository at Yucca Mountain along with shipments of low-level radioactive waste to the Nevada Test Site. Sections 8.2 and 8.3 describe other possible cumulative impacts. Since the publication of the Draft EIS, DOE has revised some of these analyses and believes that the Final EIS presents a reasonable estimate of the cumulative impacts that could be expected in the region.

10 (1792)
Comment - EIS000630 / 0009
Military air space impacts. Also absent from the EIS was the adequate analysis of the cumulative impacts and the potential conflicts between the military air space practice areas, the ranges to the south, and the rail route.

Response
Section J.3.3 in the EIS describes the scenarios considered in the evaluation of transportation accidents, which included military airspace operated by the U.S. Air Force.

10 (1808)
Comment - EIS000332 / 0007
DOE fails to include reasonably foreseeable action proposals identified in other federal, state, and local documents (e.g., many DOI [Department of the Interior] actions are not included; Las Vegas Valley Water District water right applications are not included). DOE also relies upon analyses performed by other agencies where such agencies failed to identify impacts to Nye County and its resources, even when Nye provided supporting analyses and documentation through the agencies’ administrative process.

Response
Chapter 8 of the EIS evaluates the cumulative impacts of the repository along with the impacts of other Federal, non-Federal, and private actions. If the impacts from the repository would not interact or somehow overlap in time or space with impacts from these other actions, DOE did not include them in the assessment of cumulative impacts. The commenter suggests that actions by the Department of the Interior and the Las Vegas Valley Water District should have been included in the assessment of cumulative impacts. However, the water rights applications filed by the Las Vegas Valley Water District are not within the groundwater basins potentially affected by the repository. Actions by the Department of the Interior that could have cumulative impacts with the Proposed Action are described in Section 8.1.2.2 of the EIS.

The commenter suggests that DOE relied upon analyses by other agencies where such agencies fail to identify impacts to Nye County, even when Nye County provided supporting analyses and documentation through the agencies’ administrative processes. DOE cites analyses performed by other agencies when they provide insight to or a context for the Proposed Action. Whether these analyses reflect Nye County’s input is not germane to the Department’s use of documents. On the other hand, DOE has documented opposing viewpoints and analyses in the EIS. DOE included these views if they were based on scientific, regulatory, or other information supported by credible data and analytical methods. For example, opposing views on the nature of the groundwater system at Yucca Mountain are discussed in Section 3.1.4.2.2. Opposing views on other subjects are discussed elsewhere in this EIS.

10 (1815)
Comment - EIS000332 / 0013
With the cessation of nuclear weapons testing in 1992, Nye County has made substantial efforts to plan for its economic future in the US-95 corridor. The DEIS does not recognize these plans, and does not reflect a DOE obligation to ensure that the YMP [Yucca Mountain Project] will not thwart those plans. Nye County, by virtue of its location, characteristics, and overwhelming federal presence has been disproportionately impacted by past, present, and continuing federal actions. Nye County must receive just equity offsets, mitigation, and compensation from the U.S. to mitigate the cumulative [impacts] of these past and present actions, and the proposed repository, should it go forward.

Through Nye County’s analyses and evaluations, a range of direct and indirect cumulative impacts have been identified (land use, water resources, lost economic opportunity, and others). Nye County believes that these impacts, although adverse and significant, can be mitigated through various measures.

Nye County will present its technical basis and evaluations to support the position that impacts stemming from the implementation of the proposed action can be mitigated, and will continue to request mitigation pursuant to NEPA [National Environmental Policy Act].

Response
Consistent with regulations of the Council on Environmental Quality (40 CFR 1508.7), DOE considered past, present, and reasonably foreseeable actions in its assessment of cumulative impacts and has reviewed a number of actions both current and proposed to determine their relevance. The expression "reasonably foreseeable" refers to future actions for which there is reasonable expectation that the action could occur, such as a proposed action under analysis, a project that already started, or a future action that has obligated funding.

DOE structured the cumulative impact assessments in Chapter 8 of the EIS by identifying actions the effects of which could coincide in time and space with the effects from the proposed repository and associated transportation activities.

The commenter indicated that Nye County would present its technical basis and evaluations to support their position that impacts from the Proposed Action can be mitigated. DOE would consider this information, when it is available, and would develop appropriate mitigation actions consistent with the Council on Environmental Quality regulations (40 CFR Parts 1500-1508) and Section 116(c) of the NWPA. Chapter 9 of the EIS identifies DOE-determined impact reduction features, procedures and safeguards, and mitigation measures under consideration for inclusion in the project plan and design. Chapter 9 also identifies ongoing studies that could eventually influence mitigation measures related to the project plan and design.

10 (2227)
Comment - EIS000622 / 0011
There is also no cumulative figures that I could find regarding the fact that this is being built adjacent to the Nevada Nuclear Test Site. The Nevada Nuclear Test Site is already exposing everyone in the area through the air, through soils that blow around in high level winds, through the water, and there’s not information about how this would cumulatively affect people in terms of genetics, natural wildlife or human health. I think this is inadequate and needs to be addressed with a lot more concern.

Response
Table 8-1 of the EIS lists the past, present, and reasonably foreseeable actions that DOE analyzed in Sections 8.2, 8.3, and 8.4 for cumulative impacts. Activities at the Nevada Test Site that would affect the cumulative impact analyses included past nuclear weapons testing; treatment, storage, and disposal of low-level radioactive waste, mixed waste, transuranic waste, high-level radioactive waste, and hazardous waste; construction and operation of an intermodal transfer station near Caliente for the shipment of low-level radioactive waste to the Nevada Test Site; historic shipments of radioactive materials to and from the Nevada Test Site for other DOE facilities; and possible future shipments of radioactive materials to the Nevada Test Site. DOE believes that it has considered all past, present, and reasonably foreseeable actions on the Nevada Test Site in the cumulative impact analyses in Chapter 8.

10 (2330)
Comment - EIS000614 / 0015
The following issue needs to be addressed and thoroughly analyzed concerning direct impacts to Lander County in a detailed manner: military overflights and other federal agency interactions.

Response
DOE did consider the potential impacts of military overflights in its analysis of the proposed Yucca Mountain Repository. Section J.3.3, for example, describes potential transportation accidents associated with military operations from Nellis Air Force Base. As described in Section 8.1.2.2, the Department also considered other Federal activities in the region.

10 (2761)
Comment - EIS000897 / 0002
Will radiation sources in the area, other than the repository, be considered in a total dose calculation? Will the recently reported spent fuel buried somewhere in Area 25 of the Nevada Test Site be included? What about the cumulative impacts to groundwater from nuclear testing?

Response
The EIS discusses possible radiological sources other than the repository in Chapter 8. The cumulative impacts of such actions would not always be directly additive, however, due to spatial differences in the sources, time differences in potential releases, and differing transport mechanisms. For instance, the maximally exposed individual dose from airborne emissions from a particular facility would not be additive to the maximally exposed individual dose from the repository because the calculations are for two different locations. Therefore, DOE has quantified the impacts given such differences among the various potential sources of radiological emissions.

Section 8.3.2.1 describes the activities on the Nevada Test Site that could contribute to cumulative impacts with the proposed repository. Since issuing the Draft EIS, DOE has revised some of the analyses of impacts associated with the Nevada Test Site. Sections 8.2.2.2 and 8.2.7 now include information on radiation exposure from past nuclear weapons testing, and Section 8.3 includes updated estimates of future impacts to groundwater and air resources from activities on the Test Site.

There are no known sites in Area 25 where spent nuclear fuel has been buried. Parts from the old nuclear rocket program, and perhaps some fuel from this program, might be buried somewhere in Area 25, but nothing definite is known about the nature of the material or where it might be buried. This material was not accounted for in the cumulative impacts analysis because its existence, location, amount, and characteristics are not known.

10 (3004)
Comment - EIS000692 / 0005
I would like to say that it is almost laughable to any Nevada citizen that the DOE seriously claims to be taking cumulative impacts into consideration in the final choice between a Yucca Mountain repository and the two no action scenarios.

One look at the cumulative impacts evaluated sheet of your presentation should be enough to disqualify Yucca Mountain from further study.

Response
DOE has prepared this EIS so the Secretary of Energy can consider it, together with other factors required by the NWPA, in making a determination whether to recommend Yucca Mountain for development as a repository, rather than to present a choice between the Proposed Action and the No-Action Alternative.

DOE believes that Chapter 8 of the EIS provides a credible discussion of the cumulative impacts from the repository, along with the impacts of past, present, and reasonably foreseeable activities in the region. These discussions include short- and long-term cumulative impacts of the repository, the cumulative impacts of transportation, and the cumulative impacts of manufacturing disposal containers and shipping casks.

10 (3092)
Comment - EIS000706 / 0005
Despite [the key role of Clark County] there is almost no evaluation of the potential implications of transporting nuclear waste through our urbanized, congested and increasingly developing valley.

The DEIS also fails to evaluate cumulative impacts associated with other Nevada Test Site activities. As an example, there is no examination of the probable use of the Nevada Test Site as the disposal site for the nation’s low level radioactive waste. This offers the potential to dramatically increase the total numbers of shipments through Clark County and Southern Nevada.

Response
Section 8.4 of the EIS discusses the cumulative impacts of transportation in the region, and includes the impacts of shipping a wide variety of nuclear materials. DOE examined many documents to determine the likely number of waste shipments in the region and the resultant impacts. For all the actions identified in Section 8.4, the Department described the radiological impacts and the impacts from vehicle accidents.

Section 8.2.12.2 discusses the cumulative impacts from the storage of low-level waste, which includes the reasonably foreseeable action of the Nevada Test Site becoming a regional low-level waste-disposal site.

10 (3990)
Comment - EIS000724 / 0005
Another problem with the DEIS is that there is no way to discover the total risk associated with the Yucca Mountain Project. The DEIS should clearly spell out what the accumulation of all the possible impacts could be, especially for the residents of southern Nevada. For instance, what if I were born near Yucca Mountain and I grew up drinking contaminated water and eating contaminated food? What if I am an involved worker at Yucca Mountain and I become pregnant and nurse my child? How can I determine from reading the DEIS what the total risk is to myself and my child? Or, what if I am a truck driver who transports casks from the east coast to Yucca Mountain, and I live along the transportation route and my partner is a crossing guard at one of the intersections on the transportation route, and we have a child who attends a school on the route. How can I determine our total risk as a family?

Response
DOE is not able to calculate past and future doses to each resident in the region. To do so would require accounting for lifestyle habits such as cross-country airline flights, past residence in locations that might have substantially higher or lower background cosmic radiation, medical diagnostic tests and treatments, etc. However, the Department has calculated the impacts to various receptor groups in Chapters 4 through 8, which provide a reasonable estimate of radiation doses. These groups include involved radiation workers, noninvolved workers, members of the public exposed along the transportation route, and members of the public in the vicinity of the proposed repository. To estimate impacts, individuals could identify the appropriate receptor group or groups to which they belong and add the impacts for individuals in those groups. For example, if an individual was a noninvolved worker and lived near the repository, that person would be in two receptor groups: the general public and the noninvolved worker group. This would provide a first-order approximation of the total radiation dose to that individual.

10 (4206)
Comment - EIS001160 / 0022
The DEIS does not adequately address issues raised and substantiated by White Pine County during the scoping process. For example:

The repository EIS must consider the possibility that U.S. Highways 93 and 6 and State Highway 318 through White Pine County will be used for both high-level and low-level radioactive waste [LLRW] shipments. Alternatives considered within the EIS should consider with and without LLRW shipments along highway access options through White Pine County. The DEIS does not consider the cumulative impacts (radiological, socioeconomic, etc.) of shipments of HLW [high-level radioactive waste] and LLW through White Pine County.

Response
Under regulations issued by the U.S. Department of Transportation (49 CFR 397.101), truck shipments of spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste could not use a route through White Pine County. Therefore, an analysis of cumulative impacts is not necessary. However, Appendix J of the EIS evaluates the sensitivity of impacts to variations in routing through Nevada. For comparison purposes, Section J.3.1.3 considers a route through White Pine County, but this route would not be used.

10 (4555)
Comment - EIS000225 / 0006
Nye County consultant Thomas Buqo and Steve Frishman, a consulting geologist with the State Nuclear Projects Agency, questioned calculations by Yucca Mountain Project scientists that show the radioactive inventory after 1,000 years of waste storage would be 120 million curies, or units of radioactivity. That amount is less than half the current burden of 300 million curies left from below-ground nuclear tests at the Nevada Test Site. Frishman said the Yucca Mountain inventory would be at least 4 billion curies after 1,000 years of decay, potentially adding more contamination to ground water supplies in Nye County than from what exists now as a result of full-scale U.S. nuclear weapons.

Response
DOE is not aware of the origin of the 120-million-curie estimate provided by the commenter. Table A-10 in the EIS provides the estimated curies of each radionuclide projected for disposal in the repository. If one added the amounts of each radionuclide in the list, the total would be approximately 14 billion curies. This is the estimate of the number of curies of various radionuclides at the time of receipt at the repository. By considering the radioactive decay of the radionuclides for 1,000 years, the radionuclide inventory remaining in the mountain at that time would be approximately 140 million curies.

It appears that the commenter might be referring to the number of kilograms of uranium projected for Modules 1 and 2, which was listed as 120 million in Table 8-36 of the Draft EIS. This figure was used to evaluate the potential for uranium (evaluated here for its chemical toxicity as opposed to its radioactivity) to affect the offsite drinking water, along with any other chemically toxic materials that could dissolve in the groundwater (see Section 8.3.1.1 of the EIS).

DOE recognizes, and the EIS acknowledges, that the radioactivity stored in the repository would be greater than the radioactivity that is currently estimated at the Nevada Test Site. However, the quantity of activity alone is not the sole indicator of risk. As described in the EIS, the repository would be an engineered facility designed to contain the material placed in it over very long periods. This is very different from underground detonation sites at the Nevada Test Site where the radioactivity is not in a facility designed for long-term containment.

10 (4570)
Comment - EIS001521 / 0084
Page 8-35, fifth paragraph--the 15,000 acre-feet per year reference should be to page 3-40, Table 3-11 (not Table 3-10), and the correct withdrawal amount is 14,000 acre-feet (not 15,000 acre-feet as stated).

Response
The comment is correct, and DOE has revised the EIS accordingly.

10 (4610)
Comment - EIS001430 / 0008
Page 8-74, 2. incorrectly states that Figure 8-3 (p. 8-11) shows the locations of underground nuclear tests.

Response
Thank you for your comment. DOE has changed the text to refer to the appropriate figure.

10 (4611)
Comment - EIS001430 / 0009
Page 8-7, bullet 2 has different numbers of waste packages given than in Table 8-34 (p. 8-60).

Response
Thank you for your comment. The Department has changed the reference in bullet two to refer correctly to the actual number of waste packages listed under the reference "DIRS 102030-CRWMS M&O 1999."

10 (4749)
Comment - EIS001450 / 0010
There are several problems where words state that a figure or table shows something that it doesn’t, as noted below:

Page 8-7 — the text in the second bullet gives different (and lower) ranges for the number of waste packages than the totals for each category in referenced Table 8-34 (page 8-60).

Page 8-74, activity 2 — this description incorrectly states that Figure 8-3 (page 8-11) shows the locations of underground nuclear tests; the location of the nuclear and high explosive test zones are, however, shown on Figure 3-2 (page 3-8).

Response
DOE has changed the text in the Final EIS as follows: (a) the reference in bullet 2 was changed to refer correctly to the actual number of waste packages that are listed under the reference "DIRS 102030-CRWMS M&O 1999"; and (b) the reference to Figure 8-3 was changed to the correct figure.

10 (5167)
Comment - EIS001910 / 0006
The Draft EIS does not go far enough to address cumulative impacts which are likely results because of past, present and future impacts from NTS [Nevada Test Site] activities. For instance, the DOE mentions a proposed federal action to return certain lands of the Timbisha Shoshone. An important factor left out regarding this return is that the land was subjected to years of radioactive fallout from the Nevada Test Site. The amount of radiation exposure experienced by the indigenous people residing in the area has not been assessed nor have any baseline health studies been conducted. The people still living in the area may have experienced significantly higher levels of exposure because of the many exposure pathways common to Native American peoples. The added impacts of long-term releases from the transportation of radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel cannot be accurately calculated. The status of the Indian nation populations should give rise to a higher degree to assurance that they will be protected from increased exposures.

The absence of previous exposure data also is important regarding impacts of long-term releases from the transportation of radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel. A true picture of potential impacts from transportation exposure cannot be accurately calculated unless information from past Nevada Test Site releases can be added to the project exposure data.

A joint NCI/CDC [National Cancer Institute/Centers for Disease Control] effort to assess human health impacts from bomb testing at the NTS is currently underway. The people whose homelands are near the Nevada Test Site were subjected to multiple detonations of atomic weapons. This project affirms what Native American people in the area have known for years--that radioactive fallout caused significant negative health impacts which includes chromosomal damage, debilitating diseases, and mortality.

Utmost protective considerations must be accorded to the people indigenous to this area. An apparent conclusion or response to the Timbisha land return issue may be that the reservation is being created well after the Yucca Mountain has begun, thereby absolving the DOE of its trust responsibility. Once again, the Timbisha Shoshone have lived there thousands of years prior to any encroachment or intrusion of federal actions.

The fact of primary habitation of indigenous peoples, whom the federal trust responsibility is to protect, is an important point in regard to the divergence of opinion of ground-water protection requirements. The Native American tribes and citizens are entitled to assess the viability of the water protection issues. The DOE acknowledges that further studies of impacts are needed along transportation corridors. The tribes do not have emergency response programs in place and are isolated from federal, or other assistance in an emergency situation. At the pace and funding level proposed by current DOE officials charged with delivery of emergency preparedness program planning for corridor states and tribes, when the shipments commence, even several years from now, it does not appear that tribes will be ready. Tribal governments will continue to have unmet needs and unfunded mandates.

Response
The commenter is correct that the assessment of impacts of past nuclear weapons testing at the Nevada Test Site is part of an ongoing effort by several organizations, including the National Cancer Institute and the Centers for Disease Control. However, the available information does not indicate that these assessments have concluded "that radioactive fallout caused significant negative health impacts which includes chromosomal damage, debilitating diseases, and mortality." Readers interested in further information about the effects of past testing of nuclear weapons should refer to the National Cancer Institute Study Estimating Thyroid Doses of I-131 Received by Americans From Nevada Atmospheric Nuclear Bomb Tests (DIRS 152469-Institute of Medicine and National Research Council 1999).

DOE has reviewed the available information and has included a discussion in Chapter 3 of the Final EIS on the health impacts of past above-ground weapons testing at the Nevada Test Site. In addition, Chapter 8 considers these impacts as they contribute to cumulative impacts.

Since DOE issued the Draft EIS, Congress enacted legislation, signed by the President, that created the Timbisha Shoshone Trust Lands. These lands consist of discontinuous parcels in southeastern California and southwestern Nevada. The Bonnie Claire Alternate variation of the Carlin and Caliente Corridors crosses a parcel of the trust lands near Scottys Junction, Nevada. In addition, potential shipments using the Caliente route for heavy-haul trucks would cross the same parcel on U.S. 95. DOE believes that radiation exposure impacts to persons on the Timbisha Shoshone Trust Lands from the repository, spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste transportation, and other past, present, and reasonably foreseeable activities, including past weapons testing, would be small due to the initial indications that minimal exposures would be associated with the parcels that comprise the reservation, including the parcel near Scottys Junction.

The commenter also correctly states that DOE would conduct further studies of impacts along a rail corridor or route for heavy-haul trucks should one of the implementing alternatives described in the EIS be selected for use in transporting spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste to Yucca Mountain (see Section 6.3.3 of the EIS). The studies would be conducted and reported in accordance with the applicable requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act.

As stated in Appendix M of the EIS, approximately 4 years prior to the first shipment through state or tribal reservation boundaries, DOE plans to implement Section 180(c) of the NWPA through a grants program. It is DOE’s objective to provide funding and technical assistance, subject to annual appropriations, to assist states and tribes to obtain access to the increment of training necessary to prepare for NWPA shipments (63 FR 23753, April 30, 1998).

10 (5186)
Comment - EIS001443 / 0011
The DEIS treats both geohydrologic and transportation impacts of the proposed repository as "stand alone" issues without recognition of the fact that the repository would operate in an environment already heavily impacted by past and ongoing nuclear waste activities. Territory adjacent to the Yucca Mountain site is heavily contaminated by radioactive materials as a result of decades of Atomic Energy Commission (AEC)/Department of Energy nuclear testing, while many of the roadways and rail corridors expected to be used for transport of spent nuclear fuel and high-level nuclear waste are already in service for the transport of low level and defense wastes to the Nevada Test Site and the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico. Operation of the Yucca Mountain repository would be one in a series of similar, linked actions undertaken by a single agency: the Department of Energy. The additional risks which Yucca Mountain would place on groundwater resources, human populations and national and regional transportation resources must be analyzed and weighted within the context of past, present and foreseeable non-Yucca Mountain-related AEC/DOE actions in order to meet the intent of NEPA [National Environmental Policy Act] and allow decisionmakers and the public to place the proposed action in the proper context. The NEPA exemptions provided DOE by the Nuclear Waste Policy Act do not include exemption from addressing cumulative impacts.

Response
DOE believes that Chapter 8 of the EIS contains a credible discussion of the impacts from the repository that could be cumulative with the impacts of past, present, and reasonably foreseeable activities in the region. This chapter includes discussions of short- and long-term cumulative impacts of the repository, the cumulative impacts of transportation, and the cumulative impacts of manufacturing disposal containers and shipping casks. Section 8.3 discusses the impacts of past nuclear weapons testing at the Nevada Test Site and the cumulative effects of this action and of the proposed repository. Section 8.4 discusses the cumulative effects of the transportation of radioactive material in the area, including waste transport to the Test Site and the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant.

10 (5187)
Comment - EIS001443 / 0012
The DEIS should be amended to include description of the environmental context within which repository operations and transportation of nuclear waste will take place. Specifically, the DEIS needs to map and quantify the current level of environmental contamination in the region, and current and projected non-Yucca Mountain nuclear and hazardous waste shipment activity. This information needs to be compiled in a manner such that the incremental increase in risk posed by the repository and the total risk to humans and natural resources posed by the sum of DOE activities is clearly discernable.

Response
DOE believes that Chapter 8 of the EIS contains a credible discussion of the impacts from the repository that could be cumulative with the impacts of past, present, and reasonably foreseeable activities in the region. This chapter includes discussions of short- and long-term cumulative impacts of the repository, the cumulative impacts of transportation, and the cumulative impacts of manufacturing disposal containers and shipping casks. Section 8.4 of the EIS contains an analysis of the cumulative transportation impacts that could occur as the result of past, present, and reasonably foreseeable actions. While the total impacts from these separate actions is not necessarily the sum of the impacts of the individual actions, the list of impacts in Table 8-58 provides a sense of the scale of the potential impacts.

10 (5261)
Comment - EIS001887 / 0020
The Draft EIS fails to adequately assess cumulative impacts from past, current, and future activities at the Nevada Test Site (NTS). Estimates of the NTS contribution to off-site radiation exposures and projections of future cumulative exposures are based on woefully inadequate and incomplete data. Known and suspected contaminated sites in the proposed withdrawal area are not acknowledged, and their remediation status is not described.

DOE’s own estimates place the combined source term for all tests conducted at the NTS at 300 million curies. The geographic scope of existing groundwater contamination in the region may exceed 300 square miles and extend to depths ranging from 500 to 5,000 feet. Yet the Draft EIS concludes that the maximum potential dose from the underground testing inventory is calculated to be 0.2 millirem per year and that the cumulative annual dose from both NTS and Yucca Mountain sources would [be] 0.42 millirem per year.

In fact, DOE does not have the data required to calculate a base case scenario for determining groundwater travel time in the region, let alone to make an estimate of radionuclide movement in the groundwater. Estimates of hydraulic conductivity contained in the Draft EIS (e.g., movement of contaminants through the groundwater) rely on only one data set obtained from a single well for a period of fifty years. This limited data is then extrapolated over a 10,000 year period to produce the estimated 0.2 millirem per year dose figure (as the contribution to cumulative groundwater impacts caused by nuclear testing). As a result, it is not possible, with any reasonable level of confidence, to estimate the amount of radionuclides released through the groundwater to the biosphere in the region of influence beneath the NTS and offsite locations. Both the State of Nevada and DOE’s own independent peer review group (2) have documented these facts as part of ongoing technical and regulatory reviews of DOE’s Underground Test Area program for the NTS.

Developing believable and reasonable estimates of the potential cumulative impacts to groundwater from existing contamination beneath the NTS and future contamination from a proposed repository at Yucca Mountain is mandatory for assessing the degree to which the Proposed Action would affect public health and safety. The Draft EIS fails to make this fundamental assessment and is, therefore, deficient. The Draft EIS fails to meet the basic requirement of NEPA [National Environmental Policy Act] as defined by the Council of Environmental Quality implementing regulations, Sec. 1500.1(b).

The Draft EIS also fails to adequately assess impacts from contaminated sites known to be located within the proposed repository withdrawal area. For example, it is known that there are high-level waste residues from the nuclear rocket program buried at an unknown location in Area 25 of NTS. The Draft EIS must contain affirmative information regarding the location of this material and assure that, if it is in the proposed withdrawal area, it will be recovered and managed according to applicable laws, regulations, and orders. In addition, there are reportedly at least 20 other known contaminated sites within the portion of the NTS that is included in the proposed withdrawal area. These areas must be fully rehabilitated under the jurisdiction of NTS so they are not passed on to OCRWM [Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management], where they would remain a continuing hazard. The impacts associated with required clean-up activities should have been addressed in the Draft EIS.

(2)"External Peer Review Group Report on Frenchman Flat Data Analysis and Modeling Task, Underground Test Area Project," (ITLV/13052-077A0), prepared for U.S. Department of Energy, Nevada Operations Office under contract No. DE-ACO8-97NV13052 (September 1999).

Response
Section 8.3.2.1.1 of the EIS acknowledges that there is uncertainty in estimating potential impacts to groundwater from past weapons testing on the Nevada Test Site. Some groundwater parameters are not known with certainty, and other information cannot be disseminated to the public due to national security concerns. The Draft EIS analyzed the cumulative impacts to groundwater from the repository, as well as from past underground weapons testing and low-level radioactive waste disposal at the Nevada Test Site. The Final EIS contains additional, more detailed analyses based on more recent data.

DOE believes that the values and assumptions used in the updated analyses in the Final EIS ensures the Department considered the associated range of cumulative impacts. DOE chose these values based on analyses in the Nevada Test Site EIS (DIRS 101811-DOE 1996) and believes it has made a reasonable estimate of the impacts. As stated in the EIS, DOE believes that its assumptions resulted in a conservative estimate of the true impacts. It is true that the Department used data for hydraulic properties based on measurements from a single well, as stated in Section 8.3.2.1.1. This point is one of the sources of uncertainty in the analysis; DOE used the best available data and the professional judgment of its analysts to arrive at an estimate of the impacts.

DOE has not determined future responsibilities for the management of Area 25. There are no known sites in Area 25 where spent nuclear fuel has been buried. Parts from the old nuclear rocket program, and perhaps some fuel from that program, might be buried somewhere in Area 25, but nothing definite is known about the nature of the material or where it might be buried. This material was not accounted for in the cumulative impacts analysis because its existence, location, amount, and characteristics are not known.

10 (5282)
Comment - EIS000817 / 0160
P. 8-1. So now you want to dump everything you can in the repository if you open it -- surely not what Nevada was told at the beginning of this speculation! So if the NRC [Nuclear Regulatory Commission] says put it in the repository -- Congress will agree -- and in all these other types of waste go -- further complicating materials interaction analysis -- and the "radioactive soup" at the end of repository life becomes more "spicy" than before. (And Nevada gets the Nevada Test Site waste and Beatty Waste Disposal area, too.) Poor Nevada.

Response
Comments that DOE received from the public during the scoping process for this EIS expressed the concern that more spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste would be generated than the 70,000 metric tons of heavy metal accounted for in the Proposed Action. In response to those comments, DOE evaluated the emplacement of the total projected inventory of commercial spent nuclear fuel and DOE spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste (Inventory Module 1) and of that total inventory plus the inventories of commercial Greater Than-Class-C low-level waste and DOE Special-Performance-Assessment-Required waste (Inventory Module 2). Sections 8.2 and 8.3 of the EIS examine the cumulative short- and long-term impacts of the Proposed Action along with the disposal of Inventory Modules 1 and 2. The analysis of future activities in Chapter 8 is not restricted to activities that would occur with certainty; rather, the analysis gives an estimate of potential cumulative impacts from actions that are reasonably foreseeable.

Disposal of more than 70,000 metric tons of heavy metal at the repository would require legislative action by Congress unless a second licensed repository was in operation. Disposal of Greater-Than-Class-C low-level waste and Special-Performance-Assessment-Required waste at the repository would require either legislative action or a determination by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that the material should be classified as high-level radioactive waste.

10 (5549)
Comment - EIS001887 / 0188
Page 3-79; Section 3.1.8 - Occupational and Public Health and Safety

It is known that there is some high-level waste residue from the nuclear rocket program buried at an unknown location in Area 25 of NTS [Nevada Test Site]. The Draft EIS must contain affirmative information regarding its location and assure that, if it is in the proposed withdrawal area, it will be recovered and managed according to applicable laws, regulations, and orders. Also, there are reportedly some 20 contaminated sites within the portion of Area 25 of the NTS that is included in the proposed withdrawal area. Before issuance of a Final EIS, these areas must be fully rehabilitated under the jurisdiction of NTS so they are not passed on to OCRWM [Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management] where they would remain a continuing hazard.

Response
DOE has not determined future responsibilities for the management of Area 25. There are no known sites in Area 25 where spent nuclear fuel has been buried. Parts from the old nuclear rocket program, and perhaps some fuel from this program, might be buried somewhere in Area 25, but nothing definite is known about the nature of the material or where it might be buried. This material was not accounted for in the cumulative impacts analysis because its existence, location, amount, and characteristics are not known.

10 (5550)
Comment - EIS001660 / 0045
Mineral County submits Eureka County’s analysis as Mineral County’s comments (see Attachment E). [Following is text from reference.]

Analysis of shared rail use inadequate. The analysis of the impacts of shared public/private use of DOE branch rail lines is inadequate. (pp. 8-4, -15) The analysis properly belongs in Chapter 6, Transportation Impacts. The statement that predicting increases in rail traffic from shared use would be difficult and, therefore, is not done is unacceptable. The DEIS says there will be impacts, and they must be analyzed, disclosed, and mitigated as necessary. (p. 8-87)

Analysis of impacts on public services inadequate. The DEIS does not adequately address cumulative impacts on emergency response services. The DEIS says that cumulative operations impacts would result because of the extra 14 years of shipping required for Modules 1 or 2 (p. 8-85) but that the DOE expects no cumulative socioeconomic impacts. This conclusion is contradictory and improbable since state, local, and tribal government emergency services would continue to be impacted.

Other comments. The failure of Congress to ratify the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty makes the future resumption of nuclear weapons tests more likely. (pp. 8-3,-11, -12) The statement that interim storage was not analyzed for cumulative impacts because it is uncertain is inappropriate; it is reasonably foreseeable and must be included. (p. 8-5) The inadequacies of the air pollution analysis are similar to those in Chapter 4: the discussion is vague and the conclusions unsupported by the evidence, particularly the statement that there will be no effect on the Las Vegas Valley air basin. (pp. 8-24 to 8-30) The statement that the final EIS will review new information from the Pipeline Southeast Expansion Project for cumulative impacts is unacceptable, since the public will not have the opportunity to comment (p. 8-85).

Response
DOE structured the cumulative impact assessments presented in Chapter 8 of the EIS by identifying actions the effects of which could coincide in time and space with the effects from the proposed repository and associated transportation activities. Consistent with Council on Environmental Quality regulations (40 CFR 1508.7), DOE considered past, present, and reasonably foreseeable actions in its assessment of cumulative impacts and has reviewed a number of actions, current and proposed, to determine relevance. The expression "reasonably foreseeable" refers to future actions for which there is reasonable expectation that the action could occur, such as a proposed action under analysis, a project that has already started, or a future action that has obligated funding.

The identification of the relevant actions was based on reviews of resource, policy, development, and land use plans prepared by agencies at all levels of government and from private organizations, other environmental impact statements, environmental assessments, and tribal meeting records. Consistent with Council on Environmental Quality regulations [40 CFR 1502.16(c) and 1506.2], in addition to the assessment of potential environmental impacts, the potential conflicts with plans issued by various entities were considered to the extent they provided relevant information. Once DOE selected a transportation mode and specific transportation corridor, more definitive information could be developed on potential conflicts with land uses and various agency plans and policies and, ultimately, the mitigation measure that could be needed to resolve conflicts and impacts on a given area.

In the case of shared rail use, DOE believes that the rail lines discussed in Chapter 8 of the EIS would have benefits for the surrounding communities and industries. However, potential sharing of the rail line is speculative at this point, and including these rail lines in the cumulative impact analyses could result in a misrepresentation of those impacts.

In relation to public services, the continuation of operations for an additional 14 years would not result in an increase or decrease in emergency response services. Because the status quo would be maintained, DOE does not expect socioeconomic impacts.

Since 1992, there has been a moratorium on nuclear testing. Even though the Nevada Test Site must maintain the ability to resume testing, the Department does not believe that a resumption of testing is a reasonably foreseeable action. Therefore, it was not included in the analyses in Chapter 8 of the EIS. Nevertheless, a recent evaluation of impacts from a resumption of underground testing at the Nevada Test Site (DIRS 103273-Walck 1996) concluded that the only impact such testing would pose on the repository would be ground motion from the energy released by the detonations. DOE has determined that such effects would not exceed the seismic design criteria for the repository. In other words, the design-basis earthquake for the repository would generate stronger ground motions than would underground nuclear detonations on the Nevada Test Site. Because DOE has designed the repository to survive the design-basis earthquake with minimal damage, ground motion from the resumption of underground testing would be unlikely to result in substantial damage to the surface or underground facilities at Yucca Mountain.

DOE believes that interim storage at Yucca Mountain is not a reasonably foreseeable action, and that it is inappropriate to analyze potential impacts of that action in the EIS. As stated in Section 2.2 of the EIS, if Yucca Mountain was determined to be unsuitable or not approved by the President or Congress, DOE would prepare a report to Congress. This report, required by the NWPA, would contain DOE recommendations for further action to ensure the safe, permanent disposal of spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste, including the need for new legislative authority. Other than this action, the future course that Congress, DOE, and the commercial nuclear power utilities would take is uncertain. Several possibilities would be pursued, including centralized interim storage, for example, the Private Fuel Storage Facility proposed in northern Utah (see Section 8.1.2.3 of the EIS), or the study of another location for a deep geologic repository.

Section 8.3.2.1 describes the activities on the Nevada Test Site that could be cumulative with impacts from the proposed repository. Since issuing the Draft EIS, DOE has revised some of the analyses of impacts associated with the Test Site. For example, Sections 8.2.2.2 and 8.2.7 of the EIS now include information on radiation exposure from past nuclear weapons testing, and Section 8.3 includes updated estimates of future impacts to groundwater and air resources from activities on the Nevada Test Site.

10 (5556)
Comment - EIS001887 / 0189
Page 3-83; Section 3.1.8.2 - Radiation Environment in the Yucca Mountain Region

This section references Bechtel 1998, page 7-5, the Annual Site Environmental Report for the Nevada Test Site. All of the off-site radiological doses in this report are given as EDE, effective dose equivalents. EPA’s [the Environmental Protection Agency’s] Clean Air Package 1988 (CAP-88 PC) program was used to calculate the doses. The dose being calculated is actually the committed effective dose equivalent (CEDE) and should not be given as an EDE.

Response
The commenter is correct in noting that the Clean Air Package 1988 software calculates the committed effective dose equivalent. In addition, Clean Air Package 1988 calculates doses from external exposure. However, the committed effective dose equivalent is merely a designation for effective dose equivalent calculated for internal exposures. The term "committed" refers to the fact that following intake (regardless of the length of intake), the individual is committed to receive a given dose until the radioactive material is effectively removed from the tissues of the body. Therefore, the committed effective dose equivalent that results from intakes during a year (that is, an annual intake) can be compared and added to the effective dose equivalent that results from external radiation exposure. When the International Commission on Radiological Protection introduced the concept of effective dose equivalent (DIRS 101075-ICRP 1977), the concept included both internal and external exposures.

10 (5740)
Comment - EIS001887 / 0344
Page 8-12; Section 8.1.2.2 - Federal Actions - DOE Waste Management Activities

The statement in paragraph 2 of this section regarding potential short- and long-term cumulative impacts of waste management activities is not consistent with information in Table 8-1 (page 8-4) that indicates no short-term cumulative impacts from future potential waste management activities.

Response
DOE has revised Table 8-1 to indicate that there are no short-term impacts beyond those evaluated for Nevada Test Site activities.

10 (5741)
Comment - EIS001887 / 0345
Page 8-22; Table 8-5 - Summary of cumulative short-term impacts in the proposed Yucca Mountain Repository region.

Utilities: Table 8-5 states that peak electric power demand would require an upgrade of the transmission and distribution system. In order for this EIS to be complete, it should include an evaluation of impacts of a specific proposed upgrade since it is acknowledged that an upgrade would be required as part of the Proposed Action. Section 8.2.11 does not provide an evaluation of the impacts of the necessary upgrade.

Response
To the extent reasonable, DOE analyzed the impacts of upgrading the electrical transmission system in Section 4.1.11.2 of the EIS. Because this analysis identified no adverse impacts to the environment, the Department did not repeat the discussion in Chapter 8. To avoid confusion on this issue, the Department has added text to Chapter 8 that refers to the discussion in Chapter 4.

10 (5743)
Comment - EIS001887 / 0347
Page 8-31; Section 8.2.2.2.2 - Radiological Air Quality

This section incorrectly states that the 2.5 mrem per year cumulative dose is "about 40 percent" of the 10 mrem annual dose regulatory limit.

Response
The Department has updated Section 8.2.2.2.2 of the EIS to reflect the proper percentage for the cumulative dose in relation to the annual dose limits.

10 (5744)
Comment - EIS001887 / 0348
Page 8-36; Section 8.2.4 - Biological Resources

This section is deficient in two major respects. First, an ecosystem approach was not adopted for the Draft EIS and second, thermal loading impacts are not factored into cumulative effects. Therefore, this section is inadequate.

Response
The commenter’s contention that DOE should have used an ecosystem approach in analyzing the Proposed Action is described as an opposing view in Section 3.1.5. That section also contains DOE’s reasons for selecting the analytic approach used in the EIS. The Department believes that the approach used in the EIS is adequate.

10 (5745)
Comment - EIS001887 / 0349
Page 8-37; Section 8.2.5 - Cultural Resources

DOE should make provisions for identifying, evaluating, and treating historic properties if Inventory Module 1 or 2 is authorized.

Response
The Department realizes that the implementation of Inventory Modules 1 or 2 would disturb more land than was analyzed for the Proposed Action. As discussed in Section 8.2.5, if either inventory module is implemented, the Department would fulfill its obligations under Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act, as amended to ensure that cultural resources (including historic properties) were preserved to the extent possible.

10 (5746)
Comment - EIS001887 / 0350
Page 8-59; Section 8.3 - Cumulative Long-Term Impacts in the Proposed Yucca Mountain Repository Vicinity

The performance assessment results shown in tables for this section are based on a Total System Performance Assessment (TSPA) code and supporting analyses developed prior to those that will be used in the site suitability evaluation for site recommendation. The Draft EIS must include a description of the current TSPA and include its results and analyses rather than relying on an acknowledged incomplete and obsolete TSPA. In order to meet the need for a complete and accurate evaluation of the long-term impacts of the Proposed Action, DOE should issue a new Draft EIS for public review and comment that includes information and analyses consistent with the Site Recommendation Report.

Response
Section 8.3 of the Final EIS contains the results of the most current Total System Performance Assessment for the flexible design.

10 (5747)
Comment - EIS001887 / 0351
Page 8-74; Section 8.3.2.1 - Past, Present, and Reasonably Foreseeable Future Actions at the Nevada Test Site - Item Number 5. Shallow Land Radioactive Waste Disposal

There has been no demonstration of the "absence of a groundwater pathway." Section 8.3.2.1.3 does not provide any basis for this assertion.

Response
The commenter is correct. DOE has changed the EIS accordingly.

10 (5748)
Comment - EIS001887 / 0352
Pages 8-74 to 8-76; Section 8.3.2.1.1 - Underground Nuclear Testing

The discussion in this section of the Draft EIS addresses cumulative impacts associated with groundwater contamination within the Yucca Mountain region. The discussion covers contamination beneath the Nevada Test Site (NTS).

Between 1951 and 1992, DOE conducted more than 1,000 nuclear tests at the NTS. Nearly one third of these tests were conducted in or near the groundwater. State officials contend that as much as 300 square miles of surface and subsurface area on and off the NTS are contaminated with radionuclides. The Draft EIS states that the estimated radionuclides source term for all subsurface tests was 300 million curies.

This section of the Draft EIS concludes by stating that "...the maximum potential dose from the underground testing inventory is calculated to be 0.2 millirem per year...." The document further states that the maximum cumulative impact of the Proposed Action in 10,000 years (i.e., radionuclides released from Yucca Mountain at the proposed point of compliance (20 kilometers from the repository) would be 0.22 millirem per year. Adding this to the NTS release of 0.2 millirem per year produces a cumulative release of 0.42 millirem per year.

The State of Nevada believes it is not yet possible, with any reasonable level of confidence, to estimate the release of radionuclides through the groundwater to the biosphere in the region of influence beneath the NTS and offsite locations. In fact, DOE does not have the data required to calculate a base case scenario for determining groundwater travel time in the region, let alone to make an estimate of hydraulic conductivity (important for determining the rate of movement of contaminants in the groundwater). The State of Nevada has repeatedly documented these facts as part of the State’s ongoing regulatory review of DOE’s Underground Test Area program for the NTS. The State’s detailed comments are available on the World Wide Web at the following addresses:

http://www.state.nv.us./ndep/boff/ndep13.htm
http://www.state.nv.us./ndep/boff/ndep11.htm

It should also be noted that DOE’s current program for assessing groundwater contamination beneath the NTS was recently criticized by an independent external peer review group commissioned by DOE. Overall, the reviewers found inadequate data to support groundwater flow modeling at NTS. They noted that available groundwater level and permeability data were inadequate for the assessment of groundwater flow directions, rates, and travel times in the vicinity of the contaminated areas.(35)

Despite assumptions presented in the Draft EIS, any attempt by DOE to present a "bounding-analysis" of potential cumulative groundwater contamination caused by nuclear testing at the NTS is simply not possible. Moreover, estimates of hydraulic conductivity contained in the Draft EIS rely on only one data set obtained from only one well in a period of fifty years. Using this limited information and then extrapolating the data over a 10,000-year period to produce the estimated 0.2 millirem per year dose figure is pure fiction.

Current estimates suggest the geographic scope of existing groundwater contamination in the region may exceed 300 square miles and extend to depths ranging from 500 to 5,000 feet.

Developing believable and reasonable estimates of the potential cumulative impacts to groundwater from existing contamination beneath the NTS and future contamination that would escape from a proposed repository at Yucca Mountain is mandatory for assessing the degree to which the Proposed Action would affect public health and safety. The Draft EIS fails to make this basic, rudimentary assessment and is, therefore, deficient. The Draft EIS fails to meet the basic requirement of NEPA [National Environmental Policy Act] as defined by the Council of Environmental Quality implementing regulations, Sec. 1500.1(b).

Groundwater contamination attributable to underground nuclear weapons testing has been found off the NTS on the Nellis Air Force Range. Also, contamination has been detected within the NTS boundaries as far as 0.8 miles from a nuclear test location known to be the source of the contamination.

(35) "External Peer Review Group Report on Frenchman Flat Data Analysis and Modeling Task, Underground Test Area Project," (ITLV/13052-077A0), prepared for U.S. Department of Energy, Nevada Operations Office under contract No DE-ACO8-97NV13052 (September, 1999).

Response
Section 8.3.2.1.1 of the EIS acknowledges that there is uncertainty in estimating potential impacts to groundwater from past weapons testing on the Nevada Test Site. For the Final EIS, the Department has refined the Nevada Test Site groundwater impact analysis to consider not only the total inventories of radionuclides, but also the relative source term radionuclide concentrations and dilution factors for the repository and the Nevada Test Site. However, some groundwater parameters are not known with certainty, and other information cannot be disseminated to the public. The Draft EIS analyzed the cumulative impacts to groundwater from the repository, as well as from past underground weapons testing and low-level radioactive waste disposal at the Nevada Test Site. The Final EIS contains additional, more detailed analyses based on more recent data.

DOE believes that the values and assumptions used in the updated analyses in the Final EIS provide a conservative estimate of cumulative impacts. DOE chose these values based on analyses in the Nevada Test Site EIS (DIRS 101811-DOE 1996) and believes it has made a reasonable estimate of the impacts. As stated in the EIS, DOE believes that its assumptions resulted in a conservative estimate of the impacts. It is true that the Department used data for hydraulic properties based on measurements from a single well, as stated in Section 8.3.2.1.1. This point is one of the sources of uncertainty in the analysis; DOE used the best available data and the professional judgment of its analysts to arrive at an estimate of the impacts.

10 (5749)
Comment - EIS001887 / 0353
Page 8-77; Section 8.3.2.1.3 - Future Nevada Test Site Low-Level Waste Disposal

Paragraph 3 under this section of the Draft EIS states that "DOE proposes to locate the Mixed Waste Disposal unit, which will be a landfill, on about 0.18 [square] kilometers (45 acres) of the Area 5 site, immediately north of the developed Radioactive Waste Management Site landfill area. The design has been completed, the unit has been included in the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act [RCRA] permit application, and the environmental assessment is being updated."

Virtually all of the information stated above is outdated and incorrect. DOE’s permit application related to the Area 5 site is at least five years out of date. DOE’s current RCRA permit re-application was submitted to the State in October 1999. This re-submittal only requests authorization to use an existing mixed waste trench (pit 3) for disposal of defense low-level mixed waste generated on NTS [the Nevada Test Site].

Response
The Department acknowledges that the information in Section 8.3.2.1.3 of the Draft EIS contained errors. At this time, DOE is only seeking a permit for Area 5 interim status, pit 3, mixed-waste disposal unit. DOE resubmitted its permit application on November 2, 1999.

In the future, if the mixed waste volume warrants it, the Department may consider obtaining a new unit and hence a new permitted facility. However, the current projected waste volumes do not indicate that an additional mixed waste disposal unit is necessary.

Section 8.3.2.1.3 of the Final EIS reflects this updated information.

10 (5750)
Comment - EIS001887 / 0354
Page 8-89; Section 8.4.2.4 - Biological Resources and Soils

The section concerning Nevada transportation impacts appears to address only the intermodal transfer stations and not the routes to be followed through the state. For these reasons, the section is inadequate. Guidance such as that provided by Clark and Cantor (1997) should have been followed to supplement CEQ’s 1997, "Considering Cumulative Effects Under the NEPA."

Response
Cumulative impacts from transporting waste through Nevada are described in Section 8.4.2. As indicated, the Carlin Corridor could have cumulative impacts with gold-mining activities in Crescent Valley that could require mitigation (see Section 8.1.2.3 for more information about these activities). Direct and indirect impacts from constructing and operating a branch rail line, and upgrading highways, are described in Section 6.3.

In general, the analysis of cumulative impacts in Chapter 8 followed the process recommended in the Council on Environmental Quality’s handbook Considering Cumulative Effects Under the National Environmental Policy Act (DIRS 103162-CEQ 1997). This process included the identification, through research and consultations, of Federal, non-Federal, and private actions with possible effects that would be coincident with those of the Proposed Action on resources, ecosystems, and human communities.

10 (5964)
Comment - EIS001879 / 0054
With respect to cumulative impacts, the Yucca Mountain EIS finds that the potential impacts to groundwater would be small, limited to the immediate vicinity of the land disturbances associated with the repository, and that some minor incremental risk would occur from drinking the groundwater down gradient of the repository at some distant time in the future. These conclusions are inconsistent with statements in the Draft EIS.

Response
DOE recognizes that some radionuclides or potentially toxic chemicals would eventually enter the environment outside the repository. The regional flow model prepared by the U.S. Geological Survey (DIRS 100131-D’Agnese et al. 1997) suggests that some of the water from the Nevada Test Site flows to the south toward the Amargosa Valley in the vicinity of Yucca Mountain. However, the actual transport times and groundwater pathways from radionuclide contaminants on the Nevada Test Site are not clear at this time. Section 8.3.2.1.1 contains a qualitative calculation of the cumulative radiological impact from the Test Site and Yucca Mountain that indicates that the potential cumulative peak dose would be well below the regulatory limits established by the Environmental Protection Agency in 40 CFR Part 197. This combined peak dose would occur only if the peak concentrations from the Test Site and Yucca Mountain occurred at the same time and same location, which would be unlikely.

10 (5968)
Comment - EIS001879 / 0052
Let me briefly summarize the results of Nye County’s water resource studies for the record. Our evaluations found that the direct impacts of water withdrawals for the proposed repository will be limited to a localized lowering of water levels that was not deemed to be significant. However, the evaluation did find that the predicted leakage from the repository and the cumulative impacts of the proposed repository will indeed be significant and that mitigating measures must be implemented. The Draft Yucca Mountain EIS is inadequate with regard to its evaluation of impacts on water resources and corresponding mitigation and, must be revised extensively.

The cumulative impacts on water resources will include the direct and indirect impacts of: 1) the total radiological burden that will be imposed on Nye County; 2) the impacts of federal land withdrawals on water resource availability; 3) the impacts of federal policies regarding nuclear weapons testing, waste disposal, and environmental protection; and 4) the water resource use and management practices on both private and federal lands in the County.

Response
DOE is relying on both the inherent natural geologic features of Yucca Mountain and the engineered barriers to isolate the spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste from the human environment (see Section 2.1 of the EIS). The waste packages to be emplaced in the repository are an important component of the engineered barrier system, as are other features that would be engineered into the repository. Some of these engineered features are proposed solely as mitigation measures to improve the long-term performance of the repository and decrease long-term impacts to the region’s water resources. Chapter 9 of the EIS discusses these mitigation measures.

In relation to the cumulative impacts on water resources, Section 8.2.3 describes the cumulative short-term impacts to water resources, and Section 8.3 describes the cumulative long-term impacts to water resources. DOE believes that these sections contain a credible discussion of the cumulative impacts to water resources from the repository and from past, present, and reasonably foreseeable activities in the Death Valley flow system. The Final EIS contains additional information on water use by Federal activities within this region of influence. DOE’s position, as stated in the EIS, is that cumulative water withdrawals would affect the region’s water resources, but that land withdrawals would not be directly linked. Water users in Nye County who are potentially affected by the Proposed Action are hydraulically downgradient from Air Force and DOE users on the Nevada Test Site and Yucca Mountain. As described in Section 8.2.3.2, DOE recognizes that water use for the repository would decrease, to a limited extent and in the short term, water that would be available to downgradient users. The land that would be withdrawn for the repository would not alter the quantity of water available to downgradient users. That is, the land withdrawal itself would not affect water resources.

In relation to Federal policies, the EIS addresses the impacts that have resulted or could result from these policies in the affected area, but not the impacts of the policies themselves. In addition, the impacts that have resulted from water management practices in the affected area are described in the EIS, but not the impacts of the practices themselves. Water management practices that affect parts of Nye County but that are outside of the proposed repository’s region of influence for water resources are not within the scope of the EIS.

10 (5972)
Comment - EIS001879 / 0050
In total, the United States has implemented a policy of permissible pollution upgradient of the communities of Amargosa Valley and Pahrump and absolute preservation of the groundwater quality and quantity in the areas downgradient of these communities. Nye County, in their water resource planning efforts is between the proverbial rock and a hard place. Yucca Mountain will perpetuate the policy of permissible pollution and will further reduce the quantity of water that is available to meet future water demands in the County.

Under 40 CFR 1508.18(b)(3) NEPA [National Environmental Policy Act] mandates that the impacts of federal policies must be evaluated in an EIS. The Yucca Mountain EIS must be revised to address the impacts of these contrasting federal water resource policies. The YMP [Yucca Mountain] DEIS does not evaluate the cumulative impacts of implementing these federal policies and actions, on a regional backdrop of rapid growth.

In short, Nye County has faithfully served as the nation’s sandbox for almost half a century. Unfortunately, the Department of Energy and the Air Force have contaminated their portions of the sandbox and the Department of Interior demands that their portions be left pristine. These policies have had far reaching consequences for the County and greatly hamper water-planning efforts.

Response
The Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 makes it the policy of the United States to dispose of the Nation’s spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste permanently in a geologic repository. The performance of a repository at Yucca Mountain, if built, would have to be in compliance with groundwater protection standards established specifically for the repository by the Environmental Protection Agency (40 CFR Part 197). If the repository could not meet these standards, the site would be disqualified.

Section 8.2.3.2.2 of the Final EIS includes a more detailed discussion of water withdrawal issues, including current and projected water use for current and reasonably foreseeable activities in the region of influence.

10 (5974)
Comment - EIS001879 / 0049
The proposed repository is predicted to leak additional radioactive contamination into the aquifers in the southwestern portion of the Nevada Test Site...water that is currently potable will be contaminated if the DOE’s Performance Assessment is correct. This will result in a significant adverse impact on the water resources that must be mitigated.

Response
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has developed groundwater protection standards and individual protection standards for the proposed Yucca Mountain Repository (40 CFR Part 197). EPA developed the standards for a 10,000-year compliance period to protect human health and the environment, including groundwater. The impacts reported in this EIS for the first 10,000 years would be at levels well below the EPA standards.

In addition, 40 CFR Part 197 provides that the EIS report peak