 Good evening. My name is Ashley Waldron and I work for the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission, or NRC. This is the first of three broadcasts this week about a proposal to excavate mine wastes from the site of the former Northeast Church Rock Mine and place those wastes for permanent disposal in a repository on top of an existing uranium mill tailings impoundment at the nearby United Nuclear Mill site. The site of the former Northeast Church Rock Mine is located on Navajo Nation Trust land. The adjacent mill is located off the Navajo Nation on privately owned land owned by United Nuclear Corporation. United Nuclear has an NRC license for the mill tailings impoundment on the site. These sites are both located approximately 17 miles northeast of Gallup, New Mexico. At the end of Route 566, United Nuclear has asked that the NRC grant an amendment to its license that would allow it to bring the mine waste on to the mill site. Using a design that was previously approved by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, or US EPA. NRC is evaluating whether their proposal can be done safely and how the environment would be affected. The NRC staff has reviewed this proposal and prepared a safety evaluation report. The safety evaluation report documents the NRC staff's evaluation of United Nuclear's proposal and assesses several major areas. Those areas include geological stability, geotechnical details of the proposal, aspects related to surface and groundwater, and protection from radiation. Overall, the NRC staff determined that United Nuclear's proposal would meet NRC requirements with the addition of certain requirements or license conditions as well as provisions for long-term safety and stewardship. We will describe the safety evaluation report in more detail in tomorrow night's broadcast. The NRC has also prepared a draft environmental impact statement. I'll refer to this report as a draft EIS. We've prepared that report for public comment and that will be the focus of tonight's broadcast. Tonight's broadcast is separated into two parts. The first part of tonight's broadcast will describe the history of the mine and mill sites and explain why and how the US EPA got involved in the cleanup of the mine site. We wanted to provide some background information about the US EPA's role and decisions because we've received many questions about those decisions that were made several years ago prior to the NRC becoming involved. During the second part, I'll explain why the NRC is involved and describe our process. Then I'll discuss the details of the draft EIS and explain how you can comment on our draft document. At the request of the Navajo Nation, we have extended the public comment period and are accepting comments on the draft EIS through May 27th of this year. We are interested in hearing from you on whether there are other environmental issues that we may not have considered. Now I'd like to provide some history as well as the current status of the United Nuclear Mill Site. From 1977 until 1982, United Nuclear Processed Uranium ore at the mill facility under a state of New Mexico license. The ore came from the Northeast Church Rock Mine and other local mines and was processed to extract the uranium. As a result of this milling process, waste materials or tailings were produced. The tailings were placed on the mill site and an impoundment for permanent disposal. As a result of these mining and milling activities, large amounts of water were produced and discharged into the pipeline or royal. It is estimated that about 37 billion gallons of water from mine dewatering at the Northeast Church Rock Mine and another nearby mine flowed into the pipeline or royal between 1967 and 1986. The or royal which previously had been an intermittent stream became a steady flow of water during this time. On July 16th, 1979, the tailings impoundment dam at the mill site collapsed and 94 million gallons of mill tailings liquids were released into the pipeline or royal. The embankment of the tailings impoundment was then repaired. This spill was cleaned up and corrective actions were taken and then afterwards the mill tailings impoundment continued to be used. We discussed this in more detail in the draft DIS in section 3.12. At this point, I'd like to take a moment to acknowledge that the operations from mining and milling activities, including the impacts of the spill and mine dewatering have significantly affected the local communities, impacting their livelihoods, their health and the ability to use their lands for farming and grazing. And in particular, the residents of the Redwater Pond Road community and surrounding communities have suffered the greatest hardships over the last several decades. The United Nuclear Mill stopped operating in 1982 and in 1986 the regulatory authority for the mill site was transferred from the state of New Mexico to the NRC. The site was listed as a superfund site by the US EPA and in 1988 the US EPA issued a decision regarding the groundwater cleanup at the site. In 1991 the NRC approved a reclamation plan for the mill site. Surface reclamation of the former mill facilities at the site are complete. Cleanup of the two tailing cells called the central and north cells and part of a third cell called the south cell are also complete. A portion of the south cells still being used to hold two evaporation ponds. These evaporation ponds are being used as part of an ongoing groundwater cleanup that the NRC and the US EPA are overseeing. The groundwater became contaminated as a result of milling operations. Once the groundwater cleanup activities are complete and the groundwater has been restored to acceptable limits, the evaporation ponds will be closed and capped in place. Now I'm going to provide a little background on the cleanup process at the mine site because we received many questions about the decisions that were made about the mine waste before the NRC became involved. The Northeast Church Rock mine site is one of the largest abandoned uranium mines of the 524 mines on and around the Navajo Nation. It was selected as the highest priority for cleanup by the Navajo Nation and the US EPA due to the location of the community living next to the waste pile. US EPA made several decisions related to the cleanup of the Northeast Church Rock mine before United Nuclear submitted a license application to the NRC. Some of these decisions included developing a report in 2009 that looked at alternatives to dispose of the Northeast Church Rock Mine Waste, a 2011 decision by the US EPA that selected the cleanup plan for the Northeast Church Rock mine and then as well as a 2013 decision by US EPA who oversees the groundwater cleanup at the mill site for the mill site to accept the mine waste for placement in a repository on top of the existing mill tailings impoundment. US EPA noted in its decision that the community and the Navajo Nation government had supported the transfer to a licensed repository further away from the Navajo Nation. US EPA stated that it was not able to select this option under the Superfund criteria for its decision, which included costs because both options were found to be protective and the transfer to a licensed repository further away from the Navajo Nation was estimated to cost almost seven times as much. Approximately $93 million to ship the waste further away compared to $44 million to dispose of the waste at the mill site. For more information on the US EPA Superfund process, you can go to their website at www.epa.gov. As part of the EPA's evaluation of moving the waste to the repository on the mill site, additional studies were conducted including boring holes through the cover, tailings, and below the tailings to understand the water content and properties of the tailings and soils to ensure they could support the additional waste. US EPA coordinated a team to review the design for the repository that would hold the waste at the mill site. This design team included people from US EPA, the Department of Energy, the New Mexico Environment Department, the Navajo Nation Environmental Protection Agency, and a representative from the Redwater Pond Road Community Association assisted by US EPA's contractor. The NRC was kept informed about the design activities, but NRC did not play an active role in the design of the repository. In 2018, following the US EPA's approval of the proposed design for the mine waste repository at the mill, United Nuclear submitted an application to the NRC to amend the license and allow the mine waste to be brought onto the mill site. This application is the proposal that NRC is currently reviewing. Now that we've provided some history of the mine and mill sites and the US EPA's process, I'd like to move on to part two of tonight's broadcast. During the second part, I will discuss the NRC's role, review, and specifically the Draft Environmental Impact Statement, or EIS. NRC has authority under the Atomic Energy Act to approve or deny a proposal submitted to us based on whether it could be done safely and it would meet NRC's requirements. The NRC does not own or operate any facilities and it does not initiate proposals. The action before the NRC is either to approve or deny the license amendment request that we have received from United Nuclear to bring the mine waste onto the mill site. In addition to our NRC safety review, we are also required under the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA, to evaluate and publicly discuss the environmental impacts of the proposal. The NRC staff prepared a draft EIS which discusses the environmental impacts of bringing the approximately one million cubic yards of mine waste from the Northeast Church Rock Mine onto the Mill Tailings Empowerment. NRC's safety review was initially completed in October of 2020 and found that the proposed repository would comply with the NRC's safety requirements with the addition of certain conditions for observation and groundwater monitoring to ensure the repository and underlying empowerment was performing as designed in the coming years. In addition, NRC is required to consider the environmental impacts of the proposed project. We have heard from members of the public, including the local community, that they would like the mine waste to be moved further away. It's important to understand that the NRC does not have the authority to select a different alternative or location for the disposal of the Northeast Church Rock Mine waste. That decision was made by the US EPA in 2011, as I described earlier tonight. The draft EIS evaluates alternatives to the specific proposal in United Nuclear's application for the purpose of comparing environmental impacts. I will describe these EIS alternatives in just a few minutes. Now I'd like to discuss the contents and the analysis of the draft EIS. If you have a copy of the draft EIS now may be a good time to pull it out to reference as I'll be mentioning various chapters and sections in the next portion of this broadcast. The document can also be accessed online by going to our website at www.nrc.gov. These broadcasts in written in audio form will also be made publicly available on our website after this broadcast airs. Chapter 1 of the draft EIS provides an introduction, site history, and describes what United Nuclear proposed in its license amendment application. Chapter 2 describes United Nuclear's proposal in detail and describes the EIS alternatives that the NRC considered for the purpose of comparing the environmental impacts. The draft EIS alternatives do not include taking the mine waste to an alternative location. The alternatives to the NRC's proposed action regarding United Nuclear's license amendment request include denying the license amendment, which would mean the mine waste would not be allowed to come onto the United Nuclear's mill site. It also includes secondary alternatives to the proposed action, which include bringing the mine waste to the mill by conveyor belt instead of by truck or covering the mine waste with soil from the pipeline arroyo or jetty area instead of soil from the other areas on the mill site, which are called the borough areas. This chapter also includes the NRC's preliminary NEPA recommendation. The preliminary recommendation is that after evaluating the impacts of the proposed action and alternatives is that issuing a license amendment request to allow the mine waste to be placed on the mill site would be reasonable. Now I will provide some more details about the proposal. United Nuclear is proposing to transfer one million cubic yards of mine waste to the tailings impoundment at the mill site using dump trucks on access and haul roads that connect the two sites. One million cubic yards of soil would fill about six football fields to a depth of 100 feet high. Some of these roads exist now and others will be constructed. All roads will be inaccessible to the public except for one crossing at Highway 566. United Nuclear proposed to obtain cover material that would be placed over top of the consolidated mine waste from four borough areas on the mill site. As part of this action, United Nuclear would also install permanent storm water controls using existing swells and channels on the mill tailings impoundment. The pipeline Arroyo would also be stabilized using a riprap chute to replace the current rock jetty and the United Nuclear intends that these pipeline Arroyo improvements would withstand the heaviest rains possible and resulting water flow. The NRC staff evaluated these stabilization plans as part of the safety review, which will be discussed during tomorrow night's broadcast. Now I'm going to discuss the draft DIS alternatives and why we looked at those. One of the purposes of an EIS is to compare the potential environmental impacts from reasonable alternatives. The NRC's evaluation of alternatives to the proposed license amendment can be found in Chapter 2 of our draft DIS. The NRC looked at the alternative of no action. No action on the mill site would result if the NRC decided it should not allow United Nuclear to dispose of the mine waste at the mill site. Without approval, the mine waste would remain at the mine site while the US EPA selects a different remedy under its superfund process. The EIS assumes that under this no action alternative, the mine waste would remain on the mine site for an additional 10 years before another solution is implemented. The NRC also evaluated other options that United Nuclear proposed in its license amendment application for excavating and transferring the mine waste to the mill site. These options are modifications to the United Nuclear's main proposal. The first option proposes to use a conveyor system where United Nuclear would convey the mine waste from the mine site across the highway to the mill site using an above-grade conveyor system instead of by truck. The second option is to obtain cover material from the jetty area rather than from the four borrow areas. Now that we've discussed the proposal and alternatives, we will now move on to describing the current environment at the project site, which is captured in Chapter 3 of the draft EIS. The staff looks at many aspects of the environment, including land use, transportation, geology and soils, water resources including surface and groundwater, vegetation and wildlife, air quality, noise levels, scenic and visual resources, historic and cultural resources, socioeconomic conditions, public and occupational health, and waste management. The draft EIS also considers environmental justice, evaluating how minority or low-income populations could be affected disproportionately by the proposal. Chapter 3 describes the current site conditions for all of these environmental aspects or resources at and around the mine and mill sites. The purpose of this description is to understand how United Nuclear's proposal could affect the current environment. The United Nuclear mill site is on privately owned land and the mine site is located on Navajo Nation Trust land. New Mexico Highway 566 is a two-lane highway that provides primary access to the mine and mill sites. It is estimated that there are 34 occupied home sites within two miles of the project area. As I mentioned earlier, Pipeline Arroyo is a drainage with an intermittent flow present at the United Nuclear mill site, and it was used between 1967 and 1986 for mine dewatering and discharge. Flows in the Pipeline Arroyo now are intermittent and only seen after rains. Chapter 4 describes the environmental impacts from the proposed action and alternative. The RRC evaluated impacts for three phases of the proposed project. The first one includes construction of the proposed repository, including excavation of the mine waste and construction of the hall roads. The second phase is the transfer of the mine waste to the mill site, including loading and trucking of the waste from the mine to the mill. And finally, the third is a disposal, which includes a revegetation and placement of the final cover. This chapter also includes a discussion of potential measures that could reduce or avoid adverse environmental impacts. Most of the impacts would occur during the anticipated three and a half year excavation, construction, and waste transfer period, and then the impacts would stop. Impacts from transportation and noise, impacts on surface water, vegetation, air quality, historic and cultural resources, and visual and scenic resources, and on minority or low income populations, would be noticeable. I will now provide more information about these potential impacts that are described in the draft EIS. Transportation impacts would result both from increased traffic and from the building of new roads. Hall roads would be constructed from the mine to the mill site and would cross highway 566. NRC staff estimated that during the construction phase, traffic on 566 near the hall road crossing would increase by 68%. United Nuclear estimated that 280 truck trips would occur per day or 40 trips per hour, assuming seven work hours per day. Road closures would be limited to 15 minutes or less at a time and school buses would not be delayed. United Nuclear would also install a temporary traffic light system and additional signage at the highway 566 crossing. United Nuclear would submit a construction related traffic control plan to the New Mexico Department of Transportation for review for all activities that would impact traffic on public roads. Noise impacts would occur primarily during construction and transfer activities from the use of construction equipment and from excavation activities. Increased traffic would also contribute to noise levels. Noise levels would exceed levels experienced in a typical quiet rural area. The closest noise receptors to the proposed projects are the residents of the Redwater Pond Road community. And due to their proximity, they are considered sensitive noise receptors. United Nuclear has proposed to reduce noise from the project by limiting work hours to seven hours per day. United Nuclear would only operate during weekend hours if necessary. For more information related to noise impacts, see section 4.8 of the draft EIS. Impacts to surface water could result from stormwater runoff and subsequent erosion. Erosion could occur in newly disturbed areas or in the pipeline or royal. United Nuclear has proposed measures to address these potential impacts. For example, United Nuclear would develop and implement a US EPA approved plan that would address stormwater management practices. Best management practices that could be included in that plan are to capture and isolate surface water and stormwater that has the potential to come in contact with the mine waste. To minimize site grading. To install silt fences and stormwater basins to capture stormwater runoff from sloped areas. As well as to divert stormwater away from the construction activities to prevent potential contamination. This plan would also ensure compliance with the Clean Water Act. As I mentioned earlier to address erosion in the pipeline or royal, United Nuclear is proposing to replace the buried rock jetty protection area known as the jetty in the pipeline or royal. The new design would have a riprap chute, including a wide channel lined with large rocks to carry water through the or royal and away from the tailings impoundment and mine waste repository. For more information on surface water impacts, see section 4.5 of the draft EIS. Impacts to air quality from the project would be primarily from dust generated from vehicle travel on unpaved roads, wind erosion in the disturbed areas, and emissions from mobile sources and construction equipment. United Nuclear has proposed measures in its license application for controlling fugitive dust including imposing a maximum speed limit of 20 miles per hour on haul and access roads as well as covering haul trucks. United Nuclear is also proposing to suppress dust with water on haul roads and in excavation areas, placement areas, borrow areas, stockpiles, and screening areas. United Nuclear would also cover soil stockpiles to prevent dust from escaping into the air. The NRC has described these proposed measures in table 6.3-1 of its draft EIS and its description of air quality impacts is in section 4.7 of the draft EIS. Impacts on historic and cultural resources could potentially result primarily during the construction phase when ground disturbing activities would occur. Five cultural resource sites have been documented within the limits of disturbance on the mine and mill sites. Those five sites are recommended as eligible under the National Register of Historic Places. The sites consist of Anastasi Pueblo habitation and artifact scatters as well as Anastasi and historic Navajo pictographs. To ensure that these sites would be protected and not disturbed during ground disturbing activities, the NRC is developing a programmatic agreement in coordination with the US EPA, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Navajo Nation Tribal Historic Preservation Office, the New Mexico State Historic Preservation Office, and United Nuclear. This agreement will describe all of the procedures needed to ensure that the sites are protected and that proper procedures are followed if any unanticipated discoveries are made during project activities. For more information on historic and cultural resources, see section 4.9 of the draft EIS. Visual and scenic impacts during the construction and transfer phases would result primarily from the use of heavy equipment and the introduction of new roads. These impacts would primarily affect those living closest to the site. Impacts to visual and historic resources during the closure period would occur after the cover is placed on the repository. This is because the maximum height of the repository over the current impoundment would be 43 feet above the existing ground level. Due to varying topography, this permanent change in the landscape may not be significant to the casual observer, but could be significant to the local community living nearby. To reduce negative visual impacts, United Nuclear would regrade and revegetate disturbed areas with local soils and native plants. For more information on visual and scenic impacts, please see section 4.10 of the draft EIS. The Redwater Pond Road community is closer than any other community to the proposed project area and could therefore be impacted by dust, noise and traffic. The U.S. EPA is therefore providing voluntary, alternative housing options for residents in this community during the construction. They are coordinating their efforts with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Chapter 5 of the draft EIS considers and evaluates the potential cumulative impacts that could occur. Cumulative impacts means looking at all of the impacts of different past, ongoing and future projects in the area and how they could have a combined effect on different aspects of the environment. For example, the impacts of United Nuclear's proposal on groundwater would be small, but when considered with the significant historic impacts of groundwater from past church rock mining and milling activities, the cumulative groundwater impacts are large. Chapter 6 of our draft EIS includes an evaluation of specific measures that United Nuclear proposes or that the NRC identified to reduce the impacts of the proposal. This chapter also describes applicable requirements for the mine site that are within the EPA's authority under the Superfund process and describes how U.S. EPA ensures that United Nuclear's activities would substantially follow local, state and federal agency requirements. This chapter also identifies measures proposed by Navajo Nation to reduce impacts. In addition, the Navajo Nation Environmental Protection Agency recommended that to help preserve the Navajo culture, culturally important or sacred ceremonies, for example blessings by medicine men, should be held before land-disturbing activities begin. United Nuclear also proposed to give first preference to qualified local Navajo people who may wish to work on the project during construction activities. Chapter 7 of the draft EIS describes United Nuclear's proposed environmental measures and monitoring programs. These programs were designed to ensure that United Nuclear would meet NRC's safety regulations including limits on releases of radiation to air and water, dose limits for the public and workers, and requirements for reporting to the NRC. Monitoring programs provide information on operations and environmental conditions and would serve to alert United Nuclear and the NRC if any circumstances arise that require prompt corrective action. These programs help to limit potential environmental impacts and therefore are relevant to the NRC staff's environmental impact analysis. Chapter 8 of our EIS describes the societal costs and benefits associated with the proposed action and the alternatives. The purpose of the cost-benefit analysis is to disclose major quantitative and qualitative costs and benefits to evaluate the relative merits of various alternatives. The evaluation in general considers major environmental and economic costs and benefits associated with the construction of the proposed disposal site, transfer of the mine waste, and closure activities during the estimated four-year proposed action. This analysis also considers factors that may not have a directly quantifiable cost. For example, returning the mine site to the Navajo Nation for grazing livestock and growing plants for traditional uses is a benefit that is not directly quantifiable. Other information in the draft EIS includes a summary of unavoidable adverse environmental impacts and required commitments of resources. There's also an appendix that includes information about correspondence with other agencies and tribal governments associated with the preparation of this draft EIS. The NRC's preliminary NEPA recommendation is that after evaluating the impacts of the proposed action and comparing them to the no action alternative is that issuing the requested license amendment would be reasonable. Our recommendation is based on the NRC staff analysis in the EIS and on consultation with federal, state, tribal, and local agencies and input from other stakeholders. Before I end, I would like to remind folks how they can access these NRC documents and how they can comment on the draft EIS. The NRC sent copies of the draft EIS to the Octavia-Fellin Public Library in Gallup. In addition, we also mailed out several copies to many local households. If you do not have a copy of the report, you can call me at 301-415-7317 or you can access a copy of the draft EIS and other related documents on our website. The quickest way to get there is to go to the NRC's website at www.nrc.gov and then type United Nuclear Corporation into the main search bar. Scroll down and look for United Nuclear Corporation, draft EIS, public comment, and meetings link. This page will explain how to submit your comments on the draft EIS. It also includes a link to the report. Comments will be accepted in writing by email at UNC-ChurchRockEIS at nrc.gov and by phone at 888-672-3425. We will post the audio recordings and written scripts of these broadcasts on our website. We are seeking your comments on the draft EIS through May 27th, 2021. If you have any questions regarding the NRC's environmental review, you may contact me at ashling.walderon at nrc.gov. We encourage you to tune into tomorrow night's broadcast where we will be discussing the NRC's safety evaluation and the following night a question and answer session. NRC will host a public webinar on April 29th from 6 to 9 p.m. Mountain Standard Time where we will be accepting comments on the draft EIS. I want to thank you all for tuning in tonight and I hope you have a wonderful evening.