The sign at the main entrance to the Y-12 National Security Complex is pictured above on Sunday, Aug. 6, 2017. (Photo by John Huotari/Oak Ridge Today)

With a lawsuit pending, federal officials are considering whether a new or supplemental environmental impact statement is needed for the Y-12 National Security Complex after design plans changed for the Uranium Processing Facility, the largest federal construction project in Tennessee since World War II.

As part of the process, the National Nuclear Security Administration is preparing what is known as a supplement analysis, or SA. A draft of the new SA has been issued, and you can read it on the Y-12 website.

Comments on the draft supplement analysis can be submitted through June 20.

The final new supplement analysis and a record of decision could be issued by July 27, although the schedule is subject to change, according to a joint status report filed in U.S. District Court in Knoxville on May 11. The record of decision is expected to say whether a new or supplemental environmental impact statement is required for Y-12.

There was a site-wide environmental impact statement, or EIS, prepared for Y-12 in 2011. About five years later, in 2016, there was a supplement analysis prepared under the National Environmental Policy Act. It was connected to the decision by the NNSA and U.S. Department of Energy to not prepare a new or supplemental environmental impact statement after the NNSA decided on a new multi-building design for the UPF, rather than a single-building design, as part of an effort to keep project costs down, among other considerations. [Read more…]