On November 3, 2023 the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) released the Final Site Wide Environmental Impact Statement (SWEIS) for Continued Operations of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Of note, the document does not clarify which of the two proffered alternatives in the document the Agency is planning to move forward with. There will be an additional Record of Decision released in the Federal Register that will clarify sometime soon.
During the Draft SWEIS public comment period, which spanned 75 days ending January 18, 2023, Tri-Valley CAREs mobilized its membership and members of the public to submit comments on the voluminous documents both at the public hearings and in writing.
Among other things, the SWEIS proposes constructing up to 75 new facilities, decontaminating, decommissioning and deconstructing 150 existing facilities, increase to the administrative limits for programmatic plutonium at the facility and the limit for tritium emissions from the facility.
Tri-Valley CAREs also submitted longer technical comments that covered a wide range of topics. As did the U.S. EPA Region 9, several other regulatory agencies and a local Member of Congress.
The Final SWEIS is legal required by the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) to contain responses to all of the comments that were submitted on the Draft version. However, the Final SWEIS does an insufficient job of responding to many of the comments made by Tri-Valley CAREs and others.
While there is not technically a public comment period, there is document manager at NNSA who can be contacted via email at [email protected]. Tri-Valley CAREs has put together the “Sign & Send” Comment below that anyone can use to send in by Monday, December 4th. Or just read it to find out more about this issue.
Download Our Sign and Send Comment:
