New Environmental Assessment (draft) Under Construction
DOE has issued a Draft Environmental Assessment that is available on-line or can be read in paper form at Jefferson Lab's Public Reading Area, located in building 12 (CEBAF Center). The DRAFT Environmental Assessment is for the Proposed Upgrade and Operation of the CEBAF and FEL Accelerators and Construction and Use of Buildings Associated with the 2005 Ten Year Site Plan.
Below is a short description of the Proposed Action as well as the applicable program areas reviewed as part of the EA.
Proposed Action
DOE, in the Environmental Assessment, is reporting the results of an analysis of the potential environmental impacts from the
proposed upgrade and operation of the CEBAF and FEL accelerators and the construction and use of buildings associated with the 2005
Ten Year Site Plan at Jefferson Lab.
With this proposal, DOE intends to: increase the current beam energy range of the CEBAF accelerator from a maximum energy of 8.0 GeV (Giga (billion) electron-volt) to 16.0 GeV and build expansions to the North and South Access Buildings and Service Building 98; construct a second Central Helium Liquefier (CHL) facility that would be connected to the current CHL; construct and use of a new experimental area, the Hall D complex, along with its counting house and associated service buildings; upgrade the FEL facility from the current 50 kW (kilowatt) maximum to provide 190 kW light beam power; excavate/construct two retention ponds; construct one Technical Support Building; construct a radioactive waste storage structure and several general site storage structures; expand the site utilities that serve the Accelerator Site, including the construction of a 10 megawatt (MW) generator pad; and the addition of a North Connector Road extension and parking lot.
DOE proposes to take this action to provide Jefferson Lab an increased capability for accelerator and physics program operations. Since it began operation in 1995, CEBAF has enabled physics research to occur at Jefferson Lab and the use of CEBAF's continuous wave electron beam has led Jefferson Lab to play a world leadership role in hadronic physics, providing essential insights into the fundamental structure of matter. Maintaining the status quo and not performing the upgrade means that the U.S. Nuclear Physics program will lose its world leadership in the study of hadronic matter. Similar to CEBAF, if the proposed upgrade of FEL capabilities should fail to occur, the basic science community would also lose out on research opportunities involving such light sources.
Applicable program areas reviewed include:
- Socioeconomics
- Cultural Resources
- Geology
- Land Use
- Transportation and Traffic
- Noise
- Floodplain/Wetlands
- Endangered Species
- Spill Potential
- Groundwater Dewatering
- Water Quality
- Surface Water – Impacts not Involving Radiation
- Radiological Impacts – All Waters That Could Be Affected by Radiation
- Air Quality
- Waste Generation
- Pollution Prevention
- Resource Usage
- Health and Safety Impacts
- Construction Hazards
- Radiological Impacts
- Noise
- Non-Radiological Impacts
- Cumulative Impacts
Cumulative environment, health, and safety impacts are those which result from the incremental contribution from each effect discussed above along with impacts expected from other past, ongoing, or planned actions within the same geographic area.
To review the complete DRAFT Environmental Assessment, visit: http://www.jlab.org/ehs/NEPA/EA-15320July06.pdf on the TJNAF web-site.