Notice of Availability of Environmental Assessment and Finding of No Significant Impact for License Amendment for The E. R. Squibb and Sons, Inc. Facility in Hamilton, NJ

AGENCY:

Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

ACTION:

Notice of availability.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:

Betsy Ullrich, Commercial and R&D Branch, Division of Nuclear Materials Safety, Region I, 475 Allendale Road, King of Prussia, Pennsylvania 19406, telephone (610) 337-5040, fax (610) 337-5269; or by e-mail: exu@nrc.gov.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

I. Introduction

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is considering the issuance of a license amendment to E. R. Squibb and Sons, Inc. (Squibb) for Materials License No. 29-00139-02, to authorize release of its facility in Hamilton, New Jersey, for unrestricted use. NRC has prepared an Environmental Assessment (EA) in support of this proposed action in accordance with the requirements of 10 CFR part 51. Based on the EA, the NRC has concluded that a Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI) is appropriate. The amendment will be issued following the publication of this Notice.

II. EA Summary

The purpose of the proposed action is to authorize the release of the licensee's Hamilton, New Jersey, facility for unrestricted use. Squibb was authorized by NRC from 1998 to use radioactive materials for research and development purposes at the site. On September 29, 2005, Squibb requested that NRC release the facility for unrestricted use. Squibb has conducted surveys of the facility and provided information to the NRC to demonstrate that the site meets the license termination criteria in subpart E of 10 CFR part 20 for unrestricted release.

The NRC staff has prepared an EA in support of the license amendment. The facility was remediated and surveyed prior to the licensee requesting the license amendment. The NRC staff has reviewed the information and final status survey submitted by Squibb. Based on its review, the staff has determined that there are no additional remediation activities necessary to complete the proposed action. Therefore, the staff considered the impact of the residual radioactivity at the facility and concluded that since the residual radioactivity meets the requirements in Subpart E of 10 CFR part 20, a Finding of No Significant Impact is appropriate.

III. Finding of No Significant Impact

The staff has prepared the EA (summarized above) in support of the license amendment to terminate the license and release the facility for unrestricted use. The NRC staff has evaluated Squibb's request and the results of the surveys and has concluded that the completed action complies with the criteria in subpart E of 10 CFR part 20. The staff has found that the radiological environmental impacts from the action are bounded by the impacts evaluated by NUREG-1496, Volumes 1-3, “Generic Environmental Impact Statement in Support of Rulemaking on Radiological Criteria for License Termination of NRC-Licensed Facilities” (ML042310492, ML042320379, and ML042330385). Additionally, no non-radiological or cumulative impacts were identified. On the basis of the EA, the NRC has concluded that there are no significant environmental impacts from the proposed action, and the license amendment does not warrant the preparation of an environmental impact statement for the proposed action. Accordingly, it has been determined that a Finding of No Significant Impact is appropriate.

IV. Further Information

The EA and other documents related to this action, including the application for the license amendment and supporting documentation, are available electronically at the NRC's Electronic Reading Room at http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html. From this site, you can access the NRC's Agencywide Document Access and Management System (ADAMS), which provides text and image files of NRC's public documents. The ADAMS accession numbers for the documents related to this Notice are: Environmental Assessment Related to Issuance of a License Amendment of U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Materials License No. 29-00139-02, E. R. Squibb and Sons, Inc. in Hamilton, New Jersey [ADAMS Accession No. ML060520449]; Final Status Survey for Bristol Myers Clinical Research Center, Hamilton, New Jersey, dated August 8, 2005 [ML052510568]; and letter dated November 9, 2005 [ML053190315]. Persons who do not have access to ADAMS or who encounter problems in accessing the documents located in ADAMS, should contact the NRC PDR Reference staff by telephone at (800) 397-4209 or (301) 415-4737, or by e-mail to pdr@nrc.gov.

Documents related to operations conducted under this license not specifically referenced in this Notice may not be electronically available and/or may not be publicly available. Persons who have an interest in reviewing these documents should submit a request to NRC under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Instructions for submitting a FOIA request can be found on the NRC's Web site at http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/foia/foia-privacy.html.