Environmental Assessment for the shipment of low enriched uranium billets to the United Kingdom from the Hanford Site, Richland, Washington. [Hanford,WA to the U. K]

Technical Report · Sat Aug 01 04:00:00 EDT 1992

OSTI ID:6910569

This Environmental Assessment provides the necessary information so that a decision can be made on whether a Finding of No Significant Impact Environmental Impact Statement should be prepared for the proposed action. The proposed action is to transfer 2,592 low enriched uranium billets to the United Kingdom. The billets are currently stored in the 300 Area of the Hanford Site, Richland, Washington. The proposed action would consist of two types of activities: loading and transportation. The loading activities would include placing the billets into the appropriate containers for transportation. The transportation activities would include the tasks required to transport the containers 215 miles (344 km) via highway to the Port of Seattle, Washington, and transfer the containers aboard an ocean cargo vessel for transportation to the United Kingdom. The Department of Energy would only be responsible for conducting the loading activities. The United Kingdom would be responsible for conducting the transportation activities in compliance with all applicable United States and international transportation laws. The tasks associated with the proposed action activities have been performed before and are well defined in terms of requirements and consequences. A risk assessment and a nuclear safety evaluation were performed to address safety issues associated with the proposed action. The risk assessment determined the exposure risk from normal operation and from the maximum credible accident that involves a truck or ship collision followed by a fire that engulfs all the billets in the shipment and the release of the radiological contents of the shipment to the environment. The criticality assessment determined the nuclear safety limits for handling, transporting and storing the shipment under incident-free and accident transport conditions.

• Research Organization: USDOE Richland Field Office, WA (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: DOE; USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
• OSTI ID: 6910569
• Report Number(s): DOE/EA-0787; ON: DE93002196
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

050900* -- Nuclear Fuels-- Transport
Handling
& Storage
053000 -- Nuclear Fuels-- Environmental Aspects
054000 -- Nuclear Fuels-- Health & Safety
11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS
ACCIDENTS
ACTINIDES
CRITICALITY
ELEMENTS
ENRICHED URANIUM
ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS
ISOTOPE ENRICHED MATERIALS
LOADING
MATERIALS
MATERIALS HANDLING
METALS
RISK ASSESSMENT
SLIGHTLY ENRICHED URANIUM
TRANSPORT
URANIUM