The Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued an environmental assessment and finding of no significant impact late last week for Constellation Energy’s former Three Mile Island Unit 1 proposed restart.
This issuance comes after NRC released its draft environmental assessment (EA) and finding of no significant impact (FONSI) for the former Three Mile Island reactor, now referred to as Crane, in June.
NRC staff said in the Sept. 25 Federal Register notice it evaluated several resource areas that could be environmentally affected by the proposed restart, such as land use, groundwater resources and radiological and nonradiological human health. It also considered decommissioning, but it said it found that the proposed restart would not cause significant impacts on the environment.
“Based on its determination in the EA that the environmental impacts of the proposed actions would be NOT SIGNIFICANT for each potentially affected resource area, the NRC staff has determined that the proposed federal actions will not have a significant effect on the quality of the human environment,” NRC staff said.
“Accordingly, the NRC staff has made a determination not to prepare an EIS [environmental impact statement] for the proposed Federal actions and that a FONSI is warranted,” NRC staff added.
With no significant environmental impacts to be found, NRC said it is considering an issuance of three license amendment requests and an exemption to Constellation that would further facilitate the company’s restoration efforts.
NRC accepted Constellation’s three license amendment requests in February. These amendment requests would support the reauthorization of the Crane reactor, which is licensed to operate through mid-April of 2034.
While NRC led the licensing decision, the Department of Energy’s financing office was a cooperating agency as it issued a $1 billion loan to Constellation to fund part of the restoration efforts at the Crane reactor. NRC staff said at the conclusion of the environmental review, the DOE Office of Energy Dominance Financing “will publish a separate notice or decision document, as appropriate.”
The Crane reactor is adjacent to Three Mile Island Unit 2, which infamously suffered a partial meltdown in March 1979. The Crane reactor ceased operations in September 2019 and the utility announced plans for the restart of the unit in September 2024.
