4.21 SUMMARY OF CUMULATIVE IMPACTS
Cumulative impacts include the incremental impacts of the actions (usually Proposed or Preferred Action) when added to other past, present, and reasonably foreseeable future actions. The impacts of past actions have been described in the Affected Environment sections of this EIS and are reflected in the Proposed Action impacts at the 2,000 weapons activity level (current operations at Pantex Plant). Additional DOE programs planned or underway at Pantex Plant include the Stockpile Stewardship and Management (SSM), Waste Management (WM), and Storage and Disposition (S&D) programs which are the subject of three separate Programmatic EISs described in section 1.7 of this volume.
In addition to the DOE programs, information on other Federal, State, or local projects, including private developments, was sought through contacts with Federal and State regulatory agencies, the Amarillo Economic Development Corporation, the Panhandle Municipal Water Authority, and the City of Amarillo. This effort yielded only one project (future closure of the Helium Plant) that would contribute to the cumulative impacts in the Pantex Plant Region of Influence. A discussion of its cumulative impacts has been added in section 4.11.5 because cumulative impacts are limited to socioeconomic impacts.
The Pantex Plant EIS and the SSM PEIS both discuss the operations of the entire Pantex Plant but over different time frames. The level of operations, and associated impacts, discussed in the Pantex Plant EIS is for an approximately 10-year time frame beginning in the year 1997. The SSM PEIS discusses a lower level of the same kind of operations for the time frame of approximately the year 2005 and later. The operational levels discussed in the Pantex Plant EIS Proposed Action will evolve over the next 10 years into the level of operations discussed in the No Action Alternative of the SSM PEIS. The cumulative impacts associated with any new mission or facility at Pantex Plant should be placed in the time frame of the overall impacts of Pantex Plant Site at the time those facilities or missions would be implemented.
In chapter 4, the new missions and facilities associated with the WM PEIS are assumed to take place in the same time frame as the Pantex Plant EIS Proposed Action. The new missions and facilities associated with the S&D PEIS are assumed to take place in the same time frame as the SSM PEIS No Action. While these assumptions are well founded, the elements of the different programs could be delayed or moved ahead. In this section, the impacts of the different programs are presented by themselves without being combined with the impacts of either the Pantex Plant EIS Proposed Action or the SSM PEIS No Action. This is done in order that the reader can see in detail the impacts associated with each of the different missions, facilities, and time frames, and can add the impacts in any combination.
The Preferred Alternative for stockpile management is a downsized (rightsized) plant to provide an effective and efficient manufacturing capability for a smaller stockpile. With a smaller stockpile and no new-design weapons production, industrial capacity can be reduced to meet anticipated manufacturing requirements for stockpile repair and replacement activities. If the SSM PEIS decision, as announced in the Record of Decision, is to downsize Pantex Plant, such action would commence in the year 1998 and be completed by approximately the year 2005. Because downsizing would involve internal modifications to existing facilities, no land would be disturbed, and there would be no significant change to any environmental resources during the completion of modifications. Consequently, there would no significant cumulative impacts associated with the downsizing of Pantex Plant facilities.
The SSM column in Table 4.211 shows the impacts of downsizing-in-place the assembly/disassembly and high explosive (HE) fabrication facilities at Pantex Plant. These impacts are not in addition (cumulative) to the impacts identified for the continued operations at the 2,000 weapons activity level. Instead, environmental impacts resulting from SSM activities at Pantex Plant represent a reduced level of impacts after the plant completes its disassembly activities and evolves into a long-term stockpile management facility.
The WM PEIS examines the environmental impacts of alternative configurations for the management of radioactive and hazardous wastes at DOE sites throughout the U.S. Pantex Plant is considered one of 17 "major" sites managing DOE wastes. For Pantex Plant, the PEIS analyzes management of low-level mixed waste (LLMW), low-level waste (LLW), and hazardous waste (HW) in four configuration alternatives: No Action, Decentralized, Regionalized, and Centralized.
The most adverse impacts of activities at Pantex Plant would occur as a result of the Decentralized Alternative. Therefore, only the impacts of this alternative are provided in Table 4.211. With this alternative, treatment and disposal facilities would be constructed for LLMW and LLW at Pantex Plant. The treatment facilities needed for LLMW and LLW have already been evaluated in chapter 4 of this volume. The WM PEIS does not provide NEPA analysis for the construction of new disposal facilities, such as a landfill, which would be needed if the Decentralized Alternative is selected as the Preferred Alternative for LLMW and LLW disposal.
For the S&D PEIS, two bounding alternatives (alternatives with the most adverse environmental impacts), one for storage and the other for disposition activities, are considered in this cumulative impact analysis. For the storage alternatives, collocation of plutonium and highly enriched uranium (HEU) facilities generates the most adverse impacts as it would require construction of new storage facilities at Pantex Plant. For the disposition alternatives, the most adverse impacts would occur if the pit disassembly/conversion facility, the plutonium conversion (non-pit) facility, the mixed oxide (MOX) fuel fabrication facility, and the evolutionary light water reactor were all located at Pantex Plant.
As discussed in sections 1.4 and 1.7.3 of this volume, the final S&D PEIS will include an alternative under which plutonium pits from Rocky Flats Environmental Technology Site (RFETS) could be transferred to Pantex Plant for storage in Zone 4 as early as 1997. Impacts related to the intersite transportation of these pits are described in section 4.4 of the S&D PEIS. The total potential fatalities from the intersite transportation of the RFETS pits to Pantex Plant is estimated as 6.4 x 10-3 from both radiological and nonradiological impacts to the public and workers for both routine and accident conditions.
The impacts from the Storage Collocation Alternative and the MOX Fuel/Light Water Reactor Alternative would probably occur during the next seven to 20 years and, therefore, would be cumulative to the impacts discussed in the SSM PEIS No Action Alternative. However, the construction and operation of the S&D facilities could take place within the next five to seven years, and thus could be cumulative to the impacts discussed in the Pantex Plant EIS Proposed Action. So the impacts of the Storage Collocation Alternative, the construction of the MOX Fuel/Light Water Reactor Alternative, and the operation of the MOX Fuel/Light Water Reactor Alternative are presented separately in Table 4.211 without being combined with the impacts of either the Pantex Plant EIS Proposed Action or the SSM PEIS No Action.
Table 4.211 summarizes the impacts for Proposed Actions at the 2,000 weapons activity level and the most adverse impacts from the SSM, WM, and S&D programs at Pantex Plant.
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