Department of Energy finding of no significant impact, Low Energy Demonstration Accelerator, Los Alamos National Laboratory

As part of the DOE`s need to maintain the capability of producing tritium in support of its historic and near-term stewardship of the nation`s nuclear weapons stockpile, the agency has recently completed a Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement for Tritium Supply and Recycling. The Environmental Assessment (EA) for the Low Energy Demonstration Accelerator (LEDA) at Technical Area (TA) 53, LANL, Los Alamos, New Mexico (DOE-EA-1147), March 1996, analyzes the DOE proposal to design, build, and test critical prototypical components of the accelerator system for tritium production, specifically the front-end, low-energy section of the accelerator at LANL. LEDA would be incrementally developed and tested in five separate stages over the next seven years. LEDA would be located at an existing building at TA-53; the LEDA components would be tested in order to verify equipment and prototype design and resolve related performance and production issues for future full-scale operation at Savannah River Site (SRS) in the event the APT plant is built. Production operations would not occur at LANL under the proposed action. The US DOE finds that there would be no significant impact from proceeding with its proposal to design, build, and test critical prototypical components of the accelerator system for tritium production, specifically the front-end, low-energy section of the accelerator, at TA-53, LANL. Based on the environmental assessment that analyses the potential environmental effects that would be expected to occur if the DOE were to design, build, and test prototypical components of the accelerator system for tritium production, the proposed action does not constitute a major federal action which would significantly affect the human environment within the meaning of NEPA. Therefore, no environmental impact statement is required for this proposal