§10244 Environmental Assessment of Sites

Summary

The Secretary must prepare an environmental assessment for any site being negotiated when the Negotiator asks. For a repository site, the assessment must describe the likely effects of studying the site and of building and running a repository there. For a monitored retrievable storage site, it must describe the likely effects of building and running that facility. The assessment is a final agency action that courts can review under chapter 7 of title 5 and section 10139. The Secretary must hold local public hearings to explain the review, get comments, and ask residents for recommendations about what the assessment and the site characterization plan (section 10133(b)(1)) should cover. The assessment must be made public. When preparing the assessment, the Secretary must use available geophysical, geologic, geochemical, hydrologic, and other information. No new preliminary borings or excavations may be done at a site unless those activities were already underway on or before December 22, 1987, or the Secretary says they are needed because otherwise required information cannot be obtained. Any such preliminary boring or excavation may not be larger than 40 inches in diameter.