42 U.S.C. § 7912 — Processing site designations
submitted 48 years ago by Pub. L. 95-604 to r/title-42-THE-PUBLIC-HEALTH-AND-WELFARE · 933 words · no verdicts yet
The Secretary must designate 22 listed uranium processing sites, plus any other site needing cleanup, within one year of November 8, 1978. The Secretary also assesses health hazards, sets cleanup priorities, and notifies affected states and tribes. Special rules cover certain South Dakota and Utah sites, including the Moab, Utah site added later.
(a) Specific and other site locations; remedial action; consultations; boundaries; Grand Junction, Colorado, site restriction. As soon as possible, and no later than one year after November 8, 1978, the Secretary* must designate processing sites at or near 22 named locations, including Salt Lake City, Green River, and Mexican Hat in Utah; several sites in Colorado including two each at Rifle and Slick Rock; Shiprock and Ambrosia Lake in New Mexico; two counties in Wyoming; and single sites in Oregon, Texas, Arizona (two), Idaho, and Pennsylvania. The Secretary must finish cleanup ("remedial action") at these sites before the Secretary's authority under this subchapter runs out. Within that same one-year window, the Secretary must also designate any other U.S. site that needs cleanup, after consulting the Administrator*, the Commission*, affected states, and — for Indian lands — the tribe and the Secretary of the Interior. As part of each designation, the Secretary, working with the Commission, sets the site's boundaries. No site or structure already covered by cleanup authority under Public Law 92–314 in Grand Junction, Colorado can be designated as a processing site* here.
(b) Health hazard assessment; priorities for remedial action. Within one year of November 8, 1978, the Secretary must assess how much the leftover radioactive material at each designated site could threaten public health. Based on that, the Secretary must set priorities for which sites get cleaned up first, relying mainly on advice from the Administrator.
(c) Notification. Within thirty days of designating sites and setting priorities, the Secretary must notify the governor of each affected state*, and, where relevant, the affected tribes and the Secretary of the Interior.
(d) Finality of determinations. The Secretary's site designations and priorities are final. Courts cannot review them.
(e) Certain real property or improved areas. When designating sites within that first year, the Secretary must, as much as practical, include the nearby contaminated properties described in section 7911(6)(B). After the first year, the Secretary may still add such nearby properties later if appropriate. The Secretary must designate certain contaminated land near the Tennessee Valley Authority's Edgemont, South Dakota uranium mill site as a processing site, after consulting the Administrator, the Commission, and South Dakota. For that Edgemont site, every reference elsewhere in this subchapter to "November 8, 1978" instead means "January 4, 1983," and South Dakota gets credit toward its cost-share for cleanup spending it made before that 1983 date.
(f) Designation of Moab Site as processing site. The Moab, Utah uranium milling site — identified in a 1996 Nuclear Regulatory Commission environmental study — is designated as a processing site regardless of any other law. The usual rules for processing sites apply to Moab too, except that sections 7913, 7914(b), 7917(a), 7922(a), and 7925(a) do not apply to it, and references to "November 8, 1978" instead mean "October 30, 2000." If Congress provides the money, the Secretary must clean up the Moab site safely, considering the remedial action plan required by a 1998 defense law, including restoring the groundwater and moving contaminated material — including material from the Colorado River floodplain — to a permanent disposal site elsewhere in Utah.
As soon as practicable, but no later than one year after November 8, 1978, the Secretary* shall designate processing sites at or near the following locations:
Salt Lake City, Utah
Green River, Utah
Mexican Hat, Utah
Durango, Colorado
Grand Junction, Colorado
Rifle, Colorado (two sites)
Gunnison, Colorado
Naturita, Colorado
Maybell, Colorado
Slick Rock, Colorado (two sites)
Shiprock, New Mexico
Ambrosia Lake, New Mexico
Riverton, Wyoming
Converse County, Wyoming
Lakeview, Oregon
Falls City, Texas
Tuba City, Arizona
Monument Valley, Arizona
Lowman, Idaho
Cannonsburg, Pennsylvania
Subject to the provisions of this subchapter, the Secretary shall complete remedial action at the above listed sites before his authority terminates under this subchapter. The Secretary shall within one year of November 8, 1978, also designate all other processing sites within the United States* which he determines requires remedial action to carry out the purposes of this subchapter. In making such designation, the Secretary shall consult with the Administrator*, the Commission*, and the affected States, and in the case of Indian lands, the appropriate Indian tribe* and the Secretary of the Interior.
As part of his designation under this subsection, the Secretary, in consultation with the Commission, shall determine the boundaries of each such site.
No site or structure with respect to which remedial action is authorized under Public Law 92–314 in Grand Junction, Colorado, may be designated by the Secretary as a processing site* under this section.
Within one year from November 8, 1978, the Secretary shall assess the potential health hazard to the public from the residual radioactive materials at designated processing sites. Based upon such assessment, the Secretary shall, within such one year period, establish priorities for carrying out remedial action at each such site. In establishing such priorities, the Secretary shall rely primarily on the advice of the Administrator.
Within thirty days after making designations of processing sites and establishing the priorities for such sites under this section, the Secretary shall notify the Governor of each affected State*, and, where appropriate, the Indian tribes and the Secretary of the Interior.
The designations made, and priorities established, by the Secretary under this section shall be final and not be subject to judicial review.
The designation of processing sites within one year after November 8, 1978, under this section shall include, to the maximum extent practicable, the areas referred to in section 7911(6)(B) of this title.
Notwithstanding the one year limitation contained in this section, the Secretary may, after such one year period, include any area described in section 7911(6)(B) of this title as part of a processing site designated under this section if he determines such inclusion to be appropriate to carry out the purposes of this subchapter.
The Secretary shall designate as a processing site within the meaning of section 7911(6) of this title any real property, or improvements thereon, in Edgemont, South Dakota, that—
is in the vicinity of the Tennessee Valley Authority uranium mill site at Edgemont (but not including such site), and
is determined by the Secretary to be contaminated with residual radioactive materials.
In making the designation under this paragraph, the Secretary shall consult with the Administrator, the Commission and the State of South Dakota. The provisions of this subchapter shall apply to the site so designated in the same manner and to the same extent as to the sites designated under subsection (a) except that, in applying such provisions to such site, any reference in this subchapter to November 8, 1978, shall be treated as a reference to January 4, 1983, and in determining the State share under section 7917 of this title of the costs of remedial action, there shall be credited to the State, expenditures made by the State prior to January 4, 1983, which the Secretary determines would have been made by the State or the United States in carrying out the requirements of this subchapter.
Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the Moab uranium milling site (referred to in this subsection as the “Moab site”) located approximately three miles northwest of Moab, Utah, and identified in the Final Environmental Impact Statement issued by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in March 1996 in conjunction with Source Materials License No. SUA–917, is designated as a processing site.
This subchapter applies to the Moab site in the same manner and to the same extent as to other processing sites designated under subsection (a), except that—
sections 7913, 7914(b), 7917(a), 7922(a), and 7925(a) of this title shall not apply; and
a reference in this subchapter to November 8, 1978, shall be treated as a reference to October 30, 2000.
Subject to the availability of appropriations for this purpose, the Secretary shall conduct remediation at the Moab site in a safe and environmentally sound manner that takes into consideration the remedial action plan prepared pursuant to section 3405(i) of the Strom Thurmond National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1999 (10 U.S.C. 8720 note; Public Law 105–261), including—
ground water restoration; and
the removal, to a site in the State of Utah, for permanent disposition and any necessary stabilization, of residual radioactive material* and other contaminated material from the Moab site and the floodplain of the Colorado River.
Source credit: (Pub. L. 95–604, title I, § 102, Nov. 8, 1978, 92 Stat. 3023; Pub. L. 97–415, § 21, Jan. 4, 1983, 96 Stat. 2079; Pub. L. 106–398, § 1 [div. C, title XXXIV, § 3403(b)], Oct. 30, 2000, 114 Stat. 1654, 1654A–489; Pub. L. 115–232, div. A, title VIII, § 809(n)(4), Aug. 13, 2018, 132 Stat. 1844.)
- 1978Enacted · Pub. L. 95-604 · 92 Stat. 3023
- 1983Amended · Pub. L. 97-415 · 96 Stat. 2079
- 2000Amended · Pub. L. 106-398 · 114 Stat. 1654, 1654
- 2018Amended · Pub. L. 115-232 · 132 Stat. 1844
A history note hasn’t been published yet. The record shows enactment by Pub. L. 95-604 on 1978-11-08.
all 0 arguments · sorted by: best
no arguments yet — make the first case