Draft Environmental Impact Report Issued For Demolition of Bevatron at Berkeley Lab

October 24, 2005

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has issued a Draft Environmental Impact Report (EIR) for the proposed demolition of the decommissioned Bevatron accelerator and the structure housing it . The draft EIR will be circulated for a 47-day period, from Oct. 21 through Dec. 7, for review and comment by governmental agencies and the public. A public hearing to collect comments will be held on Nov. 16.

The Bevatron is a synchrotron accelerator that began operations in 1954, was last operated in 1993, and is now abandoned in place within Building 51, a 126,500-square-foot steel frame structure. The accelerator is about 180 feet in diameter and made significant contributions in the fields of particle and nuclear physics during its 40 years of operation.

The Lab proposes to convert the developed area to an undeveloped area for an indeterminate time. The concrete shielding blocks that surround the Bevatron would be removed, the Bevatron apparatus would be disassembled, Building 51 and the shallow foundation underneath the building demolished, and the resulting debris and other materials removed. The site would then be backfilled, and the fill compacted and leveled.

The draft EIR has been prepared pursuant to the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and the University of California’s guidelines on implementing CEQA. It follows a Notice of Preparation that was issued on March 15 and a comment period that extended from March 16 to April 15, as well as a voluntary public scoping meeting held on March 31. The draft includes a description of the proposed project and of the project’s environmental setting, along with an analysis of environmental impacts. In addition, it contains an analysis of project alternatives, cumulative impacts, and other CEQA considerations.

Demolition would take place over a several-year period, beginning in the current fiscal year 2006 or FY2007 and ending between FY2010 and FY2012.

An electronic version of the draft EIR is available on-line on Berkeley Lab’s website at:
http://www.lbl.gov/Community/env-rev-docs.html .

Source: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory