Final Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement for Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) Activities on White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico

摘要

This Record of Decision (ROD) announces final Agency determinations and approvals prepared by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) in response to a proposal to increase DTRA testing activities at the White Sands Missile Range (WSMR), New Mexico. The proposed action (and preferred alternative) is comprised of nine activity-related categories: (1) collateral effects testing using simulant materials; (2) rock penetration testing; (3) hard target lethality and defeat testing; (4) advanced weapons lethality testing; (5) static high explosive (HE) testing for target lethality; (6) weapons effects testing using the Large Blast/Thermal Simulator (LB/TS); (7) antiterrorism testing; (8) development of weapon effects targets and test beds; and (9) improvements to the Permanent High Explosive Test Site (PHETS) Administrative Park. Two Environmental Assessments (EA) covering DTRA operations at WSMR were completed in early 2002. At that time, DTRA had no requirements for the use of simulants or taggants south of Mockingbird Gap and the limited number of simulants met the Agency requirements. It was recognized at that time if either situation changed, additional National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) reviews would be required. In the fall of 2002, requests were made for the use of simulants at Capitol Peak and for the use of new simulants. Based on the number of simulants, the potential impact to the White Sands pup fish population and the overall scope, DTRA in conjunction with WSMR, determined a Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS) rather than an EA was necessary to appropriately evaluate the proposed action.