ALERT! Waste Control Specialists has revived their license application to bring dangerous high-level radioactive waste to Texas from reactors around the country.
Take ACTION ! Comment Period Ends November 19th
Texas is at risk from deadly high-level radioactive waste from nuclear reactors around the country which could travel through our major cities by rail, close to homes, schools and businesses, and be dumped on Texas for decades to come – if we don’t fight back.
This waste will remain dangerous for millennia. We can act now to halt this dangerous and unnecessary plan and to protect our children and future generations from transport accidents, potential sabotage and radioactive contamination. Exposure to radiation causes cancers, genetic damage and birth defects. Exposure to unshielded spent fuel rods is lethal. We don’t need these risks! We didn’t generate this waste… why should it be dumped on us?
Who’s behind this plan? Waste Control Specialists (WCS) and ORANO (together called Interim Storage Partners) seek to store 40,000 tons of high-level radioactive waste in Andrews, Texas. Getting it here would take thousands of rail shipments, occurring over 20 years.
While not in bomb grade form, each rail car would carry as much plutonium as was in the bomb dropped on Nagasaki. The capacity of the WCS site and one proposed by Holtec for nearby New Mexico would allow for more than twice the volume of nuclear reactor waste produced in the entire country, plus all that will likely be produced in the future.
The WCS public comment period ends November 19th.
ACT NOW! Send a letter today to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission urging them to halt dangerous high-level radioactive waste plans!
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Want to do more? The deadline to legally intervene in the license proceedings is Oct. 29, 2018. More information here.
Here is where you can find the Revision 2 documents the company submitted in 2018. WCS has formed a partnership with a French company, ORANO. Together they’re known as Interim Storage Partners, so this name appears as well in these documents.
WCS documents – License Application Revision 2
What else can we do? Write letters to the editor, call media representatives and talk show hosts. Get friends and neighbors to send in comment letters. The time to act is NOW.
The Most Dangerous and Deadly Radioactive Waste Could Come Through Major Texas Cities and Be Dumped on West Texas
The Public Can Speak Out Until November 19th Against Plan to Dump the Most Dangerous of All Radioactive Waste in West Texas; Public Involvement Has Stopped Risky Waste Dumps Before
November 16, 2018
Austin – The most dangerous radioactive waste in the nation may be dumped in West Texas if a license is granted by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). This waste could be coming from more than 100 nuclear reactors around the country. The NRC is accepting public comments on this license until November 19th Members of the public can send an editable letter here.
Waste Control Specialists (WCS) seeks to store 40,000 tons of irradiated reactor fuel rods at their existing low-level radioactive waste site for 40 years, although their application says that the waste could remain "until a permanent repository is found." In other words, we could get stuck with it forever, at inadequate site that isn’t designed for the long-term. A de facto permanent disposal facility could be created for deadly waste that must remain isolated from people and the environment for literally a million years. Exposure to radiation can cause cancer, genetic damage and birth defects. Exposure to unshielded high-level radioactive waste is lethal.
On Tuesday, November 12, the conservative Midland City Council approved a resolution (6-0) opposing consolidated interim storage or permanent disposal of high-level radioactive waste in West Texas and New Mexico or the transportation of this radioactive waste through or around the corporate limits of the City of Midland. Read the Press Release….
- Read the Press Release 11/16/18
- Federal Radioactive Sites With Leaks – Can You Trust the Federal Government to Protect Your Community Against Contamination from Radioactive Waste? (Fact Sheet)
- Summary of Petition to Invervene
Protect Texas from Radioactive Waste Tour – Thanks to all who participated! Sept. 24th – Oct. 1st
The Protect Texas from Radioactive Waste Tour visited major cities across the state with an inflatable full-scale mock radioactive waste transport cask. We held press conferences at railroad crossings where the radioactive waste could travel and hosted community meetings. The tour kicked off in Houston on Sept. 24, and then traveled to San Antonio, Dallas, El Paso, Midland and Andrews, wrapping up on Oct. 1st. We were joined by friends and allies across the state. Many people are now in motion, organizing locally to halt high-level radioactive waste plans that endangers their community.
The tour was sponsored by SEED Coalition, Public Citizen, Beyond Nuclear and NIRS – Nuclear Information and Resource Services. Sierra Club members and local organizations joined in. Special guest, Kerstin Rudek, shared the successful experiences of her community’s fight against radioactive waste in Gorleben Germany.
A Texas waste storage plan is back. So is the opposition
September 11, 2018 Edward Klump, E&E News reporter
A proposal to send used nuclear fuel to West Texas didn’t end last year, but it did stall during a trip to corporate purgatory.
Now a joint venture called Interim Storage Partners LLC has the plan moving forward again. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission recently restarted its review of a consolidated interim storage application for a site in Andrews County, Texas. And the NRC staff’s safety, security and environmental reviews could be finished in summer 2020.
Critics are worried about what’s brewing. They’re asking questions and hoping for more public meetings. Some would like to halt the project. One of the chief opponents knows the proposal won’t be easy to stop, but she’s working to rally Texans and others against the plan.