A Texas waste storage plan is back. So is the opposition
September 11, 2018
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.
Holtec arrives at City Council
August 22, 2018
Citizens share opposition or ask city to remain neutral
The city of Roswell’s General Services Committee lent their ears to citizen opinions on the proposed Holtec International Project to store nuclear waste in between Carlsbad and Hobbs.
Around 30 people gathered into the large conference room at City Hall on Wednesday afternoon for an hour and a half meeting. The agenda included the Holtec project as a non-action item; no formal action was taken by the city at Wednesday’s meeting.
Chairman Councilor Savino Sanchez made a preamble asking the public to maintain decorum and remain respectful during the speeches. Committee members Jacob Roebuck and Angela Moore were present and Councilors Jeanine Corn Best, Judy Stubbs and Caleb Grant sat in the audience.
Discussions on Holtec facility continue amid concerns
Aug. 16, 2018
An opinion issued by New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas suggested New Mexico will have a limited role in licensing a proposed facility to store high-level nuclear waste near Carlsbad and Hobbs.
New Mexico Sen. Jeff Steinborn (D-36), who chairs the New Mexico Radioactive and Hazardous Waste Committee, said Balderas’ opinion was informative but did not preclude lawmakers from continuing to ask hard questions about the project.
ALERT! Waste Control Specialists has revived their license application to bring dangerous high-level radioactive waste to Texas from reactors around the country.
We’ll keep you posted when public meeting, comment period and intervention deadlines are announced in the Federal Register.
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.
- The previous documents are online at:
https://www.nrc.gov/waste/spent-fuel-storage/cis/wcs/wcs-app-docs.html
TAKE ACTION!
To download a petition you can use to gather signatures:
News and Videos
- "We Don’t Want It "Says Group Concerned about Potential Radioactive Waste Impacts on Health, Safety and Existing Industries
Press Release 04/30/18
News Stories:
- A Texas waste storage plan is back. So is the opposition
EE News 09/11/17 - Spent nuclear waste burial halted at San Onofre until NRC can probe ‘near miss’ with canister
Orange County Register 8/24/18 - Holtec arrives at City Council
Roswell Daily Record 08/22/18 - Discussions on Holtec facility continue amid concerns
Albuquerque Journal 08/16/18 - Las Cruces council votes down nuclear storage facility
Albuquerque Journal 7/26/18 - Opposition rallies ahead of public hearing on Holtec site
Carlsbad Current Argus 7/17/18 - Banner Drops Spotlight Nuclear Devastation in New Mexico
New Mexico Poor People’s Campaign 06/04/18
Watch Videos here:
All the Nation’s High Level Nuclear Waste Coming to New Mexico?
Together We Can Protect Our Lands and Way of Life
- Residents Seek to Protect New Mexico from Nation’s Most Dangerous Radioactive Waste – Press Release 4/10/18
- Alliance For Environmental Strategies – Press Release 3/01/18
- Letter from NM House Members to the NRC
- Letter from NM Senators to the NRC
- Faith Leaders write to the NRC about high-level radioactive waste
Key Facts:
- Holtec and Eddy Lea Energy Alliance (ELEA) seek to build a high-level radioactive waste storage facility just between Hobbs and Carlsbad, NM, where they want to store 100,000 metric tons of this dangerous waste for up to 120 years – 40 years through initial licensing and 80 years for license extensions. Holtec hopes to begin construction in 2020 and complete Phase 1 in 1.5 years, with operation beginning in 2022.
- Holtec plans for a nationwide dump. 78,000 metric tons irradiated fuel have already been produced by U.S. nuclear reactors, so Holtec’s application would cover every bit of what has already been produced, plus all that is likely to be generated by today’s reactors by the time they close.
- If the NRC approves the license, thousands of shipments of deadly radioactive waste would move across the nation for over 20 years, posing risks from accidents, leaks and terrorist actions.
- Some radiation would leak from transport containers. The NRC says that this the amount is minimal, but there could be impacts for those along transport routes or for someone who gets stuck next to a train.
- If New Mexico or Texas accepts deadly high-level radioactive waste for storage, the sites would likely become de facto permanent disposal sites for the whole country. Utilities would no longer be lobbying for a final repository and thus Congress wouldn’t fund one. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) raised this issue in their 2014 report on high-level radioactive waste.
- We can predict transportation routes, but they wouldn’t actually be designated and approved by USDOT and the NRC until 2022, when licensing could be complete. Citizens and policymakers need to know the routes before a decision to license radioactive consolidated radioactive waste storage is made.
- High-level radioactive waste must remain isolated from living things for thousands of years. It is mainly irradiated (spent) fuel rods from nuclear reactors, which still contain most of their original uranium, as well as with radioactive strontium, cesium and plutonium, which are created during the reactor fission process. Plutonium remains
dangerous for over a quarter of a million years. Inhaling it causes cancer.
- About 100,000 metric tons of irradiated fuel will have been generated by existing U.S. reactors by the time they cease operating, with roughly 1000 metric tons of plutonium. If separated, that’s enough plutonium for 120,000 nuclear bombs.
- A report by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ), acknowledges the vulnerability of radioactive waste to sabotage during transport, and that consequences due to sabotage or accidents are also higher during transport since the waste may be near population centers.
- DOE calculated that train transport would have an accident rate of 1 in 10,000 shipments. At least one train accident was expected to occur if transport was mainly by train. Over 10,000 shipments were anticipated for Yucca Mountain.
- A DOE report found that a severe accident involving one radioactive waste cask that released only a small amount of waste would contaminate a 42-square mile area, with cleanup costs exceeding $620 million in a rural area. Clean up in an urban area would be time consuming. It could cost up to $9.5 billion to raze and rebuild the most heavily contaminated square mile.
- Each railcar of high-level radioactive waste would carry roughly the amount of plutonium that was contained in the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki. (not in bomb grade form)
Map: New Mexico Sate Rail System in 2014
