• on 30 May 2018
• By NoNuclear
• ELEA, Holtec, New Mexico, News, NRC, Waste Dump

Nuclear waste storage project opposed by many during public meeting

May 22nd, 2018

By Maddy Hayden / Journal Staff Writer
Albuquerque Journal

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — After public meetings hosted around the state, leaders at Holtec International, the company that has proposed the building of an interim storage facility for the nation’s spent nuclear fuel in southeast New Mexico, say they haven’t heard any valid arguments against the technical aspects of the project.

But more than 100 people still attended a more than three-hour meeting hosted by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to voice their concerns Tuesday evening in Albuquerque.

The majority spoke out against the project, with many whooping and applauding their agreement and booing at statements made in support of the proposal.

The meeting was the fifth held in recent weeks around the state, including in Gallup, Carlsbad and Hobbs.

Opponents of the project expressed doubts about the safety of transporting the fuel across the country, possible ill effects of radiation to local communities and threats posed by terrorists. They also questioned the reasoning behind placing a spent fuel storage facility in a state that is home to no nuclear power plants.

"New Mexico is not a wasteland because we’re a desert," said Erica Lea-Simka. "New Mexico is not a wasteland because we’re a poor state. New Mexico is not a wasteland because we have a lot of brown and native people."

Former Journal reporter Denise Tessier, who said she covered the process that led to the construction of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in the 1970s and 1980s, contended the Holtec site violates promises made to the state back then by WIPP proponents.

"Throughout the years of discussions, New Mexico was told if we would accept low-level transuranic waste … we would not be asked to take high level nuclear waste in the future," Tessier said. "Bringing spent fuel rods into New Mexico is, in my view, a violation of the spirit of years of discussions and efforts that went into the opening of WIPP and that can and should factor into the rejection of the Holtec proposal."

During a meeting with Journal editors and reporters earlier in the day, Holtec officials and John Heaton, chairman of the Eddy Lea Energy Alliance, which is partnering with Holtec on the project proposed for a site halfway between Carlsbad and Hobbs, expressed utmost confidence in the technology involved in the transport and storage of the spent nuclear fuel.

"This is not Holtec’s first rodeo, so to speak," said Joy Russell, Holtec’s vice president of corporate business development.

Holtec constructed a similar, but much smaller, facility at the San Onofre nuclear power plant in California and was licensed to construct an interim facility in Utah, which never came to fruition. The company’s dry storage casks are used for around half of the current spent nuclear fuel awaiting disposal at more than 70 nuclear power plants around the country.

Holtec and the alliance also confronted concerns over the time frame of the project. Opponents and skeptics have worried that the "interim" site will become a de facto permanent repository.

"Everybody I speak to, they say if you move it here, it’s going to be here forever," Holtec project director Ed Mayer said. "That’s not the intent. We think it’ll be there for decades … but it won’t be there forever."

A permanent storage site, such as the beleaguered Yucca Mountain repository, is not expected to be complete until mid-century at best.

The New Mexico storage proposal is in the licensing phase with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Should the license be accepted, Mayer said the company hopes to begin construction in 2020 with the first shipment of spent nuclear fuel being accepted in 2023.

Contact the writer.

• on 30 May 2018
• By NoNuclear
• ELEA, Holtec, New Mexico, News, NRC, Waste Dump

Planned repository for high-level nuclear waste in Lea County draws opposition

May 22, 2018

By Sarah Halasz Graham | sgraham@sfnewmexican.com
Santa Fe New Mexican

ALBUQUERQUE — In a crowded hotel ballroom, a once-regional battle over New Mexico’s nuclear future evolved into a statewide showdown.

Dozens of concerned citizens and environmentalists took to the microphone at the Crowne Plaza hotel in Albuquerque on Tuesday night to voice their opposition to a project they said could put New Mexicans at risk of deadly radiation while further pigeonholing the state as the nation’s nuclear-waste graveyard.

At stake in the melee: The economy of one of New Mexico’s most profitable corners, the safety and security of the state’s residents — and the future of nuclear waste disposal in the United States.

Proponents of the plan — including Gov. Susana Martinez; U.S. Rep. Steve Pearce, R-N.M.; and a slew of downstate lawmakers, business owners and citizens — say the region’s geology is ideal for the proposed facility, and the economic benefits are well worth what they see as nearly nonexistent risks.

In March 2017, Holtec International, a Jupiter, Fla.-based energy technology company, submitted an application for a 40-year license to build and maintain what could be the nation’s largest interim repository for high-level nuclear waste.

If approved, the proposed 300-acre Lea County facility would house a vast cache of spent nuclear fuel rods from power plants nationwide.

The rods would be moved to the site in thousands of cross-country rail deliveries over the course of about 20 years — a process opponents of the plan said would put people at risk.

"For those concerned about security, that translates into thousands of opportunities for attacks or thefts of spent fuel," said Barney McGrath of the Santa Fe Democratic Party. Others worried about radiation leaks and derailments during transport.

"Each rail car is like the equivalent in plutonium of what got dropped on Nagasaki," said Karen Hadden, executive director of the Austin, Texas-based SEED Coalition, an advocacy group. "It’s not in bomb-grade form, but it’s huge."

State Sen. Cisco McSorley, D-Albuquerque, said that when it comes to the nuclear industry, New Mexico has "borne the brunt" for too long. He said the federal government has broken too many promises. "The idea that we are going to give a company, a for-profit company, the ability to handle uranium that is going to be radioactive and deadly for six million years … to me that seems ridiculous," McSorley said.

Holtec executives said the facility would generate about 100 temporary construction jobs and another 100 permanent positions with salaries ranging from $60,000 to $80,000 a year.

The host communities also would take home an incentive payment to be shared with the state.

About 200 people filled the hotel’s ballroom for the hearing held by the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission. It was the sixth meeting so far in the public comments stage of the application process. The NRC also has held forums in Gallup, Roswell, Hobbs, Carlsbad and Washington, D.C.

Of the more than 60 commenters, the vast majority voiced opposition to the project.

John Heaton, a former state representative from Carlsbad, is the chairman of the Eddy-Lea Energy Alliance, a coalition of the cities of Carlsbad and Hobbs and Eddy and Lea counties. The group has partnered with Holtec to bring the site to fruition.

He said the waste would be packaged with "triple redundancies on any possible materials getting out."

Nuclear material would be housed in zirconium rods, which would be packaged in stainless steel canisters. Those would be contained in 15-inch-thick concrete transportation casks.

Holtec has applied for a license to store 8,680 metric tons of nuclear waste, but ultimately the facility could house 20 times that amount — more waste than has been generated in the history of the nation’s nuclear power plants.

Until now, plants have been storing their own waste in large concrete barrels. The federal government has deemed the waste safe to store for 60 years after a site is decommissioned, but proponents of the proposed short-term dump say the barrels aren’t safe, after all.

There are 60 active nuclear power plants in the U.S., most of them east of the Mississippi River. None are in New Mexico. Another 31 plants, some of which still house spent nuclear rods, already have been decommissioned.