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"We Don’t Want It "Says Group Concerned about Potential Radioactive Waste Impacts on Health, Safety and Existing Industries

For Immediate Release

April 30th 2018

For more information contact:
Karen Hadden – 512-797-8481 Karendhadden@gmail.com
Gene Harbaugh 575-361-2245 gene.harbaugh@gmail.com
Jimi Gadzia 575-317-9110 jgadzia@cableone.net
Noel Marquez 575-626-9306 marquezarts@yahoo.com

(Roswell, NM) A press conference held today at Eastern New Mexico University in Roswell featured speakers concerned about the health, safety and financial impacts of a controversial high-level radioactive waste storage project, proposed for a site between Hobbs and Carlsbad. The NRC will host an open house there today from 4-7 pm and a public meeting from 7-10 pm which will include public comment.

Holtec seeks "interim" storage of the nation’s deadly high-level radioactive waste, which they hope will be for 120 years. An unsafe de facto permanent dump site could be created and the waste might never move again if there is no political will or inadequate funding in the future. The company plans to transport 10,000 canisters of irradiated reactor fuel rods from around the county and store them near the surface in New Mexico, inviting disaster and creating massive risks. This is more waste than has been created by all U.S. nuclear reactors to date.

"The New Mexico dairy industry currently has a total economic impact exceeding $5 billion annually, second only to oil and gas revenues in economic impact to our state," said dairy owner and operator Al Squire. "The dairy industry currently provides employment for nearly 6,000 people directly and over 17,000 related jobs. A contamination event that released radionuclides into our towns or farmland, irrigation and drinking water, or into the air that we and our animals breathe could cause serious disruption of our ability to market highly perishable dairy products. An entire industry could be destroyed in the midst of widespread consumer panic that would most certainly follow such an accident."

"If the waste comes here it might never move again. We could get stuck with an inadequate de facto permanent dump, not designed for the long-term, creating potential for disaster," said Pastor Emeritus Gene Harbaugh, founder of Citizen’s with Questions in Carlsbad, New Mexico. Furthermore, the rail line infrastructure in this region is in poor condition, so transporting the very heavy dangerous waste would come with huge risks. Who would pay for infrastructure improvements and at what cost?"

"My family and I own and operate Graham Farms, a 100-acre pecan arm here in Roswell that we started in 1965, said Roswell native Jimi Gadzia. "Just the proximity of this deadly high-level radioactive waste to our food crops could devastate our industry. Any leakage or accident could threaten our farm, our crop and our very way of life."

"As an oilman, I am very concerned about the effect of a leak, whether accidental or through terrorism, on the oil and gas industry. No one would want radioactive oil, and no one would want to work in an area contaminated by radiation," said Randy Prude, a Midland oilman and County Commissioner. "Midland County Texas passed a resolution opposing the risky transport of high-level radioactive waste through our county. I invite New Mexico counties to join with Dallas, Bexar, Nueces and Midland Counties and Lake Arthur, New Mexico by passing similar resolutions and sending them to the NRC."

"Our lands are not the nation’s dumping ground for dangerous high-level radioactive waste, which brings risks for cancers, birth defects and deaths. Those who created the waste should take responsibility for it." said Noel Marquez an artist from Artesia and co-founder of Alliance for Environmental Strategies, based in Southeast New Mexico. "It would be an extreme environmental and economic injustice for the rest of the nation to dump deadly radioactive waste on New Mexico. We’ve already been burdened with the contamination from uranium mining, processing, weapons and radioactive dumping that has been carried on the backs of New Mexico’s native peoples, affecting their health and lands. Now Holtec want to continue the contamination in the southeast area and Texas border area where the Hispanic population is the majority."

Pecan farming has annual revenues of over $213 million in the state. Chavez County alone produced over 4 million pounds of pecans. Tourism in Chavez county creates $158 million in revenue employing 4,660 of 12.6% of the workforce in 2015. In Lea County tourism accounted for $186 million in revenue, employing 6,000 or 10.85% of the workforce. Eddy and Lea Counties are the two richest oil and gas producing counties in the country. The industry employs over 8,600 people. Why risk more than 20 thousand existing jobs for 55 jobs at a dangerous radioactive waste storage site?" asked Jimi Gadzia.

"There is everything to lose with the plan to bring the nation’s high-level radioactive waste to New Mexico. The risks to health, safety, security and financial well-being are immense and people need to act now to stop this massive mistake that imperils people in New Mexico as well as along transport routes throughout the country," said Karen Hadden, director of the Sustainable Energy and Economic Development (SEED) Coalition.

People should speak up at the public meeting tonight at 7 the Eastern New Mexico University Campus Union building, in Hobbs on May 1st at the Lea County Events Center and on May 3rd at the Eddy County Fire service training center. Comments can be submitted to the NRC until May 29, 2018.

More information can be found at NoNuclearWaste.org

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Interim nuclear waste storage facility moves closer to opening, despite critics

March 2, 2018

Adrian C Hedden
Carlsbad Current-Argus

Thousands of tons of spent nuclear fuel waste could be buried beneath southeast New Mexico.

An interim nuclear waste storage facility proposed between Eddy and Lea counties began the permitting process that could ultimately see the site come into service by 2022.

Holtech International’s underground consolidated interim storage facility (CIS) would store spent nuclear fuel rods underground, taken from decommissioned nuclear power plants around the country via train, and held until they can be transported to a permanent repository.

In total, Holtech’s initial application calls for the storage of 8,680 metric tons of uranium from commercial spent nuclear fuel during a 40-year license term – the first phase of the project.

In a Wednesday letter from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), Holtech’s application, submitted in March 2017, was accepted.

The acceptance began the permitting process and authorized NRC staff to begin a "detailed safety, security and environmental review of the project."

The first round of requests for additional information (RAIs) needed for the review will continue from March to August, the letter read, with an option for additional requests until February 2019.

Per the letter, NRC staff expects to complete its reviews by July 2020.

In total, the review process was expected to cost about $7.5 million, records show.

"It’s really demonstrating the commitment of Holtec and the Eddy-Lea Energy Alliance to move forward with this facility," said Joy Russell, Vice President of Corporate Business Development and Communications at Holtec, of the application.

NRC staff plan to contact Holtech to schedule future public hearings on the project, the letter read, to discuss the review and expectations for Holtech staff during the process.

"The proposed schedule assumes that Holtech will provide timely and high-quality RAI responses within 60 days of the of the receipt of each individual RAI letter," read the letter.

John Heaton, chair of the Eddy-Lea Energy Alliance (ELEA), an organization formed to oversee the early stages of the facility’s development, said he thinks the project could be complete by 2022.

"This is the first really big step," Heaton said. "We’re going through the application process. It will be a very public process."

The Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future, an arm of the U.S. Department of Energy, first suggested an interim storage facility for spent nuclear in 2012, records show, aiming to move the waste away from several decommissioned nuclear power plants around the country, to be held until a permanent repository is available.

A study by Oak Ridge National Laboratories showed an interim storage site could save the U.S. Treasury $15 billion by 2040, $30 billion by 2050, and $54 billion by 2060.

Heaton said the sooner the project is finished, the more money it could save American tax payers.

"It was more economical to have one facility," he said. "All of the issues, the research, were resources for recommending a single site."

‘A bad idea everywhere’

"The plan proposed by Holtec would dump the entire nation’s high-level radioactive waste in New Mexico, creating huge risks and a massive burden for the people of our state. This is clearly an environmental injustice as New Mexico is a predominately Hispanic, Native American, people of color state."
Rose Gardner, Eunice resident

Critics of the project cited the danger of transporting what could be volatile nuclear waste, and worried about the environmental impact of burying spent nuclear fuel in New Mexico.

"The U.S. must minimize movement of radioactive waste from nuclear reactors, not ship it into rural New Mexico through heavily populated areas and many low-income communities," said John Buchser, Water Committee chair for the Sierra Club Rio Grande Chapter. "This proposal endangers New Mexicans."

Don Hancock, nuclear programs director at the Southwest Research and Information Center said the proposal involves shipping more radioactive material in a shorter time than past proposals for the DOE’s Yucca Mountain site, a permanent repository proposed to be established in Nevada and hold up to $63,000 metric tons of spent fuel.

A DOE study, Hancock said, suggested the proposed disposal at Yucca Mountain could cause 160 to 180 latent cancer deaths among transportation workers, and up to 110 traffic fatalities.

The CIS, he said, could end up holding up to 100,000 metric tons.

"Because the Holtec proposal is for significantly more waste being shipped (than Yucca Mountain) in a shorter time period, even more fatalities are likely," he said.

Hancock said the project was not only a problem for New Mexico, but the concept of a privately operated interim storage facility was a "bad idea" everywhere.

He suggested storing the fuel at the reactor sites where it was originally spent.

"These things are uneconomical, they’re dangerous, and they’re unnecessary," Hancock said of interim storage facilities. "If the facility can store the fuel at Holtech, it can be stored anywhere, including where it already is. What does it tell you that the people who have it, don’t want to keep it?"

"The plan proposed by Holtec would dump the entire nation’s high-level radioactive waste in New Mexico, creating huge risks and a massive burden for the people of our state. This is clearly an environmental injustice as New Mexico is a predominately Hispanic, Native American, people of color state."

The CIS would add to truck traffic in southeast New Mexico, he said, further burdening the area’s already crowded industrial traffic.

An accidental release of radiation at the site could also impact the area’s booming oil and gas industry, Hancock said, by sending radiation underground as extraction operations drill down for oil and natural gas.

Putting the radioactive material on rail cars could also create a danger of contamination for the potash industry, which transports the ore via rail car from the mines in southern Eddy County.

"If you’re transporting things around, there will be accidents whether there is a radiological release or not,” Hancock said. “It could be really disastrous for the future and current economy."

The safest in the world?

Heaton called any challenges to the safety of transporting the fuel a "boondoggle."

He said transportation concerns for the CIS are the same as initial opposition voiced when the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP), an underground repository for transuranic nuclear waste about 26 miles from Carlsbad, first began operations.

The American Nuclear Society hosted its annual conference in Carlsbad from Sept. 10 to 15. Hundreds of scientists attended the conference and presented work from their facilities. Wochit

All those fears, Heaton said, were proved wrong.

"We had these same concerns when WIPP opened. It’s just not the case. The idea that you shouldn’t move (nuclear waste) is a complete fallacy. This idea of leaving it where it is makes no sense at all," Heaton said.

Lea County Manager Michael Gallagher said he is confident in the NRC’s review of the project to ensure it’s safe execution and ongoing operations.

He said the facility would augment the region’s nuclear corridor, including WIPP near Carlsbad, and URENCO’s nuclear enrichment facility in Eunice.

"The proposed project, I think, compliments and is consistent with some of our other nuclear businesses in the area," Gallagher said. "This is an opportunity for our economy to diversify, and have more employment opportunities."

Gallagher said he would rely on experts in the nuclear field to determine and ensure the safety of the facility when it goes into service.

"I’m confident the NRC will review the project," he said. "I have no reasons to think the project wouldn’t be safe. We will look forward to the response, and the review the NRC will have of the project."

"We have a lot of professionals in the area with experience in nuclear."

How does it work?

In total, Holtech’s CIS could hold up to 10,000 canisters of spent fuel, each containing about 12 metric tons each.

Housing the 120,000 metric tons of waste would take up about 500 of the property’s 1,000 acres – about 35 miles east of Carlsbad, intending to provide a buffer zone between the waste and property line.

Emplacing the spent fuel begins by digging a pit about 30 feet underground.

Next, a 3-foot-thick slab of reinforced concrete is poured into the pit, and 18-foot tall containers are bolted to the slab.

High-flow concrete is then poured into the pit and through the containers until the concrete is 3 feet from the top of the containers.

Then, another 3-foot concrete slab is poured onto the surface.

The fuel rods are emplaced in the vaults via canisters made of steel and weighing about 4 tons.

Inside, radioactive rods will cool naturally via convection.

More: WIPP air system to cost about $400M, complete by 2022

In total, Heaton estimated the entire facility would take 10 years to construct, employing up to 300 workers from the local area for a decade.

"It’s just a very good system," he said of the CIS. "It’s one of the safest that is available in the world. We didn’t chose who did this lightly. (Holtech is) absolutely the best."

And the NRC will continue to monitor the facility’s operations once it comes into service, Heaton said, through a "robust" process.

"The NRC is a very tough regulator," he said. "They’re also involved in construction and the operation’s oversight."

Adrian Hedden can be reached at 575-628-5516, achedden(at)currentargus.com or @AdrianHedden on Twitter.

Fair Use Notice
This document contains copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. SEED Coalition is making this article available in our efforts to advance understanding of ecological sustainability, human rights, economic democracy and social justice issues. We believe that this constitutes a "fair use" of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond "fair use", you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Proposed nuclear storage site debate heats up; Activists plan news conference today in Roswell

April 11, 2018

By Lisa Dunlap
Roswell Daily Record

A Consolidated Interim Storage Facility is planned for Lea County, halfway between Carlsbad and Hobbs.
A Consolidated Interim Storage Facility is planned for Lea County, halfway between Carlsbad and Hobbs. A group opposing the site due to concerns about risks involved are holding a news conference in Roswell today. Government officials are holding a public meeting here April 30. (Submitted Graphic)

The effort by the Eddy Lea Energy Alliance (ELEA) LLC and Holtec International to build a $2.4 billion interim underground storage site about halfway between Carlsbad and Hobbs has become a lightning rod for debate during the past few years.

ELEA Chairman John Heaton has said the project, which is planned to open in 2022, will bring in millions of dollars a year in revenues, about 150 permanent jobs and federal monies for roads and other public project improvements. He said it also meets an urgent national need and that the fuel rods do not represent a significant danger, as they will be more than 30 years old when shipped, meaning their radioactive elements will have largely been depleted. He also said that Holtec has 30 years of experience developing such sites.

"We think it is needed nationally and, because of WIPP (the Waste Isolation Pilot Project in Carlsbad) and UNRECO (the uranium enrichment facility in Eunice) in our area, we have developed somewhat of a nationalistic spirit in our communities, recognizing the need to solve some of the problems that are costing taxpayers billions," said Heaton in a December interview. "We think it is a good, clean, safe industry for our area. It is temporary. The spent fuel will eventually be removed to a depository."

Critics contend that the site poses an unnecessary risk of environmental damage and public health risks, not only at the site itself but in other cities, as the canisters carrying the rods move over railways and roads.

In 2016, economic development leaders and business leaders in Eddy and Lea counties began working on their idea for the site, which the official site applications say will hold up to 8,680 tons of used nuclear fuel rods in large canisters stored in an underground facility, with the rods shipped by train and trucks from nuclear plants in the United States. The plans call for the used rods to be stored at the site for about 40 years until a permanent disposal site is developed.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission deemed the group’s application complete and acceptable for detailed review Feb. 28. Now the agency is holding a series of meetings in the region to seek public comments about what issues should be considered so that the required federal Environmental Impact Statement can be developed.

The Roswell meeting by the commission is scheduled for 4 p.m., April 30 in the Campus Union Building on the Eastern New Mexico University-Roswell campus. Meetings are also planned in Hobbs and Carlsbad for early May.

Opponents with the Halt Holtec Coalition, meanwhile, are staging news conferences Wednesday and today in southeastern New Mexico, with participants carrying a large inflatable cask symbolizing the canisters. They have held and are planning other events in the state this spring.

"There will be 10,000 shipments of this dangerous, deadly waste headed out to the Holtec site," said coalition member Tom "Smitty" Smith. "Our hope is to have people think about whether they want this waste moving through their communities."

He said railway accidents have occurred, and cleanup of nuclear materials would cost millions. In a worst-case scenario, he said, people could be exposed to what he called deadly radioactive waste if a canister were to rupture.

The coalition’s Roswell event is scheduled for 10 a.m. at the Anderson Contemporary Museum of Art, 409 E. College Blvd.

Senior Writer Lisa Dunlap can be reached at 575-622–7710, ext. 310, or at reporter02(at)@rdrnews.com.

Fair Use Notice
This document contains copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. SEED Coalition is making this article available in our efforts to advance understanding of ecological sustainability, human rights, economic democracy and social justice issues. We believe that this constitutes a "fair use" of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond "fair use", you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Nuclear waste storage concerns expressed

April 12, 2018

KOB.com Web Staff
KOB4 Eyewitness News

ROSWELL, N.M. – People are seeing what looks like a giant radioactive waste canister making its way through southeastern New Mexico.

The 16-by-8-foot device is fake. Some community members are using it to bring awareness to what they say are dangers of shipping and storing nuclear waste in the state.

The area already has the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad. Now, a company called Holtec International is proposing another underground storage site between Carlsbad and Hobbs.

"The big problem is transportation", said Tom Smith, director of special projects. "There will be approximately 10,000 casks like this that contain this radioactive waste that will be rolling down the rail mines throughout New Mexico and across the country and if one of these were in an accident it would puncture the cask and allow radiation to release."

Public comments are being accepted through May 29. For information on the proposal and upcoming public meetings, click here.

Fair Use Notice
This document contains copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. SEED Coalition is making this article available in our efforts to advance understanding of ecological sustainability, human rights, economic democracy and social justice issues. We believe that this constitutes a "fair use" of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond "fair use", you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Plan to store spent nuclear fuel rods in NM

March 16th, 2018

By Maddy Hayden /Staff Writer
Albuquerque Journal

Around the country, tens of millions of highly radioactive, spent nuclear fuel rods used in power plants await permanent disposal.

A site in southeastern New Mexico has been proposed to house the nation’s spent nuclear fuel until a permanent repository can be built.

The proposal is in the midst of the licensing process with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. But a number of financial, regulatory, public support and political challenges remain before the project could come to fruition.

Currently, many of the fuel rods are temporarily entombed in above-ground steel-and concrete-lined casks, while rods that are still too hot sit in pools of constantly circulating water to keep a catastrophic nuclear chain reaction from occurring.

The plan was, originally, to store the rods in the pools until they cooled enough to be reprocessed into additional fuel, a process the Carter administration ended up banning due to fears of nuclear proliferation.

With no permanent disposal site expected to be completed until mid-century at best, the fuel rods remain in the crowded pools and in dry storage awaiting a place of repose.

The NRC accepted the application for review of the New Mexico site at the end of February.

"This is the missing piece of the system to manage the back end of the fuel cycle," said John Heaton, chairman of the Eddy-Lea Energy Alliance, a limited liability company made up of Eddy and Lea counties and the cities of Carlsbad and Hobbs. The Alliance is working on the project with Holtec International, a supplier of equipment and systems for the energy industry headquartered in Jupiter, Fla.

The Alliance purchased about 1,000 acres of land located between Carlsbad and Hobbs for a consolidated interim storage site.

Heaton said the project will likely cost $2.4 billion when it’s all said and done; not much, he said, when compared to the taxpayer money the project could save.

He cited a 2016 study by Oak Ridge National Laboratory that predicted $15 billion would be saved by 2040 if a consolidated interim storage facility is used, and the savings would increase from there.

The 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act stipulated that the federal government would take ownership of spent nuclear fuel for placement in a permanent repository by 1998.

When that didn’t happen, utility companies sued the U.S. Department of Energy.

As a result, the DOE has reimbursed companies – and continues to do so – for the temporary storage at power plants around the country.

A Blue Ribbon Commission of the Barack Obama administration determined that by 2020, the DOE will have spent $22 billion on those costs.

Consolidated interim storage is "really the quickest path for DOE to take title to the spent fuel and stop the lawsuit," Heaton said.

Richard Zuercher is a spokesman for Virginia-based Dominion Energy, which operated four U.S. nuclear power stations until 2013, when low natural gas prices caused the company to close its plant in Wisconsin.

All of the spent fuel from that facility is sitting on site in dry storage casks that cost around $1 million apiece, with a full-time security team in place.

"The government had promised to ultimately dispose of the fuel. That was a promise made to the communities that hosted these nuclear facilities," Zuercher said. "These facilities were not made to be permanent facilities."

Zuercher said Dominion’s view on interim storage falls in line with the Nuclear Energy Institute, which supports consolidated interim storage of spent fuel.

Rod McCullum, senior director of fuel and decommissioning at NEI, pointed out that, in many cases, nuclear power plants are decommissioned and the spent fuel on site is all that is keeping the sites from being repurposed.

Heaton has touted the proposed site as safe and secure, as well as being in close proximity to utilities and to rail lines, which is most likely how the spent fuel will be transported, because of its extreme weight.

Even if the project is licensed, though, there will still be a long road ahead.

The Nuclear Waste Policy Act would need to be amended to allow waste to be transported to an interim site, but most of New Mexico’s congressional delegation has already expressed opposition to the project – at least until plans for permanent disposal are in place.

"I won’t support an interim disposal site without a plan for permanent disposal – whether the site is in southeastern New Mexico or anywhere else in the country – because that nuclear waste could be orphaned there indefinitely," Sen. Tom Udall said in a statement.

Fellow Democrats Sen. Martin Heinrich and Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham, who is running for governor this year, provided similar statements.

Republican Rep. Steve Pearce said any nuclear storage facility must come with "strong support by the communities that will host it."

The Yucca Mountain project in Nevada, intended to be a permanent repository for the nation’s spent nuclear fuel, has largely languished since Obama pulled funding for the project in 2011.

A federal resolution that would amend the Nuclear Waste Policy Act to allow for interim storage was introduced in the House in June 2017 and is pending.

Democratic Rep. Ben Ray Luján, who sits on the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, voted against favorably reporting the legislation last year.

Another amendment to the NWPA introduced in January last year may provide a path toward funding the consolidated interim storage project.

The Nuclear Waste Fund, which once collected fees from utility companies to be used to fund a permanent repository, now contains nearly $40 billion.

House Resolution 474 would allow the funds to be used for a consolidated interim storage facility. It would also authorize the U.S. Department of Energy to take title of the spent fuel and to enter into contracts to create a consolidated interim storage facility.

That aside, many have expressed concerns about the safety risks involved in carting highly radioactive waste thousands of miles.

"It’s not safe, which is why the people who have it want to get rid of it," said Don Hancock, director of the Nuclear Waste Safety program at Albuquerque’s Southwest Research and Information Center. "A lot of us believe in improving storage where it is."

Hancock also said the cost of building railroad tracks to connect the current storage sites and the Holtec site to existing railroads and other transportation costs would negate any savings proponents allege.

"The idea that it’s saving the taxpayers money isn’t true," Hancock said.

According to Holtec documents, the company estimates rail lines will cost $12.78 million.

But Hancock said not all existing railroads will be able to handle the weight of a loaded transport cask, which he said will weigh at least 371,000 pounds.

"Someone is going to have to invest a LOT more money than that to upgrade the railroads," he wrote in an email.

Bob Alvarez, a former senior policy adviser to the Secretary of Energy and board member of the Los Alamos Study group, said it’s also unclear what would need to be done before transporting the spent fuel.

Some of the casks, which have been sitting around for decades in some cases, may not be appropriate for transport and may require repackaging, which adds an additional price tag.

Alvarez said for some reactors, the cost of repackaging could be as much as $1 billion.

"There’s sort of an element of magical thinking on this stuff," he said.

Gov. Susana Martinez, the cities of Carlsbad and Hobbs and Lea and Eddy counties have expressed support for the project and touted its potential economic benefits.

"I support the ELEA and its member cities and counties in their effort to establish a consolidated interim storage facility in southeastern New Mexico that will be regulated by the high safety and technical standards of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission," Martinez wrote in a 2015 letter to then-Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz.

But opposition does exist.

Rose Gardner of the Alliance for Environmental Strategies, who lives in Eunice, argued that New Mexico is home to no nuclear power plants; why should the state take responsibility for waste generated largely on the East Coast?

She’s also unconvinced of the safety of Holtec’s containment system.

Noel Marquez, a community artist who lives on a farm in Eddy County, said he believes the area’s poverty and low English proficiency rate has made it a target for facilities such as the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, which permanently houses low-level nuclear waste, and the one the Alliance and Holtec are proposing.

"If they don’t want the poison where it’s at, why would we want it?" Marquez said. "We feel threatened."

Fair Use Notice
This document contains copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. SEED Coalition is making this article available in our efforts to advance understanding of ecological sustainability, human rights, economic democracy and social justice issues. We believe that this constitutes a "fair use" of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond "fair use", you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.