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April 23, 2013

by Kate Galbraith
Texas Tribune

Four months after a fire in January, one of Texas’ four nuclear reactor units is being restarted, bringing to an end the unit’s second prolonged shutdown in two years.

"We’re bringing the unit back up," said Buddy Eller, a spokesman for the South Texas Project, the enormous Bay City nuclear plant where the problems have occurred. The 1,350-megawatt reactor unit, known as STP Unit 2, should be producing 100 percent power by sometime Tuesday, according to Eller, who spoke with the Tribune on Monday afternoon.

The fire in January occurred at a transformer in the electrical switchyard outside the reactor. The fire was fueled by oil, lasted about 10 minutes and was immediately put out by the plant’s fire brigade, Eller said.

The fire department in Bay City headed to the scene, but plant officials turned them back, saying they had the fire under control and did not need additional help, according to a representative of the Bay City Police Department.

No one was injured in the fire, according to Eller, who said that reports of 50-foot flames were "incorrect."

The cause of the fire is still under investigation, according to both the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and STP. However, Eller said it was safe to turn the unit back on.

"Our focus is to ensure that we put safety over [power] production," he said, adding that the outage had given the company time to perform additional maintenance tasks. The turbine blades and bearings were damaged when the reactor shut down quickly during the fire, he said.

It was the second major incident for STP 2 in two years. In November 2011, the reactor went down for five months after it tripped, or shut down, while it was at 100 percent power, according to an NRC web report. The cause was a malfunction of the main generator, due to a ground fault.

In neither incident was there any danger of radioactive material leaking, Eller said.

The South Texas Project plant, which began operating in the 1980s, is jointly owned by NRG Energy, which has a 44 percent stake, and two municipal utilities. CPS Energy, the San Antonio electric utility, owns 40 percent, and Austin Energy owns 16 percent. Texas’ other nuclear plant, the two-reactor Comanche Peak facility, is located in Glen Rose, near Fort Worth. The two are among the youngest nuclear plants in the country.

Environmentalists concerned about nuclear power say that the fire, in addition to the generator problem in 2011-12, has created concerns about the plant’s ability to operate safely. The federal licenses for the STP reactors expire in 2027 and 2028. Public hearings on the license extension took place in Bay City in January, just days after the fire.

"Relicensing should be halted while a serious, in-depth examination occurs," said Karen Hadden, executive director of the Austin-based SEED coalition, which advocates for sustainable energy. "I think it’s becoming increasingly unreliable, and it’s costing us money to fix it." She said it was difficult to get information about the plant’s problems.

Eller would not provide an estimate of the cost of fixing the plant. He said the plant was working through the process with its insurance company. NRG Energy said it would not discuss the cost of buying replacement power during the months that the unit was shut down, as such information is proprietary. Efforts Monday afternoon to glean cost figures from the plant’s municipal-utility owners, CPS Energy and Austin Energy, were unsuccessful.

Over the past four months, STP has taken apart the turbine generator and inspected it thoroughly, Eller said. The generator — which had been refurbished in 2012 — was fine, he said, but "we had to replace a number of the turbine blades." The two incidents were not causally connected, he said.

The NRC provided little information on the cause of the January fire; Lara Uselding, a spokeswoman, would say only that it was an "internal electrical fault on the main transformer on Unit 2." The NRC will issue a quarterly inspection report, which is publicly available, "in the May timeframe," she said. Meanwhile, "inspectors will continue their review of the root cause and would take any regulatory action if warranted," she said.

If the reactor restart is successful, it will be online in time to provide electricity during Texas’ most crucial season — the summer, when heavy air-conditioning use sends up power consumption.

"We are expecting to have STP 2 capacity available for summer needs," said Robbie Searcy, a spokeswoman for ERCOT, the Texas grid operator.

Editor’s note: An earlier version of this story said that NRG Energy operates the STP plant, in addition to owning 44 percent of it. In fact, the South Texas Project Nuclear Operating Company operates the plant. The story has been corrected.

May 22, 2013

by Kate Galbraith
Texas Tribune

Legislation that would allow hotter radioactive waste in a West Texas dump passed the House on Wednesday.

The bill, Senate Bill 347, makes it possible for most states to send more concentrated, or hotter, waste into the Andrews County facility starting in 2015.

Because the bill was amended in the House, the Senate needs to sign off on it again, though the upper chamber already approved the most contentious element in a different bill — Senate Bill 791.

Environmentalists oppose the bill, as does State Rep. Lon Burnam, D-Fort Worth. Burnam has repeatedly tried to prevent the import of hotter waste and on Wednesday he tried again, with a procedural move to try to kill the bill. But Burnam was overruled, and the House voted 130-15 to pass the bill.

"It’s very important for Texas that we have this [facility] open and viable," said state Rep. Tryon Lewis, R-Odessa, who sponsored SB 347 in the House. The bill, he said, would not expand the total amount of hot waste that the state accepts, but rather it would increase the amount that can be imported in any single year.

"It is turning us into the nation’s dumping ground," Burnam argued. "Andrews County will be the sacrifice county."

The radioactive waste dump, which began accepting waste a year ago, is operated by Waste Control Specialists, a company owned by Dallas billionaire (and prolific political donor) Harold Simmons. When it was first approved by Texas lawmakers a decade ago, the facility was supposed to accept only waste from Texas and Vermont. But lawmakers have since expanded its remit.

Burnam has opposed the dump throughout and cited concerns of standing water at the facility, as well as the long-term future of the waste hundreds or thousands of years from now. On Tuesday he tried and failed to amend the bill to provide for an independent auditor to assess the site in addition to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.

Lewis rejected the criticisms. "There have been computer models that it’s perfectly safe," he said.

Emily Ramshaw contributed reporting.

Dec. 29, 2013

by Ross Ramsey
Texas Tribune

Dallas billionaire Harold Simmons, who passed away on Saturday, Dec. 28, 2013.

Harold Simmons, a Dallas businessman and billionaire, philanthropist and Republican mega-donor, died Saturday at Baylor University Medical Center at Dallas. He was 82.

His death was first reported by The Dallas Morning News. Simmons’ wife, Annette, told the paper he had been “very sick for the last two weeks” and said the family had celebrated Christmas at the hospital.

Simmons was a major donor to Republican candidates and causes. He is the second important GOP financier to die this year; in April, Houston homebuilder Bob Perry passed away at age 80.

His support of conservative causes and candidates is decades deep, though he sprinkled in donations to Democrats from time to time. The Center for Public Integrity ranked him as the second-biggest overall political donor during the 2011-12 election cycle, giving $31 million by that organization’s count. That total included $23.5 million to American Crossroads, a PAC started by Republican consultant Karl Rove and others.

Since 2000, he contributed at least $5.9 million to state candidates, according to reports filed at the Texas Ethics Commission. That doesn’t include contributions for most of the second half of this year; candidates will report those next month. He bet big on Attorney General Greg Abbott, who is running for governor, giving $150,000 in July. And he contributed $50,000 to Agriculture Commissioner Todd Staples, who is running for lieutenant governor.

The Harold Simmons Foundation was a major donor to The Texas Tribune, contributing $50,000 over the last four years.

Simmons was born in May 1931 in the tiny northeast Texas town of Golden, a small town in northeast Texas. He worked as a bank examiner, then bought a pharmacy across the street from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, expanded that into 100 stores and sold it all to Eckerd Corp. That launched his career as a highly successful and often controversial investor. One of his companies, Waste Control Specialists, has been a frequent subject of legislative and state agency debates; it operates a low-level radioactive waste facility in Andrews, a West Texas town near the New Mexico border.

* * * * *

UPDATED, as remarks and remembrances come in:

Attorney General Greg Abbott: "Harold Simmons lived the American Dream. His path began with the purchase of a small drug store, and through hard work and the free enterprise system, he was able to turn that investment into one of the greatest American success stories of all time. The Simmons family shared his success with the state he dearly loved, giving generously to make advancements in healthcare and to improve higher education. The legacy of Harold Simmons will live on to benefit millions of Texans who never had the opportunity to meet the legendary Texan. Cecilia and I send our thoughts and prayers to Harold’s family, and to all those mourning his loss."

Gov. Rick Perry: "Harold Simmons was a true Texas giant, rising from humble beginnings and seizing the limitless opportunity for success we so deeply cherish in our great state. His legacy of hard work and giving, particularly to his beloved University of Texas, will live on for generations. Anita and I send our thoughts and prayers to the Simmons family."

Former President George W. Bush: "Laura and I send our sincere condolences to Annette and the Simmons family. Dallas has lost a generous benefactor to many worthy causes. And we, like many others, have lost a friend in Harold."

Agriculture Commissioner Todd Staples: "Harold Simmons had an enormous impact on Texas and our country. From growing up in rural East Texas to becoming one of our nation’s most successful businessmen, Harold demonstrated that our free enterprise system creates unlimited opportunities for anyone willing to work hard and obtain a good education. My sympathy to the Simmons’ family."

Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst: "On Saturday Texas lost one of its sons who became a true giant. From humble roots and borrowing money to buy his first drugstore, Harold Simmons went on to become one of the leading businessmen in Texas and the country, as well as one of the most philanthropic people in America. Harold Simmons loved his wife Annette, his family, and his beloved America, and he fought to protect the values and principles that have made America great. Like many, I considered Harold Simmons a friend who wanted a level playing field where everyone had the chance to live their own American Dream."

U.S. Rep. Joe Barton: "Harold Simmons was a self-made Texas giant, but you would never know it. He was one of the smartest, most influential businessmen in the world, yet one of the nicest, most down to Earth people I ever met. He was generous in his charitable giving and dedicated to making the world a better place. Harold was also a champion for free markets and personal freedom. He was passionate in his beliefs and was a major factor in the Republican resurgence in the State of Texas. I have always been grateful for his personal and professional support of my efforts. He will be missed, but his legacy will live on. I send my thoughts and prayers to the Simmons family."

Feb. 12, 2014

by Jim Malewitz
Texas Tribune

Photo by: Jennifer Whitney
A spent fuel pool at the South Texas Project Electric Generating station near Palacios. STP Nuclear Operating Company, the station’s operator, is building dry cask storage to house spent fuel once its pools fill up. Because the federal government has breached its contract that guaranteed permanent waste storage, U.S. taxpayers will foot the bill, through the government’s judgement fund.

Could Texas’ wide-open spaces help solve the country’s nuclear waste storage problem?

House Speaker Joe Straus wants to find out. He has instructed lawmakers to study the economic potential of storing highly radioactive nuclear waste in Texas, a notion that has drawn pushback from environmentalists.

But if past and present politics are any guide, the state, already home to some low-level radioactive waste, won’t house the higher-level waste any time soon — even if Texans agree they want it.

"I did not expect this to be brought up," said Dale Klein, associate director of the University of Texas Energy Institute and the former chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. "I just don’t see any movement. It’s a real stalemate."

Amid Washington’s long-thwarted search for a final resting place for the roughly 70,000 metric tons and counting of spent nuclear fuel and other highly radioactive waste, many observers echo Klein’s assessment. Meanwhile, waste continues to pile up at temporary storage facilities at operating and shuttered reactor sites throughout the country.

Now, Texas lawmakers are set to consider whether the state could be part of the solution and, if so, how Texas might benefit.

In interim charges released in late January, Straus instructed the House Environmental Regulation Committee to "study the rules, laws, and regulations pertaining to the disposal of high-level radioactive waste in Texas and determine the potential economic impact of permitting a facility in Texas."

Straus also told the committee to "make specific recommendations on the state and federal actions necessary to permit a high-level radioactive waste disposal or interim storage facility in Texas."

Erin Daly, a spokeswoman for Straus, said the speaker’s idea came after he reviewed a 2012 report from the Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future, assembled by President Obama, which recommended that U.S. lawmakers focus on gathering state and local consent before proposing a new facility.

Straus has offered few specifics on the idea, such as where a Texas facility might be. That would be for the House committee to decide.

“The speaker looks forward to the committee’s review of the issue and their detailed report,” Daly said.

Texas, with its ample space and arid climate, could be an ideal home for the nation’s nuclear waste, some observers say.

"You’ve got a large state with so much potential," said Brian O’Connell, director of the Nuclear Waste Program for the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners from 1999 to 2013. "You’ve got lots of wide-open spaces."

In 1984, Deaf Smith County, which nudges the New Mexico border in the Texas Panhandle, was among three finalists for a repository before lawmakers chose Yucca Mountain. The issue divided the community, which sits atop the Ogallala Aquifer; it pitted farmers and ranchers concerned about risks to groundwater against merchants hoping the site would add jobs and tax revenue, spurring the local economy.

A 2003 University of Nevada, Las Vegas study estimated that a repository at Yucca Mountain would add $228 million to Nevada’s economy each year during construction and $127 million annually during operation. The study also said the government would need to construct a robust outreach program to prevent potential economic losses, such as businesses uprooting due to the stigma surrounding nuclear waste.

Partly because of the past objections, Deaf Smith is unlikely to resurface as a possible host, said Klein. State lawmakers are more likely to eye communities in West Texas. Officials in Howard and Loving counties have expressed interest.

But the idea of housing the waste anywhere in Texas has stirred angst among environmental groups, who, just hours after Straus released his plans, had already rebuked it.

"It’s idiotic to even consider disposing of high-level radioactive waste in Texas. Other states have rejected having high-level radioactive waste dumped on them," Tom "Smitty" Smith, director of Public Citizen’s Texas office, said in a statement. "It’s all risk and very little reward for Texans."

Though the nuclear energy industry insists that temporary waste disposal — either in pools or sealed in dry casks of metal or concrete — is safe and environmentally sound, it has long agreed that sealing the waste in geologic formations deep underground boosts protection against terrorist attacks and natural disasters, such as the earthquake and tsunami that rocked Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station in 2011.

For more than 20 years, Washington saw Nevada’s Yucca Mountain as the solution, and the federal government spent tens of millions of dollars preparing it to accept the waste. But Nevada’s congressional delegation — led by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat — has thwarted the project. And, facing significant political pressure, the Obama administration has abandoned the Yucca plans.

That has left untapped a $30 billion waste disposal fund collected from U.S. electricity ratepayers. Meanwhile, as nuclear power generators foot the bill for interim storage at their reactors, they are winning large breach-of-contract disputes against the federal government, which had promised to take the waste off their hands by 1998. The U.S. Department of Energy expects those payments to total $21 billion by 2020. That means taxpayers are essentially paying twice for disposal.

Texas is already home to one of the nation’s few facilities that accept low-level nuclear waste. Since 2012, Waste Control Specialists in Andrews County, a company that was formally owned by the late Dallas billionaire Harold Simmons, has disposed of contaminated tools, building materials and protective clothing, among other items, from shuttered reactors and hospitals.

Environmentalists have closely scrutinized the company as it has broadened the scale of the waste it accepts, and the Sierra Club has challenged the site’s permits in court, saying the group was never given a hearing to voice its objections to the project — namely that groundwater would enter its disposal wells.

"It just seems like the goalposts constantly move," said Cyrus Reed, conservation director for the group’s Texas chapter.

Even if Texas asks for consideration, Congress would need to change the 1987 law naming Yucca Mountain as the nation’s repository for high-level radioactive waste. The U.S. House and Senate remain sharply divided on the issue.

While the Senate, led by Reid, seeks to look beyond Yucca Mountain, the House wants to see the project through, citing the large investments already made.

"Billions of dollars, both public and private, have been invested in developing the storage facility at Yucca Mountain. We can’t just abandon this project," U.S. Rep. Joe Barton, R-Ennis, said in a statement to The Texas Tribune. "The debate in Washington is more about politics, than practical science and it doesn’t look like a solution is coming soon."

In the time it takes Congress to ultimately reach a consensus, turnover in state legislatures could mean that Texas or any other state that might ask host a site will change its mind.

Still, advocates of permanent storage say they will monitor discussions in Texas, hoping the talk will educate more people about a political standoff that’s costing U.S. taxpayers billions of dollars.

"Any interest outside the Beltway is positive," said Everett Redmond, director of nonproliferation and fuel cycle policy at the Nuclear Energy Institute in Washington.

With the difficulties in mind, some — Barton included — have suggested permitting one or two centralized facilities to temporarily store the waste while Washington continues to wrangle over the long-term site. Such a plan would not solve the long-term disposal issue, but it would remove responsibility from electric generators and halt the lawsuits against the federal government.

Developing even a temporary site, however, could take as long as 10 years, Redmond said.

Texas lawmakers will also study the feasibility of bringing to the state an interim facility, which would store waste from around the country, according to Straus’ instructions.

"I would welcome one of those facilities in Texas, as long as the community welcomes it," Barton said.

REFERENCE MATERIAL
83rd Interim Charges
PDF (289.2 KB) download

Neena Satija contributed to this report.

April 1, 2014

by Jim Malewitz
Texas Tribune

Photo by: David Bowser
An overhead view in 2012 of Waste Control Specialists’ low-level radioactive waste storage facilities near Andrews, Texas. The site is poised to get 420 truckloads of waste from New Mexico.

A storage facility in Andrews County, Texas has recieved its first truckload of transuranic waste from Los Alamos National Laboratory, the U.S. Department of Energy and the New Mexico-based Nuclear Waste Partnership said Wednesday in a news release.

The truck arrived safely, and as many as 10 shipments per week are scheduled over the coming months, the release said.

The private facility, operated by Waste Control Specialists, will be paid up to $8.8 million to store the waste for as long as a year.

Original story:

In a matter of days, a West Texas radioactive waste site is expected to start receiving up to 420 truckloads of radioactive junk — some dating back to the 1940s — from the federal government’s nuclear weapons program.

The waste was not originally meant to leave New Mexico, but a sequence of events headlined by a Feb. 14 radiation leak at a disposal facility near Carlsbad has left its handlers eyeing a private collection site in Andrews County, Texas.

The company, along with Texas and U.S. officials, say the waste will be stored safely — and temporarily. But the plan has stirred concerns among environmentalists who object to the state’s expanding radioactive footprint.

The transuranic waste — clothing, tools, debris and other items contaminated by radioactive elements, mostly plutonium — is currently stored at Los Alamos National Laboratory, which has been under pressure to remove the waste from its grounds since a series of wildfires raged dangerously close to its grounds in the summer of 2011.

Under a deal with the state of New Mexico, the laboratories promised to send the waste away by June 30.

The materials were destined for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant outside of Carlsbad, N.M. But that underground facility — the country’s only underground disposal site for transuranic waste — has been shuttered for more than six weeks after an above-ground release exposed 17 workers to radiation.

Now, the federal government is poised to send the waste to the site in Andrews County, just across the border, for storage until the repository reopens.

Chuck McDonald, spokesman for Waste Control Specialists, which operates the Texas site, said Monday that the truckloads would arrive "within the next week or two."

The company, formerly owned by the late Dallas billionaire Harold Simmons and one of few sites in the nation that is licensed to store low-level radioactive waste, has been storing contaminated items from shuttered reactors and hospitals since 2012.

"We are pleased that WCS is in a position to provide temporary storage for this waste while the WIPP is shutdown," Rod Baltzer, president of the company, said in a statement. "This will allow the Los Alamos National Laboratory to meet its goal of having this material removed by this summer so it can no longer be threatened by wildfires."

Baltzer said that all incoming canisters would be inspected to ensure that they are sealed. “WCS has a sophisticated inspection and monitoring system in the buildings where the canisters will be stored to ensure the safety of our employees and the environment," he added.

WCS said its grounds are ringed by asphalt and caliche roadways, protecting it from fires, and that the site has a sprinkler system and its own fire truck, adding that its workers are "well trained and experienced in handling this type of waste."

Citing uncertainty about when the repository will be ready to reopen, the U.S. Department of Energy has not proposed an end date for the waste’s time in Texas, but said it would last no longer than one year, according to the agency’s correspondence last week with Texas regulators.

In a March 21 analysis, the agency concluded that it could safely store the Los Alamos waste in West Texas and that the plan did not merit a new environmental review. There have been minor spills and leaks at the facility, the analysis said, but those had been localized and properly cleaned up.

"WCS has accumulated more than a decade of environmental monitoring data that show no member of the public or the environment has been affected by operations at the facility, including routine and accident risks," the analysis said.

Dale Klein, associate director of the University of Texas Energy Institute and the former chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said the waste would probably be safely transferred and stored, but he questioned the logic behind moving the waste before it goes to the repository.

"Any time you have to handle the material twice, you’re exposing people unnecessarily," he said.

Environmentalists object to the idea of bringing more nuclear waste to Texas and say they would like to see further analysis of the proposal.

"They’re building a nuclear empire. It’s just one thing after another, and there’s no telling where this leads," Karen Hadden, executive director of the Sustainable Energy and Economic Development Coalition, said of the waste company, adding that state and federal regulators have rushed the decision to allow the waste transfer without using “the full and adequate science.”

Environmental groups have closely scrutinized WCS as it has expanded the scale of the waste it accepts. That includes the Sierra Club, which has challenged the site’s permits in court, saying the group was never given a hearing to voice its objections to the project — namely that groundwater would enter its disposal wells.

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality granted the company initial licenses in 2007 after conducting geological studies of the area. Three staff members at the commission resigned in protest after the licenses were granted, saying they did not believe the area had been proved safe for waste disposal.

TCEQ said it would work with the Department of Energy to ensure that any material the WCS site accepts would meet state requirements.

When the Legislature paved the way for waste storage more than a decade ago, the facility was supposed to accept only waste from Texas and Vermont, but the Legislature has since expanded the site’s scope to accept waste from other states.

"It is so appalling,” said state Rep. Lon Burnam, D-Fort Worth. "The way it’s evolved, Texas is going to be the sole repository, which means that decades from now, the state of Texas will be the fiscally responsible agent for dealing with the impacts of any mishaps."

Burnam, a fierce critic of WCS over the years, said he might seek a court injunction to halt the waste transfer. "That would have to come quickly," he said.

Disclosure: At the time of publication, the University of Texas at Austin was a corporate sponsor of The Texas Tribune. The Harold Simmons Foundation was a major donor to the Tribune in 2010, 2011 and 2012. (You can also review the full list of Tribune donors and sponsors below $1,000.)

REFERENCE MATERIAL
DOE to TCEQ Letter re: Waste Disposal
PDF (229.2 KB) download
TCEQ Letter to DOE re: Waste Proposal
PDF (504.8 KB) download
Analysis For Proposal to Temporarily Store Waste
PDF (295.4 KB) download