Archive for the ‘Toxic Waste Dump’ Category

May 9, 2014

By SUSAN MONTOYA BRYAN
Associated Press

The head of the recovery effort at the federal government’s nuclear waste repository in southern New Mexico said Thursday it could be up to three years before full operations resume at the underground facility.

Recovery manager Jim Blankenhorn made the announcement when answering questions from the public during a weekly meeting in Carlsbad. He said the timeline continues to be a moving target, but full operations are expected to resume no earlier than 18 months from now.

Crews continue investigating the cause of a radiation release at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad that exposed some workers and halted operations in February.

Specially trained workers have been making trips into the repository in an effort to pinpoint the source of the release. Based on those trips, the focus has turned to a set of waste drums that came from Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Officials at the meeting reiterated the possibility that there may have been a chemical reaction inside the drums. They were then questioned about what would happen to that waste if it’s deemed unsafe to store.

"If we find a problem with this waste stream, it’s a chemistry problem," Blankenhorn said. The Los Alamos lab has "some of the best scientists in the world. It would be up to them to develop a path forward to give us treated, safe waste."

New Mexico Environment Secretary Ryan Flynn said the theory of a chemical reaction is based on limited knowledge, and he urged officials during the meeting not to withhold any information. Flynn said he’s concerned the public will lose faith if federal officials change their story every couple of weeks about what might have happened.

"We need to know what happened. We absolutely need to know," he said. "But we need to make decisions based on facts."

WIPP and Department of Energy officials vowed to continue to update the public on the recovery process and to keep the safety of their workers and the public in the forefront.

Officials have pointed to safety as the reason they decided earlier this month to halt shipments from Los Alamos to a temporary storage facility in West Texas. The shipments had been going on for about a month due to the closure of the plant.

Los Alamos is under a tight deadline to get the plutonium-contaminated waste off its northern New Mexico campus before wildfire season peaks. The state of New Mexico pressured the lab to hasten the cleanup after a massive wildfire in 2011 lapped at the edges of lab property.

Lab Director Charlie McMillan said Thursday during a news conference in Albuquerque that the recent developments "are very much a cause for concern." But he said it was too soon to tell if they will have any effect on the lab’s ability to meet the state’s deadline.

April 19, 2014

By Joseph Baucum
Reporting Texas
Austin American-Statesman

Texas House Speaker Joe Straus recently raised eyebrows among environmentalists and individuals connected to the nuclear waste industry. Unexpectedly opening the possibility of making Texas home to America’s supply of high-level radioactive waste will do that.

The United States lacks a permanent disposal site for 68,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel after the Obama administration decided in 2010 to halt funding for the multimillion-dollar Yucca Mountain geologic repository in Nevada. Straus has instructed legislators to determine whether Texas can be the answer and "make specific recommendations on the state and federal actions necessary to permit a high-level radioactive waste disposal or interim storage facility in Texas."

Gov. Rick Perry has endorsed the idea as well. "I believe it is time to act," he said in a March 28 letter to Straus and Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst.

In an effort to avoid a replay of the decades-long controversy over Yucca Mountain, where the federal government imposed the site on unwilling local interests, the onus is ostensibly on local communities to step forward to host the nation’s most hazardous nuclear waste. The consensus-based approach is designed to be more democratic, but with millions of dollars potentially at stake for the state and officials tied to the waste industry, critics say determining Texas’ future in high-level waste could be politics as usual.

A new bottom-up approach was one of several recommendations from a 2012 Blue Commission Report to the Department of Energy. Former U.S. Rep. Lee Hamilton, D-Ind., was co-chair.

"We think that looking at siting decisions not only in our country, but across the world, it’s a very complex set of negotiations that have to take place among a lot of actors at the local, state and federal level," Hamilton said in an interview.

In the consent-based approach, state and local governments would encourage communities to volunteer as host sites, instead of the top-down model employed at Yucca Mountain.

Hamilton said any area serving as the nation’s disposal site would benefit from jobs generated during construction and subsequent operations. A substantial amount of money for the project would come from a $30 billion nuclear waste fund, which is fed by fees the federal government has collected from nuclear power plants since 1983. The plants now store spent fuel on site.

Texas environmental groups including the Sierra Club, Public Citizen and the SEED Coalition oppose the idea of Texas taking on high-level nuclear waste.

Waste Control Specialists, which operates a low-level waste facility in Andrews County, west of Midland on the New Mexico border, would like to be involved if lawmakers vote to move forward. WCS, based in Dallas, is the only company in Texas handling low-level waste disposal. It’s also the only destination for some of the most radioactive low-level waste in America.

The House Committee on Environmental Regulation will carry out Straus’ instructions. Six of the nine members are Republicans. Through a spokesperson, chair Patricia Harless, R-Spring, declined to comment on whether the committee would use the consent-based methodology recommended by the commission report. The report was the primary influence on Straus’ decision to add the issue to the committee’s agenda before the Legislature convenes again in 2015, a spokesperson for the speaker said.

Between legislative sessions, the speaker customarily instructs the various House committees to explore and report on a set of issues. The interim charges, as they are called, signal his priorities for the next Legislature.

Billionaire Harold Simmons, who died in December, owned WCS, and a Simmons family trust now owns a majority of the stock. Simmons was one of the nation’s most generous Republican political contributors, donating more than $25 million to Republican super PACs in the 2012 presidential election, according to Forbes.

Simmons donated $2,500 to Perry during his failed bid in the last presidential election. Contran Corp., another Simmons business, donated $1 million — more than any other contributor — to Make Us Great Again, a super PAC that supported Perry’s campaign, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Straus has received $100,000 since 2011 from WCS-Texas Solution, a political action committee run by WCS. Seven members of the environmental regulation committee have received $42,000 from WCS-Texas Solution in that time period. Their total contributions in the same period from all sources were nearly $3.5 million.

WCS has generated $16 million in revenue for the state since beginning disposal of low-level waste in July 2012, according to the company’s website. Texas receives 25 percent of the facility’s gross disposal fees. WCS does not disclose financial reports, but spokesman Chuck McDonald estimates the company’s revenues at $40 million annually.

McDonald says the company did not speak with Straus’ office about the committee charge but would like to be considered, if Andrews County and the state are amenable. He says community leaders would need to show interest before WCS pursued anything.

"We have been in dialogue with the community, and we’ll continue to be," said McDonald. "If our host community says, ‘This is something we’re interested in and this is something we’re comfortable with,’ WCS would like to be part of the solution."

Austin-based AFCI Texas is also interested in whether the committee identifies any communities that would be receptive to a disposal site. The company has been in talks with several West Texas counties about building an interim storage facility for spent fuel now held at the Comanche Peak nuclear power plant in Somervell County and the South Texas Project in Matagorda County, according to AFCI co-owners Bill Jones and Monty Humble.

AFCI would need federal approval to store the used nuclear fuel as well as a license for transporting it to the site, but the company is interested in the House committee’s findings to gauge Texans’ level of comfort with the idea.

"I don’t want to sound so arrogant as to suggest that if the state were fundamentally opposed to it that we’d still be enthusiastic about pursuing it," said Humble. "I don’t think we would."

The legislative committee hasn’t scheduled any hearings, but the panel will hold public hearings and take testimony from anyone interested in the issue, a spokesperson for Harless said.

In the past, the committee has sided with industry, according to Cyrus Reed, conservation director of the Texas chapter of the Sierra Club. He points to its failure to pass measures including stricter regulation of coal plant emissions and improving awareness on mercury emissions. Harless’ office declined to respond to his comments.

"Generally, the committee is not going to pass something that industry is very opposed to," said Reed. "They’ll look more for solutions that industry can live with."

Reed said he doesn’t think current committee members are closed to environmentalists’ concerns, however. He cites compromises the committee struck during the 2013 Legislature when it allowed WCS to accept low-level waste from out of state but gave permission to handle less than it had wanted.

The main concern, according to Reed, is what legislation could come out of Straus’ charge.

"Once you put out an idea, it can gather its own steam," Reed said. "There’s a concern from our point of view that you start putting out there that we’re studying it, and suddenly everybody says, ‘Texas is going to step up to the plate and provide these services. We better write legislation so we can make that happen.’ "

McDonald, the WCS spokesman, said he thinks the process will be fair. He noted that the legislation authorizing the company to accept waste from other states passed by a 131 to 10 vote, with 70 percent of Democrats voting yes.

"There have always been changes and compromises made to the legislation," said McDonald. "I think it’s fair to say that what has emerged has been, legitimately, consensus legislation. That’s why it’s had strong bipartisan support."

About this story

Reporting Texas is a news website produced by the University of Texas School of Journalism. For more, go to reportingtexas.com.

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.

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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.