Archive for the ‘Toxic Waste Dump’ Category

For Immediate Release: May 17, 2013
Contacts: Karen Hadden 512-797-8481 Sustainable Energy & Economic Development (SEED) Coalition
Cyrus Reed 512-740-4086 Lone Star Sierra Club
Tom "Smitty" Smith 512-797-8468 Public Citizen’s Texas Office

Download this press release in pdf format for printing.

Austin, TX A bill that would increase the concentration of radioactive waste to be dumped in Texas is set to be heard on the House floor on Monday, May 20th. Waste Control Specialists (WCS) would benefit even more from the hotter radioactive materials going to their radioactive waste dump in West Texas, and would get to bring in the waste sooner, raising the annual cap on imported waste from other states from 120,000 to 275,000 curies. SEED Coalition, Public Citizen, and the Lone Star Sierra Club oppose the bill, which is set to be heard on Monday, May 20th on the House floor. SB 791 is authored by Sen. Seliger and Representative Drew Darby.

"This bill fails to protect the public. It fails to ensure that radioactive waste will not be buried when water is present. It lets trucks continue carrying radioactive waste down any highway in our state, without designated routes. We expect WCS to come back to the legislature numerous times demanding to dump ever more radioactive waste on Texas" said Karen Hadden, of SEED Coalition. "The bill fails to require safety audits by the State Auditor. Instead, TCEQ would do occasional audits, which equates to the fox guarding the henhouse. And it lets TCEQ authorize bringing in additional kinds of radioactive waste, such as depleted uranium, without any public hearing, which should be required for such a major license change."

"Every session for the last 10 years, WCS has exerted its high-dollar political influence to press for their own corporate gain, at the risk of public safety. This time they want to require the wastes to be compacted to a third of the original size, increasing the concentration of its radioactivity and increasing risks in order to increase profits. Next session they’ll be back, saying they have all this extra room at the dump site, and clamoring to put in more radioactive waste, " said Tom "Smitty" Smith of Public Citizen. "The only person who benefits is billionaire Harold Simmons, WCS’ owner, whose private gain comes at the expense of public risk. Simmons is known for political attack ads. He’s Perry’s second largest donor and the second largest donor nationally to the "attack ads" plaguing our elections."

Donations by Simmons and WCS to state legislators in 2012 are documented online at: http://info.tpj.org/Lobby_Watch/pdf/SimmonsContribsSince2000.pdf and http://info.tpj.org/Lobby_Watch/pdf/DarbySimmons.pdf

"In order to protect our water and public safety, the bill should require that the site be dry before waste is buried, but it doesn’t,’ said Karen Hadden, of SEED Coalition. "Radioactive waste shouldn’t be buried when standing water is present at the site, but that’s exactly what a recently approved license amendment now lets WCS do. Over 40% of the monitoring wells have shown the presence of water, but radioactive waste is being buried anyway. Scientists at TCEQ rang the alarm about groundwater contamination risks in 2007 when they recommended denial of WCS’ license."

"All of the TCEQ scientists working on the license determined the geology of the site to be inadequate because of the possibility of radioactive contamination of our aquifers and groundwater. The groundwater lies only 14 feet below the bottom of the radioactive waste dump trenches. However there was clear political pressure throughout the entire process indicating that WCS would receive the license regardless of how inadequate the site was," said Glenn Lewis in a previous statement. He was one of three TCEQ employees that resigned in protest of licensing the site.

"I’m going to try to work with the House sponsor to strip out the most egregious aspects of the bill that literally put radioactive waste a few feet away from contaminating our water supplies. I’m sure no one wants to put our aquifers at risk or spend billions on clean-up," said Representative Lon Burnam, District 90.

The bill would require radioactive waste to be volume reduced by three times, a provision that benefits Studsvik, a radioactive waste processor in Tennessee. The public has seen no studies that show that burying this more concentrated radioactive waste would be safe at the Texas site, and there are questions about whether the material would become too hot to transport safely. Radioactive waste going to the WCS is mainly from nuclear reactors from around the country, and while fuel rods are excluded, very hot materials such as control rod blades are already being shipped to the site. Exposure to radioactivity can lead to cancers, birth defects and even death.

The bill requires the collection of $25 million in funds for perpetual care, but this is not nearly enough. "All six of the so-called ‘low-level’ nuclear dumps in this country have leaked or are leaking, often costing the states in which they are located millions of dollars," said Diane D’Arrigo, Radioactive Waste Project Director at Nuclear Information and Resource Service. "One of the now closed nuclear waste dumps with supposedly ‘impermeable clay’ threatens the water supply downstream and is projected to cost in the range of $5 billion to ‘clean up.’ In fact, if it does get ‘cleaned up’ the waste could end up getting buried again in West Texas at the WCS site."

"TCEQ rushed into a risky deal when they approved a faulty application to dispose of some of the most dangerous radioactive waste known," said Cyrus Reed, Conservation Director of Lone Star Sierra Club. "And they did it without giving members of the public who are at risk a chance to prove that the application is faulty. The Lone Star Sierra Club immediately appealed TCEQ’s decision to deny us a contested case hearing to the State District Court and we won, but the state and WCS immediately appealed the decision to the State Court of Appeals, and we’re still waiting for that hearing to happen."

95% of the radioactive waste being shipped to this site is from nuclear power plants. So-called ‘Low-level’ radioactive waste is defined as everything radioactive in a nuclear power plant except the high-level reactor fuel core. Pipes that carry radioactive water, filters and sludge from the water in the reactor and even the entire reactor itself when it is dismantled – thousands of tons of contaminated concrete and steel can all be dumped in a "low-level" facility. None of the radioactive elements present in high-level waste is prohibited from being included in low-level waste.

January 2, 2013

Texans for Public Justice Press Release

The Texas Ethics Commission has levied a $6,450 civil penalty against WCS-Texas Solutions PAC for making $64,500 in unauthorized political contributions to a group of 18 Texas lawmakers in late 2011. The civil action was initiated by a formal complaint filed by Texans for Public Justice in February 2012.

According to the TPJ complaint the PAC, established by Waste Control Specialists and bankrolled exclusively by Harold Simmons, violated the law because a PAC cannot contribute to candidates if it does not itself have at least 10 contributors. Simmons was the PACs sole contributor.

"We are disappointed in the meager size of the fine", said Craig McDonald, TPJ Director. "It represents a meaningless 10% surcharge on Mr. Simmons’ illegal contributions. The appropriate solution would be a fine at least the size of the illegal contributions".

The Ethics Commission’s Notice of Final Resolution is available here. TPJ?s initial complaint is available here.

"Let’s all pray Simmons takes more care in handling atomic waste that he does in handling his campaign contributions," said McDonald.

September 12, 2012

by Nick Swartsell
Texas Tribune

Andrews County and the state of Texas are finally bringing in money from a controversial radioactive waste dump after years of political fighting and legal wrangling over the project.

Waste Control Specialists, which runs the radioactive dump, has paid the county $630,000 and the state $3.4 million as part of an agreement that allowed the company to perform disposal operations in Andrews County. The dump began accepting out-of-state waste on July 31, but the fight over the facility began in 2003, when the Texas Legislature passed House Bill 1567, allowing the company to dispose of radioactive waste.

"This community put its faith in our company," Waste Control Specialists CEO William Lindquist said in a prepared statement. "There would be no Texas Solution — no Texas Compact Disposal Facility — without the leadership and citizens of Andrews County. I’ve never been prouder to write a check than I was today."

Waste Control Specialists, or WCS — owned by political mega-donor Harold Simmons — is one of the only private companies in the country that accepts radioactive waste from other states. Its Andrews County site has drawn scorn from environmental advocates since WCS began seeking licenses from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality for waste disposal. The company received licenses from TCEQ in 2007 and 2008, sparking controversy that led to the resignation of three TCEQ engineers and geologists, who argued that the Andrews County site was geologically unfit for radioactive waste disposal.

Despite the controversy, construction of the waste facility began in 2009, when Andrews County narrowly passed a bond issue to loan WCS $75 million to build the site. WCS got another boost when the Texas Legislature passed a 2011 bill allowing waste from outside Texas to be disposed there, provoking a new round of protests from environmental advocates.

The payment to Andrews County amounts to about 3 percent of the county’s $21 million 2011-12 budget. The money represents a month’s worth of work for WCS, which will make payments to the county and Texas quarterly from now on. Judge Richard Dolgener, who heads the Andrews County Commissioners Court, said the county hasn’t decided how it will use the money, which will go into the county’s general fund. Dolgener said Andrews County has budgeted for $1.5 million from WCS over the next year but that the number was uncertain. "We may not get that," he said, "or we may get more."

Environmental advocates aren’t pleased with the latest milestone.

"TCEQ should never have granted WCS a license in the first place," said Texas Sierra Club Conservation Director Cyrus Reed. "There are still serious questions about the hydrogeology under the site."

Reed said the Sierra Club will keep fighting WCS in court, where two separate cases the organization has brought against WCS’s licenses are in the appeals process.

February 23, 2012

by Paul Theobald
Texas Tribune

The political action committee of Dallas billionaire waste magnate Harold Simmons admitted today that it messed up when it illegally donated $65,000 to candidates’ campaigns in 2011. Based on recommendations of the Texas Ethics Commission, WCS-Texas Solutions PAC is calling all 18 lawmakers who received funds and asking them to give the money back.

"We are working with the Ethics Commission now to get into full compliance," said PAC treasurer William Lindquist. He said the oversight that resulted in the violation was his responsibility.

The admission came Thursday after Texans for Public Justice filed a formal complaint with the Texas Ethics Commission alleging that the PAC illegally donated to 18 different Texas lawmakers last year. The violation, the group said, was that the PAC was funded by Simmons alone.

The Texas Elections Code requires that a PAC have at least 10 contributors before it makes a political contribution.

Craig McDonald, executive director of Texans for Public Justice, said his group discovered the violation during its routine processing of campaign contributions.

The donations went to 15 Republicans and three Democrats: Sens. Kel Seliger, R-Amarillo, and Juan “Chuy” Hinojosa, D-McAllen, and Reps. Kelly Hancock, R-Fort Worth; Cindy Burkett, R-Mesquite; Mike “Tuffy” Hamilton, R-Mauriceville; Dennis Bonnen, R-Angleton; Byron Cook, R-Corsicana; Myra Crownover, R-Lake Dallas; Drew Darby, R-San Angelo; Charlie Geren, R-Fort Worth; Todd Hunter, R-Corpus Christi; Sid Miller, R-Stephenville; Wayne Smith, R-Baytown; Dan Branch, R-Dallas; Jessica Farrar, D-Houston; John Frullo, R-Lubbock; Patricia Harless, R-Spring; and Marc Veasey, D-Fort Worth.

Few of the lawmakers knew about the alleged violation. A spokeswoman for Farrar said after she learned about the violation she made a donation to MECA in the same amount that she received. Hinojosa said he would return the full amount he received. Bonnen said that the PAC called and asked him to return the money, which he would do immediately.

Disclosure:
Harold Simmons is a major donor to The Texas Tribune.

Texas Tribune donors or members may be quoted or mentioned in our stories, or may be the subject of them. For a complete list of contributors, click here.

June 27, 2012

By THERESA CLIFT
San Antonio Express-News

Two Texas billionaires are now the largest donors to active federal Super PACs together giving more than $20 million in support of presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney and the GOP since the fall of 2010 through May 31.

Harold Simmons of Dallas — owner of Contran Corp., a holding company — is the largest contributor nationwide to give to super PACs still active in the 2012 presidential election. Simmons and his company gave $13 million to pro-Republican group American Crossroads and $800,000 to pro-Romney Restore Our Future, federal campaign finance reports show.

House builder Bob Perry of Houston comes in second for GOP-related campaign contributions. Perry gave $2.5 million to American Crossroads and $4 million to Restore Our Future.

Such sizable donations are made possible by a 2010 U.S. Supreme Court decision that eliminated the cap on contributions from corporations and unions in national elections and allows them to pay for political advertisements in the waning days of campaigns.

In a 2010 ruling, the Supreme Court decided it could not limit contributions to organizations that only made independent expenditures "uncoordinated" with a candidate’s campaign, leading to the rise of super PACs.

This is the first federal election with no cap since the early 1970s. Southern Methodist University political scientist Cal Jillson said it would have a dramatic effect in the process, especially from Texas donors.

"Texas has long had a history of big money affecting Texas elections, and before campaign finance came in the 1970s, national elections," Jillson said. "Oil money has always played a large role."

In state elections, Texas has not had a cap on donations, so Perry, Simmons and San Antonio donor James Leininger have historically given hundreds of thousands to campaigns and causes, Jillson said.

Leininger has donated to other campaigns, but has not contributed to the federal election this year, aside from a $2,500 donation to Rick Santorum in March.

Although there are several other states that have no donor limits, they have not yielded the same effect.

President Barack Obama opposed the 2010 decision, calling it a major victory for powerful interests, including big oil.

Although Priorities USA Action, a pro-Obama super PAC, has now raised more than $14.5 million, super PACs still are primarily utilized by the right.

"Republican super PACs likely will outspend Democrat-related super PACs by a multiple of four or five to one," Jillson said.

Jillson said GOP operative Karl Rove‘s group, which organizes American Crossroads and other Republican PACs, set a goal to raise $600 million this election and will spend most of the money on negative advertisements.

Campaigns, on the other hand, will spend most of their money on voter registration and turnout.

So far, American Crossroads has raised almost $35 million, with more than $19 million from Texas donors, including $50,000 from two San Antonio donors.

Restore our Future has raised more than $60 million, with more than $8 million from Texas donors, $50,000 of it from San Antonio donor James Cowden, who is self-employed.

Robert B. Rowling of Irving gave $2 million to American Crossroads, half of it from his company, TRT Holdings.

Jillson said big donors might also plan on giving more money right before the election or right after it, known in Texas as "the late train."

Calls and emails to Simmons, Perry, American Crossroads and the Obama campaign were not returned.

In March, Simmons told Politico he planned to spend $36 million total during this campaign.

This is not Perry’s first time as a super PAC contributor at the federal level. In the 2003-04 election cycle, Perry contributed almost $8.1 million to 527 groups, according to OpenSecrets.com.

In 2004, he was the largest donor to the Swift Boat group, which challenged Sen. John Kerry‘s Vietnam War record when he was the Democratic presidential nominee, according to a 2010 New York Times article.