Archive for the ‘WCS’ Category

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.

Facility will take radioactive waste from 36 states starting in January

Nov. 13, 2011

BY JON VANDERLAAN
jvanderlaan(at)oaoa.com
Odessa American

"At the end of the day, the goal is simple: Safety first!"

That’s what a sign at the entrance and exit of Texas’ first low-level radioactive waste disposal facility reads, a facility that claims no accidents causing an employee to miss time have occurred in the past four years.

But more eyes have been drawn to the radioactive material being dumped there than to the safety of its workers.

As with any topic involving the word "nuclear," Waste Control Specialists President Rod Baltzer said there are always bound to be some opponents.

The three dump sites include the already-built byproduct site, a commercial site and a yet-to-be-completed federal site that is under the same license.

The facility will take nuclear waste from 36 states, with a 10 percent tax from Texas and Vermont clients and a 20 percent tax for all other clients.

Because the state of Texas owns the land and Andrews County financed the building of the facility with a $75 million bond in 2010, each will get a share. The state and county will split the in-state taxes while the state will receive all of the 20 percent tax from outof-state customers.

Although the focus Thursday was the ribboncutting event with prominent elected officials, it quickly shifts to preparations for the first radioactive waste shipments in January.
"We expect to be very busy," WCS Vice President Linda Beach said.

And the towns of Andrews and Eunice, N.M., have been touted as champions in the process of bringing the facility to western Andrews County, and just a few miles outside of Eunice.

ANDREWS SUPPORT

Andrews Mayor Robert Zap said he’s been involved in the project for 15 years, and the city of Andrews has been open throughout.

"They said, in effect, let’s look at it and see and decide for ourselves," he said.

"We’re not going to be swayed one way or the other by demonstrations and stuff. We want the facts."

And Zap said he and other city and county officials got the facts and relayed them to the public, which has been supportive.

Although a small number of people will always be found opposing such projects, he said the small percentage was "almost unreal."

"One of the things we looked at from the very beginning was the need (for the facility). And we were impressed by the tremendous need," Zap said. "What horrified us was that a lot of nuclear waste was being stored haphazardly."

County Judge Richard Dolgener said it was important for the community from an economic standpoint as well, with the oilfield being such a volatile business.

When oil engineers moved out in the 1980s, he said, the community was scrambling to find a new industry. That’s when the prospect of a nuclear business came.

"What’s going to fill that (oil) void is science and math, and that’s what’s coming in with the nuclear stuff," Dolgener said. "We’re an oil community, so when the price of oil goes down, we’re going to struggle."

Of course, the $10.5 million the county received for being the host to the facility doesn’t hurt.

But Dolgener said he believes it’s earned for being the host county, something he’s even been questioned about by his own family.

"It is in your backyard," he said. "I think really just the stigma of (nuclear). People don’t understand the science. Everyone’s seen the bomb and the bomb’s been used to kill. But there’s a lot of good that came out of it with medicine and science."

The vote to pass the bond issue in Andrews County only passed by three votes, and a challenge over the results even took a brief trip up to the Texas Supreme Court before the state’s highest court declined to hear the issue.

However, Dolgener said vote was close that because of the economic state of the nation, not the environmental aspects.

EUNICE , N . M .

Bridget McCasland has lived in Eunice her entire life and now is the resident of the closest house to the disposal facility and the uranium enrichment plant owned by Louisiana Energy Services, just a few miles down the road.

Instead of being worried about the plant and disposal site, it seems to have become a way of life.

McCasland previously worked at the LES plant and has several family members working at the plant or disposal facility.

"It really doesn’t bother me," she said. "It seems like they have everything safeguarded."

Some community outrage came with the introduction of the enrichment plant that broke ground six years ago, but McCasland said most people supported it.

Lee Cheney, a 75-yearold Hobbs resident who currently owns a smoke shop in his garage, said his opposition to the nuclear waste disposal plant in Andrews goes back several years.
Based on his research, he said he believes the containers used for storing the waste eventually will decay, spreading the nuclear material and possibly causing an evacuation of up to 15 miles.

"It’s just going to pollute the whole area," Cheney said. "In my opinion, there are no honest analysts that work for these companies that will tell people the truth."

THE HISTORY

Waste Control Specialists began putting money into finding a radioactive waste dumping site in 1995, Baltzer said. It already had obtained a permit in 1992 to dump hazardous waste, but Andrews was looking to further diversify its economy.

He said the company got its processing license for the low-level radioactive waste in 1997, a year before he joined the the company.

Processing, however, is not the same as disposal and is merely the method of moving the nuclear waste from location to location for storage.

Kent Hance, a board member for Waste Control Specialists and former state representative and U.S. congressman, said he went to the site in 1991 to determine its viability as a potential location to dump the material. Hance and a number of other elected officials have visited the site, and State Rep. Tryon Lewis said the Andrews facility has since become a location of national discussion.

U.S. Congressman Mike Conaway said he brags on Andrews whenever he gets the chance for its foresight in allowing the disposal site to locate there, and he’s been keeping up with the project since he was elected in 2005.

"They’ve done a good job of bringing the community along every step of the way," he said.

It wasn’t going to be until 2003 that the facility would be able to contemplate disposing nuclear material, when Baltzer said the Texas legislature changed the law to allow private companies to accept commercial nuclear waste.

He said WCS applied for its license in 2004, went through five years of "rigorous review," and earned its license in 2009.

The first shipment of uranium by-product actually came in 2009, but it’s a different kind of radioactive material than the type that will be shipped to the facility beginning in 2012, Baltzer said.

Uranium by-product is the traces of uranium left on the location it is extracted from, while the waste coming in with this commercial facility consists of contaminated materials from nuclear sites, such as tools, clothes and other materials.

"Uranium, obviously, you think of bombs," he said. "But weaponized uranium doesn’t go here."

In fact, Baltzer said, highlevel uranium is not disposed of anywhere in the United States.

HOW SAFE IS IT?

Beach stressed the importance of making sure everything is done the right way and the environment is not contaminated by the radioactive waste.

Each shipment is required to be checked and tracked to make sure it contains the materials it is supposed to and the company knows where it is and where it is going, she said.
The material is not taken out of its original container but is placed in 10-foot-tall, 1-foot-thick cement cylinders, which are placed in the landfill. Those containers are then surrounded by grout, and the bottom and sides of the landfill are protected by a liner and 500 feet of red bed clay.

In addition to the various checks each shipment must go through, Texas Commission on Environmental Quality officials are constantly on site, making sure it goes well.
Office of Waste Deputy Director Brent Wade said inspectors will be on the site every day ensuring proper procedures are followed.

"We have absolute invested interest in making sure everything goes right," because the state owns the property, he said.

The commission can impose everything from a change in process to a formal sanction against the property. Prospective clients also scout out the facility.
"They want to make sure they don’t send their waste to a place that will get them in the news," Beach said.

The Ogallala Aquifer is 10 miles north of the site, she said, and even if it was closer, it would not be in danger.

Ultimately, both Beach and Baltzer rendered the possibility of a failure in the system and leaking of radioactive material from the site as "impossible."

"The most a person could be exposed is the equivalent of a chest X-ray, and that’s only if they were digging down there for water," Beach said. But even then, she said there is no water under the site.

She said even if the concrete containers wear down after 300 to 500 years, the other safeguards will keep radioactive material in the landfill for "thousands of years."

For Immediate Release:
Tuesday, May 8, 2012

For More Information:
Tom "Smitty" Smith – 512-797-8468
Trevor Lovell – 512-477-1155

Statement of Tom "Smitty" Smith, Director of the Texas office of Public Citizen, on Today’s State District Court Ruling Remanding the License for the WCS Radioactive Waste Facility in West Texas to TCEQ for a Contested Case Hearing

——————————————————————————–
This case has national significance because it involves Harold Simmons, one of the largest contributors to Republican political campaigns and attack ads. The amount and types of waste could be vastly expanded by Congress thus increasing the amount of money Simmons can make off of the dump, increasing the funds he has available to donate to future political campaigns

(Austin) Travis County State District Court Judge Livingston, overturned a decision made by the TCEQ three years ago that denied Sierra Club its right to a contested case hearing on the license given to Waste Control Specialists (WCS) for its radioactive waste site. Sierra Club subsequently filed a lawsuit in District Court, and the hearing has been delayed for three years. The Judge ruled today that the nearby residents should have been granted a contested case to prove how they were impacted and why the site might be flawed.

When Waste Control Specialists applied for a license, the staff at TCEQ reviewed the application and recommended its rejection because of their concerns about the possibility of the water intrusion and contamination. The TCEQ’s executive director overruled the recommendation of the staff and recommended issuing the license. Sierra Club and its members requested a hearing on the application. That request was denied and the license was issued by two of the three TCEQ commissioners -appointed by Governor Perry – whose second largest donor is Harold Simmons, the chief financial investor of WCS. Six months later TCEQ’s executive director went to work for WCS.

New information has recently come to light about the WCS site pertaining to the potential for water to come into contact with radioactive materials. According to data provided by TCEQ, water has been detected in monitoring wells at the facility for the last several months. An expert report authored by geologist George Rice and entitled, Occurrence of Groundwater at the Compact Waste Facility Waste Control Specialists Facility Andrews County, Texas, points out that infiltration of rainwater and movement of groundwater was already occurring within the buffer zone of the "Compact Waste Site" as recently as this March.

"This is a big victory for the citizens of Texas and New Mexico. The TCEQ knew this case was likely to be decided today but rushed to sign off on the dump site late last month, allowing radioactive waste to start coming into Texas, showing just how much political pressure Simmons can exert on Texas politics and agencies. The first shipments of radioactive waste arrived just 10 days ago. We call on TCEQ to act responsibly and reverse their decision granting that permit," said Karen Hadden of the Sustainable Energy and Economic Development (SEED) Coalition.

Rose Gardner lives within four miles of the WCS radioactive waste facility and was represented in this case by Sierra Club. "I’m very glad about the judge’s decision today, since we’ll now have a hearing where we can fully examine radioactive risks to our land and water. We now have more livestock than ever before and having the WCS radioactive waste dump nearby threatens our health and safety. TCEQ blocked this hearing before and needs to be more open with information and opportunities for citizens to participate," said Gardner.

"This case is of national significance because the dump’s biggest investor is Harold Simmons, one of the largest contributors to Republican political campaigns and attack ads. He helped to fund the "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" and the "Obama is a Muslim" attack ads. The Wall Street Journal has reported that Simmons has spent $18 million so far this election cycle and plans to spend a total of $36 million before the end of this cycle. Why would he spend that kind of money? The amount and types of waste could be vastly expanded by a Republican President or Congress thus increasing the amount of money Simmons can make off of the dump and increasing the funds he has available to donate to future political campaigns. And if anyone doubts that his political spending will pay off in favorable treatment, all they have to do is look at how successful he’s been in Texas" said Tom "Smitty" Smith of Public Citizen’s Texas Office.

Tom "Smitty" Smith
Director, Texas Office
Public Citizen
1303 San Antonio St.
Austin, TX 78701
Phone: 512-477-1155
Cell: 512-797-8468

By Betsy Blaney
BusinessWeek

LUBBOCK, TEXAS

State regulators have given final approval for a Dallas-based company to begin burying low-level radioactive waste at a West Texas site near the New Mexico border, according to a letter posted online Thursday.

In the letter, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality told Waste Control Specialists LLC that the dump site conformed to design and construction specifications. The letter was posted on the agency’s website.

The dump site will be the final resting place for low-level radioactive waste from 38 states. A separate site nearby will handle radioactive waste from federal sites around the country.

The approval ends a yearslong effort by the company, whose majority owner is big-time Republican contributor Harold Simmons, to accept the waste at 1,340-acre tract of scrub brush terrain about 360 miles west of Dallas. State lawmakers cleared the way for the site with a law passed during the last legislative session, but the commission still had to sign off on it.

The agency said in its letter that its staff is "closely monitoring" four wells nearby the burial facility because of water that has been found in them.

"It is important to ensure that saturated conditions do not exist within 100 feet of the disposed waste," states the letter, which is signed by Brent Wade, deputy director of waste at the environmental agency.

Company spokesman Chuck McDonald said the state now has a safe solution for disposing of low-level radioactive waste. The company said Thursday evening that it hadn’t yet started burying waste.

"The state of Texas has been diligent and thorough in its oversight of this facility, which is the most robust disposal facility ever constructed in the United States," he said. "In addition, the state has been zealous in its geologic review of the site and with more than 600 geologic core samples and monitoring wells that state oversight is continuing."

Environmental groups have voiced concerns about the geology of the site and its potential to contaminate underground water sources they say are too close.

Earlier this month, state Rep. Lon Burnam, a Democrat from Fort Worth, wrote Attorney General Greg Abbott asking him to waive a confidentiality agreement so that Burnam could publicly release documents detailing possible groundwater contamination at the dump.

Burnam said he obtained the documents under a 2009 open records request. Burnam said he couldn’t release what’s in them but that they contain officials’ concerns about the location of groundwater tables near the dump site; the margin of safety in the event of groundwater contamination; and the possible risk of public exposure to radiation.

Karen Hadden, long an opponent of the site, said she was disappointed the company got the go-ahead to bury the waste.

"There aren’t enough assurances in place to protect against water contamination and over time we’ll probably learn the hard way about this serious problem," she said.

Waste Control, which also stores, processes and manages hazardous wastes at the site, has spent hundreds of millions of dollars to open the dump. In 2009, the state issued two licenses to the company to bury low-level radioactive waste, making it the nation’s only dump for all classes — A, B and C — of nuclear debris and the first low-level site to open in 30 years.

One license pertains to a compact between Texas and Vermont that allows for disposal of radioactive materials such as uranium, plutonium and thorium from commercial power plants, academic institutions and medical schools. Last year, though, lawmakers approved allowing low-level radioactive waste from 36 other states to be buried in West Texas.

Petitions to bury waste from the compact states and the three dozen other states must be approved by the Texas Low-Level Radioactive Disposal Compact Commission on a case-by-case basis.

The other license deals with similar materials from sites run by the U.S. Department of Energy, such as Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, Hanford Site in Washington state and other federal facilities.

April 18, 2012

The Que Bue blog
San Antonio Current

State Representative Lon Burnam, D-Fort Worth, would love to spill the contents of a top-secret pile of documents he got from the state. But he can’t. Stemming from a state open records request he filed in 2009, Burnam now says he has documents from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality that prove serious public health and safety risks associated with the West Texas Waste Control Specialists radioactive waste dump built and owned by Dallas billionaire Harold Simmons. After a two-year court battle, Burnam says a court ordered the documents released to his office as a "legislative privilege," but that he was forced to sign a confidentiality agreement with the TCEQ not to reveal the contents. Burnam’s short on details, saying only that the documents show the presence of groundwater inside the facility’s 100-foot buffer zone, and that they discuss the margin of safety in the event of groundwater contamination along with discussions of possible risk to the public of radiation exposure.

"Until we know the source of this water, the likelihood of groundwater contamination, and the risk to the public, it’s simply irresponsible to open this site," Burnam said in a statement.

WCS is waiting for the final word from TCEQ to open up its Andrews County radwaste site to much of the nation, a decision Burnam says could come as soon as this week. Burnam insists the public should know what he knows before WCS gets the green light. On Monday Burnam sent off two letters, one to AG Greg Abbott asking he clarify whether the "top secret" information is really confidential under state law, and another to TCEQ Executive Director Mark Vickery, urging him not to give the dump final approval. "I don’t think the statutory criteria for keeping these documents secret have been met, especially when you consider the very serious public health and safety implications involved," Burnam said.

WCS has been clear on its intent to make its Andrews County facility a burial site for radioactive waste from across the county. As detailed in a Bloomberg piece early this month, Simmons has even been greasing the political gears hoping to score a rule change from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to expand the definition of ""low-level radioactive waste" so his site can bury waste like depleted uranium.

Critics of WCS’ plan have insisted the dump sits dangerously close to the Ogallala Aquifer (some contend on top of the aquifer, though the company disputes it), the nation’s largest aquifer stretching all the way to South Dakota. If this is starting to ring a bell, it should. Former TCEQ geologists and engineers told their bosses in 2007 that WCS’ radwaste license shouldn’t be approved partly because of concerns over contaminating the nearby water table. They resigned in protest when the TCEQ forged ahead, ignoring their concerns — then the former TCEQ director who issued WCS’ licenses, Glenn Shankle, left to lobby for the company. "Staff professionals at TCEQ have resigned over the licensing of this site — experts quit their jobs because they do not agree that the site is safe enough for radioactive waste," said Karen Hadden with the SEED Coalition in a statement Monday.

Burnam also released a non-confidential report from WCS to TCEQ showing that between November 2011 and March 2012 the company pumped more than 23,000 gallons from a monitor well inside the so-called "buffer zone."