Archive for the ‘WCS’ Category

URGENT – Stop Texas from Becoming the Nation’s Radioactive Waste Dump!

Hello Friends,

Your help is urgently needed.

A crucial vote could occur on July 6th on a proposed rule that would make Texas into the radioactive waste dump for the nation, and perhaps the world. WE MUST STOP THIS VOTE FROM GOING FORWARD.

Originally only Texas and two other states could send radioactive waste to West Texas. Now a rule proposed by the Texas Low-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Compact Commission would let Waste Control Specialists dump radioactive waste from 36 or more states, and potentially from around the world, in Andrews County. This is not what anyone bargained for – even the legislators who approved the original Compact Agreement.

The proposed rule literally has no volume limits on radioactive waste or on radioactivity levels of imported materials. Exposure to radiation can lead to cancer, genetic defects and deaths. Care must be taken in developing radioactive waste rules in order to protect future generations.

Call your State Representative and Senator today!
(You can find out who represents you at: http://www.fyi.legis.state.tx.us)

Urge your legislators to tell the Compact Commission to halt their rushed vote on the risky radioactive waste import rule, until the legislature has analyzed the risks and liabilities to Texans from expanding the radioactive waste dump.

The Waste Control Specialists site is seeking waste from 36 or more states, and potentially from around the world, instead of just Texas and Vermont. They have the legal authority to limit the site to just the two states. We must protect Texas from becoming the nation’s radioactive waste dumping ground.

Email Compact Commissioners at Margaret.Henderson@tllrwdcc.org. Or call Margaret Henderson at (512) 820 – 2930.

What’s Wrong with the Import Rule?

• No limits on the volume or radioactivity of waste, or the states from which it can come.
  36 (or more) states and international sources could end up dumping radioactive waste in Texas. The Compact Commission has the authority to limit the site to only the Compact states, Texas and Vermont, and they should do so. The two states would have enough waste to fill up the site three times over. Other Compacts have limits in place. Why aren’t there any here?
• Public health and safety concerns are not addressed. All six existing radioactive waste dumps have leaked, and there is no technological fix that would prevent leaking in Texas. The Compact Commission has not considered health and environmental risks to Texans.
• Transportation routes for radioactive waste have not been identified. Would it go through your town?
  No emergency response plans have been considered. Some communities have only a volunteer fire department. Would they have the protective equipment and the right training to handle an accident involving radioactive materials?
• Ignores Texas’ financial liability and environmental risks. Texas has liability from the moment that radioactive waste comes into our state.

The Compact Commission is NOT ready… but is rushing a vote on a risky, half-baked rule.

• The Compact Commission is not prepared to oversee radioactive waste import.
  They still have no bylaws. They have no staff and very little funding. In fact, they can barely afford to travel to meetings. They cannot afford the research they should be seeking in order to protect public health and safety and ensure monitoring.
• License for the radioactive waste dump site is on appeal.

The site is inadequate.
USGS maps show the region to be seismically active. Groundwater would be as little as 14 feet below the bottom of the trenches, which is way too close. Nine TCEQ staff members unanimously recommended denial of the license, and three employees quit in protest of licensing the WCS site. What happens if underground aquifers become contaminated? The Ogallala Aquifer underlies eight states, below the wheat and soy-growing heart of our nation.

Who stands to benefit?
Only privately held WCS, which is headed up by Dallas billionaire Harold Simmons, who may get richer yet by dumping radioactive waste on West Texas. The rest of us could end up paying to clean radioactively contamination.

Halt the VOTE!
With no safeguards in place and not a single limit on the radioactive waste that could end up in Texas, the vote on the rule must be halted immediately. The Compact Commission should go back to square one and do things right. We can’t afford mistakes that could last for centuries.
More information will be posted at: www.TexasNuclearSafety.org.

The Import rule vote could occur at an all-day July 6th meeting will be held in Andrews, Texas. The location and agenda will be posted at the Compact Commission web site: www.tllrwdcc.org. Citizens can speak, but there is no guarantee that we will be allowed to speak BEFORE a vote occurs. Please attend this meeting if you can, and insist on being able to speak before Commissioners take up their agenda.

Prior to that their rules committee will meet in Arlington, Texas – on April 29th:
Thursday, April 29th, 8:30 AM at 1301 S. Bowen Rd., Suite 200, Arlington, TX 76013
If you can attend this Arlington meeting, please do so. Citizens can’t speak at this meeting, but you may be able to catch Commissioners during a break to tell them your thoughts, and you can show your support for protecting the health and lives of Texans by your presence.

Thanks for all that you do,

Karen Hadden
Executive Director
Sustainable Energy & Economic Development (SEED) Coalition

April 15, 2010

Greg Harman
San Antonio Current QueBlog

A pair of Vermont consultants blasted an unfunded Texas commission this week for preparing legal language to govern the expansion of a two-state low-level radioactive waste dump in West Texas out of fear it may impact Vermont’s ability to dispose of its only nuclear reactor.

"We are gravely concerned that this rulemaking is occurring in a rushed and ill-advised manner," wrote Margaret Gunderson, a consultant to the Joint Fiscal Committee of the Vermont State Legislature, and Arnie Gunderson, an appointed member of the public oversight committee advising on operations at the troubled Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant. The Entergy-owned plant, recently found to be leaking radioactive tritium into area groundwater and ordered closed by the Vermont Legislature, is to be disposed of at the West Texas dump.

In a letter to the Texas Low-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Compact Commissioners, the Gunderson’s expressed concern that if the Texas-Vermont compact is expanded to other states Vermont may end up losing the space needed for the Vermont Yankee and its growing waste stream. Texas has approved 2.31 million cubic feet for compact wastes from Texas and Vermont, though Vermont expects its one reactor to require at least 1 million cubic feet.

"The 2006 assessment does not include the recently uncovered leaking buried pipes and subsequent soil contamination by tritium, cesium, manganese, zinc, and cobalt," the pair wrote. "In light of these recent findings, it is critical that 1 million cubic feet of space contractually reserved for Vermont’s low-level radioactive waste must be reserved in the import rule for use beginning in 2012 not at some abstract time in the distant future."

Arnie Gunderson told the Current today that he is preparing a report for the Vermont Legislature now that will advocate pushing for a delay of the proposed import rule. Vermont members represent two seats on the eight-member TLLRWDC Commission.

As currently worded, the proposed rule states that room for Texas and Vermont will not be "reduced," but sets no specific volume level. Texas has four operating reactors that will require at least 2.7 million cubic feet of space at WCS. Applications are pending with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission for four more reactors.

A representative of the TLLRWDCC was not immediately available for comment, but Commissioner John Ford told theCurrent six months ago that they were "not going to get ahead of where our decision-makers, legislators, and Governor want to go on" the potential import of additional waste streams.

Another reason Vermont was be getting heartburn over the move is that it also would potentially penalize the state if it chose to export Vermont Yankee waste to a state other than Texas.

A three-state compact to dispose of low-level radioactive wastes from Texas, Maine, and Vermont in Texas was approved by Congress in 1998, though Maine later dropped out over frustrations with delays getting a site open in Texas. Though WCS convinced Andrews County taxpayers last year to float the $75-million bond to pay for the compact dump’s construction, a legal challenge pending in El Paso has held up construction ever since.

Further complicating matters, the TLLRWDC Commission has not been funded by the Texas Legislature. Wrote the Gunderson’s: "Since the Texas Compact Commission has no staff and no counsel of its own, there has not been a thorough legal review of this process. We urge the Commission to not pass this language without adequate review by the State of Vermont, its Legislative Legal Counsel, and its Attorney General."

Meanwhile, railroad cars of DOE depleted-uranium waste that Utah Governor Gary Herbert refused entry to his state may be rerouted to WCS, according to a DOE Inspector General report.

Currently, Waste Control Specialists in Andrews County have licenses to dispose of federal Department of Energy waste and "compact" wastes from Vermont and Texas. But WCS has begun to threaten it may go bankrupt if it can’t get the compact site expanded to accept radioactive trash from other states, as well. A call to the company’s press officer in Andrews was forwarded to McDonald Public Relations in Austin, where Chuck McDonald was not immediately available.

WCS is owned by Harold Simmons, a Dallas-based billionaire and prominent Republican Party donor.

Comments Made Before Texas Low-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Compact Commission

• SEED Coalition Comments 4/13/10
• Fairewinds Associates Inc. Comments 4/13/10
• Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS) Comments 4/13/10
• NIRS U.S. Commercial "Low-Level" Radioactive Waste Disposal Sites Fact Sheet April, 2009

Prevent Texas from Becoming the Nation’s Radioactive Waste Dump- Sample Comments

Here are some sample comments. Please email your comments on the Import Rule to the Compact Commission’s Interim Executive Director, Margaret Henderson at margaret.henderson@tllrwdcc.org by April 13, 2010.

The Texas Low Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Compact Commission wants to allow the entire country to dump nuclear waste at the Waste Control Specialists’ West Texas site. Other Compacts in the country have excluded out-of-Compact radioactive waste, and the Texas-Vermont Compact should do the same.

Compact Commissioners should not approve the import portion of the rule.
The Compact Commission is rushing ahead with this proposed rule, even though the TCEQ license has been appealed, the site has yet to be constructed, and the Compact Commission does not have adequate resources. How can the Commission responsibly open the state up to all the waste from around the country and possibly the world if they don’t even have the funding for staff to review proposed importation agreements; cannot afford to come to the public hearings on the rule; stated at their last meeting that they didn’t know if they would have enough funds to make it through this rulemaking process; cannot afford an attorney; and does not have bylaws yet? It is irresponsible and detrimental to the public interest. This process must be halted until it can be done properly.

What’s Wrong with the Import Rule? And How to Improve it

No Limitations on Waste
There are no limits in the rule for what can be imported. Radioactive waste should be limited to just the Compact Agreement states – Texas and Vermont. There is not enough capacity at the WCS site as licensed for the Texas and Vermont waste. Opening up to more waste predetermines that TCEQ will have to expand the license even though challenges to this license are still in the courts. (License is for 2,310,000 cubic feet of nuclear waste but the Compact Commission has said Vermont needs 1 million and Texas needs 5 million.) At a very minimum, the rule must include a limit to how much waste, in volume and curie levels, can be imported. The rule must also include an absolute ban on foreign radioactive waste.

Not Considered an Environmental Rule and No Environmental Impact Analysis
Approving this rule would be putting forth a “major environmental rule” without the required impact analysis. An independent environmental impact study must be conducted before this rule can go forward. This rule will be used by utilities wanting to build new nuclear power reactors to justify making more waste even though the WCS site has limited capacity. This rule could dramatically increase the amount of waste that comes to the site and increase the threats to the environment and public health.

No TCEQ Approval of the Waste Required
This import rule would allow WCS to obtain contracts to bring in more waste with no environmental analysis and without adequate licensed capacity. No radioactive waste streams outside of Texas and Vermont have been evaluated by TCEQ. The rule must require all studies and evaluations to be done before the waste is imported into the state. Likewise, the rule must require that before the Compact Commission can consider an import agreement, WCS needs a TCEQ amendment to its license for the waste it wishes to import. The TCEQ technical approval for the waste to be disposed of at the site must come before the Compact Commission policy approval to import.

No Consideration of Texas Liability
Texas will take title and liability to the waste once the Compact site closes and will be responsible for cleanup costs if the site leaks. The rule discusses the positive fiscal benefits of the rule but none of the liabilities. The rule should discuss the liability it creates for Texas taxpayers, who will ultimately face the financial and environmental burden of radioactive waste lasting thousands of years.

No Transportation Considerations
There are no provisions in the rule governing the transport of radioactive waste which will come in on trucks and trains through Texas communities. An independent and comprehensive transportation safety and impact study must be a condition of any consideration of all waste coming into Texas. If an accident occurs, state and local governments would be responsible for the emergency response and for taking actions to protect the public health and safety. The rule should include a requirement to notify emergency service providers 24-hours in advance of import and export shipments so that they can be prepared with proper equipment if they need to respond to a train or truck accident during transport of radioactive waste. The possibility and consequences of an accident during transport should also be considered in the rule as a liability for Texas. The rule should require a comparison of the manifest of the waste from its originating point to the waste that arrives at the WCS site.

WCS is Importing Radioactive Waste NOW
WCS is currently importing waste under their storage license. The compact commission governs the management and disposal of waste, and management includes storage. This rule must require WCS to seek Compact Commission approval to import non-Compact waste under their existing storage license.

No Public Participation Process
The 20-day comment period briefly mentioned in the rule is inadequate and prevents public participation. The rule must specifically outline the public input process – how and when the public will be informed of an import petition, how the public can participate, and how public comments will be considered by the Commission.

The Texas Low Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Compact Commission will hear feedback in Austin and Andrews on a proposed rule allowing the importation of so-called low-level radioactive waste into Texas from across the nation. Under the proposed rule, Waste Control Specialists would be allowed to import additional radioactive waste from other areas of the country and potentially the world into Andrews County, Texas.

Please come to the public hearing to tell the Compact Commission you do not want Texas to become the nation’s radioactive waste dumping ground!

• Austin Hearing – April 5, 2010, 1:00 PM at the Texas State Capitol Extension Auditorium, E1.004
• Andrews Hearing – April 6, 2010, 6:00 PM at Andrews High School Little Theater, 1401 NW Avenue K.

An environmental analysis performed by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality found problems with the site, including possible pathways to underground aquifers. The politically appointed TCEQ commissioners ignored the scientists? findings and issued the license anyways
and three TCEQ staff members have resigned as a result.

You can also submit written comments on the import rule.

• Take Action Now!

Even though the license granted by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality has been appealed by the Sierra Club, and the site has yet to be constructed, the eight-member Compact Commission is rushing ahead with this proposed rule at the behest of WCS and nuclear power plants, who are both desperate to find a place to send their waste. The Compact Commission does not even have a staff to review proposed importation agreements. A coalition of groups is opposing the rush to approve this rule. The groups are urging the Commission to deny the ability to import any waste other than Texas-Vermont compact waste or to put much stricter rules in place on how waste might be imported on a case-by-case basis. The present license does not even have enough capacity for waste from Texas and the other compact state Vermont.

You can find more information about the proposed rule at http://www.tllrwdcc.org/rule.html