Concerned Representatives Speak Out on Radioactive Waste

CBS 7 News Staff
March 6, 2009

Today in Odessa, representatives from the Nuclear Information and Resource Service and Sustainable Energy and Economic Development Coalition spoke out about the Waste Control Specialists Project.

Diane D'Arrigo and Karen Hadden spoke to members of the news media today, outlining what they call health risks.

WCS recently had a permit issued by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to begin accepting waste.

They say it's important that West Texans educate themselves on the issue.

Karen Hadden of the Sustainable Energy & Economic Devel. Coalition said, "We are opposing this dump...still at this point and time in fact it's more important than ever and we are going to still fight to get a hearing....the hearing that citizens deserve on the safety of the facility."

Diane D'Arrigo of the Nuclear Information & Resource Service said, "it's actually radioactive material that is dangerous now and will still be dangerous. Some of it, in 1-thousand years and some of it in a million years. It's going to be radioactive longer than the containers and the geological structure."

D'Arrigo and Hadden say that all other waste sites that have opened over the years are closed because they leak.

They also stressed that some bought land around them to keep the threat of a leak contained.

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