The members of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality voted 3-0 Wednesday to reduce a charge for disposal of radioactive waste at a state-owned facility operated by Waste Control Specialists.
With little discussion during the teleconference, the three commissioners said they had no major objections to the company’s requests to cut the curie inventory charge from $0.40 per millicurie (1/1000th of a curie) to $0.05 per millicurie for material shipped to the Texas Low-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Compact facility in Andrews County.
However, the commissioners noted that questions of extra surcharges and fees on imported radioactive materials are likely to show up in the future, as cross-state transfer of such wastes is a growing field. ”There is still plenty to go on in this discussion,” said Commissioner Bobby Janecka.
On Wednesday, WCS President and Chief Operating Officer David Carlson repeated what he told the commission at a hearing two weeks ago — that the company won’t be able to compete with other low-level radioactive waste facilities without the drop in the curie fee. He contended the reduction would lead to greater volumes shipped to the Andrews County site, thus generating greater revenue for Texas.
In 2019, WCS said the Compact Waste Facility was running an annual $10 million loss, collecting $24 million in yearly revenue against $34 million in operating costs. Revenue is derived solely from fees and charges for waste shipments.
A portion of revenue from the Compact Waste Facility goes to the state and to Andrews County. Texas’ share of the site’s revenue is deposited into the state’s Environmental Radiation and Perpetual Care Account. The TCEQ can only access funds appropriated by the state Legislature from this account.
Critics contended Wednesday, though, that the reduced curie fee will untimely trim revenue to Texas.
“To reduce the fee by a factor of eight, that would mean an eight-fold in importation (in received radioactive wastes),” said Adrian Shelley, director of Public Citizen-Texas.
