The Democratic Party’s candidate for the congressional seat representing Texas’ 11th District this week emphasized his opposition to potential storage of radioactive spent nuclear fuel in the region.
“One thing I’m particularly concerned about is the plan … to bring in highly radioactive nuclear waste from 100 nuclear power plants across the country, to store it in District 11,” San Angelo attorney Jon Mark Hogg said in an interview Sunday with KVUE, an ABC affiliate.
Hogg is running against Republican August Pfluger for the seat being vacated by Rep. Mike Conaway (R) after 16 years.
The candidate was referring to plans by Interim Storage Partners for a facility in Andrews County, near the Texas-New Mexico border, capable of storing up to 40,000 metric tons of used nuclear fuel. The company, a joint venture of Waste Control Specialists and Orano, hopes next year to secure a 40-year federal license covering the first 5,000 tons. The facility would be built on Waste Control Specialists’ disposal property.
In an interview Tuesday with Weapons Complex Morning Briefing, Hogg said residents in the district had told him of their concerns about the safety and security of the material while it is being transported and then stored. That is particularly acute given the absence of the congressional mandated federal repository for used fuel, raising fears that interim storage could stretch on indefinitely.
“There is no permanent plan,” Hogg said by telephone. “There is no overarching policy.”
The 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act directed the Department of Energy to begin disposal of spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste by Jan. 31, 1998. Congress amended the law five years later to designate Yucca Mountain, Nev., as the location of the geologic repository for the waste. However, federal licensing of the facility has been defunded for more than a decade.
