A handful of cities and counties in Texas have started speaking out against the potential for nuclear waste to roll through their territory on the way to a planned storage site in the far west of the state.
Waste Control Specialists is about a year into the Nuclear Regulatory Commission licensing process for an Andrews County facility that would hold up to 40,000 metric tons of spent fuel now stored on-site at nuclear plants around the country. The company hopes to begin storage in 2021, keeping the material for decades until the Department of Energy completes a permanent repository.
The Dallas County Commissioners Court is scheduled today to consider a resolution of opposition to transport of high-level radioactive waste by rail or highway through the county on its way to consolidated storage. The resolution further says that used reactor fuel should remain near its site of generation until such time as “a scientifically viable permanent disposal site becomes available.”
On Feb. 21, the Bexar County Commissioners Court approved a resolution that expressed its opposition to consolidated interim storage of radioactive waste in Texas or New Mexico, as well as transport of such material through the county. Holtec International last week filed its NRC license application for a 120,000-metric-ton-capacity storage site in southeastern New Mexico.
The City Council of San Antonio, which is in Bexar County, last Thursday unanimously approved a resolution that only opposes transport through the city of high-level radioactive waste. “We’re not opposed to the facility,” said Chris Stewart, chief of staff to Council Member Ron Nirenberg, who introduced the resolution. The city owns CPS Energy, which has a 40 percent stake in the South Texas Project nuclear power plant.
WCS spokesman Chuck McDonald noted Monday that neither the company nor anyone else knows what the transportation routes for the spent fuel would be.
