nuclear-news

Texas, New Mexico resisting interim nuclear waste storage  By Gary Martin Las Vegas Review-Journal, 6 Dec 20,   WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump and Congress moved this year to develop interim nuclear waste storage sites, a temporary fix until the 30-year stalemate over Yucca Mountain is settled.But locations in New Mexico and Texas that were once embraced for their potential for jobs and economic development now face local opposition similar to that in Nevada that has resulted in the decadeslong delay in building a permanent repository.

Governors in New Mexico and Texas have pleaded with the federal government to stop or delay the process that could place tons of spent nuclear fuel rods in their states.

Private groups have proposed to take the spent nuclear fuel and temporarily store the waste at locations near Carlsbad, New Mexico, and west of Odessa in Andrews County, Texas.

But the welcome has turned to concern by residents who fear the interim storage of nuclear waste will become permanent if the federal government fails to develop the Yucca Mountain nuclear repository north of Las Vegas, as required by law, or find and develop another suitable location.

The New Mexico congressional delegation wrote a letter to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission urging the agency to delay the decision-making process and allow more time for public comment on a license sought by Holtec International to build an interim storage facility.

“Any proposal to store commercial spent nuclear fuel raises a number of health, safety and environmental issues,” the delegation wrote.

Those issues include “potential impacts on local agriculture and industry, issues related to the transportation of nuclear waste, and disproportionate impacts on Native American communities,” the lawmakers warned.

New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, a Democrat, in a letter to President Donald Trump, said she was opposed to interim storage of nuclear waste, citing the safety of residents.

Target for terrorists?

In Texas, the facility proposed by Interim Storage Partners has drawn opposition from oil and gas producers, the agriculture industry and Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, who said placing the waste near oil fields would make an inviting target for terrorists.

Shipping nuclear waste also would present a hazard to public health, Abbott said in letters to Trump and the NRC earlier this year.