Texas is one step closer to housing tons of nuclear waste. What that means for DFW via Fort Worth Star-Telegram

BY HALEY SAMSEL

Outside of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s Arlington office on Monday, a dozen protesters spoke out against what they saw as the inevitable: The commission was going to approve a federal permit to transport high-level nuclear waste through Dallas-Fort Worth on its way to a West Texas facility.

Hours later, that prediction came true. After years of debate and legal filings, the NRC granted a license to Interim Storage Partners, which seeks to build an “interim storage facility” for high-level nuclear waste, also known as spent nuclear fuel, in Andrews, Texas.
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Dallas-based Waste Control Specialists is partnering with Orano USA to expand an existing plant in Andrews with hopes of holding up to 40,000 metric tons of nuclear waste at the facility. Each expansion phase will require an amendment to the permit along with additional safety and environmental reviews, according to the NRC.

Under the terms of the current permit, up to 5,000 metric tons of high-level nuclear waste and about 231 metric tons of low-level radioactive waste can be stored for 40 years at the facility near the Texas-New Mexico border. The waste could be held there until it’s moved to a permanent repository, which does not currently exist and continues to be a key issue for the U.S. Department of Energy.
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The waste poses potentially harmful effects to humans and only decreases in radioactivity through decay, which can take hundreds of thousands of years, according to the NRC, which regulates nuclear power plants and the storage and disposal of waste.

In a statement to the Star-Telegram last year, the president and CEO of Interim Storage Partners, Jeff Isakson, said the West Texas site was selected due to its sparse population, lack of significant erosion and low risk of earthquakes compared to other parts of the country.
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The Nuclear Regulatory Commission also states that the spent fuel transport packages must withstand accident conditions and pass impact, puncture, fire and water immersion tests in sequence. The tests include a 30-foot drop and surviving a fire for 30 minutes.

“As decades of experience with thousands of transports and thorough analyses have shown, there is very little risk to people or communities from transporting the solid used fuel inside these shielded casks,” Isakson said by email. “All aspects of the transport process must meet strict NRC and U.S. Department of Transportation regulations and oversight.”

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n July, the NRC released its 684-page environmental impact report examining potential problems caused by the Interim Storage Partners facility. According to commission staff, risks to air quality, public health and geology of the area would be small during all phases of the project. 

These assurances have rung hollow to Karen Hadden, the director of the Austin-based Sustainable Energy & Economic Development Coalition, which previously pursued legal action to challenge the permit. Plans to transfer high-level waste from across 44 states are unprecedented, and neither the industry nor the government has experience with a project of this scale, she said. 

The NRC has been “captured” and is essentially being run by and for the benefit of the nuclear industry, she added.

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And Texas is not alone in facing down the prospect of housing tons of nuclear waste. NRC staff are currently reviewing Holtec International’s application for a similar interim storage facility in Lea County, New Mexico, where the governor and residents have expressed opposition to its construction. That decision is expected in January of next year, according to an NRC statement. 

As challenges to the facility continue to play out in court, Gosslee expects North Texas advocacy groups to step up their efforts to spread awareness about the transport of waste through the region and its potential impact on the communities surrounding the railroad tracks. 

“We’re gonna be better organized to get more people in the community informed because this is a really big step, and it will get people’s attention,” Gosslee said. “It’s pretty clear when they license it that we’ve got another battle to fight.”


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