A location in Dale County, Ala., has joined the list of potential sites for the Energy Department’s deep borehole nuclear waste storage field test, but has already drawn opposition from community members.
Ohio-based Battelle Memorial Institute is proposing the Southern Co.-owned site in Alabama. The company has already obtained a letter of support from the Dale County Commission, after having failed to secure county support for two separate deep borehole sites in North Dakota and South Dakota earlier this year.
The estimated $35 million, five-year trial would deliver data on the feasibility of storing DOE-managed nuclear waste in 16,000-foot boreholes drilled into crystalline rock formations. It is one storage method the Obama administration is exploring as an alternative to the canceled geologic repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada.
Dale County Commission Chairman Mark Blankenship noted in an email Thursday that there are “community concerns” about the project, as evidenced by a packed meeting on Tuesday. The commission has scheduled a community meeting for Nov. 1, “to look at a resolution concerning this project and the letter of support.”
“What you’ve said to this point is that you’re not going to put any nuclear waste in there, but that you hope you can decide whether you can put it in there,” Dale County resident Major Dunlap told Battelle representatives during the meeting Tuesday. “How are you going to know whether you can put any in there if you don’t put some in there?”
The Dale County site is the second area to emerge in DOE’s latest solicitation process, joining a location near Nara Visa, N.M., proposed by Georgia-based Enercon Federal Services and Utah-based DOSECC Exploration Services. The proposed site, located about 300 miles north of DOE’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, received a resolution of support earlier this month from the Quay County Commission.
County approval is considered a major hurdle in the siting process. Both the Pierce County Commission in North Dakota and the Spink County Commission in South Dakota ran Battelle and DOE out of town in the first round. Residents in both counties voiced concern that a successful test, which would involve surrogate containers and no nuclear waste, would lead to eventual nuclear waste storage in their respective states.
At least five groups are said to be bidding on the new contract. The Department of Energy has altered its solicitation process in this round, allowing for multiple awards and requiring that contractors secure local support before the drilling contract is issued. DOE expects to announce the selection or selections for the contract sometime in January.
