Waste Control Specialists CEO and President Rod Baltzer is defending the prospect for transportation of nuclear waste to the company’s planned interim storage site in West Texas, pointing to clean safety records and extreme tests that ensure the durability of transportation casks.
Transportation has been a highly contentious topic concerning WCS’ proposal to build and operate a consolidated interim spent fuel storage site in Andrews County, near the Texas border with New Mexico. The company is seeking a 40-year license for a facility with a capacity to store 40,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel, about half the inventory of material that is now stranded at American reactor sites.
Leaders in Dallas County, Bexar County, and San Antonio have all in recent weeks approved resolutions opposing potential transportation routes for nuclear waste through their communities.. Meanwhile the Nuclear Regulatory Commission as Tuesday had received about 16,000 comments as it considers WCS’ license application, many voicing concern for the transport of spent nuclear fuel through Texas communities.
The issue has also come before the Midland County Commissioners Court in Texas, and Baltzer on Saturday published a commentary in the Midland Reporter-Telegram. In the article, he noted that there has never been a U.S. transportation accident resulting in radioactive release that led to injury or death. He also pointed out that there have been 20 million shipments of radioactive material across the world via highway, railway and, waterway. WCS’ plans involve rail shipments only.
Baltzer said that after one recent presentation on the proposal, attendee asked him what would happen if a terrorist targeted the waste storage casks using a rocket launcher.
“I explained to him that U.S. and European governments have been conducting tests on these transportation casks for decades,” Baltzer wrote. “They’ve fired missiles at them, run trains into them, dropped them into flaming infernos, dropped them from heights into rock and submersed them in water. The good news is that it’s all online now and publicly available.
