The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality is considering a rulemaking that would reduce a number of charges for disposal of low-level radioactive waste at the Waste Control Specialists complex in Andrews County.
The changes to the Texas Administrative Code would apply to fees for the WCS-managed, state-owned Texas Compact Waste Facility. Waste Control Specialists has struggled for years to attract sufficient volumes of waste to turn a profit, and the state government has considered fee reductions as a means to drive up business.
For base disposal charges, customers would be charged $100 per cubic foot of waste for Class A LLRW, eliminating the prior classification in which routine waste cost $100 and shielded material $180. The biological waste charge, $350 per cubic foot, would be eliminated entirely.
Within radioactivity charges the curie inventory charge would drop from $0.55 per millicurie to $0.40, while the rulemaking would do away with charges for carbon-14 inventory and special nuclear material.
Among the surcharges, the weight surcharge category for 10,000 to 50,000 pounds per container would be eliminated, as would the dose rate surcharges from one to five roentgen per hour, greater than five to 50 roentgen per hour, and greater than 50 to 100 roentgen per hour. Finally, the $2,500 per-cask handling surcharge would be erased.
Updates are also proposed for the Texas Administrative Code language on maximum disposal rates and contracted disposal rates. For one: the licensee would be authorized to request an adjustment to maximum disposal rates to offset inflation.
Along with a number of other updates to the code, the rulemaking would eliminate the yearly mandate for rate adjustments for disposal of low-level radioactive waste.
The rulemaking is scheduled to be formally proposed Wednesday at a meeting of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, followed by publication June 8 in the Texas Register, a hearing on June 28, taking of public comments from June 8 to July 10, and expected adoption on Oct. 17.
