The company in charge of a recently-licensed interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel in Texas is getting involved in the state’s federal suit against the proposed site, according to recent court filings.
A judge in the U.S. fifth circuit court of appeals allowed Interim Storage Partners (ISP) to intervene in Texas attorney general Ken Paxton’s suit against the company’s planned site, according to a ruling filed Friday. ISP joins the Nuclear Regulatory Commission as a defendant.
The state filed its challenge to the Andrews, Texas site in late September and asked the court to take a look at NRC’s Sep. 14 licensing decision. At deadline Monday for Weapons Complex Morning Briefing the attorney general hadn’t provided much more in the way of an argument against the proposed site.
ISP, a joint venture between Waste Control Specialists (WCS) and Orano USA, hopes to build its site at WCS’s existing low-level waste disposal facility in Andrews.
Paxton’s suit is just one way the Lone Star State is hoping to block the ISP site from breaking ground. Days before NRC licensed the proposed site, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) signed a bill banning the storage of high-level nuclear waste in the state. A number of local stakeholders and environmental groups are also challenging the site in the D.C. circuit court of appeals — a case that appears to be picking up steam again after a long hiatus.
The ISP site is one of two would-be commercial interim storage facilities. Holtec International, a Camden, N.J.-based nuclear services company, is awaiting NRC approval to build a similar site in Lea County, N.M. New Mexico’s attorney general has sued over Holtec’s proposal.
