Chris Schneidmiller
RW Monitor
2/5/2016
Lawmakers in New Mexico are throwing their weight behind plans for an interim spent fuel storage facility in the state.
The New Mexico Senate Conservation Committee on Thursday approved in a 6-3 decision a nonbinding “memorial” that calls on the Eddy-Lea Energy Alliance to develop a consolidated interim storage site on property the organization owns in the state’s southeast. A duplicate measure is awaiting action in the full state House of Representatives following a 6-5 vote by the chamber’s Energy, Environment, and Natural Resources Committee.
The Eddy-Lea Energy Alliance, an economic development organization established by the cities of Carlsbad and Hobbs and Eddy and Lea counties, owns 1,000 acres of land that would house the facility.
Nuclear fuel and waste management company Holtec International is preparing to submit a license application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to build and operate a storage facility with a maximum capacity of 75,000 metric tons of material. If everything goes right, the facility would open in 2020.
“The alliance site is ideal for a consolidated interim storage facility because of the technical criteria of the site, because it is thirty-five miles from any population, because there is no overhead air traffic and because there is a trained scientific nuclear workforce in the area,” according to the Senate measure.
Southeastern New Mexico is already home to the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, which stores transuranic waste from DOE sites around the nation. The site has been closed to new waste shipments since a fire and subsequent radiation release in February 2014; DOE plans to reopen the facility in December.
Roughly 70,000 metric tons of spent reactor fuel is stored on-site at commercial nuclear facilities around the nation, with more being produced. The Department of Energy is ultimately responsible for permanent disposal of the material.
The department, after canceling the Yucca Mountain deep geologic repository project in Nevada in 2011, late last year formally began the process of siting one or more new permanent locations under a “phased, adaptive, consent-based” process for storage of spent fuel and high-level radioactive waste. That effort could take decades, and Holtec and Texas-based Waste Control Specialists are both planning facilities that could centralize the spent fuel storage in the interim.
“As a state, New Mexico needs expanded economic development and good-paying jobs. The Holtec venture would introduce 150 new jobs into the economy, possibly more over time. I don’t know of any other $1.2-billion-dollar project asking to come to New Mexico,” state Rep. Cathrynn Brown, co-sponsor for the House measure, said by email. “Lawmakers have the opportunity to roll out the welcome mat. I hope my colleagues in the New Mexico Legislature will not let this opportunity get away.”
John Heaton, chairman of the Eddy-Lea group, told the Senate committee Thursday the facility would provide roughly 150 jobs and over $1 billion in capital investment, the Associated Press reported. Others also spoke in favor of the storage site, though support was not unanimous, with environmental groups expressing concerns.
“We don’t believe nuclear energy is a bright path into the future. We believe nuclear generation is a ticking time bomb,” AP quoted the Sierra Club’s Dan Lorimier as saying.
