Reduced charges for disposal of low-level radioactive waste at the Waste Control Specialists facility in West Texas officially took effect on Nov. 8.
The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality in October approved the updated charges as part of a broader rulemaking covering the Texas Low-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Compact facility, which Waste Control Specialists operates for the state on its Andrews County property.
Among the updates to the Texas Administrative Code: The charge for disposal of Class A low-level radioactive waste is locked in at $100 per cubic foot, eliminating a separate fee of $180 per cubic foot for shielded material; for radioactivity charges, the curie inventory charge dropped from $0.55 to $0.40 per millicurie; and a number of charges have been fully eliminated, including those for carbon-14, special nuclear material, and containers weighing 10,000 pounds to 50,000 pounds.
State regulations require that members of the compact be charged no more than the listed amounts, while non-compact waste generators pay higher amounts. Texas and Vermont are the only members to the Texas Low-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Compact.
The Compact Waste Facility has a maximum capacity of 9 million cubic feet of Class A, B, and C low-level waste.
Waste Control Specialists had requested the lower charges in hopes of driving up business for waste disposal after losing millions of dollars for prior owner Valhi Inc. The company was sold in January to private equity firm J.F. Lehman & Co.
“Our commercial customers have been provided with notice of the change, and our sales staff have been working directly with them,” David Carlson, Waste Control Specialists president and chief operating officer, said by email. “It is clear that the rulemaking will benefit our commercial customers and it will support our objective to provide competitive services for all radioactive waste including Class A, B, and C LLRW.”
