PHOENIX — A New Mexico bill could put Holtec International’s proposed interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel in that state in jeopardy, a company official said here this week.
“Despite all the efforts and resources used to inform and educate the public and organizations [on the proposed HI-STORE interim storage site], there is currently legislation in the state of New Mexico … that poses a threat to prevent the operation of HI-STORE, and preventing it from implementing the license that we will be granted shortly by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission,” said Myron Kaczmarsky, vice president of Holtec Government Services, during a presentation Monday at the Waste Management Symposium in Phoenix.
The legislation, introduced in January by New Mexico state Sen. Jeff Steinborn (D), would amend state law to ban the construction of spent fuel storage facilities in the Land of Enchantment until the state has “consented to or concurred” with such a project. It would also bar spent fuel storage in New Mexico until a national permanent spent fuel repository is open, and would add private storage facilities to the purview of an existing statewide radioactive waste task force.
The state Senate passed the measure Feb. 13.
Following Monday’s panel, Kaczmarsky softened his earlier remarks, telling RadWaste Monitor that the proposed bill has yet to become law, and that Holtec has “lots of options” in the event that it does.
Kaczmarsky declined to elaborate on what sort of options would be available to Holtec if New Mexico passed a spent fuel storage ban, or whether the company would sue the state over such a law. “We have to wait and see what happens,” he said.
“Obviously, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is going to provide us a license,” Kaczmarsky said, “and we have to wait and see who is going to provide funding for [spent fuel] transportation.”
Jack Volpato, chairman of the city of Carlsbad, N.M.’s nuclear task force, told RadWaste Monitor Wednesday that the Eddy-Lea Energy Alliance — the coalition of local communities which invited Holtec to built its proposed site — is “prepared” to sue in the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals if Steinborn’s bill becomes law.
Meanwhile, the proposed legislation is now working its way through the New Mexico state House. The state House Government, Elections and Indian Affairs Committee approved the bill in a 6-3 vote Saturday. The measure’s next stop is the House Judiciary Committee, which next meets Friday.
This is Steinborn’s third attempt in as many years to pass legislation blocking nuclear services company Holtec from building its proposed interim storage site. Similar bills the state senator introduced in the last two state legislative sessions failed to pass in both chambers.
NRC, the agency responsible for licensing Holtec’s proposed site, has said that it could make a final decision on the project by March. Kaczmarsky said Monday that he was “confident” that the agency would license the site in the coming month, and that Holtec could “potentially” bring the facility online by fall 2026.
If built, Holtec has said that its proposed facility, planned for an area in southeastern New Mexico between Eddy County and Lea County, N.M., could store up to 8,700 tons of spent nuclear fuel in 500 canisters, with capacity upgrades of up to 10,000 canisters to be added via future license amendments.
