Jeremy L. Dillon
RW Monitor
4/4/2014
Texas Republican Governor Rick Perry expressed support for examining the state’s role in potentially storing high-level waste in a letter he sent to Texas Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst and Texas Speaker of the House Joe Straus late last week. Straus has asked state lawmakers to begin considering the logistics and economic impact of potentially hosting a high-level radioactive waste disposal site or interim storage facility. In his letter, Perry wrote that “2048, or whatever year Washington forecasts that a solution will be provided, is too long to wait.” He wrote, “I believe it is time for Texas to act, particularly since New Mexico is seeking to be federally designated for HLW disposal. The New Mexico proposed site is approximately 50 miles from the Texas border, and we must ensure our citizens are protected. We have no choice but to begin looking for a safe and secure solution for HLW in Texas—a solution that would allow the citizens of Texas to recoup some of the more than $700 million they have paid toward addressing this issue.”
Perry also attached with his letter a report he commissioned from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, highlighting the history of spent fuel storage programs as well as important advice to heed if Texas were to move forward. “Any federal or private program to manage SNF (disposal, storage, or reprocessing) needs to be established in a manner that reduces the uncertainty due to changing prevailing political opinions and minimizes local and state opposition through stakeholder meetings, finding volunteer communities, financial incentives, and a process that is considered fair and technically rigorous,” the TCEQ report said. “Otherwise, the effort to license and build these facilities may result in nothing but wasted time and wasted money like the Yucca Mountain repository, the PFS storage facility, or the MRS facility.” The report also mentioned the Waste Isolation Project Plant in New Mexico and Waste Control Specialists’ low-level radioactive waste disposal facility as examples to be built upon for a methodology to allowing a potential SNF site.
The news spread quickly in Texas, with many praising the governor for taking this step. “Speaker Straus welcomes Governor Perry’s interest in exploring potential benefits and costs relating to the storage of high level nuclear waste in Texas,” Straus spokesman Erin Daly said. Those interested in organizing and hosting the waste also praised Perry’s letter. “I am impressed with Governor Perry’s foresight, and political courage,” said Monty Humble, co-owner of AFCI Texas, a company looking to host an interim storage facility. “He is the first sitting Governor of any state to propose a solution to the problem that does not involve shipping it to some other unwilling state.”
Others in the state are not so convinced this is a good idea, though. Tom Smith of the watchdog group Public Citizen fears that disposal of the waste could lead to leaks into the groundwater, as well as the potential concerns caused by waste shipments. “We need to bury that idea to explore high level nuclear waste in Texas. Given that almost every other state in the nation that has looked at this and rejected it, it makes no sense to waste state resources exploring that question because it’s all risk and too little reward for Texas,” Smith told RW Monitor earlier this year.
Mississippi Public Service Commission Votes to Look at Studies
In Mississippi, the state’s Public Service Commission voted 2-1 this week to hold off on making any positive or negative assertions on hosting nuclear waste until a thorough study could be conducted on the issue. Commissioner Brandon Presley, the lone vote advocating that the state forbid any waste from coming into the state, vowed to bring the vote up at the every Commission meeting until a resolution to prevent nuclear waste storage passed. “I want to send a clear and loud message to the out-of-touch Secretary of Energy to stop messing with Mississippi and give us our money back,” Commissioner Presley said in an April 2 statement. “I am shocked and disappointed that I wasn’t able to win the vote yesterday to stand up for our state but I will continue this fight at every PSC meeting until we get something passed. We must stand up to both the wild-eyed environmentalists at the EPA and the Mississippi-hating Secretary of Energy at every turn when our people’s wallets are concerned,” he said. Pressley also added that delaying Yucca Mountain as the storage facility for nuclear waste was “just another wasteful tactic of the federal government.”
The other two commissioners felt more time was needed to fully investigate the situation. “The other two commissioners, including me, decided it would be wise to do a little more background and investigation to prepare a resolution that captures the full opportunity, whatever that means,” Commissioner R. Stephen Renfroe said. “The other two commissioners just wanted a little more time to think about it. I expect we will bring this resolution back up at the next meeting in May.”
Mississippi has been considering whether or not it wants to host a potential interim storage facility, as laid out in the Department of Energy’s nuclear waste strategy. Representatives from the Mississippi Energy Institute last year made a pitch to the state Senate’s Senate Economic Development Committee on the potential benefits of locating an interim spent nuclear fuel storage site. In a white paper presented to the committee, the MEI highlighted the state’s “unique” geological salt domes as a possible safe location for storage. “The demonstrated failure of the Federal government over three decades requires a thorough re-assessment of our approach to used nuclear fuel management, and provides an opportunity for the State of Mississippi to structure a consent-based host agreement that delivers significant economic development, employment, and energy security benefits,” the white paper said. MEI did not return calls for comment on the vote this week.
