Tuesday, September 28, 1999
ODESSA AMERICAN (Odessa, Texas)
Local and State - Section B

Residents file petition against Nuke dump
Ward County citizens urge commissioners to turn away radioactive disposal company
By Greg Harman
Odessa American

MONAHANS- Concerned residents filled the Ward County Commissioners Court Monday morning to urge them to turn away a radioactive disposal company scouting the area for a radioactive disposal site.

Grandfalls resident Laura Burnett presented commissioners with a petition from area residents opposed to the project.

"The big fear I have is it won't end up just being low-level," Burnett said.

"They tend to- government and private companies with lots of money- cover up things like leaks ... Just like the FBI said it didn't put incendiary bombs in Waco."

County Judge Sam Massey assured those attending the meeting that commissioners were not "for or against" the project, Burnett said.

"We neither support nor reject it," said Precinct 2 Commissioner Kathy Fausett. "We have no say-so."

Julian Florez, commissioner for Precinct 1, helped collect signatures from the Barstow area, the nearest community to the proposed Ward County radioactive storage site.

"They don't want any low radioactive waste brought in in any condition," Florez said. "They feel they can live happy lives without it."

Florez said he collected 120 signatures from Barstow's 500 residents during the weekend. Burnett claimed about 400 signatures were collected in 10 hours.

Massey read a letter at the morning meeting he had written to Envirocare of Texas Vice President of Operations Rick Jacobi containing a list of recommendations to the company.

In it, Massey asked that should Envirocare select Ward County for an aboveground long-termradioactive storage facility it agree to a series of recommendations.

Among Massey's list were:

- Provide a minimum of 75 jobs

- Provide doctors and staff at Ward County Memorial Hospital with training for radioactive contamination scenarios

- Partner with the school system to train area youth for future careers with Envirocare

- Provide $25,000 annually to the Ward County Economic Development Fund

- Establish an oversight committee comprised of local residents to monitor Envirocare's activities

Massey asked that Envirocare guarantee the residents of Ward County that the company will only accept class A-, B- and C-class wastes.

Should Envirocare decide to dispose of waste at the site, the company should pay for a public referendum on the issue.

Fausett said she supported locating the project in Ward County rather than Loving counties because the larger population could offer better oversight of the company

"If anything went wrong there would be more people to support a fight in case (Envirocare) decides to do something they're not supposed to do," Fausett said. "I do not support the nuclear industry or nuclear waste. It's a shame it was ever started."

Envirocare faces other legal hurdles, as emphasized by the federal report on low-level waste disposal last month.

The report by the U.S. General Accounting Office questioned whether Envirocare's proposed assured isolation technology of storing the waste aboveground would satisfy the terms of the Texas-Maine-Vermont radioactive disposal contract.

According to the report, Texas Attorney General John Cornyn "concluded that such a facility would comply with the state's obligation to 'manage and provide for' the disposal of low-level radioactive wastes" but would not currently satisfy the state's obligation to 'permanently dispose of' these wastes."

In a letter dated July 16, South Carolina's Governor's Office approached Texas about joining the tri-state compact.

South Carolina was hoping to "end its role of providing disposal capacity to most of the nation" by joining with an interstate compact, wrote Butler Derrick, chairman of the South Carolina's Nuclear Waste Task Force.

The letter was sent to the general manager of the Authority weeks before the agency was disbanded by the Legislature earlier this year.

A reply was not received, said Nina Brook, a spokesperson at the South Carolina Governor's Office.

Envirocare plans to annouce whether it will site its facility in Ward, Loving or Borden County on Friday.