Sunday, January 10, 1999
West Texas counties, companies vie for nuclear dump
By CHRIS NEWTON
Associated Press
ANDREWS -- If Andrews officials have their way, somewhere among the tumbleweeds and cactus about 35 miles west of the city, giant pits will be dug in the wide-open spaces to house nuclear waste permanently.
Local resistance to the plan to bring low-level radioactive waste into the city's back yard has been minimal. Instead, businessmen and local folks talk about the need for Andrews County to diversify its economic portfolio with industries not associated with agriculture or oil.
Andrews isn't alone. Haskell County, near Abilene, also has expressed interest in the project.
In West Texas, nuclear waste has never been so popular.
"There's nothing really out here that will be harmed by it and I'm sure it will be safe," said John Lincoln, who lives about 20 miles from the proposed Andrews site. "Anyway, it will be good business for the town so I'm for it."
While some worry that the dump could harm the Ogalalla Aquifer and the health of West Texans, officials are wooing the waste business, eager to gain its economic rewards.
"This type of stabilizing factor to our economy is the kind of thing we're looking for," said Lloyd Eisenrich, president of the Andrews Industrial Foundation. "We estimate about 40 full-time jobs associated with the site. It also opens other doorways for researchers and other businesses."
The Industrial Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to diversifying and improving Andrews' economy, estimates that the county could reap a $1 million annual economic impact from the dump.
In Haskell, about 175 miles northeast of Andrews, Mayor Ken Lane says his office has inquired about the dump but has not decided if it will pursue the site.
"We asked a few questions and are in the preliminary stages of looking at it," Lane said.
Securing the dump would likely be an arduous and controversial process. First, Texas legislators would have to pass a law permitting the state to consider a site other than Sierra Blanca, a town 90 miles east of El Paso and less than 20 miles from the Rio Grande.
Capping a process that took nearly two decades, the Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission vetoed Sierra Blanca as a storage site in December. TNRCC Chairman Barry McBee and other commissioners were concerned that the state's waste disposal authority, charged with finding potential sites for nuclear waste dumps, didn't thoroughly investigate a geologic fault line there. Any future site would have to get the nod from the commission.
The commission's decision has a couple of other companies scrambling to gain approval elsewhere. Envirocare of Texas and Waste Control Specialists have developed plans to operate a facility in Andrews County that would be overseen by the state.
Envirocare has bought nearly 900 acres in the county where a dump could be built and WCS, controlled by Texas millionaire Harold Simmons, already operates a hazardous waste facility in Andrews County that could serve as the dump site.
WCS spokesman Ron Hans said the company has pressed its message with county residents. "We're willing to go to the nth degree to make people feel comfortable with what were doing," Hans said.
Envirocare says it has more experience in radioactive waste disposal than its competitor.
"We've been in the radioactive waste for over 10 years and we've disposed of tens of millions of pounds of radioactive waste," said Charles Judd, vice president of Envirocare of Texas. "We also have obtained several licenses to dispose of low-level waste over the past 10 years."
Texas Rep. Gary Walker, R-Plains, plans to submit a bill allowing the state to consider a dump in Andrews.
"WCS came in there five or six years ago and did a first-class educational program for the people in Andrews that showed what a benefit their people had as far as a waste plant was concerned," Walker said. "The people are for this. The disposal site will be for low-level radioactive waste -- hospital waste and things of that nature -- not stuff that glows in the dark."
Opponents contend that hospital waste would account for only 35 percent of the material dumped. The overwhelming majority of low-level radioactive waste generated in the United States comes from decommissioned nuclear power plants and other industrial usage, they say.
Ready to battle both companies and any Texas counties that try to create a dump is Richard Boren, president of Southwest Toxic Watch, an organization comprised of many of the same people who ferociously fought the Sierra Blanca project.
Boren says Andrews officials should think beyond their pocketbooks.
"Andrews is similar to Sierra Blanca in that the people are going to be dumped on and it is their political leaders that are selling them out," Boren said. "There hasn't been local opposition because once you get the leadership of an area to come out in support, people become afraid to speak out."
For Boren, the problem with putting the dump in Andrews is that the Ogalalla Aquifer lies beneath a large part of the county. The huge reservoir stretches across four states.
"The reason the state didn't select Andrews originally was because of the aquifer. So what has changed now?" Boren asked.
Much of the waste that would be disposed at a Texas dump would be shipped from Maine and Vermont. Each state would pay Texas a one-time flat fee of $25 million, plus $1.25 million to the host county, for the right to store waste here.
Boren and his contemporaries say the Northern states are simply bowing to pressure to get rid of the waste and the liability that goes along with storing it.
"This is just a way for those people to wash their hands of this stuff and let the Texas taxpayers take care of it," Boren said.
Walker complains that the dump opponents don't even live in Andrews.
"You won't find any serious local opposition," Walker said. "People hear know that it can be safe and it's good business."