Planned repository for high-level nuclear waste in Lea County draws opposition

By Sarah Halasz Graham | sgraham@sfnewmexican.com May 22, 2018

ALBUQUERQUE — In a crowded hotel ballroom, a once-regional battle over New Mexico’s nuclear future evolved into a statewide showdown.

Dozens of concerned citizens and environmentalists took to the microphone at the Crowne Plaza hotel in Albuquerque on Tuesday night to voice their opposition to a project they said could put New Mexicans at risk of deadly radiation while further pigeonholing the state as the nation’s nuclear-waste graveyard.

At stake in the melee: The economy of one of New Mexico’s most profitable corners, the safety and security of the state’s residents — and the future of nuclear waste disposal in the United States.

Proponents of the plan — including Gov. Susana Martinez; U.S. Rep. Steve Pearce, R-N.M.; and a slew of downstate lawmakers, business owners and citizens — say the region’s geology is ideal for the proposed facility, and the economic benefits are well worth what they see as nearly nonexistent risks.

In March 2017, Holtec International, a Jupiter, Fla.-based energy technology company, submitted an application for a 40-year license to build and maintain what could be the nation’s largest interim repository for high-level nuclear waste.

If approved, the proposed 300-acre Lea County facility would house a vast cache of spent nuclear fuel rods from power plants nationwide.

The rods would be moved to the site in thousands of cross-country rail deliveries over the course of about 20 years — a process opponents of the plan said would put people at risk.

“For those concerned about security, that translates into thousands of opportunities for attacks or thefts of spent fuel,” said Barney McGrath of the Santa Fe Democratic Party.  Others worried about radiation leaks and derailments during transport.

“Each rail car is like the equivalent in plutonium of what got dropped on Nagasaki,” said Karen Hadden, executive director of the Austin, Texas-based SEED Coalition, an advocacy group. “It’s not in bomb-grade form, but it’s huge.”

State Sen. Cisco McSorley, D-Albuquerque, said that when it comes to the nuclear industry, New Mexico has “borne the brunt” for too long. He said the federal government has broken too many promises. “The idea that we are going to give a company, a for-profit company, the ability to handle uranium that is going to be radioactive and deadly for six million years … to me that seems ridiculous,” McSorley said.

Holtec executives said the facility would generate about 100 temporary construction jobs and another 100 permanent positions with salaries ranging from $60,000 to $80,000 a year.

The host communities also would take home an incentive payment to be shared with the state.

About 200 people filled the hotel’s ballroom for the hearing held by the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission. It was the sixth meeting so far in the public comments stage of the application process. The NRC also has held forums in Gallup, Roswell, Hobbs, Carlsbad and Washington, D.C.

Of the more than 60 commenters, the vast majority voiced opposition to the project.

John Heaton, a former state representative from Carlsbad, is the chairman of the Eddy-Lea Energy Alliance, a coalition of the cities of Carlsbad and Hobbs and Eddy and Lea counties. The group has partnered with Holtec to bring the site to fruition.

He said the waste would be packaged with “triple redundancies on any possible materials getting out.”

Nuclear material would be housed in zirconium rods, which would be packaged in stainless steel canisters. Those would be contained in 15-inch-thick concrete transportation casks.

Holtec has applied for a license to store 8,680 metric tons of nuclear waste, but ultimately the facility could house 20 times that amount — more waste than has been generated in the history of the nation’s nuclear power plants.

Until now, plants have been storing their own waste in large concrete barrels. The federal government has deemed the waste safe to store for 60 years after a site is decommissioned, but proponents of the proposed short-term dump say the barrels aren’t safe, after all.

There are 60 active nuclear power plants in the U.S., most of them east of the Mississippi River. None are in New Mexico. Another 31 plants, some of which still house spent nuclear rods, already have been decommissioned.

Comment by Greg Mello on the above article:

Thank you, New Mexican and Sarah Graham for covering this very important issue. Apart from cash flow and profit for Holtec, this proposal -- or any other proposal for consolidated interim storage -- addresses no actual need. It is based on a terrible logic, that of conquest.

As many commenters pointed out last night, if this proposal is safe, why is it not being proposed for location(s) near (or at) nuclear reactors, where the spent fuel is today and where the people and institutions have benefited from creating, and continuing to create, this waste? It is, really and truly, deadly, and transportation is indeed very dangerous.

This is being proposed for New Mexico only because a) a handful of private interests in the local area will benefit in the short run, and b) New Mexico may lack sufficient clarity and clout to successfully oppose this. Colonies always have "compradora" that help the colonizers. They are essential. John Heaton is a smart guy, but sadly ideological, and that is the role he and his buddies are playing here.

The planned further privatization of the nuclear waste industry, with the NRC using its federal powers to help private companies make money at public expense as in this case, is at the root of this awful proposal. In this matter, the NRC has exactly one (1) proposal before it. A realistic appraisal of alternatives is impossible under this model.

Should this proposal be realized, it would truly be an economic death-knell for the state. The reputational harm would be intense. The equation "New Mexico = nuclear weapons and waste" would become part of the nation's, and world's, views of the state. Add in desertification, and goodbye amenity-based development.

Once brought, this waste would never leave. This is a permanent, not interim facility, but one that lacks ALL of the qualities needed for a permanent facility. The lies behind it are so breathtaking, so "big" (as Hitler suggested would work), that it is difficult for ordinary people to even imagine them. This has a lulling effect, which must be resisted.

There are many good alternatives to this benighted proposal. The spent nuclear fuel problem is not impossible to solve. There is a challenge to antinuclear activists in this as well: to help solve this problem, not just block everything.

We can start by keeping this waste in the states where it was generated, and managing it much better there for starters, to avoid the intense moral hazard that underlies the decisions being made in dozens of states to make more of it.

There is absolutely no reason why spent nuclear fuel cannot be safely disposed in those states, or very near them via regional compacts. We have to change our thinking, and our institutions. The idea of sending nuclear waste to "the desert" somewhere is a huge part of the problem.