The Texas Nuclear Dump
John WorldPeace
If Governor Rick Perry signs SB1541 into law, I, John WorldPeace, promise that
after I am elected governor in November 2002, that I will find a way to close
down the Andrews County nuclear dump. This is a straight forward unmitigated
warning to all those who invest their time and money into making this endeavor
a reality.
John WorldPeace
May 15, 2001
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Legislators may sell us out in the waste rush to Texas
by Olive Hershey (a writer and a member of the board of the Hershey Foundation,
an environmental foundation based in Houston.)
May 15, 2001, Houston Chronicle OpEd page 21A
Wake up, Texas. The nuclear tide is rolling in.
The state Senate recently passed a bill sponsored by Sen. Robert Duncan,
R-Lubbock, allowing a private company to build the nation's largest nuclear
dump for low-level radioactive waste. If the Texas House approves Senate Bill
1541 and the dump opens, the nuclear power industry will apply of licenses to
build the first new reactors in 20 years. The low-level waste apparently
destined for Andrews County would contain highly toxic substances such as
plutonium, cesium and radioactive iodine, all know carcinogens.
The Texas dump would house waste from civilian and government sources.
Although the bill, with an amendment by Sen. Teel Bivins, R-Amarillo, doesn't
mention the company by name, it would enable Waste Control Specialist, a
corporation controlled by Dallas billionaire Harold Simmons, to accept
radioactive waste from three compact states: Texas, Maine and Vermont.
Moreover, the Bivins amendment specifically permits a private company to accept
Department of Energy waste, a mix of radioactive and hazardous material. For
years Waste Control Specialists has been jockeying for position to handle the
DOE waste.
Because of a loophole in Texas law, nuclear power plants across the United
States could ship Texas their radioactive refuse, as well as contaminated parts
of decommissioned nuclear power plants. While the waste from the three compact
states would be buried in containers in an underground storage facility, no
language in the Bivins amendment prevents Waste Control Specialists from
dumping DOE waste into raw dirt trenches. The Andrews County dump site lies
directly above the Ogallala acquifer, which waters food crops in seven states.
According to Texans for Public Justice, from 1997 through 2000 contributions by
people related to Waste Control Specialists interests totaled more than
$600,000. And as this is being written, 18 company lobbyists are hard at work
in the Legislature. Simmons, according to the Dallas Morning News, has a
contingency contract for some of his Washington, D.C., lobbyist that will pay
out $18.4 million if his company's land in Andrews County is approved as the
dump site for the DOE waste. The Houston Chronicle reports that the estimated
volumes of waste that will be produced by the three states and DOE sources,
respectively, are 2.7 million cubic feet in 35 years and 93 million cubic feet
in 10 years.
"We have to put this stuff somewhere," complain advocates of the Andrews County
dump. "We're in the midst of a terrible crisis." But where is the real
crisis? The four largest waste generators, South Texas Nuclear Project,
Comanche Peak nuclear plant, Waste Control Specialist processing facility and
Rhodia Rare Earths, produce 97 percent of all low-level radioactive waste in
Texas. They can keep shipping their waste to a dump in Barnwell, S.C., until
2010 and, after that, to a new facility in Utah.
The other 39 generators produce just 1,220 cubic feet per year, and only a
third of these generate volumes of more than 15 cubic feet annually, just
enough waste to fit into a 2-by-2-foot box. Hospitals and universities store
small amounts of waste on site until they can be safely buried in ordinary
landfills. The Texas Department of Health regulates all radioactive waste
storage. Except for one new facility in Utah, every dump built in the United
States has leaked. Persistent radioactive waste should never be disposed of
underground because retrieval is so expensive.
Under SB 1541, the state of Texas would own the compact waste and would be
liable for accidents and cleanup. The Bivins amendment seeks to make the U.S.
government responsible for DOE waste, but the United States has consistently
side stepped remediation, lowering its standards to save money. A 1998 DOE
report estimated that the expected cost of cleaning up a nuclear dump handling
just 1.5 million cubic feet of waste would be $370 million. Using that cost
ratio ($246 per cubic foot), Texas would incur a liability of $86.3 billion in
1998 dollars. The Texas dump would be a corporate and government bailout of
staggering proportions. The compact waste will be stored above ground.
Language in the bill allows DOE waste to be poured into raw dirt trenches.
Texans are in grave need of courageous legislators and regulators who will make
and enforce decent laws governing waste disposal. SB 1541 serves interests of
a single corporate entity. If its supporters succeed, we, the people of Texas,
will pay of letting politicians sell our public health and well-being so a
private company can profit.
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Subj: Fwd: Important: Radioactive Waste Alert
Date: 4/25/01 4:59:41 PM Central Daylight Time
From: sc...@igc.org (Jennifer Walker)
>Radioactive Waste Bill Scheduled for Senate Floor
>
>Take Action Now !!!
>
>
>Dear Friends,
>
>Below is some important information about a terrible radioactive waste
>bill (SB 1541)that could be voted on by the Texas Senate at the end of
>this week or early next week. This is one of the worst environmental
>bills this session. It would allow a private company to import hundreds of
>millions of cubic feet of long-lived radioactive waste mixed with
>hazardous chemicals and dump it in Texas in earthen trenches without being
>encased in any type of canister or containment structure. Your help is
>needed now--especially if you live in the following Senate districts:
>
>4--David Bernsen (Houston/Beaumont) 512-463-0104
>2--David Cain (Dallas and northeast Texas) 512-463-0102
>13--Rodney Ellis (Houston/Ft. Bend County)512-463-0113
>6--Mario Gallegos (Houston)512-463-0106
>19--Frank Madla (West Texas)512-463-0119
>26--Leticia Van de Putte (San Antonio)512-463-0126
>25--Jeff Wentworth (Guadapupe/Comal County area and west)512-463-0125
>23--Royce West (southwest Dallas)512-463-0123
>
>These are "swing" Senators who are very close to voting against the bill
>and need to hear from their constituents.
>
>If you're not sure who your Senator is, you can find out by typing in your
>address at http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/fyi/fyi.htm
>
>Please call or e-mail your Senator and ask him/her to vote NO on the
>motion to suspend the rules and consider the bill (SB 1541 by
>Duncan). This is a procedural thing the Senate does--it only takes 11
>Senators to block any bill from being considered on the floor. All e-mail
>addresses are the same: firstname...@senate.state.tx.us
>
>BACKGROUND SB 1541:
>
>--Allows waste to be dumped in earthen trenches without first being placed
>in concrete canisters or within other barriers.
>
>--Allows a private company to open two radioactive waste dumps in Texas
>that both could accept unlimited amounts of low level and mixed
>radioactive waste. "Mixed" waste means radioactive waste that is mixed
>with hazardous chemicals. This waste is radioactive for up to millions of
>years.
>
>--One dump would be for compact waste from Maine and Vermont and the other
>would be for waste from the US Department of Energy (DOE). 2.7 million
>cubic feet of compact waste is estimated to be generated by Texas, Maine,
>and Vermont. Over 100 million cubic feet of mixed and low level
>radioactive waste from the DOE could be imported to Texas from over 70 US
>DOE contaminated weapons complexes are scattered across the country.
>
>--The state would own the waste and the land at the compact site, and
>would be liable for accidents and clean-up in the future when the dump
>leaks. Governor-appointed compact commissioners could vote to import
>unlimited amounts of waste from other states to be disposed of at the
>Texas compact facility. No other compact has opened a compact facility in
>the 20 years since the compact law was passed by the US Congress.
>
>--At the DOE waste dump, the DOE would accept liability for remediation of
>the site when it leaks. However, this is NOT a guarantee that the site
>will be cleaned up. Plutonium and other radionuclides are already in the
>on-site aquifers at more than one DOE site elsewhere in the country.
>
>In Texas, the DOE was responsible for cleaning up the Susquehanna uranium
>mill tailings dump near Falls City. According to the DOE, hazardous and
>radioactive materials leached into the aquifer below the Susquehanna site
>and migrated at least 2,500 feet from the tailings piles. The DOE agreed
>to take responsibility for cleaning the aquifer and groundwater at the
>site, but balked at the price-tag: $384 million. The DOE instead decided
>to allow the aquifer to "flush" itself clean, which will take at least a
>century. The state accepted DOE's plan. To this day, the aquifer is
>still contaminated.
>
>SB 1541 was amended in the Senate Natural Resources Committee with a
>16-page amendment by Sen. Bivins. Sen. Bivins put the amendment on
>against the will of the bill's sponsor, on behalf of a private company
>called Waste Control Specialists-a private company hoping to use Texas as
>a dumping ground so that the company may enrich itself from the federal
>nuclear weapons waste clean-up market. The WCS site lies directly over
>the Ogallala Aquifer formation in Andrews County. The owner of WCS has
>given hundreds of thousands of dollars to Texas legislators, and is Gov.
>Perry's third largest donor.
>
>Thank you!
>For more information, call the Sierra Club at 512-477-1729
Jennifer Walker
Sierra Club, Lone Star Chapter
sc...@igc.org
512/477-1729
John WorldPeace, Attorney at Law
Vote for WorldPeace
Democratic Candidate for Governor of Texas 2002
http://www.johnworldpeace.org
Vote for WorldPeace