Radioactive Waste, With Haste
January 22nd, 2008 at 4:09 pm
In December I wrote a piece on how a privatized radioactive waste fantasy in West Texas is fast becoming a reality. The article relayed the concerns of experts at the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality who warn that Waste Control Specialists‘ radioactive waste landfill site (see it on Google Maps) near Andrews in West Texas could prove an environmental and health disaster. Some of the state’s scientists and engineers, in no uncertain terms, caution that the site, situated near two water tables, is probably unsuitable for disposal of radioactive waste.
Nonetheless, as the story showed, the TCEQ higher-ups are overriding their own staff, hell-bent on fulfilling Waste Control’s dreams. Remarkably, the matter has received zero attention from the mainstream media.
After the story came out I obtained from TCEQ a copy of the agency’s working draft (pdf, 500k) of the license for the low-level radwaste dump. This “initial draft license” – as the agency is calling it – runs to 53 pages and contains more than 200 stipulations. These license conditions are largely an attempt to fix problems, small and large, that the TCEQ identified with WCS’ proposal. For example, WCS has been unable to conclusively show that the waste will not come into contact with groundwater, raising the specter of radioactive contamination of the Ogallala Aquifer and the smaller Dockum Aquifer. As a fix, TCEQ has put into the license requirements that WCS monitor water elevations during excavation of the landfill, among other conditions.
WCS has had three years to prove that the site is safe but have been unable to do so to the staff’s satisfaction. TCEQ has three options: they could reject the application; keep working with WCS to see if they can live up to the standards in the law; or issue a license anyway. It appears the agency higher-ups have opted for the latter and will attempt to plug the holes after the fact. TCEQ’s attorneys have also evidently (as I explore in more detail below) been working overtime to legally insulate themselves from any environmental or health liabilities that may arise.
In written comments, Chuck McDonald, a spokesman for WCS, said the license conditions are unnecessary. “The application meets all of the regulatory requirements for the issuance of a license. WCS’ site meets or exceeds all of the required technical criteria and assures compliance with its primary performance objective of protecting the general public.”
The amount of waste and radioactivity levels permitted by the initial draft license are enormous: up to 2.3 million cubic feet and 3.9 million curies of radioactivity for state “compact” waste (material from decommissioned nuclear reactors in Vermont and Texas) and 26 million cubic feet and 5.6 million curies for federal waste (largely Department of Energy Cold War-era leftovers). That’s 28 million cubic feet – about a third the volume of Reliant Stadium in Houston - and 9.5 million curies in all. (A curie is a measure of radioactivity. To put it into perspective, the medical waste from diagnosis and treatment procedures shipped annually from most states gives off a fraction of one curie of radiation, according to the Nuclear Information and Resource Service.)
This is a huge amount. The Waste Isolation Pilot Project (WIPP) is a federally-managed deep underground repository for radioactive waste near Carlsbad, New Mexico. Waste is buried more than 2,000 feet below the surface in a salt formation that has been stable for 200 million years. The low-level radioactive waste facility in Andrews “would handle more volume and radioactivity than even WIPP does,” said Don Hancock, of the Southwest Research and Information Center, after briefly reviewing the initial draft license. Under TCEQ’s license, Waste Control could handle more than four times as much waste by volume as WIPP and nearly twice as much radioactivity, according to Hancock, even though WCS’ landfill is only about 100 feet deep and in the vicinity of two water tables.
Despite the concerns, a few weeks ago TCEQ sent the license to Waste Control for review and comment. No notice was given to the public. On January 9, WCS sent back to the agency 196 pages of “comments” (pdf, 10Mb) on the license. TCEQ spokesman Terry Clawson points out that this is not the draft license, which must be signed off on by the TCEQ executive director, and stresses that the public will still have an opportunity to comment. However, other agency sources say that Waste Control wanted a preview of the draft license because it would save them the embarrassment of trying to rewrite the permit during the required public comment period.
McDonald, the WCS spokesman, characterized the comments as “alternative language that will enhance the facility’s ability to safely operate in a manner that will protect the general public, workers and the environment.”
Bottom line: the “comments” are in fact WCS’ dream license, a dramatic rewrite. The changes the company are proposing are too numerous to list but, taken as a whole, WCS is angling for wide latitude to bury as much waste as possible, as cheaply as possible, with the least amount of meddling by the state as possible. Read the following post for the nitty-gritty lowdown on this radical waste plan.
April 18th, 2008 at 10:09 am
[…] Article: The Texas Observer, by Forrest Wilder […]
August 12th, 2008 at 8:44 pm
[…] volumes are unchanged from the “initial draft license,” an earlier version which TCEQ shared as a “courtesy” with Waste Control last December. Along with the license, TCEQ issued a […]