Nuclear Energy Insight
Summer 2012—The people of Andrews County, Texas, were tired of the boom and bust cycle brought on by oil and gas exploration. When business started slowing down, the county looked at industries that could provide durable benefits.
They turned to a surprising alternative.
“In the late ‘80s, Andrews County saw a lot of local communities like themselves,” said Rodney Baltzer, president of Waste Control Specialists. “They wanted something more stable; they didn’t want to blow away and become ghost towns. So, they started looking at other options. One was landfills, particularly radioactive landfills.”
The community approached Baltzer’s company about locating a facility for the disposal of low-level radioactive waste in their southwest Texas community.
“They recruited us to come out there and locate there. They had a great facility and the community support has been phenomenal,” said Baltzer.
States must dispose of low-level radioactive waste in specially designed facilities. To maximize resources, most states have formed compacts to create shared facilities. Forty-one states belong to such groupings, with Texas and Vermont making up the Texas Compact. But not all compacts have access to a disposal facility.
The Texas site received a state license in 2009 and began receiving material from Texas and Vermont earlier this year.
Waste Control Specialists now wants to expand its reach beyond the two states. “The Texas Compact Commission is evaluating applications that would open us up to disposal from the 26 states that [are not in a compact or need access to a storage site].”
Baltzer said that the facility provides about 180 permanent jobs. He added that the site is arid and sparsely populated, with red-bed clay that is almost impermeable.
Low-level radioactive waste typically consists of clothing, rags, mops, filters, residues and equipment from facilities such as hospitals, industrial complexes or power plants that use commercial nuclear technology. “We will put all the waste within these red-bed clays and then we will put about a 30-40-foot-thick cap and cover on top of it.”
Before the waste is placed in the ground, it is “containerized,” that is, placed in containers with 6-inch-thick concrete walls.
The Andrews facility is less than 1 percent full, Baltzer said.
“We’ve taken our first shipments, we’re operational, but we’ve just started,” Baltzer said. “We expect this facility to go for the next 35 years or so. That’s when the nuclear power plants in Texas are currently scheduled to be decommissioned. If they extend their lives, we can extend the life of our facility.”
Eventually, the site will be decommissioned and closed, followed by a 100-year period of environmental monitoring, Baltzer said.
Asked what lessons the successful licensing and operation of the WCS facility might hold for the search for a permanent repository for the nation’s used nuclear fuel, Baltzer said one factor stood out.
“If your local community is not in favor of you, you will not be successful, no matter how well your technical attributes work,” said Baltzer. “The state of Texas tried three times to license a low-level facility, but the communities didn’t want them and they did not get licensed.”
The Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future reached a similar conclusion in its final report, which recommended that storage facilities for used nuclear fuel be located in areas where the local communities want them.
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Read more articles in Nuclear Energy Insight and Insight Web Extra.