Oct. 11, 2024

More than 10 years ago, environmentalists first sounded the alarm about a nuclear waste facility in West Texas.

Now, the U.S. Supreme Court will weigh in on the private company's plan to bring in the nation’s highest-level radioactive waste. 

On Oct. 4, the justices agreed to review the ruling by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that found that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission exceeded its authority in granting a license to Texas-based Interim Storage Partners to store spent nuclear fuel at a rural site in West Texas, according to the Associated Press. 

A date has not been set yet for the review. Here's a brief history:

MULTI-DECADE BATTLE

In 2009, under the radar of most Texans, Dallas-based Waste Control Specialists began operating a low-level radioactive waste dump in Andrews County.

Low-level radioactive waste typically refers to contaminated equipment and materials from power plants, medical facilities and research labs.

In 2011, the Texas Legislature passed a bill allowing waste from outside Texas to be disposed there.

In 2016, the company applied to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for a license to build a new facility and began storing high-level radioactive waste — considered to be potentially deadly — at the site. 

"High-level wastes are hazardous because they produce fatal radiation doses during short periods of direct exposure,” according to the NRC.

The private company proposed to accept 40,000 metric tons of used nuclear fuel at its 14,000-acre site, 30 miles west of Andrews. Their plan is to store it for 40 years above ground in canisters on a parking lot, until a permanent storage site can be located, with an option to extend the license at 20-year intervals.

In 2017, WCS suspended its application due to financial problems.  

However, the company, formerly controlled by Dallas billionaire Harold Simmons until his death in 2013, was sold to J.F. Lehman & Company in 2018. Following the sale, the new owners reinstated the application with partner Orano USA under the name Interim Storage Partners.

NUKE WASTE BUILDUP

To date, the high-level radioactive waste from spent fuel has been stockpiling at the nation’s 98 nuclear reactors at 60 sites, the majority of which are located east of the Mississippi River. 

The U.S. currently has 70,000 metric tons of used nuclear fuel and is creating more everyday. The only way for the highly toxic material to become harmless is through decay, which can take hundreds of thousands of years, according to the NRC. 

Nuclear plants were never intended to store spent nuclear fuel indefinitely. The Department of Energy is required by law to locate a permanent storage site for high-level radioactive waste. Plans for a permanent disposal site at Yucca Mountain in Nevada have been shelved after fierce political opposition. 

“In Nevada, where a high level permanent depository at Yucca Mountain has been planned, they’ve been fighting it for years now,” said Karen Hadden of the Sustainable Energy and Economic Development Coalition, based in Austin. “Texas needs to do that or we’re going to be the nation’s dumping ground.”

TEXAS PUSHBACK

Over the years, an environmental coalition, which includes the SEED Coalition, Beyond Nuclear, Sierra Club and Public Citizen, has led a campaign against the Texas dump site.

Lon Burnam of the Greater Fort Worth Sierra Club told Green Source DFW, that Texas would be foolish to go along with Interim Storage's plan:

“Everyone else in the country is sophisticated enough to know they don’t want this in their backyard.”

Some West Texas gas and oil companies, including Faskin Oil and Ranch, have since joined in the fight to protect their local turf.

“Oil and gas interests are concerned because it’s a threat to our industry, to the people who work in the industry, it’s a threat to the Permian Basin, and we’re the most productive oil and gas region in the United States,” Monica Perales, an attorney for the firm, told Marfa Public Radio.

Siding with the oil and gas industry, in September 2021, Governor Abbot signed a bill into law that bans highly radioactive materials from coming to Texas, to stop Interim Storage Partners' plan. 

Just days after the ban, the NRC approved the high-level nuclear storage facility.

Ten days later, the Texas Attorney General’s Office sued the NRC on behalf of Governor Abbott and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality over the approval of the Andrews nuclear waste site, according to the Midland Reporter-Telegram. 

Environmental groups followed a few months later with their own lawsuit.

In 2023, the state won the case and the license was vacated. However, this summer, Interim Storage Partners filed an appeal.

The Supreme Court will now have a say in the dump's fate.

"TCEQ should never have granted WCS a license in the first place," former Texas Sierra Club Conservation Director Cyrus Reed told the Texas Tribune. "There are still serious questions about the hydrogeology under the site."

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