For
Immediate Release (Tuesday, September 16, 2008):
For
More Information Contact:
Cyrus Reed, 512-740-4086 or 512-477-1729 or
Rose Gardner, 575-394-0261 work or 575-390-9634 cell
Sierra Club Calls on TCEQ to Reject License for Radioactive Waste Dump
(Austin)--The Sierra Club today called upon the Commissioners of the Texas state environmental agency to reject the draft license for a proposed radioactive waste facility in far West Texas or to send the application for the license back to the applicant for more work before taking further action.
The call was made in an extensive set of comments filed today with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) regarding the draft license for the Waste Control Specialists (WCS) proposed low-level
radioactive waste disposal facility in Andrews County. If TCEQ fails to
reject the license or send the application back to WCS, the Sierra Club is requesting a contested case hearing on the draft license on behalf of its members living in the area of the proposed facility.
In its comments, the Sierra Club noted that the Environmental Analysis (EA) prepared by TCEQ on the proposed facility showed that basic facts about the proposed site - its final design, radioactive safety program, the level of the water tables, saturation levels, and the exact location of the "dry line" - had not been provided by the applicant, forcing TCEQ to add conditions to the license.
By granting a license to WCS based on an incomplete application - albeit with dozens of pre-construction conditions - the TCEQ would be acting prematurely and outside its statutory authority, says the Sierra Club, while taking away the public's right to all the information necessary to evaluate the proposed facility.
In its comments the Sierra Club says:
"Indeed, the proposed license is not a final agency action --- it lacks finality - because it requires new information to be submitted that is much greater than trivial details; the new information requested is actually the very meat of the application - engineering designs, radiation safety programs, modeling of hydrology, water depth and saturation levels. But we - the public - will not be able to participate in the review of that information or seek a contested case hearing on that information because the license will have already been granted. We not only think the TCEQ should not grant this license, we think to do would be a violation of our rights and of the public in general."
Sierra Club also pointed out the multiple inaccuracies and ways in which the application and proposed license failed to meet the regulatory and legal conditions established in the Texas Health and Safety Code. Among the multiple failures cited by Sierra Club are failures to:
1. accurately characterize the surface and underground geology and hydrology of the proposed site, including the precise location of the dry line of the OAG, the saturated zones and water table heights of the OAG and the Dockum red bed, the level of wind and water erosion, and the extent to which fissures and salt dissolution could pose a problem;
2. take into account severe weather events and their impacts - including both high winds, tornadoes and high rain events;
3. take into account future climactic conditions that might change the amount and timing of evaporation, high wind and high precipitation events;
4. consider the full range and impacts of traffic accidents;
5. look at the potential and cumulative impacts of the nearby RCRA hazardous waste landfill, the byproduct materials license and waste from the uranium enrichment facility;
6. submit a more finalized design of the site, particularly with the new boundaries of the federal facility required by TCEQ
7. submit final plans and descriptions of its leachate collection system;
8. design a finalized radioactive safety program for its workers, which given WCS's history of work-place safety incidents, including with radioactive waste, is paramount;
9. consider all alternatives to the proposed burial of low-level radioactive waste, including an assessment of above-ground isolation, as required by Chapter 401 of the Health and Safety Code;
10. consider alternative site locations to the existing hazardous and mixed use waste site in Andrews, including other counties in Texas; and
11. obtain final title to all mineral and surface ownership on lands associated with the federal and state compact low level waste facilities.
"What we are saying in our comments to TCEQ is simply: Do your job and force the applicant to meet the requirements of the law before you put the public at risk from the facilitating of radioactive wastes - some of the most dangerous substances known to man," said Cyrus Reed, Conservation Director of the Lone Star Chapter of the Sierra Club.
Rose Gardner, a resident of Eunice, New Mexico and a Sierra Club member, noted that her flower shop, general feed store, crops, animals, and health were put at risk by the proposed opening of a major commercial radioactive waste site just a few miles from her home.
"While many people in Andrews County support this dangerous venture, it is the people of Eunice, New Mexico who will be impacted by depressed real estate prices and sales, and the people of Eunice, New Mexico who are being asked to trust a license being issued for a site when we haven't even studied the potential for erosion or wind-blow radioactive particles, or even know where the water table or dry line is below the site," continued Gardner.
The proposed license, if granted, would allow WCS to bring in more than 28 million cubic feet - and nine million curies - of low-level radioactive waste to both a State Compact Site - primarily to serve Texas's two nuclear power plants -- and a Federal Facility for Department of Energy left-over waste. As such, the site would eventually become the largest commercial low-level radioactive waste site in the world, with some wastes remaining dangerous for tens of thousands of years. Reed noted that the proposed federal site could accept some radioactive wastes that are not even containerized, leading to potential direct spills or runoff of radioactive substances.
