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RadWaste and Texas' Future
How do you get people to vote for radioactive waste to be dumped in Texas in close proximity to the Ogallala and Dockum aquifers? And how do you also get the same community to agree to bankroll the project's $75 million buildout costs? You sell it as a prosperity issue.
The promise of future prosperity is more hopeful than discussing point-blank realities. Namely, that the source of prosperity is a dumpsite in west Texas, near the border of New Mexico, that has the potential for receiving varying grades of radioactive waste from 36 states. And the geographical area in question has three inherent properties that have scientists, engineers and activists worried: red clay, aquifers and high winds.
On May 9, voters from Andrews County went to the booth to participate in a bond election, paid for by Waste Control Specialists (WCS), to decide whether or not their county will pay for such a dumpsite. 642 people voted affirmative and 639 against.
A discrepancy of three votes has decided a crucial decision that could have far-ranging affects on all present and future residents of Texas and beyond. According to business interests involved in the project, financing through normal channels would require a two to three year wait in the current economic downturn. With Andrews County paying for the initial costs, construction is planned to begin this summer.
The preliminary funding hurdle has been cleared, but central to receiving radioactive waste is a license granted by state regulators. Earlier this year, WCS received their license from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ). It allows them to accept waste from Texas and Vermont as well as from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). Waste accepted from the DOE may originate from anywhere in the country.
Proper licensing coupled with immediate financing is a boon for WCS. If they proceed as planned, they will capitalize on South Carolina's decision in July to shutter its low-level radioactive waste operations. The Texas site stands to profit by absorbing the radioactive waste from the 36 states that South Carolina will no longer be servicing.
And the recent move by the Obama administration to put a hold on the Yucca Mountain repository may leave the door open for the proposed Texas dumpsite to become an alternative location for nuclear reactor waste that had been previously destined for Nevada.
While WCS is licensed to accept Class A, B, and C waste (A is the least hazardous), they currently cannot accept waste outside the compact with Vermont. That would require the approval of eight compact commissioners, six from Texas and two from Vermont.
This arrangement, however, is rife with conflicts of interest. The commissioners in Texas are appointed by Gov. Rick Perry. WCS is owned by Valhi. Valhi is owned by Harold Simmons, a major Republican party and Perry donor.
This issue and corollary ones will not be going away any time soon as Texas has its own dependency on such sites. In addition to being home to two commercial nuclear reactors, eight additional entities are currently seeking licenses to build reactors in Texas.
WCS has been licensed to operate Andrews County's radioactive waste dumpsite for 15 years. In that length of time, varying grades of radioactive refuse could make its way underground in Texas, releasing radionuclides into the Ogallala and Dockum aquifers. The voters of Andrews County have spoken but theirs should not be the final voice on this issue.
For further reading and updates, see No Bonds for Billionaires (http://www.nobondsforbillionaires.org) and Nuke Free Texas (http://www.nukefreetexas.org)
- Posted in
22 Comments so far
Show AllAll radioactive waste should be buried in D.C. (government area)
The mutations could only be Positive.
Excellent point.
It's generally been tradition to dump your nasty ass shit in foreign countries. With the Texas governor talking independence from the USA, why not get a jump start on this and send everything we've got down there fast?
Let 'em eat yellowcake.
You don't have nuke-away?
Mork
I notice that there isn't much sympathy for Texas or Texans these days...
-30-
There isn't. I guess because we aren't in hock over our eyebrows and our business sector and unemployment numbers are better than most. Of course that is all just an accident.
By the way.....for you Texas haters....a Texas kid just won the national Geographic Bee. So....Take that! (LOL)
The other reason is the fact that Texas is more than likely the only State that could stand alone. Bet that really hacks them off.
Texas seventh grader Eric Yang - not a typical Texas scholar. But by flooding Texas
with Nuclear waste all their children will be typical Texas scholars - like George Bush.
Yang is definitely Chinese, not redneck. His Parents probably came here to find the American dream, and instead wound up in the most illiterate, polluted, corrupt state in the nation. People hate texas because texas big oil ripped us off through monopolies and price fixing. People hate Texas because of GWB the crook who destroyed the constitution. People hate Texas because of the Diebold voting computer company that destroyed democracy, People hate Texas because all the bovine-hormone cancer-causing beef that the ranching monopolies stuff down everybody's throat. People hate texas....
Hell, I could go on all day.
They voted to nuke their children and everybody downwind. I say, let em. Let's transfer all our nuke waste (including the high level spent rods) to Texas. Hell they're so crooked, they're probably already making fences out of the stuff to "protect" the trailer parks from the high winds.....
TJ
"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent." - Thomas Jefferson
If all those people hate Texas then come and explain how in 2008 more jobs were created in Texas than in all the other 49 states...combined...times 2.
George Bush is a New England Scholar...Born in Connecticut where he attended prep school, then Harvard and then Yale. He never set foot in Texas till he was adult. I guess we can thank the good ole New England school system for creating George W Bush.
He probably needed an acting coach to teach him to say nucular.
Appearances deceive, especially when those who appear are so damned deceptive.
Well, steel-gray, you're actually wrong. He did set foot in Texas. He grew up in Texas. He is the product of the Texas public education system, which is why he can't spell his own name. How much poppy bush had to pay for his AWOL Harvard and Yale degree's is anybody's guess. (All just my humble opinions from watching him try to speak.)
wiki's refs says:
Born in New Haven, Connecticut on July 6, 1946, Bush was the first child of George H. W. Bush and Barbara Bush (born Pierce). He was raised in Midland and Houston, Texas, with his four siblings, Jeb, Neil, Marvin and Dorothy. Another younger sister, Robin, died from leukemia at the age of three in 1953.[15] Bush's grandfather, Prescott Bush, was a U.S. Senator from Connecticut. Bush's father, George H. W. Bush, served as U.S. President from 1989 to 1993.
Education
As a child, Bush attended public schools in Midland, Texas until the family moved to Houston after he completed seventh grade. He then went to The Kinkaid School, a prep school in Houston, for two years.[16]
TJ
"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent." - Thomas Jefferson
The misconception that Texas could 'stand alone' is one of the more comical concepts that many "Texans" suffer from----and none of them suffer alone, or quietly.
Texas also has some of the dirties air and water---especially since GW Bush was Gov, (one of my favorite scenarios is in 1994 when the Bush Gov. was asked why the state did not enforce the environmental laws he stated that the "state of Texas is waiting for those businesses to comply with the law"---while the state was subsidizing several 'private jails' where "drug offenders were to be incarcerated---Texas couldn't wait for "them" to 'comply with the law'---) all the while Texas has the highest rate of 'closed waterways'----than any of the lower 48 states. (A closed waterway is an interesting concept, polluted beyond imagination and very dangerous----in fact if you are caught even standing in one you can be charged with a 'class B misdemeanor' the same for as much as one pound of Marijuana---good for 4K $ fine and one year in jail---if you are caught with fish from a 'closed waterway' , you can receive a class B Mis. charge for each fish, and multiple years of time in one of their "world famous prisons"-----) Texas has the worst record for Labor Relations, and one of the worst Elementary, Middle , and High School---except for the private schools of course----performances in the country---and the Texas School Board Commission recently argued whether to include "creationism" in the "Science curriculum" for High Schools-------
So standing alone, would be impossible since Texas is still "legally" a state of Mexico, and Thomas Moore and all of the other Anglo residents would be out numbered at least 3 to 1 just in resident Latino Texans---aka 'Tejanos'------Texas was not recognized by Mexico until Texas became a "state"---and the USA has never complied with the 'Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo' which ended the Mex/Am War in 1848---there are still descendants of those "early Texians" who are still tied up in courts all along the border with Mexico over 'Spanish Land Grants'----and it never ends.
Then they would need to answer to the Comanche, Kiowa, Arapaho, Cheyenne, Waco, Karankawa, Taegu, Cherokee, Alabama Coushatta, Alabama, and not to mention the Apache tribes---four of them----and hell, there wouldn't be enough land for ole Thomas Moore to stand and wave the "Lone Star Banner" from---he would be "evicted",
and it would be hard to find anyone who would miss him and his "Texians"------they have outlived there usefulness even for Hollywood----------
Texas still has not complied with any of the treaties with the fifteen tribes that were in residence when the Republic of Texas was formed----these tribes had agreed not to join Mexico against Texas in its revolution--and they kept that promise; Texas didn't. (Wow what a surprise)------------I was born there and raised there for part of my chidhood. There are some really good people in Texas---they just do not seem to be the ones in control. I sold my property there over twenty years ago, and never looked back.
The Winner of the National Geographic Bee was a fine student, but most likely not a reliable indicator, and most likley was a student at a private school.
They already have several "temporary" sites where "RadWaste" is stored, and most of the Texans do not seem to care what others do with their environment, as long as they benefit from the use-----or "get a cut"----.
It is a "Good ole boy" state, and most of those "GOB's" would make the prostitutes in DC,---- you know the elected ones----look like amateurs.
Texass is the death penalty $tate... so it seems righteous that Texass be the dumping ground for radioactive wastes and other multi-millenary poisons. And the closer the dump sites are to George W. Bush's house, the better!
You know what they say about the Amerikan South? Well, allow me to quote Gold$tein (down in the Caymans). Quote: "There's nothing quite as vicious and cruel as Southern hospitality, and this is particulatly the case in Texass, a land of pea brained people and even smaller penises."
If PROFITS can be made by dumping radioactive wastes near water supplies then where is the problem.?
Is it not the case that those that support a "Free market" approach to capitalism claim that by PROFITING off the destruction of the enviroment, all persons benefit?
Face it folks. When people hitch all of their wagons to the Horse called Profit and think it is going to pull you along to the land of plenty, this is the type of stuff you will face.
The purpose of ANY economic system should be for the benefit of the people. The system in the countries going that route is designed to service PROFIT with the peoples concerns secondary to profit.
It is the worship of the Golden Calf.
Sioux Rose
GWNORTH: Amen to that!
NATIVE SON: I appreciate the unique viewpoint(s) you add to this forum. Thank you.
This is insanity. We don't need nuclear power.
That's all we need here in Texas--more mutants. :(
well put, native son.
with the exception of the hill country and perhaps some fine musicians, there's not much to be said about the way the state has devolved.
oh wait, there's also the gulf of mexico. and a fine cesspool it is.
I'd like to thank the Houston cop who threw me in jail many years ago, but most of all, I'd like to thank the judge who looked at the four charges against me and immediately dismissed all of them. And then he gave me the best advice a person could ever hope for. He told me to get out of Texas cause if he ever saw me again, he would throw the book at me.
OK, so we're pissed at Texans because they elected Bush too. The Texas cockroaches don't deserve that radwaste.