Regulators Limit Scope of a Texas Nuclear Waste Site Debate

Interim Storage Partners wants to bring high-level nuclear waste to the Permian Basin but local residents and business owners are fighting back. 

A panel of regulators denied local opposition groups the full amount of arguments they would have liked to make at a Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s hearing. Those opposing the interim storage plan of high-level nuclear waste in West Texas are environmentalist, oil and gas owners, and neighboring ranchers. 

The nuclear waste that could be stored in the Permian Basin would be shipped from nuclear reactors across the country, hundred of miles away. There is no clear plan on what to do with the nation’s waste. Interim Storage Partners’ owners, Waste Control Specialists, has been housing low-level nuclear waste for several years now, but put in a bid with the federal government to house greater than Class C waste. 

Only the Sierra Club will be allow to showcase their arguments to the commission panel because one of the Sierra Club members lives near the proposed site. Their one allowed argument will be over the protection of the horny toad lizard and dunes sagebrush lizard.