Why Radioactive Waste in West Texas Can Hurt Oil Industry

Waste Control Specialists are attempting to profit even more on the nuclear disposal industry by accepting low-level nuclear waste from outside Texas. Business owners and local residents are worried that changing legislation will pave the way for WCS to accept high-level nuclear waste. 

An unlikely opponent is sharing the same sides as environmental groups: oil and natural gas industry experts. Radioactive dump sites should be situated away from mineral and energy resources, yet Waste Control Specialists joint venture with Orano, Interim Storage Partners, plans to store nuclear waste in the Permian Basin, the largest oil field in the United States. 

The main concern for politicians, Brooks Landgraf and Kel Seliger, is that if WCS goes under (which it does have a history of financial troubles), the state of Texas would have to carry the burden of caring for the radioactive waste site. Texas taxpayers would bear the burden of this cost. 

Local leaders in West Texas ask if the handful of jobs that ISP will bring to Andrews are really worth the risk of storing such dangerous material for half a century (or longer if the site becomes a de facto storage facility for the HLW). Midland County leaders such as David Rosen believe it is not. He wants the plan to be halted. 

Kelly West/American-Statesman