Greening Austin Daily

Commission Ok’s Importing Radioactive Waste into Texas

5th January, 2011 - Posted by katherine - No Comments

The Statesman had this article today, which says that the Low-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Compact Commission, made of members from Texas and Vermont, has voted to allow importation of radioactive waste  from 36 other states into Texas, to be buried in Andrews County in West Texas.  The article states:

The low-level dump can be used to bury radioactively contaminated trash such as rags, syringes and protective clothing from nuclear plants or hospitals. The vast majority of it, if sealed in a drum, would be safe enough to sit atop the site and will lose its radioactivity within a century, according to state environmental officials.

Environmental groups had argued that the waste could imperil water quality in the nearby aquifers….

The final vote on importation was 5-2, with two of the Texas commissioners, Bob Gregory , who runs a landfill southeast of Austin, and Bob Wilson, an Austin attorney, opposed.

But the disposal of the waste became a story as much about money and connections as about radioactive syringes and beakers.

Waste Control is a subsidiary of Valhi , whose board chairman is Harold Simmons , a Dallas investor who has given at least $1.12 million to Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s campaigns since 2001, making him the second-highest individual donor during that period . He gave Perry’s campaign $500,000 in 2010. That year the company spent as much as $430,000 on lobbyists, according to a review of campaign records.

All the commissioners were appointed by Perry.

Read the whole Statesman article for more info.  Additionally, here is an older post about the proposal.