Eddy, Lea, Holtec need support for waste project

F ormer Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, has spent years beating his $15 billion not-in-my-backyard drum regarding nuclear waste. Meanwhile, southeastern New Mexico has repeatedly stepped up to offer a safe, long-term storage solution to the tens of thousands of metric tons of radioactive waste our nation has left lying around.

And we mean lying around quite literally — the nation’s more than 70,000 metric tons of used reactor fuel is now kept in temporary facilities in 39 states. Some sites are adjacent to rivers or on top of water tables.

That’s irresponsible in the extreme, and a coalition of community leaders from southeastern New Mexico and representatives from Holtec International are just the latest from the Land of Enchantment to try to right that wrong.

The region from just east of Carlsbad north toward Hobbs and south to Eunice offers a triangle of nuclear experience and expertise.

There’s the WIPP storage facility, the $4 billion Urenco USA uranium enrichment plant, as well as a proposed spent-fuel storage facility run by Waste Control Specialists and French firm AREVA Inc. just across the Texas state line.

It bears repeating that the state and DOE determined that the problems that closed WIPP in 2014 for almost two years occurred at Los Alamos National Laboratory, where canisters were packed, not at WIPP, where they were stored.

And now, a proposed $280-million-plus Holtec International Inc. underground storage site for used reactor fuel is about two years from being licensed — the application was recently filed with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Lea and Eddy counties and the cities of Carlsbad and Hobbs have a memorandum of agreement with Holtec, which has a 35-plus-year safety record in the business and uses containers that can withstand direct artillery strikes and the potential impact of two rail cars smashing head-on into each other at 60 mph. In addition, those containers will be stored in concrete cavities that can withstand a crashing aircraft or a missile attack.

It’s all planned for 960 acres between Carlsbad and Hobbs, and the 288-acre facility (with a 672-acre security and safety buffer zone) could expand to equal all the planned storage capacity at the politically shuttered Yucca Mountain storage site in Reid’s home state.

“It’s really demonstrating the commitment of Holtec and the Eddy-Lea Energy Alliance to move forward with this facility,” says Joy Russell, vice president of corporate business development and communications at Holtec.

Leaders from southeastern New Mexico and Holtec were in D.C. this month trying to drum up support for the project. They should get it.

Because somebody finally has to clean up the nation’s nuclear mess.

— Albuquerque Journal