Shipping waste

Like other ideas the federal government has had for storing nuclear waste, the national compacts to collect low-level wastes have looked better on paper than in practice. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission should view the recent rejection of a proposed site in Texas as an opportunity to rethink the compact plan.

The Sierra Blanca site, which would have served as a repository for waste from Texas, Vermont and Maine, was ruled ineligible last week by the Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission. Earlier, two administrative law judges had recommended against permitting the site, in part because the siting agency’s failed to adequately examine a geologic fault line directly beneath it. The judges also faulted the agency for failing to consider the harmful effects on tourism, property values and public perception.

The immediate effects of the decision is small. Maine will continue to ship its waste elsewhere — mostly to South Carolina. And the waste compact remains in effect — the compact did not specify a site, only a state. The Texas Low-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Authority certainly already has begun looking at alternative sites. A firm in Andrews County, bordering New Mexico, has asked to have its site considered.

The idea of collecting the low-level wastes — the clothes, pipes and tools that have become contaminated — and storing them in a relatively few places makes more sense than having countless, redundant sites. But the process of selecting a site is pure political misery — as Maine discovered when it considered one here.

Other states have thought so too, so while at least 10 compacts have been formed, the nation relies on only three existing facilities. The proposed Sierra Blanca site in Texas not only was too close to the Mexican border for comfort, but was situated in a county whose residents have little influence, giving at least the appearance of a state taking advantage of its poor.

While Texas tries again, the NRC should observe how dramatically the stream of low-level waste has changed over the years. Plants throughout the Northeast are shutting down; in a few years, the amount of space needed to store the waste will be greatly reduced. That fact alone should make the compact plan the subject of review.

A new appraisal of the nation’s current storage capacity and its projected supply of low-level waste could spare states lengthy environmental battles. It could allow this state to conclude the decommissioning of Maine Yankee with some assurance that nuclear waste produced there will be stored safely over the long-term.