Support of Holtec not surprising
THE “YES” op-ed by Paul Gessing of the Rio Grande Foundation in the June 4 edition the Journal supporting building the Holtec nuclear waste storage facility between Carlsbad and Hobbs is not unexpected. Gessing puts aside the well-known dangers of uranium mining with the lead-off phrase, “Modern safety advancements and stricter regulations. …” Really?
Since the Rio Grande Foundation consistently opposes all regulation of all industry, what new stricter safety regulations for uranium mining would they support? How would miners be protected from uranium fines and radon gas? How would the land be reclaimed in an environmentally effective way once the uranium ore plays out? Anyone know?
I agree with Gessing that storing nuclear fuel rods in the proposed Holtec facility would solve a lot of problems for the nuclear energy industry. The owners of the reactors in the U.S. — and maybe in the world — will be paying Holtec lots of dollars for solving their radioactive fuel rod storage problem. But while Gessing’s estimate of a payroll of $8 million per year sounds like a lot, does it really compensate the state for the risks taken? Why aren’t the owners of the nuclear plants dumping these radioactive fuel rods on New Mexico soil being required to pay a monthly or annual fee to the state to store the rods as part of this agreement, analogous to the funds currently being paid by the extraction industries into the N.M. Permanent Fund, but for storage instead of extraction?
I have seen a presentation of the Holtec facility, and I am reasonably confident that the plan for shipping and storing the fuel rods is sound. However, WIPP was closed for three years as a result of human error, i.e., the improper packaging of nuclear waste and a small explosion of one waste barrel, which cost between $1 billion and $2 billion to enable WIPP to reopen.
Who is to say human error won’t strike again, but in the Holtec operation we are talking about much larger quantities of radioactive material above ground. If one of the shipping containers or buried storage containers were to go critical due to someone making a mistake in packaging the fuel rods, the size and cost of the resultant cleanup would likely far exceed our experience at WIPP, and it isn’t at all clear who would pay for it. Holtec or the state of New Mexico?
In addition, neither the “YES” nor “NO” op-eds addressed what I perceive to be the most serious problems with the Holtec facility. What is going to happen to the waste stored in this facility if the proposed Yucca Mountain or similar permanent storage facility isn’t built within the estimated 80- to 100-year lifetime of the Holtec facility? Will the fuel rods just sit indefinitely in their storage casks, with no leakage of radioactive material? Is there a plan to deal with this scenario or do we just all cross our fingers? What happens if Holtec files for bankruptcy? Who will be responsible?
If Facebook goes away and its facility is mothballed, we may have an ugly reminder of a failed enterprise on the landscape, but not a radioactive disaster waiting to happen, as is possible with the Holtec nuclear fuel rod storage facility. ED BIRNBAUM Los Alamos