Texas company: We want nation's radioactive waste

A company is signaling its intent to turn a rural Texas county near the New Mexico state line into the home of the only dump in the United States capable of disposing of all classes of low-level radioactive waste from around the country.

South Carolina shut its doors to nearly all of the nation's low-level radioactive waste in July, leaving 36 states with no place to dispose of certain waste from nuclear power plants, hospitals, universities and research labs.

Dallas-based Waste Control Specialists LLC received a license from state regulators earlier this year to begin accepting U.S. Department of Energy waste from around the country and commercial waste from Texas and Vermont at its facility in west Texas.

But the company wrote in an April 6 letter to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that it wants to dispose of commercial waste from other states too. The letter was sent in advance of an NRC public hearing on low-level radioactive waste being held Friday.

"We believe flexible import provisions would go very far toward resolving the nation's challenges … now that the Barnwell (S.C.) facility no longer allows nationwide access for disposal of these wastes," William Dornsife, the company's executive vice president for licensing and regulatory affairs wrote.

Company spokesman Chuck McDonald said accepting waste from outside the compact would make operating the compact more affordable for Texas and Vermont and make the rest of the country safer.

"The material is there. It needs to be moved to a secure, licensed facility and we believe that our site can provide that need," he said.

Since the 1980s, the federal government has urged states to build low-level nuclear waste landfills, either on their own or in cooperation with other states in compact systems. But only one low-level landfill, in Utah, has opened in the past 30 years. It is a private facility owned by Salt Lake City-based EnergySolutions Inc. that's only allowed to accept Class A waste, considered the least hazardous.

That's left the more dangerous B and C waste in dozens of states stored on site, leading to fears that some of the material will be lost, or worse, stolen by terrorists and turned into dirty bombs. The NRC is considering allowing Class B and C waste to be diluted so it could be labeled class A waste and disposed of at EnergySolutions' facility, 70 miles west of Salt Lake City.

Waste Control Specialists is licensed to accept Class A, B and C waste, and is objecting to that proposal.