Texas board votes down border nuclear dump - details

["Sandy Perle" <sandyfl@earthlink.net>]

AUSTIN, Texas, Oct 22 (Reuters) - A Texas commission voted on 
Thursday to deny a crucial permit for a proposed nuclear waste 
dump near the U.S.-Mexico border, making it unlikely the 
controversial facility will be built.  

The dump was opposed by environmentalists and the Mexican 
government, who said the site at the west Texas town of Sierra
Blanca, 16 miles (26 km) from the Rio Grande, was not safe 
because of a nearby geological fault.

The three-member Texas Natural Resource Conservation 
Commission, the state's environmental regulators, voted 
unanimously against the dump. Chairman Barry McBee said there 
were enough doubts about the facility's safety to deny an operating 
license.  

``There is insufficient direct evidence about the fault. Without that 
we cannot truly get a sufficient picture of how it would perform,'' he 
said.  

After the vote, a Mexican official told Reuters the Mexican 
government was ``pleased by the decision of the Texas 
commission.''  

The commission's decision was a serious blow to the proposed 
dump, but not a final one. Supporters, who include Texas' largest 
utility companies, said they would likely ask for a rehearing by the 
commission within the next 45 days.  

``I'm surprised and disappointed. The science showed this was a 
good site,'' said Lawrence Jacobi, general manager of the Texas 
Low-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Authority, the state agency 
that selected the proposed site.  

The commission's vote was greeted by cheers from opponents, 
who have waged a long battle against some of the state's most 
powerful economic interests. They had accused dump supporters 
of ``environmental racism'' because Sierra Blanca is a poor and 
mostly Hispanic town.  

``I feel my prayers have been answered. I was bracing myself for 
another defeat,'' said Maria Mendez, a 66-year-old Sierra Blanca 
resident - one of the few in the town of 500 who opposed the dump. 
Most wanted it because it would bring jobs and money.  

Sierra Blanca is in a harsh and sparsely populated region about 90 
miles (144 km) east of El Paso, Texas.

David Duggins, a spokesman for the state's utilities, said the only 
place that nuclear waste could now be stored was at a dump
in South Carolina. He told the commission that ``Texas has an 
obligation, a moral and legal obligation'' to construct its own
facility.

The dump, utilizing concrete canisters buried 16 feet underground, 
would have stored radioactive waste from hospitals,
industry and nuclear power plants in Texas, Maine and Vermont, 
the latter two of which would have paid $55 million to Texas.
The U.S. Congress and President Clinton approved the compact 
between the states this summer, which many thought would
clear the way for the dump's final permit.

But Mexican officials, including President Ernesto Zedillo, lobbied 
hard against the permit in meetings with Texas Gov. George
W. Bush. So powerful were sentiments in Mexico that a group of 
Mexican congressmen staged a hunger strike to protest the
dump.

Bush, considered a front-runner for the Republican presidential 
nomination in 2000, cautiously took no stand except to say that
the dump would not be allowed if it was unsafe.

He said the decision would be left to the resource commission,  
whose members are all Bush appointees. 

------------------
Sandy Perle
Technical Director
ICN Dosimetry Division
ICN Plaza
3300 Hyland Avenue
Costa Mesa, CA 92626
Office: (800) 548-5100 x2306 
Fax:    (714) 668-3149
  
sandyfl@earthlink.net
sperle@icnpharm.com

ICN Dosimetry Website:
http://www.dosimetry.com

Personal Website:
http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/1205

"The object of opening the mind, as of opening 
the mouth, is to close it again on something solid"
              - G. K. Chesterton -

The opinions expressed are solely, absolutely, positively, definitely those of the author, and NOT my employer
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