Betsy Blaney reports that depleted uranium from federal energy facilities can be buried at a nuclear-waste dumping site in West Texas, state regulators decided Wednesday. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality also will triple the Dallas-based Waste Control Specialists facility capacity of storing low-level radioactive waste from the majority of U.S. states going from 2.3 million cubic feet to 9 million cubic feet.
The first of two containers with low-level radioactive waste from Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico were loaded into a reinforced 8-inch-thick concrete container at the 90-acre federal dump where it will remain forever, near Andrews, Texas. Regulators have approved allowing depleted uranium to be buried at a West Texas nuclear waste dump site. Adversaries worry about the Andrews County site, about 365 miles west of Dallas, and how the company keeps wanting to bury additional types of waste. The depleted uranium, which is a byproduct of nuclear power plants, is classified as low-level and will come from federal energy facilities This project provides the U.S. Department of Energy with a much-needed option as it looks for safe, secure disposal of orphaned waste that it has been storing for up to 40 or 50 years.
Managed & Built by I2M Consulting, LLC | © 2010-
