Texas Approves West Texas Nuclear Waste Facility

Date: May 21, 2008

Source: News Room

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality voted 2-1 to grant Dallas-based Waste Control Specialists LLC a license to build a radioactive waste facility in West Texas near New Mexico. In doing so, the agency rejected appeals by the Sierra Club and residents of Eunice, NM since none were actually Texas residents. WCS is owned by Harold Simmons, Chairman and CEO of NL Industries and big contributor to Gov. Rick Perry, who appoints members of the environmental commission. WCS will use the site to dispose of radioactive waste related to Cold War-era uranium processing. The company applied for a second license, which it hopes to receive next year, for another radioactive waste dump on the same property to bury low-level radioactive material such as medical waste.

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