Hudspeth County Herald and Dell Valley Review (Dell City, Tex.), Vol. 36, No. 32, Ed. 1 Friday, March 26, 1993 Page: 2 of 12
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PAGE 2, HUDSPETH COUNTY HERALD-Dell Valley Review, MARCH 26, 1993
DUMPS, DUMPS AND MORE DUMPS ...
WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO THE LA PAZ AGREEMENT?
WEST TEXAS: DUMPING GROUND U.S.A.
BIVAIEECAESUEECE
REACTOR SPENT FUEL IN THE 1990s
TEXAS PRESS
ASSOCIATION
The international border region is struggling to deal with current environmental problems.
It is unconscionable to add to the already difficult environmental situation. The pattern of
locating radioactive and hazardous waste dumps close to the border is in flagrant
disregard of the avowed goals of the Integrated Border Environmental Plan proposed by
EPA and SEDUE. The Border Plan's intention is to "prevent, reduce, and eliminate
sources of pollution in their (U.S. and Mexico) respective territory which affects the border
area of the other'1. This intent is undermined by the placement of a radioactive dump and
sewage sludge project in Hudspeth County, 20 miles from the border. The two projects
are well within the protected area legally defined as extending 60 miles or 100 kilometers
on either side of the international border. The projects in Terrell and Kinney Counties
would also be affected.
. .--Editor — Publisher
.... Assistant
.... Crow Flat Editor
....Sierra Blanca Editor
....Fort Hancock Editor
....Courthouse News
MEMBER
1993
©1934, 7
West Texas, and especially the border region, is in danger of becoming a national and
possibly international dumping ground. Waste generators and handlers seek out
communities that fit a certain profile. West Texas is "perfect" because of its depressed
rural economy, large hispanic population, and political isolation. Unless strong efforts are
made now to stop current plans for dumps, the region will become a magnet for more
undesirable land use projects. It is time to call for a moratorium on these projects. The
U.S. and Mexico must develop a responsible national and international strategy that will
place a premium on the preservation of the border environment.
Both the sewage sludge and radioactive waste dumps threaten surface water drainage
systems which feed into the Rio Grande river and the region's extensive underground
aquifers. So do most of the other undesirable land use projects which are moving into
West Texas. Pecos County is the site for a proposed deep-well injection system
set to receive up to 18 million barrels of industrial and refinery waste over the next 10-25
years. Pecos County is also slated to be the location of a interim storage facility for
radioactive waste generated by the University of Texas System. A national dump for PCB
wastes and hazardous wastes is under consideration for Terrell County. It is also likely
to take waste from maquiladora operations in Mexico. The site is within 20 miles of the
border. In Kinney County, a company called Texcor Industries, Inc. has proposed a
national dump for radioactive waste generated in the production of uranium and a
number of rare earth metals. The proposed site is within 20 miles of the Rio Grande river.
It is not a coincidence that these waste projects are coming to West Texas. State and
national waste generators and handlers are coming to places like West Texas because
they have found a neglected and isolated region to exploit.
There is already serious contamination and depletion of water supplies all along the
border due to improper disposal of hazardous and toxic wastes, human sewage, rapid
pumping of groundwater, and inappropriate agricultural practices. The current situation
demonstrates the woeful inadequacy of the International Boundary and Water
Commission, and of the 1983 La Paz Agreement for dealing with threats to drinking water
sources common to both countries. No provisions in the Plan address the environmental
impact of current or potential projects including dumps and incinerators.
Hudspeth County(0d
and DELL VALLEY REVIEW C
Serving Dell City and Hudspeth County
290 Trail West Park, P. O. Box 659 Dell City, Texas 79837
Second class postage paid in Dell City, Texas 79837
Subsidiary MARY-MARY, INC.
Mary Louise Lynch......
Susan Barker................
C. Warren------------------.-
Bernice M. Elder..........
Linda Polk...................
Sally Brown.................
Coming in the final months of the Bush presidency, a
series of abrupt decisions has revealed the
bankruptcy of the existing federal program for
managing the wastes from the nation's nuclear power
plants. Beginning first in October, a whole series of
Low-Level Radioactive Waste (LLRW) dumps
planned in Illinois, California, and Nebraska have
been canceled or shelved.
As for High-Level Wastes, the Department of
Energy (DOE) announced in a dramatic meeting on
Dec. 17 that it was abandoning its aggressive
yearlong campaign to site Monitored Retrievable
Storage facilities for reactor spent fuel in a number of
Western states. These MRS projects would have been
500-acre staging grounds containing a thousand or
more 100-ton casks awaiting deep geologic
placement, as currently proposed at Yucca Mountain
in Nevada.
Although work is speeding up at Yucca
Mountain, this project is suffering from a continued
decline in scientific credibility. Widespread public
opposition and serious geologic problems -
especially, high water tables in the East and seismic
activity in the West - are the common factors causing
across-the-board setbacks for the federal nuclear
waste program.
In particular, the failure of the MRS campaign
with its highly unrealistic goal of accepting spent fuel
shipments from reactors by Jan. 1,1998, has caused
WHERE
ARE WE?
THE VALDEZ
OIL 5PILL?
THE HUDSPETH
COUNTY
SLUDGE
SPILL
Since our inception in 1983, ACES (Alert Citizens for Environmental Safety) has dedicated
itself to the protection and preservation of West Texas' natural resources and vast areas
of pristine desert ecosystem. ACES has provided the residents of West Texas with factual
information regarding the dangers these projects will bring to the region, and to the long
standing agrarian based economy.
ACES, 290 Trail West Park, Dell City, TX 79837 (915)964-2490
ACES, 519% Prospect St., El Paso, Texas 79902 (915)534-7350
CASE STUDY: PRAIRIE ISLAND
In the nuclear world, "temporary" often seems to
mean permanent, and “permanent" often means
temporary. An introduction to this problem is the 17-
cask spent fuel project under way at the Prairie
Island nuclear plant on the banks of the Mississippi
River south of Minneapolis, in a location subject to
flooding as recently as 1985. After a year of strong
opposition from church, environmental, Native
American, and rural groups, a Minnesota
administrative law judge questioned attorneys from
Northern States Power on April 10, 1992, about
when the utility planned to remove the casks. Since
NSP was unable to offer anything resembling a
removal date, Judge Allen Klein ruled that the
"temporary" project was not temporary and that it
should not proceed. The ruling was merely
advisory, however, and startup activities continue,
despite strong opposition in the Legislature.
• Kindness is the golden
chain by which society is
bound together.
-Johann von Goethe
(1749-1832)
Any erroneous reflection upon the character, standing or reputation
of any person,firm or corporation, which may occur in the columns
of the Hudspeth County Herald will be gladly corrected upon being
brought to the attention of the editor-publisher. The publisher is
not responsible for copy omisssions or typographical errors which
may occur other than to correct them in the next issue after it is
brought to attention, and in no case does the publisher hold himself
liable for covering the error. The right is reserved to reject or edit
all advertising copy as well as editorial and news content.
PUBLISHED ON FRIDAY OF EACH WEEK for Hudspeth County,
Texas, third largest county. Notices of church, entertainments where
a charge of admission is made, card of thanks, resolutions of respect,
and all matter not news, will be charged at the regular rates.
SUBSCRIPTIONS — Required by the Post Office to be paid in advance.
$12.00 IN COUNTY $13.00 OUT OF COUNTY
$12.00 for Military and College Students
Phone: 915-964-2426 915-964-2490 915-964-2467
DOE to shift over to strenuous advocacy of onsite dry
storage facilities in order to relieve the heavily
burdened at-reactor pools containing many hundreds
of assemblies of irradiated fuel rods. The costs of this
fallback strategy are going to be considerable. By the
end of the present decade, 40,000 tons of spent fuel
will have been discharged from the nation's reactors,
according to DOE estimates, and by the year 2010,
that figure will reach 80,000 tons. A single storage
cask for 20 tons of spent fuel costs well over a million
dollars today.
The resulting billions that will be invested by
utilities into onsite storage capacity will contradict
long-established laws restricting utility expenditures
to the direct requirements involved in generating
electricity.
Questions will be raised about the extent to
which nuclear power plants ought to become waste
management centers - at ratepayer expense - and the
public may come to see the continued generation of
nuclear waste on into the next century as an extreme
form of deficit spending in which our grandchildren
will bear the costs for our electricity. Even so,
relentless demands for new spent fuel storage
projects will be coming to the fore in the 1990s from
three main pressure points: filling up of spent fuel
pools, refurbishment of plants for extended service,
and decommissioning of shutdown plants.
This fact sheet was jointly produced by Atoms & Waste, 310
Domer Avenue #1, Takoma Park MD 20912, (301) 589-5892,
Maryland Coalition for Safe Energy, 1443 Gorsuch Avenue,
Baltimore MD 21218, (410) 243-2077, fax 235-5325, and
Nuclear Free America.
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Lynch, Mary Louise. Hudspeth County Herald and Dell Valley Review (Dell City, Tex.), Vol. 36, No. 32, Ed. 1 Friday, March 26, 1993, newspaper, March 26, 1993; Dell City, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1602407/m1/2/: accessed July 12, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; .