A Texas Low-level Radioactive Waste Compact Commission meeting will go ahead as scheduled Tuesday. The commissioners are expected to vote on whether to allow entities from outside the Texas-Vermont compact to use a radioactive waste landfill in West Texas.
Last week, environmentalists petitioned a lower court to block the vote, and succeeded temporarily.
On Monday afternoon, a federal court judge in Austin dismissed the state district court’s decision to place a temporary restraining order on the commission.
The commission is set to meet in Andrews, Texas on Tuesday.
Vermont’s two representatives on the Texas Low-level Radioactive Waste Compact Commission are expected to support the proposal to open the landfill to entities from 36 other states. The commissioners, Uldis Vanags and Stephen Wark, are members of the outgoing Douglas administration.
The vote comes two days before the inauguration of Gov.-elect Peter Shumlin, a Democrat, who has said he wants a guarantee from the commission that Vermont’s portion of the landfill would not be given away to companies that operate outside Texas and Vermont.
Shumlin said on Monday night: “Obviously, we would have preferred for the outcome to be different. We’ll work with the hand we are dealt.”
Reached on his cell phone in Texas, Uldis Vanags, the state nuclear engineer under the Douglas administration, said he “didn’t know for sure” if the commission would vote tomorrow, and he said he didn’t have time to elaborate. Last week, the outgoing commissioner of the Department of Public Service, David O’Brien, told Vermont Public Radio that Vermont’s representatives would support the plan.
Arnie Gundersen, a nuclear expert and consultant with Burlington-based Fairewinds Associates, said the move would benefit Entergy Corp., Vermont Yankee’s Louisiana-based owner.
“If Vermont’s delegation votes in favor of this tomorrow, it will be great for Entergy, but not Vermont,” Gundersen wrote in an e-mail. “Entergy’s other 10 reactors will now be able to ship to Texas. This ruling will save Entergy millions of dollars in waste disposal costs on their other 10 reactors.
Vermont’s share of the waste site is 20 percent, and at present, landfill isn’t big enough to accept all the anticipated materials from Vermont Yankee and Texas radioactive waste sources. (The two states need 6 million cubic feet; 2.3 million cubic feet will be made available over the next 15 years.) Critics say if outside entities are allowed to dump waste on the site, Vermont’s space could disappear. Supporters of the plan say more customers will lower disposal costs for Vermont and Texas.
Environmentalists from Public Citizen, the Sierra Club and the SEED Coalition argued in court on Monday that the commission cut off the public comment period by a day (the time frame started on Nov. 26 and ended on Dec. 26), and posted an incorrect e-mail address for comment submissions.
The commission received 5,000 comments.
The federal judge, Sam Sparks, questioned whether the court had the authority to block the vote, according to a report from the Houston Chronicle.
The Texas Attorney General brought the case to federal court.
The landfill is owned by Waste Control Specialists. Billionaire Harold Simmons of Dallas is the majority owner of the corporation, according to the Chronicle. Simmons has donated $1.1 million to the political campaigns of Republican Gov. Rick Perry over the last nine years. He has also contributed to politicians around the country (none from Vermont have been recipients of his largesse).
