TEXAS, USA — In a letter addressed to President Trump, Governor Greg Abbott spelled out his opposition to the transport and storage of high level nuclear waste in West Texas.
The statement falls in line with the fight that representatives from Fasken Oil and Ranch have been waging against the WCS application since its conception.
"I think he realizes the security issues that it causes for the industry," said Tommy Taylor of Fasken.
The letter lays out the argument that while the potential of an accidental exposure of high level nuclear waste from secured caskes and their storage containers at WCS is small, maybe even microscopic, the risk associated with such a fault is too large to bring here.
"These sites are hoping to get 210 tons of spent fuel rods, that's 510 million pounds of the most radioactive material man has ever made," said Tommy Taylor of the WCS licensing application to the NRC.
In his letter, Governor Abbott writes that concentrating this nuclear material in Texas does not provide the deep geologic isolation required for permanent storage to minimize the risk of accident, terrorism, or sabotage.
Taylor and Abbott also appear on the same page as for a better solution: locate a deep geological repository outside of Texas that was supposed to be worked on by congress in the Nuclear Waste Act of 1982.
Now Taylor is hoping the president will heed the governor's warning.
"Well I think if he would come out publicly and say this is not a good site to place high level nuclear waste that the DOE and NRC might say well I wonder why he's saying that," said Taylor.
The President is expected to leave Walter Reed military hospital, as he recovers from Covid-19.
No telling when or if the President will react to the letter.