Friday, August 27, 1999
Avalanche-Journal

Childress County Ruled Out as Nuclear Waste Dump

By LINDA KANE

Childress County has been ruled out as a possible site for a low-level radioactive waste facility, officials said Thursday, but now they're looking at a site about 50 miles south of Lubbock.

"We're in the process of narrowing down the eligible sites," said Rick Jacobi, vice president for operations and general counsel for Envirocare of Texas, Inc. The list has been narrowed down to Borden, Loving and Ward Counties, he said.

"We're looking for Oct. 1 as a date to name a site," he said.

The edge of Borden County is about 50 miles south of Lubbock.

The Assured Isolation Storage Facility would house low-level radioactive waste from Texas, Maine and Vermont, Jacobi said. The facility would essentially be an above ground concrete warehouse or vault, he said.

The waste would include paper goods, gloves, gowns, glass wear, tools from industrial facilities and equipment from nuclear power plants, Jacobi said. The waste would be stored in sealed, concrete cannisters within the building, he said.

The facility would be monitored remotely via a television-like system, he said.

"We have a very highly trained technical staff that monitors the waste constantly," Jacobi said. "The buildings are left in a condition such that you can enter the building and monitor the waste. It's an improvement over digging a trench and burying (waste) in the ground."

The storage facility would likely be about 40,000 square-feet and may hold up to about 150,000 cubic feet of waste, he said.

Protesters in Childress said they're relieved that Envirocare is no longer looking at putting a facility there.

"They tried to make it sound like it'd be harmless booties and gloves," Robbi Griffin said. "I guess the main reason we didn't want it was safety issues, the health of the community."

Griffin led two public meetings in Childress on Thursday and said more than 30 people attended the first gathering.

Envirocare contends that most citizens in Childress welcomed the idea of the waste site as it would bring an economic boost to the community.

Griffin said that wasn't true.

"The average citizen that we talked to did not want it," she said. "There's an associated risk with having this centralized here because then you increase transportation risk. We did not want the community to be more at risk for some sort of accident.

"I don't see why they need to come to a community and contaminate a perfectly good spot, a pristine area," she said.

Jacobi said the facility would pose minimal threats.

"It's no more hazardous than any other standard industrial facility, and less hazardous frankly, than some," he said.

Childress was an ideal location partly because of its access to railway and highway transportation, Jacobi said.

"They also had a real strong group of business and civic and political leaders in support of it, but other sites to the west look a little more suitable," he said. Envirocare considers many factors when looking at potential waste sites, Jacobi said.

"We look for stable geology. We look for low population densities, good road access. Deep ground water is one major factor, little rainfall," he said.

Griffin said she hates to see another county forced to deal with this issue.

"I feel bad for them, but I sure am glad it's not going to be here. I love this place. I don't want to see anything bad happen to it."

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