DALLAS – The Texas Senate on Wednesday was considering a bill that would raise the levels of permitted radioactivity in waste delivered to a bond-funded dump site in Andrews County and prohibit nearby residents in New Mexico from suing in Texas courts.
Senate Bill 791 by Sen. Kel Seliger, R-Amarillo, would benefit the firm Waste Control Specialists that operates the disposal site and bring about $700,000 per year to Andrews County for training on handling radioactive spills at the site or in transit.
The money for Andrews County could represent a long-term stream of revenue, according to Seliger, whose district includes the county.
“This will be with us forever,” he noted at the Senate Natural Resources Committee that last month approved the measure.
Waste Control Specialists was granted its final license to dispose of low-level radioactive waste by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality on Sept. 8, 2009. When the company owned by Texas financier Harold Simmons was unable to arrange private financing, it turned to Andrews County voters, who approved $75 million of taxable general obligation bonds in 2010. Construction of the disposal facility began that year.
The 30-year bonds, rated A by Standard & Poor’s and AA-minus by Fitch Ratings, would require the county to levy a property tax of 15 cents per $100 value if revenues from the waste dump do not cover the $5 million annual debt service. Currently, the county does not tax property.
Andrews County’s top 10 taxpayers include some of the largest oil and gas corporations representing almost 50% of its tax base. Exxon Mobil Corp. accounts for 14%, according to Fitch Ratings.
State Sen. Robert Duncan, R-Lubbock, a member of the Senate Natural Resources Committee, questioned the need for keeping New Mexicans out of Texas courts regarding the dump site when they live only a couple of miles from the site located right on the state line.
“Why do we really need to do this?” Duncan asked. “Why would we limit affected parties to three sides of the site and not the fourth?”
Seliger said that residents of New Mexico would still have access to the federal courts. But Duncan said he did not understand why the state would invite intervention by the federal courts.
Seliger acknowledged that the bill makes it more likely that more waste, including more radioactive Class B and C waste, will arrive at the site. The site currently handles only Class A waste.
The Sierra Club of Texas is working with New Mexico residents on a 2009 challenge to the licensing of the facility in an action known as a contested case hearing. A decision at the district court level that granted the Sierra Club a public hearing was appealed to the State District Court of Appeals, where a ruling is pending.
