A Radioactive Recipe for Profit

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http://www.motherjones.com/news/update/2003/22/we_421_01.html

 

A Radioactive Recipe for Profit

Billionaire and Bush backer Harold Simmons hopes to turn his Texas dump into a

radioactive storage facility. He may well get his wish.

Chris Smith

May 22, 2003

For eight years, Dallas billionaire and Republican stalwart Harold Simmons has

used his considerable fortune, and the political influence that goes along with

it, to press Texas lawmakers to amend a state law barring private companies from

running radioactive waste disposal sites. Each year, his efforts have come up

short. But now, the state legislature is set to approve a bill which could clear

the way for Simmons' Waste Control Specialists to permanently store hundreds of

millions of cubic feet of low-level radioactive waste at its West Texas dump.

In its latest push to get the bill passed, Waste Control reportedly mobilized a

small army of lobbyists: 16 in all, at a cost of more than $800,000. But the

lobbyists represent only one element of Simmons' influence. Simmons' ties to the

Texas Republican establishment and President Bush date to well before he began

lobbying to bring nuclear waste to his dump, which occupies a windswept chunk of

land in Andrews County, near the New Mexico state line.

Simmons has donated more than a million dollars to support GOP causes, including

George W. Bush's campaign coffers. Now, critics in Austin charge that the

expected approval of the bill Simmons seeks will be a case study in the triumph

of big money politics over public interest. Moreover, they accuse Waste Control

of exploiting fears of terrorism to ram through a sweetheart deal that will turn

Texas into a national radioactive dumping ground, allowing Simmons to reap the

short-term profits while taxpayers get stuck with the clean-up bill.

 

" Texas state government has for a long time been a subsidiary of corporate

Texas, but it's now a wholly-owned subsidiary, " says Democratic State

Representative Lon Burnam, one of the bill's leading opponents. " This particular

bill is in probably the top five economic political payoffs that the speaker and

the governor need to do. "

A former corporate raider whose business interests run from oil to insurance to

chemical manufacturing, Simmons casts a long shadow in Republican circles. In

the 1990s, he donated $90,000 to George W. Bush's gubernatorial campaigns and,

between 1999 and 2002, Simmons, his wife and his companies gave more than

$900,000 to Republican causes -- including Bush's presidential campaign and the

Senate campaign of Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham. In the last election cycle

alone, Simmons poured roughly $350,000 into Texas Republicans' campaigns.

His business ties to the White House go back a long way, too: Interior Secretary

Gale Norton worked as a lobbyist for NL Industries, a Simmons-owned chemical

company dogged by lawsuits over lead poisoning. And Valhi, another Simmons

company, was a significant shareholder in Halliburton during Vice President Dick

Cheney's tenure as CEO in the 1990s.

Given Simmons' clout, some observers are surprised that it has taken him so long

to get approval. Not Andrew Wheat.

" This would all have been said and done a long time ago if the very nature of

what he wants was not so viscerally repulsive, " says Wheat, research director of

the watchdog group Texans for Public Justice. " So that takes money -- to get

over visceral repulsion is expensive. But Harold can pay. Once he pays the price

and finally gets it through, he's in a pretty good position to make some money. "

How much money? Right now, Waste Control is only licensed for the processing and

interim storage of some low-level waste headed for one of the country's three

long-term storage dumps. The bill being considered by Texas lawmakers would

allow the dump to accept waste from medical research sites and nuclear power

plants in Texas and Vermont (with whom Texas has a disposal agreement) for

long-term storage. Significantly, it would also allow the company to import

waste from nuclear sites run by the federal government. This provision, critics

claim, is where the real profits lie.

It's unclear how much federal waste would end up in Texas, but the Department of

Energy foresees disposing of more than a million cubic feet of low-level waste

each year until 2070 -- more than 20 times the amount Texas generates annually.

And Washington would pay handsomely for the privilege of burying its waste in

Texas: by even the most conservative estimates, Waste Control would make

hundreds of millions of dollars overall from the federal waste.

As currently written, however, the bill allows for the storage of far more waste

-- 160 million cubic feet, or more than half of all the low-level waste the

federal government expects to generate between now and 2010, according to expert

testimony in the Texas Senate. If the dump takes in that much waste, Waste

Control could make billions.

Waste Control spokesman Tony Proffitt concedes there is money to be made, but

" only within the bounds of the marketplace. " He also points out that the bill

will only clear the way for Waste Control to apply for a license to import the

waste, and that the company could be turned down. " Anyone who thinks they want

to be in the waste business or who has been in the waste business and is able to

get a license will be interested in it. "

Undoubtedly, a legislature dominated by Simmons' political allies -- Democrats

lost control of the House last year -- have aided the bill's passage. But Waste

Control has hitched its campaign to growing fears of terrorism, too. Since the

Sept. 11 attacks, dump proponents have been warning that terrorists might steal

radioactive material from Texas hospitals to make " dirty bombs. "

" This stuff is all over the state, and there's real concern over terrorism, "

Proffitt says, adding that the cash-strapped state can't afford to look after

the waste on its own.

Opponents, however, note that 96 percent of Texas' waste is already stored

securely at the state's two nuclear reactors. Shipping the waste from

well-guarded nuclear plants to a remote location would do nothing to enhance

security, they contend. Trucking radioactive material across the state, they

say, would render it more vulnerable to sabotage or accidents, while the

expected deluge of federal waste would only put more radiation on Texas' rails

and roads.

" We're putting communities in almost every major city in Texas at risk, " says

Erin Rogers, outreach coordinator of the Sierra Club's Texas chapter.

Furthermore, Rogers notes that the bill fails to mandate security measures for

the disposal site, and suggests that a private company like Waste Control is

unlikely to provide them at its own expense unless ordered to do so.

" They're not even required to have a chain link fence around it, " she says. " We

don't think private companies should be entrusted with something this serious

and potentially dangerous. The state is publicly accountable, and they're not

driven by a profit motive. "

Those concerned about the security risk are armed with more than a little

factual ammunition. Waste Control's record hardly inspires confidence. In 2001,

for example, a 22-ton shipment of low-level waste headed for processing at Waste

Control's dump disappeared, abandoned by its driver for unknown reasons. It

turned up a month later at a ranch in North Texas, hidden under a pile of dirt.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission said the waste posed no threat, but critics

say such incidents illustrate the dangers of importing waste.

Still, the project's supporters insist that safety and security measures are

adequate. In any case, they say, the waste would be mostly harmless, and the

dump wouldn't damage the environment or threaten the health of locals. Others

disagree.

" 'Low-level' is not low risk, " says Diane D'Arrigo, director of the Nuclear

Information and Resource Service's Radioactive Waste Project. Noting that even

low-level waste often contains plutonium, cesium and other long-lasting elements

that can cause cancer and birth defects, she warns that the site is likely to be

a disaster.

Amendments requiring that most radioactive waste be held in isolation were

stripped from the bill, and they are unlikely to be reinserted. Now, all of the

waste will simply be buried, some of it in concrete casks but most of it in dirt

pits. " This waste is likely to dry up and blow around West Texas, " Rogers says.

" It could leach down into water sources that might be pumped up for future

generations that live out there. "

Grave concerns also persist over the choice of the Andrews site itself. Recent

studies suggest that -- contrary to a Waste Control-sponsored report -- the dump

sits astride the Ogallala aquifer, an underground reservoir that straddles eight

states.

Critics also fault the bill's clean-up measures. While it mandates a $20 million

minimum, the history of such clean-ups suggests that far more will be necessary.

Virtually all low-level disposal sites have leaked, and clean-up cost estimates

run into the hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars. Taxpayers, they

note, would end up footing the bill.

Finally, opponents point out, the license would expire in just 15 years -- long

before Texas is scheduled to decommission its own nuclear power plants. By then,

Waste Control will likely have made massive profits and can just walk away,

sticking Texas with the responsibility for not just its own waste but the

federal government's too.

" So the state would own the land and the waste, while the private company gets

the profits, " Rogers says. " They could make a profit in 15 years and then skip

town. "

All of these concerns might not matter. Texas Governor Rick Perry could still

veto the bill after it emerges from the legislature, but no one thinks that is

likely: Simmons has given him more than $200,000 since 1997.

Considering the long-term consequences, Burnam can only joke grimly: " In a way,

it's good news for the rest of the country, that Texans are so stupid that they

want to take on the risk of becoming a nuclear waste sacrifice zone for the

country. This is an after-effect of the Cold War, and nobody -- except for

Texans -- wants it in their home. And we're saying, 'Come on down -- smells like

money to me.' That's business as usual. "

Chris Smith is a MotherJones.com editorial fellow.

 

 

 

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