About Us: Our Campaign

Texas Nuclear Safety is a campaign being organized by the Sierra Club’s Lonestar Chapter, the Texas office of Public Citizen, and the Sustainable Energy and Economic Development Coalition (SEED). These groups oppose recent moves to make Texas a national dumping ground for radioactive waste.

Texas has formed a compact with the state of Vermont to store both states’ waste in Texas. However, through incremental maneuvers, a company called Waste Control Specialists is slowly opening Texas to unwanted radioactive waste from across the country. Most recently, they have lobbied the Texas Low-Level Radioactive Waste Compact Commission to pass rules that would allow them to bring so-called “low-level” radioactive waste from 36 states (and possibly more) to Texas.

Our groups oppose this importation rule because:

• TCEQ technical staff found that the proposed site posed an unacceptable danger to the groundwater – this formation may be permeable to the Ogallala Aquifer which serves 8 states
• No transportation safety review has been performed to determine the risk of an accident on Texas highways and the preparedness of effected communities to respond
• No review of taxpayer liability has been performed – a study of liability for a proposed site in California caused that state to terminate the project because it was too risky
• The sole reason this rule is being considered is because WCS claims they can’t make a profit without the additional waste and:
  • It is unreasonable to put Texans and others at substantial risk to protect the profit of a single company
  • WCS’s claims that it must have additional waste to make a profit have not been independently assessed or verified
  • No analysis has been performed to determine whether charging nuclear waste producers in Texas enough to allow WCS to make a profit would have any significant impact on those companies and utilities or on their customers

Contact Us

Below are people you may contact with questions or comments related to our campaign.