Most American cities want nothing to do with nuclear waste, but not Carlsbad, New Mexico. It wants the business and moved recently in support of suing the state of New Mexico which three years ago adopted a new law banning any more storage of nuclear waste in the state.
The city of Carlsbad, where the nation’s only deep geologic repository for defense-generated nuclear waste is located, remains supportive of the project and the economic impact it has on the region. The same region is also site of the Permian Basin where oil and gas firms, including some from Oklahoma, have major operations.
The Carlsbad City Council recently voted to approve a lawsuit taking the state to court over its 2023 law signed by Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham, who at the time, voiced concerns about the hazards of storing such material, calling any decision to allow construction of such a facility in the state’s oil patch “economic malpractice.”
The bill was in reaction to a 2016 announcement by Holtec Industries which proposed the construction and operation of another underground temporary nuclear waste storage project. It signed a land use agreement but later withdrew after the new law was passed and signed by the Governor.
While the city of Carlsbad approved a lawsuit, it still must have approval of what is called the Eddy-Lea Energy Alliance which is a consortium of the cities of Carlsbad and Hobbs and the counties of Eddy and Lea. The three remaining partners had yet to vote on a decision.
Holtec’s plan was for a Consolidated interim Storage Facility, known as the HI-STORE-CISF which would have held nuclear materials on a thousand acres of land owned by ELEA and located between Carlsbad and Hobbs.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission in 2023 granted Holtec’s request for a license to build the facility, but it ran into opposition in the legislature and at the governor’s office. The governor signed Senate Bill 53 into law, which prevents state agencies and local officials from issuing permits or leases for nuclear waste storage facilities.
When Holtec announced its withdrawal earlier this year, it was met with a positive response from the governor.
“I’m glad that Holtec heard our strenuous objections and decided that fighting to put more nuclear waste in New Mexico was a losing proposition. In 2023, New Mexico passed a law banning state agencies from granting permits or contracts for high-level nuclear waste storage. We stand firm in our resolve to protect our state from becoming a nuclear dumping ground,” Lujan Grisham said in a statement provided by the governor’s office.
The existing storage site is known as the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant located 26 miles east of Carlsbad close to the Texas state line. It is operated by Salado isolation Mining Contractors, LLC, a Bechtel-led team. The waste is meant to be stored for 10,000 years and the storage rooms are 2,150 feet underground in a salt formation of the Delaware Basin. The operational started in 1999 and is the world’s third such facility.