New Mexico leaders push for high-level nuclear waste
At first glance, the barren stretch of desert between Carlsbad and Hobbs in southeastern New Mexico seems unfit for any kind of industry. But this rugged, nondescript patch of land is poised to be the focus of the next national conversation about how to dispose of the country’s most dangerous nuclear waste.
The state took a crucial step this month toward accepting such waste, which other Western states have shunned, when Gov. Susana Martinez quietly signaled to the Obama administration that New Mexico would welcome it.
In an April 10 letter to Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, which was obtained by The New Mexican, Martinez urged the administration to look to southeastern New Mexico to store the spent, highly radioactive fuel rods left over from electricity production at nuclear power plants. The desolate 1,000-acre parcel is not far from the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, the nation’s only underground nuclear waste repository, which accepts only lower-level radioactive waste.
“Time and time again, the citizens of southeastern New Mexico have impressed me with their hard work ethic and willingness to tackle national problems that many others consider to be unsolvable,” Martinez wrote. “In one of the most remote areas of the state, they have had the ingenuity and fortitude to carve out a niche in the nuclear industry to broaden their economic base. They understand the benefits not only to their local economy, but also to our country.”
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