D.C. Circuit denies/dismisses all parties and objections opposed to the ISP CISF in TX

1 25 23 Ct Appeals ruling-1

See the Court’s ruling, above. Or, email [email protected] and he will email you a PDF of the court ruling, upon request.

Beyond Nuclear, Don’t Waste Michigan et al. (a six-group and one-individual grassroots coalition), and Fasken Land and Minerals, Ltd./Permian Basin Land and Royalty Owners, have resisted the Interim Storage Partners (ISP) consolidated interim storage facility (CISF) in Andrews County, Texas since 2016, including for the past several years in this federal appeal at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

The ISP CISF, co-located at the national so-called “low-level” radioactive waste dump Waste Control Specialists, LLC, would store up to 40,000 metric tons of highly radioactive commercial irradiated nuclear fuel (just under half what currently exists in the U.S.), as well as Greater-Than-Class-C waste such as irradiated reactor internals.

The transportation scheme alone represents a major impact on many states in the Lower 48. See the map of most likely routes (which have been kept secret by dump proponents, including the companies involved, as well as the NRC), published by the Western Interstate Energy Board in November 2020 comments to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) on the ISP CISF Draft Environmental Impact Statement:

Watch a four-minute video, “Nuclear Waste & Environmental Justice,” about the EJ burdens of radioactive dumps, including transportation there. (The video features Mustafa Ali of National Wildlife Federation, formerly President Obama’s head of EJ at EPA. His section begins at the 3 minute 11 second mark of the recording.)

Cities like Fort Worth, TX would be hit coming and going. Wastes coming from the north and east would pass through Fort Worth, bound for ISP’s CISF in West Texas. And then, as revealed by ISP’s own route map (which only accounts for wastes from four reactors — three at San Onofre, CA, and one at Maine Yankee), Fort Worth would be hit by ISP’s exported shipments, bound for Western Shoshone land at Yucca Mountain, NV.

See ISP’s route map, here:

ER Figure 4.9.1 Transporation Routes

 

Due to such impacts, the City of Fort Worth, TX filed a Friend of the Court brief with the D.C. Circuit in the ISP case, in support of CISF opponents: <https://archive.beyondnuclear.org/centralized-storage/2022/3/25/city-of-fort-worth-texas-friend-of-the-court-brief-in-suppor.html>

Beyond Nuclear and our allies will now explore our options now that this adverse ruling has come down.

See our series of eight fact sheets from September 2021, laying out our reasons for opposing the environmental injustice that is consolidated interim storage.