A Bad Supreme Court Decision Paves the Way for Radioactive Waste Storage in the Permian Basin of Texas and New Mexico [View all]

July 11, 2025

Bill Hatch

The great problem with nuclear energy, hidden from the public as often as possible by the federal government and special interests, is the quantities of radioactive waste nuclear reactors produce.

Nearly 100,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel rods are stored at the sites of 92 open and 42 closed nuclear power plants in the country and about 2,000 tons a year are added to the piles. Plans for a permanent federal storage site at Yucca Mountain in Nevada are mired in controversy and effective opposition. Two private firms have proposed storage sites in the Permian Basin, one in Texas, the other 40 miles away in New Mexico. One sits directly on top of the Oglala Aquifer, which provides water for millions in eight states from South Dakota to west Texas and New Mexico; the other sits immediately adjacent to the aquifer. In plain language, the Nuclear Waste Policy Act allows storage of nuclear waste either at nuclear reactor sites or at sites owned by the federal government. Environmental groups believe there is a high probability that the federal government will change the designations from temporary to permanent sites after their 40-year licenses expire.

Ninety percent of nuclear reactors are in the eastern half of the nation; the two proposed sites would generate up to 10,000 trips by road, rail or waterway of highly radioactive cargo called by residents along their routes things like “Mobile Chornobyl,” “Floating Fukushima,” “Dirty Bomb on Wheels,” and “Mobile X-ray Machine That Can’t Be Turned Off.”

In the words of Haul No!, an indigenous group based in Albuquerque, “The Southwest is under attack! Nuclear colonialism, via this push for new development of both energy and weapons, is threatening our communities…”

The U.S. Supreme Court decided on June 18 that the Texas storage project, presented as a temporary site, could receive nuclear reactor waste despite the language of the federal nuclear waste act. This decision paves the way for the further development of the New Mexico site.

More:
https://www.counterpunch.org/2025/07/11/a-bad-supreme-court-decision-paves-the-way-for-radioactive-waste-storage-in-the-permian-basin-of-texas-and-new-mexico/