Dear editor:
The beginning of a new year provides a moment to reflect on the things that we cherish in our lives, as well as those things that we resolve to improve.
As a fourth-generation Wyomingite and forty-year resident of Fremont County (with family and friends spread around this wonderful state) it's clear to me just how much we have to be thankful for in Wyoming.
We have our close-knit communities, we have freedom in our open spaces and distance from busy urban centers, and we have a clean and beautiful environment that awes and inspires travelers from around the world.
So when I heard that the Wyoming legislature is considering a new bill that could threaten these values, I knew what my 2025 New Year’s resolution would be — keeping the country’s high level nuclear waste out of Wyoming.
HB16 - used nuclear fuel storage amendments reignites a decades-old debate about storing the country’s nuclear waste right here in Wyoming.
If this is the first you have heard of this issue, it might be helpful to look at what happened more than 30 years ago, during the first attempt to bring high-level spent fuel from around the country.
In 1991, Fremont County applied and won a $100,000 grant from the federal government to gather information and public input for nine months on the positive and negative impact of storing nuclear waste in Wyoming.
Weekly meetings were held in nearly every community in the county. Experts flew in weekly from the Department of Energy, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and the Nuclear Negotiator’s Office.
These experts promised government ownership and care of this waste site, the removal of high-level nuclear waste to an eventual permanent repository, and a cash prize of $200,000,000 to consider a phase II feasibility study.
But Wyoming knew better and saw these promises for what they really were: bribes and foolhardy assurances from the federal government.
Citizens drove from town to town to pack rooms and offer evidence and testimony for why it was a bad idea to transfer and store high-level radioactive waste from the country's commercial nuclear reactors to Wyoming.
After extensive public pushback and many concerns raised about safety, transportation, and state’s rights, Gov. Sullivan ultimately rejected the phase II study.
Since the 1990’s, there have been several other attempts to bring this waste to Wyoming. Each one has failed. Attempts to build a permanent high-level nuclear waste facility at Yucca Mountain in Nevada have also failed spectacularly, and there are no other permanent sites being considered.
Dozens of other states have rejected advances by the Department of Energy and Nuclear Regulatory commission to accept high-level nuclear waste, and two states, our friends in Texas and New Mexico, have even had temporary nuclear storage sites permitted by the Nuclear Regulatory commission over the objections of their governors. (Their lawsuits continue to this day!)
Thirty years later, here we are again — tempted by the possibility of easy money and an increasingly desperate federal government that has shown itself incapable of finding a permanent solution to the problem of nuclear waste.
Ask yourself this — just how smoothly do we think this experiment will go for Wyoming if we openly invite one of the most heavily regulated and hazardous materials known to humanity to sit within our border?
And how long will it sit “temporarily” in Wyoming when no permanent disposal facility for this waste exists?
If you also love Wyoming, I hope you will consider a New Year’s Resolution similar to mine. Let’s keep high level nuclear waste dumps out of Wyoming.
Transporting and siting this waste in Wyoming poses a threat to our current and future environment, health, and reputation as a state.
A previous generation of state leaders understood this.
Wyoming should not take on this risk and burden while the federal government sorts out its affairs to create the permanent geologic disposal to properly dispose of this waste.
Sincerely,
Colleen Whalen, Lander
