Campbell County Commissioners are considering a ballot resolution asking people to vote on whether storage of nuclear waste should be allowed in the county.
The potential for building small nuclear reactors in the county has sparked heated community debate over whether to allow spent nuclear fuel to come back to the area.
Whether to put a potential ban on nuclear waste to voters also was debated by county commissioners Tuesday, who could decide on the resolution next month.
Commissioner Jerry Means introduced the resolution, explaining its purpose: "The voters, the constituents, my goal is to just do what you ask us to do. So I’ve presented a resolution not to accept nuclear waste in Campbell County. That's basically what it is."
The proposed resolution would place the nuclear waste storage issue on the ballot for the 2026 General Election, allowing the public to vote on whether such storage should be permitted in Campbell County.
Describing the current surge in nuclear industry opportunities presenting themselves to Wyoming communities, Commissioner Bob Jordan said, “Small modular reactors, fuels, the DOE (Department of Energy) would like to do some interim storage in the Rocky Mount West somewhere. All these moving parts going on.”
The draft currently spells out all the different types of nuclear waste storage sites voters might want to explicitly support or reject — from a “deep geological repository” to “interim nuclear storage.”
Commission Chair Kelley McCreery emphasized that no decisions were made Monday.
"We're not deciding anything today," McCreery said. "We're not going to tell you who's in favor or not in favor of this at this time. This will not be decided on for at least a month. We’re trying to be transparent ahead of time.”
Means then spoke up and said, “My feeling is we need to make a statement that we do not accept nuclear waste in Campbell County.”
Means went on to explain his motivation for drafting the resolution, recalling a trip he made to the Idaho National Lab outside Idaho Falls.
“Idaho has to get rid of their nuclear waste by 2035,” said Means. “They need someplace for it to go. And they kept using the comment, ‘Wyoming and Idaho will be partners. So that’s what brought this to my attention.”
Appropriate Measure?
The discussion revealed differing perspectives among commissioners about the potential upside of the nuclear industry coming to Gillette and the appropriateness and timing of the resolution.
Commissioner Jim Ford raised concerns about painting the nuclear industry with too broad a brush.
“I'm in favor of putting this out there,” said Ford. “I think it's very important that we as a community, think and speak very precisely about, ‘What is the nuclear industry?’”
“It's a very broad spectrum of industrial activities,” added Ford. “From mining, fuel milling, fuel products milling to conversion and enrichment and fuel manufacturing and other opportunities for manufacturing efforts in this industry. Just a very small number of activities across this broad nuclear sector that actually do generate waste.”
Commissioner Scott Clem raised concerns about a county commission’s ability to regulate nuclear waste.
"Number one, we don't have the ability to authorize nuclear waste being cited in the county anyway, as it was mentioned a moment ago, it's illegal according to state law," Clem said.
Clem also questioned the board's authority, wondering, "I don't know if there's any state statute anywhere that authorizes us to put such a question on the ballot to begin with."
Suggesting the resolution could jump the gun before a new federal nuclear waste policy comes into focus, Clem added, “President Trump signed an executive order, within 240 days to come up with a plan for the nation. And that's going to come out sometime probably in January or before that. So none of us know what that plan looks like."
Clem then posed the question, “What if it passes? What if people say, ‘Yeah, we want to be able to put waste in Campbell County? Are we then obligated as a board to approach the federal government?”
Clem then concluded that putting the resolution as written would be “premature.”
“We need to have more discussion as a community. We’re at the very beginning of this,” said Clem, describing all the current public outreach going by the nuclear industry in Campbell County.
When it comes to waste, Clem concluded, “I’m a no on having it sited in Campbell County.”
Wider Context
Jordan provided context about federal nuclear waste policy, explaining that after the proposed Yucca Mountain repository in Nevada was rejected in 2009, "The federal government got together to say, ‘We have put together a plan to begin to recruit new locations and people to get involved.’"
“It’s a communications plan. It’s a sales plan,” continued Jordan, describing events like the town hall meeting on nuclear energy scheduled for Thursday, Sept. 18, at 6 p.m. at Gillette College Technical Center, featuring speakers from the University of Wyoming and the mayor of Idaho Falls, Idaho.
“It’s built on, ‘How do we get this thing done?’ This is about getting people to have consent,” said Jordan. “But the reality is they have a national issue, it’s a national crisis, and it’s called nuclear waste. Now they’re looking for a spot and they need cheerleaders to take it on.”
The resolution references the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982, which assigned the Department of Energy to establish a permanent repository for used nuclear fuel. It also cites Wyoming House Bill 131, passed in 2022, which permits nuclear power plants within the state to store their own radioactive waste temporarily but prohibits importing waste from out-of-state facilities.
The commissioners indicated they will seek guidance from the county attorney's office regarding the legal and procedural aspects of the resolution.
Safe or Scary?
During the public comment period Tuesday, Gillette resident Rolf Arands raised concerns about the potential for accidents involving nuclear waste.
“So technology has improved. I get that,” said Arands. “It’s much better, much stronger. But you can't eliminate human error. There was a Mars mission that crashed and burned on Mars because one team used English units and one team used metric, and the thing crashed. Human error. You cannot eliminate that."
Arands was referring to the 1999 crash of the Mars Climate Orbiter. The story has become well-known as an example of how seemingly simple errors can have catastrophic consequences.
But when it comes to accidents involving nuclear waste, according to experts in Wyoming, there are no cautionary tales involving nuclear waste storage.
Stephen Cohen of Casper spent 30 years characterizing and remediating hazardous and radioactive waste sites. He told Cowboy State Daily the outcry around storing waste is unwarranted.
“Spent fuel has been stored in casks since 1986. That was the first license for a spent fuel storage facility was 1986. Nothing has happened since then,” said Cohen, pointing to video evidence of the storage casks surviving everything from train collisions to a direct strike by a missile. “There's been no releases, no degradation of the environment or exposures to the public."
David Madison can be reached at david@cowboystatedaily.com.
