New Mexico lobbying to be storage site for nuclear waste

Source: Associated Press

New Mexico lobbying to be storage site for nuclear waste
| April 26, 2015 | Updated: April 26, 2015 4:13pm

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — New Mexico is touting a rural area in the southeastern part of the state as an interim storage site for the country's high-level nuclear waste, according to a letter issued by Gov. Susana Martinez earlier this month.

The governor reached out to the Obama administration in a letter to Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz. In the April 10 letter, which was obtained by the Santa Fe New Mexican (http://bit.ly/1IcQb8z ), Martinez urged officials to consider a 1,000-acre parcel as a place for storing spent radioactive fuel rods from power plants. Martinez also praised southeastern New Mexico residents for being able to "carve out a niche in the nuclear industry."

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Officials in Lea and Eddy counties are involved in the proposal. The site is about a mile north of US 62/180, halfway between Carlsbad and Hobbs. The Eddy-Lea Energy Alliance, a consortium of city and county governments, says the potential disposal ground could bring jobs and economic growth.

"You've got to recognize, we're not a Santa Fe, and we're not an Albuquerque that has a self-sustaining economy. We're out here in the hinterlands, and we need to find our own niches," said John Heaton, a former state lawmaker and alliance chairman.





Read more: http://www.chron.com/news/texas/article/New-Mexico-lobbying-to-be-storage-site-for-6224903.php