October 9th, 2025
Sierra Club Rio Grande Chapter Responds:
Holtec Abandons Proposal to Store the Nation’s High Level Nuclear Waste in New Mexico
Holtec has announced that it would no longer pursue its proposal to store the nation’s high-level nuclear waste in New Mexico.
“Nuclear energy has an intractable problem — No one wants the waste. Holtec wanted to export the nation’s entire store of high level nuclear waste to New Mexico where our communities already suffer the legacy of unmediated uranium waste pilings, nuclear waste from the labs at WIPP, impacts of nuclear weapon pit production at Los Alamos, and, until recently, uncompensated victims of nuclear bomb testing. Holtec wanted to ship this radioactive material through your communities and ours with no promise of a permanent storage facility.
Thanks to the leadership of the State legislature and the Governor, New Mexico will not add this waste to its legacy. HIgh level nuclear waste should be kept at the closest, safest location to its source. And as we hear hype around expanding nuclear or building small modular nuclear, remember, no one wants the waste.
So let’s focus on energy resources like solar, wind and batteries whose life-cycle environmental impacts are minimal compared to fossil fuels and nuclear.”
Camilla Feibelman, Sierra Club Rio Grande Chapter Director.