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Holtec Nuclear Waste Storage Proposal

Read the Sierra Club's finalized recommendations on nuclear-waste management here.

Read New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas' lawsuit objecting to the Holtec proposal. 

As has been predicted for 40 years, nuclear waste is now a major national problem. Across the country, as aging reactors begin to shut down, the unsolvable question of what to do with 70,000-plus tons of high-level radioactive spent fuel remains an environmental and political debate. Promises by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Department of Energy have led nowhere. There is no national repository nor any credible plan to begin creating one.

Instead, the government is proposing dumping high level radioactive garbage on one or two areas of the country that have had no voice in the process, on sites that appear unsuitable, and on communities who don't want it. Both New Mexico and Texas have been targeted to be interim dumps for this waste, with no exit strategy or any plans to ever remove it.

The Sierra Club has long opposed Consolidated (or Centralized) Interim Storage for many reasons. Transportation risks aside (and they are many), any attempt to assemble large amounts of spent fuel in one location without any plan for permanent disposal simply invites – and almost guarantees – that these sites will become defacto permanent dumps, or worse, open the door to those wanting to reprocess spent fuel, one of the dirtiest and most expensive processes on earth.

Both the New Mexico and Texas chapters have passed resolutions opposing the use of their states as "interim" dumps for spent fuel. The Nuclear Free campaign (www.sierraclub/nuclear-free) is supporting our efforts to fight all attempts to drag thousands of tons of some of the most dangerous materials in the world across our aging infracture, through our cities, town and farms, and dump it on communities who don't agree to be sacrifice zones for nuclear waste.

Holtec International has submitted a plan to store this radioactive nuclear-reactor waste for as long as 120 years at a site between Hobbs and Carlsbad. Opponents are concerned about the health, safety, transportation, financial, and environmental-justice aspects of storing high-level radioactive waste that would impact thousands of generations to come. More than 10,000 rail cars would haul risky waste, rumbling through or near major cities in New Mexico, in a process that would take 20 years. In the last five years, there have been seven train accidents in New Mexico, including trains derailing and/or wrecks.

Rio Grande Sierra Club volunteers have helped organize residents near the proposed site and along rail routes across the state, and our attorneys are working to stop this proposal at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. We must stop this dangerous proposal.

Now is the time for action!

Please contribute to the Rio Grande Chapter effort to stop Holtec's nuclear dump. Your donation goes straight to the Holtec campaign, including our attorney fees and grassroots organizing in southeast New Mexico. 

If you prefer to make a C3 tax-deductible donation, make your check payable to "Sierra Club Foundation," and note on your check "Stop Holtec, Rio Grande Chapter" and mail to:

Stop Holtec
Sierra Club Foundation, Rio Grande Chapter
2215 Lead Avenue SE
Albuquerque, NM 87106

Details of Holtec's application to the NRC is here. More information can be found at NoNuclearWaste.org


Articles related to the Holtec proposal

Additional public meetings on NM nuclear dump scheduled

Additional public meetings on NM nuclear dump scheduled
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: May 16, 2018 Growing concern across the state about the risks of a controversial proposal to store high-level radioactive waste in Southeast New Mexico has resulted in the addition of two Nuclear Regulatory Commission public meetings and an ... Read More

SE New Mexico businesspeople voice concerns about storage site

SE New Mexico businesspeople voice concerns about storage site
“We don’t want it,” say local businesspeople concerned about radioactive-waste impacts of proposed SE New Mexico nuclear storage site. Read the 4/30/2018 press release ... Read More

Holtec Nuclear Waste Storage Proposal

Holtec Nuclear Waste Storage Proposal
Holtec International has a controversial plan to store up to 100,000 tons of the nation’s most dangerous nuclear-reactor waste, for as long as 120 years, at a site between Hobbs and Carlsbad. More than 10,000 rail cars of high-level radioactive ... Read More

Residents across state speak out about proposed high-level nuclear dump in SE New Mexico

Residents across state speak out about proposed high-level nuclear dump in SE New Mexico
“Our land is not their pay toilet” By John Buchser, Chapter Water chair Thanks to citizen lobbying at the Roundhouse, 30 legislators signed on to letters objecting to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s inadequate public-comment period on a proposed dump for high-level ... Read More

Holtec Nuclear Waste Storage Proposal
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