{"id":8809,"date":"2012-04-17T11:26:39","date_gmt":"2012-04-17T16:26:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/?p=8809"},"modified":"2012-04-17T16:59:22","modified_gmt":"2012-04-17T21:59:22","slug":"texas-rep-adds-new-twist-to-radioactive-waste-dump-saga","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2012\/04\/17\/texas-rep-adds-new-twist-to-radioactive-waste-dump-saga\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas Rep. Adds New Twist to Radioactive Waste Dump Saga"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_8827\"  class=\"wp-caption module image right\" style=\"max-width: 300px;\"><a class=\"fancybox\" title=\"State Representative Lou Burnam says a new radioactive waste dump in West Texas is part of a cover-up.\" href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2012\/04\/5658369556_8335b9b6ed_z.jpg\" rel=\"\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-8827\" title=\"5658369556_8335b9b6ed_z\" src=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2012\/04\/5658369556_8335b9b6ed_z-300x240.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"240\" srcset=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2012\/04\/5658369556_8335b9b6ed_z-300x240.jpg 300w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2012\/04\/5658369556_8335b9b6ed_z-620x496.jpg 620w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2012\/04\/5658369556_8335b9b6ed_z.jpg 640w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Photo by Flickr user Eric Constantineau\/Creative Commons<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">A state representative says a new radioactive waste dump in West Texas is part of a cover-up.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>There are some hot documents that may show a cover-up in the approval of a <a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2012\/03\/23\/radioactive-waste-coming-soon-to-a-texas-highway-near-you\/\">controversial radioactive waste dump <\/a>in\u00a0West Texas. Problem is, you can&#8217;t seem them.<\/p>\n<p>Democratic State Representative <a href=\"http:\/\/www.house.state.tx.us\/members\/member-page\/?district=90\">Lon Burnam<\/a>\u00a0said at a press conference Monday at the state capitol that he&#8217;s obtained top-secret internal documents from the <a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/topic\/tceq\/\">Texas\u00a0Commission\u00a0on Environmental Quality<\/a> (TCEQ). They reportedly show that the\u00a0commission approved the low-level radioactive waste dump, owned and operated by\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/investing.businessweek.com\/research\/stocks\/private\/snapshot.asp?privcapId=4393870\">Waste Control Specialists<\/a>, despite environmental risks. But he says he can\u2019t show the documents to anyone because he signed a confidentiality agreement.\u00a0The storage facility is owned by Harold Simmons, a Dallas billionaire and\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/kutnews.org\/post\/lots-gop-money-flowing-texas-two\">major financial backer <\/a>to\u00a0Texas politicians. He&#8217;s given money to Governor\u00a0Rick Perry and Attorney General Gregg Abbott, who&#8217;s received $495,000 from Simmons over the past five years.<\/p>\n<p>The problem, Rep. Burnam says, is that groundwater exists too close to the radioactive storage area and the company building it downplayed the risks associated with contamination. Now he&#8217;s officially asking the attorney general\u2019s office to release him from confidentiality so the public can see the documents.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t think that [it] should be top secret,\u201d said Rep. Burnam. \u201cI think the public has a right to know. I think public health and safety is involved in this right now.\u201d\u00a0The dump is due to begin receiving radioactive waste as soon as next Monday.<!--more--><\/p>\n<div class=\"related-content alignleft\"><h4 class=\"related-header\">Related<\/h4><div class=\"links\"><h5>Posts<\/h5><ul><li class=\"link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2012\/03\/23\/radioactive-waste-coming-soon-to-a-texas-highway-near-you\/\">Radioactive Waste: Coming Soon to a Texas Highway Near\u00a0You<\/a><\/li><li class=\"link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2012\/03\/23\/perry-appoints-new-tceq-commissioner\/\">Perry Appoints New TCEQ Commissioner<\/a><\/li><li class=\"link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2012\/03\/07\/meet-the-new-head-of-the-tceq\/\">Meet the New Head of the\u00a0TCEQ<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/div><div class=\"topics\"><h5>Topics<\/h5><p class=\"topic\"><img class=\"alignleft\" src=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2011\/08\/Screen-shot-2011-11-07-at-7.27.37-AM-60x60.png\" height=\"60\" width=\"60\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/topic\/tceq\/\">What Is The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality?<\/a><\/p><\/div><\/div>\n<p>\u201cI understand that they want to open up the site next week, but they\u2019re not ready,&#8221; Rep. Burnam said. &#8220;They\u2019re not ready because quite possibly some way or another they\u2019ve gotten away with misrepresenting the facts.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Since <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Waste_Control_Specialists\">Waste Control Specialists<\/a> first applied for permits to build the landfill nearly 10 years ago, three TCEQ scientists have resigned in protest. All three recommended against issuing permits for the landfill to be built, according to Burnam.<\/p>\n<p>The company behind the dump released a statement following Rep. Burnam\u2019s press conference saying his contention that they haven&#8217;t complied with their license is \u201cabsolutely false\u201d and that Burnam\u2019s inaccurate assertions are \u201cnothing more than a political stunt by a desperate candidate likely to lose an election.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>When asked if he thought that Gregg Abbott was partial to the company because of campaign contributions from their owner, Rep. Burnam responded, \u201cThey don\u2019t have to buy politicians in this state, they just rent them for the period of time that they need them.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Whether the facility will open in one week depends on several factors but Rep. Burnam says he believes the head of the TCEQ will recognize the legitimacy of his concerns and postpone the opening of the dump.<\/p>\n<h5>David Barer is an intern at StateImpact Texas.<\/h5>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There are some hot documents that may show a cover-up in the approval of a controversial radioactive waste dump in\u00a0West Texas. Problem is, you can&#8217;t seem them. Democratic State Representative Lon Burnam\u00a0said at a press conference Monday at the state capitol that he&#8217;s obtained top-secret internal documents from the Texas\u00a0Commission\u00a0on Environmental Quality (TCEQ). They reportedly [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":72,"featured_media":8827,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[60],"tags":[33],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8809"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/72"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8809"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8809\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9125,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8809\/revisions\/9125"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8827"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}