Nuclear Plan Draws Protests

Nuclear Plan Draws Protests
By John Fleck
Albuquerque Journal
April 8, 2004

Eleven Lea County residents filed protests this week with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission against a proposed nuclear fuel factory.

Radioactive waste that would be produced by the plant is a key issue for local opponents, said Lee Cheney, founder of the Citizens Nuclear Information Center in Hobbs and one of the 11 area opponents who signed onto the NRC filing.

"I don't think that it's going to be a solved issue," Cheney said of the waste in a telephone interview.

The filing provides the first detailed account of the legal strategy the plant's opponents will use to try to stop it.

Louisiana Energy Services, an international consortium of nuclear companies led by the European firm Urenco, has applied for a Nuclear Regulatory Commission license to build a plant near Eunice in southeastern New Mexico to process uranium for nuclear power plant fuel.

The residents claim:

The plant could contaminate ground water and use up scarce water supplies;

There is no national need for the uranium the plant would produce;

Waste from the plant poses an environmental risk, with inadequate financial assurances that it will be properly managed.

The filing is a key step. Area residents must formally intervene in the quasi-judicial license proceedings in order to officially raise their objections to the proposed plant.

In addition, some 50 area supporters filed requests to make "limited appearances" in the case, which would allow them to testify in support of the plant.

The eleven project opponents from the Hobbs and Eunice areas are supported in their filing by the Nuclear Information and Resource Service and Public Citizen, two Washington, D.C., organizations that oppose the project.

Their attorney is Lindsay Lovejoy, a Santa Fe attorney who formerly worked on nuclear waste issues for the New Mexico Attorney General's Office.

The residents' petition is one of three to the NRC asking for legal intervener status.

The New Mexico Attorney General's Office also filed, raising questions about how waste from the proposed plant will be disposed.

The third party to formally apply for status as an "intervener" in the case is the New Mexico Environment Department.

Project spokesman Marshall Cohen said the company welcomed the state's filings.

As for the filing by the anti-nuclear critics, Cohen said the company believes their assertions about problems with the project are wrong, and the company will be able to adequately respond.

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