What water?
While denying the presence of water in the site, WCS is apparently trying to deal with the unrecognized issue. WCS spokesman Chuck McDonald said that WCS has a system for dealing with the problem: "It is a moisture disposal system that pumps moisture out."
In 2009 WCS sued Adam Greenwood, an environmental attorney from Andrews, and president of the Save the Ogallala Aquifer, along with other environmental groups who had claimed the aquifer (which lies as much as 1000 feet below ground in most places) was beneath the waste dump. Glenn Lewis, former Manager of Media Relations of TCEQ, said in a deposition for the Greenwood case that he resigned from TCEQ rather than accept the commission's approval of a nuclear waste license for WCS. Lewis joined two other TCEQ members who left the board after the license was approved despite their objections: "Because of the likelihood that groundwater would intrude into the proposed disposal units, there was an increased risk that the public would be exposed to radioactive material in their drinking and agricultural water." Did other court documents say anything to the contrary?
Shortly afterwards TCEQ executive director Glenn Shankle, who supported the license, left the commission to become a lobbyist for WCS.
Greenwood, now an assistant attorney general for New Mexico, was asked by ThisCantBeHappening! if the aquifer was beneath WCS answered, "I can't comment," when asked why he couldn't comment he said "no comment," when asked about the final disposition of the lawsuit, he hung up. WCS has not responded to repeated calls for comment.
Note: WCS now controls all hydrogeological monitoring in the area.
No Bonds for Billionaires
Melodye and Peggy Pryor have been fighting WCS from its beginnings. They're descendants of oilfield roughnecks and lifelong residents of Andrews. A sign on the main road into the town proclaims "Andrews loves God, country and supports free enterprise."
Although WCS claims to have "unanimous" support in Andrews to expand the dump, Melodye Pryor told ThisCantBeHappening! that a $75-million county bond measure to partially fund operations at the facility passed by only three votes.
Pryor and a small coterie of WCS opponents had mustered a campaign against the bond measure under the slogan "No Bonds for Billionaires," a reference to the involvement of Simmons. WCS responded, predictably, that the dump would bring money and jobs to the area. It never happened.
Going Against WCS 'Would be bad for business'
According to Pryor, town meetings were "stacked by corporate supporters" and residents were intimidated and even threatened by WCS supporters.
Pryor said that at community meetings her family had to walk a gauntlet of men, snickering supporters of Bush and Perry, who called them "bitches and things my father would have punched them in the nose for saying to a woman." Local business people, she added, were silenced by threats that going against WCS would be "bad for business."
But the promised economic benefits never materialized, she said. Andrews remains a poor backwater without so much as a movie theater.
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