Commission Endangers The Ogallala Aquifer

As if there weren't enough already, here is one more example of how the Republican leadership in Texas puts the interests of corporations ahead of the health interests of citizens or the environment.   The black dot on the map above shows where Dallas-based Waste Management Specialists corporation has put a dump site for low-level radioactive waste (in Andrews County, Texas).

The Texas Low-Level Radioactive Commission, created to approve the dumping of radioactive waste in Texas, has fulfilled its mission.   It had already approved the dumping of low-level radioactive waste at the site for waste from Texas, Vermont and the federal government -- that was done a few months ago.   Now it has approved the dump site receiving radioactive waste from another 35 states.

This means the Texas highways will be full of trucks transversing the state full of radioactive waste, endangering both Texas citizens and motorists from other states.   That would be bad enough, but note that the site sits above the southern part of the Ogallala Aquifer -- one of the largest fresh-water aquifers in the nation.   Eight separate states draw water from the aquifer.

The corporate spokesmen for Waste Management Specialists has convinced the commission that there is no way the radioactive waste can possibly seep down into the aquifer and poison it with radioactivity.   If any of you believe that, I've got some ocean-front property here in Amarillo for sale real cheap.

Even if it's true that radioactive-polluted water can't seep through the soil and into the aquifer (and that's doubtful), all it would take is one natural disaster (like a small earthquake caused by all the West Texas oil and gas drilling) to create a small crack and allow the aquifer to be polluted with radioactivity.   And once that happens there'll be no way to ever clean it up.

The fact is that the commission has just approved the eventual poisoning of the Ogallala Aquifer.   It may not happen tomorrow, or even next year.   But it will happen.   Count on it. And it was done so one company can make a few million dollars.

As someone who lives in the Texas Panhandle, which depends heavily on water from the aquifer, I don't think it was worth the risk.   But then I haven't been paid off with corporate money like the Republican leadership in Austin.