Hey, who owns this nuclear dump?

It may come to pass that Vermont Yankee’s nuclear waste will ultimately end up on the Texas-New Mexico border in a privately owned 1,338 acre waste site.
Vermont’s partner in Texas is Waste Control Specialists, a nuclear waste disposal site owned by Texas billionaire Harold Simmons. A Texas news magazine calls
Simmons the “King of Superfund Sites,” and notes an example of his genius:

[Simmons] has figured out a way to clean up a radioactive mess one of his companies made in Ohio by—according to some experts—creating another radioactive mess in West Texas. The best part: he’s gotten the folks in West Texas to support the plan and the federal government to pay for it.

Harold Simmons “King of the Superfund” may also benefit from two of Vermont Gov. Douglas’ appointed officials that voted against what some see as the state’s interest. In NovemberVermont state nuclear engineer Uldis Vanags and Steven Wark director of consumer affairs and public information for the Vermont Department of Public Service as members of the Texas Low-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Compact Commission voted preliminary approval to allow the Texas nuclear waste site to accept waste from other states.

Vtdigger.com reports that:

In audio testimony, Vanags and Wark voted against amendments to the proposed rules that would have given Compact members first dibs to the landfill and also that would have delayed action and allowed the Texas and Vermont legislatures an opportunity to weigh in on the matter

This will end Vermont’s exclusive deal with Simmons’ Waste Control Specialties and expand its potential profit base. Wark and Vanags rationale was that this would lower costs for Vermont. Governor elect Peter Shumlin immediately raised concerns that opening up the site might limit space and thus the access needed for VY’s waste. “It’s a race for space,” Shumlin told The New York Times. “When push comes to shove, the first waste that arrives is the waste that gets in.” The waste compact will meet on January 4 to make the decision on how much low level waste can be processed.

Earlier legislative changes in Texas and national reclassification of nuclear waste types made Simmons’ private nuclear waste site possible. In a 2006 interview he explained

“It took us six years to get legislation on this passed in Austin, but now we’ve got it all passed. We first had to change the law to where a private company can own a license [to handle radioactive waste], and we did that. Then we got another law passed that said they can only issue one license. Of course, we were the only ones that applied.”

Among Harold Simmons’ many civic minded philanthropies he also donates heavily to conservative republican causes. He is one of Texas governor Rick Perry’s biggest contributors, partly funded Swift Boat Veterans for Truth ads against John Kerry and anti-Obama ads.