More Waste For Texas - And Don't Drink The Water

This person's blog says it so much more eloquently than I could ever have done.  Here is the link:

http://haroldsimmons.blogspot.com/2010/12/texas-agency-says-state-will-be-liable.html#comment-form

The Texas Sunset Commission has examined this issue (the WCS dump site and Harold Simmons and Company) and has found that neither WCS nor Mr. Simmons will be liable for any disasters or even routine cleanups in the WCS Andrews facility.  We already knew this, but now it is entered for the record into the Texas Legislature records as well.

The anonymous blogger who gleaned this information stated also that he is contributing this anonymously because of the tendency for people who speak out against WCS or Harold Simmons to find themselves the subject of law suits and other means of intimidation.  But his information can be checked merely by looking at the Sunset Commission website or other state websites.

Here is the deal in a nutshell:  Harold Simmons, through WCS, managed to sell the WCS site to the people in Andrews as a means of saving their city from economic collapse by creating seventy-five jobs and boosting the local economy.  The people of Andrews bought it and voted for it.  But they were promised a facility that disposed of  radioactive "medical waste."  Also waste from Vermont was placed there via the Texas-Vermont Pact.  Since then, the WCS facility has also taken in "by-products" from federal nuclear facilities, and recently, sludge from the Hudson River that was contaminated with PCB.  But the biggest "surprise" of all was the application for a license to accept nuclear waste from thirty-six other states.  And it appears this will happen soon unless we (TEXANS) began really raising a fuss about this. 

Texans were not allowed to vote on the deal to allow thirty-six states to dump their nuclear waste here.  In fact most Texans were not even aware of this impending disaster until just before Christmas, when the "public comment period" was announced by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.  The public comment period of course coincided with the Christmas holiday period.  On purpose? Duh...

I doubt that even the most frightened Andrews resident would have voted for this mess if the truth had been told up front.  But the rain has already fallen out of the clouds as far as the WCS facility is concerned.  It is here and there is not much to be done about that.  BUT we do not have to sit by with our hands under our backsides while unelected commission members on various commissions rail road this disgusting and disastrous law onto our shoulders.  I will remind you once again: WCS and Harold Simmons have no responsibility for the cleanup of accidents or just a routine cleanup of the WCS site itself.  Texans (YOU and ME) will pay for all this.  Harold Simmons and Company have only one responsibility and that is to collect money (MAKE A PROFIT) from dumping this mess in Texas.  I can assure you that HS and Company are already working on another deal to pollute some other area and make a profit in the process.  I just wonder if the other states will be so cooperative as Texas has been. 

By the way, when I say Simmons and Company, I include the several local and state politicians and bureaucrats who are also lining their pockets with the proceeds from the Simmons  election/legislation/politician buying corporation.  Oops...I mean campaign contributions and lobbying fees.  It is all legal I presume.  But we, Texans, have been betrayed by our "leaders" from city officials all the way up to the former president of the United States and the current governor of Texas.  You can be assured that none of these people will retire in the Andrews area at the conclusion of their stellar political careers.  Actually, I doubt if they will even drink the water should they ever stop in Andrews.