Waste Control Specialists LLC

MISSION

At WCS, we are providing the most secure, safe and compliant waste treatment, storage and disposal services for our customers and employees by using technical expertise and innovation while incorporating the highest ethical standards.

WCS SITE OVERVIEW:

Located within a 1,200-ft. thick nearly impermeable red-bed clay formation, the Waste Control Specialists (WCS) site ensures safe and permanent disposal of radioactive waste by combining this unique natural barrier with a custom designed and engineered, 7-ft. thick, steel-reinforced concrete liner system. WCS operates a fully licensed 1,338-acre facility located on our 14,900-acre site in western Andrews County, Texas.

• WCS provides a one-stop location for treatment, storage and disposal of low-level radioactive waste (LLRW) and mixed low-level radioactive waste.
• WCS provides vital disposal services at its Compact Waste Facility (CWF) for Texas generators of (LLRW) and generators in 34 other states that do not have an operating compact facility. Those generators include nuclear power plants, hospitals and research centers. WCS provides similar disposal options for the U.S. Department of Energy at its Federal Waste Facility (FWF) and for Section 11e.(2) waste at its Byproduct Waste Facility.
• The State of Texas takes immediate title to LRLW disposed in the CWF and the DOE, upon closure of the FWF, does the same for waste disposed at the FWF. As a result there is no possible future liability for a generator that disposes of waste at WCS.
• Offering the most robust facilities of their kind in the world, WCS is a long-term solution for the nation’s commercial and public radioactive waste generators. Furthermore, the environmental, management and transportation measures WCS takes on a daily basis ensure that any waste disposed of at a WCS facility will be safe and secure.

CUSTOMER BENEFITS

Waste Control Specialists (WCS) provides the most comprehensive, full service, and complete Radioactive and Hazardous Waste Services in the Nation. WCS’ co-located treatment, storage and disposal facilities are recognized as having the most robust design and most suitable geology of any low-level radioactive waste (LLW) disposal facility in the United States. This benefits our customers by providing the lowest risk waste management and disposal option in the United States.

WCS enjoys widespread support from the people of Andrews County and the entire Permian Basin. This area is known for its lack of rainfall and semi-arid conditions that are well matched for permanent, safe waste disposal.

The facilities allow WCS to offer our customers comprehensive waste services (receipt, treatment, repackaging, and disposal) for a broad range of waste types: Class A, B and C, MLLW and LLW as well as NORM and TENORM, RCRA/TSCA, byproduct material.

OUR FACILITIES

• Texas Compact Waste Facility
• WCS Federal Waste Facility
• WCS Byproduct Waste Facility
• WCS Hazardous Waste Facility 

A HISTORIC PARTNERSHIP: WCS AND ANDREWS, TEXAS ARE PROTECTING THE ENVIRONMENT

The state of Texas searched unsuccessfully for decades for an answer to the need to dispose of tons of low-level radioactive waste (LLRW) that was accumulating throughout the state. This waste is produced by activities that are essential to our society and which enhance our quality of life, including power generators, hospitals, universities, research institutions and industrial plants.

Low-level radioactive waste has been temporarily stored at thousands of sites across Texas and throughout the United States, much of it in heavily populated, urban areas. Without radioactive material the quality of our lives would greatly diminish. Texas needed a solution.

At the same time, business and community leaders in Andrews County were searching for a means to diversify their local economy. With the foresight to recognize the unique geographic characteristics of their region could serve as an environmentally safe resting place for the state’s disposal needs, community leaders in Andrews began actively soliciting and engaging high-quality business leaders to partner with the community in this endeavor.

After repeated efforts to open a state-operated disposal site failed, the Texas Legislature approved a historic public-private partnership authorizing a private company to dispose of the waste under state regulation and oversight.

To carry out that mission the Texas Legislature created the Texas Low-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Compact Commission, which is responsible for overseeing the volume of waste disposed of at the Compact facility. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) then selected Waste Control Specialists to operate the Compact facility and serve as the State’s stewards of hazardous and low level radioactive waste.

The WCS site in Andrews County, Texas was selected as a LLRW disposal site due to its location atop a ridge of almost impermeable red bed clay. The site’s geology is unsurpassed for permanent disposal of LLRW and has been repeatedly proven to not be over or adjacent to any drinking water supply. In addition, long term disposal operations in Andrews provided the opportunity for Andrews to create a sustained, beneficial means of income for their community.

WCS is proud to serve as the state’s steward of hazardous and low-level radioactive waste. With this stewardship comes a commitment to protecting the environment, as well as being an outstanding corporate citizen in the communities of Andrews County, Texas and Lea County, New Mexico. WCS is committed to improving the quality of life for its community, the State, and the nation.

STEWARDSHIP

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION

stewardship-environmental
From the outset, WCS has been committed to the safe and secure handling of the state and nation’s Low-level Radioactive Waste (LLRW). Disposal operations at WCS were never conceived, designed or expected to be a short-term solution for LLRW. Instead, WCS has always aimed to provide a safe, secure, long-term solution for waste disposal while fully protecting the environment. WCS’ greatest ally in this effort is the geology and geography at the disposal site.
The WCS site in Andrews County, Texas was selected due to its location atop a ridge of 600 ft. thick red bed clay in a relatively remote, semi-arid, sparely inhabited area of far west Texas, with the nearest residence approximately 3.5 miles to the west in New Mexico and annual rainfall less than 16 inches. Significant population growth in the immediate vicinity of the WCS site is unlikely because of the nature of land ownership and the lack of any surface water and readily potable groundwater.
THE FACTS ON WCS’ IMPACT ON THE ENVIRONMENT:
During the construction and licensing process over 500 wells and core samples were reviewed by the state; the state has established that at no point does this site affect the Ogallala Aquifer.
The state has determined the aquifer to be six miles north of the site. Water would have to travel uphill to get to the site.
The facility is not over an aquifer or adjacent to any underground drinking water supply.
Climate change will not cause groundwater to enter the waste disposal units.
The Texas Compact Disposal Facility and Federal Waste Facility feature the most environmentally protective design in the industry with below-grade disposal in concrete-lined cells that are constructed inside a natural 600-foot formation of almost impermeable Dockum red-bed clay.
No significant erosion has taken place at the site for the past 60,000 years and there is no reason to expect significant erosion at the site during the next 60,000 years.
The waste is placed in steel reinforced concrete containers which sit atop more than seven feet of a state-of-the-art comprehensive liner system

THE FACTS ON WCS’ IMPACT ON LOCAL DRINKING WATER

Over the last 20 years, WCS, local water well drillers and oil and gas producers have drilled thousands of wells and spent tens of millions of dollars to verify the subsurface properties of western Andrews County and, as a result, have delineated the boundaries of the Ogallala Aquifer.
As a result of this data, the Texas Water Development Board re-mapped the Ogallala Aquifer in late 2006 to definitively show that the aquifer’s boundary does not extend to WCS’ property and to provide a more accurate depiction of the proper location of the aquifer. Lastly, no groundwater has ever been found in the red bed clays within the boundaries of the proposed disposal units as shown by the installation of more than 390 monitoring wells.