Billionaire Harold Simmons has gained permission from Texas environmental regulators to receive low-level nuclear waste at his remote dumping ground near the New Mexico border.

 

The first shipments to Simmons’ Waste Control Specialists facility will come from within Texas. But by this summer, trucks from 36 states may begin hauling their radioactive refuse to the depot, which environmentalists contend could contaminate groundwater supplies. The radioactive material is expected to include rags, syringes and protective clothing,

 

“Texas is going to become a nuclear waste dump if everything happens under their plans,” state Representative Lon Burnam (D-Fort Worth) told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. “We will be the major route for nuclear waste.” Karen Hadden, executive director of the Austin-based Texas SEED Coalition, referred to the site as “a nuclear mega-mall.”

 

According to the Transportation Department's Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, “incidents” involving trucks carrying radioactive materials have averaged one every six weeks for the past eight years.

 

Simmons has given generously to politicians in Texas and to national campaigns. He was the second biggest individual donor to Texas Governor Rick Perry between 2001 and 2010. In 2011, his holding company, Contran Corp., gave $1 million to the pro-Perry super PAC Make Us Great Again. Simmons personally adding $500,000 to Newt Gingrich’s super PAC and another $700,000 has gone to Mitt Romney’s super PAC, Restore Our Future. Simmons and his representatives have also spent $885,000 lobbying the Obama administration on behalf of Waste Control Specialists.

 

Simmons and Contran have contributed nearly $16 million in the current election cycle for the 2012 presidential campaigns. Of the latter amount, $12 million went to American Crossroads, the GOP political action committee run by Karl Rove.

-Noel Brinkerhoff, David Wallechinsky

 

Radioactive Waste May Soon Travel On DFW Highways (by Anna Tinsley, Fort Worth Star-Telegram)

Republican Donor Simmons Seeks Rule to Fill Texas Dump (by Julie Bykowicz, Bloomberg)

Billionaire Harold Simmons Gave Big to Several GOP Super PACs in Fourth Quarter (by Viveca Novak, OpenSecrets)