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Exelon Nuclear representatives are getting their hands dirty in the Victoria area.
The company is collecting geologic and environmental information necessary for a license application that could bring a nuclear plant to either Matagorda or Victoria counties, said Craig Nesbit, the company’s communications director.
“Right now there are soil boring crews in Matagorda,” he said. “They have to collect a huge amount of data. Later they will move up to the site in Victoria.”
On June 29, Exelon announced plans to apply for licensing to build the plant.
Victoria is the secondary site but remains under consideration, pending results from analyses.
Crews are looking into aspects such as how high water tables are, how compacted the soils are and the soil composition.
“It’s the stuff you do before you build anything,” he said. “You can’t build a large industrial structure unless you know what’s underneath.”
Meteorological information such as wind speeds and barometric pressure are also under analysis, he said.
Exelon is several months into the information-gathering portion of the application, but a year’s worth of data is necessary to submit the application.
Applying for the license, however, does not mean the company has officially decided to build in either location, Nesbit told the Advocate in June.
“The application will go in, as you know, before the end of next year,” Nesbit said. “But there is still a huge mass of data that has to be collected and that’s what we’re doing.”
Allison Miles is a reporter for the Advocate. Contact her at 361-580-6511 or amiles@vicad.com.