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Looking for radioactive armadillos? You might try West Texas
By dwray in The nature of things
January 5, 2011

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Y'all remember all of those "Don't mess with Texas" advertisements. Well, now it seems that it's okay to mess with Texas, or at least to bring nuclear waste here. The Texas Low-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Compact Commission voted 5 to 2 on Tuesday to approve rules governing the process for accepting "out-of-state" material from 36 other states.

This is something nuclear energy industry have been wanted for quite some time while environmentalists have been opposed. Personally, I was raised to be open minded about nuclear energy, but I still have a knee jerk dislike of the idea of the nuclear waste from other states heading to West Texas.

It's the same part of me that gets offended at people that scoff at Odessa, or act like there's nothing in West Texas but dust. Watch the movie "Giant". Go visit. It's actually a strikingly beautiful place with some of nicest people I know. So yeah I think it's a pity to turn Andrews into a dumping ground. Especially since this stuff will be stored right alongside the Ogallala aquifer, a source of drinking water for several states.

But I'll just try to summon up a little Frenchness about it all and shrug. C'est la vie. Maybe something good will come out of it. Radioactive spiders would be cliche but radioactive armadillos? Now that would be pretty nifty.

Here's the report by the Wall Street Journal: Wall Street Journal article