Council makes it official: No support from Newton on nuclear waste experiment

During a two-hour special-called Newton Town Council meeting Friday evening, Oct. 28, Mayor Lehman Irby and the council made it clear they do not support a proposed "science experiment" for nuclear waste disposal on land within the town limits and passed a detailed measure to that effect. The motion to oppose the borehole drilling project was passed amid multiple comments and questions from citizens and council members regarding what could happen in the future to the entire Tri-state area and its people should the project move forward.

Mayor-elect Bill Pruett was also at the meeting and said he believes the new administration that will take office Nov. 7, should act to pass an ordinance to prohibit the storage of nuclear waste forever in the community.

A research firm, already rebuffed in North Dakota and South Dakota, plans to drill a three-mile deep hole on Waterford Road near Dale County Road 18, on property owned by Alabama Power Company for an experiment to see if nuclear waste can be stored safely underground, within the deep granite layer of the earth.

The Dale County Commission signed a resolution last month in favor of the project, after discussing the matter in an executive session "just like we would do with any other economic development project,” said Commission Chairman Mark Blankenship during the commission meeting Tuesday, Oct. 25. He said at that time that State Rep. Steve Clouse and the Dale County and Ozark City Schools systems had also signed resolutions of support of the project.

During the Newton Town Council meeting, Irby said Clouse had told him  Friday that he would be withdrawing his support of the project.

The entire council, except District Four Councilman Terry Roberts, who was absent, vocalized their objections to such a project now or in the future. Plus, the town leaders said they had never been contacted by the Dale County Commission or any other entity about the project that has now stirred citizens into action. Multiple communities are to meet together next week to plan action.

Ohio-based Battelle Memorial Institute, a nonprofit research firm hired to manage the U.S. Department of Energy project, submitted a proposal for the Dale County project to the DOE Monday. The federal bid is expected to be awarded in mid-January.

Battelle Program Manager Engineer Steven Winburg told county commissioners that the next five months will be a permitting process, then it will be about seven months to drill the well. After five years, he said, the three-mile deep hole will be plugged and sealed off and the site returned to as natural a state as possible and "no nuclear waste” would ever be deposited there.

The two-dozen Newton citizens, along with the council voiced many concerns over the proposed project and expressed dismay that the current administration, nor the town's citizens, had seemingly been left out of the discussion. It was noted at the meeting that the proposed project is too close to the water table, the Choctawhatchee River and existing residents for comfort. 

For details on the motion passed by the council and additional comments by those in attendance at Friday's meeting, see the Daleville Sun-Courier's Nov. 2 edition. In addition, the county commission will have a special meeting Tuesday, Nov. 1, at 10 a.m. to further discuss the project.