Company Wants Plants to Guard Radioactive Waste in New Mexico
Published Date: 12/12/2025
Notice
Summary
The Homestake Mining Company in New Mexico wants to change how they cover their big piles of leftover mining stuff to a new soil-and-plant design that helps water evaporate naturally. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission checked it out and says this change won’t harm the environment. This update could speed up cleaning the site without extra costs or delays, helping the local community and environment.
Analyzed Economic Effects
2 provisions identified: 2 benefits, 0 costs, 0 mixed.
NRC finds no significant health risk
On December 12, 2025, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued an Environmental Assessment and a Finding of No Significant Impact approving Homestake Mining Company's request to use an evapotranspiration (ET) cover design at the Grants Reclamation Project in Cibola County, New Mexico. The NRC concluded the cover change would not increase radiological risk to public health and would not have significant impacts on air quality, surface water, noise, transportation, socioeconomic conditions, or waste generation.
Faster site reclamation with onsite materials
The approved amendment would let Homestake use about 1,090,331.7 cubic meters (1,426,100 cubic yards) of soil and rock from on-site borrow areas (which contain about 2,953,643.7 m3) and nearby rock stockpiles to build the ET cover. Excavation would not exceed 2.7 meters (9 ft) in the west borrow area and 1.5 meters (5 ft) in the north borrow area, the work is estimated to take less than six months, and three license condition dates would be changed to reflect the revised decommissioning schedule.
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