Holtec and ELEA Scrap Controversial New Mexico Nuclear Waste Project After Years of Opposition

A long-running plan to build the world’s largest high-level radioactive waste storage facility in southeastern New Mexico has been abandoned, marking a significant environmental justice victory for campaigners who fought the proposal for more than a decade.

The decision by Holtec International and the Eddy-Lea Energy Alliance (ELEA) to terminate their joint project — a consolidated interim storage facility (CISF) between Hobbs and Carlsbad — was reported by the Carlsbad Current-Argus on 8 October. The US environmental organisation Beyond Nuclear, which has opposed the scheme since its inception, hailed the move as a “hard-won environmental justice victory” coinciding with Indigenous Peoples Day.

A Decade of Opposition

Beyond Nuclear began challenging the Holtec-ELEA proposal on “Nuclear Fool’s Day” (1 April) 2017, when Holtec’s chief executive, Krishna Singh, announced the CISF licence application to the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). The organisation and its allies had already written to the NRC in 2016, warning that such facilities — including a similar project by Interim Storage Partners (ISP) in Texas — were illegal under federal law.

Despite these objections, the NRC advanced both licence applications. Years of regulatory proceedings and environmental reviews followed, during which the anti-nuclear coalition submitted tens of thousands of public comments opposing the plans. These efforts continued even through the Covid-19 pandemic.

Coalition members included grassroots groups such as Don’t Waste Michigan, the Sierra Club, Public Citizen’s Texas Office and several environmental organisations across New Mexico, Texas, Illinois and California. According to Beyond Nuclear, dozens of legal contentions were filed with the NRC’s Atomic Safety and Licensing Board but were dismissed, with those rulings subsequently upheld by the NRC Commissioners.

Court Battles and Legal Support

Following regulatory setbacks, the coalition — which included the states of New Mexico and Texas as well as local businesses — pursued cases in multiple federal courts. The matter eventually reached the US Supreme Court, which ruled in June 2024 that Texas and an oil and ranching company lacked standing. However, Beyond Nuclear noted that “the merits of dump opponents’ cases… have never gotten their day in court” and said it is considering further appeals.

The group credited its legal team, including Diane Curran of Harmon Curran in Washington, D.C., and Mindy Goldstein of Emory University’s Turner Environmental Law Clinic. Attorneys Wally Taylor, representing the Sierra Club, and Terry Lodge, representing Don’t Waste Michigan, were also recognised, alongside expert witnesses such as the late Robert Alvarez of the Institute for Policy Studies and Drs. James Ballard, Marvin Resnikoff, and Gordon Thompson.

Indigenous and Community Leadership

Beyond Nuclear also paid tribute to Indigenous and Latinx leaders who opposed the project. “New Mexico is a majority minority state,” the statement read, thanking the All Pueblo Council of Governors and the Alliance for Environmental Strategies for their leadership. The proposed site near Laguna Gatuna lies on land with archaeological significance to numerous Indigenous Nations.

Kevin Kamps, Beyond Nuclear’s radioactive waste specialist, underscored the state’s history of exposure to nuclear risks. “New Mexico has suffered serial nuclear abuse since the establishment of the Los Alamos National Lab by J. Robert Oppenheimer during the Manhattan Project in 1943,” he said. “In its ghoulish tone deafness, NRC officially launched the Holtec CISF licensing proceeding with a Federal Register Notice published on July 16, 2018.”

Calls for Vigilance

While celebrating the victory, Kamps urged continued vigilance. “Despite this tremendous EJ victory, we must remain vigilant. ELEA has already stated it is seeking a new partner to nuclearize its southeastern New Mexico site, including to do reprocessing,” he warned. “Besides being environmentally ruinous… the separation of fissile Plutonium-239 from highly radioactive waste via reprocessing is also a glaring nuclear weapons proliferation risk.”

Holtec, for its part, said it intends to continue pursuing “collaborative siting” for similar projects under a US Department of Energy initiative. Kamps criticised the industry’s history of targeting vulnerable communities: “Many times for the past several decades now, low-income and/or Black/Indigenous/People of Color (BIPOC) communities, especially Native American reservations, have been targeted for such schemes by the nuclear industry.”

Broader Implications

Beyond Nuclear said the project’s collapse also averted the risk of large-scale radioactive waste transport through major waterways and urban areas, including the Hudson River, Cape Cod Bay, and Lake Michigan. “A part of the good news here is that Holtec’s proposed barge shipments of highly radioactive waste… have been fended off yet again,” Kamps said.

The group likened this outcome to a previous victory against the Private Fuel Storage project in Utah, which was blocked despite being licensed by the NRC. “As with Private Fuel Storage in Utah, despite NRC’s rubber stamping of the license, we have now also blocked Holtec’s CISF in New Mexico, and hope to do the same at ISP’s CISF in Texas,” Kamps concluded.

The decision marks a significant turning point in the long-standing US debate over nuclear waste management and could influence how future storage projects are sited and regulated.