LUBBOCK, Texas (AP) _ State regulators have given final approval for a Dallas-based company to begin burying low-level radioactive waste at a West Texas site near the New Mexico border.
A letter from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to Waste Control Specialists posted online Thursday said the dump site conformed to design and construction specifications.
The site will be the final resting place for low-level radioactive waste from 38 states.
The approval ends a years-long effort by the company, whose majority owner is big-time Republican contributor Harold Simmons, to accept the waste at 1,340-acre tract of scrub brush terrain about 360 miles west of Dallas.
Environmental groups have for years voiced concerns about the geology of the site and its potential to contaminate underground water sources they say are too close.
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