JACKSON, Miss.–You might remember Northern District Public Service Commissioner Brandon Presley’s assertion last year that Mississippi would become the country’s “nuclear waste dump” when there was talk of storing nuclear fuel rods at a facility near Port Gibson. That issue has not gone away and Tuesday Presley was shocked when the three-member PSC voted down his resolution to tell the federal government to stop considering Mississippi for any nuclear storage.
“I was shocked that my colleagues would reject a resolution standing up to the secretary of energy on behalf of Mississippi,” he said. “Mississippi gets dumped on by the federal government enough without them or anyone else thinking our people want us to be the nation’s septic tank.”
While Presley insisted last year that the federal government was considering Mississippi for a storage facility similar to the one in Yucca Mountain, Nevada, where nuclear waste storage was being developed, the governor’s camp said there had been consideration only for storing spent fuel rods.
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Presley told News Mississippi that he was standing up to the federal government and that “somebody has been playing footsie with the federal government”, meaning that someone was actively trying to recruit a site in Mississippi for nuclear waste, which Presley said would be “economic suicide”.
Presley also said Mississippians are $80 million from the feds after the government shut down development at the Nevada site, where Mississippi had invested about that much in the research.
As for having any nuclear storage in the state, Presley said it’s his mission to stand against it.
“I plan to introduce a resolution at every Commission meeting until I leave office,” he said.
Commissioners Lynn Posey and Steve renfroe said they needed more time to study the issue.
