BWXT Pitches Nuclear Fuel Plant In Gillette As Locals Wrestle With Mixed Emotions

BWXT officials promise a $500 million nuclear fuel plant will bring more than 200 jobs to Gillette without creating or storing nuclear waste there. But residents told the company Tuesday they're wrestling with the idea of a nuclear future.

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David Madison

October 01, 20257 min read

More than 300 people filed into the Cam-plex Heritage Center Theater on Tuesday night for a presentation from BWXT about its proposed nuclear fuel manufacturing facility in Gillette.
More than 300 people filed into the Cam-plex Heritage Center Theater on Tuesday night for a presentation from BWXT about its proposed nuclear fuel manufacturing facility in Gillette. (David Madison, Cowboy State Daily)

GILLETTE — Gillette has known for some time that the community harbors concern about becoming home to a nuclear waste site. A county commissioner recently drafted a resolution overtly opposing waste, while BWXT continues to repeat itself, assuring Gillette residents it manufactures nuclear fuels and is not in the waste business. 

On Tuesday night, along with concerns about nuclear waste, BWXT heard a complicated mix of other worries that might stand in their way of gaining local support.

More than 300 residents packed the Cam-plex Heritage Center Theater to hear company officials describe plans for a $500 million TRISO fuel fabrication facility that would bring more than 200 jobs to Campbell County. What emerged from the meeting was a portrait of a community trying to weigh economic opportunity against quality-of-life concerns that extend beyond nuclear waste anxieties.

Mixed Signals

Denene Humphries embodies the complicated calculus facing Gillette residents. She works for HDR Engineering in Gillette but lives in Moorcroft on a ranch with her three children. The prospect of BWXT setting up shop represents a potential business windfall.

"On the work side, we're curious because we have a lot of employees that are based in Wyoming. We have three offices, so it could bring a lot of work for our employees. We have a brain bank," Humphries said of her engineering firm.

But Humphries also worries about what success might cost her family. Gillette's housing market is already strained with modest trailer homes going for more than $200,00, she said, worrying about what will happen when it’s time for her kids to move out on their own. 

“Can they afford housing when they are ready to buy?” said Humphries. “Does Gillette have the capacity for that right now? I'm not so sure."

"On the other side, I have a ranch in Sundance,” added Humphries, wondering if Gillette becomes known as a hub of the nuclear industry, will that ripple out and negatively impact real estate prices across the region. “So I want to know, is this safe?”

Humphries is inclined to believe it is, noting her father worked in the industry. 

“He said, this whole procedure is safe. It's developed. The word nuclear is the wrong word to use because it's back to that old world,” she said.

oshua Parker, senior director of BWXT Advanced Fuels, led Tuesday’s presentation in Gillette.
oshua Parker, senior director of BWXT Advanced Fuels, led Tuesday’s presentation in Gillette. (David Madison, Cowboy State Daily)

Post Coal

Alton Simon arrived at Tuesday's meeting with none of Humphries' ambivalence. The BNSF Railroad locomotive engineer who hauls coal trains to Guernsey has watched the coal industry's decline firsthand and sees nuclear as Gillette's economic future.

"I'm a big proponent of nuclear power plants. So there's nothing any of the naysayers can do to convince me otherwise," Simon said.

His confidence stems partly from personal history. Simon grew up in Carlsbad, New Mexico, where his father worked as a welder fabricating the drill bit used to excavate the elevator shaft for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, a facility that stores low-level nuclear waste in underground salt formations.

“Once they completed it and once they filled it up and it was just low level radiation, which is what I assume it's going to be here too,” said Simon. “It’s completely stored away, and it'll never be seen again."

But Simon's support for nuclear also comes from a stark reading of coal's trajectory. In 2014, BNSF ran 500 train sets hauling coal from the Powder River Basin, he said. Today, that number has dropped by roughly two thirds. 

"I personally believe coal is going to die a slow, agonizing death," Simon said. "So our only option is to think outside the box, going in a different direction. We have to stay ahead of the curve."

Deep Experience

Joshua Parker, senior director of BWXT Advanced Fuels, led Tuesday's presentation, tracing the company's roots back to its origins as Babcock and Wilcox. He described how the company entered the nuclear business in the 1940s at the insistence of Admiral Hyman Rickover, the father of the nuclear Navy.

"The story goes, the first time we said no thanks. Second time we said no thanks. The third time, he shut the boardroom door and we came out and we were all of a sudden in the nuclear industry," Parker told the crowd.

Today, BWXT is a 160-plus-year-old company headquartered in Lynchburg, Virginia, with 10,000 employees and $2.7 billion in revenues. The company has manufactured over 420 nuclear reactors and supplies every reactor for every submarine and aircraft carrier in the U.S. Navy.

"In May of 1956, we built a facility in Lynchburg, Virginia," Parker said. "Today, that facility is nearly 70 years old. It will have its birthday next May. It currently has 3,000 employees and 1,000,000 square feet of manufacturing for national security. The growth in it has been amazing."

The proposed Gillette facility would be a 150,000 to 250,000 square-foot manufacturing complex that would fabricate TRISO fuel for advanced nuclear reactors. The facility would take uranium, fabricate it into fuel and ship the finished product to reactors across the country.

Construction could begin in 2027 following permitting, with the facility operational by 2030.

Parker made repeated assurances that the facility would not create, store or handle nuclear waste.

"I want to be very clear. There's some different things going around, and there's other projects in the state. This project sits on the front end of the fuel chain. This project will not create spent nuclear fuel or high level waste. And we will not store spent nuclear fuel or high level waste period," Parker said. "You heard that from my mouth right here. That will not be something that we do at this facility."

Parker concluded by sharing his personal connection to Gillette and his plans to relocate if the project moves forward.

"I brought my family through in July," Parker said. "We've been vacationing in Wyoming for well over 20 plus years. Actually, my wife and I stopped on our honeymoon in Gillette, Wyoming."

Parker emphasized that BWXT intends to build local leadership for the facility rather than managing it remotely from Virginia.

"This would be our community. This would be where we would get plugged in and be a part of it," Parker said. "We're not going to be operating this facility with a bunch of management from Lynchburg, Virginia. We're going to put the management here where the facility is."

More than 300 people filed into the Cam-plex Heritage Center Theater on Tuesday night for a presentation from BWXT about its proposed nuclear fuel manufacturing facility in Gillette.
More than 300 people filed into the Cam-plex Heritage Center Theater on Tuesday night for a presentation from BWXT about its proposed nuclear fuel manufacturing facility in Gillette. (David Madison, Cowboy State Daily)

Community Divided?

Gage Wandler, whose family's company L&H Industrial helped facilitate initial discussions between BWXT and state officials, estimated support in town at 50-50.

"I think the TRISO fuel plant is a lot more accepted than a nuclear reactor and spent uranium, because you don't have nuclear waste," Wandler said.

But he acknowledged uncertainty about how the community will ultimately respond.

"We'll know more once we walk out there," Wandler said before joining the crowd after BWXT’s presentation.

The division reflects broader debates that have played out in recent months among Campbell County commissioners, Gillette City Council members and Mayor Shay Lundvall about nuclear projects coming to the area. 

In September, Campbell County commissioners considered a ballot resolution asking voters whether storage of nuclear waste should be allowed in the county.

Commissioner Jerry Means, who attended Tuesday’s presentation, said of the proposed resolution, "My feeling is we need to make a statement that we do not accept nuclear waste in Campbell County."

Wyoming law currently prohibits importing waste from out-of-state facilities, though the potential for building small nuclear reactors in the county has sparked heated debate over whether to allow spent nuclear fuel to come back to the area.

Still Deciding

Charlotte Lyon may represent a significant portion of Gillette — residents who came to Tuesday's meeting without strong opinions formed, seeking information rather than validation.

Lyon, who works from home for an out-of-town employer, said she attended out of curiosity rather than concern.

"I guess the presentation seems very tailored to the reasonable concerns of the community. Pretty informative," Lyon said.

When asked about her overall impression, Lyon said, "It seems like I still want to know more. I guess I'm just curious where this actually stands.”

David Madison can be reached at david@cowboystatedaily.com.

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David Madison

Energy Reporter

David Madison is an award-winning journalist and documentary producer based in Bozeman, Montana. He’s also reported for Wyoming PBS. He studied journalism at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and has worked at news outlets throughout Wyoming, Utah, Idaho and Montana.