It is expected that Louisiana Energy Services (LES) will announce this week that it has chosen New Mexico as the site for its $1.1 billion uranium enrichment plant, effectively ending a year of hotly-contested debate between the energy company and Trousdale County.

At a meeting last week between LES and members of the Hobbs Rotary Club in Lea County, N.M., Marshall Cohen, LES vice president of communications, and Rod Krich, vice president of licensing projects, talked issues and announced a name for the plant — the National Enrichment Facility.

Cohen told the group that LES would be resolving land issues with the State Land Office in preparation for putting the facility near Hobbs, N.M. Krich said one of the mistakes LES made in Tennessee was spending time and money before securing the 250 TVA acres near Hartsville, which, he said, the company was never able to secure.

Lea County executive Dennis Holmberg said the county had positively answered all of LES’s questions and now were awaiting the outcome, which he said was “strongly in favor” of developing the facility in New Mexico. Other sources say a press release could be forthcoming this week.

“We have provided them with an inducement resolution of $1.8 billion in industrial revenue bonds as an enticement,” said Holmberg. “Industrial revenue bonds provide them an abatement of property tax, which is for 30 years and provides them with an abatement of their gross receipts tax for the term of the bonds.”

In Hartsville, LES was hit with intense opposition from residents and environmental groups over what they considered quality-of-life issues and credibility issues regarding LES.

Lea County is not only welcoming the facility, it has been courting LES since local and state officials found out that LES was having trouble in Tennessee.

A delegation of New Mexico legislators then officially sanctioned bringing in the plant after touring URENCO’s plant in The Netherlands.

“We want this project,” said New Mexico state Sen. Carroll Leavell. “We have no opposition here, not from residents, not from the business community or from local and state officials.”

Leavell said New Mexico residents are more familiar with nuclear issues and, therefore, more comfortable than Tennessee residents in making decisions on those issues.

Holmberg said the county had provided LES with various sites, and LES had performed due diligence on the sites and found “no fatal flaw.”

LES has spent what some have speculated could be close to $15 million in courting Trousdale County.

Krich said he could not comment on the timeline and deferred to Cohen. At press time, Cohen hadn’t been reached by The City Paper.