Nuclear Reactors Near Short Pump: Urgent Community Meeting 9/18

The Goochland Planning Commission is in the stages of finalizing a proposal that would allow nuclear reactors to be positioned perilously close to Henrico County. The county border would be only 1500 feet from the reactors at the closest point and many homes and schools in Western Henrico will be within the ten-mile Emergency Planning Radius.

Let’s show up in force and demand that they delay voting until the Henrico County neighbors’ questions and concerns have been fully addressed.

Please attend the meeting on Thursday 9/18/25 at 6:30 p.m. at Goochland High School Auditorium, 3250 River Road West, Goochland, VA 23063.

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More information about the planned development

Proposed Goochland regulations will allow Small Module Nuclear Reactors (SMR) to be placed just south of Kain Rd (north of I-64) and along the Henrico County line to power data centers in Goochland. It seems this placement is to co-locate it with the landfill and a quarry to minimize Goochland residents’ objections.

SMRs are largely theoretical and untested. In the 9/8/2025 Goochland Community meeting, it was stated that there are no SMRs in operation in the United States. Studies show that SMRs “produce two to thirty times the radioactive waste of older nuclear designs, waste for which we have no safe, long-term disposal site.”

The Goochland supervisor shared that their plans for nuclear waste disposal are to “truck it off-site;” however, “there are no realistic prospects for licensing centralized sites where the used reactors could be taken for the foreseeable future. Any community with an SMR will have to plan to be a de facto long-term nuclear waste disposal site.”

This proposal puts many Henrico County homes well within the ten-mile radius, which would require plans for evacuation and shelter-in-place in the event of any nuclear incident. According to a Wyndham resident who attended the 9/8 meeting, the Goochland supervisor stated they “don’t care about any impact to the Henrico residents bordering the areas.” The supervisor also stated that “the up to 25 million gallons of water needed for this area for these data centers and SMRs will come from Henrico County.”