WIPP/article/action sugg.

[marylia@earthlink.net (marylia)]

Waste Isolation Pilot Plant: The Two Percent "Solution"

by Marylia Kelley
from Tri-Valley CAREs' April 1999 newsletter, Citizen's Watch

The flatbed truck left Los Alamos Lab in New Mexico at 7:49 PM on Thursday,
March 26, and headed south on U.S. 285  for about 270 miles - to the Waste
Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad, NM. Loaded in the truck was 600
pounds of plutonium-contaminated waste. The trip was reported to have taken
around 7.5 hours.

In truth, that journey took the Dept. of Energy 25 years and $2 billion.
When the nuclear debris reached its destination at about 4 AM on Friday,
Energy Secretary Bill Richardson called it "a truly historic moment."

Was it, really? What is WIPP? Will it solve the nuclear waste problem? If
so, why have environmentalists toiled such long hours for  two decades and
more - in courtrooms, on picket lines and in offices piled high with
technical reports - to stop it? Why had the state of New Mexico also sought
to enjoin its opening? Why is DOE putting nuclear waste in WIPP without
first obtaining a hazardous waste permit?

WIPP is the DOE's proposed deep geologic repository for nuclear
weapons-generated transuranic waste (containing radioactive elements
heavier than uranium, mostly plutonium). WIPP is being excavated in an
ancient salt bed 2,150 feet below the ground. Still under construction,
WIPP will ultimately contain 16 square miles of buried plutonium wastes,
including up to 850,000 55-gallon drums entombed in 56 rooms, each 300 feet
long by 33 feet wide.

WIPP will leak. Much of the waste slated for WIPP is contaminated with
plutonium 239, which has a radioactive half-life of over 24,000 years. A
radioactive element's hazardous life is generally calculated at 10
half-lives, in this case 240,000 years.

The WIPP site is surrounded by proven oil and gas reserves and potash
deposits. Future mining and drilling operations could hit the waste rooms,
releasing  massive amounts of radioactivity to the surface. Other drilling
operations, such as fluid injection, could cause radioactive releases at
WIPP even if the original operation is kept outside the site boundary.
Experts don't understand the groundwater system at WIPP very well. The
Rustler aquifer, which sits above the WIPP waste rooms has fractures and
caverns in it that could transport waste, eventually contaminating drinking
water supplies. Pressurized brine reservoirs under the WIPP site could
bring wastes to the surface as well. These reservoirs contain large amounts
of salt water under high pressure.

DOE is seeking, but does not yet have, a hazardous waste permit from the
state of New Mexico. The permit is required because DOE will dispose of
mixed transuranic wastes at WIPP. These are wastes that are contaminated
with both a chemical hazard (like a solvent) and a radioactive element such
as  plutonium. States can regulate DOE's hazardous (chemical) wastes.
Therefore, WIPP must have an operating permit. However, DOE is the sole
regulator for all the radioactive waste in the weapons complex. DOE is
essentially forcing the premature opening of WIPP by bringing in a shipment
of "purely" radioactive waste from Los Alamos.

Never mind that this waste is from NASA activities, and that WIPP is
supposed to be for military wastes only. And, never mind that significant
controversy exists over whether the Los Alamos waste was classified
properly. DOE's aim was to get waste, any waste, into WIPP and preempt the
state's ability to impose limits through its permitting authority.

DOE plans to bring 40,000 truck loads of transuranic waste to WIPP over the
next 30 years. Most of it will come from California (including from
Livermore Lab), Colorado, Idaho, Illinois, Nevada, New Mexico, Ohio,
Tennessee, North Carolina and Washington state. DOE estimates these
shipments will result in 6 deaths and 48 injuries from accidents and that
3 people will die from radiation exposure during "accident free" shipments.

WIPP is part of the DOE's nuclear waste "shell game," a dangerous
enterprise that puts deadly wastes on our highways, moving them around the
country and substituting "out of sight - out of mind" for a sound policy.

Estimates are WIPP will cost around $20 billion. Storing waste where it is
would cost about $3 billion. Moreover, WIPP will not come close to solving
the country's nuclear waste problems, not by any standard of measurement.
WIPP is designed to handle less than 2% of the existing volume of nuclear
bomb-generated radioactive wastes. Even if one calculates the transuranic
wastes alone, WIPP is proposed for only about one-third of DOE's existing
TRU waste.

Yet, Secretary Richardson sent out a press release to say that WIPP will
safely clean up the nuclear weapons complex. So, what gives? Perhaps,
WIPP's main use is not for waste disposal, but rather for its public
relations value. If DOE can convince enough people that it has taken care
of its waste problems, then currently operational weapons facilities like
Livermore Lab will face less pressure to cut down on the future production
of nuclear wastes. Transuranic wastes will continue to be generated. And we
will put them... where?


Action suggestion:
                        Write to Bill Richardson, Secretary of Energy, 1000
Independence Ave., SW, Washington, DC 20585. In your own words, tell him,
"Transuranic waste generation must be reduced at its source. Don't bury it,
Bill."


Legal update:
                        Four groups have appealed Judge Penn's decision to
lift the 1992 injunction against WIPP. This is the decision that now allows
DOE to send 17 shipments of Los Alamos waste to WIPP, of which the first
has been sent. (The Judge has not yet given a go-ahead for DOE to begin
waste shipments from other sites around the weapons complex.) If the appeal
is successful, the injunction would be fully reinstated. No hearing date
has been set as yet. The four groups filing the appeal are: Southwest
Research and Information Center, Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety,
Natural Resources Defense Council and the Environmental Defense Fund. (The
state of New Mexico had been a party to the original suit as well.)

                        In a separate legal action, SRIC, CCNS, the state
of New Mexico and Citizens for Alternatives to Radioactive Dumping are
challenging the legality of the EPA certification for WIPP. A hearing is
scheduled for May 6. If the plaintiffs are successful, the DOE would have
to try and recertify WIPP, a process that would likely take several years
and, theoretically at least, its end result would not be assured.

                        Meanwhile, the DOE's Idaho National Engineering and
Environmental Lab and Rocky Flats Plant are gearing up to ship waste to
WIPP, and may try to argue before the Judge that somehow "national secuity"
demands putting nuclear trash on the road.

                        Meanwhile, the state of New Mexico has gotten an
earful from its citizenry through the public comment process, and must
ponder the permit issues and make that decision.    -- Stay tuned.


* Thanks to Don Hancock of SRIC for the legal updates, though any
imprecision in reporting them is mine.
** Thanks to the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability for its theme month
packet, "The Nuclear Waste Shell Game," which contains more and better
basic WIPP information than any other single source!

++++ Please note that my email address has changed to
<marylia@earthlink.net> on 3/1/99 ++++

Marylia Kelley
Tri-Valley CAREs
(Communities Against a Radioactive Environment)
2582 Old First Street
Livermore, CA USA 94550

<http://www.igc.org/tvc/> - is our web site, please visit us there!
Our web site will remain at this location. Only my email address has
changed on 3/1/99.

(925) 443-7148 - is our phone
(925) 443-0177 - is our fax

Working for peace, justice and a healthy environment since 1983, Tri-Valley
CAREs has been a member of the nation-wide Alliance for Nuclear
Accountability in the U.S. since 1989, and is a co-founding member of the
international Abolition 2000 network for the elimination of nuclear
weapons.