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New Mexicans Oppose WIPP

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A year ago, the Department of Energy (DOE) released some of its plans to expand the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP), the world's first nuclear waste repository, in a request to modify the WIPP operating permit issued by the New Mexico Environment Department (NMED). About 800 individuals and citizen organizations representing more than 10,000 people wrote NMED to strongly oppose DOE's request. Last September, DOE withdrew the request, while promising to resubmit it.

DOE's new modification request again asks to change the operating permit to allow opening waste drums, expand the surface storage area by more than 33 percent and almost double the number of drums allowed, and increase the time limit for surface storage from 60 days to one year. These changes fundamentally expand WIPP and provide a new mission as a waste characterization and storage facility.

For more than 20 years, DOE has stated that it would not open drums at WIPP, but rather that the characterization would be done at sites where the waste is stored before it could be shipped. In its sworn testimony at the public hearing for the permit, DOE's witness stated:

We never open waste containers that are received from an offsite generator.... By not opening the waste, we can eliminate the possibility of spreading contamination throughout our facility. So not opening the container, keeping the containers sealed, is a major — a major strategy in our protection of human health and the environment.
--Testimony of Robert F. Kehrman, February 22, 1999.

DOE's new request states:

The proposed modification is not an expansion of the mission of the WIPP program; rather, it is a reorganization of activities required by the WIPP permit that will move more of the requisite waste analysis responsibilities to the WIPP facility, thereby providing a more efficient and economical operation.

DOE's words notwithstanding, the request constitutes a major expansion of WIPP, one which is as fundamentally unacceptable now as it was a year ago. So citizens once again are ardently opposing DOE's plans in order to convince NMED to not approve them.

Actual waste characterization is essential because DOE's written records have often proved to be highly inaccurate. At the WIPP permit hearing in 1999 DOE did not produce even one drum for which the written documents were accurate.

Without adequate characterization before waste is shipped, items prohibited from disposal at WIPP — explosives; ignitible, corrosive, reactive materials; or large amounts of liquids, among others — would arrive at WIPP. DOE's request now assumes that prohibited items would come to WIPP and that they would be disposed at WIPP, modified at WIPP so that they could be disposed, or "returned to the generator/storage site."

DOE wants to use practices at WIPP that have resulted in many DOE sites being among the most polluted areas of the nation by reducing or eliminating regulation under the guise of saving money or expediting clean-up. Those practices are fundamentally contrary to the WIPP permit, which specifies waste management practices and allows NMED to enforce the permit and for citizens to sue, if necessary, to require compliance.

BY SEPTEMBER 27,
SEND COMMENTS ABOUT THE WIPP EXPANSION TO:
Mr. Steve Zappe
New Mexico Environment Department
2905 Rodeo Park Drive East, Building 1
Santa Fe, NM 87505-6303
email: steve_zappe@nmenv.state.nm.us
fax: (505) 428-2567

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