Lined Drums For Hotter WIPP Waste Rejected > Alliance for Nuclear Accountability

Lined Drums For Hotter WIPP Waste Rejected

published Wednesday, February 01, 2012

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The following piece contains a quote from Don Hancock, longtime ANA members and Director of the Southwest Research & Information Center's Nuclear Waste program. Don has been watchdogging nuclear waste "disposal" at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico from the beginning of the disposal program.

Feb. 1, 2012

By John Fleck

From the Albuquerque Journal

The New Mexico Environment Department on Tuesday rejected a federal proposal to begin mixing highly radioactive waste among the low-dose waste that makes up the bulk of the material at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad.

But the decision leaves the door open for the issue to be reconsidered.

The Department of Energy last fall asked for permission to begin using lead-lined waste drums to dispose of a hot waste mixture. The agency asked for the change under rules that allow relatively quick state consideration of the permit, without the opportunity for a public hearing.

The low-dose waste is now routinely disposed of in ordinary steel drums. The hotter waste is currently handled separately, shipped in special shielded casks and disposed of in deep holes drilled in the walls of the 2,150-foot-deep WIPP salt mine. By using shielded waste drums instead, the waste could be more easily shipped, and it could be stacked among the other low-dose waste that now fills WIPP’s underground disposal rooms.

The purpose of the proposed change is to increase efficiency by allowing quicker shipment and disposal of the hotter waste, said George Basabilvazo, director of environment, safety and health for the Department of Energy’s Carlsbad Field Office.

But in a letter sent Tuesday, state Environment Secretary David Martin said the change to shielded containers would amount to a major change in WIPP’s state operating permit, which would require more detailed information and the possibility of public hearings. To meet the tougher approval standards, the federal government would have to submit a new application.

John Kieling, head of the state Environment Department’s Hazardous Waste Bureau, acknowledged the benefits to WIPP in using the shielded containers. “It makes sense for what they want to do,” Kieling said in a telephone interview. “It saves effort and cost.” But he said the department ultimately concluded it needed more information before it could approve the change.

WIPP watchdog Don Hancock of the Southwest Research and Information Center in Albuquerque objected to the proposal, calling it a step toward disposal of other kinds of radioactive waste not now permitted at WIPP.

Basabilvazo declined to comment on the state’s decision, saying WIPP’s managers would have to review it before making a decision on their next steps.