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| | | published Thursday, March 26, 2009 | 3581 Views :: 0 Comments | |  |
WIPP celebrating 10th anniversary
By Sue Major Holmes
Associated Press Writer
Posted: 03/25/2009 09:10:02 PM MDT
ALBUQUERQUE — A top scientist for the federal government's only nuclear
waste repository recalls the scene a decade ago when the first shipment
rolled through the gates - 300 to 400 area residents and workers
gathered in the predawn cold in the middle of nowhere, cheering.
The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in the salt beds of southeastern New
Mexico turns 10 today, with its supporters hailing it as pointing the
way for the future of radioactive waste disposal in America, and its
critics questioning whether the dump can really do the job it was
designed for.
WIPP is meant for defense-related waste such as protective clothing and
tools, largely contaminated with plutonium, which remains radioactive
for tens of thousands of years.
The repository is expected to take about 38,000 shipments from
Department of Energy sites nationwide over a projected 35-year lifespan.
As of this week, the repository had received more than 7,240 shipments.
WIPP, excavated 2,150 feet underground in vast ancient salt beds near
Carlsbad, was born in controversy. The DOE first proposed it in 1974,
but it was 25 years of hearings, environmental and technical questions
and legal challenges before it opened.
Construction began in 1983 and was finished five years later.
Continuing legal and environmental questions kept it closed until March
26, 1999, when the first shipment arrived from Los Alamos National
Laboratory in northern New Mexico.
That truck hit the road only days after a federal judge refused to block
shipments. New Mexico and four environmental groups had tried to prevent
the government from sending waste until the state issued a permit for
mixed waste - waste with chemical as well as radioactive elements.
Roger Nelson, chief scientist for the DOE's Carlsbad Field office, said
supporters see WIPP as a service to the nation, burying radioactive
garbage that's a nuclear proliferation hazard. The DOE views salt beds
as a perfect repository because salt creeps, filling in excavated areas
and sealing the waste from the environment.
Bill Richardson — then U.S. energy secretary and now New Mexico's
governor — said shortly after WIPP's opening that it represented "the
beginning of fulfilling the long-overdue promise to ... begin closing
the circle on the splitting of the atom" and clean up the legacy of
nuclear waste left from the Cold War.
But longtime critic Don Hancock, director of the nuclear waste safety
project at the Southwest Research and Information Center in Albuquerque,
said the repository's mission is behind schedule and the problem is
getting worse as evidenced by fewer shipments last year.
"I think it's because the facility is in fact pretty old. ... A
10-year-old nuclear facility is not necessarily beyond its time, but
WIPP is having significant problems," Hancock said.
Since most of WIPP's facilities were built in the 1980s, they're 25
years old, not 10, he said.
Waste disposal panels are arranged in parallel sets of seven rooms each.
Each room — 300 feet long, 33 feet wide and 13 feet high — is designed
to hold the equivalent of 12,000 55-gallon drums. The DOE expects to
excavate eight separate panels.
The first three have been filled and sealed.
Hancock said that after a decade of WIPP operating without a major
accident, people think "we know what we're doing and everything's fine.
I can't agree with that."
He cites the failure of a major water line into WIPP last spring and a
two-month shutdown in November and December — a closure Hancock
contended was necessary to upgrade things that were underdesigned in the
first place or were failing.
"I don't think they've necessarily solved all those problems," he said.
Nelson bristles at the suggestion WIPP needed upgrades, and said the
winter shutdown was for routine maintenance.
"They're maintenance outages. ... The concept of salt is it starts to
close, it repairs fractures," he said. "This is facility maintenance,
taking the time to make it safe because the rock is moving." Longtime
Carlsbad Mayor Bob Forrest says that when Carlsbad officials started
lobbying for WIPP three decades ago, 30 percent to 35 percent of local
residents favored it. Now, he believes 90 percent to 95 percent back it.
That's because local officials stressed safety, he said.
"Safety was the main issue," he said. "We kept that out in front, we
dotted all our i's, crossed all our t's."
That "overkill on safety" changed a lot of minds, Forrest said.
In addition, he said, WIPP has meant a thousand high-paying jobs and a
good economy.
But Hancock still has a concern his organization and other WIPP critics
have raised for years: the possibility that in the future, someone in
the oil- and gas-rich area surrounding WIPP will drill into the repository.
"I think it's going to happen in the longterm," he said. "That's a major
problem."
Nelson said the repository had to comply with stringent U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency standards designed to avert a
catastrophe if someone drilled into WIPP. The DOE had to demonstrate the
repository would meet the criteria for thousands of years and show "how
impossible it is to make it fail," he said.
Hancock also questions worker training, citing incidents in which a drum
was gashed at WIPP before being put underground last August and in which
both the Idaho Laboratory and Los Alamos sent waste to WIPP that was not
allowed there.
"I would say they're signs of complacency setting in," Hancock said.
"... Once we think we know how to do something, we might not do it so
well. We might do it on autopilot."
Nelson said the gash was an accident, not a sign of complacency.
He pointed out the DOE discovered and reported every one of the
problems, and said it made improvements as a result, he said.
"That means the system is working," he said.
Chronology of key events relating to Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New
Mexico
1956 — National Academy of Sciences committee recommends disposal in
salt deposits.
1974 — Site 30 miles east of Carlsbad chosen for exploratory work.
1977 — Energy Research and Development Administration, predecessor of
Department of Energy, tells Nuclear Regulatory Commission it will
request license for Waste Isolation Pilot Plant.
1979 — Congress authorizes WIPP for disposal of radioactive waste from
defense facilities.
1980 — DOE issues environmental impact statement.
1982 — Underground excavation begins.
1985 — EPA issues radioactive waste disposal standards for WIPP.
1989 — DOE applies to Interior Department to withdraw 10,240 acres of
federal land around site from public use; NRC approves redesigned
shipping containers.
1990 — DOE issues final supplement environmental impact statement.
1996 — Attorneys general of Texas and New Mexico sue EPA, claiming
federal agencies' closed-door discussions watered down final technical
standards. Congress passes land withdrawal amendments, exempting
repository from federal land disposal restrictions.
1997 — EPA deems DOE's certification application complete. U.S. Court of
Appeals upholds EPA criteria for determining whether WIPP complies with
environmental standards, rejecting arguments by Texas and New Mexico.
1998 — DOE issues rules for burying waste. State releases draft permit
for mixed waste. Then-Attorney General Tom Udall sues to stop repository
pending state's permit.
1999 — Federal judge refuses to block shipments pending state permit;
first shipment leaves Los Alamos days later; arrives at WIPP at 3:36
a.m. March 26.
2000 — First shipment of mixed waste arrives under state permit.
2003 — Panel 1 is filled.
2005 — Final shipment of transuranic waste from Rocky Flats arrives.
Panel 2 is filled.
2006 — EPA recertifies WIPP.
2007 — First shipment of remote-handled waste arrives.
___
Waste Isolation Pilot Plant: http://www.wipp.energy.gov/
Department of Energy: http://www.energy.gov/
Southwest Research and Information Center: http://www.sric.org/
Citizens Against Radioactive Dumping: http://www.cardnm.org/
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