DOE Attempts To Undermine Safeguards At WIPP

Last spring, just after the state of New Mexico granted the DOE a permit to operate the nation’s first permanent nuclear repository (the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, located near Carlsbad, N.M.), the DOE immediately sued the state to reduce WIPP safety standards.

Last month President Clinton signed a bill, sponsored by Senator Domenici, which made the state’s efforts to bond nuclear contractors at WIPP for part of the cost of future clean-up illegal.

This month, the Department of Energy is attempting to weaken a major safety standard of the state’s permit for WIPP.

This change, a class 2 modification, would allow wastes to be shipped to WIPP without identifying what is actually in the waste until it arrives at the site.

This modification of WIPP’s permit removes assurances that “prohibited wastes,” including high level radioactive wastes, explosives, liquids, ignitable, corrosive, reactive or chemically incompatible wastes are not included in the drums.

The modification might also give DOE a foot in the door if they decide to ship high level waste to WIPP.

CARD, Citizens for Alternatives to Radioactive Dumping, continues to fight WIPP in the courts.

For more information on WIPP site instability and DOE’s use of false science to site WIPP, unm.edu/~ryand/other wipp.