New Mexico Blocks High-Level Waste Shipments To Carlsbad Salt Caves

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SANTA FE, New Mexico, November 4, 2004 (ENS) - "The state of New Mexico is setting watchmen in place to ensure that no high-level radioactive waste enters the federal government's Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) at Carlsbad. The facility accepts radioactive transuranic waste from across the United States for permanent storage in the Carlsbad salt caverns deep beneath the Earth's surface. The New Mexico Environment Department (NMED) will formally reopen its Carlsbad operations office on Monday, stationing four employees there to conduct environmental monitoring of the Department of Energy's WIPP facility.

The Carlsbad office of NMED’s Department of Energy Oversight Bureau has been closed since 1996 due to federal funding cuts. “These personnel could not have started at a better time,” said NMED Secretary Ron Curry. “The problems WIPP have been experiencing lately with the disposal of unapproved waste highlights the need for improved oversight of DOE’s operations in Carlsbad.”

The shipments to WIPP from the DOE's Hanford nuclear site violated an August 2003 EPA directive that said the waste should not be shipped because of questions about whether it had been properly tested. It is the second similar incident this year and the fourth since WIPP opened in 1999. EPA and DOE officials declined to answer questions on the matter, but an internal EPA document obtained by the Journal shows that officials are considering a complete shutdown of all shipments from Hanford to WIPP.

On October 29, in a move designed to bar the disposal of high-level radioactive tank sludges at WIPP, which was permitted only for transuranic waste, Curry signed a WIPP permit modification. “This action gives New Mexico the clear authority to prevent any high-level sludge from coming to WIPP,” said Curry."

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