During a public meeting Tuesday in Carlsbad, N.M., most local residents voiced support for current operations of the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) and argued a state agency’s proposal to modify WIPP’s permit is unnecessary.
Further, most said if the New Mexico Environment Department (NMED) thinks too few shipments of legacy transuranic waste are going to WIPP from Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), then the problem probably rests at the Los Alamos end.
“Well, guess what,” said Paul Shoemaker, a former employee at DOE’s Sandia National Laboratory. “No one at WIPP called Los Alamos and said, ‘we can only take 198 containers from you.’ That’s all that LANL made ready to send,” he added. Shoemaker added that he was speaking for himself, not his former employer.
Last week, NMED announced it is seeking to modify the hazardous waste permit for WIPP, essentially mandating that WIPP take a higher rate of shipments of transuranic from Los Alamos. The Los Alamos area has experienced big wildfires over the years, and locals there have said they want to see the waste hauled away as soon as possible.
A 45-day comment period on the proposed NMED permit modification ends June 8. The Tuesday meeting was made available via Zoom.