DOE, New Mexico Formalize $74M in WIPP, LANL Settlements

Capping a nine-month stalemate, the Energy Department and New Mexico formally agreed to terms on a pair of settlements under which under which DOE will fund about $74 million worth of infrastructure improvements in the state as a penalty for two 2014 incidents at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) and nuclear waste management failures at the Los Alamos National Laboratory linked to one of the incidents.

 

Announced late Friday by DOE, the settlements open the door for DOE and New Mexico to renegotiate the terms of a 2005 consent order that obligated the agency to clean up most nuclear waste from legacy weapons projects at Los Alamos by Dec. 6, 2015. DOE acknowledged years ago it could not make that deadline, but the state refused to negotiate a new deadline until the agency settled up over the 2014 radiation release and unrelated underground fire at WIPP. A waste container from the lab was linked to the radiation release, and the New Mexico Environment Department dinged the facility for breaching state law and its permit.

 

More than half the total settlement dollars, $34 million, will go to improvements to roads used for transuranic waste transport to WIPP in the southeastern corner of New Mexico. The next biggest chunk, up to $12 million, will be for similar road improvements at LANL. Another $10 million is for water infrastructure improvements in the northern part of the state, near LANL, DOE said.  The remaining balance is divided among emergency preparedness and environmental improvements in both areas. 

New Mexico and DOE agreed on general settlement terms in April, but dickered over the exact schedule requirements for about another nine months before unveiling formal agreements last week. WIPP has been closed to waste shipments since February 2014, but DOE plans to reopen the site by December of this year.