Kenneth Fletcher
WC Monitor
3/07/2014
CARLSBAD, N.M.—After criticism from state and local officials over a lack of communication following recent incidents at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, Department of Energy cleanup chief Dave Huizenga apologized at a town hall meeting held here late this week and promised improvements. This week, New Mexico Environment Department Secretary Ryan Flynn complained of delays in DOE providing information after the Feb. 14 aboveground radiation release at WIPP, and officials pressed for more information and a visit from Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz. “I’m disappointed and I apologize for where you guys and mayors and other officials feel we are. It’s not our intention to hide anything from you. We know you guys have been the backbone of support for this facility for decades. We are not trying to back away from sharing information,” Huizenga said.
The Department has taken a cautious approach to ensuring that accurate information is released, DOE officials emphasized. “I’m not going to defend the fact that maybe we haven’t done as good a job as we should have,” Huizenga said. “We’re going to try and get better. We’re going to commit to update the web site every day and have town hall meetings to provide information. Some of this information just doesn’t exist and we are trying to compile it and organize it in a way that makes sense to us and will ultimately make sense to you. For you guys to feel that unhappy with us, it kind of hurts.” The focus on communication issues came with better news regarding the impacts of the contamination incident—this week WIPP reported that 13 workers who initially tested positive in bioassays had “extremely low” exposure levels with health impacts unlikely.
‘All This is Being Orchestrated From Washington’
The open lines of communication with DOE that Carlsbad has enjoyed for years have deteriorated following the event, said John Heaton, head of the Carlsbad Mayor’s Nuclear Task Force. “If it weren’t for Carlsbad, this project would not be here. Period, end of story. It was the battles we fought day after day, week after week, hearings we went to, that resulted in the stars finally lining up for this project. … We are your number one ambassador not only in the state, in Congress, with other folks around the country,” Heaton said, But he added: “We feel as a community, as do employees, that we don’t know what’s going on and they are being kept in the dark and this is all being orchestrated from Washington. Our folks are more or less muted in their ability to say what they need to say to the community.”
But Huizenga said that is not the case. “If you have a sense that we’re telling [DOE Carlsbad Field Office Manager Joe Franco] not to talk to you, that’s just not happening,” Huizenga said. This week’s event was the second town hall meeting since the contamination incident, and the Department has held press conferences once per week. All media inquiries have been directed to DOE headquarters. In an effort to improve communications, the Department this week pledged to hold weekly town hall meetings in Carlsbad and has launched a web site on the events at WIPP to convey relevant information. “We want to have these town halls weekly. If there’s one person there, we are going to talk to that one person,” DOE Carlsbad Field Office Manager Joe Franco said.
State Concerned About Delays in Data Reporting
A concern for the state of New Mexico was a delay in DOE providing information from monitoring stations following the release—Flynn said state officials did not get data until five days later. “What they weren’t doing well in the beginning, they had information, but they didn’t present that information to us until they could validate,” Flynn told WC Monitor on the sidelines of the meeting, noting that all tests indicated that releases were well below levels that would be a health concern. “We need that data immediately and then we can draw our own conclusion and compare it against theirs. There shouldn’t be a lag so that they can reach conclusions and validate all their information before they share it. Any type of data needs to be validated and that’s an important part of the process. But I believe that the minute you have an event, you have information, we want to get that, even if you recognize it is still rough and hasn’t been validated. We just want to know everything that they know.”
‘Event Exposed Amateur Hour in the DOE Leadership’
Following a Feb. 5 fire at WIPP and the radiation release later that month, DOE set up a joint information center with WIPP contractor Nuclear Waste Partnership. But one industry official said that the center was poorly managed. “This event has exposed amateur hour in the DOE leadership,” the official told WC Monitor.”DOE started controlling the flow of information. So of course nothing comes out, because they sit over there and nervously wring their hands and don’t know what to do so they do nothing. This violates all the principles of how you run a joint information center. The purpose of setting up a joint information center is so that information flows. DOE took that over from the contractors. DOE needs to have their hand slapped about that.”
DOE Trying to Avoid Misinformation
The radiological incident has been the first major incident at WIPP in its 15 years of operations, Huizenga noted. “We were trying to make sure that we understood exactly what was going on so we didn’t give misinformation out. We’ve been trying to get the information out as quickly as we possibly can and I know there’s some frustration here in the community that they would like to have all the answers right away,” he told WC Monitor following the meeting. “But in order to be able to proceed safely and go down into the mine and make sure that the workers are okay, we’re being cautious. If that is perceived as not sharing information than we need to do a better job of explaining to people that we are not hiding anything, we are not muzzling the workforce here or local management. We want to get the message out as quickly as possible but we want to have an accurate message.”
New Mexico has recently noted a “dramatic increase in level of communication,” Flynn said, stating that the Department is updating the state on a daily basis on the WIPP situation. But he called for better public outreach. “I think they are doing a better job, I think there’s still work that needs to be done in terms of communication,” he said. “I understand that they want to be cautious to make sure they don’t put out any information that’s not accurate. But you can still establish a constant line of communication, even if you’re just saying these are the things we know, these are the things we’re still evaluating, these are the things we don’t know.”
Push For Moniz Visit to WIPP
The town hall meeting, held March 6, came the same day that New Mexico Democratic Sens. Tom Udall, Martin Heinrich and Rep. Steve Pearce (R) met with Moniz in Washington, D.C., emphasizing the need for transparency on DOE’s plan for reopening the facility. But in Carlsbad, officials pushed for the Secretary to visit WIPP. “I would like to see Secretary Moniz out here in Carlsbad. We believe this facility is critical to the complex,” Flynn said to applause. “I know that Secretary Moniz is a very busy man and I’m only a state secretary, but within a few minutes of me finding out that this incident occurred, I was down in Carlsbad that night. … I really think it would send a powerful message that this facility is critical to DOE.” Department officials in Carlsbad said they would convey concerns to Moniz, that there have been discussions with the Secretary about a potential visit to WIPP.
In their meeting with Moniz this week, the members of New Mexico’s Congressional delegation all stressed the need for DOE to be forthcoming with information. “As the investigation continues into the accident at WIPP, it’s absolutely critical for DOE to be as open and transparent as possible with WIPP personnel and the Carlsbad community,” Udall said in a statement. “The community understandably has questions about health and safety—but also about the economic impact if WIPP stays closed for much longer. I repeated to him a point I have made earlier that workers must be taken care of until the mine can be safely re-opened.” Meanwhile, Pearce is hosting his own town hall meeting in Carlsbad March 7 where “all New Mexicans, especially local residents with concerns or questions, are strongly encouraged to attend,” according to an announcement from Pearce’s office.
Klaus: ‘WIPP is Absolutely Essential’
At the town hall in Carlsbad, some said the community is worried that the Department may decide to keep WIPP closed. But DOE officials stressed that their intention is to restart operations. “That question has not been if we are going to reopen WIPP, it’s been how can we get it reopened. How can we provide WIPP and the people working on this issue the resources that they need. How can we work with URS and help them the direction and assistance that they need. It surprised me that people out here would ask that question because it is exactly the opposite of the way that we’ve been thinking,” DOE Deputy Under Secretary for Management and Performance David Klaus said to applause. “WIPP is absolutely essential to the way that the Department and this country will deal with the 50 years of waste that were produced during the challenge of the Cold War.”
