Communities near nuclear sites that generate transuranic waste want the Department of Energy to keep the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant open for a long time, based on comments filed recently with New Mexico regulators.
Specifically, the Energy Communities Alliance, which advocates for local governments near DOE facilities, said in comments filed April 11 that it opposes most New Mexico Environment Department (NMED) restrictions to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) state permit.
Wednesday is the last day for public comment on New Mexico’s proposed 10-year hazardous waste permit. DOE’s Office of Environmental Management had not posted comments on the NMED WIPP website as of early Tuesday.
While DOE wants to keep WIPP open into the 2080s, NMED prefers a firmer closure date some time before then. The state also wants more authority to suspend waste disposal and a commitment that DOE will look for a second transuranic waste disposal site, and that the second site be outside of New Mexico.
But the Energy Communities Alliance, which shared a copy of comments by Mayor of Carlsbad, N.M. Nuclear Task Force in its public filing, said such a move would need Congressional approval.
The state’s proposal that it be able to halt WIPP operations “based on any allegation of noncompliance,” the Carlsbad Mayor’s Task Force called NMED “chest thumping.” The task force said “WIPP critics have routinely alleged non-compliance (unsubstantiated) since the day the permit was issued over 20 years ago. Is NMED now prepared to revoke the permit based on mere allegation?”
As the only operating deep geological repository in the United State, “WIPP is the single most important site for all communities that are part of the nation’s defense environmental cleanup mission,” the alliance said in its written comments. The comments were signed by Brent Gerry, the mayor of West Richland, Wash., a neighbor to the Hanford Site.
“Without WIPP, frontline communities hosting federal cleanup sites may become de facto storage sites for the TRU [transuranic] waste created during the Cold War, as well as waste created at Los Alamos National Laboratory and Savannah River Site from preparation of surplus plutonium for disposal and fabrication of plutonium pits,” the Energy Communities Alliance said.
William (Ike) White, the acting head of the nuclear cleanup office, has said the feds will work collaboratively with NMED over state concerns. Similar remarks were made Tuesday by Betsy Forinash, acting deputy manager of DOE’s Carlsbad Field Office during a presentation to the National Academies Nuclear and Radiation Studies Board.
Fourth and fifth graphs modified April 25 to cite Carlsbad Mayor’s Task Force.
