New Mexico’s public misgivings about nuclear waste is worrisome in Washington state where the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site is expected to become a big shipper to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in a few years and finish around 2050, a Hanford community representative said this week.
“There is one item that is hitting our screen that is an area of concern … is New Mexico’s stance on shipping transuranic waste,” said Susan Coleman of the Hanford Advisory Board. Coleman’s remarks came Tuesday during a meeting of DOE advisory board chairs for Office of Environmental Management nuclear cleanup sites.
“We are the long pole in the tent as far as our cleanup mission is concerned,” Coleman said. The current thinking, as reflected in President Joe Biden’s fiscal 2024 budget request, is final cleanup might not happen until 2091.
“Our board is starting to get really concerned about not being able to ship transuranic waste to New Mexico,” Coleman said. Transuranic shipments to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) from Hanford could start as early as 2028 and be completed by late 2050, according to the Washington Department of Ecology.
The New Mexico Environment Department, which is taking comments on a 10-year state hazardous waste permit renewal for WIPP, is pushing back against DOE plans to keep the underground disposal site open until late this century. More broadly, Coleman cited recent news stories on New Mexico enacting a ban on spent nuclear fuel storage facilities in the state.
The stance in New Mexico’s current political environment seems opposed to “taking anything from outside of the state,” Coleman said in remarks directed to Office of Environmental Management senior adviser William (Ike) White.
The WIPP site is “extraordinarily important” to the weapons complex, including the National Nuclear Security Administration, which will be generating much new transuranic waste in the future through increased plutonium pit production, White said.
“We are very much focused on working with the state of New Mexico on ensuring we have the transuranic waste disposal capability” at WIPP, White said. This includes working with New Mexico on “long-term planning,” White said.
“I have not heard a solution yet,” Coleman said.
Meanwhile, the Washington state Department of Ecology is pleading its case directly to the New Mexico Environment Department.
“Ecology requests USDOE and NMED [the New Mexico Environment Department] ensure all necessary conditions are met to avoid closure of WIPP earlier than anticipated,” said Edward Holbrook. Holbrook, Washington Ecology’s waste management section manager made the comments in a Feb. 17 letter to New Mexico officials.
The DOE wants Hanford to start certification and shipment of transuranic waste for disposal at WIPP by Sept. 30, 2028, according to a Central Plateau Cleanup Co. document included in the packet that Washington Ecology sent to the New Mexico Environment Department. The target is for Hanford to finish its shipments to WIPP by September 2050.
