The Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) should stay open to shippers of defense-related transuranic waste from across-the-country, the Energy Communities Alliance told New Mexico’s Environment Secretary James Kenney in a letter Friday.
The Washington, D.C.-based Energy Communities Alliance (ECA) wrote to Kenney in reaction to statements that the head of the New Mexico Environment Department apparently made last month in an article in the Carlsbad Current-Argus newspaper in Carlsbad, N.M.
According to ECA’s Oct. 17 letter, Kenney told the paper perhaps transuranic waste shipments from sites other than the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), be suspended. New Mexico has sought to increase the rate of shipments from Los Alamos to WIPP.
“Maybe shipments around the country need to be suspended, except from LANL, until they meet the conditions that they negotiated,” Kenney is quoted as saying, according to ECA. The article itself is behind a paywall. “I’m well down the path of concluding that the DOE and its contractors need a wake-up call,” Kenney is quoted as saying.
ECA is an interest group that represents localities, including some in New Mexico, next to federal nuclear facilities.
In the letter, signed by ECA Chair Brent Gerry, the mayor of West Richland, Wash., the organization said it understands the New Mexico agency wants to protect its residents and prioritize Los Alamos cleanup.
“We also want to stress that WIPP is the linchpin for all cleanup efforts across the entire [DOE Office of Environmental Management] EM complex, and its continued operation and access for sites across the nation are critical,” Gerry said.
“We want to work with you to increase shipments and the capability of WIPP to move TRU waste from Los Alamos quicker,” ECA said in the letter. “However, allowing shipments from Idaho, Washington, Nevada, California, Tennessee, South Carolina, Illinois and other sites also remain critical.”
A spokesperson for the New Mexico Environment Department, said Thursday the state agrees with the Energy Communities Alliance that WIPP plays a critical role in legacy waste clean up and national security. “However, we also are willing to take any legal recourse to assure New Mexico is not unjustly taking the brunt of said national security demands at the expense of legacy clean up,” the spokesperson said. “We look forward to sitting down with ECA to resolve this imbalance in a way that benefits New Mexicans.”
Two years ago, New Mexico issued a new 10-year hazardous waste permit for WIPP. The new permit called for DOE to seek to increase shipments from Los Alamos to WIPP. According to WIPP’s public website, the underground disposal site received 76 shipments from Los Alamos in fiscal 2025. WIPP took in 432 shipments during the entire fiscal year. More than half came from Idaho National Laboratory.
According to a 2023 fact sheet, legacy waste cleanup contractor Newport News Nuclear-BWXT-Los Alamos had roughly 2,000 drums of transuranic waste in its above-ground inventory awaiting shipment to WIPP.
WIPP is the nation’s only underground repository for defense-related transuranic waste, which typically includes contaminated clothing, rags, tools, components and debris.