In a step forward in southeast New Mexico’s quest for new nuclear waste disposal missions, New Mexico Environment Department Secretary David Martin this week detailed a strategy for building consent between state and federal entities for the establishment of a new waste facility. Local officials hope to build an interim storage site for spent fuel and a repository for defense high level waste in salt deposits near the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant. Martin’s proposal, presented this week at the National Nuclear Fuel Cycle Summit in Carlsbad, elaborates on the consent-based approach to siting a repository recommended by the Administration’s Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future. Martin said New Mexico has initiated discussions with the Department on entering into an agreement to use WIPP to study the potential for disposal of high level waste in salt. The agreement would also establish an independent panel of third party experts to “provide the scientific basis to allow the State of New Mexico to make sound decisions regarding future missions, if any, for the WIPP project,” Martin said.
Additionally, Martin said that he proposed a resolution last month to the Environmental Council of the States, a nationwide state regulator organization, that would have states collaborate on developing a strategy for disposing of civilian and defense high level waste. He said his overall strategy would lay the groundwork for the successful consent-based establishment of a repository. “You just have to look at Yucca Mountain to see how the federal only, top down stuff just won’t work. The states are going to be either directly or indirectly working with [the Nuclear Regulatory Commission] or [the Environmental Protection Agency] or whoever. Our whole approach is it’s better to work together, and work together early on, so that you don’t run into problems down the road,” Martin told RW Monitor.