One of three plaintiffs plans to continue mediation in hopes of reaching a settlement in a lawsuit against the New Mexico Environment Department over calculating underground waste volume at the U.S. Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP).
Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety (CCNS) filed the request for extended mediation Wednesday with the New Mexico Court of Appeals as part of a formal status report by the parties in the case.
The report says the advocacy group is continuing mediation with the state, although July talks failed to bridge the differences between NMED and CCNS and its fellow watchdog groups, Nuclear Watch New Mexico (NukeWatch) and the Southwest Research and information Center (SRIC).
The state appeals court routinely requires parties to go to mediation in cases involving state agencies before a lawsuit proceeds to trial.
Lawyers for all sides have agreed to extension of the mediation timeline for NMED and Concerned Citizens.
“Although mediation efforts in the appeal process were not able to resolve concerns regarding the State of New Mexico’s approval of the Volume of Record Permit Modification Request, positive, healthy discussions have taken place,” an Energy Department spokesperson said in a Thursday email.
Extending the mediation through Aug. 21 should allow NMED and Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety to conclude their settlement discussions, the spokesperson added. The state, Energy Department, and SRIC declined to elaborate on the filing, and whether no further mediation is planned between NMED and the two remaining advocacy groups.
In December, the Energy Department received a state update to the hazardous waste permit for WIPP. The revised document, signed by then-New Mexico Environment Department Secretary Butch Tongate, allowed the site to stop recording waste under the 1992 WIPP Land Disposal Act based on the size of the outer disposal container. The change, effective Jan. 20, means empty spaces and packing material between drums within larger containers are no longer recorded as waste under the federal legislation.
The retroactive change cut the official total of transuranic waste at WIPP from roughly one-half to one-third of its 176,000-cubic-meter limit.
The watchdog groups on Jan. 23 filed their lawsuit appealing the state decision. They claim the Land Withdrawal Act does not allow for an alternate method of counting waste other than the outermost container. NukeWatch and Southwest Research claim the Tongate decision is legally wrong.
