I have posted several articles about the nuclear waste problems at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation (HNR) in Central Washington. The waste at the reservation is the legacy of the research and construction of the U.S. nuclear arsenal. The one hundred and forty nine old buried single wall tanks are leaking. The new double walled tanks that were supposed to solve that problem have now started to leak. The construction of the vitrification plant that was going to embed the waste in the tanks in glass logs has been halted because of design problems. The waste in the tanks varies in consistence from solid to liquid to gas. Some of the tanks contain very dangerous highly radioactive waste. In addition to the waste in the tanks, it has been reported recently that the lower level waste like clothes and equipment that has been removed from Hanford is being mishandled during transport and processing.
The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) is located near Carlsbad, New Mexico. It is operated by the Nuclear Waste Partnership, LLC. and was constructed to handle disposal of transuranic low-level radioactive waste generated by the U.S. defense departments and defense contractors. Permitting at the WIPP is handled by a partnership consisting of the DOE Carlsbad Field Office and the Nuclear Waste Partnership, LLC. Between 2000 and 2011 Hanford sent the equivalent of twenty five thousand drums of transuranic wastes to WIPP. This waste is less dangerous than the high-level waste in many of the buried tanks at Hanford. In 2004, a specific prohibition was inserted into the permitting rules for WIPP to prevent shipment of high-level waste from the HRC tanks to the WIPP.
Now the U.S. DOE has requested a permit to ship transuranic radioactive waste from a few of the underground tanks to WIPP. Since the 2004 prohibition was created to prevent such shipments, the New Mexico Environmental Department (NMED) has sent a request to the permitting partnership for WIPP to reverse the prohibition. They have said that they will consider the request. In the meantime, the DOE has asked NMED to expedite their request and give quick approval. NMED has refused to speed up the DOE request and has insisted that a full process including public meetings must take place. One of the concerns that New Mexico and WIPP have is that some of the wastes that Hanford wants to ship may be in a liquid form which is difficult to handle.
Supporters of the DOE request point out that the waste that Hanford would ship to WIPP would not be the most dangerous type and would be acceptable within the current rules aside from the special prohibition put into place in 2004. The critics are concerned about the ability of WIPP to handle liquid waste. The supporters of Hanford shipments from underground tanks may be right about the technical details in the law. However, considering that there has been consistent mishandling of low-level waste from Hanford during transportation, I believe that the critics have good reason to be concerned about the new shipments.
Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico:
