New Mexico nuclear waste repository nears opening

Sue Major Holmes

Thursday, May 7, 1998 | 9:53 a.m.

CARLSBAD, N.M. -- Twenty-four years after it was first proposed, a nuclear waste dump in a vast underground salt bed in the deserts of southeastern New Mexico could start filling up in a matter of weeks.

Should it open next month, it would cap years of debate over the safety of burying radioactive nuclear waste generated by decades of weapons work.

"This site and facility have received more intense scrutiny and scientific study for a longer period of time than any comparable activity in the history of this country," Paul Robinson said. He is head of a main researcher on the waste issue, Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque.

The Department of Energy proposed the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP), 26 miles outside Carlsbad, in 1974.

Workers began hollowing tunnels in the salt beds in 1982. The repository, which has been ready for a decade, won preliminary approval from the Environmental Protection Agency in October.

The EPA is expected to issue final certification for the $1.8 billion facility this month, though opponents -- the ones still left after all these years -- have promised to sue in a bid to block its opening.

The repository, nearly a half-mile below the surface, has seven miles of tunnels and two hoists to the surface. The underground structure is shut off from the surface by airlocks flanked by 6-foot-thick steel doors. Even the air tastes of salt in this bed left by a sea that covered the area 250 million years ago.

The city of Carlsbad, reaping a financial windfall, generally has supported the government during the years of safety and environmental studies. Storefront signs tout: "Another business for WIPP."

Mayor Gary Perkowski said it has created hundreds of well-paying jobs in the city of 27,000 and has led to better roads, an influx of educated people and a center that helps laid-off potash and oilfield workers train for new jobs.

"I hope 10 years down the road, WIPP continues to be a major contributor to the economy and that the protests and skepticism have proved to be wrong," Perkowski said.

Most longtime local foes, such as trailer-park operator Betty Richards, now fight the plant on their own. The only organized anti-WIPP group in town disbanded in the 1980s.

"The reason I have come out against WIPP is I'm convinced that it is going to leak," Richards said. "And I'm convinced the only reason that they are here is that they have no opposition and that if they don't open it here, there won't be any other place."

The waste here would consist largely of contaminated protective clothing, tools, equipment, sludge and soil. In contrast, the DOE is considering a plan to store spent reactor fuel and other highly radioactive waste at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

WIPP is expected to receive 37,000 shipments over its 30-year life, largely from 10 federal sites in California, Colorado, Idaho, Illinois, Nevada, New Mexico, Ohio, Tennessee, South Carolina and Washington.

Scientists chose to bury the waste in the salt bed partly because salt creeps over time. Once a room is filled with waste, nature will be allowed to take its course: in seven to nine years, the room's roof and walls will collapse, encapsulating the waste.

In a century, "it will be one solid mass again," Donavan Mager said. He is a spokesman for the WIPP contractor, Westinghouse's Waste Isolation Division.

That expectation troubles environmentalists who contend brine pockets make the site unsuitable for isolating radioactivity for thousands of years. They question the DOE's finding that brine couldn't bring radioactivity to the surface -- and its assumption that state-of-the-art drilling techniques near the repository won't accidentally breach it.

Environmental groups also question the advisability of hauling radioactive material across the country by truck.

"We're going to sue them, and we've already told them what EPA is doing is illegal," environmentalist Don Hancock said. He is a member of the Southwest Research and Information Center, an Albuquerque environmental group.

The Energy Department and WIPP supporters say they've done everything possible to ensure the repository is safe.

If WIPP does open, the first waste to arrive -- items such as contaminated tools, gloves and booties -- will go to the farthest storage area. Workers then will move backward to fill the rooms along the way. Each room will hold 8,500 drums; the 55-gallon drums are to be stacked three high in a honeycomb formation.

As storage rooms fill, they will be closed off with concrete barriers and isolation walls. After the repository is full, it will be backfilled and markers will be posted warning of the danger in the salt beds below.