Radioactive waste shipments planned

Suzanne Struglinski

Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2004 | 11:17 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- Shipments of plutonium-contaminated lab waste, now stored at the Nevada Test Site, will start going to New Mexico for the first time on Wednesday.

This will be the start of about 60 shipments this year from the Test Site to the Energy Department's Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico. About 1,650 drums of transuranic, or mid-level radioactive, waste need to moved over the next several years.

The shipments contain clothing, rags and other lab material from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, DOE spokesman Darwin Morgan said. The waste has been stored at the Test Site since the late 1970s and has been scheduled to move to the New Mexico facility since its opening in 1999.

The New Mexico Energy, Minerals & Natural Resources Department said 60 shipments will take place this year, with about 40 to 50 more in the future.

Shipments had been planned to head to New Mexico last summer, but were canceled when Nevada and California officials could not agree on a route, which will take the waste through parts of both states.

William Mackie, nuclear waste transportation program manager for the Western Governors Association, said Nevada and California reached an agreement with the Energy Department to move the waste.

Up to 60 shipments of the transuranic material can be moved through California. After the first 60, a new route must be selected that does not run predominantly through the state. Mackie said any route will run at least 20 miles through California but negotiations will make sure it is not much more than that.

This is the first time waste will be moved through Albuquerque, according to New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson's office. Richardson was the Energy Secretary during the Clinton administration.

WIPP, 26 miles southwest of Carlsbad, opened in 1999. It has eight underground "panels" of storage space about a half-mile underneath salt formations in the ground set to store 6.2 million cubic feet of waste containers. Only one panel is full so far, Scott said.