Just one week before the U.S. Department of Energy
planned to ship radioactive trash to the Waste Isolation Pilot
Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad, N.M., state environmental regulators
gave the agency another red light.
In May, the
federal Environmental Protection Agency approved shipping to the
site waste that would include garbage, clothing, laboratory
equipment and other material contaminated with plutonium and other
radioactive elements in the nation’s nuclear weapons
complex.
But in a letter faxed to WIPP officials
in mid-June, state regulators said the U.S. Department of Energy
had failed to prove that the waste was not tainted with solvents,
lead or other chemical waste regulated by the state. The state
threatened to take the Energy Department to court if it went ahead
with plans to open the plant without a state
permit.
U.S. Energy Secretary Federico Peûa
reacted with “shock” to the warning, though he had quietly
postponed the June 19 opening date. “It is very unfortunate that
(the state Environment Department) delayed raising these issues
until just before (the Energy Department) was planning to open
WIPP,” he wrote in a letter to Gov. Gary
Johnson.
Federal judge John Garrett Penn asked
the Energy Department to delay opening WIPP until he rules on a
lawsuit raised by New Mexico Attorney General Tom Udall and
environmental groups. They argue WIPP cannot open until Judge Penn
lifts a 1992 order that blocked shipping waste until Congress set
aside land for the dump. Congress has since withdrawn the land, but
Judge Penn has not officially lifted the order, says Udall
spokeswoman Kay Roybal. Udall hopes the technicality will stall
WIPP long enough to convince the Energy Department it needs a state
permit. WIPP officials say the plant will open in
August.
* Mike
Taugher
Mike Taugher writes
for the Albuquerque Journal.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Nuclear waste hits another roadblock.
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