WIPP IS STILL OUR RESPONSIBILITY

WIPP TRANSPORTATION UPDATE

  The Numbers

Since its March 1999 opening and continuing through July 2000, DOE has sent 68 shipments: 17 from Los Alamos National Laboratory, 45 from Rocky Flats, from 5 Idaho National Environmental and Engineering Laboratory, and 1 from Hanford.  But the total amount of waste for these 68 (mainly) partial shipments is the equivalent of 46 full shipments.  For example, the Hanford shipment was one half of one TRUPACT (there being three TRUPACT containers on each truck).  In stark contrast to the actual shipments and amount of waste sent, DOE's projected schedule had been to send two to three fully loaded shipments a week.  Thus, from March of 1999 through June of 2000, DOE should have sent 30 to 45 shipments or a total of 1260 to 1890 barrels.   DOE told Congress in budget that by Sept 30th  end of fiscal year, WIPP would have received 150 shipments.  Behind even if you count the shipped number as full.

Not only is DOE behind in numbers, but DOE has failed to ship even one barrel of waste that has hazardous materials regulated under the New Mexico state WIPP permit.   Various explanations for this abysmal record are that DOE's records do not comply with the WIPP permit requirements for evaluating what is in the waste, that the DOE sites responsible for preparing the waste for shipment have failed to comply with quality assurance procedures, that DOE was too optimistic about the cost and time required by the sites to get the shipments ready, and that shipping mixed waste before Panel 2 is ready would be illegal under the permit.  (Please see Permit Weirdness below.)   DOE's bungling has the beneficial effect of slowing down the waste emplacement.  DOE, however, has projected speedier, fuller shipments for July and August. 

Why Should We Trust Them?

• June 17, 1999:  A WIPP truck from Rocky Flats arrived at WIPP with excess radioactivity on the outside of a TRUPACT that did not have any waste inside.   DOE only notified NMED after an activist discovered the existence of the contamination.  Though the radioactivity seemed to be smeared in one area and a lab analysis showed it was not radon, DOE's explanation was that radon had naturally deposited on the outside of the truck as it traveled through mountain passes.  DOE promised never to cover up again.
• DATE:  (Geoff, we need to call John Shea or Bill Mackay at DPS to get date for this and to verify facts).  Despite DOE's promise of full disclosure after the June, 1999, incident above, DOE failed to notify the State Department of Public Safety that a WIPP truck had been delayed in Vaughn for several hours because of a head gasket problem in the engine of the truck.  A new truck had to be gotten to replace it, but no one told New Mexico officials that the truck was down.
• July, 1999:  In another demonstration of inadequate WIPP truck reliability, a port of entry inspection at Raton found two WIPP truck safety violations:   a radioactive placard missing and hose for air break had a leak in it. 
• August, 1999:  During an emergency drill, emergency responders at an Idaho training strapped a "victim" to a stretcher and covered his face with a non-functioning breathing mask.

New Mexicans were outraged by the opening of WIPP without a state permit.    DOE had promised not to put waste into WIPP without a state permit. . . but they did.  Now that we have a permit, how good is it?

Is This the Classic Bait and Switch?

After months of hearings, the NM environment department (NMED) approved a WIPP permit that would have prevented DOE and Westinghouse from burying any mixed waste underground at WIPP in the old and crumbling rooms of Panel 1.  (Please see WIPP Schematic.)  The reasoning behind the regulation was that DOE had buried purely radioactive waste in Panel 1, before getting the state permit. DOE opened WIPP prior to approval of the state.   NMED, then, underscored in the permit that this pre-permit buried waste was unregulated and therefore workers should not be exposed to it and regulated waste should not be mixed with it.

DOE sued NMED almost immediately to overturn this and other onerous permit conditions.   Southwest Research and Information Center (SRIC) filed a lawsuit against NMED to emphasize that the WIPP permit, far from being too onerous, was not stringent enough.   Before the courts could hear the cases, DOE reached an agreement with NMED.   DOE gave NMED $60,000 to help in NMED's regulatory role.   NMED changed the permit language to allow mixed waste to be buried in Panel 1.  NMED did not include SRIC in the negotiations, nor did the Department involve the public.  NMED's justification has been that the change is minor, much like a typographical error, and not important.  SRIC has asked the court to enjoin this latest travesty and the court's decision is pending.

Your voice can make a difference. 
If your voice is silenced, you cannot effect change.

Our question for NMED is:  How can our state approve a permit by following all public hearing requirements, and then, within a year of the permit approval, turn around and change key language in the permit without going back to the public for its input?   Secretary of the Environment Department Pete Maggiore, Tele:  505-827-2855, should feel the public outrage.  If the hearing process meant nothing, then why did we spend all that money to have it.  If we do not let Secretary Maggiore, and by the way Bill Richardson, Tele:  202-586-6210, know that we thought the hearing process was important, we won't have input next time.