Critics displeased with forum on nuclear waste site

The 100-plus people who attended the Thursday night forum for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant at the Santa Fe Community Convention Center were told to jot down their questions on index cards about the repository, which has stirred controversy since it opened in 1999.

WIPP takes radioactive materials from Los Alamos National Laboratory as well as out-of-state sources such as the Hanford Site and Idaho National Laboratory.

The containers of transuranic waste — mainly contaminated gloves, clothing, equipment, soil and other materials — are entombed in salt caverns 2,150 feet underground. WIPP was initially planned to bury waste for 25 years, but federal managers now say it can run until at least 2083.

A moderator chose only a few questions, saying many people were asking about the same things. People could ask more questions and air their concerns to officials in one-on-one sessions during the second half of the forum, the moderator said.

When Cindy Weehler, a community activist, stood up to request people be allowed voice questions to officials, the moderator rebuffed her. When she became insistent, he told her to sit down.

In a Friday interview, Weehler said she was shocked at how she was treated.

“They were so jolly until one of us, meaning me, asked to speak in a way that wasn’t orchestrated,” Weehler said. “And all of a sudden they were like your worst version of a high school teacher. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Screening questions and shutting people down at a gathering is not a way to build community relations on nuclear waste issues of legitimate public concern, Weehler said.

Weehler said she wanted officials to explain what happened to the “pilot” in WIPP, meaning it was supposed to be the first such disposal site, not the only one.

“We are asking for repositories to be built in other states,” Weehler said. “As long as there is not another repository … we will be the dump.”

The 1992 Land Withdrawal Act limits WIPP to 6.2 million cubic feet of waste, or about 175,000 cubic meters. It also restricts the storage to military-related waste, as opposed to commercial waste from nuclear power plants.

Mark Bollinger, WIPP’s deputy manager, said a waste container that burst in 2014, shutting down the site for three years, and some early inefficiencies delayed the depositing of waste.

Those reasons alone will push WIPP’s operation beyond the original 2024 closure date, Bollinger said.

WIPP has used only 40 percent of its capacity, so there’s no reason to create new repositories at this time, Bollinger said, adding WIPP should be able to receive waste into the 2080s.

Under previous guidelines, the outer containers were used to gauge the volume of waste stored, putting the site at

60 percent full.

But the U.S. Energy Department persuaded the state Environment Department in 2018 to change the calculation so the empty headspace in the containers wasn’t counted, changing the estimate to 40 percent full.

Three watchdog groups sued to challenge the revised guideline. But in November, the state appeals court ruled in favor of the state and federal agencies’ lower estimate.

“The court ruled against our appeal — that doesn’t mean it’s been resolved,” said Don Hancock, director of nuclear waste safety for the nonprofit Southwest Research and Information Center.

Hancock said his group is pressing the Environment Department to consider returning to the original method for measuring storage as a condition for renewing WIPP’s permit.

The federal and state governments must approve WIPP’s permit, which comes up for renewal about every 10 years.

The Environment Department has the authority to impose other conditions on the permit, such as limiting how much waste can come from other states, Hancock said. The agency has never done that, but state Environment Secretary James Kenney has begun objecting to WIPP taking more waste from out of state than from the Los Alamos lab, he said.

Idaho, Colorado and Nevada have all pressured the Energy Department, with varying degrees of success, to reduce the waste volume they receive, Hancock said. New Mexico should join the chorus, he added.

“We think it’s past time for the state to say, ‘We have some limits too,’ ” Hancock said.

Santa Fe County Commissioner Anna Hansen said one of her pet peeves is WIPP taking so much out-of-state waste, when its original purpose was to be a disposal site for the Los Alamos lab’s massive legacy waste from the Cold War and the Manhattan Project.

Hansen said she had a list of questions about this and other issues she wanted to raise at the forum but felt stiff-armed by WIPP representatives.

She wrote a letter to federal emergency management officials in Washington, complaining about how the forum was conducted, she said.

One official wrote back, expressing sympathy and saying the forums are supposed to foster public participation and boost transparency, Hansen said. If those are the goals, Hansen added, then this forum failed miserably.

“I feel the people were treated with such disrespect,” Hansen said.