Environmental Control and Protection Critique
In the last 12 years the federal government has been under watch with the transport and
county are especially concerned for the quality of their ground water. The department of energy
has been preparing for this facility since the mid 70’s, and after more than 20 years of scientific
study, public input, and regulatory struggles, WIPP began operations on March 26, 1999.
According to WIPP’s website disposal operations are expected to continue until 2070 with active
monitoring for a few hundred years. By 2010, the facility had already processed 9,000 shipments
of waste.
In the early years of production of weapons the waste produced from the manufacturing
process and the equipment that got contaminated were stored in barrels then buried on site.
During this time that they were burying these barrels with the contaminated equipment they
managed to stock pile more then 40,000 55-gallon drums. At this time the LANL started looking
at places to move this waste from the site which is 3 miles south of the town of Los Alamos and
30 miles west from the state capital. When the EPA did ground water testing they found high
30 miles west from the state capital. When the EPA did ground water testing they found high
level of certain materials associated these the stuff that was inside of the drums. When the EPA
sent in the results to the state they told the Lab that that they a 8 month time period to clean up or
they would have to pay an initial fine then if they didn’t meet the deadline they would be fined
every month that they were behind. When they started to uncover the drum they mover them to a
several tent storage shelters. And in March of 1999 they sent the first truck down to WIPP.
Throughout the years they’ve had environmental groups protesting about storing these
containers of low level waste 2,100 feet underground in the salt mine. They have been worried
about the possibility of the containers leaking into the water table and contaminating the
groundwater around the area. During the first years of operation the state of New Mexico and
four environmental groups tried to suspend shipment to the plant calling it unsafe. At the time
former Bill Richardson was the Energy Secretary for the state said “he considers the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad as safe and ready to accept so-called "transuranic" radioactive wastes.” As a lifelong resident of New Mexico, and a employee at (LANL) who seen first
hand how they handle the waste to WIPP I see what kinds of precautions are taken into account
in handling and transporting this stuff. Just like in the reading Cradle to Cradle written by
McDonough and Braungart they talk about “unmarketable” products that are hazardous and how
we have to find ways to store them until technological way come about in “cleaning” them. Until
then we need a place to store these bi-products that come from weapon making, medical isotopes
ect.
As new building are going up another problem the state is having with the Lab is where
it‘s going to put all of the building rubble since most of it is also contaminated they don’t know
where it would go. And since WIPP is only expected to be operational until 2035, they are also
afraid with the new building going up and are going to be producing 900% increase of low-level
waste production at the Lab they are going to run out of room. Environmentalist have been trying
to stall the development of these new facilities, but have been somewhat unsuccessful.
Although this operation in New Mexico causes millions of dollars in environmental
damage it could never shut down because they employ 20,000 people it’s one of the major
sources that northern New Mexico exists. They have cleaned up their act in the last couple of
year and start to reclaim some of the land that at one time was “dirt” they still have a long way
but with major technological advances there could be a possibility of using the current build
rubble to construct the new facilities that are going up.
Bibliography
McDonough & Braungart. Cradle to Cradle
Amy Williams “Nuclear Facility Proposed”
Native News DOE watch
http://www.mail-archive.com/nativenews@mlists.net/msg01428.html
http://www.mail-archive.com/nativenews@mlists.net/msg01428.html
Waste Isolation Pilot Plant
http://www.wipp.energy.gov/
http://www.wipp.energy.gov/
