The mayor of Carlsbad, N.M., Dale Janway, said in a Sunday newspaper column he wants the Department of Energy’s deep underground disposal site for transuranic waste to stay open for a long time and is wary of the New Mexico Environment Department gaining more clout over the future of the facility.
“It is certainly our impression that the residents of Carlsbad and the surrounding area did not have any voice when the New Mexico Environment Department was considering its proposed modifications to the ten year permit,” Janway wrote in a column published in the local Carlsbad Current Argus newspaper.
The state agency in December began accepting public comments on a new hazardous waste permit for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP), located 26 miles outside of Carlsbad.
The Environment Department “proposed an extreme set of additions to this permit, which, if implemented, would massively strengthen the agency’s future authority over WIPP,” said Janway, who has been Carlsbad’s mayor since 2010. “This could allow the state to halt shipments for a wide variety of reasons that are well outside of the state’s traditional authority or even WIPP’s ability to control.”
For example, Janway said, the proposed permit changes could conceivably give the state authority to shut WIPP down if Congress amends the WIPP Land Withdrawal Act: the mine’s founding charter in federal law.
The mayor, who has worked for the oil and gas and potash industries, according to city government website, said DOE’s local managers at WIPP are also unable to control how many shipments WIPP gets from the in-state Los Alamos National Laboratory— or whether another deep underground radioactive waste site is eventually developed by the federal government.
In the same column, Janway said he supports using WIPP for the transuranic waste that results from the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Surplus Plutonium Disposition Program to immobilize 34 metric tons of plutonium the federal government has deemed surplus to national defense needs. A public hearing on the Environmental Impact Statement for the program is set for Jan. 24 at the Pecos River Village Carousel House, the mayor said.
