The Environmental Protection Agency said Tuesday it has at last wrapped up a review of whether the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) nuclear waste facility complied with federal environmental regulations from 2012 to 2014.
The review began a few months after the February 2014 underground fire and later, unrelated radiation release that have closed WIPP to new waste shipments. The long delay in finishing the review hinged on a legal technicality of the WIPP Land Withdrawal Act of 1990, the charter legislation for the underground salt mine that is the only U.S. repository for the radio-contaminated material and equipment known as transuranic waste.
Before finishing its review, EPA, in accordance with federal law, was waiting for DOE’s plan for addressing alleged violations of its state-issued WIPP permit. The department eventually fulfilled that obligation with the settlement agreement signed with the state in January, EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy said in a June 3 letter to Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz.
Under the settlement, DOE agreed, among other things, to pay the state more than $70 million for infrastructure improvements related to transuranic waste management and transport. EPA subsequently accepted the settlement as the basis for corrective actions DOE was required by law to undertake, following the alleged regulatory gaffes at WIPP and the Los Alamos National Laboratory.
DOE has also agreed to strict new safety standards at WIPP, which the agency is in the process of putting in place.
“The EPA finds that the corrective actions the DOE has agreed to perform, taken together, are equivalent to the type of remedial plan that the EPA could request under the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant Land Withdrawal Act,” McCarthy stated.
That is, however, “provided that the DOE complies with the terms of the settlement agreement and all applicable New Mexico Environment Department orders, the EPA does not intend to request an additional remedial plan to address Resource Conservation and Recovery compliance issues,” she added.
Every two years, EPA conducts an environmental review to ensure DOE complies with applicable portions of the WIPP Land Withdrawal Act. The latest biennial compliance review covers April 1, 2012, through March 31, 2014.
The next biennial compliance review is for the period spanning April 1, 2014, to March 31, 2016.
“We anticipate to receive the 2014-16 WIPP [Biennial Compliance Review] package from DOE sometime in October-November of this calendar year,” an EPA spokesperson said by email on Thursday. “Barring any additional issues or requests for supplementary information, the Agency expects to issue its determination in May-June of 2017.”
The biennial compliance reviews are distinct from an EPA-led WIPP recertification that is underway. Every five years, EPA must recertify WIPP to receive transuranic waste. DOE last applied for recertification on March 26, 2014. A mandatory public comment period on DOE’s application closed Oct. 31, 2015, and EPA has yet to issue a decision on the application.
The EPA spokesperson did not reply to a request for comment about how soon the recertification process might conclude.
