As of Dec. 1, the New Mexico Environment Department has 27 pages of emails with comments on the Department of Energy’s plan to define legacy transuranic waste for disposal at DOE’s deep underground disposal site near Carlsbad, N.M.
Most early comments are from individuals, not organizations, but follow a similar theme. Some commenters say the plan filed by DOE and its contractor on Nov. 4 is inadequate and does not do enough to protect New Mexicans from old defense-related transuranic waste from the agency’s Los Alamos National Laboratory.
Dec. 1 is nearly the mid-way point in the public comment period that runs through Jan. 3, on DOE’s legacy transuranic waste disposal plan for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP).
WIPP in the future will house waste created by the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) manufacture of plutonium pits. WIPP also holds canisters of surplus plutonium packaged by the agency at the Savannah River Site and will continue to take on shipments of that material, which the NNSA processes at both the Los Alamos National Laboratory and Savannah River.
The plan submitted by DOE and its Bechtel-led WIPP prime Salado Isolation Mining Contractors would give legacy waste priority at the planned Panel 12, although non-legacy waste could still go into other sections of WIPP. The WIPP plan excludes waste generated from upcoming plutonium pit production and some pre-1970 waste from the legacy designation.
A report published this week by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said resumption of pit production by the NNSA will account for perhaps two-thirds of the transuranic waste headed to WIPP after 2033. The pit production might require “up to three additional panels at WIPP” beyond Panels 11 and 12.
Transuranic waste from pits and surplus plutonium disposition will go into WIPP’s Panel 11 when it opens in fiscal 2026, Nathan Anderson, a GAO natural resources director who oversaw the report, said in a Wednesday email.
If Panel 12 is set aside for legacy waste, it could result in a situation where the office of Environmental Management is “emplacing waste in both Panels 11 and 12 simultaneously if they can manage it.”
