Now that a state administrative law judge recommends the Department of Energy be allowed to continue digging a new underground shaft at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., parties in the case have until Wednesday, Sept. 29, to file responses.
In a 56-page report provided Sept. 14 to DOE, prime contractor Nuclear Waste Partnership and various citizens and advocacy groups, Administrative Law Judge Gregory Chakalian recommended the Class 3 Permit Modification be granted by the New Mexico Environment Department, allowing the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) to continue sinking a 2,100-foot-deep shaft, also known as Shaft No. 5.
Chakalian based his conclusion both on testimony during a May public hearing and legal filings made by the parties since then, according to the document viewed by Weapons Complex Monitor.
After the Sept. 29 comment deadline for what is essentially a draft report, Chakalian will have 30 days to submit his final report to James Kenney, cabinet secretary for the New Mexico Department of Environment, who is expected to make a final call on the shaft by year’s end.
DOE says the new shaft will play a key role in augmenting WIPP’s new Safety Significant Confinement Ventilation System, which is scheduled to start up in 2025 and bolster underground airflow to the point where personnel can simultaneously emplace waste and mine out new disposal space.
Environmental groups such as Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety, Nuclear Watch New Mexico and Southwest Research and Information Center argue Shaft No. 5 is unnecessary because WIPP is, pending an extension sought by DOE from the state, supposed to begin closing up in 2024.
But “[c]redible evidence supports the conclusion that the estimated closure date calculated at the time of WIPP’s inception (2024) does not constitute a hard deadline in fact, and that there are other benefits of the new ventilation system beyond the initiation of closure of the facility,” Chakalian wrote in his report. The administrative judge added it could take 10-to-15 years for WIPP to completely shut down.
Work crews at WIPP started digging the shaft in April 2020 under a six-month temporary work authorization, which the state agency refused to renew in November 2020 in part because of high COVID-19 rates at the country’s only deep-underground transuranic waste disposal site.
Joni Arends, executive director, said by email the shaft case is only one of several WIPP issues pending before the New Mexico Environment Department. Post-hearing filings are also ongoing in a groundwater discharge permit case and DOE recently filed a permit modification request for waste disposal Panels 11 and 12. Comments on both of those are due next month.
“It is a lot of work,” Arends said.
The DOE submitted the updated groundwater discharge permit a year ago to the state, which must ensure the discharge plan will not result in a hazard to public health, according to a state fact sheet. The initial groundwater discharge permit was issued in January 1992 and has been renewed many times over the years. The DOE filed its request for the two new waste disposal panels in July. The agency hopes to start filling Panel 11 in late 2025.
