Following requests from citizen groups last month, the New Mexico Environment Department agreed to extend the comment period by 60 days for a 10-year permit renewal for the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant.
Interested parties now have until 5 p.m. Mountain Time on April 19 to weigh in on the permit renewal for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) according to a press release Monday from the state.
Without the extension the comment period would have ended around Feb. 18.
The comment period already included 15 days more than the 45 days required by the regulations, the New Mexico Environment Department said. “However, given the reasons listed in the request and the important nature of the renewal process, NMED has granted the request,” according to the release.
The request was filed Jan. 24 by 14 people representing 11 organizations, including Nuclear Watch New Mexico, the Southwest Research and Information Center as well as Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety. Among other things, the groups said the draft would make hundreds of changes while the ongoing New Mexico Legislature session soaked up much of the time citizen groups might otherwise have to research the WIPP proposal.
In its draft, the state Environment Department seeks more control over the nation’s only deep underground disposal site for defense-related transuranic waste. The state also makes clear its preference for WIPP operations to start winding down within the next 10-to-20 years rather than staying open to perhaps 2080 or beyond, as DOE has suggested.
The changes have not sat well with some local WIPP backers such as John Heaton, a former state representative, who is a member of a Carlsbad nuclear task force. The state “is putting clauses in the permit that I would call ‘poison pills’ to give the state arbitrary positions to be able to shut WIPP down prematurely or to leverage the project with the federal government,” Heaton said in comments filed Jan. 29.
