The state of New Mexico this week gave its go-ahead for the Department of Energy to finish sinking a new underground utility shaft at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant transuranic waste repository in Eddy County.
“The addition of the new shaft and associated connecting drifts will upgrade the underground ventilation system and will restore full-scale concurrent, unfiltered mining, maintenance, and continuously filtered waste emplacement operations as originally permitted,” James Kenney, secretary of the New Mexico Environment Department (NMED) said in his Wednesday order.
In a 56-page report submitted a month ago, NMED Administrative Law Judge Gregory Chakalian recommended the agency approve the permit modification for DOE and prime contractor Nuclear Waste Partnership to allow the 2,100-foot deep shaft No. 5 to go forward.
The modification was to take effect Nov. 27, according to NMED’s letter to Reinhard Knerr, manager of the DOE Office of Environmental Management’s Carlsbad Field Office, which oversees the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP).
NMED’s Hazardous Waste Bureau had already recommended allowing completion of the underground shaft at WIPP, which DOE and the prime argue will enhance operation of the Safety Significant Confinement Ventilation System that after several delays is supposed to start up in 2025.
Groups such as Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety, Nuclear Watch New Mexico and the Southwest Research and Information Center oppose the new shaft. The opponents argue the new shaft has at most an ancillary connection to the new ventilation system and – unless DOE and its contractor win another state permit modification seeking to keep WIPP running until mid-century – the underground disposal site must start closing in 2024.
“Approval of the new shaft is a key step for doubling the size of the WIPP underground disposal area, implicitly allowing WIPP to stay open forever,” Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety said in a press release posted on its website. “DOE’s Santa Came Early: NMED Approves FOREVER WIPP,” the group said in the headline to the release.
In a response to public comments, NMED said the shaft should improve current operations at WIPP and allowing the shaft does not mean the state will rubber stamp DOE requests for new waste disposal panels or a major life extension of the facility.
“NMED has concluded that the proposed new shaft is important for current underground operations and worker safety,” the state agency said in the document. “NMED’s action on this Class 3 PMR [permit modification request] does not guarantee approval of any future PMRs.”
“The decision is disappointing in that it is contrary to the preponderance of the evidence and the applicable law that was presented during the public hearing,” said Don Hancock, director of the nuclear waste safety program at Southwest Research, said in a Friday email. The organization is looking at its legal options, he added.
The DOE and Nuclear Waste Partnership first filed the application for the Class 3 permit modification in August 2019, according to state records. Thanks to a six-month temporary work authorization, WIPP crews began excavating the shaft in April 2020, but due in part to a local surge in COVID cases, the state refused to reup the temporary work order that November.