The New Mexico Environment Department (NMED) plans to rule by June 1 on a proposal from the U.S. Energy Department to modify the method used to calculate the volume of transuranic waste being disposed of at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP).
The Energy Department and site contractor Nuclear Waste Partnership filed the application Jan. 31 seeking to amend the state Hazardous Waste Facility Permit for the underground disposal site.
The New Mexico Environment Department normally has 90 days to rule upon such an application. But on April 27 the state agency announced a 30-day extension, with the new deadline being June 1.
Basically, the permit holders want to change the way waste volume is counted underground. The change would mean the empty space between drums inside a standard waste container would no longer be counted as waste when volume is measured. Advocates say this would better measure actual waste deposited in the mine.
A Government Accountability Office report last September said DOE lacks sufficient existing space at WIPP to dispose of all defense-related TRU waste from various sites around the nation. Under the current DOE plans, WIPP would fill the existing disposal space by 2026. The Energy Department could push that back by revising the current mathematical method for counting waste, GAO said in the report. Physically expanding WIPP’s disposal space will require a lengthy regulatory approval, the 2017 report said.
Nuclear Watch New Mexico opposes the revision. The advocacy group’s operations and research director, Scott Kovac, says this record-keeping tweak would effectively postpone the point at which WIPP reaches its 6.2-million-cubic-feet waste volume cap set by the 1992 WIPP Land Withdrawal Act.
