The New Mexico Environment Department plans a hybrid public meeting next month on the proposed new 10-year hazardous waste permit for the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad.
The meeting, slated to start at 5 p.m. Mountain Time on Sept. 22, will be conducted both online via Webex and in-person at locations in Carlsbad and Santa Fe, the New Mexico agency announced in a Tuesday press release.
The proposed hazardous waste permit for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) was posted online Tuesday by the New Mexico agency. DOE and its Bechtel-owned prime, Salado Isolation Mining Contractors, struck a deal in June with the state and numerous citizen and nuclear watchdog groups following extensive negotiations about the permit’s terms.
The state will issue a final permit in October 2023. Its terms would take effect in November. A link to the permit can be found here.
The proposed new 10-year permit does include a provision requiring DOE to submit an annual report “summarizing its progress toward siting another geologic repository for [transuranic] waste in a state other than New Mexico.” The provision was sought by advocacy groups including Nuclear Watch New Mexico, which are skeptical about DOE plans to keep disposing of transuranic waste in the state until late in this century.
In lieu of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the state of New Mexico regulates the non-radioactive aspects of WIPP under the New Mexico Hazardous Waste Act and the federal Resource Conservation and Recovery Act.
The meeting next month will provide an opportunity for people to make comments to and question both the state agency and the permittees, according to the press release. Written comments can also be submitted through Sept. 22 by emailing the state agency’s acting WIPP group program manager Megan McLean, [email protected].
