The Westerner Governors Association (WGA) said last week it is “disappointed” at not being asked to contribute to the U.S. Department of Energy’s update to the five-year strategic plan for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad, N.M.
The Energy Department’s Carlsbad Field Office, which oversees the underground site for disposal of defense-related transuranic waste, issued a draft plan in late August and took public comment through Sept. 30.
While the WGA filed comments, the federal agency failed to use its Technical Advisory Group of state nuclear waste and transportation experts in formulating the plan, the organization said last week.
“The Strategic Plan makes only minimal references to the crucial role that states play in planning, organizing, and transporting waste to WIPP,” according to a Sept. 30 letter to DOE’s acting manager of the Carlsbad Field Office, Kirk Lachman, from North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum (R) and Oregon Gov. Kate Brown (D), the chair and vice chair, respectively, of WGA. Radioactive waste shipments and procedures “affect the health and safety of citizens across the West,” they stated.
The WGA Technical Advisory Group was established in 1989 to ensure “uneventful” movement of waste across the region by helping DOE set up safety and health protocols, according to the letter.
While the WGA is taking advantage of the public comment process, it prefers to actually have a seat at the table while such plans are drawn up, Burgum and Brown wrote. “Western Governors strongly urge you to engage in meaningful, substantive and ongoing consultation with states” going forward.
The WGA letter also finds the draft WIPP plan, for 2019-to-2024, provides little discussion of the February 2014 radiation leak at WIPP that kept the facility out of service for about three years.
The Western Governors Association is a non-artisan policy group for 22 governors representing western states.
