Jeremy L. Dillon
RW Monitor
6/20/2014
Although the radiological release that occurred at the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant earlier this year and the ongoing shutdown of the facility continue to send ripples through international waste repository planning efforts, communities looking to potentially host a storage site for high-level waste remain unfazed by the events that transpired in Carlsbad, N.M. DOE continues to work towards reopening WIPP, which is used to dispose of defense-related transuranic waste, and is still investigating the cause of the February radiological release. However, communities looking to participate in DOE’s proposed interim storage program for commercial high-level waste remain committed to hosting a pilot facility. “From everything I’ve seen, it doesn’t seem to me that DOE has made any blunders yet,” an industry executive told RW Monitor this week. “My perspective on the impact on spent nuclear fuel storage is that it shouldn’t have a large impact. For people who are well-reasoned and will think it through, I don’t think it will have much difference. I think the Department acted in good faith, and I think people realized that. This is a very specific problem. It’s not like the entire design was bad. It’s not like they found a fatal flaw.”
The WIPP facility has been shut down since a truck fire occurred in early February and a radiological release occurred later that month. Some officials have speculated that it could be as long as three years before the site begins taking waste again. According to the Department’s Accident Investigation Board report released back in April, the radiation release was preceded by poor maintenance, safety culture issues by contractor Nuclear Waste Partnership, and lax oversight by DOE headquarters and the Carlsbad Field Office. The report also noted that an inadequate filtration system was to blame for the above-ground release that resulted in low levels of exposure to 21 workers.
Does Performance of Site Inspire Confidence?
Despite the lapses by DOE at WIPP, host communities were reassured by the performance of the site in protecting general public health. “We are obviously monitoring WIPP carefully, and I’m sure plenty of other people are as well,” said Monty Humble, managing member of AFCI Texas, a group trying to bring interim storage to west Texas. “At least from our vantage point right now, it appears that the systems that they had in place to assure the protection of the public functioned properly. The facility may be shut down, but it’s not creating any risks for the general public. That’s our key concern, that whatever we do, it not create risk for the general public.” Another industry executive noted on WIPP, “In the long term, because of how well the site will recover, I think that will go a long way to boost public confidence in the inherent safety.”
Any community looking to host an interim facility would have to educate the surrounding community, and it appears WIPP may turn into the perfect lesson plan to illustrate the inherent safety of a disposal site, according to Patrick Sullivan, president of Mississippi Energy Institute. MEI presented a white paper before the state Senate last year highlighting the potential economic benefits of hosting an interim storage facility. “From my perspective, if there is to be actual consolidated fuel management along with the opportunity for reuse or recycling, there must be much education and dialogue with the public and especially in those communities and states interested in looking into the economic opportunity,” Sullivan said. “I think the recent situations at WIPP, as an example, can actually help people understand the risks, response plans, and overall management strategies with multiple layers of redundancy to ensure safety. At the end of the day, communities and states will either qualify the risks as acceptable or not, but more education is required between now and then.”
Also working in DOE’s favor is the fact that commercial high-level waste, although still dangerous, is much more stable and uniform compared to the transuranic waste that went into WIPP, communities say. “I think these are two very separate issues,” said John Heaton of the Carlsbad Mayor’s Nuclear Task Force. “Interim storage is very different than what we are doing.” Heaton added that the storage containers for commercial waste have a robustness to them that inspires confidence towards its safety. Even with some of the complaints of DOE’s handling of WIPP, Heaton said that Carlsbad is still interested in hosting an interim storage facility, a telling indicator of potential host communities’ mindset. “I think that Carlsbad would like to go forward [with interim storage], and our big mission at this point is that we think Congress and DOE ought to put forth money for states and locales that are interested to go through the consent process, as outlined by the Blue Ribbon Commission.”
Regardless of DOE’s handling of WIPP, host communities feel they won’t be dealing with DOE anyway. The Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Future recommended that a new, separate agency should be created to deal with the nation’s commercial high-level waste. “The BRC recommended getting spent nuclear fuel out of DOE because there is such a lack of trust that has spread into the whole system, just from the fact that DOE wasn’t performing its obligations,” an industry executive said. In addition, DOE would not be regulating an interim facility. That responsibility falls to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Improvement in Communication Is Needed
DOE did not go unscathed by the potential host communities, though. Many communities were critical of the Department’s communication efforts to keep the local community informed of what was happening at WIPP. New Mexico state and local officials have been vocal about the lack of communication, especially about the silence from the Department in the first few weeks following the radiological release incident. Although DOE communication has improved somewhat, state and local officials still have problems obtaining information, Heaton said. This could lead to problems negotiating with a host community for an interim storage site. “In the near term, the situation at WIPP is probably going to raise questions about DOE and what kind of corporate neighbor they are,” an industry executive said. “Simply because of how long, it took them to communicate. I think it’s going to cause communities to be more adamant upfront about notification procedures. Having this fresh in everybody’s minds, you are going to probably negotiate an additional layer of requirements to try and force DOE to communicate more quickly and fully.”
The point was re-iterated by Seth Kirshenberg, executive director of Energy Communities Alliance, a non-profit organization of local governments which host or are adjacent to DOE sites. “In the aftermath of what has happened at WIPP, it is likely that communities will add to the list independent oversight, access to air monitoring information at the site and in the community, better funding for emergency response, better coordination/communication of what is being inserted into waste canisters, and oversight and accountability if the parameters of the waste change,” Kirshenberg said. “DOE eventually created a good structure for communicating with the local government, impacted communities, and the state regarding WIPP. Each community that currently hosts waste – and those that may potentially expand their mission to accepting more on an interim or permanent basis – will want to ensure that it has a similar structure set up and ready to be implemented if anything happens at their site.”
