Issues > Energy > Printer Version
Little Waste, Lots Wasted
Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP)

$90 million

The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in southeastern New Mexico is the disposal site for plutonium-contaminated transuranic, or TRU, wastes from nuclear weapons production. Wastes are being buried about 2,150 feet underground in salt caverns, in an area containing significant oil and gas resources. The WIPP will release radiation and toxic chemicals into the environment. It threatens public health and fails to solve the environmental problem of TRU wastes.

Green Scissors Proposal
Reduce WIPP's budget by preventing expansion of WIPP's storage capacity, eliminating unneeded operational personnel and unnecessary public relations activities. Hold the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) accountable for the unrealistic and dangerous shipping goals that it set for WIPP, which the project has failed to meet. Allow the State of New Mexico to regulate WIPP's operations, as required by existing state and federal law.

Current Status
In fiscal year 1998, WIPP's total appropriation was $198 million. The total appropriation increased to $205 million in fiscal year 1999, and the DOE promised that WIPP would open and receive hundreds of waste shipments during those years. Delayed because of health and safety problems, the first shipment of waste arrived on March 26, 1999, and 32 shipments (many of them much less than full truckloads) arrived during the remainder of 1999. The fiscal year 2000 appropriation of $181.4 million was to provide for at least 118 shipments during the fiscal year. Instead, only 58 shipments came to WIPP from three sites, not the five sites the DOE had promised. The fiscal year 2001 appropriation of $195 million is to support 484 shipments during the fiscal year, but actual shipments will fall far below that level.

Project Hurts Taxpayers

WIPP is far over budget. When it opened, WIPP was already $2 billion over budget, and the DOE had raised the facility's total lifetime budget to $19 billion. A 1996 General Accounting Office report suggested that the budget could grow to $29 billion.

The DOE has set unrealistic goals for the amount of waste to be shipped to WIPP. Failure to meet these shipment goals will result in further overspending, as the facility will have to operate for years longer than anticipated to reach its capacity of 6.2 million cubic feet of waste. Contrary to the DOE's original claims, filling WIPP at the present rate will take more than 300 years.

DOE is wasting money trying to expand WIPP's mission. After spending millions of dollars on a proposal to expand WIPP's surface storage capacity, the DOE withdrew the request in September 2000 in the face of strong public opposition and the State of New Mexico's intent to deny the request.

Project Hurts the Environment

The site is not stable. Salt movement in the underground caverns where the waste is stored has occurred three times faster than expected, causing rooms to collapse and possibly jeopardizing workers' lives. As a result, the DOE will have to abandon about 10 percent of WIPP's capacity because the underground rooms are unsafe. Preventing accidental exposure to radioactive waste is impossible.

It will release radiation and hazardous chemicals into the environment. The DOE's proposals to store large amounts of waste indefinitely on the surface at WIPP will result in substantial releases during the next few years. Moreover, human intrusion at the site is likely, due to large quantities of oil, natural gas, and potash at the site.

It will dispose of only a fraction of the two TRU wastes. Less than one-third of the existing TRU waste inventory by volume and less than .01 percent of the radioactivity in existing nuclear wastes will be disposed of. The DOE has no plans to safely dispose of the majority of the existing TRU waste inventory.

Contacts

• Don Hancock, Southwest Research and Information Center, (505) 262-1862.
• Kathy Crandall, Alliance for Nuclear Accountability, (202) 833-4668.