WIPP mission expansion a no-brainer The Current-ArgusArticle Launched: 08/18/2007 09:10:58 PM MDT
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Imagine the following: in your left hand you hold an apple; in your right hand, you hold another apple. Both apples are Granny Smith variety, and both were grown from trees planted the same year, from the same lot of seedlings, near each other but in different gardens. Through the years, the trees were pruned, fertilized and harvested in identical ways.
In fact, in this "apples to apples" comparison, these Granny Smiths are virtually indistinguishable in every way except one: the apple in your left hand was produced from a tree at the Quantum Field Fruit Grove, and the apple in your right hand was grown nearby in the Subatomic Apple Orchard.
Now imagine having to live by a rule that says all apples grown by Quantum may be used to make pies, but all apples grown by Subatomic can never be used to make pies. Defies logic, does it not?
An eerily similar irrationality is occurring in the acronym-filled realm of the U.S. Department of Energy. The DOE is compelled to observe a difference, basically where none exists. Transuranic nuclear waste originates from the DOE's bomb-building efforts, so it can go to WIPP. Meanwhile, Greater Than Class C nuclear waste originates by and large from medical, industrial or AdvertisementGetAd('tile','box','/home_article','','www.currentargus.com','','null','null');other commercial efforts, so it cannot go to WIPP.
These two types of waste are very, very similar there is no rational reason to exclude the latter from WIPP. Furthermore, GTCC waste poses a national security threat. This is exactly the kind of nasty stuff terrorists would love to get their hands on in order to build a "dirty bomb."
As the Land Withdrawal Act was forged into its final form, back in 1992, the politicians rendered a series of compromises. They included strict rules over exactly what type of nuclear waste could be deposed at WIPP, as well as how much. Perhaps those compromises were the only way WIPP would ever have come to be. But now, 15 years later, several of those original rules are encumbering the nation's ability to properly dispose of a category of waste that poses an ongoing threat both in security and environmental terms.
Therefore, the act should be changed to accommodate our nation's pressing need to safely and securely entomb GTCC and GTCC-like waste regardless of where it's generated. The other options DOE is floating are complex, expensive, less secure and in the case of Yucca Mountain all but undoable. (DOE should also ditch the murky definition system they're using for nuclear waste, replacing it with clear, easy-to-understand terms the average citizen can actually grasp.)
Our local political leaders are right to be pressing for the expansion of WIPP's mission, as last week's scoping meeting revealed in full. New Mexico's Congressional delegation must see the urgency, get behind this change and see it through to resolution.Print
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"In Colorado's far western reaches is a valley called Paradox. Unlike most, it is cut crosswise through the middle. The Dolores River runs perpendicular through it, creating a geologic anomaly that is also the valley's namesake. Brilliant orange cliffs cradle the valley floor under the white gaze of Utah's La Sal Mountains. Sagebrush plains and irrigated hay fields are broken only by herds of cows and the tiny hamlets of Bedrock and Paradox. Within the region's perplexing geology run rich veins of uranium, fuel for the nation's incipient nuclear renaissance. A proposal to build the nation's first uranium mill in 25 years has divided the community there between those who see good jobs and a stable economy and neighbors fearful of uranium's history of health impacts, environmental harm and unstable prices. Both sides recognize that the proposed Piñon Ridge uranium mill - fed by ore from up to 41 nearby mines - could transform this quiet corner of Colorado into the fountainhead of the nuclear fuel industry."