After eleven other states rejected the WIPP project, in 1978 the old Atomic Energy Commission (precursor to the Department of Energy) made a deal with a failing potash company to buy land and locate WIPP in New Mexico.
No geological investigation was held before WIPP was sited. Unfortunately, WIPP is located in one of the world's largest karstlands as evidenced by Carlsbad Caverns, 'bottomless lakes', appearing and disappearing rivers such as the Rio Negro, near Loving, sinkholes and many other regional geologic features. Here, streams of water run underground instead of above ground, dissolving the soft rock and old salt deposits as they flow, making the WIPP site an unsuitable location for permanent disposal of radioactive wastes. Independent earth scientists believe that WIPP will contaminate the nearby Pecos River, used for irrigation and drinking water in the arid lands of west Texas and Mexico, down gradient from the repository.
No geological investigation was held before WIPP was sited. Unfortunately, WIPP is located in one of the world's largest karstlands as evidenced by Carlsbad Caverns, 'bottomless lakes', appearing and disappearing rivers such as the Rio Negro, near Loving, sinkholes and many other regional geologic features. Here, streams of water run underground instead of above ground, dissolving the soft rock and old salt deposits as they flow, making the WIPP site an unsuitable location for permanent disposal of radioactive wastes. Independent earth scientists believe that WIPP will contaminate the nearby Pecos River, used for irrigation and drinking water in the arid lands of west Texas and Mexico, down gradient from the repository.
As late as 2009, the DOE said WIPP was not a good place to store high level nuclear waste. What changed since then? Nothing, other than they do not have any solutions for high level nuclear garbage. There are actually ten reasons why WIPP was a bad idea to store nuclear wastes, and just ONE of these reasons should have been enough to keep any radioactive waste out of it. But the 'experts' went ahead anyway, just like the nuclear industry went ahead and used the Ge Mark I reactor design despite knowing it was so defective that nuclear engineers quit rather than continue working on it.
Many geological issues at WIPP were identified in the New Mexico Geological Society Guidebook, 44th Field Conference, Carlsbad Region, New Mexico and West Texas, 1993 331, titled; WIPP-RELATED GEOLOGICAL ISSUES
An extensive list of reasons why WIPP should never have been approved and a detailed listing of actual water leaks inside the WIPP facility are documented in this hearing transcript.
According to the IEER, in High-Level Dollars, Low-Level Sense: Chapter 3, Overview and Critique of the Current Approach to Radioactive Waste Management, there were severe problems with the WIPP site, such as:
WATER LEAKAGE
DOE's failure to grasp the fundamentals of WIPP site hydrology stems not from a lack of evidence, but from an unwillingness to face the truth:
1. the WIPP site is in karst
2. the Dewey Lake Redbeds and the Rustler Formation are recharged by rainwater, and
3. groundwater flow at WIPP is three-dimensional
The problem with karst as a waste disposal environment is that some radionuclides may travel unretarded, at the speed of water. The larger the aperture, or diameter, of the solution conduits, the less contact the radionuclides will have with the surrounding rock, and the less the amount of radionuclide retardation. The ability of the Rustler Formation to retard significantly the migration of radionuclides depends upon the absence of karst conditions, of channelized flow, at the WIPP site.
Recent pumping tests at hydrologic test wells in Culebra dolomite at the WIPP site (Beauheim, 1986; Beauheim, 1989) have resulted in unexpectedly short response times between certain test wells. For example, when water was pumped from test well DOE-2, there was a drop in water level within two hours at test well WIPP-13, which is 4835 feet from DOE-2. Test well H-6, which is 10,150 feet from DOE-2, responded within one day.
The DOE first encountered water seepage into WIPP excavations in 1983. In 1986, a member of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) panel on WIPP warned that in a few hundred years sufficient brine might seep into the repository rooms to saturate them. The water leakage issue became public in the fall of 1987 when a group of New Mexico scientists (called the Scientists Review Panel) concluded that the salt formation at WIPP contains much more water than the DOE had anticipated. They warned that over a period of time the brine could corrode the waste drums, forming a "radioactive waste slurry" consisting of a mixture of brine and nuclear waste which might eventually reach the surface. There is currently a concentrated leakage occurring into the WIPP Construction and Salt Handling Shaft. from the top of Dewey Lake redbeds at 20 to 70 ft. in depth, thence into the repository, believed to arise from runoff at the parking lot. In European potash mining experience, such incipient karstic shaft. leakage has been found to be irreparable. The first drop of water signals the eventual flooding of the mine.
http://www.clarku.edu/mtafund/prodlib/card/Unsafe_Radwaste_Disposal_at_WIPP.pdf
UNSAFE RADWASTE DISPOSAL AT WIPP, Dr. David Snow PhD, Engineering Science University of California Berkeley; concludes WIPP is not safe for rad waste. "The salt was formerly believed to be so impermeable that the rooms would remain dry, but the appearance of small brine seeps soon after opening the first research rooms showed that DOE must contend with a wet waste environment."
At Canadian mines, the fractures sometimes breach the top of salt into an aquifer, causing inflows that flood the mine (Tofani, R., 1983, Van Sambeek, 1993). After shaft leakage, such roof breaching is the next most common cause of flooding of salt and potash mines, all of which ultimately flood because they lie below the water table. Already there is leakage occurring from the Dewey Lake Redbeds into one of the WIPP shafts, and thence into the repository. In European potash mining experience, such leakage has been irreparable. (link) (WIPP is an old converted potash mine.)
http://optimalprediction.com/wp/plutonium-release-from-the-wipp-radioactive-waste-facility/
In Germany, they tried this salt mine nuclear waste storage thing and here is what happened; "the salt mine...is now widely viewed as a wrong decision. The penetration of about 12,000 liters of water daily threatens to contaminate the groundwater. The planned rescue of the barrels from the tunnels, which are in danger of collapsing, is risky, time-consuming and may even be no longer possible. But if an attempt is made, it could cost anywhere between 4 and 6 billion euros, according to SPD expert, Ute Vogt."
http://www.dw.de/what-to-do-with-nuclear-waste/a-16755844
The DOE's documentation of the construction of the ventilation/waste handling shaft does not note washouts in the Forty-Niner, Culebra, or unnamed lower member. If these washouts had been found, they would have been noted in the log, if the log were accurate... Dr. Phillips has, however, seen other reports that he knows were inaccurate. Washouts were encountered in the ventilation/waste handling shaft before it was enlarged. WIPP-14 exhibited a 71-foot section of mud and fragments of gypsum and anhydrite beneath the Culebra. Dr. Phillips testified that this finding indicates a former flow channel. The DOE says the surface depression at WIPP-14 was a blowout. Dr. Phillips disagrees.
WALL CRACKING AND CEILING COLLAPSE
Cracks have appeared in the ceilings and floors of several large waste storage rooms, and in three areas, the ceiling has also collapsed. The cracking and collapse are the result of a rate of room closure two to three times faster than was anticipated. When the first storage rooms were excavated in 1983, the DOE expected it would take 25 years for the creeping salt walls to completely close in on each other, locking the barrels of waste into a mass of solid salt rock. However, at the rate the rooms are closing, it may take them only 13 years or less before complete closure. This rapid rate of closure resulted in the initial cracking, which, although known about by the DOE since 1987, was not publicly revealed until the cracks were also discovered by the New Mexico state Environmental Evaluation Group in May 1989 -- a month after the DOE closed the rooms to workers because of fears that sections of the ceiling might fail and collapse.50
Cracks have appeared in the ceilings and floors of several large waste storage rooms, and in three areas, the ceiling has also collapsed. The cracking and collapse are the result of a rate of room closure two to three times faster than was anticipated. When the first storage rooms were excavated in 1983, the DOE expected it would take 25 years for the creeping salt walls to completely close in on each other, locking the barrels of waste into a mass of solid salt rock. However, at the rate the rooms are closing, it may take them only 13 years or less before complete closure. This rapid rate of closure resulted in the initial cracking, which, although known about by the DOE since 1987, was not publicly revealed until the cracks were also discovered by the New Mexico state Environmental Evaluation Group in May 1989 -- a month after the DOE closed the rooms to workers because of fears that sections of the ceiling might fail and collapse.50
On June 19, 1990, a 100-ton section of the ceiling of a test room did collapse, just 18 days after a technician was in the room for an inspection.51 A 1,400-ton rockfall occurred in the same area in February 1991, despite the fact that the DOE had installed bolts in the ceiling to improve its stability. As of June 1991, two additional rockfalls have also been reported."
http://ieer.org/pubs/highlv3f.html
"Several studies published by geologists before WIPP was planned show that 200 hundred feet of salt has already been dissolved from the Rustler Formation above the WIPP repository. A front of dissolution is moving from west to east and over the WIPP site and most of the salt missing at WIPP was dissolved during the last glacial cycle that ended 10,000 years ago.
Studies of ice-age climate tell us that the next wet climate cycle may return within the next few thousand years and no later than about 50,000 years. When the period of EPA protection is compared to the quarter-million years needed for plutonium (see above) one can see that more active dissolution will return once again and the Rustler Aquifer will collapse and develop more fractures. The evidence at the WIPP site does not support the conclusion that the last 10,000 years of dry, stabile conditions assure an even longer period of stability.
A huge boring machine drilled out the main shaft at the center of WIPP and the freshly cut walls were exposed for inspection and photography. Several photos taken before the shaft was sealed reveal dissolution. In one photo of soluble rock in the Rustler Formation the walls of a hairline fracture have been dissolved away, leaving a gaping crack large enough to insert one's fingers.
A fracture this large must have carried a lot of water, and from its fresh appearance and lack of cement and fracture filling, not too long ago. The photo, taken by a geologist working for the New Mexico EEG http://www.rt66.com/~eeg/home.htm, belies the claim that dissolution at the WIPP site never happened and if it did it is geologically old and now dead."
SCIENTISTS FIRED
The 13-ft. high by 33-ft. wide rooms will be short-lived. Large open fractures appear in the ceilings of all rooms within months of mining. Several roof-falls and floor heaves have already occurred, so an extensive array of roof bolts has been installed to delay the failure of the remaining experimental rooms long enough to fill them with drums. These, and all future rooms will suffer collapse of major roof slabs bounded above by weak clay-bed partings. Such falls will crush the drums, and liberated waste will penetrate the fractures.
http://www.clarku.edu/mtafund/prodlib/card/Unsafe_Radwaste_Disposal_at_WIPP.pdf
GAS AND WATER LEAKS
At WIPP, brine will accumulate downdip, corrode the steel drums, and dissolve radionuclides. Generated gas will collect updip.....Inclined fractures will interconnect the rooms and panels with fractured anhydrite beds farther above the repository, each of which will contribute to increasing inflows of brine. Experience at potash mines in similar salt sequences (notably at K-2 Mine in Saskatchewan) indicates that such roof behavior is typical. At the Canadian mines, the fractures sometimes breach the top of salt into an aquifer, causing inflows that flood the mine (Tofani, R., 1983, Van Sambeek, 1993). After shaft leakage, such roof breaching is the next most common cause of flooding of salt and potash mines, all of which ultimately flood because they lie below the water table. Already there is leakage occurring from the Dewey Lake Redbeds into one of the WIPP shafts, and thence into the repository.
http://cardnm.org/nonkarstfrm_a.html"Brine reacts with the drums and waste and generates gas. At first, the engineers thought that the gas might be of some advantage because the pressure that built up in the sealed chambers would help prevent brine from reaching the drums. But they also recognized that the pressure in the repository could build up to a point where it became "lithostatic" and rose as high as or higher than the pressure imposed by the weight of the overlying rock. An over-pressured repository was unthinkable when strategies were being developed for nuclear waste disposal. One of the firmest criteria was that a repository should never be allowed to reach lithostatic pressure. Such a condition would permit venting and provide pathways for moving water to get to and from the waste."
HUMAN INTRUSION, OIL AND GAS WELLS AROUND WIPP
Because human intrusion is a potential cause of repository breaching, any radioactive waste disposal site should be free of valuable natural resources that could stimulate future explorations. The WIPP repository is overlain by potash beds and is surrounded by oil and gas wells (Figures 2 and 4). Inadvertent interceptions of the waste rooms by future drill holes are very credible. Direct flows of contaminated brine along boreholes open to the surface have been minimized in PA by assumptions of borehole plugging by future operators. The results are unrealistic for an open borehole that intercepts a saturated repository at near- lithostatic pressures, or along fractures initiated by subsidence or oil-field water- flooding (Bredehoeft, 1997).
http://cardnm.org/nonkarstfrm_a.html
Subsidence concerns at WIPP nuclear dump — Over 100 operating oil and gas wells within mile of site, a ‘very active’ area — Gas And Oil Reserves ‘directly underneath’ buried waste — Fracking to take place nearby? (VIDEO)
http://enenews.com/concerns-about-subsidence-at-wipp-site-over-100-operating-oil-and-gas-wells-within-a-mile-of-site-boundary-proven-reserves-directly-underneath-where-waste-is-video
According to the above study authored by Yates, the WIPP site sits right on top of proven oil and gas reserves. What are the odds that in the future, some oil or gas well drill is going to puncture and/or go through WIPP, even if by accident? Withdrawing oil and/or gas from below WIPP also creates problems, called subsidence. Voids created by the sucking out of lakes of oil or gas create pressures underground that can collapse WIPP walls, ceilings and/or allow brine lakes beneath WIPP to enter WIPP. Oil and gas wells pump salt water down the well at high pressure. This salt water can and will enter WIPP if the well is located within approximately 2 miles.
Subsidence concerns at WIPP nuclear dump — Over 100 operating oil and gas wells within mile of site, a ‘very active’ area — Gas And Oil Reserves ‘directly underneath’ buried waste — Fracking to take place nearby? (VIDEO)
http://enenews.com/concerns-about-subsidence-at-wipp-site-over-100-operating-oil-and-gas-wells-within-a-mile-of-site-boundary-proven-reserves-directly-underneath-where-waste-is-video
The Hartman Nightmare Scenario
"In 1991 an oil operator in southeastern New Mexico, named Hartman, drilled a hole into the Salado salt beds to about the same depth as the WIPP repository. So much water flooded into his well that he could drill no farther. Hartman abandoned the hole, lost a lot of money, and sued Texaco for damages. Texaco, it seems, had injected water into wells located about two miles from Hartman's failed borehole. The Texaco waterflood, injected under high pressure, had fractured beds of anhydrite and the water flowed laterally for a great distance.
By some chance, a highly respected and internationally known hydrologist learned of Hartman's lawsuit. This same hydrologist had been a member of NAS WIPP panel and knew a great deal about geologic and hydrologic conditions at WIPP. He recognized that if something like the Hartman episode happened it WIPP, water could flood the repository and change some of the best-case assumptions about the performance of WIPP. If no oil and gas wells were near the WIPP site there would be no chance of flooding. But producing oil wells, some within two miles, surround WIPP. About half of the fluid that is pumped from a producing well is brine that must be put back in underground. Some wells near WIPP were already injecting brine (see map above).
The curious hydrologist ran modeling experiments and in 1997 he prepared a 47-page report for the Attorney General of New Mexico. The Hartman scenario is aggravated by the overpressure condition at WIPP which allows the pumped brine to flood the repository. The hydrologist's calculations show that enough contaminated brine escapes from the site to release 50 EPA units of radioactive contaminant. Escape of a single EPA unit violates WIPP certification criteria. How does DOE and EPA plan to deal with the Hartman scenario? Their short-term solution is to limit water injection near the site boundary. What is their long-term, 10,000-year or 240,000-year solution? They have none."
BRINE LAKES BELOW WIPP
The WIPP site was moved once because pressurized brine was discovered below the first site. "In a 1981 drilling, pressurized brine was again discovered. The site was set to be abandoned when the EEG(governments Environment Evaluation Group) stepped in and suggested a series of tests on the brine and the surrounding area. These tests were conducted and the results showed that the brine deposit was relatively small and was isolated from other deposits. Drilling (creating WIPP) in the area was deemed safe due to these results. This saved the project valuable money and time by preventing a drastic relocation." Bottom line, if it was not safe the first time around with a brine lake underneath the site, it is not safe the 2nd time around either, but they went ahead ANYWAY.. Dam the torpedoes, full speed ahead, captain! (This brine lake actually is only 500 feet under WIPP and covers 60% of the total WIPP area)
The WIPP site was moved once because pressurized brine was discovered below the first site. "In a 1981 drilling, pressurized brine was again discovered. The site was set to be abandoned when the EEG(governments Environment Evaluation Group) stepped in and suggested a series of tests on the brine and the surrounding area. These tests were conducted and the results showed that the brine deposit was relatively small and was isolated from other deposits. Drilling (creating WIPP) in the area was deemed safe due to these results. This saved the project valuable money and time by preventing a drastic relocation." Bottom line, if it was not safe the first time around with a brine lake underneath the site, it is not safe the 2nd time around either, but they went ahead ANYWAY.. Dam the torpedoes, full speed ahead, captain! (This brine lake actually is only 500 feet under WIPP and covers 60% of the total WIPP area)
"Several studies published by geologists before WIPP was planned show that 200 hundred feet of salt has already been dissolved from the Rustler Formation above the WIPP repository. A front of dissolution is moving from west to east and over the WIPP site and most of the salt missing at WIPP was dissolved during the last glacial cycle that ended 10,000 years ago.
Studies of ice-age climate tell us that the next wet climate cycle may return within the next few thousand years and no later than about 50,000 years. When the period of EPA protection is compared to the quarter-million years needed for plutonium (see above) one can see that more active dissolution will return once again and the Rustler Aquifer will collapse and develop more fractures. The evidence at the WIPP site does not support the conclusion that the last 10,000 years of dry, stabile conditions assure an even longer period of stability.
A huge boring machine drilled out the main shaft at the center of WIPP and the freshly cut walls were exposed for inspection and photography. Several photos taken before the shaft was sealed reveal dissolution. In one photo of soluble rock in the Rustler Formation the walls of a hairline fracture have been dissolved away, leaving a gaping crack large enough to insert one's fingers.
A fracture this large must have carried a lot of water, and from its fresh appearance and lack of cement and fracture filling, not too long ago. The photo, taken by a geologist working for the New Mexico EEG http://www.rt66.com/~eeg/home.htm, belies the claim that dissolution at the WIPP site never happened and if it did it is geologically old and now dead."
SCIENTISTS FIRED
"Many earth scientists worked directly for DOE or Sandia National Labs as employees or contractors on the WIPP site investigation. Eventually, as each of these scientists spoke up about the site's instability, they were let go, transferred to inappropriate positions, or fired, while their reports were disregarded and at times concealed. Afterwards, they were sometimes harassed or unable to get government-related work. Upon their courage and the courage of others like them is based our best hope for maintaining the tattered and beleaguered fabric of life which we, along with countless others, work so diligently to pass on to the following generations."
http://www.cardnm.org/
"A number of scientists who disagreed with the DOE's "party line" about the geology of the WIPP site were taken off the project or lost their jobs altogether when they raised question about the suitability of the site."
http://www.nuclearactive.org/wipp/hearings/phillips.html
"A number of scientists who disagreed with the DOE's "party line" about the geology of the WIPP site were taken off the project or lost their jobs altogether when they raised question about the suitability of the site."
http://www.nuclearactive.org/wipp/hearings/phillips.html
In other words, just like the rest of the nuclear industry, anyone who raises safety questions or concerns is demoted, moved, or fired. There is no 'real' safety culture in the nuclear industry because unlike the airline industry, the auto industry or any other industry, there is no repercussion for lack of safety or for failures. In any other industry, when a company has a large accident that kills hundreds of people, odds are that company will fail. But this is NOT the case with the nuclear industry. The can kill millions of people (secretly via invisible radioactive releases) but then experience no consequences. The nuclear industry is paid to fail and paid to have accidents. The costs of accidents, failures, meltdowns, and more are all transferred to the public, while the no bid, non competitive contracts are given to those companies that have failed, numerous times.
NUCLEAR EXPLOSION
Theory on Threat of Blast at Nuclear Waste Site Gains Support - By WILLIAM J. BROAD - A team of scientists from the Department of Energy yesterday strongly backed the recently proposed idea that atomic wastes buried deep underground might erupt in a nuclear explosion.
Theory on Threat of Blast at Nuclear Waste Site Gains Support - By WILLIAM J. BROAD - A team of scientists from the Department of Energy yesterday strongly backed the recently proposed idea that atomic wastes buried deep underground might erupt in a nuclear explosion.
http://www.nytimes.com/1995/03/23/us/theory-on-threat-of-blast-at-nuclear-waste-site-gains-support.html
INADEQUATE FINANCIAL RESOURCES
FINANCIAL ASSURANCE
"Owners and operators of hazardous waste disposal facilities are required to fulfill the RCRA financial assurance requirements. [FINANCIAL ASSURANCE is of two kinds: 1. Westinghouse will have money to do closure and cleanup any problems they may have created. 2. Liability insurance to prove that if anyone is harmed by the contractor's actions, that there is money to pay for them. Financial assurance can be provided in several different ways as described in RCRA.] State and federal governments are exempt. No state may impose requirements less strict than those applied by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). New Mexico must be consistent with the federal RCRA requirements and have adequate enforcement to ensure compliance. EPA has stated that the state regulations must include financial assurance. New Mexico's financial assurance requirements are identical with and equivalent to the EPA's requirements.
The RCRA regulatory scheme provides for environmental protection from hazardous waste from "cradle to grave," including final cleanup of disposal sites. Under RCRA, those who benefit from disposal operations shall be responsible for the cleanup costs when the site is closed. Disposal site operators must work in a way that minimizes the possibility of the spread of contamination, always anticipating the closure of the facility. Disposal site operators must have enough money to complete final cleanup. The NMED is concerned that if an operator has a history of environmental noncompliance, the operator might disregard appropriate management of their wastes, driving up cleanup costs at the end of the project. The DOE requested a waiver of the financial assurance requirements in its Application.
Mr. Zappe introduced a letter into the record which disclosed Westinghouse's environmental noncompliance record. This letter shows that Westinghouse is responsible for numerous facilities and details 307 discrete environmental violations and 55 Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) violations. More than 100 of the violations resulted in fines. The NMED finds no reason to believe that Westinghouse's operations at WIPP will be any different.
The DOE has already claimed inadequate funding as a defense for not cleaning up contamination as a result of its operations at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in New Mexico. Inadequate funding has been used at other federal facilities as a defense for not meeting obligations to comply with environmental laws. This reasoning has been used by the DOE at its Hanford, Washington facility for why the DOE did not clean up the tanks leaking radioactive and hazardous materials into the groundwater. [This contamination could move to the Columbia River in a short amount of time.] No other state has permitted a facility for mixed transuranic waste disposal. The EPA has not permitted any other mixed waste disposal site in any state."
http://www.nuclearactive.org/wipp/hearings/zappe.html
INADEQUATE FINANCIAL RESOURCES
FINANCIAL ASSURANCE
"Owners and operators of hazardous waste disposal facilities are required to fulfill the RCRA financial assurance requirements. [FINANCIAL ASSURANCE is of two kinds: 1. Westinghouse will have money to do closure and cleanup any problems they may have created. 2. Liability insurance to prove that if anyone is harmed by the contractor's actions, that there is money to pay for them. Financial assurance can be provided in several different ways as described in RCRA.] State and federal governments are exempt. No state may impose requirements less strict than those applied by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). New Mexico must be consistent with the federal RCRA requirements and have adequate enforcement to ensure compliance. EPA has stated that the state regulations must include financial assurance. New Mexico's financial assurance requirements are identical with and equivalent to the EPA's requirements.
The RCRA regulatory scheme provides for environmental protection from hazardous waste from "cradle to grave," including final cleanup of disposal sites. Under RCRA, those who benefit from disposal operations shall be responsible for the cleanup costs when the site is closed. Disposal site operators must work in a way that minimizes the possibility of the spread of contamination, always anticipating the closure of the facility. Disposal site operators must have enough money to complete final cleanup. The NMED is concerned that if an operator has a history of environmental noncompliance, the operator might disregard appropriate management of their wastes, driving up cleanup costs at the end of the project. The DOE requested a waiver of the financial assurance requirements in its Application.
Mr. Zappe introduced a letter into the record which disclosed Westinghouse's environmental noncompliance record. This letter shows that Westinghouse is responsible for numerous facilities and details 307 discrete environmental violations and 55 Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) violations. More than 100 of the violations resulted in fines. The NMED finds no reason to believe that Westinghouse's operations at WIPP will be any different.
The DOE has already claimed inadequate funding as a defense for not cleaning up contamination as a result of its operations at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in New Mexico. Inadequate funding has been used at other federal facilities as a defense for not meeting obligations to comply with environmental laws. This reasoning has been used by the DOE at its Hanford, Washington facility for why the DOE did not clean up the tanks leaking radioactive and hazardous materials into the groundwater. [This contamination could move to the Columbia River in a short amount of time.] No other state has permitted a facility for mixed transuranic waste disposal. The EPA has not permitted any other mixed waste disposal site in any state."
http://www.nuclearactive.org/wipp/hearings/zappe.html
We now know that there is a water table above the mine and a brine lake that is highly pressurized below it. The mine has already had multiple water leaks and multiple ceiling and/or wall collapses. Scientists were fired or moved away as they spoke the truth about how bad WIPP is, especially around nuclear wastes.
What could go wrong after high level radioactive waste is put into this facility, especially with the DOE and other companies involved trying to get out of the financial obligation part? Maybe we are seeing the beginning of what is going to happen in the longer term. The experts believe that salt mines or domes are forever storage places, but actual practice indicates many problems with their theory, so that in actual real life, really bad things happen, fairly quickly.
What could go wrong after high level radioactive waste is put into this facility, especially with the DOE and other companies involved trying to get out of the financial obligation part? Maybe we are seeing the beginning of what is going to happen in the longer term. The experts believe that salt mines or domes are forever storage places, but actual practice indicates many problems with their theory, so that in actual real life, really bad things happen, fairly quickly.
Here is just another disastrous thing that could happen at any time, for many reasons, with the WIPP facility. Drilling and fracking for oil and gas is going on all around the WIPP site, sometimes very close.
There are over 100 drilling rigs located within ONE MILE of the WIPP facility. There are oil and gas reserves below the WIPP facility, as well as a brine lake under 60-80% of it.
What are the odds that no one will 'accidentally' drill into this complex or fracture rock nearby, leading to a massive failure of this site either through above ground water coming in, or the brine lake shooting up from below? Fracking means drilling down vertically, and then drilling horizontally. Then the fracking operation pumps 'cracking rock' fluids down the well hole in order to crack apart rocks so more gas and oil can be released. Where these cracks go is not fully under the control of the drillers. Someone drilling horizontally underneath WIPP where gas and oil reserves are located is just a matter of when it happens not if. The number of things that can and will go wrong just increases exponentially. Subsidence is also a risk even if the drill rigs do not puncture the WIPP facility directly.
There are over 100 drilling rigs located within ONE MILE of the WIPP facility. There are oil and gas reserves below the WIPP facility, as well as a brine lake under 60-80% of it.
What are the odds that no one will 'accidentally' drill into this complex or fracture rock nearby, leading to a massive failure of this site either through above ground water coming in, or the brine lake shooting up from below? Fracking means drilling down vertically, and then drilling horizontally. Then the fracking operation pumps 'cracking rock' fluids down the well hole in order to crack apart rocks so more gas and oil can be released. Where these cracks go is not fully under the control of the drillers. Someone drilling horizontally underneath WIPP where gas and oil reserves are located is just a matter of when it happens not if. The number of things that can and will go wrong just increases exponentially. Subsidence is also a risk even if the drill rigs do not puncture the WIPP facility directly.
What is the take away?
Combine drilling for oil, fracking for gas wells within a mile of the facility, a highly pressurized brine lake below WIPP, a weak fractured ceiling that keeps collapsing, plus numerous leaks appearing in the facility before the facility was even officially opened, just to name a few of the many very serious geological problems identified at WIPP.
What would you expect to happen at WIPP, once it is filled up with low and high level nuclear waste material? WIPP can and most likely will get much, much worse in the future than the present situation, in which they do not know what happened, but a radioactive release of some kind happened, and that is only 13 years in to the period that they said this WIPP site would be guaranteed to have no problems for 10,000 years. The Germans tried it, and now realize it was a HUGE mistake. Now DOE has run into the same problems but is still bulldozing ahead anyway, despite numerous warnings, leaks, ceiling collapses, etc.
Arnie Gundersen, a nuclear expert, says the technology behind WIPP is untested — hence the word "pilot" in the facility's title. "As a society, we believe that if you stick things in the earth, they are safe," he said. "But with radioactivity, it's not dead. It can come back to haunt you if there is a leak afterwards. This is alive."
https://www.commondreams.org/headline/2014/02/17-3
Dr. Snow comes to the conclusion that; "the preponderance of evidence supports the contention that PA modeling seriously underestimates releases of radioactivity to the accessible environment. This is reason enough for invalidating the certification granted by the EPA. Given its departures from rationality, the reader should be incredulous that the DOE application was approved. The EPA was well aware that the basis for objections, then and now, has always been that there are karst conditions in the Rustler.
The TRU waste has to be removed from the generator sites, even if an adequate permanent repository has not been established. TRU waste disposal underground remains premature, leaving monitored retrievable storage as the only option. A safe temporary facility could be situated near the surface of an old, stable landform, above the water table. For instance, at WIPP, it could probably be established on the Santa Rosa formation, but not on the Dewey Lake/Rustler karstland. It is evident that disposal in salt at WIPP is not the answer, where travel times in the overlying aquifer will be orders of magnitude shorter than PA predicted. The EPA has erred in certifying the repository, and recertification (in 2003) should be defeated. Meanwhile, TRU waste disposal at WIPP should stop, and the waste already in place in the first panel should be retrieved before roof collapse makes it prohibitively costly and dangerous to do so."
What if nothing happens and all of the predictions above turn out to be wrong? Now it is time to close the facility, remove the certifications and make sure no one enters it or drills into it. This is what is recommended; "This panel member therefore recommends that the markers and the structures associated with them be conceived along truly gargantuan lines. To put their size into perspective, a simple berm, say 35-m wide and 15-m high, surrounding the proposed land-withdrawal boundary, would involve excavation, transport, and placement of around 12 million cubic meters of earth. What is proposed, of course, is on a much greater scale than that. By contrast, in the construction of the Panama Canal, 72.6 million cubic meters were excavated, and the Great Pyramid occupies 2.4 million cubic meters. In short, to ensure the probability of success, the WIPP marker undertaking will have to be one of the greatest public works ventures in history."
http://downlode.org/Etext/WIPP/
What are the odds that anything like this gigantic berm surrounding WIPP will happen? Zero. We don't even know who built the pyramids, what they are for, or how they did it, and that was only 2,000 years ago. There is no chance that will stay 'safe' for 10,000 years, and that is the point made by the study above about keeping WIPP secure and safe for 10,000 years.
WIPP has already experienced a radiation disaster, and it is not even filled up yet. What are the odds that it will last safely for 100 years, much less 10,000 years? Zero..in the opinion of AGRP.
For local updates, radiation readings, activism and actions you can take around WIPP, click on;
http://www.sric.org/nuclear/
For local updates, radiation readings, activism and actions you can take around WIPP, click on;
http://www.sric.org/nuclear/
End
Numerous, Severe Geological Problems Identified At WIPP Site; via @AGreenRoad
http://agreenroad.blogspot.com/2014/03/numerous-severe-geological-problems.html
More articles;
WIPP Ventilation System 'Unstable', Possibly Due To Underground Explosion, Another Explosion Possible AT ANY TIME via @AGreenRoad
http://agreenroad.blogspot.com/2014/02/wipp-ventilation-system-damaged.html
Radioactive Plutonium Plume Coming Out of New Mexico's WIPP – Geological Nuclear Radioactive Waste Isolation Pilot Plant; via @AGreenRoad
http://agreenroad.blogspot.com/2014/02/radioactive-plutonium-plume-coming-out.html
Radioactive Plutonium Plume Coming Out of New Mexico's WIPP – Geological Nuclear Radioactive Waste Isolation Pilot Plant; via @AGreenRoad
http://agreenroad.blogspot.com/2014/02/radioactive-plutonium-plume-coming-out.html
Long Term Storage Of Nuclear Fuel, Nuclear Waste Problems/Issues
http://agreenroad.blogspot.com/p/recycling-or-long-term-storage-of.html
Post a Comment