Beyond Nuclear comments to the New Mexico Environment Department, opposed to the expanded Forever WIPP (Waste Isolation Pilot Plant)
August 11, 2020 See Beyond Nuclear's public comments, posted at our Repositories website section.
See the backgrounder, "WIPP History: The Forever WIPP Expansion & the New Shaft Permit Modification," dated July 20, 2020, posted at the CCNS (Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety) website.
The WIPP site is only 16 miles from the proposed Holtec/ELEA highly radioactive waste consolidated interim storage facility (CISF). And just 40 miles from there, is the Waste Control Specialists national "low" level radioactive waste dump, and propsed CISF, in Andrews County, west Texas, immediately upon the New Mexico border at Eunice. This attempt to turn the majority minority State of New Mexico, and the majority Hispanic and Native American southeast of NM, into a national radioactive waste sacrifice zone, is an outrageous environmental injustice. Learn more about the CISFs at our Centralized Storage website section.
TRU (trans-uranic) military wastes dumped at WIPP are considered "low-level" radioactive wastes, even though contents, such as plutonium, are ultra-hazardous in microscopic quantities, and are very long lasting (plutonium-239 has a hazardous persistence of 240,000 years).