DOE says 2 tons radioactive waste not destined for WIPP

Posted 7:29AM on Thursday 7th February 2002 ( 23 years ago )

ALBUQUERQUE - The U.S. Department of Energy said Wednesday it has no plans to ship 2 tons of plutonium waste to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad. The announcement came a day after Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., complained about the possibility of the waste being sent there in a letter to Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham. Anti-nuclear activists said last week that the DOE intended to send the waste, a radioactive byproduct of nuclear weapons manufacturing, to WIPP because it is the only place certified to take such material. But DOE spokesman Joe Davis said Wednesday the department has ``no plans to ship the material to WIPP. We have a variety of other options on the table, and we're studying those options.'' Davis would not say what those options are. The DOE is under pressure from Colorado officials to get the plutonium out of its current location in the Rocky Flats plant near Denver. The problem of finding a place to dump the extra plutonium was discussed during a briefing Jan. 23 in Washington, D.C. The U.S. government has nearly 40 tons of waste from more than 50 years of nuclear weapons manufacturing. Most will be turned into fuel to be burned in nuclear reactors. But 2.2 tons of it is too impure for that. The department's original plan was to immobilize the impure plutonium with glass, then bury it at Yucca Mountain in Nevada, a proposed underground dump for high-level radioactive waste. But papers handed out by DOE officials at the briefing say of the 2.2 tons of plutonium: ``Send Directly to Waste.'' It was not clear what that meant. In the past, the Department of Energy has considered sending the impure plutonium to its Savannah River Site in South Carolina for processing. But South Carolina Gov. Jim Hodges said the state will not accept any more plutonium, a spokeswoman said last week. Waste destined for WIPP is disposed of in a cavern carved out of salt beds more than 2,000 feet underground.

http://accesswdun.com/article/2002/2/203130