NMED WIPP External Links Page

Disclaimer - As a convenience, this page contains links to external web sites. The linked sites are not under the control of NMED, and NMED is unable to address the accuracy or timeliness of information provided in the linked sites. NMED's inclusion of a linked site does not constitute an official endorsement or approval of the contents of that site.

• DOE's WIPP Home Page includes links to WIPP, the Carlsbad Field Office, and generator sites.
• Washington TRU Solutions LLC is the management and operating contractor for WIPP.
  • WTS Key Performance Data for current fiscal year (October 1 - September 30)
    
• EPA's WIPP Program deals with their regulatory role in certifying WIPP for disposal of transuranic (TRU) waste. They also have a page devoted to WIPP oversight news.
  
• The State of New Mexico WIPP Transportation Safety Page provides information on a broad spectrum of WIPP-related issues. This page also describes the transportation safety plan, emergency preparedness, and all other State concerns except for the hazardous waste facility permit.
• The National Safety Council's Environmental Health Center discusses some of the health concerns relating to WIPP.
• Here are various transportation links -
  • Southern States Energy Board TRU Waste Transportation Work Group
  • Council of State Governments Midwest - Radioactive Materials Transportation Project
  • Western Governors' Association Radioactive Waste Program
• As DOE sites are certified to ship, each site develops specific pages related to WIPP issues -
  • INL (Idaho Cleanup Project, Idaho National Laboratory, Idaho)
    • Advanced Mixed Waste Treatment Project at INL
  • RFETS (Rocky Flats Environmental Technology Site, Colorado)
    • Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge - now that the facility has been cleaned up.
      
  • LANL (Los Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico)
    • LANL Off-Site Source Recovery Project (OSRP) - recovery of sealed radioactive sources, some of which are eligible for disposal at WIPP.
      
  • Hanford (Hanford Reservation, Washington)
  • SRS (Savannah River Site, South Carolina)
  • ANL-E (Argonne National Laboratory, Illinois)
  • NTS (Nevada Test Site, Nevada)
  • LLNL (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory)
  • ORNL (Oak Ridge National Laboratory)
    
• Site-Specific Advisory Boards (SSABs) provide consensus advice and recommendations to DOE environmental restoration and waste management activities:
  • INL Citizens Advisory Board - Google search results on WIPP
  • Northern New Mexico Citizens Advisory Board - Google search results on WIPP
  • Hanford Advisory Board - Google search results on WIPP
  • SRS Citizens Advisory Board -  Google search results on WIPP
  • NTS Community Advisory Board - Google search results on WIPP
  • Oak Ridge Site Specific Advisory Board - Google search results on WIPP
• Likewise, each state with a DOE site shipping waste to WIPP has web pages for their regulatory concerns -
  • Idaho Department of Environmental Quality
    • INL Oversight Program
  • Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment
    • CDPHE Hazardous Materials and Waste Management Division
    • CDPHE Rocky Flats Program
  • Washington Department of Ecology
    • WA Ecology Nuclear Waste Program
  • South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control
    • SC DHEC Environmental Page
    • SC DHEC Bureau of Land and Waste Management
  • Nevada Division of Environmental Protection
    • NDEP Bureau of Federal Facilities
  • Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation
    • TDEC Division of Solid/Hazardous Waste Management
    • TDEC Department of Energy Oversight Division
  • Illinois Emergency Management Agency, Division of Nuclear Safety
    • Illinois Environmental Protection Agency
  • California Environmental Protection Agency
    • Cal/EPA Department of Toxic Substances Control
      
• Many local activist groups have set aside a part of their sites to address their concerns about WIPP -
  • Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety (CCNS) in Santa Fe - see various links on left margin
  • Southwest Research and Information Center (SRIC) in Albuquerque - Nuclear Waste Documents links to specific WIPP issues
  • Citizens for Alternatives to Radioactive Dumping (CARD) in Albuquerque - their entire site is devoted to WIPP
  • Nuclear Watch New Mexico in Santa Fe - WIPP link along left margin
• DOE's Office of Environmental Management deals with the legacy of contamination from the nuclear weapons complex. WIPP is one of fourteen cleanup sites in New Mexico.
• The EPA Mixed Waste Team Home Page tells you everything you ever wanted to know about mixed waste, including TRU mixed waste destined for WIPP.
• EPA's Enforcement and Compliance History Online (ECHO) provides a detailed facility report of WIPP's RCRA compliance history.
  
• EPA Region 6 (in Dallas) also has a WIPP Information Page.
• The New Mexico Environmental Evaluation Group (EEG) used to conduct independent technical evaluation of WIPP to ensure protection of the public health, safety, and the environment. DOE ceased funding their organization in 2004 and the web site was taken down.
  
• PECOS Management Services now provides independent scientific oversight of TRU waste operations.
  
• The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) provides safety oversight of the nuclear weapons complex operated by the DOE. They have a WIPP link with recommendations and staff reports.
• The National Governors Association (NGA) has a Center of Best Practices that works with states hosting weapons production and research facilities to aid them in discussing and negotiating waste and disposal issues among themselves and with DOE.
• Energy Communities Alliance is the organization of local governments that are adjacent to or impacted by Department of Energy (DOE) activities. Its mission is to bring together local government officials in Department of Energy-impacted communities to share information, establish policy positions, and advocate community interests in order to effectively address an increasingly complex set of constituent, environmental, regulatory, and economic development needs.
• The New Mexico Attorney General's Office describes their role in reviewing WIPP.
• The National Association of Attorneys General (NAAG) has an Environment Project that holds yearly NAAG-DOE Workgroup meetings to discuss issues regarding environmental cleanup.
• The Legacy Story is a DOE site that offers links to two informative publications that tell the story of the creation and development of the U.S. nuclear weapons complex - Closing the Circle on the Splitting of the Atom (January 1996) and Linking Legacies: Connecting the Cold War Nuclear Weapons Production Processes To Their Environmental Consequences (January 1997).
• Wikipedia has an informative and ever-changing entry on WIPP.
  
• WISE (World Information Service on Energy) lets you search for WIPP stories on their site.
• The NMED DOE Oversight Bureau (a non-regulatory group within NMED) has a local WIPP oversight office in Carlsbad.
• The University of New Mexico Institute for Public Policy (IPP) has tracked New Mexico public opinion on WIPP since 1990. Search for the word "WIPP" on this page listing past IPP newsletters to learn how that opinion has evolved.
  
• The National Academy of Sciences Nuclear and Radiation Studies Board has convened a number of WIPP committees over the years. They released a report in October '96, saying if the final shaft seals perform as designed and nobody drills into the repository in the future, WIPP should work as planned. Here is the reports' Executive Summary, and here is the entire NAS WIPP Report in OpenBook format. They released a final report in 2001, "Improving Operations and Long-Term Safety of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant", concurring with a DOE concern regarding excessive waste characterization requirements. The NAS reviewed DOE's proposal to characterize and dispose of remote-handled TRU waste in 2002, and here is a copy of their final report. In 2003, the NAS reviewed DOE's proposal to optimize the characterization and transportation of TRU waste destined for WIPP, and issued their final report which found that DOE should use a systematic and quantitative approach to determine the value of characterization information, support permit modifications, and communicate with the public.
  
• The US Government Acountability Office issued a report (888 KB PDF file) in July '96 concluding that the chances of opening WIPP on DOE's schedule was uncertain at best, and that getting waste generator sites and transportation systems up to speed was a major concern. Do a Google search for other WIPP related reports.
  
• The DOE Office of Inspector General has issued numerous reports directly and indirectly related to WIPP.
  
• The US House Commerce Committee issued a Staff Report from October 2000 entitled "Incinerating Cash: The Department of Energy's Failure to Develop and Use Innovative Technologies To Clean Up the Nuclear Waste Legacy".
• The DOE Digital Archive serves as a centralized resource for thousands of photographs that depict the Department's various programs.
• Senator Mike Crapo (R-ID) has a nuclear waste cleanup photo gallery that used to include a fascinating picture of "random stacking" of TRU waste drums in INL's Pit 9 back in 1969.
  
• The Resources for the Future Center for Risk Management has links to organizations that research and monitor cleanup of sites in the nuclear weapons complex.
• The Institute for Regulatory Science has performed peer review and other studies for WIPP.
  
• The Nuclear Control Institute is concerned about plutonium from dismantled nuclear weapons being used as civilian nuclear fuel instead of being directly disposed of at WIPP (or non-weapons plutonium being disposed of at Yucca Mountain). In a related vein, the US Enrichment Corporation is implementing "Megatons to Megawatts", which converts highly enriched uranium from dismantled Russian nuclear warheads into low enriched uranium for commercial nuclear fuel.
• The Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues is a web-based collection of annotated references to resources that offer a broad, balanced perspective on current and historical nuclear issues.
• The Nuclear Threat Initiative mission is to strengthen global security by reducing the risk of use and preventing the spread of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. On their site they have an Issue Brief on Plutonium Disposition and a number of reports available for download.
• The Bush Administration released the "Nuclear Posture Review" at the end of 2001 that reevaluates the use of nuclear weapons in the United States.
  
• The Brookings Institution has a page dealing with the cost of nuclear weapons. Check out the "50 Facts about US Nuclear Weapons" and other related nuclear weapons sites.
• The National Geographic Society published an article entitled "Half Life: The Legacy of America's Nuclear Waste" in their July 2002 issue.
• Author and journalist Chuck McCutcheon wrote a book entitled "Nuclear Reactions: The Politics of Opening a Radioactive Waste Disposal Site" in 2002, attempting to present a serious look at the three decades of controversy behind the opening of WIPP without taking either a pro- or anti-WIPP stance.
• The National Council for Science and the Environment is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization which carries out educational activities and limited advocacy work. Their January 1997 Congressional Research Service Issue Brief on "Nuclear Weapons Production Complex: Environmental Compliance and Waste Management" briefly mentions WIPP in the discussion of waste management.
• The Alliance for Nuclear Accountability is a grassroots network of 33 organizations "working in the shadow of the nuclear weapons complex on health, cleanup, and and weapons issues."
  
• RadWaste.org has a page dedicated to nuclear waste disposal issues around the world, and includes many of the links on this page. They also provide a page identifying nuclear laws and regulations.
• The Center for Land Use Interpretation describes the WIPP facility from the perspective of how the world's lands are apportioned, used, and perceived. You can also search the CLUI Land Use Database for interesting sites around the country.
  
• An Institute for Energy and Environmental Research (IEER) 1997 report entitled "Containing the Cold War Mess" outlines general programmatic recommendations for dealing with defense waste, including suspension of the Yucca Mountain and WIPP repository programs. A 1991 paper entitled "High-Level Dollars, Low-Level Sense" critiques the then-proposed approach to radioactive waste management at WIPP. Search the site for more recent papers discussing WIPP.
  
• The State of Nevada Nuclear Waste Project Office had an article from about 1997 called "Planning for DOE TRU Waste Shipments from Nevada Test Site to WIPP".
• Nuclear Watch New Mexico published a March 2003 study disputing "Economic Multipliers and Economic Impact of DOE Spending in New Mexico".
• The Carlsbad Department of Development includes a description of WIPP on their "High Tech Community" page.
• Pacifica Radio's "Democracy NOW!" has a couple of Real Audio interviews with WIPP activists:
  • New Mexico Nuclear Waste Dump (March 26, 1999) - Myla Reson (CARD) and Arjun Makhijani (IEER)
  • New Mexico as National Sacrifice Area (July 21, 2000) - Don Hancock (SRIC)
• Roger Anderson, Geology Professor at the University of New Mexico, created a personal WIPP page reflecting his perspective as one of the early WIPP site characterization researchers.
• The American Geological Institute Governmental Affairs Program has kept track of WIPP-related activities in Congress:
  • Progress on WIPP (1/97)
  • Updated Status of WIPP Repository (11/97)
  • Updated Status of WIPP Repository (6/98)
  • Geologic Disposal in Political Time (7/99)
  • Updated Status of WIPP Repository (1/01)
• Here is a "Message to 12,000 AD", summarizing a study on how to mark the WIPP site as dangerous for future generations. An update on the issue of "passive institutional controls" was in the May 10, 2002 Salon article entitled "How do you design a "Keep Out!" sign to last 10,000 years?"
• Friends of the Earth annually identifies projects that can be eliminated or reformed to save taxpayers money. Read their recommendations from 1999 (before it opened) and 2000 (after receipt of waste).
• The Los Alamos Study Group, a non-profit, research-oriented, nuclear disarmament organization based in Santa Fe, has some provocative billboards along New Mexico roads.
• "Informed Scientists for Radiation" appears to spoof the CCNS web site with a similar URL (.com versus .org).
• Here's an example of one person's testimony at a DOE WIPP hearing back in 1997.
• Beneath Apache Country: Inside WIPP by Alan Sussex is an article from '92-'93 about one person's first hand account of their tour of WIPP.
• "Weirder Than Roswell: Nuclear Waste in New Mexico" is a critical essay by Bill Weinberg from 1997 available at The Consortium.
• Emagazine.com published an article in early '98 entitled WIPP Lash: Doubts Linger About a Controversial Underground Nuclear Waste Storage Site, including input from the usual WIPP personalities.
• Forbes Magazine published an October '98 article entitled "How Carlsbad Got WIPPed" that upset some of its citizens.
• Colorado All States Transportation currently has the contract to ship TRU waste to WIPP.
• Tri-State Motor Transit is the second contractor for shipping WIPP waste.
• Some citizens are concerned about the rigor of testing performed on radioactive waste transportation packages such as the TRUPACT-II, especially the relatively low speed of the impact test. Sandia's "Safety of Radioactive Material Transportation" is a site with photos and movies depicting the manner in which such containers are tested.
• Wendell Weart of Sandia Labs managed the scientific investigations at WIPP for the DOE for nearly a quarter century. This April '99 Sandia story reviews the history of their involvement and ponders what to do for an encore.
• Charles Hyder is a New Mexico activist and author who started a "terminal fast" protesting the opening of WIPP on March 25, 1999. Despite claims that it would remain open "over my dead body," he finally broke his fast after nearly three months.
• Order a video entitled "Military Nuclear Mess: Out of Sight, Out of Mind?" for only $19 from the Center for Defense Information. Look at the bottom of this page for links to transcripts of interviews with various WIPP personalities conducted in November 1998.
• The Carlsbad Environmental Monitoring & Research Center (CEMRC) is conducting an Environmental Monitoring Project at WIPP.
• "WIPP - The Two Percent Solution" is an articulate editorial from April '99 opposing WIPP, while another reader's response is an equally articulate counterpoint identifying the fallacies and lack of critical thinking in the first editorial.
• Waste Management Symposium are an annual gathering for government and industry types dealing with nuclear waste management issues. Each year offers abstracts and full texts of presentations related to WIPP. Search the WM Symposia Archives for "WIPP" in the available years provided.
• The Nuclear Guardianship Forum promotes the responsible care of radioactive materials with a series of essays. The Nuclear Guardianship Library contains some of the same essays plus additional information.
• Richard Hayes Phillips and David Snow have promoted the presence of widespread karst at the WIPP site. In 2005, John Lorenz of Sandia National Laboratory (the scientific advisor to DOE) assessed the potential for karst and concluded its proponents "tend to mix data, to take data out of context, and to offer theory as fact. They do not analyze the data or synthesize it into a rigorous, mutually supporting framework. They assume that the existence of an anomaly rather than the specific characteristics of that anomaly proves the existence of intra-stratal karst in the Rustler Formation. In most cases, the interpretations of karst offered are non-unique interpretations of data for which more plausible interpretations exist." In EPA's 2006 recertification decision, they also published a technical support document, "Evaluation of Karst at the WIPP Site", which concluded that there is no evidence that dissolution is pervasive or has led to connected pathways, that karst is unlikely to be present or form at a later date at the WIPP site, and that here are no indications that high-angle dissolution features connect all of the Rustler members and Dewey Lake.
  
• ... and finally: In 1998, a man pleaded no contest to bilking at least a dozen people in New Mexico out of $15,000 by selling them "California Red Superworms" that he claimed would "eat nuclear waste" at WIPP.

News - Try some of these newspapers and other resources to find recent stories about WIPP (search on "waste isolation pilot" for best results):

• See what's happening in Congress - search the Congressional Record or the text of current legislation.
• Use this Google News Search for WIPP stories.
  
• The Albuquerque Journal lets you search for on-line WIPP stories for free (requires a paid subscription to read articles).
• The Albuquerque Tribune doesn't charge to view WIPP stories but it's hard to identify the subject.
  
• The http://www.santafenewmexican.com/ has a built-in Google search.
  
• The Carlsbad Current-Argus is the local paper with excellent coverage, and now has search capabilities.
• The Las Vegas Sun has WIPP stories, often with some connection to Yucca Mountain.
• The Amarillo Globe-News has an extensive archive of stories available from the search box on the front page.
• The New York Times has a search for stories on their web site, with free summaries but you pay for downloading full stories. The NY Times requires a free registration.