Wipp
No send it to us in New Mexico we need more radioactive sand at the Trinity site or they could ship it to the Carlsbad WIPP site you already have a bunch of Nuclear powerplants and Idaho is on an earthquake riff. If not they could use it to make the cement and mortar for the wall between the US and Mexico..
They had one of their DOE semi trucks wreck here in NM fortunately they didn't spill radioactive contents.
The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) site is located 26 miles southeast of Carlsbad, New Mexico in an area known as Los Medanos ("the dunes"). This area of New Mexico is relatively flat and is used primarily for grazing. Potash mining and oil exploration and production are quite prevalent in the area. Fewer than 50 people live within 10 miles surrounding the WIPP site and only 50,000 live in the entire county.
WIPP is essentially a very sophisticated salt mine designed for the permanent disposal of transuranic wastes (or TRU wastes) generated from defense-related activities (i.e., research and development of nuclear weapons). The repository itself is 2,150 feet (655 meters) below the surface of the earth in the Salado Formation. If certified for waste disposal, waste will be placed in tunnels and chambers dug by state-of-the-art mining methods located in a 3,000-foot-thick salt formation at 1,250 feet above sea level and 2,150 feet below the surface.
WHY SALT? In 1956, the National Academy of Sciences recommended salt formations as a suitable medium to permanently dispose of radioactive wastes. The salt formation was selected because of its "plastic" nature -- it creeps under pressure. The idea behind disposal in a salt mine relies on the underground pressures to cause the salt to close in on the waste and seal it in the underground rooms, rendering the waste immobile. The site near Carlsbad was selected for exploration in 1974. Excavation began in 1982. Four shafts allow access and ventilation to the mine.
Aerial Photo of WIPP's above-ground facilities. The above-ground complex at the WIPP facility includes a waste handling building where the waste will be unloaded from TRUPACTs and inventoried, inspected and prepared for disposal.
US Dept. of Energy Suspends Atomic Waste Train to Idaho Due to Terrorist Threat. This stuff had a higher level of radioactive contamination the the Kuwaiti sand box sand.
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has agreed with the objections of numerous environmental and public interest groups, suspending a planned transcontinental train shipment of high-level atomic waste due to concern about possible terrorist attacks. The atomic waste train scheduled to carry 125 highly radioactive nuclear fuel assemblies from West Valley, New York through ten states to Idaho has now been postponed until at least April 1, 2002. It would have been one of the largest single shipments of commercial irradiated nuclear fuel in U.S. history, according to DOE spokesman John Chamberlain.
"Actions speak louder than words, so although DOE will not admit it publicly, it's clear the West Valley shipment was suspended due to terrorism and security concerns," said Kevin Kamps of Nuclear Information & Resource Service (NIRS). "We're relieved DOE has recognized the extreme danger this proposed shipment would have created and chose instead to suspend the shipment. But the threat such shipments pose is not going to go away in a few months. Proposals for shipping tens of thousands of high-level radioactive waste containers by train and truck through 43 States past the homes of 50 million Americans to national dumpsites in Utah and Nevada must be re-examined in light of the potential for terrorist attacks."
Last summer, NIRS hauled a full-size replica atomic waste transport container along the actual West Valley shipment route through NY, PA, OH, IN, IL, MO, KS, NE, WY, and ID, educating the public about the dangers of nuclear waste transportation.
According to sources closely following the shipment's status, the twin 20 foot-long, dumbbell-shaped metallic atomic waste containers were scheduled to leave DOE's West Valley Demonstration Project near Buffalo as early as mid-September, but that was before Sept. 11. Due to concerns about additional potential terrorist attacks, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham suspended DOE nuclear waste and materials shipments the day after 9/11. But DOE began lifting that suspension just a couple weeks later, raising the possibility that the West Valley shipment might still roll by the end of October. Because metal gaskets on the two containers have not been certified for cold weather conditions, DOE had agreed to deliver the shipment to its Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory no later than Oct. 31 in order to avoid encountering extreme low temperatures.
DOE reinstituted its suspension of nuclear waste shipments on Oct. 7, due to concerns of potential reprisal attacks in response to the beginning of U.S. military action in Afghanistan that day. Despite this, DOE's West Valley site director Alice Williams told the Buffalo News on Oct. 16 that the nuclear train might still roll by the end of the month despite on-going national terrorist threats. However, the very next day, orders were sent to Williams from DOE headquarters in Washington explicitly suspending the shipment until next spring, according to an Oct. 19 Buffalo News article. The two containers will now be off-loaded from the on-site railcars, where they sat outdoors since May, and will spend the winter inside the West Valley facility.
"Energy Secretary Abraham's decision to halt this high-level nuclear waste shipment, not once, not twice, but three times clearly shows that the Energy Department itself acknowledges atomic waste trains like this one are potential terrorist targets," said Tim Rinne, State Coordinator of Nebraskans for Peace.
"Attorney General John Ashcroft and the FBI have warned about additional terrorist attacks. Trucking firms and railroads have been put on highest alert against attacks upon hazardous and radiological shipments. Recently, airports around the Three Mile Island nuclear plant were shut down due to a terrorist threat. The DOE shipment ban should be extended indefinitely, and expanded to cover commercial high-level nuclear waste shipments as well," said Kay Drey of the Missouri Coalition for the Environment.
Despite the current shipment ban, Energy Secretary Abraham appears ready to give his thumbs up to the national high-level atomic waste dumpsite targeted at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. DOE closed its public comment period on the Yucca proposal Oct. 19, and has announced Abraham will make his recommendation to President Bush by the end of the year or early next year. In recent days, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) publicly announced its "concurrence" with DOE's Yucca Mountain siting guidelines, and in recent weeks finalized its own Yucca licensing regulations. At the same time, the NRC is reviewing a nuclear power industry license application to "temporarily store" all currently-existing irradiated fuel at the Skull Valley Goshute Indian reservation in Utah, which would launch 200 high-level atomic waste trains per year throughout the country as early as 2004.
"It is hypocritical for DOE to put the brakes on the West Valley shipment while rushing ahead to give its thumbs up to Yucca Mountain," said Dave Ritter, policy analyst at Public Citizen's Critical Mass Energy and Environment Program. "Approval of the Yucca Mountain repository proposal would launch tens of thousands of high-level atomic waste trucks and trains onto our roads and rails. Inadequately addressing potential terrorist threats to such shipments is rash, irresponsible, and reckless."
DOE studies show that 50 million Americans in 45 States live within a half mile of projected highway and train routes to Yucca Mountain.
Critics also point to an Aug. 27, 1998 letter written by Abraham, who was then a U.S. Senator from Michigan, to then-Energy Secretary Richardson regarding plutonium shipments. In the letter, Abraham wrote "I am sure you will agree that the ramifications of an accident are too serious to consider anything less than the very best emergency response preparedness." A copy of the letter is available from NIRS.
"Just as police and firefighters were on the front line of the 9/11 attacks, so would emergency responders be called upon to protect our communities in the event of an atomic waste transport accident or terrorist attack upon a shipment," said Chris Williams, executive director of Citizens Action Coalition of Indiana. "They need to be thoroughly trained and well equipped to deal with radiation emergencies, and not caught off-guard as our government agencies have been by the bio-terrorism attacks."
Critics have also called upon NRC to address terrorist threats to atomic waste transport containers. Commercial high-level atomic waste shipments, such as those to Carolina Power and Light's Shearon Harris reactor storage pools in North Carolina, have not been suspended despite the DOE ban.
In a Sept. 21 response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the NRC — responsible for regulating commercial and DOE high-level atomic waste transport containers and shipment safeguards -- admitted that "the capacity of shipping casks to withstand such a [large aircraft] crash has not been analyzed."
In June 1999 the State of Nevada filed a "Petition for Rulemaking" to the NRC, charging that safeguards against terrorist attacks on high-level radioactive waste shipments were woefully inadequate or non-existent. Nine state governments and the Western Governors Association endorsed the petition. Despite officially agreeing to act on the petition in Sept. 1999, the NRC has yet to do so. A copy of the petition is available from NIRS.
"Large scale movement of radioactive waste on the roads and rails would create tens of thousands of potential targets, in virtually any scenario a terrorist might choose, whether major metropolitan areas, suburbs, or the agricultural heartland, near schools, hospitals, or water supplies," said Corey Conn of Illinois-based Nuclear Energy Information Service.
