The Other WIPP
WIPP and nuclear waste disposal are hot political issues. A great deal of information is available from government agencies about the "Official WIPP" but not much is known about the "Other WIPP." DOE and EPA generally present a very positive view of WIPP, but there is another less positive side known mainly to geologists, hydrologists and engineers who worked on WIPP. Resistance to criticim increased as the project moved toward completion and advocates developed an "us" versus "them" mentality. For example, check out these items.
"VICTORY ANNOUNCED THE SHIPMENTS TO WIPP HAVE BEGUN"
The headline above appears on the WEB page of Informed scientists for Radiation (http://www.physics.isu.edu/radinf/index.html; linked to the Idaho State Univ. Health Physics Program). Nuclear advocates in that program seem to look upon WIPP as some sort of a battle to be won.
Wendell Weart, a physicist, was project director of WIPP at Sandia National Laboratories http://www.sandia.gov/LabNews/ When WIPP opened he had this to say:
"It was a moment of great elation. Then, after a couple of days, you realize that you've achieved the overriding, single-minded goal that you've worked toward for two-and-a-half decades, and as the elation beings to fade you start to ask 'What do we do for an encore?'" -- Wendell Weart on WIPP's opening, April 1999.
"WIPP's opening has shown that this nation has the guts to open a repository. It will make the next one a little easier." -- Wendell Weart, March 1999.
"Some oppose WIPP because they figure it's the soft underbelly of the nuclear issue. If you can prevent WIPP from ever beginning disposal operations, you will prevent nuclear power and you will prevent nuclear weapons." -- Wendell Weart, Albuquerque Journal, March 25, 1999.
Failure to solve the nuclear waste problem has slowed the development of nuclear power, at least in the US. With money, media, and Federal agencies overwhelmingly on their side, nuclear advocates seem to feel beleaguered in their quest for permanent unsupervised disposal. In contrast, opponents take a negative or more cautious view of permanent burial and have had few resources to help present their side of the case. Independent scientists, or anyone with the facts, will probably line up between the two views. Hopefully, wise decisions are somewhere in between. The information that follows is critical of certain aspects of WIPP. It is my intent to present a more complete picture than offered in government documents, and to show how haste and the single-minded push to develop WIPP have an economic and social cost.