I have extracted the pictographs from a 1984 report to DOE. The eventual markers my carry different signs of warning, but the drawings reflect a concern that humans at some time in the future will drill into waste chambers. The WIPP site sits above a major petroleum reserve and is surrounded today by pumping oil wells, and government commisioned experts predict that several wells are likely to penetrate the repository.
The artists who created the pictographs have been creative.
For the danger from plutonium they used the international symbol of an environmental
biohazard, an icon which merges the sharp, curved blade of the death sickle
with multiple wings of the harpe (the harpe being part bird and part woman,
a foul, malign creature linked with allegories of death and self mutilation
and with the self-sacrifice that goes with weaponry - Cirlot's dictionary).
The pictographs relay a non-verbal message. For those unfamiliar with cross-sections through the earth, scene 1 (single dot) shows the repository beneath an underground aquifer. A water well has tappedinto the aquifer and irrigates crops in the field above.
