Watchdog groups oppose sending Hanford waste to New Mexico
Source: Tri-City Herald
Watchdog groups oppose sending Hanford waste to New Mexico
Published: March 27, 2013 Updated 30 minutes ago
By Annette Cary, Tri-City Herald
Sending up to 3.1 million gallons of radioactive waste to New Mexico for disposal is no solution to Hanford's leaking underground tanks, according to Hanford Challenge and two other groups focused on environmental issues.
Hanford Challenge of Seattle, the Southwest Research and Information Center of Albuquerque, N.M., and the Natural Resources Defense Council's nuclear program in Washington, D.C., have sent a joint letter to Energy Secretary Steven Chu.
A Department of Energy proposal to send some of Hanford's tank waste to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, or WIPP, near Carlsbad, N.M., is costly, unwise and illegal, said the letter.
Instead, DOE should be working to build sound tanks both to get waste out of leaking tanks and also to prepare to eventually feed the waste into the vitrification plant. That plant is being built to glassify up to 56 million gallons of radioactive waste left from the past production of weapons plutonium.
Read more: http://www.tri-cityherald.com/2013/03/27/2332119/watchdog-groups-oppose-sending.html#storylink=cpy