EPA to Approve N.M. Hazardous Waste Storage

The Environmental Protection Agency will give its approval this week to storage of hazardous wastes in salt deposits deep underground in New Mexico, clearing what has been one major obstacle to the opening of an $800-million burial site for wastes from nuclear weapons plants, EPA sources said Sunday.

The EPA’s proposed clearance must be held open 90 days for public comment before the agency can issue a final order.

Weapons plants produce both hazardous and radioactive wastes. The EPA decision expected this week concerning the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Project near Carlsbad, N.M., would apply only to hazardous wastes. The site still awaits a decision that it can safely contain radioactive wastes for 10,000 years.

The long delay on opening the New Mexico site has created a crisis in the disposal of plutonium-contaminated wastes, particularly those from the Rocky Flats plant outside Denver, which makes triggers for nuclear warheads.

Disposal on land of hazardous wastes is sharply restricted by the Resource Recovery and Conservation Act of 1984, and the Energy Department petitioned the EPA for a special exemption.

If finally approved, the EPA order will permit the Energy Department to move toward experimental disposal of radioactive materials in chambers 2,150 feet under ground.

In June, Energy Secretary James D. Watkins has said he expects to set a date for opening the site to permanent disposal of nuclear garbage from the weapons installations.

At first scheduled to open in 1985, the project hit a succession of delays because of concerns raised by environmentalists and New Mexico officials. Some experts still maintain that it should not be opened before the mid-1990s.

Some 2 million cubic feet of the waste was temporarily stored at the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory, but Gov. Cecil D. Andrus stopped further shipments into Idaho in 1988, causing a pile-up at Rocky Flats.

At one time last year, that plant was within 90 days of reaching its on-site storage limit. The Bush Administration looked unsuccessfully for a governor who would accept the nuclear garbage.

Rocky Flats has since suspended operations to attend to serious safety problems having nothing to do with waste disposal.

In the meantime, officials have taken steps to cut the volume of waste produced and plan to install a garbage compactor so that the plant can continue storing trash on site until next year.

Earlier this year, Watkins told the National Governors’ Assn. that by the end of this month, the Energy Department will have disposed of 20 of the 22 items identified last year as requiring action before the New Mexico site could be opened.

In addition to final approval of the EPA proposal, the project awaits congressional action transferring the disposal site from the Department of the Interior to the Department of Energy.

Before routine shipments to the site begin, the Energy Department has proposed to move about 15,000 barrels of the waste material as a test run to check transport security and handling procedures.