Shipment of Nuclear Waste to New Mexico Site Planned

Saying that it has complied with all safety and environmental requirements, the U.S. Department of Energy Thursday proposed shipping the first of an estimated 8,500 barrels of radioactive waste to the southeastern New Mexico repository selected as the nation’s first permanent nuclear disposal site.

But New Mexico Atty. Gen. Tom Udall said that he would try to stop the shipments by seeking a temporary restraining order in federal court.

Scheduled to begin late next week unless the courts intervene, the shipments would mark the beginning of a five-year test of the facility’s suitability as a nuclear disposal site.

A series of catacombs hollowed out of 2,100-foot-deep salt deposits beneath the desert near Carlsbad, N. M., the site was chosen because it has remained stable for an estimated 250 million years. Scientists believe that the chambers will close naturally, entombing the radioactive debris.

Assistant Secretary of the Interior David C. O’Neal signed an order Thursday transferring control of the 10,200-acre site to the Energy Department. Udall, however, claimed that the transfer was illegal and said that he would take the matter to court.

A land-transfer bill adopted by a House committee last June would pay New Mexico $20 million per year for the next four years and a lump sum of $200 million when the repository is declared operational. If the Administration succeeds in opening the facility without congressional approval, the state is to receive $20 million in impact assistance, plus $42 million for road improvements.

But Leo P. Duffy, director of the Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Restoration and Waste Management, said that the payments would be withheld if the state proceeds with a lawsuit.

Material to be stored in the facility includes refuse from nuclear weapons facilities contaminated by plutonium and other toxic materials generated in nuclear weapons production.