LANL Ships Sealed Plutonium Sources To WIPP
The small size and portability of the sealed sources make them susceptible to improper disposal, misuse and theft. Certain sealed sources contain materials that could be used to make dirty bombs. The radioactive material, if dispersed, poses a threat to human health, safety and the environment. In order to address these concerns DOE recovers unwanted sealed sources and stores them at LANL. DOE estimates that it will recover over 14,000 sources by 2010, with many remaining in use.
When LANL began recovering unwanted sealed sources in 1979, they planed for a facility dedicated to the permanent disposal of the radioactive materials. However, such a facility has never been built. Instead, the sealed sources were stored at various sites at LANL. Its storage capacity is now full and DOE has sent some of the sealed sources to the Nevada Test Site for temporary storage. To solve this problem, DOE has begun to permanently dispose of some sealed sources at WIPP.
WIPP is a facility designed to dispose of nuclear weapons waste. Most sealed sources are used for commercial purposes, and therefore are not a part of WIPP's original defense mission. In 2004, DOE requested that the WIPP permit be modified to allow for disposal of the sealed Plutonium-239 sources, which were classified as defense-related. However, there is no permanent disposal plan for the many other types of sealed sources.
Proponents of disposing of the sealed sources at WIPP say that space limitations have halted their collection and that permanent disposal at WIPP is needed to allow for recovery to continue. They say that the disposal must be immediate so as to prevent terrorists from stealing the radioactive materials. Activists are concerned that allowing sealed Plutonium-239 sources to be disposed of at WIPP will open the door for the rest of the recovered sealed sources and other kinds of waste, which were not included in WIPP's original mission.
Recently there have been other attempts for expanding the mission of WIPP. DOE has requested to modify the WIPP permit, to allow for the disposal of remote handled waste among other changes. Remote handled waste is too radioactive for workers to approach and must be handled by machines.
In Idaho there has been debate about where and how to dispose of the nuclear waste from the Idaho Nuclear Technology and Engineering Center tank farm. The waste is currently in liquid form and DOE intends to convert it to a powder or ceramic form. Some citizens are concerned that the waste will remain on-site. However, Brad Bugger, a DOE spokesperson, recently indicated DOE's intention to dispose of the waste at WIPP. Other DOE employees expressed their concerns by saying, "DOE is assuming they can change all the rules." |
