NOTICE: The project that is the subject of this report was approved by the Governing Board of the National Research Council, whose members are drawn from the councils of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine. The members of the committee responsible for the report were chosen for their special competencies and with regard for appropriate balance.
This report has been reviewed by a group other than the authors according to procedures approved by a Report Review Committee consisting of members of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine.
Support for this study on the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant was provided by the U.S. Department of Energy, under Grant No. DE-FC01-94EW54069. All opinions, findings, conclusions, and recommendations expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Department of Energy.
Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 96-68944
International Standard Book Number 0-309-05491-5
Additional copies of this report are available from:
National Academy Press
2101 Constitution Avenue, N.W. Box 285 Washington, DC 20055 800-624-6242 202-334-3313 (in the Washington Metropolitan Area) http://www.nap.edu
Cover: Federal regulations require calculations to show that the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP), if certified as a transuranic radioactive waste repository, is expected to isolate waste from the environment for the next ten millennia. Current plans call for the erection on site of permanent markers containing signs and symbols, intended as decipherable messages to warn future generations of the dangers to nature and to human health of digging into a filled and sealed repository below the surface.
Coincidentally, ten millennia is also the approximate age of the earliest known pottery from Asia. One millennium ago, a now-extinct Indian tribe, the Mimbres, lived in Arizona and New Mexico. The cover shows a Mimbres pottery design, perhaps representing the delicate balance of nature, using a man and two animals in a mobile arrangement. The Mimbres design is used by permission from Art of a Vanished Race: The Mimbres Classic Black-On-White, by Victor M. Giammattei and Nanci Greer Reichert, Published by Dillon Tyler, Publishers, P.O. Box 645, Calistoga, CA 94515.
The background photograph, provided by the Department of Energy Carlsbad Area Office, shows a close-up of a sample of Permian age salt crystals taken from the WIPP excavations. The permanence of the geologic salt formation (over 200 million years old) is an attractive feature of the WIPP site and illustrates the exceptional time scales of concern in nuclear repository design, time scales that extend well beyond the typical duration of most engineering projects, languages, and civilizations.
Copyright 1996 by the National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America
COMMITTEE ON THE WASTE ISOLATION PILOT PLANT
CHARLES FAIRHURST, Chair,
University of Minnesota, Minneapolis
HOWARD ADLER,
Oxyrase, Incorporated, Knoxville, Tennessee
JOHN O. BLOMEKE,
Oak Ridge National Laboratory (retired), Tennessee
SUE B. CLARK,
Washington State University, Pullman
FRED ERNSBERGER,
University of Florida, Gainesville
RODNEY C. EWING,
University of New Mexico, Albuquerque
B. JOHN GARRICK,
PLG, Inc., Newport Beach, California
LEONARD F. KONIKOW,
U.S. Geological Survey, Reston, Virginia
KONRAD B. KRAUSKOPF,
Stanford University (emeritus), California
DELLA ROY,
Pennsylvania State University (emerita), University Park
DAVID A. WAITE,
CH2M Hill, Bellevue, Washington
CHRIS G. WHIPPLE,
ICF Kaiser Engineers, Oakland, California
THOMAS A. ZORDAN,
Zordan Associates, Murrysville, Pennsylvania
Staff
INA B. ALTERMAN, Senior Staff Officer
ROBERT S. ANDREWS, Senior Staff Officer and Study Director (through December 1995)
THOMAS KIESS, Staff Officer and Study Director (beginning December 1995)
REBECCA BURKA, Senior Project Assistant
DENNIS DUPREE, Senior Project Assistant
ANGELA R. TAYLOR, Project Assistant
ERIKA L. WILLIAMS, Project Assistant
DONNA J. AHRENS, Consultant
BOARD ON RADIOACTIVE WASTE MANAGEMENT
MICHAEL C. KAVANAUGH, Chair,
ENVIRON Corporation, Emeryville, California
B. JOHN GARRICK, Vice-Chair,
PLG, Incorporated, Newport Beach, California
JOHN F. AHEARNE,
Sigma Xi and Duke University, The Scientific Research Society, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina
JEAN M. BAHR,
University of Wisconsin, Madison
SOL BURSTEIN,
Wisconsin Electric Power (retired), Milwaukee
ANDREW P. CAPUTO,
Natural Resources Defense Council, Washington, D.C.
MELVIN W. CARTER,
Georgia Institute of Technology (emeritus), Atlanta
PAUL P. CRAIG,
University of California (emeritus), Davis
MARY R. ENGLISH,
University of Tennessee, Knoxville
ROBERT D. HATCHER, JR.,
University of Tennessee/Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Knoxville
DARLEANE C. HOFFMAN,
Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, Berkeley, California
JAMES JOHNSON,
Howard University, Washington, D.C.
CHARLES McCOMBIE,
National Cooperative for the Disposal of Radioactive Waste, Wettingen, Switzerland
H. ROBERT MEYER,
Keystone Scientific, Inc., Fort Collins, Colorado
PRISCILLA P. NELSON,
University of Texas, Austin
D. KIRK NORDSTROM,
U.S. Geological Survey, Boulder, Colorado
D. WARNER NORTH,
Decision Focus, Incorporated, Mountain View, California
PAUL SLOVIC,
Decision Research, Eugene, Oregon
BENJAMIN L. SMITH, Independent Consultant,
Columbia, Tennessee
Staff
KEVIN D. CROWLEY, Director
ROBERT S. ANDREWS, Senior Staff Officer
KARYANIL T. THOMAS, Senior Staff Officer
THOMAS KIESS, Staff Officer
SUSAN B. MOCKLER, Research Associate
LISA J. CLENDENING, Administrative Assistant
ROBIN L. ALLEN, Senior Project Assistant
REBECCA BURKA, Senior Project Assistant
DENNIS L. DUPREE, Senior Project Assistant
PATRICIA A. JONES, Project Assistant
ANGELA R. TAYLOR, Project Assistant
ERIKA L. WILLIAMS, Project Assistant
COMMISSION ON GEOSCIENCES, ENVIRONMENT, AND RESOURCES
GEORGE M. HORNBERGER (Chairman),
University of Virginia, Charlottesville
PATRICK R. ATKINS,
Aluminum Company of America, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
JAMES P. BRUCE,
Canadian Climate Program Board, Ottawa, Ontario
WILLIAM L. FISHER,
University of Texas, Austin
JERRY F. FRANKLIN,
University of Washington, Seattle
DEBRA KNOPMAN,
Progressive Foundation, Washington, D.C.
PERRY L. MCCARTY,
Stanford University, California
JUDITH E. MCDOWELL,
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Massachusetts
S. GEORGE PHILANDER,
Princeton University, New Jersey
RAYMOND A. PRICE,
Queen's University at Kingston, Ontario
THOMAS C. SCHELLING,
University of Maryland, College Park
ELLEN SILBERGELD,
University of Maryland Medical School, Baltimore
STEVEN M. STANLEY,
The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland
VICTORIA J. TSCHINKEL,
Landers and Parsons, Tallahassee, Florida
Staff
STEPHEN RATTIEN, Executive Director
STEPHEN D. PARKER, Associate Executive Director
MORGAN GOPNIK, Assistant Executive Director
GREGORY SYMMES, Reports Officer
JAMES MALLORY, Administrative Officer
SANDI FITZPATRICK, Administrative Associate
MARQUITA SMITH, PC Analyst & Project Assistant
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Acknowledgments
The committee has spent countless hours over the more than ten years since its last full report on WIPP, in discussions with staff from DOE and its contractors, EPA, officials of the State of New Mexico, the Environmental Evaluation Group, community leaders from Carlsbad, and concerned citizens. In open meetings held several times a year for more than a decade, the committee has heard a wide diversity of views on WIPP.
Genuine concerns have been expressed without rancor or polemics, but with conviction and unfailing courtesy. This is a tribute to the community involved in and concerned about WIPP. For the committee, and particularly the chair, it has been a privilege to have participated in these discussions. We sincerely appreciate all of the information and insights gained and hope that our report will be of value in arriving at an appropriate decision on the proposal to establish a TRU waste site at WIPP.
The committee thanks the many anonymous reviewers who painstakingly read and criticized our report, which has benefitted considerably from their efforts.
Finally, we wish to express our appreciation to staff colleagues of the National Research Council's Board on Radioactive Waste Management, both past and present, who have done much to assist the committee in its task. Particular thanks are due to Tom Kiess, Angela Taylor, and Erika Williams, without whose efforts the report would not have been completed.
Charles Fairhurst, Chair
October 1996
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