Los Alamos cleanup funding reduced $40M in budget bill
The cut comes after a radioactive waste drum packaged by the lab ruptured in February while stored at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, the nation’s only deep geologic repository for nuclear waste, near Carlsbad.
The leak, the result of a hot chemical reaction in the drum, has shut down WIPP, and costs for reopening the facility have been estimated at as much as a half-billion dollars. Critics of the nation’s weapons complex argue that the total cost will actually be much more.
Last week, the state Environment Department fined LANL and WIPP, both federal Department of Energy facilities, $54 million for hazardous waste violations.
No specific cause for the WIPP leak has been confirmed, but a prominent theory focuses on wheat-based kitty litter that was mixed with nitrates in the transuranic waste drum as it was processed at Los Alamos, potentially causing the reaction that breached the container.
Meanwhile, the congressional budget bill would give WIPP a huge funding increase. Its budget would jump from $220 million to $320 million, to help with the post-leak remediation work.
http://www.abqjournal.com/510464/news/los-alamos-cleanup-funding-reduced-40m-in-budget-bill.html
The cut comes after a radioactive waste drum packaged by the lab ruptured in February while stored at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, the nation’s only deep geologic repository for nuclear waste, near Carlsbad.
The leak, the result of a hot chemical reaction in the drum, has shut down WIPP, and costs for reopening the facility have been estimated at as much as a half-billion dollars. Critics of the nation’s weapons complex argue that the total cost will actually be much more.
Last week, the state Environment Department fined LANL and WIPP, both federal Department of Energy facilities, $54 million for hazardous waste violations.
No specific cause for the WIPP leak has been confirmed, but a prominent theory focuses on wheat-based kitty litter that was mixed with nitrates in the transuranic waste drum as it was processed at Los Alamos, potentially causing the reaction that breached the container.
Meanwhile, the congressional budget bill would give WIPP a huge funding increase. Its budget would jump from $220 million to $320 million, to help with the post-leak remediation work.
http://www.abqjournal.com/510464/news/los-alamos-cleanup-funding-reduced-40m-in-budget-bill.html
Comments
But the managers are making so much money now it is unreal. Well worth it.