{"id":35197,"date":"2022-09-15T06:00:13","date_gmt":"2022-09-15T11:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/?p=35197"},"modified":"2022-09-16T15:04:37","modified_gmt":"2022-09-16T20:04:37","slug":"to-see-what-oklahoma-could-do-with-nuclear-waste-stateimpact-goes-underground","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/2022\/09\/15\/to-see-what-oklahoma-could-do-with-nuclear-waste-stateimpact-goes-underground\/","title":{"rendered":"Where should we put our country&#8217;s nuclear waste? StateImpact Oklahoma goes underground to find out"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"width: 100%; height: 200px; margin-bottom: 20px; border-radius: 6px; overflow: hidden;\"><iframe style=\"width: 100%; height: 200px;\" src=\"https:\/\/player.captivate.fm\/episode\/a09c82f9-c116-4544-a569-92ea9dd52a1c\" frameborder=\"no\" scrolling=\"no\" seamless=\"\"><\/iframe><\/div><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">More than 2,000 feet underground in Carlsbad, New Mexico, sits the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP).\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Past numerous airlocks, through dimly lit shafts and around piles of shimmering salt crystals, the WIPP permanently houses transuranic waste from around the country. Transuranic waste includes contaminated objects like clothing, tools and equipment from other nuclear facilities.<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">WIPP is the country\u2019s only deep geological repository for nuclear waste of any kind \u2014 the U.S. doesn\u2019t have a permanent repository for high level waste like spent nuclear fuel . But its other claim to fame is it\u2019s also a case study in \u201cconsent-based siting,\u201d which is the practice of getting community buy-in for nuclear storage sites.<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The facility employs over a thousand people, making it the second-biggest employer in Carlsbad. And while it\u2019s often held up as a <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.osti.gov\/servlets\/purl\/1301973\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">prime example of community engagement<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u2014 especially with its ability to garner federal infrastructure grants and a commitment to giving the state $600 million over 30 years \u2014 it still took 28 years of lawsuits and negotiations before the site was operational.<\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_35198\"  class=\"wp-caption module image aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 672px;\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-image-35198 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2022\/09\/WIPP-2-672x448.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"672\" height=\"448\" srcset=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2022\/09\/WIPP-2-672x448.png 672w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2022\/09\/WIPP-2-1920x1280.png 1920w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2022\/09\/WIPP-2-768x512.png 768w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2022\/09\/WIPP-2-1536x1024.png 1536w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2022\/09\/WIPP-2-2048x1365.png 2048w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2022\/09\/WIPP-2-150x100.png 150w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2022\/09\/WIPP-2-300x200.png 300w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2022\/09\/WIPP-2-620x413.png 620w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2022\/09\/WIPP-2-1620x1080.png 1620w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 672px) 100vw, 672px\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Nathan J Fish\/Las Cruces Sun-News<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">A sign warning of radioactive material is pictured in a geological repository, U.S. Department of Energy&#8217;s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, storing transuranic radioactive waste in the desert between Hobbs and Carlsbad on Tuesday, Aug. 17, 2021.<\/p>\n<\/div><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Adrian Hedden, an energy and environment reporter at the Carlsbad Current-Argus, has been covering the WIPP since 2016. He said while activists from communities like Albuquerque and Santa Fe often travel down to southeastern New Mexico to oppose the facility, Carlsbad residents tend to be supportive.\u00a0<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cFrom what I can tell, local government officials, city officials, county officials are pretty much supportive of what WIPP has done here safely since 1999,\u201d Hedden said. \u201c[WIPP supporters\u2019] argument is that it\u2019s safe\u2026 it creates jobs, it\u2019s an economic benefit for the community, and also, that it\u2019s fulfilling [the community\u2019s] patriotic duty to deal with nuclear waste.\u201d<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Data from surveys conducted from 1990-2001 and presented by Sandia National Laboratories indicate that proximity to the WIPP facility, as well as proximity to WIPP transportation routes, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.osti.gov\/servlets\/purl\/1301973\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">increases the level of community acceptance<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.\u00a0<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Now, a $3 million research project led by the University of Oklahoma\u2019s Institute for Public Policy Research is aiming to develop a new framework for consent-based interim siting of spent nuclear fuel. As the nation\u2019s nuclear waste storage crisis becomes increasingly more imminent, researchers hope they can craft policy that will incentivize communities to volunteer themselves as interim storage sites. For example, a hosting community could receive a new hospital or school, new energy infrastructure or a national state-of-the-art lab that provides high-paying jobs.\u00a0<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Kuhika Gupta, associate director at OU\u2019s Institute for Public Policy Research and lead investigator on the project, said the research hopes to address the imminent problem of spent nuclear fuel storage. About 2,000 metric tons of spent fuel are generated every year, and Gupta said because of the lack of a permanent waste facility, most of that waste is stored on-site at operating or decommissioned nuclear power plants.<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cSo the core issue of what this proposal and project is getting at is helping solve a policy problem that has been stagnant in the U.S. now for decades \u2014 which is finding a solution for safely storing and eventually disposing of spent nuclear fuel,\u201d Gupta said. \u201cBut essentially, it\u2019s a very temporary solution.\u201d<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Gupta said the federal government has long approached nuclear siting as something public policy researchers call \u201cdecide, announce, defend.\u201d It decides where the facility will go, it announces the decision, and then it defends that decision against opposition. She said instead, the government should focus its conversations on what communities stand to gain from housing these sites and putting the power of decision back in the hands of the communities, even if it means ultimately rejecting the facility.<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cIf these communities don\u2019t want future facilities or future associations with nuclear, [the DOE needs] to respect that,\u201d Gupta said.<\/span><\/p><p><b>\u2018The U.S. is stuck in a mess of its own making\u2019<\/b><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In 1987, Congress amended the Nuclear Waste Policy Act to designate Yucca Mountain in Nevada as the country\u2019s first deep geological repository to permanently house spent nuclear fuel and other high-level radioactive waste. But decades of opposition over environmental, safety and religious concerns have kept the site from becoming operational.<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Until a permanent disposal site for high-level waste can be sited and constructed, the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/markets\/commodities\/biden-renews-hunt-willing-hosts-nuclear-waste-storage-sites-2021-11-30\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Biden administration instead wants to focus on creating interim storage sites<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. Gupta\u2019s team at OU is aiming to expand a network of interim storage sites that will be in operation from 50-100 years. But some see the proliferation of interim storage as kicking the nuclear can down the road.<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Cindy Vestergaard, senior fellow and director with the Stimson Center\u2019s Nuclear Safeguards and Blockchain in Practice Programs, said the responsibility of dealing with nuclear waste lies with the federal government, but with no permanent solution, the DOE is \u201cjust moving the problem.\u201d<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cThe U.S. is stuck in a mess of its own making,\u201d Vestergaard said.<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Vestergaard said what separates the U.S. from other countries in terms of nuclear storage is which entity is ultimately responsible for it. Whereas nuclear energy falls under the purview of the federal government in the U.S., Vestergaard said shifting that responsibility to industry makes the process more efficient.<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cThat\u2019s one of the biggest challenges right there, because it\u2019s very difficult to do consent-based siting,\u201d Vestergaard said. \u201cOddly enough, from the government side, particularly when it\u2019s coming from an organization like the Department of Energy in the United States that doesn\u2019t have a lot of trust in terms of public trust. And that\u2019s because of a long history on that side.\u201d<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">While the U.S. isn\u2019t alone in its storage crisis, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.stimson.org\/2020\/spent-nuclear-fuel-storage-and-disposal\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">other countries are much closer to finding permanent storage solutions<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> for high-level nuclear waste. Finland, Sweden, France and Switzerland are working toward constructing high-level waste deep geological repositories, with Finland\u2019s expected to open around 2025.\u00a0<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sam Brinton, the newly appointed deputy assistant secretary for Spent Fuel and Waste Disposition in the Office of Nuclear Energy at the DOE, acknowledged interim siting is a stop-gap measure. But they said studying the process of consent-based siting with interim facilities will be able to inform consent-based siting of an eventual permanent facility.<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cWhat we are learning in this project will be helping us actually site a disposal facility in the future because it will be helping us learn in the present on how to site a storage facility,\u201d Brinton said. \u201cMy hope is that in my tenure\u2026 we will have a disposal facility to safely and securely manage our nuclear waste \u2014 and in the order of decades, not centuries.\u201d<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But given the lack of movement on siting a permanent high-level waste disposal facility in the U.S., critics are concerned that even though the interim sites are only supposed to be operational for 50-100 years, there won\u2019t be anywhere for the spent fuel to go after that time is up.<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cYou could argue that the government will be responsible and therefore will make sure that there will be a [permanent storage] repository,\u201d Brinton said. \u201cCan you do that with 100% certainty? No\u2026 I think there\u2019s no one who could ever promise something entirely. But these [interim storage sites] are not going to be de facto repositories, because as we are successful in siting a storage facility, we will be gaining confidence that we are also able to then site a repository.\u201d<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Erica Bickford, acting director of the Office of Integrated Waste Management for Spent Fuel and Waste Disposition at the DOE, said even though obtaining community volunteers to house nuclear waste seems like it could be difficult, she\u2019s optimistic. She said communities have already reached out expressing interest in the project.<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cI think there is generally a lot of skepticism that there will be, in fact, communities wanting to volunteer to host these sites,\u201d Bickford said. \u201cSo that gives us a little bit of confidence that if we do this right, when the time comes, we will have hopefully many communities willing to at least engage in the process and consider becoming host communities both for interim storage and then eventually disposal facilities as well.\u201d<\/span><\/p><p><b>Community buy-in amid a complicated backdrop of nuclear history<\/b><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In 1970, the Sequoyah Fuels Corporation began operations as a uranium conversion facility in Vian. The plant <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pmc\/articles\/PMC1963288\/'\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">shut down in 1993<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> after two plant accidents killed one worker and left dozens of others injured, as well as years of environmental and nuclear safety violations.\u00a0<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Cherokee Nation Tribal Councilman E.O. Smith worked at the plant in his 20s. He said the company gave the community an economic boost by providing good wages and job benefits like medical coverage. Smith said the decision to close the facility cost many residents their livelihoods.\u00a0<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cI just wish they hadn\u2019t have shut it down,\u201d Smith said. \u201cI wish they would\u2019ve gotten stricter on their policies. I hated to see them shut it down because it hurt the economy around here so bad, and everybody lost their jobs.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_35200\"  class=\"wp-caption module image alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 672px;\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-35200\" src=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2022\/09\/IMG_9765-672x405.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"672\" height=\"405\" srcset=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2022\/09\/IMG_9765-672x405.jpg 672w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2022\/09\/IMG_9765-1920x1157.jpg 1920w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2022\/09\/IMG_9765-768x463.jpg 768w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2022\/09\/IMG_9765-1536x925.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2022\/09\/IMG_9765-150x90.jpg 150w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2022\/09\/IMG_9765-300x181.jpg 300w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2022\/09\/IMG_9765-620x374.jpg 620w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2022\/09\/IMG_9765-1793x1080.jpg 1793w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2022\/09\/IMG_9765-560x338.jpg 560w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2022\/09\/IMG_9765.jpg 2000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 672px) 100vw, 672px\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Beth Wallis\/StateImpact Oklahoma<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Sequoyah Fuels Corporation is located in Vian, Oklahoma. The plant has been nonoperational since 1993.<\/p>\n<\/div><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Throughout the life of the plant, it <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nrc.gov\/info-finder\/decommissioning\/uranium\/sequoyah-fuels-corporation-sfc.html\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">contaminated soil and groundwater<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> around the site with uranium, thorium and metals. It wasn\u2019t until 2018 that the Cherokee Nation was able to <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cherokeephoenix.org\/news\/cn-state-and-gore-officials-celebrate-nuclear-waste-site-cleanup\/article_20695f9b-db54-553c-8769-a33dd5fb31dc.html'\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">finish removing<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> the most hazardous nuclear waste from the site.\u00a0<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Smith said he doesn\u2019t see Vian volunteering to be one of the host communities for the DOE\u2019s interim siting project.\u00a0<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cI don\u2019t. I really don\u2019t,\u201d Smith said. \u201cI don\u2019t think [the opposition to volunteer Vian for siting] would ever get wild and crazy, but I just don\u2019t think it could be put to a vote\u2026 I don\u2019t think it\u2019d go through.\u201d<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In towns like Vian, nuclear siting may be a tough sell. Sam Brinton said it\u2019s important to remember the decades of harm that\u2019s been done to communities in the past in the name of nuclear energy.<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cIt is critical to recognize that historically, consent-based siting has not been used,\u201d Brinton said. \u201cAnd this has led to some truly difficult situations when it comes to the communities that nuclear has been engaged with. (&#8230;) We should allow a community to participate based on the risks and benefits that they are willing to [take]. (&#8230;) We do not want to be creating a situation where communities will not be able to receive the benefits because we have predetermined that they are at a greater risk.\u201d<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Safety technology and standards for nuclear storage have advanced dramatically over the last few decades. But according to Aditi Verma, assistant professor in the Department of Nuclear Engineering and Radiological Sciences at the University of Michigan, who is also working on the OU-led research project, that doesn\u2019t mean safety concerns in communities should be dismissed.<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cThe goal of this is not just one-way dialogue to just convince people that it\u2019s safe, but also how we think about safety, and then bring in the community perspective about what would safety mean to them, and find a way to design that facility that speaks to the community discussions as well,\u201d Verma said.<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In the first year of the project, the team plans to identify a hypothetical host community, recruit community members and collaborate with them through workshops. In year two, the team plans to conduct expert workshops, relaying what it\u2019s learned from community workshops and national surveys.<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cIn a big challenge to these technical experts, the drawing board doesn\u2019t start from making a facility now safe and cost effective,\u201d Kuhika Gupta said. \u201cThe drawing board starts from, \u2018here\u2019s what the community says, and right now, what are the attributes that fit into what these communities are bringing up?\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In its third and final year, the team plans to hold a co-design workshop in which community members and technical experts would come together to design a facility.\u00a0<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Brinton said the project underscores the federal government\u2019s overdue obligation to safely and securely manage nuclear waste in a way that not only avoids community harm, but provides community benefits. And while they\u2019re hopeful about potential outcomes, they acknowledge it could be a long road ahead.\u00a0<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cThis is not a perfect science. It is an art and a science,\u201d Brinton said. \u201cIt is negotiation, it\u2019s psychological, and it is emotional. There\u2019s a lot to this process that makes it complex. But I feel confident that we will be able to prevail because it\u2019s the right thing to do. And by doing the right thing, you will, in the end, be successful.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>More than 2,000 feet underground in Carlsbad, New Mexico, sits the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP).\u00a0\u00a0Past numerous airlocks, through dimly lit shafts and around piles of shimmering salt crystals, the WIPP permanently houses transuranic waste from around the country. Transuranic waste includes contaminated objects like clothing, tools and equipment from other nuclear facilities.WIPP is the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":216,"featured_media":35199,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[492,490,491,16],"tags":[1454,1450,1451,1452,1453],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35197"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/216"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35197"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35197\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35208,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35197\/revisions\/35208"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}