New Mexico Geological Society Annual Spring Meeting — Abstracts

Geologists can draw valuable lessons from the two 2014 WIPP incidents and related “recovery” efforts to date. The continuing WIPP crisis ought to focus geologists’ attention on the risk spectrum of nuclear and radioactive processes in geologic time and space. Failure to understand and compare risk from a variety of radioactive and “non-radioactive” sources may otherwise doom prospects for future geologic repositories. Early investigations into the cause of the radiological release focused –without evidence and contrary to reasonable likelihood- on rock mechanical failure scenarios, when a violation of fairly elementary chemical safety precautions was the actual culprit. The radioactive contamination of portions of WIPP excavations then became the almost exclusive concern, while “simple” industrial and occupational risk from actual and proposed remediation efforts continues to be ignored. Thus far, there has been no truly independent and comprehensive (e.g., National Academy of Science or Engineering) review, evaluation, or oversight. This deficiency allows the owner and the operator of WIPP to rely on the expediency of compliance with regulations that were never imagined to cover contamination of an underground environment and that are founded on concepts not based on evidence but irrational fear, political perception, and professional empire preservation. Geologists are uniquely qualified to contribute to the resolution of these issues, but only if they assert the primacy of geology in all matters concerning geologic waste repositories. They must take back ownership of the basic idea of, and justification for, geologic repositories for dangerous -including radioactive- wastes, or the whole concept and its realization may face extinction.