Ah, as Steve already told you, these supposedly generally applicable standards are not going to be used at Yucca Mountain, ah, because Yucca Mountain doesn’t fit the standards, so Congress mandated that the standards be rewritten. Ah, so they are being used, ah, in a form, and I’ll talk a little bit about how ah, at WIP. Um, where w—the concept is that we take wastes that are retrievably stored at various DOE nuclear weapons sites, you truck them across the country, put ‘em into a technically unsafe site in New Mexico, declare the problem solved and tell the folks in the state that the waste came from that their problem is solved and tell us in New Mexico that it’s safe enough—it meets the regulatory requirements.

So, that’s the concept we’re dealing with here. Ah, whereas WIP ah, WIP’s in---WIP is in Southeastern New Mexico. These are the major sites that are supposed to be sending waste to WIP. You can see this is—these are DOE guestimates. Ah, over 37,000 shipments to WIP over a 25 to 35 year period. Ah, the major sites are in Hanford O—Washington, Idaho, Rocky Flats near Colorado and Los Alamos, lesser amounts of waste from the Savannah River site and Oak Ridge, and then smaller yet amounts from [Mounden?] Ohio, Oregon near Chicago, the Nevada test site, and Lawrence Livermore Lab.

Ah, so this is how we consolidate and solve the problem, supposedly. In fact, in the last 25 years, the department of energy has spent 3 billion dollars to ah, develop this facility and to promote this facility. There isn’t any waste in the ground yet, and we’ll get to that one in a minute. Ah, a lot of people think that there is. Ah, a small example of the public relations efforts that we’ve had to deal with over the years is this, which you won’t be able to see. It looks like a s—small fly-swatter, ah, this is how we solve the problem, but interestingly, what it says—what the fly-swatter says—this is paid for by your tax money, by the way—"waste isolation pilot plant, Carlsbad, New Mexico, WIP, THE solution to nuclear pollution."

So that’s how it’s been advertised—it’s the solution to the problem—Well, let’s take a look at that, ah, statement, ah, and—and see to what extent it’s a solution, even if it works. Now this chart is going to be too—too small a number for people to read, but, ah, but there are some, ah, handouts that go with it, but let me just talk about a couple of bottom lines. This shows just the nuclear weapons waste—no commercial waste whatsoever, because

--because WIP’s not supposed to handle any commercial waste. It’s supposed to go to Yucca Mountain and other places. But this a—these are inventories by volume of the Department of Energy’s existing nuclear weapons waste, ah, at these various sites that I mentioned. The first two columns show one of them is wastes that are supposed to go to WIP, the so-called "stored contact handled" waste and the so-called "stored remote-handled waste" and then the next columns that you see are wastes that are not supposed to go to WIP.

Well, the bottom line is, down in the lower right hand corner, what’s supposed to go to WIP, "the solution to nuclear pollution?" Less than 2%. That Department of Energy—this is their existing waste—this is—this doesn’t include waste that’s going to come in the future—this is existing waste that’s less than 2% that’s supposed to go to WIP. And it’s really the solution to all these other sites’ problems. You notice that the site that sends the largest percentage of its waste to WIP is the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory, ah, 13% of their existing waste goes to WIP. That’s the solution. That’s what the Department of Energy calls the solution to the problem.

Ah, more importantly, from a health and safety standpoint, this column that talks about the—the buried [true?] waste over here, this is—this is the real trans-uranic waste problem. This is the—this is the trans-uranic waste that’s in the ground. It’s moving around, it’s uncontained. The Department of E—that’s two thirds of the existing trans-uranic waste—none of that’s supposed to go to WIP. So, WIP isn’t even a solution for the trans-uranic waste pro—problem, the cuto--the plutonium contaminator waste problem, let alone, being "THE solution to nuclear pollution."

So, how do we get—how did we get to this point? And I’m going to go back through a little bit of the history, ah, as you, if you listen carefully to what Steve said ah, you’ll—you’ll, ah, pick up some common points along the way. The genesis of WIP was in 1971, when the Atomic Energy Commission’s first declared radioactive waste repository, ah, WIP is the first, but it’s really not the first. The first one was in [Lyons?], Kansas. The Atomic Energy Commission decided in 1969 and 70 that they were going to put our nuclear weapons waste in a—in salt mines in [Lyons?] Kansas.

Well, after that site didn’t work out for a variety of technical reasons and political app—opposition, ah, the Atomic Energy Commission started looking around for some other place, and it, ah, fortuitously for the Atomic Energy Commission, found a few political leaders and business leaders in Carlsbad, New Mexico, that said "come bring it to our area, we’d like to get the federal dollars."

So that was in 1971. By 1976, ah, the time that ah, you heard President Ford declaring that ah, a solution was immanent, ah, the WIP site was chosen, ah, in New Mexico, ah, and let’s move on. DOE started moving on with, ah, activities, ah, at WIP, but they still hadn’t actually gotten underground, and so in 1979, Congress and—this should sound familiar—this is prior to Yucca Mountain, but the process should sound familiar. Congress in 1979 said, oh, WIP should be the site for defense trans-uranic waste, ah, no public participation, no independent licensing, no independent standards, no, ah, state ability to veto project. So, Congress made the decision. President Carter didn’t actually—to his credit—didn’t actually like the decision. He was trying to develop a more comprehensive strategy, so he said, "no, I won’t proceed with WIP."

So, we had a stalemate until the second day of the Reagan Administration in January of 1981, when the policy changed—the Carter policy changed and the decision was announced by the Department of Energy that they were going to proceed with WIP, that WIP would be open by 1986, and that by 1990, all of that waste that we saw at Idaho that’s supposed to come to WIP—by 1990, all of that Idaho waste was going to be at WIP. So that’s been the policy and that’s been the program and it’s obviously a great success, right? DOE declared a solution, no delays in making de—solutions. We heard this morning sometimes there are delays in—in deciding things. No, there wasn’t a delay—decision was made in 1981 and it hasn’t been able to be accomplished and we’ll go into a little bit of why it hasn’t been able to be accomplished.

Ah, but ah, let’s—let’s ah,--let’s see a little bit of New Mexico and s—and so if we can have some slides—ah, we start out, of course, not in New Mexico, ah, but in Idaho—famous place that has all this waste that’s going to be in the ground at WIP by 1990. And this is some of the waste that’s sitting in Idaho ready to go to WIP. Ah, the major difference here is that you can see these 55 gallon drums stacked ah, it’s 5, 6, 7 layers high. At WIP they’re only going to be stacked 3 high, so that’s going to improve the safety.

Um, let’s go on to the ah, next sa—slide, which shows ah, the kind of geologic situation ah, where—where WIP is. Ah, the WIP site is part of the Delaware basin, it’s a sub-basin of the [Permian?] basin—salt—[b…?] salt. Ah, and we’ll see in a minute why salt is considered a good idea. Ah, a couple of things you should notice—what runs right through the, ah, Delaware basin is the [Pacos?] River. Ah, contamination from WIP—groundwater contamination from WIP goes into the Pacos River, ah, which is used for agricultural purposes in Texas. This is New Mexic—this would be New Mexico’s little present to Texas, which fought for years to get more water from New Mexico out of the Pacos River, ah, they may like—not like the kind of water they get if WIP goes forward, ah, but that’s the reason the state of Texas has been involved with my organization, the State of New Mexico and other folks for a number of years in court fighting WIP, ah, because of contamination problems, ah, in that—that could come from WIP from the Pacos River.

I guess I can do this myself, maybe—we’ll see. OK. This is beautiful Southeastern New Mexico in the mid-1970’s. This is the WIP site as it looked then with one hole in the ground. Um, and this is the precursor—this is the--the center of the WIP site. Doesn’t look that way anymore—that three billion dollars that we spent bought something. Ah, this is more like what the WIP site looks now, with ah, surface buildings that were built in the ‘80’s, ah, to bring waste in. A couple of features I’ll mention to you as we look at this. There’s a railroad coming into the site. That relates to the transportation issue. Ah, ah, it was thought and Department of Energy studies have shown that the safest transportation to WIP would be by train, so a train track—train was, ah—track was ah, built into the site. Ah, of course we're not going to use it now, we're going to end up trucking all of that waste as you saw in the, ah, earlier overhead. Ah, you also can see in the background, ah, what looks like water. You thought this was desert—how could there be water? Well, there---another problem with the site—there’s a lot of potash mining around and the water you see there comes from nearby potash mines.

Ah, this is the underground cross-section. This is why WIP is supposedly such a great site. Ah, you see a lot of the yellow area. That’s salt. Ah, above you have two aquifers, the ah, [Dewey Lake?] ah, and the [Restler?] aquifer. You see, ah, the potash zone. There are proven potash resources within the bounds of the site. Ah, you see the repository. Um, what you don’t see is where the, ah—where the yellow and the green there, the [sovlato?] ends and the [castile?] be—begins--there’s a lot of pressurized brine--ah, brine under enough pressure that it’ll flow all the way to the surface, ah, not a particularly good place to put nuclear waste that you want to stay underground. Ah, and further below are proven oil and gas resources. Um, again, ah, not exactly, ah, a place that ah, looks like a good—for good isolation.

Ah, at that repository level, ah, of course, ah, there’s been work—there was work going on in the ‘80’s to mine out ah, the site. Ah, this is a drawing of how that underground horizon 21 hundred and 50 feet below the surface is supposed to look. Ah, you can see there are a variety of tunnels. The—the red is what’s—has been mined out. Ah, and the other areas are areas that are supposed to be mined out, once WIP gets opened.

So, what do these rooms look like? This is room 1 and panel 1, ah, underground. It’s a—it’s football field size and 13 feet high, to give you ah, a—an idea of the scope. Um, this is salt. It’s supposed to be stable and good for long term. Ah, but if you look at it and particularly at the ceiling, it looks more like a warehouse. Um, and that’s because it had to be reinforced—this room was mined in 1986. The ceiling’s collapsing, the floor is buckling. It requires constant maintenance ah, to k—to keep it open. Ah, but of course, ah, the Department of Energy doesn’t worry about, ah, putting waste into it and what it might do to the workers.

Ah, the concept, of course, is that the remote handled waste, the higher radio—radioactive waste that you wouldn’t want workers around, you would remotely put into the walls. Ah, there is no remote handled waste […?…] to ship to WIP, but small problem, we’ll just put the contact-handled waste in first and figure out what to do with the remote handled waste later.

Um, this is the roof in—in, ah—in room 5, and you can see kind of the—a lot of the displacement that’s already happening there. Ah, and bo—the rock bolts that hold it in are constantly breaking and having to be replaced. Ah, again, ah, we have ah, worker health and safety problems, ah, not from radiation only, but also mining kinds of problems.

OK. This is the image to think about. I talked about, ah, potash, and oil and gas. Ah, this is the 16 square mile site. And what you see around it are potash [leases?] and oil and gas wells. That’s the environment that the Department of Energy ah, wants to open WIP and their probabilistic risk assessment that Steve referred to and that the Environmental Protection Agency has now approved, say, oh, well, not to worry--just because there are over a hundred drill holes all the way around the site there will never be any that are through the site or go through the waste rooms and allow waste to get out. The—the probabilities of that happening are real small. Ah, the probabilities of that happening with air drilling—drilling with air rather than mud, which shows—has scientifically shown huge releases, much in excess of the EPA standard, ah, are not going to happen, in fact, EPA refused to even consider that scenario in its certification of WIP. Ah, even oil flooding, ah, ah, water flooding outside ah, drilling in some of these holes, ah, moving through, ah, non-salt layers, ah, just above and below the ah, repository are not going to happen, according to the Department of Energy.

Um, so, this is the kind of situation we’re in where the Department of Energy has said, "looks safe to us—we’ve invested a lot of money and a lot of PR—this is the solution—let’s get on with it." The Environmental Protection Agency, ah, earlier this year certified and said, ah, yes, we agree with DOE. It’s safe enough, it meets the standards. Ah, but it’s not yet open. It’s not open because—primarily for two reasons. One, the level of ah, citizen opposition is strong still in New Mexico, and the technical and legal problems haven’t been resolved, and secondly, one of those technical problems is EPA doesn’t have any authority over collapsing roofs and the also ah, toxic chemicals that are supposed to be—that are mixed in with the WIP waste that are supposed to come to WIP. Ah, and so the State of New Mexico has not issued a permit, ah, for the facility.

Ah, and this is where, ah, all things come together. Um, ah, Dr. Kaku mentioned this morning Cassini. Um, what does Cassini have to do with WIP? Cassini he called a dinosaur. WIP is a dinosaur, but the first waste that the dep—from Los Alamos that the Department of Energy is trying to put in the ground at WIP is Cassini waste—Waste ta--coming from Los Alamos to WIP that was—is the plutonium 238 waste that came from making those heat sources for Cassini. Now WIP is supposed to be a defense trans-uranic waste facility. Ah, the first WIP, ah, waste supposed to come to WIP are from Cassini, so ah, this is kind of confirmation of what Dr. Kaku mentioned this morning in terms of ah, is there any distinction between military uses of space, defense uses of waste, and non-defense uses. Um, if ah, the first waste to come to a defense facility is Cassini waste, that kind of tells you what kind of project Cassini is. Thank you very much.