According to the employee, "The fracking fluids they are injecting are very unstable, and if it continues like this there could be big problems.... There was a 5.2 [earthquake] in West Texas from fracking, and that's a big concern given the sensitivity of the WIPP site and what the possible consequences could be."
The WIPP site was chosen in the mid-1970s because there was no oil or gas found within several miles of it. The thought at the time was that the area was outside the active oil and gas production area.
"One of the original criteria for siting is there shouldn't even be a borehole let alone active drilling within two miles of the site," Hancock explained. "But that ended up being reduced to a mile."
As time went on, oil and gas drilling started getting closer and closer to the site, so it started being something people paid attention to.
"We became concerned, because inadvertently drilling through nuclear waste containers on your way to find gas has generally had been thought of being a bad idea," Hancock added sarcastically.
Since the federal government "doesn't really control fracking" according to Hancock -- and since most of the land around the site is controlled by the Bureau of Land Management and the state of New Mexico, whose governor is extremely pro-oil and gas and anti-environment -- the area has been allowed to be treated just like any other in New Mexico, when it comes to being exploited for oil and gas.
"Those government agencies, federal and state, none of them have fracking restrictions, because the goal is to maximize mineral production because that is the law and it generates income for the feds and state from the royalties," Hancock added.
The 16-square-mile WIPP site is surrounded by more than 100 operating oil and natural gas wells within a mile of the boundary. There are at least 350 wells within three miles of the boundary, and the number is growing.
In addition to the eventuality of fracking causing earthquakes that could damage the natural salt container around the waste, Hancock also warned, "There is some likelihood of fracking fluids penetrating areas at or near waste emplacement."
Judson is also concerned about this possibility, because water contamination that comes with fracking creates groundwater seepage that can compromise the integrity of the site, by allowing water into the area where the nuclear waste containers are stored.
"There are also stable rock formations that evolved over millennia, and you are disturbing those rocks and that causes geologic instability," he added.
Judson also expressed concern about a highly pressurized brine reservoir directly beneath the site, which he says presents "lots of possibilities for problems."
"The brine is a big pool of very salty water underneath the site," he explained. "The repository itself is a salt repository. The concept is you hollow out salt caverns in the earth and move in the waste, and over time the salt moves in and insulates the containers for a long time. But under the site is this salt pond, and if disturbed, [it] can cause wastewater to leak up into the site and corrode waste canisters, and cause waste to migrate if it leaks, and compromise the integrity of the entire site."
Given that the principle behind WIPP is that it is built so that burying the waste there means the site will resist the dispersal of nuclear waste for thousands of years, Judson warned, "Anything allowing water migration or canister corrosion can compromise the stability of the site itself."
"A Massive External Release"
State and federal authorities who've granted permissions for the oil and gas drilling, along with fracking close to WIPP, say they don't believe any of these activities will be a problem, because the oil and gas they are going for are several thousand feet below WIPP, which is just over 2,000 feet deep at its deepest point.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
