APPENDIX WIPP
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brine would be able to flow upward through the well and enter
into the WIPP, where it would corrode the steel drums and
dissolve the radioactive waste. This contaminated brine
ultimately would reach the Rustler Formation, where the
groundwater aquifers are located.
The same thing can happen even now by means of intentional
injection of pressurized brine near the WIPP site in order to
facilitate the extraction of oil. In the past, pressurized
brine has traveled through anhydrite beds in the Salado
Formation (the same formation in which the radioactive waste
has been placed) for two miles (more than three kilometers)
and has caused an explosion in another well. There are now
more than 200 oil wells less than two miles from the WIPP site,
and some have been approved for injection of pressurized brine.
Moreover, in the Salado Formation, above the WIPP but below
the groundwater aquifers, are deposits of a rare form of
potash, without chlorine, which is found nowhere else in the
western hemisphere. When these deposits are mined, the
Rustler Formation will subside and fracture; consequently the
flow of groundwater will be enhanced.
WIPP can fail even if there is no human intrusion. The basic
premises of WIPP were that the Salado Formation would be dry,
and that the salt would flow like plastic and would
encapsulate the drums of radioactive waste so as to isolate it
from the environment. To the contrary, within the rock salt
there are pockets of brine that seep slowly but constantly to
the interior of WIPP. When the drums corrode and the
radioactive waste dissolves, gases produced by the corrosion
will pressurize the WIPP. When the pressure exceeds the
strength of the surrounding rocks, the numerous anhydrite beds
in the Salado Formation will fracture one after another like
the steps of a staircase. This could open up an escape route
to the aquifers of the Rustler Formastion.
Moreover, because the salt is brittle, the roofs of two
excavated tunnels already have fallen, and the others are
supported precariously with bolts, cables and wire mesh.
After a roof falls it leaves a void that creates a weakness in
another rock slab which, too, can fall, and so on,
successively, one after another. This could open a system of
fractures all the way to the aquifers of the Rustler Formation.
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