APPENDIX WIPP
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NEWSPAPER ARTICLE: Carlsbad Current-Argus, November 9, 1999: “Tour
adds fuel to Mexican’s WIPP concerns,” by Victoria Parker-Stevens
Congressman fears radioactive leakage will reach Mexico
CARLSBAD – In what appeared to be a wasteland, flowers bloomed in the
sand and bobcats hid in caves near the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant.
Around a rise, a group of people stopped to peer into a sinkhole and
a questioning voice could be heard in Spanish.
Mexican Congressman Ing. Noé G. Gonzalez Lira uttered amazement at
the hole’s size, which the group estimated was about 30 feet deep.
“Look, you can see mold from the moisture,” said Bob Gaston, a local
tour guide. “It’s doubled in size in, oh I’d say, the last 10 to 15
years.”
Gaston then recounted an event that occurred about 10 years ago – an
even larger sinkhole that caused a road to collapse, making a school
bus divert its route.
Hiking through the area’s natural features recently, Lira was seeking
information for a Mexican congressional resolution against the WIPP
site. He had heard reports from environmental groups that most of
the potential harmful effects of the WIPP site will fall upon those
in Mexico.
Last year, Lira introduced a resolution that gained unanimous
congressional support against the now defunct Sierra Blanca, Texas,
waste dump.
Lira is technical secretary for the Comisión de Asuntos Fronterizos,
a border issues commission composed of 30 Mexican congressmen. Four
members, representing each of the major parties, are in agreement
with with Lira on waste issues.
Showing Lira the terrain were members of Citizens for Alternatives
to Radioactive Dumping (CARD), based in Albuquerque, and Felix Perez,
an organizer with the Coalición Binacional Contra Tiraderos Tóxicos
y Radiactivos, based in Juarez, Mexico.
Perez coordinates activities with CARD, especially concerning the
siting of numerous waste sites along the U.S.-Mexico border.
Carlsbad CARD representatives, Bob Gaston and Betty Richards, were the
tour guides. They became involved with CARD after seeing one of its
representatives, Janet Greenwald, arrested with others on the WIPP site
during the early years of the project.
“She was so courageous,” said Betty Richards.
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