Waste to be moved through Gallup

By Kathy Helms
Diné Bureau

WINDOW ROCK — The Navajo Nation is preparing to give consent to the U.S. Department of Energy to move trucks of radioactive waste so "hot" that it has to be handled by machines rather than humans down Interstate 40 through 10 Navajo chapters.

In exchange for signing the cooperative agreement with DOE's Carlsbad Field Office, shipments of remote-handled transuranic waste would be allowed to pass through the reservation and the Gallup area on their way to the Waste Isolation Pilot Project in Carlsbad, N.M.

The Navajo Nation would receive a financial assistance award of $50,000, which would go to Navajo Division of Public Safety Executive Director Samson Cowboy to fund the position of Emergency Services Liaison under the Department of Emergency Management.

Total cost of the project is estimated at $250,000, though there is no guarantee the Nation would receive that amount, according to DOE.

The budget documents contained in the legislation introduced by Delegate Lorenzo Curley (Houck/Lupton/Nahata dziil) during Monday's meeting of the Intergovernmental Relations Committee and approved 8-0, were signed by Cowboy and Johnny Johnson, DEM program manager.

Transuranic waste, or TRU, is waste material contaminated with Uranium-233 and its daughter products, plutonium and other nuclides. It is produced primarily from reprocessing spent fuel and from the use of plutonium in the fabrication of nuclear weapons.

The liaison is to be hired to educate local community members on the effects of the transuranic waste materials being transported through 20 miles of Navajo Nation trust lands along I-40. The liaison also will develop a hazardous materials emergency preparedness and response plan in the event of a radioactive waste spill on I-40.

Sacrifice zone
The 10 Navajo chapter communities are located within a four-mile buffer zone along I-40, running west and east, in Apache and McKinley counties. A combined population of 10,894 persons would be impacted, according to the Statement of Work.

This does not include the thousands who potentially could be impacted in the areas of Gallup and Grants.

Hiring of the Navajo WIPP liaison is justified by I-40's close proximity to Navajo families and livestock living within two to three miles of the interstate, according to the document.

The radioactive waste would pass through Nahata dziil, where the Nation plans to develop its first full-scale casino, as well as the chapters of Houck, Lupton, Manuelito, Tsayatoh, Red Rock, Church Rock, Iyanbito, Thoreau and Baca.

Delegate Curley said the affected Navajo communities and chapters "will benefit from the education grant from the Department of Energy," which will pay for publishing articles in tribal newspapers or public information bulletins.

"The shipments that have been going through historically, you could walk up to it and be around it without it having any adverse affect on your health. But it's going to be changed," Curley said.

"The type of waste that's going to come through in trucks along I-40, you cannot come around that. The type of stuff that we're talking about here may be dangerous to those people that live along these communities.

"We need to move forward, get these monies and train these people" in how to handle potential radioactive waste spills, he said.

In DOE we trust
According to the Statement of Work, the DOE, and thus Carlsbad Field Office, as an agent of the federal government, has a trust responsibility to the Navajo Nation. "This responsibility includes involving and assisting the Navajos in necessary preparations for the safe transport of transuranic radioactive waste from DOE Site to the WIPP."

Public Law 102-579, the WIPP Land Withdrawal Act, as amended, states that DOE shall "provide technical assistance and funds for the purpose of training public safety officials, and other emergency responders in any state or Indian tribe through whose jurisdiction DOE plans to transport transuranic waste to or from the WIPP."

The cooperative agreement between Navajo and DOE satisfies the federal trust responsibility and provides funding for support in accident prevention, emergency preparedness, public information and participation in large-scale WIPP exercises, the document states.

The Carlsbad office will provide the Navajo WIPP Emergency Services Liaison with advance notification of shipments and the liaison will inform emergency response personnel. The liaison also will identify traffic problems on the route used for WIPP shipments.

Under the conditions of acceptance of the award, the Department of Energy assumes no responsibility with respect to any damages or loss arising out of any activities undertaken with the financial support of this award.

DOE reserves the right to cancel any awards made under the cooperative agreement if the Navajo Nation fails to meet its obligations.