I am writing today to announce the closure of the New Mexico Independent. After three and a half years of operation in New Mexico, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news…
While environmental activists played their part yesterday during demonstrations at the capitol building, going so far as to dress up as solar panels and to sing the tune of “You Are My Sunshine,” their counterparts, the anti-cap-and-trade contingency who has…
Roughly one quarter of University of New Mexico students are unimpressed with the state’s flagship public school, according to a survey that questioned college students about their higher education experiences.
Sure, people know about Santa Fe’s art galleries or the world-class skiing in Taos. But do they know about New Mexico’s “truly unique attraction” — the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP).
So begins National Public Radio’s profile on WIPP near Carlsbad.
WIPP currently takes certain types of so-called “transuranic” nuclear waste that includes gloves, equipment and chemicals contaminated probably with plutonium during the making of nuclear weapons. But WIPP is on the federal government’s radar for accepting possibly “hotter” types of nuclear waste in the future, which is the issue that NPR’s Christopher Joyce explores.
Among those interviewed are Democratic Rep. John Heaton, who represents the Carlsbad area and says WIPP is ready for the new stuff.
Heaton tells Joyce:
“There’s really no other concern except political philosophy,” he says.
But Don Hancock of Albuquerque-based Southwest Research and Information Center, an environmental group that has monitored WIPP, disagrees, as does Ron Curry, the state’s Environment Secretary.
Curry provides Joyce with this remark:
“We’ve made it clear that WIPP is WIPP,” Curry says. “WIPP is for transuranic waste and nothing else. The state has done its part at this point in time. That’s kind of our story, and we’re sticking to it.”
