On June 24, 2025, the Santa Fe New Mexican published an article titled: “Government Accountability Office: More than half of WIPP infrastructure in poor condition.” It illustrates why we say WIPP is not a stellar facility.

This led many readers to question why WIPP is the location of choice for the old, radioactive nuclear waste sitting in vulnerable canvas tents in a wildfire zone in the forest at Los Alamos National Labs (LANL).

The answer is that the waste is safer anywhere than in the forest in tents. 

First, in WIPP it will be 2,000 ft. underground, where fires can’t reach it.

Second, if there is an explosion, an underground repository is where you want it to happen. This is because, as a Sandia Labs report on particulate plutonium says, it can’t be cleaned up. Tiny particles of plutonium, like those involved in a fire or explosion, are so small and dispersed that the lab claims it can’t be remediated. It can, however, be sealed off in a repository. That is exactly what DOE did when a drum of plutonium waste exploded inside WIPP on Valentine’s Day, 2014. Since it couldn’t be cleaned up, it was sealed off. This cost $2 billion and a 3-year closure.

This can’t be done above the surface. Land contaminated by particulate or vaporized plutonium would have to be abandoned. It would be off-limits for the 500,000 years the plutonium takes to decay. It would be a problem keeping it within the boundaries of the contaminated area because every breeze, wind, rainfall, and disruption by animals would move it off site.

This is why, with all WIPP’s faults, it is still the best place to put the unsafely stored waste outside at LANL.
Stay tuned for an explanation that explains why WIPP was never a serious attempt to store nuclear waste. It was merely a way to make the public think that there is a solution to nuclear waste.