Environmental impact and protection for the waste isolation pilot plant (WIPP)

The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) project is authorized by legislation to provide a demonstration of the safe disposal of radioactive wastes generated by the national defense programs and activities of the United States. The WIPP Project must comply with the National Environmental Policy Act requirements and the conditions of all applicable environmental permitting and approvals. In meeting the requirements, analyses have been conducted and evaluated for both short-and long-term impacts for normal and accident conditions. The results of these analyses reported in this paper, confirm that the potential adverse impacts of the WIPP project will not be significant and represent an acceptable environmental cost when balanced against the benefits to be derived from the safe disposal of radioactive waste