The Nation - News from May 18, 1989
The Energy Department has been forced to delay the scheduled September opening of a radioactive waste dump in New Mexico, Energy Secretary James D. Watkins told Congress. Watkins told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the Environmental Protection Agency had fallen far behind schedule in providing a legally required verification that toxic wastes at the repository would not migrate off the site. “We physically cannot get through this process until November,” Watkins said, adding that, under normal procedures, it would take until next February before the EPA could hold public hearings on the waste migration issue. He gave no new target date for opening the $800-million underground repository near Carlsbad, N.M.
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