Nuclear Hotseat #241 - WIPP Nuke Leak at 2 Years & Counting

Published: Feb. 11, 2016, 8:56 p.m.

The Senate has passed a bill to transfer remediation authority over the radioactive waste in the West Lake Landfill from the Environmental Protection Agency to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, putting the site in the Corps’ Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program, known by the acronym FUSRAP. The bipartisan bill was proposed by Missouri's U.S. Senators Roy Blunt and Claire McCaskill. To capture this moment of success, we interviewed two activists directly involved in the battle to move the West Lake clean-up from EPA to the Army Corps - and familiar to regular listeners of Nuclear Hotseat: Byron DeLear lives near the West Lake Landfill and has been involved in clean energy issues for many years. He is a columnist with Examiner.com, was founder of Global Peace Solution, and is currently running for state representative. Dawn Chapman is a Mom who lives only two miles from the radioactive landfill and serves as an admin for the West Lake Landfill Facebook page and a genuine grass roots leader of this campaign for environmental justice. This Week's Featured Interview: The explosion, radioactive plutonium and americium release, and closure of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP Site) took place on Valentine's Day, February 14, 2014. Don Hancock of Southwest Research and Information Center brings us up to date as WIPP hits its second anniversary.