The Public's Right to Know: Cataloging the Hidden Collections of the University Libraries Public Reading Rooms on Nuclear Waste

Summary

The Department of Energy/Freedom of Information Act (DOE/FOIA) collection is largely composed of regional DOE documents such as reports, testimonies, and previously requested FOIA documents. Items included are from: the Uranium Mill Tailings Remedial Action Project (UMTRA); the Waste Isolation Pilot Project (WIPP); Human Radiation Experiments; Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) reports; Sandia National Laboratories Site-Wide Environmental Impact Statements (SWEIS). Sandia National Laboratories, a DOE lab, performs a wide variety of national security R&D, energy and environment technology research. The collection contains unclassified research materials generated by researchers and scientists at SNL. The importance of the collection resides in the research conducted that will impact current and future remediation techniques and needs covering nuclear as well as conventional hazardous wastes. The collection is a dynamic collection and materials are added on an ad-hoc basis. The Waste Isolation Pilot Project (WIPP) safely disposes of the nation's defense-related transuranic radioactive waste. The collection consists of a variety of materials from the United States Environmental Protection Agency, the National Environmental Policy Act, environmental monitoring, federal and New Mexico state regulations, transportation, the National Transuranic Waste (TRU) Program, nuclear safety and quality assurance and safety. The WIPP collection is dynamic.