The Waste Isolation Pilot Project (WIPP) is a nuclear waste repository in New Mexico intended to store radioactive waste for 10,000 years. One key issue with nuclear waste storage of this kind is communicating warning messages to future generations to not interfere with the waste.

Your research must address the following:

• An overview of the WIPP

• The danger of the nuclear waste stored there

• History and examples of long-term nuclear waste warning messaging

• The four levels of nuclear warning message complexity

This research will provide you with a foundation to then build a proposal for your own

original long-term nuclear warning message design solution intended to stand the test of

time. 

Your design proposal should at least cover Level I & II of messaging complexity

Research and cultivate a unique design solution to the WIPP Long Term Nuclear Waste program that will last at least 10,000 years. This project was done individually by me.

The Waste Isolation Pilot Project is a long-term underground storage repository in New Mexico used for isolating and storing 'Defence-Generated Trans-Uranic Waste' under a naturally created salt-bed that is approximately 2,000 miles under the ground. Defence-Generated TRU is the highly radioactive uranium waste product leftover from creating nuclear weapons, among other highly dangerous uses.

The WIPP Plant is located exactly 26 miles outside of Carlsbad, New Mexico near the Texas border. The site was selected due to a naturally deep salt-bed repository that was left over from evaporation of the Permian Sea about 250,000 years ago. After studying the salt deposits, researchers came to the conclusion that storing the TRU in and below the salt-beds was the ideal storage solution for the long term due to its ability to be mined easily, the salt's impermeability, and the lack of water sources that can be contaminated in the area.

According to the EPA, Transuranic Waste is a highly radioactive waste product that contains elements that are heavier than Uranium on the periodic table. These waste products from nuclear activity can include items such as: contaminated clothing and PPE used by workers, tools, debris and any other items contaminated with radioactive elements. The radioactive man-made elements that most frequently contaminate these objects are americium-241, uranium and plutonium. Due to their long half life, they are unable to be decontaminated and must be stored until the radioactivity has reduced to a level low enough for safe handling.

Transuranic waste is packed in sealed drums and encased in special non-permeable (often lead) containers in order to make them safe enough to be handled. Contrary to initial belief, there is no spent nuclear fuel pellets in these drums, only other items of any kind that are contaminated with such in a way that makes them incredibly dangerous to handle by humans.

In the 1950s and 1960s, Nuclear Power was heavily advertised and promoted by the United States government, praising it for its efficiency and the cleanliness of the power source. Splitting atoms creates a fantastic amount of power that is used to turn steam turbines that create electricity. Despite the massively dangerous waste problem, it is technically a cleaner and more efficient solution to energy production than burning fossil fuels, coal, or wood. The US Government claimed that by the year 2000 it would be too cheap to meter and would power many of the major cities for pennies on the dollar.

What they didn't say, however, was the fact that the waste products from nuclear power (and production of nuclear weapons) contain potentially deadly levels of radiation and must be buried underground for tens of thousands of years in order to wait for the radioactivity to drop down to a safe level. Nuclear Fission is an excellent way to generate energy, but makes up for that with its incredibly unsafe waste product.

All radioactive material has something called a 'half-life'. Substances like plutonium are altered when they start the process of decay and even while they are presently active in a nuclear reactor. They can turn into other types of plutonium isotopes or even different elements like uranium or neptunium. Often times even the byproducts of nuclear fission are radioactive, which continues to make them dangerous often for many years. There are quite a few nuclear isotopes used for Nuclear Fission so I won't list them all, but what I did gather from the research is that none of them decay very quickly and all of them have the potential to be fatal.

The different isotopes have different “half-lives” – the time it takes to lose half of its radioactivity. Pu-239 has a half-life of 24,100 years and Pu-241's half-life is 14.4 years. Substances with shorter half-lives decay more quickly than those with longer half-lives, so they emit more energetic radioactivity. [USNRC, n.d.]

In other words, if you open one of these drums before it's half-life (and before the radioactivity has dropped to a safe level) you'll probably die of radiation poisoning. Nuclear Radiation causes a condition called Radiation Sickness, or Acute Radiation Syndrome, and occurs because the toxic radiation absorbed into your body through your lungs, mucous membranes and skin eat away at your DNA causing it to break apart and/or mutate depending on how much you've ingested. It can cause Radiation Burn as it sears its way through your biological tissues causing third degree burns inside and outside your body. The chances of death or cancerous mutation depend on how much you've ingested. Radiation levels are monitored in radioactive areas by using a Geiger Counter that can be worn on your person to measure how much radiation you are being exposed to. Radiation doses are measured in milliseiverts.

Depending on the amount of time the waste had to decay, you could receive any amount of radiation. Opening and exposing this nuclear waste to the air not only damages humans, but animals and the environment as well. The same DNA damage and other effects is experienced when nuclear waste particles seep into the soil or into the water sources.

Nuclear Waste is dangerous, which means that there needs to be adequate warnings in place for people to know how to handle it, or in this case, leave it well alone until it isn't deadly to handle. 

If some types of plutonium have a 24,100 year half life, we need to have ways to warn people in the future when we are long gone.

The Sandia National Laboratories recommended that any nuclear warning messages should include four levels of increasing complexity along with guidelines on what specifics long term system for nuclear waste warning must include.

1. The site must be clearly marked. [Trauth, K. M. et al, 1993]

2. All messages must be truthful and informative. [Trauth, K. M. et al, 1993]

3. Each message level must have multiple components within a marker system. [Trauth, K. M. et al, 1993]

4. There must be multiple means of communication: language, pictographs, scientific diagrams. [Trauth, K. M. et al, 1993]

5. Multiple levels of complexity within individual messages on individual marker system elements. [Trauth, K. M. et al, 1993]

6. Use of materials with little recycle value. [Trauth, K. M. et al, 1993]

7. An international effort to maintain knowledge of the locations and contents of nuclear waste repositories. [Trauth, K. M. et al, 1993]

Level I: Rudimentary Information: "Something man-made is here"

Level II: Cautionary Information: "Something man-made is here and it is dangerous"

Level III: Basic Information: Tells what, why, when, where, who, and how.

Level IV: Complex Information: Maps, Diagrams and detailed written records

Landscape of Thorns: A mass of many irregularly-sized spikes protruding from the ground in all directions.

Spike Field: A series of extremely large spikes emerging from the ground at different angles.

Spikes Bursting Through Grid: A large square grid pattern across the site, through which large spikes protrude at various angles.

Menacing Earthworks: Large mounds of earth shaped like lightning bolts, emanating from the edges of a square site. The shapes would be strikingly visible from the air, or from artificial hills constructed around the site.

Black Hole: An enormous slab of basalt or black-dyed concrete, rendering the land uninhabitable and un-farmable.

Rubble Landscape: A large square-shaped pile of dynamited rock, which over time would still appear anomalous and give a sense of something having been destroyed.

Forbidding Blocks: A network of hundreds of house-sized stone blocks, dyed black and arranged in an irregular square grid, suggesting a network of "streets" which feel ominous and lead nowhere. The blocks are intended to make a large area entirely unsuitable for farming or other future use.

The biggest point of acceptance prior to drafting this proposal was that any solution we provide may not be foolproof or perfect. It is simply impossible to predict the course of humanity in the next thousand years, let alone ten thousand years in order to cultivate the ideal solution. However, we can do our best to safeguard the longest lasting solution based on the current trajectories we are aware of. 

Based on the research delivered previously, it has been concluded that the design solution must meet the following psychological criteria:

1. It must be permanent / immovable

2. It must appear to be culturally sacred

3. The material on its own must be common, not particularly valuable and easy to acquire elsewhere. The intact product must appear to be more valuable.

4. It must generate profit

5. It must tell a compelling story

"Mount Rushmore" is a massive 60 foot high granite sculpture carved into the Black Hills region of South Dakota. The massive sculptures completed in 1941, depict U.S. presidents: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln. The historical site also features a museum with interactive exhibits open to the public. Mount Rushmore also contains a secret room inside the sculpture where information was stored about America's history from 1776 to 1906.

Although there is no fee to visit the monument, it does cost approximately $10 USD to park your vehicle.

Stonehenge is a prehistoric stone monument located just north of Salisbury, England. As a prehistoric stone circle, it is unique because of its artificially shaped sarsen stones (blocks of Cenozoic sandstone indigenous to the area), arranged in a unique formation. According to Brittanica, the name of the monument possibly derives from the Saxon word "stan-hengen", meaning “stone hanging” or “gallows.” In 1986, Stonehenge was declared a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Stonehenge has never been touched or moved, and has existed since around 3100 BC. That's over 5,000 years ago.

It costs around $40CAD per adult to visit the infamous stone circle.

"The 9/11 Memorial is located at the site of the former World Trade Center Twin Towers and occupies approximately half of the 16-acre site. The Memorial’s twin reflecting pools are each nearly an acre in size and feature the largest man-made waterfalls in North America." [911memorial.org]

Located on the 9/11 Memorial Site seven stores underneath the bedrock of the WTC Towers where the Twin Towers once stood there is a Museum where visitors can learn about the history of the tragedy.

Situated in the bedrock of the World Trade Center site, seven stories below the Memorial, the Museum’s core exhibitions allow visitors to learn about the history of 9/11 where it happened, at the very foundation of where the Twin Towers once stood.

It costs $26 USD to visit the memorial.

Hiroshima (広島): 146,000 people.

Nagasaki  (長崎): 80,000 people.

Chernobyl (чорнобиль): 31 people.

Fukushima Daichi (福島大地): 2,202 people.

History and the media has allowed me to hypothesize that humans are a self-serving history-honouring species that don’t take well to ambiguity and secrets. Instead of locking people away from the area, let's invite them to the areas where it is safe, and make it impossible to visit and use the land where it is unsafe. Places like the plant itself, and access to the underground will be restricted but other areas on the property can be visited.

They're all made of common materials that would not be as special disassembled. The meaning isn't in the material these places are made of, but how the material was arranged to create a beautiful object and compelling narrative.

If the land is worthless but the monument standing upon it is priceless, it will never be touched. The Giza Pyramids are in the middle of a barren desert. Nobody wants to live or build there, nor do they want to risk damaging the might of the monumental architecture detailing history.

This is where the Nuclear Waste lives, but this is also where hope lives. This is where we bury our past but we never forget it. Generations can come back to look and to learn from large stone structures covered in stories. Just like the Epic of Gilgamesh, it will detail a life, a history that others can learn from.​​​​​​​

We can incorporate the long term signage in both the forbidden and public access areas. This will cover more than Level 1 and 2 of signage. The museum can act as the hub for level 4 detailed information outside the restricted area, and the signage will increase in both size and in simplicity the closer you get to the restricted areas. Once you enter the main plant, there will be another set of Level 4 documents.

The places that are not safe to traverse in the restricted zone will be rendered agriculturally useless with an artificially created high salinity ocean filled with Granite Spikes, similar to the concept "Landscape of Thorns" by Sandia National Laboratories. The water will be secured by a concrete retaining wall (akin to a "barrier reef" in the ocean) surrounding the facility both as a way for the water to stay contained in its desired areas and to prevent damage to the plant infrastructure. It will also be surrounded by signage making the area impossible to traverse. Once the ocean evaporates, the high levels of salt will continue to render the land useless for agricultural purposes. The presence of a body of salt-water will deter developers from building on it as it would cost a significant amount of money to remove. Eventually the salt from the ocean (and evaporated ocean) will continue to add to the pre-existing salt beds from the prehistoric ocean, thus continuing to insulate the waste even more over time.

There can also be solar powered geiger counters implemented throughout the property. Solar power means that it will always have a power source, and the geiger counters can warn people of the radiation they are being exposed to. Something similar was done surrounding the Fukushima Daichi Plant surrounding the exclusion zone.

The areas that are safe can house the monument displaying the impact nuclear power can have on our race through images and symbols carved into large slabs of granite- a hardy rock that is not worth much on its own but will last centuries. It will illustrate the dangers and the lives lost from using Nuclear as lethal weaponry and highlight the good we have created from it despite its dangers.

Truth be told, it also has to make money in order to be deemed useful in our society. The museum can have admissions for a small profit to keep the site running. The stone tablets can be viewed by all. Curate the architecture so that there is enough of the forbidden zone visible that people will see the danger and choose not to enter. If we shroud secrecy around something it only brings more curiosity. For example: people still try to break into Chernobyl despite its lethal danger simply out of curiosity (and perhaps Adsense from going viral on social media)

The most important piece of this process was to understand that there must be a variety of methods of communication. By using images as well as mathematical symbols, we can transcend cultural and language barriers. We can educate as well as warn. We can tell people: "This is exactly what's sitting in the middle of this desert and you don't want to touch it, but if you come to this safe area, we can tell you WHY."

Trauth, K. M.; Hora, S. C. & Guzowski, R. V. (1993) Expert judgment on markers to deter inadvertent human intrusion into the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, report, November 1, 1993; Albuquerque, New Mexico. Retrieved from: https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc1279277/: accessed October 16, 2020), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.

Waste Isolation Pilot Project (n.d) "WIPP Site in an Ancient Salt Formation". Retrieved from: https://wipp.energy.gov/wipp-site.asp#:~:text=WIPP%20Site-,WIPP%20SITE,in%20an%20ancient%20salt%20formation

Environmental Protection Agency (n.d.) "What is Transuranic Radioactive Waste" Retrieved From: https://www.epa.gov/radiation/what-transuranic-radioactive-waste

Environmental Protection Agency (n.d) "2014 Radiological Event: WIPP" Retrieved from: https://www.epa.gov/radiation/2014-radiological-event-wipp

Waste Isolation Pilot Project (n.d) "Waste Characterization" https://wipp.energy.gov/waste-characterization.asp

NRC (n.d) "Fact Sheet: Plutonium" Retrieved from: https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/plutonium.html

Šljivić-Ivanović, Smičiklas. (2016) "Soil Contamination: Current Consequences and Further Solutions" Retrieved from: https://www.intechopen.com/books/soil-contamination-current-consequences-and-further-solutions/radioactive-contamination-of-the-soil-assessments-of-pollutants-mobility-with-implication-to-remedia

The Verge (2012) "Wasteland: The nuclear graveyard under New Mexico" Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDgBUwhUAVE

VOX (2018) "Why danger symbols can’t last forever" Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOEqzt36JEM