US asks to store nuke waste aboveground after leak shut dump

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — The U.S. Department of Energy wants to clear away nearly two football fields of desert in southern New Mexico to use as temporary storage for containers of radioactive waste coming from around the country while it works to reopen the government’s only underground nuclear waste repository.
The agency is asking state regulators to approve the construction of an aboveground storage area at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant where waste can be kept for up to a year