Radioactice garbage to be kept in underground salt mines in New Mexico. "As one engineer put it, 'How would you like to have to build something that had to be 99.99999 percent perfect – forever?"
The WIPP salt caverns near Carlsbad, N.M., are located 2,150 feet below the surface and consist of a 112-acre underground area on which taxpayers have spent $2.1 billion so far. In 30 to 35 years, when the space is filled, the price tag is expected to be $9 billion. It will include an elaborate marker system to warn people not to drill into the salt for the next 500,000 years.
