Eleven years and myriad delays later, WIPP opens.

The contrast could not have been more stark. As a truck carrying radioactive waste rolled out of the Los Alamos (New Mexico) National Laboratory this spring, people along the transportation route showed very different emotions.

This initial truckload headed for the nation's first permanent waste repository - the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in southeastern New Mexico - encountered cheering people who held signs that read "Weicome Finally" and "It's About Time."

The truck also met protesters, including two women who sat down in the road and a man who tried to block the highway with his car.

What the truck carried caused the conflict. The end of the Cold War left behind thousands of barrels filled with protective clothing, tools, rags and machine parts - all used in the production of nuclear weapons and all radioactive.

These items are classified by the U.S. Department of Energy as transuranic (TRU) waste and will remain radioactive for thousands of years. WIPP will permanently store them in an enormous, excavated network of salt-bed tunnels, almost a half-mile underground. Presently, 99 percent of the nation's transuranic waste is stored temporarily in drums at nuclear defense sites in 10 states.

Once the plant is fully operational, this waste will be transported to WIPP via interstate highways in 30 states.

Many legislators, especially those from Colorado, Idaho, South Carolina, Tennessee and Washington - five states where waste is currently stored - want to see the beginning of shipments from their facilities to WIPP.

"I don't have a worry about the containers or a nuclear disaster. I just don't see a problem there," says Idaho Senator Mel Richardson, a long-time member of the NCSL task force that studies waste disposal and transportation. Richardson said the issue has been enmeshed in New Mexico politics and is contentious because the word "nuclear" is involved. "You say the word nuclear, and they [environmentalists] go into orbit," he said.

In WIPP's own state there are conflicting views over its opening. "It's long overdue," believes New Mexico Senator Don Kidd. He stresses, "It's an important event for the country. This is the only licensed nuclear repository in the world."

Later shipments may be mixed waste that is both radioactive and hazardous. But a Resource Conservation Recovery Act (RCRA) permit must be granted from the state of New Mexico to allow storage of mixed waste. The state fought the initial EPA permit in federal court, delaying the WIPP opening for 11 years. It is not expected to issue its RCRA permit until this fall, at the earliest.

Don Hancock, director of the nuclear waste safety project for the Southwest Research and Information Center, a New Mexico environmental organization, explains, "How we handle our nuclear waste is a very major test of our democracy. If the only way you can get states to take these kinds of facilities [for nuclear waste disposal] is to force them to take something they don't want, that creates fundamental questions about our form of government."

In early May, however, New Mexico withdrew from the court case. Chris Wentz of the New Mexico Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department defends the state's initial stand. "The state of New Mexico had to ensure that the necessary safeguards were in place to adequately protect public health and the environment for both current and future generations of our citizens. The issue resolution process for WIPP simply had to run its course through the various branches of government. The result was well worth the time - a better, safer repository for all concerned."

Although the opening of WIPP has been delayed since 1988, the first shipment from Los Alamos has paved the way for several more.

The Rocky Flats Environmental Technology Site in Colorado is shipping its transuranic waste and Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory has plans to start soon.