New Mexico opposes the Department of Energy sending any reclassified radioactive tank wastes to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad.

That state's stance could affect a Hanford plan to get rid of about 1 million gallons of its tank wastes as early as 2005.

What that effect could be is unknown.

Here is what is unfolding:

Hanford has 11 million gallons of high-level radioactive wastes and 42 million gallons of low-activity radioactive wastes in its 177 underground tanks. Those wastes are to be glassified or otherwise treated.

One Hanford plan is to take the low-activity wastes from eight to 12 tanks, up to 1.3 million gallons, and dry out the material to convert it into transuranic wastes to be shipped to WIPP, which is a permanent, underground DOE storage site near Carlsbad.

Another factor in the issue is that DOE wants to be able to reclassify some high-level tank wastes at Hanford, Idaho Falls, Idaho, and Savannah River, S.C., into low-activity wastes. This summer, DOE lost a federal court battle to gain that power. Now DOE is trying to convince a congressional committee to create legislation to give it that power.

Washington, Oregon, Idaho, South Carolina and the U.S. House of Representatives all oppose DOE being able to reclassify high-level tank wastes, at least until public debate can take place on the issue in 2004. That opposition has not convinced DOE to quit its attempt to get Congress to grant it that power this year.

On Tuesday, New Mexico entered the fray.

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, who also is a former energy secretary, announced that state will oppose any high-level tank wastes going to WIPP, regardless of how it is reclassified. Richardson has ordered state officials to change WIPP's New Mexico permit to specifically forbid it from accepting any reclassified high-level wastes.

Now the overall issue becomes fuzzy because of Hanford's plan to convert some low-activity tank wastes into transuranic wastes to send to New Mexico.

Hanford, its regulators and other Hanford interests have never included low-activity tank wastes in their definitions of "high-level" tank wastes.

But New Mexico interprets federal law as meaning any tank waste coming from processing spent nuclear fuel is "high-level" waste, said Jon Goldstein, spokesman for the New Mexico Environment Department.

Consequently, in New Mexico's eyes, all 53 million gallons of Hanford's tank wastes are "high-level wastes," including the up to 1.3 million gallons of low-activity wastes earmarked to be dried out and shipped to WIPP.

Meanwhile, DOE is trying to sort out the implications of New Mexico's stance.

"We'll have to wait and see what New Mexico is actually proposing," said Joe Davis, a DOE spokesman.

Davis said DOE has no intention of sending any high-level tank wastes to WIPP.

He said DOE's Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory wants to send some tank wastes as transuranic waste to WIPP, as mapped out in a 1999 environmental impact study report. Davis noted that Richardson was energy secretary in 1999 when that report was approved.

Washington's Department of Ecology views this issue strictly as one between New Mexico and DOE, and won't get involved, said Sheryl Hutchison, ecology department spokeswoman.