Evaluates the US Department of Energy's investigations of a pilot project that the Department intends soon to ask the Environmental Protection Agency to make permanent. The project involves storing protective clothing, laboratory equipment, machine parts, and other objects that have become contaminated with radiation from plutonium or enriched uranium during the production of nuclear weapons, in a network of underground excavations over 2,000 feet deep in bedded salt formations near Carlsbad, New Mexico. The findings are that because of the low level of radiation, the suitability of salt for geological isolation, and potentially contaminated water being non-potable anyway, the waste could be safely isolated for over 10,000 as long as the seals hold. No index. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.