The Energy Department on Monday started a critical safety review that could clear the way for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad, N.M., to reopen by the end of the year, an agency spokesperson said.
The agency operational readiness review, which kicked off at 7:30 a.m., is due to last 22 days and serve as a sort of double-check on an operational readiness review completed Oct. 14 by WIPP prime contractor Nuclear Waste Partnership (NWP).
The reviews will certify that NWP is indeed ready to resume transuranic waste disposal under the strict new safety guidelines the AECOM-led contractor put in place earlier this year to prevent repeats of the February 2014 fire and radiation release that have shuttered the deep-underground salt mine for nearly three years now.
Besides a favorable DOE review, NWP needs the New Mexico Environment Department to sign off on the mine reopening. The state review would happen after the DOE evaluation is complete.
Assuming DOE and New Mexico find no safety showstoppers, WIPP might indeed reopen by Dec. 31. New shipments of transuranic waste from across the DOE complex could then start rolling in as soon as two or three months afterward, Todd Shrader, manager of the agency’s Carlsbad Field Office, has said.
