While actual construction is not scheduled to begin until later this summer, the Energy Department held a ceremonial groundbreaking Thursday for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant’s $288 million Safety Significant Confinement Ventilation System (SSCVS).
Site clearing and power line relocation is already underway for the project, which is considered essential to the future of underground operations at the transuranic waste site near Carlsbad, N.M. The Energy Department is expected to announce the winner of the construction contract within a couple months.
“The new ventilation system will provide more than 500,000 cubic feet per minute of air to the WIPP underground, while running in a filtration mode that will be protective of the public and environment,” said DOE Carlsbad Field Office Manager Todd Shrader in a press release. “It allows us more flexibility while performing waste emplacement and mining activities.”
The new ventilation infrastructure should generate about 540,000 cubic feet per minute of underground airflow, more than three times current levels. The setup will include a number of new surface structures, such as a new 55,000 square-foot filter building. Construction is expected to be completed by early 2021.
The ventilation project was funded at $86 million in the fiscal 2018 budget, and Senate and House Appropriations committees have both endorsed DOE’s $84 million request for fiscal 2019.
Assistant Secretary of Energy for Environmental Management Anne Marie White was scheduled to be on hand for the groundbreaking ceremony. White signed off on the project in May.
WIPP Hits 133 Shipments at End of May; 12,000 Shipments Since Opening
The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant received 133 shipments of transuranic waste during the first five months of 2018, the same number it received for disposal during almost eight months of operation in 2017.
That rounds out to roughly six shipments of TRU waste per week, based on about 22 weeks between Jan. 1 and May 31. That compares to less than four shipments per week for 38 weeks after the underground waste disposal facility in April 2017 reopened to shipments from other DOE sites.
The site was closed for nearly three years after a February 2014 underground radiation release, resuming operations in January 2017 with emplacement of waste drums that had been stranded above-ground at the site.
All but 30 of the shipments received during the first five months of the year came from the Idaho National Laboratory. The Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee sent 17 and Waste Control Specialists in Texas moved 13 to WIPP.
The Carlsbad Field Office, which oversees WIPP, anticipates about 300 shipments during the 12 months from February 2018 and February 2019.
Waste emplacement at WIPP was halted for about a week in May after discovery of a misaligned waste drum in a canister shipped from another facility.
WIPP has received more than 12,000 shipments of TRU waste since it opened in 1999 in part by cooperating with small communities along the haul routes between far-flung DOE sites and the disposal facility in southeastern New Mexico.
This was the message Michael Brown, Carlsbad Field Office director of environmental protection, shared during Thursday’s Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board meeting in Idaho Falls, Idaho.
Many municipalities don’t want trucks of radioactive waste going through well-traveled corridors at certain hours; others prefer the shipments don’t move through their community at night, Brown said.
“Some states want to escort our shipments” with police vehicles. If it’s a seldom-used route the escorts might prove simpler than training local officials along the way, Brown said.
Winning credibility among emergency response officials can go a long way toward gaining public acceptance because first responders tend to be well-regarded in their communities, Brown said.
The Energy Department has been extremely selective about hiring drivers for WIPP. The original plan was to allow only drivers with at least 500,000 miles with zero accidents, as well as no speeding or drunk driving convictions within the prior 10 years. “We relaxed that a little bit because some of the state police said they couldn’t be a WIPP driver,” Brown said.
Precautions are also taken to keep radioactive waste trucks from starting a trip in extreme weather. “We always make sure the first 200 miles were clear,” Brown said. Establishing a wider safe weather buffer zone, such as 500 miles, would probably ensure WIPP trucks never get on the road, he added.
While there have been studies about using railroads to move TRU waste, the Energy Department has found trucks to be a much more practical alternative for WIPP. Commercial railroads are best suited for loading and moving large volumes of material on a very predictable schedule.
“Where do all the rail lines go through? Right through the center of all these towns,” Brown said. Also, commercial railroads are private property, which can make getting access to the facilities more complicated than a public road, he added.
