Chris Schneidmiller
WC Monitor
10/23/2015
AMELIA ISLAND, Fla – The Department of Energy is considering options for increasing above-ground storage of transuranic waste at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) while it works to reopen the underground mine in New Mexico, a senior official said this week.
WIPP has not accepted new shipments of waste since a fire and subsequent, unrelated radiation release in February 2014. Meanwhile, waste is piling up at other DOE sites.
Generator sites across the country, led by department facilities in Idaho and Tennessee, have continued to process TRU waste at a normal pace over the last 20 months, said Frank Marcinowski, deputy assistant secretary for waste management in DOE’s Office of Environmental Management. Both have sufficient storage capacity for now to hold the waste on-site, he said, but their backlog is growing – Idaho alone has roughly 700 shipments’ worth.
DOE and WIPP contract operator Nuclear Waste Partnership are working on a new performance measurement baseline that would specify the timeline and cost projection for restarting waste emplacement at the site. While specifics are not yet confirmed, department officials have repeatedly expressed their intent to resume underground operations next year.
In the interim, the department is seriously studying opportunities to expand WIPP’s above-ground storage capacity, Marcinowski said Tuesday during a panel discussion on WIPP reopening at the ExchangeMonitor’s Decisionmakers’ Forum.
“It just seems to make more sense for us to have that capability at the WIPP facility rather than building additional storage capabilities if needed at the generator sites,” he said. “The facility would have a longer life at the WIPP facility, it would be closer to where the waste is ultimately going to be disposed, and will allow us to actually de-inventory the sites in order to bring us closer to meeting compliance requirements as well.”
DOE is studying what type of storage enhancement, including volume, would be appropriate for WIPP. Such above-ground facilities are already in place at waste generator sites across the department complex, he noted. “We need to figure out what is the appropriate one for the conditions at the WIPP site.” The evaluation would ultimately lead to a permit modification application to the New Mexico Environment Department, Marcinowski said.
State Environment Secretary Ryan Flynn, speaking on the panel, said New Mexico would consider on-site waste storage as an option, “and, quite frankly, we believe it’s necessary” for a number of states waiting to send TRU waste to WIPP. But the New Mexico government would also first need assurance that waste could be stored safely at WIPP ahead of the underground’s reopening.
In their panel presentations, Marcinowski and Jim Blankenhorn, recovery manager and deputy project manager for Nuclear Waste Partnership, noted the work that has been done to restore the facility and to prevent future incidents of this sort. Flynn emphasized the state government’s support for the facility and the importance of safety in progressing toward resumption of operations.
“The top priority for moving forward is to do so safely,” Flynn said. “We simply have not set an arbitrary date [for WIPP restart], although we do support reopening it as soon as it is safe to do so. Ideally, we’d be in position to reopen it yesterday.”
Recovery advances to date include completing 85% of “catch-up bolting” of more than 4,000 bolts to stabilize the underground; reducing the underground radiological risk, with more than 65% of the site declared as controlled areas; initial closures of Panel 6 and Panel 7 Room 7; and continued progress in meeting the goal of by early 2016 to deploy and test interim and supplemental ventilation systems underground to allow for more operations toward resuming storage emplacement.
DOE’s Carlsbad Field Office, which oversee WIPP, and the Nuclear Waste Partnership are also implementing corrective measures identified in Accident Investigation Board reports on the fire and radiological release. The department and its contractor are in continued discussions on finalizing the new performance measurement baseline for reopening WIPP. The previous PMB, which projected a $242 million recovery project that would end by March 2016 was scrapped in the face of concerns over faulty equipment and “safety-related activities,” among other issues.
When WIPP begins accepting new waste shipments, the priority will be on relocating the material now held above ground at the facility, Marcinowski said. Factors in setting the priorities for waste shipments from other sites will include WIPP’s transportation and storage capacities, the generators sites’ storage capabilities and compliance commitments, and other site-specific issues.
“Once operations start again we must sequence the sites as to which would be first, which would come later in time, or how the transportation resources would be distributed among the sites,” Marcinowski said. “We’re hoping to do that in the coming months in order to get ready for what will hopefully be a calendar year ’16 restart to operations. We expect having in the very near future a start to those discussions and start thinking about those things.”
WIPP will not immediately begin operating at full capacity upon restart, he said: “We’re going to have to crawl before we walk or run here.” The rate of waste acceptance at the start is not yet known, Marcinowski said.
