Kenneth Fletcher
WC Monitor
1/30/2015
The Department of Energy is analyzing alternatives to constructing a new exhaust shaft at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, an upgrade called for in the plan for bringing the plant back to full operations. The WIPP recovery plan released last October calls for two capital asset project line items for restoring operations in the underground portion of WIPP after a radiological release occurred last year: a new shaft and a new ventilation system. As part of DOE project management requirements, last week WIPP managing contractor Nuclear Waste Partnership delivered an alternatives analysis to DOE’s Carlsbad Field Office for review that includes an option to instead build a system to provide the underground with 100 percent filtered air, WC Monitor has learned. That option could be faster to implement than a new shaft, but may be difficult to maintain for the decades into the future WIPP may potentially be running.
DOE this week did not provide details on the content of the alternatives analysis. “CBFO is performing an alternatives analysis in accordance with the Department’s project management requirements, which it must do before a capital construction project decision,” a DOE spokesman said in a statement. “While a final decision has not yet been made, construction of a new permanent ventilation shaft was included in the WIPP Recovery Plan.” NWP referred request for comment to DOE.
Operations Restricted by Limited Ventilation
In order to resume operations, the plant will need to increase ventilation in the underground, which has been restricted since the radiological event contaminated the existing shaft and ventilation system. After the events, the existing ventilation system has operated in “filtration mode” to block contaminants, with an initial airflow of about 54,000 cubic feet per minute, limiting equipment and workers in the underground. However, with the new shaft and ventilation system in place, airflow is expected to return to near previous standard operations levels of about 425,000 cubic feet per minute.
The new ventilation system is estimated to run between $65 million and $261 million, while the exhaust shaft is expected to cost between $12 million and $48 million, according to DOE’s WIPP Recovery Plan. That would be on top of the $242 million DOE estimates it will need to restart initial operations. Those two efforts will be capital asset project line items and after initial operations should take two-to-three years to complete under DOE’s project management process, acting DOE cleanup chief Mark Whitney said in October upon the recovery plan’s rollout.
The 100 percent filtered air option would also bring airflow up to around previous levels, and would involve construction of a large building on the surface that would have a bank of HEPA filters to provide air to the underground. That option would likely be faster to develop because it does not involve as many regulatory and safety questions as constructing a new shaft, which would require changes to the WIPP permit. However, the filter facility would likely have a shorter lifespan and require more maintenance over the years than a new exhaust shaft and ventilation system.
Filter System Would be ‘Pound Foolish,’ Carlsbad Official Says
In order to maintain WIPP as a long-term asset for the nation’s nuclear waste program, DOE should move ahead with constructing a new exhaust shaft, John Heaton, head of the Carlsbad Mayor’s Nuclear Task Force, told WC Monitor this week. “This is really the right answer for the long-term performance of the WIPP project. Being able to operate under atmospheric ventilation is clearly the best way to run the facility,” he said. “Any other way is being pound foolish when you include the cost of maintaining the filter system over a long period.”
Heaton emphasized that the support of the community is vital for WIPP. “Carlsbad has committed itself to WIPP, it wouldn’t exist without the community of Carlsbad. In some ways the community has staked its future on the WIPP project and the economics associate with it,” he said. “I think that a new shaft is certainly more of an assurance to the community that the project has a longer future than the early anticipated life of WIPP.”
