Technicians with Nuclear Waste Partnership have moved transuranic waste into the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) for the first time in nearly three years, the New Mexico Environment Department said late Wednesday in a press release.
Closed since February 2014 following an accidental underground radiation release and earlier, unrelated undergound fire, WIPP received Energy Department clearance to reopen Dec. 23, with great fanfare.
Then, with no official announcement from DOE or WIPP prime Nuclear Waste Partnership, the agency and its contractor put a small amount of waste underground Wednesday. The local Carlsbad Current-Argus newspaper reported that two pallets of waste were placed in Room 5 of WIPP’s Panel 7 disposal area.
The waste just emplaced was from the cache that has been stored above ground at WIPP since the accidents in 2014, the newspaper reported. DOE has not yet started shipping transuranic waste to WIPP from its major legacy nuclear cleanup sites across the country.
DOE, NWP, and the New Mexico Environment Department did not immediately reply to requests for comment late Wednesday.
