The Idaho National Laboratory has accounted for about 71% of shipments to the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., over three years, the manager of DOE’s Idaho Cleanup Project told an advisory board Wednesday.
Under Idaho’s updated spent fuel settlement agreement with DOE and the U.S. Navy, the lab is supposed to account for at least 55% of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) shipments of defense-related transuranic waste over a three-year running average, Mark Brown said in a presentation to the Idaho Cleanup Project Citizens Advisory Board.
There were some shipment delays due both to a WIPP maintenance outage and winter weather during the first quarter of 2024, said Brown, the manager of the Idaho Cleanup Project.
As of April 24, Idaho has made 178 transuranic shipments to WIPP in fiscal 2024, which started Oct. 1, 2023, said Doug Pruitt, an assistant manager to Brown. Drums of transuranic waste “don’t get better with age,” Pruitt said, and the national lab is taking extra precautions with drums packaged more than four years ago.
Over time, Idaho has shipped more than 47,000 cubic meters of its transuranic waste to WIPP, Brown said. That represents more than three-quarters of the transuranic waste that came to the laboratory complex from the old Rocky Flats facility in Colorado and other DOE sites. About 14,750 cubic meters remain.
The materials for the June 12 meeting in Fort Hall, Idaho, are posted online.
