The Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., expects to receive 330 shipments of transuranic waste over the next 12 months, with some coming from sites that have not shipped material in years.
The Energy Department and its WIPP contractor, Nuclear Waste Partnership, held a legislative breakfast presentation Monday for New Mexico lawmakers, which includes shipping estimates for February 2019 through January 2018.
The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California is expected to move 10 shipments to WIPP during the period, and three will come from the Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico.
The disposal facility last received TRU waste from Livermore in 2005, with Sandia sending its most recent shipment in 2012, according to contractor spokesman Bobby St. John. The Energy Department disposal site resumed taking waste from generator facilities in early 2017, after going offline for nearly three years following an underground radiation leak in February 2014.
The Idaho National Laboratory should again account for more than half of the annual shipments to WIPP, with 168 anticipated in the February-January period. Others will include the Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois with five; the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico with 57; the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee with 50; the Savannah River Site in South Carolina with 35; and Waste Control Specialists in Texas with two.
The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant was shut down for maintenance and did not emplace any waste between Jan. 7 and Jan. 27. During the outage workers performed upkeep on electric substations; resurfaced a floor where contact-handled waste is temporarily held; made repairs to the fire system; replaced an underground airline; and did work on a waste hoist.
In December, Nuclear Waste Partnership issued a request for proposals for construction of an underground ventilation shaft and mine tunnels, which are also known as “drifts.”
