The management and operations contractor for the Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad, N.M., is reviewing three bid proposals from companies hoping to build a new permanent underground ventilation system for the deep-underground disposal site.
Bid proposals were received March 21 and are now under review, Nuclear Waste Partnership (NWP) spokesman Donavan Mager said last week by email. The company will enter into the contract with the successful bidder and manage the subcontractor directly.
However, the contract award has to be reviewed and approved by the DOE Environmental Management Cincinnati Business Center at a future date, Mager said.
In various recent public presentations, WIPP officials have suggested the contract should be awarded this spring.
Nuclear Waste Partnership anticipates construction on the safety significant confinement ventilation system will start this summer. Construction of a new filter building on the surface is slated for August after the electric power supplier to WIPP, Xcel Energy, has relocated an transmission line that crosses over the construction site, Mager said.
The ventilation project will cost roughly $273 million, the Department of Energy has estimated. The agency requested roughly $90 million for the ventilation system for the 2019 fiscal year, which begins on Oct. 1. The agency’s Carlsbad Field Office has said it hopes to have the new ventilation system operational around 2021.
In the wake of a February 2014 underground radiation release, WIPP drastically reduced airflow levels to prevent the spread of contaminants. Increasing airflow was one component of the site’s nearly three-year recovery. Emplacement of transuranic waste resumed in January 2017.
The Department of Energy and NWP have said a new permanent ventilation system is crucial to helping WIPP resume full-scale operations for both waste emplacement and underground salt mining to carve out more disposal space. The new ventilation system should increase underground airflow to about 540,000 cubic feet per minute, or more than three times the current rate.
In January, for the first time since February 2014, WIPP resumed limited salt-mining operations. As of this month, mine crews had extracted 4,500 tons of salt.
DOE Offers Details on Expected Increase in Shipments
The Energy Department anticipates receiving about 300 shipments during the 12 months from February 2018 to February 2019, Carlsbad Field Office Manager Todd Shrader said at the Waste Management Symposia last month in Phoenix, Ariz.
During this period, DOE and Nuclear Waste Partnership expect 150 of the shipments will come from the Idaho National Laboratory and another 90 from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. A 1995 legal settlement between Idaho and the Energy Department requires INL to move the last of the legacy transuranic waste out of state by the end of 2018.
Other shippers are expected to include Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico (25); Savannah River Site in South Carolina (20); the Waste Control Specialists site in Texas (10;); and Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois (5).
WIPP is expected to receive roughly 280 shipments in fiscal 2018, which ends Sept. 30. It expects to take in 360 shipments in fiscal 2019 and 395 in fiscal 2020. Shipments in fiscal 2021 should remain relatively flat, at 388.
At that point, DOE expects to have its new permanent ventilation system installed at WIPP, allowing waste shipments to increase to 599 in fiscal 2022 and 649 in fiscal 2023.
The next WIPP Town Hall meeting is scheduled 5:30 p.m. local time on Thursday, April 19, at Carlsbad City Hall. The meeting, which will be webcast, features presentations from DOE and NWP.
