A stop work order, issued after a tool basket fell about 2,150 feet down the utility shaft at the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico, was lifted last month, according to a recent safety watchdog report.
The stop work order triggered by the Nov. 20 accident was partly lifted Dec. 16, according to a recently published staff report, dated Jan. 5, from the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board.
That’s when Bechtel-owned prime Salado Isolation Mining Contractors authorized subcontractor Harrison Western Shaft Sinkers “to begin recovering the shaft and prepare for resuming construction,” according to the document.
The subcontract has hired a “a safety culture expert” to improve work practices on the new Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) Utility Shaft project, according to the board’s report.
“We are still in the process of inspecting the shaft for damage and making necessary small repairs,” a spokesperson for the site prime contractor said in a Thursday email. “Full operations will not resume until inspections are complete and repairs are made to ensure safe operations.”
The basket carrying tools and materials was being lifted to the surface of the shaft in November when the basket broke free and fell to the depths of the newly-dug utility shaft. It marked the shaft’s third hoisting incident in about a month, the safety board said in a prior report.
No one was hurt in the accident.
DOE announced in October 2023 that the subcontractor, hired in 2019, had reached the required depth for the shaft.
In addition to providing a new access point for the WIPP underground, the shaft is also supposed to augment the Safety Significant Confinement Ventilation System, which is expected to come online and triple underground airflow later this year.
DOE spent $25 million on the shaft in fiscal 2022, $46 million in 2023 and requested $50 million for fiscal 2024. The total cost of the project has been estimated at $166 million, according to the 2024 budget justification document.
