The power company serving the Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico has started moving an overhead electric transmission line to make way for new structures to be built on the surface for the site’s planned Safety Significant Confinement Ventilation System.
Xcel Energy has already installed most of the power poles for the relocated line and the project should be completed by July 9, Donavan Mager, a spokesman for WIPP prime contractor Nuclear Waste Partnership, said in a Tuesday email.
Site clearing and grading are set to begin next week for new structures on the surface, including a new 55,000 square-foot filter building, a salt reduction building, fabrication facility, and stormwater equipment.
More than half of the construction budget for the ventilation project is included in DOE fiscal 2018 and 2019 spending plans. The project was funded at $86 million in the fiscal 2018 budget.
The House and Senate Appropriations committees have both endorsed DOE’s $84 million request for fiscal 2019 for work on the ventilation system. All parties are also in agreement on providing $397 million in total spending for WIPP in the budget year beginning Oct. 1.
The new ventilation system would enable WIPP to simultaneously conduct full-scale underground salt mining and disposal of transuranic waste. The new setup is meant to provide underground airflow of about 540,000 cubic feet per minute, or more than three times current levels.
Airflow was dramatically cut to prevent the spread of contaminants following a February 2014 underground radiation release. After being out of service for about three years, WIPP resumed waste disposal operations in January 2017. Salt mining resumed in January of this year.
