A transuranic waste container potentially too contaminated to be disposed of, yet already shipped to the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico, will be sent back to the Savannah River Site in South Carolina in August, the prime contractor for disposal site said Tuesday.
The standard waste box, now located in a Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) parking lot, is scheduled to be shipped back to Savannah River on Aug. 23, said Ken Harrawood, president and project manager of the Bechtel National-led Salado Isolation Mining Contractors. Harrawood spoke during a DOE public forum webcast from New Mexico.
Savannah River is still planning to take the waste, Harrawood said. “They usually send the waste out, they don’t usually receive the waste,” he said in response to a question.
WIPP received a one-time approval from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to send the waste back to South Carolina even though the package’s maintenance certificate had expired, which is akin to an automobile’s state inspection sticker expiring.
The Halfpact package will go back to the Savannah River Site about a year after it arrived at WIPP. Workers at the disposal site found out the inner containment vessel was potentially contaminated with airborne plutonium-238.
A spokesperson for Salado said in a Wednesday email to Exchange Monitor the contractor is committed to returning the waste box to South Carolina by September. “In the meantime, the shipment remains safe and secure in temporary Waste Isolation Pilot Plant storage until it can be safely returned to the Savannah River Site.”
The Savannah River shipment was not the only problematic waste discussed during the session, which ran about two hours during the same evening as Major League Baseball’s all-star game.
DOE’s Carlsbad Field Office Manager Mark Bollinger said much remains to be done before 74 containers of Los Alamos National Laboratory transuranic waste, once flagged their similarity to a waste drum that ruptured and caused a major radiation leak underground at WIPP in February 2014, can be safely moved to the deep-underground salt mine from Waste Control Specialists in Texas. DOE has told Texas it hopes to move the containers in 2026.
“We are developing a plan to remove that waste and to hopefully someday move it to WIPP,” but a number of agencies need to agree that it can be done safely, Bollinger said in response to a question. “So, we are a ways away from being able to move that waste.”
Likewise, Bollinger is not ready to provide even a “rough estimate” of when WIPP might start taking transuranic waste generated by upcoming plutonium pit production from Savannah River or the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.
