The Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico received 115 shipments of transuranic defense waste during the first five months of 2019.
Based on 21.5 calendar weeks through May 31, that is an average of 5.4 shipments per week. By contrast, the facility received 138 shipments for the first five months of 2018, or about 6.5 shipments per week.
The figures here are derived by taking the number of shipments between Jan. 1 and May 31, as listed on WIPP’s public database, and dividing the figure by 21.5 weeks.
The number of weekly shipments is impacted by outage periods when no waste is received due to maintenance at WIPP, holidays, or bad weather.
For example, if the Energy Department only accepted waste for 40 weeks out of the year its weekly rate would presumably be the total number of shipments divided by 40, rather than 52. Last August, DOE said it was averaging between seven and eight shipments per week.
The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant received only one shipment during January, which included a maintenance outage and two federal holidays. But shipments bounced back with 35 in February. That was followed by 23 shipments in March, despite WIPP being closed a couple days by high winds; 24 shipments in April; and 32 shipments in May.
The annual WIPP maintenance outage began Jan. 7 and was completed during the first week in February. That is the primary reason for the dip in shipments, Donavan Mager, spokesman for WIPP operations contractor Nuclear Waste Partnership, said by email. Inclement weather at generator sites also played a role, he said.
Defense-related transuranic waste from DOE sites around the country is sent to WIPP for permanent disposal. This material consists of clothing, tools, rags, residues, debris, soil and other items contaminated with small amounts of plutonium or other radioactive materials.
The Energy Department customarily plans on shipping roughly 40 out of 52 weeks each year. “WIPP still has over six months to reschedule and make up for any missed shipments in order to meet its 2019 shipping goals,” Mager said. The contractor and DOE expect to meet or exceed the 311 shipments received during 2018, he added.
The bulk of the shipments through May, 94, came from the Idaho National Laboratory. Another 13 came from the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee, and eight from the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.
The 311 shipments received by the underground disposal facility last year averages to almost six shipments per calendar week. Last year was WIPP’s first full 12-month stretch of operations after being offline for almost three years following an underground radiation leak in February 2014.
After reopening in January 2017, WIPP resuming receiving waste from DOE generator sites in April and took in 133 shipments by the end of the year.
In 2013, its last full year of operation prior to the accident, the facility received 724 shipments of TRU waste, or almost 14 per week.
The Energy Department does not expect to approach that level at WIPP again until about 2022, when a new $288 million ventilation system should prevent the need to suspend waste emplacement when more underground storage space is being mined. It should increase airflow to about 540,000 cubic feet per minute, which is more than triple the current level.
The increased airflow should enable the facility to do waste emplacement and salt mining simultaneously. Airflow levels since the accident are not sufficient to safely support both underground activities at once.
