The Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico received more shipments of transuranic waste during fiscal 2024 than fiscal 2023, although traffic was down in September 2024 compared to a year earlier.
The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad received at least 37 shipments of defense-related transuranic waste during September with the most recent one arriving on Sept. 27, according to DOE’s public website for the disposal facility. DOE typically does not acknowledge shipments publicly until weeks after they arrive.
That is down from the 48 shipments that WIPP received during September 2023.
Overall for fiscal year 2024, however, traffic was up to 488 shipments, compared with 473 shipments in fiscal year 2023. The government fiscal year begins Oct. 1.
In September, 26 shipments from Idaho National Laboratory, five came from the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, three from Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, two from the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee and one from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California.
As for the calendar year, WIPP has so far taken in 374 shipments of transuranic waste during the first nine months of 2024. That pace is nearly flat with the 375 shipments during the first nine months of calendar year 2023, according to the DOE data.
