Once disposal resumes at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in early 2017, the Energy Department’s transuranic logjam will unclog at a rate of about five shipments per week, DOE told motor carriers earlier this month in a question and answer session about the agency’s next waste-transportation contract.
“It is estimated that once shipping resumes, a shipping rate of up to 5 shipments per week will be required through Calendar Year (CY) 2017, then possibly increase up to as many as 10 shipments per week through CY 2020/2021 as the WIPP waste emplacement efficiency is improved,” the Energy Department said in its written answer to questions from carriers at a June 1 site tour and pre-solicitation briefing at WIPP. The agency posted the questions and answers online Monday.
“It is unlikely WIPP will receive more than 10 shipments per week until after the new exhaust shaft is online (capital asset project), anticipated to be complete in the 2020/2021 timeframe.”
The new ventilation system mentioned in the Q&A is expected to cost $270 million to $400 million.
The weight of any two WIPP shipments could vary greatly, depending on the type of transuranic waste involved, and the way the shipments are packed. A rough estimate for a typical shipment — based on the weight of packing materials and gross vehicle weight limits found in official DOE documents published online — is 18,000 pounds of waste.
That estimate excludes the weight of packing materials and assumes DOE sends a truckload of waste in three Nuclear Regulatory Commission-certified TRUPACT-II containers, each of which can fit up to 14 drums with an interior volume of 55 gallons each.
WIPP was accepting 14 shipments a week of the radio-contaminated material and equipment known as transuranic waste prior to the accidental underground radiation release and unrelated underground fire in February 2014. The mine is projected to reopen in December, at which time waste shipments delivered prior to the accident and stored above ground at WIPP ever since will be interred.
The shipment rates detailed in the June 1 question-and-answer session with the motor carriers interested in transporting the material dovetail with the projected rates mentioned at an industry conference in March by Phil Breidenbach, president and project manager for WIPP prime contractor Nuclear Waste Partnership.
New shipments to WIPP from across the DOE complex are set to resume in February, a DOE official said the week of June 6. However, the agency has yet to decide which DOE site will get to ship its transuranic waste to WIPP first.
The new WIPP Transportation Services contract will be a five-year, fixed-price, indefinite-quantity, indefinite-delivery deal. The pact will replace a pair of five-year WIPP transport contracts that expire in 2017 and are worth a combined $240 million or so, split evenly between incumbents Visionary Solutions and CAST Specialty Transportation.
DOE expects to issue the final solicitation for the follow-on WIPP transport contract in August, according to slides briefed for carriers at WIPP on June 1. Nine firms, including both incumbents, participated in the tour earlier this month.
