The Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico has entered Phase 1 of its gradual return to normal operations, which have been reduced for months during the COVID-19 pandemic, officials said Tuesday.
Like nearly all of the 16 nuclear cleanup sites overseen by DOE’s Office of Environmental Management, the transuranic waste disposal facility sent most workers home in late March to help slow the spread of the viral disease.
The “safe and deliberate” remobilization kicked began Monday, a spokesman for WIPP prime contractor Nuclear Waste Partnership said via email. Phase 1 involves recalling the first tranche of employees not currently at the jobsite. The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant is following a new DOE framework on restaffing operations, which employs a four-part process that starts with the preplanning Phase 0 and culminates with Phase 3, when on-site staffing approaches pre-pandemic levels.
To date, there have been 24 confirmed infections of novel coronavirus 2019 in Eddy County, N.M., where WIPP is located. There have been two cases of COVID-19 among the WIPP workforce. A stay-at-home order issued by New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D) expired Sunday.
Office of Environmental Management work at the Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico also started Phase 1 this week. The semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) is the landlord for Sandia, although EM handles groundwater remediation there.
During normal times, WIPP can have 1,000 federal and contractor employees inside the complex, but the on-site count has been less than 300 during April and May, officials have said. A DOE spokesperson did not immediately know roughly how many employees might return during Phase 1.
The Energy Department previously confirmed that five Environmental Management sites are now ramping up operations: the Hanford Site in Washington state, Idaho National Laboratory, Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee, Nevada National Security Site, and Savannah River Site in South Carolina. The Uranium Mill Tailings Reclamation Action (UMTRA) Project in Moab, Utah, never scaled back its work because so many of its people are heavy equipment operators, which are already socially distanced inside vehicle cabs.
The status of the remaining locations could not be confirmed Tuesday, although one nuclear industry source expects all remediation sites to start ramping back up in the next couple of weeks.
