Two key projects at the Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico are nearing completion.
Construction of the North Access Road should be finished by the end of the month, according to Donavan Mager, spokesman for WIPP management and operations contractor Nuclear Waste Partnership.
The purpose of the $10 million, 3-mile bypass is to connect north and south access roads and direct non-WIPP traffic away from the underground disposal site for transuranic waste. Intersections will be added and missing or damaged signs will be replaced.
The Energy Department contractor said truck traffic around WIPP has increased in recent years, largely due to a boom in natural gas and oil production near Carlsbad, N.M. The bypass is intended to shift traffic away from WIPP construction projects such as the new 2,300-foot utility shaft that will augment the planned Safety Significant Confinement Ventilation System.
The road infrastructure near WIPP came up Thursday during Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette’s appearance before the Senate Appropriations Committee’s energy and water subcommittee.
Oil workers are commuting to the area from 60 to 80 miles away and “those roads are getting hammered,” Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) told Brouillette. Trucks carrying radioactive waste to WIPP must drive through this increased congestion, the senator added, saying he is disappointed there is no founding for improving WIPP-area roads in DOE’s fiscal budget request for the upcoming fiscal 2021.
“We do have similar concerns” for DOE workers and contractors who travel over the roads to WIPP, Brouillette said, adding the department could look at economic assistance for road improvements in the future.
In its latest spending plan, the Donald Trump administration in February proposed to trim WIPP funding from almost $404 million in fiscal 2020 to $390 million in the fiscal year starting Oct. 1.
Meanwhile, the disposal site’s annual maintenance outage should be completed around March 15, Mager said. During the outage, which began Feb. 17, no waste from DOE sites is being emplaced.
One of the largest maintenance tasks is replacement of one of six head ropes on the facility’s 45-ton capacity waste hoist — a four-day effort. The 2,200-foot steel rope comprises 151 wires. The hoist is used to lower equipment and material into the mine.
As of Feb. 13, the latest date for which the data is publicly available, WIPP has received 34 shipments during 2020. Twenty came from the Idaho National Laboratory and seven each from the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and the Savannah River Site in South Carolina.
