The U.S. Energy Department is prioritizing installing a new permanent ventilation system and replacing aging infrastructure at the Waste Isolation Pilot Project (WIPP) in New Mexico, according to the newly released fiscal 2019 budget justification document for the Office of Environmental Management.
The $403 million WIPP budget request for the budget year starting Oct. 1 includes $84 million for the Safety Significant Confinement Ventilation System. The ventilation project received $86 million in the final 2018 budget. The total cost of the project is to be determined, according to the document.
The federal agency is seeking $1 million to install a new exhaust shaft at the underground transuranic waste disposal site. The exhaust shaft received an estimated $20 million in the final fiscal 2018 budget. The design for the ventilation system was completed in fiscal 2017, as was the design for the exhaust shaft, according to the fiscal 2019 budget document.
The new ventilation system and exhaust shaft are intended to dramatically increase airflow at the nation’s only underground repository, to 540,000 cubic feet per minute. That would be more than three times the current level, allowing WIPP to simultaneously deposit waste underground and mine out more space for shipments.
Since a fire and underground radiation release in February 2014 forced WIPP offline for almost three years, DOE has focused on re-establishing a safe working environment and resuming waste disposal.
Now, however, the site is also eyeing upgrading or replacing old equipment – such as electric substations, a fire suppression system, and other infrastructure that has operated “beyond its life-cycle design in harsh environmental conditions,” including salt dust and high heat and humidity, DOE said in the budget justification.
If approved by Congress, WIPP’s funding next year would increase from $377 million in the final fiscal 2018 budget.
Elsewhere in New Mexico, the DOE Environmental Management budget request for the Los Alamos National Laboratory in fiscal 2019 is less than $192 million. The final Los Alamos cleanup funding in the fiscal 2018 omnibus, which was signed into law last week by President Trump, was $220 million.
For all Office of Environmental Management operations, the Trump administration is requesting $6.6 billion for fiscal 2019, up from $6.5 billion requested for fiscal 2018 but less than the $7.1 billion included in the omnibus budget.
Discussing WIPP’s future at last week’s Waste Management Symposia in Phoenix, Ariz., DOE Carlsbad Field Office Manager Todd Shrader said a proposed change to the site’s New Mexico hazardous waste facility permit could effectively increase the amount of waste being stored underground.
The Energy Department wants to recalibrate WIPP’s mixed-waste disposal volume reporting requirements. For record-keeping purposes, the change could reduce the current volume of “waste” already stored underground by about 30 percent, Shrader said. Simply put, the empty space or air between drums in a standard waste container would no longer be counted as waste when volume is measured.
The change is being sought both to the waste already stored underground and waste empaneled in the future.
