The Energy Department is temporarily ramping down operations at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad, N.M., because of the COVID-19 crisis, a spokesperson said by email Monday.
The Energy Department told its Carlsbad Field Office and WIPP contractor Nuclear Waste Partnership (NWP) to start scaling back operations March 27.
The disposal site is now handling only essential mission critical operations. This include roof bolting and other work necessary “to ensure the safe and secure operation of the facility,” according to the spokesperson.
The underground salt mine will continue to take up to four or five shipments per week – roughly half what the facility might otherwise handle in a good week. The COVID-19 pandemic has led many governors to encourage or outright order most people to stay home, which has dramatically cut non-emergency business operations – including waste transport.
The DOE spokesperson last week said most of WIPP’s roughly 1,000 employees are probably either telecommuting or have been told to stay home temporarily. The work that is still occurring on-site is carried out in accordance with federal and state health guidelines, including “social distancing,” designed to inhibit the spread of the virus.
Current on-site staffing levels at nuclear cleanup sites across the DOE weapons complex are probably less than 20% of normal, two sources said this week. The Energy Department has been slow to disclose workforce figures at most locations.
On March 31, the Carlsbad Field Office and NWP informed the New Mexico Environment Department by letter that the scaled-back staffing could affect their ability to keep up with certain regulatory or permit timelines. Because of reduced staffing levels and restrictions placed on business travel, some recertification audits of waste generator sites and the resulting reports might not be completed on schedule, Carlsbad Field Office acting Manager Greg Sosson and NWP President and Project Manager Sean Dunagan said in the letter to NMED Hazardous Waste Bureau Chief Kevin Pierard.
The national transuranic waste program, run through Carlsbad, calls for DOE to certify that waste is properly packaged and can be safely shipped to WIPP.
In addition, some safety equipment and security devices might not be inspected as often as specified in WIPP’s state hazardous waste permit. The letter did not specify how often such equipment must be checked.
On March 27, New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham ordered people who enter the state by airplane to self-isolate for 14 days. More than half the 400 COVID-19 cases in the state have resulted from out-of-state visitors, according to the governor.
The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, which completed a three-week maintenance outage March 16, has received 35 shipments in 2020, according to the latest publicly available information on a WIPP database.
