Chris Schneidmiller
WC Monitor
7/24/2015
The operator of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico is increasing the number of workers allowed in the underground section at any one time to support efforts to bring the transuranic waste storage facility back online following the fire and radiation release that occurred separately in February 2014.
“We have now significantly improved the risk posture in the underground to the point where we can safely allow more workers in the underground,” Jim Blankenhorn, recovery manager and deputy project manager for site operator Nuclear Waste Partnership, said during a July 9 town hall meeting in Carlsbad, N.M. “We were previously limited to 75, and effective this week we’ve increased the number of folks we can have in the underground to 98. Now, eventually, we’re going to increase that to 149.”
Workers are carrying out a number of operations in the underground storage area, including restoring safety and fire suppression systems, removing or replacement equipment, and starting maintenance on other equipment.
Key to enabling more personnel into the underground, Blankenhorn said, was establishing a “combustible control zone” that encircles the facility’s air-intake shaft, salt shaft, and waste hoist – areas where air enters the underground, where it is exhausted, and where workers would move through in exiting the mine in the event of another emergency.
“What we’ve done is we’ve removed all combustible materials” from those areas, Blankenhorn said. “Anything that was paper, cardboard, rubber, any fuels, anything that could burn, we removed from those areas.”
Diesel-fueled vehicles can pass through the area, but are not allowed to park. Fire protection engineers working on the surface at WIPP also inspect any materials going to the underground in order to control the amount of flammable substances allowed in that space at any time. In addition, facility personnel conduct regular inventories of materials kept underground, and then can remove items or take other measures to reduce the risk of fire.
Blankenhorn added that underground safety has been further improved by sealing off areas that contain what the Department of Energy calls “nitrate salt containers of concern.”
Blankenhorn also discussed continuing work to upgrade the WIPP ventilation system.
He said the interim ventilation system (IVS), which is designed to increase the facility’s filtered air capacity, won’t be fully in place for several months. As of the town hall, WIPP had received seven of 12 shipments of ductwork for the IVS; the final five transports were halted due to “poor workmanship” in about 40 of the 1,000 ductwork welds in the original seven shipments, Blankenhorn said. Some filter and fan units for the IVS were also damaged during transport, requiring repairs ahead of additional testing and inspection before being delivered to WIPP.
“We’re currently operating off of two HEPA banks that provide us about 60,000 cubic feet per minute of filtered air, and that’s currently what the mine has been running on since the events,” Blankenhorn said. “The IVS system effectively doubles that, it adds another 54,000 cubic feet per minute of filtered air capacity.” Greater air capacity ensures sufficient air supply in the underground and allows for use of diesel-fuel vehicles.
WIPP in early July received segments of the supplemental ventilation system (SVS), which will draw air into the mine to augment the underground’s airflow and enable use of additional equipment. However, the SVS is designed to function alongside the IVS and current ventilation system to avoid “overpowering the filter systems and pushing air to the wrong places or sucking air from the wrong areas,” Blankenhorn said.
“We’re going to look at that, and see if there’s a way to throttle this system back in a way that doesn’t overpower the existing ventilation system while we wait for the interim ventilation system to come online,” he said.” But that’s still an engineering study that we’re working on and don’t have a final answer at this point.”
There is no cost estimate yet for installing the additional ventilation systems. Blankenhorn said officials continue to consider different options for a permanent ventilation system.
Officials hope for WIPP to resume accepting waste shipments by next year, according to previous reports.
