The Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico received only 67 shipments of transuranic waste during the first five months of the year, compared to 125 during the same period in 2019.
The underground disposal site for defense-related TRU received 20 shipments in May. Thirteen came from the Idaho National Laboratory and seven from the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.
Through the end of May, the Idaho National Laboratory sent a total of 39 shipments in 2020. Another 20 came from Los Alamos and eight from the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, according to figures available on WIPP’s public website.
Dramatically reduced operations in March and April due to the COVID-19 pandemic, a longer-than-normal annual maintenance outage, and rough winter weather are contributing factors cited by DOE for this year’s slow pace.
Generally, around 1,000 federal and contractor employees are on-site at the disposal complex, but that dropped to less than 300 during April and May when staffing and operations were reduced in an effort to slow the spread of novel coronavirus 2019 within the workforce. During March and April, WIPP accepted no more than four or five shipments weekly. That is roughly half as many as it received during a good week of normal operations, according to DOE.
The disposal site entered Phase 1 of DOE’s remobilization this month. There is no set date for resumption of full operations, Sean Dunagan, president and project manager for WIPP contractor Nuclear Waste Partnership, said last week.
