Shipments to the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico are down more than 40% for both the first nine months of 2020, and the just-completed 2020 fiscal year, based on figures from the site’s public database.
During the first nine months of pandemic-affected 2020, the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) received 142 shipments from DOE waste generator sites. That compares with 254 shipments during the first three quarters of 2019: a decline of roughly 44%.
During fiscal 2020, which ended Sept. 30, WIPP received 180 shipments. By comparison, during fiscal 2019, which ended Sept. 30, 2019, the facility took in 315 shipments. That reduction is close to 43%.
In September, the deep-underground salt mine received 21 shipments. This includes 11 shipments from the Idaho National Laboratory, six from the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and four from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California. Livermore’s shipment was the first transuranic sent to WIPP by the lab in 15 years.
Winter weather in early 2020 coupled with reduced onsite staffing during March and April due to COVID-19 restrictions have slowed operations this year, prime contractor Nuclear Waste Partnership has said previously.
About 1,000 DOE and contractor employees are typically onsite at the disposal complex, but that decreased to less than 300 during April and May when staffing was reduced in an effort to slow the spread of the coronavirus. Since the pandemic took root in the United States in January, WIPP has limited itself to no more than five shipments weekly, about half as many as during a good week of normal operations, DOE officials have said at various meetings..
There were 18 positive COVID-19 tests reported at WIPP between Oct. 8 and Oct.17, site management and operations contractor Nuclear Waste Partnership said late Tuesday. Thus far, 63 employees at WIPP have tested positive and 36 have recovered and been cleared to return to work, according to the contractor.
The Department of Energy expected WIPP disposal throughput will pick up in a couple of years with completion of a new underground ventilation system. The prime contractor, with DOE’s backing, terminated the subcontractor developing the project this summer. A new subcontractor has yet to be selected, a WIPP spokesman said recently.
