After recording one of its busier months in more than a year, shipments of transuranic waste to the Department of Energy’s underground disposal site near Carlsbad, N.M., declined in August.
Data available Monday on the DOE’s public website for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) show only seven shipments during August, with the most recent being Aug. 25. In August 2020, the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant received 12 shipments.
By contrast, WIPP took in 41 shipments during July 2021, making that one of the busiest months since the United States became acquainted with the term “COVID-19” in early 2020.
Of the seven shipments, four came from the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, two from the Idaho National Laboratory and one from the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee — making August one of those rare months when Idaho National Lab fails to ship the most drums to WIPP. For example, 21 of July’s 41 shipments came from Idaho.
With 2021 now two thirds complete, WIPP has received 146 shipments of the defense-related radioactive waste left over from nuclear weapons work and found on old tools, debris and clothing. During the equivalent period in 2020, the disposal facility received 121 shipments.
The DOE and WIPP prime Nuclear Waste Partnership have said in reports to the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board that the pandemic slowed transuranic shipments due to staffing issues at either WIPP or waste generator sites. Sometimes, employees were out because they were ill themselves, other times they had to quarantine after coming in contact with someone infected with COVID-19.
Last decade, Transuranic waste disposal shut down for about three years following a February 2014 radiation leak, and the ramifications are still felt at WIPP. The best year the facility has managed since reopening in 2017 was 2018, when it received 311 shipments.
The DOE does not expect to approach pre-2014 shipments levels, which could be north of 700 shipments annually, until 2025 when the Safety Significant Confined Ventilation System is supposed to become operational.
Once the new ventilation system is up and running, DOE says it will have sufficient airflow for simultaneous waste emplacement, salt mining and maintenance.
