The Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant has now received 13,000 shipments of defense-related transuranic waste at the underground disposal site near Carlsbad, N.M., since it opened in 1999, the agency said Tuesday.
The shipment arrived at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) Nov. 11 from the Idaho National Laboratory, which has produced more than half, or 6,605, of transuranic waste shipments to the underground salt mine to date, DOE said in a press release.
WIPP received its first shipment from another DOE site in New Mexico, the Los Alamos National Laboratory, in 1999.
All but 775 of WIPP’s 13,000 shipments have been the less radioactive contact-handled transuranic waste that does not need special container shielding to protect workers during handling, transportation and emplacement, DOE said. The more radioactive remote-handled transuranic waste containers are handled in shielded facility casks.
As of Nov. 4, WIPP has received 175 shipments during 2021, according to the agency’s public website, which posts updated figures about two weeks after the fact.
DOE hopes completion of the new Safety Significant Confinement Ventilation System in 2025 will allow simultaneous maintenance, salt mining and waste emplacement. WIPP has lacked such ability since a February 2014 radiation leak underground that took the repository out of service for about three years.
Radioactive transuranic waste is legally classified as any containing elements heavier than uranium with alpha-emitting radionuclides that have half-lives greater than 20 years. Common sources of transuranic waste include clothing, tools, residues and debris left over from nuclear weapons production.
