The Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., received 22 shipments of transuranic waste during September, an agency spokesperson said this week.
The monthly tally is slightly less than the August total of 25. The figure far exceeds the September 2021 total of only three shipments, according to the DOE’s public website for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP).
With 22 shipments coming in during September, WIPP will average just over 20 shipments per month for the recently-completed federal budget year.
During fiscal 2021 which ended Sept. 30, 2021, WIPP received 199 shipments. By contrast, there were already 235 shipments to WIPP during fiscal year 2022 as of Sept. 29 according to the WIPP website. The website has a lag time of about two weeks.
WIPP is run by contractor Nuclear Waste Partnership, an Amentum-BWX Technologies team. The DOE in July awarded a new management contract to a Bechtel-led venture and two losing bidders have filed contract challenges with the Government Accountability Office.
Within a few weeks, WIPP should start disposing of waste in the newly-developed Panel 8. The nearly-completed Panel 7 was left contaminated by a February 2014 underground radiation leak, which idled the facility for about three years.
Reinhard Knerr, the manager of DOE’s Carlsbad field office, has said because Panel 8 is uncontaminated disposal workers won’t need to wear extensive protective clothing.
Knerr also expects the two-thirds complete, Safety Significant Confined Ventilation System, which should be complete in 2025, will bring the salt-mine closer to its pre-accident yearly totals of about 700 shipments.
