The Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., received 51 shipments of transuranic waste during May, according to the facility’s public website.
Also this week, DOE formally announced construction completion of the Safety Significant Confinement Ventilation System after crews finished ductwork on the project.
The majority, 36, of the May shipments to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) came from the Idaho National Laboratory.
Eight originated from the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, four came from Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois and three came from Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, according to the website.
The 51 shipments represent a big jump from the 28 shipments received at WIPP in May 2023.
During the first five months of the 2024 calendar year, WIPP has received 178 shipments of defense-related transuranic waste, slightly up from the 174 shipments during the first five months of 2023, even with the facility undergoing a month-long maintenance outage in February and March.
WIPP is managed by Bechtel-led Salado Isolation Mining Contractors. The vice president of the WIPP prime, Tammy Hobbes, said this month at Exchange Monitor’s Radwaste Summit that construction on a major capital project, the Safety Significant Confinement Ventilation System, is complete.
A readiness assessment on the project should be done by December, Hobbes added.
DOE stressed construction completion of the project in a Tuesday news release and said it expects the facility to be operational in mid-2026. The commissioning phase is about 85% complete, DOE said.
WIPP will soon start hiring and training several dozen new staff members to operate the new ventilation system, according to a joint memo from DOE Carlsbad Field Office Manager Mark Bollinger and Salado program manager Ken Harrawood. The memo was viewed Tuesday by Exchange Monitor.
Once fully deployed, DOE expects the new ventilation system will more than triple underground airflow from 170,000 cubic feet per minute up to 540,000 cubic feet per minute, the department said in its release.
In 2021, Salado’s predecessor as WIPP prime hired The Industrial Co., a Kiewit affiliate, to finish construction of the Safety Significant Confinement Ventilation System for $163 million. The then-prime Amentum-led team terminated the prior subcontractor’s $135-million deal in late August 2020. According to legal filings, the prime was apparently concerned about the rate of progress by Critical Applications Alliance, which the subcontractor blamed on the pandemic and issues with the prime contractor. The litigation brought by the subcontractor was subsequently settled.
