The Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M. is again receiving transuranic shipments after a combination of underground conditions and temporary staffing problems from COVID-19 halted disposal for a month.
“Yes, shipments resumed,” a spokesman for Nuclear Waste Partnership, prime contractor for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP), said by email Wednesday. “We are scheduled to get 7 this week. I cannot tell you from where due to transportation security.”
Prior to this week, the DOE’s deep-underground salt-mine repository had not had any transuranic waste shipments since Aug. 25. The nation’s only disposal site for such waste, including the radioactive remnants of equipment components, rags, waste and soil, was hobbled by COVID-19 quarantines for several workers and some uneven flooring in underground disposal areas, according to reports from the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board.
After receiving 41 shipments in July, its busiest month since the pandemic started spreading domestically in early 2020, WIPP received only seven in August and, until this week, none during September.
