The Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico has received more than 1,000 shipments of defense-related transuranic waste since the deep underground repository reopened in 2017 after the underground radiation leak of February 2014.
More than three weeks ago, the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) received its 1,000th shipment since April 2017, according to the disposal facility’s website.
As of June 17, WIPP had taken in 133 shipments during 2017, 311 in 2018, 292 in 2019, 192 in 2020 and 88 in 2021, according to the website. There is typically about a two-week gap before shipments are publicly recorded on the website, DOE has said in the past.
In February 2014, a drum packaged at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico overheated and ruptured, contaminating parts of the underground mine. The DOE said it will not be able to repeat pre-2014 shipment levels, of 700 annually or more, until the Safety Significant Confinement Ventilation System is operational — nominally in 2025. The new ventilation system is supposed to roughly triple the airflow underground to about 540,000 cubic meters per minute.
Until then, DOE expects to restart a 700-C underground fan sometime this month to add about 90,000 cubic feet per minute, bringing the underground air circulation to about 240,000 cubic feet per minute.
Once the new system starts running, DOE plans to be able to conduct waste emplacement, salt mining and maintenance at the same time.
