The Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) will hold its next WIPP Town Hall briefing June 20 at 5:30 p.m. Pacific time at the Carlsbad, N.M., City Hall Annex on June 20.
An agenda for the meeting will be released closer to the date, a city of Carlsbad representative said by email Monday. The meetings are webcast on the Facebook page for the DOE transuranic waste disposal site.
Representatives from the Carlsbad Field Office and DOE’s WIPP contractor, Nuclear Waste Partnership, typically give updates on waste emplacement, salt mining, and various construction projects at the underground disposal site.
The Energy and Water Development funding bill passed in May by the full House Appropriations Committee calls for WIPP to receive $397 million in the 2020 fiscal year: about the same as the 2019 enacted budget, and more than the $392 million the White House sought for 2020. In line with the budget request, the bill plans $58 million for continued construction of an underground ventilation system and about $35 million for an underground exhaust shaft.
The House Appropriations bill must now win approval from the full House.
The Energy Department announced last week that Carlsbad Field Office Manager Todd Shrader will be relocating to Washington, D.C. to serve in the No. 2 position at the agency’s Office of Environmental Management, which is in charge of 16 Cold War-era cleanup sites.
