The Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico has told transuranic waste generators that it won’t take shipments during February 2024, the head of DOE’s prime contractor said here Wednesday.
The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) has traditionally held a multi-week maintenance outage during the winter and February tends to be hardest hit by weather-related delays anyway, Ken Harrawood, president of Salado Isolation Mining Contractors, said on the sidelines of DOE’s National Cleanup Workshop.
The Bechtel affiliate took over from the prior Amentum-led WIPP contractor in November 2022.
WIPP recently expanded to three crews rather than two for waste handling, Harrawood said after participating in a panel discussion on the future of the Office of Environmental Management.
In addition, construction of the Safety Significant Confinement Ventilation System more than 80% complete and commissioning should start by the end of this year. That involves many months of testing to make sure the facilities work as designed, he added.
The new ventilation system is designed to triple underground airflow at WIPP to 540,000 cubic feet per minute, according to DOE.
