The Department of Energy and its prime contractor at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant are conferring with stakeholders and generators to better define legacy transuranic waste, managers said during a public meeting Tuesday in Roswell, N.M.
In addition, the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) should bring online two major infrastructure projects, the ventilation system and a new utility shaft, within a year, said Mark Bollinger, DOE’s Carlsbad Field Office manager.
Bollinger and Tammy Hobbes, vice president for the WIPP prime, Bechtel’s Salado Isolation Mining Contractors, led the briefing.
WIPP managers said discussions with stakeholders on defining legacy waste started with stakeholders in November and December and DOE and Salado should submit a final plan to the state in November, Hobbes said. There are probably a dozen DOE and Salado staffers involved in the review, Bollinger said.
With regard to infrastructure, the Safety Significant Confinement Ventilation System, designed to triple underground airflow, is 85% complete and the commissioning is 23% complete, Bollinger said. In addition to underground works, the ventilation project includes two surface structures, the New Filter Building and the Salt Reduction Building. The utility shaft has already been dug to the required 2,200-feet depth, but must still be connected with the underground salt mine.
DOE is in the midst of a decade-long program infrastructure upgrade program, which represents about a $1-billion investment, Bollinger said.
Progress on infrastructure and better defining legacy waste, called for in WIPP’s new 10-year permit from the New Mexico Environment Department, were the subject of much discussion during the session that was carried online.
Meanwhile, during a question-and-answer session, a retired New Mexico Environment Department regulator, Steve Zappe, suggested DOE also confer with a National Governors Association working group on radioactive waste. During the permit renewal talks, residents said they wanted WIPP to prioritize disposal of decades-old transuranic waste, rather than transuranic waste from recent operations.
Finally, tests done at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina on a container returned from WIPP in August 2023 found “no transferable contamination” above WIPP criteria limits, Bollinger said.
In August 2022, workers at WIPP found the container was potentially contaminated with plutonium-238 sought and eventually received government permission to send it back to Savannah River for additional testing.
