The Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., received 64 shipments of transuranic waste from Jan. 1 through March 21, 2018, according to the latest publicly available data.
Of the shipments received by March 21, 48 came from the Idaho National Laboratory. The remaining 16 were split evenly between the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee and the commercial Waste Control Specialists site in Texas.
Sixty-four shipments over 11 weeks averages out to roughly 5.8 shipments per week at the underground transuranic waste repository.
The Energy Department and site management contractor Nuclear Waste Partnership have indicated they expect to boost the shipment count to 10 per week sometime this summer. They calculate the average shipments per week, but only for weeks which WIPP is actually operating, NWP spokesman Donavan Mager noted in a Thursday email.
During the recent Waste Management Symposia, DOE Carlsbad Field Office Manager Todd Shrader said WIPP’s waste receipt schedule is sometimes affected by maintenance outages, holidays, and weather. As a result, waste is transported to the site about 42 weeks per year.
After a nearly three-year recovery from a pair of February 2014 accidents, WIPP last April resumed accepting waste shipments from other DOE sites. The site took in 133 shipments during its nine months of waste operations in 2017.
WIPP in January also gradually restarted underground salt mining for the first time since the accidents, carving out more space for waste disposal. Mining crews have extracted 4,500 tons since production restarted, Mager said.
The mining is occurring in Panel 8 and DOE hopes to have mining completed there in May 2020, which would be around the time for waste emplacement to be finished in Panel 7, Mager said. Salt mining is now conducted in 10-hour shifts that end at 3 p.m., followed by a 10-hour shift for waste emplacement.
The next public WIPP Town Hall is expected soon, with the probable date being April 19, Mager said.
