The Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M. is again receiving transuranic shipments after a combination of underground conditions and temporary staffing problems from COVID-19 halted disposal for a month.
“Yes, shipments resumed,” a spokesman for Nuclear Waste Partnership, prime contractor for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP), said by email Wednesday. “We are scheduled to get 7 this week. I cannot tell you from where due to transportation security.”
Prior to this week, the DOE’s deep-underground salt-mine repository had not had any transuranic waste shipments since Aug. 25. The nation’s only disposal site for such waste, including the radioactive remnants of equipment components, rags, waste and soil, was hobbled by COVID-19 quarantines for several workers and some uneven flooring in underground disposal areas, according to reports from the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board.
After receiving 41 shipments in July, its busiest month since the pandemic started spreading domestically in early 2020, WIPP received only seven in August and, until this week, none during September.
Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson plans to file legal arguments with the U.S. Supreme Court by Nov. 15 responding to a U.S. Department of Justice petition to overturn a 2018 state law that made it easier for cleanup employees at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site to qualify for worker compensation.
That’s according to Brionna Aho, a spokeswoman for Ferguson, who spoke to Weapons Complex Monitor in a Wednesday email.
Justice filed a petition Sept. 8 asking the nation’s highest court to review a ruling by the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last year that upheld Washington stateHouse Bill 1723, signed into law by Gov. Jay Inslee (D) in June 2018. The law reduced the burden shouldered by Hanford workers in order to qualify for compensation linked to their work at the contaminated cleanup site: the hub for U.S. plutonium production during the Cold War.
In a Sept. 16 press conference, Ferguson, state lawmakers, union leaders at the site and the advocacy site, Hanford Challenge, blasted the Justice Department challenge. The state law created a presumption of occupational disease for workers seeking compensation for chronic beryllium disease, neurological problems and respiratory diseases. The Justice Department has complained about the high costs associated with paying out more compensation. Ferguson hopes to know by year’s end if the Supreme Court will agree to hear the case. The highest court in the land, an independent branch of the federal government, was scheduled to begin its next session next week.
