Once disposal resumes at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in early 2017, the Department of Energy’s transuranic waste logjam will unclog at a rate of up to five shipments per week, DOE told motor carriers earlier this month in a question and answer session about the agency’s next waste-transportation contract.
“It is estimated that once shipping resumes, a shipping rate of up to 5 shipments per week will be required through Calendar Year (CY) 2017, then possibly increase up to as many as 10 shipments per week through CY 2020/2021 as the WIPP waste emplacement efficiency is improved,” the Energy Department said in its written answer to questions from carriers at a June 1 site tour and pre-solicitation briefing at WIPP. The agency posted the questions and answers online Monday.
WIPP was accepting 14 shipments of the radio-contaminated material and equipment known as transuranic waste prior to the accidental underground radiation release and unrelated underground fire that closed the facility in 2014.
The new shipment rate estimate dovetails with the projected rates mentioned at an industry conference in March by Phil Breidenbach, president and project manager for WIPP prime contractor Nuclear Waste Partnership.
New shipments to WIPP from across the DOE complex are set to resume in February, a DOE official said earlier this month. The agency has yet to decide which sites will get to ship its transuranic waste to WIPP first.
The new WIPP Transportation Services contract will be a five-year, fixed-price, indefinite-quantity, indefinite-delivery deal. The pact will replace a pair of five-year WIPP transport contracts that expire in 2017 and which at the time of award were worth a combined $240 million or so, split evenly between incumbents Visionary Solutions and CAST Specialty Transportation.
The department expects to issue the final solicitation for the follow-on WIPP transport contract in August, according to slides briefed for carriers on June 1.
