The Energy Department’s final review of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant’s restart effort uncovered 21 punch-list items the agency’s Carlsbad Field Office and contractor Nuclear Waste Partnership (NWP) must address before the mine can reopen after its nearly three-year pause.
In addition to those 21 so-called corrective actions, DOE prescribed 15 fixes that the local field office and NWP can tackle after the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) reopens, according to a Wednesday press release. The agency did not release further details, though one source in New Mexico said addressing the corrective actions would likely take weeks, not months.
WIPP has been closed to shipments of DOE transuranic waste since an underground fire and subsequent, unrelated radiation release in February 2014.
“Reopening WIPP “before the end of December is still our goal, but we will take the time necessary to ensure it can be done safely,” Todd Shrader, manager of the Carlsbad Field Office, said in the press release.
DOE briefed NWP last Friday on the results of the two-week agency operational readiness review that unearthed the corrective actions. Agency officials had planned to share the results of that review with the public in a webcast WIPP town hall this week, but has now rescheduled the meeting for Dec. 15 “to provide sufficient time to review the [DOE operational readiness review] findings,” the agency said Wednesday.
Besides the punch-list items from the agency’s review, NWP also must do some significant mine maintenance in Panel 7: an underground waste-disposal zone the size of a football field that sustained a cave-in last month. WIPP’s naturally shifting salt walls and ceilings require periodic maintenance that DOE and NWP have dialed back since 2014.
The mine upkeep and the path to reopening figure to feature in next week’s WIPP town hall, which will be streamed online.
