Results from aboveground air sampling stations in and around the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant property have returned to near background levels, according to data released Friday by the independent Carlsbad Environmental Monitoring and Research Center. Samples analyzed from March 11 and March 21 “indicate that the trace amounts of radioactive particles that were ultimately released from the WIPP exhaust shaft following the event appear to have dispersed into the atmosphere and are detectable only in minute concentrations,” according to a CMERC release. “While the results for Americium (241Am) continue to be slightly elevated above previous background levels, the levels of Plutonium (239+240Pu and 238Pu) currently being measured are at or below historic background levels.”
AIR SAMPLING NEAR WIPP RETURNS TO BACKGROUND LEVELS
SRS resumes shipping remote-handled TRU waste to WIPP
The Department of Energy has sent its first shipment of remote-handled transuranic waste since 2009 from the Savannah River Site in South Carolina to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) using a new shipping container. Remote-handled waste is more radioactive than contact-handled transuranic (TRU) waste, which accounts for the vast majority of TRU waste disposed […]