Transuranic Waste

Workers at the Department of Energy’s underground storage site for plutonium-contaminated waste have been cleared to return to work in portions of the mine shut down in February after high levels of non-nuclear airborne contamination were found in the facility’s northwestern and southern edges. DOE announced the end of the safety pause in an online note published […]

The prime contractor for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad, N.M., this week played down concerns raised by an internal Energy Department watchdog regarding the transuranic waste storage site’s interim ventilation system (IVS) — a crucial upgrade required to resume waste storage at the underground facility. On March 16, DOE’s Office of Enterprise Assessments (EA) […]

A memo from the Sandia National Laboratories posted to the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) website offers more, if not new, details about the Energy Department’s dismissal of a consulting firm’s finding that plutonium stored at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) could go critical in the distant future. The two-page, number-laden memo, dated Feb. […]

The Energy Department said this week it will solicit bids to build a transuranic liquid waste processing facility at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico in the fourth quarter. The contract for the so-called Transuranic Liquid Waste Project will be worth between $15 million and $20 million, DOE said in a procurement note […]

The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad, N.M., will be able to store about five shipments of transuranic waste a month after it reopens to new shipments later this year, but the prime contractor at the underground Energy Department facility said here that number could quickly double. “We hope to get it up to […]

The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad, N.M., will be able to store about five shipments of transuranic waste a month after it reopens to new shipments later this year, but the prime contractor at the underground Energy Department facility said here that number could quickly double. “We hope to get it up to […]

With the Department of Energy committing to reopening the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant by next December, stakeholders from the federal and New Mexico governments, along with site contractor Nuclear Waste Partnership, on Monday will discuss the continuing work to recover from the February 2014 accidents that have kept the TRU waste storage facility closed for more than two […]

The Energy Department has received two more years to come up with a plan for sending transuranic waste stored at the Hanford Site near Richland, Wash., to New Mexico for permanent disposal, but the waste must still be shipped out by 2030, according to a recently formalized modification to the site’s master cleanup agreement. DOE, […]

Moniz Still Confident WIPP Will Reopen in December The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad, N.M. should reopen in December as scheduled, DOE Secretary Ernest Moniz told Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) in a Thursday hearing of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. “We believe we are on schedule for safely restarting operations later […]

The Energy Department has received two more years to come up with a plan for sending transuranic waste stored at the Hanford Site near Richland, Wash., to New Mexico for permanent disposal, but the waste must still be shipped out by 2030, according to a recently formalized modification to the site’s master cleanup agreement. DOE, the […]

New Mexico’s top environmental official is cautiously optimistic the Energy Department will make its self-imposed Dec. 12 restart date for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP). In a statement emailed Monday to the Weapons Complex Morning Briefing, a week after WIPP prime contractor Nuclear Waste Partnership partially suspended recovery operations in the mine after a […]

The same week non-nuclear air contamination halted recovery efforts in parts of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., Energy Department officials in Washington insisted the underground waste storage facility will be ready to reopen by December. On Wednesday, two days after WIPP prime contractor Nuclear Waste Partnership (NWP) evacuated portions of the facility due […]

Recovery operations at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) were temporarily shut down Monday when high levels of non-nuclear airborne contamination were found in the northwestern and southern edges of the underground transuranic waste storage facility. The “safety pause,” which has not been lifted, was announced in a Tuesday press release from Nuclear Waste Partnership […]

Reopening the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) on Dec. 12, as the Energy Department plans, is the quickest and safest path to getting rid of 34 metric tons of surplus weapon-usable plutonium, an Ivy League professor and a member of the Union of Concerned Scientists advocacy group said in a Feb. 18 letter to the […]

A Feb. 12 story in the Weapons Complex Monitor should have said Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz has discussed interring 34 metric tons of weapons-usable plutonium at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., but has not formally proposed doing so. The story also should have said Moniz told reporters WIPP might begin accepting diluted plutonium shipments […]

The Energy Department has decided not to levy any civil penalties on the contractors deemed responsible for a pair of accidents — including a radiation release — that have prevented the underground Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad, N.M., from accepting new shipments of nuclear waste for the past two years. The decision came […]

Members of New Mexico’s congressional delegation and the head of the National Nuclear Security Administration will participate virtually in a Thursday meeting aimed at helping small businesses do business at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad, N.M. The meeting, hosted in Albuquerque, N.M., by the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) Supply Chain Management Center, […]

The federal fiscal 2017 budget request unveiled Tuesday proposed a monumental, long-term change for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico: making the facility the final destination for 34 metric tons of diluted weapon-usable plutonium that would arrive sometime in the early 2020s. In the near term, the White House proposed lowering WIPP’s […]

WC Monitor 2/05/2016 WIPP Versus MOX Debate Continues in New Mexico Paper An op-ed debate over storing diluted plutonium at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) continued over the weekend, with an executive from a consulting firm that authored a 2015 study backing an alternative disposal method arguing against interment at the Carlsbad, N.M. facility. […]

Dan Leone WC Monitor 2/5/2016 It is now safe for workers to enter certain areas of the underground Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad, N.M., without wearing air-filtering respirators, the Energy Department said Jan. 29. Personnel more than 2,520 feet south of WIPP’s northernmost tip — an access corridor where no waste is stored, […]

It is now safe for workers to enter certain areas of the underground Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad, N.M., without wearing air-filtering respirators, the Energy Department said Friday.   Personnel more than 2,520 feet south of WIPP’s northernmost tip — an access corridor where no waste is stored, but which is adjacent to […]

An op-ed debate over storing diluted plutonium at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) continued over the weekend, with an executive from a consulting firm that authored a 2015 study backing an alternative disposal method arguing against interment at the Carlsbad, N.M. facility.   “Proposals to dispose of excess weapons plutonium at WIPP would require […]

Dan Leone WC Monitor 1/29/2016 A $74 million settlement finalized with the Energy Department last week has cleared the way for New Mexico to overhaul the rules governing the Department of Energy’s nuclear waste cleanup at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Legally, the settlement resolves civil penalties the state levied on DOE related to an underground […]

Dan Leone WC Monitor 1/29/2016 The Department of Energy plans to complete installation of an interim ventilation system at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) facility near Carlsbad, N.M., in March or April, another milestone required to reopen the underground transuranic waste-storage facility by December, a DOE official said Thursday. The ventilation installation was mentioned […]

With momentum building for a 2016 reopening of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP), two former New Mexico officials wrote dueling editorials staking out opposing positions on storing diluted plutonium at the underground facility.   Bill Richardson, former congressman, U.S. energy secretary, and two-term governor of New Mexico, came out strongly against the idea in […]

Capping a nine-month stalemate, the Energy Department and New Mexico formally agreed to terms on a pair of settlements under which under which DOE will fund about $74 million worth of infrastructure improvements in the state as a penalty for two 2014 incidents at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) and nuclear waste management failures […]

Chris Schneidmiller WC Monitor 1/22/2016 The Department of Energy on Thursday said it had officially determined that transuranic waste emplacement operations should begin in December of this year at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico. The date is set in a new integrated performance baseline measurement (PMB) approved by the DOE’s Carlsbad Field […]

The possibility of storing excess plutonium at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad, N.M., coupled with increased oil and gas drilling in the area, mean the Energy Department needs to re-evaluate the safety of the world’s only open transuranic waste storage facility, according to Stanford University researchers. Those factors, along with a pair […]

The possibility of storing excess plutonium at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., coupled with increased oil and gas drilling in the area, mean the Energy Department needs to re-evaluate the safety of the world’s only open transuranic waste storage facility, according to Stanford University researchers.   Those factors, along with a pair […]

Chris Schneidmiller WC Monitor 1/15/2016 The New Mexico Environment Department on Jan. 8 signed off on revisions to monitoring of potentially dangerous materials and underground airflow levels at the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant. The modifications to WIPP’s state hazardous waste facility permit are intended to increase the safety of workers at the […]