DNFSB Schedules WIPP Hearings for April 29

The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board has scheduled hearings April 29 in Carlsbad, N.M., on last year’s incidents at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant. The Board has scheduled four sessions from noon to 9 p.m. In the first session, a Department of Energy official will testify on recovery actions at WIPP following the salt haul truck fire and radiological release in February 2014. The second session will include testimony from DOE officials and officials from the contractor Nuclear Waste Partnership. The third session includes “a discussion of DOE’s strategy for improving the effectiveness of federal oversight of contractor activities, including specific actions to ensure that improvements made by the site contractor and DOE are sustained over the long term,” according to the DNFSB notice. The fourth session will include DNFSB staff testimony on “the Board’s proposed oversight actions associated with safe recovery of the underground, and oversight of corrective actions to resume and sustain safe waste operations,” the notice states.