Four federal nuclear sites and one privately operated disposal facility will send a total of 128 shipments of transuranic waste to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) from April 2017 to January 2018, the Energy Department announced Tuesday.
These will be the first waste shipments to WIPP following the February 2014 underground fire and subsequent, unrelated radiation release that shuttered the mine for nearly three years. The facility reopened in December, but first had to emplace waste that was stranded in above-ground storage at WIPP in the wake of the accidents.
DOE did not say which site would ship first. “The exact allocation and sequence for shipping will be adjusted based on the emplacement rate at WIPP, operational needs at the WIPP and generator sites, and logistical issues (such as weather) that affect shipping,” the department stated in a press release.
DOE projects shipments from:
Idaho Site: 61 shipments.
Oak Ridge Site: 24 shipments.
Savannah River Site: Eight shipments.
Waste Control Specialists: 11 shipments.
Los Alamos Site: 24 shipments.
That listing leaves out DOE facilities such as the Hanford Site in Washington state.
Meanwhile, DOE and WIPP prime Nuclear Waste Partnership will host the next quarterly WIPP town hall meeting at Carlsbad City Council Chambers in Carlsbad, N.M., at 7:30 p.m. Eastern time on March 16, according to Tuesday’s press release. The meeting will also stream online.
