The Department of Energy is targeting late July for resumption of transuranic waste shipments to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad, N.M.
In a Wednesday email to Exchange Monitor, the DOE Office of Environmental Management said it intends to start disposing of waste again by the end of July. Although the schedule could still be affected by timing of repairs to underground hoists at WIPP.
If shipments do resume by the end of July, it would be earlier than the mid-August schedule Exchange Monitor reported last week. While DOE has asked for and received a 60-day extension from New Mexico on how long it can temporarily store contact-handled containers of the waste before underground emplacement, it plans to resume disposal in advance of mid-August.
WIPP, operated for DOE by Bechtel-led prime Salado Isolation Mining Contractors, is the nation’s only underground repository for defense-related transuranic waste, such as contaminated tools, clothes and rags.
John David Nance, who heads the New Mexico Environment Department’s hazardous waste bureau, approved the temporary storage request June 17. Nance approved the request in a letter to Mark Bollinger, who manages DOE’s Carlsbad Field Office, and Salado’s program manager Ken Harrawood.
WIPP managers earlier told the New Mexico Environment Department they had discovered that components on both the Air Intake Shaft and Salt Handling Shaft hoists need maintenance. “As a result of this, both hoists were removed from service” and underground access was “temporarily suspended,” DOE had said in a written request to the state. DOE and its contractor said the Air Intake Shaft should be operational by mid-August.
The state agreed to extend the amount of time that WIPP could temporarily store containers of transuranic waste at WIPP’s Waste Handling Building, CH-Bay Storage Area and a portion of the WIPP parking area.
This all comes at a time in which the New Mexico Environment Department is seeking to revise the WIPP permit, last revised only two years earlier, to further prioritize legacy waste shipments from the Los Alamos National Laboratory.
The last shipment of waste recorded on WIPP’s public website was May 26.