A new $288 million ventilation system, meant to allow the Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico to conduct simultaneous underground salt mining and disposal of transuranic waste, has been approved by Assistant Energy Secretary for Environmental Management Anne White.
“This will be a significant improvement for WIPP in support of its critical role in our national mission,” White said in a Monday press release from the DOE Office of Environmental Management.
The new ventilation system should increase underground airflow to about 540,000 cubic feet per minute, more than three times the current rate. After a February 2014 underground radiation release, officials at WIPP dramatically cut airflow levels to prevent the spread of contaminants.
Nuclear Waste Partnership, DOE’s prime contractor for WIPP, can now issue a contract for construction of the Safety Significant Confinement Ventilation System, spokesman Donavan Mager said by email Monday. NWP has said a contract could be issued as early as this month. The contractor is reviewing three bids; it will enter into the contract with the successful bidder and manage the subcontract.
Construction of a new 55,000 square-foot filter building on the surface, which is part of the ventilation system, could start this summer, NWP has said. It would include a Salt Reduction Building and related facilities.
The Department of Energy has requested about $85 million for the ventilation system for fiscal 2019, which begins on Oct. 1.
WIPP received 96 shipments of transuranic waste between Jan. 1 and April 25 of this year. The facility in January resumed limited salt mining in Panel 8. Waste emplacement would start in Panel 8 after Panel 7 is filled, which will probably occur in 2020, DOE has said.
