Details on resumption of salt mining at the Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico should emerge during Wednesday’s WIPP Town Hall, headlined by DOE Carlsbad Field Office Manager Todd Shrader and Nuclear Waste Partnership President and Project Manager Bruce Covert.
WIPP expects to remove about 112,000 tons of salt from Panel 8 over the next few years in order to create space for future waste emplacement.
Among the other topics to be covered at the meeting is the DOE Office of Environmental Management’s 45-day review of its operations and its impact on WIPP. Acting Assistant Energy Secretary for Environmental Management James Owendoff launched the review after assuming the post this summer, but details of its findings have not been made public.
Other agenda topics include WIPP’s capital asset projects and its supplemental ventilation system.
Nuclear Waste Management manages WIPP, the nation’s only permanent underground storage facility for transuranic waste, for DOE. The site was forced to suspend operations for nearly three years after a pair of underground accidents in February 2014. It reopened in December and resumed receiving waste shipments from other DOE sites in April.
The most recent data available on WIPP’s public website indicates that 112 waste shipments have arrived at the site since April, with the most recent reported shipment on Nov. 9. (There is a lag time between the date waste arrives at WIPP and when it is recorded on the website).
The town hall meeting, which is scheduled for 5:30 p.m. MT (7:30 p.m. ET), can be viewed at https://livestream.com/rrv.