Resumption of full scale operations at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant may not occur until 2019 and could cost up to $551 million, though initial operations are slated for resumption in early 2016 at a cost of about $242 million, according to Department of Energy officials. Yesterday DOE released its recovery plan for WIPP, which has been shut down since February following a truck fire and a radiological release. While the first operations could begin in early 2016, they will be limited in scope due to airflow limitations in the current ventilation system. For full scale operations to resume, DOE must install a new permanent ventilation system and construct a new exhaust shaft. “I anticipate on the outer limit three years from the start of initial operations to have those projects in place, but right now that is a planning estimate only,” DOE Office of Environmental Management Acting Assistant Secretary Mark Whitney said yesterday in a call with reporters.
The new ventilation system is estimated to run between $65 million and $261 million while the exhaust shaft is expected to cost between $12 million and $48 million. Those capital asset projects will take two to three years to complete after the start of initial operations in early 2016, Whitney said. “This will be part of the critical decision process for DOE capital asset projects and also be dependent on appropriation of funds and those kinds of things,” Whitney said. Waste currently stored at the WIPP site will be the first to be emplaced after the initial restart, Whitney said, though he noted that waste from generator sites may also be shipped before the capital projects are complete.
The DOE Accident Investigation Board effort into the root cause of the event is expected to be complete by the end of this year, DOE said, with closure of the remaining two open waste panels to come soon after. Safety will be a priority over schedule, according to Whitney, noting that any additional findings from the Accident Investigation Board will be incorporated into the recovery plan. “We don’t want to establish artificial schedules that would run counter to our focus on safety. We know what actions we need to undertake to get to initial operations and the airflow that we need to establish for the increased ventilation are the first two phases of that. That is our current focus,” he said.
