The Department of Energy has greenlighted its prime contractor at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant to resume waste handling in the coming week, although shipments from Idaho National Laboratory are temporarily on hold after a weekend emergency.
The DOE Office of Environmental Management has released Nuclear Waste Partnership to resume waste handling operations and the contractor expects to restart early next week, an agency spokesperson said in a Thursday email.
Things are stable once again at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) after discovery, announced April 9 on Twitter, of a freestanding liquid with low levels of radioactive contamination in the CH-Bay at the complex near Carlsbad, N.M.
The Carlsbad Current Argus newspaper reported Thursday the problem drum came from the Idaho National Laboratory, and that shipments from WIPP’s largest shipper were on hold while DOE looked into the incident. DOE confirmed Thursday that Idaho’s shipments “remain paused.”
The discovery of the liquid at the bottom of a transportation container prompted DOE’s Carlsbad Field Office to evacuate the CH-Bay, a surface waystation for contact-handled waste on its way to underground disposal areas, and activate WIPP’s emergency operations center, the agency said in a Tweet about 8 p.m. Mountain Time Saturday.
It was the first of several social media posts on the subject Saturday evening.
By 11 p.m. M.T., DOE said the site is secured, it deactivated the emergency center and there is no risk of radiological release that could endanger the public or environment. The liquid was discovered during routine waste handling at the CH-Bay.
DOE suspended operations, placed drums back into the TruPact II transuranic waste container and “conducted hand and foot frisks” of everyone in the bay at the time of the unusual event, according to one post. The Carlsbad newspaper reported about 10 workers were at the CH-Bay facility around the time of the liquid discovery.
No evidence of contamination was found on any individuals, DOE said.. No radiation alarms went off inside the CH-Bay, there is no evidence of airborne contamination or off-site release that could pose a risk to the environment or public health, DOE said.
The DOE further said access to the CH-Bay has been restricted and plans to address the liquid and determine its source are underway.
WIPP is the nation’s underground geological disposal site for defense-related transuranic waste generated from radiologically-contaminated equipment, debris, soil, clothes or rags. The complex was offline for about three years after an underground radiological leak contaminated the underground in February 2014.
WIPP recorded 18 shipments during March
WIPP received 18 shipments of transuranic waste during March, according to the latest available data.
During the past month, WIPP took in 13 shipments from Idaho National Laboratory, four from the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and one from the Savannah River Site in South Carolina.
During the first three months of 2022, there have been 36 shipments to WIPP, compared with 23 during the first three months of 2021, although it should be noted the several-week maintenance outage the disposal complex normally holds during January and February is being moved to the fall in 2022 to coincide with installation of an new electrical substation.
As for fiscal 2022, which started Oct. 1, there have been 97 shipments so far, which is ahead of the pace at this point in fiscal 2021, when WIPP had received 73 shipments, according to the facility’s website.
The DOE and WIPP prime contractor Nuclear Waste Partnership hope the shrinking impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, combined with moving out of Panel 7, will quicken the pace of underground waste disposal.
When a transuranic waste drum from Los Alamos ruptured underground at WIPP in February 2014 it contaminated much of Panel 7. When WIPP resumed operations in 2017 following the underground radiation leak, workers in Panel 7 had to be clothed in personal protective equipment to guard against contamination. Such extensive garb won’t be needed in a few months when emplacement starts in Panel 8, WIPP officials have said.