The Council of State Governments’ Midwestern Region will continue overseeing transuranic waste shipments to the Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant for another five years, under a $1.4-million cooperative agreement-extension announced late Friday.
The council distributes the DOE funds to states through which transuranic waste moves on its way to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad, N.M.: the nation’s only permanent underground disposal facility for such material.
The council’s Midwestern Region covers Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, and Wisconsin.
From early April, when WIPP reopened after a three-year closure prompted by an accidental radiation release, through June 9, the Energy Department had shipped 21 shipments of transuranic waste to the mine for disposal, according to the latest official DOE records.
