The Department of Energy and the prime for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico last month brought online the 700-C underground ventilation fan not used regularly since the 2014 accident that forced the disposal site out of service for about three years.
Reinhard Knerr, manager of DOE’s Carlsbad Field Office that oversees the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP), and Sean Dunagan, president and project manager of Nuclear Waste Partnership, both acknowledged redeployment of the idle fan Monday in a video presentation for members of the New Mexico Legislature.
The agency and the contractor largely finished testing the fan in November. Restart could provide about 90,000 additional cubic feet per minute of underground airflow for non-waste-handling operations, bringing total airflow to about 240,000 cubic feet per minute. Completion of the Safety Significant Confinement Ventilation System, long-delayed and now forecast for 2025 or so, will eventually bring the salt mine’s airflow to about 540,000 cubic feet a minute.
During the 45-minute WIPP update, Knerr said DOE is in the process of procuring a successor prime contract for the current $2.7-billion agreement held since October 2012 by Nuclear Waste Partnership, an Amentum-BWX Technologies team. While the current management and operations pact is set to expire March 31, Knerr said the agency holds a six-month option that would keep the contractor around through September.
On another topic, the managers said a new utility shaft at WIPP should be 1,500-feet deep by year’s end. Work resumed on the shaft, which will eventually reach more than 2,200-feet deep, after a New Mexico Environment Department ruling in October allowed work there to resume. Since work restarted, a multi-level work platform has been installed at about 120 feet to aid in the development.
Officially known as the New Mexico Legislative Breakfast, this marked the second year the COVID pandemic forced the event online— no breakfast included.
