The head of the new prime at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico aims to meet the Department of Energy and dispose of 400 shipments of transuranic waste at the site in 2023.

Ken Harrawood, president and project manager for Bechtel’s Salado Isolation Mining Contractors, told a Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) Public Forum that the annual target, which would be the site’s most waste disposal since a February 2014 accident, is doable.

That 400 figure is probably not “a stretch goal for us,” Harrawood said, “ I think we will hit that probably in the September timeframe.” WIPP this week notified the public of the availability of a record of the public meeting, which took place March 23.

Throughput at WIPP is increasing and “if we can get all the bad weather behind us in Idaho,” then it should happen, Harrawood said.

The underground disposal site received 32 shipments in February, after 31 in January. The deep underground disposal site for transuranic waste would need to handle a bit more than 33 shipments per month to hit the 400-shipment goal. To reach the mark by the end of September would require an average 49 shipments monthly for seven months.

After being offline three years following the 2014 accident and reopening in 2017, WIPP’s best calendar year result was 311 shipments in 2018.

Salado became managing contractor for WIPP in February, taking over from the Amentum-BWXT team, Nuclear Waste Partnership. Salado retained about 1,000 employees, or 99% of the incumbent workforce, from Nuclear Waste Partnership, Harrawood said. He added there were a few retirements.

On another topic, Harrawood said the Safety Significant Confinement Ventilation System is about 78% complete. The infrastructure project should triple underground airflow rates to about 540,000 cubic feet per minute when it opens in the 2025-to-2026 timeframe, DOE officials have said.