The Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad, N.M., has resumed emplacement of transuranic waste that was suspended after detection of a misaligned drum on May 24.
A recovery plan to fix the leaning drum within a seven-pack canister was approved May 29, DOE Carlsbad Field Office Manager Todd Shrader said Wednesday in a social media release. Normal work resumed on Saturday, Shrader said.
Workers took apart the canister of waste drums and then rebuilt it before disposing of the waste in Room 5 of WIPP’s underground Panel 7 last week.
“We put together a really good recovery plan and our employees executed it perfectly with safety as their number 1 goal,” said Tammy Reynolds, chief operating officer and deputy project manager for WIPP contractor Nuclear Waste Partnership, said in the same news release.
Additional waste packages were expected to be disposed of Wednesday evening.
Employees at the salt mine were evacuated after discovery of the misaligned drum late on May 24. The Energy Department and the contractor have said no canisters were damaged and there was no sign of a radioactive release as a result of the incident.
WIPP suspended waste disposal for nearly three years after a February 2014 underground radiation release. The TRU waste disposal site reopened in January 2017 and again started taking waste shipments from other DOE sites in April 2017.
