The Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., is winding down its maintenance outage to the point it has resumed disposal of defense-related transuranic waste.
DOE and Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) prime, Bechtel’s Salado Isolation Mining Contractors, began the outage for refurbishment in January. The weeks-long outage, conducted for repair and replacement projects best done while the facility is offline, happens annually.
Prior to the outage, Salado said two of the bigger jobs would be putting in the duct work for its new Safety Significant Confinement Ventilation System as well as rebuilding the so-called “salt pocket” underground.
While neither DOE nor the contractor made a formal announcement, WIPP resumed disposing of waste underground March 19, according to the DOE salt mine’s public website.
Article modified at 8:30 p.m. Eastern Time April 9 to reflect the outage was not yet fully concluded.