The North Access Road Bypass at the Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico opened to traffic on Friday.
The $9 million, 3-mile bypass connects north and south access roads for the DOE site and directs other traffic away from the underground disposal facility, particularly the construction area on the surface for sinking a new utility shaft.
In December 2018, WIPP prime contractor Nuclear Waste Partnership hired California-based Granite Construction to build the road.
Until lately at least, a boom in natural gas and oil production in the Carlsbad, N.N., region caused a spike in truck traffic around WIPP. The traffic has decreased somewhat lately with the reduced transportation taking place in New Mexico and elsewhere due to COVID-19, a source said Tuesday.
The Energy Department said in an October 2018 environmental analysis that about 1,555 vehicles per day of non-WIPP traffic use nearby roads, with projections indicating the number could more than double by 2021.
Energy Department and Nuclear Waste Management managers have frequently mentioned traffic concerns abound WIPP in various public forums during the past couple years.
