The Department of Energy’s prime contractor at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico has completed removal of 157,000 tons of salt mined from Panel 8, clearing the way for emplacement of transuranic waste there once Panel 7 is full in April 2022, the agency announced Tuesday.
While electric power, phones and equipment such as air monitors still must be installed, the seven emplacement rooms at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) are now complete, DOE said in a release.
Defense-related transuranic waste is currently being disposed of in Panel 7. Operations contractor Nuclear Waste Partnership first started excavating Panel 8 in late 2013, but like most everything else at WIPP, the project was suspended following a February 2014 underground radiation leak that closed the facility for about three years. Salt mining on the new panel resumed in January 2018.
“We are all focused on working safely and productively in order to see Panel 8 in use next year,” said Reinhard Knerr, the Carlsbad Field Office manager for DOE’s Office of Environmental Management. “It’s been a long time coming, but Panel 8 will be ready just when we need it.”
The DOE has said in a recent filing with the state of New Mexico that it should take about three years to fill Panel 8. The DOE and its contractor, an Amentum-BWX Technologies partnership, are asking the state for a permit modification for two additional panels, No. 11 and 12, to take transuranic waste after August 2025.
Meanwhile, advocacy groups in the state are concerned this and other permit modifications sought by DOE will keep the underground disposal site operating decades after its original 2024 shutdown date and result in a “Forever WIPP.”
