The Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico received 20 shipments of transuranic waste during January, which represents its highest monthly total since October, according to the facility’s online waste information database.
There were 12 shipments from the Idaho National Laboratory and eight from the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. The figure is the highest monthly total since the 25 received at the underground salt mine during October.
The total shipments in January is double the 10 received in December and higher than the 15 received in November. Year over year, shipments slipped from the 24 received in January 2020.
Staffing limits stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in fewer shipments late in 2020, but managers at the site told the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board in January they were increasing activity to five shipments per week of operation.
However, February and March shipments to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) are likely to be few. An annual maintenance outage started this week and is slated to run through April 14, top managers of the DOE Carlsbad Field Office and the prime contractor said during a virtual briefing for New Mexico state lawmakers last week. There will be nearly 100 work chores including bulkhead inspection and replacements and electrical repairs.
WIPP received only 192 shipments during 2020, 100 below the 292 recorded in 2019. The COVID-19 pandemic has been cited as the single largest reason for the falloff.
Throughput is not expected to reach pre-2014 levels until construction of the Safety Significant Confinement Ventilation System is finished. But the cost and schedule for the ventilation system is being re-baselined after the prime fired the subcontractor chiefly responsible for its construction in August of last year.
In February 2014, a ruptured drum caused a radiation leak at WIPP that contaminated part of the WIPP underground and effectively idled the facility for about three years. In 2013, the last full year of operation prior to the accident, WIPP disposed of 724 shipments of transuranic waste.
