The annual outage at the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico should end in the next couple weeks, following significant replacement work and upgrades to infrastructure that a watchdog deemed “substandard or inadequate.”
“The annual winter maintenance outage began on January 5 this year and is scheduled to end in mid-March, 2026,” a WIPP spokesperson said via email on March 5. The spokesperson added that all activities at WIPP are continuing as usual, minus the receipt of transuranic (TRU) waste from other sites across the DOE complex.
Workers are using the two-month outage to address several needs, including the replacement of an electrical substation on the facility surface. Electrical substations serve as a touchpoint in infrastructure that handle voltage levels and power flow, so facilities can run safely and effectively.
During the outage, WIPP will also replace a Waist Hoist motor that is more than 30 years old. True to its name, the waste hoist lowers TRU waste from the surface to the underground repository where it is stored.
“There are numerous other projects underway, but these are the two major projects,” the spokesperson said. “This is the optimal time of year for an outage to occur because we find winter months to be a bit slower because shipments are often impacted and suspended as the result of winter weather.”
Replacing both the substation and the Waste Hoist motor has been a major issue for WIPP in recent years. Back in June, the Government Accountability Office issued a report to a congressional committee, stating that while progress had been made, “our analysis shows 29 of 56 assets that are essential to the mission were in substandard or inadequate condition in 2023.”
WIPP stretches 16 square miles in Carlsbad, N.M. It is the nation’s only repository for defense-related TRU waste, contaminated with radioactive elements during nuclear missions, and it typically includes protective clothing, tools, rags, equipment, and miscellaneous items exposed to small amounts of plutonium.
Prior to the annual outage, WIPP had received 103 TRU waste shipments through the first three months of fiscal 2026, which ran from October through December 2025. During that same timeframe in fiscal 2025, the plant received 94 shipments.