The Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico received fewer shipments of transuranic waste (TRU) in 2025 than it did during 2024, according to data from the facility’s public website.
WIPP took in 33 shipments in December, to cap off the 2025 calendar year with 441 shipments, which is down from 470 in 2024, according to the data. WIPP’s annual maintenance outage lasted about two months in 2025.
But the December results reflect an uptick from the 25 shipments WIPP received a month prior in November and slightly more than the 29 shipments received in December 2024.
Of the 33 shipments sent last month, 15 came from the Idaho National Laboratory (INL). Another 12 came from the Los Alamos National Laboratory, about 350 miles north of Carlsbad, N.M. where WIPP is located. Four came from the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, and another two shipments from Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee.
The 16-square-mile Waste Isolation Pilot Plant is the nation’s only repository for defense-related TRU waste, material contaminated with radioactive elements during nuclear missions. It typically includes protective clothing, tools, rags, equipment, and miscellaneous items contaminated with small amounts of plutonium.
During the first three months of fiscal 2026, WIPP has received 103 TRU waste shipments, with 51 coming from the Idaho lab. During that same stretch in FY25, WIPP received 94 shipments.
WIPP is managed for DOE by Bechtel’s Salado Isolation Mining Contractors, last month inked an extension to continue in that role through September 2029.