The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico has taken delivery of some transuranic waste generated at the Los Alamos National Laboratory and formerly stored at the privately operated Waste Control Specialists disposal site near Andrews, Texas, sources in New Mexico said.
WIPP took delivery of the waste last week. The sources did not quantify the amount of material in the shipment, but did say the waste was not the potentially explosive, improperly packaged nitrate salts from Los Alamos that caused the 2014 radiation leak that shut the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant down for almost three years.
The Energy Department and Nuclear Waste Partnership, the prime contractor for WIPP, did not immediately reply to requests for comment Monday.
In 2014, Waste Control Specialists took custody of more than 100 barrels of nitrate salt waste from the Los Alamos National Laboratory. The company has stored the material under contract with Nuclear Waste Partnership under a deal that was recently extended through September. DOE has refused to make the value of the latest extension public, but the contract’s base and option periods through March were worth about $25 million.
