The Department of Energy Waste Isolation Pilot Plant received 473 shipments of transuranic waste during fiscal 2023, the most in about a decade, a DOE manager said Tuesday during a public meeting in New Mexico.
The 473 shipments for the 12 months ended Sept. 30 is the most since before February 2014 when an underground radiation leak forced a nearly three-three closure of the facility, said Ken Princen, assistant manager of DOE’s Carlsbad, N.M.-based national transuranic waste disposal program.
The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in fiscal 2023 averaged between 10 and 12 shipments per week of operation, not counting idle weeks for holidays, bad weather or upkeep, Princen said. Toward the end of the year the facility was averaging close to 15 shipments per week, he added.
“August was a record month for us,” setting a post-accident monthly record with 58 shipments, he added.
Back in the years prior to 2014, WIPP frequently took in 700 or more shipments during a year, according to figures available through DOE’s public website for the facility.
WIPP’s pace for the 2023 calendar year has roughly doubled compared with 2022, in part because of the opening of a new disposal area, Panel 8, which is free of the contamination from the 2014 accident.
Unlike in the contaminated prior Panel 7, workers don’t need to wear so much protective clothing in Panel 8, said Ryan Flynn, the manager of environment, health and safety for WIPP prime contractor Salado Isolation Mining Contractors, a Bechtel affiliate.
Princen and Flynn both made presentations and fielded questions during a public meeting Tuesday, which was webcast from Carlsbad. Such public meetings are required three times annually under WIPP’s new draft permit.
