Through June 9, the Energy Department had made 21 shipments of transuranic waste to the reopened Waste Isolation Pilot Plant for disposal, according to the latest official DOE records.
The count includes only shipments that have been buried at the deep-underground salt mine near Carlsbad, N.M., for two weeks, meaning the actual shipment total in that time frame could be higher.
The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) on April 7 began accepting waste shipments from other DOE sites, more than three years after an accidental underground radiation release and earlier, unrelated underground fire closed the facility until December 2016.
As of June 9, WIPP has received a little more than two shipments a week. In May, the weekly rate bumped up to three shipments per week.
With 21 shipments arriving, DOE has 107 more to go between now and Jan. 30 to hit the target of 128 shipments in the first 10 or so months of post-recovery operations. The department must average three shipments a week over that period to hit that goal, so the agency will have to boost its throughput a bit.
The Department of Energy has said it plans to boost weekly shipments to four by the end of the year. The agency has also tempered expectations about the total number of shipments, saying it might be fewer than 128.
