Last February there was an "incident" at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, New Mexico. Radioactive particles escaped from the geological repository for wastes associated with nuclear weapons production. A drum of waste exploded and released the radioactive particles which were detected up to twenty miles away. Filters and fans did not work correctly which allowed the radioactive material to escape.
The WIPP has existed for about fifteen years and it appears that corners were cut and procedures ignored. Originally the separate "rooms" in the old salt mine were to be sealed with two foot thick doors when they were full of drums of waste. Then they changed to steel doors. Eventually they dispensed with doors altogether. There would have been no radioactive release last February if the "room" where the drum exploded was sealed properly.
Apparently a mix of chemicals generated explosive gas. The exact contents of the drum are not know because records were not kept correctly. The drum is one of a batch of a hundred of drum from the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) that were treated with the wrong chemicals before being shipped to WIPP. Other drums may explode. Investigation is ongoing on the incident and the danger posed by other drums in the same group from LANL. The repository is shut down while the level of radiation goes down and examinations are conducted.
The huge "rooms" at WIPP left from mining the salt are being filled with drums of waste. Eventually it is expected that the ceilings of the "rooms" will collapse onto the drums of waste in the sealed "rooms" entombing them. Unfortunately, the pressure from the surrounding geological formations is causing the walls of the mine to shift. This month, it was reported that one wall of one of the rooms was collapsing inward so they had to use bolts to reattach the wall. Other areas have required bolts to reinforce and apparently the number of bolts per linear foot is exceeding safety standards.
A few weeks ago, it was revealed that portions of the ceiling in one of the "rooms" had collapsed. An inspection team found that there were seven areas in the "rooms" that were in danger because bolts were failing. To date, over three hundred damaged bolts have had to be removed. The bolting of ceilings is critical to safety and is proceeding as part of the general recovery from the accident last year.
The situation at WIPP just keeps getting worse. WIPP is the only national geological repository for nuclear weapons waste. Negligence has resulted in the release of radioactive materials. If other drums explode, there may be more releases. It may be that they have not yet fully detailed all the problems in at WIPP. It will take years and hundreds of millions of dollars to repair the damages in and disintegration of the repository. This could have been prevented if the NRC had done its job and the WIPP operators had been held to the written regulations for the repository.
WIPP ceiling bolts:
