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Part 1 of 2 Parts
       The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) is located in an old salt mine two thousand feet below ground near Carlsbad, New Mexico. It is the geological repository for solid nuclear wastes from the development and manufacture of U.S. nuclear weapons. It has been operating for about twenty years but had to be shut down for a couple of years recently to repair the damage caused by a barrel of radioactive waste from Los Alamos National Laboratory that exploded at WIPP. There have been a lot of irregularities and violations of regulations at WIPP. The U.S. government intends to send nuclear waste to WIPP until at least 2050.
     Kirk Lachman is the Acting Manager of the Carlsbad Field Office for the Department of Energy. Recently he released a five-year plan for the WIPP to cover activities at the repository up to 2024. Lachman said that the plan was critical in order for the DoE to support the critical missions of the WIPP which include updating infrastructure, increasing emplacement operations and ensuring worker safety. He said, “Our ability to support these critical missions over the next five years and beyond is contingent on repairing, refurbishing, and recapitalizing aged and failing infrastructure at the WIPP facility, as well as modernizing the WIPP facility. WIPP is extremely fortunate to have substantial support at all levels of government; from our local leaders in Carlsbad, to our State elected leaders, to our national elected leaders. WIPP is in the enviable position of having exceptionally strong community support.” The DoE held public hearings recently in Santa Fe and Carlsbad in order to solicit public feedback on the plans for the WIPP.
     The new plan calls for mining out more salt to create more rooms to store more waste. The WIPP is intended to ultimately dispose of over six million cubic feet of waste. This is the goal mentioned in the WIPP Land Withdrawal Act. WIPP needs to submit recertification documents for its hazardous waste permit this year. Such submissions are required every ten years. Every five years, the WIPP must submit documents verifying compliance with Environmental Protection Agency regulations.
     Ground control will be a priority as WIPP pulls out of the south end of repository. This is where the accident that closed the WIPP occurred in 2014. The rooms where the barrels of waste are stored are called panels. Panels 3,4,5 and 6 will be permanently closed in the near future. Lachman said that the new panels being dug in the north end will be safer and more cost effective. This is preferable to trying to continue to maintain the areas in the south end contaminated by the 2014 accident. More public meetings will be held for public feedback.
    Officials say that they expect WIPP to receive four hundred waste shipments in 2020. That will increase to 440 in 2021 but will decline to 364 in 2022. Then they will increase to six hundred and sixteen shipments in 2023 and 2024. New federal guidelines for nuclear weapons waste were implemented in 2016. In order for these shipments to be transported and stored safely, WIPP staff will have to visit DoE facilities around the country where work on nuclear weapons work is being done and re-evaluate how they will deal with about twenty-five thousand containers of transuranic waste (TRU).
Please read Part 2