Ambient office  = 112 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 105 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 103 nanosieverts per hour

Black rice from Central Market = 120 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 116 nanosieverts per hour

Filtered water = 102 nanosieverts per hour

Part 2 of 2 Parts (Please read Part 1 first)
    Some TRU waste from Los Alamos National Laboratory is temporarily stored at the Waste Control Specialists facilities in Andrews, Texas. Lachman is planning on working with regulators in Texas for the permanent disposal of this waste at the WIPP. The new plan says, “In the near term, the goal will be to coordinate generator site waste packaging and transportation activities closely with site operations in order to maintain shipment rates that are consistent with WIPP site waste emplacement rates.”
    When the 2014 accident was analyzed, it was found that weaknesses in WIPP safety management program was the primary cause. In order to prevent future accidents of this kind and to ensure the safety of workers and the communities around the WIPP, Lachman said that safety guidelines would be updated and improved as well as oversight related to  radiological protection, hazardous waste management, surveillance, operational safety, training and emergency preparations. Over the next five years, the new plan is to follow the new guidelines which Lachman claims will adhere to federal law.
     One problem that was uncovered after the accident that shut down WIPP in 2014 had to do with a breakdown in the proper operation of the ventilation system for the WIPP. Recently, the WIPPs started a multimillion-dollar-project to rebuild the ventilation system. The airflow will be increases three times from one hundred and seventy cubic feet per minute (cfm) to five hundred and forty cfm. Construction began on the Safety Significant Confinement Ventilation System under a one hundred and thirty-five million dollar contract. An associated utility shaft will be constructed under a seventy-five million dollar contract. Both the new ventilation system and the associated shaft are scheduled to be completed in 2022.
     The new plan says that the system that supplies water from a one hundred and eighty thousand gallon reservoir  has serious problems but will continue to be used for the time being. The plan calls for the WIPP to for send out requests for designs and installation services so the water system structures as well as parts of the pipeline loop can be upgraded. The fire suppression system and fire alarms will also be improved.
    The airlock doors of the WIPP are opened and closed with a system that employs compressed air. Replacement parts for the air compressors are not available because the compressors are so old. The new plan calls for new air compressors to be designed, built and installed all through the WIPP site.
    Lachman intends to design and installed replacements for seven electrical substations that are now well past their expected lifespans. Some of the umbrella-shaped devices that ground lightening strikes were found to be in need of repair or upgrade.
     The hoists that bring salt up out of the repository and take the waste down into the repository are getting older and their control electronics and other parts need to be replaced. The WIPP IT system has a maximum capacity of one gigabyte per second over a distance of two thousand feet. Fiber optic cable is being added to the system which will speed up the capacity by a hundred times.
    Hopefully, the management of the WIPP will carry out the new five-year plan with efficiently and safety at a reasonable cost.

Ambient office  = 104 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 96 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 95 nanosieverts per hour

Blueberry from Central Market = 96 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 100 nanosieverts per hour

Filtered water = 82 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient office  = 95 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 89 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 95 nanosieverts per hour

Avocado from Central Market = 92 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 100 nanosieverts per hour

Filtered water = 93 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient office  = 116 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 102 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 102 nanosieverts per hour

Lettuce from Central Market = 95 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 89 nanosieverts per hour

Filtered water = 70 nanosieverts per hour

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