The Department of Energy has moved forward on a permit modification request for the Waste Isolation Pilot Program (WIPP) in Carlsbad, New Mexico, that outlines an above ground storage facility for transuranic waste that would be used for one year, while it works on returning the underground unit to service.
In a letter sent in September to the New Mexico Hazardous Waste Bureau of the state's Environment Department, the DOE outlines a project to create a Concrete Overpack Container Storage Unit that would be used to store an anticipated 65,280 cubic feet of transuranic waste from government facilities, such as the Los Alamos National Laboratory and the Idaho National Laboratory.
The facility has already received a backlog of waste shipments that would have been placed in underground storage. However, a radiation release forced closure of the underground facility in February 2014. Its return to partial service is expected by the end of the year, It will not be fully operational at that point, however, and a continuous backlog of waste is expected.
The Department of Energy along with Nuclear Waste Partnership, LLC, has requested the permit modification that would allow for above ground storage that would include “transuranic mixed waste,” that would be stored “on the surface of the WIPP in a permitted hazardous waste container storage unit.”
The modified unit would include “remote-handled waste in shielded containers that is managed and stored as CH (contact handled) waste pursuant to …” the existing permit.
The new unit would also allow for the WIPP to buy some time, if needed, when handling shipments. It would be used “during times when the facility is undergoing a planned o unplanned maintenance activity,” the application says. It could also be used during “an event that delays waste emplacement,” including “inclement weather.”
“For example, this change will allow the Permittees to continue processing waste when inclement weather delays shipments to the WIPP – such as snowfall in Northern New Mexico,” the application says.