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Shipments and disposal of nuclear waste resumed at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant after a two-month pause in the repository’s primary operations to allow personnel to complete several maintenance projects underground and on the surface.
WIPP completed 97 projects during the maintenance outage which ran from Feb. 15 to April 15, upgrading infrastructure throughout the facility.
The work involved mine operations, waste handling, hoisting, ground control, safety and engineering, and the break included a site-wide power outage to allow electrical work to be completed safely.
An outage is held each year for major projects that can’t be performed alongside waste emplacement, and routine preventive maintenance is conducted throughout the year.
WIPP completes upgrades, prepares to increase nuclear waste shipments
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An effort to replace diesel vehicles and equipment at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant with electrical and battery-operated components is underway, part of a broader goal of improving airflow in the underground nuclear waste repository.
Available air in the underground, where low-level nuclear was is permanently disposed of, became restricted following an accidental radiological release in 2014 that contaminated parts of the mine.
WIPP officials took steps in the years following the event, beginning work on new utility shaft, planning to restart a major ventilation fan and moving forward with a multi-million-dollar rebuild of the facilities ventilation system known as the Safety Significant Confinement Ventilation System (SSCVS).
A new subcontractor was hired to complete a rebuild of the ventilation system at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant nuclear repository near Carlsbad after months of legal issues with the past subcontractor who was terminated last fall.
With the new subcontractor award, the project’s original completion date of 2021 was pushed back by four years and it was expected to cost at least $28 million more than the initial contract.
Critical Applications Alliance (CAA) received the initial $135 million contract in November 2018 to build the Safety Significant Confinement Ventilation System (SSCVS) intended to improve airflow in the underground where low-level transuranic (TRU) waste consisting of radiated clothing materials and equipment is permanently entombed in a subterranean salt deposit.