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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 currentargus.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from currentargus.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Officials at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant reported a “minimal” release of radioactive materials during a test of a ventilation fan and contended the fan could be used safely during maintenance operations at the nuclear waste repository near Carlsbad.
The fan was decommissioned after an accidental radiological release in 2014 led to contamination of parts of the underground where waste is disposed of, and a three-year halt of WIPP’s primary operations.
Restarting the fan was needed, officials said, to increase safety for workers by improving airflow to the underground.
A four-hour test of the fan was conducted in January, and Sean Dunagan, president of Nuclear Waste Partnership – the primary operations contractor at WIPP – said the results showed any radiological risk from using the fan was negligible.
A controversial executive action from the administration of President Joe Biden that restricted some oil and gas activity on federal land was set to expire on Sunday, as authority over oil and gas permits and other approvals was returned to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and its local field offices.
On Jan. 20, acting Interior secretary Scott de la Vega suspended the authority of sub-agencies within the Department like the BLM to make needed approvals for oil and gas operations such as permits to drill, tie into pipelines and rights of way need to transport oil and natural gas.
The order meant such decisions were to be made at the cabinet level – effectively slowing the process and restricting the ability of field offices to work directly with local operators.
WIPP: Staffing, scheduling problems imperil major construction projects currentargus.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from currentargus.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.