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COVID-19 an obstacle for nuclear waste disposal at Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, officials say

COVID-19 an obstacle for nuclear waste disposal at Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, officials say,

Officials plan to ramp up operations as pandemic hoped to subside, Adrian Hedden, Carlsbad Current-Argus, 31 Jan 22,

COVID-19 continued to strain operations to dispose of nuclear waste at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, officials said, slowing shipments accepted at the repository near Carlsbad last year.Officials from WIPP detailed the progress made in 2021 before state lawmakers Monday during the annual WIPP Legislative Breakfast held each year at the start of the Legislative Session.

This year’s presentation was held virtually via Zoom due to health concerns from the COVID-19 pandemic.

In the Fiscal Year 2021, about 199 shipments of waste were emplaced at WIPP, where they are permanently disposed of as an underground salt formation slowly collapses to bury the waste about 2,000 underground.

Shipments averaged about five weekly last year and were occasionally reported at seven or eight per week, said Reinhard Knerr, manager of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Carlsbad Field Office.

The facility’s target was about 240 shipments of waste for FY 2021, he said, and officials hoped to aim for up to 400 shipments in FY 2022.

“Unfortunately, COVID-19 has continued to be a significant challenge on that front,” he said of last year’s shipments. “We’ll be looking to increase here in the next few months.”

In early 2022, Knerr said WIPP hoped to increase shipments of waste to 10 to 12 per week from DOE nuclear facilities around the country including Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in northern New Mexico.

Shipments from LANL recently drew concerns from state officials as the New Mexico Environment Department (NMED) called for federal oversight into how the DOE prioritizes shipments from around the country.

Meanwhile, the DOE announced plans to increase LANL’s production of plutonium pits, which are used to trigger nuclear bombs, to about 30 pits a year by 2026 – a move critics argued would increase waste generation at the site………………………   https://www.currentargus.com/story/news/local/2022/01/31/covid-19-obstacle-nuclear-waste-disposal-wipp/9239299002/

 

February 1, 2022 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | health, USA, wastes