By Lindsay Potter
The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, the nation’s only permanent repository for radioactive waste from nuclear weapons production, is a network of 2,000-foot-deep caverns in a salt bed roughly 30 miles east of Carlsbad, New Mexico. In its 35 years of operation, WIPP has been plagued by accidents and mishandlings resulting in radioactive releases and contamination of the land, air, and workers, requiring temporary work stoppages. One radioactive catastrophe and explosion of improperly packed rad waste in 2014 caused a dangerous level of contamination causing work to be paused for several years. A new shaft, like four others already at WIPP, had to be designed to increase air flow and create access to additional cavern space. The $100 million new shaft, in tandem with a $470 million renovation of the ventilation system, plan to triple the “air capacity…allowing maintenance, mining, and waste operations to occur simultaneously,” according to the Carlsbad Current-Argus.
WIPP recently won a 10-year permit renewal, effective Nov. 3, 2023, nullifying its original 2024 closure. However, reports of three accidents during the new shaft construction within roughly one month last fall led to a temporary stop work order. In October, a swinging skid steer collided with the scaffolding platform of the shaft. In two incidents in November, a rigging cable snapped in the shaft, in one case causing the loading “basket” to sail 2,000 feet to the mine’s floor. Work began again on December 16. — Carlsbad Current-Argus, Jan. 26 and Jan. 3, 2024; Nuclear Newswire, Oct. 12, 2023
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