Dr. Conca reports that WIPP, located near Carlsbad, New Mexico, was closed in 2014 after a minor radioactive leak. Transuranic waste (more than 100 nCi per g but less than 23 Curie per liter) generated from defense operations. In other words, bomb waste, some of which is quite radioactive. WIPP is 2130 ft (655 m) below the surface in a massive portion of the Permian-age Salado Salt Formation in the arid Delaware Basin of southeastern New Mexico.This type of massive salt is the most popular rock in the United States. And Yucca Mountain was chosen in 1987. WIPP had operated almost perfectly since it opened in 1999 until its first and only radiation occurred on the Valentine Day in February 2014 from a burst drum (WIPP Drum 68660) which had been inappropriately filled at a generator site.
The seven ounces of americium and plutonium released were contained by the ventilation and the salt, as designed, resulting in no health or environmental effects. Clean-up was initiated, a new portion of the ventilation system, and many ancillary issues resolved. Even though the leak had nothing to do with WIPP or the salt, an over abundance of caution led to the clean-up taking 3 years and $ 500 million. Even so, WIPP is still ten years ahead of schedule and over a billion dollars under budget. This results from the salt being such an ideal host rock, and the repository being so well-designed, that operations proceeded much during the last 15 years.
While MOST of the waste at WIPP contains primarily alpha emitters like Pu that do not require significant shielding, some of the waste contains radionuclides That emit the more penetrating gamma radiation from fission products, such As 137 Cs and 90 Sr and 90 Y that came from reprocessing defense spent fuel to make nuclear weapons.
Original URL: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2017/01/10/wipp-nuclear-waste-repository-reopens-for-business/#7a2d19282052
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