Waste Isolation Plant Receives First Transuranic Radioactive Shipment

The first shipment of U.S. defense-generated transuranic (TRU) radioactive waste arrived safely this week at the DOE's Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP; Carlsbad, NM; 505-667-7000). Over the next 30 years, approximately 37,000 shipments are expected to fill storage rooms at the plant, where they will be contained 2,150 ft underground.

Shipment Details
WIPP Background

Shipment Details (Back to Top)
The first shipment arrived from the DOE's Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL; Los Alamos, NM). To get to the WIPP, the truck went around Santa Fe, NM, via a relief route built with DOE funds. LANL is one of more than 20 DOE sites nationwide where transuranic waste is temporarily stored. The DOE's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is tentatively scheduled to ship approximately 120 m³ of defense-generated TRU waste to WIPP in Fiscal Year 2004. Other DOE sites will also ship waste to the WIPP in the years ahead.

Transuranic waste—clothing, tools, rags, debris, residues, and other disposable items contaminated with radioactive elements, mostly plutonium—began accumulating in the 1940s with the beginning of the nation's nuclear weapons program. A byproduct of nuclear weapons production, this waste remains radioactive for thousands of years.

WIPP Background (Back to Top)
As early as the 1950s, the National Academy of Sciences recommended disposal of radioactive waste in stable geologic formations, such as deep salt beds. Government scientists searched for an appropriate site during the 1960s, testing the area of southeastern New Mexico in the 1970s. Congress authorized construction of the WIPP in 1979. DOE completed construction of the facility in the late 1980s.

Originally scheduled to begin receiving waste in 1988, the WIPP's opening was delayed because of several lawsuits and the lack of a specific regulatory framework. That changed in 1992 when Congress named the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as the WIPP's primary regulator. The EPA certified in May 1998 that the WIPP meets all applicable federal standards for disposal of transuranic waste.

The WIPP, a cornerstone of the DOE's cleanup effort, is the world's first underground repository to permanently dispose of defense-generated transuranic waste left from the research and production of nuclear weapons.

For more information, call LANL at 505-667-7000.