CARLSBAD, N.M. - The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) transportation program will travel WIPP transportation corridors to support state-sponsored road shows to give the public an opportunity to learn about shipping waste packages to the facility.
The road shows come as EM’s Carlsbad Field Office prepares to resume transuranic waste shipments to WIPP for the first time since February 2014. That’s when the facility’s operations were halted following an underground fire and unrelated breach of a waste drum in an underground disposal panel. Shipments to WIPP are scheduled to resume in April.
The road show will make stops along the program’s active shipping routes in New Mexico, Texas, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Utah, Idaho, Wyoming and Colorado.
Attendees can view an actual TRUPACT-II shipping package and learn about the project, transportation protocols and shipping procedures in presentations and discussions with WIPP subject-matter experts.
EM reopened WIPP earlier this year, marking the end of recovery operations and resumption of waste emplacement activities.
WIPP contract carriers have safely transported more than 11,800 shipments to the facility, totaling more than 14 million miles.
Source: U.S. Dept. of Energy, Office of Environmental Management
