New ventilation system at Waste Isolation Pilot Plant nears completion

Nov. 27—After years of delays, swelling costs and legal battles, crews are in the final stretch of installing a $500 million ventilation system federal managers say will allow more work to be done deep underground at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant and create a backup air supply in the event of a radioactive release.

The system is vital in providing the needed air to the facility near Carlsbad — the nation's only repository for transuranic waste, a mixture of irradiated gloves, clothing, tools, soil and other items — after airflow at the site was limited following the bursting of a nuclear waste container a decade ago.

Crews have begun testing the electrical cables that power the equipment, and in the coming months will test both the machinery that's already installed and the components that will be delivered. The goal is to have the system running by mid-2024, a spokesman for WIPP's primary contractor said.

Conducting the tests, also known as commissioning, is a significant step in this large project, said Bobby St. John, spokesman for Salado Isolation Mining Contractors LLC.

"We've got enough equipment in and installed now that we can begin testing equipment," St. John said.

Salado's parent company is Chicago-based Bechtel National Inc. Bechtel formed Salado to oversee WIPP after the U.S. Energy Department awarded a different Bechtel subsidiary a $3 billion, 10-year contract in 2022 to manage the facility.

The department decided to replace Nuclear Waste Partnership, a contractor that, among other things, had run into trouble installing the ventilation system.

WIPP officials have said the new system is needed because the old one was partially blocked to contain a 2014 radioactive release that occurred after a waste drum packaged with a volatile blend of organic cat litter and nitrate salts burst.

The contaminated facility was shut down for three years and cost $2 billion to clean up.

In the "unlikely event" of another radioactive leak, the new system will direct underground air to a series of HEPA filtration units, the news release said.

The system also will work in tandem with a fifth air shaft being built, federal officials say. The shaft will let outside air flow into the repository, and the vent system will filter it and then funnel it through the repository.

Airflow will more than triple to 540,000 cubic feet per minute, allowing workers to mine, do construction and bury waste simultaneously, whereas the current limited air supply forces managers to restrict activities, officials say.

Critics contend the ventilation system combined with a fifth air shaft has one purpose: to enable WIPP to take newly generated nuclear waste indefinitely.

WIPP takes waste from Los Alamos National Laboratory and out-of-state sites such as the decommissioned Hanford Site in Washington state and Idaho National Laboratory, then entombs it in salt caverns about 2,150 feet deep. The original facility was designed to operate for 25 to 35 years within the underground salt deposits before it would deteriorate and collapse. The costly, elaborate air system would help extend its life substantially, said Don Hancock, director of nuclear waste safety for the nonprofit Southwest Research and Information Center.

"In theory, they've got a [new] ventilation system that will last 30 or 40 more years," Hancock said. "That's part of keeping the facility open for decades more. They're going to have to replace other things at WIPP as well, but this is a big thing to replace."

Salado inherited the project from Nuclear Waste Partnership, which had struggled with cost overruns and delays. Under Nuclear Waste Partnership, the system's cost ballooned from a $288 million estimate to $486 million.

That contractor also became ensnared in litigation.

Texas-based Critical Applications Alliance LLC sued Nuclear Waste Partnership for $32 million, claiming the contractor used faulty designs that caused chronic problems and forced crews to redo large and expensive parts of the system, resulting in a year of delays.

Hancock said the new contractor seems more efficient and is making progress.

Federal officials can do what they believe is needed at WIPP, but it will continue to have a limit of 6.2 million cubic feet of waste, Hancock said.

The facility also must adhere to the state Environment Department's terms that were part of renewing WIPP's hazardous waste permit, which include filing regular progress reports on their search for a second waste disposal site in another state, Hancock said.

Because WIPP has gone beyond its original mission of taking only legacy waste, it's important the site doesn't become a bottomless pit for newly generated waste from production of the plutonium cores that detonate warheads, Hancock said.

"DOE has to ... tell Congress, if we're going to do all this production, we have to have another repository," Hancock said.