It Just Keeps Getting Better—TRU Waste Inventory - 8426

The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) opened on March 26, 1999, becoming the nation’s first deep geologic repository for the permanent disposal of defense-generated transuranic (TRU) waste. In May 1998, the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) certified WIPP and recertified WIPP in March 2006. The knowledge of TRU waste inventory is fundamental to packaging, transportation, disposal strategies, resource allocation, and is also imperative when working in a regulatory framework. TRU waste inventory data are used to define the waste that will fill the WIPP repository in terms of volume, radionuclides, waste material parameters, other chemical components, and to model the impact of the waste on the performance of the WIPP over a 10,000-year evolution. The data that pertain to TRU waste is defined in the WIPP Land Withdrawal Act (LWA), as “… waste containing more that 100 nanocuries of alpha-emitting transuranic isotopes per gram of waste, with half-lives greater than 20 years…” Defining TRU waste further, the wastes are classified as either contact-handled (CH) or remote-handled (RH) TRU waste, depending on the dose rate at the surface of the waste container. CH TRU wastes are packaged with an external surface dose rate not greater than 200 millirem (mrem) per hour, while RH TRU wastes are packaged with an external surface dose rate of 200 mrem per hour or greater. The Los Alamos National Laboratory—Carlsbad Operations (LANL-CO) Inventory Team has developed a powerful new database, the Comprehensive Inventory Database (CID), to maintain the TRU waste inventory information. The CID is intended to replace the Transuranic Waste Baseline Inventory Database (TWBID), Revision 2.1, as the central inventory information repository for tracking all existing and potential (TRU) waste generated across the Department of Energy (DOE) TRU waste complex. It is also the source for information submitted for the Annual TRU Waste Inventory Reports some of which will be used in future Compliance Recertification Applications (CRAs) for the WIPP. Currently, the DOE is preparing for the second recertification, CRA-2009. The CID contains comprehensive TRU waste inventory that is consistent, relevant, and easily accessible to support DOE needs, not only the CRAs and performance assessments, but also waste management planning activities and other regulatory needs (e.g., National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) analyses). The comprehensive inventory contains information obtained via inventory updates and approved acceptable knowledge (AK) characterization information to ensure inventory data integrity is maintained and the inventory is current. The TRU waste inventory is maintained in the CID under configuration management as