Summarizing Ten Years Operating the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant - 9501

Ten years ago this month, the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) received the first shipment of Transuranic (TRU) waste for permanent isolation from the bioshpere. Twenty years of planning, site characterization studies, licensing and permitting went into that first shipment. Now, after ten operating years, WIPP has demonstrated that deep geologic disposal of long-lived radioactive waste is not only feasible, it has also shown that it can be accomplished safely and efficiently. This paper presents the lessons learned from ten years of operations. It describes the issues of keeping the pipeline full, so that disposal operations progress smoothly. Balancing the various generator site’s waste removal priorities (risk reduction) with characterization and transportation resources requires constant communication between WIPP and the Department of Energy (DOE) TRU waste complex. The paper describes the changes that had to be made to authorize Remote Handled (RH) TRU waste operations, and the difficulty in balancing CH and RH waste receipt rates to avoid losing disposal capacity. As a licensed and permitted facility, all WIPP operations are in a constant state of oversight. This oversight is spread across numerous organizations and effectively results in competition. The WIPP project is one of the most scrutinized operations in the DOE and substantial resources are needed to satisfy the information requirements resulting from the oversight. Finally, the paper looks to the next ten years of WIPP operations. With a freshly re-permitted and relicensed regulatory regime, and with the easily characterized waste streams already emplaced, the goal will be to keep the pipeline filled. New and more difficult waste streams will make the road to WIPP disposal more challenging.