ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — Federal officials gathered Tuesday in southern New Mexico to mark the 25th anniversary of the nation’s only underground repository for radioactive waste resulting from decades of nuclear research and bomb making.
Carved out of an ancient salt formation about half a mile (800 meters) deep, the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant outside Carlsbad has taken in around 13,850 shipments from more than a dozen national laboratories and other sites since 1999.
The anniversary comes as New Mexico raises concerns about the federal government’s plans for repackaging and shipping to WIPP a collection of drums filled with the same kind of materials that prompted a radiation release at the repository in 2014.
That mishap contaminated parts of the underground facility and forced an expensive, nearly three-year closure. It also delayed the federal government’s multibillion-dollar cleanup program and prompted policy changes at labs and other sites across the U.S.
Meanwhile, dozens of boxes containing drums of nuclear waste that were packed at the Los Alamos National Laboratory to be stored at WIPP were rerouted to Texas, where they’ve remained ever since at an above-ground holding site.