The US Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Environmental Management (EM) has completed construction of the Safety Significant Confinement Ventilation System (SSCVS) facility at its Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico.
This milestone marks the delivery of the SSCVS facilities and systems necessary to move forward with the full testing and commissioning phase a new, state-of-the-art, large-scale ventilation system to bring the facility online for operation in 2026.
“Finishing the Safety Significant Confinement Ventilation System construction phase marks a momentous investment in WIPP’s operational infrastructure,” said Mark Bollinger, EM’s Carlsbad Field Office manager. “When fully online, the SSCVS will greatly increase the quality of airflow to the underground repository and enhance WIPP’s ability to reliably deliver on DOE’s national security and environmental clean-up missions.”
Salado Isolation Mining Contractors (SIMCO), WIPP’s management and operations contractor, began SSCVS commissioning phase work in early autumn 2023 as construction crews began turning over initial portions of the facility and systems to startup and commissioning teams.
“Completing SSCVS construction allows us to pivot our focus to testing and commissioning the remaining SSCVS systems,” said Ken Harrawood, SIMCO’s President & Program Manager at WIPP. “We will take a measured and methodical – people, plant, paper – approach to safely bring the SSCVS fully online.”
Testing and commissioning includes testing systems, integration, developing operational procedures and guidelines, training and qualifying staff. After all tests are complete, the facility will be handed over to trained WIPP operations personnel to bring the new facility online. The SSCVS commissioning phase is currently 85% complete.
The SSCVS facility will significantly increase airflow through the WIPP underground. Air exiting the underground will be able to pass through a high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filtration system made up of 22 filtration units.
The SSCVS will work in tandem with WIPP’s new utility shaft, which will provide a new entry point for air into the WIPP underground repository. The SSCVS pulls air through the repository, removes salt and can send the air through the HEPA filtration units before it’s released to the environment. When fully online, the new ventilation will increase underground airflow from 170,000 cubic feet per minute up to 540,000 cubic feet per minute.
The SSCVS includes two primary buildings. The Salt Reduction Building pre-filters salt-laden air coming from the WIPP underground, while the New Filter Building has fans and HEPA filtration to further clean the air.
WIPP is the only deep geological repository for nuclear waste in the US. It’s a system of disposal rooms mined out of an ancient salt bed 2,150 feet underground. It has operated since 1999, celebrating its 25th anniversary of accepting transuranic waste from DOE clean-up sites across the US. The waste consists of items contaminated with small amounts of plutonium and other human-made radioactive elements. The waste has been accumulating since the 1940s as part of the nation’s nuclear defence programme dating back to the Manhattan Project.
Two new panels are being built at the west end id WIPP. These are needed to replace space lost after a 2014 incident contaminated parts of the underground facility. The incident occurred when an incorrectly-packaged drum of waste shipped from Los Alamos National Laboratory in northern New Mexico ruptured due to a chemical reaction. The resulting radiation release contaminated parts of the WIPP underground and led to a three-year shutdown of the facility’s primary operations.
The site reopened and began accepting waste again in 2017, with some areas of the underground remaining restricted and requiring workers to wear breathing apparatuses when entering. Following the incident, WIPP’s airflow was restricted to about 170,000 cfm.
