US Energy Dept. to Keep NM Nuclear Waste Facility Closed Through 2015
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Photo by Joe Raedle(WASHINGTON) — The U.S. Energy Department announced on Tuesday that it would keep the New Mexico nuclear waste facility closed through 2015, following an underground fire and radiation leak earlier this year.
According to a press release from the DOE, operations at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., were suspended following the fire and leak in February. The facility is the only one in the U.S. for the dumping of nuclear waste.
“Safety is our top priority,” said Mark Whitney, the acting assistant secretary for the DOE’s Office of Environmental Management. Whitney announced the WIPP Recovery Plan, which outlines the steps that will be taken before operations can resume.
“Some of the top nuclear and recovery experts from DOE and the nuclear industry helped develo this plan and I’m confident we will be able to safely and compliantly resume operations in the first quarter of 2016,” he said.
The facility is built 2,000 feet below the desert in salt mines. While it had only accepted low-level nuclear waste from the U.S. nuclear weapons program, officials had hoped to upgrade its permits to accept high-level nuclear waste.
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