A mission to clean up nuclear waste at a federal facility in South Carolina by sending it to New Mexico for disposal was completed last month after more than a decade.
The final shipment of transuranic (TRU) waste left over from the Cold War at Savannah River Site in Aiken, South Carolina arrived at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant repository near Carlsbad on April 14.
That marked 239 shipments since the program began in 2011, including 347,000 miles driven to transport the waste between the two states and shipments weighing a total of about 11.4 million pounds.
TRU waste, consisting of mostly clothing materials and equipment irradiated during nuclear activities across the U.S., is shipped to WIPP and disposed of via burial in a salt deposit about 2,000 beneath the southeast New Mexico desert.
It is sent to WIPP in Transuranic Package Transporter Model 3 (TRUPACT-III) casks that weight about 55,000 pounds, containing 7.44 cubic meters of waste – the equivalent of about 33, 55-gallon drums.
That’s about twice the size of standard TRUPACTs containing up to 19,250 pounds, or 14, 55-gallon drums.
To be accepted for disposal at WIPP, containers must pass inspections overseen by the State of New Mexico, WIPP’s permitting agency, under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA).
Savannah River was primarily used to develop plutonium and tritium for nuclear weapons in the 1950s through the end of the Cold War and shifted to environmental cleanup and research in 1992, per a report from the U.S. Department of Energy.
The first shipment of waste from that era left the site on Aug. 24, 2011 and arrived at WIPP the next day.
