Oak Ridge nuke waste off to N.M. dump

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — A processing center for radioactive waste in Tennessee has made its first shipment in five years to the federal government’s only underground nuclear waste repository, marking another milestone as the U.S. gets its multibillion-dollar cleanup program back on track.

Dozens of employees gathered earlier this month at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee to watch casks of waste loaded onto a truck for the trip to the repository in southern New Mexico.

The disposal of contaminated tools, clothing and other debris from decades of nuclear research and bomb-making at government labs and defense sites around the nation was sidelined in 2014 when a radiation release contaminated part of the repository and forced its closure.

Shipments to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant finally resumed in April after an expensive recovery effort and a major policy overhaul after a drum of improperly packed waste triggered a spill.

The repository confirmed Friday it is now receiving three to four shipments a week, most of them coming from the Idaho National Laboratory.

Donavan Mager, a spokesman for the contractor that runs the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, said workers are becoming more proficient with new waste-handling procedures that account for them having to operate in a contaminated environment. Workers move the waste into its final resting place: disposal vaults carved out of an ancient salt formation about a half-mile below the surface.