WIPP receives first radioactive waste from Oak Ridge
WIPP emergency preparedness experts traveled to communities along the route from Tennessee, training first response organizations to be prepared in the event of a transportation accident involving a WIPP shipment.
The Associated Press
9/26/2008
CARLSBAD, N.M. — An underground waste repository in southeastern New Mexico has received its first shipment of radioactive waste from Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee.
A truck with three special shipping containers from the lab arrived at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant on Thursday morning. It marked the 6,894th safe shipment to the Department of Energy facility.
WIPP officials said Oak Ridge has worked for months to package and certify the waste before shipping it.
“Safe, responsible cleanup is the bottom line,” said Dave Moody, manager of the DOE’s field office in Carlsbad. “While we make steady progress every day at WIPP, it is milestones like this that highlight the overall success of the DOE cleanup effort.”
WIPP emergency preparedness experts traveled to communities along the route from Tennessee, training first response organizations to be prepared in the event of a transportation accident involving a WIPP shipment.
WIPP, 26 miles east of Carlsbad, holds plutonium-contaminated waste from the nation’s defense work in vast underground rooms excavated in ancient salt beds. It opened in 1999.