Waste shipments were suspended after February 5, when a truck hauling salt caught fire below ground. No one has re-entered the underground facility since an air-monitoring system detected the radiation release nine days later.Teams of investigators equipped with self-contained breathing devices are expected to go below ground in coming weeks to determine what caused the leak, an Energy Department official said.New Mexico regulates hazardous waste facilities under state law and also is granted authority by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to issue federal permits.The immediate impacts on the repository, which has received up to 6,000 cubic meters of nuclear waste a year since it opened in 1999, were unclear though waste headed its way from a Los Alamos lab was detoured to Texas.Federal officials could not say what would happen with above-ground drums at the WIPP that had been expected to be stored below ground.The sites contractor, Nuclear Waste Partnership LLC, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Posted on: Sun, 23 Mar 2014 10:11:41 +0000
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