Waste Isolation Pilot Plant

Transuranic Waste. Transuranic wastes (TRU) contain significant amounts (>3,700 Bq/g (100 nCi/g)) of plutonium. These wastes have accumulated from nuclear weapons production at sites such as Rocky Flats, Colorado. Experimental test of TRU disposal is planned for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) site near Carlsbad, New Mexico. The geologic medium is rock salt, which has the abiUty to flow under pressure around waste containers, thus sealing them from water. Studies center on the stabiUty of stmctures and effects of small amounts of water within the repository. 

R. C. Weisner, J. E. Lemons, Jr., and L. V. Coppa, Valuation oJPotash Occurrence Within the Nuclear Waste Isolation Pilot Plant Site in Southeastern Neir Mexico, U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Mines, Washington, D.C., 1980, p. 6. 

The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) is in an excavated salt cavern in southern New Mexico, twenty-seven miles from Carlsbad. The WIPP site is 2,000 yards underground, and defense waste is being placed. There are plans to place there about 6 million cubic feet of material there containing fewer than five million curies of radio activity. 

Distribution of241 Am in a dialysis system containing sediment, phytoplankton, and detrital matter established that a substantial amount of americium accumulated in all three phases both in fresh and marine waters (NRC 1981). The adsorption process was not reversible and the longer the americium was adsorbed, the more difficult the chemical was to desorb. Appreciable amounts of americium have been shown to adsorb to bacterial cells such as those found in the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico (Francis et al. 1998). There is a potential that americium attached to biocolloids may facilitate its transport from the waste site. 

Lee SC, Orlandini KA, Webb J, et al. 1998. Measurement of baseline atmospheric plutonium-239, 240 and americium-241 in the vicinity of the waste isolation pilot plant. J Radioanal Nucl Chem 234(l-2) 267-272. 

Waste heat recovery exchangers, 13 267 Waste ink disposal, 14 333 Waste interception network, 20 739-740 Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP), 25 859 Waste lime products, disposal of, 15 77-78 Waste management, 9 443... 

It is clear that the disposal of HLNW requires a high level of effective isolation for geological time-scales. In this context deep geological disposal has arisen as the most accepted option and there are already operational repositories of this type (waste isolation pilot plant, WIPP) in the USA, and in Finland and Sweden the plans are well advanced for the siting and construction of such facilities. 

The other three major activities within the waste isolation program are specific to particular sites. We are currently evaluating the potential of deep basalt flows below the Hanford reservation in the State of Washington. This work is managed by the Richland Operations Office and is being conducted by the Rockwell Hanford Company. An evaluation of a potential site is underway in southeast New Mexico for the location of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) which is primarily a facility for the placement of transuranium contaminated wastes (TRU) from the defense program. 

Dosch, R. G. and Lynch, A. W., Interaction of Radionuclide with Geomedia Associated with the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (wiPP) Site in New Mexico, Sandia Laboratories,... 

Technical requirements on treatment and disposal of spent fuel, high-level waste, and transuranic waste established under AEA should be largely unaffected by the presence of waste classified as hazardous under RCRA Some of these wastes meet technology-based treatment standards for hazardous chemical waste established by EPA (e.gvitrified high-level waste is an acceptable waste form under RCRA). Alternatively, a finding that disposal of the radioactive component of the waste complies with applicable environmental standards established by EPA under AEA can serve to exempt the disposal facility from prohibitions on disposal of restricted hazardous chemical wastes under RCRA [e.g., disposal of mixed transuranic waste at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP)]. 

Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico is only disposal facility authorized in law commercial transuranic waste also may be acceptable for near-surface disposal on a case-by-case basis. 

Requirements for Disposal and Their Relationship to Waste Classification. Under current laws and regulations, spent fuel, high-level waste, transuranic waste, and low-level waste generally do not require particular disposal systems. However, only certain types of disposal systems are authorized for some types of waste (see Table 4.1). In particular (1) spent fuel, high-level waste, transuranic waste, and greater-than-Class-C low-level waste normally are intended for disposal in a geologic repository, such as the proposed Yucca Mountain facility and the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant and... 

DOE acknowledged the dual regulatory framework for mixed waste in 1987 with a notice clarifying the definition of byproduct material (DOE, 1987b). In this notice, DOE issued a final interpretive rule establishing that the exclusion of byproduct material at Section 1004(27) of RCRA applied only to the radionuclides in mixed waste and that the nonradioactive portion of the waste was subject to RCRA. In addition, in 1987, DOE recognized that RCRA LDRs (see Section 4.2.2) and other RCRA requirements applied to transuranic waste intended for disposal at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (see Section 4.1.2.3.2). 

RI TSCA UCL UF WIPP WIPPLWA risk index Toxic Substances Control Act upper confidence limit uncertainty factor Waste Isolation Pilot Plant Waste Isolation Pilot Plant Land Withdrawal Act... 

DOE (1996a). U.S. Department of Energy. Waste Acceptance Criteria for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, DOE/WIPP-069, Rev. 5 (Waste Isolation Pilot Plant Project Office, Carlsbad, New Mexico). 

EPA (1996b). U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. 40 CFR Part 194— Criteria for the certification and re-certification of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant s compliance with the 40 CFR Part 191 disposal regulations, Final rule, 61 FR 5224 (U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington). 

In 1989 a deep mined repository, The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, was opened in a bedded salt formation near Carlsbad, New Mexico. The site has been receiving transuranic wastes since and has now disposed hundreds of tons. 

Grand Junction CO Rocky Flats CO Pinellas FL Idaho Falls IH Kansas City Plant Kansas City MO Las Vegas NV Waste Isolation Pilot Plant,... 

Solubility calculations for the waste isolation pilot plant... 

Transuranic waste (TRU) is defined as waste contaminated with a-emitting radionuchdes of atomic number greater than 92 and half-life greater than 20 yr in concentrations greater than 100 nCi g (3.7 X 10 Bq g ). TRU is primarily a product of the reprocessing of SF and the use of plutonium in the fabrication of nuclear weapons. In the US, the disposal of TRU at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in southeastern New Mexico is regulated by 40 CFR Part 194 (US EPA, 1996). It is also discussed in more detail in a later section of this chapter. 

Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) program as described in a later section. 

Performance assessment calculations of actinide speciation and solubility, and of the potential releases that could result if the repository is breached, were carried out as part of the CCA) for the waste isolation pilot plant (WIPP) (US DOE, 1996 US EPA, 1998a,b,c,d). The calculations modeled actinide behavior in a reference Salado brine and a less magnesium-rich brine from the Castile Formation as described previously (see Tables 6 and 8). The performance assessment calculations will be periodically repeated with updated parameter sets as part of site recertification. 

Gillow J. B., Dunn M., Francis A. L, Lucero D. A., and Papenguth H. W. (2000) The potential for subterranean microbes in facilitating actinide migration at the Grimsel Test Site and Waste Isolation Pilot Plant. Radiochim. Acta 88(9-11), 769-774. 

Kelly J. W., Aguilar R., and Papenguth H. W. (1999) Contribution of mineral-fragment type pseudo-colloids to the mobile actinide source term of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP). In Actinide Speciation in High Ionic Strength Media (eds. D. T. Reed, S. B. Clark, and L. Rao). Kluwer/ Plenum, New York, pp. 227-237. 

National Academy of Sciences (NAS) (1996) The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant A Potential Solution for the Disposal of Transuranic Waste. National Academy Press, Washington, DC. 

Novak C. F., Nitsche H., Silber H. B., Roberts K., Torretto P. C., Prussin T., Becraft K., Carpenter S. A., Hobart D. E., and AlMahamid 1. (1996) Neptunium(V) and neptunium(Vl) solubilities in synthetic brines of interest to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP). Radiochim. Acta 74, 31-36. 

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