Waste Isolation Pilot Plant Upgrades Key Repository Infrastructure

Refurbishing 'salt pocket' aims to enhance safety, mining capability

CARLSBAD, N.M. - The team at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) recently began renovating a critical piece of the underground repository's infrastructure, mobilizing more than 2,100 feet below the Earth's surface to overhaul a mammoth steel-framed bin known as the "salt pocket."

WIPP, the nation's only repository for defense-related transuranic waste, receives waste left from research and production of nuclear weapons and emplaces those materials in underground rooms mined out of an ancient salt formation.

Key to WIPP's mining operations, the underground salt pocket is used to stage mined salt that will be lifted to the surface in a hoist. WIPP emplaces transuranic waste in salt so it can be encased over time by the salt, which moves, or creeps, at a rate of 2 to 6 inches a year. That same salt creep also eventually squeezes manmade structures in the underground repository, such as the structural steel supporting the salt pocket.

The work is part of a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Environmental Management (EM) ongoing effort to upgrade WIPP infrastructure to ensure the facility remains ready to support its vital national security and environmental cleanup missions.

"WIPP has successfully completed 25 years of safe operations and is a national asset in continuing DOE's vital mission in cleaning up America," said Mark Bollinger, EM's Carlsbad Field Office manager. "Keeping WIPP's infrastructure, such as the salt pocket, operating safely and reliably will allow continued efficient mining and waste emplacement."

WIPP management and operations contractor Salado Isolation Mining Contractors (SIMCO) oversees the salt pocket refurbishment project as transuranic waste shipments continue arriving to the site and are safely emplaced into the underground repository.

SIMCO contracted with Cementation, a global mine contracting company, to perform the work. The project includes demolishing the existing loading pocket and structural steel, remining, installing supports and constructing an entirely new 110-foot-deep loading pocket.

The refurbished salt pocket will also feature upgraded hoist controls, installed at a safe distance, to enhance worker accessibility and safety.

"The salt pocket refurbishment project is progressing well," said Brandon Jones, SIMCO Capital Asset Projects manager. "The team is in the process of safely demolishing the old structural steel and will begin work on the new structure soon."

The salt pocket refurbishment is expected to be completed by spring.

-Contributor: Roy Neese

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