Air shaft at nuclear waste site near Carlsbad halfway drilled

A project to sink a new utility shaft at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant was halfway to its planned depth of more than 2,000 feet underground, officials reported Thursday.

The shaft was planned to meet a depth of 2,275 feet and was now at 1,076 feet. That means its about halfway to the underground repository at WIPP which sits at 2,150 feet beneath the surface.

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When complete, it will be WIPP's fifth shaft and serve as an air intake along with providing access to the western side of the underground where the facility is mining out new space to hold nuclear waste.

Transuranic (TRU) nuclear waste made up of clothing materials, equipment and debris irradiated during nuclear activities is sent to WIPP from Department of Energy facilities across the country.

Workers emplace waste at the site, while also mining and maintaining the underground facility.

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That takes a lot of air for workers to breathe, and the shaft along with a broader rebuild of the site's ventilation system known as the Safety Significant Confinement Ventilation System (SSCVS) was intended to increase airflow from 170,000 cubic feet per minute (cfm) to 540,000 cfm.

The SSCVS was designed as a series of air filters and two buildings to remove salt from the air brought through WIPP and push it through high efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filters, before exhausting.

Both projects were expected to complete construction this year and be operational by late 2025 or early 2026, said Donavan Mager, spokesman for Salado Isolation Mining Contractors (SIMCO), the DOE-hired contractor conducting WIPP's daily activities.

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Combined, the two projects were expected to cost more than $500 million.

"The Utility Shaft or Shaft #5 is of great importance to WIPP and our ability to continue the Department's critical national mission of safely disposing defense transuranic waste," said Mark Bollinger, acting manager of the DOE's Carlsbad Field Office.

"When completed, this shaft will be part of the new permanent ventilation system that will allow us to provide critical airflow to the underground workforce."

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Construction of a concrete liner extending 873 feet deep was completed in January, officials said, and workers are conducting drilling, blasting and mucking activities to push further underground.

They’re geologically mapping and installing ground support equipment, continuing the work until reaching the repository.

The excavation activities are done 24 hours a day, with workers drilling holes and setting explosives in the shaft circle.

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Rubble from the explosion is scooped out using remote-controlled clamshells connected to the bottom of a three-deck work stage known as the Galloway that hangs in the shaft.

The rubble is brought to the surface in buckets and hauled away by truck.

When it's all done, the shaft will be WIPP's largest at 26 feet in diameter.

It will connect to the underground via two 3,000-foot drifts meaning mined from the repository.

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Airflow became particularly important after an accidental radiological release in 2014 led to a three-year shutdown of WIPP's primary underground activities, leaving portions of the WIPP underground contaminated by radiation and limiting airflow.

That also restricted some of the space planned for waste disposal, meaning two additional panels officials described as "replacement space" were being mined on the west end near the new shaft.

SIMCO Program Manager Ken Harrawood said the utility shaft project was essential for WIPP to continue operating safely.

"It's exciting to see the progress that is being made," he said. "It cannot be understated the importance of the work that is being done to complete the Utility Shaft."

A March 2022 report from the Government Accountability Office noted both the SSCVS and utility shaft faced significant delays and budget increases, citing the SSCVS’ projected cost of $486 million was 70 percent more than originally planned and the 2026 completion marked a three-year delay.

The GAO also worried the replacement panels might not be ready by August 2025, when it expected WIPP's existing space would be full.

Adrian Hedden can be reached at 575-628-5516, [email protected] or @AdrianHedden on Twitter.