Salt Mining to Resume at WIPP
This
continuous miner, located underground at the Waste Isolation Pilot
Plant, is capable of cutting out salt and depositing it into a vehicle
for transport to the surface.
CARLSBAD, N.M. – Mining operations at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) are expected to resume this fall for the first time in more than three years, helping EM fulfill its mission of emplacing transuranic waste from generator sites around the country.
Mining for Panel 8 is expected to restart later this month or in early
November, with completion of the partially-mined panel scheduled for
2020, according to Dave Sjomeling, undergound deputy operations manager
with WIPP management and operations contractor Nuclear Waste Partnership. Miners have completed testing of the mining equipment to be used in Panel 8.
More than 112,000 tons of salt will be removed from the underground to
complete the panel, which will contain seven disposal rooms for waste
emplacement. Each disposal room is 300 feet long, 33 feet wide, and 13
feet high. Rooms generally hold about 10,395 55-gallon drum equivalents.
A
finished disposal room ready to receive waste drums. Each room can hold
more than 10,000, 55-gallon drums. There are seven rooms per panel.
“The resumption of mining represents an important step for WIPP and
our workforce,” Carlsbad Field Office Manager Todd Shrader said. “Panel 8
will provide additional space for the emplacement of transuranic waste
as our waste handler crews continue to emplace waste in Panel 7.”
Panel 8 mining began in late 2013, but was halted following separate
fire and radiological events that suspended emplacement operations.
Workers will re-mine the current roof (called the back) at the panel’s
entrance and install rock bolts to provide stability.
Miners use a continuous miner — a machine designed to remove salt rock
from the WIPP underground. They load the mined salt into a haul truck,
which deposits it into a hoist that carries the material 2,150 feet to
the surface for removal. WIPP uses a room and pillar system, where the
mined material is extracted across a horizontal plane, creating arrays
of rooms and pillars.
- Contributor: Khushroo Ghadiali
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