Talk:Waste Isolation Pilot Plant

Email to CEMRC Director
I have written an email to the director of the CEMRC, asking him to make changes to his recent edits to bring them in line with WP:STYLE and WP:CITE. Unless an expert is able to make these changes, the information will eventually have to be removed from the article, a most undesirable outcome given its anemic state. Angio (talk) 20:59, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Suggested changes
I'd like to make a few suggested changes to the WIPP description. The waste acceptance criteria for WIPP was an arbitrary decision made for non-scientific reasons. Geologically, technically and scientifically, WIPP can perform for any waste at any activity level, including commercial spent fuel. Properties such as the amount of liquid, venting of gas, and activity levels are for shipping only, they do not affect the repository performance at WIPP.

The key to WIPP's performance is the plastic properties of the salt that do not allow fractures or openings to be maintained more than a few dozens of years, and the lack of tectonic activity in the area. The Salado salt formation at WIPP has been undisturbed for over 200 milion years. Unlike hard rock sites such as Yucca Mountain or most of the proposed international high-level waste sites that are fractured, there is no need for engineered barriers at WIPP and the containers holding the waste are for shipping only. They are assumed to breach and corrode immediately upon room closure. Breaching and corrosion of the breached drums is a positive as it keeps the aqueous system reducing, making plutonium immobile in any water that does get in. This is important to counter the small amount of hypochlorite and peroxide that can form from dissociation of the chloride brine by alpha-radiolysis (free hydrogen is not formed). In a chloride brine, peroxide acts as a reductant not an oxidant. The oxidant is hypochlorite which is immediately scavanged and reduced by the overwhelming amount of iron and metals such as Al in the waste and the containers, a purposeful design of the repository and bourne out by many experiments under site conditions. However, even if Pu is oxidized, the salt is so tight (10^-12 m/s) that it cannot leave the rooms unless humans drill into the area, and not just drill once, but drill repeatedly and hit multiple hypothetical pressurized brine pockets, and then only if these futuristic humans forget how to make cement and do not seal their boreholes. However, repository licensing requires a failure scenario, so human intrusion was chosen as there are no natural failure mechanisms for this salt. Licensing also requires an engineered barrier, so particulate MgO is emplaced along with the waste as it scavanges water, carbon dioxide and maintains an aqueous pH of about 9.5, ideal for immobilizing Pu and colloids. That 230 million year old seawater, with intact organics (cellusosics and some DNA fragments) is still trapped throughout this formation is a better testament to its stability than any numerical model could provide.

As to the fluid inclusion issue, the water content in the salt is extremely low (between 0.5 and 1.5% by volume) and exists primarily as fluid inclusions of brine and brine along grain boundaries. Fluid inclusions have been studied extensively with respect to high activity waste disposal because inclusions can migrate under a significant thermal gradient, e.g., 1.5°C/cm, by dissolution of salt on the up-gradient side and re-precipitation on the down-gradient side. This process encourages brine to migrate towards the waste. In most international high-level waste programs, this has been viewed as a problem because the canisters and any engineered barriers are required to survive intact anywhere from 10,000 to 100,000 years and interactions with brine, however small the volumes, could be detrimental to canister life. However, in the Salado Formation at WIPP, the canister does not need to survive after emplacement, there is no need for engineered barriers, and a halo of increased water content within or around the disturbed rock zone is of no consequence from a repository performance standpoint. In addition, after fluid inclusions have migrated and the salt has recrystallized behind them, the hydraulic conductivity is still less than 10^-12 m/s and the diffusion coefficient is less than 10^-14m^2/s because of the low water content. In fact, the performance assessment of WIPP assumes a totally flooded repository with completely breached and corroded containers, and still passes given the worst-case scenarios.

Separately from the long-term performance, the operational safety of WIPP has been ideal, better than any other operation in the United States or any human endeavor in history. Over 250,000 55-gallon drum equivalents of nuclear waste have been disposed of at WIPP. CEMRC has been independently monitoring the air, water, soil, and people in a 100-mile radius of WIPP from 7 years before WIPP opened to the present 9 years after nuclear waste has been shipping to WIPP. The underground air and any gases coming out of the waste after the room is sealed. While we can see the effects in Carlsbad from dust storms in China, we can see if someone is a body builder (increased K-40 in muscle), the effects of smoking (U and Cs-137 in tobacco) and other extremely low-level effects, we cannot see any signature from WIPP, not in people who work at WIPP, live near WIPP, or that WIPP even exists. 128.123.68.158 (talk) 17:46, 29 November 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree the current article is weak. However, rather than providing the info in this discussion article, why not put them in the Wiki article itself if you have the knowledge.  My suggestion is to (1) sign yourself up as an registered Wiki contributor; (2) make your changes in pieces so that fellow contributors can focus on each piece; and (3) use references to either other Wiki articles or external refs to support your points.  PJG 15:55, 30 March 2008 (UTC)  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Giersp (talk • contribs)

I agree. You seem to have a good understanding of the situation. By all means modify the article itself. Danwoodard (talk) 07:08, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

High level waste
Is it true that WIPP is not suitable for high level waste? This claim is unsourced, and I read quite the contrary - that it's the only operating high-level waste repository, but it can't take civilian waste for political / legal reasons.. --Tweenk (talk) 22:52, 18 March 2010 (UTC)


 * I once read about the brine movement a long time ago. Not sure if it is true.  WIPP does not disprove the theory.  The waste now at WIPP is not really very hot thermally.  Most of it is contaminated things and not pure waste in bulk.  This article mentions the problem in passing and claims it is not a problem. .  Since I put in that statement about being unsuitable for high level waste, I am removing it.  Paul Studier (talk) 16:07, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Danger of explosion?
The article as it now stands raises an interesting question of explosion danger.

Here are two statements from the article:

1. "Following the interment of waste in the facility, the storage caverns will be collapsed and sealed with 13 layers of concrete and soil. Salt will then seep into and fill the various fissures and cracks surrounding the casks of waste. After approximately 75 years, the waste will be completely isolated from the environment."

2. "The containers may also contain a limited amount of liquids. The energy released from radioactive materials will dissociate water into hydrogen and oxygen (radiolysis). This could then create a potentially explosive environment inside the container. The containers must be vented, as well, to prevent this from happening."

The problem apparently revealed by considering these two statements is that the venting of containers, which is necessary to prevent explosions, is stymied by the complete sealing provided by the layering and salt movement.

So, the article as now written implies that the facility will experience explosions at unpredictable times in the future. One might reasonably assume that such explosions might be energetic enough to breach containment. This can't be true, as experts designed this facility. Therefore, the article must have some incorrect information in it. The article may need attention from an expert in its field. David Spector (talk) 22:03, 14 May 2013 (UTC)


 * From my personal knowledge, the idea is to leave the site as it is, but to seal off the area underground with concrete. The underground salt under such tremendous pressure as it is underground acts like a liquid and will slowly seep into the area surrounding the waste. It is only in the very innermost containers that the gas mixture may be explosive as they are each under even greater pressure; these few innermost containers of waste within the TRUPAC containers are able to vent into a larger container still within each waste vessel. I believe this is the venting the article describes...not venting from the outermost waste vessel to the environment. Otherwise, the containers would essentially be leaking radioactive material into the environment. More info on the TRUPAC containers is available here: . Emann15 (talk) 20:51, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

Cat litter accident
Can somebody familiar with the chemical background give more scientific facts what made the storage drum explode? This details are important to understand that the geological structure in salt rock has nothing to do with the contamination in 2014, but was caused by improper handling of the waste prior to final depositing which could had happended in any short or long term storage. In contrast, the failure of the drum's containment would cause no harm at all after the final closure of the WIPP, as the slowly flowing characteristc of the salt closes all fissures that could lead leaks to ground level. Granite or tuff is not that tight, and clay is also ductile but can not dissipate decay heat that easily as salt. --Gunnar (talk) 11:00, 18 February 2018 (UTC)

WIPP News Cite 36 outdated
The link used is outdated and it seems like the EPA changed the link from http://www.epa.gov/radiation/news/wipp-news.html to https://www.epa.gov/radiation/wipp-news. Not completely clear on how to safely edit, but still want to point it out so someone who's more professional at this is aware and do a compliant edit. Jarrodmaddy (talk) 03:56, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

Who got the project to build the spur of railroad from the BNSF Mainline to WIPP? When was it constructed and by whom was it built?
I was wondering about who got the contract to build the spur of rail from BNSF mainline to the WIPP near Carlsbad, NM. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.56.181.16 (talk) 01:27, 26 February 2020 (UTC)