WIPP seeking added funding

Waste site asking for $54 million bump

CARLSBAD — The Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant needs more than $54 million above its original budget request for fiscal year 2017.

A letter sent from U.S. Sens. Tom Udall and Martin Heinrich, both D-N.M., to the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development requested an additional $54.5 million for WIPP’s budget, which would bring the total budget to $325.5 million.

Ned Adriance, Udall’s press secretary, said the figure came directly from the Department of Energy.

Of the additional $54.5 million, $26.8 million are designated for use on Supplemental Environmental Projects, which are projects imposed by the Environmental Protection Agency for violations in place of fines.

Several supplemental environmental projects were imposed on WIPP and Los Alamos National Labs as part of a settlement between the New Mexico Environment Department and the Department of Energy after 2014 incidents involving an underground fire and a radiological release due to an improperly packaged drum from the national lab.

Those included road improvements and training for emergency first responders in the communities around WIPP and Los Alamos.

The increase is also needed for continued infrastructure maintenance at the storage site, including bolting to protect against roof and wall collapse, the continued mining of Panel 8 to make room for waste emplacement and a backlog of equipment maintenance.

Structural maintenance in the repository, known as ground control, was unable to be performed for nine months after the February 2014 incidents. Workers have been struggling to catch up with ground control operations ever since.

Several collapses inside the repository this fall prompted the closure of the southern end of the repository.

The senators also asked for an additional $10 million be added to the $189 million Los Alamos budget for various cleanup efforts underway there.

A continuing resolution was passed by Congress in September to avoid a government shutdown. A continuing resolution is passed by the legislature when the new budget cannot be agreed upon. Spending levels remain the same as they were in the prior year.

Congress is expected to reconvene this month, when it may pass another continuing resolution that would last into 2017.