An overview of the waste handling and packaging plant, a major processing facility for remote-handled transuranic waste

The Waste Handling and Packaging Plant (WHPP) is a FY 1991 line item project proposed for construction at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). The purpose of the facility is to receive, package, certify and ship remote-handled (RH) and special case (SC) transuranic (TRU) waste to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad, New Mexico. The scope of the facility includes the mobilization of liquids and sludges from the Melton Valley Storage Tanks, transport of these liquids and sludges to the WHPP, solidification to a certifiable waste form, and final packaging and shipment to WIPP. Various solid hot cell wastes will be received at the WHPP from storage at ORNL and from other Department of Energy (DOE) sites. The solid wastes will be removed from the storage or shipping container, examined, processed as required, certified and packaged for shipment to WIPP. All packages coming from the processing cell will be in 55 gallon drums, and the facility will have the capability to load these directly into a shielded drum shipping cask, or to load these into the RH TRU canister for remote welding and shipment to WIPP using the RH TRU canister cask. 4 figs