On the verge of opening a deep geological repository for disposal of long-lived radioactive waste at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant

Current laws in the United States of America (USA) direct the US Department of Energy (DOE) to site, design, operate, and decommission a deep geological repository for safe disposal of transuranic radioactive waste (TRUW) at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) site. In 1992, the U.S. Congress withdrew land from public use and set it aside for the WIPP site and appointed the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as the regulator for safe disposal of TRUW. In 1993, the DOE established the Carlsbad Area Office (CAO) to integrate the nation's management of TRUW and to open the WIPP site for safe disposal of TRUW in compliance with applicable laws and regulations. The CAO is on schedule to submit the final compliance certification application (CCA) in October 1996 and to open WIPP in April 1998, about three years earlier than scheduled before the establishment of the CAO. Detailed planning, compliance-based research and development (R ampersand D), teamwork among project participants, and early and open iterative interactions with the regulators, oversight groups and other interested parties in the certification/permitting process are key components of this progress. Albeit unique domestic components are involved in the WIPP process, and challenges to the timely opening remain (e.g., evolving regulations and potential lawsuits), the lessons learned at the WIPP to date contribute to solving the remaining current global societal challenge of the nuclear energy cycle, i.e., the safe disposal of long-lived radioactive waste