The Bechtel-led Salado Isolation Mining Contractors (SIMCO) has managed the USA’s deep geologic repository for defence-related transuranic (TRU) waste since 2022, delivering major infrastructure upgrades and ensuring uninterrupted waste processing. The site has surpassed its waste-shipment targets every year since the start of the contract, reaching its 1,000th shipment earlier this year, Bechtel said.
Mark Bollinger, manager of the Department of Energy (DOE) Carlsbad Field Office, said SIMCO has been an “exceptional partner, safely emplacing waste from across the nation while completing critical infrastructure projects ahead of schedule and under budget, all without disrupting WIPP’s (Waste Isolation Pilot Plant’s) mission or compromising safety”.
“Bechtel’s close partnership with DOE, our strong safety culture, and delivery focus has enabled us to lay the groundwork for safe, compliant and effective operations at WIPP for decades to come,” said Ben Souther, Bechtel’s General Manager of Environmental and Security.
TRU waste includes clothing, tools, rags, residues, debris, soil and other items contaminated with small amounts of plutonium and other man-made radioactive elements from the US military programme. The WIPP repository is a network of underground disposal rooms carved from an ancient salt formation: over time, the salt naturally encapsulates the waste emplaced in disposal rooms, isolating it from the environment for thousands of years.
The repository has been in operation since 1999 – but Bechtel’s involvement with the project goes back even further, as part of the team that designed, engineered, and constructed he Waste Isolation Pilot Plant.
More recent milestones for the company have included capital infrastructure projects such as delivery – ahead of time and under budget – of the Underground Ventilation System, the largest containment ventilation system in the DOE complex; completion of construction and start of operations for the new utility shaft; and completion of a USD15 million refurbishment of the salt pocket and salt hoist, the sole channel for transporting mined salt to the surface, which will enable underground mining activities to continue for Panel 11, the next waste emplacement panel.
