NUCLEAR WASTEThe History of WIPP

By Kim Vallez Quintana

In 1975, the nation asked Sandia to investigate the possibility of building a repository in New Mexico for the disposal of radioactive transuranic defense waste. Little did those assigned to the project know that the task would absorb most of their careers and become one of the most controversial and important projects in U.S. history.

The Purpose
The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, or WIPP, was created at the direction of the federal government. The necessity for a repository grew with nuclear research, nuclear power production and the nuclear defense program that began with the Manhattan Project. While nuclear waste was piling up during the Cold War, no solution to safely storing and disposing of it had been found. In Los Alamos, radioactive and toxic materials were dumped into canyons, according to a DOE report: Closing the Circle: The Department of Energy and Environmental Management 1942-1994. Sandia needed to do something no one else had managed to do before. To this day, WIPP is the only U.S. deep geologic repository for the disposal of defense-related transuranic waste.

A monumental task

“We were, in retrospect, a small, somewhat naive group of Sandians that first began work on the WIPP project in 1975,” remembers Wendell Weart, known as the “Sultan of Salt” for his contributions to the project. “I was involved in WIPP for at least 30 years. I think everyone from Sandia who worked on the project felt like it was the thing to do for the nation.”

Sandia’s team started with about a dozen people but over the years grew to nearly 170. Weart, who died on Sept. 26, worked longer on the project than anyone else. In a phone interview last year, he spoke passionately about what it took to get WIPP open.

“It’s something that took a very dedicated team of Sandians working much longer than they expected. Working on WIPP is not a one-person effort; it takes a team, and I had that team,” Weart said.