Radioactive and nonradioactive waste intended for disposal at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant

Transuranic (TRU) waste generated by the handling of plutonium during resea rch on or production of U.S. nuclear weapons will be disposed of in the Was te Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP). This paper describes the physical and radi ological properties of the TRU waste that will be deposited in the WIPP. Th is geologic repository will accommodate up to 175,564 m(3) of TRU waste, co rresponding to 168,385 m(3) of contact-handled (CH-) TRU waste and 7079 m(3 ) of remote-handled (RH-) TRU waste. Approximately 35% of the TRU waste is currently packaged and stored (i.e. legacy) waste, with the remainder of th e waste to be packaged or generated and packaged in activities before the y ear 2033, which is the closure time for the repository. These wastes were p roduced at 27 U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) sites in the course of genera ting defense nuclear materials. The radionuclide and nonradionuclide invent ories for the TRU wastes described in this paper were used in the 1996 WIPP Compliance Certification Application (CCA) performance assessment calculat ions by the Sandia National Laboratories/New Mexico (SNL/NM). Published by Elsevier Science Ltd.