Status of the WIPP A Defense Transuranic Waste Isolation Facility*

The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP), a Department of Energy facility to dispose of defense transuranic wastes, and to serve as an \"underground laboratory\" for research on disposal concepts for defense high-level waste, will be constructed in the Delaware Basin salt beds of southeast New Mexico by December 1986, and begin accepting TRU waste in October 1988. Site validation was completed in March 1983 and underground excavation now consists of nearly four miles of drift, prototype disposal rooms and experimental areas for full scale, in situ experiments. Details of WIPP design, operation, site characterization and the in situ experiments are provided in this paper.