Crews demolish and replace structural steel needed to remove mined salt from the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant underground repository in November 2024. (Courtesy of U.S. Department of Energy)

Degraded infrastructure and lax federal oversight of maintenance contractors threatens future operation of the only underground nuclear storage site in Southern New Mexico, according to a recent report issued by a federal watchdog.

Maintenance concerns at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, which lies underground in a saltbed outside of Carlsbad, comes as federal officials plan to accept radioactive waste until the 2080s — more than 50 years beyond the original expectation.

The federal government contracts out daily operations and maintenance at WIPP, and has used the Salado Isolation Mining Contractors at the site since 2022.

In June, the Government Accountability Office issued its findings on WIPP maintenance and facilities, noting that more than half of the necessary equipment and infrastructure (called “mission-critical”) is reported to be in “poor and substandard conditions.”

The report notes that according to the U.S. Department of Energy — which oversees U.S. nuclear weapons programs, including disposal — having infrastructure in poor condition “increases the potential for infrastructure failure, allowing greater risk of unforeseen delay to waste disposal operations or shutdown of the site.”

Federal officials in the Carlsbad Field Office said WIPP has been in a “reactionary mode” to keep up with repairs and aging equipment since a series of 2014 accidents, which shut down operations for several years, according to the report.

WIPP only had a projected lifespan of 25 years, Don Hancock, a decades-long anti-nuclear advocate in New Mexico with the Southwest Research and Information Center, told Source NM.

“Because of the obsolescence of many things in this facility, these problems will continue to occur,” Hancock said. “This facility was never supposed to, and won’t, successfully operate for 80 to 85 years without other accidents.”

The report noted some improvements since a 2016 review, which documented more than $37 million worth of repairs that occurred behind schedule and with missed deadlines. However, new problems have since emerged.

Those problems include a shaft used to transport salt removed from underground that underwent emergency refurbishment in 2024 due to “a high risk of failure,” after salt pushed into the shaft faster than expected. The report noted that other replacements were needed, such as a salt hoist built 1924 and installed at WIPP in 1984.

Contractors have identified more than 100 priority repairs at WIPP, which extend into 2033, but missing or incomplete data about the condition of the infrastructure have continued to occur, the report found. Federal officials failed to hold contractors accountable for the lapses and did not set timelines for fixes to be in place, the report said.

The report concludes that federal officials need to enact further oversight, such as grading contractors on their long-term planning efforts in contract evaluations; ensuring data issues are addressed; and setting deadlines to implement fixes.

In a response letter, U.S. Department of Energy officials agreed to the recommendations, and said they would implement them in 2025 and 2026.

Hancock said the report highlights the need for further nuclear storage options, outside of New Mexico.

“As long as WIPP is the only repository — whether it’s safe or not, whether it’s obsolete or not, whether it’s falling apart or not, whether they’re adequately maintaining it or not — if it’s the only one, everything ultimately will be shoehorned in,” Hancock said.

This post was originally authored and published by Danielle Prokop from via RSS Feed. to get your news feed on Nationwide Report®.