ODOE's Mark Reese to Co-Chair Western Nuclear Waste Transportation Advisory Group

Oregon Department of Energy’s Radiological Emergency Planning Coordinator Mark Reese was recently elected to be co-chair of the Western Interstate Energy Board Waste Isolation Pilot Plant Transportation Advisory Group. The WIEB WIPP TAG is a group of western state nuclear waste transportation officials, like Mark, who are involved in the movement of defense-generated transuranic waste to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, a repository mined in salt in New Mexico. The group works with the U.S. Department of Energy to identify and resolve issues as they arise and coordinate shared activities needed to keep the WIPP transportation program running safely and without incident.

Mark recently attended the advisory group’s fall conference in San Diego where he gave a joint update on the Hanford Site with the Washington State Department of Ecology. At the conference, committee members also heard updates on the WIPP facility in New Mexico, the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station in California, and Oregon’s Trojan Site Independent Spent Fuel Storage Installation –  part of Oregon’s preparation for moving the spent nuclear fuel offsite to a national repository or interim storage facility.