It may be five years before a nuclear waste dump in New Mexico closed by a radiation leak is fully operational again, and the facility will need at least $240 million to pay for the initial recovery, a U.S. Energy Department official said on Tuesday.
Operations at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, where radiological debris from U.S. nuclear labs and weapons sites is disposed of in a salt mine half a mile (1 km) below ground, were suspended in February after an accident released high levels of radiation and contaminated 22 workers.
Findings from a preliminary investigation of the accident suggest at least one barrel of plutonium-tainted waste from Los Alamos National Laboratory near Santa Fe ruptured after being stored at the underground dump.