Aug 31, 2026 · 21 min · 8 segments
More than 2,000 feet beneath the surface in southeastern New Mexico is the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, or WIPP — a facility designed to safely dispose of certain radioactive waste deep underground…
Dora LedbetterGuestChelsea EngelHost
Dora LopezGuestAnd then for folks that may not know what WIPP even is, how would you explain what goes on at this facility and why the work is so important?
Here at this site, what we do, of course, is we dispose of nuclear waste in the underground.
And why it's so important to us is because we're the only site in the whole entire world that does it.
Does this, you know, receive the waste, dispose of it underground safely and compliantly? It's important because at the generator sites, we have, you know, some of the waste that sits on surface and, you know, it not only helps them, but it helps us because it's 2,150 feet in the underground.
And when you started working there, was there anything that surprised either of you about the environment, the work itself?
I mean, there's rules and regulations there as well, but this is a lot of procedures.
It was a procedure and lots of procedures driven to our tasks because I started as a waste handler.
But in, I mean, it's good and it's in all reality, it's safe and a lot of safety procedures as well within that.
So for people like me who've never been in an underground repository, can you paint a picture as vividly as you can, I guess, of what it's like to go that far down in the earth, what it looks like, what it feels like? It's dark.
but we have really high backs some areas of the mine are dark some are very lit up but it's like a little city down there because we have ambulances we have fire protection We have all the different groups working down there.
So it's its own little city, would you say, within the underground? Because pretty much what we have on surface, as far as mechanical and electricians and It's down there as well.
And then for folks that may not know what WIPP even is, how would you explain what goes on at this facility and why the work is so important?
Here at this site, what we do, of course, is we dispose of nuclear waste in the underground.
And why it's so important to us is because we're the only site in the whole entire world that does it.
Does this, you know, receive the waste, dispose of it underground safely and compliantly? It's important because at the generator sites, we have, you know, some of the waste that sits on surface and, you know, it not only helps them, but it helps us because it's 2,150 feet in the underground.
And when you started working there, was there anything that surprised either of you about the environment, the work itself?
I mean, there's rules and regulations there as well, but this is a lot of procedures.
It was a procedure and lots of procedures driven to our tasks because I started as a waste handler.
But in, I mean, it's good and it's in all reality, it's safe and a lot of safety procedures as well within that.
So for people like me who've never been in an underground repository, can you paint a picture as vividly as you can, I guess, of what it's like to go that far down in the earth, what it looks like, what it feels like? It's dark.
but we have really high backs some areas of the mine are dark some are very lit up but it's like a little city down there because we have ambulances we have fire protection We have all the different groups working down there.
So it's its own little city, would you say, within the underground? Because pretty much what we have on surface, as far as mechanical and electricians and It's down there as well.
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