The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, or WIPP, in New Mexico, US, is a deep geological repository licensed to store transuranic radioactive waste for 10,000 years. The storage rooms at the WIPP are 2,150 feet (660 m) underground in a salt formation of the Delaware Basin. The waste is from the research and production of United States nuclear weapons only. The plant started operation in 1999, and the project is estimated to cost $19 billion in total. It is the world's third such facility, after Germany's Morsleben radioactive waste repository and the Schacht Asse II salt mine.
WIPP is located approximately 26 miles (42 km) east of Carlsbad, in eastern Eddy County, in an area known as the southeastern New Mexico nuclear corridor, which also includes the National Enrichment Facility near Eunice, New Mexico, the Waste Control Specialists low-level waste disposal facility just over the state line near Andrews, Texas, and the International Isotopes, Incorporated facility to be built near Eunice.
