Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP)

The WIPP nuclear waste repository near Carlsbad, New Mexico, has been in operation since 1999.  The waste is buried in chambers half a mile down in the Salgado Formation—a vast, stable salt deposit 3,000 feet thick, reaching hundreds of square miles under New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas.  It could, proponents say, isolate for 250 million years all the nuclear waste that the entire world might generate in 10,000 years.  Images here are from Victor Reis, Sandia Lab News, and Roger Nelson.