"New Mexico has given its approval to resume operations at the nation's only permanent nuclear waste disposal site after state inspectors found the facility safe to reopen for the first time since a radiation leak there nearly three years ago, officials said on Thursday.

However, it remained unclear how much longer it would take the U.S. Energy Department to complete its checklist of corrective actions inspectors have identified as necessary to resume waste burial at the site near the town of Carlsbad.

The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in southeastern New Mexico has been shut down indefinitely since February 2014, when a barrel of plutonium-contaminated debris entombed half a mile beneath the desert floor ruptured, spewing radiation that leaked to the surface."

Curtis Skinner reports for Reuters December 22, 2016. [2]