Workers have finished sealing off storage bunkers affected by a radiation leak at the federal government's underground nuclear waste repository in southern New Mexico.
State Environment Secretary Ryan Flynn made the announcement Tuesday as he updated a group of lawmakers on recovery efforts at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, which has been closed since the February 2014 leak.
Flynn says the closure of an area known as Panel 6 and one room within Panel 7 was completed Friday.
With the areas now sealed, he says 422 containers packed with waste similar to the one that caused the leak are now isolated.
Workers used salt mined from another area of the repository, chain link and brattice cloth to build barriers to the storage areas. Air monitors also have been installed.
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