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CARLSBAD, N.M. (AP) — The U.S. Department of Energy has postponed plans to get a crew underground to begin investigating a radiation leak from the federal government's nuclear waste dump in southeastern New Mexico.
Officials on Monday said a crew of eight would enter the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant on Tuesday. But spokesman Ben Williams said that has been postponed until later this week because the real-time radiation monitors they want the team to be wearing haven't arrived.
No one has been underground at the half-mile deep repository since the Feb. 14 radiation release, which contaminated 21 workers and sent low-levels of radiation into the air around the plant.
It's unknown what is leaking or how extensive the contamination might be below ground at the $2 billion plant, which is the nation's only permanent underground repository for low-level radioactive waste from nuclear weapons facilities.
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