Progress reports are presented for the following tasks: overview and progress of waste package project and container design; waste container design considerations (criticality analysis, experimental drift model); waste container alternate design considerations; thermal simulation of high level nuclear waste canister emplacement; structural analysis and design of nuclear waste package canister; robotic manipulation of the nuclear waste container; investigation of stress in a circular tunnel due to overburden & thermal loading of horizontally placed 21PWR multi-purpose canisters; investigation of faulted tunnel models by combined photoelasticity and finite element analysis; and transport phenomena in the near field.