Archive for the ‘WIPP’ Category

September 30, 2014

By Susan Montoya Bryan
Associated Press via Albuquerque

Workers wear protective clothing and positive air respirators April 2 while preparing to re-enter the WIPP underground facility for the first time since the Feb. 14 radiological release. (Courtesy of the Department of Energy)

The U.S. Department of Energy on Tuesday said it’s committed to cleaning up and resuming initial operations at the federal government’s troubled nuclear waste dump in southeastern New Mexico as early as 2016, work that’s expected to cost more than $240?million.

The timeline and cost details were included in a recovery plan developed by the department over several months with help from nuclear industry experts. The plan outlines what needs to be done to decontaminate the underground Waste Isolation Pilot Plant.

Shipments of plutonium-contaminated waste from federal installations around the country have been on hold since early February. That’s when a truck fire and an unrelated release of radiation several days later contaminated 22 workers and forced the closure of the plant.

Mark Whitney, acting assistant secretary for the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management, said officials estimate that 90 percent or more of the nuclear waste dump is free of radiological contamination. But the ventilation system will need to be improved and a new exhaust shaft constructed before full operations can resume, Whitney said. That could take as long as three years and as much as an additional $309?million.

"Once we understand the extent of the contamination, we’ll have a better idea of what our approach to decontaminate will be," he said. "But the report makes clear that the approach we’re looking at right now is not to remove the contamination, but to fix the contamination in place."

One approach will involve spraying water on the half-mile-deep salt walls in which the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant was built. The water will create a crust that will essentially encapsulate the contamination. In areas that might see heavy traffic or the use of large equipment, a type of fixative would be used instead of water.

The department acknowledged Tuesday that investigators have yet to pinpoint what caused the barrel of waste from the Los Alamos National Laboratory to breach Feb. 14 in one of the storage rooms at the nuclear dump. One theory has focused on a chemical reaction in highly acidic waste that was packed with a lead glove and organic cat litter to absorb moisture.

Investigators aren’t expected to issue a final report on the cause until the end of the year.

Initial investigations into both accidents have blamed a slow erosion of safety culture at the site, something Whitney said the recovery plan aims to address.

Watchdog Don Hancock said the plan fails to establish safety standards for the public and for workers as recovery continues. He also questioned the costs of the cleanup and the timeline, given that any regulatory changes would require a public process.

"If there is a serious public and technical discussion about the plan, it’s going to be clear it’s not a plan that anybody in the public, or the regulators, or Congress, or anybody else should have confidence in," Hancock said.

Getting the nuclear dump back on track has been a top priority for the department given that the plant is the government’s only permanent repository for waste such as contaminated gloves, tools and clothing from decades of building nuclear bombs.

However, Whitney told reporters the work to reopen will not be rushed. "We’re not going to be driven by artificial deadlines to resume operations," he said.

The focus, he said, is preparing the nuclear dump to take in the 144 containers of waste that have been stored above ground at the site since the closure. Then, shipments from other sites will be prioritized.

State and federal environmental regulators would have to sign off before operations resume.

Jim Winchester, a spokesman for the New Mexico Environment Department, said it’s too early to comment on the substance of the Department of Energy’s recovery plan. The state agency’s technical staff will review the document, he said.

September 2, 2014

By Staci Matlock
The New Mexican

As investigators keep trying to pinpoint what caused a drum of radioactive waste from Los Alamos National Laboratory to pop open and leak in an underground repository near Carlsbad, the lab’s review of the incident has led to uncertainty over the volatility of hundreds of other drums, including dozens still at Los Alamos.

The lab notified state environment officials late last month that it was re-evaluating and relabeling as “ignitable” or “corrosive” the contents of 86 drums at LANL.

The drums contain nitrate salts similar to those in the drum that ruptured Feb. 14 at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in Southern New Mexico.

The Department of Energy also is reviewing and relabeling more than 300 LANL containers with similar chemicals that are stored in WIPP’s underground salt caverns.

The re-evaluation raises questions about the scope of the problem that led to the leak at WIPP. Lab officials had previously said they believed the problem was isolated to two drums that contained a unique blend of chemicals, causing one of the drums to burst.

The lab’s review of 86 waste drums also prompted state regulators to question whether the lab has authority to “provisionally” relabel those drums as ignitable or corrosive while the contents are analyzed.

Relabeling the drums “does not affect the permanent underground disposal of the waste at WIPP,” said lab spokesman Matt Nerzig. “The drums at Los Alamos are stored safely and securely in robust structures with high efficiency particulate air filtering and fire detection and suppression systems. The drums are visually inspected and monitored for temperature daily.”

Investigators still haven’t determined exactly why a lid on a lab waste container cracked at WIPP, causing the first leak in the waste facility’s 15-year history. But they are looking at possible chemical reactions after kitty litter and neutralizers were added to the drum, which also contained nitrate salts and a lead-laden glove. Some chemists have theorized the added ingredients could have caused waste in the drum to ignite.

Lab staff overseeing waste handling operations at LANL approved the addition of both the kitty litter and the neutralizers by lab contractor EnergySolutions to the drums containing nitrate salt. The lab also approved a switch from a clay litter to a wheat-based litter and agreed to use of a neutralizer that manufacturers warned shouldn’t be mixed with certain chemicals.

Investigators determined a mix of chemicals inside the leaking drum at WIPP generated enough heat to break the container’s lid. But scientists so far haven’t been able to recreate exactly what happened.

The nitrate salt-bearing drums contain waste from Rocky Flats and from the lab’s nuclear research activities. Contents of the waste are listed on waste stream profile forms that help determine how it is repackaged at LANL for storage or shipment.

In July, LANL chemist Nan Sauer told a state legislative committee that the two drums — the one that leaked in WIPP and another one stored at the lab — had a unique set of chemicals.

Still, officials from the lab, the National Nuclear Safety Administration and the Department of Energy decided to review all the nitrate salt-bearing drums. They said their state permits for handling and storing the waste drums require them to recharacterize it when an analysis points to a change in the waste stream.

On July 30, they sent a letter to the New Mexico Environment Department saying they were relabeling the drums as potentially ignitable or corrosive pending further tests and reviews of original waste documents.

New Mexico Environment Department Secretary Ryan Flynn wrote a reply giving the lab until Friday to provide proof the drums may be temporarily relabeled. “NMED is not aware that this approach is supported by regulations or EPA [Environmental Protection Agency] documents,” Flynn wrote.

Flynn also wants the lab to explain why 57 remediated drums of nitrate salt-bearing containers and 29 unremediated ones qualify as ignitable or corrosive under EPA rules. The department also has asked for a list of the unremediated waste drums, how much free liquid is in each one and how the containers will be treated. Remediated drums hold waste that was repackaged with kitty litter and sometimes neutralizer so it will meet requirements for storage at WIPP.

In May, Flynn ordered the lab and the Department of Energy to isolate nitrate salt-bearing containers and to craft a plan for sealing off 368 such containers from the lab currently stored in the WIPP salt caverns.

Meanwhile, WIPP remains closed to new waste shipments and it will cost millions of dollars to get the facility fully operational again.

Contact Staci Matlock at 986-3055 or smatlock@sfnewmexican.com. Follow her on Twitter @stacimatlock.

June 26, 2014

By Staci Matlock
The New Mexican

ALBUQUERQUE — State environment officials on Thursday defended a decision to allow the U.S. Department of Energy to store highly radioactive waste in new containers without a public hearing.

State officials told a panel of the New Mexico Court of Appeals during a hearing in Albuquerque that the new “shielded” containers are a safer, more efficient way to handle the waste.

The hearing was held to air ongoing arguments in a 2-year-old case brought by the Southwest Research and Information Center, a nuclear safety watchdog organization.

The case received relatively little notice when it was filed, but it has taken on new significance since a container at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in Carlsbad leaked radiation in February and forced regulators to shut down the underground storage facility. Investigators are still trying to determine the exact cause of the leak, but they are focusing on a volatile chemical mixture in a container shipped from Los Alamos National Laboratory.

The case also has put state regulators in a tricky spot as they continue to scrutinize the Department of Energy’s oversight of WIPP while at the same time defending a decision to allow the use of new containers for highly radioactive waste without a public hearing.

On Thursday, the judges asked if it would be prudent to wait until the investigation into the WIPP leak is complete before they rule on the case about the container switch.

Jeffrey Kendall, New Mexico Environment Department general counsel, told the judges the leaking container at WIPP had nothing to do with new shielded containers for hot waste and shouldn’t hold up a ruling.

Lindsay Lovejoy, attorney for the Southwest Research and Information Center, said it might be prudent to wait because changes made at WIPP due to the February leak could affect all containers for any waste shipped to the facility in the future, including the hot waste.

The Court of Appeals panel has been mulling this case since closing arguments were made in July 2013, but it still hadn’t made a decision when the Feb. 14 leak at WIPP occurred.

The state Environment Department oversees the Department of Energy’s operating permit for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, and the latter must ask for the state’s blessing on any changes in handling the waste. In late 2012, the Department of Energy asked to change the type of containers used for highly radioactive waste. The state department gave the public 60 days to file written comments but didn’t set a public hearing. In 2013, the state granted the federal agency’s request.

The Southwest Research and Information Center appealed the decision, saying the Environment Department should have held a public hearing because the new containers were less robust than the ones used at the time for the hot waste. Moreover, the center said the department violated its own procedures by changing its mind about the public hearing without giving a reason.

By the time the appeal was filed, nine of the new shielded containers carrying waste from Argonne Laboratory had already been shipped to WIPP and stored underground. They are stored in a different room than the one where the leak occurred in February.

Don Hancock, nuclear waste program director for the Southwest Research and Information Center, said a public hearing would have allowed the public to question state and federal regulators about the containers and provide testimony that could serve as evidence in court. A written comment period doesn’t have nearly the same flexibility or degree of scrutiny, he said.

Hancock said regulations require a public hearing when the federal agency requests a change to the WIPP permit that has significant public interest and is technically complex.

He said the public weighed in heavily during a hearing on the initial decision several years ago to allow storage of more highly radioactive waste at WIPP, including the type of container it could be stored in. “Those were very robust cylinders. The DOE is still using them,” he said.

“There was then, and there still is, significant public interest about hotter waste,” Hancock said. The public should have been offered a chance in a public hearing to more closely question regulators about the change in containers, he argues.

With regard to a public hearing, the Environment Department said in an email after Thursday’s court hearing, “A letter was sent out in error in December 2012” indicating the permit change for the containers would include a public hearing. “The letter was rescinded four business days later on Dec. 28, 2011.”

The department did not say why the change was made.

Kendall told the three judges that shielded containers are a newer technology that allow the “waste to be received and disposed of more efficiently and in a safer manner.”

He said two other permit changes requested by the Department of Energy regarding Trupact containers used to ship mixed, low-level radioactive waste also were subject to 60-day comment periods and no public hearing. “We are trying to be consistent,” he said.

The Environment Department said in an email that the shielded containers can be transported in fewer shipments, and the process is quicker and significantly reduces the dosage rates of radiation from the drums.

Moreover, although the department doesn’t know who manufactures the shielded containers, their safety has been vetted by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Environmental Protection Agency.

Hancock said he and others still have many questions about the testing and safety of the shielded containers that have yet to be answered by regulators.

In light of regulatory problems leading up to the February leak at WIPP, Hancock said he hoped the Environment Department would take a second look at the shielded containers.

The judges did not rule on Thursday and have several options. They could simply agree with the Environment Department that no public hearing was needed or side with the Southwest Research and Information Center. They could send the whole case back to the Environment Department and tell them to reconsider the decision, or they could simply wait until investigations into the WIPP leak are finished and a final report on that incident is issued.

Regulators and the nuclear watchdog group hope the judges will make a decision sooner rather than later. Even though WIPP is closed for now, a whole lot of highly radioactive waste has to be packaged into containers for temporary storage until shipments resume.

The Department of Energy and nuclear waste-generating sites need some clarity, state Environment Department officials said, noting that “the uncertainty has somewhat of a chilling effect on their ability to implement these advanced technologies.”

Contact Staci Matlock at 986-3055 or smatlock@sfnewmexican.com. Follow her on Twitter @stacimatlock.

State legislators look for answers about leak in underground facility

July 23, 2014

By Julie Ann Grimm
Santa Fe Reporter

What do the OJ Simpson murder trial and a nuclear waste leak in southern New Mexico have in common?

A single glove.

Legislators at a Radioactive and Hazardous Materials Committee meeting in Los Alamos chuckled when Sen. Peter Wirth, D-Santa Fe, made the comparison. Yet, it was still an accurate summary of a report the lawmakers heard Wednesday about a serious problem for the long-term storage of dangerous contaminants.

Scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory are still trying to determine exactly what caused a barrel buried at the Waste Isolation Pilot Project to burst open in February, said LANL chemist Nan Sauer, but they now have a pretty good idea of the materials that were involved.

Sauer, leader of the lab’s internal technical investigations, has been working on the problem since officials first learned of the contamination alarm at the Carlsbad facility on Valentine’s Day.

She told committee members that tests have revealed that the barrel in question contained a rare combination of waste products from the lab: wheat-based kitty litter that was used to absorb plutonium contaminated nitrate salts; material with high acidity; and trace metals such as lead, tungsten and chromium that are components of a glove.

The waste inside the burst barrel and been stored without incident at at lab for about 30 years, Sauer explained. That changed, she said, after the 2012 repackaging of that "parent" barrel into two "daughter" barrels. One became the problem child, No. 68660.

Workers at the lab use containment devices called glove boxes that allow for handling and repacking of waste generated in the research and development of the nations’s nuclear stockpile. The gloves that form a barrier for workers are routinely changed and placed into barrels along with waste, as was recorded for No. 68660. But investigators now believe the metals in the glove might have reacted with nitrate salts after temperatures rose in the barrel at WIPP.

"Glove box gloves and nitric acid and lead have been implicated in other energetic events within the DOE complex," Sauer said.

Just how the temps increased to initiate the reaction, however, is still up for debate. Theories about what initiated the reaction include warmth generated by decomposition of the litter (a commercially available substance called Swheat that Sauer says won’t be used anymore ). Another hypothesis would put the blame on heat from a truck fire that occurred inside WIPP a half mile from the barrel location about nine days before an air monitor detected the radiation leak. Smoke from the fire might have also affected ventilation systems and led to hotter air, she said.

Sauer noted that the lab is busily performing more tests to try to answer the temperature question to assist with the Department of Energy’s accident investigation board.

"We have done a lot of work and narrowed down the parameters to a very specific set of reactions that could have occurred in the drum, and our chemists are continuing to work on answering those questions," she said. "We really feel that we are coming very, very close to the answer in terms of what the chemical reactions were."

Meanwhile, work on characterization and packaging as well as transportation to the WIPP facility has been suspended. About 700 barrels that contain the nitrates and kitty litter are now stored with extra precaution at the lab and at a Texas holding facility where they were already awaiting transportation to Carlsbad at the time of the detected problem, said Peter Maggiore, the National Nuclear Safety Administration’s assistant manager for environmental programs at the lab.

Legislators who asked when those operations would resume got a straight answer from Maggiore: No one knows.

"We have not established a date whereby we will resume operations," he said, indicating that until federal investigations wrap up and officials agree on the next steps, the waste will stay put. "Any date that I might give you just wouldn’t be a valuable date"

The barrels are part of more than 3,700 cubic meters of waste planned for removal from the lab’s Area G and relocated in the the underground salt caves of WIPP by next year. It’s clear now that goal won’t be met.

Chemists, engineers with expertise in heat transfer and others are part of two technical teams on the the case, Sauer said, noting that investigators are using a broad approach to ensure the best understanding of the nature of the event.

Later in the day, state Environment Department Secretary Ryan Flynn told legislators that he believes the federal and state agencies will work for another six months to a year before there’s a resolution. The bottom line, he says, is that LANL or its contractors erred in sending reactive materials to WIPP in violation of permits and rules. Communication breakdowns are also in play, he said.

Maggiore noted that even though some parts of the waste characterization and removal process are halted, the lab continues other cleanup efforts required by an agreement with federal and state regulators including monsoon runoff monitoring upstream from the Santa Fe city and county Buckman water diversion from the Rio Grande.

"We realize that there has been some trust lost in this whole process," Maggiore said. "We do have a lot of work ahead of us to regain that trust."

"Their jobs won’t ever be the same… will face new paradigm" — Concerns plutonium contaminated surrounding salt — Preparing for radiation levels so high, only robots can be used (VIDEO)

April 22nd, 2014

By ENENews

Albuquerque Journal News, Apr. 22, 2014: WIPP workers face big changes, Their jobs won’t ever be the same — Now that contamination has been discovered underground – although the extent is still unknown – the contractor that runs the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant says workers will face a new paradigm when they return to the site: more formality, tougher rules and more protective gear. […] those working underground will likely be doing their jobs in a more hazardous environment – or one where the risks have been made more evident – with new rules of engagement to protect them from exposure to radiation. […] plutonium and americium may have contaminated rock salt walls, mixed into dust on the floor, and clung to machinery and other equipment underground. If stirred or scuffed up, the radiation can become airborne and inhaled. […] NWP workers are not permitted to speak to the press, according to a spokesman.

• Bob McQuinn, new president/project manager of WIPP operator: "The place […] now has, not more than the rest of the sites, but similar radiation protection hazards […] Now we’re going to have to wear protective equipment – coveralls, shoe covers and gloves – to make sure contamination doesn’t get on us and respirators so it doesn’t get in us. People who haven’t had to wear protective equipment will have to."
• Dr. Fred Mettler, radiologist and US representative to the United Nations World Health and Atomic Energy Agency: "The first rule of thumb is nobody thinks any of this is good for you. So you want to keep doses as low as possible. Medically, it’s very, very difficult to get the stuff out of you."
• Jim Frederick, United Steel Workers assistant director of health, safety and environment: "Is this place going to be safe for our folks to go back to? […] What was not in place that might have kept this from happening? And what do we need to do to keep the workers safe and make sure the public health risks are kept at zero or very, very close to zero?"

KOAT, Apr. 20, 2014: "The more they went into panel 7, the more it started becoming more widespread," said WIPP deputy recovery manager Tammy Reynolds. […] Inspectors plan to go back down and explore things further, but in case the radiation levels pose too much of a threat, robots will go underground instead. "Robot operators have already been to the WIPP site, received all of the training to go to the underground," said Reynolds.

Carlsbad Current-Argus, Apr. 22, 2014: robots are on standby to support the recovery operations

Watch KOAT’s broadcast here: