Archive for the ‘WIPP’ Category

Gov’t: "We’ve never seen a level like we are seeing… I can’t tell you the amount" — Could be Plutonium — ‘Unclear’ how much radiation released — Unprecedented event (VIDEO)

February 16th, 2014

By ENENews – Energy News

Reuters, Feb. 16, 2014 (emphasis added): Unusually high levels of radioactive particles were found at an underground nuclear waste site in New Mexico on Saturday in what a spokesman said looked like the first real alarm since the plant opened in 1999. […] radioactive waste, such as plutonium used in defense research and nuclear weapon making, is dumped half a mile below ground […] "But I believe it’s safe to say we’ve never seen a level like we are seeing. We just don’t know if it’s a real event, but it looks like one," [Energy spokesman Roger Nelson] said. It was not yet clear what caused the air-monitoring system to indicate that radioactive particles were present at unsafe levels, Nelson said. […]

AP, Feb. 16, 2014: WIPP […] takes plutonium-contaminated waste from Los Alamos National Laboratory and other federal nuclear projects. [….] Nelson says the cause of the leak is not known […] He couldn’t quantify the level it takes to trigger the monitors […] We are going to take measurements and make sure we understand it" before sending in a team, he said.

Carlsbad Current Argus, Feb. 16, 2014: "These are radionuclides that are of a hazard if inhaled […] the primary concern for the release of this nature is (through) the ventilation passageway […] I can’t tell you the amount or level but they were elevated and above normal, above background," Nelson said of the radiation that was detected airborne near Panel 7, Room 7, in the south salt mine. According to Nelson this is the first time in WIPP’s 15-year history that the facility has had a CAM alarm detect this level of radiation underground […] WIPP entered emergency status less than two weeks ago, when an underground fire was reported […] underground operations have been suspended since the incident […]

UPI, Feb. 16, 2014: […] it was unclear exactly how much radiation has been released from the WIPP. "Additional sampling is going on. We have employees sequestered in place so that we minimize any potential for airborne inhalation," [said Nelson.]

Watch the KREQ broadcast here:

City of 2.5 million nearly 200 miles away "within transnational evacuation zone in event of a nuclear disaster" — Local officials meeting with U.S. gov’t — Whistleblower: If plutonium released "surrounding population should take precautions"

March 26th, 2014

By ENENews – Energy News

U.S. Radiation Leak Concerns Mexicans, by Kent Paterson, Editor of Frontera NorteSur and Curriculum Developer with the project of the Center for Latin American and Border Studies at New Mexico State University (NMSU), Mar. 24, 2014: Serious problems at a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) nuclear waste dump in southeastern New Mexico have caught the eyes of the press and government officials in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico [Population: 2.5 million]. […] Since February 14, additional radiation releases [from WIPP] connected to the original one have been reported, even as more workers are still awaiting test results for possible radiation exposure during the first event. Although Ciudad Juarez is located nearly 200 miles from WIPP, city officials expect to meet with U.S. government representatives on March 26 or 27 to discuss ongoing issues from the February 14 incident. A story in El Diario newspaper said that Ciudad Juarez (and neighboring El Paso and Las Cruces) were well within a transnational evacuation zone in the event of a nuclear disaster. While WIPP spokespersons say that the radiation releases have been minimal and pose no danger to public health, Mexican officials are anxious to hear the message in person. […] Despite U.S. and Mexican government reports of little or no radioactive contamination from the WIPP leak, public doubts about the gravity of the February 14 incident persist due to incomplete contaminant data reporting, the slowness in getting all the potentially exposed workers tested and informed, spotty or contradictory statements by regulatory officials, and uncertainties over the origin of the radiation leak and how far an area it has impacted. […] Back in the 1990s, Ciudad Juarez and U.S. environmentalists from the Rio Bravo Ecological Alliance took a stand against WIPP based partly on concerns that the underground storage facility would eventually contaminate the Pecos River Basin and the Rio Grande.

Alejandro Gloria, chief of Ciudad Juarez’s municipal ecology department: "Everything is fine. There are no plutonium or strange particulates that have been detected inside the filters." […] the WIPP crisis could lead to a review of nuclear safeguards in the greater border region [ant they are] looking at geologic stability and the possible effects of the WIPP site on groundwater as issues that could be reexamined by the Mexican Congress and Chihuahua State Legislature.

Fernando Motta Allen, director of Ciudad Juarez’s civil protection department (emphasis added): "Next week, people from the EPA and the U.S. DOE are going to come with first-hand information to guarantee that no risks exist." […] Ciudad Juarez has two radiation detection devices, but […] the city had no specialists to operate them […] the equipment is easy to use and comes with a complete instruction manual.

Mexican whistle-blower Bernardo Salas Mar, a former employee of the Laguna Verde nuclear power plant in Veracruz: Important bits of information need to be confirmed about the WIPP radiation release like the wind patterns at the time of the incident and the possible geographic scope of the spread of contaminants. "The answer to these questions will lend knowledge to the damage that could have been caused […] After (radiation) ingestion or incorporation into the human organism, 10 or 15 years or more pass before the appearance of some kind of cancer. [If plutonium and americium were indeed released into the larger environment] the surrounding population should take precautions in order to avoid exposure to these contaminants."

Dr. Mariana Chew, environmental engineer: A cross-border, information-credibility gap existed with regards to WIPP. "The same thing always happens. It happened with Asarco (ex-El Paso smelter) and other environmental disasters that weren’t made known to the public […] Given the history, this radiation shouldn’t be taken lightly. Whenever something happens, that’s when you hear about it."

See also: Official: Radioactive material escaping everyday from WIPP and dispersing — Top officials "not made available for comment" — Expert: Leaks from ‘unfiltered’ ducts went on for weeks

FILE – This May 10, 2014 file photo provided by the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant shows torn and open bags of magnesium oxide on top of standard waste boxes at the WIPP site in Carlsbad, N.M. Workers at a West Texas nuclear waste disposal site are closely monitoring containers from Los Alamos National Lab, Tuesday, May 20, 2014, a day after New Mexico officials announced a type of kitty litter is believed to have caused a radiation leak at the federal government’s troubled nuclear waste dump. (AP Photo/Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, File)

MAY 20, 2014

By Betsy Blaney
Associated Press

LUBBOCK, Texas — Workers at a West Texas nuclear waste disposal site on Tuesday were closely monitoring containers being stored there temporarily, a day after New Mexico officials said drums packed with low-level waste and organic kitty litter may pose a potentially "substantial" threat to public health.

One container that used the organic litter is believed to have caused a radiation leak at the federal government’s troubled nuclear waste dump near Carlsbad, New Mexico.

Waste Control Specialists spokesman Chuck McDonald says the drums from Los Alamos National Lab are being monitored by video camera 24 hours a day as they sit inside a metal building on the company’s site. The New Mexico Environment Department said Tuesday that more than 100 containers at the Andrews County site in West Texas.

"If there is anything that is off normal we would be know about it immediately," McDonald said.

The containers came to WCS after a leak at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, the nation’s only permanent underground repository for low-level radioactive waste, contaminated 22 workers with low levels of radiation in February. New Mexico environmental officials said more than 350 containers are underground at the Carlsbad site.

The kitty litter soaks up any liquid before drums of waste are sealed and shipped. Officials are investigating whether a switch from non-organic to organic litter is to blame for the leak.

Texas Commission on Environmental Quality spokesman Terry Clawson said none of the containers show any signs of leaking and that every precaution was being taken to ensure safety at the WCS site.

On Monday, environmental officials in New Mexico issued a formal order giving the Los Alamos lab two days to submit a plan for securing the waste containers, many of which are likely stored outdoors on the lab’s northern New Mexico campus or at WCS.

The order says 57 barrels of waste that are at Los Alamos were packed with nitrate salts and organic kitty litter, a combination thought to have caused a heat reaction and radiation release.

No shipments are now coming to West Texas from Los Alamos, Clawson said.

July 3, 2014

By Staci Matlock
Santa Fe The New Mexican

Los Alamos National Laboratory has admitted mistakes were made in processing waste containers, including one that ruptured in the nuclear waste storage facility near Carlsbad, causing a radiation leak that shut down the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant.

LANL filed a report Thursday with the state Environment Department that cited noncompliance issues — but stopped short of saying the errors caused the leak.

The lab’s manager, Los Alamos National Security LLC, and the Department of Energy investigated the waste processing after a container from LANL burst open Feb. 14 in Panel 7 of the deep salt caverns at WIPP. The lab said it had “"insufficient evidence" that mistakes in handling nitrate salt-bearing waste had caused the container to leak.

Greg Mello of the Los Alamos Study Group, however, said the lab and Department of Energy’s assertion that there was insufficient evidence to link mistakes to the leak was "false."

"They very much do relate to the radioactive release at WIPP," Mello said of the errors listed in the report. "They did pose a threat to human health and the environment, and they still do."

State Environment Department officials said in a statement that they are reviewing these initial violations and plan “to take appropriate actions" following an independent review of the incidents at WIPP and LANL.

Lab officials said in a statement, "As part of our ongoing internal investigation, we have identified shortcomings in the processing procedures that led to actions not covered by the Los Alamos National Laboratory Hazardous Waste Facility Permit. The focus is now on correcting these processes, in addition to ongoing recovery work."

Federal and state investigators narrowed down the leak at WIPP to several drums from LANL. Chemists have said a combination of nitrate salts in the waste, a pH neutralizer and a wheat-based kitty litter used as an absorbent material in the drum could have caused a chemical reaction that cracked open the lid of the container.

Investigators still haven’t confirmed that a bad chemical mix is what caused the leak.

The eight-page report filed by the lab and federal officials details how the waste was handled and repackaged at the lab. The report concludes that adding the pH neutralizer and the organic kitty litter violated the lab’s hazardous waste permit from the state.

The lab approved the use of the neutralizers and a switch from inorganic clay absorbents to the wheat-based kitty litter in 2013, according to documents.

The lab and the Energy Department also found the waste stream should have been re-evaluated when technicians realized there was corrosive liquid in the drums that could react with other chemicals.

The lab has stopped processing the nitrate salt-bearing drums while officials continue to investigate. A total of 86 of the drums are stored in domes at the lab’s Area G waste facility. Of those, 57 have been treated with the neutralizer and the organic kitty litter, giving them the same potential for a chemical reaction. The other 29 containers haven’t been processed yet. The lab has created a remediation team to decide how to proceed with handling the waste.

Lab officials told the state Environment Department on June 3 that they were investigating possible irregularities in how radioactive waste containers with nitrate salts were processed at the lab’s facility.

The company contracted to repackage the waste, Salt Lake City-based EnergySolutions, has had three rounds of layoffs, totaling 83 people, since March 30. Company officials said the first round was due to completion of the waste repackaging project, and the firm was cutting back on personnel at the lab. The company said subsequent layoffs, the latest of which occurred Monday, were because Los Alamos National Security had to shift $20 million of the contract funds to cover costs of storing containers at a Texas facility and to help with the leak investigation at WIPP.

On the Web

• Read the LANL report at www.nmenv.state.nm.us/NMED/Issues/documents/LANLNoncomplianceNotice7-01-14.pdf

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

July 2, 2014

By Staci Matlock
Santa Fe The New Mexican

The Feb. 14 radiation leak at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad has sparked layoffs by a Los Alamos National Laboratory contractor.
EnergySolutions, the private company hired to pack mixed radioactive waste for shipment from Los Alamos to Carlsbad, laid off 40 employees Monday, for a total of 83 layoffs since the end of March.

Of the 40 employees laid off Monday, 28 were local people and four had relocated to Northern New Mexico for the lab waste project. EnergySolutions spokesman Mark Walker wasn’t sure how many of the other people laid off earlier were local.

Lab officials said the layoff coincided with the June 30 expiration of the lab’s subcontract with EnergySolutions.

But a company spokesman said some of the layoffs were made because LANL needed to shift funding to pay for storage of waste containers at a Texas facility after the radiation leak closed WIPP and to pay for part of the ongoing investigation into the leak.

EnergySolutions, based in Salt Lake City, was hired to repackage and ship out 3,706 cubic meters of transuranic waste by June 30. Transuranic waste consists of contaminated laboratory equipment and clothing, along with some liquids, used during nuclear research over the last several decades.

All of the transuranic waste had been packaged and ready to ship by the end of March, according to Walker. A total of 34 EnergySolutions employees were laid off then to “meet LANL requirements,” according to a letter from company Vice President Miles Smith.

Then in February, a LANL waste container that had been packed by EnergySolutions cracked open at WIPP, releasing radiation into the underground facility. All transuranic waste shipments from the lab were halted.

EnergySolutions laid off 23 more employees June 2 and were scheduled to lay off 58 on June 30.

“This is being driven by the fact that $20M of LANL’s 2014 Environmental Management funding has been reallocated to pay for the WIPP incident Technical Assistance Team made up of national laboratory personnel from across DOE and for continued storage of 113 containers of waste at Waste Control Specialists [in Andrews, Texas],” Smith said in a letter to the Regional Coalition of LANL Communities.

Of the 58 employees scheduled for layoffs Monday, 14 were reassigned to jobs elsewhere in the company. EnergySolutions kept 18 on for other contracted waste projects at LANL. EnergySolutions will work as a subcontractor for Albuquerque-based Environmental Dimensions Inc., which has a five-year federal contract that began July 1 for radioactive waste retrieval and packaging at the lab, according to Walker.

Greg Mello of the Los Alamos Study Group, a watchdog group, said LANL and the Department of Energy had other funds it could have tapped instead of using contract money for EnergySolutions. “It looks like Energy Solutions is being made to pay heavily for a mistake that was — at the very least — not entirely its own. Los Alamos National Security is the one ultimately to blame here.”

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