DNFSB Raises Safety Concerns About LANL TRU Waste Facility Project
NS&D Monitor
8/22/2014
With construction looming on a new Transuranic Waste Facility project at Los Alamos National Laboratory, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board is raising a handful of safety issues, including some that are old and some that are new. In an Aug. 7 letter to National Nuclear Security Administration chief Frank Klotz, DNFSB Chairman Peter Winokur said the issues “could impact the identification, design, and functional classification of safety-related controls” and requested a briefing within 60 days on the agency’s plans to address the issues. The NNSA is expected to begin construction of the facility before the end of Fiscal Year 2014. The Board first identified safety issues with the facility in June of 2012, and it said three of those issues remain unresolved: a pair of concerns about the analysis of radiological consequences to workers and the public and strategies for making sure the fire protection system works during cold weather.
The Board also said it has identified new issues, suggesting that additional safety-related controls might be needed for several scenarios, including a forklift tire puncture leading to the spill of “1,800 239Pu-equivalent curies of dispersible powder” and a fire in the headspace of a damaged or non-WIPP-compliant transuranic waste drum. The Board also said safety-class controls could be needed to address falling embers or burning debris that could land on the roof of each waste storage building during a wildfire because the preliminary Documented Safety Analysis underestimates the consequences of a roof failure from a fire. The Board said issues previously raised about airplane and vehicle crashes have been addressed by the NNSA.
Wife of Lab Scientist Sentenced for Role in Espionage Case
NS&D Monitor
8/22/2014
The wife of a Los Alamos National Laboratory scientist was sentenced to one year and a day in prison in connection with her role in an espionage plot. According to the Albuquerque Journal, Marjorie Roxby Mascheroni, 71, was sentenced this week, receiving a lighter penalty than she could have. Like her husband, Pedro Leonardo Mascheroni, who worked at LANL’s famed X Division, Marjorie Mascheroni worked at the lab, serving as a technical writer. Last year she pleaded guilty to conspiring with her husband to convey Restricted Data to an undercover FBI agent and making false statements to the FBI in October of 2009.
She could’ve received up to 14 years in prison, though prosecutors asked for her to be imprisoned for two years. Leo Mascheroni is alleged to have claimed that he could “deliver” a nuclear weapon to Venezuela in exchange for $793,000 during an undercover operation by the FBI. He is facing 24 and 66 months in prison after pleading guilty last year to converting government property, making false statements, communicating Restricted Data, and retaining national defense information.
