DNFSB Raises Safety Concerns About LANL TRU Waste Facility Project
WC 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.
