Hoisting equipment fell and struck the ground just feet from where people were working recently on a new Utility Shift at the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., according to a federal safety board’s regular monthly update on the disposal site.
A Nuclear Waste Partnership subcontractor “reported a near miss event when a ten-ton capacity chain-hoist (chain-fall) dropped and impacted the ground approximately fifteen feet from operators working at the shaft,” according to a Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) staff report on Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) activities, dated March 4. Nuclear Waste Partnership is the Amentum-BWX Technologies prime contractor for DOE at WIPP.
“[I]ncompatible equipment” factored into the accident where a nylon sling failed, allowing the chain-fall to drop,” based upon the subcontractor’s initial investigation, the DNFSB report said.
In August 2019 Harrison Western-Shaft Sinkers, a joint venture between Colorado-based Harrison Western and South African-based Shaft Sinkers, which digs shafts for deep mines, was awarded a $75-million subcontract to build a new utility shaft at WIPP.
Excavation commenced in April 2020, under a six-month temporary work order from New Mexico. But the state refused to extend the work authorization when it expired in part because of a local COVID-19 surge in October 2020. But following a year of administrative proceedings, James Kenney, secretary of the New Mexico Environment Department, approved WIPP’s request to resume digging the shaft that will extend 2,100 feet into the WIPP underground.
Sinking the underground shaft should resume by this summer, Nuclear Waste Partnership president Sean Dunagan said earlier this month at the Waste Management Symposia in Phoenix.
