URS Names New Head of WIPP Contractor in Response to Incidents
Kenneth Fletcher
WC Monitor
3/14/2014
Additional releases of radiation at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant are possible because the repository’s ventilation system is not a “credited safety system,” according to the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board. When an underground monitor at WIPP detected a radiation release on Feb. 14, the repository’s ventilation system switched to a filtration to prevent contaminated air from reaching above ground. However, to date 17 workers above the mine have tested positive for contamination and aboveground monitors have picked up the release. The site’s filtered ventilation system “is not a credited safety system and has not been operated, maintained and protected consistent with its current function to prevent further release of radioactive material from the mine. Given the uncertainty of the cause of the radioactive release, the potential for additional releases cannot be ruled out,” states a March 12 letter from DNFSB Chairman Peter Winokur to the Department of Energy obtained by WC Monitor.
A DOE accident investigation report for the WIPP fire identified the same issue, according to DOE spokesman Colin Jones. “Recent events have caused the Department to reexamine the safety basis to determine if it is still adequate,” Jones said in a written response. “The data indicate this event will not cause additional releases that could harm human health or the environment. We have also taken extra steps, including more frequent inspections of the ventilation system, since the event to ensure the reliability of the existing of this system. We have confidence that the system will ensure the protection of the public and the environment.”
Sampling data shows that the filtration system “worked as designed,” according to DOE, but officials this week announced they have discovered a potential pathway for release of radiation to the aboveground. “Part of the ventilation system that allowed flow to bypass the air filtration system during filtration operations has been sealed with a high-density foaming material. Before sealing the ductwork, a small amount of unfiltered air continued to be released to the atmosphere. Monitoring after sealing the ductwork shows that leakage has been stopped,” DOE stated in a March 10 release.
The DNFSB has asked DOE “to thoroughly evaluate the safety controls and contingency plans necessary to maintain confinement to ensure adequate protection of the workers and public.” The release followed an underground fire Feb. 5 that for some reason triggered WIPP’s filtration system and filled it with soot, officials said last week at a town hall meeting in Carlsbad, N.M. “We did shift to filtration. Why, we don’t know,” DOE Carlsbad Field Office Manager Joe Franco said. “The normal process would be not to shift to filtration, but we did.”
URS Brings in Head of WIPP Contractor
Also this week, URS brought in a new president and project manager for contractor Nuclear Waste Partnership—Bob McQuinn—demoting Farok Sharif to project manager of the TRU Waste Program. The management change took place as the contractor develops plans for manned entry into the repository’s underground, which has been shut down since the Feb. 5 fire. “To strengthen our recovery efforts, I am announcing the realignment of the NWP leadership team,” URS Global Management and Operations Services General Manager James Taylor said in a March. 12 message to employees.
URS is also planning to create a new position called WIPP Recovery Manager, which will be announced within “several days.” Both the new post and Sharif will report to McQuinn, who most recently served as GMOS Vice President of Performance Assurance. “Farok will focus on transitioning waste to other locations while WIPP is not operational, and working with other DOE waste generator sites to develop plans for the temporary storage of their waste,” Taylor said. EM spokesman Jones said: “We expect NWP to comply with the terms of their contract and provide the management and leadership necessary to safely lead recovery efforts and return the site to full operation.” URS and did not respond to requests for comment this week on the management change and whether it was linked to any issues uncovered in relation to the events.
Four Additional Workers Test Positive
This week the Department said that four additional workers have tested positive for “just over background” contamination in fecal samples, in addition to the 13 workers previously identified as testing positive.“The levels of exposure are extremely low, and none of the employees is expected to experience any health effects from the exposures. The four most recent positive results were at the barely detectable level (about .1 disintegrations per minute), and reflect extremely low levels of exposure,” according to a DOE release.
Monitoring equipment was sent into the underground for the first time last weekend when workers lowered radiation and air quality instruments Friday and Saturday down the salt handling and air intake shafts, and initial findings showed “no detectable radioactive contamination in the air” and “ normal” air quality results, according to a DOE release. “These results were expected because the shafts that were sampled were not in the air flow path coming from the area where the radiation release originated,” the release states. Plans for personnel entry into the mine are currently under development. Reentry is expected “some time in the next couple of weeks” in order to discover the cause of the radiation release, according to DOE. “A series of personnel entries is planned to safely characterize the mine’s stability and attempt to identify the source of the release,” DOE said.
WIPP Workforce Plan Approved
With the underground shut off and shipments to WIPP stopped for the time being, NWP finalized a plan for its workforce this week that calls for utilizing its employees both for identifying the cause of last month’s radiation release and implementing corrective actions as a result of the event. DOE notes that “considerable retraining” will be needed to adapt to the new conditions. “We need to get training for them, they can do a lot of the work,” Sharif told WC Monitor last week. “They are the experts on the mine, they are the experts on the site. We now need to infuse some of the other expertise, but all of us working together to go decontaminate the facility, to go back and figure out how we need to reconfigure the different things, there’s a lot of things we can go do and they are available, they are skilled, they have the qualifications, they know the facility inside out, so we’ll use them”
Nevertheless, a lot of support has been brought in from outside Carlsbad. “Right now we already have over 50 folks who we have brought in from the outside and corporate reachback from URS, from Idaho National Labs, from Savannah River Remediation, from UCOR, from Los Alamos National Labs,” Sharif said. “We are using people from Los Alamos and Sandia to be part of this team and help our employees, and at the same time lay out what the recovery is. They are excited about that, they are a little bit more relaxed about it. But still, when you send people home and you don’t go back to work and you sit in a classroom for eight hours it’s kind of hard on them.”
Uptick In Communications From DOE
Meanwhile, the Department this week showed an uptick in communications on the status of WIPP. At town hall meetings in Carlsbad last week, lawmakers and state and local officials criticized an initial lack of communication from DOE following the events and called for daily updates and weekly town hall meetings on the status of WIPP. This week DOE has put out press releases every day and has committed to hosting weekly town hall meetings Thursday afternoons.
