The Energy Department and contractor Fluor Idaho have gathered up the loose material that spewed out of four breached drums of radioactive waste at the Idaho National Laboratory, but have still not determined the cause of the April 11 incident.
Once a root cause is determined, Airlock 5 of the Accelerated Retrieval Project 5 facility will be evaluated to decide what needs to be done to safely resume operations, Doug Pruitt, a DOE program manager in the Idaho waste disposition program, said during a June 21 meeting of the Idaho Cleanup Project Citizen Advisory Board.
The material has been gathered from the floor and horizontal surfaces and placed into new 55-gallon drums. The drums continue to be stored in Airlock 5.
Fluor Idaho used a dust pan or vacuum to collect the contaminated material. The solidified sludge in the breached drums originated at the Rocky Flats weapons site in Colorado decades ago and had been buried at INL. “The cargo containers containing the sludge drums were unearthed in 2009.” Pruitt said.
This year the drums had been sent to ARP 5, where they were to be opened, treated to remove banned items, and repackaged. But on the night of April 11, the drums overheated and blew off their lids.
Meanwhile, the Idaho Mountain Express reported June 29 that the Idaho Cleanup Project Citizen Advisory Board recommended the state lengthen the lifespan of the Advanced Mixed Waste Treatment Plant at INL by making it easier to accept certain out-of-state waste. Idaho has acknowledged talks with DOE to allow shipment of 7,000 cubic meters of transuranic waste from the Hanford Site in Washington state to the AMWTP, although no decision has been made.
The facility’s chief mission, to repackage 65,000 cubic meters of radioactive waste and ship it out of Idaho as transuranic waste to DOE’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico, is scheduled to end in 2018.
Idaho regulators have said any such shipments must comply with a 1995 settlement agreement between DOE, the state, and the Navy. The 1995 deal stipulates any radioactive waste imported into Idaho must be removed within a year.
