Workers at the Los Alamos National Laboratory on Wednesday morning sent the first barrel of potentially explosive nitrate-salt waste to the building where it will be cleaned up and prepared for eventual disposal at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, a source in New Mexico said.
Stephen Hoffman, deputy manager of the agency’s Environmental Management Los Alamos Field Office, broke the news at a meeting of the Northern New Mexico Citizens’ Advisory Board in Santa Fe on Wednesday afternoon, according to an attendee at the meeting. The waste barrel was transported to the Waste Characterization, Reduction, and Repackaging Facility (WCRRF) from the lab’s PermaCon building.
There are 60 barrels of what DOE calls remediated nitrate salt waste at Los Alamos. The potentially explosive barrels contain a mixture of irradiated nitrate salts created by Cold War weapons programs and organic cat litter mistakenly added to the waste as a drying agent by a Los Alamos subcontractor. At Wednesday’s meeting, Hoffman said the agency plans to finish treating the containers by Aug. 1.
In 2014, a barrel of these remediated nitrate salts was placed in the underground of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant further south in New Mexico, where a reaction between the organic cat litter material and the salts caused an explosion that leaked radiation and shut down the repository for almost three years.
DOE had once expected to start treating nitrate salts at Los Alamos as early as April 19. It was unclear Wednesday when the barrel moved to the WCRFF would actually be treated. A DOE spokesperson did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
