Kenneth Fletcher
WC Monitor
4/11/2014
The push to identify the cause of the Feb. 14 radiation release at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant continued this week, as workers moved to establish a third base underground. Last week, workers set up two bases of operations underground in areas free of contamination. While the Department of Energy previously reported that the cause of the release may be identified this week, that has been pushed back in favor of implementing another clean base closer to the likely source of the release. “We’ll probably establish one more safe base before making the last run to get to the panel seven waste space,” Donovan Mager, a spokesman for WIPP managing contractor Nuclear Waste Partnership, said this week.
The limiting factor has been the amount of time workers can spend in protective suits before they overheat, Mager said. Workers will need to be able to suit up at the nearest clean base and walk to the contaminated waste panel within about 45 minutes or risk health issues from the heat buildup. Mager did not provide details on when identification of the contamination may time place. “Safety is always going to drive this schedule. We don’t want to set up false expectations,” he said. As workers move deeper into the mine, they are also checking the integrity of the mine’s ceiling, walls and ground, which are normally regularly maintained but haven’t been in the two months since WIPP has been shut down. “That’s one of the reasons we are taking our time going very slowly,” Mager said.
Shutdown Impacts on Milestones Unknown
Transuranic waste shipments to WIPP from generator sites have been halted since a Feb. 5 salt truck fire underground, which was soon followed by the contamination incident. In order to meet a commitment to New Mexico, DOE is now sending material from Los Alamos National Laboratory to Waste Control Specialists for temporary storage. But it’s unknown what the WIPP shutdown will mean for regulatory commitments to Idaho and Tennessee, DOE cleanup chief Dave Huizenga said this week at a House Appropriations Energy and Water Subcommittee hearing.
At Idaho, work continues to package transuranic waste and the site has “several months” of storage capability. “Should we find ourselves in a situation where they’re going to run short on space, we hope to be able to make the case to the regulators to allow us some additional permitted space to continue to store,” he said. At Oak Ridge, the WIPP shutdown is “likely to have some impact” on the Department’s ability to package remote-handled transuranic waste, Huizenga said. “The contact-handled waste, you can package it up and store it on site. The remote-handled waste, you’re generally going to package that up and send it to WIPP as soon as possible. So we’re looking at the possibility of juggling the schedule there.”
Huizenga: ‘We Need to Improve Maintenance at the Site’
Huizenga also acknowledged in his testimony before House appropriators the need for improvements in how maintenance activities are conducted at WIPP. “I do think we need to improve maintenance at the site. … We’ve had discussions with the contractor. They clearly understand and acknowledge this, and they have a process of already implementing changes to their procedures,” he said. Huizenga noted that between Fiscal Year 2009 and 2015, DOE has increased relative spending on maintenance by 32 percent. “I think we’re trending in the right direction.” But WIPP spending will likely have to be increased the rest of this fiscal year and into next. House Appropriations Energy and Water Subcommittee Chair Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) asked if the costs of incidents at WIPP would be “bigger than a breadbox, smaller than a space shuttle?” Huizenga replied, “It’s going to be bigger than a breadbox,” but did not provide any further information on potential costs.
The total cost is will be tied to the cause of the contamination, which hasn’t been discovered yet. “Until we really get there, we’re not going to know for sure how long it’s going to take us to recover,” Huizenga said, adding: “We’re already drawing up contingency plans such that we see there’s a partial roof collapse or something happened to puncture one of the drums, we’ll be able to understand how to deal with that.”
DNFSB ‘Reviewing Available Information’
Meanwhile, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board is continuing its oversight of the events at WIPP, Board Chairman Peter Winokur told a House Armed Services subcommittee this week. “The Board is reviewing available information to assess the causal factors, emergency response, recovery activities and corrective actions for both of these events,” he said. “Fortunately, no one was seriously hurt in either event. These were near-misses. The fire and radioactive material release events at WIPP serve as vivid reminders that accidents do happen and that they can have major safety consequences and mission impacts.” An separate Accident Investigation Board report on the initial response to the radiation incident is expected to be released next week.
When asked at the hearing what lessons can be taken from the WIPP incidents, Winokur replied, “I think that there were issues with emergency response and preparedness that need to be addressed. It’s something the Board has a great deal of interest in. And there were obviously mistakes made during the response to the fire and during the response to the contamination events. And that’s a lesson we should take away from it. I think that what we saw, once again, were weaknesses in the contractor assurance system and the federal oversight. And those are also areas that … the Department of Energy needs to strengthen over time.” Winokur went on to say, “I think the last thing I’d take away from it … is accidents happen and we need to be prepared for them. It isn’t just Fukushima. These aren’t just chance occurrences. There are a lot of low-probability, high-consequence accidents the Department … needs to be willing and able to deal with.”
