Alissa Tabirian
NS&D Monitor
6/12/2015
The Department of Energy’s Office of Enforcement plans to investigate Los Alamos National Security and National Security Technologies for “losses of contamination control of highly enriched uranium” at the Nevada National Security Site, according to two letters released this week. The incidents occurred at NNSS’s National Criticality Experiments Research Center last June and October under unspecified circumstances. Both LANS and NSTec reported the noncompliance and will be investigated jointly.
In a statement this week, Los Alamos spokesman Kevin Roark said the incidents did not pose any risk to the public or the environment. “The Laboratory has made significant progress in implementing corrective actions and has confirmed through bioassay that the levels of exposure were extremely small and health risks essentially zero for those affected by the contamination event,” Roark said. “There was no contamination spread outside the facility that houses NCERC, located at the Nevada National Security Site, and there was no risk to the public or environment. Working closely with NNSA and NSTec, the Laboratory is in a formal process to review and confirm that new procedures and controls are in place and functioning properly. The Laboratory takes this event very seriously, and will do everything reasonable to prevent a similar event in the future.”
