A “bulging drum” of non-radiological waste resulted in a partial evacuation of the Sigma Complex at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico on Monday.
The Los Alamos Fire Department responded to the Sigma facility, on the main LANL campus, at about 2:30 p.m. Monday, a lab spokesperson said by email. The plastic drum was rendered safe by making a small cut to relieve the pressure.
“Full access to the facility was restored within a couple of hours,” said the spokesperson. When asked, the official could not immediately say how many people were evacuated.
The drum held a combination of water, mineral oil, and metal powder. The bulge was probably caused by a small amount of water reacting with the metal powder, the spokesperson said. The powder was composed of alloys such as stainless steel, titanium, and aluminum.
“If that’s all there is … it doesn’t look there is much hazard in this particular case,” Greg Mello, executive director of the Los Alamos Study Group, said by phone Thursday.
“Experience suggests that what LANL says about an incident is seldom if ever the whole story,” Mello added in a subsequent email. “It’s really essential for the state to send an inspector there and ascertain the whole truth of the situation,” he added.
The 200,000-square-foot Sigma Complex is used mostly for materials testing and analysis.
“The New Mexico Environment Department received word of the bulging drum at the Sigma Facility from LANS [contractor Los Alamos National Security] during our routine weekly oversight meeting Tuesday morning, and we continue to stay in regular contact,” state Environment Secretary Butch Tongate said in an emailed statement.
The Monday evacuation came on the heels of a number of recent waste handling-related errors at Los Alamos. The lab suspended all waste shipments from Dec. 18 through Feb. 28, while it investigated how it mislabeled a container of hazardous waste sent to contractor Veolia in Colorado for disposal.
The state has also announced plans to penalize LANL for keeping containers of mixed-low-level radioactive waste and hazardous waste too long in temporary storage areas without receiving advance authorization.
Separately, NMED on Thursday held a public hearing on a discharge permit sought by DOE and LANS for the Radioactive Liquid Waste Treatment Plant at LANL.
