Chris Schneidmiller
WC Monitor
8/7/2015
The Department of Energy said this week that faulty equipment and other challenges had forced it to delay the resumption of nuclear waste intake at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico.
The underground storage facility has not accepted shipments of transuranic nuclear waste since a Feb. 5, 2014, fire and a radiation release that followed nine days later. A DOE report issued last September laid out a plan to reopen the mine during the first quarter of 2016, at an estimated cost of $242 million.
However, DOE said late last Friday that additions to the repair schedule, including mandatory “safety-related activities,” would have to be finished before WIPP could reopen.
“Key issues impacting the recovery schedule include the need to address the findings and recommendations from the Accident Investigation Boards, implement DOE’s more rigorous standards for site specific Documented Safety Analyses, and resolve problems with the contractor’s oversight of the procurement and quality assurance processes for the manufacture and delivery of the Interim Ventilation System,” according to a DOE press release. “The Department is actively engaged with the contractor to address these issues.”
Speaking at a town hall meeting in Carlsbad on Thursday, Frank Marcinkowski, deputy assistant energy secretary for waste management, said ,“Right now we don’t believe the beginning of the emplacement operations is in anyone’s best interest.”
He said the department expected to issue an updated completion schedule and cost estimate for the reopening project this fall. Crucial to that plan will be updating the performance measurement baseline document that details the required activities for resuming operations, along with their anticipated expenses and resource needs, Jim Blankenhorn, recovery manager for WIPP operating contractor Nuclear Waste Partnership, said during the town hall. That document is also targeted for revision and DOE approval during the fall.
“While it is disappointing that it will take longer than anticipated to resume operations at WIPP, the site is too important to Carlsbad, the State of New Mexico, and the nation to rush recovery. WIPP recovery must be done safely, and it must be done correctly,” Rep. Steve Pearce (R-N.M.), whose district encompasses WIPP, said in a statement to Weapons Complex Monitor.
Not everyone was as sanguine about the situation.
“It’s going very, very slowly, “said John Heaton, chairman of the Carlsbad Mayor’s Nuclear Task Force, said of the recovery process. “It’s the government at its worst. I don’t know what else to tell you.”
Heaton cited two key issues he said could push back WIPP’s reopening by six months: damage to ventilation equipment that was transported to the site from Pittsburgh and DOE’s unwillingness to conduct separate reopening activities in the mine while the equipment is repaired. “I think it’s a little absurd that you can’t run parallel operational readiness activities even if the air ventilation system [is not ready],” he told Weapons Complex Monitor. “Use dummy equipment anyway, dummy drums. There’s no reason those things couldn’t be done in advance of the filtration system being in place, and then do an operational readiness review sometime in January or February where it’s scrutinized heavily and the whole process is well reviewed and determined ready to go.”
The September DOE report cites increased ventilation – “a principal requirement for safe underground operations” – as one of seven key measures to reopening WIPP to receive nuclear waste. The others are safety, regulatory compliance, decontamination, ventilation, mine stability and underground habitability, workforce retraining, and managing waste streams.
The fan and filter units for WIPP’s incoming interim ventilation system (IVS) are undergoing repairs ahead of being tested and eventually returned to the site, Blankenhorn said on Thursday. The manufacturer of ductwork to be used in the IVS is also reworking “questionable welds” on some components. Assembly and installation is expected to begin in September for the IVS, which will increase the site’s filtered air capacity.
Meanwhile, DOE and NWP are also addressing “corrective actions” identified in the accident investigation board report on the radiological event, according to Marcinkowski. These will add cost and time to the project, but “they’re things that need to be addressed in order for us to move forward,” he said during the town hall. Other challenges to the timeline are equipment and infrastructure failures beyond the ventilation system and the need for a new safety analysis, the DOE official added.
The department has said it sought options that would have enabled it to hew to the original schedule, but those ultimately did not prove workable.
Once open for business again, WIPP would first move to permanently store more than 150 containers of waste now stored above-ground at the site. That would be followed by intake of waste held at a temporary facility in Texas and material from other nuclear sites around the country.
False Alarm
The facility got another small jolt on Tuesday when DOE activated WIPP’s emergency operations center after readings showed a small elevation in radiological material “on a filter from an air particulate sampler located where air is exhausted from the WIPP underground.” The incident was later determined to be a false positive based on a calculation error, according to a DOE press release.
“By procedure, WIPP personnel on the surface were directed to stay inside buildings, or shelter in place, when the elevated readings were first detected” at about 7 p.m. “Underground personnel were staged at an assembly area and accounted for. Radiological control technicians continued to conduct confirmatory radiological surveys on the surface and in the underground, none of which showed any abnormal radiological readings. All employees were released and the event was terminated at approximately 11: 30 p.m.”
