The Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in New Mexico has completed construction of its Transuranic Waste Facility (TWF) and the readiness process has begun, an individual familiar with the project said this week. The facility is expected to begin receiving waste by next spring or summer.
The facility is intended for storage of newly generated transuranic waste – waste generated since 1999 – and its certification for shipment to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, capabilities currently housed at the lab’s Area G. The National Nuclear Security Administration has estimated the facility will cost $300 million to operate and maintain for a projected useful life of 50 years.
Early last month, the NNSA Los Alamos Field Office approved the final safety basis for the TWF project, according to a Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board site representative report. The safety basis serves as the technical standard outlining expectations for controlling transuranic waste hazards.
This approval directed the lab to temporarily reduce by 15 percent the material-at-risk limit until a revised safety basis is submitted to classify the fire suppression system as safety significant, revise the technical safety basis for drum banding, and prohibit receipt of pipe overpack containers until fire testing results are considered in re-evaluating the safety basis.
“Notably, several of the safety basis review team members did not recommend approval,” the report said. “Furthermore, the NNSA Cognizant Secretarial Officer, who concurred on the documents, also placed a condition of approval to require full implementation of the safety significant fire suppression no later than February 28, 2018.”
The report said the current prohibition of pipe overpack containers limits TWF to receipt of 100 of roughly 700 waste containers that are currently stored at the lab’s Plutonium Facility. NNSA management expects that fire testing will support the acceptance of combustible waste packed in these containers into the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, the report said.
