The U.S. Energy Department confirmed Tuesday that the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico has finished treating 60 potentially combustible containers of radioactive waste, ending ahead of the latest targeted date and setting the stage for the next phase of nitrate salt processing.
The drums contained a mix of nitrate salts and organic kitty litter comparable to the combination that in 2014 blew open a container at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M. releasing radiation and shutting down the underground storage facility for nearly three years. That container originated at Los Alamos. A subcontractor had mistakenly packed into the barrels to keep the irradiated salts dry.
Lab contractor Los Alamos National Security, with support from DOE’s semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration, has seemed to be quickening its pace of processing in recent months after falling behind schedule. Officials have not said how the contractor was able to catch up in recent months.
Weapons Complex Monitor had reported that a lab official told the Northern New Mexico Citizens’ Advisory Board on Oct. 25 that 52 of the 60 remediated nitrate salt drums had been processed and the remaining eight should be done before Thanksgiving.
“This is a huge accomplishment,” said NNSA Los Alamos Field Office Manager Steve Goodrum in a DOE press release. “DOE and the lab committed major resources to the unique challenges presented by the [remediated nitrate salts] waste treatment process. It is a relief to complete this project and apply those resources to other cleanup efforts.”
A source in New Mexico previously said that LANS, a consortium of Bechtel National, AECOM, BWXT Technologies, and the University of California, expects to complete treatment of 29 separate drums of unremediated nitrate salts in November and be finished with those by the end of March 2018.
LANS had missed earlier schedule targets for processing the remediated and unremediated wastes of June 30 and Sept. 30, 2017, respectively.
The DOE news release made no mention of the unremediated nitrate salt drums. However, a DOE spokesperson said Thursday that treatment of the remaining drums is anticipated to start in December and to wrap up by March 31, 2018. There was no word at press time from DOE on the cost of the drum cleanup project.
Treatment of the remediated nitrate salt drums began in May at the lab’s Waste Characterization, Reduction, and Repackaging Facility. The waste was removed from drums and mixed with water and the inert substance zeolite to prevent combustion. The treated waste has now been placed into new drums that will be shipped to WIPP at some point in the future, though there is no schedule for transport, the spokesperson said.
The DOE Environmental Management Los Alamos Field Office has signed off on a plan of action to support the treatment of the UNS wastes, according to an Oct. 13 memo from the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board. The work will require some sorting, segregating, size reduction, and repackaging in order to take the waste out of the current “degraded containers” before placing it in new containers for the trip to WIPP, according to the DNFSB document.
