LANL STANDS DOWN TRU WASTE SHIPPING PROJECT

Los Alamos National Laboratory suspended its transuranic waste shipping project because of the government shutdown yesterday, telling approximately 200 subcontractor employees to stand down, the lab confirmed. Four shipments already loaded and ready to be shipped to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant will still be sent, but processing of the transuranic waste is being stopped, nuclear material secured and facilities put into a “safe standby” configuration. The lab had operated since the start of the government shutdown Oct. 1 using carryover funds from Fiscal Year 2013, curtailing other cleanup work but maintaining weapons activities and the TRU waste shipping project.  “LANL has now reached the point where we need to begin standing down certain operations where there is no longer funding available to maintain full operations,” the lab said in a prepared statement. “Protecting Special Nuclear Material, national security information, workers, the public and the environment remains an essential function.” Other environmental monitoring work, including those supporting the Santa Fe water utility and a chromium pump test, will continue.

Lab workers impacted by the stand down will be shifted to other work, but it’s unclear how the other 200 subcontractor employees told to stand down will be impacted. The bulk are EnergySolutions workers, and EnergySolutions declined to comment yesterday. The New Mexico Environment Department last week said it was concerned that the TRU waste shipping project would be suspended. NMED did not respond to a request for comment yesterday. The lab is expected to complete the project by June of 2014, and the shutdown has the potential to delay the project, though it was slightly ahead of its projected pace at the end of FY 2013. The lab had sent 2,745 cubic meters of TRU waste to WIPP, 145 more than expected.