The Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico is still investigating whether any of 15 employees working on plutonium-238 oxide were internally contaminated with the material last month after the apparent puncture of a glove-box glove.
“Fifteen Laboratory workers are being evaluated for potential exposure. The area inside the Plutonium Facility where this occurred has been secured, pending a review of the events. There is no risk to public health and safety,” a spokesperson for the Department of Energy facility said in a statement sent to Weapons Complex Morning Briefing on Tuesday, but first published in the local Los Alamos Reporter on Monday.
Los Alamos responders performed nasal swabs on the 15 employees who were weighing and packaging plutonium-238 oxide on June 8 in the Plutonium Facility, but only one showed signs of internal contamination. The lab referred that person to the Occupational Medical Facility to consult with an internal dosimetrist, after nasal swabs revealed 224 and 544 disintegrations per minute of alpha particles.
In a report about the incident released last week, the independent federal Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board said there was “significant airborne radioactivity” in the room, but that laboratory’s “[r]adiation protection personnel successfully decontaminated the individual, and he was provided chelation therapy.”
The lab had issued bioassay kits to all 15 employees in proximity to the June 8 release, but the lab spokesperson declined to say Tuesday whether Los Alamos had confirmed the results of those bioassays — checks for internal exposure. Typically, such checks analyze urine. Those who work with fissile materials are tested routinely this way, though the lab may call for special assays in response to an unexpected release.
After a separate plutonium-238 incident in 2018, it took Los Alamos just inside two weeks to detect signs that a worker had internal plutonium contamination.
Plutonium-238 is used in research for nuclear weapons programs, and as a heat source for spacecraft.
Editor’s note, July 07, 2020, 10:20 a.m. Eastern: The story was corrected to show the Los Alamos Reporter first published Los Alamos National Laboratory’s statement, and expanded to quantify contamination detected on one Plutonium Facility worker.
