A spokesperson from the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico confirmed in an email Monday to the Exchange Monitor that an incident involving skin contamination due to a glovebox failure resulted in no significant health issues.
During the week of May 10, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) wrote a staff report on inspecting safety incidents, including one on May 2 where workers handling heat source plutonium pellets experienced potential skin contamination and hand radiation when examining their gloves. Radiological support decontaminated all individuals involved, according to the DNFSB report.
A spokesperson for Los Alamos National Laboratory said in an email to the Exchange Monitor that there was no presence of airborne radioactivity and no impact to other operations at the site.
“While such breaches are uncommon, the safety measures we have in place are designed to anticipate and mitigate the consequences of a possible glovebox glove failure regardless of its age,” the spokesperson said.
The spokesperson also said Los Alamos self-reports “all deviations from the norm—no matter how minor,” to government oversight groups. “We are proud of the fact that our safety and environmental systems catch even the smallest potential incidents,” the spokesperson said.