The Los Alamos National Laboratory faced a number of challenges early in its treatment of dozens of containers of potentially explosive nitrate-salt waste, according to the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board.
Workers treated a second barrel of inappropriately remediated nitrate salt waste during the week of May 26, the DNFSB said in its latest inspection report for the Department of Energy facility in northern New Mexico. In total, 60 barrels of the waste are expected to be treated at the laboratory’s Waste Characterization, Reduction, and Repackaging Facility (WCRRF) by Aug. 1.
Each barrel holds a combustible mixture of irradiated nitrate salts created by Cold War weapons programs and organic kitty litter. Such a barrel from Los Alamos burst open in February 2014 at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant farther south in New Mexico, closing the transuranic waste storage mine for nearly three years.
Workers last month “encountered several challenges that prolonged the treatment” of the second container being treated at WCRRF, the DNFSB reported. These included: managing debris from each container within the tight space of the glove box used for the treatment process; “poor control” of zeolite, the inorganic feed material that is used in repackaging each container; and multiple procedural situations, including pauses in work by operators.
Two more containers of nitrate salts arrived at WCRRF during the week, while three “daughter” waste barrels were returned to Area G for storage, according to the DNFSB report.
Asked Monday for an updated count of nitrate-salt barrels that have been treated to date, DOE’s Environmental Management Los Alamos Field Office referred questions to department headquarters, which did not respond by deadline.
