Management at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico has acknowledged it will not meet upcoming contractual milestones for treatment of nitrate salts, according to a recently released site report from the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board.
The Energy Department laboratory’s Waste Characterization, Reduction, and Repackaging Facility (WCRRF) is treating 60 containers of remediated nitrate salts (RNS), similar to the LANL drum that blew open in 2014 and spread radiation into the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near the city of Carlsbad, N.M. Another 29 drums of unremediated nitrate salts (UNS) also await processing at the lab.
On June 30, the laboratory alerted DOE’s Environmental Management (EM) Field Office at Los Alamos that it “would not meet the current contractual milestones for processing of RNS and the UNS wastes of June 30 and September 30, 2017, respectively,” the DNFSB said in a report dated July 7 and released this month. “Their current working schedule, which was adjusted using efficiency data from the completed portion of the campaign, now projects respective completions of December 22, 2017, and April 10, 2018.”
The report did not provide direct explanation for the delay in completing treatment of remediated nitrate salts, and DOE EM spokespeople did not respond to a request for detail by deadline for Weapons Complex Morning Briefing. The barrels are filled with a mixture of organic kitty litter and irradiated nitrate salts from Cold War nuclear weapons programs at Los Alamos.
The DNFSB report does note that personnel at the lab’s Area G waste management facility had during the prior week identified degradation in four drums of unremediated nitrate salts, indicating workers would have to remove poly drum liners and place them in other containers before transport to WCRRF.
As of July 27, the laboratory had processed 18 drums of remediated nitrate salts, EM Field Office Deputy Manager Stephen Hoffman told the Northern New Mexico Citizens’ Advisory Board at the time, according to Scott Kovac, operations and research director for the nongovernmental Nuclear Watch New Mexico. In each case, workers use a glove box to mix the waste with the inert substance zeolite to ensure the mixture is not combustible. The waste will eventually be sent south to WIPP.
The laboratory had hoped to process one drum per day, but was treating two-and-a-half to three per week at the end of last month, Kovac said by email.
Nitrate-salt treatment is covered under the legacy nuclear cleanup bridge contract held by the laboratory’s management and operations prime, Los Alamos National Security. The bridge contract expires on Sept. 30, and DOE has not yet announced a new contract award.
