A federal operational readiness review (FORR) for the Transuranic Waste Facility at the Las Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in New Mexico was completed earlier this month, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board reported recently.
The review at the Energy Department facility began in late July and was scheduled for completion on Aug. 9, according to a DNFSB site report, dated Aug. 4 and released this week. Completion of the FORR and any resulting changes for the facility mark the last big obstacle facing this long-anticipated project, the board said.
There was no word Wednesday on the results of the federal review.
Las Alamos reported in January that construction was complete at the Transuranic Waste Facility, which will be used for storage of newly generated transuranic waste – waste generated since 1999 – and certification for shipment to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, capabilities currently housed at the lab’s Area G. The Energy Department’s semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration has estimated the facility will have a service life of 50 years.
The project “has a long history of deviations from DOE requirements,” the DNFSB said in the memo. As an example, the board noted the facility had been planned to conduct container repackaging and TRUPACT II shipping activities, but those have been cut out of the work scope.
Delays in certification issues also mean “that the TWF will temporarily be unable to fully enable shipments to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant.” In addition, new safety class seismic switches do not work as intended, and have been inadvertently activated by severe weather.
There are a number of “open issues” still to be addressed for the fire hazards analysis as well, the site report says.
The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board is an independent agency within the executive branch with a mission to identify potential threats to public health and safety at DOE’s defense nuclear facilities. Since DOE is a self-regulating entity, the board constitutes the only independent technical oversight of operations at the nation’s defense nuclear facilities.
