State Working on Possible Consquences for DOE
Kenneth Fletcher
WC Monitor
5/23/2014
Though it is “highly unlikely” that Los Alamos will meet its June 30 deadline for transuranic waste removal, it is too early to tell what the consequences will be in efforts to renegotiate a consent order with the state of New Mexico concerning the broader cleanup of the lab, New Mexico Environment Department Secretary Ryan Flynn told WC Monitor this week. The Department of Energy was at the tail end of an effort to remove 3,706 cubic meters of aboveground transuranic waste from Los Alamos when the campaign was derailed by a radiation release at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant potentially caused by a reaction in a LANL waste drum. “I think it’s highly unlikely that they are going to be in a position to complete the 3,706 campaign by the end of June,” Flynn said. “We have to deal with potential risks here and we simply cannot allow any drums where there is even a potential for a chemical reaction to occur to be transported anywhere.”
After about 57 drums at LANL were found to be similar to the nitrate salt-bearing container suspected of contributing to the WIPP release, NMED issued an order this week for DOE to develop plans to secure waste drums at Los Alamos and close open waste panels in the WIPP underground. After discovering LANL drums were potentially involved in the release in early May, DOE indefinitely halted shipments from LANL to Waste Control Specialists, where waste is temporarily being stored during the WIPP shutdown. DOE said at the end of April just before halting the shipments that about 70 shipments remained in the LANL campaign, which was sending a maximum of 10 shipments per week to WCS. About seven weeks of shipments are left at those rates, while only about five weeks remain until June 30. Meanwhile, it’s unclear how long it will take DOE to complete analyses that may allow shipments to restart. The Department did not respond to requests for comment this week on the Los Alamos effort.
DOE’s Track Record ‘Will Be Taken Into Account’
The June 30 deadline comes from a framework agreement developed in the wake of the 2011 Las Conchas wildfire that threatened transuranic waste stored at Los Alamos. In early 2012, the Department and New Mexico announced a new agreement setting up the 3,706 campaign, which came as the Department also officially acknowledged that it would be unable to complete the overall cleanup of Los Alamos by 2015 as required in a consent order with the state. If DOE doesn’t meet the framework agreement deadline, New Mexico will take that into account in discussions on the consent decree, Flynn said. “The consent decree has not been changed and the concept was we wanted the Department of Energy to demonstrate that they could successfully complete a project. And so their track record, for better or for worse, will be taken into account when we determine how to move forward,” Flynn said. Efforts will focus on developing a new schedule for Los Alamos cleanup. “The contamination is there still and it needs to be cleaned up. We have to work on a schedule,” Flynn said.
‘There Will Be Consequences’
But Flynn emphasized that “there will be consequences” for not meeting the 2015 deadline for LANL cleanup. “I’m not prepared to say what the consequences will be at the moment, but I will say very clearly that when the Department of Energy agrees to clean up an area in our state by a certain date and they fail and create expectations in the citizens of our state who believed that they were going to successfully remediate the site in 10 years and they fail to achieve that goal I think there must consequences for failing,” he said.
However, Flynn noted an issue with fines as a potential penalty for missing DOE cleanup milestones. “If a private entity is fined that eats into their profit and hurts their bottom line, but in this case a federal agency has money budgeted for doing their cleanup and when they get fined that unfortunately comes out of their cleanup budget,” he said. He added: “I’m not saying that when I’m looking at what the consequences will be for failing to meet the 2015 deadline and failing to successfully complete the TRU campaign on time that I would fine them. I’m not in any way saying that. But what I want is for them to clean up Los Alamos as effectively and efficiently as possible.”
