The Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico last week halted treatment of remediated nitrate salts for two days after a fire suppression system was damaged at the facility where the work is being conducted.
The Department of Energy lab is treating 60 drums filled with a combustible mix of organic kitty litter and irradiated salt waste, similar to the container that burst open in February 2014 and released radiation into the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, further south in New Mexico. Workers are using glove boxes to mix the waste with an inert substance to prevent additional incidents.
At 9:28 a.m. on Aug. 22, the coveralls worn by a worker at the Waste Characterization, Reduction, and Repackaging Facility (WCRRF) became tangled with a fire riser pressure gauge assembly, leading to the system’s piping breaking off and 50 gallons of water spilling out, according to an update Friday on DOE’s Occurrence Reporting and Processing System.
The incident led to activation of the facility’s emergency response procedure and notification of the Los Alamos Fire Department.
Less than 90 minutes after the accident, the remediated nitrate salts in glove boxes at WCRRF were placed in “safe configuration,” the ORPS update says. The facility was shifted from operations into warm standby at 11:27 a.m.
The fire suppression system was fixed and returned to operation by Thursday. Waste processing then resumed, DOE said.
The Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management, which oversees nuclear cleanup at the laboratory, has not said publicly how many containers have been processed to date. A July 28 site update from the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board said 20 drums had been treated at the time.
Laboratory management on June 30 notified DOE that it would miss deadlines for treatment of the remediated-salt containers and another 29 drums of unremediated nitrate salts. Completion of work on remediated nitrate salts has been pushed back from June 30 to Dec. 22, while the close of processing of unremediated nitrate salts has been rescheduled from Sept. 30 to April 10, 2018.
