Shipments of transuranic waste to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant from National Nuclear Security Administration operations at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico were set to resume this week after being on hold since an ignition scare in February, according to the Department of Energy.
“After a careful review of the drum event” at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) Los Alamos Technical Area-55 facility, the Carlsbad Field Office has agreed the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) will resume taking shipments from there starting this week, a Carlsbad-based DOE spokesperson said by email this week.
The restart, tentatively set for Friday, comes after DOE evaluated documents provided by NNSA’s Los Alamos manager, Triad National Security, on the cause of the accident and steps being taken to prevent a similar event in the future, the DOE spokesperson said. The DOE Carlsbad Field Office and the WIPP waste characterization program are also taking additional safeguards, “while longer term improvements by the facility are completed,” the spokesperson said.
“We are currently on the WIPP schedule for two shipments per week,” of NNSA transuranic waste, a laboratory spokesperson said in a Wednesday email. Shipments from the DOE Office of Environmental Management legacy cleanup contractor, Newport News Nuclear-BWXT Los Alamos, were unaffected by the NNSA-Los Alamos suspension.
Technical Area-55 Plutonium Facility-4 was evacuated Feb. 26 at Los Alamos after sparks flew from a transuranic waste drum. The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board said in an April assessment the episode likely could have been avoided if workers took out prohibited titanium metal fines from the waste stream and exercised more care in welding.
A 55-gallon drum was being packed for shipment to WIPP at the time of the incident near the NNSA glovebox.
“All corrective actions are expected to be completed this year,” the safety board said in a staff report dated June 11 and posted on its website within the past week. Those actions include “operations-specific Chemical Compatibility Evaluations” to better document potential ignition sources, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board said.
