A “trace amount of plutonium” found inside a glove box at the Los Alamos National Laboratory on June 27 did not endanger any employees, a spokesman for the Department of Energy facility in New Mexico said Wednesday.
Employees discovered an “unexpected powdery residue” underneath a brush in a material management room glove box at the lab’s Plutonium Facility, according to a July 5 memo from the LANL resident inspectors for the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB). The glove box is supposed to be swept clean at the end of daily activities, and the workers reported the substance to management, triggering a brief work suspension.
“The workers rightly paused the work and reported the issue,” the laboratory spokesman said by email. Because the material was enclosed in a glove box, there were no worker exposures.
The material has since been removed under the lab’s material recovery and recycling program and the glove box is back in use, the spokesman said. He did not specify where the substance was taken after it was removed from the glove box.
Pit Technologies Division management briefed the workforce before operations resumed, according to the DNFSB memo.
The Plutonium Facility (PF-4) is operated by Los Alamos management prime Triad National Security for research, development, and production of plutonium pits.
