The enforcement arm of the Energy Department’s Office of Enterprise Assessments (EA) has opened an investigation into potential shortcomings in the industrial hygiene program at the agency’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M.
The EA Office of Enforcement is studying “potential deficiencies” in implementation of DOE industrial hygiene requirements by WIPP contractor Nuclear Waste Partnership (NWP), acting office Director Kevin Dressman wrote in a Jan. 29 letter to NWP President and Project Manager Bruce Covert.
“The events, occurring from July through October 2018, include multiple overexposures to hazardous chemicals,” including carbon tetrachloride, nitrogen dioxide, and sulfur dioxide, as well as several problems with worker heat-stroke, Dressman wrote. He added his office would request documents pertinent to the investigation in an upcoming email to NWP.
The EA letter did not provide further detail on the investigation. Industrial hygiene is a discipline that seeks to prevent or minimize potential causes of illness and poor health within the workplace.
The EA Office of Nuclear Safety and Environmental Assessments said in a report last fall that improvements were needed on ventilation-related issues at WIPP.
A spokesperson for the AECOM-led contractor, Donavan Mager, declined to comment on the investigation Thursday.
Worker health and safety is the Energy Department’s top priority, a DOE spokesperson said in a Friday email. The agency’s Carlsbad Field Office, which oversees operations at WIPP, “welcomes the Office of Enterprise Assessment investigation to determine if NWP has adequately addressed and resolved the issues in question.”
The Carlsbad Field Office recently approved a plan by Nuclear Waste Partnership to gradually improve underground air quality at the transuranic waste disposal facility.
The contractor must take small steps because it won’t be ready to meet much tougher underground air quality standards by the Jan. 17 compliance date, and probably won’t comply until a new ventilation system is online in a couple years. Also, Nuclear Waste Partnership continues to rely on diesel equipment for salt mining and waste operations.
Nuclear Waste Partnership has been wrestling with the issue after two workers in the underground disposal space became sick in September. Underground air quality, along with heat stress, were identified as potential causes. The company temporarily halted transuranic waste disposal for part of October.
The Energy Department granted NWP’s plan for near, medium, and longer-term mitigation efforts with the understanding it will continue collecting data from ongoing air monitoring, according to a Feb. 1 report from the Defense Nuclear Facilities Site Board (DNFSB).
The 2016 American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists created a standard, listed in the Code of Federal Regulations, to reduce time-weighted worker exposure to nitrogen dioxide (NO2) from 3.0 parts per million (ppm) to 0.2 ppm.
Nuclear Waste Partnership plans to gradually reduce the NO2 levels underground until it can meet the updated allowable limit by 2022, when the site’s new permanent ventilation system should be operating. The new ventilation system is intended to increase airflow to 540,000 cubic feet per minute, more than triple the current rate.
“Ventilation is the primary means of air quality control in the mine,” Mager said in a Friday email. “With the completion of the Safety Significant Confinement Ventilation System (SSCVS) which is scheduled for 2021, NWP is expected to reach compliance for the 10 CFR 851.22 requirement.”
The NWP plan calls for use of portable and auxiliary fans, use of cleaner-burning diesel fuel, and tweaking administrative and engineering controls as necessary. “The long-term plan is to replace selected diesel equipment with all electric or hybrid units,” according to the DNFSB report.
“Diesel equipment replacement is the single most important protective measure to be implemented in the hazard abatement plan,” Mager said. The contractor procured a battery-operated equipment for loading and hauling, and a hybrid roof bolter, he added. Hybrid units can run in diesel or electric mode.
Nuclear Waste Partnership continues to work with manufacturers to identify underground equipment that would generate fewer diesel emissions, Mager said.
