Kenneth Fletcher
WC Monitor
2/21/2014
In another Waste Isolation Pilot Plant event that may delay missions across the Department of Energy complex, WIPP remains shut down indefinitely following the detection of a likely radiation leak from a waste drum late last week. WIPP was already shut down as the result of an investigation into a Feb. 5 underground fire. But officials had at first hoped to have the site operating by the end of a previously scheduled maintenance outage on March 10, which would minimally impact transuranic waste shipments. “March 10 is no longer a date that we will be able to meet for restoring the shipments to WIPP. That is where we are today,” DOE Carlsbad Field Office Manager Joe Franco said in a press conference this week. “The evaluation for us to go underground and see what actually happened in the event will be driving this as far as the schedule goes.”
In particular, DOE is looking at ways to keep on track its high-profile transuranic waste disposition campaign at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. The effort is ahead of schedule, but it is unclear if the latest setback at WIPP will threaten DOE’s ability to meet a commitment to New Mexico to ship a total of 3,706 cubic meters of aboveground waste from LANL to WIPP by June. “We, the Department of Energy, are looking at the other options and avenues to have some contingencies in place to help remove the waste that is up in the mesa in Los Alamos. We continue to work on those as we speak. We have been coordinating with various sites and also with various entities that could provide some services,” Franco said.
NMED: Meet Deadline ‘Come Hell or High Water’
New Mexico Environment Department Secretary Ryan Flynn said that the state still expects DOE to meet the deadline in its agreement on the LANL waste. “We obviously did not anticipate this disruption, but no, at this point I am not prepared to back off of June deadline,” Flynn said at the press conference. “I have made it very clear that we wanted that removed from Los Alamos by the end of June. My words were, come hell or high water I want that waste off the hill. I do not intend to renegotiate that deadline at this time. Until federal officials have investigated every possible contingency and exhausted every other available option for removing that waste I will not back off that deadline.”
LANL this week emphasized the progress it has made so far in shipments. “We have already exceeded our shipping goal for this February and expect to meet our shipping goal for March,” LANL spokesman Matt Nerzig said in a statement. “The Lab has surpassed shipping goals for the 3706 TRU Waste Campaign since the project began, exceeding our goals for nine consecutive quarters.”
Radiation Detected Matches Waste in WIPP Barrels
A restart date for WIPP operations remains up in the air, Franco said late this week. Workers have not been able to enter the underground to identify the cause of what set off an underground air monitor the night of Feb. 14. However, the radiation picked up by monitors aligns with the signature of waste in the barrels buried at WIPP. “This is the first time that we have had a leak at the facility that we have taken this action on. We are confirming and it matches our waste streams that we currently have in the underground, so we are assuming and believe that it is some of our waste that we have in the underground,” Franco said. All nonessential personnel are currently working at locations off site.
While the Department originally reported that no surface contamination had been detected aboveground, it announced five days later on Feb. 19 that trace amounts of americium and plutonium were found at an ambient air sampling station 0.6 miles outside the site along an access road. “Their presence during this specific time frame appears to indicate a small release of radioactive particles from the WIPP underground exhaust shaft in the brief moments following when the radiation event occurred and when the WIPP ventilation system shifted to the filtration mode,” states a release from the Carlsbad Environmental Monitoring and Research Center. Officials emphasized that the levels detected aboveground remain far below the Environmental Protection Agency’s safety standards.
Additional monitoring is being undertaken at locations in and around the WIPP site, and the state has vowed to independently monitor and verify the situation in addition to DOE efforts. “Any type of radiological release outside of a facility, even though … the levels that they have detected are very low, radiation is simply not supposed to be released outside of the facility. It is not supposed to be released outside of the underground,” Flynn said. “Any type of radiological event concerns me. We are working with the Environmental Protection Agency, we are working with CEMRC, we have a monitoring network in place. Sampling will continue to occur based on air monitoring in order to determine where that release is migrating to.” He added: “Any type of release outside or inside the facility is unacceptable and is disconcerting.”
Could a Falling Bolt Have Caused The Leak?
While Franco emphasized that it is still unclear what could have caused the leak, he said that the site’s design safety basis identifies several possible scenarios. “Some of the items that we postulated would be what we call spalling, roof fall, release of a roof bolt, or a drum actually just falling from how some of those packages are stacked. The probability of those to date have been really, really low. Until we get down there we definitely do not know what it could be,” Franco said, noting that there is no indication of seismic activity related to the release.
The event occurred just a week-and-a-half after the Feb. 5 fire in the underground that started with a truck used to move salt, which resulted in the evacuation of the underground and a subsequent accident investigation. This week Franco said that it is not likely the release is related to the fire. “The fire was about 3,000 to 4,000 feet away from the actual panel where the waste was emplaced. That would be a very unlikely reason for a radiological leak,” Franco said.
Franco also emphasized that additional support is coming to help in WIPP’s response. “We are bringing in a lot of experts from around the complex. We have the contractor bringing in experts from their reachback to make sure we are handling this appropriately,” he said, adding that the expertise is “really focused on the radiological engineering side of the house. They are providing us expertise with plutonium. You know that the waste that we have here at the WIPP facility comes from decontamination at other sites, so it is the same type of workers that put this in the barrels who will be coming to help us with.”
Events Could Impact Approval of New Missions
The latest events come as consideration is being given to using WIPP for a host of new missions, including non-defense government transuranic waste, high level defense waste and even potentially spent fuel. However, Flynn said the recent news will influence the New Mexico’s decision on supporting new missions. “Absolutely. WIPP’s track record is very important. The WIPP is by name a pilot plant. It’s track record is absolutely important, it is something we consider in making any decision about expanding its storage capacity or its mission for different streams of waste,” Flynn said.
