Kenneth Fletcher
WC Monitor
12/19/2014
The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board has uncovered “significant flaws” in the hazard and accident analyses at Los Alamos National Laboratory’s facility for loading transuranic waste, according to a Dec. 9 DNFSB staff report. LANL’s Radioassay and Nondestructive Testing Shipping Facility is used to load the waste for shipment, and in 2013 contractor Los Alamos National Security submitted a Documented Safety Analysis to the Department of Energy for approval. While the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Los Alamos Field Office reviewed the safety basis and came out with two conditions of approval and two directed actions in July 2014, the DNFSB has since uncovered additional issues.
The Board staff report notes: “The staff review team identified significant flaws in the hazard and accident analyses, resulting in inadequate identification and implementation of safety controls required by 10 CFR 830 and DOE Standard 3009.” The issues were not flagged during the Los Alamos Field Office’s July review, the report found. It also states: “The review revealed inadequate identification and implementation of safety controls to protect the public and worker.” LANL’s transuranic waste program has fallen under increased scrutiny after waste processed at the lab was linked to the radiological release at the Waste Isolation Pilot plant.
For example, the DNFSB staff reviewed “a hazard scenario with high offsite consequence that was mistakenly captured as moderate consequence and a scenario that was inappropriately identified as being bounded by a design basis accident included in the accident analysis,” the report states. That includes scenarios involving a crane failure and a seismic accident. Additionally, the documented safety analysis “includes non-conservative assumptions for multiple high consequence accident scenarios in both unmitigated and mitigated analyses,” according to the report. The Los Alamos Field Office did not respond to request for comment this week.
