Kenneth Fletcher
WC Monitor
5/16/2014
As this week marked three months since the Feb. 14 radiation release at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant that has left the facility shut down for the foreseeable future, there is still no clear answer as to what caused the release, though officials have found evidence of a reaction that generated heat. Forays into the mine last weekend and this week found melted plastic and burnt material around numerous waste drums, bolstering the theory that a chemical reaction occurred inside some of the drums emplaced in WIPP’s Panel Seven. Late this week, DOE officials informed Congressional staff that new photos of the mine showed a waste drum from Los Alamos National Laboratory with signs of heat damage and a lid that was bent upwards. It remains unclear, though, how that drum was involved in the event.
Ongoing evaluations at Los Alamos and other national labs should soon give an idea of whether or not the LANL drums are the cause of the release, New Mexico Environment Department Secretary Ryan Flynn told WC Monitor this week. “The lab is actively working and trying to figure out what could have happened,” he said. “They are doing a variety of different bench tests, they are looking at the temperatures it would take to cause reactions. They have a team of scientists working on analyzing what’s possible. They don’t have many definitive results yet, but at the end of this week Los Alamos is going to know a lot more about the kitty litter theory.” Los Alamos was in the midst of an accelerated push to remove aboveground transuranic waste when the release occurred.
LANL Drum Reaction ‘Just a Theory’
However, it could turn out that the release was caused by something completely different, Flynn said. “I’m not saying this nitrate salt theory is bogus at all. A group of the world’s top chemists is working right now at investigating that theory. Just based on the evidence that we have, at this point it’s still just a theory,” he said, noting that NMED is examining the photos from the panel in question. “It’s kind of strange. Many of the drums are neatly stacked, haven’t toppled over. There is no kind of scarring or charring on the roof. It melted the plastic and some of the plastic covers on top of some of the boxes, but it didn’t melt the label on the side of one of those boxes,” he said. “We don’t have enough information to hone in on a single theory.”
The state also hasn’t ruled out the possibility that there is a link between a Feb. 5 salt haul truck fire in the underground and the Feb. 14 radiation release, Flynn said. “I am not saying that it’s the primary theory. Whether it would be directly related to the fire itself is unclear,” he said. “We simply at this point really don’t know until you have eyeballs on the actual drum where the incident occurred.”
Did Other Drums with Nitrates Come from Idaho or SRS?
Drums containing waste streams with similar profiles to the LANL drums with nitrates came from at least one other site, Jim Blankenhorn, the URS official tasked as WIPP recovery manager, said last week. But he declined to identify the other site being considered when asked at a town hall meeting held last week in Carlsbad, N.M., stating that he “didn’t want to set up that site unnecessarily” and “cause a whole lot of angst.” Blankenhorn did, however, say that the waste panel in question contained drums from Los Alamos, Idaho and Savannah River. Transuranic waste processing at Idaho is performed by Idaho Treatment Group, comprised of B&W, URS and EnergySolutions; as well as CH2M-WG Idaho, comprised of CH2M Hill and URS. At Savannah River, transuranic waste processing is handled by Savannah River Nuclear Solutions, made up of Fluor, Newport News and Honeywell.
The lack of transparency over which drums and sites are being examined has irked Flynn. “That really, really ticked me off,” Flynn said this week. “I just think that’s not appropriate. If you have information provide it. My understanding is that it was Idaho National Lab that has similar waste.” Repeated requests to Idaho and Savannah River regarding whether their waste drums contained nitrate salts did not turn up an answer. Both sites responded this week with the same DOE statement issued in last week: “As part of the ongoing efforts to identify the cause of the February 14 event at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, we are evaluating all possible causes including the waste packages themselves. All possible scenarios will be thoroughly investigated until the cause of the event has been determined.”
New Mexico Increases WIPP Reporting Requirements
NMED this week issued an administrative order to WIPP requiring a host of actions to increase reporting requirements to the state. It requires DOE and NWP to supplement weekly reporting requirements to NMED with more detailed biweekly reports starting on June 13. Additionally, a draft underground compliance plan is due to the state on June 26 including a detailed compliance schedule for underground requirements that currently are not met. It also requires WIPP to “under no circumstances commence normal operating status without prior inspection and approval of the NMED.”
Community Frustrated
Some Carlsbad officials this week expressed frustration with the amount of time being taken. “This is three full months and they still don’t know what happened, they are still speculating. They go down in the mine maybe once a week. Why in the world aren’t they going down continuously?” Carlsbad Nuclear Task Force Chair John Heaton asked. “Until they grab the drums out of there they aren’t going to know what happened. Everything is going to be conjecture. I can’t understand why they don’t have a forklift down there to move the drums to find out which ones caused it, bag them up and get them to a laboratory.”
