The Y-12 National Security Complex mistakenly sent improperly packaged radioactive waste to Nevada for six years because no one at the Oak Ridge, Tenn., site wrote strict rules for disposing of weapon-related materials, according to a new Department of Energy report.
From 2013 through December 2018, the National Nuclear Security Administration facility sent nine shipments containing a total of 32 containers for disposal at the Nevada National Security Site, DOE acknowledged in July. Y-12 is the NNSA’s uranium processing hub.
The mishap cost Y-12 its certification to ship low-level and mixed-low-level radioactive wastes to Nevada for disposal, and the Tennessee site has yet to have that privilege restored, according to an interim report published last week by DOE’s Office of Enterprise Assessments.
“The root cause of the non-compliant shipments was ‘failure to adequately flow down weapon dismantlement and disposition requirements into implementing procedures for WRM disposition,’” according to the report.
According to the DOE office, Y-12 management contractor Consolidated Nuclear Security is working on a set of corrective actions to improve processing of weapon-related materials. Those fixes, the contractor hopes, will enable ot to recertify the program to ship such material to Nevada for permanent disposal. Some of Y-12’s waste-related material — which comes from disassembly of nuclear weapons components — is disposed of as classified low-level waste, according to last week’s report.
The corrective action plan, though, still “does not address weapons disposition oversight,” the report adds. It also says some people in Y-12’s waste management program felt “uneasiness” about the way the site handled weapons related materials.
The Office of Enterprise Assessments did note that CNS ran into “need-to-know” roadblocks that prevented the prime from accessing classified DOE information that could have helped personnel understand what was in the classified components the site was disassembling and packaging for disposal at the Nevada National Security Site.
“CNS should consider including Design Authority participation in the planning of dismantlement activities for [weapons related material] that is manufactured at other facilities,” Enterprise Assessments said.
“We will evaluate and address the identified deficiencies and opportunities for improvement to further enhance our waste management program,” a spokesperson for CNS wrote in an email.
