October 06, 2015

Y-12 Storage of Hazardous Materials Under Scrutiny

By ExchangeMonitor

A series of issues involving bulging drums and related problems have prompted standing orders, corrective actions, and increased scrutiny of some of the storage of hazardous materials at the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant in Oak Ridge, Tenn.

Periodic issues with waste or storage drums are not that uncommon, but it appears there have been a number of unusual events and an unusual number of them, according to recently released reports by Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board staff and occurrence reports filed by the Y-12 operations contractor, Consolidated Nuclear Security.

Of note was a recent safety board report that revealed concerns about stored materials associated with dismantlement activities at the nuclear weapons plant’s Beta-2E facility – which is the Y-12 hub for assembly and disassembly operations. The issues generally involved drums that were loaded at Beta-2E and transferred to Building 9720-5, a high-security warehouse that once was the plant’s primary storehouse for weapon-grade uranium (before the Highly Enriched Uranium Material Facility came online in 2010-2011). The events were reportedly the subject of a critique held by CNS to brief senior managers.

The staff report to DNFSB headquarters, for the week ending Aug. 28, indicated some issues were initially raised in late July about the documentation associated with drums that had been transferred to the warehouse.

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