The Energy Department needs to address some shortcomings in fire protection at the Solid Waste Management Facility (SWMF) at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) said recently.
There is no comprehensive fire-detection system covering the entirety of the facility, which is staffed only four days per week for 12 hours per day, according to a DNFSB staff report attached to an April 24 letter from acting board Chairman Bruce Hamilton to Energy Secretary Rick Perry. “Thus, SWMF could experience a fire that goes undetected for more than two hours” – the amount of time listed in the documented safety analysis for the facility as limiting “dose consequences” from a fire on storage pads for transuranic waste.
While the SRS security contractor, Centerra, checks on the facility periodically during off hours, the inspection does not include every TRU waste storage pad, the DNFSB report says.
Located mostly in the site’s E Area, the Solid Waste Management Facility provides storage, disposal, and other operations for radioactive, mixed, and hazardous wastes. This includes both waste generated by SRS and waste received from other locations.
A July 2017 fire, caused by heavy equipment in a nonradiological section of the facility, offers reason for concern, the board said. The fire department responded after being notified by workers at another SRS facility who saw smoke. Had the incident happened at night, when smoke is harder to see, “it is possible that the fire would have burned undetected for an unknown period of time,” according to the report.
The DNFSB also noted the Solid Waste Management Facility currently uses pallets of combustible material to store 55-gallon waste drums. Such a setup could allow a fire to spread quicker.
“We are reviewing the Board’s letter,” a DOE spokesman said by email on Friday. The DNFSB document did not call for an official response from DOE or the contractor.
