The Energy Department on Wednesday had planned to start treating the troublesome stream of transuranic waste at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) that leaked radiation into the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant three years ago, but the day came and went without any confirmation that DOE and its contractor had begun the work.
An agency spokesperson at the New Mexico lab directed queries to DOE’s Environmental Management headquarters in Washington, where a spokesperson did not reply to multiple requests for comment.
Treatment of 60 55-gallon drums of potentially explosive nitrate salt waste was slated to begin Wednesday in Los Alamos’ Waste Characterization, Reduction, and Repackaging Facility, according to a plan the Los Alamos Environmental Management field office and lab prime contractor Los Alamos National Security filed with the New Mexico Environment Department last week.
A spokesperson for the state agency did not reply to a request for comment.
The 60 waste containers at Los Alamos hold a mixture of nitrate salts left over from Cold War weapons production and organic kitty litter, which a Los Alamos National Security subcontractor mistakenly packed into the barrels to keep the irradiated salts dry. A similarly packaged container that made it to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in 2014 exploded underground and leaked radiation into the mine after the organic material reacted with the nitrate salts.
WIPP subsequently closed for about three years, and Los Alamos National Security was given notice that it would cede its legacy cleanup responsibilities to a new contractor managed by DOE’s Office of Environmental Management.
Los Alamos National Security’s two-year, $230 million bridge cleanup contract, awarded in 2015 while DOE organized a competition for a longer-term follow-on, expires Sept. 30. The agency has been racing to treat the dangerous nitrate salt stream before cleanup responsibilities transition to a new contractor this summer. In its final solicitation for a new 10-year, $1.7-billion Los Alamos Legacy Cleanup contract, DOE told bidders the transition to the new contract could begin as soon as July 3.
Last year, Doug Hintze, manager of DOE’s Environmental Management Field Office at Los Alamos, said the 60 barrels of nitrate salt waste would be treated this summer and ready to ship to WIPP sometime between 2018 and 2022.
Besides the barrels left at the lab, there are also more than 100 barrels of Los Alamos nitrate salts in private storage with Waste Control Specialists in Andrews County, Texas. The company has held the waste since 2014 and will keep custody of it for at least another six months under a recently extended contract with Nuclear Waste Partnership: DOE’s management and operations contractor for WIPP. The pact was worth $25 million before the extension.
DOE has discussed a mobile treatment system to clean up the waste now stored in Texas, but that proposal is not final, let alone funded.
