Workers at the Los Alamos National Laboratory on Wednesday morning sent the first barrel of potentially explosive nitrate-salt waste to the building where it will be cleaned up and prepared for eventual disposal at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, a source in New Mexico said.
Stephen Hoffman, deputy manager of the agency’s Environmental Management Los Alamos Field Office, broke the news that afternoon at a meeting of the Northern New Mexico Citizens’ Advisory Board in Santa Fe, according to an attendee at the meeting. The waste barrel was transported to the Waste Characterization, Reduction, and Repackaging Facility (WCRRF) from the lab’s PermaCon building.
There are 60 barrels of what DOE calls remediated nitrate salt waste at Los Alamos. Each contains a combustible mixture of irradiated nitrate salts created by Cold War weapons programs and organic cat litter mistakenly added to the waste as a drying agent by a Los Alamos subcontractor. At Wednesday’s meeting, Hoffman said the agency plans to finish treating the containers by Aug. 1.
In 2014, a barrel of these remediated nitrate salts was placed in the underground of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant further south in New Mexico, where a reaction between the organic cat litter material and the salts caused an explosion that leaked radiation and shut down the repository for almost three years.
DOE had once expected to start treating nitrate salts at Los Alamos as early as April 19. It was unclear Wednesday when the barrel moved to the WCRFF would actually be treated. A DOE spokesperson did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
There also remain at Los Alamos 19 drums of nitrate salts that were never treated with the organic kitty litter blamed for the radiation release at WIPP. these should be packed up and ready for disposal at WIPP by Sept. 30, before a new contractor takes over the lab’s legacy nuclear cleanup work, Hoffman said at Wednesday’s meeting.
The improperly packaged drums are set to be emptied, then repackaged with the inorganic material zeolite before being repackaged for shipment to WIPP.
Los Alamos National Security is treating the nitrate salts under a two-year cleanup contract worth about $320 million and set to expire Sept. 30.
Before the accident at WIPP, legacy waste cleanup was part of Los Alamos National Security’s prime management and operations contract for the 70 year-old weapons lab. After the accident, DOE announced that work would be removed from the prime contract and performed under a new contract to be managed by the agency’s Office of Environmental Management.
However, Los Alamos National Security got a short-term contract while DOE conducted a competition for a long-term follow-on expected to be worth $1.7 billion over 10 years, including options.
DOE now expects to award the new Los Alamos Legacy Cleanup Contract in June.
Even after the new contractor is on the job, the nitrate salts won’t be shipped to WIPP for final disposal until 2018, at the earliest, Doug Hintze, manager of the Environmental Management Los Alamos Field Office, has said.