Chris Schneidmiller
WC Monitor
8/28/15
A team of experts found hundreds of design flaws that together could pose a serious risk to the operation of a key facility within the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant (WTP) at the Hanford Site, according to a report leaked this week.
“The review teams identified 362 design vulnerabilities that could limit [Low-Activity Waste] Facility functionality and operability for which mitigation is highly recommended prior to the start of radioactive operations and in many cases prior to the start of commissioning,” states the report, which was commissioned by the Department of Energy and made public by the watchdog organization Hanford Challenge. “Unless resolved in a timely manner, these vulnerabilities are expected to result in unacceptable risk to the overall project mission.”
The WTP is being built to process millions of gallons of radioactive waste left over from plutonium production operations at the Eastern Washington facility. The Low-Activity Waste (LAW) Facility is one of four key components of the plant, and when operational will process for safe storage waste that has undergone pretreatment for removal of higher-level radioactive materials.
Hanford Challenge said it received the report from an unidentified engineer working at WTP, who indicated in a press release that DOE has been holding on to the document for months.
The 37 experts cited eight “key programmatic deficiencies” in the design of the Low-Activity Waste Facility, including inadequate discipline in design execution and control, inadequate consideration of industrial safety and hygiene requirements, and inadequate consideration of success of operations and maintenance activities. Potential risks associated with these vulnerabilities include suboptimal capacity to prevent radioactive contamination from escaping some rooms in the plant and a gas seal that could stop functioning at 250 degrees despite being designed to function up to 1,250 degrees, among many others, according to the report.
Both DOE and Bechtel National, the lead contractor for the WTP, said the leaked report was a preliminary version of the document that included a number of factual errors.
“We provided the review team our comments on an early version of their report, which contained factual inaccuracies,” Bechtel said in a prepared statement. “Our analysis showed that fewer than five percent of the design review comments in that version were new, and none of them were major. They are already being addressed. We have not seen the final report.”
An official with knowledge of the report said the leaked report dates to March. Bechtel found that roughly 36 percent of the findings were not credible, 52 percent had been previously identified and have been or will be addressed, 4 percent were new and credible, and 6 percent would affect the contract for the plant and would require DOE consideration, according to the official.
Hanford Challenge, though, characterized the report as “suppressed,” and argued it was in the public’s and Congress’ best interests to know of possible problems with the LAW Facility. “For them to now posit that we knew all these things is kind of ridiculous,” Hanford Challenge Executive Director Tom Carpenter told WC Monitor.
The report offers a long list of recommendations to address the design vulnerabilities identified by the experts. These include:
- “Conduct reviews to ensure that the primary documents relied upon to establish design functions and requirements are accurate and complete. A key objective is to ensure that specific/quantifiable requirements are established.”
- “Consider implementing current industry best practice in development of facility human machine interfaces.”
- “Evaluate and document possible airborne radioactivity work locations, given maintenance and operations tasks to be performed, and determine whether existing engineering controls will be effective in mitigating the airborne hazard.”
The Hanford cleanup project has faced a variety of troubles over the years, including disputes between DOE and the state of Washington over delays in the schedule for completing the effort and lawsuits over treatment of workers who raise safety concerns with management.
Carrying out the fixes suggested in the report could require a significant delay and rebuilding of the LAW Facility, which is now projected to begin operations in 2022, Carpenter said. “It’s not a matter of correcting some paperwork,” he said. “This is a department that doesn’t understand even the basics of nuclear safety.”
It was not immediately known when the final version of the report would be issued. The draft document has not been completed, DOE said in a prepared statement.
“The design and operability review for the Low-Activity Waste Vitrification Facility is an example of the reviews, audits, and oversight that are a standard part of the design and construction process for the Waste Treatment Plant,” Bechtel said.” We welcome the feedback.”
