The Energy Department’s Carlsbad Field Office should update the technical review process for sites that ship transuranic material to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico, according to a new interim federal report.
The DOE Office of Enterprise Assessments (EA) said April 29 it wants the Carlsbad Field Office to carry out technical reviews periodically for generator sites that send defense-related transuranic waste to WIPP. Currently the reviews are only done prior to commencement of waste shipment.
Such technical reviews at DOE generator sites are a key part of Carlsbad’s oversight effort to prevent the wrong type of waste, or poorly packaged containers, from being sent to the New Mexico facility.
Conducting follow-up assessments to the pre-shipment technical reviews should provide independent verification that DOE facilities are making effective corrections to issues that were identified earlier, the Office of Enterprise Assessments said in its revised interim report.
Enterprise Assessments is worried that the Carlsbad Field Office, which oversees DOE’s national transuranic waste program, lacks a system to ensure fixes to problems are made in a timely manner. This follow-up is “imperative” to ensure the TRU waste program complies with New Mexico Environment Department standards, the report adds. The state agency issues the hazardous waste permit for WIPP.
The Carlsbad Field Office should also establish “consistent and formal” methods for documenting issues identified during the technical reviews, the EA report says. This should lay out specific responsibilities of the contractor that packages and ships the transuranic waste, DOE representatives in the field, Carlsbad, and WIPP contractor Nuclear Waste Partnership.
The Office of Enterprise Assessments is preparing a series of interim reports looking at radioactive waste handling and shipments across the DOE weapons complex. Ultimately, the process will give rise to a nationwide look at the issue for Energy Department nuclear sites.
Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette ordered this national look into waste shipment practices last July, while he was still DOE deputy secretary. The move came shortly after the disclosure that the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn., for six years mistakenly sent improperly packaged radioactive waste for disposal at the Nevada National Security Site.
The interim report credits Carlsbad and Nuclear Waste Partnership for carrying out an effective self-assessment after the DOE order, and for making plans for an improved container inspection program following discovery at WIPP of a waste drum with a pinhole from a certified program.
The salt mine disposal site has stepped up its waste acceptance program since February 2014, when a waste drum from the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico overheated and caused an underground radiation leak. The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant was forced out of service for about three years thereafter.
In another April 29 interim report, the Office of Enterprise Assessments said the two major contractors at Los Alamos need to coordinate more closely on reduced physical movement of waste at the site.
Triad National Security, the LANL operations manager, and legacy cleanup contractor Newport News Nuclear BWXT Los Alamos should work together to reduce the movement of waste containers within storage warehouses, EA said. The Energy Department’s Central Characterization Program (CCP) for transuranic material requires drums be “shuffled” in order to perform “non-destructive assay” tests on the radioactive and chemical traits inside.
“Several hundred waste containers are moved each week” at Technical Area-55 facilities, the assessments office said in the report. But the high number of movements increases the chances of a mishap that could result in a container being damaged.
Both Triad and N3B did adequate self-assessments in 2019, although a staffing shortage at the DOE Office of Environmental Management field unit at Los Alamos meant it did not perform a “shadow review” of the N3B evaluation, the report says. The National Nuclear Security Administration office at LANL played a “joint” role in the Triad self-assessment, according to the interim report.
