LANL Facility on Cold Standby Due to Roof Issues

The Los Alamos National Laboratory’s (LANL) Waste Characterization, Reduction, and Repackaging Facility (WCRRF), which is used to decontaminate and repackage transuranic waste, remains in “cold standby mode” following the discovery of between 8 and 10 inches of standing water on the roof of the structure, according to a Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) site representative report released this week. After finding water on the roof, lab personnel “requested a priority maintenance response,” the July 17 report says. As a result of the incident, discussions at the facility highlighted the lack of “preventive maintenance routines” for the roof and previously uncompleted maintenance efforts, including “a work order for corrective maintenance to repair the leaking roof in October 2014” that was “never finalized,” and “a separate effort to replace the roof” that was “cancelled due to conflicting construction in the area,” the report says. It notes that management “is working to replace or repair the roof, initiating additional repairs for damage to the drywall ceiling, increase the frequency of rounds while in COLD STANDBY, and starting qualification processes to increase the number of operators for these rounds to more than one.”