PHOENIX — The Los Alamos National Laboratory expects next month to begin treating 60 drums that contain a combustible mix of nitrate salts and kitty litter like that one that blew open and released a small amount of radiation into the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in 2014, officials said here Monday.
The incident closed the transuranic waste storage site for nearly three years, and the Department of Energy has since then been working to ensure there is no repeat occurrence at Los Alamos.
A federal readiness review was scheduled to begin Monday for the project, which involves transporting the waste drums 4 miles from the laboratory’s Area G to the Waste Characterization, Reduction, and Repackaging Facility (WCRRF) for processing. Once at WCRRF, a glove box will be used to add an inert substance — zeolite — into the containers so that the mixture is no longer combustible, Randall Erickson, associate director for environmental programs at Los Alamos, said here at the annual Waste Management Symposium.
The federal evaluation is the last administrative hurdle to the treatment program: The state of New Mexico in 2016 approved a modification to the site permit allowing the treatment, and the plan has already gone through a management self-evaluation and contractor assessment, according to Erickson.
After the laboratory makes any changes to the plan mandated by the federal assessment, treatment should begin in mid-April and wrap up in late June or early July, officials said.
Meanwhile, DOE is due by the end of the year to complete a feasibility study for treatment of another 113 drums of the same waste now held at the private Waste Control Specialists complex in West Texas, said Doug Hintze, manager of the DOE Environmental Management Field Office at Los Alamos.
One question there is whether the waste will be treated on site or transported back to Los Alamos for processing, Hintze said.
