Weapons Complex Vol. 25 No. 43
Visit Archives | Return to Issue
PDF
Weapons Complex Monitor
Article 9 of 14
November 07, 2014

Minor Amount of Radiation Detected After WIPP Restarts Ventilation Fan

By Kenny Fletcher

Kenneth Fletcher
WC Monitor
11/7/2014

During the restart of a ventilation fan last month at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, a very minor amount of radioactive contamination was detected outside of the mine. The release was not unexpected, and the amount detected is not believed to impact human health or the environment. On Oct. 21, contractor Nuclear Waste Partnership restarted the 860A fan to perform routine maintenance. That fan was put into service for about two months following the February radiation release to operate the filtration system that cleaned air from the underground before it was exhausted outside the mine. “So we had the potential to have some contamination in the ductwork and the internals of that fan,” NWP Deputy Recovery Project Manager Tammy Reynolds said this week at a Carlbad WIPP town hall meeting.

NWP undertook precautions and a methodical approach to restarting the fan “because we wanted to be sure that we were prepared if there were some particles had come loose during that evolution,” Reynolds said. “We were very pleased with the results of that. It was actually less than we had anticipated during that evolution, the switching of the fans only takes a few minutes. The whole evolution took less than 20 minutes to complete. We did not see any activity that was released from the exhaust stack that would have impacted personnel or the environment.”

A small amount of americium 241 was detected in an on-site air sampler a few hundred feet from the mine’s exhaust, Russell Hardy of the Carlsbad Environmental Monitoring and Research Center said at the town hall.  “At that sampler we saw one-tenth of a disintegration per second, so it’s a very small amount,” Hardy said, adding: “This is actually below our free release limits, which means that this filter could have been tossed in the trash or folded up and put in a lunch bucket…. What we saw is measurable, it’s there, but it’s very small and does not pose any concern to public health or the environment.”

Comments are closed.

Partner Content
Social Feed

NEW: Via public records request, I’ve been able to confirm reporting today that a warrant has been issued for DOE deputy asst. secretary of spent fuel and waste disposition Sam Brinton for another luggage theft, this time at Las Vegas’s Harry Reid airport. (cc: @EMPublications)

DOE spent fuel lead Brinton accused of second luggage theft.



by @BenjaminSWeiss, confirming today's reports with warrant from Las Vegas Metro PD.

Waste has been Emplaced! 🚮

We have finally begun emplacing defense-related transuranic (TRU) waste in Panel 8 of #WIPP.

Read more about the waste emplacement here: https://wipp.energy.gov/wipp_news_20221123-2.asp

Load More