The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board will hold a public hearing in Santa Fe on Tuesday, March 22, to collect information on hazards related to transuranic waste stored at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). The board has also expressed interest in the Department of Energy’s activities and plans for minimizing those hazards.
Many waste management operations at LANL are located in Area G, the laboratory’ primary waste repository, where transuranic (TRU) and other radiological and hazardous wastes are received, characterized, inspected, and processed for storage and, when appropriate, eventual disposal at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in southern New Mexico
A number of TRU-waste containers that are now forbidden at WIPP are under observation in a climate-controlled structure at LANL. They contain inappropriately remediated materials including nitrate-salts that caused a radiation release in the underground depository in February 2014. The incident was traced to a TRU waste container from a batch that originated at LANL. A question likely to be fielded at the hearing is whether there has been a “render-safe” solution found for the related containers that remain under surveillance.
Waste management changes that will be under consideration at the DNFSB session include formal amendments to the Area G documented safety analysis and technical safety requirements, including revisions of the transportation safety document that allows unqualified containers to be transported to the lab’s Waste Characterization, Reduction, and Repackaging Facility. Additional changes will be needed to allow remediation of the nitrate salts.
The board also has an ongoing concern about the potential for wildland fires to reach the nuclear waste that is stored on laboratory property, entailing mitigation activities along with elaborate readiness and emergency preparations. LANL has escaped serious consequences from two dangerous fires in 15 years, but the area is more or less threated by fire every year. Although this year began wetter than usual, projections indicate subnormal precipitation and higher temperatures, which increases the risk of forest fires.
Scheduled from 5 to 9 p.m. at the Santa Fe Community Convention Center, the hearing begins with opening remarks by DNFSB Chairman Joyce L. Connery. She will be followed by John Pasko, DNFSB’s group lead for nuclear materials processing and stabilization. Pasko also spoke at the last DNFSB meeting in Santa Fe in November 2011, when the main topic was emergency wildfire preparedness and response at LANL’s Plutonium Facility.
Madelyn Creedon of the National Nuclear Security Administration and Monica Regalbuto of DOE Environmental Management will address federal oversight issues related to LANL waste management. A second session will feature principal laboratory managers: LANL Director Charles McMillan, NNSA Los Alamos Field Office Manager Kimberly Davis Lebak, and DOE-EM Los Alamos Field Office Manager Douglas Hintze.
There will be a 45-minute public comment period, a rare opportunity for residents of New Mexico to speak to the officials in charge of the local nuclear weapons laboratory.
