Triad National Security is looking to buy a better instrument for taking gamma measurements of transuranic (TRU) waste drums ultimately expected to end up at the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad, N.M.
Triad, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) prime contractor for the Los Alamos National Laboratory, is seeking something “that will provide faster results,” when scanning drums of TRU waste, according to the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB).
That is the upshot of a late January meeting between Triad managers and DNFSB inspectors at Los Alamos, according to a Jan. 23 staff report from DNFSB.
“During a routine inspection, workers self-identified that a drum held more heat source plutonium than allowed under criticality safety requirements,” according to the DNFSB.
“The container was placed in a different part of the facility with an abnormal condition placard pending a written recovery plan,” DNFSB said. “During the factfinding meeting, Triad staff noted that the drum was flagged as unacceptable earlier in its lifecycle due to the high plutonium content; however, this was from the perspective of waste acceptance criteria for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, not from a criticality safety perspective,” according to the DNFSB document.
WIPP is the nation’s only underground disposal site for defense-related TRU, which can include debris from nuclear-contaminated equipment, clothes or rags.