The contractor for the Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico held off on transuranic waste emplacement during October while it looked into worker illnesses linked to ventilation.
The transuranic waste shipments have resumed, Nuclear Waste Partnership (NWP) spokesman Donavan Mager said by email Friday. The spokesman did not say how long work had been suspended. The facility’s public database does not show waste receipt or emplacement during the last two weeks of October.
Two workers became ill in September at WIPP, according to the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB). One got sick while working in disposal Panel 7, where waste sent to the site is currently being placed underground, the DNFSB said in an Oct. 5 monthly site report, posted on the board’s website Oct. 23.
“Potential causes of his distress included heat stress and underground air quality,” the DNFSB said, adding a second worker subsequently become ill in the vicinity of Panel 7. Elevated levels of nitrous oxides could be a factor in the workers’ illnesses, the DNFSB said.
Mager said the contractor ordered the safety pause after high levels of volatile organic compounds were discovered in WIPP’s above-ground Waste Handling Building.
“Low airflow conditions remain a significant underground worker safety challenge” at WIPP, the DNFSB said.
The contractor is implementing corrective measures including increased ventilation in the Waste Handling Building and in the WIPP underground and additional “scrubbing capabilities” for diesel-powered equipment used underground to reduce the risk of people getting sick from diesel fumes, Mager indicated. Improved chemical monitoring devices have been installed and a team is looking into other ways to enhance air quality, he said.
In the wake of a February 2014 underground radiation release, WIPP drastically reduced airflow levels to prevent the spread of contaminants. Nuclear Waste Partnership is expected to award a contract soon for construction of a new permanent underground ventilation system that should by 2021 increase airflow to 540,000 cubic feet per minute, more than three times the current rate.
