Another Department of Energy facility is preparing to resume shipping its transuranic waste to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico.
Shipments of contact-handled waste from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California should begin in 2019, lab spokesman Nolan O’Brien said Tuesday by email. The resumption is based on availability of funding
When asked about the resumption of shipments, O’Brien said it’s due to funding being available for certification to ship the waste to WIPP. The spokesman did not elaborate.
Livermore last shipped waste to WIPP in 2010, O’Brien said. The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory was born in the early 1950s during the Cold War to advance research and development of nuclear weapons. It continues to work on the nation’s stockpile stewardship.
The New Mexico disposal site was closed for nearly three years following a February 2014 underground radiation release. Energy Department criteria for accepting waste shipments at WIPP have been modified to reduce the chances of recurrence of the February 2014 incident. The characterization program is designed to ensure TRU waste is safely packaged and ready for disposal before it arrives at WIPP.
Since resuming emplacement of waste from other DOE sites in April 2017, WIPP has accepted shipments from the Idaho National Laboratory, Waste Control Specialists in Texas, Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee, and the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. Other facilities, such as the Hanford Site in Washington state, are still waiting for their turn.
The Energy Department confirmed recently it would receive the more radioactive remote-handled waste from the Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois by the end of the year. Argonne has not shipped waste to WIPP since 2013.
Two Richland, Wash.-based contractors serving the Energy Department and other federal clients have formed a joint venture to promote a material sorting technology that was shown off this week.
The two small businesses, Federal Engineers & Constructors (FE&C) and ISO-Pacific Remediation Technologies, said Sept. 19 the venture, Innovative Remediation & Integrated Systems LLC (IRIS), will promote commercial use of their technology to minimize waste streams at environmental remediation sites.
The joint venture held a full-scale demonstration of the technology Tuesday through Thursday in Richland.
The IRIS joint venture said in a fact sheet its technology uses 3-D mapping to provide a “focused excavation” of contaminants in buildings and soils, which significantly reduces “disposal of high volumes of clean soil.” The sorting technology uses the advanced mapping, 100 percent assay of all materials and soil, and “directed” demolition and excavation to reduce waste volumes from 50 to 70 percent, according to IRIS.
The technology “eliminates high cost of burying low or no contaminated soil,” it said. Most soil remediation and waste disposal jobs like those at DOE’s Hanford Site is based on gross excavation rather than focused excavation, according to IRIS.
Both joint venture partners have more than a decade of experience serving clients including the Energy Department’s semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and the U.S. Navy, IRIS Program Manager John Reilly said in a press release.
ISO-Pacific specializes in technology development for environmental cleanup, while FE&C has more than 17 years of experience in demolition and excavation of hazardous structures, the IRIS news release said.
In September 2017, Federal Engineers & Constructors paid $2 million to resolve allegations it violated the False Claims Act in connection with small business subcontracts. The company did not admit wrongdoing in the case.
The firms say their S3 material sorter and elemental analyzer laser equipment is licensed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
An employee for the Energy Department’s Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico returned to work after suffering cuts from broken glass caused by a chemical reaction, a DOE spokesperson confirmed Sept. 28.
“A small chemical reaction occurred on September 14th which was contained in a chemical hood at Technical Area 35. No radioactive material was involved, and no contamination occurred,” the spokesperson said.
Technical Area 35 is used for nuclear materials research and is one of the more restricted sections at Los Alamos.
The worker, who was wearing protective gear, suffered lacerations mostly on the hands, due to broken glassware. After being treated at the Los Alamos Medical Center and later at the University of New Mexico Hospital in Albuquerque, the employee was released and is back to work, according to the DOE spokesperson.
The laboratory is investigating the cause of the chemical reaction, and is reviewing all applicable processes and procedures associated with this type of work at the facility, the spokesperson said.
The DOE laboratory declined to reveal the age or gender of the Los Alamos employee.
The incident was first reported Sept. 24 by the Albuquerque Journal. After the accident, the New Mexico Environment Department authorized detonation of two 50-milliliter containers of the same “unstable High Explosive crystalized material” that caused the worker’s injuries, the newspaper reported.
Destruction of the explosive material was completed Sept. 14, according to the report.
Meanwhile, the Energy Department on Thursday pledged another five years of grant funding for NMED to continue providing independent environmental monitoring and oversight of DOE work at Los Alamos and the Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque.
The five-year grant, worth $13.6 million, started Oct. 1 with the new federal fiscal year. The funding will help NMED protect the health, safety, and environment for New Mexico residents, DOE said.
