By Vincent Ialenti, June 28, 2018
What happened, in the years leading up to Valentine’s Day 2014, that made a canister of nuclear waste burst open and spew out fire underground at a US facility for the long-term disposal of radioactive military waste? According to one widely publicized scenario, a simple run-of-the-mill typo led to organic kitty litter mistakenly being used to soak up liquid in the drum instead of another kind of absorbent material. This ultimately led to a chemical chain reaction that made heat and pressure build up in the drum, causing it to erupt. But was that “simple” clerical error symptomatic of a much deeper, system-wide problem – involving a US Energy Department plan to rush the pace of nuclear waste disposal? What were the political, social, and financial elements involved in making Los Alamos’ waste drum #68,660 erupt that February night? What can be done to prevent similar accidents – which can have price tags of hundreds of millions of dollars or more – from happening again in the future? A cultural anthropologist spent 10 weeks onsite after the event, logging 43 interviews and trying to answer these questions. Here is what he found.
The Bulletin elevates expert voices above the noise. But as an independent, nonprofit media organization, our operations depend on the support of readers like you. Help us continue to deliver quality journalism that holds leaders accountable. Your support of our work at any level is important. In return, we promise our coverage will be understandable, influential, vigilant, solution-oriented, and fair-minded. Together we can make a difference.
View Comments
The article "Waste makes haste, How a campaign to speed up nuclear waste shipments shut down the WIPP long-term repository," by Vincent Ialenti, shows an incredible amount of research and effort. It describes in detail the common public view of the events of Valentine's Day 2014 at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in a salt dome near Carlsbad, New Mexico. I wish to describe a very different view that I and many Los Alamos National Laboratory workers and retirees, like myself, share regarding the event.
Basically I believe the very small radiation release in Panel-7 was a minor event that's a MOLEHILL BLOWN INTO A MOUNTAIN. That phrase is the title of an editorial I wrote printed in a Sunday Albuquerque Journal shortly after the event.
I'm a physicist, retired after 38 years from LANL, JRC-EURATOM (Ispra, Italy), DOE, and the IAEA (Vienna, Austria). My field for almost 50 years is nuclear safeguards and nonproliferation. However, I've also followed the planning and design of WIPP from its beginning; some of the measurement instruments used at WIPP and the originating sites were developed by me and colleagues.
WIPP is licensed at present for Low-Level-Waste (LLW); however, it was designed to store High-Level-Waste (HLW). Specifically, it was designed to store vitrified logs of HLW from Hanford containing the waste solutions from the reprocessing of plutonium (Pu) produced by the reactors at Hanford and Savannah River. The perception that one of WIPP's panels, large well-sealed rooms, could not contain the low level radiation and isotopes released from the drum defies the facts.
However, that is exactly what the media, watchdog organizations, and even our congressional delegation promoted. That the facility could be closed for 3 years and cost half a billion dollars is absurd in my opinion. Far more dangerous events have occurred at Los Alamos and other DOE facilities that were cleaned up in much shorter times, for much less money, and without the accompanying publicity. I believe this could have been handled without closing WIPP, in a few weeks, and for less than $1M.
The lesson I wish could be learned from this is 'how the ignorance and fear of the words RADIATION and NUCLEAR, costs our country and others unbelievable coin and energy sources.'
Dr. T. Douglas Reilly, Los Alamos, New Mexico
"...Valentine’s Day 2014, that made a canister of nuclear waste burst open and spew out fire .."
No it did NOT "spew out fire".