Safety incidents prompt work pause at Waste Isolation Pilot Plant nuke site near Carlsbad

A series of incidents at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant nuclear waste repository, including contamination found on a waste drum, led to a temporary pause of operations in the last month.

The incidents in April included two that WIPP contractor Salado Isolation Mining Contractors (SIMCO) was required to report. Those were a fire in a mop bucket outdoors near the welding facility, believed to be caused by a burning cigarette butt, said Department of Energy spokesperson Valerie Gohlke. A hoist rope also reportedly dropped 15 feet onto the facility floor while it was being replaced, according to the April report from the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board published May 3. No one was injured in either incident, Gohlke said.

Two other incidents led to separate shoulder and knee injuries for worker from slip and fall accidents, Gohlke said and the workers returned to their posts shortly.

This led to a “safety stand down” SIMCO said, pausing various shifts at different times at the facility while workers attended discussions on safety at WIPP.

"SIMCO management responded by implementing a safety stand-down throughout the site, requiring all work crews to attend facilitated discussions about how safety culture affects operational excellence," Gohlke said in a statement. "This action was taken to improve situational awareness of common safety hazards and to drive accountability at all work levels for assigned tasks."

She said before the incidents, WIPP went six months without any injuries, and that each safety task taken on included a pre-job review of the work steps, associated hazards and steps taken to improve safety.

"We take safety seriously and believe that injuries and accidents are preventable through good communication, proper planning, and work controls," Gohlke said. "After six months of performing more than 1.4 million safe work hours without a recordable injury, SIMCO is refocusing everyone on the safety culture and re-emphasizing the importance of safe workplace behaviors."

The report also detailed radioactive contamination found in a waste drum as its shipment container was disassembled while preparing the waste for disposal on March 1. Radiological control supervisors arrived at the Engineer Products Divisions area at the WIPP site within three hours of the discovery, the report read, after brackets were removed from the bottom of the container.

Crews surveyed workers in the area who were not wearing personal protective equipment as the Engineer Products Divisions area is considered a “radiologically clean” facility, read the report. No contamination was found on personnel.

This was the second contamination found on that container known as TRUPACT 148 which was sent to WIPP from Idaho National Laboratory in 2022. On April 9 of that year, a liquid tested positive for radioactivity found on the outside of the drum as it was being prepared for disposal.

Shipments from Idaho were suspended temporarily after the contamination was found, records show. Ten workers were evacuated from WIPP’s Waste Handling Building and tested for radioactive contamination as was the air at the facility.

Gohlke said the latest contamination on the container was later found to be residue from the decontamination agent used in 2022, and no other contamination was found within or outside of the container.

"Procedures are currently being reviewed and additional measures will be put in place to ensure no future incidents of this kind," she said.

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DOE pursuing new tech to ramp up Cold War waste from Los Alamos

To better prepare waste for shipment to WIPP and avoid future contamination, a new system was demonstrated at Los Alamos National Laboratory to provide deeper analysis of waste drum contents.

The equipment was designed to analysis the radioactivity of the waste more sensitively than previous processes, read a news release from the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management (EM). The equipment was used to better prepare legacy waste left over at the lab from the Cold War and could lead to better use of space as it is emplaced at WIPP.

In the DOE’s recently negotiated 10-year permit with the New Mexico Environment Department (NMED), issued on October 2023, the State pushed a clause requiring the federal government to set aside space at WIPP for Cold War waste left at Los Alamos. A waste panel being mined at the facility was designated for such waste.

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Jeff Holland, manager of the Universal Drum Assay and Segregation System (UDASS), the new waste evaluation system at Los Alamos, said the equipment will provide more precision in preparing legacy waste for WIPP and ensuring there is enough space for it at the repository.

“By using more sophisticated measuring techniques, we can safely reduce the uncertainty in the waste determinations and increase the efficiency of shipping waste offsite,” Holland said. “At LANL, for example, our cleanup work includes retrieving and processing hundreds of transuranic waste containers for shipment to WIPP.

“The more sensitive analysis should better differentiate between transuranic and low-level waste.”

The UDASS was first used successfully in the United Kingdom, read a DOE news release, and the agency hoped to use it to “expedite” legacy waste shipments from Los Alamos. The DOE since 2022 worked to find a site and population of waste to demonstrate the technology before wider use, the release read, and began analyzing 400 shipments at Los Alamos in March 2024.

“In addition to a more accurate and quicker analysis of waste drums, the Universal Drum Assay and Segregation System (UDASS) could allow for more efficient use of cleanup dollars for legacy waste operations,” Holland said.

Adrian Hedden can be reached at 575-628-5516, achedden@currentargus.com or @AdrianHedden on the social media platform X.

This article originally appeared on Carlsbad Current-Argus: Safety incidents prompt work pause at Waste Isolation Pilot Plant