Drum breach: Operational temporalities, error politics and WIPP’s kitty litter nuclear waste accident

2021 ◽  
pp. 030631272098660
Author(s):  
Vincent Ialenti
Keyword(s):  
New Mexico ◽  
Nuclear Waste ◽  
Atomic Bomb ◽  
National Laboratory ◽  
The United States ◽  
Department Of Energy ◽  
Los Alamos ◽  
Performance Incentives ◽  
Los Alamos National Laboratory ◽  
Political Economic

In February 2014 at the WIPP transuranic waste repository in New Mexico, a drum erupted in fire. It exposed 22 people to radiation, shut down the underground facility for 35 months and cost the United States over a billion dollars. Heat and pressure had built up in the drum due to chemical reactions with an organic kitty litter, Swheat Scoop, which had been mistakenly added to it at Los Alamos National Laboratory, the birthplace of the atomic bomb. This article disrupts two prominent narratives: (a) that the accident was induced by a typographical error made after a waste packaging operations supervisor misheard ‘inorganic kitty litter’ as ‘an organic kitty litter’ during a meeting, and (b) that it was induced primarily by ‘mismanagement’ at WIPP, Los Alamos and the DOE’s New Mexico field offices. It does so by exploring how a series of overambitious political initiatives, fraught labor relationships, financialized subcontracting arrangements and US Department of Energy (DOE) performance incentives set the stage for Los Alamos’s notorious error by accelerating US waste packaging, shipping and repository emplacement rates beyond systemic capacity. Attention to operational temporalities shows how an often-overlooked nexus of schedule pressures, political-economic imperatives and regulatory breakdowns converged to modulate nuclear waste management workflows and, ultimately, trigger a radiological accident.

Integrated Quality Assurance Program for Transuranic Waste Management at the Los Alamos National Laboratory Plutonium Facility

2003 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. J. Balkey ◽  
L. J. Sanchez ◽  
R. E. Wieneke
Keyword(s):  
Quality Assurance ◽  
New Mexico ◽  
Waste Management ◽  
National Laboratory ◽  
The United States ◽  
Quality Assurance Program ◽  
Direct Result ◽  
Alamos National Laboratory ◽  
Los Alamos ◽  
Los Alamos National Laboratory

Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) is one of two design laboratories in the United States Department of Energy’s (DOE) weapons complex. It has over 60 years of experience in handling radioactive materials and, consequently, in radioactive waste management. The current focus at LANL for actinide research and development is the Plutonium Facility, which has been in operation since 1978 and is the major source of transuranic (TRU) waste. The Nuclear Materials Technology (NMT) Division is responsible for operating the Plutonium Facility. It has a dedicated group of personnel who manage radioactive and hazardous waste, and address environmental regulations. The TRU Waste Certification Program has prescriptive requirements that must be met for waste to be certified by the DOE’s Carlsbad Field Office, which provides oversight to the final waste repository, the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in Carlsbad, New Mexico. Quality assurance expectations are also well defined, from top-tier documents such as 10 Code of Federal Regulations 830.120. Quality Assurance Requirements, which carry the force of law, through CAO-94-1012, Quality Assurance Program Document, from WIPP, to LANL internal working documents. Internal and external audits are conducted regularly to verify the adequacy of the program for meeting these requirements. To ensure compliance with quality requirements in waste operations, the NMT-7 Waste Management and Environmental Compliance Group has two full-time quality assurance (QA) specialists. They are responsible for maintaining the Quality Assurance Program (QAP). They work directly with waste management personnel, and they are frequently in the field, working beside waste management technicians. They are responsible for ensuring that applicable QAP elements are implemented as required, and that waste operations are effective. They review waste management program documents and waste operations for compliance with requirements, and they observe selected waste operations regularly to ensure that these operations are being conducted in accordance with established procedures. A yearly surveillance schedule is established to guide assessment activities, but it has the flexibility to allow the QA specialists to address any problem areas they may encounter. The QA specialists track performance indicators and evaluate them for systemic issues that may affect quality, including tracking program corrective actions to completion. Monthly reports on QA activities are submitted to group managers. The QA specialists are also asked, on occasion, to lead quality-related investigations and to work with operations personnel to propose solutions. As a direct result of their efforts, the waste management group won Pin˜on quality assurance recognition from Quality New Mexico for the group’s commitment to quality.

DOE Information Exchanges Held in New Mexico

MRS Bulletin ◽  
1987 ◽  
Vol 12 (5) ◽  
pp. 46-47
Keyword(s):  
New Mexico ◽  
Materials Science ◽  
National Laboratory ◽  
Sandia National Laboratory ◽  
Nonlinear Effects ◽  
Department Of Energy ◽  
Quantum Fluids ◽  
Oxide Superconductors ◽  
Los Alamos ◽  
Los Alamos National Laboratory

Two recent DOE information exchanges exemplifying the breadth and depth of materials research supported through BES/DMS were held at Los Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico, on June 15-16 and at Sandia National Laboratory, Albuquerque, New Mexico on June 17-18, 1987. The Division of Materials Sciences (DMS), Office of Basic Energy Sciences (BES), U.S. Department of Energy, holds annual information exchanges at each of the national laboratories. Representatives of all DOE national laboratories as well as representatives of other government, academic, and industrial laboratories are invited to attend the information exchanges.The LANL meeting was opened by laboratory director Sig Hecker, who set the stage for a day and a half of technical presentations concerning BES-supported research at Los Alamos. Organizing the meeting and chairing the first day's session was James L. Smith, chairman of LANL's Center for Materials Science. A wide variety of topics were covered. Leading off was Zachary Fisk, who discussed correlated electrons and high Tc superconductivity. He described work on both heavy fermion systems and the new ceramic oxide superconductors.Subsequent presentations dealt with localized vibrational modes (soliton-like) which can be sustained in solids showing both dispersion and nonlinear effects. Thermal physics and quantum fluids were described and a novel acoustic dilution refrigerator concept was demonstrated. Studies designed to elucidate the structure of molecular solids were also discussed.

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