BY MAIRE O’NEILL
maire@losalamosreporter.com
Department of Energy Environmental Management Los Alamos Field Office and N3B, EM’s legacy waste cleanup contractor at Los Alamos National Lab are conducting root cause analyses of two separate incidents that occurred in recent months.
N3B employees alerted the Reporter about issues with some older empty drums that had accumulated some water but were packed in a low-level waste SWB (standard waste box) for shipment. The employees said the SWB was sealed with five coats of Flex Seal, wrapped in shrink wrap and placed on a truck for shipment to an out-of-state facility in Florida.
A weekly site report filed by Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board resident inspector David Gutowski in early July, alleged that N3B personnel received a low-level waste container with “large amounts of free liquid”.
“They packaged and shipped this item offsite for treatment last week. It leaked within its transport vehicle during transit. DOE’s Radiological Assistance Program team and the shipping subcontractor responded and stabilized the package for return to N3B. There was no spread of contamination detected. Now that the shipment is back in a controlled area at Area L, N3B personnel are evaluating how to safely unload and remediate the high liquid container,” Gutowski said in his July 5 report.
N3B executive officer Jeff Stevens said Tuesday the DOE team found no contamination in the liquid that leaked from the SWB and that the package was stabilized for its return to LANL. The driver of the truck, which was being operated by a subcontractor, was in Oklahoma City and discovered the leak during a mandatory check of the shipment.
The purpose of a causal analysis is to identify and understand the causes (both individual and organizational) that contributed to an occurrence in order to correct deficiencies.
The second occurrence involved the removal of flooring in trailers at Area 54. Sources report that for several months, employees were working in a building that consisted of three occupied mobile homes linked together. As the flooring was chipped the floor, the debris was thrown into dumpsters and hauled off the hill for disposal.
Eventually, while the flooring was being removed from the third section of the building, the debris around the dumpster was tested and determined to be asbestos. Although N3B’s Stevens did not disclose the age of the trailers at TA-54, he did acknowledge that trailers manufactured prior to 1979 could possibly have asbestos. Trailers from that time often have asbestos in the ceiling and wall tiles, flooring materials, insulation and textured wall coverings.
More information on these two investigations will be published as it becomes available.