Waste project finishes dramatically under buduget and far ahead of schedule

Contact: James Rickman, elvis@lanl.gov, (505) 665-9203

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LOS ALAMOS, N.M., Dec. 21, 2001 -- Two years ahead of schedule and $13 million under budget, the U.S. Department of Energy's Los Alamos National Laboratory this week completed a project that allows Laboratory waste handlers to fully inspect all waste containers located at the Laboratory’s transuranic waste storage area.

Waste handlers at the Laboratory’s radioactive waste storage and disposal area -- Area G -- have unearthed the last of more than 17,000 waste containers that had been stored for nearly 20 years on three asphalt pads and then covered with tarps, plywood and earth. The waste-recovery work was part of the Transuranic Waste Inspection and Storage Project, or TWISP, which placed the thousands of transuranic waste containers above ground so they can be inspected, characterized and certified for planned shipment to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in Carlsbad, N.M.

In addition, crews installed specially engineered vents on all excavated drums. The vents are an added safety device that prevent the potential buildup of hydrogen gas inside the drums.

Although the previous covered storage configuration had been acceptable during earlier days of Laboratory operations, the storage method did not allow waste handlers to regularly inspect the waste containers. In the spring of 1992, Los Alamos waste handlers inspected 55-gallon drums stored on the pads, found corrosion on some of them and notified officials at the New Mexico Environment Department of the findings. As a result, in January 1993, NMED ordered the Laboratory to remove the containers from the earth-covered pads and place them above ground.

Laboratory and NMED officials expected TWISP to be completed by 2003 at a total cost of $50 million. This week’s removal of the last drum puts the project two years ahead of schedule. The project cost $37 million.

“We are very proud of this accomplishment,” said Gilbert Montoya, TWISP manager. “No other facility within the DOE complex has undertaken a task like this one, so the entire process had to be invented as we went. The crews who performed the work are to be commended for helping us consistently improve our processes as the project progressed. We would not have been successful without them.”

TWISP crews safely excavated nearly 17,000 55-gallon drums and 200 fiberglass-encased plywood boxes from the three pads. When work began on the first pad, crews performed the excavation under a fabric dome with an interior atmosphere maintained at negative air pressure to ensure that any potential radioactive contamination would be contained within the work area if it were to escape from a heavily corroded or perforated drum. The work was slow and tedious, and crews took nearly three years to completely excavate the first pad.

But the experience proved that most of the drums and boxes on the first pad were in remarkably good shape. Some drums showed evidence of corrosion, but none were leaking. Waste handlers placed the corroded drums inside 85-gallon “overpack” drums as a standard precaution. After excavating the first pad, crews concluded that they could perform the excavation work on the next two pads safely without using the fabric dome. The Laboratory and the DOE cooperatively developed a set of safety processes and procedures that ensured the success of open-air excavation of the next two pads. Without the fabric dome, the pace of the work increased considerably.

Because Area G is a Hazard Category Two nonreactor nuclear facility, work is performed under strict safety and regulatory requirements. The entire excavation project was performed safely; no radioactive material was released to the environment from any waste container during the course of the project. Los Alamos waste handlers regularly informed NMED personnel of all work processes, findings and progress reports on TWISP.

“LANL and the DOE should be recognized for their significant achievements at the TWISP site,” said NMED Secretary Peter Maggiore. “By bringing this project in two years ahead of schedule and $37 million under its original budget, LANL and the DOE have demonstrated the capacity for effective project management.

“It would be my hope that the cost and time savings associated with this project can be translated to other environmental restoration activities at the Laboratory,” Maggiore said. “In addition, timely transportation of this material to the WIPP facility will further reduce environmental risks at LANL.”

The history of the three asphalt pads dates back to 1970, when the Atomic Energy Commission (a predecessor of DOE) directed its facilities around the nation, including Los Alamos, to begin storing transuranic waste so that the waste could be retrieved for shipment to WIPP. Before then, transuranic waste had been disposed, along with low-level radioactive waste, in shallow landfill cells or trenches. Starting in 1957, such unsegregated waste was disposed of at Area G -- located on Mesita Del Buey, a finger-like mesa between Pajarito Canyon and Canada Del Buey on the Lab’s eastern border.

As a consequence of the 1970 AEC order, Los Alamos began segregating transuranic waste from low-level waste, and the Laboratory dedicated specific storage units at Area G to transuranic waste. By the late 1970s, Los Alamos officials recognized the need to upgrade transuranic waste-management practices -- practices that focused on transuranic waste storage instead of disposal -- so waste could be easily retrieved. In 1979, Los Alamos constructed the first of three above-ground asphalt pads containing densely packed arrays of waste containers that later were covered with plywood, tarps and soil.

TWISP has received recognition from a number of agencies: The project was awarded a Green Zia from NMED in 1999, DOE Performance Excellence Awards in 1999 and 2000 and the DOE-Albuquerque Operations Office Manager’s Award this year.

Because TWISP was so successful, Los Alamos waste specialists plan to travel to DOE’s Hanford Site and Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory to provide training and guidance on excavation procedures. Those sites have waste drums and boxes stored in earth-covered pads similar to the ones excavated at Los Alamos.

Los Alamos National Laboratory is operated by the University of California for the U.S. Department of Energy.

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