ERROR 1
ERROR 1
ERROR 2
ERROR 2
ERROR 2
ERROR 2
ERROR 2
Password and Confirm password must match.
If you have an ACS member number, please enter it here so we can link this account to your membership. (optional)
ERROR 2
ACS values your privacy. By submitting your information, you are gaining access to C&EN and subscribing to our weekly newsletter. We use the information you provide to make your reading experience better, and we will never sell your data to third party members.
Failure of Los Alamos National Laboratory operators to properly package waste may have caused a fire and radioactive release early this year at the nation’s only operating underground nuclear waste storage facility, concludes a recent report. The incident in February injured several workers and shut down the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP), a Carlsbad, N.M., repository for transuranic waste from DOE nuclear weapons facilities including the Los Alamos lab. The repository is not expected to reopen until 2016. In the report, DOE’s independent inspector general finds that incompatible or potentially incompatible materials—cellulose-based kitty litter sorbent and liquid acid neutralizers—were placed in drums with radioactive nitrate salt waste. This may have resulted in a chemical reaction that led to the fire, the report says, adding that the exact cause has not been determined. WIPP stores large volumes of transuranic waste consisting mostly of radioactive clothing, rags, tools, and other material, some of which is combustible. The shutdown will delay cleanups at many DOE facilities and will cost tens of millions of dollars, the report says.
Join the conversation
Contact the reporter
Submit a Letter to the Editor for publication
Engage with us on Twitter