Waste options open chasm
By ROGER SNODGRASS, Los Alamos Monitor EditorSANTA FE – A forum on closing Material Disposal Area G Wednesday night grappled with one of the most nearly impossible tasks of cleaning up legacy waste at Los Alamos National Laboratory.
Under the current schedule and under penalty of a legally binding agreement, LANL and the Department of Energy are supposed to find a way by the end of 2015 to close out a complex disposal area that has slowly accumulated nearly one million cubic yards of exposed clothing, equipment, and other junk and materials contaminated by radioactivity or chemicals or both.
“At its current state MDA-G doesn’t pose a risk,” said Dave McInroy, LANL environmental program director, who made the central presentation, “but we don’t know what risks it may pose in a future state.”
The forum was sponsored by the Northern New Mexico Citizens Advisory Board (NNMCAB), an advisory group that is chartered by the DOE to provide input on environmental issues at Los Alamos.
While the meeting was related to a formal Consent Order between the state and the laboratory as well as its institutional managers, officials of the New Mexico Environment Department, the main regulator of that agreement, did not attend.
Earlier in the week a federal audit revealed that DOE officials have significant doubts that the cleanup can be accomplished on time because of budget limitations.
Marissa Stone, spokeswoman for the New Mexico Environment Department, said the state had informed the advisory board that the department would not be attending.
“We informed the CAB in advance we would not be attending because of its letter to the Department of Energy,” Marissa Stone, spokesperson for NMED said this morning.
The letter expressed NNMCAB’s willingness to cooperate with DOE’s intentions to renegotiate aspects of the consent order, based on its current budget shortfall.
NMED has taken the position that there will be no changes to the Consent Order as it stands.
The forum did not deal with that controversy, but focused on the job at hand.
The solution for closing out MDA-G, as indicated in the presentations and discussions, must be made to work for a thousand years, a fraction of the active life of some of the radioactive materials that must be held in check – and considerably longer than the life-spans of all but a few institutions in human history.
The disposal area, MDA-G, is not one just one thing, as McInroy made clear. The area breaks down into a welter of types of units, pits, shafts, trenches, below and above ground, and with various combinations and conditions of regulatory responsibilities.
By September 2008, LANL and the Department of Energy are scheduled to deliver to the New Mexico Environment Department a formal document known as a Corrective Measures Evaluation, which will evaluate ways to go about the job. Sometime afterward, NMED will select a preliminary remedy, and then, after a round of public input, a final one.
Although McInroy acknowledged reluctance to discuss the preliminary options for closure at MDA-G, he summarized current information about the two poles of a possible solution and the difficult balancing propositions that remain to be calculated.
The range of remedies discussed in public runs from some kind of surface barrier or cover system (a cap), potentially combined with various degrees of engineered containment structures and assorted treatments of excavated materials, to a comprehensive retrieval and evacuation of the waste for off-site disposal.
In terms of time and money there is a huge difference between the simplest engineered cover and the most comprehensive total-removal scenario.
The cap and related activities would cost “in the neighborhood” of $64 million, would require the shortest amount of time to accomplish would have the lowest risk to workers and the public, according to McInroy.
By contrast, removing and hauling the million cubic yards of waste would cost as much as $15 billion, and take as long as 20 years, 70 million miles of transport. While this option would also have the highest risk of workers and the public, it would also eliminate long-term risks.
Comments during a question and answer session focused on the immense scope of the project and ongoing disagreements about the adequacy of the laboratory’s systems for monitoring contaminants in the groundwater.
Bob Neill, retired director of the Environmental Evaluation Group that provided independent analysis of DOE proposal at the Waste Isolation Pilot Project, noted that previous analysis has concluded that “institutional control is lost beyond 100 years and caps fail in 500 years.”
In answer to questions that were raised about human intruders over vast periods of time, Tom Longo of DOE said, “All tough policy decisions must involve intangibles.”
30 comments:
Funding cycle at DOE - 1 year
New president - 0.75 years
Required safety - 1000 years
Ability to predict the future - 30 years at best
Why should I believe a thousand year projection or even a hundred year one?
Thanks,
Why should I believe a thousand year projection or even a hundred year one?"
No one is asking you to "believe" anything. This isn't a religion. All technical data, predictions and projections carry error bars. We are just being asked whether this is a rational, logical plan based on currently available knowledge. If anyone has knowledge beyond that, speak up. Better ideas are always welcome. Given that SOMETHING must be done, present a better idea, prove why the plan won't work, or shut up and get out of the way.
The Citizen Advisory Board (CAB) is a sham. The DOE determines the composition of the CAB, not the citizens of the communities being impacted by the Lab. Is it any wonder the CAB is so willing to mouth the DOE's desire to "renegotiate" with the State? But then again isn't that what puppets do--mouth the words of the puppet master? What a joke.
8:44 pm: "The Citizen Advisory Board (CAB) is a sham. The DOE determines the composition of the CAB, not the citizens of the communities being impacted by the Lab. Is it any wonder the CAB is so willing to mouth the DOE's desire to "renegotiate" with the State? But then again isn't that what puppets do--mouth the words of the puppet master?"
You need either to substantiate your inflammatory allegations with facts, or shut up. Please justify your use of the derogatory terms "puppets" and "puppet master". Do you even know who the NNMCAB mmebers are or what their individual goals are? Or how they were nominated or appointed? If not you are uninformed, ignorant, and trying to start an unnecessary fight. What's your agenda?
Their agenda comes from Santa Fe, which is obviously where the poster is from.
The activists love to hide in plain sight on this blog.
To 8:16 PM
You had fun.
Now show me the data and the error bars for your prediction. Going forward because you want to is not the same as having well thought out data, e.g. the Big Dig, the Iraq war, the dot.com bust, and hedge fund instabilities.
Your turn.
P.S. Are the error bars on a thousand year projection greater or smaller than 100,000 %? How many people in the dark ages of Europe predicted biological cells, anitbiotics, television, gunpowder or Brittany Spears?
I am always ready for facts and less ready for rhetoric without facts.
Unfortunately there are near-surface-disposed plutonium wastes at Area G, which are equivalent to wastes being shipped to WIPP. Area G cannot meet the siting requirements of a WIPP-like facility nor the performance requirements.
7:07 am: "Their agenda comes from Santa Fe, which is obviously where the poster is from.
The activists love to hide in plain sight on this blog."
The poster (me) lives in Los Alamos, and I am not an "activist" whatever that is. I just happen to believe that citizens have a right to be heard in Washington. If you don't like the message, get involved and change it. Are you implying there are no conservative LANL supporters (like me) in Santa Fe? Pretty broad brush, there. Plus, I notice you didn't answer any of the questions. Just to clarify, I asked about 8:44 pm's agenda, not the CAB's.
To DOE's Longo - will you place Area G wastes into WIPP-like dispositon - onsite or ofsite?
It appears that DOE has every intention of leaving the wastes at Area G - just look at the PA/CA, which was prepared by LANL.
2:35....
Saturday morning and I'm checking back on the blog.
So you live up here, fine. You sound like one of them.
Did I know you were up here or who you are? No
Did you make yourself and your statements clear outside the realm of your own mind ? No.
Don't assume.
Technically, the citizen does have a voice in Washington but that doesn't mean they actually do anymore.
Actually, was I talking to you or the liberal fringe...think about it.
7:53 am: "Actually, was I talking to you or the liberal fringe...think about it."
Actually, you are talking to a conservative Republican. It must be my sense of balance and fairness that threw you off.
The plotonium waste hazard will exist at Area G far more than 1000 years on a mesa that is being down-cut by the forces of nature. What is the cost of maintaining the mesa and access to the mesa for more than 10,000 years - and yes, the monitoring, etc? There can be no loss of institutional controls during the duration of the hazard. This is why we have WIPP for similar wastes.
As Dave M. Program Director, a B.S. degreed biologist, said:
"The disposal area, MDA-G, is not one just one thing, as McInroy made clear. The area breaks down into a welter of types of units, pits, shafts, trenches, below and above ground, and with various combinations and conditions of regulatory responsibilities."
LANL & DOE do not intend to meet WIPP-equivalent requirements for plutonium at MDA G or at other areas at the Lab, e.g., TA49.
Why should down-steam (SW & GW) folks (e.g., Santa Fe) and generations to come feel secure?
The issue also exists for plutonium in alluvial stream channels leaving the Lab - decades of effective retention, at most, but the hazard lasts 1000s of years. Is DOE meeting its public trust responsibilities for the nation and the Rio Grande? - I think not!
How disturbing - Dave & Tom, representing DOE & LANL.
Interesting, I reviewed the MDA Area G PA/CA several years ago (a controlled document), if you look at the back-up materials, it was assumed caps were maintained well beyond institutional controls to ensure their integrity. Unfortunatley, that is not what was stated in the main text. Ron Curry should take a hard look at Area G and other MDAs.
Yes, Dave, a TSM Program Director -a BS biologist, brings you the Area G disposition - skeptical?
OK, so nobody "believes" the proposed solution. Any viable alternatives? (Hint: ship everything to WIPP). Unfortunately that doesn't address deep shafts and trenches that contain cntaminated jeeps, tanks, etc.
Near-surface disposal of TRU wastes for the duration of their hazard on a mesa being down-cut by the forces of nature is essentially impossible even if you assume monitoring and maintaining the facility. This is why we have the siting and performance requirements for WIPP. A WIPP-equivalent disposal facility could never be sited at LANL, and yet, DOE continues to pretend that TRU wastes, like those going to WIPP, can be disposed of on a mesa top and that institutional controls (including M&M) can be lost at some point. The public should be skeptical.
Who cares what DOE/LANL wants to do? There is a consent order. DOE/LANL has no credibility, and NMED is therefore uninterested in renegotiating the consent order.
Not true 12:43 - DOE wants to "dispose in-place" all of Area and this doesn't just include the mixed TRU wastes at issue, it includes all of Area G, including the buried TRU wastes, which DOE can dictate unless other requirements are triggered e.g., CERCLA NPL. NMED could trigger this requirement. Also, it is quite possible that LANL is the only DOE site operating with such disregard for the law.
For radioactive wastes (especially pre-1970 and even mixed wastes) at LANL, NMED is not the administrative authority. For mixed wastes post RCRA, it becomes very messy.
Dave's comment (that follows) is code for DOE's intent to leave TRU wastes at Area G "in-place" despite the fact that the WIPP-equivalent wastes will be left in near-surface "disposal" and require M&M well beyond our lives and lives of our children, and .... Is this what NM (especially citizens of the Rio Grande) want? It seems Ron Curry needs to step up since DOE isn't.
A "welter" is simply nonsense.
The disposal area, MDA-G, is not one just one thing, as McInroy made clear. The area breaks down into a welter of types of units, pits, shafts, trenches, below and above ground, and with various combinations and conditions of regulatory responsibilities.
5:14 pm: "Dave's comment (that follows) is code for DOE's intent to leave TRU wastes at Area G "in-place" despite the fact that the WIPP-equivalent wastes will be left in near-surface..."
It's not "code" for anything - it's a true description of Area G. As you would know if you bothered to read the disposal reports made public since the SWMU reports of the early 90's. Curry is playing a game of "chicken" he can't win. The idea of NMED fining LANL for not doing work that has not been funded by Congress is laughable. Oh wait, Obama is going to fix all that.
"The idea of NMED fining LANL for not doing work that has not been funded by Congress is laughable."
Would you care to explain why this is laughable? Is this fine not in NMED's power?
9:45 pm: ""The idea of NMED fining LANL for not doing work that has not been funded by Congress is laughable."
Would you care to explain why this is laughable? Is this fine not in NMED's power?
Of course it is within their power; the fact that they would consider it seriously is what is laughable. Curry is a megalomaniac. Look it up. No good can come of his obsession, only ridicule and bad results for the citizens of NM. LANL cannot do (under penalty of federal law) what Congress has not funded. Curry can tilt at the LANL windmill all he wants, but Congress, not DOE or LANL, holds the purse strings. Curry just contributes to the public perception of NM as a joke of a state (oh, Bill helps too).
Actually 8:17, the orginal document is the CEARP report.
Any TRU wastes left at Area G will require M&M for the duration of their hazard (thousands of years) and thus be in long-term storage and not disposed of as in WIPP. Did Dave include all long-term storage M&M costs for the duration of the hazard? If DOE is going to have an honest discussion relative to long-term disposition of buried TRU wastes in MDAs at LANL, DOE must acknowledge its stewardship responsibilities and Ron Curry should make sure that DOE does.
Has DOE actually submitted annual budget requests to Congress, which would keep LANL in compliance, that were cut by Congress? Has LANL actually placed compliance budgets as its top priority in discussions with the Congressional delegation?
7:16 am: "Actually 8:17, the orginal document is the CEARP report."
Although not originally made public, most of the actual disposal reports from the 40's and 50's have been declassified. Several years ago they were housed in the ER Reading Room. Don't know where they are now, but I assume they are kept in an area restricted from public access.
Actually, all of the CEARP referenced documents are stored in the ER archives. The CEARP report existed before the the ER archives. The CEARP document is a public document and it and source materials were the source materials for the SF New Mexican fouling our nest story.
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