Nuclear Troubles? Not Just in the Military.
We all remember the recent spate of nuclear commanders being relieved by the US military. But it seems bad leadership and/or stupidity isn’t limited to the military’s nuclear community these days.
Back in February, there were two incidents at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) – an underground facility in a salt beds near Carlsbad, NM, that’s 2000’ below the earth’s surface. It was built as a place for long-term storage of the nation’s nuclear weapons-related nuclear waste.
One of those incidents was a truck fire. OK, sometimes stuff happens.
However, the other was a radiation leak. So, how did that leak happen?
Well, it turns out that someone used the wrong kind of cat litter when preparing a batch of highly acidic nuclear weapons waste for storage at the WIPP. Rather than clay-based litter, wheat-based litter was used.
Seriously.
It turns out that this created a mixture that was quite volatile – it has been called “akin to plastic explosives”. After arrival at the WIPP, one such drum cracked open. Twenty workers received radiation exposure (of a low level, thankfully). The facility will require extensive work (to the tune of $500M) for decontamination and substantial time (estimates by the contractor operating the WIPP are 3 years, minimum) before resuming operations.
So, the WIPP contractor eats it, right? After all, their guys screwed up and used the wrong stuff?
Well, not exactly. It seems that Los Alamos National Laboratories (LANL) – not the contractor – prepared the drum of waste for shipment to the WIPP. It turns out LANL’s supporting contractor, Los Alamos National Security LLC, was working in haste to meet a deadline for preparing Cold War waste for shipment that would give them a “leg up” in contract renewal negotiations. An internal investigation conducted at LANL blamed the error on “a typo in a policy manual”. It’s unclear whether that policy manual was prepared by LANL government or contractor personnel.
Four managers – apparently on the contractor side – were reportedly replaced at LANL since the incident. Whether this will have any effect on that contractor’s contract renewal is at this point unclear.
Some details of the WIPP and the original accident can be found here. An explanation for the errors leading up to the mistake causing the leakage incident can be found here. (Unfortunately, this is the short version; the longer version with more details is behind a pay wall.)
So, folks – no, it’s not just the military’s nuclear community that has its “sh!t in the wind” these days. Looks like the rest of the Nuclear Kingdom has its share of problems too.
Category: "Teh Stoopid", Who knows
Don’t know whether to laugh or cry. This is just nuts! As in truly insane kind of nuts.
Would guess that somebody decided that the “green” stuff was “better,” so substituted it instead of the required, clay-based stuff.
I have that feeling, also.
Kitty litter? The wheat-based litter is much more expensive than the clay-based litter, which is almost always on sale and may or may not have coupons available to buy it at Petsmart or Pet Supply Plus or Petco.
Dr. Elsey’s basic clay 99% dust-free is $11 for 20 pounds, $18 for 40 pounds, and I have a $1 coupon for it.
WheatScoop wheat litter is $23 for 25 pounds, $34.50 for 40 pounds, no coupons available, and those lower prices are only if you order direct from the manufacturer.
This is what my tax money is going for? To pay incompetent idiots?
To be fair, Ex-PH2 – if the typo was something like “. . . shall not use clay-based cat-litter . . . ” when it should have read “. . . shall use clay-based litter . . . “, it wouldn’t necessarily have been done to inflate costs. It would have been done to “comply” with a defective policy. Ditto if a statement forbidding the use of wheat-based letter was omitted.
Still – you think that kind of stuff would get thoroughly double-checked before being published and executed, given the potential problems and costs of getting it wrong. Apparently it wasn’t.
OH, I get your point, Hondo, but leaving out ‘not’ is not a typo. It’s a lack of proofreading. And furthermore, a contractor like DoD or WIPP can order stuff like that in bulk, directly from a manufacturer. I can do that, too, but I have no place to store it.
It’s appropriate to assume that they don’t buy it from Petco, but have it delivered in bulk-load rigs pullings hoppers that dump it, just like grain, into an augur-based elevator or bin that holds it until needed.
And when it is needed, the oil drums are partly filled with nuke waste first, then with the litter, and no one – repeat, NO ONE – is checking ahead of time to see if the right kind of kitty litter was delivered.
Maybe they even got a deal of some kind on the wheat-based litter but no one said ‘it’s not clay litter, is that okay’.
This kind of carelessness can be fatal.
Remember the town in Brazil that had to be abandoned and completely destroyed, because some idiot dumped radioactive cobalt, from X-ray machines, into a waste dump nearby, and kids started playing with that pretty blue powder?
I understand the need to follow a policy manual, but if you’ve been near a wheat silo and seen the wheat dust make a sweet flash fire or if you even understand that wheat (aka bread products) can burn whereas clay (aka wet moldable dirt) tends not burn this isn’t really difficult.
Of course add in that a couple of guys were in a hurry so procedure and spellcheck be damned..
There is a reason my insurance carrier makes me store my chemicals in a special room now complete with automatic chemical fire extinguishers and a chemical proof “bathtub” that contains leaks inside the chemical room….you can make a good manual and still have idiots trying to do things their way.
Did anybody else know that Homer Simpson was based on actual events?