LANL took week to find missing hazardous waste

Lab spokesman calls two lost containers isolated incident; state investigating, considering action

Los Alamos National Laboratory lost track of two containers of hazardous waste earlier this year, requiring a weeklong search for the missing material, according to a letter made public this week.

Three days after the material was discovered, the lab self-reported the error to the New Mexico Environment Department, the March 19 letter says. Misplacing hazardous waste is a violation of the lab’s hazardous waste permit from the state and is the latest in a series of recent problems with materials management and worker safety.

Peter Hyde, a spokesman for the lab, said in a phone call that the missing waste containers “caused some considerable resources to be devoted to finding them, and once we found them, we reported them duly” to the state agency.

It was an isolated incident, Hyde said, but the lab will now conduct weekly “wall-to-wall” inspections at the waste area, in addition to the regular inspections.

“They will be taking inventory of everything and that’s important,” Hyde said.

Allison Majure, a spokeswoman for the state Environment Department, said in an email, “We’re still actively pursuing this matter. Based on the results of our investigation we will proceed accordingly.”

The letter says the missing waste was found Feb. 5, improperly packed into a 55-gallon drum. Care is supposed to be given to the type of materials packed into a drum to avoid reactions among the chemicals.

One of the missing containers held a quarter-gallon of silver-filled epoxy, a paste used to bond electrical materials. The other contained toluene diisocyanate, characterized as a reactive and toxic substance used for sealants. It can cause skin and lung damage, including asthma, and is fatal under the most severe circumstances, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

The material was lost at Area L, a small waste disposal site in Technical Area 54, which shares a boundary with San Ildefonso Pueblo.

No substances were released into the environment from the improper waste packaging, according to the letter, but the lab did take several corrective actions. A “human performance investigation” found personnel had not followed correct procedure, and the incident was not documented in the lab’s Waste Compliance and Tracking System, the letter says.

Tamper-indicating devices were placed on all drums in the waste area, and the lab said it began conducting additional inspections and monthly compliance checks.

Just last month, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Inspector General criticized the Los Alamos lab for failing to keep track of a toxic metal used in nuclear weapons production that also can cause severe lung damage. The inspector general found the lab has not kept a proper inventory of beryllium, and it could not ensure certain rooms had been properly decontaminated before workers used them.

And in December, the state Environment Department asked the lab to produce three years’ worth of documents and correspondence related to waste characterization and documentation discrepancies, pauses in shipments and procedural changes to how waste is processed. Environment Department officials said the information was requested in response to an issue last year when two shipments of waste sent to Colorado with incorrect labels.

Hyde said the missing waste was not discovered as part of this audit.

Misidentified waste also contributed to an accident last year, when substances in an unlabeled container ignited, burning one worker.

The Valentine’s Day 2014 radiation leak at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in Carlsbad is among the most notorious, and costly, examples of mishandling hazardous and radioactive waste.

Los Alamos incorrectly packed dozens of drums with the wrong kind of absorbent, causing one drum to rupture at WIPP. The facility was shut down for nearly three years.