State cites half-dozen violations of LANL waste permit
Found during unplanned inspection, N.M. Environment Department says issues were resolved by mid-February
Waste was stored inside a flammable cabinet, highly toxic materials were kept in a cardboard box labeled “nonhazardous,” and gallons of oxidizing liquids were stacked haphazardly atop flammable solids.
State inspectors reported these issues among a half-dozen violations of Los Alamos National Laboratory’s hazardous waste permit in November. Discovered during an unplanned compliance inspection, the problems did not prevent the lab from shipping mislabeled waste out of state just two days later.
Other problems cited in the inspection report were the lab failing to clean up oil leaking at a nonnuclear weapons testing area and mislabeling containers with highly acidic waste.
The New Mexico Environment Department said the issues were resolved by mid-February.
Matt Nerzig, the lab’s chief spokesman, said in a statement that overall, the annual state Resource Conservation and Recovery Act inspection showed improvement from past years, with fewer violations. “That said,” Nerzig added, “we continue to strive for the best possible compliance record, particularly when it comes to protecting the environment, the public and our workforce.”
While previous reports have listed a greater number of violations, the state inspections do not appear to prevent accidents or to provide a full picture of issues that may occur at the lab.
On Nov. 15, two days after state inspectors conducted the compliance inspection, two mislabeled containers of hazardous waste were shipped to a facility in Colorado, the third time in 13 months in which the lab had made errors in shipping waste to the facility. The incident prompted the lab to pause all shipments of hazardous and mixed, low-level radioactive waste for two and half months, which, in turn, led to some waste containers overstaying their allowed time on lab property. This violation could result in state fines of up to $1 million.
The lab also lost track of two containers of hazardous waste in late January, leading to a weeklong “wall-to-wall” search and forcing the lab to implement new inventory procedures.
The state found several waste labeling errors during an inspection in mid-April 2017. That same week, a fire started at the lab’s plutonium facility after a worker opened an unlabeled waste container that ignited, leaving the worker with burns. Following settlement negotiations, the state fined the lab $34,441 for permit violations discovered during the inspection.
The lab’s own reports to the state on hazardous waste permit violations have shown a decline, dropping to 25 instances in fiscal year 2017 from 107 reported the previous year and 421 permit violations discovered by the lab in fiscal year 2015.
The New Mexico Environment Department said the issues cited in 2015 were largely “inconsistencies” in record-keeping and labeling and the result of greater scrutiny.
In the last year, the lab has been cited for a series of problems, including several outside waste management practices. It has faced fines for improperly shipping plutonium out of state by aircraft, a violation of federal regulation, and for poor emergency response practices, including an incident that could have led to a death. The lab also has violated a safety program meant to prevent a runaway nuclear reaction.