Page 6 - ARUBA TODAY

A6 U.S. NEWS
Thursday 26 april 2018

Officials say radioactive sludge barrel ruptures now total 4

By KEITH RIDLER week entered the structure aging will be examined.
Associated Press and confirmed the addi- The barrels were eventually
BOISE, Idaho (AP) — A to- tional ruptures, Fluor Idaho going to be shipped to the
tal of four barrels contain- said. Simpson said the rup- Waste Isolation Pilot Plant
ing radioactive sludge at tured barrels contained near Carlsbad, New Mex-
an eastern Idaho nuclear material sent in other bar- ico, but hadn’t yet gone
site were found to have rels to Idaho in the 1960s. through a certification pro-
ruptured, officials said He said those 1960s bar- cess to allow that to occur,
Wednesday, after initially rels likely contained fluids Simpson said.
saying earlier this month and solvents from nuclear At the underground reposi-
that one barrel was leak- weapons production at tory in 2014, a barrel of ra-
ing. the Rocky Flats Plant near dioactive waste ruptured
Officials said there were no Denver. He said it’s pos- after being inappropriate-
injuries and no threat to the sible the barrels might have ly packed at Los Alamos
public, and workers in pro- In this 2016 file photo provided by U.S. Department of Energy originated elsewhere and National Laboratory. The
tective gear have installed shows the Radioactive Waste Management Complex at the been shipped to Denver waste had been mixed
a closed-circuit video cam- federal Nuclear site in eastern Idaho. before eventually being with organic cat litter to
era to monitor the situation. Associated Press sent to Idaho. absorb moisture, resulting
Erik Simpson, a spokesman ed officials that one barrel fighters that entered the The barrels were initially in a chemical reaction.
for U.S. Department of En- ruptured at the 890-square- earthen-floored structure buried in unlined pits in Ida- The incident resulted in
ergy contractor Fluor Ida- mile (2,305-square-kilo- on April 11 to extinguish a ho, but were unearthed as a radiation release that
ho, said it appears all four meter) federal site that in- smoldering barrel reported part of a cleanup process forced the closure of the
55-gallon (208-liter) barrels cludes the Idaho National other possible breaches, at the site. Simpson said repository for nearly three
ruptured the same day Laboratory. and crews outside heard a high-tech examination years and prompted an
they had been packed. Simpson said three Idaho some of the barrels rupture. of the unopened barrels expensive recovery effort
An alarm on April 11 alert- National Laboratory fire- A three-person crew last found they had unopened and a major policy over-
containers, and were haul for handling Cold
moved to the earthen-floor War-era waste.
structure that’s 380 feet Simpson said shipments of
(116 meters) long and 165 waste from Idaho that has
feet (50 meters) wide. gone through the certifica-
He said the barrels were tion process have resumed,
emptied, the contents ex- with loads of about 16 bar-
amined, and then repack- rels heading to New Mexi-
aged in new barrels on co four to six times a week.
April 11. At least one and The sprawling Idaho site
possibly all of those newly- in high-desert sagebrush
packed barrels ruptured steppe sits atop the giant
later that same day, he Eastern Snake Plain Aqui-
said. fer that’s used by cities for
He said the facility had suc- drinking water and farmers
cessfully processed about for irrigation.
9,500 barrels before the The site has been used for
ruptures occurred. nuclear waste disposal and
“This had not happened storage beginning in the
before, and we want to 1950s. The federal govern-
get to the bottom of why ment has been cleaning it
this waste was reactive,” up following court battles
he said. “We’re using a and several agreements
very deliberative process with Idaho in the 1990s
to get to the reason of why amid concerns by state of-
this happened.” ficials that Idaho was be-
Whatever was in the bar- coming the nation’s nucle-
rels reacted in such a way ar waste dump.
to increase pressure inside The Energy Department
the barrels to the point of has already missed sev-
causing the ruptures. Simp- eral deadlines under those
son said there are no im- agreements involving mov-
mediate theories, but ev- ing nuclear waste out of
erything from the contents Idaho and has paid about
to the process of repack- $3.5 million in fines.q