Serious safet problems in Hanford nuclear waste cleanup plans

The Hanford project is the most important environmental cleanup program in the nation. It seeks to prevent 56 million gallons of radioactive sludge in underground tanks, some of which are leaking, from contaminating the nearby Columbia River.
Safety doubts raised at U.S. nuclear waste cleanup project, Engineers and scientists say equipment being installed by Bechtel Corp. at the Hanford site in Washington state poses risks, but the Energy Department is letting work continue. By Ralph Vartabedian, Los Angeles Times, August 14, 2011 The Energy Department has asserted that Bechtel Corp. underplayed safety risks from equipment it is installing at the nation’s largest nuclear waste cleanup project, according to government records.

A federal engineering review team found in late July that Bechtel’s safety evaluation of key equipment at the plant at the Hanford site in Washington state was incomplete and that “the risks are more serious” than Bechtel acknowledged when it sought approval to continue with construction, the documents say.

Senior scientists at the site said in emails obtained by The Times that Bechtel’s designs for tanks and mixing equipment are flawed, representing such a massive risk that work should be stopped on that part of the construction project…….

Bechtel is under contract to build a $12.3-billion treatment plant at the former nuclear weapons center to convert the radioactive sludge to solid glass that could be more safely buried at a future high-level waste dump.

But the plant has been repeatedly stung by problems and delays, including a 2006 work stoppage when engineers determined it could not withstand a severe earthquake and that major retrofitting was required.

The latest problem hit this year, when engineers and scientists began to raise serious doubts about the safety of key tanks and mixing systems that would process the radioactive waste…..

“Clearly, the management system or safety culture is broken,” said Donald H. Alexander, a chemist in the division of nuclear safety, in an Aug. 2 email to top Energy Department officials. “I find the behavior of management to be appalling.”

Alexander said he was pressured to concur on technical issues but refused, and that top managers at the project had attempted to discredit his technical work. He is the second top scientist at the project to allege that management is running roughshod over scientists.

Walter Tamosaitis, the research and technology chief for Bechtel subcontractor URS Corp., was removed from his job last year and put in a basement office with nothing to do after raising similar safety concerns about the plant’s design.

A series of tests with nonradioactive materials in the last year showed that the mixing system, designed to last 30 years without service, wore out in only a few months, according to McNulty and Energy Department documents.

If the mixers wear out or fail once highly radioactive material is flowing through the tanks, it would be theoretically impossible to fix the problem and could paralyze the project, the scientists say….

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-nuclear-defects-20110814,0,5490202.story

August 15, 2011 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | safety, USA

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