WIPP: How It Gets Stuffed

The Los Alamos Monitor reported yesterday on a request filed by the Southwest Research and Information Center with the New Mexico Environment Department, regarding a SRIC lawsuit against NMED being adjudicated by the NM Court of Appeals. SRIC is requesting a stay of NMED's Nov. 1, 2012 grant of a Permit Modification Request by  the Department of Energy for the continued operation of its Waste Isolation Pilot Plant.

According to LAM: SRIC and Margaret Elizabeth Richards filed a Notice of Appeal in the NM Court of Appeals against NMED's decision of Nov. 1, 2012 to allow Remote Handled transuranic nuclear waste in shielded containers to be stored at  WIPP.

The appellants and approximately 200 individuals argue that the request to modify the state’s WIPP permit be subject to a public hearing because of the dangers posed by RH waste, the technical complexity of handling RH waste at WIPP and the substantial public interest in the request.

NMED approved DOE's Permit Modification Request although the state agency had in December, 2011 and January, 2012 rejected virtually the same request. [That is, whereas NMED under the outgoing Gov. Richardson had denied the request, NMED under the new Gov. Martinez has approved it.]
..................................................................

SRIC's website contains relevant information: http://www.sric.org/nuclear/docs/NMED%20Appeal%20press%20release%20111612.pdf

“SRIC feels that the permit request was incomplete and did not adequately address the real reason that DOE wants shielded containers — there is not enough space for RH waste because of the way the facility has been mismanaged."

In other words, SRIC objects to the proposal to store RH waste in shielded containers at WIPP on the grounds that there is no longer room at WIPP to store similar amounts of RH waste in unshielded containers. This issue has been clarified in a formal request filed with NMED for a stay of NMED's decision to allow the use of shielded containers to store RH waste at WIPP, pending a decision by the NM Court of Appeals of a suit filed by SRIC against NMED.

See SRIC's formal request to NMED for a stay of its grant of the PMR:  http://www.sric.org/nuclear/docs/NMED%20motion%20for%20stay111612.pdf

The following is excerpted (and contains paraphrasing) from SRIC's formal request to NMED for a stay of its grant of DOE's PMR:

SRIC shows, first, that we are likely to prevail in our Appeal.

An application for a Class 2 Permit Modification should be denied if it is a) incomplete, b) fails to comply with applicable requirements, or c) fails to protect human health or the environment. An application proposed for Class 2 procedures must be denied or reclassified as Class 3 if there is a) significant public concern or b) the modification is complex. each of these criteria provides grounds for vacating the Department's decision. We address them now in order.

a) The application is incomplete  -  because it does not fully explain why the modification is needed.

b) The application conflicts with present requirements  -  Under current regulations, WIPP may store up to 7080 m**3 of RH waste. However, according to a literal interpretation of the permit modification, WIPP will be authorized to store up to 93,750 m**3 of RH waste in shielded containers, which is the current limit for CH waste. That is, the proposed modification appears to confuse the limits for RH and CH waste, thus enabling the storage of much more RH waste than originally intended.

c) The application raises complex issues and issues of significant public concern  -  The changes in capacity limits for RH waste disposal, that will apply under this modification, are a complex issue.

d) Failure to stay the decision may cause irreparable injury  -  Without a stay pending appeal, Permittees will be able to introduce RH waste in shielded containers without realistic limit. Once emplaced, RH waste cannot be extracted without great difficulty, and such becomes more true the longer the waste is in place, and additional waste is emplaced in front of it.

e) A stay will not cause significant injury to Permittees  -  The only injury to Permittees from a stay would be some delay in introducing RH waste in shielded containers.

f) A stay is consistent with the public interest  -  The benefit to the public interest would be that no stranded RH waste in shielded containers would be created.

Thus, it is likely that the NM Court of Appeals will deny the requested Permit Modification. And for this reason, as well as for all of the reasons set forth herein, the Department should issue an order, staying effectiveness of the Nov 1, 2012 determination approving the Permit Modification Request for RH in shielded containers until the NM Court of Appeals acts upon the pending appeal.
...................................................................

LANL Radiates Economic Benefits

The Regional Coalition of LANL Communities held their monthly meeting yesterday at Los Alamos Research Park Bldg in Los Alamos, NM; 9:30AM - 12:30PM.

The RCLC is a group of elected local public officials whose aim is to encourage the integration of DOE-LANS-LANL into the local community, so as to improve the economic outlook for local businesses, and perhaps also eventually for local citizens. This is a task which is critical now, according to individual RCLC members, when the many state and local economies are so distressed.

However, even in the best of times, NM is at the bottom of a list of the 50 states of the US in terms of per capita income, and at the very top of a list of the states in terms of federal dollars returned per dollar of federal taxes paid out. NM also leads the nation in the size of the disparity in income of its poorest citizens, in comparison to its richest.

Approximately 12 RCLC members and staff were in attendance today; the meeting was led by RCLC chairman, and Santa Fe mayor, David Coss. There are also ~30 members of the general public in attendance.

In his opening remarks, chairman Coss  recalled the recent tour taken by RCLC members of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, in southern New Mexico. Mayor Coss allowed that RCLC members had been favorably impressed by the tour, and that he personally thought of WIPP as a technological marvel.

This will be the first meeting of RCLC in which the agenda contains an item entitled "Community Voices"; viz., a period of 75 min allotted to local community groups and individuals who signed up in advance, and will present ~5 min talks describing their perspectives on issues relating to LANL, its operations, and its interactions with the local community. Formerly, the general public had not been invited to speak at RCLC meetings.

Among the community voices being heard today were:

1) Ray Baca, the Executive Director fpr NM Building and Construction Trades Council, who spoke about the difficult future confronting the local construction and trades workforce, of which there are now ~700 members at LANL.

2) Jay Coghlan, ED for Nuclear Watch NM, talked about the continued devotion of LANL to the care and feeding of nuclear weapons; ~64% of LANL's current budget, he said, was spent on nuclear weapons work. He thought that,in the future, LANL should focus more on non-proliferation efforts (although not related to the preparation of MOX fuel), and on work connected to the ongoing clean-up of contaminated LANL dump sites.

3) Holly Beaumont, Head of Interfaith Worker Justice, spoke about worker justice issues as being age-old, and of her own perspective on such matters as emanating from the judaic-christian, or abrahamic, tradition.

4) Joni Arends ED of Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety spoke about the importance of LANL's Storm Water Permit and the fact that LANL produces contamination that can be carried beyond LANL site boundaries by stormwater runoff. The contaminated stormwater is subject to agreements and oversights which are separate from the those described by the Consent Order, she said.

5) A representative of Tewa Women United spoke about the continuing threat to the traditions of Pueblo peoples presented by ongoing LANL operations. She noted that the threat of contaminated water emanating from LANL property is particularly serious for native women, and for their children, who are among the most vulnerable members of the local community.

6) William Enloe, Chair LA National Bank, and Kevin Holsapple, of the LA Chamber of Commerce, spoke about the importance for local businesses of ensuring stable LANL funding. This is especially critical now, they said, given that the  business climate is being stressed by the stumbling national economy.

7) Chip Chippeaux, Chair of Century Bank of Santa Fe, spoke about the need to ensure stable LANL funding, even though the type of work being performed at LANL is controversial within parts of the local community. He suggested that local community members needed to join forces in their efforts to help to secure stable LANL funding, in spite of the existence of this controversy.

A good deal of the meeting was spent discussing bureaucratic matters of interest to particular RCLC group members. Many of these matters, especially as related to the RCLC budget and to travel on RCLC business by individual RCLC members, were broached by the RCLC ED, De Anza Spaien, and took up `~1 hr of the Coalition's meeting time today.This is not to try to take anything away from Ms. Sapien, who appears to be a competent, and even formidable, ED. Rather, the problem here, if any, lies in the nature of the bureaucratic group.

Comparing the RCLC and the Northern New Mexico Citizens Advisory Board , there are some obvious similarities and differences.

1) Both of these groups are bureaucratic in form and spend a significant fraction of their time and effort in maintaining themselves as such. However, it seems interesting that the annual budget for the RCLC is much smaller than that of the NNMCAB; e.g., ~$200K for the RCLC vs $2 million for the NNMCAB, even though these two groups are of a similar size. (The NNMCAB budget number here may have recently been reduced.) Moreover, the sources of this funding are also different. Whereas, most of the money to run the RCLC now comes from local governments, with only a minor fraction from the DOE, the NNMCAB's entire budget comes from DOE.

2) Therefore, and unsurprisingly, the mandates of these two groups are different. The RCLC is apparently intended to deepen relations between DOE-LANS-LANL and the local community, while seeking to promote the health of LANL as an institution, for the purpose of trying to grow the local economy. By contrast, the NNMCAB is specifically mandated by the DOE to help to smooth relations between DOE-LANS-LANL and the local community, in order to promote the well-being of LANL, but only incidentally to promote the well-being of the local community.

3) Nevertheless, the NNMCAB occasionally entertains challenges by individual members to the notion that the influence of LANL on the local community is altogether benign. (The size of these challenges is kept within strict limits, normally, since DOE oversight of the NNMCAB is hands-on and almost always effective.) It remains to be seen whether or not the RCLC will allow the expression of active criticsm of LANL, and its programs, to become a regular part of the RCLC agenda. It is without a doubt that such critical views are a persistent part of the spectrum of views within the local community. What is unknown, however, in my view, is the degree to which such critical views may be prevalent.

4) The reinforcement of pro-LANL views is commonplace at NNMCAB meetings. Information about LANL operations is made available regularly at these meetings by informed and intelligent LANL presenters and the volume of information presented is large. The effect on NNMCAB members of these presentations is usually very positive. In a similar vein, the RCLC heard today from Kurt Steinhaus, LANL Director of the Community Programs Office. Mr. Steinhaus pointed out that LANS donates ~$3 million annually from its management fee (~$75 million, almost all of which is divided among senior LANS managers) to support educational development within the local community.

Finally, a new element in the ongoing drama of relations between DOE-LANS-LANL and the local community was added when the ED of the Energy Communities Alliance, Seth Kirshenberg, delivered a brief introduction to the ECA and its projects. The ECA is an group of communities, each one centered at a DOE laboratory. These labs are, of course, located all around the country. Hence, the ECA tries to express a community of interests and aims to expedite and improve the relations between the DOE, its laboratories, and the surrounding communities nationwide. It was decided today that the RCLC will become a member of the ECA, and that Mayor Coss will attend the upcoming ECA national convention in New Orleans. RCLC member F. Berting (who is an LA County Council member, as well as national secretary of the ECA) may also attend.

DOE-LANS: Penny Wise and Pound Foolish?

As of 10/29/12,  the Chromium Settlement Agreement of 2007, between DOE-LANS and NMED, has been terminated and the Consent Order of 2005 has been modified. The following link to an NMED page
(http://www.nmenv.state.nm.us/HWB/lanlperm.html#Modification10292012) contains the related information:

"Approval of Consent Order Modification"

"Compliance Order on Consent March 1, 2005 (Revised 10/29/2012)"  [287 pages]

"Termination of Chromium Settlement (10/30/2012)"
.........................................................
The Settlement Agreement and Stipulated Final Order was accepted by the Parties in June, 2007.

Among other things, the Settlement Agreement stipulated that the RACER database would be subject to third party management by the New Mexico Community Foundation, for the duration of the Agreement. In particular, in Section IV of the Agreement, entitled RACER, the following language appeared:

"The project managers (Colorado State University and the Risk Assessment Corporation) will involve the public, including all interested stakeholders, in the project through public meetings and opportunities for public comment."

"The project will accumulate, consolidate, and organize all environmental data from the Laboratory and enter the data into a computer database. The database will allow the spatial display of the data, the comparison of the data to standards and reference values, and the plotting of trends in the data. the database will be functioning and accessible to the Department (NMED) and to the public by December 31, 2007."

"The database will be turned over to an independent manager, the New Mexico Commubity Foundation, by September 30, 2008."
........................................................
However, the revised Compliance Order on Consent does not refer to third party management of the database; i.e., as described in the new Section III.Z, which appears below. Apparently, the new database  will be managed entirely by LANS, for the duration of the revised Consent Order.

"The Respondents shall maintain a publicly accessible database containing all data from environmental media (i.e., soil, sediment, surface water, groundwater, air, and biota) collected by the Respondents as part of environmental investigation and monitoring. The database shall include the capacity for the spatial display of data, the comparison of data to standards and reference values, and the plotting of trends in the data. Additionally, to the extent that data are collected pursuant to the requirements of the Consent Order, the database shall include the analytical quality assurance/quality control and data validation information. As new data becomes available, the Respondents shall enter such data into the public database through updates on no less than a monthly basis. The Respondents shall correct any inaccuracy in the data within 60 days of discovery of such inaccuracy."
.........................................................
Therefore, for the general public, the reliability of included environmental data will remain an open question. This is in spite of the fact that the purpose of a publicly accessible environmental database, must be to help to allay the fears and suspicions of the general public with regard to LANL operations. But, since there is no provision for independent oversight of the new database in the revised Consent Order, the public will probably continue to be skeptical of LANS' management of the data.

Is DOE-LANS' failure to provide for independent oversight of its publicly accessible environmental database simply a matter of money?  Or does DOE-LANS continue to think of independent oversight as an avoidable inconvenience?

NNSA's Safety Culture: Does It Cost Too Much?

The 24th Annual "Nuclear Weapons Complex Waste Management & Cleanup Decision Makers’ Forum" took place recently, (October 15-18, 2012), in Jacksonville, Florida. The keynote address was presented by Peter Winokur, Chairman, Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB). A summary of Winokur's address, entitled "DNFSB, DOE and the Contractors: Roles, Responsibilities, and the Road Ahead", follows:

Is the DOE defense nuclear facilities complex safer now than when the Board commenced operations in the late 1980's? Yes! ... However, we cannot ignore current and emerging challenges ... and the federal commitment to protect the health and safety of workers and the public. Past success is a poor reason to decide to lessen present safeguards ... and giving up now on any of the elements of success would be foolish.

History teaches us that organizations have responded to budgetary pressures by accepting lower standards in their daily operations, especially safety, maintenance, and training; viz., often, by allowing their safety culture to degrade.

Beset by budgetary stringencies, DOE is concerned that it has become too risk-adverse and that its safety strategies have become too burdensome. DOE seems to be signaling that it is now willing to accept more risk. Moreover, DOE has also failed to learn important recent lessons and to implement related corrective actions on major design and construction projects.

Apropos of which, there is an old Chinese proverb: to know the road ahead, ask about the experiences of those who have arrived along that road.

In particular, history teaches that a broken safety culture has all too often led to serious accidents:
(For each of the following six events, descriptive material from Wikipedia has been added.)

1) Tokai-mura criticality accident

    In 1999 three workers received high doses of radiation in a small Japanese plant preparing fuel for an experimental reactor. Two of these workers died from their exposure. The accident was caused by concentrating excessive amounts of enriched uranium (~20% U235), leading to a criticality excursion (a limited uncontrolled nuclear chain reaction), which continued intermittently for 20 hours.

    A total of 119 people received a radiation dose over 1 mSv from the accident. Three operators' doses were above all permissible limits and two of the doses proved to be fatal. The cause of the accident was "human error and serious breaches of safety principles", according to IAEA.

2) Davis-Besse NPS

    Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station is a nuclear power plant in Oak Harbor, Ohio. It has a single pressurized water reactor, also known as a light water reactor. As of 2011, it was being operated by the FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company subsidiary of FirstEnergy Corp.

    On March 5, 2002, maintenance workers discovered that corrosion had eaten a football-sized hole into the reactor vessel head at the Davis-Besse plant. Although the corrosion did not lead to an accident, this was considered to be a serious nuclear safety incident. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission kept Davis-Besse shut down until March 2004, so that FirstEnergy was able to perform all the necessary maintenance for safe operations. The NRC imposed its largest fine ever -- more than $5 million -- against FirstEnergy for the actions that led to the corrosion. The company paid an additional $28 million in fines under a settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice.

    According to the NRC, Davis-Besse has been the source of two of the top five most dangerous nuclear incidents in the United States since 1979.

3) NASA's two space shuttle disasters

    The Space Shuttle Challenger disaster occurred on January 28, 1986, when the spacecraft broke apart 73 seconds into its flight, leading to the deaths of its seven crew members. Disintegration of the vehicle began after an O-ring seal in its right solid rocket booster failed, allowing pressurized hot gas from within the solid rocket motor to impinge upon the adjacent hardware and external fuel tank. This led to the structural failure of the external tank, and aerodynamic forces then broke up the orbiter. The O-ring had been previously identified as a vulnerable component, but engineers who had sounded the alarm were ignored by management.

    The Space Shuttle Columbia disaster occurred on February 1, 2003, when the spacecraft broke up during reentry into the atmosphere, resulting in the death of all seven crew members. The loss of Columbia was a result of damage sustained during launch when a piece of foam insulation broke off from the external fuel tank. The debris struck the leading edge of the left wing, damaging the Shuttle's thermal protection system, which shields the vehicle from the intense heat generated during reentry. It had long been recognized that foam shed during launch could jeopardize the integrity of the heat shield, but this had been discounted by management as an unlikely event.

4) BP Texas City Oil refinery disaster

    On March 23, 2005, a fire and explosion occurred at BP's Texas City Refinery in Texas City, Texas, killing 15 workers and injuring more than 170 others. BP was charged with criminal violations of federal environmental laws, and has been subject to lawsuits from the victims' families. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration slapped BP with a then-record fine for hundreds of safety violations, and subsequently imposed an even larger fine after claiming that BP had failed to implement safety improvements following the disaster.

5) Deepwater Horizon disaster

    The Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico flowed unabated for three months in 2010, and is the largest marine spill in the history of the petroleum industry. It stemmed from a sea-floor oil gusher caused by the 20 April 2010 explosion of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig. The rig explosion killed 11 men working on the platform and injured 17 others. On 15 July 2010, the gushing wellhead was capped, after it had released about 4.9 million barrels of crude oil. The platform was owned by Transocean, and operated for BP. Both transocean and BP have been heavily criticized for their failure to foresee, and to prepare for such an accident.

6) Fukushima Dai-ichi disaster

    The Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear disaster encompassed a series of equipment failures, nuclear meltdowns, and releases of radioactive material at the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant. The nuclear disaster was caused by the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami of 11 March 2011, and is the largest such event since the Chernobyl disaster of 1986.

    It has been accepted by Power Plant authorities that the safeguards in place prior to the disaster were inadequate; i.e., in view of the fact that the reactor complex had been sited in an area where more than one devastating tsunami had occurred during the last ~500 years.


Winokur concluded his talk by pointing out that:

a) Even under severe budget constraints, DOE must continue to ensure that its priorities are well-balanced between mission and safety concerns.

b) DOE's current successful safety strategies have been developed with effort over many years and must not now be cast aside or downgraded.

c) Design basis accidents and beyond design basis accidents have already been analyzed extensively and should now be treated as real and imminent threats.


For more on this topic, see my blogpost of July 14, 2012 entitled "DNFSB Disagrees with NNSA Analysis"; also, the blogpost of Februrary 27, 2012 entitled "NRS Studies NNSA and its Nuke labs."

DOE/NNSA Assigns New Money to Nukish R&D

In the wake of the privatization of management contracts at the two senior US nuclear weapons laboratories, (Los Alamos National Laboratory in 2006, and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory  in 2007, both during the G W Bush Administration) Department Of Energy's efforts to obtain more bang for its research buck is being thwarted. As a measure of the size of this problem, the National Research Council warned in a recent report that both the quantity and quality of research being conducted at the nuclear weapons labs has declined since the advent of privatization. (See: NRC report dated April 18, 2012 entitled "Review of the Quality of the Management and of the Science and Engineering Research at the DOE’s National Security Laboratories.")

It is unclear to NRC whether fault lies in the structure of the present management contracts, whether it is inherent in the for-profit management construct, as applied to the nuclear weapons labs, or if it is to be laid entirely at the feet of DOE and/or its daughter agency the National Nuclear Security Administration. Certainly, in their report, NRC revisited some of the complaints made by interested parties about DOE/NNSA micromanagement and mismanagement. But, these complaints are not new, and have been heard since DOE's founding during the Carter Administration, and since NNSA's founding during the Clinton Administration. Indeed, DOE was founded in order to correct management problems thought to exist in ERDA, its predecessor agency, and NNSA was founded in order to correct suspected management problems in DOE.

More specifically, those in the know assert that there has been a recent decrease at the labs in the amount of work supported by institutional funds redirected from day-to-day weapons work to research performed in support of the weapons program; i.e., so-called programmatic research. Prior to 2006, these funds had been redirected at the discretion of low-level technical management, and were expended in addition to Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) money, awarded through a competitive process and earmarked specifically for R&D work, not all of which was programmatic. Today, LDRD money continues to be supplied for this purpose by DOE to its nuclear weapons labs, but NRC considers that this is insufficient. Discretionary funds are no longer available to weapons research since they are being absorbed by out-sized management salaries and bonuses; e.g., to the tune of ~$70 million each, at LANL and LLNL.

In trying to overcome this perceived short-fall in discretionary funding for nuclear weapons research, the DOE has adopted a strategy of awarding research dollars directly to individuals; usually, ones who are either already employed at a nuclear weapons lab, or who work at an institution of higher learning where programmatic research is being conducted under contract. Thus, DOE is attempting to intervene in a faltering research process by "reaching over the heads" of its for-profit managers at the nuclear weapons labs. (See: DOE Press Release dated Sept 20, 2012, announcing "NNSA, DOE Office of Science Award $14M in Research Grants," available at: http://nnsa.energy.gov/ and http://science.energy.gov/fes/.)

In any case, more money is going again into nuclear weapons R&D. Clearly, this is advantageous for the nuclear weapons industry, and for its present economic engine, the Stockpile Stewardship and Management Program. It is the SSMP which produces demand pull for ever more information about the operation of nuclear weapons. Thus, in the absence of nuclear weapons explosive testing, the USA has come to lead the world in the development of the means to test nuclear weapons indirectly via computer simulation, and indirectly via laboratory scale tests of related weapons components and concepts. Whether this work constitutes a breach of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty must be a matter for government lawyers to decide.

Burn Pu239 but Bury U233?

The New York Times reported today on a DOE plan to dispose of yet another detritus from the US nuclear weapons program; viz., ~2 tons of weapons grade U233. This dangerous fissile material had been created deliberately in specially designed nuclear reactors, and collected over decades during the course of the cold-war, primarily,in order to fuel new types of nuclear weapons. The production cost of this U233 has been estimated to be >$5 billion.

Currently, the DOE plans to dispose of this surplus U233 by burying it, in pits dug at the Nevada Test Site. Thus, the DOE's present plan for disposing of surplus U233 differs from their preferred method for disposing of surplus Pu239; e.g., by forming the surplus Pu into MOX fuel, and burning it in modified nuclear reactors, as described by DOE in a recent publication (Draft Surplus Plutonium Disposition Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement, July, 2012), and in several recent public meetings.

However, the DOE plan to dispose of surplus U233 by burial is being questioned by a least one expert. In a study by Robert Alvarez of the Instutute for Policy Studies (www.ips-dc.org), dated Aug. 31, 2012, and entitled "Managing the U233 Stockpile of the US", possible complications attending such a plan are described. In particular, Alvarez points out that the chance that buried U233 could be unearthed by terrorists and formed into a crude nuclear weapon does not seem to be remote.

In fact, the DOE has said that their preferred plan for disposing of surplus Pu239 by burning it in nuclear reactors is the only way to ensure that it cannot be used to build more nuclear weapons.

Nix to MOX?

Tuesday, September 18, 2012; Northern New Mexico College, in Espanola, NM:

DOE/NNSA hosted another forum to describe its proposed schemes to dispose of 13.1 metric tons (MT) of plutonium (Pu), declared surplus from the US nuclear weapons program, and to afford the general public a further opportunity to express its views on this subject. (The disposition of 34 MT, previously declared surplus, is not being reconsidered, at this time.)

DOE prefers to burn the surplus Pu, after first converting it into MOX fuel, in specially fitted nuclear power reactors, instead of  burying it in some immobilized form; i.e., from  which the recovery of weapons grade Pu would be impractical or infeasible. Various members of the general public, burdened by a strong bias against nuclear power for energy production, have objected to this proposal. They say that it should be possible instead to bury the surplus Pu, preferably at the site where the nuclear weapons are now being stored, or will be decommissioned; i.e., at least, for the 7.1 MT which is in the form of Pu pits.

5:30PM – 6:30PM /

Several poster displays were presented by DOE/NNSA and its contractors, describing aspects of their proposed schemes. DOE/NNSA and contractor experts were present to answer questions posed by members of the public. The posters were similar to those presented at the previous forum in this series (August 21, 2012 in Los Alamos, NM; see my blogpost dated August 22, 2012, entitled “MOX Mysteries: Better to Bury than to Burn?”), with the exception of a poster presented by Muon, Inc, a private, for-profit, company which is proposing a “new” approach to the disposition of surplus Pu; i.e., the so-called accelerator-based transmutation of radioactive waste.

6:30PM – 7:00PM /

A formal talk was presented by NEPA process document manager S. McAlhany describing DOE/NNSA’s proposed schemes for disposing of Pu declared surplus from the US nuclear weapons program. This was identical to the talk by S McAlhany presented at the previous forum in this series..

7:00PM – 8:15PM /

The public was offered a new opportunity to present its views on DOE/NNSA’s  proposed schemes. Eighteen members of the public signed up to speak.

Each member of the public was allowed 4 minutes to speak at a microphone in front of the assembled crowd. Holmes Brown, an experienced facilitator hired by DOE/NNSA, attempted to enforce this rule.

The first two speakers were LANL staff members J Martz and D Clark. Both expressed their approval of DOE/NNSA’s proposals and gave it as their opinion that LANL was fully able to carry out safely the tasks being proposed.

The next two speakers were DOE would-be contractors, C Bowman and R Johnson, who described a new method for disposing of surplus Pu; viz., by the accelerator-based transmutation of radioactive waste. This process is being proposed to DOE by a private, for-profit, company (Muons, Inc), but is not a part of DOE/NNSA’s presently proposed schemes for the disposition of Pu, declared surplus from the US nuclear weapons program.

The next eight speakers were local area citizens who all expressed strongly negative opinions about LANL, DOE/NNSA, and the schemes being proposed for the disposition of  Pu, declared surplus from the US nuclear weapons program. Most of these speakers said that they were indeed in favor of the retirement of nuclear weapons from the US arsenal of nuclear weapons, but did not believe that the schemes being proposed by DOE/NNSA were reasonable or necessary. Instead, they thought that disposal of the Pu from these retired nuclear weapons should take place at the decommissioning site, by some form of direct burial. They were particularly opposed to the transportation of large amounts of Pu between the DOE’s nuclear weapons sites; e.g.,  over the nation’s highways, or by rail, or air, since this would expose it to the risk of unlawful diversion, and the dispersion into the environment as a result of accident. They were unconvinced that the burning of MOX fuel might not produce large amounts of high level nuclear waste which would present its own disposition problem.

The next speaker, G Maestas, spoke about his great esteem for LANL, and for the US nuclear weapons program; e.g., especially the role played by LANL in WW II, which he fervently believes to have been of the utmost importance. He also stated emphatically that there is absolutely no radiation hazard to the general public from LANL operations. He said that he attaches the greatest value to his grand children and would be the first one to loudly object if he thought that there were any such threat to their well-being. He notes, too, that his grand father and his great-grand father both lived happily in northern NM, throughout their lives. G Maestas, a former LANL management employee, is a well-known advocate for the economic benefits that LANL brings to the local northern NM community; i.e., albeit, only to a limited number of members of that local community.

The next five speakers expressed other very negative views about the DOE/NNSA proposals. One speaker said that he thought the number of options being proposed was too limited, and that DOE/NNSA must include at least ~20 options in order to be considered diligent, and/or to be taken seriously by himself, and by the general public.

In summary:

Of the 13 speakers expressing negative views about DOE/NNSA and its proposals, six were Santa Clara Pueblo members who talked about the threat that LANL operations present to the lives of Pueblo members, and to the survival of Pueblo people. The other seven speakers were local citizens also aggrieved by LANL/DOE/NNSA operations; e.g., especially by the danger that these operations present to the local environment and to local populations.

The contrast between the critical views expressed by the one former and two current LANL employees (very positive), and by the 13 speakers with no current or previous LANL affiliation (very negative), was stark. (The two speakers representing Muon, Inc expressed uncritical views since they were present at the forum only as would-be contractors, seeking economic support from DOE for their technical proposal.)

An obvious difference between those expressing positive views about LANL, and those expressing negative views, is the level of their economic advantage; i.e., those receiving significant economic advantage from their personal association with LANL expressed positive views about LANL, and those lacking economic advantage because of a lack of personal association with LANL expressed negative views. There seem to be many more negative views expressed than positive views, perhaps because there are many fewer members of the general public receiving economic advantage from their association with LANL than not. There is some indication of this difference of views regarding LANL among the local citizenry contained in a survey which I conducted a few years ago. See my blogpost of Dec 21, 2009 entitled “Community Survey Report for Northern New Mexico.”

.

A second difference between the two groups of speakers, holding nearly opposite opinions regarding LANL, might be the result of their difference in world-view. One the one hand, pro-LANL views were expressed by the two, very technically oriented, current LANL staff members. These reflected a view of the world based on numbers and on “accepted”, although often incompletely proven, scientific theories. On the other hand, there were the anti-LANL views expressed by an almost exclusively non-technical group of local citizens. These reflected a view of the world based on feelings and on cultural, or ancestral, wisdom. The two pro-LANL speakers referred mostly to technical matters, using technical language; the anti-LANL speakers addressed mostly personal, family, or cultural matters, and used emotive language while invoking subjective criteria. The sole pro-LANL, former LANL, employee referred partly to a technical matter, the alleged pollution of the local environment by LANL, but addressed this concern with an emotive expression; i.e., he denied completely the existence of any pollution. He too referred to family and cultural matters, but as a means of justifying his pro-LANL orientation.

Interestingly, the question of whether or not the burning of surplus Pu converted into MOX fuel, in specially fitted nuclear reactors, would result in less pollution of the environment than the principal recognized alternatives of coal, oil, and natural gas fired power plants, for the same amount of power generated, and by how much, was not discussed at this forum. In fact, during the poster presentation, I asked this question of one of the DOE/NNSA experts, but was told that the answer was unknown to that particular expert.