Background

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in Los Alamos, New Mexico, is most famous for the development of the first atomic bomb in 1945. In the 60 years since then, the Laboratory continued to conduct myriad experiments on radioactive materials and exotic technologies to further develop the nation's nuclear arsenals. These nuclear laboratory activities generated a large amount of dangerous transuranic waste, as well as huge amounts of mixed hazardous and radioactive waste.

 

There was no way in those first 55 years to safely dispose of the long-lived radioactive waste. Their presence posed a dire hazard to the employees and the entire State of New Mexico. So the U.S.government planned to build the Waste Isolation Pilot Project (WIPP) in Carlsbad, NM. But WIPP was not without powerful opposition that led to lengthy delays in its opening to accept LANL waste.

 

Meanwhile LANL’s dangerous transuranic and mixed waste was piling up in 55 gallon drums on wooden pallets at Technical Area 54 (TA 54), an asphalt pad constructed on top of a large Mesa at the edge of the laboratory. TA 54 was originally supposed to serve as a one-to-two day staging area – a short stop for LANL’s waste awaiting routine pickup on its way to WIPP.

 

But the opposition (in the name of safety) was actually creating an extremely unsafe long term and high risks at TA 54, complete with the very real potential for grave environmental and public health harm. Yet LANL was acting according government plans and doing the right thing by continuing to stockpile the back orders of shipments of its waste to WIPP.

 

Assessment

Smith was relocated from Washington, DC to New Mexico to assess the TA 54 problem and to propose, promote, plan, and implement a solution. Smith’s visits to TA 54 revealed that the drums were exposed to the elements and to potential gunshot vandalism from an adjacent mesa on and Indian reservation with little access control. Smith also noted that there were no adequate safety berms to contain all the contamination if several drums were compromised at once. Smith assessed that one unlucky lightning strike to one of those drums could cause a catastrophic release of highly toxic, radioactive, carcinogenic, and mutagenic contamination to travel as far away as Santa Fe, NM and cause a nightmarish disaster lasting decades.

 

Solution

Smith researched the size and materials needed to construct large berms needed to contain a catastrophic failure of multiple drums. Smith also conducted extensive research into the cost, durability, ease of construction, and lightning grounding of innovative stretched membrane structures - structures that, although common now, were cutting-edge construction ideas at the time. Finally, Smith recommended a number of plans and procedures to be adopted in the TA 54 emergency action contingency plan, which was being written concurrently with his TA 54 work.

 

Smith detailed all of his findings and recommendations into a white paper that his firm submitted to LANL. LANL was so pleased with Smith's work that it implemented all of Smith's recommendations, constructing new berms to his specifications and assembling stretched membrane structures over the drums waiting for WIPP to open. Furthermore, LANL asked that Smith replace the current contractor who was working on the TA 54 Emergency Incident Response Plan. Smith accepted the honor and worked with LANL for an entire year to finish TA 54's Emergency Incident Response Plan.

 

NAICS codes: 541620, 541621.7