Radiation leak forces closure at New Mexico waste burial site

www.LATimes.com ^ | February 17, 2014, | RALPH VARTABEDIAN

[Yosemitest]

Normal operations at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant have been suspended for four days as the leak is investigated.

... the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, or WIPP, activated air filters as a precaution and barred personnel from entering the 2,150-foot-deep repository as they investigate what caused the leak.
Radiation sensors sounded alarms at 11:30 p.m. Friday, when no workers were in the underground portions of the plant.

... Any prolonged shutdown could cause a backup of waste at a dozen nuclear-weapons-related sites across the nation, including Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the Bay Area.
In 2012, those dozen sites made 846 shipments to the dump, more than two per day.

... Edwin Lyman, a senior scientist ... said he believed the cause most likely involved radioactive material on the outside of a container that was not properly decontaminated.
Waste is typically packaged into sealed containers. ...
A less probable cause, he said, was a radiological process inside a container that forced material out.

Lyman said, "If there is airborne contamination and it involves plutonium, they are going to need to decontaminate surfaces.
If it is in the ventilation system, it could have spread to other areas."

... Federal officials had hoped an exemplary record at WIPP would help build support for a more complex high-level repository.

"It hasn't been a good month for WIPP," Lyman said.

[Yosemitest]

So now we've got radioactive waste that's on hold to be stored, while we wait for answers and solutions.

Has the ILLEGAL ALIEN IN CHIEF been directing Muslims to be placed in charge of our Waste Isolation Pilot Plant or the Energy Department,
so they can continue to reak havoc on our country?

[SpirituTuo]

If Jimmy Carter hadn’t led the charge to ban the recycling of nuclear fuel, and we had Yucca Mountain operational, this wouldn’t be a problem.

Thank you Jimmy Carter and Harry Reid.

[Carl Vehse]

"So now we've got radioactive waste that's on hold to be stored, while we wait for answers and solutions." At a site that was called the "Waste Isolation Pilot Plant" because it was originally designed only as a pilot project to see if the design would work so that a permanent plant could be built.

[Thorliveshere]

Great, now the greenies will NEVER shut up.

[Yosemitest]

Maybe they’ll wake up and say “OPEN YUCCA MOUNTAIN !”

[Thorliveshere]

Or, continue on with their rant of NO NUCLEAR POWER—EVER!

[Yosemitest]

Then let's shove the waste down their throat !

[stanne]

The Germans and the French, greener than anyone over here, german govt goes through peoples garbage for recycling infractions, nuke happy, tdch sa vy, are both getting out of nuke power at a rapid rate after fukashima

Nuclear power is safe, eclean, cheap and efficient it’s great... Until a meltdown or a leak or until some corruptible worker or govt official stores it wrong. Then it’s uninhabitable

One more thing our grandchildren will be not calling us the greatest generation for

Flame away. Even rush would hang up screeching about tree hugging

[CedarDave]

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[maxsand]

Sounds like a shovel ready job to me...

[Revel]

Yup that waist is going to be stored there. And it is going to be safe for 100,000 years.