The title is a simplification. A drum of nuclear waste did leak after organic material was mixed with acidic waste because of a typo in a procedure. However, the fiasco began with pressure to meet a deadline related to renewal of a multi-billion dollar contract.

Los Alamos Laboratory was well on its way to meeting a mid-2014 deadline to ship radioactive waste to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico when workers came across a batch of waste that was “extraordinarily acidic” (pH 0) and therefore unsafe to ship. Guidelines called for a rigid set of reviews to determine how to properly treat the waste before proceeding. That time-consuming process apparently jeopardized the deadline. Instead, neutralizer and kitty litter were added, and the drum was shipped to WIPP. The documents accompanying the drum made no mention of the original acidity, neutralizer, or type of kitty litter.

The campaign to clear waste from Los Alamos was more than 90 percent complete when the contents of the drum reacted and the drum’s lid breached in the underground WIPP disposal area. The exothermic reaction of the contents threatened dozens of nearby drums. One source says 21 workers “…were contaminated with what federal officials have described as low levels of radiation.” A statement from LANL “…said scientific testing has eliminated the explosive nature of the waste as the cause of the radiation leak.”

As a retired worker from Rocky Flats’ plutonium area, at this point I was thoroughly puzzled.  Continue reading →