Los Alamos, N.M. – Cleaning up plutonium-contaminated waste buried decades ago in shallow pits and trenches at Los Alamos National Laboratory could cost more than the current $114 million estimate, congressional investigators say.
The U.S. Department of Energy assumed for long-range planning purposes that the old waste could be safely left where it is, with a cap over it to prevent waste from either washing away or seeping into groundwater.
That solution would cost $114 million, according to a report released Friday by the Government Accountability Office, which is Congress’ investigating arm.
However, the GAO said the cost could rise dramatically if an ongoing study concludes that the waste must be dug up and sent to a safer disposal site.
The state Environment Department expects at least some of the old waste will have to be dug up, said James Bearzi of the department’s Hazardous Waste Bureau.
Lab spokesman James Rickman said local DOE and lab officials were reviewing an analysis of the risk the waste poses.
He said it’s premature to say what type of cleanup might be needed.
The waste dates from the birth of the lab in 1943 through the early 1970s. Since then, plutonium waste from nuclear- weapons work has been packaged and stored in drums for eventual disposal in the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, or WIPP, a DOE repository east of Carlsbad.
The GAO said it’s uncertain how much waste is buried in shallow dumps around the country and how much of that might have to be moved.
WIPP, which opened in March 1999, is the only site legally allowed to handle such waste. However, Congress in 1992 put a cap on how much waste WIPP could take, and the GAO said WIPP probably would not be large enough to handle all the buried waste.
WIPP, excavated in vast underground salt beds, is limited to 175,600 cubic meters of waste. The GAO estimated that the waste buried before the early 1970s could push the repository 60,000 cubic meters over the cap.
The Energy Department disagreed.
The projected volumes of waste in the DOE complex “are well within the available capacity of the WIPP,” project manager David Moody said Monday.
