The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DMFSB) is an independent agency of the U.S. federal government. The Board was created in 1988 to oversee the nuclear weapons complex administered by the U.S. Department of Energy. The most important duty of the Board is the “responsibility of providing recommendations and advice to the President and the Secretary of Energy regarding public health and safety issues at Department of Energy (DoE) defense nuclear facilities. The Board reviews and evaluates the content and implementation of health and safety standards, as well as other requirements, relating to the design, construction, operation, and decommissioning of the Department’s defense nuclear facilities. The Board consists of five members appointed by the President for staggered five-year terms.” (Board website)
The Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) is a U.S. DoE national laboratory that was created during World War II to develop nuclear weapons as part of the Manhattan Project. It is located near Sante Fe, New Mexico. “Today, Los Alamos is one of the largest science and technology institutions in the world. It conducts multidisciplinary research in fields such as national security, space exploration, nuclear fusion, renewable energy, medicine, nanotechnology, and supercomputing.” (Wikipedia)
In mid-April of this year, a fire broke out in the PF-4 plutonium building of the Lab. Lab officials said that the fire was put out quickly with a fire extinguisher. A lab spokesman said that the fire was likely caused by “pyrophoric materials and compounds [that] can spontaneously overheat in the presence of oxygen.” There were only minor injuries reports. Several fingers of an employee were burned and the burns were treated at the Los Alamos Medical Center.
The PF-4 building is located in Technical Area 55. This is where the main processing of radioactive plutonium takes place. Small cores of plutonium also referred to as plutonium pits are constructed there. These cores are used to initiate nuclear bomb explosions.
The PF-4 building was shut down for a day. The New Mexico Environmental Department issued emergency authorization for the Lab to destroy unstable hazardous waste which was discovered in one of the labs of PF-4. The waste consisted of about a pound of lanthanum nickel powder which is used to make fuel cells. The waste was said to “pose an imminent and substantial health and safety risk.” The Lab is still assessing whether there was any connection between the waste and the fire.
Over the past few years last year, there have been DNFSB reports of multiple problems at the Lab. These problems include substandard fire protection, concerns about seismic stability and failures in its nuclear criticality program. If there was an earthquake, the aging sprinkler system of PF-4 might not be able to function properly in the event of a fire. In March, the DNFSB sent a letter to the Secretary of Energy expressing its concerns with problems at LANL. Following the fire, the DNFSB said that it would hold a hearing in June to “discuss the future of the Lab.”
The Trump administration wants to increase production of plutonium pits as part of the modernization program for the U.S. nuclear arsenal. Given the recent problems at the LANL, the question has been raised of whether or not the LANL can be relied upon to produce the pits safely.
