July 27, 2022

Bulletin 303: Fire safety deficiencies at LANL plutonium facility

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Previously: Bulletin 302 (7/26/22): Mid-year fundraising drive: please help support our work!

Dear friends and colleagues --

We'd like to draw your attention to the latest installment in the never-ending saga of inadequate fire safety at Los Alamos National Laboratory's (LANL's) main plutonium facility ("PF-4").

The Department of Energy's (DOE's) Office of Enterprise Assessments just issued an assessment of LANL's management of its fire suppression water pumps for PF-4, just one small part of the overall fire safety system at this facility.

The Santa Fe New Mexican wrote up a good summary of DOE's findings ("Federal report: LANL has deficiencies in fire safety systems,Scott Wyland, Jul 26, 2022).

DOE's most serious finding was that Triad (the current LANL management and operating contractor) had failed to use sound engineering principles, such as providing adequate safety margins, and Triad used inaccurate inputs in designing portions of its pumping system.

Because plutonium is flammable as well as radiotoxic, fire suppression is a critical element in PF-4's safety posture, necessary to protect nearby workers and the wider public in the event of an accident.

Yet year after year, for 20 years or more, known deficiencies aren't fixed. Deadlines are pushed forward and new problems crop up. Unlike in the civilian world most of us live in, at NNSA there is no provision for a "red tag" that would stop work until the problems are fixed, because there is no external safety regulation for workers and the public (except for some wastes and effluents).

Right now, LANL does not have an adequate "safety-class" fire suppression system for its main plutonium facility, meaning a system that can survive the worst credible accident -- a large earthquake in this case -- and still function. Water pressure for fire suppression at PF-4 is expected to be lost in such an earthquake, as weak side connections to the main water line break. As far as we can tell, this situation won't be remedied until at least 2026, after 4 years of delay (as of early 2019). NNSA is currently requesting $9.5 million (M) for this work in 2023 (p. 17).

With no water pressure, an uncontrolled fire at PF-4 would lead to radiation doses of over 25 rem to the nearby Los Alamos public (about 0.6 miles away) and would deposit plutonium at -- and presumably in -- surrounding facilities. (Please see this discussion.)

Seismic upgrades of the fire suppression system itself -- the piping and supports -- were delayed by 11 years, to 2024 (again, as of early 2019). Modifications of laboratory walls to provide a 2-hour fire barrier were delayed 6 years (Ibid).

Replacing the PF-4 fire alarm system with one that complies with modern fire standards and for which replacement parts can be found, a $169 M project that began in 2015, is now expected to conclude in 2027 at a staggering total cost of $236 M (pp. 308-316). Until then, PF-4 will not have a fire alarm system compliant with U.S. civilian fire codes.

The list of fire safety deficiencies at LANL's plutonium facility is longer and more complicated than we can include here. It's always "a work in progress," that takes second place to the expansion of the plutonium missions in that building -- mainly pit production.

(Of related interest, NNSA is also requesting $22.5 M for a new fire station (p. 30), to be completed in 2025. LANL is the only NNSA site without its own fire department; NNSA pays Los Alamos County for these services. Amazingly, LANL had 300 "false" fire alarms requiring a fire department response over the 3-year, 2019-2021 period.)

Experience shows that unless there is financial pain, Triad will not prioritize safety sufficiently when so many grand promises have been made about when pit production is going to start.

In our view, Triad needs to slow down and do things right where safety is concerned. By contrast, the pit production schedule at LANL is completely arbitrary, as far as the so-called "U.S. nuclear deterrent" is concerned. LANL simply cannot make enough pits to matter, even in the most optimistic case.

Greg Mello, for the Study Group