Wildfire danger to USA’s nuclear wastes

U.S. nuclear waste facing wildfire risk THE HINDU, NARAYAN LAKSHMAN , 5 June 14, A New Mexico facility containing 3,706 cubic meters of toxic radiological materials may be on the precipice of a serious incendiary event after the U.S. Department of Energy confirmed that it would fail to meet a deadline to remove drums of nuclear waste from the wildfire-prone area owing to safety concerns.

Although the DoE initially planned to move the “transuranic waste,” from the federal Los Alamos National Laboratory to a Texas facility by June 30, shipments out of the facility were said to have been “put on hold due to concerns about the chemical stability of the mixture in the containers.”

The deteriorating conditions of nuclear waste storage at the facility in recent years were further exacerbated in 2011 by wildfires near the nuclear-weapons laboratory, and the state government of New Mexico ordered the site to complete transfer of the material to other locations “before this year’s wildfire season reaches its peak,” the Nuclear Threat Initiative group noted.

However, apparently one Los Alamos drum of transuranic waste, comprising “tools, rags and other debris contaminated with radioisotopes such as plutonium from U.S. nuclear labs,” may have been responsible for a radiological leak at a repository near Carlsbad, New Mexico, on February 14……. http://www.thehindu.com/news/international/world/us-nuclear-waste-facing-wildfire-risk/article6083055.ece