DEFENSE NUCLEAR FACILITIES SAFETY BOARD
Public Hearing on Safety Management of Waste Storage and Processing in the Defense Nuclear Facilities Complex
Acronyms
830 – Code of Federal Regulations, Title 10 Part 830
3009 – DOE Standard 3009
5506 – DOE Standard 5506-2007
AIB – DOE Accident Investigation Board
AK – Acceptable Knowledge
AMWTP – Advanced Mixed Waste Treatment Project
ARF – Airborne Release Fraction
ARP – Accelerated Retrieval Project
BOK – Basis of Knowledge
CAP – Corrective Action Plan
CBFO DOE – Carlsbad Field Office
CCE – Chemical Compatibility Evaluation
CCP – Central Characterization Program
CH – Contact-handled transuranic waste
CON – Conclusion
Conops – Conduct of operations
DNFSB – Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board
DSA – Documented Safety Analysis
EM – DOE Office of Environmental Management
ESS – Evaluation of the Safety of the Situation
Facrep DOE facility representative
GSTR – Generator Site Technical Review
ICP – Idaho Cleanup Project
INL – Idaho National Laboratory
JON – Judgment of Need
LANL – Los Alamos National Laboratory
LFL – Lower Flammability Limit
LLW – Low level waste
NNSA – National Nuclear Security Administration
OE – Operating Experience
ORPS – Occurrence Reporting and Processing System
RH – Remote-handled transuranic waste
RF – Respirable Fraction
RWMC – Radioactive Waste Management Complex
SDA – Subsurface Disposal Area
SRP – Sludge Repacking Project
SRS – Savannah River Site
TRU – Transuranic waste
TSR – Technical Safety Requirements
WAC – Waste Acceptance Criteria
WIPP – Waste Isolation Pilot Plant
Glossary and Additional Information
Accelerated Retrieval Project: A DOE project to remove certain wastes from the Idaho National Laboratory. The April 2018 event took place at a building called Accelerated Retrieval Project V. The Accelerated Retrieval Project buildings are above portions of the Subsurface Disposal Area, which contains buried wastes.
Deflagration: A combustion event where the flame front propagates at less than the speed of sound. Nuclear wastes often emit flammable gases and vapors, such as hydrogen, methane and xylene. If these fuels are present in sufficient concentrations, if there is sufficient oxygen or other oxidizer, and if there is an ignition source, a deflagration could occur. A deflagration can represent a type of explosion.
Defense-in-Depth: A fundamental approach to hazard control for nuclear facilities that is based on several layers of protection to prevent the release of radioactive or other hazardous materials to the environment. These protective layers are generally redundant and independent of each other to compensate for unavoidable human and mechanical failures so that no single layer, no matter how robust, is exclusively relied upon. [DOE Standard 3009-2014, Preparation of Nonreactor Nuclear Facility Documented Safety Analysis]
Fluor Idaho, LLC: A DOE contractor that performs cleanup work at the Idaho National Laboratory. Fluor Idaho, LLC, operates the Radioactive Waste Management Complex and the Advanced Mixed Waste Treatment Project.
Generator Site Technical Review: Reviews at DOE sites that generate transuranic waste. These reviews “will ensure that necessary and sufficient processes and procedures are in place and are implemented to assure TRU waste containers meet WIPP WAC requirements…” [DOE/CBFO 16-3563, Waste Isolation Pilot Plant Generator Site Technical Review Plan]. DOE initiated these reviews as a corrective action after the 2014 WIPP event.
Operating Experience: Information that relates to methods by which work is planned and conducted and an organization’s missions are performed. Operating experience provides the basis for knowledge and understanding that fosters development of lessons learned and improvement of operational experience. [DOE Order 210.2A, DOE Corporate Operating Experience Program]
Radioactive Waste Management Complex: The Accelerated Retrieval Project buildings are part of this larger facility. This facility also includes the Subsurface Disposal Area.
Safety Basis: The documented safety analysis and hazard controls that provide reasonable assurance that a DOE nuclear facility can be operated safely in a manner that adequately protects workers, the public, and the environment. [10 CFR 830, Nuclear Safety Management]
Transuranic waste: Material contaminated with transuranic elements – artificially made, radioactive elements, such as neptunium, plutonium, americium, and others – that have atomic numbers higher than uranium in the periodic table of elements. Transuranic waste is primarily produced from recycling spent fuel or using plutonium to fabricate nuclear weapons. [Glossary on the website of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission]
(formal definition) Waste containing more than 100 nanocuries of alpha-emitting transuranic isotopes per gram of waste, with half-lives greater than 20 years, except for…high-level radioactive waste… [for complete definition, see WIPP Land Withdrawal Act, as amended]
Glossary of Public Hearing on Safety Management – Download [Optimized PDF]
Glossary of Public Hearing on Safety Management – Download