NNSA News:
The National Nuclear Security Los Alamos Field Office is hosting a second virtual public information session 5-7 p.m. MDT, Thursday, Nov. 5 to inform the public about the process of venting four Flanged Tritium Waste Containers (FTWCs) at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL).
A FTWCs factsheet and PowerPoint presentation about the project are available on the LANL FTWCs webpage. The webpage also has a link to register for the meeting as well as an Information Meeting FAQ link to help with connecting from various devices.
The public information session will be hosted via WebEx Events, a different platform than the first session in an effort to accommodate the overwhelming public interest in this matter. The WebEx Event meeting password is vG9Rbr3m3f4. Those who do not have internet access may call in by phone at 415.655.0001, access code 173 622 0434. If joining by phone, the meeting password is 84972736.
FTWCs are pressure vessels specifically designed to contain waste metal that has been exposed to tritium. As the tritium ages and separates into helium and hydrogen, those gases can create pressure inside the container. This is expected and accounted for in the container’s design.
To reduce the amount of waste stored on site, Los Alamos National Laboratory will ship the containers off-site to a licensed storage facility. In order to ship the containers, the pressurized gases inside the containers must be vented to meet regulatory requirements of the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT).
The Laboratory has developed a safe, proven and reliable process for venting FTWCs. Emission controls, including a filtering system, are in place to capture tritium during venting. The venting process will undergo real-time monitoring to ensure that public health and safety is protected and that no regulatory limits are exceeded in accordance with Department of Energy (DOE) and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) requirements.
The venting process will be carefully controlled and monitored and the final results will be made available to the public in the Laboratory’s Electronic Public Reading Room and in the Lab’s Annual Site Environmental Report (ASER), which is published in the Fall time frame each year and contains the previous year’s information.