Hardy R Author

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Lesson Learned from the February 2014 Fire and Radiation Release Events at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico, USA

Author(s):

Thakur P, Hardy R

The recently reopened Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) is expected to resume accepting new shipments of nuclear waste from across the DOE (Department of Energy) complex by April, 2017. There was no road map for cleaning up the nation’s only deep geologic repository for defense nuclear waste when it was contaminated three years ago after two accidents in February 2014 shutdown the facility and contaminated 22 workers with very low level of radiation as some radioactive material escaped above ground. The dominant radionuclides released were americium and plutonium, in a ratio that matches the content of the breached drum. According to the source term estimation, the actual amount of radioactivity released from the WIPP site was less than 1.5 millicurie. From the modeling, monitori... view more»

DOI: 10.4172/2325-9809.1000175

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