Radiological control technicians simulate work in a glove box training facility at Los Alamos National Laboratory in 2021. A new report from the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board says several of the lab’s policies regarding glove boxes, including its use of outdated air pressure gauges and how it handles inspections, are not doing enough to prevent the release of airborne contaminants.
Courtesy Carlos Trujillo/Los Alamos National Laboratory
Radiological control technicians simulate work in a glove box training facility at Los Alamos National Laboratory in 2021. A new report from the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board says several of the lab’s policies regarding glove boxes, including its use of outdated air pressure gauges and how it handles inspections, are not doing enough to prevent the release of airborne contaminants.
Courtesy Carlos Trujillo/Los Alamos National Laboratory
Los Alamos National Laboratory is not doing all it can to detect radioactive leaks in glove boxes and prevent the release of airborne contaminants, a federal watchdog said in a review it conducted of the equipment and safety programs after a series of mishaps.
The equipment, made up of sealed compartments and attached protective gloves, aids workers in handling radioactive materials and is deemed essential in the lab ramping up production of plutonium cores, or pits, that trigger nuclear warheads.
Although the lab is addressing problems previously identified with glove box operations — worn gloves not changed soon enough, inadequate staffing and training, leaky ports not sealed — a team found several other deficiencies that should be fixed to reduce hazards, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board wrote in a 13-page report.
“The [safety board’s] staff team believes additional measures may be warranted to ensure facility-worker safety related to glovebox operations,” the board wrote.
Safety board Chairwoman Joyce L. Connery sent a letter to Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm summarizing the findings and asking that the U.S. Energy Department respond within 120 days.
Board officials listed 10 glove box incidents from December 2022 to November 2023 that spurred the review.
The report also notes two serious earlier incidents.
A breached glove box in June 2020 exposed a half-dozen workers to airborne plutonium contaminants, with one person requiring two chelation treatments. Chelation is used to remove heavy metals from the body.
In January 2022, seals failed on an unused glove box port, releasing weapons-grade plutonium that contaminated four workers, one of whom had to receive chelation treatment.
In an email, Millicent Mike, a spokeswoman for the National Nuclear Security Administration, which oversees the lab’s weapons program, wrote her agency is aware of the board’s letter to Granholm but couldn’t say more.
“We are unable to comment on specifics ahead of an official response to be made at the requested briefing,” Mike wrote. “As always, we will continue to prioritize the safety of our employees.”
In an email, an anti-nuclear watchdog argued the 10 incidents the board lists in the report were “potentially dangerous.”
“The discouraging overall trend is the accelerating frequency of these events as LANL ramps up expanded plutonium pit production,” wrote Jay Coghlan, executive director of Nuclear Watch New Mexico. “The Lab feeds the public with empty assurances of safety. However, this trend deserves meaningful course correction before, and not after, LANL begins production.”
One of the board’s criticisms was about workers being allowed to operate a glove box with a faulty gauge that measures whether the compartment has negative air pressure, meaning lower than the pressure in the room.
Negative pressure helps contain the contaminants because it draws air into the box. That in turn reduces the contaminants released through a leak.
Engineers told the board’s team the gauges aren’t necessary to ensure containment because there are other ways to check negative pressure and determine a glove box is working as it should.
Operators are trained to report malfunctioning gauges to the system engineers, but with permission they can keep working in a glove box with a defective gauge, the report said, indicating this practice raised some concerns.
The team noted the gauges are one of the most reliable methods to verify the negative pressure that keeps contaminants confined, the report said.
“Working in a glovebox without a functioning pressure gauge would leave workers without the best safety method for determining the glovebox is operable and performing its confinement function,” it said.
The team observed the gauges are of an older, simple design. They have no color coding or other visual cues to let operators know of significant pressure changes, and they are not placed in the workers’ line of sight.
Another shortcoming are glove box inspections, which now are done visually without using tools that could detect tiny leaks in equipment and accessories, the report said.
The swipes radiological technicians use to take samples of contaminants and workers use to check equipment before and after a task also could be applied during inspections, it said.
A device known as a durometer could test the condition of gloves and seals, while systems such as oxygen analyzers could detect flaws and degradation before they worsen into “contamination events,” the report said.
Other best practices include submerging new gloves in water to test for punctures and using ultrasonic testing to detect any leaks in the compartment, it said.
The lab also has failed to impart to other facilities the lessons it has learned from various incidents, including how to correct the problems and avoid them in the future, the report said, adding that information sharing is vital in Energy Department’s national complex.
