Retrieval, Disposal, and Disposition of Legacy Sealed Sources
Publication: Journal of Hazardous, Toxic, and Radioactive Waste
Volume 23, Issue 4
Abstract
This article describes work performed on behalf of the US Department of Energy (DOE) to disposition 467 government-owned, sealed californium-252 () sources located at 52 academic and government research sites. These sources are the legacy of the DOE Loan/Lease Program, which operated from the late 1960s until 2008, when the loan program closed abruptly. Although the DOE took decades to fabricate and distribute the sources, best safety and nuclear accountability practices demanded retrieval or disposition of all loaned sources as soon as achievable after the loan program was closed. An adaptable disposition approach was developed, and disposition of the sources was pursued. The approach involved a combination of source retrievals, disposal actions, and source ownership transfers. A new shielded shipping container was designed and deployed to aid in source retrievals. In a couple cases, incomplete source fabrication and shipping records prevented shipment, and those sources were left indefinitely with the customer in a safe configuration. All the sources in the inventory were safely dispositioned in some way, and lessons learned from this effort are provided.
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Data Availability Statement
Some or all data, models, or code generated or used during the study are available from the corresponding author by request:
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Californium source data including source serial numbers, source types, fabrication dates, decay dates, decay models, and estimated isotopic compositions,
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End point of individual sources whether recovered for recycling, disposed of, or transferred to another ongoing program,
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Loan Program institutional customer names and locations.
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Calendar and schedule information on source retrieval and disposal actions.
Some data used during the study are proprietary in nature and may only be provided with restrictions:
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Customer information concerning sources that were not returned to ORNL for recycling or disposal, or that were not disposed of by the OSRP. This information may be shared with affected US DOE or US Nuclear Regulatory Commission personnel, or with each former customer on an individual basis. These customer data will not be shared between former customers.
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Requests for engineering drawings for the 10-gallon Type A container would need to be cleared by ORNL before they are released.
Acknowledgments
The authors thank Porter Bailey, Anthony McClellan, Angie McGee, Dale Perkins, Ed Hamilton Smith, Sharon Robinson, Matt Stansberry, C. Scott White, and Gomez Wright for their work and insight to carry out this project. Also, the authors would like to thank the DOE Office of Nuclear Materials Integration for funding the effort to make the closeout successful. This material is based upon work supported by the US Department of Energy, Office of Nuclear Materials Integration, under contract number DE-AC05-00OR22725.
Disclaimer
This manuscript has been authored [in part] by UT-Battelle, LLC, under contract DE-AC05-00OR22725 with the US Department of Energy (DOE). The US Government retains and the publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the US government retains a nonexclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, worldwide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this manuscript, or allow others to do so, for US Government purposes. DOE will provide public access to these results of federally sponsored research in accordance with the DOE Public Access Plan (http://energy.gov/downloads/doe-public-access-plan).
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Hazardous, Toxic, and Radioactive Waste
Volume 23 • Issue 4 • October 2019
Copyright
©2019 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Mar 5, 2019
Accepted: May 8, 2019
Published online: Aug 5, 2019
Published in print: Oct 1, 2019
Discussion open until: Jan 5, 2020
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