A New Study is Necessary of the Seismic Hazard at the Site of the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement (CMRR) Nuclear Facility. The New Study Should Also Include the Seismic Hazard of the Closely Located New TA-50 Radioactive Liquid Waste Treatment Facility and the Existing TA-55 Plutonium Facility. A Presentation to the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) in Washington, D.C. on April 23, 2009 by Robert H. Gilkeson, Registered Geologist P.O. Box 670 Los Alamos, NM 87544 rhgilkeson@aol.com (505) 412-1930 Joni Arends, Executive Director Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety 107 Cienega Street Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501 Tel (505) 986-1973 Fax (505) 986-0997 jarends@nuclearactive.org There are many factors which combine to make the new study of the Seismic Hazard at the three LANL facilities essential. - The new study will address the badly flawed geotechnical investigation of the seismic hazard at the new CMRR Nuclear Facility that was performed in 2005. - The new study will be a comprehensive analysis of the Seismic Hazard for the region of the New CMRR Facility, the New TA-50 Radioactive Liquid Waste Treatment Facility and the Existing TA-55 Plutonium Facility. - The LANL 2007 Probabilistic Seismic Hazard Analysis (PSHA) Report is not credible for calculation of the seismic hazard at any LANL facility. The 2007 PSHA requires revision when the important data gaps are resolved. Many of the data gaps were described in Section 10 of the 2007 report. - An overarching reason for the new study at the three facilities is that the 2007 PSHA increased the seismic hazard at the LANL facilities by about 50% because of the increased activity on the Pajarito Fault System. The three facilities are located within the network of faults that comprise the Pajarito Fault System (PFS). The fault system is displayed on Figure 1. The pertinent excerpt from the 2007 PSHA is pasted below: “The estimated hazard has increased significantly (including other spectral values) from the 1995 study due to the increased ground motions from the site-specific stochastic attenuation relationships and increase in the activity rate of the PFS.” (page ES-4) 1
- The “hotel concept” open floor plan for the new CMRR Nuclear Facility increases the danger for building failure from an earthquake. The pertinent excerpt from the DNFSB April 16, 2008 Staff Issue Report is pasted below: - “NNSA [National Nuclear Security Administration] has mandated that the laboratories of the [new CMRR] nuclear facility have a flexible, open floor plan to accommodate as-yet unknown future missions. This “hotel concept” prevents the addition of shear walls through the laboratory wings and has resulted in major seismic design challenges. Project personnel had been using a preliminary estimate of seismic motions for the facility until LANL completed its update of the probabilistic seismic hazard analysis; however, they did not anticipate that the final seismic motions, particularly vertical motions, would be in resonance with various sections of the nuclear facility. The laboratory portion of the [new CMRR] nuclear facility has been most problematic, with the fundamental frequency of the floor and ceiling matching that of the input seismic motions” [emphasis added]. (page 5) - Congress requires the DNFSB to certify that the design of the new CMRR Nuclear Facility will resolve seismic issues. The pertinent excerpt from the DNFSB NINETEENTH ANNUAL REPORT TO CONGRESS is pasted below: - “The Duncan Hunter National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2009, Public Law 110-417, enacted a limitation on funding for the Chemistry and Metallurgical Research Replacement Project at Los Alamos National Laboratory until the Board [i.e., the DNFSB] and the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) each certify that certain design issues [including seismic issues] reported by the Board have been resolved.” (page 7) - The DNFSB also has concern for seismic issues at the new TA-50 Radioactive Liquid Waste Treatment Facility. The pertinent excerpt from the DNFSB NINETEENTH ANNUAL REPORT TO CONGRESS is pasted below: - “Radioactive Liquid Waste Treatment Facility Replacement: The Board determined that the weak integration of the safety and design process and weak federal oversight resulted in problems with safety basis development, material selection, determination of seismic design requirements [emphasis added], and configuration management.” (page 16) - Concerning the existing TA-55 Plutonium Facility, the DNFSB NINETEENTH ANNUAL REPORT TO CONGRESS stated, “The Board identified the need for NNSA to focus on rapidly improving deficiencies in safety systems” (page 11). A DNFSB letter dated May 30, 2008 stated “The 2
Board reminds NNSA that the Plutonium Facility continues to operate with a safety basis that was approved more than a decade ago.” - After careful study of 1). the concerns of the DNFSB and Congress, 2). the great uncertainty and data gaps in the LANL 2007 PSHA Report and 3). the badly flawed geotechnical investigation performed at the site of the new CMRR Nuclear Facility in 2005, the finding of the authors of this presentation is that sufficient knowledge does not exist at this time to resolve the seismic issues. The issues require a new comprehensive study of the seismic hazard and it is very important for the new study to encompass the seismic hazard of the three closely located LANL nuclear facilities – the new CMRR Nuclear Facility, the new TA-50 Radioactive Liquid Waste Treatment Facility, and the existing TA-55 Plutonium Facility. The factors that require the new study are presented below. An overarching factor is that the 2007 PSHA Report and the 2005 geotechnical investigation at the location of the new CMRR Nuclear Facility did not incorporate the important new geologic knowledge that was gained from the installation of a large network of monitoring wells across the 43-square mile LANL Site. - The new geologic knowledge shows the great complexity of the geologic setting in the region of the new CMRR Nuclear Facility, the new Radioactive Liquid Waste Treatment Facility and the existing Plutonium Facility. - Indeed, the new geologic knowledge shows the great complexity of the geologic setting across the 43-square mile LANL Site. This complexity was not addressed in the 2007 LANL PSHA Report. The unpredictable geologic setting requires DOE to focus on rapidly performing site-specific geotechnical investigations at all of the existing critical LANL facilities including the new CMRR Nuclear Facility, the new TA-50 Radioactive Liquid Waste Treatment Facility, the existing Plutonium Facility and other existing facilities including the Weapons Engineering Tritium Facility, the Main Office Complex, the Library, and the LANL personnel offices in refurbished former public schools. - Complex Geologic Setting. The great complexity in the geologic setting across LANL is illustrated by the set of eight cross-sections in the LANL Hydrogeologic Synthesis Report that was published in 2005. LA-14263-MS. The cross-sections summarize the knowledge gained from the installation of a large network of monitoring wells. The 2007 PSHA report made a mistake to not incorporate the new geologic knowledge that shows the great complexity for calculation of the seismic hazard at LANL. The eight cross-sections are in Figures 2-12 through 2-19. The locations of the 3
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