Until it explodes because it was filled with organic instead of clay kitty litter and costs $500 million to 2 billion and two years to clean up (this happened at WIPP in 2014)
It seems that nobody can safely deal with nuclear material cost effectively.
From the article:
Worse still, mismanagement of the clean-up has involved poor safety practices. Last year, the DOE's Independent Office of Enterprise Assessments released a report that found that WIPP clean-up operations were being rushed to meet the scheduled reopening date and that this pressure was contributing to poor safety practices.
The report states: "The EA analysis considered operational events and reviews conducted during May 2014 through May 2015 and identified a significant negative trend in performance of work. During this period, strong and unrealistic schedule pressures on the workforce contributed to poor safety performance and incidents during that time are indicators of the potential for a future serious safety incident."
The report points to "serious issues in conduct of operations, job hazard analysis, and safety basis." Specific problems identified in the report include:
workers incorrectly changing filters resulting in five safety violations;
waste oil left underground for an extended period despite a renewed emphasis on combustible load reduction;
fire water lines inadequately protected against freezing;
inadequate processes leading a small fire underground, followed by the failure of workers and their supervisor to report the fire;
an operator improperly leaving a trainee to operate a waste hoist, the hoist being improperly used, tripping a safety relay and shutting down the hoist for hours;
an engineer violating two safety postings to remove a waste hoist safety guard;
workers removing a grating to an underground tank and not posting a barricade, causing a fall hazard;
a backlog of hundreds of preventive maintenance items; and
failing to properly track overtime such that "personnel may be working past the point of safety".
https://theecologist.org/2016/sep/20/wipp-nuclear-waste-acci...
It seems that nobody can safely deal with nuclear material cost effectively.
From the article:
Worse still, mismanagement of the clean-up has involved poor safety practices. Last year, the DOE's Independent Office of Enterprise Assessments released a report that found that WIPP clean-up operations were being rushed to meet the scheduled reopening date and that this pressure was contributing to poor safety practices.
The report states: "The EA analysis considered operational events and reviews conducted during May 2014 through May 2015 and identified a significant negative trend in performance of work. During this period, strong and unrealistic schedule pressures on the workforce contributed to poor safety performance and incidents during that time are indicators of the potential for a future serious safety incident."
The report points to "serious issues in conduct of operations, job hazard analysis, and safety basis." Specific problems identified in the report include:
workers incorrectly changing filters resulting in five safety violations;
waste oil left underground for an extended period despite a renewed emphasis on combustible load reduction;
fire water lines inadequately protected against freezing;
inadequate processes leading a small fire underground, followed by the failure of workers and their supervisor to report the fire;
an operator improperly leaving a trainee to operate a waste hoist, the hoist being improperly used, tripping a safety relay and shutting down the hoist for hours;
an engineer violating two safety postings to remove a waste hoist safety guard;
workers removing a grating to an underground tank and not posting a barricade, causing a fall hazard;
a backlog of hundreds of preventive maintenance items; and
failing to properly track overtime such that "personnel may be working past the point of safety".