Accountable Material Reduction at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Authors

D. Banghart, N. Rothermich

Abstract

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) has made significant progress during the past four years in reducing its accountable nuclear material inventory. Major sources of material were from the Heavy Elements Research Laboratory (HERL), the Environment, Health and Safety (EH&S) Storage Facility, the Hazardous Waste Handling Facility (HWHF), and the Neutron Calibration Facility. Reduction of inventory was achieved through a team effort of staff scientists and EH&S experts tasked to identify accountable materials for disposal, characterize unknown material, and subsequently package and dispose unwanted materials. Disposal paths included donation of material to other institutions, transfer of transuranic material for eventual disposal at the Waste Isolation Pilot Program (WIPP), and utilization of the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) Off-site Source Recovery Program. The impact of accountable material inventory disposal effort has been a reduction in radiological hazards from uncharacterized legacy materials, reduction of general area dose rates from accountable material storage locations, and reduction of materials that are subject to the Material Control and Accountability (MC&A) program.

Meeting

This abstract was presented at the 38th Annual Midyear Meeting, "Materials Control and Security: Risk Assessment, Handling, and Detection", Materials Control and Security Risk Assessments Session, 2/13/2005 - 2/16/2005, held in New Orleans, LA.

 
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