By George Lobsenz

In a potential problem for a key nuclear weapons project, staff at a federal safety oversight board have formally notified the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) that they may not be able to certify the design for a new plutonium-handling facility at Los Alamos National Laboratory because the agency has said it may cost too much to ensure the facility’s emissions confinement system can withstand a strong earthquake.

In a Jan. 16 letter to the NNSA, the semi-autonomous Energy Department agency that manages the department’s nuclear weapons complex, staff at the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) said the position taken by NNSA is “not acceptable” given the risks posed by the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement (CMRR) project at the seismically active Los Alamos site.

Staff at the DNFSB said they wanted NNSA to “reconfirm its commitment” to making the emissions confinement system capable of withstanding so-called performance category, or PC- 3, earthquake events.

NNSA’s position is somewhat unusual because commercial nuclear power plants and other nuclear facilities are typically designed to earthquake safety standards that are substantially equivalent to the PC-3 standard used by DoE.

The DNFSB staff’s concerns are important because Congress in the defense authorization bill for fiscal year 2009 specifically gave the DNFSB certification authority for the design of the CMRR project, which NNSA says is vital to maintaining weapons design and production capabilities at Los Alamos.

Under the defense authorization bill, Congress withheld $50.2 million in fiscal 2009 funding for the CMRR project subject to the DNFSB and NNSA providing formal certification to the House and Senate armed services committees that design of the CMMR facility was adequately protective of public safety.

As part of the certification process, the DNFSB staff earlier this month began sending “findings” to NNSA laying out their initial concerns about aspects of the CMRR design.

The staff has sent two findings, one about overall seismic safety of the CMRR and the other focusing on the so-called confinement ventilation system, which is critical to capturing and preventing the release of any harmful emissions from the facility.