A public meeting to discuss data from the depressurization of four flanged tritium waste containers at Los Alamos National Laboratory is scheduled for Dec. 9, 2025, in Los Alamos.
This in-person meeting will be held, 5:30-7 p.m. at Sala Event Center, 2551 Central Ave.
A virtual Zoom meeting option is available as follows:
Join Zoom Meeting: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/86235824828?pwd=zCBisrAgasSL2ZnhuiRlZw67azyXEE.1
Meeting ID: 862 3582 4828
Passcode: 463520
The National Nuclear Security Administration and LANL shipped the fourth and final flanged tritium waste container offsite on Nov. 14 for permanent storage and soon after posted the FTWC Radioactive Air Emissions Summary, Volume 1 Stack Emissions & Off-Site Dose Consequence report.
This first volume summarizes operations, provides emissions measurements, and reports radiological dose to the hypothetical Maximally Exposed Individual (MEI) member of the public. The report joins many other documents on LANL’s FTWCs treatment project on LANL’s Flanged Tritium Waste Container webpage.
Emissions for the entire operation were less than 123 curies. Using actual weather data and formally analyzing the results, the calculated off-site dose was less than 0.012 millirem to a hypothetical MEI member of the public. For reference, a cross-country round-trip airplane flight results in about 3.7 mrem of radiation exposure. The second volume to the report will include soil sampling data and ambient air measurement data taken during and after FTWC operations. Volume 2 will be issued in 2026 as there is a longer turnaround time to evaluate this data. Volume 2 will also have detailed analysis of the plume modeling performed for the project, comparing stack emissions with air concentrations at downwind locations.
The flanged tritium waste containers were placed in temporary storage in 2007. The depressurization operation was conducted to relieve any pressure that could have built up over time to ensure transportation would be done safely. None of the four containers had pressure build-up.
The operation to depressurize the four containers began Sept. 15, 2025, and took place over several days.