Year
2010
Abstract
The Global Threat Reduction Initiative’s (GTRI) Offsite Source Recovery Project (OSRP)1 has been recovering excess and unwanted radioactive sealed sources since 1999, including more than 2,400 Plutonium (Pu)-238 sealed sources and 653 Pu-239-bearing sources that represent more than 10% of the total sources recovered by GTRI/OSRP to date. These sources have been recovered from hundreds of sites within the United States (US) and around the world. OSRP grew out of early efforts at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) to recover and disposition excess Plutonium-239 (Pu-239) sealed sources that were distributed in the 1960s and 1970s under the Atoms for Peace Program, a loan-lease program that serviced 31 countries, as well as domestic users. In the conduct of these recovery operations, GTRI/OSRP has been required to solve problems related to knowledge-of-inventory, packaging and transportation of fissile and heat-source materials, transfer of ownership, storage of special nuclear material (SNM) both at US Department of Energy (DOE) facilities and commercially, and disposal. Unique issues associated with repatriation from foreign countries, including end user agreements required by some European countries and denials of shipment, will also be discussed.