Off-Site Source Recovery Program; High Activity Beta/Gamma Removal, Transport and Disposition

The Department of Energy’s (DOE) National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) Office of Radiological Security’s (ORS) Off-Site Source Recovery Program (OSRP) has been tasked with the removal and disposition of radioactive sealed sources. It is the mission of the program to provide support, in the interest of national security and public health and safety, by preventing potentially harmful radioactive sealed sources from falling under the possession of individuals that would use this material for malicious intent. OSRP is a collaborative effort involving Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Idaho National Laboratory (INL), and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). At the inception of the program, Pu-239 was the only acceptable isotope to be recovered. As a wider security scope developed, OSRP expanded its mission to include the removal and disposal of other sources that posed a potential risk to national security, health, and safety. Starting in 2004, OSRP initiated its involvement in recovering higher-activity cesium and cobalt devices, largely from medical, research, and industrial facilities. These disused higher-activity devices present a burden to licensees in terms of security, and demand for OSRP’s assistance in removing them has been high. Today, OSRP removes around 40 high-activity devices per year in support of domestic demand as well as ORS’s Cesium Irradiator Replacement Project (CIRP). In total, this equates to an average of over 50,000Ci of Cs-137 and Co-60 removed from the private sector per year for permanent disposition. A major component of this effort is the use of the proper shipping container to transport the various devices. As a way to increase transportation capabilities ORS has developed two new Type B containers. The most recently completed of these containers, the 435B, is currently certified to transport Gammacell 1000, Gammacell 3000, Gammacell 40, and Gammators in an overpack configuration. This provides greater capacity and flexibility to safely and effectively transport these devices, for which acceptable shipping configurations had been previously limited.