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Show 03 EcriiirjUQliG Fttsio. Cost Bet If you live in an ac'ive earthquake zone, in a high-incidence high-incidence tornado area, or in a flood plain region of the United States, your best bet in case of a natural disaster i could be to seek refuge in -your nearest plutonium processing plant. AT LEAST that will be the case in the future, when all such facilities are constructed in compliance with the upgraded design criteria of the Energy Research and Development Administration (ERDA). These criteria were established es-tablished for three new plutonium plu-tonium facilities - the first to be constructed under the new ERDA safety rules. ERDA's predecessor, the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, Com-mission, ordered a review of existing criteria and then established es-tablished new rules for future construction of all facilities after a near-disastrous fire at the Atomic Energy Commission's Commis-sion's plutonium facility at Rocky Flats near Denver, Colo, in 1969. Rebuilding of the fire- -damaged area and construction construc-tion of a new scrap recovery facility at Rocky Flats began under new and stringent guidelines. SIMULTANEOUSLY, new plutonium facilities at Los Alamos, N.M., and Liver-more, Liver-more, Calif., were approved. The criteria under which the three were funded will be the standard for all future updating updat-ing and new construction in the plutonium industry. Wilbur McNeese, LASL staff member in charge of design criteria for the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory's Labora-tory's (LASL's) new plutonium plu-tonium plant, said the rules are aimed at upgrading major areas of concern: safety for the public, the workers, and the environment. environ-ment. ALTHOUGH Los Alamos has never experienced a major earthquake, McNeese points out that the new plant was designed to totally withstand an earthquake of 6.7 on the Richter Scale, plus (highly unlikely) tornadic winds of 200 miles per hour. Air, which has passed through glove boxes and may contain plutonium particles, will be filtered repeatedly through High Efficiency Particulate Par-ticulate Air (HEPA) filters which have a collection efficiency ef-ficiency of 99.97 percent for particles three-tenths of a micron in size - far smaller than the diameter of a human hair. ALL AIR in the plutonium processing facility will be filtered fil-tered seven times each hour. Pollens, dust, and bacteria will be removed from the atmosphere, at-mosphere, resulting in a plant that is far more sterile than a hospital operating room. ' ONLY 10 percent of the : recycled air will be exhausted to the outside.of the building. As it emerges from the final exhaust filter, it will be onitored through the use of isokinetic probes. Contamination Con-tamination in the exhausted air will be less than that found normally in the atmosphere. at-mosphere. TWO OUTSIDE sources of electrical power are fed through substations in the basement of the building. Each is operated independently, indepen-dently, providing a foolproof method of keeping filtering systems, cooling water systems, sys-tems, and other safety-related services running. EACH SUPPLIES one half of the facility with emergency power. In addition, if both outside electrical supplies fail, emergency generators will automatically begin functioning. McNeese sums it up: "The plutonium plant is as precisely designed for safety as the state of the art allows. Because of the limited access (six vault doors) you could close this plant and walk away; the facility would be bottled up as tight as a submarine." |
