Re: EXPLOITED Secrecy took precedence over plant safety

[Vincent Burkes <burkes.1@postbox.acs.ohio-state.edu>]

Well said.

At 02:31 PM 3/30/00 -0600, you wrote:
>News from Paducah---------------how health physics protections were
overcome 
>by management.
>
>This is more the real picture of gas diffusion plants and disregard
for 
>worker safety.  Same things happened in Oak Ridge and
Portsmouth---------all 
>operated by DOE-ORO.
>
>Jim Phelps, formerly ORNL Sr. Dev. Staff ---rad instr design
>
>Source:
> <A 
>HREF=""

00330+editorial" EUDORA=AUTOURL>http://204.120.16.85/cgi-bin/view.cgi?/200003/30+005j_editorial.html+200 > 00330+editorial
> 00330+editorial">http://204.120.16.85/cgi-bin/view.cgi?/200003/30+005j_editor
>i
> al.html+20000330+editorial</A>
> =========================================================
> EXPLOITED
> Secrecy took precedence over plant safety
> 
> Indifferent. Irresponsible. Callous. These words come to mind in reviewing
> retired workers' descriptions of conditions at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion
> Plant during the period from the plant's opening in 1952 to the mid-1980s,
> when the Cold War was winding down.
> If the workers' accounts are accurate — and there is substantial evidence to
> support their claims — the plant's operators and their overseer, the federal
> government, displayed varying degrees of indifference, irresponsibility and
> callousness in dealing with worker safety and environmental issues at the
> uranium enrichment facility.
>
> Apparently safety was not a top priority at the plant during the Cold War
> era, although the risks of radioactive contamination certainly were not
> unknown. The idea of protecting the environment seems to have been a foreign
> concept. Plant employees and the federal officials who regulated their
> activities used the site as a dumping ground for radioactive waste and other
> hazardous materials.
>
> In fact, the federal government used Paducah as an unregulated dump for
>other
> nuclear facilities. The community knew, of course, that uranium was being
> enriched here, but the government did not advise workers and the plant's
> neighbors that materials contaminated with highly radioactive plutonium and
> neptunium were shipped to Paducah.
>
> It's pretty clear now that, in the Cold War-era nuclear program, secrecy
> ranked far above safety on the government's priority list.
>
> Safety lapses were common in the plant environment described by former
> workers who spoke recently to the Sun's Joe Walker. It needs emphasizing
>that
> several of these workers are plaintiffs in a $10 billion federal lawsuit
>that
> alleges two former plant contractors, Union Carbide and Lockheed Martin,
> jeopardized the health of plant employees by putting profits ahead of
>safety.
> The two companies have denied the allegations contained in the lawsuit.
>
> However, investigations conducted by the federal Department of Energy tend
>to
> support at least some of the workers' claims.
>
> For instance, the DOE has said workers at the plant's C-400 building were
> exposed to toxic trichloroethylene and radioactive contamination.
>
> Documents show that problems with neptunium contamination were detected as
> early as 1957. A report written in 1960 by a medical researcher working for
> the federal government predicted that questions surrounding the exposure of
> Paducah workers to neptunium "will inevitably come more to the forefront."
>
> Workers involved in the federal lawsuit say that the management of the plant
> was lax and that safety rules were unevenly enforced. Describing the
>handling
> of radioactive substances, Harold Hargan said, "Ignorance and apathy were
> rampant."
>
> Some of the workers recall that liquid samples of uranium were diluted and
> then dumped in a holding pond. For years, chemical drainage from the C-400
> building flowed directly into the soil — a fact that may explain why several
> private wells near the plant were contaminated with trichloroethylene and
> technetium.
>
> These accounts make it easier to understand why the federal government will
> spend somewhere around $1 billion cleaning up the plant site. Growing
> evidence indicates the plant produced soil and groundwater pollution nearly
> as routinely as it produced enriched uranium.
>
> Given that the federal government is virtually immune from lawsuits, the
> former plant contractors will have to bear the full brunt of litigation
> arising from the alleged safety lapses.
>
> The contractors should be held accountable if workers were exposed without
> their knowledge to dangerous working conditions. However, the ultimate
> accountability for the uranium enrichment plant rested with the federal
> government.
>
> Federal officials served as overseers and regulators. The federal government
> called the shots, and monitored the results.
>
> If working conditions at the plant were, in fact, unsafe, we are forced to
> conclude that this was acceptable to the federal government. The disturbing
> bottom line here may be that the government of all the people did not serve
> the people of Paducah; it deliberately exploited them.
>
> =========================================================
>
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