Uranium plant records erased, paper reports

[GlennACarlson@aol.com]

Uranium plant records erased, paper reports
  Monday, May 1, 2000 

  By Associated Press 

  The operators of uranium processing plants in Paducah and
  Piketon, Ohio, erased hundreds of safety and environmental
  problems from computer records without proper government
  approval, a Kentucky newspaper reported Sunday. 

  The Department of Energy had required plant operators to track
  their progress toward correcting problems, but more than
  one-fourth of such records at both plants were deleted without
  DOE clearance in 1993, according to documents obtained by
  The Courier-Journal. 

  The Energy Department, after a three-year investigation,
  reconstructed the erased items from computer archives and
  paper records and concluded the deletions were inappropriate.
  DOE also found that nearly half the problems either had not
  been fixed or should have been referred to other agencies
  before being erased. 

  The erased items included government and operator findings of
  a lax attitude toward safety by first-line supervisors, inconsistent
  investigations of accidents, health and safety violations by both
  management and rank-and-file workers. 

  The United States Enrichment Corp., which now leases and
  operates both plants, was ordered to fix some of the remaining
  uncorrected problems, but it was not fined, nor were the plants
  shut down at any time, the newspaper reported. 

  The Justice Department is investigating the erasures as part of
  its broader probe into allegations of fraud by contractors at the
  Paducah plant. 

  USEC spokeswoman Elizabeth Stuckle said that while the
  safety items were "deleted from the tracking system," they were
  "never deleted from existence." 

  In memos to the Energy Department, USEC also has said it
  had the right to erase certain items without permission and that
  the findings it deleted did not have a significant impact on the
  plants' safety. 
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