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Re: What Should We Do With Plutonium Once Nuclear Weapons Are
The fact that DOE is fining and suing its contractors certainly indicates
that the agency is not colluding with them. So whom should one mistrust:
DOE or the contractor being sued or fined? d like to know the outcome of
some of these lawsuits. The fact that a lawsuit is filed means little --
the state of Nevada has filed a great many lawsuits around Yucca Mountain
and has lost most of them.
Moreover, I never argued either that "DOE and its contractors" were saints,
or that no contractor ever violated a safety procedure or got fined. But I
would like to know what fraction of any kind of comparable activity the
violations you cite represent. Let me make two analogies:
1. Some years ago I served as an expert witness for a citizens' group suing
the Cedar Hills Landfill of the City of Seattle (nothing to do with
radiation -- this was municipal solid waste -- garbage). We found that the
landfill had violations on 17 DAYS of a 20-YEAR operational history (and the
operation is 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Those were not trivial
violations, but I privately thought that 17 days out of 20 years was a
pretty good record. We (the citizens) won, by the way, because a violation
is a violation, and the law does not allow any, but in retrospect I thought
the suit was frivolous.
2. The health department of any major city (New York, Seattle, San
Francisco) routinely issues press releases giving the names of restaurants
that have been cited for health violations. Does that mean that all
restaurants are suspect? If a restaurant of a particular chain is cited, is
the entire chain suspect? Does even the cited restaurant continue to be
suspect? Moreover, in describing the situation, would I say "I wouldn't
dine out anywhere in [name of city] or at any [name of chain]? No, I would
refer to the actual situation.
I do not question that contractors commit violations and that DOE fines them
(or sometimes doesn't) but before admitting (or committing) to a distrust of
ALL DOE and ALL contractors, I would want to know
1. How many violations in how many person-years of operation of the
particular process.
2. What exactly the violation was (and not from a newspaper or DOE press
release).
3. What sort of other operations the contractor performed for which there
had been no citations of violation.
Ruth Weiner
ruth_weiner@msn.com
No there is no difference between universities and other contractors and I
didn't mean to imply there was. I thought you might think so, and I stand
corrected.
-----Original Message-----
From: Pambo1@aol.com <Pambo1@aol.com>
To: Multiple recipients of list <radsafe@romulus.ehs.uiuc.edu>
Date: Friday, August 11, 2000 8:38 AM
Subject: Re: What Should We Do With Plutonium Once Nuclear Weapons Are
>Okay, Ruth, below I've got links to some "specific evidence" that makes me
doubt whether DOE and its contractors can be trusted. These are all DOE web
sites, and I've even thrown in a couple of university-related items
(University of California and University of Missouri).
>
>Yes, I'm quite aware that DOE has contracts with universities. Would you
elaborate on how those are different from the others?
>
>Pam Watson
>DOE subcontractor worker
>Oak Ridge, TN
>
>Examples:
>
>DOE fines Univ. of California for workers' radiation exposure at Livermore
(March 1998):
>
>http://www.doe.gov/news/releases98/marpr/pr98028.htm
>
>DOE fines Fluor Daniel Hanford for violations including some related to May
1997 explosion (March 1998):
>
>http://home.doe.gov/news/releases98/marpr/pr98037.htm
>
>DOE fines Westinghouse Savannah River Company for recurring violations of
procedures used to ensure equipment and materials important to safety are
properly designed, constructed and installed (March 8, 2000):
>
>http://www.doe.gov/news/releases00/marpr/pr00065.htm
>
>DOE fines Mason & Hanger for safety violations in relation to fire that
occurred while a nuclear weapons component was being cleaned (August 3,
1999):
>
>http://www.doe.gov/news/releases00/marpr/pr00065.htm
>
>DOE cites Argonne for violations of nuclear safety procedures that resulted
in worker contaminations on two occasions (December 16, 1999):
>
>http://home.doe.gov/news/releases99/decpr/pr99329.htm
>
>DOE fines Lockheed Martin and MAC Isotopes for nuclear safety violations
that resulted in low-level contamination of six workers (June 8, 1998):
>
>http://home.doe.gov/news/releases98/junpr/pr98080.htm
>
>DOE fines Kaiser-Hill and Lockheed Martin for violating nuclear safety
procedures associated with the fabrication and procurement of nuclear waste
storage containers at Rocky Flats (August 20, 1999):
>
>http://home.doe.gov/news/releases99/augpr/pr99225.htm
>
>DOE levies penalties on Babcock & Wilcox and Lockheed Martin for nuclear
safety violations at the Mound Site and ORNL, respectively (November 1998):
>
>http://www.doe.gov/news/releases98/novpr/pr98174.htm
>
>DOE and state of Missouri enter into Abatement Order on Consent in regard
to violations of Missouri state laws by the Missouri University Research
Reactor (October 1995):
>
>http://www.em.doe.gov/ffaa/murrffca.html
>
>DOE issues scathing Type A Accident Investigation Report on chemical
explosion that injured 11 eleven workers at the Lockheed Martin-managed Oak
Ridge Y-12 Plant (February 2000):
>
>http://tis.eh.doe.gov/oversight/acc_inv/y-12_report/Y-12_NaK_Accident_Inves
tigation.htm
>
>
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