Rocky Flats

["Thomas J Savin " <tjsav@LYCOS.COM>]

thought this would be of intereest to some - Enjoy!



ROCKY FLATS CONTRACTOR FINED FOR NUCLEAR SAFETY VIOLATIONS



DENVER, Colorado, July 23, 2001 (ENS) - The Department of Energy (DOE) has issued a $385,000 civil penalty to Kaiser Hill Company, LC, operator of the Rocky Flats Environmental Technology site in Denver, for violations of rules and procedures designed to assure nuclear safety. 



The penalty was issued by the DOE's Office of Price-Anderson Enforcement in coordination with the DOE Rocky Flats Field Office. While none of the violations presented a serious threat to worker health or safety, the events could serve as precursors to more serious incidents. 



The DOE investigation at Rocky Flats focused on four areas:





Repeated failures to assure the quality of materials procured for nuclear related work, a problem that has recurred over the past two years. The DOE cites an incident in which Kaiser-Hill bought 500 lids for 55 gallon drums that were to be used in nuclear waste interim storage, without following quality assurance procedures. All 500 drum lids had to be rejected due to damage and defects. 



Criticality Safety and Work Controls. A number of deficiencies were associated with a series of recent events involving resizing plutonium pieces into smaller pieces for packaging, loading of containers, and storage of waste containers after the nuclear material content was measured. While none of the events itself posed a serious threat to worker health or safety, DOE believes that the repeated nature of the problems demonstrates that these are fundamental concerns requiring serious management attention. 



Building 771 Radiation Safety Program. Several procedural violations regarding radiation safety were identified in both Kaiser-Hill and DOE investigations of worker exposures to plutonium in a building that is being decontaminated and decommissioned. None received exposures high enough to be considered a health risk. 

The contractor's investigation of an October 2000 event identified additional concerns related to compliance with radiological procedures, adequacy of work controls, and effectiveness of management oversight. 





Failure to correct identified problems. Kaiser-Hill was cited for failing to take effective corrective actions for previously identified problems in the areas of procurement, criticality safety and authorization basis implementation.

The Department of Energy determined that had effective corrective actions been taken, the majority of the deficiencies cited in this action could have been avoided. 





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Tom Savin





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