Re: DOE Price Anderson Actions

[Bob Flood <bflood@SLAC.Stanford.EDU>]

At 01:22 PM 5/7/97 -0500, you wrote:

Selected quotes from the original posting:


>1. PRELIMINARY NOTICE OF VIOLATION AND
>PROPOSED$25,000 CIVIL PENALTY
>
> On February 27, 1997, the DOE Office of Enforcement and
>Investigation issued a Preliminary Notice of Violation and
>Proposed Imposition of Civil Penalty to Lockheed Martin
>Idaho Technologies Company (LMITCO) under the
>Price-Anderson Amendments Act for ...
>
>On July 22, 1996, these failures
>resulted in five construction workers receiving radiation doses
>ranging from 652 mrem to 678 mrem and a sixth worker
>receiving minor skin contamination. The proposed violations
>constitute a severity level II problem and a proposed civil
>penalty of $25,000.
>
>The air in the room became contaminated when
>the pipefitters cut an internally contaminated pipe with a
>positive air flow. Because the airborne contamination in the
>room was not monitored, the carpenters and laborers worked
>unprotected in the area for up to 40 minutes.
>
> The Price-Anderson Amendments Act subjects DOE
>contractors to civil penalties for violations of DOE rules,
>regulations, and compliance orders relating to nuclear safety
>requirements.

This event is clearly an unplanned exposure, which any radiation safety
program never wants to see. But I don't understand how the operator can be
fine when there doesn't appear to be a specific regulatory requirement
violated.

I came to SLAC from a NRC-regulated environment, where every Notice of
Violation quotes chapter and verse from the regulation violated as
justification for the Notice. Civil penalties are documented in the same way.

Yet this particular notice (and another I have seen) from DOE fails to show
that any regulation was violated. I don't want to imply that DOE has no
business wanting something done about this event, because it most certainly
is their business and they certainly want something done about it. My
question is, where do they get the authority to levy a fine when no
regulation has been violated? Isn't this like getting a ticket for driving
at a speed close to, but not over the posted speed limit?


Bob Flood
Stanford Linear Accelerator Center
(415) 926-3793     bflood@slac.stanford.edu
Unless otherwise noted, all opinions are mine alone.