Uranium Plant Risks Were Concealed

[Susan Gawarecki <loc@icx.net>]

Uranium Plant Risks Were Concealed 

By Joby Warrick, Washington Post Staff Writer 

Tuesday, September 21, 1999; Page A1 

Managers of the government's Paducah, Ky., uranium plant knew for
decades of unusual radiation hazards inside the complex but failed to
warn workers because of fears of a public outcry, according to documents
to be released by a congressional panel this week.

Faded memos unearthed by workers and federal investigators shed new
light on what early plant officials knew about the presence of plutonium
and other highly radioactive metals in the plant-knowledge that was kept
from the workers for nearly four decades.

In one 1960 document, a government physician wrote that hundreds of
workers should be screened for exposure to "transuranics"-radioactive
metals such as plutonium and neptunium-but he said plant officials
feared such a move would cause alarm and lead to higher labor costs.

"They hesitate to proceed to intensive studies because of the union's
use of this for hazard pay," says the memo, discovered by Energy
Department officials investigating the plant.

The documents from government archives have been turned over to a House
Commerce Committee panel, which is holding hearings Wednesday into
allegations of unsafe conditions at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant.
The Washington Post obtained advance copies of the documents and
prepared testimony of some current and former plant officials.

Accounts of plutonium contamination and illegal waste dumping at the
facility have triggered an Energy Department investigation and a class
action suit by employees who believe the plant put them at risk.

Energy Secretary Bill Richardson toured the plant on Friday and formally
apologized to workers for the government's failure to fully inform them
about the risks. He pledged millions of dollars in new spending to
compensate ailing workers and to accelerate the cleanup of the plant.
And he presented an award to the family of the late Joe Harding, an
employee who had tried vainly for years to convince Energy officials
that hazards in the plant had caused his fatal illness.

"On behalf of the government I'm here to say I'm sorry," Richardson
said.  "The men and women who have worked in this facility helped the
United States win the Cold War and now help us keep the peace. We
recognize and won't forget our obligation to them."

Plant officials, while acknowledging the presence of plutonium at
Paducah, have said the amounts were small and were likely of little
threat to workers.

Government contractors who ran the plant over the last 47 years have
declined to comment because of pending litigation. A Union Carbide Corp.
spokesman, in a statement last month, said the alleged acts at Paducah
occurred long ago, and none of the current managers had any detailed
knowledge of what had happened. Union Carbide operated the plant from
1952 to 1983.

The documents and testimony to be presented at the congressional hearing
suggest that the federal government and private contractors running the
plant ignored decades of warnings to protect workers from plutonium, a
man-made metal that can cause cancer if inhaled in amounts as small as a
millionth of an ounce.

"What is clear is that the [government] contractors knew of the need to
protect workers from plutonium and other transuranics . . . as early as
1952," Jim H. Key, the ranking environmental and safety official for the
plant's unionized employees, states in prepared testimony to be
delivered Wednesday.

Key, who has not yet spoken publicly about the allegations of workers'
exposure, alleges "widespread, systematic and documented failures" by
the government and its contractors to control the spread of radioactive
hazards. He describes smoky, radioactive fires inside the plant and
thick clouds of radioactive uranium dust-workplace hazards for which
workers were neither trained nor equipped.

Former workers also have come forward with evidence suggesting that past
managers viewed the contamination as a practical and economic problem.
John Tillson, a hydrologist who analyzed early operations at the plant
while working for a cleanup contractor, said Paducah managers tried to
recover the transuranics from the plant's waste stream in the 1950s and
1960s, when the metals were in high demand for nuclear materials
research.  By 1970 the prices had dropped, and the recovery programs
were halted, he said.

Plant officials even began processing sewage sludge from the plant after
it was found to contain high levels of uranium. Harold Hargan, a 37-year
employee who was detailed to the recovery program, said the uranium in
sludge came exclusively from the plant's sanitary system, which included
lavatories, wash rooms and laundry facilities. "All that uranium was
either on workers' clothes or bodies-or inside their bodies," he said.

Although no formal epidemiological study has been completed for Paducah,
some workers have long raised questions about what they believe are
unusual rates and types of cancers in their communities. Those fears
have risen sharply in the wake of reports that plutonium and other
highly radioactive metals were also present in the workplace, Key, the
union safety officer, says in his statement.

"The majority of current and former workers are afraid that they may
have been exposed to substances like plutonium without proper protection
and that they will, as a result, be stricken with a fatal disease," Key
wrote. "I myself have this fear from my 25 years at Paducah."

Hired by the plant's original contractor, Union Carbide, in 1974, Key
said he began witnessing safety problems almost immediately. During his
first year on the job, he was engulfed in radioactive smoke after
helping dump drumloads of highly flammable uranium metal into an open
pit on the plant's grounds.

"The uranium spontaneously ignited . . . and a pungent and irritating
smoke enveloped us," said Key, an hourly worker and officer in the local
chapter of the Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical and Energy Workers
International Union. "To my knowledge this dumping ground has never been
characterized."

Workers inside the building where powdered uranium was processed were
not required to wear respirators, even though the dust at times was so
thick it was difficult to see, Key said.  "I recall having to hold my
breath to get through clouds of unknown fumes," he said.

In the 1970s, Key would observe workers cleaning up spills of "black
powder," which he later learned consisted of recycled uranium from the
government's plutonium production facilities. Not until 1990 did plant
officials tell the union that the powder contained small amounts of
"transuranics"-a class of highly radioactive metals that includes
neptunium and plutonium. Plutonium is 100,000 times more radioactive per
gram than uranium.

Key cited a 1952 Union Carbide memo that suggests the need for special
labeling of "plutonium contaminated locations."

Years later, in a 1985 memo, Energy officials advised Paducah's managers
to test workers who handled the recycled uranium for exposure to
transuranics. Key notes, "We have no evidence that these recommendations
were acted upon or communicated to the workforce."

In 1991, Martin Marietta Energy Systems, which was now operating the
plant, began a voluntary program to test workers for exposure. Thirty
workers participated, but the test results were "invalidated" due to
what the company termed "concerns and discrepancies" regarding the
testing lab, Key said.

He said the company refused to release the results to the union,
explaining in a memo that "management is reluctant to release this
information due to concerns about how it would be used."

Concerns about public reaction were echoed in the 1960 memo from H.D.
Bruner, a physician, to Union Carbide and Atomic Energy Commission
medical officials. He expressed concerns about relatively large amounts
of neptunium in recycled uranium delivered to the Paducah plant. "But I
am afraid the policy of the plant is to be wary of the unions and any
unfavorable public relations," the memo states.

Although workers in some buildings were furnished with gas masks, Bruner
said the respirators were not used and did not appear to be effective
against the tiny uranium particles in the air.

"The human factor in handling [the recycled material] should be
considered a source of potential exposure," he wrote.
-- 
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Susan L. Gawarecki, Ph.D., Executive Director
Oak Ridge Reservation Local Oversight Committee, Inc.
136 South Illinois Avenue, Suite 208
Oak Ridge, Tennessee  37830
Phone (423) 483-1333; Fax (423) 482-6572; E-mail loc@icx.net
VISIT OUR UPDATED WEB SITE:  http://www.local-oversight.org
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