SRS contractor cited in report

Web posted January 6, 2000

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By Brandon Haddock
Staff Writer

Savannah River Site's top contractor again has failed to follow safety procedures, even as it faced warnings from federal agencies to improve.

During two weeks in late November and early December, employees of Westinghouse Savannah River Co. failed five times to follow procedures designed to prevent ``criticalities,'' or chain reactions, in two site facilities.

The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board noted the incidents in a Dec. 10 report recently released on the Internet. The federal review board had warned SRS officials in May that safety procedures were not being followed consistently at the nuclear weapons site.

In November, the U.S. Department of Energy, which owns SRS, also instructed Westinghouse to improve after several other incidents in SRS plants.

As it did after those incidents, the Energy Department is monitoring Westinghouse's efforts to correct the situation, a spokesman said.

``They are obviously procedural violations,'' said Rick Ford, an Energy Department spokesman at SRS. ``Our facility representatives participated in the critiques of each of these events, and participated again in determining what the corrective actions should be.

``We're monitoring their implementation of these corrective actions to make sure they are effective.''

Westinghouse workers in the affected plants were retrained in procedures to prevent criticalities, said Paul Jones, a company spokesman.

Such reactions could result in explosions or the release of radioactive material. A nuclear accident Sept. 30 in Japan was the result of a criticality.

Although an Energy Department spokesman said the SRS incidents could have caused a chain reaction under certain conditions, Mr. Jones said the mishaps did not compromise safety.

``What was involved were administrative shortcomings that were promptly investigated and corrected,'' he said.

The mishaps occurred in ``H-Canyon,'' which recovers useful materials from radioactive and chemical wastes, and in ``HB-Line,'' which stabilizes plutonium left over from other operations.

Among the incidents:

• An employee entered an incorrect value in an equation to determine how much fissile material was present during an operation. The value entered was a conservative number, but the incident still warranted investigation, Mr. Jones said.

• A small container of liquid was found in a sealed ``glovebox'' where workers perform radioactive work. The container, hidden from view, was not detected during a previous inspection.

• The glovebox was supposed to be free of liquids, which can act as ``moderators'' in a nuclear reaction, slowing it enough to cause a criticality.

• A safety step in a pre-operations checklist was performed but not documented.

• Containers that could leak radioactive materials were not properly documented in safety records.

• The flushing of some basins that collect radioactive materials was deemed inadequate. Over time, enough material could have collected to cause a criticality under certain conditions.