A division of the mammoth DuPont company that once operated Savannah River Site is being brought to South Carolina to review the plant's safety programs in the wake of several recent accidents.
"DuPont Safety Resources has been used at other Department of Energy sites in the past and has provided valuable and meaningful input," said Tony Umek, vice president of environment, safety, health and quality for the site's current contractor, Savannah River Nuclear Solutions.
The six-person crew from DuPont will be working, at various times, at SRS as part of an overall review of safety operations, said plant spokeswoman Fran Poda. "They are providing a consulting service on safety and will take an independent look at our safety culture."
Recent incidents have included an acid spill in F-Area that sent several workers with minor burns to hospitals; a worker contamination incident in H Canyon; an arc flash incident with burn injuries to a worker in the D-Area powerhouse; and a severe hand injury that occurred during crane maintenance work at the Salt Waste Processing Facility construction site.
Those accidents, which have all occurred since August, prompted site manager Jeffrey Allison to announce a series of steps designed to enhance attention to safety.
"There are a number of ongoing and planned initiatives that will be focused on improving work planning, review, approval, and performance that will involve increased management field presence," he wrote last week in a memo to all employees. "Rolling timeouts and safety stand-downs are some of the expected actions in the coming weeks."
The cost of the consulting services is not yet known, but the contract has a ceiling of $200,000. Ms. Poda said the effort is part of a broader focus on accident prevention and safety.
Reach Rob Pavey at 868-1222, ext. 119, or rob.pavey@augustachronicle.com.
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Paints a nice picture but what does this really mean? More money spent by SRNS on high dollar consultants doing what the new management folks couldn't do. The regular employees that have worked for years get pushed to the side while they bring in their buddies for mega bucks. Think about it.
I worked at the Savannah River Plant for DuPont.I worked at the Savannah River SITE for Westinghouse(et al). Safety was a #1 priority for DuPont. When Westinghous came in, changed the name and began to load up with employees from their commercial plants (DOE took over their pensions at that point), this all changed. Safety was a priority as long as it didn't slow down the process of making money.
Many of the folks involved in Health Protection and Safety were not fully qualified for their positions.
Now the new operator of the SITE has the job of eliminating the Westinghouse/WSRC mind set and re-establishing a mind set of Safety. This will take time and if Safety isn't "pushed" fully, then accidents will take place.
You don't get people from the same site to do a review. Going out is a wise decision. Can you show a tie between the people coming in to do the review and the ones who made the decision to bring them? I believe you said they were buddies?
Tony Umek is part of the problem - he came from Hanford Site in Washington and has little understanding of SRS. Hanford has a very poor safety culture. I worked there with DuPont and WSRC and I can honestly say that DuPont operations were very very scary! DOE provided no oversight and DuPont failed to understand new safety requirements.