Cleanup at Fernald fault

[struggle4progress]

Contractor failed safety tests, agency says

By Dan Klepal
Enquirer staff writer

CROSBY TWP. - The federal government's top watchdog of nuclear cleanups says the contractor in charge of the $4.4 billion cleanup at Fernald has repeatedly failed tests meant to show workers can safely remove the most dangerous radioactive material stored in three concrete silos at the Cold War-era uranium plant.

The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, created by Congress in 1988 to oversee the country's nuclear weapons complexes, also said Fluor Fernald is using the tests improperly - to find and fix problems rather than a demonstration that there are no problems.

The most recent failure caused Fluor to shut down the test last week so it could further train workers. The test was to demonstrate that computer operators know how to remove radioactive sludge from storage tanks, mix it with cement and package it for shipment for burial. <snip>

http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050212/NEWS01/502120408/1056/news01

[NNadir]

1. So the point is what?

Presumably the workers will be trained and the program will definitely work.

No one (as in zero) people have been injured by the waste in this tank and no one is ever likely to be injured by it, ever. It is, in fact, waste in a tank, not waste widely distributed over the planet.

Now, at some point we're going to have to start discussing the difference between weapons and commercial technology so that I will have some time to discuss some environmental issues that are actually dangerous, like the destruction of rivers for instance. I am not really mystified that there are no persons continually raising issues about napalm in order to prove that petroleum technology should be abandoned, or persons writing articles here about the toxicity issues associated with the construction of the B-1 bomber in order to prove that all carbon processing schemes should be abandoned.

It is amazing, when you think about it, that these kind of articles appear though. Imagine, for instance, if similar kinds of articles were written everytime a truck driver carrying propane, or a refinery worker torquing bolts on a seal, failed a training test. We would have no room in our newspapers for anything else.

Why do all nuclear operations, no matter how trivial get so much attention?

Here's my one word answer: Stupidity.

[struggle4progress]

2. Years of contractor problems:

Wednesday, March 19, 1997
GAO on Fernald: cleanup botched; millions wasted
Congressmen want changes before contract renewal

BY MIKE GALLAGHER
and TIM BONFIELD
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Government investigators say the cleanup of Fernald has wasted millions of dollars through mismanagement by the contractor and a lack of oversight by the U.S. Department of Energy.

A report by the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO), released Tuesday, prompted members of Congress to say the contract of Fluor Daniel Fernald should not be renewed or extended unless major problems at the nuclear cleanup site can be fixed. <snip>

Included in the problems GAO investigators found at Fernald were a severe lack of Energy Department oversight; tens of millions of taxpayers' dollars wasted on fast-tracked and problem-plagued cleanup projects; unauthorized use of financial control and charge accounts; lack of safety procedures and training; and missing, non-existent or inadequate financial and safety documents and procedures. <snip>

http://www.enquirer.com/fernald/stories/031997_fernald.html


Friday, March 21, 1997
Fernald contractor loses big job
Pilot project stripped from Fluor Daniel

BY PAUL BARTON
and TIM BONFIELD
The Cincinnati Enquirer

WASHINGTON - Reacting to a critical report about Fernald, U.S. Energy Department officials said Thursday they will strip Fluor Daniel of the most critical cleanup pro-ject at the site and replace the company with a new contractor.

The department also will move immediately to launch an overall review of Fluor Daniel's work on other parts of the nuclear cleanup project. <snip>

http://www.enquirer.com/fernald/stories/032197_fernald.html


Taxpayers bilked in Fernald cleanup
http://www.enquirer.com/fernald/


You say: "Presumably the workers will be trained and the program will definitely work." The history suggests otherwise.