I recently wrote a post about problems at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. The LANL is not the only national laboratory with a poor record for safety. Other national labs transgressions have also been reported by government inspectors.
In the spring of 2014, ninety-seven nuclear researchers from the U.S. and other countries convened in Nye County, NV. They met at the place where the U.S. had conducted hundreds of nuclear weapons tests. The testing of nuclear weapons at that site had ended. The scientists had come to the National Criticality Experiments Research Center (NCERC) to use a piece of equipment called Godiva. The purpose of their visit was to test nuclear pulses.
The Godiva machine had originally been located at Los Alamos, N.M. but was moved to Nevada nine years before the gathering of scientists. There was a cover for the machine that was intended to prevent the escape of any loose radioactive particles but that cover was not reinstalled after the move to Nevada.
When Godiva was operating, it often set of radiation alarms at the NCERC so the staff decided to turn off the alarms. Unfortunately, the alarm system was designed to turn on ventilation and air filtration so when the alarms were shut off so was the ventilation system. The only operational ventilation system left was a small exhaust fan that moved air into a room where scientists watched next to the room where Godiva was located.
The Godiva test runs were completed in mid May of 2014. On June 16th, routine tests of the facility revealed that there were radioactive particles in the room where the scientists had been working. When the room that contained the Godiva machine was tested, it was found to have twenty times more radiation than the adjacent room. The site operators had the rooms decontaminated. However, they did not notify and check the scientists who had attended the test sessions.
On July 17th, a researcher at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California who had participated in the Godiva tests at NCERC had a routine exam for radiation exposure. Particles of highly enriched uranium were found in his urine. Following that revelation, National Securities Technologies, the lead contractor at the NCERC, tested the urine of NCERC staff members who had been in the Godiva room when the tests were being conducted. The results showed that three technicians had inhaled highly-enriched uranium.
No public announcements of the findings were made. Eventually, all ninety seven scientists who had gathered for the Godiva tests were contacted. The testing of the group for radioactive exposure proceeded slowly and by 2016, it was found that thirty one of them had inhaled uranium. Though the amount of uranium was small, uranium particles can keep emitting radiation for years and pose a serious cancer risk. The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) said in a letter to the NCERC that the exposures were “safety-significant and preventable.”
NCERC had been warned in 2010 that there could be problems with the Godiva machine installation. The warning even explicitly mentioned that there were concerns about the ventilation system. Even with advanced warning, workers and visiting scientists were still exposed to uranium particles. In other words, this exposure should not have and did not need to have happened.
The Center for Public Integrity conducted a review of over sixty violations of safety regulations at ten federal nuclear weapons facilities. Their review said that the protective system for such facilities was dysfunctional. Contractors continued to make high profits while fines were often reduced or entirely waived. Auditors said that federal agencies such as the NNSA and the DoE which were supposed to overseen these facilities were so understaffed that contractors were basically left to police themselves.
During the Cold War, there was great pressure to complete nuclear weapons projects as quickly as possible. A system evolved where profits were based on the ability to deliver results and safety issues took a back seat. Unfortunately, this culture of “profits first” still exists today. Some workers feel that “safety is completely gone.”
