Fine No Surpise At Hanford $110,000 Penalty For Explosion Reflects ‘Serious Situation’
Officials at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation said Friday they were not surprised by a record $110,000 fine levied by the state over an explosion at a plutonium plant.
The fine against the U.S. Department of Energy and two Hanford contractors follows a four-month state investigation into the May 14 blast at the Plutonium Finishing Plant.
“This was not a surprise,” said Mike Berriochoa, spokesman for Fluor Daniel Hanford, which operates many Hanford plants for the Energy Department.
The state Department of Ecology, which levied the fine, “considered this a very serious situation, and so did we,” he said.
The other contractor is Babcock and Wilcox Hanford Co., which manages the Plutonium Finishing Plant. The plant for decades helped make plutonium for nuclear weapons.
In the past, the Energy Department has generally paid the legal bills and other charges incurred by its private contractors.
But Guy Schein, an Energy Department spokesman, said the contract Fluor Daniel signed before it took over as lead contractor last October from Westinghouse Hanford Co. does not protect contractors from having to pay fines.
Lawyers for the Energy Department and the two contractors will meet next week to decide how to share the fine costs, Schein said.
Westinghouse may be liable for some costs if it’s determined some of the violations that led to the explosion occurred when Westinghouse was the main contractor, Schein said.
The penalty sends a message on the importance of emergency preparedness and proper storage of hazardous chemicals at Hanford, said Mike Wilson, manager of the Ecology Department’s nuclear waste program.
The state agency was able to fine the federal agency and its two private contractors because the explosion and its aftermath produced seven violations of state laws.
The Energy Department and the contractors have 30 days to appeal.
Fluor Daniel has not decided if it will appeal, Berriochoa said. Babcock and Wilcox officials did not return telephone messages.
Mike Talbot of the Energy Department said officials were still evaluating the fine and had not decided if they will appeal.
The Energy Department’s internal investigations found numerous mistakes that led to the explosion and a poor emergency response.
The explosion occurred after two chemicals - nitric acid and hydroxylamine nitrate - were left in the tank for four years and became unstable as liquids evaporated.
The explosion blasted off doors and split open the building’s roof.
The explosion also broke a water line. The Energy Department has said water swept traces of deadly plutonium outside but insists there was no significant release of radioactivity.
Chaos ensued after the explosion, with workers given conflicting orders, 10 workers ordered into the path of a chemical cloud and a lengthy delay in getting those workers to a hospital. There was also a 3-1/2-hour delay in alerting local emergency officials, rather than the legal limit of 15 minutes.
Some of the exposed workers have complained of rashes, mental confusion and irritability.
xxxx Hanford fines A list of fines levied by the Washington Department of Ecology for activities at the Hanford nuclear reservation: March 10, 1993, $100,000, failure to identify the contents of at least 2,000 barrels of wastes. March 9, 1994, $15,500, waste improperly disposed of in Richland landfill. May 30, 1995, $7,000, five unspecified violations. Jan. 19, 1996, $5,000, training deficiencies. Sept. 27, 1996, $20,000, incompatible materials stored together. April 28, 1997, $90,000, failure to fix safety procedures following an accident at a laboratory. Sept. 19, 1997, $110,000, Failure to monitor chemicals in a tank that exploded on May 14, and poor emergency planning and response. - Associated Press