Battelle Energy Alliance has paid the Energy Department $60,000 to settle an electrical accident that happened last year at the Idaho National Laboratory, a company spokesperson confirmed May 16.
“The DOE Office of Enforcement received the BEA-signed copy of Consent Order WCO-2016-01, and payment for the monetary remedy, on May 5, 2016,” a spokesperson for Battelle said by email on Monday.
On April 23, 2015, while three electrical linemen performing preventive maintenance on a vacuum breaker in the Scoville Substation in the Central Facilities Area, something made contact with a live high-voltage wire and caused an arc flash — the equivalent of artificial lightning, according to the consent order signed April 27 by Mark Peters, president of lab prime contractor Battelle Energy Alliance, and delivered to DOE on May 9.
The consent order did not detail how the accident happened, but did note the “workers fell to the ground, but were not injured.”
The incident, which Battelle quickly reported, “revealed deficiencies in [Battelle’s] hazard identification and assessment procedure, electrical safety program, protective equipment selection process, hazard prevention and abatement procedure, and safety training program,” according to the consent order.
