March 17, 2014

DOE ISSUES ENFORCEMENT LETTERS AGAINST FORMER SPRU SUBS

By ExchangeMonitor

The Department of Energy last week issued enforcement letters to two former subcontractors to URS on the Separations Process Research Unit (SPRU) D&D project, warning of potential violations of DOE regulations stemming from radiological contamination events that occurred at the site last year. The letters were sent Oct. 24 to EnergySolutions and Safety and Ecology Corp. Describing the events at issue as having “high safety significance,” DOE Office of Enforcement and Oversight Director John Boulden wrote, “Although the actual consequences were limited, the potential consequences were significant.” However, DOE has decided to take no further action against the two companies, in part because they are no longer under contract to URS at the SPRU site. “In light of this, and also in consideration of the investigation, root cause analyses and corrective actions performed by URS at SPRU, the Office of Enforcement and Oversight has elected to exercise its enforcement discretion and not pursue further enforcement activity … at this time,” Boulden wrote in the letters.

SEC, which provided radiological control technicians at the SPRU site, was found to have had “potential noncompliances” with DOE occupational radiation protection regulations for two events, according to the Department letter. One is the now-infamous contamination event that occurred in late September 2010 as open air demolition was being performed at SPRU’s Building H2 that resulted in the spread of low levels of contamination to the broader Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory, where SPRU is located. “The RCT responsible for covering this work, again provided by SEC, was assigned unrelated duties in addition to covering this task. The RCT did not perform any radiological surveys after a white ‘puff’ was observed during size reduction of a condenser column; instead the RCT checked for explosive gases and allowed the crew to resume demolition,” the DOE letter states.

SEC was also cited for an event that occurred last August when contaminated sludge leaked from two pumps inside the Building H2 Tank Farm Weather Enclosure after pressure was applied to clear a clogged nozzle. While SEC subsequently cleaned up the spill area, areas of "high contamination" were found in December 2010, and again in mid-February 2011. For its part, EnergySolutions, which designed and operated the sludge processing equipment, was cited for "potential noncompliances" of DOE quality assurance requirements for the leak. "The SPRU sludge process equipment, as designed by ES [EnergySolutions], did not include any pressure gauges or system pressure protection to ensure that the pumps were operated below the maximum pressure limits. The excessive pressure resulted in pump failure and the release of radioactive contamination," DOE said.

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