Alissa Tabirian
NS&D Monitor
9/4/2015
The Department of Energy (DOE) this week issued a preliminary notice of violation (PNOV) to the company that manages the Nevada National Security Site (NNSS) for a June 2014 chemical explosion that injured two workers at the site’s Nonproliferation Test and Evaluation Complex (NPTEC). “The drum explosion and expelled steel shrapnel had the potential to cause a fatality or … serious physical harm to the workers,” according to the notice against National Security Technologies (NSTec). An investigation of the incident “revealed five violations of DOE worker safety and health (WSH) requirements,” it says: “weaknesses in NSTec’s implementation of work planning and control processes, hazard identification, hazard communication, fire and explosion prevention procedures, and timely abatement of known hazards.”
The Aug. 25 notice says “NSTec did not perform a hazard analysis of the NPTEC West Motel storage building to ensure that chemical hazards were appropriately identified before NSTec approved the building for use, handling, and storage of flammable and hazardous chemicals.” It adds that NSTec failed to “effectively evaluate worker exposures to chemical agents” at NPTEC and did not manage the building’s chemical inventory according to hazard communication guidelines. NSTec also “failed to properly train and brief workers” to familiarize them with proper “hazards and mitigations associated with the work,” DOE said.
The PNOV notes that the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) proposes no civil penalties against the contractor because it previously “reduced the contract fee that was awarded to NSTec for failure to fully meet specific contract performance objectives, including the chemical explosion referenced in this PNOV, by $2.05 million.” NSTec is required to submit a reply to the PNOV within 30 days either to provide arguments supporting any points of disagreement with the PNOV or to waive the right to contest the notice, in which case it will become a final order.
NSTec yesterday said it is reviewing the PNOV but that “upon initial examination, however, we have found no substantive errors.”
“As NNSA acknowledged in the PNOV, our corrective actions are addressing the deficiencies that we and the NNSA identified in the joint Accident Investigation Board, and the subsequent Office of Enforcement investigation,” the company said in a prepared statement. “We appreciate that civil penalties were not levied, however we will continue to drive improvements in our safety and security programs. We are committed to safe and secure mission delivery for NNSA, and we take the protection of our personnel and the environment very seriously.”
