Fluor-BWXT Portsmouth, the deactivation and demolition contractor at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio, should tighten up work control shortcomings that could endanger employee health and safety, according to a new Department of Energy analysis.
While the contractor “generally meets the fundamental expectations” of safety requirements, it needs a comprehensive industrial hygiene effort to ensure workplace exposures stay below regulatory limits, the DOE Office of Enterprise Assessments said in the report.
Such a program should include initial or baseline surveys and periodic resurveys, according to the DOE assessment office.
Also, Fluor-BWXT should tailor its job hazard analysis procedures to better apply specific work activities and, in the process, identify hazards that might be missed, according to the report. There are several examples in which noise and chemical hazards were not properly addressed, according to the report.
An air monitoring plan was developed for the Building X-326 demolition project, but the plan “lacks the specific attributes of a health hazard assessment” such as identification of contaminants to be sampled or the frequency or location of sampling, according to the report. Also, technicians did not see to it that heavy equipment operators used breathing zone air samplers correctly to collect a representative sample of the air they were breathing.
During September and October of 2021 the DOE Office of Enterprise Assessments observed the work and inspected specific facilities, including the X-326 demolition site, the X-740 GroundWater Plume Remediation project, and the Onsite Waste Disposal Facility (OSWDF), according to the document.
The objective of the assessment was to verify Fluor-BWXT conducts work in accordance with a documented safety management system that defines the scope of work, identifies hazards and implements hazard controls, according to the DOE report.
The contractor did not respond to a request for comment by press time.
