Radiological contamination was found on four workers at the Y-12 National Security Complex in recent weeks, including one person who tracked material into a facility housing enriched and depleted uranium operations, according to a report from a federal group that monitors Department of Energy sites.
The four incidents stemmed from routine operations and maintenance, according to a Consolidated Nuclear Security (CNS) spokesperson, and human error played a role in the events.
CNS, led by Bechtel, is the outgoing management and operations contractor for Y-12 and the Pantex Plant in Texas.
The incidents did not push any worker beyond his or her annual dose limit, the spokesperson said, as the levels of radioactivity were very low. No “negative health impacts were experienced by the workers,” the spokesperson added, “and no long-term health effects are anticipated.”
Follow-up surveys found no spread of contamination, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) reported Nov. 19.
The first person had contamination on their shoe after “inadvertently” returning to a contaminated area in Building 9212, the oldest active nuclear weapons production building at Y-12, the DNFSB said.
The second person had contamination on their hair, neck and shirt after working in Building 9202, one of the two 1940s-vintage facilities that houses the Y-12 Development Organization: a pool of subject matter experts who can be farmed out to ongoing missions on site.
The third person had contamination on their shoe, after some was unexpectedly discovered on an item in Building 9204-2E, where components for the U.S. nuclear arsenal are assembled and disassembled, among other things.
The fourth person had contamination on their shoe, as well. He or she tracked contaminated material “into Building 9215 from a recent project in an alley outside of Building 9204-2E,” the DNFSB said.
In each case, the CNS spokesperson explained Wednesday, workers “were quickly decontaminated and evaluated before returning to work. The areas involved were also verified to contain no contamination.”
The four incidents occurred over the course of two weeks. Twenty-three personnel contamination events had been logged at Y-12 as of Nov. 19.
Y-12, in Tennessee, is the National Nuclear Security Administration’s defense-uranium hub.
The agency elected to end its contracting relationship with CNS in 2020, after the team earned 70% — “good” — on a fiscal year 2019 evaluation. Among other factors, the NNSA cited safety concerns at both Y-12 and Pantex.
Nuclear Production One, a Fluor-led team with Amentum, was scheduled to take over as the site operations contractor on April 1, pending protests by a pair of losing bidders.
