Bono: Oops! Well, there goes the urban sprawl problem...
Posted on 12/16/2006 7:11:23 PM PST by LibWhacker
WASHINGTON — An accident that occurred as a decades-old nuclear warhead was being dismantled at the government's Pantex facility near Amarillo, Texas, could have caused the device to detonate, a nonprofit organization charged Thursday.
The Project on Government Oversight said the "near miss" event, which led the Energy Department to fine the plant's operator $110,000, was due partly to requirements that technicians at the plant work up to 72 hours per week.
The Pantex plant, 17 miles northeast of Amarillo, is the country's only factory for assembly and disassembly of nuclear weapons.
The organization said it was told by unidentified experts who were "knowledgeable about this event" that the accident, in which an unsafe amount of pressure was applied to the warhead, could have caused the device to detonate.
The oversight project also released an anonymous letter, purportedly sent by Pantex employees, warning that long hours and efforts to increase output were causing dangerous conditions in the plant.
In a two-paragraph statement, BWX Technologies, the company that operates the Amarillo facility under a contract with the Energy Department, said it "takes seriously any employee concerns about safe operations" and was comparing statements in the anonymous letter "with the reality of day-to-day work."
BWX spokeswoman Erin Ritter declined to comment beyond the statement.
Julianne Smith, a spokeswoman for the Energy Department, which owns the Pantex plant, declined to respond to safety complaints outlined in a letter from oversight project Executive Director Danielle Brian to Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman.
However, records show that the department last month fined BWX $110,000 for the accident and another event involving the same warhead.
In a letter to Dan J. Swaim, BWX general manger of the plant, the Energy Department said the company had "significantly delayed" disclosing the incidents and then submitted a "factually inaccurate and incomplete" report.
The letter, signed by Linton Brooks, head of the National Nuclear Security Administration, did not say the incidents could have caused a nuclear detonation or what kind of warhead was being dismantled when they occurred.
It said that during three separate unsuccessful attempts to dismantle the warhead in March and April of last year, workers applied too much pressure to the device and a safety mechanism failed to work.
Oversight project investigator Peter Stockton, a former Energy Department official, said the device was a W56 warhead, with a yield of 1,200 kilotons, 100 times the destructive power of the Hiroshima bomb.
I'm sure they were standing right there...
/sarcasm
A nonprofit organization
talks to unidentified experts
gets an anonymous letter
the letter does not say that a nuclear explosion could have occurred
or what was being dismantled
yeah ok :-)
It is hard to get a nuclear weapon to detonate properly in the first place. Precise machining of intricate yet bulky parts, the most exotic timing mechanisms, shaped explosive lenses, corroding parts, half lives measured in days etc. They are almost so complex that if one minor thing goes wrong you end up with a conventional explosion and lots of contamination but very localized.
Sadly most people don't know this. They think a nuke will go full yield just by hitting it with a hammer.
Kinda like what happened to Illins little nuke. He's sooo ronereee!
The atmospheric tests indicated radiation, the seismic showed just a big non nuclear boom.
Even intentionally it takes pretty high tech to do it right!
Who is Peter DH Stockton really working for?
his patron, John Dingell,
fwiw, Dingell works for his arab/moozlime constituents in Dearborn, Michigan, and they reward him with reelection dependably every 2 years
Well, I'd miss the Big Texan, anyway...
HAHA!
I bet you would. Can you finish the free one?
Exactly.
Not even worthy of the slightest sneer from the tower they envision themselves within.
Since when are nuclear warheads left laying around for thirty years ? I had understood all warheads every several years are disassembled and refurbished.
My Dad worked there for 20 years. He COULD NOT say what he did at that plant. When I was in first grade, we were supposed to tell what our parents did for a living. I asked my Dad what he did, and he told me he swept floors. (He had to keep his work area clean.) I went to school and told them he was a janitor. He still laughs about that to this day, and I still don't know what he did there. He won't tell.
i like that 150 pd demolition unit - got some big tree stumps that it would work real good on.
Lt. George: "Oh, sir, just one thing. If we should happen to tread on a mine, what do we do?"
Capt. Blackadder: "Well, normal procedure, Lieutenant, is to jump 200 feet into the air and scatter yourself over a wide area."
I don't know why, but that made me laugh out loud.
I used to report in that area. It's correct.
If the Davy Crockett rounds were that close to criticality, what was the radiation situation?
Any crews sprout extra arms?
On general principle, I do not take seriously anything put out by any non-profit militant group.
What could possibly be of any use from a pack of welfare wannabes that can't find a real job?
Being created and funded by foreign powers is just icing on the doo-doo cake...
It sounds like a Union might be involved.
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