Nota: vogliamo sapere i nomi dei responsabili dell'associazione internazionale a delinquere denominata BNFL.

Amid allegations that public health might be threatened by recycling of decontaminated metal from Energy Department nuclear cleanup operations, independent inspectors discovered that several metal shipments due to be released from DOE's Oak Ridge, Tenn., site contain residual radioactivity exceeding the department's safety limit, according to a new DOE audit report.

The report said an independent verification team hired by DOE's Oak Ridge office found that radiation levels on at least two metal shipments destined for commercial reuse were much higher than stated by BNFL Inc., the contractor recycling the metal from cleanup of an uranium enrichment facility at Oak Ridge.

That disclosure, made in a report released September 19 by DOE Inspector General Gregory Friedman, follows a decision by Energy Secretary Bill Richardson in July to suspend all DOE metal recycling pending a safety review.

However, in announcing that decision, DOE did not reveal the finding that decontaminated metal at Oak Ridge had contamination levels exceeding the department's safety limit.

The IG report follows a major controversy over the safety of DOE's metal recycling program, which has been attacked by antinuclear activists and metal industry officials on the grounds that it could introduce radiation hazards into consumer products.

Most of the debate focused on BNFL's cleanup of the K-25 uranium enrichment complex at Oak Ridge. The $238 million project called for BNFL to decontaminate and recycle nickel and other metal taken from K-25 buildings, with BNFL pocketing money received from commercial sales. BNFL said it was able to cut the cost of the cleanup by $60 million due to metal sales.

The recycling scheme brought praise from Vice President Al Gore at the time the contract was awarded to BNFL in August 1997. He said that by reducing waste disposal and saving the government money, the recycling idea was a shining example of "reinventing government" that could provide both environmental and economic benefits.

When the recycling came under attack in 1999, DOE officials denied any safety hazards, saying decontamination techniques reduced residual radiation to tiny fractions of natural radiation levels in the environment.

BNFL Inc., the U.S. subsidiary of state-owned British Nuclear Fuels, a nuclear services company, said decontaminated metal was carefully screened prior to commercial release. And BNFL officials added that the company had set its own internal "administrative limits" - ”that were three times lower that DOE's safety limit - ”to ensure public health would be protected.

However, when DOE hired an independent verification team to check metal BNFL had cleared for release, nearly two dozen of 639 lots of metal surveyed were found to have excessive radiation levels.

"The team found that 22 lots exceeded the [BNFL] administrative limit," the inspector general's audit report said. "Of the 22 lots, two exceeded the department release criteria.

"In several cases, the difference between BNFL's and the team's survey results were significant."

For example, the inspection team found one lube oil pipe had contamination levels of 110,000 disintegrations per minute per 100 square centimeters of surface area—well above DOE's limit of 5,000 disintegrations per minute. However, BNFL had put contamination levels at only 530 disintegrations per minute.

In the early part of this year, the independent team found an increasing percentage of lots exceeding BNFL's administrative limit, ultimately triggering a stop-work order by BNFL on May 29 so corrective actions could be taken.

The inspector general attributed the problems to large management turnover on the BNFL project team and BNFL's failure to document which areas in metal lots were prone to have excessive contamination. The inspector general said the failure to pass along that information to new project managers resulted in repeated instances of excessive contamination slipping through BNFL safety surveys.

"As a result of the inaccurate surveys, the risk to the public that contaminated metals were released from the site was increased," the inspector general report said.

Beyond the contaminated lots that were discovered, the report noted that "since the verification team does not verify every item in each lot, additional surveying errors would not be detected, and in some cases, lots exceeding the release criteria may have been released."

As of May 2000, 6.6 million pounds of metal have been released from Oak Ridge for unrestricted commercial reuse. The inspector general noted that no recipients of the metal had reported any instances of excessive contamination levels.

David Campbell, a spokesman for BNFL Inc., acknowledged the surveying problems, but said they had been corrected. Campbell also said one of the two shipments exceeding DOE release limits was decontaminated by another contractor, not BNFL.

DOE and BNFL are still trying to negotiate reimbursement for the DOE-imposed cutoff in metal recycling. In addition, BNFL is awaiting DOE action on its request for some $107 million in additional payments to cover other unanticipated problems with the K-25 cleanup.

Nuclear Society Changes Tune, Backs FFTF Restart
BY TINA DAVIS

In an abrupt about-face, the American Nuclear Society said it now supports the restart of the Energy Department's Fast Flux Test Facility (FFTF) as soon as possible, reversing its previous position of caution with regard to the approximately $284 million restart effort.

ANS said its change of heart was prompted by the closure of other research reactors and the prohibitive cost to build a new facility to provide plutonium for the space program, medical isotopes and basic research.

The sodium-cooled research reactor located at DOE's Hanford, Wash., site was first brought online in 1980 and shut down in 1993 due to operating cost concerns. The $1 billion facility has been kept in standby mode since then.

In 1998, after other DOE research reactors were shut down, Energy Secretary Bill Richardson ordered an analysis of what role FFTF could play in supporting various nuclear science and technology needs. The secretary eventually called for a draft environmental impact statement (EIS) on the consequences of restarting the reactor; the EIS has not been finalized.

In its initial response to the restart idea, ANS said it was worried that FFTF may end up eating other nuclear funding within the department. The group—which is composed of engineers, scientists, administrators and educators—also worried that DOE had not provided enough detail about the research work that would be done at the reactor.

"In the intervening year, several important events took place," current ANS President James Lake and former President Andrew Kadak wrote in a September 18 letter to Richardson.

"The United States has lost another major research reactor facility due to the untimely shutdown of the Brookhaven High Flux Beam Reactor. It is also expected that DOE will shut down the Brookhaven medical research reactor.

"This continual erosion of the U.S. research reactor capability severely damages our ability to develop technologies of the future and maintain the infrastructure necessary for U.S. leadership in nuclear science and technology."

ANS noted that DOE has also promised that funds would not be diverted from other DOE projects for restarting FFTF.

And the group said the facility held some attraction simply because it already exists.

"ANS believes the restart of the FFTF, when compared to other options for satisfying the many missions defined [by DOE], will be the low-cost alternative," the letter stated. "This is based on the assumption that building any new facility is, in general, more expensive than modifying an existing facility for specific purposes."

Dependent upon a final nod from Richardson, the FFTF is expected to resume operations in July 2004.