[CPEO-MEF] Pantex (TX) safety

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

Safety alarms raised at nuclear weapons plant
Federal investigators are looking into deteriorating conditions at the 
Pantex plant in Texas. Energy Department officials say there's no danger.

By Ralph Vartabedian
Los Angeles Times
February 21, 2007

AMARILLO, TEXAS - Electrical failures have shut down the plant. The roof 
has leaked. Decrepit machinery dates back more than 40 years. Safety 
lapses led inspectors to levy fines twice within two years. And 
employees, under deadline pressure, complain they are often worked past 
the point of exhaustion.

If this factory were producing medical devices or refining gasoline, the 
conditions would be serious enough. But this is where they work on 
nuclear bombs.

Pantex is the Energy Department's main nuclear weapons factory, a 
linchpin of the nation's defense for half a century. The nation no 
longer makes nuclear weapons, so the plant's chief roles are servicing 
them or dismantling them to meet the terms of disarmament pacts.

On a 25-square-mile swath of the Texas Panhandle, a series of massive 
white concrete domes mark the places where live nuclear weapons are 
opened up. The rituals and procedures inside those cells are supposed to 
be as strict as in any operating room, part of a safety culture that 
reduces any chance of an accidental nuclear explosion to one in 100 million.

...

For the entire article, see
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/la-na-pantex21feb21,1,716553.story?ctrack=1&cset=true

--


Lenny Siegel
Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
c/o PSC, 278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org


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