The Energy Department and a contractor building a waste treatment plant at the nation's most contaminated nuclear site procured and installed tanks that did not always meet requirements of a quality assurance program or the contract, a federal audit concluded Monday.
The audit also found that the agency had paid the contractor a $15 million incentive fee for production of a tank that was later determined to be defective and, while it demanded the fee be returned, never followed up to ensure that it was.
In recent months, the $12.3 billion plant under construction at south-central Washington's Hanford nuclear reservation has been the subject of whistleblower complaints about its design and safety. The plant is being built to convert highly radioactive glass into a stable glass form for permanent disposal underground.
The tanks' design is significant because they will be located in so-called "black cells," which are areas of the plant that will be too radioactively hot for workers to enter once the plant is operating.
TVNL Comment: There is no room for nuclear power plants on this planet. We can not tolerate or survive the "problems" associated with them. There is no such thing as "risk". Risk + time = eventuality. Nuclear disasters will happen. That is simply realty. And we can not survive nuclear disasters.
In the wake of the deadly flash floods in Texas on July 4, Texas leaders are...
