Uranium Plant Records Said Erased
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) - The operators of uranium processing plants in Paducah
and Piketon, Ohio, erased hundreds of safety and environmental problems from
computer records without proper government approval, a newspaper reported
Sunday.
The Department of Energy had required plant operators to track their progress
toward correcting problems, but more than one-fourth of such records at both
plants were deleted without DOE clearance in 1993, according to documents
obtained by The Courier-Journal.
The Energy Department, after a three-year investigation, reconstructed the
erased items from computer archives and paper records and concluded the
deletions were inappropriate. DOE also found that nearly half the problems
either had not been fixed or should have been referred to other agencies
before being erased.
The erased items included government and operator findings of a lax attitude
toward safety by first-line supervisors, inconsistent investigations of
accidents, health and safety violations by both management and rank-and-file
workers.
The United States Enrichment Corp., which now leases and operates both
plants, was ordered to fix some of the remaining uncorrected problems, but it
was not fined, nor were the plants shut down at any time, the newspaper
reported.
The Justice Department is investigating the erasures as part of its broader
probe into allegations of fraud by contractors at the Paducah plant.
USEC spokeswoman Elizabeth Stuckle said that while the safety items were
``deleted from the tracking system,'' they were ``never deleted from
existence.''
In memos to the Energy Department, USEC also has said it had the right to
erase certain items without permission and that the findings it deleted did
not have a significant impact on the plants' safety.
