In an email, lab spokeswoman Laura Ann Mullane wrote the investigation gave the lab a chance to examine operations and identify how training, oversight and maintenance could be improved. Inspectors have noted that since 2011, facility personnel have monitored and planned to address about 40 accessories with questionable seals, including four that failed in this event, the safety board's report said. * Confusion over who is responsible for managing glove boxes. * Overreliance on workers' skills to avoid mishaps. * Inadequate control of hazards posed by glove box accessories, such as old ports and defective gaskets in the vent systems. * Insufficient oversight and lack of formal guidelines on how glove boxes should be configured in this case, how securely they are connected to ventilation systems. The report notes that subsequent tests showed the workers' radiation doses did not exceed the threshold for creating a formal accident investigation board, but the nuclear security agency went ahead with the probe for learning purposes and to document the shortcomings. One of them had to undergo chelation therapy, which purges heavy metals from the blood and is used in some cases of radiation exposure. Nose swabs revealed three workers in the room might have breathed in airborne contaminants. The radioactive release contaminated two workers' faces, heads and protective gear. 7, a worker discovered a breach on the right side of a glove box and notified the radiological control technicians who sounded the alarm, prompting the six-person crew to evacuate the room. The agency is calling for improved glove box management as plans for the lab to produce 30 nuclear bomb cores - or pits - per year by 2026 will increase the amount of plutonium and radioactive waste workers handle.
The agency's field office has requested Triad National Security LLC, the lab's primary contractor, provide a corrective action plan within 30 days that addresses the report's nine judgments.
Compartments box full#
Nuclear security officials said Wednesday the full review wasn't ready to be released. "In this event, the glovebox failed to perform its safety function." "Glove boxes are required to maintain confinement even under loss of ventilation," the safety board said in its recap. The nuclear security agency's review made 27 conclusions and listed nine areas that need correction to prevent similar incidents.
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