Brian Bradley
NS&D Monitor
8/28/15
Consolidated Nuclear Security has resumed one weapon dismantlement program at the Pantex Plant after pausing the operation last month following an incident in which a production technician lost her footing on a slippery spot on the floor of a nuclear explosive cell and “went down to one knee and one hand,” according to a Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board site representative report released Aug. 21. “Work has resumed,” Pantex spokesman Steve Myers wrote in an email to NS&D Monitor this week. Myers declined to discuss what specific program was impacted. “We pause until fully confident our work processes and procedures appropriately address the issue and operations can safely resume,” Pantex spokesman George Rangel said Sunday by email. All U.S. nuclear weapons designated for dismantlement make their first stop at Pantex, where workers remove high explosives from plutonium and highly enriched uranium.
This was the second time in one month that a production weapon technician lost her footing performing an operation at the plant. In mid-July, a production technician stumbled while performing a special tooling lift that was part of a nuclear explosive operation. CNS took corrective actions after that event as well. The Energy Department’s acting DNFSB site representative on July 23 observed CNS personnel discussing the changed procedure steps with employees and conducting simulations of the impacted work steps in a training bay.
The July 24 DNFSB report says the technician lost her footing outside of an “exclusion area” that CNS had established to address falling hazards. A group of CNS subject matter experts recommended several corrective actions following the second incident, including visual inspections to ensure the floor and floor coverings are clean and not degraded and pathways are free of obstacles.
