The Department of Energy (DOE) issued this week a preliminary notice of violation (PNOV) to National Security Technologies (NSTec), the company that manages the Nevada National Security Site (NNSS), for a June 2014 incident in which a chemical explosion injured two workers at the NNSS’ Nonproliferation Test and Evaluation Complex (NPTEC). “The drum explosion and expelled steel shrapnel had the potential to cause a fatality or … serious physical harm to the workers,” the notice says. An investigation of the incident “revealed five violations of DOE worker safety and health (WSH) requirements,” including “weaknesses in NSTec’s implementation of work planning and control processes, hazard identification, hazard communication, fire and explosion prevention procedures, and timely abatement of known hazards,” it says.
The Aug. 25 notice says “NSTec did not perform a hazard analysis of the NPTEC West Motel storage building to ensure that chemical hazards were appropriately identified before NSTec approved the building for use, handling, and storage of flammable and hazardous chemicals.” It adds that NSTec failed to “effectively evaluate worker exposures to chemical agents” at NPTEC and did not manage the building’s chemical inventory according to hazard communication guidelines. NSTec also “failed to properly train and brief workers” to familiarize them with proper “hazards and mitigations associated with the work,” the notice says.
The PNOV notes that the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) proposes no civil penalties because it previously “reduced the contract fee that was awarded to NSTec for failure to fully meet specific contract performance objectives, including the chemical explosion referenced in this PNOV, by $2.05 million.” NSTec is required to submit a reply to the PNOV within 30 days.
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