The Department of Energy’s Office of Health, Safety and Security is set to release later this week the results of a new review of the safety culture at the Hanford Waste Treatment Plant, WC Monitor has learned. While the review’s exact findings are still unknown, HSS is believed to have taken a more critical stance toward DOE and Bechtel National, the contractor in charge of the Hanford vit plant. The review is part of DOE’s response to a recommendation the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board issued last summer that warned of a flawed safety culture at the WTP that could threaten the completion of the project, and is a follow-on to a review conducted by HSS in the fall of 2010.
In remarks during a meeting of the Energy Facility Contractors Group last month, DOE Chief Health, Safety and Security Officer Glenn Podonsky described the new review of the WTP safety culture by saying, “Many people in this community, inside and out, will say, ‘Oh here comes another report.’ Our report is not just following up on what we saw last October. That would be short-sighted. We’re looking at … what’s happened at this site [and] what’s happening around the complex. … I think it’s vitally important that my team that is out there write about ground truth. Write about every aspect of the operation—the contractor, the feds, the leadership back here in Washington. It all comes together.”