The Department of Energy’s Office of Enforcement has declined to fine Los Alamos National Laboratory contractor for an incident at the lab last August that led to 30 workers being contaminated with radioactive Technetium-99. A Federal Accident Investigation issued after the incident called the contamination completely preventable and described a culture of lax adherence to typical safety procedures at the lab’s Neutron Science Center, where a technician unknowingly reused a canister that had contained radioactive Technetium-99, triggering the contamination. Technetium-99 emits low energy beta radiation and while the Office of Enforcement said LANS “failed to maintain and verify the effectiveness of administrative and engineering controls” for preventing and detecting the spread of beta contamination, it said radiological controls in place were “sufficient to prevent the inadvertent release of more significant radionuclides, such as alpha and gamma emitters.”
The Office of Enforcement also said that LANS’ corrective actions following the incident were “prompt and conservative” and the corrective action plan was “detailed and comprehensive.” It added: “Because it was unlikely that more significant radionuclides could have been released, and in recognition of the comprehensive scope of LANS’s corrective actions, the Office of Enforcement and Oversight has elected to exercise discretion and not pursue further enforcement activity at this time,” the Office of Enforcement said. “In conjunction with the National Nuclear Security Administration, we will continue to monitor LANS’s completion of the corrective actions.”