The Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) suspended work for two weeks last month after an employee accidentally cut the tip of a glove while handling metal samples that contained tritium, according to a recent report from the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB).
The employee, a principle investigator, was not injured. But, according to the safety board report, the incident revealed that SRNL workers lacked an understanding of how to carry out a task preview, a review of procedures and other related documents to familiarize workers with the scope of the lab mission. Furthermore, pre-work procedures at SRNL are not always followed, which could lead to further safety-related incidents.
For these reasons, and other recent events, nonessential work was suspended at the Savannah River Site lab for two weeks starting April 5, according to the report. For SRNL, nonessential work largely includes research and development. “During the pause, any proposed work must be approved by SRNL senior management and requires a task preview and a formal pre-job brief,” the safety board said.
The report states that the glove cut was among the “recent events” that led to the pause, without offering details of the other incidents.
A resident inspector reviewed the glove incident and discovered that a pre-job brief, which includes reviewing procedures before beginning an assignment, had started the day before the incident, but was not completed. “Shortly into the pre-job brief, the radiological protection department first line manager stopped and insisted on doing a task preview as required as a compensatory measure,” the safety board report states.
It is unclear why the decision was made to cut the briefing short.
A briefing was scheduled for the next day, but the principle investigator began work before then and that’s when the glove was clipped while the staffer was cutting open bags of tritiated metal samples for analysis.
The investigator followed protocol by contacting the radiological protection department. No injuries occurred, and the safety report does not mention any harmful radiological releases or exposures.
A review of the incident concluded that research and development workers at SRNL lack sufficient understanding of the purpose of task previews and pre-job briefs. To that point, the resident director noted several times in 2019 that he was informed a task preview was not necessary. No examples of those instances were mentioned in the report.
In addition, the inspector noted other issues, including: a recent task preview where a required walk-down of facilities was not conducted; and a few instances where required pre-job briefs were simply not conducted. “While these shortcomings were not the direct causes of recent events, SRNL has identified them as issues and contributing causes for some events,” the safety board wrote.
In a Friday morning email, a SRNL spokesperson said a spokesperson said an increasing number of small events led to the decision to shut down operations and review procedures. “This served as a reset, focusing on our priorities of safety and security in the summer months,” the spokesperson wrote. “Additional oversight by management is now in place to ensure that the focus remains on safe and disciplined operations.”
The spokesperson added that SRNL Director Vahid Majidi and U.S. Department of Energy personnel held six group discussions with management to figure out a path moving forward.
The national lab is an applied research facility with roughly 1,000 employees. It is operated by Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS), management and operations contractor for the full Savannah River Site. Its missions include cleanup of contaminated groundwater and soil at the facility, along with finding advanced solutions for the waste cleanup at Savannah River and other DOE facilities. The research facility also supports the site’s mission of production of tritium, the gas that triggers the chain reaction in nuclear weapons.
The lab underwent a two-month pause last year, from April 26 to June 29. It was implemented following a series of minor safety incidents over the preceding six months. These included: workers failing to properly bring an air system back to service in April following maintenance work; and a scientist accidentally spiking radiation levels far past the allowed amount while mixing a solution in the lab. Neither incident resulted in injury to workers.
