Vehicle mishaps at the Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory complex continue to worry the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, according to a staff report dated Oct.4 and posted on the board’s website.
There were four onsite wrecks during September, including one involving an overturned dump truck, although no one was injured, according to the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) staff report.
The prime cleanup contractor, the Idaho Environmental Coalition has “started looking at vehicle accidents over the past year to assess any common causes,” according to the staff report. The DOE Idaho Cleanup Project facility safety team is reviewing the contractor response to these events. The DNFSB has cited traffic safety issues at the Idaho National Laboratory during a couple of prior staff reports since December 2023.
Dan Brouillette, who served as secretary of energy under President Donald Trump, announced Monday he intends to leave as president and CEO of the Edison Electric Institute, the advocacy group for investor-owned utilities in the United States.
Brouillette, who was chosen to lead the Edison Electric Institute (EEI) a little more than a year ago, said in a news release he wants to be more involved in international energy and security issues stemming from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the conflict between Iran and Israel as well as China’s increasing assertiveness. Brouillette did not offer details.
Brouillette will depart “later this year,” he said in the press release. He was sworn in as energy secretary during the Trump administration in December 2019. Before landing the top job at DOE, Brouillette was deputy energy secretary under Rick Perry between 2017 and 2019. Previously, he held high-level jobs at Ford and the U.S. automotive industry.
A documentary film, the “Half-life of Memory — the hidden legacy of Rocky Flats, America’s Forgotten Atomic Bomb Factory,” opens in Denver soon.
As part of the Denver Film Festival, the film by Jeff Gipe whose father worked at the plant, has showings set between Nov. 2 and Nov. 8 at the Sie Film Center, on Colfax Avenue in Denver, according to promotional material emailed to Exchange Monitor and other media. A link to the documentary’s three-minute trailer is available here. Information on the film festival can be found here.
The Department of Energy’s Rocky Flats plant in Colorado made plutonium pits for nuclear weapons for more than three decades, from 1952 through 1989. It was 1989 when the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Environmental Protection Agency raided Rocky Flats following an investigation into misconduct and mismanagement of the site. In 2005, DOE said the site was remediated and transferred oversight to its Office of Legacy Management. Litigation over the adequacy of the Rocky Flats cleanup and part of the site’s suitability as a hiking trail continues in 2024.