Safety Alarms Raised at Nuclear Weapons Plant

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http://www.commondreams.org/headlines07/0221-08.htm

Safety Alarms Raised at Nuclear Weapons Plant

Federal investigators are looking into deteriorating conditions at the Pantex plant in Texas. Energy Department officials say there's no danger.

by Ralph Vartabedian


Electrical failures have shut down the plant. The roof has leaked. Decrepit machinery dates back more than 40 years. Safety lapses led inspectors to levy fines twice within two years. And employees, under deadline pressure, complain they are often worked past the point of exhaustion.

If this factory were producing medical devices or refining gasoline, the conditions would be serious enough. But this is where they work on nuclear bombs.

Pantex is the Energy Department's main nuclear weapons factory, a linchpin of the nation's defense for half a century. The nation no longer makes nuclear weapons, so the plant's chief roles are servicing them or dismantling them to meet the terms of disarmament pacts.

On a 25-square-mile swath of the Texas Panhandle, a series of massive white concrete domes mark the places where live nuclear weapons are opened up. The rituals and procedures inside those cells are supposed to be as strict as in any operating room, part of a safety culture that reduces any chance of an accidental nuclear explosion to one in 100 million.

But lately, outside experts are questioning whether safety margins are eroding. Federal investigators are trying to assess the overall safety of the plant, which employs 3,300 people, amid troubling safety snafus and what employees call an atmosphere of intimidation.

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