100TH CONGRESS 1st Session SENATE REPORT 100-173 NUCLEAR PROTECTIONS AND SAFETY ACT OF 1987 SEPTEMBER 24 (legislative day, SEPTEMBER 22), 1987.-Ordered to be printed Mr. GLENN, from the Committee on Governmental Affairs, REPORT together with ADDITIONAL VIEWS [To accompany S. 1085] The Committee on Governmental Affairs, to which was referred the bill (S. 1085) to create an independent oversight board to ensure the safety of United States Government nuclear facilities, to apply the provisions of OSHA to certain Department of Energy nuclear facilities, to clarify the jurisdiction and powers of Government agencies dealing with nuclear wastes, to ensure independent research on the effects of radiation on human beings, and for other purposes having considered the same, reports favorably thereon with an amendment and recommends that the bill as amended do pass. I. SUMMARY Since the beginning of the nuclear age to the present, the Department of Energy (DOE) and its predecessor agencies have not been subject to outside, independent oversight of their technical operations. In the past, this was perhaps justifiable on the basis of national security concerns and unique technical expertise. In recent years, it has become increasingly evident that this situation is not justified and must be changed. The specific problems that this legislation seeks to rectify stem from the fact that although one of the main missions of DOE is the production of nuclear materials for weapons as well as nonmilitary purposes, DOE also has the responsibility for ensuring health and safety at its facilities without being subject to appropriate and independent outside review. Thus, DOE facilities operate without the full panoply of federal protections and independent oversight found in the commercial nuclear industry which are designed to protect workers, the public, and the environment. This situation has existed for over four decades. The reason why DOE's nuclear facilities have escaped outside oversight is rooted in their early history dating back to World War II. The U.S. Army's Manhattan Engineer District (MED), or the "Manhattan Project," which developed the first atomic bombs, worked out of necessity in extreme wartime secrecy with the intent of carefully guarding its technological expertise. The atomic bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were laboratory-developed, custom-built, and hand-assembled in secret locations around the country, including Los Alamos, New Mexico; Oak Ridge, Tennessee; and Hanford, Washington. Even today these sites are important components of DOE's nuclear weapons research and production complex. What in wartime had been essentially an experimental process of developing handcrafted weapons, during the 1950s became a nationally dispersed assembly-line production system as the U.S. Government developed the infrastructure for nuclear weapons development and production. Today the DOE nuclear complex includes 127 facilities in 23 states and employs 142,067 people. The facilities range in size from a single building with one employee to giant complexes, like the Savannah River Plant in South Carolina and the Hanford Reservation in Washington state, which each have over 10,000 employees. The major facilities are concentrated in two dozen locations. The DOE nuclear complex develops, produces, and tests both weapons materials and nondefense nuclear materials, often at the same DOE nuclear sites. Whereas at first, nuclear materials production was exclusively under military control, after World War II the atomic bomb factories and laboratories were put in civilian hands. The Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), created by the Atomic Energy Act of 1946 (AEA), was put in control of all aspects of atomic energy. The first decade after World War II also saw the first steps toward development of the commercial nuclear industry. The Atomic Energy Act of 1954 (P.L. 83-703) required all commercial nuclear facilities to be licensed by the AEC. However, in the tense Cold War atmosphere, deep concerns about maintaining strict technological secrecy kept the DOE nuclear facilities from being subject to licensing requirements. Twenty years later, in 1974, when the AEC's dual role as promoter and regulator of commercial nuclear power was perceived to be in conflict, Congress created the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), with responsibility for regulating commercial nuclear activities. Once again, the govenment-owned nuclear facilities did not come under increased scrutiny or independent review. No agency which was independent of the producer, either the NRC or a comparable body, was charged with oversight over the safety of the DOE nuclear facilities. The record shows that many problems have developed during DOE's long history of self-regulation. This year alone the Committee on Govenmental Affairs has held four hearings on the issues of safety, health, and the environment at DOE nuclear facilities. At one of the Committee's hearings, on March 12, 1987, J. Dexter Peach, Assistant Comptroller General, U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO), testified: [The GAO's] work on safety matters at DOE facilities over the last several years . . . has identified important safety issues which, considering their scope, raise serious questions about both the safety of individual facilities and DOE operations as a whole. Mr. Peach also said that the GAO reports that have been issues on the DOE nuclear facilities over the years have described a variety of unresolved safety and environ- Because the DOE nuclear complex includes many aged facilities, the potential for additional safety problems is increased. For example, construction of the last production reactor was finished in 1963, and some DOE reactors have been operating near or beyondthe limit of their expected lifetime. Other DOE facilities that handle radioactive and other hazardous materials are also badly in need of refurbishing and modernization if they are to continue to operate. The record shows that some DOE facilities have operated with insufficient concern for public health and safety. Production has been the overriding measure of performance. An example is DOE's Feed Materials Production Center in Fernald, Ohio, a large facility that has been in operation since 1952. At Fernald a variety of lowenriched or depleted feed materials are converted into uranium metal to be used as fuel and for other purposes at other DOE facilities. In 1980 DOE stepped up production goals at Fernald, and by 1985 output at the Ohio facility had increased 288 percent over the 1979 levels. DOE made minimal capital improvements during this period. DOE did not even have an onsite manager at Fernald from about 1973 to 1985, according to testimony by Ronald W. Cochran, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Materials, Office of Defense Programs, U.S. Department of Energy. He testified on April 22, 1985 before the Senate Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on Energy, Nuclear Proliferation, and Government Processes as follows: Our [DOE's] existing contractor appraisal program was not identifying chronic or major problems to management early enough to avoid the potential for them to reach the crises stage. This hearing revealed that DOE gave award fees to the contractor for meeting production goals despite a poor record on environmental protection and lack of an adequate program for keeping radiation exposure of workers as low as reasonably achievable. The hearing also documented environmental abuses, including Fernald's release of 95,000 kilograms or uranium to the air and 75,000 kilograms of uranium to water during its operations. Following this hearing, Senator Glenn asked the GAO to examine environmental conditions at DOE nuclear facilities systemwide. The resulting September 1986 GAO study revealed that serious environmental problems exist throughout the DOE nuclear complex. Soil was contaminated at six, and groundwater was contaminated at eight of the nine DOE facilities that the GAO surveyed. On March 17, 1987, Keith O. Fultz, Associate Director, U.S. General Accounting Office, testified that a July 1986 GAO report found that at DOE's Savannah River Plant: The radioactive contamination in one stream was about 750 times greater than drinking water standards. They also have contaminated groundwater-some concentrations were about 116,000 time greater than drinking water standards. In addition, leaks from high-level waste storage tanks have contaminated about 30,000 square feet of soil underlying the tanks. As a result of the contamination at the facility, the possibility exists that some radioactive contamination could reach the Tuscaloosa aquifer. In addition, because of the extensive contamination, institutional controls and oversight at the facility may be needed for hundreds of years. Fultz also testified that: DOE facilities in Colorado, South Carolina, and Tennessee contaminated the groundwater with solvents (cleaning agents) that are as much as 1,000 times above proposed drinking water standards. Other DOE facilities in South Carolina and Washington State contaminated the groundwater with radioactive materials that are more than 400 times greater than drinking water standards. At Mound and Fernald in Ohio, the contamination has migrated offsite into drinking water supplies-both a well and an aquifer. Also at the Committee's March 17, 1987, hearing was the Honorable Anthony J. Celebrezze, Jr., Attorney General, State of Ohio, who testified about DOE activities at the Portsmouth Uranium Enrichment Complex near Piketon, Ohio. Attorney General Celebrezze said that: During a ten-year period beginning in 1974, DOE pursued a policy of disposing some of its radioactive and solvent-contaminated waste oil by spreading it on the ground and then roto-tilling it into the soil. About 50,000 gallons of waste were disposed of in this fashion. Attorney General Celebrezze also testified about DOE's use of an old abandoned will for waste from its Fernald facility in Ohio. He stated that: DOE admitted that it had no evidence that it had ever plugged the well before installing the radioactive wastewater pit. Obviously, the apparent failure to seal off the well before installing a pit for the storage of radioactive water is wholly unacceptable. The situation at Fernald with respect to worker safety and health is a stark reminder that employees at DOE nuclear facilities do not enjoy the safety and health protections afforded other American workers. Workers in DOE nuclear facilities are not covered by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), which since 1970 has had a mandate to protect the health and safety of all workers. On June 17, 1986 the Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on Energy, Nuclear Proliferation, and Government Processes held a hearing on the Radiation Reorganization Act of 1985. At that hearing Robert Alvarez of the Environmental Policy Institute of Washington, D.C., testified about DOE worker populations who "are experiencing greater than expected risks of dying from malignant cancers and certain non-malignant diseases." According to Mr. Alvarez, DOE-funded studies indicated that twelve populations of DOE nuclear workers at several locations were experiencing significant health problems and that eight of the twelve populations were found to have excessive cancer death rates. Mr. Alvarez also testified that DOE withheld a study and an analysis of the study from him and other members of a DOE advisory committee on epidemiological studies relative to the Savannah River Plant. The requested study was conducted in 1976 by E. I. DuPont De Nemours and Company and, according to Mr. Alvarez's testimony, found increased risks of lung cancer and leukemia among nuclear workers at DOE's Savannah River Plant, which is operated by DuPont. An analysis by a DOE contractor attached to the study, which the committee also sought, stated that "the arguments against this risk being ocupationally related need to be expanded. Giving an example of DOE's defensive attitude on its health and safety record, Mr. Alvarez testified that despite DOE studies which found elevated levels of leukemia and other serious illnesses among employees at the Oak Ridge National laboratory (ORNL), the Review, the official publication of ORNL editorialized: Our operations do not threaten the health of people; in fact epidemiological studies indicate that ORNL employees have lower death rates from many diseases, including most cancers, than does the U.S. population as a whole. In addi |