Part Two: NNSA and private contractors’ “nuclear safety culture” responsible for Y-12 security breach?

Two months before the breach at Y-12, outside consultants hired to assess the “nuclear safety culture” in the construction of a new building in the stages of advanced planning at Y-12, the Uranium Procession Facility (UPF), expressed concerns about the responsibility for different safety and security issues between and among the NSAA, Babcock & Wilcox Technical Services Y-12 (B&W Y-12), and the four subcontractors hired in the design phase of the UPF project (Independent Oversight Assessment of Nuclear Safety Culture at the Y-12 National Security Complex Uranium Processing Facility Project, Office of Safety and Emergency Management Evaluations, Office of Enforcement and Oversight, Office of Health, Safety and Security, U.S. Department of Energy, June, 20012.) 

Conclusions reached by these same outside consultants suggest why two months after the release of their report, three amateurs were able to slip past sophisticated security systems and a team of trained guards to potentially place the safety of nuclear workers, the facility, and its surroundings in profound jeopardy. 

According to the independent consultants, the NNSA, on-site manager B&W Y-12, and its four contractors —  Merrick & Company, Jacobs Engineering, CH2M Hill, and URS Corporation —  all failed to take ownership of vital safety and security issues and, instead, were allowed to presume others responsible. 

This same “nuclear safety culture” appears to describe the exact same systemic problems accounting for the Y-12 breach.

The consultant report states, “…that significant cultural differences exist within the UPF Project Organization.  Among the different groups that make up the project Organization, the …Contractors Group…is consistently more negative in its perceptions about behaviors related to the Project Organization.”  Furthermore, “…the safety culture experts observed a lack of ownership and accountability for safety across the UPF Contractor Organizations.  There is the perception that external organizations…(and) independent reviewers, will identify significant safety concerns.  The perceived priority among the contractor groups is to focus on maintaining the schedule and meeting their performance based incentives…” 

NNSA federal employees also appear to believe that ensuring safety is not their responsibility, with individuals from the federal project office indicating that they see the DOE as the “gatekeepers of safety” and the contractors as the “keepers of the schedule”.

In short, “The safety culture experts determined that the willingness to raise concerns and identify problems across the UPF Organization is not as pervasive as it should be to ensure that the organization is preventing events and learning form its performance.  Negative perceptions around feeling free to challenge management decisions and believing that constructive criticism is encouraged may be contributing to the behavior.”

The report emphasizes that NNSA, “…personnel do not perceive that many of the behaviors important for a health safety culture exist at the UPF Project to the same extent that those in the contractor organizations do.”

Ultimately it is the responsibility of the NNSA to hire a UPF site general manager, in this case W&B Y-12, which oversees all sub-contractors and clearly defines responsibilities for all safety and security issues.  It is also the responsibility of Congress to provide legislative oversight of the NNSA including all concerns with safety, security, and cost overruns. 

Five months after the security breach at Y-12, it is increasingly clear that one lone security guard is not responsible for the decade long systemic problems that have riddled NNSA and its private contractors.  The end result of these longstanding problems appears to be a nuclear safety culture in which safety is the concern and responsibility of someone else: safety and security concerns at Y-12 take a back seat to production deadlines.

To date funding from Congress for the UPF remains robust (Leean Tupper, “No Impact on UPF Funding,” Oakridger, 17 September 2012). The major contractor for the construction of the new UPF is soon scheduled to be named.  In the meantime, according to Knox News, costs for construction for the new UPF facility at Y-12, originally estimated at less than $1 billion, now range up to $6.56 billion.

The final three bidders for the new UPF building include Fluor, recently sued by the Justice Department for using federal funds, “… to lobby for a nuclear training facility it managed” (Reuters, “Fluor sued over misuse of nuclear site funds for lobbying”, Chicago Tribune, 2 November 2012). Also in the running are Bechtel, Inc., and W&B Y-12 (Knox News, 31 October 2012) (http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2012/oct/31/frank-munger-contractor-change-could-affect-upf/?print=1)

It is the responsibility of NNSA to hire a site manager that clearly oversees all sub-contractors and defines responsibilities for all safety and security issues.  At the same time it is Congress which must provide the final oversight of NNSA, including the responsibility for the security breach at Y-12 and the errant nuclear safety culture that spawned it.

Robert Lee Maril, a professor of Sociology at East Carolina University is the author of The Fence: National Security, Public Safety, and Illegal Immigration along the U.S.-Mexico Border. He blogs at leemaril.com.  Rachael Lee is a graduate student in Sociology at East Carolina University. This is Part Two of a three-part series looking at the broader implications of the security breach at Y-12