Posted on 12/16/2006 7:11:23 PM PST by LibWhacker
WASHINGTON — An accident that occurred as a decades-old nuclear warhead was being dismantled at the government's Pantex facility near Amarillo, Texas, could have caused the device to detonate, a nonprofit organization charged Thursday.
The Project on Government Oversight said the "near miss" event, which led the Energy Department to fine the plant's operator $110,000, was due partly to requirements that technicians at the plant work up to 72 hours per week.
The Pantex plant, 17 miles northeast of Amarillo, is the country's only factory for assembly and disassembly of nuclear weapons.
The organization said it was told by unidentified experts who were "knowledgeable about this event" that the accident, in which an unsafe amount of pressure was applied to the warhead, could have caused the device to detonate.
The oversight project also released an anonymous letter, purportedly sent by Pantex employees, warning that long hours and efforts to increase output were causing dangerous conditions in the plant.
In a two-paragraph statement, BWX Technologies, the company that operates the Amarillo facility under a contract with the Energy Department, said it "takes seriously any employee concerns about safe operations" and was comparing statements in the anonymous letter "with the reality of day-to-day work."
BWX spokeswoman Erin Ritter declined to comment beyond the statement.
Julianne Smith, a spokeswoman for the Energy Department, which owns the Pantex plant, declined to respond to safety complaints outlined in a letter from oversight project Executive Director Danielle Brian to Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman.
However, records show that the department last month fined BWX $110,000 for the accident and another event involving the same warhead.
In a letter to Dan J. Swaim, BWX general manger of the plant, the Energy Department said the company had "significantly delayed" disclosing the incidents and then submitted a "factually inaccurate and incomplete" report.
The letter, signed by Linton Brooks, head of the National Nuclear Security Administration, did not say the incidents could have caused a nuclear detonation or what kind of warhead was being dismantled when they occurred.
It said that during three separate unsuccessful attempts to dismantle the warhead in March and April of last year, workers applied too much pressure to the device and a safety mechanism failed to work.
Oversight project investigator Peter Stockton, a former Energy Department official, said the device was a W56 warhead, with a yield of 1,200 kilotons, 100 times the destructive power of the Hiroshima bomb.
We have met the enemy and he is us - Pogo
With apologies to Walt Kelley...
College graduates? 99.9% of them don't know this; never mind the great unwashed Democratic voter base.
Just like a suitcase nuke will wipe out a city when set off on the surface. A very tiny tiny city, perhaps...
I don't know. Haven't really been back to try since I was a kid. I bet I could take a big chunk out of it anyway.
Free 72 oz. steak!
"Oh, we were really looking for somebody with more experience"
The answer could also be: "The job will not be challenging enough for you. We feel that you are over-qualified."
I suppose this 'watchdog' group would close the only facility of this type (if that is so)...because someone was taking a leak to the press.
Polonium sandwiches on the house.
Ya, pantex and amarillo are both woman things.
Pantex is for that monthly thing and women like to order amarillo sour at the bar...tastes like marisheno cherries I think.
LOL! I love U2!
From an engineering standpoint...the possibility of making the bomb explode....based on this story...is less than .01 percent and it seems to me alot of folks don't know what the heck they are talking about. But since this is Armarillo....thats about what one would expect.
However, since we are in the habit of publishing bogus stories...I should offer this scenario...which the local liberal press might like. The checklist that the boys used at "Larry's We-Dispose-of-Nukes"...has a clause that says "if any nuclear bomb goes off...deny that you had any contribution to the act...insist that Ossama and the wicked Islamic dudes are at fault...and have Homeland Security draw up paperwork to make the mile-wide hole a national monument to first nuke that the Islam boys ever donated on American soil."
And if we had any sense on this whole thing...we'd ask why build such a disposal site in such an important place as Armirillo? People should realize how many blonde babes from west Texas live there and this is wrong, wrong, wrong!
This story is BS, as many others have pointed out. However, back in the 1950's or 60's (don't remember exactly when) there was an accident in New Mexico involving a hydrogen bomb which did cause loss of life. The bomb was being transported in a cargo plane to Los Alamos when it broke free from its restraints and slid out the cargo bay door. It landed on a cow, I believe it was actually a rancher's prize bull, and killed it.
Step 1. Cut the red wire.
Step 2. But first, cut the green wire.
Mark
IIRC it was either a Mark-14 or Mark-17 weapon but I need to check to be sure.
Glad you put that smilie in. Otherwise readers might think that a lit ciggie could actually trigger an explosion.
I've burned HE for things other than blowing stuff up, and know a few folks who have used cemtex to heat their dinner.
HE needs a pressure-spike trigger to go off. Fire alone WON'T do it, and pressure triggers have to be at or over certain minimum levels. A smoke dropped on it PLUS a hammerblow at exactly the right time MIGHT do the job, but you'd have to be extraordinarily good with your timing.
... if you can eat it in an hour, including the salad and baked potato.
Forget the steak, order the lamb fries. Yummmm!
So GW completes destruction of entire nuke system so POGO has to make up something negative and which no one can say anything about.
Another leftist fabrication with another victim that can't speak.
yitbos
Easy there....we hardly know each other.
;-)
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