Inspectors Find Safety Problems At Nuclear Weapons Complex

Savannah River Site

From McClatchy News:

WASHINGTON — Contractors at one of the nation's major nuclear weapons complexes repeatedly used substandard construction materials and components that, could've caused a major radioactive spill, a recently completed internal government probe has found.

One of the materials used at the Savannah River Site on the South Carolina-Georgia border failed to meet federal safety standards and "could have resulted in a spill of up to 15,000 gallons of high-level radioactive waste," the Energy Department's inspector general found.

The inspector general's five-month investigation also found that contractors bought 9,500 tons of substandard steel reinforcing bars for the Savannah River Site near Aiken, S.C.

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My Comment: Another troubling report on how our nuclear materials are handled. I sometimes wonder if we are just waiting for that disaster to happen.