Nuclear Info Kept From Congress and the Public

Thermite writes "On March 6, 2006 an accident occurred at Nuclear Fuel Services in Erwin, Tennessee. According to reports, almost 9 gallons of highly enriched uranium in solution spilled and nearly went into a chain reaction. Before the accident in 2004, the NRC and The Office of Naval Reactors had changed the terms of the company's license so that any correspondence with Nuclear Fuel Services would be marked 'official use only.' From the article: 'While reviewing the commission's public Web page in 2004, the Department of Energy's Office of Naval Reactors found what it considered protected information about Nuclear Fuel Service's work for the Navy. The commission responded by sealing every document related to Nuclear Fuel Services and BWX Technologies in Lynchburg, Va., the only two companies licensed by the agency to manufacture, possess and store highly enriched uranium.' The result was that the public and Congress were both left in the dark for 13 months regarding this accident and other issues at the facility."

Comments

Fscking Congress (YES this is a rant)

[DoofusOfDeath]

Congress' approval ratings are tied with the historical low. Do they even know why?

I'm a conservative and typically voted Republican, and even *I* wanted the Dems to come into power to repair the damage of Bush's administration. But on any issue involving something the DoD / DoE marks as classified, they just shrug and say, "Bush's people called it classified. I guess we can't exercise oversight after all."

I know this post will likely cost me some karma. I just wish I could spend *all* my karma on it and actually get my congressmen and senators to DO THEIR FSCKING JOBS and stop this crap.

This seems a little overblown.

[raehl]

It does not appear that anyone's intent was to hide accidents - the original problem was that sensitive Navy information that shouldn't have been released was getting released, so instead of doing the narrow fix and just not releasing the sensitive documents, the (extremely through/lazy, you pick) step was taken and all the documents from the Navy fuel supply companies were restricted.

As an apparent unintended consequence (or a willfully accepted consequence) of the policy change to make sure that sensitive documents stopped ending u on websites, non-sensitive documents regarding safety incidents ended up being restricted as well.

But, even when the accident occurred, the regulatory commission apparently even made a point of having a special vote to make sure the party responsible for the incident was properly, and publicly, identified.

There is a definite difference between changing a policy to hide safety accidents and safety accidents not getting disclosed as well as a result of a policy change. The latter is the case here. The policy will be adjusted.

On the flip side, imagine the uproar if the policy had originally only specified that sensitive documents got restricted, and sensitive information was released anyway because someone mistakenly labeled a sensitive document as non-sensitive? It's a trade-off - and while the current policy made it harder for the public to find out about an accident, it's also true that a different policy would increase the risk of accidental release of sensitive material.

Either way, there's no reason to assign nefarious intent where apparently none is due.