Sloppy safety systems and poor response were to blame in the recent leaking of potentially deadly plutonium at the federal National Institute of Standards and Technology lab in Boulder, according to newly-released documents from investigators.
Mishandling of a cracked vial of plutonium by a researcher visiting from India led to the leakage June 9, the experts found.
They also found a culture at the lab that disregarded safety, and some members of the investigative team now suggest that the radioactive materials be removed from the lab and this sort of research done elsewhere.
“In general, I would not characterize this incident as an accident,” said Lester Slaback, one of the experts, a retired supervisory health physicist with 21 years of experience at the lab.
“It was the inevitable (or at least highly likely) and foreseeable end result” of deficiencies at the lab, Slaback said. “These researchers are are highly intelligent. Ignorance should not be an issue but certainly was in this incident.”
Another report looked into the spill and its contamination of the city’s sanitary sewerage.
The report stated that 89 percent of spill of remained in the room, and “at most 11% was discharged to the sanitary sewerage.”
The report stated that the plutonium in the sewerage was at 49 percent of the release limit set by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Christopher Sanchez: 303-954-1698 or csanchez@denverpost.com
