Press Room

for immediate release, Friday, June 24, 2011

INSPECTOR GENERAL SAYS TOXIC BERYLLIUM HAZARDS PERSIST AT LIVERMORE LAB

Federal Audit Reveals Safety Gaps, Cites Management Failure to Follow-up on Mandated "Corrective Actions"

LIVERMORE - The U.S. Department of Energy, Office of the Inspector General (IG) published the results of a major federal investigation this week. The audit, titled, "Implementation of Beryllium Controls at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory" (DOE/IG-0851) was released June 22, 2011. In it, the IG found that "actions necessary toŠ resolve previously observed weaknesses had not been completed."

Specifically, top oversight and management officials at Livermore Lab had closed out "corrective actions" -- required to protect employees from beryllium contamination -- without actually implementing the actions.

In one example cited by the IG, "Livermore officials told us that they had completed corrective actions to communicate beryllium hazards, in part, through the use of facility maps, However, we determined that although it had developed the maps, Livermore had not posted the maps in any of the seven known beryllium facilities that we toured."

Further, the IG notes that the maps that Livermore did develop "did not always identify the true extent of beryllium contamination." This failure resulted in workers unknowingly entering beryllium-contaminated areas without proper protective equipment. According to the report, the lack of documentation led to a recent September 2010 "event in which a technician was potentially exposed to beryllium while performing preventative maintenance on facility-related equipment."

The report also states, "The corrective actions related to training [deficiencies] were closed based on the establishment of training requirements, but without determining whether all employees were actually trained." In one instance cited in the report, "We found approximately 25% of the Environment, Safety & Health managers did not attend the training class on new proceduresŠ"

Beryllium is a potentially deadly toxic metal used at Livermore Lab in the research and development of nuclear weapons. The machining process releases fine particle beryllium dust into the air that, upon inhalation, can lead to serious lung conditions ranging from initial beryllium sensitivity to incurable and fatal Chronic Beryllium Disease and/or lung cancer.

"Livermore Lab employees continue to suffer beryllium exposures in the workplace," noted Tri-Valley CAREs' Executive Director, Marylia Kelley. "I have met with older workers debilitated by beryllium contamination in decades past, younger workers who were exposed very recently and widows whose spouses suffered terribly and died due to their exposures to beryllium while employed at Livermore Lab. This is an ongoing tragedy made all the more maddening because it is, in large part, the result of management failures, rather than some larger inevitability."

Among the IG's major findings are Livermore Lab management's failure to:

o Identify the presence of beryllium and provide adequate notice to workers.
o Review historical records and interview employees to identify the presence of beryllium when completing a baseline inventory of beryllium-contaminated facilities.
o Test equipment before letting workers use it when that equipment is in a facility where beryllium contamination has been found.
o Establish training requirements for all employees and ensure that managers and others attend.
o Perform hazard assessments for 94 legacy facilities that may have housed beryllium operations. And,
o Provide updates to the website intended to communicate the current status of onsite beryllium contamination to workers.

According to the IG, "Since 2007, Livermore has had at least seven reportable [beryllium] events, two of which occurred within the past year." Tri-Valley CAREs has documented that more than 200 workers have been exposed to beryllium at Livermore Lab over the past five years.

Due to the history of beryllium use at Livermore Lab and the risks it poses to workers, Lab management is required to implement a legally compliant Chronic Beryllium Disease Prevention Program (CBDPP).

The IG conducted the investigation because Lab management had previously been fined $200,000 for multiple failures to comply with the law governing its CBDPP.  Subsequently, Lab management reported that it had completed the required corrective actions. The objective of the IG audit was to "determine whether Livermore had implemented effective beryllium controls to resolve previously identified weaknesses."

"The IG did not find adequate controls. Rather, the IG found Lab officials still out of compliance with the law," said Scott Yundt, Tri-Valley CAREs' Staff Attorney. "The report validates our findings that Livermore Lab has consistently failed to implement proper safeguards to protect workers from beryllium exposure. The pattern we have seen is one in which management pays lip service to establishing a safety culture when it is caught red-handed contaminating its workers, then continues with business as usual as soon as the investigators go home."

Yundt added, "Therefore, we call on the IG to conduct follow up investigations to ensure that the recommendations outlined in this report are implemented, sustained and result in a legally adequate CBDPP that truly protects the workers."

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The IG report can be found at
<http://www.trivalleycares.org/new/IGberylliumreport2011.pdf>