DoE Downplays WIPP Workers' Radioactive Contamination
Channel: myla reson
Date: 2014-06-22

Six days AFTER the Department of Energy (DoE) announced that 22 workers at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) had tested positive for internal radioactive contamination, Dana Bryson, DoE Deputy Manager overseeing WIPP, briefed the Northern New Mexico Citizen's Advisory Board and misled them by saying that "nobody was hurt" as a result of two February 2014 accidents at WIPP.

By the way, The National TRU Program stands for the National Transuranic Program - transuranic defined as radioactive materials heavier than uranium - like plutonium.

The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant or WIPP is a radioactive dump primarily for disposal of plutonium contaminated nuclear weapons waste.

Before WIPP opened in 1999 the public was assured that radioactive nuclear bomb waste dumped there would be isolated from the accessible environment for a MINIMUM of 10,000 years.

But late on Valentine's Day - February 14, 2014 an airborne radioactive release that lasted for approximately fifteen and a half hours triggered alarms indicating that things had not gone according to schedule. Instead of containing the radioactivity for a minimum of 10,000 years - the dump had failed not quite 15 years into its operational phase.

Two months later the DoE announced that 22 workers had tested positive for internal radioactive contamination - but those workers have yet to receive adequate evaluations and treatment by medical personnel specifically trained to evaluate and treat anyone with internal radiation exposure. 

At the May 21, 2014 Northern New Mexico Citizen's Advisory Board briefing, DoE Deputy Manager Dana Bryson failed to mention anything about the results of bioassays showing that 22 workers had tested positive for internal contamination - instead he made the false claim that "nobody had been hurt".