Practical experience needed Others familiar with Rocky Flats or the nuclear cleanup business in general called Card an acceptable, if not ideal, choice to head the energy, science and environment portfolio under Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham. He has to be one of the foremost experts on cleanup. Located in Golden, Colo., Kaiser-Hill acquired the contract to clean up Rocky Flats in 1995, and the contract was renewed in 2000 to include accelerated closure of the Superfund site by December 2006. It is the world s first major nuclear manufacturing site slated for demolition, but has not been used as a production facility since 1989. Criticality is the threshold at which radioactive materials have enough mass and proximity to each other to cause a harmful release of radiation.
Internal exposure can cause damage to body cells and, potentially, cancer.
While the December infractions did not cross the critical threshold or legal limits, observers say the incidents were nonetheless worrying, especially because there was another occurrence in February. There has been a trend of significant safety events since the contract became effective February 1, 2000. Any one of these concerns is serious in its own right. These issues also potentially mean that KH is not complying with some provisions of the Closure Contract. Since Mazurowski s letter, tests on 18 more Rocky Flats workers have shown they also inhaled detectable though not illegal levels of plutonium, Kaiser-Hill s Thompson told The Public i .