Worker tampered with nuke alarm, prompting evacuation

The worker admitted to tampering with the system Feb. 4, triggering the building’s “criticality alarm,” said Dennis Hill, a spokesman for Bechtel Jacobs Co, the government’s cleanup manager in Oak Ridge.

As a result, 250 workers were forced to leave the mile-long, U-shaped K-25 building where uranium was enriched for bombs and later commercial nuclear reactors from 1945 to 1985.

Hill said disciplinary action was taken against the employee, who works for a subcontractor to Duratek Federal Services, the company charged with removing asbestos and other hazardous materials from the building.

“It has been determined there was no malicious intent on behalf of the employee for this occurrence, and appropriate disciplinary action has been taken,” Hill said.

Hill refused to provide further details except to say no criminal charges were filed and the employee wasn’t fired.

The “criticality” alarm system is intended to warn workers in the event of a nuclear accident. A team investigating the alarm malfunction found that several fuses had been removed from the alarm system, including one that was partially reinserted.

The building is part of a larger complex the federal Energy Department is converting into a commercial industrial park called the East Tennessee Technology Park.