Word: plants
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...radar-invisible Stealth warplanes can hide in the sky, thanks in part to special materials and chemical coatings that do not reflect radar pulses. But these materials make workers ill -- or so claim scores of employees at Lockheed's Burbank, Calif., plant, home of Stealth. In a lawsuit, the workers complain that a panoply of ailments -- rashes, aches and pains, nausea, memory loss -- is being caused by unknown toxic agents in Stealth materials. Lockheed vice president John Brizendine insists that "we have seen nothing to indicate the materials we work with . . . pose a health hazard, providing proper procedures are followed...
...revelations were enough to curl the hair on the neck of the most seasoned nuclear engineer. Last April a reactor at the Federal Government's sprawling Savannah River Plant near Aiken, S.C., was shut down to upgrade safety systems -- with partially irradiated tritium still in its core. In August technicians, oblivious to the decaying radioactive material inside, tried to restart the reactor but were unable to keep it going. The next day they tried again. Ignoring procedure, they set off an abnormal jump in nuclear fission, usually a sign of imminent trouble. Workers ignored the warning, forcing plant officials...
...decades, such incidents have been alarmingly frequent at the aging facility, which manufactures materials for nuclear bombs. Moreover, officials at the Department of Energy, which oversees the plant, conceded last week that dozens of such near accidents and nuclear mishaps have gone largely unreported for more than 30 years. Admitted DOE safety chief Richard Starostecki: "If this had been a civilian plant, it would have been shut down...
Agnes, who has been working with local and federal officials to create acceptable evacuation plans for the suburban towns surrounding the plant, was immediately approached by several NRC security guards...
...officials, in their briefing to the commissioners, said the original management and equipment problems that triggered the shutdown on April 12, 1986, have been resolved. They added that evacuation planning, while not completed, is greatly improved and should not halt the reopening of the plant...