Once home to the nation's largest plutonium-making facility, Hanford, Washington, is now one of the most toxic nuclear-waste sites in the world. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is currently spending $2 billion a year to clean up the 586-square-mile reservation. However, not all is well on Washington's dusty southeastern edge: Whistle-blowers are stepping forward, claiming that taxpayer money is being spent recklessly on a project riddled with potentially deadly design defects.
Peter Ryan
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Donna Busche, who has been employed by contractor URS (originally known as United Research Services) as acting Manager of Environmental and Nuclear Safety at Hanford's Waste Treatment Plant (WTP) since 2009, is among the latest of these senior managers to speak out about what she sees as the silencing of those who raise concerns about possibly lethal safety issues. Last November, Busche filed a complaint of discrimination under the federal whistle-blower protection statutes with the U.S. Department of Labor, alleging retaliation against her for reporting problems at the WTP, which one day will turn Hanford's 56 million gallons of highly hazardous radioactive waste into storable glass rods through a process known as vitrification.
Climbing the corporate ladder in the male-dominated engineering world was no easy feat. But Busche, as numerous co-workers say, is tough, politically savvy, and scientifically skilled. After attending graduate school at Texas A&M and before arriving at Hanford, Busche was the Chief Nuclear Engineer and Manager of Nuclear Safety at the DOE's Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in Carlsbad, New Mexico.
Busche's job at Hanford is to ensure that the site's contractors produce adequate documentation to support the contractor's compliance with federal environmental and nuclear-safety laws, meaning that virtually no aspect of construction can take place at the WTP until Busche says it is safe to do so. "I'm where the nuclear-safety buck stops," says Busche.
If Busche says "Stop," the work must stop. But saying "Stop" to the wrong guys, Busche claims, has gotten her in a heap of trouble with Hanford higher-ups.
Among her grievances, Busche claims that she has been sexually harassed by URS manager Bill Gay. In Busche's official complaint, she explains that Gay made inappropriate and sexist comments to her in an unscheduled meeting, "including comments that women react emotionally while men use logical thinking." Gay also allegedly told Busche that, as an attractive woman, she should use her "feminine wiles" to better communicate with her male cohorts. Gay apparently also said that if Busche were single, "he would pursue a romantic relationship with her." Busche notified Human Resources shortly after Gay made these remarks, at which point he reportedly apologized. Gay would not comment on the allegation.
Perhaps even more damaging are Busche's claims that, beginning in 2010, the lead contractor at Hanford, Bechtel National Inc., shirked safety compliance, signing off on shoddy work in order to meet deadlines that would earn the contractor large financial incentives. For example, radioactive-waste stirrers called pulse jet mixers have had numerous design problems, such as erosion and potential leaking. Despite these concerns, Bechtel pushed through testing saying they were sound.
Their timing was impeccable: It was late June 2010, and by having their plans finalized by the end of the month, the company would receive a $5 million bonus for reaching cost and schedule goals. Busche says that during this time she was viewed as a roadblock to meeting these goals. As a result, Busche's concerns were suppressed and Bechtel managers allegedly sought ways to retaliate against her.
But management at Bechtel and the DOE didn't know whom they were dealing with. In October 2010, Busche took her concerns to the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB), an independent governmental organization that oversees health and safety issues at the DOE's nuclear facilities. After her comments were made during a public hearing with DNFSB on October 7, Busche says she was "openly admonished by former DOE Assistant Secretary Inés Triay for her testimony."
In her Department of Labor complaint, Busche alleges that after her testimony, Triay told her "If [your] intent was to piss people off [with your testimony, you] did a very good job." (Triay, now a Visiting Scholar at Florida International University, did not respond for comment after multiple phone calls and e-mail requests.)
When Busche showed up for a second day of hearings, she claims she was approached by Frank Russo, who runs the WTP project for Bechtel; Bill Gay; and Leo Sain, a senior URS vice president. They all urged her to recant her earlier testimony when she met with the DNFSB. She replied that she would not.
Even worse, when Busche returned to work after the hearings, she alleges WTP management kept her isolated and out of meetings that she was both authorized to and required to attend. She also says that since Bechtel "controls the work and supervision of persons assigned to [her]," that the company has "actively sabotaged her work since [Bechtel] employees go around her, defy her efforts to supervise them . . . all without consequence."
She is currently awaiting a response from the Department of Labor about her complaint. Busche's story—when coupled with that of the DOE's Dr. Don Alexander, as outlined in Seattle Weekly last fall ("The Nuclear Option," October 19)—provides ample evidence that management at both Bechtel and the DOE are at best ignoring, and at worst actively retaliating against, experts with inconvenient opinions. And because it's nuclear waste that's being dealt with, their alleged negligence could ultimately prove deadly.
