A Big Fine, but Is It Big Enough? : Doubts hang over nuclear-cleanup agreement
Rockwell International Corp. admitted Thursday in a U.S. district court that it had illegally disposed of radioactive waste at the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant near Denver, where it once was a prime contractor, and agreed to pay $18.5 million in fines. But Judge Sherman Finesilver deferred his decision on whether to accept the plea, indicating that he might consult scientific and finance experts.
His decision strikes us as prudent; $18.5 million may sound like a lot of money, but against the costs of nuclear cleanup it’s barely pocket change. The Department of Energy’s estimate of the cost of Rocky Flats cleanup through 1996 is $1.028 billion.
OTHER CONCERNS: Just what Rockwell’s fair share should be in cleaning up a mess that, by its own admission, it had a major hand in creating is not a determination to be reached lightly. Nor is the fact that the plaintiff and the defendant have struck a deal necessarily proof that the interests of the public have been well served.
Sen. Timothy E. Wirth and Rep. David E. Skaggs, both Colorado Democrats, charge that the DOE arbitrarily overruled a nonpolitical performance review board to justify paying a $1.7-million bonus to EG&G;, the current Rocky Flats contractor: “EG&G; got a D grade from the review board and was cited for many serious deficiencies, only to have senior management and DOE headquarters reverse that decision and give nearly $2 million to EG&G.;” The GAO report that the lawmakers cite implies a will at the top to do expensive favors for weapons-plant contractors.
OTHER QUESTIONS: Rep. Skaggs also wants to find out whether (as has often happened in the past) the DOE will pay all Rockwell’s legal fees. Equally important, will the massive documentation gathered by the FBI’s “Operation Desert Glow” be made available to other plaintiffs, or will the record now be sealed? Two former Rocky Flats workers, Karen Pitts and Jacqueline Brever, have brought suit against Rockwell and EG&G;, alleging that they were maliciously contaminated with radioactive material because they talked to the FBI and to a grand jury investigating the plant’s safety. Will Rockwell’s $18.5 million buy, in effect, the settlement of future Rocky Flats cases?
Whatever Judge Finesilver decides, Rockwell’s guilty plea will no doubt properly strengthen public skepticism about the company’s claims of exemplary behavior in other locations. The Committee to Bridge the Gap, a public interest group, recently and successfully challenged the relicensing for nuclear work of Rockwell’s Santa Susana facility in the Simi Valley. But the DOE has declined to fund an independent evaluation of radioactive contamination necessary to establish a basis for determining cleanup costs at Santa Susana. Meanwhile, the DOE has awarded Rockwell a questionable $1-million bonus for its work at the site.
When an agency of government and a private contractor argue over a plea bargain, the taxpaying public is a silent third partner at the table. Our hope can only be that Finesilver will keep that third partner--all of us--in mind.
