Manager Made Threat to Stop A-Plant Work
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WASHINGTON — The acting manager of the government’s Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant threatened to stop operations Aug. 1 unless he was given formal assurances that he would not be prosecuted for longstanding hazardous waste violations that were likely to continue for some time, informed sources said.
The Energy Department, which hired Rockwell International to run the plant, appealed to the Environmental Protection Agency, which enforces the hazardous waste laws, on behalf of Edward S. Goldberg, the plant manager.
Rocky Flats, in Colorado, is the only plant in the nation that produces plutonium triggers used to detonate nuclear weapons. Officials say they have no way to dispose of the material at Rocky Flats.
After a July 28 meeting, the EPA agreed to allow the “ongoing violations” provided that Energy Department officials took immediate steps to devise, by Sept. 15, a treatment and disposal plan for the thousands of gallons of waste, according to an EPA letter detailing the agreement. The deal apparently allayed Goldberg’s concerns.
Goldberg has been acting manager at Rocky Flats since June 6, the day the FBI and the EPA conducted an unannounced search of the facility as part of a criminal investigation into the handling of hazardous waste there.
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