WIPP Contractor Received $1.9 Million Bonus After Fire; Raises Questions

摘要

Just five days after an underground truck fire closed the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, the Energy Department awarded the contractor that operates the nuclear repository $1.9 million for "excellent" performance during the past year. One radiation leak and two sharply worded accident investigation reports later slamming the same contractor for long-running safety and maintenance problems, that award now looks to some like insult atop injury. How could there have been such a disconnect between the Department of Energy's own assessment of its contractor's performance and what independent investigators would find soon after?