Miller Time at Vermont Yankee
Thursday, September 3, 2009 at 8:51PM Apparently it’s 9:44 AM.
I don’t generally cross-post, but Maggie Gunderson over at Green Mountain Daily (a fine site, by the way) came up with a good story from the files of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
To quote from the piece:
“FITNESS FOR DUTY - SUPERVISOR TESTED POSITIVE FOR ALCOHOL was today's posting on the NRC Website for current event notifications.
A non-licensed employee supervisor had a confirmed positive for alcohol during a random fitness-for-duty test. The employee's unescorted access to the plant has been revoked. Contact the Headquarters Operations Officer for additional details.
What is a non-licensed employee supervisor? Well, that means he was not one of the plant operators, but is a supervisor of another group, like engineering, maintenance, purchasing, or even health physics meaning dose measurement.”
Here’s the link to the NRC report. You’ll have to scroll down a bit.
As it turns out, it was a maintenance supervisor. You know, one of the people responsible for keeping the place bolted together so the radioactivity stays on the inside. The guy blew into the Breathalyzer sometime before 9:44 AM on September 1st and copped something over .04% blood alcohol concentration (BAC), which is the legal limit for operating a nuclear plant on the power superhighway.
I should note that we are one up on the Byron nuclear plant in Illinois. Just a minute later on the same morning one of their actual plant operators tooted the booze whistle and got nailed.
Susan Smallheer wrote it up for the Rutland Herald, reporting thus: “The employee must also go through a mandated employee-assistance program and, depending on the results of that program, the employee could be back on the job in two weeks, Smith said.”
This raises a number of concerns for me. First, am I just a worrier, or does a .04% plus BAC in the forenoon indicate an alcohol problem that won’t go away with two weeks of “employee assistance”? Second, given the random nature of testing, how long had this employee been dousing his Wheaties with beer before he got caught?
Third, as Smallheer reports, this is the third banned substance incident at Vermont Yankee in the past two years. This included a stoned control room operator and the actual administrative assistant tasked with giving the Breathalyzer tests getting busted for being north of .04. There is a basic principle of both Human Resources Management and being a bar bouncer. Your success is not measured by how many bozos you throw out. It is measured by how many you prevent from coming in. With the high turnover rate at Vermont Yankee they seem to be coming up short on that.
Fourth, .04 BAC? Really? I could blow a .039 and legally stroll into the plant for a little Homer Simpson wrench twisting?
And how many drinks get someone to .04 BAC? Defining a drink as ½ ounce of ethyl alcohol, or a 12 ounce beer, a 4 ounce glass of wine, or a 1.25 ounce shot of liquor, a 180 pound man would have to consume three drinks in an hour or four drinks over two hours.
Considering that the test occurred at 9:44 AM, I’d assume that the guy in question had been either at work or commuting for at least the past hour. That tells me that he hadn’t just snapped back a quick Irish coffee to beat a hangover. And .04 BAC is the minimum we can assume. The evidence points to a bottle-heavy breakfast for our hero. Yes, a couple of weeks of counseling and a “cross my heart, hope to die” promise and he’ll be ready once again to supervise the maintenance of our aging nuclear plant. With luck he will be able to prevent more incidents like this:
;)
And this:
;)
The State of Vermont needs to crack down on Vermont Yankee and then shut down Vermont Yankee. This is not a situation where I want to be able to say “I told you so.”
Reader Comments (3)
I'm sorry boss I didn't mean to case a meltdown, just a buzz!
Just a slight correction, it would only take 2 drinks to get the 180 person up to .04%. 3-4 drinks will get her or him to the .08% level, which is the legal limit for driving a car. But the point is well taken. I'm not supposed to drink at all on my job; .01% would be grounds for dismissal. And all I do is run a computer. Why is .039% OK for running a nuclear reactor?
The main problem isn't the BAC, necessarily, but the altered judgment that goes along with it. If you're normally a uninhibited, cocky sort, just one drink could make you much more brave than we would like you to be around our radioactive devices.
Hi Tom,
The charts I looked at said 3 or 4, but there are a lot of variables. I was assuming that this guy wasn't actually tippling at work, so that there must have been a delay of at least an hour between his last shot and playing a tune on the booze whistle. (Or pissing in a cup.) That means that he had some time to metabolize the alcohol, so I opted for the higher number. I should reiterate: .04 is the threshold at which they report - he could have been much higher.
But your point is also well taken. Most places simply fire you for showing up drunk in the morning, places that have much less inherent risk than a nuclear plant.