Repeated radiation warnings go unheeded at sensitive Idaho nuclear plant

The inhalation of plutonium by 16 workers is preceded and followed by other contamination incidents but the private contractor in charge suffers only a light penalty

by Patrick Malone, Peter Cary

Part Five of a Five Part Series.

See: Part One; Part Two; Part Three; Part Four.

See also How We Got This Story.

Science Friday on NPR has interviewed one of the authors of this series, in a segment entitled "The Dangerous Work of Babysitting Bombs."

More than 30 nuclear experts inhale uranium after radiation alarms at a weapons site are switched off

Most were not told about it until months later, and other mishaps at the Nevada nuclear test site followed

Reported by Patrick Malone, Peter Cary, R. Jeffrey Smith of the Center for Public Integrity

Part Four of a Five Part Series

See: Part One; Part Two; Part Three

Light penalties and lax oversight encourage weak safety culture at nuclear weapons labs

Explosions, fires, and radioactive exposures are among the workplace hazards that fail to make a serious dent in private contractor profits

Reported by Peter Cary, Patrick Malone, R. Jeffrey Smith of the Center for Public Integrity

Part Three of a Five Part Series

See: Part One; Part Two

Coalition urges House Armed Services Committee to end MOX funding

Beyond Nuclear joined with a coalition of a dozen environmental, non-proliferation, and arms control groups, urging the U.S. House of Representatives Armed Services Committee to end, once and for all, funding for the highly controversial Mixed Oxide (MOX, plutonium-uranium) Fuel Fabrication Facility at the U.S. Department of Energy's Savannah River Site in South Carolina.

See a copy of the letter, here.

The MOX FFF is now vying to become one of the biggest boondoggles in U.S. history. It is an order of magnitude over budget (we're talking the waste of billions of dollars of taxpayer money already, but this could grow to tens of billions of dollars!), and a few decades behind schedule! Worst of all, it actually increases nuclear weapons proliferation risks, rather than decreasing them!

Safety problems at a Los Alamos laboratory delay U.S. nuclear warhead testing and production

A facility that handles the cores of U.S. nuclear weapons has been mostly closed since 2013 over its inability to control worker safety risks

Part Two of a Five Part series (see Part One: "Near-Disaster")

By R. Jeffrey Smith & Patrick Malone, of the Center for Public Integrity

Next Monday: PART THREE: What happens to nuclear weapons contractors when serious accidents occur?