Chris Steele

Department of Energy (DOE) safety specialist Chris Steele, who shut down a hazardous, unsecured nuclear waste dump at the Los Alamos nuclear facility a year earlier (see July 18, 2001), is demoted from his position as the DOE’s chief safety official at Los Alamos after he overrules what he calls inept preparations against terrorist attacks. In October 2002, Steele receives a safety analysis report for a radioactive waste treatment facility at Los Alamos. The report estimates the chances of a “rogue” airliner crashing into the facility as being a million to one, even considering the events of September 11, 2001. It predicts that such a crash, deliberate or not, would cause hundreds of thousands of gallons of nuclear waste to catch fire. However, the report said, the roof sprinkler system would put out the flames. Steele points out that the sprinkler system would be destroyed in the crash: “That must be a magical sprinkler system, since it’s apparently able to rise up from the rubble, turn itself on and put out the flames. We should buy one of those for every nuclear plant in the country.” After Steele rejects the report, he is stripped of his security clearance and fired. He is accused of committing “serious security violations” by the National Nuclear Security Administration. [Carter, 2004, pp. 17-18; Vanity Fair, 2/15/2004]