By Dan Klepal
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Repeated safety problems and near-miss accidents at the $4 billion cleanup of the former Fernald uranium enrichment plant in northwest Hamilton County have caused the federal government to withhold $100,000 in bonus money from the company managing the work.

Fluor Daniel, the California-based construction company managing the cleanup for the U.S. Department of Energy, was eligible for a $500,000 bonus this quarter, which ran from April through June. Fluor's management was informed in a July 25 letter that a portion of its bonus was being deferred.

"The deferral is a result of incidents involving overhead work and falling equipment, which occurred within the past 90 days," says the letter, signed by the DOE's on-site manager, Robert Warther.

It is the second deferral in the past year for Fluor Daniel. Safety issues were cited as the reason for a $118,000 deferral for July through September 2002. In addition, $36,000 was permanently withheld from Fluor, because of safety issues between January and March 2002.

Fluor Daniel is eligible to get the bonus money if:

• The company demonstrates the issues leading to the safety violations have been corrected.

• DOE oversight does not identify any additional safety issues from now until the end of the year.

• There are no additional hoisting/rigging incidents, or near-miss incidents before the end of the year.

Fluor spokesman Jeff Wagner said the company is not contesting the deferral.

"We agree there are safety issues that need to be addressed, and we're working on those," he said.

Three safety incidents in particular caught DOE's eye and led to the cash being withheld: On April 23, a 4-inch pipe struck and injured a demolition worker; a week later, a 6-foot piece of steel rebar fell on a worker and injured him; and on July 9, a 24-foot steel beam fell from 20 feet during the building of a steel tower. Even though the last incident happened after the reporting period ended, DOE included it because it was the second "hoisting" incident within 90 days.

Gary Stegner, DOE spokesman, said the deferrals are meant to address specific incidents. He said the 2002 deferral addressed different issues than this year.

"The issue this time was very specific, involving overhead work," Stegner said. "These three incidents all occurred in the (building demolition) project. I doubt that there is any kind of real trend. Safety issues will arise on a project of this size. If we think something is critical enough, we will deduct (a) fee from them."

A fee deduction in 2002 occurred after a worker was exposed to noxious fumes. Wagner said that incident resulted in the company putting in new safety standards. But there have been nearly a dozen incidents of contaminated respirators at the site in the past three months.

E-mail dklepal@enquirer.com